D'Waith: extremely small community with large-scale pretensions (this walled village claiming to be a city state); commands most easterly harbour of Ravlish Lands, some 100 leagues north of Lesser Teeth, 50 leagues west of Argan and 70 leagues (as the fish-bat flies) south of Island Drum.
The pirates ravaged Brennan in a half-hearted way. Stone buildings thwarted arson; the haunted metal in the forge (which they did not dare enter) disturbed them; the thought of their damaged ship lying at anchor in a hostile harbour disturbed them more. In the end, they burnt every boat in reach and left it at that.
A few hardy souls (such as Bucks Cat and Ish Ulpin) wanted to go on a search-and-destroy mission into the hinterland, seeking candidates for skinning alive, but most thought (rightly) that this would be rank foolishness.
'Those so arrant in their anger can stay behind to hunt lonesome,' said Jon Arabin. 'The rest of us are going.'
And go they did. The Sky Dancer slipped to sea that evening, ghosting all night on the moth-wing airs of a preternaturally smooth-browed sea, the loudest sound aboard being that of the pumps still working to keep them afloat. Jon Arabin planned to put in to D'Waith, in the north, to make repairs he had originally thought to encompass at Brennan.
That night, Drake worried over what he had seen at Bildungsgrift. The next morning, he questioned Yot about it.
'You tell me what happened,' said Yot. T don't remember anything. Except – yes, there was some lightning. And I got hit by it, or so my burns would suppose. Look!'Yot had nasty burns on his hands.'And the same on my feet,' he said.'Go see Jon Arabin,' said Drake. 'He'll doctor you.'
And Drake himself went looking for Rolf Thelemite, who insisted on showing him a nicely drawn sketch map of the backside of Bildungsgrift, with places marked for siege ladders, and a diversionary assault, and fall-back positions in case of a sally from within.
'That's very, very professional,' said Drake. 'You must show it to Menator back home, for he'll need it doubtless when we take the Lessers in earnest, which we must, them being anchored so close to us. Now tell, man – what saw you yesterday? In the way of strangeness, I mean. Just before the enemy ran.'Rolf Thelemite frowned.
'A … a colour in the sky,' he said. 'Though I don't remember what. A squall, but no rain that I remember. And a windspout, aye, a bit irregular in colour, but wind all the same.'
'Windspout?!' said Drake, who had never heard of any such thing.
'Aye, and I've seen them in desert before, only sand. They rain fish sometimes, but that's at sea, or the near-land. Yes. Big, sometimes. Suck up horses and houses. Why, there was one I remember in a battle once – won us clean through to victory when we was close to defeat.'
'But yesterday's … I mean … it was strange, wasn't it?'
'Oh, there's many things strange, by land and sea,' said Rolf Thelemite. 'Windspouts, aye, and rainbows round the midnight moon. The green flash at sunset, aye, most will tell you it's myth, but I've seen it, man, I've seen it. And fire which walks through swamps without burning, and balls of fire which sit on masts in a storm – and that does burn, man, I've seen the strongest shaken by it.'
'But this was stranger than those other things, surely,' said Drake. 'The sky changing colour, for a start. You've never seen that before!'
'Oh yes I have,' said Rolf Thelemite. 'When I was in the far north of Tameran – and not many Rovac have gone campaigning there, believe me, for all that we're said to battle in every war that's going – why, up there in winter I saw the sky, aye, and the sky was as many colours as a corpse five days after it's been kicked to death, the colours not still but moving. Aye-'
And Thelemite was off again. Drake left as soon as he decently could (or, to be pedantically exact, just a finger-length of time before then – but Thelemite was so deep in his tale of headless bodies and lopped-off limbs that he didn't notice his shipmate's departure) and sought out other witnesses, such as Jez Glane.
'It were lightning,' said Glane: 'Lightning stretched out a bit, that's all.''Stretched!' said Drake.
'I thought you pulled yourself often enough to know about stretching,' said Glane.
T should have let Ish Ulpin knock you senseless back at that castle place,' said Drake.And went looking for Bucks Cat.'The earth farted,' said Bucks Cat. 'That's all.'
Drake did no better with the others, all of whom knew little and cared less.
Unable to get a proper explanation of the manifestation he had witnessed at Bildungsgrift, Drake was left to trouble out the Higher Problems of theology on his own. He was trying very hard, but not entirely successfully, to persuade himself that he had not really had a run-in with the Flame.
Drake's introspective spiritual wrestling, while perhaps a good mental discipline in its own right, was entirely unproductive of truth. It won him no wisdom. Indeed, his correct course of action would have been to run up and down the ship shouting:'Is there a theologian on boafd!'
Eventually, if he had persisted thus in the face of the predictable reaction from the ship's crew, Morton Seligman ('Foreskin' to all his friends) would have taken pity on him, and would have explained. Seligman was old, yes, and by afternoon had trouble remembering events of the morning, but his mind was as sharp as ever when it came to recalling his past.
