Goudanism: worship of the Flame (the living presence of the High God of All Gods); veneration of Gouda Muck, swordsmith of Stokos, who is avatar of the Flame, 'as will be verified in the fullness of the Infolding, when Rose and Flame are as one'; corpus of dogmas, rituals, feasts, festivals, superstitions, rules, regulations and denials associated with worship of said Flame and said Gouda Muck.
Drake woke next morning to find himself floating just off the floor, arms outstretched and fingers trailing. Staring at the ceiling, he wondered which hell had claimed him. His head was full of broken glass, his eyes hurt, and his throat felt as though someone had rammed a dirty mop down it. Aye, and left that mop soaking there overnight.
Feeling sick, he rolled over, in case he had to vomit. He hung just above the bare floorboards, observing, without striving for cognition, a dead wine skin, half a salted sprat, a splattering of fish scales, and a solitary cockroach making a hesitant tour of inspection. Then saw, out of the corner of his eye, a green cut-glass bottle lolling on its side.
Now he remembered. Now he knew where he was. This was the bar run by old Gezeldux in Brennan, on Carawell. He was not in hell at all – he just had a hangover. Just! He had forgotten how bad they were.
Clutching a table leg, Drake hauled himself to his feet. He took a couple of steps forward, walking on nothing but air, then slipped. He grabbed the table to steady himself,
then worked his way round the bar. Slowly. Investigating. He opened shutters. Winced as harsh sunlight streamed inside. The cockroach-scout broke off its patrol and fled for shelter.
Motes of dust drifted in the sunshine. Shadows sprawled from mugs, tankards and dead wineskins. A fly, flitting through an unshuttered window, began to dizzy around with an irritating hum. Shading his eyes and peering outside, Drake saw the backside of a boatshed, a couple of houses, and a large stone building which, on the basis of a familiar clanking-hammering sound which started to issue from it, he identified as a forge.
Drake's head began to pound rhythmically in time with the hammering of the unseen blacksmith. Somewhere, quite close, a cockerel began to crow:'Co co rico! Co co rico!'
The fly settled momentarily on the table. Drake brought his hand down with an almighty thump, sending more dust swirling into the air. He examined his stinging palm for corpse mash – but the insect in question was flying happily round his head. It settled shortly oh a shutter. Drake picked up a wineskin and hit it, hard and accurate. The fly dropped dead, the shutter fell off its hinges, and two more flies came bumbling in through the window.
Drake grunted in disgust, and, head hurting worse than before, looked for a hair of the dog which had bitten him. But there was no such dog. The little green bottle was empty, and even a hearty swig of vodka failed to have the slightest impact on his hangover, which, being a consequence of enchanted liquor, was naturally beyond the reach of all ordinary remedies.
The only instant cure for that hangover was a drachm of fresh blood drained from a living salamander of the blue-gilled variety. But these were extraordinarily rare: even the salamanders sometimes seen in the flames of Drangsturm were but the more common green-gilled variety, which has blood useless for anything except removing wine stains from linen (and even the evidence for that use is dubious, consisting as it does of a reference in Cralock which is ambiguous, an assertion in the 'Regiment of Reptiles' which cannot be given much weight since the scholarship of Prenobius has thrown doubt on Gibble's corpus in its entirety, and a mention in Zoth which in all probability – and despite the claims of Elkstein to the contrary
– actually refers to the taniwha of Quilth, an altogether different creature).
Drake knew nothing of salamanders of any variety, but did know his booze. He sampled all types available
– which did not take him long, as the bar had been almost drunk dry the night before – then concluded he could not kill his hangover but must suffer it. He did not know it, but he would go on suffering from that hangover for the next five and a half days. If he lived that long.
Drake grunted, stretched, yawned, scratched his scalp, rubbed his head, pulled on the few hardly noticeable ginger hairs which these days straggled out from his chin, burped, farted, yawned again, took off his boots so he could pull the wrinkles out of his socks, pulled on his boots again, and felt as ready to face the world as he was likely to be on that particular day.
He felt by now that he had got the knack of walking around with his heels touching nothing but air, so it was with some confidence that he stepped outside. The sunshine was warm. The cockerel had shut up – with any luck, someone had strangled it. The blacksmith had quit hammering; a busy sound of filing now came from the forge. Within a shuttered house, someone – a big, big fat man, by the sound of it – was snoring loudly.
Drake grunted to himself, his grunt meaning, 'Demon's thanks, the racket's died down.'
