The Red wolf conspiracy tcv-1

by Robert V. S. Redick

  "Let him come near me again," said Neeps when the doctor was out of earshot. "Jervik, I mean-the cowardly rat."

  "But how did he end up on Chathrand?" said Pazel miserably.

  "Said he'd just gotten rid of some tarboy he hated on his old ship," growled Neeps. "Boasted how he 'smacked 'im round fer a year, and the blary fool never hit back.' And then he helped some fat bosun strand the tarboy in Sorrophran. His captain overheard and threw a fit such as nobody'd ever seen, and chucked Jervik ashore with his own hands."

  "That was me!" Pazel cried. "The one who got stranded!"

  Neeps' unbruised eye fixed on Pazel. "I'll smash 'im," he said. "I'll knock that gold tooth down his throat. I'll wring him out like my turban."

  "Neeps!" said Pazel, gripping his shoulder. "Don't fight him! Rose'll throw you to the sharks! Besides, Jervik's huge, and a dirty fighter! He'll flatten you, mate!"

  "Let him try it!"

  It came out twy it, because of Neeps' swollen lip. His tiny fists clenched at his sides.

  Pazel rose slowly and set his forehead to the wall. "Everyone on this ship is insane," he said.

  "Hello!" said Neeps. "Where'd you get that coat?"

  And then, like a plunge into the sea, it happened. Two sailors passed the sickbay door, chatting lightly about a woman, and suddenly their voices changed-mutated, ballooned-and became a monstrous squawking.

  "No!" cried Pazel, leaping up.

  "Pazaaaaaaak?" said Neeps.

  Dr. Rain, turning, cried, "Squa-qua-quaaaak?"

  There it was: the pressure on his skull. And filling the air, the smell of custard apple, worst odor in the world. His mind-fit had begun.

  Leaving Neeps wide-eyed, Pazel ran from the sickbay into a horror of a ship filled with deafening, predatory bird-noises. He couldn't think where to hide-hide for four hours or more! — but hide he must, immediately. If they thought him mad he'd be tossed out with the bilgewater, or worse.

  The lower gun deck was filled with newcomers, soldiers of some sort, busy, laughing, squawking. They gestured at him, wanting something. He ran. The hold, he thought. Get to the hold. Maybe the ambassador wasn't really expecting him just yet. Maybe no one would miss him.

  He reached the No. i ladderway and began racing down the stairs. But at the berth deck Fiffengurt suddenly appeared, blocking his path. He smiled up at Pazel: "Bachafuagaaaak!"

  Pazel made a helpless face and began climbing again, which made Fiffengurt squawk the louder. Pazel leaped out at the next deck, the upper gun deck, and fled down the long row of cannon. Men were all around him, malicious and terribly loud. It's never been so bad, he thought. And then he saw Jervik, dead ahead.

  Both boys froze. Jervik's eyes grew wide; he squeezed the deck-mop in his hands like something that might fly away. Pazel had the sudden idea of trying to be friendly-they'd had to work together sometimes on the Eniel, after all-but how exactly was he to do that? He couldn't speak, so he tried a smile and a little wave.

  Jervik threw the mop at him like a spear.

  So much for friendliness. Pazel dodged the mop and tried to do the same with Jervik, but the big tarboy caught him by the shoulder.

  "Gwamothpathkuandlemof!"

  Jervik tore at Pazel's new coat; brass buttons popped. Hit me, you imbecile! thought Pazel. Fiffengurt would surely evict him if he did. But Jervik merely gushed with noise, his grip tightening. And Pazel realized that in another moment Fiffengurt would appear and catch them both. That can't happen. They'll lock me up.

  He turned and faced Jervik. "Let go!" he cried, gesticulating madly. "I'm Muketch, the mud-crab sorcerer of Ormael, and I'll turn your bones to pudding if you don't!"

  Of course nothing but bird-babble came from his mouth. Usually talking during a mind-fit was the worst tactic imaginable, but today it saved him. Jervik was terribly superstitious. He froze, wide-eyed. Pazel pointed at his disfigured ear and cackled. "When I'm done that'll be the handsomest part of you left! Now GO!"

  Terrified, Jervik released him, stumbling backward, and slipped on one of Pazel's lost buttons. Pazel ran for his life.

  Screeches, hoots, a wet stretch of floor. He smashed into one crewman after another. Grown men leaped away as if he might bite them. This is ending badly, he thought.