For decades – until aged 52 (or 53 if one counts age from conception, as many peoples do, and with more logic than their enemies will admit) – Seligman, essentially a gentle individual (the scalps dangling from his belt had been acquired by way of trade) had studied earnestly under a wizard of the Order of Seth.
Seligman had failed his Trials, as do many. However, unlike most such failures, he had lived to tell the tale. If asked, he could have told Drake (and would have done so willingly) that:t many a place has its genius loci, an entity low in the hierarchy of spiritual beings yet capable of exerting temporal power;t such a genius loci has no true form of its own, far less any true understanding of the nature of the world of events, and therefore can only manifest itself (and act) in terms of the perceived expectations of human intellects;f that such expectations are usually too blurred, fuzzy and diffuse for a genius loci to make anything of them;t that religious ceremony, with its combination of intense mental concentration, precise expectations (often emphasized by prayers, chants, songs etc.), designed to harass a 'god' into doing something useful, e.g. striking down enemies of the state, making rain, bringing wind, annihilating unbelievers and withering the bodies of their children, etc. was the most effective way to get positive action from a genius loci.
Drake would have complained that his mind had not been concentrated and his own expectations had been non-existent. To which Morton Seligman would have replied (once he had elicited a full account of the facts, which, as a trained Investigator, he naturally would have) that the mind of Sully Datelier Yot would have been concentrated most wonderfully by Drake's sacrilege, and Yot would have expected some reaction from the Flame.
Drake, too shy (and too conscious of his own safety) to have ever run about the deck calling for a theologian (since he was not in the habit of seeking advice the notion never even occurred to him) was doomed to stay ignorant.
Thus he never learned how the nature of the genius loci explains so many weird and wonderful things, such as the temporary appearance of the dead to the recently bereaved (which is common), the skill of the rain dancer, ghosts (a few of them, anyway, there being in all 127 distinctly different categories of ghost), coins of gold which later turnjo leaves, the treasure found at the end of rainbows (assay-masters know the worthless stuff well), and, indeed, the powers of several minor classes of sorcerers and necromancers (and a few minor effects achieved in certain places by some members of the eight Orders of the Confederation of Wizards, even though all draw their Powers Major from older, more dangerous, more demanding entities).
Drake, then, lacking the guidance of true theology, had to cope with the possibility that maybe the Flame existed, that perhaps the Flame was angry with him, that it might actually be a smart move to bow down and worship the said Flame.
But if the Flame existed as described by Gouda Muck (that is to say, if Muck of Stokos was truly the High God of All Gods) then that cast serious doubts on the pretensions of the Demon, of the bloodlord Hagon.
'I would rather worship You,' said Drake softly, to Hagon.He was not in the habit of addressing his god. If one drew Hagon's attention to oneself, there was always the danger that the Demon would eat one's soul prematurely. Yet, under the circumstances, Drake thought it wise to resolve his doubts by testing the powers of Hagon.
T know it's bad form to ask You for things,' said Drake. 'I know You have given us the Gift. That should be enough for us. Yet, just this once . . .'
Drake prayed to the Demon for an alleviation of the curse which gripped him – for, in other words, a renewal of drunkenness.
'Drink is a part of your Holy Gift,' said Drake. 'I ask only to be holy myself. Religion is the deepest part of my nature. May I not with your Grace practise it?'
He backed up his prayers with a sacrifice. The best thing to slay would, have been an unblemished virgin or a spotless calf. None such was available, but Drake did manage to obtain three rats (one with a crippled left hind leg, for which he apologized to the bloodlord Hagon as politely as he knew how) and twenty-three cockroaches.
T know these aren't sacrifices of the standard You are used to,' said Drake. 'But I hope they might at least have some novelty value.'And he killed them, with all due ceremony.
Just one thing troubled him. These were supposed to be burnt offerings, but the ship had no facilities for burning such. Or did it? Wrapping his offerings in an old shirt stolen from Tiki Slooze, Drake ventured below decks and found his way to the kitchen. He tipped his heap of oddments into a massive cast-iron frying pan, intending to pour raw spirit on top then ignite it.
He was interrupted by the sudden arrival of the cook – not the muttering old man they used to have, who had since died of a stroke, but an ox-built giant who was master chef for Lord Regan of the Rice Empire until caught in flagrante delicto with Lord Regan's teenage son.
'What are you doing here?' said the cook, in a voice which could have commanded cavalry (and had, once – though that is another story).
'I've come to help out,' said Drake, hastily pouring some sauce over the gruesome mess in the frying pan. 'I used to work here before, you know.'