The next moment, a small blac'k-and-tan dog ambushed him, jumping from beneath a propped-up dinghy, barking wildly. It snapped at his heels, almost dared itself to bite, then backed off growling ferociously. Drake liked dogs – usually – but today he was not in the mood. He swung a kick at the cur, lost his balance, fell over, threw out an arm to save himself – but never hit the ground. He just hung there, floating. He was not amused. The dog leaped forward and started worrying his wrist.'********!' said Drake, shaking it loose.
Or, to be precise, to give (in the interests of accuracy) form to that which a misguided prudery would rather suppress:'Salk felsh!'
As he regained his feet, Drake said a few other words of similar nature. Then tore a fishing-float free from a drying net, and threw it. The float scudded past the dog's left ear, and the mongrel turned and fled.
Drake's throat was too sore to allow him the satisfaction of hurling abuse at its scampering heels.
He walked between forge and boatshed to the waterfront. A couple of dozen fishing boats were drawn up on the sandy beach; several larger ones lay at anchor in the harbour bay. Further out was the Sky Dancer, the ship Arabin's men still insisted on calling the Warwolf. A few people were moving about on deck; the unintelligible tones of their voices came drifting through the still, calm air. Tiny wavelets lapped against the sands like kittens eagering on cream.
Drake looked around for a boat so he could row to the ship. He saw a number of dinghies, all lying clear of the water. All looking heavy. And none had oars. Drake paused, shrugged, then walked out across the water.
By the time he reached the ship, he was having no trouble at all with his negative gravity. Those on deck crowded to the rails to watch, so he showed off a bit. Striding over the water with great aplomb, Drake paraded around the vessel, feeling still very sick but very clever all the same.
'Stop playing the fool, man!' shouted Rolf Thelemite from the deck. 'We need you up here, fast!'
Drake made a rude gesture for Rolf Thelemite's benefit. Then the Walrus himself, Slagger Mulps in all his hairy glory, shouted in a regular storm voice:
'Drake, you son of a snake-spawned cockroach, get your arse up here, now, before I come down there and kick it off!'
Drake was just considering whether the Walrus was also worthy of a rude gesture, and what his (Drake's) chances of survival would be if he made one, when the last of the enchantment wore off, suddenly and without warning. Gravity reclaimed him, and he fell into the sea, which was shockingly cold and wet besides. He spluttered and floundered a bit, while those on deck laughed loudly, then he swam overarm to the anchor cable, where he hung resting until a rope ladder was dropped so he could scramble up.'Here!' bellowed the Walrus. 'What's up?' asked Drake. He soon found out.
As the Walrus swiftly told him, in language almost salty enough to blister paint, Jon Arabin had been taken hostage by the locals, who thought that Baron Farouk of Hexagon would be worth a handsome ransom. They were holding him in the Bildungsgrift, an ancient (and usually abandoned) broch some three leagues inland. All of the locals had fled.
'No they haven't,' said Drake. 'There's someone snoring, and a blacksmith working still.'
'That forge is full of haunted metal,' said the Walrus grimly. 'I've been to see for myself. As for the snoring – that's Whale Mike, dead drunk in a stranger's bed. It would take six of us to shift him.'
'It wouldn't have taken six of you to shift me,' said Drake, slightly aggrieved.
'Aye, no,' said the Walrus, uneasily, 'but we had no time to search the town proper.'
In truth, a raiding party had gone ashore at dawn, had found Whale Mike asleep, had investigated the forge -and had fled immediately, having seen lean limbs of skeletal metal working unattended, stoking the furnace for the morning's work.
'Well then,' said Drake, 'it's a hard day for Jon Arabin, that's to be sure, but I'm off to bed. Wake me tomorrow so I can hear how you've handled it.'
'Not so fast!' said the Walrus, grabbing Drake by the collar as he sauntered away.
The collar, being rotten, tore free – but Drake stopped anyway.'What do you want from me?' he asked.
'Your luck,' said the Walrus. 'Man, the fortunes you've won by gambling – you're so fay you can luck this out blindfolded with both hands tied to your testicles.''Luck be buggered,' said Drake, turning away.
'Hold fast!' said Mulps. 'You'll be buggered yourself with a sealing spear unless you come to order quickly. I'm putting you in charge of rescuing friend Warwolf.'It was, Drake sensed, no idle boast.
'Okay then,' he said sullenly, 'I'll get Jon Arabin loose, or get him killed by trying.'
'None of that!' said the Walrus. 'Your life rides with his!'
'Ouch!' said Drake, his glorious stock of obscenities entirely failing him in the face of this news.
