Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'Veda?' said Chicks, who had been a bit strange in the head ever since the time Jon Disaster kicked him senseless onCarawell. 'Where'sthat?'

'Man, are you ignorant!' said Baltu, and did not bother to explain.

But he did show them how the plumbing worked. Veda was the famous city of the sages, where scraps of the wisdom of the ancients were preserved. Most of it was poorly understood, and of no practical use whatsoever – but Veda's plumbing was one of the few successful exceptions.Now they had water.And, soon, food.

For, in a big cabin which had some powerfully impressive plumbing of its own, they found some free-floating globes of various colours. Drake, doing an Investigation, squeezed one of them – and fluid squirted from a tiny blister set in the side of the thing. He squirted some into his mouth, and spat it out immediately, for it had a disgusting taste: not surprisingly, since what he had tried drinking was liquid soap. But other globes held fluids more palatable.

Inspired finding these drinks – which some of them confidently identified as the juice of fruits and coconuts – they sampled looted solids. After Quin Baltu had almost poisoned himself with a block of oven cleaner, and Simp Fiche had burnt his mouth badly with a corrosive bleach, they proceeded more cautiously – but soon had a dozen different things which were good to eat.

Ripping open strange seamless bags of silver metal as thin and flexible as gold leaf, they found other stuff -horrible twists of. dried-up fibre and such – which was edible but only just. Drake thoughtfully slipped some of the metal bags into his pockets.'At least the fresh stuff's fresh enough,' said Arabin.

'Yes,' said Ika Thole, suspiciously. 'And why's that?' He was always reluctant to think good of anyone or anything strange. 'It's probably deviled up by magic, I'd say.'

'Aye, put here by elves and all,' said Slagger Mulps, stuffing his face. 'Come, man – why so grim? Eat up!'

'Thole has a point,' said Arabin. 'Someone aboard keeps the ship clean. Legend would have it sitting here before there were ever first pirates on Drum, and that was before our great-great-great-grandfathers were farting. Let's search the ship, hunt out whoever it is, catch them then interrogate them.''Aye,' said Ish Ulpin, who liked the idea.

'Nay, man,' said Slagger Mulps. 'Why so busy? It's night, time for us to sleep.'

'Our comrades, that's why,' said Drake. 'If we catch elves or such, they can turn this island-thing back to the reef rocks, surely.'

'Aye,' said Arabin. 'And there's surely treasure aboard. Whoever lives aboard, elves or otherwise, they'll know the way to the treasure.''That's true,' said Mulps, becoming more enthusiastic.

They split into hunting parties and went on the warpath. They did see elves, or what passed for them in this ship – strange creatures walking knee-high on sixteen legs with the glitter of metal about them. But, when pirates gave chase, these elves slipped sideways into vents which opened in the walls, then closed again leaving no seam to show.

'Whoever made this island,' said Drake, 'everything they made to seal, it seals perfectly.''Aye,' said Arabin. 'But what does that tell us?'

'Well. . . nothing, I guess. We'll not learn anything till we get ourselves an elf.'

'Which we won't do by hunting,' said Quin Baltu. 'Let's lay some traps.'

While Baltu and others tried to improvise elf-traps, others continued to hunt on foot.

In one room they found a cube of utter darkness hanging free of walls, floor and ceiling. Baffled, they pushed it, touched it, then tried to smash it open. Without success. Which was lucky for them! For inside that cube were three warps, five singularities, and a dozen gross of Advanced Strings stolen from another universe entirely, all operating in a miniature cosmos of twenty-seven dimensions, control being provided by an Olumbia-Cobin energy web, a device only marginally stable at the best of times.

This sinister cube, then, was the ship's energy source: a dangerous device capable of digging a grave more than big enough to swallow up all of Argan's history several million times over.

Their elf-hunt proving fruitless, they slept. While they slept, something or someone demolished their primitive snares and deadfall traps, clearing all traces of the same between midnight and morning.

Come dawn, Jon Arabin arranged for men to stand watch at the bottom of the ladder reaching from arsehole to wavetop, since that was the only place from which they could get any sort of view. By lunchtime, he knew they had rounded the tip of Penvash and were running east in the channel between Argan and Tameran.

'Well, at least we're going in the right direction,' said Arabin. 'If we get close enough to Ork, we can jump ship then swim for it.''Rather you than me.!' said Drake.

He had decided he liked this strange metal island-ship. His clothes had dried in the warm air. He had plenty to eat. He had spare food in his pockets. And there was unlimited time for gossip and gambling. That morning, he had already won three woman-favours which lesser gamblers would have to arrange to be paid to him on their return to the Teeth.

But just how were they going to return, now that they had lost the Warwolf! Well . . . this Ohio of Ork, if he really existed, would be able to lend them a ship for the return home.So maybe they would have to swim for it.'Gluk!' said Drake, the very thought disgusting him.Deep ocean swimming – not his favourite sport!

That afternoon, Simp Fiche came to Arabin with a little fist-sized cube. Each of its six faces was subdivided into small squares. Each of its six faces had a colour different from the rest.'What is it?' said Arabin.

'I don't know,' said Fiche. 'But I thought it might be of some use to you, master.'

Unbeknownst to Arabin, Fiche had already given an identical cube to his true captain, the Walrus, and one to the man he feared most – the formidable Ish Ulpin.

'Drake!' said Arabin, holding up the cube. 'Come here! What's this?'Drake took it, and did a brief Investigation.'I don't know,' he said, 'but it's jointed to turn. See?'

Jon Arabin did. Twisting the cube this way and that, he had soon hopelessly scrambled its little coloured squares.

'I wonder if you can get the colours back where they started from,' said Drake, innocently enough.'Oh, that should be easy,' said Arabin.And set about proving it.

About noon the next day he finally threw the cube to the deck, jumped on it, smashed the enigma with a battle axe then threw the wreckage overboard.

'Hey!' shouted the man at the bottom of the ladder, who had almost been hit by the falling wreckage. And then, in a louder voice, tense with sudden excitement: 'Hey! Hey!''What?' said Arabin.'Ships! Big ships!''Flying ships?'

'No, with oars. Three – no, five! I reckon four leagues if that. And we're closing the distance!'

'Then let's hope they're friendly,' muttered Arabin. They weren't.

Collosnon navy: energetic but inexperienced force currently aiding armies of the Lord Emperor Khmar busy conquering Tameran south; consists for the most part of fishing smacks, sail-powered barges and river galleys adapted (or so said the optimists who sent them to sea) for open ocean operations.

The pirates' flying ship was spotted by a fleet of seven Collosnon galleys commanded by Tamsag Bulak, otherwise known as Bulak the Scalp-taker. He was the son of Altan Bulak (the dreaded Collector of Skulls) and son-in-law of Yoz Doy {the disemboweller) as well as grand-nephew of Ulan Ti (who kept his tents carpeted with the skins of his favourite enemies).This was unfortunate for the pirates.

Most naval commanders would have ordered a strategic withdrawal if they saw a flying island bearing down on them, its conical metal heights glittering like burning ice as it hummed across the sea. But Tamsag Bulak had both a reputation to maintain and a family to impress – and, more to the point, knew that informers would be only too happy to bring any act of prudence on his part to the attention of the Lord Emperor Khmar.