  Then a hand much stronger than Jervik's seized his arm, and Pazel felt himself whirled around. For an instant he saw a man's face-gray temples, bright eyes that tapered to points-and then he was shoved bodily through a doorway, into warm smells of coffee and perfume and talc.

  Little of what followed was clear to him afterward. The ambassador's face appeared in a dressing-mirror, half shaven, mouth agape. A beautiful woman swept into the room with arms outstretched, shrieking, her voice demonic. And from somewhere the golden-haired girl from the carriage appeared and looked at him with astonishment but no fear.

  Then a flask was pressed to his lips, and his head forced back, and he knew no more.

  The Uses of the Dead

  12 Vaqrin 941

  The men of two battle-scarred warships, anchored farther out than the rest of the Imperial fleet, were the only witnesses as Chathrand sailed out of Etherhorde Bay. Pennants went up their masts in salute: the green-star signal that meant nothing more complicated than "safe travel, speedy return."

  A miracle if either happens, thought Sandor Ott, sealing his cabin's porthole. More likely they would be slaughtered en masse. Not he himself, perhaps, nor that lethal captain. Rose had cunning in his very pores. No doubt he had planned his own escape down to the last lie or knife-thrust or spot of blackmail. But these sailors, soldiers, boys-they could never be trusted with what they would come to know.

  Eighteen million gold cockles! Four chests of bloodstone! If his own men did not betray him, surely their western partners would. The minute that prize becomes more than a rumor, a hope in their vile hearts, we are fair game. The minute we place it in their hands, they'll wish us dead.

  Before a tall mirror, he pinned on his breast the medals that turned him into Shtel Nagan, commander of the ambassador's honor guard. He took a moment to consider his hands: brutalized, rock-steady. Then he left the cabin and climbed to the topdeck.

  A fine summer's evening, the sun still whole and red above the Emperor's mountain. He could just make out Castle Maag at the summit, and his own tower, waving a wry farewell.

  In fair weather the first-class passengers could meander as they pleased about the topdeck (never the quarterdeck: that was officers' territory), and a dozen or so were at it now. Smoke Hour was past, so they chewed sapwort or sweetpine. Children galloped about, pretending to be tarboys. Men nipped whiskey from flasks.

  Just one lady was on deck, but she was the only woman Sandor Ott took any interest in. Syrarys Isiq's skin glowed like polished amber in the evening light. She stood holding the arm of Eberzam Isiq, the old fool. Sandor Ott approached, but not too near; he was a bodyguard and not an equal. But when Syrarys turned her head halfway in his direcion there was a gleam in her eye.

  "Commander Nagan?" said a voice behind him.

  Ott turned sharply. It was Bolutu, Brother Bolutu, the veterinarian. They shook hands, and Ott gave the black man a formal smile.

  "You have a ravishing friend," said Bolutu.

  Ott said nothing, but his heart quickened in his chest.

  "I mean the bird, of course. Your moon falcon. Extraordinary."

  Damn him to the Pits! thought Ott, recovering. But he said, "Ah, Niriviel! A friend indeed. He may catch us a grouse from the Dremland hills, if we pass near enough."

  This one could prove a nuisance, he thought. Never a threat: no black man could be that powerful in an empire ruled by the porcelain-pale Magads. Yet Bolutu's star was rising. This very spring he had met the Queen Mother, and cured her pig of something dreadful: hiccups, maybe. He was also a longtime friend to the Trading Family. Lady Lapadolma herself had wanted him aboard the Chathrand: she had a soft spot for animals, if little else, and no doubt shed tears at the thought that Mr.
Latzlo's cargo might suffer on the journey, before being sold for pelts and potions in the west.

  Ott also needed a skilled veterinarian aboard-the best, in fact. How was it that the best was this reformed nomad, this Slevran born in some warren or wattle-house, educated by monks in an outpost temple, and seeing great Etherhorde for the first time only as a grown man? Why were there no true Arqualis fit for the job?

  "Does he travel with you everywhere?" Bolutu was asking.

  Ott shook his head. "The captain indulges me greatly, allowing him aboard. Have you seen him already, then?"

  "I have just come from the coop. Your bird is unhappy with the darkness, but he lives in a mansion compared with the rest. He can spread his wings, and move about, and smell the chickens if not taste them. Commander, have we not met before?"

