26 Ilbrin 941
There are guests and there are prisoners, and, very rarely, persons whose status in a house is so unusual that no one can assign them a category. Among the latter was an aging man with a bald, veined head and broad shoulders on the Island of Simja. For three months he had been a secret resident in the North Tower of Simjalla Palace, in a comfortable round room with translucent glass over the window and a fire always crackling in the hearth.
Making his case even more unusual was the fact that his presence, his very existence, was known to just three people on earth. One was his middle-aged nurse, who was quiet and attentive and rubbed brysorwood oil into his leathery heels. The other was a doctor who commended him for his habit of daily calisthenics. The third was King Oshiram, monarch of Simja. The nurse did not have a name for her silent patient. Only the men were aware that he was Thasha’s father, Admiral Eberzam Isiq.
It was barely a fortnight since he had recovered his name. It had been cooked out of him during his seven weeks underground, along with most of his memory, all of his pride. Like bricksteak, that detested navy product he’d choked down for decades, salt beef dried in the ovens against the weevils and the damp, food you had to attack with a chisel. After a week submerged in brine it might soften, might absorb something again-or it might not. So it was with the admiral. He had literally been pulled from an oven. From a kiln in a forgotten dungeon under Simjalla, where he had barricaded himself against the monster rats.
He was a stout old veteran, well muscled and formidable even in scarlet pajamas, his new uniform, worn as unself-consciously as battle fatigues. He stared for hours at his slippers, or his bed. He had survived not only the rats but the agony of deathsmoke, from which addiction the doctor was trying to help him break free.
Insidious doesn’t begin to describe it, the physician had told the King. It’s in his blood, his urine, even his sweat. He should have all the visible signs: nosebleeds, wheezing, numb fingertips. He suffers none of these, though his internal pain is classic deathsmoke. She didn’t want him guessing-not him or anyone else. But the only way to avoid those telltale signs is to increase a victim’s exposure to the drug very slowly-terribly slowly, Your Highness. The one who did this to him had the patience of a fiend.
For the doctor, Isiq was a return to form: as a medical student he had worked with veterans of the Second Sea War. For years now he had been the King’s own physician, and knew the monarch trusted him. He did not have a relationship of fear with the King, who was almost young enough to be his son. But he had seen the absolute warning in Oshiram’s eyes when the monarch swore him to secrecy.
“Not a whisper, not a glance, not a cough, do you hear me? They will kill him. I’m not telling you to deny that you’re caring for a patient in the North Tower. I’m telling you never to need to deny it. These people are masters of their trade. Imperial masters, Arquali masters. Beside them our own spies are imbeciles. They had a bunker inside our walls, under the Mirkitj ruins, and we didn’t suspect a thing. You must try not even to think of him, except when you’ve stepped into his chamber and barred the door.”
The doctor frowned and trembled, but he was no less thorough for his fear. The bloodroot tea he prescribed soothed Isiq’s craving for deathsmoke, if only a little. The fresh greens and goat’s milk brought color to his skin.
But memory proved less willing to return. They had given him a mirror; Isiq had turned it to the wall. After he regained his name he had reached for it again, but the moment his fingers touched the frame he felt a warning shock. The face he saw there might be too full of accusation, too aware.
The little tailor bird urged him to be patient. “Months of winter before us yet, friend Isiq. There’s no cause to worry, or to rush. You humans live so blary long.”
He was a woken bird, of course, and small enough to flit through the eye-level hole in the translucent glass of the window. The King had left this tiny aperture so that Isiq might look down upon the palace grounds: the marble amphitheater, the red leaves swirling on the frog pond, the play of shadows in the Ancestors’ Grove. The bird’s mate was not woken, and this weighed on his heart. Three clutches of eggs they’d raised, across three years, and not one of the chicks had sparked into thinking before they had fledged and flown away. “I know the odds, more or less,” he told Isiq, pecking primly at the crumbs of soda bread the admiral saved for him each morning. “But the truth is, Isiq, that I’m scouting the city. And even beyond it, in the pastureland, although the hawks hunt there. She’s very good, my little pale-throat, very quick and devoted. But if a woken bird came along I don’t know what I’d do.”
At that he beat his wings suddenly and hard. “I hate myself! I’m a rogue! But telling you makes it all bearable, somehow. I’d trust you with my life, Isiq.”
The admiral touched the side of the bird’s sleek head. “Secrets,” he mumbled. In his delight the bird scattered all the crumbs to the floor. It was only the third time Isiq had spoken since his arrival at the palace.
Isiq knew that his own debt of gratitude was far larger than the bird’s. The tiny creature did not know it, but he had talked him out of his nightmares, chirped and chattered away the rats. Isiq no longer felt them clawing the edges of his blankets, nor heard them gnawing at the door. He longed with all his heart to talk to the bird, and to the King, when the monarch had time for a visit. But his mind still froze, seizing up in a horrid blankness, and the words, like slabs of ice jamming a river, refused to flow.
So modest, his victories. When he had spoken the previous time only the nurse had been with him. He had stared at her and suddenly barked, “Puppets!” She had almost screamed, then covered her mouth in terror. She too had been warned to draw no attention to the room.
“Puppets, sir?” she whispered, aghast.
Isiq nodded, hands in fists, mouth working, facial muscles tight with strain. “All of you,” he managed to wheeze, “the little people, just puppets, you’ll see.”
It was a measure of her kindness that she took no offense.
That was last week. And the first time he had spoken? That had been when Syrarys came back into his mind. Syrarys, his betrayer, his poisoner-even his property, for a year, when the Emperor forced him to accept her as a slave. Appalling to be one of the few men left in Etherhorde to own another human being. A hideous secret, one he prayed would never become known to the bird. Like the fact that his grandfather had survived being stranded in the Tsordons with a broken leg by eating the bodies of his fallen comrades, ambushed and slaughtered by the Mzithrinis. A little thigh-meat each day for four weeks, until the snows melted and a mountain patrol found him, all but frozen beside his dying cookfire.
How he had worshipped her: Syrarys, his legal consort, more arousing when she yawned or coughed than Thasha’s mother had been at the height of lovemaking; Syrarys, the only woman whose touch had ever made him weep for joy, though from the first night (her kisses a slave’s kisses, her moans of ecstasy indistinguishable from pain) a part of him had suspected that this joy was on loan from devils, and their rate of interest well beyond his means.
She had leaped back into his memory because of a laugh. King Oshiram had taken a new lover, a dancer rescued from some brothel in Ballytween, he’d said. Terribly shy and unearthly beautiful: she was the reason the King now visited him so seldom. The palace was large, and this girl apparently had the run of much of it-though not, of course, the North Tower. Yet one of the king’s favorite chambers was just two floors below, and one day he had brought her there, and Isiq had heard her laugh. It had shocked him from months of silence. He had started to his feet and said one word: “Syrarys.” For it was her laughter. How astonishing to hear it again!
Of course it would be anything but wonderful if it were really Syrarys. For despite all the emptiness that remained inside him, despite the lust that accompanied the laugh, Isiq suddenly knew: it was Syrarys who had done it, fed him deathsmoke, conspired with his torturers, wanted him dead.
Fortunately (yes, fortunately; he must keep that clear) Syrarys was the one who had died. But this girl’s laugh! Identical, identical. From that day he had listened for it constantly, moving as little as possible lest by making some slight sound he should miss her. Now and then he would kneel and place his ear against the floor.
On his next visit the King spoke of the girl in a state approaching delirium. He wished he could make her queen, though his eventual bride was already chosen. He remarked on how intelligent she was “in her quiet, listening way.” He was jealous of every man in the castle, he said. Jealous and fearful. Above all he wanted to keep her safe.
One day life changed for the tailor bird. It had befriended a street dog, it told Isiq. A scrappy, short-legged creature, also woken, who slept on a pile of sacks behind the milliner, and begged scraps from the Ulluprid cooks in the tavern across the alley. The dog was sociable and self-assured, though he would not speak to just anyone. Indeed he had a strict policy, or as he put it “a survival plan.” He spoke to humans only in the farthest reaches of the capital, very far from his alley.
“And never in groups. And always at a distance, and with a clear escape path. I don’t fancy slavery, getting nabbed and flogged to some traveling carnival, doing tricks or telling fortunes for the rest of my days. You can’t be too careful, bird. Just be glad you have wings.”
For all that, the dog was a bit of a gossip, and even more of an eavesdropper. When the mutated rats stormed the city, a number of animals had revealed themselves as woken, screaming for help or howling prayers as the monsters attacked. Some had been killed, others befriended; many had counted on the inability of humans to tell them apart from their unwoken kin (one crow or alley cat looking much like another) and later blended back into their old, hidden patterns of life.
