conjure up that laugh, but he managed it all the same.
'Why are you laughing?' said Zanya, fierce and flushed. 'It's true, isn't? Your son is no son of yours but a son of Hagon!'
'Woman,' said Arabin, 'if Sully Yot has survived the Circle of the Door, then likely he'll come down the river and prove out the fact that a priest of the Flame can live as a pirate. Before you say more mad things of my son, what say we wait till we see what survivors come downriver?''And if nobody comes?' said Zanya.
'Then you'll have to do some thinking!' said Arabin. 'There's three of us, one of you. If we were ruthless, would we wait before raping? Nay, woman. If my son were the Evil One, he'd have cock to quim in a moment. But have we not saved you? Sheltered you? Fed you?'
Zanya made no reply.
'You've a mind at least warped in parts,' said Arabin. 'I don't blame you for it, since it's life which makes minds, for the most part. But give thought to that warping. Remember, Whale Mike bore witness. My son has been seeking to make conversions to your Flame. Aye, at risk of his own life.''That. . . that's so,' said Zanya, slowly.
She was starting to feel ashamed of the way she had spoken.
'Woman,' said Arabin, 'perhaps my son uses the name of Drake on occasion, for purposes of survival or otherwise. I know not. Perhaps he calls himself Drake Douay on occasion, or even Dreldragon Drakedon Douay. Well then. Is that so remarkable? A priest of the Flame is pushed to some strange expedients to survive. Remember that.''I will,' said Zanya.
'And remember this,' said Arabin. 'My son is wild, as I've said. But he's hardly a hell-fiend. Nay, he's good, in truth. The core of him is solid. Which is why I love him.'
He stared at Zanya till she dropped her eyes. Then he took her hand and, lightly, gently, kissed it.'Why did you do that?' she said.
'Because I, too, find it hard to resist the allure of your beauty,' answered Jon Arabin, in utter truth.
Much later, Drake returned from the forest. One look at his face told Zanya he had been crying. He held out the spoils of his hunt: some lugs of fungus garnered from a rotten tree.
'This is not much,' he said. 'But it's what I have. It's yours.''Thank you,' she said.
Later, Whale Mike returned by a different route. He was singing a happy song, and with good reason – he had killed two dog-sized fox-fur creatures of the type the expedition had first found when digging for what they thought were gwiffs.
Later still, Jon Disaster came down the river. Alone. He was more than glad to see them.
'And,' he said, with a grin at Zanya, 'it's good to see we've got some hot meat with us.'
'Man,' said Drake, with violence in his voice. 'Watch your tongue.''What did I say wrong?' said Disaster, aggrieved.Drake pointed at the dead dog-creatures.'See that?' he said. 'That's meat.'He pointed at Zanya.
'And that, that's a woman. There's a difference.' Jon Disaster didn't see that there was, but he had enough sense not to argue about it.
Towards evening, snow started to fall, whispering down from a darkening sky. Jon Arabin, Jon Disaster, Whale Mike, Zanya Kliedervaust and Drake Douay built their fire higher. And that fire, seen from afar, brought the last of the stragglers down the river to their position.
The stragglers, Sully Yot and Prince Oronoko amongst them, came in slowly, slow as a bunch of crippled criminals walking to their own hanging dragging a ship's anchor with them as they went and dying of scurvy and roundworm on the way. And when they found not just fire but, as well, meat and shelter, they wept for gratitude and relief.
All spent that night under a single lean-to shelter. Zanya slept wedged between Drake Douay and Jon Arabin. And, while there was but one woman between many men, that made no trouble. Not, at any rate, on the first night.
38
A day's march. South. Downriver. Grey skies. The threat of further snow – withheld for the moment. Stumbling water. The forests forever. Each survivor nursing aches, bruises, nightmares.
Near day's end, they killed another of the dog-like creatures.
'One of your relatives, Mulps me beauty,' said Jon Arabin, pointing to the creature's startling green eyes.
Drake again remembered the wizard Miphon, who had had eyes of a similar green. The wizard had given advice about love. Yes. Flowers. Poetry. Persistence. Pretty speaking. Daily visits. Sincerity. A diligent wooing. He'd thought it nonsense at the time. But, if he'd followed the pox doctor's advice, maybe he would have had Zanya years ago . . .Evening.Firelight.'Drake,' she said.'That's my name,' he answered.
'Can you explain it?' she said. 'Who are you? Arabin lol Arabin, priest of the Flame, son of Jon Arabin? Or Drake Douay, swordsmith of Stokos?'
'Both,' said Drake, who had talked things over with his putative father during the march, synchronizing a whole raft of mutually supporting lies.'How so?' said Zanya.
'I was,' said Drake, hoping he had the story right. 'I was, you see, born in Ling, on the terror-coast of the Deep South. There my gold-skinned mother bore me to my coal-black father. But, when I were but a boy, an evil slaver by name of Atsimo Andranovory stole me from the cradle. It were on Stokos I ended up. There a family by name of Douay bought me at market, not for profit but from pity. Thus I came to be Douay. Drake they call me, which is a word in Ligin meaning strilk.''Strilk?' said Zanya.
'Aye. Well. You know not that word? Strilk is something you eat, it's a cholo of sorts.' 'A cholo?' said Zanya.
'Well, yes,' said Drake, not knowing how else to render the word 'gourd' in Galish. 'Anyway, it's a fat thing you eat, okay? And a common name on Stokos. Where there's lots of Douays, aye, the place is crawling with them. Many of them Drakes, too, when it comes to that. And a fair few known as Dreldragon Drakedon Douay.'
'How come so many people with the same name?' said Zanya, unable to quell her last suspicion.
'Well, it's to do with taxes, you see,' said Drake. 'They're pretty harsh, as you may have heard when you were living in Cam. That was because King Tor always wanted to build roads and such rubbish, which meant the taxes were always on the upper. Anyway. With a name the same as everyone else, it's easy to escape the taxman. Hence the name.'
'Oh,' said Zanya. 'Then how . . . how are we, as worshippers of the Flame, to know the son of the Demon Hagon when we meet with him?'
'Evil cannot hide from the righteous,' said Drake sententiously. 'Evil speaks loud to the pure. We'll know the Demon-son all right, once we get him in a strangle. But don't expect to find him running around the world under his own true name! Oh no! He'll be far more cunning than that.'
'Yes,' said Zanya. 'Yes, yes, I suppose he will be. So . . .'
'So any person we come across called Dreldragon Drakedon Douay,' said Drake, 'that person, clearly, from the simple process of logic, cannot be the Demon-son. For the Evil One would hide his name far better.''Yes,' said Zanya, with relief.
It all fitted. If her lover had been the Evil One, he would have led his friends in gang rape already. He would