  "Indeed, sir," said Ott smoothly. "As a bodyguard I have had the privilege of serving many of the Empire's finest gentlemen of trade. You I remember from the Midwinter Ball at Lord Sween's."

  "And not from Castle Maag?"

  "I have served in the castle, too. It is not impossible."

  "Certainly it was there. Tell me, why have we taken so many soldiers aboard?"

  "Only six answer to me, sir."

  "Exactly," said Bolutu. "The rest are not here to guard the ambassador, as you do. And Chathrand is no longer a warship. What is the use of carrying a hundred soldiers on a merchant ship? Especially one on a mission of peace?"

  "Mr. Bolutu," said Ott mildly-he would not be unsettled again, no matter how prying the man became-"you should direct your inquiry to their commanding officer. But I can offer a guess if you like. In a word, pirates. The Emperor's dominion stops at Ormael. The next six hundred miles are a chaos. No outright wars, but no peace, either. Sea-banditry is already common, and growing more so. The Crownless Lands do not wish our protection-"

  "Curious, that." Bolutu smiled slightly.

  "— and yet they cannot guard their own seas. There is no order, sir. Except the savage order of the Mzithrin, in the distant west."

  "Does Simja know that His Supremacy is sending not just an ambassador and a child bride, but a vessel packed with Imperial marines? And such marines! They make the Emperor's regular forces look like milksops."

  "Dear sir, you exaggerate," said Ott. "Perhaps you have not been quartered so close to His Supremacy's infantry before?"

  Bolutu hesitated. "I have not. That is true."

  "In any event, to leave our home waters prepared for the worst is but common sense-although I hope that will not be demonstrated."

  Ott bowed to Bolutu and excused himself. Moving toward the center, or waist, of the ship, he thought: Yes, definitely a nuisance. I do not like your tone, pig doctor.

  Two of Ott's own men watched Ambassador Isiq from a respectful distance: the old man would never be left on deck unattended. One of these was Zirfet, and when he looked at Ott his very stillness sent a message: a twitch at wrist or elbow meant all's well, and his men never forgot.

  He nodded, giving the big fighter permission to approach. When they stood alone at the portside rail, he said, "Let's hear it, quickly."

  Zirfet was trying to appear professional and bored; in fact he looked rather seasick. "Master," he whispered, "Hercуl Stanapeth is aboard!"

  Ott's face froze. He had served three generations of Magad Emperors, but never had he needed to hide such total surprise twice in an evening. He succeeded, of course: Zirfet had no inkling of the turmoil inside him.

  "Tell me everything," said Ott.

  "He came aboard with the servants," said Zirfet, "but he has a cabin-a tiny berth-next to the ambassador's own. I saw him just minutes ago, Master: I knew him at once from the Book of Faces."

  Ott nodded. Anyone of the least possible interest to the crown-foreigners, nobles, rabble-rousers, soldiers who grumbled about their pay-had a portrait in the Book of Faces. His spies learned to pick them out of a crowd at a glance.

  "He does not know me, of course-nor any of the others," Zirfet went on. "But you-"

  "Me he knows," said Ott, nodding grimly. Hercуl was his great failure: an expert fighter when Ott recruited him to join the Secret Fist. A far better fighter-admit it: his best-when the training was done. But Hercуl never had the stomach for spy work. Idleness and wealth had not poisoned him, as they had these youngsters. Hercуl was simply unwilling to kill. Tholjassans revere life, he had told Ott years ago, possibly the last time they had spoken. So do we, Ott had answered. But sometimes a knife in the dark is the only way to prove it.

  He strolled aft, Zirfet at his side. He was perfectly calm now: twisting bad luck to his advantage was as familiar as putting on his shoes. "Tell me what steps you have taken, Zirfet," he said.

  "I stationed Jasani at a speaking-tube. They're remarkable, Master, these hide-wrapped pipes: you can hear most anything the ambassador says from his reading chair, for instance. Last night Jasani heard Hercуl say that a man whose sword is rarely sheathed will one day trip and fall upon the blade. Isiq said nothing to this, but another spoke up-an elder and a foreigner, by his voice. 'Indeed, friend,' he said. 'Many are the kingdoms reduced to dust by their own fears, and the folly fear inspires, when no power on earth could break them else. Let Arqual beware Arqual.'"

  "Who is this foreigner, who speaks thus?" Ott demanded.

