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Authors: Brian Lumley

BOOK: Iced On Aran
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Hero took a deep breath, tut-tutted, sighed, said: “You know, sometimes I feel I've spent half my life listening to you say daft things! I mean, what the hell—?”
“But it was so damned
real
!” Eldin insisted. “A prophecy of some sort, I'm sure.”
Hero gazed long and hard at the other, detected no
note of humor or leg-pulling, finally narrowed his eyes. “That settles it,” he eventually said. “We'll have a drink tonight, by all means, before we meet up with the girls. But
not
in the
Craven Lobster
!”
“You think there's something in it, then?” Eldin was eager.
“No,” said Hero, “but I'm not about to take any chances with it either. I mean, why tempt fate, eh?”
Why, indeed?
 
 
In the deeps of the Southern Sea, full fathom five and still descending in lazy, undulating spirals, like some mindless, paperish flatfish, Kuranes' message was destined never to be read by mortal man or dreamer. Couched in his own crabbed script—in the clean glyphs of dreams, in which Hero and Eldin were both now fully versed—its legend was this:
Hero & Eldin—
Proceed
at once
to Baharna on the Isle of Oriab, and there seek out the seer with invisible eyes in the tavern of Lipperod Unth, which is called the
Craven Lobster.
Speak to the seer and hear him out, but DO NOTHING MORE until you have further instructions from me. To investigate his tale lacking possession of all the facts would almost certainly prove fatal!
Your employer,
Kuranes.
A fish, ogling by, glimpsed the feathery, slowly disintegrating scrap and perhaps thought it a flap of human skin or flake of flesh, or some other item of edible debris from above. It took an instinctive bite—tore off a
single word—and swallowed, found the paper not especially palatable, turned away in search of a more substantial meal.
Thus “Kuranes,” like Jonah in a different world and time, and on a slightly higher plane, was swallowed by a probably mythical fish. The only difference being that no one made any fuss about it.
Fancying belly-dancers (Eldin was a “jiggly-bits” addict), the questers made for Buxom Barba's
Quayside Quaress
on Wharf Street. Because of Bahama's precipitous aspect—its streets were piled almost vertically one upon the next, joined by steep alleyways climbing inexorably wearisome to more lofty and opulent suburbs—safe moorings for sky-ships were few and far between. Emphasis on “safe.” Around the lower squares and markets were ample posts where a boat might be anchored (tied fore and aft, so as not to swing about in a sudden gust and collide with other vessels), which was fine for craft with larger crews, when there would always be a man or men aboard. But dodgy to leave a boat like
Quester
trussed thus, for urchins would scamper up the lines to sample whatever goodies they might find in a small, deserted, obviously foreign boat.
For this and other reasons of security, the pair had moored their vessel within the bay, something less than a quarter mile out, to the mast of some old wreck where it projected slantingly from the sea. The unknown hulk was marked as a hazard with a buoy (bearing a notice
which read: “'WARE SCABFISH!”) bobbing over the scummy harbor water.
Scabfish were eel-like wreck-denizens with very antisocial habits; if a man should touch one a scab would develop at point of contact, only falling off when new, clean skin had formed beneath. No city brat was likely to come a-swimming here! Nor, for that matter, were David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer.
Since the wind was in their favor they'd gone ashore suspended beneath a spare flotation-bag, venting essence as they neared the wharves and so arriving in Bahama pristine and not a bit damp. And not a little thirsty, either. Leaving their deflating bag in the care of a net-mending pegleg, and paying him a tip nipped from one point of a triangular golden tond for his trouble, they'd headed for the
Quaress.
Alas!—closed, shut down: no colored lanthorns glimmering, though evening drew toward night, and no swirly music to announce the fact that the belly-dancers were at it. For in fact, they weren't. Disbelieving (What? Buxom Barba absent or remiss on a fine summer night like this, and the city aswarm with sightseers, sailors and other spenders—not to mention the odd quester or two?), Eldin rapped sharply on the carved, suddenly unfriendly-seeming door, yelled: “Wake up in there, Barba—the boys are here!”
“
One
boy, anyway,” Hero murmured, “and one elderly buffoon.” And louder: “Can't you see she's closed?”
“My heart's
set
on it!” Eldin insisted. “Naked navels all a-wobble!” And: “Ah!” as the door suddenly opened outward.
A sailor emerged, Celephaisian by his looks, wobbly at the knees and decidedly glazed of eye. He was propelled out into the street by an Amazon the questers
knew of old. Big and of gleamy bronze, but clad now for the street and not the stage, Zuli Bazooli—who danced with snakes and did other things—showed her teeth in a smile like a bar of light in the shadow of the silent tavern.
