The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

24

  From the final journal of G. Starling Fiffengurt

  Monday, 2 Fuinar 942.

  It is truly extraordinary: our ixchel have charmed the birds of the air. One sort of bird, anyway — the swallows of Stath Balfyr — and in truth just one ixchel appears to have the knack. He is Myett’s granddad, the old duffer they call the Pachet Ghali. At six bells today he pulls out a tiny flute and sets to playing on the forecastle, and in they swarm from the island, skimming low over the bay. Lord Talag stands among them in his swallow-suit, pointing and shouting, and thirty more of the little people materialize out of their hiding places, laughing at the birds with delight. Who’s in control, I wonder: the musician or the feathered lord? But how they do keep coming, until they outnumber the ixchel four to one.

  Suddenly they descend in a jabbering mass. Grown men fall back, protecting their faces, but the birds have no interest in humans. They seize the ixchel in their claws and rise, bearing them away towards the island and its steamy woods. Only the Pachet is left behind.

  This, then, has been their plan since Etherhorde: to bring us all the way here from Etherhorde, and then depart on swallows’ wings. They mean to repeat this trick again and again, until their whole clan is on dry land. And what then? Ott declares for a certainty that they’ll not let us go, and this time I fear the old snake is right. What if we talked about this place? What if we came back with catapults and fire-missiles, and burned Stath Balfyr to a crisp? What if we came back with a navy?

  But there are surely hundreds of ixchel hidden on the Chathrand yet, and thus far only thirty have departed. When the first group vanishes from sight the old Pachet (the word’s his title, not his name) sets the flute aside and talks to us quite reasonably. He invokes Diadrelu, ‘our lord’s dear departed sister’, and compliments Marila and Felthrup and myself for befriending her.

  ‘She would have wished us to part without illusions, and without hate,’ he says. ‘You are guilty of many crimes, but hating you has served us ill. Lady Dri understood this and would not pretend otherwise. She would not lie to us, or to herself. But the cost of seeing that truth was death.’

  I suppose I’m in the mood for a fight. ‘It ain’t just that she saw, old man,’ I say. ‘It’s that the rest of you refused to.’

  ‘Not all of us,’ he replies.

  I tell him he’s a mucking hypocrite. ‘If you think so much of her, why d’ye still serve the bastards who stabbed her in the throat?’

  The old man looks at me, untroubled. ‘I serve the clan,’ he says, ‘as she did, to the end.’

  Some hours later the birds return. With them are just three ixchel: Lord Talag and two strangers, hard-faced sorts dressed only in breeches and weaponry. They are the first proof we have that ixchel really live on Stath Balfyr. They’re outlandish, too: they have fantastic, elephant-like creatures tattooed on their chests, and their hands and forearms are painted red as though dipped in blood. They flank Talag and nod to him courteously, but Talag is all business as he speaks with the Pachet in that tongue we humans cannot hear. Now the old man looks surprised and uneasy. The birds have settled along the bowsprit, spattering the Goose Girl with their droppings, but when he starts to play again they rise up twittering and excited. This time they bear the Pachet away with the rest.

  It is hard not to stare at the spot on the island where they disappeared. Sometimes I think I see the treetops moving, as if a wind were trapped there, or some big hand riffling the crowns. But there are other urgencies. The gangs have exploded yet again: there are two dead and twenty wounded. And a deathsmoker who lost his mind and threw himself at the augrongs, who panicked a little and squeezed him to death. And a plague of horrible green flies from the island. They have settled in the heads and bite our arses, and give us great goose-egg boils.

  And there is a last thing, so terrible my hand is shaking as I write. About a week ago someone nicked a goat from the animals’ compartment. This was strange but not catastrophic: somewhere a confused and frightened sailor was hoarding goat-flesh, maybe, and no doubt the flies would soon give him away. But last night Mr Teggatz noticed a change in the stench around the water casks, and had the good sense to pry the lid open before he sipped. He howled. The goat’s head and viscera were floating there, half-decayed. The whole cask was poisoned, and so were four others beside it. The cook’s nose has saved lives — hundreds of lives, maybe; for he was about to boil up the evening broth. Is this the work of gangsters? Could they possibly have gone so far?