'I see,' said the cook, peering closely; fortunately he had gross myopia and a pronounced astigmatism besides (otherwise he would have been an archer, like his father, and his grandfather's grandfather before him) and didn't see at all. Ornotwell, atanyrate. 'But what exactly are you making?'
'A species of, well, goulash, I suppose you could say,' said Drake, improvising frantically as he stirred in some rough red cooking wine (rough by pirate standards – i.e; a mouthful would leave one's mouth raw for a week).'The ingredients?'
'It's got, uh, rabbits, yes,' said Drake, putting the frying pan onto a heating iron. 'Yes,' he said, as the mixture began to warm, 'rabbits, small rabbits, I caught them myself on Carawell, and, um, let me think, shrimps, yes, the shellack-shelled Carawell variety, tougher than we're used to but very good.'
As he talked, he added herbs and spices more or less at random, then stirred and mashed, while steam rose and the brew began to bubble. He added vinegar, threw in pickles then scattered breadcrumbs over the mixture.
'You haven't skinned these rabbits!' said the cook, in an accusatorial voice, poking at them with one of his walnut-crunching fingers (cooks love to poke, stroke, caress and fondle foods of all kinds, particularly raw meats; this tactile bias may be because the profession traditionally soaks up part of the world's reservoir of short-sighted people, just as the metal-working trades take the lame).
'This is a traditional dish,' protested Drake. 'A special kind of folk-cookery. The skins are left on to keep in the flavour.'
'The guts are left in too, I suppose,' said the cook, with heavy sarcasm. 'Aye,' said Drake, eagerly. 'They're the best part!' 'Hmmm,' said the cook. He had his doubts.
But as Drake stirred and added, spiced and salted, garnished and basted (and surreptitiously amputated rats' tails and discarded them to the floor, where the ship's cat claimed them) the smell from the frying pan grew better and better, until the cook was more than a little impressed.'Is it done?' he asked.'Almost,' said Drake.
'No, man, it's finished now. I can smell the goodness of it. Here – give me that.'
And, confiscating the frying pan, the cook tipped its contents into two large bowls.'Where are those going?' asked Drake.
'The Walrus and the Warwolf are in conference,' said the cook. 'This'll be just the thing to keep them going.'Drake suppressed a moan, and ran away and hid. But he could not hide forever. Finally, the cook caught him on deck: 'Hey! You!'
Drake, cornered, prepared to meet his doom. 'What do you want?' asked Drake, pretending he didn't know.
'The recipe, man, the recipe! Our captains loved it. You were right, the skins do-keep in the flavour. And they say the guts slipped down something marvellous. There was only one complaint.''What's that?'
'They say next time, shell the shrimps before you cook them. There were bits of shell scattered right through the meal.'
'Well,' said Drake to the Demon, 'you can't say I didn't try.'
He was on watch in the crow's-nest, one of the few places in the ship where one could scratch, pray or masturbate in private.
'So give me that much,' continued Drake. 'I tried. And, in any case, they say that You would rather enjoy a good joke than a burnt virgin any day. So – how about it? Do I get to get drunk again? Or don't I? Please understand, if I don't, it may be a little hard for me to believe in You ever again.'
Drake made that threat because it was known that the Demon liked his believers to show some spirit (unlike some other, less confident entities, which feel uneasy dealing with any supplicant who is not face-down grovelling).
Prayer done, Drake longed to test the efficacy of that prayer. But the liquor ration had run out, and could not be renewed before they reached D'Waith. But there was still some cooking wine aboard, was there not?
There was not. The cook had used the last of it in preparing a goulash to Drake's specifications. ('Not up to the standard df the original,' the captains had complained.)
Drake would have to wait for dry land before he could put his faith to the test.
But dry land was a long time coming. The scrimshaw weather saw them five days at sea between the Lessers and D'Waith, sometimes nosing along at seaslug pace, sometimes becalmed, and once or twice actually being carried backwards by playful little currents.
Drake whiled away his off-duty by playing dice-chess and backgammon. He was so skilled by now that, unaided by other men's inebriety, he won a triple-ply solskin horse blanket which had once graced a stable in far-off Gendormargensis (a nice piece of equipment, but he had no horse), an ancient scroll in a dead language, ornamented with line drawings which he took to be maps of roads and rivers in some distant land (they were sketches of the palm-prints of the progeny of a forgotten king), a 'lucky rock' which he soon sent overboard (not recognizing this fist-sized hunk of dull stone as a diamond in the rough), and half a loaf of bread (black ironbread, baked on the Greaters before the Sky Dancer set sail).
But all good journeys come to an end (and bad ones, too), and at last the anchor crashed into the waters of
D'Waith's harbour. Drake, in high excitement, stared at the shore – not at the city of D'Waith itself, which was some distance inland, but at the small buildings built right up near the harbour. One of them must surely be a bar.He would soon be putting his religion to the test.