“But the dog and I mean to find our woken kin, Isiq,” said the bird. “Who knows how many there are? Twenty? Fifty? We can help one another, learn from one another. The dog has thought it all through.”
“C-care-” Isiq squeezed out, with tremendous effort.
“Careful? Oh, we will be, that I promise. And I’ll never abandon you, my friend, nor mention you to a soul, human or animal. Oshiram’s terribly good to you, and he must have his reasons for keeping you hidden, though what they are I can’t begin to guess.”
“Ott.”
“Ought what? Ought to release you? Do you mean he’s holding you a prisoner?”
Isiq shook his head. Ott was a who, not a what. A dangerous, a deadly who. Isiq could summon the face (damaged eye, vile grin) though he could recall nothing specific about the man. He is far away, thought the admiral suddenly. But that did not mean, somehow, that he could not strike.
Weeks passed. Sometimes the bird was crestfallen: he had sat on a temple roof and dared to shriek out words in the Simjan tongue, then watched the blackbirds and wrens that flitted from district to district, tree to tree, not one showing the least sign of understanding. But the next day he might be overjoyed, and come to the admiral with tales of some new friendship, or dreams of a future life, when animals and humans no longer had anything to fear from one another, and lived in peace.
One day he and the dog had made the acquaintance of a fenneg, one of the giant flightless birds of Simja, ridden by couriers and constables throughout the bustling city. The fenneg had been aware of them for some time, but it was only now that he summoned the courage to speak. In their first conversation the fenneg shared a secret: he had recently made a delivery to the house of a witch.
She was a dark-haired woman from the mainland who lived alone near the East Gate. She had winked at the fenneg in a strangely knowing way, and told the rider that his bird looked unusually clever. The rider was taken aback: he knew the fenneg was woken, but never spoke of it to a soul for fear that someone might take his steed away.
“The dog and I are going to have a look at this witch,” said the tailor bird said to Isiq. The admiral nodded: that was a fine idea. A few days later the bird had much more to tell.
Her house had a private courtyard and a dilapidated barn. She had spotted the bird watching her from the barn’s upper window, and known him for woken at a glance. When the dog padded casually by the courtyard gate, she had glanced up sharply and laughed: “This is turning into a tavern. Well, come in, you filthy thing, your friend’s already here.”
The dog did not come in that day-his survival plan forbade such a move. But the courtyard had two gates, and the woman began leaving them ajar, and also pointed out a hole at ground level at the back of the crumbling barn: yet a third means of escape. She set out a plate of dry corn for the bird and saved soup bones for the dog. By week’s end they had both concluded that she meant no harm.
“She tells us we’re welcome anytime,” the bird reported to Isiq.
“Happy,” he replied, meaning that for the bird’s sake, he was.
“No,” said the bird, “I don’t believe she’s very happy. She talks frequently of war. She waves a hand over the city and says we should expect to see it burn. Don’t misunderstand: she’s not raving; in fact she’s quite presentable-attractive even, when she combs her hair. And she has a pretty name, too: Suthinia.”
Isiq held the name in his mouth: Suthinia. It glimmered ever so slightly, in the darkness where his mind could not go.
“I’d started to doubt she was a witch at all,” the bird continued, “but not after what the dog told me last night. He’d been to see her the day before: I was with my dumb darling, telling stories, weaving twigs. Do you know what he saw that woman do, Isiq? Put her hand through a wall! Right through! Not her fist, not with violence. She simply reached through the solid brick wall beside her mantelpiece and brought out a vial of smoke.”
Isiq raised an eyebrow. “Smoke.”
“Very good, Isiq! Smoke it was: a pale blue smoke that shone with a faint light, and swirled like liquid in the glass. A moment later she brought out another, and this smoke was red. The dog asked her what they might be. ‘Dream-essence,’ she said. ‘The purest nectar of intelligence, formed in the soul before a dream begins. When the dream breaks it leaves us forever, and empties into that dark flood called the River of Shadows. But if you extract it at that precise moment, before the dream, you have a connection to the dreamer’s mind. You can look into the smoke and see his dream, on that night or any other. And should you have the skill you can give him new dreams, specific dreams, the dreams you choose. There are few in Alifros with that skill, but I am one.’
“ ‘Whose dream-essence do you have there?’ the dog asked, starting to be frightened of her again.
“ ‘My children’s,’ said the woman. ‘Long years ago, I took it. I did not harm them in the taking, but I harmed them in other ways.’ She was somber and quiet for a moment, then held up a vial in each hand. ‘These are the only possessions I care for in all the world. I live in fear of their loss, and have never dared to give my children dreams, lest I make the existence of these vials known to our enemies. They can sniff out magic, even better than you can sniff out a meal. But I cannot wait any longer.’
“She asked the dog to lie in the courtyard and bark if anyone drew near. He did so, and heard her whispering within. At one point his curiosity overpowered him, though, so he put his paws up on the windowsill and gazed into the room. The woman was holding the red vial against her cheek. She caressed it, moved it to the other cheek, then closed her eyes and breathed on the glass. Then she set it on the table and knelt as if to pray.
“The dog saw nothing else at first. Then the smoke seemed to pass right through the vial, just as the woman’s hand had passed through the wall. It formed a cloud over the table, and within it the dog saw a boy in a coffin-alive, you understand, and battling to escape. The dog was so appalled that he turned away, and lay shivering in the bright sun of the courtyard, until the woman came and told him he could go.”
The next morning the King swept into the chamber, with gifts of walnuts and macaroons.
“Your Highness,” said Isiq. At the sound of Isiq’s voice the King put down the gifts and seized his arms.
“Splendid, man, splendid! Try something else!”
Isiq smiled, squirmed, cleared his throat.
“Come on, nothing long-winded. What would you like for breakfast?”
“Your woman.”
“Eh?”
Isiq’s mouth worked, and he made a beckoning gesture with both hands. After a moment the King’s face relaxed into a smile. He had become quite good at interpreting the admiral.
“Bring her here, to meet you? What a funny idea. She’d do you a world of good, too, with her gentle ways. But you know it can’t happen, Admiral. I’ve explained all that to you.”
Isiq tilted his head. There was a question in his eyes.
“Oh, I trust her,” said the King. “More than I reasonably should. I’d put a dagger in her hands and sleep like a babe, with her beside me, if you care to know. Yes, I’d even trust her with the secret of you. But why burden her? She’s had a hard life already. This is her refuge, now, just as it’s yours. When both of you have healed a little more, then we’ll see.”
He clapped Isiq on the shoulder. “You’re talking. That’s exquisite progress, and quite enough for today.”
Isiq’s expression was thoughtful, as though he might venture to disagree. Oshiram looked encouraged by the alertness in the face before him.
“It’s a real pleasure, watching you heal,” he said. “By the Tree, I think I shall bring her to see you after all. I’ll tell her your story this evening. We must tell someone about you, mustn’t we, if you’re ever to resume a normal life?
“I do hope you take to her, Isiq. She’s the best thing to happen to me in years. I was beginning to think my reign was cursed, you know. After your brave Thasha’s death and the collapse of the Peace, some of the other lords of the Crownless Lands turned their backs, called me Arqual’s fool. Then came the death of Pacu Lapadolma, those furious letters from the Mzithrin Kings, that Gods-awful plague of rats. I should have gone mad without my darling girl. Watching her dance, one can believe that beauty still has a place in Alifros.”
Isiq nodded, smiling to please the King. “B-beauty,” he made himself say.
“Ha!” laughed Oshiram. “Carry on, Isiq. Perhaps in a day or two we shall be watching her dance together-or just listening to her sing. Did I mention that she sings?”
An enraptured look came over the King’s face. He raised his eyebrows, the corners of his lips, and was suddenly womanish, crooning in soft falsetto: Look for me by starlight, lover, seek me in that glade. I’ll bring you all the treasures of the world our love has made He broke off. Isiq was lurching backward, mouth wide open, flailing. Before the King could reach him the big man fell hard upon the chest of drawers, knocking it back against the mirror, which jumped from its peg and shattered on Isiq’s bald head.
“Rin’s eyes, Admiral!” The King experienced a rare kind of panic: Isiq was bleeding, the doctor was elsewhere, he could not shout for aid. He went down on his knees and plucked sickles of glass from the admiral’s clothes. No danger, no danger, only scratches on that bedknob cranium of his. “What in Pitfire happened to you?” he demanded. “Oh, keep still, shut your mouth before you get glass in it.”
Isiq thought his mind would burst. The song was hers. She had sung it to him countless times, early in the mornings, in the garden cottage, bringing him his cigar-aboard the Chathrand, in bed, with Thasha in the outer stateroom practicing her wedding vows. Oshiram had even managed a fair imitation of her voice.