  Whoever the culprit, we are now once again low on fresh water. All this, and Dr Chadfallow nowhere to be found. I have put eight tarboys on the hunt for him, and will have to watch my temper if I learn that he is poking about the lower decks yet again in search of his green mucking door.

  Tuesday, 3 Fuinar 942.

  I cannot sleep, and fear the visions that would plague me if I did. My heart is pounding. My shoes reek so badly of blood I have had to tie them up in a sack.

  Last night Rose summoned us to a secret council in the galley — me, Ott, Uskins, Sergeant Haddismal, even Marila and Felthrup. Mr Teggatz was instructed to make a great deal of noise with pots and boilers. In this way Rose hoped the ixchel would not catch our words, if they still bothered to spy on us.

  The meeting was a failure. It was clear to all of us that the ship would never be permitted out of the bay. Rose ordered Haddismal and Ott to pull together plans for a night assault on the island, and for once all three were in complete agreement. ‘They can throw boulders,’ said Ott, ‘but that will be of little use against Turachs dispersed among the trees. They are still just crawlies, and we are men.’

  ‘We have enough small craft to put two hundred on the shore at once,’ said Haddismal. Then he frowned and glanced at the spymaster. ‘Of course, that would leave us with no means to evacuate the ship.’

  ‘Timbers, then,’ said Ott. ‘The bay is calm, and the water warm enough. Lower some mastwood under cover of darkness, and let the men swim ashore on either side.’

  The rest of us objected desperately. Marila said we should be sending gifts, not soldiers. Felthrup squeaked about shark fins in the bay.

  ‘And my officers have nothing to contribute?’ Rose demanded with a snarl. Uskins shook his head sorrowfully, but I cleared my throat. Our best hope was to find the ixchel stronghold on the Chathrand, I said, and to seize their food and water, along with a good number of hostages. Then we could bargain our way out of this trap.

  But at this Felthrup only wailed: ‘You can’t, you can’t!’

  ‘Be quiet, Felthrup!’ hissed Marila. But it was too late. Rose loomed over him like a mountain, ordered him to reveal all he knew. Felthrup only shook his head and muttered, ‘Impossible, don’t try.’

  Then Rose exploded. He seized Felthrup and stormed across the galley, making for the oven. Marila screamed, Teggatz sputtered and waved a spoon. And I–I drew my knife and went for the captain. I do believe I would have stabbed him in the back. Ott moved like a panther, however. I caught a glimpse of his face (grinning) before something struck my skull. Then darkness swallowed me up.

  When I woke I was alone with Teggatz in the galley. ‘Out cold!’ he said, helping me up with a grin. ‘It’s Monday. Like every Monday. Every one is the same.’

  ‘Felthrup-’

  Teggatz pointed proudly at the oven.

  ‘Gods of Death — no!’

  I shoved him aside and flew across the room and threw down the iron door. Felthrup was in there, all right — blinking, terrified, unharmed. The oven was stone cold.

  ‘No plum duff,’ said Teggatz. ‘No baking on Monday. Bah hah.’

  A few minutes later Marila appeared and carried Felthrup back to the stateroom. I sat there hoping Teggatz would produce his jug of rum, but he was all business tonight, readying the galley for lock-up so that he might snatch a few hours’ sleep. I’d rarely felt more wretched. The boils in my trousers were as sore as my head. ‘Where in the shade of the Blessed Tree is Dr Chadfallow?’
I asked aloud.

  Teggatz closed the door behind me. I turned away and found myself facing Uskins, of all people. He was strangely lucid, and nervous in the extreme. ‘Thank Rin you’re awake,’ he said, glancing nervously about. ‘I came looking for you, Fiffengurt. I have the most terrible news.’

  I felt my heart skip a beat. ‘What is it? The doctor?’

  Uskins started, then shook his head. ‘I know knothing of Chadfallow.’ Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘It’s the crawlies, Fiffengurt. They’re going to sink us for certain. I’ve found the proof.’

