'Why should I listen to something about Gouda Muck?' said Drake.
'Because of who he is,' said Zanya, meaning no harm. 'He's the High God of All Gods.'
This was too much to bear. Drake had come to the woman who was the focus of all his desire – only to find Gouda Muck had come before him, in spirit if not in flesh.
With a scream of rage, Drake tore the scroll away from Zanya, and jumped on her.
She slapped a hand to his face and dug fingers into his eyes. Hard. He jerked his head back. Instantly her fingers slid to his throat and dug in. Viciously. Then she hooked an elbow into the side of his head. His world reeled. Agonizing pain exploded between his legs as she thumped him in the testicles.
Drake collapsed to the floor, a helpless heap of writhing misery. Zanya, who was indeed a well-built woman, picked him up and threw him outside.'Don't come back!' she said. 'Or I'll batter you dead!'
Drake crawled away into the darkness, groaned. But, after a while, the pain became manageable. He decided he had better go back and apologize, yes. Otherwise Zanya would be permanently soured against him. Manfully, Drake got to his feet. Someone was knocking at Zanya's door. Who? The door opened; a gleam of lamplight showed Prince Oronoko standing in the doorway.
If Drake's throat had not been so sore, he would have screamed his outrage. Instead, he stood silent as Oronoko entered. The door closed. Drake heard Zanya speak, then laugh. Well! So much for that! Drake's prospects for making his woman were – for tonight, at least – reduced to zero.
Drake was a long time getting back to the forge, since every step he took hurt him. Would the door be barred against him? It was not. Since Muck had discovered he was actually the High God of All Gods, he had lost all fear of mortal men. Everyone was asleep when Drake slipped inside, as quiet as could be.
Drake did not sleep that night. He brooded in the little attic where he was quartered, and while he brooded he drank from the crock of hard liquor he kept in his chest for emergencies.He felt humiliated.
Rape was supposed to be easy, the perfect demonstration of a man's easy mastery over a woman. But Drake had failed. Everything he tried had gone sour. His whole life was a disaster. He was ready to kill himself.
But why should he? Why should he give Gouda Muck that satisfaction? No. He shouldn't kill himself. He should do something which would really piss Muck off in a big way. But what? Burn down the forge? No good – it was insured. Let's see. Another drink, yes, that was the story. First drink, then thought. Drink was good. It eased the pain in his balls and the pain in his eyes.
Towards dawn, sore, drunk, hurt and as reckless as ever, Drake crept downstairs and stole Muck's mastersword, the prize bit of steelwork which Muck had created years before to win admission to the swordsmiths' guild.
Sunrise found Drake on the docks of Cam, determined to sell that very same sword.
At that early hour, there was little life stirring. Drake, nothing daunted, went and knocked up Theyla Slonage, a merchant from Narba who had a certain reputation. Slonage, bleary and unbeautiful in the morning light, reluctantly invited Drake into his back room.
'What have you got for me?' asked Slonage. 'And don't say yourself! You've spoilt your boyish beauty with those blacksmith's muscles. Look at your hands – Demon's grief, they're twice as tough a sharkskin. And you've been fighting. Have you looked at yourself? You've got two hideous-ugly black eyes.'
Drake, in answer, revealed the sheathed sword which had been hidden down his trouser leg. Slonage, without bothering to look at it, offered a thousandth of its value. Drake unsheathed the blade, slowly, fingerlength by fin-gerlength. Its naked beauty glimmered in the gloom. Drake, looking at it, felt almost sober.
Slonage sneered, but doubled his offer. However, Drake, who knew the price of steel, was hardly going to sell the masterwork for 0.2 per cent of its value.
Drake eased open a shutter to let in the cool light of morning. Raising the blade to the light, he blew upon its surface. As his breath condensed upon the steel they both saw the patterns of the forging momentarily snake across the surface of the metal.
Theyla Slonage raised his offering to a hundredth of the sword's value. Drake replied by asking double, and they settled, at length, for a fiftieth.
Drake was not paid off in the shangles and jives minted by King Tor, but in Bankers' Money, the coinage issued everywhere by the Partnership Banks. He got five zeals – small rings of nine-carat gold, stamped on both inside and outside with banker's marks. He got a dozen bronze flothens, circular coins with threading holes in the middle. And he got, as well, a scattering of spings which he did not even bother to count.
There were nine Partnership Banks, each issuing the same identical coinage. And these banks – immensely rich, enormously powerful and intensely secretive – were:t the Orsay Bank of Stokos;t the Morgrim Bank of Chi 'ash-Ian;j the Safrak Bank of the Safrak Islands;t the Monastic Treasury of Inner Adeer, located hard up against the Ashun Mountains in Voice, the retirement city of the rulers of the Rice Empire;t the Flesh Trader's Financial Association of Galsh Ebrek;t the Bondsman's Guild of Obooloo, capital city of Aldarch the Third, the Mutilator of Yestron;t the Bralsh, of Dalar ken Halvar;T the Singing Dove Pensions Trust of Tang;t and the Taniwha Guarantee Corporation of Quilth.
How those far-flung organizations managed to coordinate their activities was one of the larger mysteries of the universe. However, most people – indeed, even most kings, princes, priests and emperors – were unaware that Bankers' Money was accepted in many far-flung places which were largely ignorant even of each other's existence.
The only person ever to ponder this conundrum seriously was the wizard Phyphor; that notable master of the Order of Arl was brooding about it yet again even as Drake emerged into the steadily strengthening sunlight of the dockside morning.
Drake, who was starting to feel a little anxious, settled his nerves with an early-morning beer. His new-found wealth made it hard for him to find the bottom of the beer mug, and it was mid-morning before he emerged again into the hot, raucous bustle of the docks.
He strolled along, hands dug deep in his pockets. He kicked a piece of shining sea-coal. Once. The sudden movement hurt his bruised, swollen testicles. He idled from stall to stall, scarcely listening to the babble of languages assaulting his ears as hoarse-voiced shills screamed the virtues of products as diverse as querns and keflo shell.
Then he saw a couple of big men prowling through the crowds. They wore long robes and carried iron-shod staves. Elsewhere, they might have been mistaken for wizards, but Drake recognized them on sight. They were two of the temple's enforcers. He knew they knew him well. He walked the other way, toward a man who was hawking passages to Androlmarphos.
'. . . 'Marphos today . . . noon sailing . . . 'Marphos today . . . one zeal for the beer-price passage . . .'
Drake made a drunken decision which he would never have made sober, and paid out for a passage to the foreign port, leaving at noon that same day.
6
Name: Dreldragon Drakedon Douay.
Alias: Drake (meaning, in the Ligin of Stokos, 'pumpkin').
Occupation: swordsmith's apprentice. Status: criminal on the run.
Description: a nuggety fair-haired beardless lad with hard hands and a blacksmith's muscles; he is shorter than fashion prefers, but not exactly stunted.
Prospects: if he survives to see his eighteenth birthday, he may be allowed to marry King Tor's daughter – which would bring him, in time, the throne of Stokos.