Onward, Drake! - eARC Read online

  Table of Contents

  INTRODUCTION: It’s About Time

  The Great Wizard, Cabbage

  Incubator

  A Flat Affect

  SUM

  David Drake

  The Crate Warrior, the Doppelgänger, and the Idea Woman

  Working with Dave, or, Inmates in Bellevue

  Hell Hounds

  Technical Advantage

  Saracens

  The One That Got Away

  Appreciating Dave

  Swimming from Joe

  The Village of Yesteryear

  The Trouble with Telepaths

  A Cog In Time

  All That’s Left

  The Losing Side

  Save What You Can

  ONWARD, DRAKE! - eARC

  Edited by

  Mark L. Van Name

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  TOP AUTHORS PAY TRIBUTE TO A MASTER. David Drake has left an indelible mark on the science fiction and fantasy genres. He is considered the Grand Master of Military Science Fiction. Now, top authors in the field pay tribute to the man and his work in this all-new collection of stories and essays.

  David Drake has left an indelible mark on the science fiction and fantasy genres. Now, top authors in the science fiction and fantasy field pay tribute to the man and his work in this all-new collection of stories and essays.

  Best-selling author David Drake has been creating topnotch military science fiction, space opera, and fantasy novels and stories for decades. In this all-original collection that appears as Drake is a Special Guest of the 2015 World Fantasy Convention, a stellar line-up of writers pays tribute to Drake with stories as broad in range as his own fiction. Each one comes with an illuminating afterword explaining the connection of the story to Drake and his work.

  In Eric Flint’s “A Flat Affect” a king is no match for a pair of storytellers

  Gene Wolfe takes us to a strange and wondrous future in “Incubator”

  Larry Correia examines what it’s like to face Hammer’s Slammers from “The Losing Side”

  S.M. Stirling offers an insider’s view of “Working with Dave, or, Inmates in Bellevue”

  Mur Lafferty shows what happens when a fairy visitor receives an unexpected welcome in “The Crate Warrior, the Doppelganger, and the Idea Woman”

  The book also features two new pieces from Drake himself: “The Great Wizard, Cabbage,” a comic historical fantasy, and “Save What You Can,” the first new Hammer’s Slammers story in nearly a decade!

  With more stories from editor Mark L. Van Name, Cecelia Holland, T.C. McCarthy, Barry N. Malzberg, Sarah Hoyt, Tony Daniel, John Lambshead, Hank Davis, Eric S. Brown, and Sarah Van Name, as well as appreciations from Baen Publisher Toni Weisskopf and Tor founder and Publisher Tom Doherty, Onward, Drake! is a collection that fans of Drake’s fiction—and anyone who enjoys a good story—will not want to miss!

  ONWARD, DRAKE!

  This work contains fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in the short fiction within this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. All stories are copyright 2015 by their respective authors. All nonfiction essays are copyright 2015 by their respective authors.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4767-8096-2

  Cover art by Donato Giancola

  Photo portrait of David Drake by Karen Zimmerman

  First Baen printing, October 2015

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: TK

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Dave, of course.

  Yes, you deserve it. Don’t argue with me.

  INTRODUCTION: It’s About Time

  Mark L. Van Name

  A few weeks before this book appears, David Drake will have turned 70. A few weeks after this book hits store shelves, he will be a special guest of the World Fantasy Convention 2015 in Saratoga Springs, NY. These two occasions led me to propose this Festschrift to the immediately receptive Baen Publisher, Toni Weisskopf, but they served only as triggers. The true reason for this book’s existence is simpler: it’s about time we did it.

  Dave is a friend of mine, a good friend, so you could argue that I’m biased, and I am, but that’s irrelevant. Dave’s accomplishments speak for themselves: dozens of books, over a hundred short stories, I don’t even know how many essays—the man has been writing tirelessly and prolifically for almost fifty years. His first professional sale, the short story “Denkirch”, appeared in 1967. Over the course of those decades, he’s written horror, SF, and fantasy; dark tales and (often darkly) humorous ones; and he’s still doing it. His pace has not slowed.

  Dave has also influenced more writers than I can name. In this volume, fourteen of us pay him tribute in the way he would most appreciate: by writing. Both of his U.S. publishers add their voices.

  Fittingly, Dave outworked us all: he contributed two original stories to this collection, one of them the first new Hammer’s Slammers story in nearly a decade, and they are the two longest pieces here.

  The work is what matters, Dave would tell us, and I agree with him, so read on for a wonderful collection of original stories and essays in celebration of David Drake.

  The Great Wizard, Cabbage

  David Drake

  Caulis—Cabbage—sat in the corner of the shop as Berenice, the bronzesmith’s widow, said, “I want you to magic them to death, Hesperus. I want you to melt the flesh off their bones! I want that faithless Tychos to scream for mercy, scream! And as for that slut Murmilla, well—”

  Berenice went on at length as Cabbage listened, bug-eyed with astonishment. He’d heard angry women before—Ma had been pretty much furious all the twelve years of his life—but this was something special. He’d always thought the widow was one of the nicest people living here near the Viminal Gate, but it was hard to remember that now.