He saw – he was thinking fast, now – that Mulps had decided the situation was hopeless. They were like to lose Jon Arabin, which meant no admiral's hopes for the Walrus, hence no chance of extra booty to be divvied up between the crew, and thus, for a start, the possibility of civil war between the men ex-Walrus and the Warwolf originals.
Slagger Mulps was looking for a scapegoat, and had found one in Drake, the lucky one, whose glamorous dice and youthful insolence had not exactly made him widely beloved, at least not amongst the crewmen from the Walrus.
Jon Arabin's men thought better of Drake, as he had found when the Warwolf tried to have him thrown overboard more than a horizon away from the Teeth. But would they stand staunch against the Walrus? For an entire crew to face down Jon Arabin on Drake's behalf was one thing. For them to fight it out cutlass to cutlass with the likes of Ish Ulpin was another thing altogether.
Likely those from the Warwolf would throw in their lot with the Walrus men. Likely the men would relieve their frustrations by battering Drake to death. Which would suit Mulps just fine.'He won't do it,' said Simp Fiche loudly.
'Yes I will,' said Drake stoutly. 'And you'll come too, to help me. And – and Yot there, come on, Sully boy, get in behind. And – yes, Bucks Cat, you'll do. Thelemite, man, let's have the Rovac with us. Jez! Yes, you, Jez Glane, you're not that bothered that you can't hear me. Ish Ulpin, yes. And you – Haze, isn't it? And you – what's your name? What was that? Chicks, is it? Then fall in, friend Chicks.'
'Hang about!' said Slagger Mulps. 'Most of those are my men! Why are you taking mine?'
'Because yours are the best,' said Drake, blandly. 'Aren't they? I tell you what, I'll take Jon Disaster too. Grab some rope, Jon. We'll hang some locals once we've loosed Jon Arabin.'
And soon Drake was ashore with his negotiating team, each man kitted out with one or more sharp-edged instruments of pirate-style diplomacy. If all went wrong and most got killed, then Drake – if he survived – would return to the Sky Dancer to find the Walrus more in a minority than he had been. On the other hand … he might just light out for the furthest sand dune he could find, and hide there until the Sky Dancer departed.
Sweating and breathing heavily – it was only three leagues, to be sure, but few of them had walked even half that far for years – Drake and his nine death commandos arrived at the Bildungsgrift.
'Stop here,' said Drake, sitting in the semi-shade of a tall plant which was the local excuse for a tree.The pirates obeyed without question.
'First,' said Drake, like a veteran. 'Clarification of the aim. Then reconnaissance.'
He had learnt those big words from a couple of Galish-speaking soldiers while kicking around idle on Burntos, before the trouble started. They sounded good, and meant he had to do nothing for the time being but sit and stare at the broch.
The Bildungsgrift was not much, as castles went. The moat had filled up with windblow sand some five hundred years before; scurvy grass, docks, stinging nettles and wild radish (not ordinary radish, but the rare bitter-radish of Carawell, which is actually more of an onion) grew right up to the castle walls.
Those walls were not terribly tall, being scarcely twice the height of a man. Only a hastily arranged clutter of barrels and baulks of timber barred the gateway. No proud flag fluttered from the battlements – only a pair of women's bloomers, mounted on a fishing pole (and even those did not flutter, there being no wind). No helmeted warriors lined those walls, only some over-excited villagers armed with stones and fish-gutting knives.
'It's not much of a place,' said Rolf Thelemite. 'One good rush would take us through the gateway with no trouble at all.'
'Yes,' said Drake, proceeding with heavy irony and a masterly grasp of strategy. 'No trouble at all – until we got inside. Then, methinks, thinking being one of my fortes, we'd be outnumbered a hundred to one.'
The word he used for 'fortes' was 'chagcheex', a term from the High Speech which he had picked up from the wizard Miphon.
'Chagcheex?' said Jez Glane, quoting it back to him in bewilderment. 'What does that mean?'
'No idea,' said Drake, who in fact had a hazy idea that it meant octopus-raping abilities. 'But it sounds good, doesn't it?'
'It sounds better than those odds of yours, for sure,' said Glane. 'A hundred to one? Perhaps we'd better go home.'
'Aagh, stop talking like a mother-doll,' said Bucks Cat in disgust.
'Yes,' said Ish Ulpin. 'They're only peasants, not warriors.'
'And the odds, I warrant, are no worse than ten to one at worst,' said Rolf Thelemite.
This was optimistic. The odds were, in truth, closer to fifty to one. Though more than half of those in the castle were women and children, Drake was right in guessing that the pirates would get nowhere by force.'Comeon,' said Drake, 'let'sgo forward.''All of us?' said Yot.
