my throat.'
'Oh,' Mc9's companion said, and looked suddenly
wary and doubtful.He glanced over the front of the
cart, past the snoring driver and the toiling beast
pulling them, and saw the City, still just a distant
shimmer at the end of the Road's bleached ribbon
of bone. 'OK,' he sighed.
He handed the wineskin to Mc9, who guzzled
about half of what was left before the squealing,
protesting companion succeeded in tearing it from
his grasp, spilling most of the remainder over the
two of them and squirting a jet of the liquid
spattering over the neck of the snoring driver, and
on out as far as the head of the horse-like animal
(which lapped appreciatively at the drops spilling
down its sweat-matted face).
The decrepit driver woke with a start and looked
around wildly, rubbing his damp neck, waving his
frayed whip and apparently fully expecting to have
to repel robbers, cut-throats and villains.
Mc9 and his companion grinned sheepishly at him
when he turned to look down at them.He scowled,
dried his neck with a rag, then turned round and
relapsed into his slumber.
'Thanks,' Mc9 told his companion.He wiped his
face and sucked at one of the fresh wine stains on
his shirt.
The companion took a careful, dainty sip of wine,
then twisted the stopper firmly back into the gut
and placed it behind his neck as he lay back.Mc9
belched, yawned.
'Yes,' his companion said earnestly. 'Tell I a
story.Me would love to hear a story.Tell I a story
of love and hate and death and tragedy and comedy
and horror and joy and sarcasm, tell I about great
deeds and tiny deeds and valiant people and hill
people and huge giants and dwarfs, tell I about
brave women and beautiful men and great
sorcerorcerors and about unenchanted swords and
strange, archaic powers and horrible, sort of
ghastly things that, uhm shouldn't be living, and
ahm, funny diseases and general mishaps.Yeah, me
like.Tell I.Me want.'
Mc9 was falling asleep again, having had not the
slightest intention of telling his companion a story
in the first place.The companion prodded him in
the back.
'Hey!' He prodded harder. 'Hey!The story!No go to
sleep!What about the story?'
'Fornicate the story,' Mc9 said sleepily, not
opening his eyes.
'WAA!' the companion said.The carter woke up,
turned round and clipped him across the ear.The
companion went quiet and sat there, rubbing the
side of his head.He prodded Mc9 again and
whispered, 'You said you'd tell me a story!'
'Oh, read a book,' mumbled Mc9, snuggling into the
straw.
The small companion made a hissing noise and sat
back, his lips tight and his little hands clenched
under his armpits.He glared at the Road stretching
back to the wavering horizon.
After a while, the companion shrugged, reached
under the wineskin for his satchel and took out a
small, fat black book.He prodded Mc9 once more.
'All we've got is this Bible,' he told him. 'What bit
should me read?'
'Just open it at random,' Mc9 mumbled from his
sleep.
The companion opened the Bible at Random,
Chapter Six, and read:
'Yeah yeah yeah, verily I say unto you:Forget not
that there are two sides to every story: a right side and a wrong side.'
The companion shook his head and threw the book
over the side of the cart.
The road went ever on.The carter snuffled and
snored, the sweating nag panted and struggled,
while Mc9 smiled in his sleep and moaned a
little.His companion passed the time by squeezing
blackheads from his nose, and then replacing them.
they had stopped at the ford through the shady
brook, where the milkmaids were eventually
persuaded to come for a swim, dressed only in
their thin, clinging
Actually, the horse-like beast pulling the cart was
the famous poet-scribe Abrusci from the planet
Wellit-isn'tmarkedon my chartlieutenant, and she
could have told the bored companion any number
of fascinating stories from the times before the
Empire's Pacification and Liberation of her
homeworld.
She could also have told them that the City was
moving away from them across the moor as fast as
they moved towards it, trundling across the endless
heath on its millions of giant wheels as the
continuous supply of vanquished Enemies of the
Empire provided more trophies to be cemented
into place on the famous Road of Skulls
But that, like they say, is another story.
A Gift from the Culture
Money is a sign of poverty.This is an old Culture
saying I remember every now and again, especially
when I'm being tempted to do something I know I
shouldn't, and there's money involved (when is
there not?).
I looked at the gun, lying small and precise in
Cruizell's broad, scarred hand, and the first thing I
thought - after:Where the hell did they get one of
those? - was:Money is a sign of poverty.However