Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

Drake, determined to salvage self-respect through disobedience, gobbed his food faster – but soon had to stop greeding as his belly filled. There was, he realized, a truly awesome amount of polenta in the bowl.

At last, gorged as a blood-swollen tick, he supped the last lick of polenta, and swallowed – with difficulty – the very last olive.'You've left a gherkin,' said Molly.

'That's the custom where I come from,' said Drake, who knew he would vomit if he dared another morsel. 'The gods demand it.'Molly let that pass.

By this time, Drake was incapable of boozing. He simply had no room left to take drink aboard.'That does for that chance,' he muttered.

For he thought they would soon leave for D'Waith, to visit workshops, timber yards, warehouses, sail-makers and ship-chandlers. But the pirate chiefs had settled down to talk the day to death: D'Waith would be there still on the morrow.

In time, Drake's stomach settled, so he set about debauching himself. He sampled the wine of grapes and dandelions; he tippled on vodka and gin. He gulleted down punch, brandy, porter and perry. He tried seventeen types of foreign liquor, seasoning his drinks with samples of half a dozen different drugs.All to no effect.

He thought of his earnest prayers to the Demon, of his sacrifice of rats and cockroaches. He had worshipped as best he knew how: and the Demon had failed him!T didn't ask much, did I?' said Drake bitterly.But answer came there none.Over the next few days, while repairs were made to the ship with the contentious name, Drake thought hard about the Demon. Perhaps his sacrifice had been no good because Walrus and Warwolf had ended up eating it. Or maybe it had just been too small.

Drake unstitched gold coins sewn into his sealskin jacket, and went shopping in D'Waith. He picked up a couple of changes of clothes, including some woollens (he was heartily sick of sealskin) then sought proper sacrifice material. He made diligent inquiries, but found D'Waith had no virgins – three men claimed to have made sure of that personally. No cattle were to be had, either, 'not since last year's plague'.

In lieu of a virgin and a spotless calf, which would undoubtedly have found favour with the Demon, Drake bought two sheep, a goat, seventeen dogs, twenty turtledoves and a whole cask of arak, then sacrificed the lot on an enormous pyre. As the flames of this holocaust ascended to the heavens, he prayed again for alcohol to be given its full powers over his body and mind.Then tried to get drunk.He failed.

For the first time in his life, Drake lost faith. His belief in the Demon had till then been absolute and unyielding. But now it was destroyed.

'Hagon does not exist,' said Drake to himself, in the dull voice of one who has suffered an unimaginable catastrophe.

In truth, Drake's prayers were unanswered only because of problems with distance. Further than fifty leagues from Stokos, it was not the slightest use whimpering to the Demon, for He was an entity with strictly localized links to the world of events.

Hagon, then, was not nearly as grand as His temple claimed Him to be. He was not a world-dominator. Nor was he the inventor of the Gift, the First Drunkard, the First Client of the Oldest Profession, or, indeed, most of the other things He was claimed to be.

However, had Drake been on Stokos, his earnest prayers, supported by sacrifices, would have won him the Demon's help. For Hagon's strength, though not equal to its publicity, was nevertheless impressive. He was far more of a Force (and far more accessible to His worshippers) than, say, the Demon of Estar.

Hagon had a measure of temporal power. Also, true to His temple's claim, He could indeed eat the souls of the dead, and did (as advertised) perform that service for any worshipper who died on Stokos – the dreaded alternative being eternal torment in one of the hells designed by the sadistic Ghost Gods (not to be confused with the True Gods, the High Gods, the Chaos Lords, Those That Are, Those That Will Be, or Those Who Were).

Thus, as they sailed north from D'Waith, Drake endured an unfulfilled spiritual longing, i.e. a wish to get drunk which he had no hope of gratifying. Plus doubts about Demon and Flame. Shortly, Drake sought out Yot and broached the subject of religion:

' Yot, me old mate, I think it' s time we had a chat about old man Muck and that Flame of his. I've begun to think maybe the scungy old bastard was onto something after all.'

But Yot – not realizing the enormous effort it had taken Drake to make this confession – found Drake's approach off-putting, and quite refused to discuss theology. After all, Yot had it on Muck's authority that Drake, the Demon's son, could never be anything other than a mortal enemy of the Flame.

'Sully,' said Drake desperately. 'You don't understand! This is serious! I have to talk to you about the Flame!'

'Not so,' said Yot. 'You want to sniff around till you learn where to find Zanya Kliedervaust. When you know that you'll kill me. Right? You only let me live because I'm the only one who can tell you where she' s gone to.''You're paranoid, man,'said Drake.Tmno such thing,' said Yot.

'I know where she is anyway,' said Drake. 'I met her in Burntos. Didn't you ever hear about that? She went to Drangsturm. I went there withher.'

'Ah!' said Yot. 'But Burntos and Drangsturm were just the first parts of her mission. You don't know where she went from there. But I do.'

A smug smile grew on Yot's face, somehow finding space in amongst the warts for a full-fleshed existence.

'You were talking of life and death,' said Drake, with more death than life in his voice.

Fortunately, at that point Jon Arabin happened along, and told them it was training time. Drake, indeed curious about Zanya's whereabouts, questioned Yot as they practised sword under the stony gaze of the weapons muqaddam.'Did Zanya go to Veda, perhaps?' yelled Drake.

'Nay!'jeered Yot. 'You'll never know! You'll never find her!'

He danced round Drake, feinting and slicing something wonderful. Tall lanky sod! Drake, angry, smashed the flat of his blade against the flat of Yot's weapon. Sclapl Yot's blade flew from his hand and spun overboard, lost forever to the slathering sea. 'Gaaai' screamed Drake.

He hacked at Yot's neck. He halted his blade just before contact, or tried to – but the heaving deck tricked him, and Yot got a pimple-scratch cut from the steel. The weapons muqaddam grunted.

'Yot,' he said. 'Grip, remember? Relaxed yet firm. How many times must I tell you? Go below. Get another weapon. Quick, man!'

But Yot's fingertips had found his cut. They brought him the savage scarlet of his own blood. Staring at it, he rocked unsteadily on his feet. The ship rocked under him, and he fainted.

'Drake,' said the weapons muqaddam, 'get a bucket of water.'

All this happened on a ship again known as the Warwolf. Jon Arabin had had a showdown with Slagger Mulps, threatening to kill off the Walrus's friend Draven unless the

ship reclaimed her original title.

The great lord Menator, their imperial master, would doubtless be angry with Arabin. But Jon Arabin, who had further considered this empire business, was already making careful plans to deal with Menator permanently on his return.

Penvash Channel: wild stretch of water running between eastern end of the Ravlish Lands and north-west coast of Argan; connects Central Ocean with Hauma Sea; gives access to the North Strait (known in Tameran as the Pale) between Argan and Tameran.

The Penvash Channel was notorious for storms, but the Warwolf enjoyed good weather as she ran for the north. The most trying thing the crew had to cope with was the hair-raising scream of the blue-feathered mocking gull. They shot at it with crossbows, and with some success, not knowing that Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, wizard of Drum, had put it on his Endangered Species List.