The King was scolding, but Isiq could barely hear. Time slowed to a crawl. There were shards of mirror in his hands and lap. In every sliver, a memory, bright and perfect. There was his daughter, murdered in her bridal dress. There were the four men bearing her body to the Chathrand. And Sandor Ott. And the Nilstone, throbbing.
“Don’t handle them, you daft old-”
And here in this largest shard, so cruelly, cleverly shaped (the King tried to remove it; the admiral fiercely gripped his hand) was that unequaled beauty, his Syrarys, with her arms around a lover-not Isiq, of course, and not the spymaster, nor even this good, deluded King. Mesmerizing, this clarity, after so much blindness. And yet Isiq was certain. No one else could have made his consort so dangerous. The one in her arms was the one who had always been there, invisibly. The one who’d slain Thasha, and cheated death. The one whose hands moved all the strings “Arunis.”
The King froze. “What did you just say?”
Isiq’s gaze had wandered for months; now it focused sharp as daggers on the King. “You’re in danger, Oshiram,” he whispered.
“A complete sentence!” cried the bird suddenly from the window, forgetting himself entirely.
The King whirled, gaping; the bird was already gone. “What is happening here, Isiq? Have you been feigning this illness? Where did that bird come from? And why in Rin’s name did you mention the sorcerer?”
Isiq stared up at him: glass in his eyebrows, rivulets of blood on his cheeks. “We must trust each other, Majesty,” he whispered, “and somehow we must be cleverer than they. By the Night Gods, I remember it all.”
Thursday, 26 Ilbrin 941
Where, by the Blessed Tree, to begin? With the dead men? With the blessing of the goat? Or with the fact that Heaven’s Tree doesn’t even hang over us here, so help me Rin?^ 7
No: I shall start with Pathkendle, since I have just seen him amp; the lad’s misery is fresh in my mind. I had just taken my turn in the rigging, same as nearly everyone aboard. The dlomu were still staring at us, but their numbers were dwindling. Perhaps they were moved by the doomsday-babble of that screaming hag. Perhaps we misspoke, somehow, hurt their feelings. However that may be, we soon concluded that we weren’t to be fed, or even greeted with more than fear amp; superstition, before daybreak. They hemmed us in with cables to stop our drift amp; placed guards at the ends of the walkway amp; left us to stew in our own sinking ship.
A few men exploded, cursing them. Others begged loudly for food. The dlomu, however, did not look back amp; when they were gone from sight even the timid hands joined in until the whole topdeck was bellowing insults, fish-eyes, black bastards, cold-hearted freaks amp; then someone gave an embarrassed little, “Ahh, umm,” amp; we saw that one of the cables was moving like a trawling-line amp; dangling upon it were bundle after canvas bundle. Wisps of steam escaped them amp; the smell when we hauled them in brought a low moan of ecstasy from the nearest men. Ibjen had shamed them, apparently. Ghosts or no ghosts, we wouldn’t be starved.
Inside were warm rolls amp; slabs of fresh cheese amp; smoked fish, the river clams Bolutu had gone on about for days, and cloth packages filled with strange little pyramid-shaped confections, a bit smaller than oranges amp; coated with sugar and hard little seeds. We nibbled: they were salty-sweet amp; chewy as whale blubber. “Mul!” Bolutu cried at the sight of them. “Ah, Fiffengurt, you’ll find nothing more authentically dlomic than mul! They’ve been the salvation of many a sea-voyage, or forced march through the mountains.” But what were they? “Nutritious!” said Bolutu, amp; quickly changed the subject.
There was dark bread, too; amp; as I live amp; breathe, many bundles of what we took for fat white worms. A dozen of these fell to the deck when we tore open the first basket amp; wriggled away like lightning for fifty feet or so amp; then lay still. Bolutu snatched one up, peeled off its skin like a blary banana amp; ate it: the things are fruits-pirithas, he calls ’em: “snake-beans.” They fall from a parent tree amp; squirm away, seeking new places to grow. “If it doesn’t wriggle it’s not worth eating,” he said.
I was about to brave one of these dainties myself (having already wolfed down bread amp; cheese amp; fish the latter stained green whatever they touched amp; made us all look frightfully murthish about the mouth) when Lady Thasha appeared with a platter heaped with all the aforementioned. “Will you take this to Pazel?” she asked me.
“We can do better than that,” I told her. “It’s well past midnight, ain’t it? That’s three days. Let’s get ’im out of the brig, my dear! You come along.”
But Thasha shook her head. “You do it, Mr. Fiffengurt. And see that he eats, will you? There’s enough food for the sfvantskors, too.”
Considerate, that was: the food would be gone in minutes. But the compliment I thought to pay her died on my lips when she turned amp; walked back to Greysan Fulbreech. Old Smiley fed her a piece of bread amp; she grinned through the mouthful at him amp; suddenly I was enraged. A nonsense reaction, of course: young hearts are fickle amp; Thasha’s has clearly left Pathkendle in favor of this youth from Simja. Why does the sight of them fill me with such indignation? Perhaps I merely hoped the girl had better taste.
I ducked down the Holy Stair, bickered with the crawlies at the checkpoint amp; was finally escorted (how the word sticks in my throat) onto the mercy deck amp; aft to the brig. The four Turachs (two for each sfvantskor, none for Pathkendle) were licking clean plates of their own; they turned spiteful when they realized I wasn’t bringing second helpings. At the far end of the row of cells the two sfvantskors watched me with bright wolf eyes.
I unlocked Pathkendle’s cell; he walked out, slow amp; dignified amp; hurt. Some spark in his eye was gone. I might never have become of aware of its existence, that lad’s blary spark (what do I mean, spark? Here’s my old dad’s answer: If you have to ask you ain’t never goin’ to know) but for its absence then.
“Chin up, Pathkendle,” says I, much heartier than I feel. “The ship’s out of danger amp; you’re out of jail. Try a wiggler. I happen to know they’re fresh.”
“Go on,” said a grinning, green-lipped Turach, “they only look like big maggots.”
Pazel stared insolently at him amp; bit into a piece of bread. “I want,” he said, chewing, “to finish telling Neda my dream.”
Under the soldiers’ eyes we took food to the sfvantskors. Pazel sat facing them, cross-legged on the floor. They ate. To fill the silence I talked about the waterfalls, the incredible way we rose into the city. Pazel sat there slipping snake-beans into his mouth amp; gazing at his sister through the iron bars. His sister, a Black Rag priestess: the thought chilled my blood. This was the girl they’d been looking for, those countrymen of mine, during the Ormali siege. They’d beaten Pazel himself into a coma, that day, when he refused to guide them to his sister’s hiding place. He’d lain there ready to die for her. Could anything-time, training, religion-challenge a bond like that?
“Thasha painted me with mud,” Pathkendle was saying. “Head to toe. Bright red mud that she’d heated in a pot. It felt”-he glanced at me, coloring a little-“really good. The beach was windy; the mud was smooth amp; warm. I told you already what happened next.”
“She pushing you,” said Neda. Her attempt at Arquali was for my benefit, I suppose.
“Into a coffin,” said Pazel. “A fancy coffin, trimmed with gold. She slammed the lid amp; nailed it shut amp; I kicked amp; pounded from the inside. When she was done she dragged the coffin into the surf.”
“And pushed you out to sea,” said the older one, Vispek. He raised his head amp; looked at me. “The mud, the gilded coffin in the waves. Those are Arquali funeral rites, are they not?”
“Only for kings amp; nobles, these days,” I said, startled at his knowledge of us. “It’s a high honor, that sort of burial.”
“And the one who paints the body?”
“The King’s favorite girly. His whatsit, his courtesan.”
“Neda thinks the dream’s important,” said Pazel.
Her eyes flickered over me coldly. “Dreams are warning,” she said. “We not listen, then we getting die.”
“Is that a fact.”
She said something quick amp; cross in the Sizzy tongue amp; her master grunted in agreement. “The Isiq girl wants to be rid of him,” he said, “although once she pretended to love him. Like an expensive whore.”
“Now just you shut your mouth,” I said, rising to my feet. But Vispek went right on talking.
“She wished to seem as though she revered him, saw him as her equal. Never mind that she’s from one of the most powerful families in Arqual, and the boy is nothing: a peasant from a country her father destroyed. So she honors him, buries him like a king.”
“But is lie,” said Neda, wolfing cheese. “No honor if he put in water alive. Only after he getting die.”
“The girl’s touch was pleasurable, in this dream?” asked Vispek.
Pazel nodded uncomfortably. “Well then,” said Vispek, “all the better to catch you off-guard in the moment of betrayal.”
“That’s enough,” I said. “You’re a slimy beast, Vispek. You’re trying to divide us, and using Pazel’s sister to do it. By the Tree, you’re carrying on the old war, ain’t you? Right here in Chathrand’s brig, ten thousand miles from home.”