  Personally Cabbage thought that Berenice was well shut of Tychos, a big fellow with strong arms and a black heart. Tychos knocked people around for no other reason than that they were in reach. As for Murmilla, well, she had a nasty tongue even when she was sober and that was no oftener than she could help.

  Murmilla sure was pretty, though. And Tychos probably wasn’t looking for somebody to talk to.

  Berenice paused to take another breath.

  “Peace, my good woman,” Uncle Hesperus—the Wizard Hesperus—said. His voice was hoarse. He’d had a cold all the past week; they’d got rained on bad while they were hiking from Naples to Rome after Ma had died.

  Even so, uncle made sure to pronounce the words clearly to show that he was educated. He’d explained that to Cabbage on the way to Rome: people could always tell real culture.

  Hesperus raised his wand; maybe a little higher than he should have, because that showed where the moths had been at the armpit of his robe. Still, Berenice might not be able to see the holes from her angle, and anyway the light was bad. The shop was in a side-alley off Patrician Street. Even on a bright day things were pretty dim down here, and it had been looking like rain all this morning.

  Hesperus stared at the wand and frowned. He told people that the wood was from a sacred oak in the Grove of Dodona. Cabbage thought that his uncle had trimmed it from a twig of the dead olive tree behind Ma’s house, but he guessed that he was remembering w
rong. Cabbage was used to being told he was wrong about things.

  Maybe because uncle was thinking about Ma too, he took her skull off the shelf and held it in his other hand. “Mistress Berenice, I know that you are a god-fearing woman. Therefore you will understand when I tell you that it would offend against the plans of the immortal gods if mere humans took action against Tychos and Murmilla.”

  “What are you telling me?” Berenice said, though it’d seemed simple enough to Cabbage. He probably didn’t understand. “Are you saying you aren’t going to help me? Look, I been decent to you since you moved in, haven’t I? I even told Priscus the bailiff to trust you the first month’s rent because anyhow, he couldn’t find a tenant for this hole.”

  “It’s not me, good lady,” Hesperus said, kind of waving the wand and Ma’s skull in front of him like he hoped the widow would look at them instead of him. Cabbage didn’t blame him. Boy, Berenice’d been mad before about Tychos and Murmilla, but she was looking now like she was about to catch fire. “It’s the gods, you see—”

  “I see a lot of hooie!” Berenice said. “You been taking it in trade from Murmilla, is that it? You men, you’re all lying pigs!”

  She reached out then like she was going to pinch uncle’s nose. He jumped back and the wicker basket caught him behind the knees. He sat down on it.

  The basket was where uncle kept his books of magic. Book, really, but it honest to Isis was a written book. Cabbage couldn’t read anything, but uncle said this book was so magic that even he didn’t know what language it was wrote in.

  “I give up!” Berenice said as she stomped out of the shop. She’d have banged the door, but there wasn’t one. Hesperus hung his older tunic in the doorway for a curtain at night. “There’s no justice and nobody to protect a poor widow!”

  Cabbage watched her go. A long line of curses dribbled back through the door after her.

  Berenice was a widow all right, but she was about as rich as anybody on this end of Patrician Street. As for justice, Cabbage didn’t know what that meant, but he was pretty sure that it was something he and uncle couldn’t afford. They couldn’t afford much of anything, if it came to that.

  Hesperus stayed sitting for a bit, looking toward the doorway like he thought Berenice was going to come back in and really tear a strip off him this time. Cabbage kept where he was in the corner, because that seemed likely enough to him too.

  After a little bit, he said, “You’re really smart, Uncle Hesperus.”

  Hesperus got up carefully and put Ma’s skull back on the shelf. “What possible reason would you have for saying that, boy?” he said in a tired voice.

  “Well, because you know what the gods are planning for Tychos and Murmilla,” Cabbage said. “I mean, if it was the emperor, that’s different, he’s important. But, they’re just a couple dried peas for all they give themselves airs. I’ll bet there’s not another magician in Rome who would’ve known what the gods had up for them.”

  “Cabbage, child, you are very stupid,” Hesperus said. He sounded more weary than he had three days ago. That was after they’d walked to Rome and finally found this shop to rent. “I, however, am even more stupid, because I refuse to take money for a charm of evil purpose. Even though the charm would be a sham, just like everything else in my life.”

  “I don’t understand, uncle,” Cabbage said, frowning.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do, boy,” Hesperus said. “I don’t understand myself, so why should you?”

  He sighed and said, “Light the lamp, Cabbage. Perhaps someone needing a love charm will notice the doorway. I suppose a real love charm could do as much harm as the curse Berenice wanted, but the intention is good . . . and anyway, I don’t need to worry about doing any real magic.”

  “There isn’t much oil left, Uncle Hesperus,” Cabbage said, fetching the ladder from the narrow sleeping loft over the back end of the shop.

  “I’m sure there isn’t much oil,” Hesperus said without looking up. “And then there’s the question of supper. But for now, light the lamp.”

