The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (44 page)

       
"Get dressed,"
said Draven, speaking roughly, as if harsh words could dispell his
embarrassment. Then, in a more conciliatory tone: "I was wrong to draw on
you. That was my failing. You were right to remind me of the Ampadara woman.
But speak no more of it - the subject is painful."

       
"I'll never mention
it again," said Togura, dressing.

       
Conjuring with the name
of Ampadara had been a desperate ploy. It had worked. So there really had been
a woman in Tameran by the name of Ampadara, who had had dealings with Draven.
Togura was starting to suspect that the history of Draven and Ampadara was not
quite as the pirate had told it, but he also suspected that he would never be
sure of the truth, and that the matter of Ampadara would be an unsolved mystery
for as long as he lived - which, if the Rovac caught him, would not be long.

       
By this time, the
sinking caves had uncovered a fraction of a deep-tunnelling cave. Draven
pointed to it.

       
"That's where we're
going to hide."

       
"In there?"

       
"That's what I
said."

       
"Well ... hadn't we
better wait for the water to go down a bit more?"

       
"This is as low as
it gets."

       
It was impossible to row
into the cave, for the edges of the rock almost scraped the edges of the
dinghy. Togura and Draven had to lie flat on their backs in the oar-boat, and
walk it into the cave, bracing against the roof with their boots.

       
Within, the cave opened
up into a vast chasm, half water, half air. Flaws in the rock above pierced
upward to the sky, but the wan light which filtered through those flaws was
scarcely as strong as sunlight.

       
"My father found
this cave," said Draven. "He never told a soul, save me and my brothers."

       
"What if your
brothers betray you?"

       
"One drowned when
diving for gaplax. One fell off a cliff. One died of the plague in the year of
two comets. One's a slave in Chi'ash-lan - if he's alive at all. One's the king
of Chenameg, or used to be. One went trading east of Ashmolea - for all I know,
he's in Yestron. There's none to betray us."

       
"So we're safe
then."

       
"For the
moment."

       
The moment steadily
lengthened. They camped on a rock ledge above water level. They drank from a
slow-dripping seepage filtering through the rocks, but they had no food. Togura
whiled away the darkness by playing his triple-harp, softly, softly.

       
And waited.

       
He was constipated. He
remembered his father, Baron Chan Poulaan, quoting a common little maxim on the
subject:

       
"If you don't eat
you don't shit, and if you don't shit you die!"

       
However, on the third
day, when Draven was sleeping, Togura obtained relief. Prospecting for treasure
he found it; he cleaned the ring then hid it away in the toe of his left boot.
By now, having listened to Draven lamenting his loss often enough, Togura knew
how to use the ring. He only had to put it on his finger, and turn it, and he
would be inside the green bottle which he had stolen from Elkor Alish.

       
Togura was tempted to
experiment, but did not. Though he was very, very hungry by now, and knew there
might well be food inside the green bottle, his priorities were simple: Safety
first.

Chapter 42

       
They waited in hiding
for three days, then slipped back to an unsuspecting harbour and stole food,
some barrels of water and a two-masted sealing boat.

       
As they toiled north in
the open sealing-boat, Togura learnt more about sailing than he'd ever wanted
to know. He learnt under the worst possible conditions. The boat was too big
for two men to handle easily. It leaked. The seas were rough. It rained. An
autumn storm beat them about like milk in a butter-churn. They lost their
water-barrles overboard. They ran out of food.

       
And Draven, impatient,
bad-tempered, screamed, shouted, cursed and roared abuse. Togura, sleeping
between lurches of the sea, sometimes had nightmares in which Draven - swollen
to the size of a giant - roared at him:

       
"Gazzen the
hull-skit! Batten the lee! Clabber the gasts, the legs are slipping! Sheet the
wind, you spittle-spawned moron! Dirk up the kneecaps!"

       
And he would wake to
find Draven screaming at him in some half-coherent sea-jabber; sometimes,
stumbling about the boat with the seas washing around his ankles, he found it
hard to say when Draven's talk ended and the dreamtalk of nightmare began.

       
The sea was endless.

       
The sea was a
windstalking wasteland where waves ate each other and hungered for the bones of
men. It was empty, empty, empty. No place to sleep; no place to lie down. They
were always cold, they were always wet, they were always tired, they were
always hungry. Heartsick, sea sick, sick of the roiling waves and the
slathering spray, Togura longed for land.

       
"Turn east,"
he said, when the weather favoured them with a sunrise.

       
He knew the coast of
Argan lay to the east. They could make land easily, and swiftly. But Draven
kept them driving for the north.

       
"We need to make
Sung," said Draven.

       
"Why Sung?"
said Togura.

       
It was his homeland,
true, but all he wanted now was some land which wouldn't buckle under him from
moment to moment.

       
"Log Jaris is the
man to help us now."

       
"Log who?"

       
"You know. You met
him. The man at D'Waith with the head and the horns of a bull."