Vispek kept his eyes on Pazel. “Neda is correct,” he said. “Dreams are warnings, and must not be ignored. The next time you feel that caressing hand, you can be sure a knife will follow. Watch your step.”
“I will, Cayer Vispek,” said Pazel.
“Damn it, Pathkendle!” I sputtered. “This is Thasha you’re talking about!”
The tarboy looked up at me, chewing. “Thasha,” he said. “Thasha Isiq.” As if the last name changed something for him.
A few minutes later we left the brig, with ixchel scurrying ahead amp; behind. I was aghast at the whole exchange. What kind of horrid nonsense had Pazel been listening to, in that black cell for three hopeless days? What ideas had those Sizzies stuffed him with? I grew frantic, amp; as soon as we cleared the checkpoint I dragged him from the ladderway amp; pressed him up against a wall.
“Flimflam!” I said. “Mule dung! A man will dream anything when his heart’s broken. That don’t make it true!”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “My sister’s special. Wise. They both are, as a matter of fact.”
It was worse than I feared. “Pathkendle,” I implored. “My dear, sarcastic, sharp-tongued tarboy. Religion’s a fine thing, a truly noble thing-except for the believing part. Trust me, please. It’s worse than what a girl can do to you.”
“Nothing is.”
I groaned aloud. “Pitfire, that’s true, of course. But so is what I’m telling you. Listen to me, for the love of Rin-”
He met my eyes at that. “For the love of who, Mr. Fiffengurt?”
I stood up straight. “That’s a different matter, the Rinfaith. It’s part of society. And it ain’t so extreme, like. You know what I’m saying. Barbaric.”
He frowned a little at that. “I just wanted to talk to my sister,” he said, “and that Vispek bloke won’t let her talk except about grim and serious things.” Then he smiled at me, with his old sly look. “Maybe he hoped she’d win me over to the Old Faith. Not a chance. Neda’s never been able to talk me into anything.” He laughed. “But it sure kept them talking. And I must have done a good enough job, if I fooled you too.”
I could have smacked the little bastard. Or kissed him. I was that relieved.
“What was all that about her being special?” I asked.
“Oh, she is,” he said. “Mother cast a spell on Neda, too. All these years I thought it hadn’t worked, hadn’t done anything to her, but it did. It gave her perfect memory. You wouldn’t believe it, Mr. Fiffengurt. I wrote a six-foot string of numbers in the dust amp; read them to her aloud. She recited them all back to me in perfect order. She didn’t even have to try.”
I just stared at him. What could I possibly say? “You’re from a witching family,” I managed at last. “But does she have mind-fits, like you?”
“Sort of,” he replied. “She told me her memory can be like a horse that runs away with its rider. It just gallops off amp; she’s trapped, remembering more amp; more, faster amp; faster, even if what she’s remembering is terrible. I told her that sort of thing happened to me on Bramian, when the eguar made me look into Sandor Ott’s mind, and learn about his life. Neda said, ‘Imagine if at the end of that vision you couldn’t escape, because the mind you were looking into was your own.’ ”
The eguar. He’d never spoken to me of it before, but I’d heard him telling Undrabust about the creature. Like a crocodile, but demonic amp; huge, amp; surrounded by a burning haze. “What did that monster do to you, Pathkendle?” I asked him now.
Before he could make any answer, we heard the scream. It came from away aft, one or two decks below. A blood-curdler, if ever I heard one: a great man’s howl of pain, a warrior’s howl that twisted for an instant into a high womanish screech amp; was then cut off as if the throat that uttered it had just ceased to exist.
We ran back to the Silver Stair. The ixchel shrilled amp; threatened but we barreled past ’em. I already had an idea where we were going. Turach voices were exclaiming: “Oh no, no! Ruthane, you mad mucking-”
Seconds later we were there, in the manger. There was an unspeakable stench. The Turachs were clumped around the Shaggat, moaning; one of them had staggered away amp; vomited all the food he’d been allotted. But I knew that wasn’t what I’d smelled. It had happened again. Someone had touched the Nilstone.
I made myself draw nearer. There he was. Or wasn’t. Then I saw the armor, lying in that heap of bone-dust. Sweet Rin above, he was a Turach.
“He cut the sack with his knife,” said another of the marines. “He just reached up amp; cut a hole amp; put in his hand. What for, what for?”
Turachs do not cry, but this one was as close as I ever hope to see. Then he noticed Pathkendle. “You! Witch-boy! Was this another of your tricks? If you made him do it I’ll muckin’ break you in half!”
“I didn’t,” said Pazel, looking a bit ill himself, “and I couldn’t anyway, I swear it.”
“And he ain’t a killer, either,” I said.
“No, he ain’t,” said another. “He’s a good lad, even if he is a witch-boy. He’s proved that much.”
The soldier who’d snapped at Pazel looked at him now amp; nodded curtly. But his face was in a crazy rage. He looked down at the jumble of metal, teeth amp; bones that had been his friend. “Aw, Ruthane,” he said. Then his hands became fists. “By the Nine Pits, we know who can do this sort of devilry. Arunis! That’s right, Muketch, ain’t it?”
Pazel nodded. “Yes, sir. I believe it is.”
“Arunis!” howled the Turach at the top of his lungs. He drew his sword amp; held it on high. “You’re dead! You’re a Turach trophy! Can you hear me, you burst boil on the arse of a graveyard bitch? We’re going to snap your bones amp; suck the marrow. We’ll pull out your guts with our teeth, do you hear me? You’re mucking dead!”
And then, as if a startling thought had just occurred to him, the man spun around amp; thrust his hand into the hole in the sack his friend Ruthane had opened-and the Nilstone’s killing power ran down his body, fast as a flame takes a scrap of paper, and he was gone.
The pandemonium, the terror, the mourning beside those piles of ghastly remains: it went on through the night. I am at last back in my cabin, scribbling, unable to sleep. This is how Thursday begins.
[19 hours later]
No further attacks yet- amp; no sign of the sorcerer, though Rose has ordered the blary vessel torn apart from the berth deck up, amp; the ixchel swear on their ancestors’ souls that he’s not to be found on the lower decks. All the same it’s been a frightful time. Last night I saw Pathkendle back to Bolutu’s vacated cabin, inside the magic wall. I secured his oath not to stir before daylight, no matter what, even if he should be subjected to the misery of hearing Thasha amp; Fulbreech together in the stateroom. I gave my last report to the duty officer, looked up once more at the crowd on the walkway above (some of the dlomu have not tired of staring yet) amp; staggered back to my room. I had just closed my eyes when the door swung open, amp; who should slip into my cabin but Hercol. The Tholjassan raised a hand, warning me to be silent. Then he crouched by my bed amp; whispered:
“You must not ask me any questions, nor think too long on what I am about to say. I have given you grounds to trust me, have I not?”
“Pitfire, Stanapeth, of course,” I said.
“Then hear me well: you released Pathkendle out of kindness, but in truth he was safer in the brig. A thing may happen soon that will tempt him to interfere-yet he must not. So I must enlist you, though I wished to involve no one else in this matter. If the time comes, you may have to restrain him by force. And Neeps as well. Neither of them will understand.”
“Those prize idiots. What have they got themselves mixed up with this time?”
“This time they are blameless, Graff. But I told you-no questions. Only be ready to take them far from the stateroom, and keep them there, under lock and key if necessary. Be ready to do it the instant you hear from me.”
“Lock and key?”
“Listen to me, you old bungler,” he said, growing fierce. “You cannot fail in this. Lives are at stake, and not only the tarboys’. When the moment comes it will be too late to think of a story. Choose one now. I would hear you rehearse it before I go.”
“All right,” I said in surrender, thinking frantically. “The hag’s pet, Sniraga. Undrabust saw her last week. I’ll tell ’em I’ve got her trapped-in the bread room, say, and need help catching hold of her. There’s just one door, and it’s got double deadbolts.”
“Not brilliant,” said he, “but it should suffice. They trust you entirely.”
“They blary well won’t after I pull this trick! Stanapeth, why-”
He clamped his hand over my mouth. “Be ready, but do not dwell on what we have said. That is crucially important. You will understand when this is over, Graff. Let us hope it will be soon.”
With that he was gone, amp; I lay back stunned. I groped for my emergency bottle of brandy amp; nipped a mouthful. Remember, be ready, don’t think. How in the Nine Pits did one obey?
It occurred to me that I might yet salvage forty minutes’ sleep out of that hellish night. Once more I closed my eyes. Once more, as if the Gods had waited for me to do just that, the door flew open, this time with a bang.
Uskins blundered in, winded, looking even worse than I felt. “You loafer!” he croaked. “Still abed, and drinking, and everything falling to pieces!”
