The Red wolf conspiracy tcv-1

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Somewhere in the outer compartment the tailor was humming a flat little tune beneath his swaying lamp. Diadrelu squeezed the water from her shirt.

  "Felthrup," she said, "how did you learn about the ixchel prisoner?"

  "And the mission of the Chathrand, for that matter?" put in Talag.

  "The same way he learned about this tunnel of yours, crawly," said a low, rasping voice overhead. "I told him."

  The two ixchel flew like arrows, dodging, rolling, drawing their swords even before they regained their feet. They were not a moment too soon. Five enormous rats pounced on the spot where they had stood a split second before, knocking Felthrup aside like a bowling pin.

  "Hold that door!" snapped the voice. "Two die for every crawly who escapes!"

  Out of the mounds of sailcloth they came, dozens of rats of all shapes and sizes and hues. Many squirmed about the doorway. Others appeared at both ends of the shelf and advanced toward Dri and Talag, white teeth snapping.

  "Well done, Felthrup!" said the rasping voice. "I am glad of your service."

  On the shelf above them appeared the largest rat Diadrelu had ever seen. He slouched forward to examine them, attended on either side by formidable guards. He was stark white with purplish eyes that bulged like overripe grapes. The hair had fallen or been worn away from his head and underside, revealing long scars and thick rolls of fat. But despite his belly dragging in the dust it was clear he was immensely strong.

  Felthrup gazed at him with loathing. "I do not serve you!" he cried.

  "Of course you do," said the big rat. "All rats on this ship serve Master Mugstur, just as he serves our holy Emperor in the Keep of Five Domes, and through him the Angel Most High. I'm not surprised you kept it from these two, of course. Yes, it was very well done. They were so caught up with your chatter they did not even notice the missing guard."

  Dri and Talag exchanged looks. It was true: an ixchel guard should have been standing by at the mouth of the escape hatch. The rats snickered, and several of the biggest licked their lips.

  "Lies!" screamed Felthrup. "You told me nothing! It was the bird, the moon falcon, who told me what I know! I hate you! I would never do your bidding!"

  Master Mugstur shook his head slowly. "Lying is a sin," he said.

  There were now a hundred or more sleek, strong rats crowded together in the nook, all watching the ixchel.

  "Lady! Lord Talag!" squeaked Felthrup. "Don't listen! Run back up the pipe!"

  Master Mugstur laughed. "By all means, do! One way leads to the sea; the other to the clerk on his stool. And we shall follow close behind you."

  Talag caught Dri's eye a second time. With the greatest caution he signaled her: two fingers on his sword-hilt and a lifted shoulder. Dri answered with the tiniest nod.

  "Tell them the truth ere they die, Felthrup," said Master Mugstur. "They tried to kill you, brother! Why shouldn't you lead them into my trap?"

  "Monster! Fiend!" Felthrup was hopping up and down on his three good legs, tearful and snarling at once. "You used me to trap them! You followed me!"

  "Where is our kinsman, the one we left on guard here?" Talag demanded.

  For an answer the big rat spat at one of his aides. There was a shuffling noise above and then something ragged fell onto the shelf in front of them.

  It was the hand of an ixchel, nibbled almost to the bone.

  "Rats of Chathrand," said Master Mugstur, "you heard the crawlies' words: they planned to kill me, as they tried to kill Brother Felthrup. But thanks to my agent's courage and the mercy of Rin, their wickedness ends here. Let us pray before we dine."

  Mugstur raised one long-nailed paw. The rats grew still.

  And the ixchel sprang.

  Talag leaped straight up, grabbed the lip of the shelf above him and swung onto it. Even as he landed he beheaded the rat lurching toward him, jumped over the corpse and slit the throat of another. Dri meanwhile ran up the side of a heap of sailcloth. The mound tipped, and as it did so she leaped high into the air and landed on the shelf beside her brother.

  When ixchel train together, the battle-dance they learn becomes so quick and flawless it seems almost like mind-reading, and Dri and Talag had trained as a pair from birth. Not even a glance was needed for Dri to fall to hands and knees, and then push with all her might when she felt Talag's foot upon her shoulder. In this way she helped him sail over the heads of five rats and land upon the back of one of the two great bodyguards of Mugstur himself. The beast rolled and struck, but only succeeded in helping Talag to chop off both its forepaws with one swing. When the second rat-guard snapped at his leg, Talag did not even look: he had seen Dri move from the corner of his eye. The rat died with her throwing-knife in its skull before it could tighten its jaws.