“Hero and Eldin!” she exclaimed, holding her sailor aloft by his collar, like a puppet. “So the tide's washed you two up again, eh?”
“Barba's late opening,” Eldin frowned, making to enter. Zuli blocked the way.
“Not tonight, my lads,” she declared, her voice almost as loud as the Wanderer's own. “With luck, tomorrow—but not tonight.”
“Explain!” cried Eldin, all visions of jiggly-bits receding. “Is Barba sick?”
Zuli shrugged, carefully locking the door behind her. “You might say that,” she said. “Ship out of Celephais, docked at noon. Six bow-legged lads came ashore, good drinking men all. They challenged Barba to a bout and she took 'em on. I've just put her to bed. We're shut.”
“What?” Hero was skeptical. “Buxom Barba beaten in boozing bout?”
“Sounds like a headline!” said Eldin.
“Took ‘em on one at a time,” said Zuli. “Fatal! As the first five dropped out in their turn, the girls dragged 'em off to spend their money. This one's the last, and he's mine. The Winner!”
“Not much of a winner,” growled Eldin. “If you let go of him he'll march straight off the wharfside!” The sailor grinned lopsidedly and did a half-suspended jig.
“You should see Barba!” Zuli declared. “Or maybe you shouldn't. Come round tomorrow. And till then, goodnight.” She made off, aiming her sailor before her.
“Damn!” said Eldin with feeling. “I was looking forward to a bit of belly-dancing.”
“So get on with it,” said Hero. “I'll take the collection.”
Eldin might have said something unkind, but Hero was already leading the way through a backstreet and across the teak-boarded skeleton of an ancient wharf. He headed for a boozer's backwater, one of Bahama's seedier haunts, built on century-old ironwood piles and threatening at any moment to slide into the bay. Only the likely lads came here, and hardened, salty old seadogs who thrived on sour wine. Underfoot, glinting like oil, black water slapped in wavelets and sent fish-stink sleazing through huge gaps in the ancient planking.
Eldin caught up with the younger man. “The
Craven Lobster
?” His eyes were wide in the encroaching gloom.
Hero glanced up and back at bustling, lanthorn-bobbing Bahama's healthier districts. “Whitby,” he mused, frowning.
“Eh?”
“A seaport in the waking world … I think,” Hero screwed up his eyes in an effort to catch the fleeting memory. “D'you know, this could almost be it?”
“I said,” Eldin sighed, “are we going to—”
“—the
Craven Lobster
, yes,” said Hero. “For four reasons. One: the
Quayside Quaress
is shut. And two: the town's overflowing with visitors and we'd never get near the bar in a decent place; not without climbing up to the more expensive levels, anyway. Three: we've an hour or two to kill before we meet the girls.”
“And four?” the Wanderer prompted.
“Because I hate mysteries,” Hero answered with a low growl. “You and your damned dreams within dreams! Come on …”
 
 
The
Craven Lobster
was something else. One hundred years ago fishermen had gutted and cleaned their catches there, and fifty years later it had been the property of a pearler, who'd kept his glass-bottomed boats under its protective planking and used the building itself as a sorting and polishing house. With the sea on three sides and a narrow-necked railed catwalk in front, certainly the place had been secure. It had a good roof, which was about as much as could now be said of it. The salt sea, a thousand heavy autumn fogs, time, and the elements had all taken their toll of the
Craven Lobster
; now its wooden walls leaned ominously and were timber-buttressed without. Inside, the bar consisted of a stout square framework in the center of one huge room, from which the proprietor, his wife and massive son could take in the entire place at a glance.
As for the booze; it wasn't good, but it certainly wasn't the worst. Selling it didn't quite constitute a criminal offense. The muth-dew was watered (not a bad idea) and the ales had ailed a bit; the wines were of no readily recognizable vintage, and the spirits all had the same salty tang to them. But on the other hand it was very cheap, and provided a man had a cast-iron stomach and all he wanted to do was drink, he could do it here for a week on one golden tond.
But the
Craven Lobster
's chief attractions, certainly in high season, were these: there was always room to sit and sup without tangling elbows; you didn't have to shout to make yourself heard; you wouldn't be bothered by ladies of the night or other bar-flies; and the proprietor, Lipperod (Lippy) Unth, demanded and maintained good order at all times. “Fight all you like,” was his motto, “and break whatever you like of what's your own. But break what's mine and you'll never know what hit you!”