“You certainly are,” I said, taking in his wild red eyes amp; uncombed hair. “What’s happened to you, Stukey? Have you seen the doctor?”
“I’ve seen the surgeon’s mate.”
“What, Fulbreech? I know more about illness than that son of a Simjan mule. Go talk to Chadfallow if you’re poorly.”
He shook his head. “Mules have no sons. Nor daughters either.”
“What?”
“And Dr. Chadfallow is an enemy of the Crown.” He pointed with an unsteady finger. “So are you, for that matter.”
“You smell like bad meat, Uskins. Go see him.”
Uskins gave me a derisive smile. “And shout my troubles through the glass for all to hear. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Why are you here?”
The question recalled him to his purpose with a start. “Get up, get dressed! They’re coming aboard!” With those words he clawed his way out of my chamber amp; ran thumping away.
I pulled on my clothes amp; raced after him. Light poured down through the glass planks: it was well past sunrise. I came out topside into a cool crisp wind- amp; saw the city for the first time by daylight. It was even stranger than the night before: huge but empty-feeling; the numbers of people out on the cobble streets too few for so many homes. Some places looked cared for; most did not. Even as I glanced up, a flock of dark birds flowed like spilled ink from an upper window. Another house stood in a tangle of brush that might have once been plantings, but now half covered the door. On its way to becoming a ghost-town, I couldn’t help but think.
All this waste amp; decay, within the splendor of the city wall, the mighty halls amp; temples amp; towers, the river winding its grand path among those statues, the lovely bridges, the farther cliffs amp; waterfalls. And above amp; behind them, huddled giants, the mountains.
But how was I able to see so much? It became obvious the moment I lowered my gaze: we were no longer trapped in the shaft. Some water-gate had been closed in the night; we had risen those last thirty feet, amp; then some. The upper basin was almost full.
We were hemmed in once more by crisscrossed lines: nudged, I supposed, until we floated where they wanted us, which was alongside the bridge-like walkway jutting out into the basin. Our quarterdeck now floated level with the walkway’s rail.
And along that walkway was coming a procession.
It was headed by a small, weird animal. It was probably a goat, but it had tusks instead of horns amp; slobbery lips amp; it minced along like a well-trained dog. Behind it came two drummers, amp; these were even stranger beings: stocky, almost frog-like, nearly as wide as they were tall, with eyes like a bloodhound’s amp; huge fidgeting hands. They wore uniforms of dark red cloth with blue sequins amp; their bare feet flap-flap-flapped along the walkway. Their drums were big, mournful barrels strapped to their chests amp; they beat them very slowly, taking turns. The effect was like the ticking of some dismal clock.
Next came twenty or more dlomu. They were soldier types amp; terrifying to behold: hard of eye amp; huge of build, with murderous halberds, hatchets, spears. They’d seen battle, too: scars, old burns amp; gashes amp; puncture-wounds, marked their faces amp; limbs. Around me the Turachs grew wary amp; still.
In the thick of the soldiers, two figures stood out. The first was Olik, frowning amp; impatient, but dressed now like the prince he was: in a fitted jacket of cream-white leather that stood out smartly against his black skin, a sea-blue cloak, a crimson sash across his chest.
Beside Olik walked an even more extravagant person. Tall amp; pale for a dlomu, he wore a doublet of green leather amp; black iron rings, finished with a gold breastplate emblazoned with the Imperial leopard amp; sun. He was a warrior like the others amp; scarred to prove it. But what a face! His eyes jerked his lips were apart: he looked to be suffering permanent amazement. When he walked his head bobbed up amp; down like a hobby horse’s. The man’s webbed fingers, sparkling with dark purple jewels, caressed an ornate scroll case tied with a golden thread.
Captain Rose was rushing to assemble his officers. Some stood with him already; others, like myself, had to shove through the mob. We were all there: Alyash, Uskins, Byrd, Lapwing, Fegin, Coote, Tanner, even Old Gangrune, looking musty amp; irritable. All of us hurried to Rose’s side. Most of the officers were in dress uniform; I felt the captain’s wrathful eye take in my dishevelment. At hapless Uskins he did not even glance.
We formed a line behind the captain. I saw Pathkendle amp; Undrabust amp; Marila standing nearby, amp; on the other side, quite apart, Lady Thasha, with pretty-boy Fulbreech at her side. Taliktrum was there too, balanced on the gunwale in his feather cloak, a fair swarm of ixchel around him.
The procession reached the end of the walkway, amp; the drumming ceased. For a moment we were on display again. Olik looked at his folded hands, wearing a sly little smile. The pale dlomu just stared at us in shock. But a moment later his eyes narrowed, amp; his mouth tightened to a line. He shouted something, amp; his soldiers drew apart. Quick as you like, the little tusken-faced goat-creature minced forward to the walkway’s edge. It stopped there amp; eyed us expectantly, waggling its ears.
Silence. Rose looked around for guidance. So did the goat. Then Bolutu squeezed through the crowd to Rose’s side. I didn’t catch his words, but the captain’s response was plain enough: “You’re joking!” amp; “I’ll be damned if I will!” amp; finally, “No, amp; no again. You’re barking mad-”
Gasps and hisses from the dlomu. Rose shut his mouth. He stared incredulous at Bolutu, who was still whispering, pleading. At last our captain, looking as though he were about to eat something noxious, stepped forward amp; bowed to the goat-thing.
The creature blinked, pawed the stone. Then it bent its forelegs amp; knelt.
A great sigh went up from the onlookers ashore. One of the guards lifted the animal amp; bore it quickly away.
“Well done,” said the prince, smiling down at us. “Old rites must be respected, friends. The birthig is the city’s liege-animal. When it kneels to visitors, it is granting leave to enter the city. Symbolically, of course.”
Alyash amp; I traded looks. What if it hadn’t blary knelt?
Then the amazed-looking dlomu with the rings stepped forward. No smiles from this bloke. “I am Vadu,” he said, “Commander of the Plazic Battalion of Masalym, amp; First Counselor to His Excellency the Issar. It is with regret that His Excellency does not greet you in person, but he looks forward to receiving you in the Upper City at his first opportunity.”
“That is very good of him,” said Rose. “And we thank His Excellency for his gift of food. Last night my people ate well.”
The dlomu’s head gave one of its bobs. He looked a bit put out, amp; I noticed a sudden unease among the onlookers. They were drawing back, sharing urgent whispers. And all at once I thought to wonder just who had provided our meal.
Vadu held up his scroll case. He gazed at us severely, as if we should know quite well what it contained. Untying the golden thread, he pulled out the parchment amp; held it at arm’s length. One of the drum-wielding creatures waddled over amp; stood at his elbow.
I am used to odd amp; cumbersome ceremonies. The Merchant Service has its share. Anni’s family too, when it comes to prayer cycles amp; whatnot. But none of them could touch the strangeness of the next thirty minutes. Vadu began to read in a flowery dlomic, much less like Arquali than anything we’d heard to date. I’m sure I didn’t catch more than half of it- amp; this despite hearing every word twice. For each time Vadu paused, the drum-bearing creature at his side would inflate his deep chest, tilt his head straight upward, close his eyes amp; belly-scream the words to the edge of the city. We winced. The creature was shockingly loud; he set dogs barking far away up lonely streets.
What I did grasp of the message was this: that the Issar, something like the mayor or lord of Masalym, was deeply honored to preside over the city chosen for a visit by the people of the Magnificent Court of the Lilac (that phrase I’m sure about: it was too weird to get wrong). The Issar considered this “Court” a treasure of the world of Alifros, amp; the arrival of the ship a reason for boundless civic pride. There was a great deal next about the Emperor Nahundra, away in Bali Adro City, amp; his “welcoming embrace” of all people, everywhere. Mixed up with the “welcoming embrace” talk was quite a bit about the Plazic Legions of Bali Adro, which he also called the Dark Flame, amp; how their goodness amp; virtue had made them a fighting force none could stand against.
The proclamation went on to assure us that his people respected the solemnity of our visit, mindful as they were of its “celestial significance,” amp; that of course we deserved more than just the rite of the birthig-beast. For the Court of the Lilac, nothing but “the full and sacred ceremony” was enough-at this point Vadu gestured for some reason at the drummers. “Our mizralds will not disappoint you,” he said.
Finally, the Issar (through his scroll) humbly asked us to speak well of our treatment in Masalym should we ever stand before the Resplendent One in Bali Adro, amp; swore finally that our privacy would at all times be respected.
“Our privacy?” said Rose.
There were uneasy glances among the dlomu above us. The crowd along the basin’s rim was muttering, debating the long declaration. They sounded as skeptical as we were ourselves.
