The Walrus and the Warwolf

'Oh come on!' said Drake. 'Do you really think I was sired by the demon Hagon?'

'No. But you were Muck's apprentice, weren't you? You were the one who stole his mastersword, isn't that so?''That's true,' admitted Drake.

'The truth, yes. But who told me the truth? Why, Sully Yot and Gouda Muck. Because you never admitted the truth to me. You didn't trust me. You pleaded that you weren't that Dreldragon Drakedon Douay. Oh no, you were someone altogether different!'

'What does it matter who I was? Or who I am?' said Drake.

'Don't you understand anything?' said Zanya, in a voice close to a wail. 'You didn't trust me! You treated me like an enemy or like – like a child. You lied to me. Not for a day or a couple of days but for month after month on end.''Then I'm sorry,' said Drake, with very little grace.

'That's not good enough,' said Zanya. 'You've lied once too often.'

'But there's one thing I haven't lied about,' said Drake. 'I've not had a woman since you left me. In fact, I've never had another woman since I met you.'

'So you told me just a few heartbeats back,' said Zanya. 'I didn't believe it then. I don't believe it now.'

'Dearest cony,' said Drake, easing honey into his voice, 'my dearest sweet, I can't lust after another woman because – because, deat heart, it's you I love. And love, my dearest, has made casual lust impossible.'

'Then why,' said Zanya, her voice rising to a shriek, 'are you standing there with a whore's cheap lipstick plastered all over your face? I suppose there's the same on your pizzle!''Zanya! Darling! I can explain! I can-'

'You can drag your balls back to the sewer you came from,' said Zanya savagely, 'or die where you stand!'

'Listen,' said Drake, grabbing her. 'I've heard enough of this nonsense. You're my woman, and you're coming with me.'

She tried to claw for his eyes, to spike fingers into his throat, to smash him with an elbow, to pound his testicles. But Drake – this time – was not drunk. And Drake, by this time, knew her fighting style well.'Give in,' he said, panting, 'or I'll break your arm.'

'Rape!' she screamed. 'Demon-son! Rape! Help! Fire, fire! Murder!'

And clawed him as he tried to muscle her to the door. Which burst open. In came a man, nostrils flaring. Drake dropped Zanya. Then felled the man with a jaw-breaking blow. Boots pounded down the corridor. Drake slammed the door then shoved Zanya against it.'I love you,' he said.

He pinned her arms. Kissed her. Then fled. Out of the window he went, dropping clean and neat to the courtyard.

'Ho!' shouted a voice, as half a dozen stave-men came racing out of a side-door.

'He went that way!' yelled Drake, pointing. 'After him! It's the Demon-son, he went that way! Faster, faster! He'll get away!'

The stave-men pounded off in the direction Drake had indicated. Drake made for the gate. And came face to face with something which had two eyes and a much greater number of warts.'Drake!' said Sully Yot. 'Demon-'

His shout was terminated by Drake's fist. Half a heartbeat later, Drake had Yot's stave in his hand. He used it to demolish the first hero who jumped to the courtyard from Zanya's window.'There he is!' shouted a voice.No bluff would serve him now!

Drake fled to the gate, fought his way past a daring duo which tried to stop him, then escaped into Libernek Square. At which point he realized there was a dog attached to his ankle. Where had that come from? He had no idea – but the spunky little tyke was clinging on tightly. Drake shook it off. And a voice shouted:'Stand fast for the Watch!'

He saw five grim men, each dressed in a stovepipe hat and the black rig-out of the Law. He saw, also, swords quintuplicate. He surrendered. Then turned his attention to the task of kicking a cur unconscious.

Stave-men dressed in Flame spilt into the piazza, but halted when they saw the Watch. As an Outsider Religion, Muck's temple could not afford antagonizing the Law by rumbling with the Watch. Instead, the stave-men stood silent as Drake was led away.

And still the nightingale exercised its syrinx in song.

46

Watashi: one of the sons of the Kingmaker Farfalla, refuses to accept his role as professional nonentity; has generated political crisis by his aristocratic pretensions, which alarm both the bureaucracy of the Regency and the Federated Guilds (which between them have much of the real power in the Harvest Plains).

Drake was taken to a lantern-lit whitewashed building full of off-duty lawmen and their gambling partners, the clatter of beer mugs and the smell of frying onions. This cheerful place was the Santrim Watch-house. He was then taken Down Below to a torture chamber where the dominant smell was that of burnt hair.

'What was all the fighting, about?' asked an interrogator, testing the point of a bodkin on a much-scarred table. 'Come on, what was it all about?'

'Man,' said Drake. 'How do I know? Some fellow invited me back to the place for a quiet drink or three. Next thing – riot, man!''No religious of that temple drinks.'

'Don't they just? It's a regular rolling brothel-bar they've got inside there. Check it out some time.''How did you get those robes you're wearing?'

'They wanted me to wear alike what they were wearing. So when this fellow invited me back for a drink, he lent me these.''Search him,' said the interrogator.So underlings searched Drake, and threw onto the table

three knives, a throwing star, two garrotting wires and a stray caltrop.'What's all this for?' asked the interrogator.

'I'm a peddler,' said Drake promptly. T deal in weapons. This is part of my stock in trade.'

Since there was no law against carrying murder on the streets of Selzirk, the interrogator pressed him no further about that.'Do a strip search,' he said.

'You've found all that's there for finding already,' protested Drake. 'What will you strip me for. You seek to unman me, perhaps?''That I do,' said the interrogator, blandly.And Drake was stripped.

And the amulet he wore around his neck was revealed. Causing great excitement.'Where did you get this from?' said the interrogator.

'It's a family heirloom,' said Drake. 'I inherited it from my grandfather.''Oh yes? I doubt Watashi would agree with you.''Who's Watashi?' demanded Drake.

The interrogator and his underlings all laughed. Richly. Honestly. He realized he must have asked a very stupid question.

'Playing innocent, are we?' said the interrogator. 'By rights, I should put the jaws to you, then choke you for the truth. But. . . we've got the evidence, so what more do we need?'

'Evidence of what? Man, that's my amulet! My property! Is there a law against amulets? And who's this Watashi?'

'There is, young cock, a law against stealing – whether the thing stolen be amulet or other. And Watashi, of course, is the man you stole from.''I never! I don't even know who he is.'

There was more laughter. Then the interrogator, who had other business to attend to, had Drake taken to a holding cell.

'Don't give me no trouble, now,' warned the gaoler who locked him up.

'I won't,' said Drake, through the cell bars, 'if I can get a straight answer to a simple question. Who's Watashi?''The son of Farfalla, of course.''Farfalla?' said Drake, blankly.'The dynast of Selzirk! The ruler of the Harvest Plains!' 'Oh.''You've never heard of her?'

'Man,' said Drake, 'I vouch she's never heard of me, either, so why so surprised?'

The gaoler grunted, and, ignoring Drake's demands for further debate, went about his business.

At noon the next day, Drake was back in the torture chamber, facing not one interrogator but half a