Lippy wasn't called that because he liked talking—on the contrary, he was far more a man of action—nor did his nickname derive entirely from Lipperod. But when Lippy Unth was annoyed, then he pouted with his great black lips and thrust them out before him like a warning trumpet; and when Lippy looked like that—
The
Craven Lobster
did have a handful of “girls,” the very dregs of the city. No one bothered them much and they wouldn't notice anyway, for they were all of a kind: sunken into a sodden alcoholic mire, from which there'd be no return. They would in the end drink themselves to death. While Hero and Eldin pitied them, on occasion they'd remarked how they would rather snuggle up to a school of scabfish. Now and then a sailor would get senseless drunk and go off with one of them, for which all the gods of dream help him!
The rest of the
Craven Lobster
's clientele: hard men, loners, the occasional Kledan slaver, sea-captains from unknown parts on the lookout for a crewman to shanghai, other seadogs and peglegs and retired pirates gathered to tell their tall tales, which got taller with each telling. And now and then a pair of questers.
Like now, for instance.
Hero held open the door on its spring-loaded hinges, waited while Eldin wrinkled his nose and sniffed suspiciously on the threshold. Then the Wanderer pretended to reel from the vapors and perfumed smoke and writhing reek of the place, and leaning against this supposed exhalation as against a strong wind made his way to the bar. Following in Eldin's wake, Hero tut-tutted at his dramatics. It wasn't
that
bad.
“Ho, Lippy!” Eldin rumbled, thumping his elbows down on the bar.
Hero drew up alongside the Wanderer and gazed at Lippy's huge ebony features. In the frame of his memory
a picture formed, in which Lippy's mouth moved and spoke the words: “Of all the gin-joints in all the towns in all the world, you two had to walk—” But the vision was shattered when the real-life Lippy said:
“Ho, Wanderer!” The Pargan proprietor nodded. “You, too, Hero. Long time …” That was their welcome, and never a smile. Then, straight to business: “Eldin, we've a couple of Kledan slavers in tonight. Last time you were here—”
“No trouble tonight!” Eldin held up a flat hand. “My word on it.”
“I had to have the wall shored up where you tossed that one through it into the sea.”
“But I didn't start it.”
“That's true, else you'd have followed him. Very well, what's your poison?”
“Ales,” said Hero. “Small ones. We've things to do later and I for one don't want a fuddled head.” They paid for their drinks, sipped, gazed around the smoky interior. Lippy moved away to tend to someone else, and:
“Well?” said Hero. “D'you see him?”
“Eh?”
“The seer with invisible eyes, of course—or is the rest of him equally insubstantial?”
Eldin narrowed his eyes to a penetrating peer, began to sweep the room with his gaze. “Maybe he's not—” he started, and froze.
“And maybe he is,” Hero nodded sourly, following Eldin's rapt gaze. “Is that him?”
For answer, the Wanderer slowly nodded.
The seer with invisible eyes didn't look like much. He sat on a bench, his back toward an open window in the rear wall (a wall of thin wooden boards, which showed signs of recent repair), and huddled over a mug
of muth. He seemed skeletal inside a bundle of rags with the hood pulled up, throwing his face into shadow; the only visible parts of him were his scrawny wrists and clawlike hands, which protruded from his tattered sleeves and circled the mug on the wooden table before him. He seemed oblivious of the fact that no one sat very close to him, oblivious of all else, too; but, as Hero and Eldin stared, the figure lifted a bony hand and crooked a finger in their direction. And: “Come,” that finger undeniably beckoned, pulling on their strings.
No one else had noticed; Hero and Eldin shoved off from the bar and moved toward the seer. As they went Hero muttered: “He's on the dew, eh?”
“All he ever drinks,” Eldin rumblingly returned.
Hero nodded. “No wonder his eyes have vanished!” he said.
“Sit,” the seer sighed, still without looking up, as they reached his table. His voice was a rustle of dead leaves. “I've been waiting for you.”
The questers stared at each other in astonishment. “Sit!” hissed the seer. “Don't be so obvious! Pretend you don't know me, as I'll
gladly
pretend I don't know you!”
“Little shrivelled friend,” said Hero out the corner of his mouth as he sat to one side of the seer, “I really
don't
know you!”
“But
I
do,” Eldin growled. “So what's all this with the secrecy bit, eh?”
“Careful!” the seer now looked up a little, the shadows falling away from his face. “We have enemies here!”

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