  About six seconds had passed.

  But there were more rats now. They came on with idiot fury, biting at Talag and Dri as Mugstur fell back, roaring. The ixchel pressed after him, spinning like lethal tops through a spray of blood and fur. Then came a great crash as something heavy, a toolbox or a pair of sail-shears, crashed from a high shelf to the ground. Twenty feet away they heard the tailor bellow, "Ho there! What moves?" Lamplight swung toward the room.

  The ixchel were fortunate. Mugstur had ordered so many rats to guard the door that they could not all hide themselves before the tailor arrived. One rat would have startled him; dozens made him erupt in an incoherent yowl. As he stomped and cursed at the fleeing rats, Dri and Talag slid down one side of the door frame and escaped the room.

  Neither had been so much as scratched. But what of Felthrup? Dri risked one backward glance: she could see no trace of him among the living or the dead.

  Bad Manners

  6 Modoli 941

  54th day from Etherhorde

  The tailor never reported the incident.

  Rats in his corner of the ship could only be explained by one thing: food. No sailor was allowed to store food of any sort in his work area-and Rose, as the tailor well knew, hated hoarders above all things. A famous story involved a sailor on lookout who had once taken three apples with him to the crow's nest. Rose found out inside an hour, docked him a week's pay and forbade the crew from addressing him by any name but hog for the rest of the voyage. He had noticed an apple seed on the deck.

  The tailor had no doubt that someone had brought food into the canvas room, and he delivered a blistering warning to the tarboys on the evening watch.

  "Get this into your brains right now: food means crumbs. Crumbs mean rats. Rats mean nests and nibblin'. You want holes in the sails when a storm blows up, or when pirates have us in their sights?"

  Among these boys was Jervik. He was angry at being assigned to what he called girly work and behaved with extra savagery the next morning at breakfast.

  "What you know about sailing ain't worth a gull's thin spit," he told the boys at his table. "Food in the canvas room! Who did it? Speak up, you useless ninnies! You!" He pointed at Reyast. "Always the slowest eater! I'll bet you slipped leftovers into your pockets and munched 'em on the sly."

  "L-l-leftovers? N-n-n-n-"

  "You calling me a liar, stutter-slug?"

  Reyast looked down at his boiled beef. He nodded vigorously.

  Amazed, Jervik reached out and slammed Reyast's face into his food. Neeps erupted. He leaped from the bench and hit Jervik three times before the other boy knew what was happening. When he recovered from his shock he lifted Neeps with one hand, cuffed him on both cheeks and threw him over the table. Neeps bounced to his feet and would have rushed Jervik again, but the other boys held him back. It took all their strength.

  Hours later, his calm restored, Neeps put Jervik's words together with some information of his own. His day had begun with a disgusting chore. The ash dump, which carried cinders and bones and other refuse from the galley to the sea, was blocked. Mr. Teggatz had ordered Neeps, as the smallest person aboard, to crawl inside with a plunger and solve the problem. What had Neeps found but rats! Scores of dead rat
s! And not dead from disease or traps but from severed heads and stabbed stomachs. Weirdest of all, they were wrapped up in sailcloth. It was as if someone had crept into the galley and pushed the whole bundle down the chute on the sly.

  Slaughtered rats from the canvas room: what was happening here? Could it have anything to do with those secrets Pazel hadn't wanted to share?

  Pazel! thought Neeps. Couldn't you have held your blary tongue? What's become of you now? And what will become of the rest of us?

  What became of Pazel is easily told: he had been marched to the Harbor Master's office and formally struck from the Imperial Boys' Registry. The process took about three minutes, and with that his career at sea was over. No one cared; they did not even bother to frown at him. Tarboys were thrown off ships all the time.

  "Sorry about them bruises, mate," said the guards from the Chathrand, hustling away into the rain. "Just doing our job."

  "Don't mention it," said Pazel.