       
"Oh, him!"
said Togura. "I thought I'd imagined him."

       
"Dream on. And
while you're about it - bail."

       
He did bail.

       
He bailed the boat dry.

       
It rained.

       
"Good," he
said, drinking.

       
"Very good,"
said Draven, slaking his own thirst. And then, to the sky: "Okay, that's
enough now! You can give it a shake and put it away!"

       
But if this advice was meant
to stop the rain, it failed. The rain grew worse. So did the wind. Soon the
boat was thrashing about in a regular storm.

       
Night, at last, fell,
and with the coming of night the storm abated somewhat. Soon it was dying, then
dead.

       
"You steer,"
said Draven, yielding te tiller to Togura. "I'm going to sleep."

       
"Which way do I
steer?" said Togura.

       
"I don't know where
we are or where the hell we're going," said Draven, completely
disorientated by the shifting stormwinds. "So just keep the winds behind
us."

       
"But what if we're
going the wrong way?"

       
Draven, weary, almost
too tired to think, scanned the sky for stars, finding none. Sunrise would give
them direction. Till then ...

       
"You're
right," said Draven. "Let's haul down the sail and we'll lie
ahull."

       
That they did, and were
soon sleeping sweetly while the boat drifted through the night. Much later,
they woke, almost simultaneously, to the sound of surf breaking on rocks.

       
"Braunch out!"
screamed Draven.

       
"What?" cried
Togura.

       
"Zelch the
pringles!"

       
Togura, not knowing what
a pringle was, or how to zelch it, stood there wringing his hands. The next
moment he was flung face-first to the deck as they went surfing into the rocks.
Timbers grunched, graunched, despaired and tore open. Smash-batter waves
pummelled their way into the boat. Draven, with a cry, was swept overboard.
Togura heard his screams jousting with the surf, then - silence.

       
Silence, at least, from
Draven. The wood-wave cacophony continued. With a dreadful sound of rending
timbers, the boat broke apart. Togura clung to a piece of wreckage. He was
swept into the sea.

       
Where was the green
bottle?

       
With Draven.

       
Wet, cold, shivering,
frightened, Togura clung to his bit of wreckage, swearing and sobbing, cursing
sea, waves, wind, water, pirates, quests and adventures in general.

       
Incautiously, he let his
feet drift down.

       
He touched something
underfoot.

 
      
He
screamed:

       
"Gaaaa!"

       
And wrenched his feet
up, in case the sea serpent below felt them and bit them off. The waves knocked
him around a bit, but he was so terrified that he hardly felt them.

       
For a while he floated
around in a state of helpless funk, then, slowly, logic began to assert itself.
They had ripped the boat apart on some rocks. He had now been swept past those
rocks, but, still ... rocks suggested land. So ...

       
Togura put his feet down
again, and touched bottom. He whooped with triumph. A wave smashed him in the
face. Blinking away water, he peered through the night, and saw a line of white
breaking in the distance. Slowly, he began to wade toward it, and eventually
dragged himself up on a sandy beach.

 
      
The sky
was growing light.

       
Togura, shivering,
shuddering, warmed himself as best he could, dancing round on the beach,
singing, slapping his thighs, shouting. He was still at it when Draven,
stumbling along the beach, found him.

       
"Ho, madman!"
said Draven.

       
"You!"

       
"None other,"
said Draven. "Have you got the green bottle?"

       
"No, I thought you
had it."

       
"Pox and
piles!" said Draven. "It's lost!"

       
They spent half the
morning beachcombing, and, at last, found it. But what now? They were, in all
probability, on the Lesser Teeth.

       
"No other coast in
these parts has such long, sandy beaches," said Draven, distinctly gloomy.

       
Togura did not need to
be told that, if the people of the Lesser Teeth got hold of a genuine pirate
like Draven, he would probably come to a sticky end.

       
So there they were,
marooned on a hostile foreign shore, with wet clothes, no food, no water, no
tinder box, no shelter, and precious little hope of a friendly reception from
the natives. It was, without a doubt, time to use the magic ring and get into
the green bottle, no matter what the dangers.

       
Togura took both his
boots off, retrieved the ring, massaged his feet, wrung out his socks, put
socks and boots back on, and, by the time he had gone through that rigmarole,
had nerved himself up to act. Draven would doubtless be furious to find that
Togura had kept the capture of the ring secret from him, but the green bottle
was alleged to have all kinds of food and other good things inside, and that,
with luck, would mollify the angry pirate.

       
"Draven," said
Togura.

       
"What?" said
the pirate.

       
"I've got something
to show you," said Togura, taking him by the arm as if to lead him somewhere.

       
And, his arm linked with
Draven's, Togura turned the ring on his hand. A moment later, they were in -

       
A green chamber, not
very well lit.

       
"Blood's
grief!" cried Draven, shocked.

       
A moment later,
something in the shadows by a jumble of empty barrels sat up. It was a man. A
warrior!

       
"Hold fast!"
shouted the warrior, drawing his sword.