Rose had had enough. “To the Pits with privacy,” he huffed. “Our ship is damaged, sir. We are taking on water. In a few days there’ll be nothing left for you to look at with civic pride but our topmasts. And one meal cannot make us forget our lack of provisions. We’re not beggars. We can pay for both-fairly, and in full. But we must request them without further delay. If you would consent to step aboard-”
“Daaak?”
The voice was like an explosion. It was one of the drum-creatures again, louder even than before. I can’t imagine the word was really meant as a question, unless it was addressed to the Gods above, who surely heard it. Rose stared, affronted; he was not used to being shouted down.
“What the blary-”
“Haaaaaaaaaan!” screamed the other creature, who had waddled up beside the first.
“Prince Olik,” sputtered Rose, “kindly-”
“Daaak?” repeated the first creature, adding a boom on his drum.
“Haaaaaaaaaan!” replied the other, deafening.
The soldiers struck the walkway with their halberds. Vadu amp; Olik bowed low. Then, as the two creatures stood gazing skyward, drumming amp; shrieking “Daaak?… Haaaaaaaaaan!” to wake the dead, the procession turned amp; marched away.
Rose started forward, shouting. Olik glanced once over his shoulder, with a certain gleam in his eye, but moved on with the rest. We swarmed along the rail, shouting at their backs. Food! Repairs! Where are you going?
“Daaak?”
“Haaaaaaaaaan!”
They left us with those screaming monstrosities. We could have scrambled somehow up to the walkway amp; given chase-but what for? We were inside a walled city in an alien land. A moment later the shore gate was sealed, amp; a heavy guard placed on it, amp; more soldiers stationed along the rim of the basin.
A great argument erupted. Taliktrum flew into a rage, declaring that we were obviously being punished collectively for Rose’s “barbaric stupidity” in subjecting Prince Olik to the knife “as your very first act since being freed from confinement.” Rose to be sure had a ready comeback, amp; his wrath extended well beyond the ixchel. Why hadn’t Bolutu intervened, amp; why hadn’t he warned us that the royal family was a hive of lunatics? When were Pathkendle, Thasha, Hercol amp; “the rest of you schemers” going to uncover the lair of the sorcerer? Why had Alyash let the Ibjen youth jump overboard, when he might have served as ransom? And so on, while those two oblivious trolls went on screaming DAAAK? HAAAAAAAAAAN! until our minds were addled with it.
I saw Bolutu pulling desperately at Rose’s sleeve, amp; drew close enough to catch what he said. But it just made things weirder: the Court of the Lilac, he shouted, was a colony of albinos, possibly mythical, amp; many thousands of miles to the east if it existed at all.
“Albino dlomu?” bellowed Rose over the din.
Bolutu assured him that was the case. For whatever reason, the Issar believed (or had anyway declared) that we were all dlomu. Just weird, colorless dlomu from unthinkably far away.
“But they’ve seen us,” shouted Undrabust. “Prince Olik’s seen us up close, and so has Ibjen.”
“Hundreds of dlomu on that walkway have seen us as well,” said Hercol, “but that does not mean the masters of this city will hear them. Sometimes those who wield great power come to believe that wishing a thing were true is enough to make it so: that nature must submit to their will, just as men do.”
“And maybe he’s keeping us on the ship, Captain,” I added, “so that we can’t make it plain to the whole city that we are human. Just a few hundred of them saw us, after all, and half of them thought we were blary ghosts.”
“What of the frog-things?” demanded Rose.
Bolutu said they were mizralds, “perfectly respectable citizens,” found throughout the Empire amp; employed (no surprise this) as heralds amp; criers. The horrid bellowing, he added, was probably a mechine, a rite of welcome, though Bolutu had never heard of one being carried on amp; on.
“They are silencing us,” said Rose, “and at the same time pretending that we’re dlomu.”
“But why should they?” asked Pathkendle.
“Think a moment,” said Thasha. “It was a disaster for the whole Empire when humans became tol-chenni. If we suddenly sail into port and start walking the streets, it could mean… well, anything.”
Pathkendle would not look at her.
“You’re right, Thasha,” said Fulbreech. “That old woman last night thought it was the end of the world.”
“Perhaps a ship full of woken humans could make some think it is the dlomu’s turn to become tol-chenni,” said Hercol. “And that would be the end of the world, for them. At the very least it may seem a threat to rulers of a frightened city in a time of war.”
All this was just speculation. We were trapped. Nor did the folk of Masalym provide us with another bite of food. They watched us, though, as the hours wore on: contingents of well-dressed dlomu arrived amp; studied us through scopes amp; field glasses; there was some argument amp; finger-pointing, too. Rose tried to signal our desperation, with shouts amp; flags amp; spoons rattling in empty bowls. He sent Bolutu to the fighting top with orders to beg loud amp; long in his own tongue. But the trolls’ infernal racket made all these efforts nigh impossible, amp; it occurred to me that this was, perhaps, the whole idea.
The water in the hold reached thirteen feet. Of course we were pumping like mad, as we’d done for the last three days. But Rose was right: it was not going to be enough. And what if they have no means of beaching us, or no real will to try?
Midafternoon, it rained. To our infinite delight the trolls scurried indoors. But we were still hungry, amp; the dlomu were still deaf to our pleas. We officers took refuge in our duties. For me that included breaking up a fight between the rival gangs (the issue was a hoarded slab of last night’s cheese), amp; getting the broken-nosed Plapp amp; split-lipped Burnscove Boy to shake amp; agree to donate the precious morsel to the steerage passengers. When the lads saw those hopeless faces, I declare they knew a moment’s shame. But they were glowering at each other before we parted.
There was walrus oil left in my lamp, so I veered off to check the seams along the starboard hull. Seepage at the waterline, of course. I scratched at the oakum with my knife. Neglect, neglect: the word tapped at my thoughts like a luffing sail.
I was on my knees in the carpenter’s tool room when I heard the door behind me close.
I spun around. Facing me stood Lord Taliktrum. He was quite alone, amp; breathing hard from the exertion of shutting the door. He had his sword drawn amp; a leather sack tied over his shoulder. He was still wearing his swallow-suit.
Hatred for the little tyrant welled up in me. I could have killed him then amp; there, merely by straightening my right leg amp; crushing him between the door amp; my boot. In another life-a life in which I’d never known Diadrelu-I would have.
“Quartermaster,” he said, grimacing to bend his voice. “I must speak to you. It has been tremendously difficult to catch you alone.”
“Most folk just barge into my cabin,” I said.
He untied the sack amp; let it fall. Then he sheathed his sword. “I did not draw my blade to threaten you,” he said. “There was a scrabbling noise in the passageway. I am surprised you did not hear it.”
“Mice,” I said. “The rats are well and truly dead.”
He watched me, dubious. “Your position is unique on this ship,” he said at last. “Alone of all the officers, you’re an ally of the Pathkendle clan.”
I said nothing. He’d have a reason for naming us a clan. I doubted it was a reason I’d care for.
“Among ixchel,” he went on, “when two clans’ territories overlap, it becomes vital that they know each other, lest they compete and cause each other harm. As a first step, the clans send two elders to a safe house, and the elders play a game. We call it dueling with trust.”
“I don’t care what you call it,” I told him. “I don’t speak for Pathkendle or Thasha or any of them. And you’re sure as snake-eyes no elder.”
“I am more than that,” he said. “I am the bearer of visions, and of my people’s fate.” He spoke gruffly, sticking out his chin, as though desperate that someone believe him. That someone wasn’t me, I think.
He untied the sack amp; spread it open on the floor. It held coins: four coins, which he lifted out in a stack. They were common Arquali tender: two copper whelks, two fine gold cockles. Then he reached into the sack again amp; brought out two pearls.
I couldn’t help it: I whistled. They were the famous blue pearls of Sollochstol, each the size of a cherry. “You took those from the hoard we’re carrying,” I accused.
“We did not,” said Taliktrum. “The pearls in the hoard are not so fine as ours, though there are crates of them. We carry these, the Tears of Iryg, as a measure of security, for we know what you giants are willing to do for them. We are not above bribery, when cornered. But I have not come here to offer a bribe.
“The game is simple,” he said. “The elders take turns. One shares a secret of his clan; the other responds with a secret from his own. And if either believes that the other has told a lie, the game is over. The clans remain strangers, and wary. There is no friendship between them, and they may even come to blows.
“The goal is a perfect exchange: I leave with your three gifts, you leave with mine.”
He bent down amp; rolled one of the pearls toward me across the floor. I pounced on it, afraid it would vanish through a crack. It felt heavy in my hand. Back in Etherhorde, that pearl would be worth a small fortune-worth all the debt Anni’s family was in, perhaps. But then I considered the odds of seeing my Annabel again in this life, amp; felt like tossing the thing away.
