Falatavith: most northerly of the five Floating Islands of the Central Ocean's sea-legends; described variously as 'thorny wilds hunted by ores, giants, trolls and worse', a 'nest of dragons', a 'bony rock with greedy caves where ghouls and ghosts go mucking about with clubs and hatchets', and, more optimistically (by a man made rich by selling maps of the place), as 'a golden palace littered with perfumed damsels with silver skins and eyes of diamond'.
On rafts rigged with rags of sails, the survivors from the Warwolf's wreck struggled north towards what they very much hoped was an island. With long bamboos they fended themselves off from wave-lashed teeth of rock threatening to terminate their passage prematurely. To their right, waves thrashed the battlement-cliffs of Penvash, the north-west peninsular of Argan.
As the day wore on, the 'point ahead' revealed itself as an island indeed, sunlight flashing from its metallic heights, waves foaming on the rocks beneath it.
Near dusk, they hauled their rafts onto those rocks, and stared up at the bright-polished underside of the island. Reaching down until it almost touched the rocks was a sheer semi-circular chute of metal, about as wide as a piece of Green Island kelp is long (i.e. about seven quarvits – or, to put it another way, nine Standard War Paces). It looked, to those who had any feeling for metal-work (which was Drake alone) like one half of a gigantic piece of bamboo split lengthwise then cast in steel.'That must be the way up,' said Jon Arabin.
'Must be?' said Slagger Mulps. 'You mean you don't know? I thought you said you'd been here.'
T said I'd seen the place,' said the Warwolf. 'But that was from ship-deck three leagues distant, in weather nigh rough enough to curdle a crocodile's milk. We didn't think for no landing then, being all too young to die. But look – there's an arsehole of sorts to the place.'
And Arabin pointed upwards to a bright-lit circular hole at the top of the chute. It was roughly twenty-seven strings across (i.e. large enough for a horse to fall through).
'Right, boys,' said Slagger Mulps, setting his back to the chute. 'Let's be throwing someone up there. Then we'll sling up a rope.'
Other pirates willingly threw their backs against the chute, and their fellows began to climb up them. With a high whine, thousands of razor-sharp metal blades started to push out from the steel, which had till then looked seamless. In a great big hurry the pirates collapsed away from the chute.
Drake watched in dismay. He was cold; he was wet; he was hungry. He wanted, above all else, to get out of the blade-sharp evening wind.
'Bugger!' said the Walrus, who had been slightly cut by one of the blades.
'Not yet, darling,' said Jon Arabin. 'Work before pleasure! Let's try throwing a rope up anyway.'The sharp blades were already retreating.
The island's arsehole was close – only twice man-height above them – and stone-weighted ropes went up easily. And found nothing to cling to. Loading them with grapples and fishhooks brought no improvement. They rattled on bare metal and came straight back down again.'Back to back,' said Drake, to nobody in particular.'Good thinking,' said Ish Ulpin.
So Drake huddled back to back with the gladiator. Bucks Cat and Ika Thole joined their huddle.'Don't give up!' said Arabin. 'We get above or we die!''We die, then,' said Mulps.And added his carcass to the body-heap.
Arabin stared upwards. Thinking. The day was starting to fail. The horizons were fading into gloom. The brightest thing in the world around was the surf-snap spume of the seething waves. By comparison, the island's door shone like a white sun rising.'Drake,' said Arabin. 'Come here.'
'Why me?' said Drake, knowing this had to be bad news. 'And what for?'
'You because you've got no beer belly,' said Arabin. 'You're near enough to lightest. Come. I'll show you what for.'
'I'm not moving,' said Drake, in open rebellion. 'I'm just starting to get warm.'
Jon Arabin, glancing round, saw a large wave mounting from the sea.'You'll shift soon enough,' he said.'Doubt it,' said Drake.
Then the wave shattered around them, scattering the body-heap. Arabin grabbed his prey.
'All right!' said Drake. 'No need to break my arm. What do you want? You want me to get up there? Why not wait for Whale Mike? It'll be much easier when he gets here.'Whale Mike's raft was slowly approaching their rocks.
'We won't always have Mike around to help us,' said Arabin. 'We should learn to cope without him.'
And Arabin had a rope passed through holes made in the final joint of their longest piece of bamboo. He had this set fair and square beneath the hole, supported by six husky pirates.'Climb!' said Arabin.'It doesn't reach to the top,' objected Drake.
The more he looked at the cold, alien light shining out of the island's arsehole, the less he liked it. The place frightened him.. The cold shock of that last wave seemed to have washed away the very last of his courage.'Climb high,' said Arabin, 'then we'll hoist you.'
Reluctantly, Drake started to climb. Promptly, blades began to keen their way out of the entire length of the chute. He dropped down hastily.'Can't,'he said.
He felt close to tears. Why was it always him that got to do the hard work?
An exceptionally large wave – it may have been the 42,632nd, which tradition claims is always the largest in those waters – crashed over the rocks, drenched them with spray and swept around their feet. Men grabbed at a raft in danger of being carried away by the bitter sea. They might need it yet.
