second. A wall of fire roared from the second wall and marched toward him. He ran back to Zanya. The monsters charged.'The river!' yelled Zanya. 'It's our only hope!'
Abandoning her spear, she jumped. Drake hesitated. He snatched up the spear. He threw it at the nearest monster. He missed.'Bugger bugger bugger!' he sobbed.
Then, screaming, jumped into the river. The river which had eaten his comrade Raggage Pouch just the day before.
Water snatched him. He was swept towards the firewall, which raged across the river and up the further bank and on into the forest. At the last moment, he ducked his head into the unknown horrors of the Waters Below -and was carried under the fire-wall.
He surfaced beyond the flames and struck out for the shore. The river ripped him downstream. The bitter cold was swiftly sapping the last of his strength.
Ahead, rocks divided the waters. Something big and red was on those rocks. Another monster? No, it was Zanya! He held out his hand; she grabbed it; she hauled him onto the rocks. He clung to her, sobbing, gasping, soaked, cold, shivering.
'Are you all right?' she said. 'Hush now, hush. You're going to be all right.'Slowly she soothed him.
At last, calmer now, he had the strength to smile and say:'Man, you look as beautiful as when I first saw you.' 'And when was that?' she said.
'Don't you remember? Why, I was in the water, a horizon away from Stokos. And you in a ship, aye, a ship of more colours than a rainbow. I asked you to marry me. Remember?' Zanya looked puzzled. Then:
'Oh! Now I remember you! You're the fisherman from that boat which got mauled by a kraken.'
'Aye,' said Drake, remembering the lie he had told to explain his presence in the sea. 'That's me. The sole survivor. Only I'm a swordsmith, not a fisherman.'
'Of course you are!' said Zanya. 'You told me all about it when we met again on Burntos. I remember now! You're – Arabin lol Arabin. Right?''Right,'said Drake, beaming.'The one who tried to rape me in Cam!'
'What?' said Drake, in dismay. 'That business in the leper colony? You're not still on about that, are you? I explained that on Burntos. It wasn't me, man! It was witchcraft making my body do horrible disgusting things, that's what it was. The wizard Miphon said as much. Remember?'
'He also said to me, in private,' said Zanya, 'that you were the most trouble he'd seen in one package in the last fifty years. He warned me to watch out for you. Not that I needed much warning!''Hey,' said Drake, aggrieved. 'I'm a nice guy.'
'Oh yes! The nice guy who jumped on top of me in Cam! Yes, that's what you did! Jumped right on top of me! Just like an animal! Well, don't try anything like that here or you'll be in really big trouble!'
'I think,' said Drake, a touch of sullen anger in his voice, 'I think I'm entitled at least to the normal hero's reward. Rescuing fair damsels in distress and all that. You know how it is.'
'Yes,' said Zanya. 'The rescued damsel marries the hero. She owes him. Well, you owe me. I saved you from the sea off Stokos.'
'That's not true!' said Drake. 'You had a whole shipload of men to help in the rescue.''And you had your giant-friend to help when you came for me,' said Zanya. 'Anyway, I saved your life again, just five heartbeats ago, when I hauled you from the river. So I owe you nothing. Even if I did, I'm not free to lust or to marry. My body is consecrated to the Flame.'
She said it with determination. They stared at each other. Wet. Shivering. Hunched on the rock like starving animals about to fall to fighting over a bone. Close enough to kiss. Her lips red, rich. Warm. Surely.
And, seizing his chance, he kissed her. His lips met hers. Flesh against flesh. He felt her will relax. Imagined her body prone or supine beneath him, he'd take her either way, whichever way she fancied. He broke the kiss. He was feeling good. Triumphant. Smiling.'You liked that,' he said. 'Didn't you?''Yes,' she said.Then pushed him off the rock.
Suggesting that sometimes, when a woman says yes, she actually means no.
'Hey!' shouted Drake, thrashing in the river. 'Hey! Help! Help!'
'You gave me no choice!' yelled Zanya, explaining herself.
But he was not interested in explanations, only in help. But of course there was no help. He saw another rock. Grabbed for it. But it was too slippery to hang on to.
The waters pulled him loose in a trice, rolled him over, ducked him under, thrashed him through some rapids, then bustled him away in a hurry, taking him south down the Valley of Forgotten Dreams.
37
Dawn.
Dreldragon Drakedon Douay huddled on the banks of a small river running through the Valley of Forgotten Dreams in Penvash. Upstream lay the Old City, a place he remembered, by now, only as a chaotic hell of ravening jaws and screaming blood. There was no sun-sign, but strengthening light at last convinced him it was indeed morning. With the greatest of reluctance, he groped down to the river.Everything hurt.
There was no part of him which had not been jarred, banged or knocked, scraped, grazed, shaken, bruised, bitten or stung, gored, burnt by fire or by ice, sprained, strained, cracked, blistered, bloodied, dislocated, incised, punctured, lacerated or pounded by rolling pins and knapping hammers.
He had not heeded the damage as he dared the Circle of the Door, plunging recklessly from Here to Elsewhere, from the Old City to a burning forest, an ocean cay, to Drangsturm south, to a frozen mountainside, a plain of battle, a tropical jungle, a foreign arena, to a cannibal
beach, then back to the Old City again. Adventuring thus, he had been oblivious to trauma because of the shock, excitement and bewilderment of the moment – and the adrenalin seething through his system. But he felt it now.
Probably, he had damaged himself the worst while bumping down the river after finally fleeing the Old City. But the pains in his back, neck and shoulder were mostly from muscles wrenched by reckless sword-swinging, his earache was the aftermath of violent pressure changes from sea-level to mountain heights, and the agony of his feet was from the cumulative damage of many days of journey. Feet, yes. He durst not take off his boots. If he did, his feet might fall off entirely.
He reached the water at last, after a journey short in space but memorable for the amount of pain, caution and endeavour it had entailed. The river purled along swiftly, slick as fish scales, cold as yesterday's rats' piss, surface sheening and shining with the greys of lead, steel, thundercloud, ash, charcoal, failed phoenix, dead mushrooms, basilisk blood, quelaquire, mosquito wings, wormskin wine and threadneedle mould.
Drake stuck a hand into the water, but caught no colours, only a chill clarity that swirled into turbulence as it snagged his fingers, kicked up tiny jags of foam, rippled, queried, tested, spun into miniature whirlpools then moulded itself back into the onflow which sped, talking in hustling-bustling accents of nonsense, down toward the distant (imaginary?) sea.
Slowly, Drake lifted a handful of water, sought his face, saw only the sword-blisters on his palm. Dirt and old blood lining his life-line. A rippling shimmer of daylight, mostly at the edges of this puddle, where water bordered skin. Why did it ripple? Because his hand was shaking.
In the river, too, he saw not his face – only the ever-shift of twenty million greys, and, beyond and below, rock, clean shingle, a wavering trail of waterweed, then a confusion of inscrutable darkness in which lay rocks or rotten logs or monsters. He sucked water from his hand.
Cold. It hurt his teeth. He swilled it round then spat it out, seeing a thread of blood give contrast, for a moment, to the clears and greys of the ever-rush.
Slowly, he reached into the river, let his fingers crayfish toward waterweed, lobstered it, vultured it back, sucked it down, and wondered why it had no taste to speak of, and why his flesh had bones in it, and why he was