  "The others called him Ramachni. We are making inquiries even now."

  "See that you do. What is Hercуl's position aboard?"

  "He is Ambassador Isiq's private servant, Master. His valet, as it were. And he is the girl's… dance tutor."

  "Thasha Isiq's tutor? Lucky girl; she'll have learned a great deal more than dance. But Hercуl must never see me, lad."

  "No, Master."

  "And yet we cannot kill him-yet. If he should die on my watch, this ship would be flooded with talk of my incompetence as protector of the Isiq household. They might even wish to replace me."

  He fell silent, feeling the wheels within his mind, the old, flawless mechanisms of deceit.

  "A fever," he said at last. "I will develop a slight fever tonight. And out of concern for others I shall keep to my cabin until we touch land in Ulsprit. There I shall disembark and make my own way west, rejoining you at Tressek Tarn. Before that time, you personally will rid us of Hercуl. The task is essential. Can I trust you with it?"

  "You can," said Zirfet.

  Too quick, Ott decided: the lad's bravado masked fear. He raised a warning finger.

  "Bloodstains will not do. Use your head before you use that knife I gave you. Consider: Hercуl is not listed among the servants. Isiq must have recruited him quite late. But by the Emperor's decree every sailor, servant and marine has to meet with my approval. He is illegal, technically-a stowaway."

  "Of course, sir!" whispered Zirfet. "I'll see him put off the ship!"

  "Fool," said Ott. "You'll see him drowned."

  As darkness fell the captain sent word to Elkstem to turn the ship south, out into the Nelu Peren. The east wind that had borne them quickly to Etherhorde now forced them to cut sharply away from the city to avoid the great peril of drifting sidelong against the shore. The lamps of a fishing village dimmed, then vanished altogether. Minutes later the coastline melted into the gray-black seam where sky and water met.

  Dinner that night was a grand affair, with the captain and the ambassador joining the wealthy passengers in the first-class dining hall, which had the largest table aboard. Lamb and roast partridge, pepper vodka, mints. After drinking rather more than she was allowed at home, Lady Lapadolma's niece stood up and belted out one of her aunt's poems:

  Regal traveler on the waves, over heroes' watery graves,

  Peaceful palace of old wood, whither sails thy country's brood?

  No answer gives she, yet we hear, as in a shell against the ear,

  A thousand voices, living, lost, whispering their only trust:

  "Over sea and under stars, noble Chathrand's fate is ours!"

  "Drivel!" escaped fr
om someone, but he was elbowed sharply and drowned out by claps and cheers.

  In a box-like room on the orlop deck, the steerage passengers lined up for soup and bread. The soup had generous salt, if little else; the bread was hard but wormless. They ate with quiet concentration and left not a crumb.

  The bells rang on the half hour, the watches changed, the cries of "Steady-on-the-fore" and "Two-points-off-the-lee" ricocheted from mast to mast. By midnight the last gentlemen in the smoking salon departed, surrendering their pipes and matches as they went-fire was such a danger that open flames were not permitted outside that room-and bit by bit the Chathrand fell asleep.

  Only then did Sandor Ott leave his cabin. He moved silently along the row of officers' berths (Mr. Fiffengurt snored like a laboring cow), climbed the aft ladderway and crossed the main deck. A moment later he knocked softly at the captain's door.

  The door opened a crack, and a nervous, bloodshot eye peered out. Swellows, the bosun. His breath stank of garlic and rum. Ott disliked the man, Rose's most loyal bootlicker, a partner in the old rogue's career of swindling and lies. Swellows (his spies informed him) wore a necklace of ixchel skulls: fifteen or twenty little bird-sized bones, strung through the eye sockets on a greasy string. Good luck, some said-but luck was a thing Ott disdained. He put his shoulder to the door.

  Swellows fell back with a whimper: "Quietly, sir, quietly!"

  Rose's cabin was dark: black curtains shut out the stars. No one sat at the desk or dining table; but along the port wall, as far from the door as possible, figures huddled around a dim red lamp on a smaller table. Swellows beckoned, but Ott did not wait to be led: he crossed the dark cabin in four strides and rested his hands on the back of the one empty chair.

  "You're late, Commander Nagan," said Rose, looking him over.

  "I think you may call me Ott here, Captain," said the spy. "Men have killed to learn my true name, others to help me hide it. But in this room it is the least of the secrets we must swear to guard."