Open rafts by night on the stormy ocean? That would likely kill half of them by dawn. There had to be a better way. Jon Arabin set his hand to the metal of the chute and watched how soon the blades came out.
'There may just be time enough,' he muttered, then withdrew his hand; after a pause, the blades withdrew also.
'Drake,' said Arabin. 'You're going up there if I have to boot you up.'
'Boot away, then,' said Drake bitterly. 'For I sure can't fly.'
'Drake,' said Arabin, clapping a hand to his shoulder, 'you can do it. There's a way. Listen . . .'
Drake listened, and shortly found himself holding tight to one end of a bare bamboo pole. Half a dozen pirates – the hoisting party – held the other end.'I've seen this done in Tameran itself,' said Arabin.
'Aye,' said Drake. 'They do say travel's the best way to learn fancy ways to get killed, don't they?'
'Enough of your cheek, man,' said Arabin. 'Hold on tight and . . . charge!'
With a scream, the hoisting party charged. Drake sprinted, clutching the front end of the pole. He hit the chute at a run. The hoisting party kept coming. Riding the strength of six, Drake ran straight up the sheer side of the chute. He had just time enough to notice a slight tackiness under his boots as he took the last couple of steps – that was the points of the blades starting to nose out into the air. Then he was inside.
The pirates raised a war-whoop.'What do you see?' yelled Arabin.
'You see nice woman?' shouted Whale Mike, dragging his raft onto the rocks. 'Nice woman with soft arse?''Yes,' said Mulps, 'and is she still a virgin?'
'No,' said Drake, fear entirely replaced by the exhilaration of triumph. 'But healthy enough for all that.''Come on, man,' yelled Arabin. 'What do you see?'
'Oh . . . diamonds . . . pearls the size of eggs . . . baby dragons . . . three roast dinners and fifty skins of Ebrell Island firewater … a fledgling phoenix and a-''Drake!''Ah! There's a cause-and-effect panel here.' 'A what?' shouted Arabin.
'How about something to tie a rope to?' said Mulps. The next moment, the chute evolved a ladder on its sheer surface.'What did you do, Drake?''Ah,' said Drake, peering down at them. 'A ladder!'
'Well, it's either that or it's a milch cow with two left-handed horns and a bad case of pig bloat,' said Arabin. 'What we want to know is whether it's safe.'
'Sorry,' said Drake. 'I'm expert on milch cows and pig bloat, but I wouldn't like to venture an opinion on ladders.'
At which Ish Ulpin, who had had more than enough of this nonsense, came swarming up the ladder, closely followed by Ika Thole, Rolf Thelemite, Jon Arabin, Jon Disaster, Slagger Mulps, Bucks Cat, Whale Mike and Tiki Slooze, with most of the rest of the crew close behind them.
Amidst the great, jostling, reeking, dripping crowd, certain plaintive voices were heard.'Where's the diamonds?' cried Peg Suzilman.
'Yes,' said Bluewater Draven, 'and the pearls. And what about those roast dinners?'
'You were too late,' said Drake solemnly. 'The phoenix ate the lot then flew – no! Don't touch that! It's the-'He spoke too late.
The floating island lurched, and began to move. Quin Baltu, investigating the cause-and-effect panel, had set their magic island in motion. From down below, there were shouts from the men still left on the rocks. They raced for the ladder. Jez Glane made it, as did Simp Fiche, Salaman Meerkat and a grab-bag of others. But Trudy Haze and Praul Galana were left behind.'Do something!' said Arabin.
'There's the cause-and-effect panel,' said Drake. 'You do something!'
Arabin strode to the panel, which was a big one, all covered with little multicoloured struts, engraved wheels, knobs, studs and twinkling stars. He licked it, kissed it, kicked it, thumped it, spat at it, caressed it, howled at it, sang to it, banged his head against it, threatened it with his falchion – all to no effect.
They were adrift.
They were going somewhere – but where?
Peering down out of their brightly lit cave, they saw light from the island's arsehole glittering on the darkened waters of what was now a rough-running night sea. They had no other clue to navigation.
'The hell with it,' said Ish Ulpin. 'We're high and dry. That's enough for the moment.'
This slaughterhouse cynicism dismayed Drake.'Man,' said Drake. 'Those were our comrades!'
'There's nothing we can do for them,' said Jon Disaster. 'Let's be thankful some of us are alive. There's that, at least.'
'Haze and Galana have got a chance still,' said Jon Arabin. 'They can risk the rafts. There's that still.' 'Yes,' said Mulps. 'And let's be bettering our own chances by searching for some food and drink.'
Drake protested no longer. What, after all, could they do? So he joined the search, tramping wet footprints across the metal floor, glad that the air was so strangely warm and dry.
Their brightly lit cave opened into others equally brightly lit. Fairly soon, from the regular nature of the construction, and the complete absence of earth and stone, they were forced to realize they were not aboard a floating island, but were on a ship of some kind which was all made of metal and which flew.It was full of things which were wondrous strange.
They found rooms full of shining white ceramics and convoluted metal which nobody could understand at all, until Quin Baltu explained it.
'This is what we used to call hal-ta-savoo when I were serving with the Secular Arm in Veda,' said Baltu.
'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.