nothing of blue lepers, so thought these spots – if they thought of them at all – to be no more than boils.
Things had changed in Brennan since Drake was there last, for the Lesser Teeth had endured an occupation by pirates in the interim. Haunted metal no longer worked in the harbourside forge, for it had been destroyed in battle. Gezeldux, who had once fed Drake a magical liquor which had let him walk on air, still lived in Brennan, but had sold his bar to a man named Brimi Hagi.
All gathered at Hagi's bar that evening, to hear Drake tell wild and wonderful stories of his conquest of the Gates of Chenameg. Then Gezeldux reminisced about Drake's last visit, when he had shown off by drinking immense quantities of all kinds of spirit. Drake, rising to the occasion, repeated some of his earlier feats effortlessly.
Miphon, alarmed at Drake's liquor consumption, warned him he would do himself an injury.
'Nay, man,' said Drake. 'I'm old enough to know my limits.'Later, Miphon cautioned him again.
'You've drunk more than I'd have thought possible,' said Miphon. 'Enough is enough! Leave off, before you kill yourself!''You haven't seen anything yet,' said Drake.
He challenged the bar. Whatever poison they could produce, he'd prove it useless against the Favoured Blood of Hexagon. The only poison to be had was a little vial of something which purported to be cytisine, a poison got from laburnum. Drake mixed it with ale then quaffed it, grinning – raising a small cheer in his favour.
'How can you get away with drinking poison?' said Miphon.
'Because I'm of royal birth, man,' said Drake. 'All us noble folk of the Favoured blood, we don't fall sick like the commons, nay, not from fever or from poison.'
Miphon, seeing he would get no sense from Drake that night, did not press him further. After all, for all Miphon knew, the 'poison' might have been vanilla essence, or vinegar, or cod-liver oil, or sugarwater.
But the next morning, Drake ate an enormous breakfast of eggs, devilled kidneys and greasy Ravlish bacon. While eating, he laughed, joked, talked with his mouth full, and was, all in all, as cocky as ever.Then Miphon knew something unusual was going on. For, whatever the nature of the 'poison' Drake had taken the night before, the liquor had been real enough, and Drake had put away enough of it to sicken the most hardened drinker for days.
Miphon, curious, decided to talk to Drake in private. When Drake shortly went to stretch his legs on the beach, Miphon followed.
The crisp, bright morn promised a clear, hot day. A few seagulls on the beach were fighting over fish heads. Drake gathered a handful of stones and began Investigating the best method of stoning gulls. He had just knocked a couple of grey feathers off one of the less wary birds when Miphon caught up with him.'Good morning,' said Miphon.'Hi,' said Drake.
He shied a stone at a gull but twenty paces distant. It was in the air before the stone hit. It seemed gulls had to take off in a straight line. Their capacity for evasive action was marginal while they were scrambling into the sky. So if. . .
'What's your quarrel with the birds?' said Miphon. 'What quarrel have the Swarms with us?' said Drake. 'That's no answer!' said Miphon. 'Yes, but it's a question better worth the asking,' said Drake.
He threw another stone. A gull saw the stone heading in its general direction. The gull took to the air – and almost flew right into the stone.'Next time!' said Drake.
Should he use sticks instead of stones? A nice-sized throwing stick would be ten times the length of one of his little stones. Meaning he would increase his chances of a hit fivefold even if he was only half as accurate with stick as with stone.'You're looking chirpy today,' said Miphon. 'How so?''It's the birds in my ancestry, I suppose,' said Drake.
Meaning to prove the point, he threw back his head and gave a bird-scream.
'If I heard that in the forest,' said Miphon, 'I'd say the bird responsible was sick. Very sick. Or mad. Or both. But you look healthy enough. I'm amazed. Why no hangover? You should be groaning in a sick-bed after last night's binge.'
'Man, I never get sick,' said Drake. 'Not from liquor, from poison or anything. I flourish while others fever.''Have you always been this way?'
Drake scuffed his feet in the sand. This morning, he was barefoot. His boots were being repaired by the local cobbler; he would pick them up at noon.
'Oh, aye,' said Drake. 'I've been fit enough for most of my life. Ever since someone cursed me.''Cursed you? When was that?'
Drake stooped for some seaweed which was fastened to a nice smooth surface-to-surface anti-seagull missile. He tore away the seaweed. Put a couple of bobbles of the stuff into his mouth. Chewed it. Salty. Seaweed taste reminded him of … of childhood. Of the rocks on the seashore beneath his father's coal-cliffs . . .
'You want to hear of curses?' said Drake. 'The curse came early on, man. Yes. They hexed me, taking away all pleasure from drink. Near ruined my life, that did. But I survived. I'm hardy, see.''They cursed you?' said Miphon. 'Who is they?''If I knew that,' said Drake, 'they'd be dead.'
He threw his smooth stone. It missed one seagull, hit the sea, skipped, whipped over one gull then under another, skipped again, then sank. Rings of ripples expanded on the stone-flicked sea.T don't understand about this curse,' said Miphon.
'Why not?' said Drake. 'You're a wizard. You should be a right expert.'
T know much of magic,' said Miphon. 'Curses of all kinds are possible. But they take great power, and greater effort. Nobody would curse you simply to stop you getting drunk.'
And Miphon, relentlessly, began to pursue the truth.
'Man,' said Drake, after the first fifty questions, 'last time I was mauled like this, I was flat on a torture bench.'But Miphon was ruthless.
Finally, he started to smile.'Why smiling, man?' said Drake.
'Because I think,' said Miphon, T think I know what happened to you. Your body was altered by a paratopic''A what?'
'A paratopic. That's a name for the snake which was fed to your flesh in Ling. Only it wasn't a snake at all, but a very special creature in snake-form. I've read of such in old, old records.''What does it do, this snake?' said Drake.
'Why,' said Miphon, 'it enters the body then becomes – well, many many little snakes. And those, between them, bring about the changes you've experienced. For instance, you don't get sick from bad water. Or drunk on liquor.'
'Man,' said Drake, 'so all this trouble I've had with drink, that was because of that snake! Those people in Ling, why did they do something so cruel?''Why was it cruel?'
'Because it denied me all pleasure of drink.' 'That snake,' said Miphon, 'has probably saved your life. Without it, you'd have killed yourself with alcohol.
Or died of river fever. You'd also have caught twenty different types of venereal disease. Including the pox which your beloved is dying of.'
T may well have caught that pox,' said Drake. 'You once told me yourself that it may take years to show itself.'
'If the paratopic works as the old books say it does,' said Miphon, 'then it will protect you even against blue star fever. You should count yourself lucky.'
'Lucky?' said Drake. 'Yes, well, perhaps I am, in a way. But it's still hard to skip pleasure when everyone else is getting it. That's the hard thing about not being able to get drunk. Still . . . man . . . what say we got one of these snake-things for Zanya?''That's a highly theoretical question.'
'What's theoretical about it?' said Drake. 'You said yourself that this snake saved me from the pox. If it saved me, why not Zanya?'
'You were healthy to start with, more or less,' said Miphon. 'Zanya is deep in the clutches of disease already. The power of the paratopic might not be sufficient to salvage her health. Anyway, we'll never know either way.'
'Of course we will!' said Drake. 'I'll find one of these snake-things. I'll go to Ling, yes.''To Ling?'
'Aye, man, where else? They had one of these snakes, they'll have another. For Zanya, yes. We'll take it from them at choke point. Aye! Swords to their throats then press for the question. Gut some of their children dead, yes, that's the way, that'll soon hustle them along.'
