Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'Why me?' said Yot plaintively. T thought you were going alone.'

'There should be a representative present from the Walrus men,' said Drake, 'to see that no underhand deals get done.'

'I've not been with the Walrus for months,' protested Yot, fearful of danger.'You're one of ours at heart,' said Trudy Haze.

'Aye,' growled Ish Ulpin, 'go with Drake. Otherwise he might sell us all as slaves in exchange for Arabin. You go, Sully. Keep him honest.'So Yot went.

Drake wanted his fellow Stokos-islander along in case the kidnappers would take him as part of the ransom – as eating meat, perhaps. Despite what Ish Ulpin had said, Drake doubted there would be much trouble if he traded Yot to the locals.

The pair scrambled over the rubbish in the gateway and down into the central courtyard, where they were ringed by jeering children. Drake thought about grabbing one and threatening to cut its throat unless Arabin was released. He dismissed the thought almost immediately, unable to convince himself that anyone could seriously value anything as intrinsically worthless as a child.

The children were dispersed by a small negotiating party of middle-aged fishermen.'So you want Baron Farouk back, do you?' said one.

'He's not Baron Farouk,' said Drake bluntly. 'He's Jon Arabin, pirate of the Greaters. Release him immediately, or Lord Menator of the Teeth will north to Brennan with a fleet, then kill off every fish-raping sodomist's son on Carawell, which means the lot of you.'The fishermen laughed.'I'm serious!' said Drake.

He intended to shout, but what came from his suffering throat was more of a squawk. The fishermen cackled more.'Him? A pirate? Would you be a pirate too, perhaps?'

T am,' said Drake, trying, with a complete lack of success, to sound as savage as he felt. 'A blooded blade of the free marauders.' . They laughed the more.

'And how,' said one of them, eventually, wiping the tears from his eyes, 'how does a sprig of a boy like you hold his own amongst men?'

'Because I'm hard as iron and as bitter as steel,' said Drake promptly, which set them off again.

Unfortunately, the locals had a faulty conception of pirating. Sheltered on their sand-bank islands, hearing only second-hand rumours richly embroidered, they firmly believed that the initiation rites of the Orfus pirates involved cutting off one's nose and the top joint of one's left little finger.

Moreover, Carawell was one of those places where boys stay boys a long time, for the fathers control inheritance rights to the wealth – which on Carawell was land and

fishing boats – and the boys must be meek, respectful, humble and in need of advice, or get disinherited.

So Drake looked, to the fishermen, absurdly young to be sent to negotiate, and an obvious liar into the bargain. They took much the same view of youth as did the Partnership Banks: adulthood only began at age twenty-five, if then.

'Sprigling,' said one of the fishermen. 'We knowwhyit's you they've sent to do talk with us. It's because Baron Farouk's your father.'

'He's no such thing,' said Drake. 'He's my captain true, and there's an end to it.'

'Young one, you've trapped yourself twice. Last night he called you his son, with half us there in witness.'

Drake hazily remembered Jon Arabin doing something of the sort, about the time that Drake was contemplating drinking a bowl of firewater.

'That's a term of honour,' said Drake. 'He calls me that because he loves me, since the time I saved his ship from a Neversh.''From a Neversh!' spluttered one of the fishermen.

And their mirth was virtually unquenchable.

The Lesser Teeth were isolated, true, but they played chess here as men did everywhere, and knew that a Neversh is not just the most delicate piece on the chessboard – those six wings the first thing to break off when children get hold of the pieces, and never mind about the eight feet – but a real live world-destroying monster of the terror-lands beyond Drangsturm.

No way could a boy like this kill a legend-haunter like that!

'Face truth,' said one of the fishermen. 'Your father's here, and here stays until we get five scarfs of diamonds, a gillet of gold, some ninety ropes of arachnid silk, and fifty thousand steel fish hooks.'

'Nobody insults steel by making it into fish hooks!' said Drake.

He was scandalized at the very thought – and, these days, it took a lot to scandalize him.

'Nobody does?' said one of the fishermen. 'Then, sorry, but your father dies.'

'And you die with him!' said Drake. 'For am I not a priest of the Flame? Look – is that vodka? It is!'

And he wrestled a skin of the stuff away from the man holding it. He, with a man's contempt for a boy, tried to wrest it back – and found out what blacksmith's muscles are made of.'Watch!' said Drake.

And drank as if thirsting to death.

Then wiped his mouth and looked around.

'Could any man amongst you do as much?' he said. 'No! And why can I? Because I am of the Flame! The Flame is with me! Yield up my father! Or I will call the wrath of the Flame upon you! Thus!'

And Drake swigged more vodka to ease his throat, then began jigging up and down on the spot, still clutching the skin of hard liquor, and chanting:Flame of Flames, I summon ye! Flame of Flames, I call! By the Sacred Names I call ye, Yah-ray hoo-ray, yah-ray hoo-ray! Yah-ray yah-ray! Hoo-ray hoo-ray! Dharma dharma, hoo-ray hoo-ray!

At which point Sully Datelier Yot, appalled by this open blasphemy (his faith had weakened, true, yet he did not Disbelieve) shouted:'No! No! Stop! Stop! Or the Flame will kill you!'

'Yea, verily verily,' roared Drake, working Yot's protest into his act. 'Bring down the Flame!'And he raised his arms to the heavens.Far off in the distance, a cockerel cried:'Co co rico! Co co rico!'

There was a crash of thunder. The sky went green. Blue lightning writhed across the heavens in patterns like those a thread of water makes as it scrawls down a crooked stick. Then the clouds were gashed open by a Flame. It descended slowly, a monstrous whirling column of angry purple and crackling red. Down from the heights it came, until its base stood before Drake and its heights in the heavens.

'Fall down!' said Drake sternly, wondering what on earth had been mixed with that vodka. 'Fall down and worship the Flame! Repent your sins or die!'

Most of the fishermen were already grovelling in the dust.

'The Flame!' whimpered Yot, in religious ecstasy. 'It is true! I did believe, really! Always!'

And he embraced his god. And, touching the whirling column of fire, was knocked back as if kicked by an elephant. He stretched his length senseless on the ground.

'Enough!' shouted Drake. And then, hoarsely: 'You are Believed.'

Slowly, the column of fire whirled into nothing. The lightning ceased tormenting the sky, which lost its seasick tinge and became, once more, a blue so crisp it looked worth biting. In the distance, dogs were barking.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then a woman began a wailing scream. It proved infectious, and soon all the locals in Bildungsgrift were fleeing, screaming as they went. The rubbish in the gate was scattered aside by the fury of their flight.

'Well,' said Drake, looking around the warm, sunny courtyard, where nobody was left but himself and Yot (who was still unconscious). 'Well, that was. . .'But he was not sure what it had been.'That was something,' he finished, lamely.

'What was something?' asked Jon Arabin, striding out of a tower-base door.'Didn't you see it then?' said Drake.'See what? I heard some thunder – was there a squall?''Never mind,' said Drake. Tt'sover.'

'What happened to Sully Yot?' said Arabin, sighting Yot's unconscious form.'Man,' said Drake, 'he got so frightened by all these locals here that he plain flew into the air, aye, flapping his arms like madness. He were ten times his own height off the ground when he slipped and fell. But the sight so amazed the locals that they turned and fled.'