  He lingered in the warmth of the Harbor Office, gazing out the window at Uturphe. It was the wettest city on the Nelu Peren, sailors said. Rain fell all year, except in the dead of winter when it turned to driving sleet. There were canals and open storm drains gushing forever into the sea, and hundreds of little footbridges with loose stones and no railings. The countryside was bleak, a place of wildcats and sulphur dogs, so Uturphe grew its food in rainwater tanks: lakeweed, mud radishes, snails. Would his dinner tonight be snails?

  He sighed, and stepped out into the rain. But the door had not yet closed behind him when he saw an unwelcome face: Mr. Swellows was waiting for him beneath the eaves. The bosun's breath, as always, stank of liquor.

  "There you are, Pathkendle!" he said. "Time to start a new life, eh?"

  "Where's Mr. Fiffengurt?" asked Pazel, ignoring the bosun's smile. He had no idea why Swellows was there, but he doubted the reason could be good.

  Swellows jerked a thumb down the avenue. "Still at the hospital, with poor Mr. Hercуl and Commander Nagan."

  "I should catch up with them," said Pazel. "Well, goodbye, Mr. Swellows."

  "Half a moment!" Swellows placed a moist hand on his shoulder. "Listen: I know I ain't treated you too candy-sweet. But I meant no harm. Started off as a tarboy myself, you see."

  "Oh," said Pazel, leaning away from the bosun's hand.

  "You'll need some money to keep afloat, till you find work."

  "My mates took up a collection," said Pazel. "They gave me eight gold."

  "Eight!" boomed Swellows, and for a moment he seemed almost outraged. Then, lowering his voice, he said, "Why not-even for an Ormali? Well, here's a bit more."

  He took out his purse and counted out eight gold cockles, hesitated a moment, then dropped them into Pazel's hand. Pazel just stared at the coins. Eight gold was a considerable sum-enough for Pazel to live comfortably for a week.

  "Why, sir?" he said at last.

  The bosun looked at him with no trace of a smile. At last he said, "When I was your age, somebody did for me like I'm doin' for you now. Swore I'd never forget."

  He held out his hand. Still uneasy, Pazel shook it.

  "Don't waste money," Swellows said. "Respect it. Guard it!"

  "But I don't even know where I'm going to sleep," Pazel admitted.

  "Ah, that's hard," said Swellows. "Uturphe's a city of thieves. The only honest place is the inn on Blackwell Street. That's the spot for you."

  "Blackwell Street," Pazel repeated.

  "Tell 'em I sent ye. Now I must get back to the ship. Remember me, will you, Pathkendle?"

  "I certainly will, sir. Thank you, sir."

  Swellows stalked off drunkenly into the rain, head high, as if proud of his good deed. Pazel shook his head in wonder.

  But there was no time to lose now. He ran up the street Swellows had indicated. He very much wanted to catch Fiffengurt at the hospital: away from the ship, he might get a chance to tell the quartermaster about the war conspiracy-if he could somehow do so without mentioning Ramachni or the ixchel.

  He crossed bridges, leaped over drains. He'd find a way. Swellows' gift had raised his spirits: if kindness could come from him it could come from anywhere. And with sixteen gold he could buy a third-class passage out of Uturphe. Maybe even back to Ormael! After all, he was closer now than ever before.

  But Hercуl was not at the hospital.

  The nurse at the entrance told Pazel briskly that no Mr. Hercуl of Tholjassa had been admitted. Indeed, no one from the Chathrand had visited the hospital at all.

  "Is there another hospital?"

  She shook her head. "Not in Uturphe."

  "There's some mistake," said Pazel. "Mr. Fiffengurt and Commander Nagan were bringing him here-an old fellow with one funny eye, and a short man with scars."

  "Nothing of the kind," said the nurse.

  "But I came ashore with them!"

  The nurse looked at him coldly, as she might at a sack of flour. "These things happen. But you're in luck, young man. The morgue is just across the street."

  Pazel had never visited a morgue, and ten minutes inside Uturphe's persuaded him never to do so again. The very bricks stank of death. Men on hands and knees, scrubbing viciously at the floor, made him wonder just what kind of stains they were trying to remove. But the mortician was delighted to have a visitor. Oh yes! he said. The poor fellow from the Chathrand. Was Pazel here to mourn?

  "Then he's dead!" cried Pazel, grief-struck.