Taliktrum slid two coins in my direction as well. “The copper will stand for a secret of moderate worth. The gold, a more valuable secret. And the pearl-that is the secret that makes the game worth playing. You give the simplest gift first. Then, building on trust, the more valuable. Last of all, the pearl: a secret that it pains you to give. Among us, that might be the password that opens our house to strangers, or the location of unguarded food.”
“When your elders play this daft game, what’s to stop them from lying through their teeth?”
“Honor,” said Taliktrum. “But not honor alone. The key to a successful duel is this: that neither side agrees to play until they have spied on the other clan for a sufficient time. We are excellent spies, Mr. Fiffengurt.”
“Hats off to you. But I’m not interested in crawly games. First, because I wouldn’t share the secret of a good cup of tea with the man who’d drug a ship’s crew in the middle of the Nelluroq. Second, because I don’t know anything that could possibly-”
“The prisoners will soon begin to die,” he said.
I drew a shaky breath. “You cur.”
“This is not blackmail,” he added swiftly. “Fiffengurt, we are running out of the berries that keep them alive. During the battle with the rats half our stockpile was destroyed. In the forecastle house, we burn two ounces per day: any less and the prisoners will not have enough vapor to breathe. They will crowd around the smudge-pot, fighting one another. Those pushed to the margins will suffocate, after great pain.”
“How much do you have left?” I asked, heart in my throat.
But Taliktrum shook his head. He tossed his copper coin my way.
“Aha,” I said. “We’re playing already, is that it?” Still he did not speak. I thought again about my right foot. But instead of murdering him I asked what he wanted to know.
That caught him off-guard. He chewed his lip a moment, then said, “The old witch, Oggosk. Is she Rose’s mother?”
“What?” I nearly shouted. “You’re the most twisted nail on this blary ship! Where’d you get that notion?”
“By watching them. We keep the forecastle house under the closest scrutiny, for obvious reasons. The witch doted on him, when they were imprisoned together. She would comb out his beard-in the dark, when they thought no one saw. And she has a superior knowledge of Rose’s family, his childhood, although he tries to prevent her from speaking of it. And there are those insane letters he dictates-addressed always to his father, but with a respectful nod to his mother-although everything we learned of Rose before the voyage suggested they were dead.”
I shut my mouth. He knew more than I did. But why did he care what Oggosk was to Rose, or Rose to Oggosk? How could it possibly matter? Unless I went suddenly cold. Unless they’re trying to reckon who Rose will fight for, and who he’ll allow to die.
“You’ve sailed with him before,” Taliktrum was saying. “You’ve sat through more meals with him than anyone aboard, except the witch herself. Wasn’t she always along on those voyages? Did they never reveal the truth?”
I’d quit my gambling years ago as a promise to Annabel- amp; to stop her dad from quoting Rule Thirty each time we met.^ 8 But the old instincts came back to me in a flash. You don’t reveal what you know, amp; even less what you don’t know. Mind your voice, mind your eyes. Starve the opponent for knowledge any way you can. That was my kind of dueling.
“Rose had no use for family stories,” I said, “no matter how long a voyage we were on. I couldn’t rightly say.”
“He found a use for such stories when he was our prisoner,” said Taliktrum. “Never mind: it is still your turn.”
When I sat there, stone-faced, he added spitefully, “This was an invitation. No one is forcing your hand. But if you refuse me, or attempt to fob me off with a lie, you are spurning a chance that will not come again. Think, man. Help me help us both.”
“Help you to do what?”
“What do you think?” he snapped. “To save us all from evil. Your people and mine. What else can we hope for, at this stage?”
“You’re hoping for a great deal more,” I growled. “You’re hoping-”
I stopped myself. I’d almost said, You’re hoping this voyage ends on Sanctuary, your island; you’ll do anything to get there. But that would be breaking my own rules. Besides, I didn’t really know. That old yarn, the ixchel’s Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea, was just a suspicion I’d nursed since I learned his people were aboard. “You’re hoping I’ll betray my friends,” I ended vaguely.
He just looked at me. “Are we finished? Are you so unable to give?”
I closed my eyes. He was right, I did want to play. I wanted to take something back to my friends, something they could use. But I wasn’t going to get it for free.
“Thasha has a book-” I began.
“The thirteenth Polylex,” he interrupted. “We’ve been aware of that for months; so has everyone aboard who knows what the thirteenth edition means. That won’t do, Fiffengurt. Try again.”
I was on unsafe ground. This was a delicate business, handing knowledge to Taliktrum-a fool amp; a proven killer. This was the wretch who’d spiked our water with a sleeping drug, after all.
But he’d also fought the sorcerer with commendable courage.
“Pazel,” I heard myself say, very softly, “has just one Master-Word left, and I don’t think it will be any use in a battle. It’s a word that blinds to give new sight. We haven’t a clue what that means, but Ramachni chose the word especially for him, so it must be worth something. Will that do?”
Taliktrum nodded slowly. I tossed him a copper whelk: we were matched again. Then he said, “We have seen the mage-name him not; he has sharp ears for the sound of his own name!-walking of late on the mercy deck. He appears without warning, and slips quickly away. We have been unable to follow him to his lair-but he has killed five of our guards.”
“You little bastard,” I hissed, furious now. “You mucking swore he wasn’t in your part of the ship.”
“Nor is he!” said Taliktrum. “There is not a chamber, not a crevice or a crate, that we have not explored. He has not made his lair in the lower decks, I say. He has merely passed through them like a shadow, gazing upward, as though to pierce the floorboards with his eyes.”
“Up at the Nilstone,” I ventured.
“Of course,” he said, amp; tossed his golden coin my way. “Your turn again.”
I took a deep breath. “Hercol’s sword-”
“Is called Ildraquin, Earthblood, Breaker of Curses,” he said. “Put in his hand by Maisa, the deposed Empress of Arqual, whose children Hercol murdered when still in the pay of Sandor Ott.”
His bad news was beginning to feel like a hammer striking my skull. “Stanapeth?” I said dumbly. “Hercol Stanapeth killed Maisa’s children? Personally?”
“Impersonally, I would imagine. Go on, you must find a better secret.”
“It’s not my blary fault,” I said. “You’ve spied out everything I know.”
“If that were true we would not be playing,” said Taliktrum.
My stomach was in knots. What was I doing? I could betray them all with my urgency to help. Then in a flash it came to me. “Sniraga’s alive,” I said. “Undrabust and Marila both swear they saw her on the upper gun deck.”
He didn’t take the news well. The cat was particularly hated by the ixchel; apparently she had eaten a few. “We should have fed that creature poison the day Oggosk brought it aboard,” he said. “My father wanted to. My aunt disagreed. She argued the witch would guess that ixchel had done it. But in truth it was just her softness, again. Dri always blinked when the moment came to kill.”
“If she argued against poisoning a pussycat, it was for a good reason,” I said. “Your aunt never cared for anything, not even Hercol, as much as she did your clan.”
He snorted: “What rubbish is that? She chose him-chose all of you, and turned her back on her people.”
“She was ready to kill herself, Taliktrum. She told Stanapeth she’d rather die than see the clan break into factions, some with you, others with her.”
“Anyone can make such a boast,” he replied.
“You’ll believe what you want to,” I said, amp; tossed him my gold coin. “All the same, it’s your turn.”
He set the pearl on the floor amp; turned his back, hands in fists. This talk of Diadrelu had rattled him. Still burning with guilt, I imagined, as well he should be. When he looked at me again his face was a mask.
He set his foot on the pearl. “If you take this and depart, sharing nothing, I will be your enemy forever.”
“I’m no cheat, Taliktrum.”
He kicked the pearl in my direction. Then he said, “I am leaving.”
“What?”
“Leaving the ship. My people, the clan, everyone. I am going ashore, tonight. I… I cannot wait.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“After I leave this room, I will return to my people’s stronghold one last time. I will write a letter telling them that I have gone ahead of them, to the land we are destined to repossess, and that they must follow Lord Talag once more, until we are all reunited”-he laughed miserably-“in paradise. Then I’ll slip ashore. The cables around the ship are many. I’ll have no difficulty there.”
“Taliktrum, stop. You’re their commander.”
“I am their demigod,” he said, with acid on his tongue. “My soldiers are carving little statues of me, and carrying them about like idols. Two brothers fought yesterday over which of them I favored more, and one stabbed the other in the leg. A woman came to me tonight and said that our ancestors had told her she was to have my child. They are insatiable, Fiffengurt. And I am the one who made them that way.” He put his hands in his hair. “This cult of He-Who-Sees. It should be He-Who-Is-Seen-seen, followed, imitated, aped. I live in a prison, a prison of their adoring eyes. You cannot imagine what it took to elude them long enough to come here.”
“But you’ll be all alone, man! You don’t even know if crawlies-if ixchel exist in this part of the world.”