  Cabbage set the ladder against the sidewall where he could lean out and lift the lamp off the hook it hung from. He climbed three rungs and had just got his hands on the lamp when the ladder’s left stringer cracked. Everything came down. Cabbage pitched outward, the ladder bounced off the back wall where he’d kicked it, and the lamp dropped straight onto the stone floor.

  The terracotta lamp shattered like you’d expect, as hard as the stone was. Cabbage slept on the floor since there wasn’t room for two in the loft, and he knew how hard it was.

  “Oops,” Cabbage said, picking himself up. He’d landed on Hesperus, so he wasn’t badly banged up. “I slipped.”

  “I noticed,” said Hesperus, getting up also. The right sleeve of his robe wasn’t attached any more, but he seemed to be in all-right shape himself.

  He turned toward Cabbage. The light was so bad that Cabbage couldn’t tell much about his uncle’s expression, but it really didn’t seem like he had one; just blank like a chalk drawing.

  “Cabbage,” uncle said quietly. “I am considering calling down lightnings from heaven to blast you to ash. That would be undutiful to the shades of my late sister, your mother, however. Instead, why don’t you see if you can get a lamp from Meiotes the Potter. A cracked one, or maybe one missing the spout? I’ll pay him as soon as a few coppers come in.”

  “Yes, uncle,” Cabbage said. “I’m glad you didn’t blast me to ash.”

  “I’m sure I will be glad some day too, Cabbage,” Uncle Hesperus said in that same dead voice. Cabbage scooted out of the shop, just in case he changed his mind.

  As Cabbage stepped into the alley, a big lizard which must’ve been running down Patrician Street rounded the corner. It gripped the brickwork with its two right legs and sprang straight at Cabbage, hitting him in the chest. He went over backwards.

  “Save me!” the lizard croaked. “He’s going to kill me!”

  “Now, calm down,” Cabbage said, because it seemed like the right thing to say. He’d never talked to a lizard before. This one didn’t weigh a lot, but it must be as long as Cabbage’s five-foot height if you counted the tail it was whipping around. “Come inside and I’ll introduce you to my uncle. He’ll know what to do.”

  Cabbage got up carefully. The lizard wouldn’t let go, but it wasn’t digging its claws in. He cradled it under the back legs so that it wouldn’t change its mind about what it ought to be doing with those claws.

  “Uncle?” he said as he stepped down into the shop again. “This lizard says somebody’s trying to kill him.”

  “What?” said Hesperus. “What in the names of all the gods have you done, Cabbage?”

  “Her,” said the lizard. “They’re trying to kill her. My name’s Zoe.”

  “Her name’s Zoe,” Cabbage repeated. He didn’t think he’d done anything, but he thought he ought to say something when uncle asked him a question.

  “Whose name is Zoe?” said Hesperus. “And where did you get that lizard? It’s huge!”

  “She’s pretty big, isn’t she?” Cabbage said. He’d never had anything to be proud about before. “She just came down the street. And told me her name was Zoe.”

  “Look, I don’t mind mumming for Atlas,” the lizard said. Her breath smelled of onions. “I draw the line at having my throat cut to make his spell work, though!”

  Somebody stepped into the doorway behind Cabbage and blocked most of the light from the alley. Cabbage turned and saw a tall man wearing a shiny black cape and holding a twisty ivory cane. He looked into the shop. Cabbage couldn’t see the stranger’s eyes, but he thought he felt them flick over him.

  “There!” the stranger said. “You have my familiar. Return him to me at once.”

  “Save me!” Zoe said, launching herself out of Cabbage’s arm. Her hind claws slashed like so many needles, but mostly she kicked off from the rope that served him for a belt and that held fine.

  The lizard scram
bled right up the back wall, heading for the sleeping loft even without the ladder. The stranger pointed his ivory cane—and it had quite a point, more like a spear than a usual cane, and shouted, “Anoch anoch katabreimo!”

  A blue spark popped from the tip of the ivory wand. The lizard froze and toppled back.

  “Zoe!” Cabbage shouted. He tried to catch her as she fell, but his feet got tangled. At least he managed not to fall on top of her. He grabbed the lizard and stood up.

  “You’re a real magician!” Hesperus said.

  “I am Gaius Julius Atlas!” said the stranger. “I am the greatest wizard of all time!”

  He reached over Cabbage’s shoulder with his left hand and took Zoe by the neck. Cabbage tried to hang on, but the stranger—Atlas—just kept pulling, and that wasn’t going to help Zoe.

  “I brought this familiar from the Western Isles through my great power,” Atlas said. He sure had the business of sounding cultured down pat; Uncle Hesperus could take lessons from him. “It escaped a moment ago when I have particular need of it. You will have a silver piece for catching it for me.”

  “Uncle, you can’t let him take Zoe!” Cabbage said.

  Hesperus seized Cabbage by the shoulder with one hand and put the other over his mouth. “Hush, boy!” he hissed. “Of course Lord Atlas may take his own property!”