  The man blinked at him. "It's how they come, you see. Dead. I meet with few exceptions."

  He led Pazel across the spotless hall and down a long spiral stair. The air grew cold. At the bottom of the steps the man unlocked a door and revealed a room that perhaps you will not wish to imagine in detail. Suffice it to say that the morgue had been built for a smaller city in a more peaceful time, and that the room's thirty or forty occupants might well have complained of overcrowding, had they been in any condition to do so.

  "Turn sideways-that's it," said the mortician, sidling up to a sheeted form on a dark stone table. "Here we are. Shall I give you a moment alone with your friend?"

  He pulled back the sheet, and Pazel looked into the open eyes of a corpse. The man had dried blood in his hair and an expression of terrible surprise. But he was not Hercуl.

  "Something wrong?" asked the mortician. "You don't know this man?"

  Pazel hesitated: in fact the man did look slightly familiar. But-

  "This is not… who I expected," he managed to say. "You say he came from the Chathrand?"

  "Why, yes, early this morning."

  "But he's not in a sailor's uniform."

  "No indeed. I gather he was some kind of special Imperial soldier. Part of an honor guard, they said. Name of Zirfet." He read the tag on the man's earlobe. "Zirfet Salubrastin. Delivered by one Commander Nagan, of Etherhorde. Funny chap, that Nagan. After the others left he took a long knife from the belt of the deceased and held it before the lad's face. 'I gave you this in the tower,' he says, 'but we both knew it was a loan, didn't we?' Those were his final words to the lad."

  One of the Isiq family guards-dead! Pazel felt a sudden acute fear for Thasha. "Can you guess how this man died?" he asked.

  "Guess!" said the mortician. "I can do better than that. Look at his head: grave trauma. Listen to him gurgle!" His fist thumped the corpse's chest. "That's water in his lungs, not blood. This man was struck from behind, fell into the sea and drowned. A tackle block, swinging loose from the yardarm. Happens constantly. I knew it before Nagan said a word."

  "But I didn't hear about any such accident," said Pazel.

  "Naturally you didn't. It happened just hours ago. Shall I tell you how I know that?"

  Pazel politely declined. The mortician looked disappointed.

  "Guess!" he repeated. "I'll quit the day I have to guess about such a simple case. Why, there's nothing else wrong with the man, except a broken wrist. And nobody ever died from that."

  By evening Pazel was near despair. He ha
d spent too long at the morgue, and sprinted toward the docks in a panic, hoping to catch someone, anyone, from the Chathrand willing to bear a message: Thasha and her father had to be told of Hercуl's disappearance. But his wild dash had caught the attention of a city constable, who ran him down and carried him, deaf to all protests, to the door of a windowless stone prison with the words DEBTORS amp; INDIGENTS carved above the threshhold.

  There Pazel had at last torn one hand free of the man's bear-hug, and in perfect desperation emptied the purse of sixteen gold at his feet. The constable saw his error at once: Pazel was no debtor, he was a thief. But he withdrew this charge as well when Pazel raked half the coins into a little pile beside the man's black boot.

  By the time he at last reached the docks no one from the Chathrand was left ashore. Even worse, no one recalled seeing a contingent from the Great Ship, bearing a wounded man. It was a horrible, helpless feeling: Hercуl was simply gone.

  Pazel had accomplished one small thing. A pair of horsemen had passed him, trotting swift and grim toward the port. Their bright eyes and lean wolfhound faces reminded him suddenly of Hercуl. Sure enough, when he ran after them, he heard them speaking Tholjassan.

  When he shouted in their own tongue they wheeled their horses around.

  "What ho? By your face you are no Tholjassan, yet you speak like one."

  "I'm an Ormali, sir, but I've lost a Tholjassan friend. He is wounded, and I fear for his life."

  Their faces darkened as he told them of Hercуl's disappearance. "I shall alert the Tholjassan Consul," said one. "Lad, we thank you. But we are in haste for an even more terrible reason. News came with the dawn: our coast is under siege, and children have been taken hostage. We sail this hour for Tholjassa."

  "Is it war?" asked Pazel, horrified. But the rider shook his head.

  "Piracy, more likely. Yet war may come of it. We Tholjassans never start a fight, but we have finished many."