“Unless they have gone the way of human beings, they exist. We came from this side of the Nelluroq, you fool.”
“Ixchel came… from the South?”
“Centuries ago. In human ships, human cages.” He paused, suddenly struck. “Do you mean that Diadrelu did not even tell you why our people boarded Chathrand?”
I shook my head. “There were things she never would talk about. She wasn’t a traitor, I tell you.”
He was shocked. It was a long time before he found his voice. “There is a traitor in our midst today, however,” he said at last. “The person who switched the antidote pills.”
“Do you have an idea who that person is?” I asked.
“I know who he is with a certainty,” said Taliktrum, “because that person is me.”
I gaped at him. Taliktrum smiled, but it was a smile of self-loathing. “Once a person takes the antidote,” he said, “the least whiff of the poison vapor warns them off. The captain, Undrabust, and Marila would have balked at the door of the forecastle house, even if Rose had not guessed that they were cured. I did not release them as a humanitarian act. Hercol’s suggestion merely gave me an excuse to thin the ranks of the hostages, thus buying us a few more days. But I was clumsy. I should have foreseen that Oggosk might give her pill to the captain. He and Sandor Ott were never, under any circumstances, to be freed.”
That didn’t surprise me. “So, you’ve made some mistakes,” I said, “and now you’re running away from them.”
“Now I am accepting the consequences,” he said. “There is no other path for me. We are the rose that prunes itself: so states a motto of my people. And it is the simple truth. When an ixchel knows that his presence in a clan is irredeemably harmful, he must choose exile, or death. But I wanted someone to know the truth about me-that I did this not for the clan, but for myself. I cannot tell anyone of Ixphir House, for like divided leadership, the truth would destroy them.”
“Are you so sure of that?”
He ignored my question. “My father promised to take them to paradise,” he said, “to Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. I do not believe they will ever arrive.”
“Not on this boat,” I agreed.
“But if that day should somehow dawn, when the swallows come for my people, tell Lord Talag before he departs. Tell him he was wrong to break my flute across his knee. Can you remember that?”
I nodded slowly. “I’ll remember. But you should tell him that yourself, you coward. Running away’s no good.”
“Neither is talking. Some problems can’t be solved.”
“What about your woman?”
“Who, Myett?” He looked genuinely surprised. “That girl was… an entertainment. A prophet’s plaything, though my father thinks all prophets should be like those of old, chaste and ragged.”
“She’s lovely,” I ventured.
At that he glared, as if to say, Not you as well. “She makes a spectacle of her charms-such charms as she possesses. No, Myett was never a suitable match. She is unstable. She took to following me, picking fights with any woman I chanced to look at. My father even thought she might have been the one who switched the antidotes.”
“I’ll bet you played along,” I said (his woman problems were intensely irritating). “You’d probably even accuse her of the crime, although you did it yourself.”
“I would,” he said without hesitation, “if I determined that to do so was for the good of the clan.”
“If you were my size I’d fight you here and now,” I said. “It’s blary unforgivable. You’d make love to her one day and destroy her the next.”
“Unforgivable?” The familiar, belligerent gleam was back in his eyes. “The game isn’t over, Fiffengurt. You hold both pearls. You must give me a secret to match my own. Do not speak! I will tell you the secret I want.”
He crossed the tool room- amp; leaped in one swift movement onto a sawhorse, so that our eyes were on the same level. “Here is what I would know, Fiffengurt: can you choose between life and death?”
“What in the Pits does that mean?”
“We cannot keep all the hostages alive. Some will die. All will die eventually, if they remain in the forecastle house. But I am willing to free two more tonight. Not the spymaster or his protege, Dastu: they are simply too dangerous. And not the witch. Even if she is not Rose’s mother, he loves her. That makes her too precious to give up, now that Rose himself walks free.
“Two more, then. Name your choices, and I will send my Dawn Soldiers to deliver the antidote this evening-my last act as commander. But you must decide who is to be saved. Dr. Chadfallow, surely? Or perhaps the two gang leaders, on the condition that they swear a truce? Or Elkstem, your sailmaster, the man whose hand on the wheel has saved the ship more than once already? Or the remaining tarboy, Saroo, with so many years to live?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You swine,” I said.
“Of course an ixchel would never choose the tarboy,” he went on. “The question of who might deserve life the most never occupies our thoughts as deeply as that of who is the most useful. If you look at things our way, you might do best to free the pair of soldiers. Their return would improve morale for the entire battalion.”
“You can take a leap off those cliffs,” I said. “I don’t make choices like that.”
“You don’t, because you have not had to,” he said. “Name them, Fiffengurt. Otherwise I will free no one at all.”
I slammed both pearls down beside him. “Not a chance. You’re the monsters who took ’em in the first place.”
“Rose would have killed us if I hadn’t. Now I’m willing to reduce our advantage, and you will not even choose?”
“I can’t, and I won’t. It’s inhuman.”
I must have been screaming. In the passage, two or three anxious men called my name, clearly afraid I was in danger. I wrenched open the door amp; yelled at them to keep their distance. When I turned back to the room I could not see Taliktrum or his pearls.
“What if you had enough antidote for them all?”
His voice came from near the ceiling. I looked up but could not spot him on any of the shelves or cabinets.
“That’s a stupid question, ain’t it?” I snapped. “I’d free every one of them.”
“And guarantee that my people would be hunted down, murdered, exterminated in a matter of hours?”
“Pitfire,” I sputtered. “Not… necessarily. I don’t hate you-I mean, I haven’t blary thought about it!”
“We have thought about it, Mr. Fiffengurt,” he said. “Never fear; I gave the order before I came looking for you. The doctor amp; the sailmaster are already free. Listen, you can hear them shouting.”
And it was true, when I fell silent: high above, amp; at the other end of the Chathrand, I could just catch the cries: Chadfallow! Elkstem! Hurrah!
“Then why’d you put me through all this, damn you?” I shouted.
As if in answer, something bounced off a high shelf amp; fell toward my chest. I caught it: Taliktrum’s pearl.
His laughter mocked me from above. “Not necessarily, you say. And I’d hoped to hear it straight from a giant’s mouth, just this once: either Yes, I would kill you all. Or No, I would fight for your people even against my own. The way my aunt did, Fiffengurt. But of course, you haven’t thought about it. Goodbye.”
There was a slight scraping noise in an upper corner. He’s slipping out some rat-hole or secret door, I thought. On an impulse, I called out, “Lord Taliktrum?”
The scraping stopped.
“Diadrelu was only going to kill herself if she was certain it was best for the clan. Not because something wounded her heart, or pained her personally. Although many things did. You understand?”
Silence. I cleared my throat amp; went on: “You’re not selfish, you little people. You’re better than us in that respect. Don’t be selfish about your pain, man. Go, if you have to. Run away from your cult, or from your old man. But don’t write any letter swearing you won’t be back. Tell them you’re off-following a vision or whatnot. Surely it’s better for ’em to have someone they can go on believing in? And I’ll tell you this as well: I’ve done some running in my time. All sailors have. But if you live long enough you’ll find that most of us are running in circles.”
Taliktrum said nothing amp; there was no more noise from above. I suppose I’ll never know if he heard my advice. But as I sat there, listening to the cheers grow louder, it occurred to me for the very first time that Taliktrum was an Etherhorder, like me.
I am exhausted; the lamp is sputtering out. I wonder where he has gone in this alien city. Rin keep him, the little tyrant, first of us to abandon Chathrand of his own free will.
7. Scribbled in the margin of this page, Fiffengurt adds: “This far south, only the tips amp; branches of the Holy Tree peek over the horizon, in the hour before dawn. Mr. Bolutu has ventured the farcical opinion that the Milk Tree is no tree at all, but merely the diffuse light of millions of stars, too faint to be spied one by one. I fear at times that the fellow is delusional. He sometimes speaks of Arqual amp; the Mzithrin in the past tense, as one might of nations that have ceased to exist.” -EDITOR.
8. Rule Thirty of the Ninety Rules of the Rinfaith: “What a man cannot afford to lose at dice should not be wagered; what he can should be given to those in need. Thus the man of virtue wallows not in sordid games.” Younger monks of the Rinfaith (starting with Artus in 916) labeled this one of the “Killjoy Rules,” and it is likely that Fiffengurt was aware of this noisy minority. Artus claims further that “sordid games” is a willful mistranslation, and indeed the original Ullumaic is closer to “addiction to risk.” Artus published his suggestions for a gentler, more loving Ninety Rules in a treatise titled When Rin Sees Us, Does He Smile? Days after its publication the man was expelled from the Brotherhood of Serenity; his house was also mysteriously burned down, and his dog pelted with eggs by fellow monks who thought themselves unobserved. -EDITOR.