'Yes,' said Drake, 'in caseasudden opportunity presents itself. We have to be ready to snatch our beloved captain if they give us the chance.'
At the back of his mind was the thought that, if the locals started throwing things, more targets would minimize the chances of Drake getting personally battered.
Beforethey could start their advance, Chicks, acoward at heart, faked an epileptic fit. Afterwards, he lay still, pretending, no matter how hard they kicked him, to be unconscious.'I'll wake him up,' said Jon Disaster grimly.
And kicked Chicks so hard in the head that the man was knocked truly unconscious.
'Grafbegrik,' muttered Drake, and led the way forward, leaving Chicks in a heap on the sand.
'Maybe I should stay behind and look after him,' said Simp Fiche.
'Were you born with a cock or weren't you?' said Ish Ulpin.
Simp Fiche made no reply, but kept pace wit h the others as they advanced. Several fish-heads were flung in their direction, but these fell short.'Piss poor thowing,' said Jez Glane.
'Here's far enough,' said Drake, halting thirty paces in front of the gate.He challenged the castle, using Bucks Cat as an amplifier.
'Hoy,' muttered Drake, his throat still scratchy from last night's boozing.
And Bucks Cat shouted, in a voice that made Drake's head feel as if it was splitting from stem to stern: 'Hoy! You farts up there!'
' Don't embellish,' muttered Drake.' Just the plain words will do.'
'Don't embellish!' roared Bucks Cat. Then paused, and asked of Drake: 'What does embellish mean?''It's another word for tattoo,' said Drake.
'Oh,' said Bucks Cat. Then roared out: 'Don't tattoo the Warwolf, unless you want your head shoved up your arse until you suffocate!'
Drake groaned and sat down, covering his face with his hands.
'Is something wrong?' asked Bucks Cat. 'Don't you feel well?'
'I had a hard night,' said Drake, allowing himself to be helped to his feet again. 'I think … I think I'll go into the castle to talk with them direct. Face to face, aye, that's the stuff.''I'll go with you,' said Rolf Thelemite instantly.
'Ah. . .Rolf, man. . .I,ah. . . I think we may have to do a night attack.' Thus spoke Drake. He scratched through his memories of soldier-talk on Burntos, then continued: 'I want you to reconnoitre the rear approaches. Make a sketch map so we can show the others, back at the ship.'
'A sketch map,' said Thelemite. 'Anyone got any writing materials?'
Strangely, none of the pirates had about them quill, ink or parchment. Or, for that matter, a tuning fork or a cookery book,achestnutoracolander,orachunkofthemoonofthe month before.'I've got some tobacco,' volunteered Jez Glane.'Thanks,' said Drake, heavily.
Fortunately, Simp Fiche had a small money-bag made out of human skin. While Bucks Cat held Jez Glane in an armlock, and Ish Ulpin went through his pockets looking for the tobacco, Simp Fiche unpicked the seams of his money-bag.
'What were you planning to do with these?' said Ish Ulpin, pulling from Jez Glane's pockets a full half-dozen high-class condoms, each made from the caecum of a lamb.'Screw your mother backwards,' said Jez Glane. Ish Ulpin cuffed him.
'Belay that!' said Drake, in a voice so loud it hurt his own head.
His throat felt as if it had been torn open by the shout. But it got results, as Bucks Cat released Jez Glane. Ish Ulpin, perhaps momentarily ashamed of his uncomradely behaviour, even turned over to Glane a tenth of the tobacco just stolen from him.
Then, as Ish Ulpin began to glove his fingers one by one with the condoms taken from Glane, Rolf Thelemite took the unpicked bag of human skin from Simp Fiche.
'I'll get the map done on this,' said Thelemite, bravely, as a Rovac warrior should. 'I'll find a thorn, draw my blood, then map out our war with that.''Good, good,' said Drake. 'Yot – you come with me.'
'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.'
'Oh yes!' said Arabin, with a grin. 'Tell me another one!'Drake, who needed no further invitation, promptly did.
'Enough of your nonsense,' said Ish Ulpin, entering the courtyard in time to hear the end of Drake's second joke. 'The peasants are running, so let us be hunting.'
'Nay,' said Arabin. 'Whatever's scared the locals, they may recover their wits in a moment. Let's be getting back to the ship while the getting's good.'
Bucks Cat supported Ish Ulpin's stance, but the pair of them were outnumbered. So back to the ship they all got, carrying Sully Yot and friend Chicks between them. Which made their journey mighty long, even though Yot recovered his senses after scarcely half a league.