  I stared at him. ‘What sort of proof?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ he hissed sharply. ‘You know this ship as well as Rose. You tell me: how could a man sabotage her from within? Swiftly, irrevocably, leaving no time for the damage to be stopped?’

  ‘There ain’t no certain way.’

  ‘But the most likely. Think, Fiffengurt: how would you do it?’

  I shook my head. ‘Maybe. . the way Old Captain Ingle sank the Blaze in Rukmast Harbour.’ He looked at me blankly. ‘Where were you in ’26, man? They say he braced a cargo jack against the keelson, and cranked it hard against the hull until a wale popped its screws.’

  ‘A wale.’

  I pressed a hand to my throbbing head. ‘A facing timber, Uskins. A blary plank. You know what a wale is, by damn. Now what’s this news?’ He was silent for a moment, as though lost in thought. Then he looked up at me sharply. ‘What you’re describing is almost exactly what’s going to occur.’

  ‘Going to?’ I cried. ‘Are you bent full sideways? What did you find, and why haven’t you been shouting your daft dirty head off about it? Flaming toads, Stukey-’

  He thumped me in the stomach, then clapped a hand over my mouth. He pressed his lips close to my ear.

  ‘Maggot,’ he said. ‘I have your peasant girl in my cabin with a death scarab on her forehead. If she screams, or moves, or I but think the command, that scarab will burn down through her skull like magma. You will not shout. You will show me this cargo jack, and help me position it. And you will deflect any questions, and send crewmembers out of our way.’

  ‘Who-?’

  ‘Not a word, not a word but to my purpose. I will give her agony before she dies. I warned her not to cry out even if it burned. I told her to think of her child.’

  ‘Arunis!’ I gasped.

  He gave me a little frown. ‘The scarab has just burned through her skin. Next will come her skull, if you do not heed me. The cargo jack. Take me to it. I will not ask again.’

  I started marching. Nightmare, nightmare. Arunis in Uskins’ body, intending to sink us at last. Arunis torturing Marila, disfiguring her. And damn him to the Pits, but she was strong enough to keep silent as her flesh burned. She could do that. He had chosen well.

  ‘You ruined our water, too, I suppose. With the goat innards.’

  ‘Be silent,’ he snarled.

  My legs were wobbly. We crept down the No. 3 ladderway, then crossed to the narrow scuttle by the cable tiers. Uskins (Arunis) walked naturally at my side. He’d told me to deflect questions, but there wouldn’t be any. Nobody but Rose would question either of us; we were officers.

  At the mercy deck I lit a lamp. There were cargo jacks down in the hold, where the sabotage would have to be done. But why make it easy for him? I started aft towards the Abandoned House, that loneliest part of the ship, where the youths and I hatched our doomed plans for mutiny. There was a jack here, in a crawlspace. But there were many crawlspaces, and they all looked the same. A man could get confused.

  The halls were narrow and black. Arunis (Uskins) grew twitchy. ‘What are you doing, maggot? This is not the hold.’

  ‘The jack,’ I whispered. ‘Just ahead.’

  ‘What was that noise? Who is down here?’

  ‘There’s nobody here,’ I told him. ‘But look: that’s the one.’

  Except that it wasn’t. In fact I wasn’t exactly sure what was behind the crawlspace door at our feet, but I was blary sure it wasn’t a cargo jack. I was stalling, of course. I’d remembered that this particular door was triple-bolted, and the bolts stiff and rusted. But now I was seized with fear for Marila. Helping to sink the Chathrand wouldn’t save her, but how could I let him maim the girl?

  ‘Open it!’ Arunuskins hissed. ‘Any tricks and that little whore will know pain beyond reason, I swear it.’

  I set the lamp down and knelt. The first bolt slid free easily (I cursed inside) but the second put up a fight. My hands were shaking. Marila’s face, Marila’s tears-

  ‘Chadfallow guessed,’ said Arunuskins.

  I started, twisting about, and he cuffed me on the cheek. I turned back to the bolt.

  ‘Mr Uskins died of nerves,’ said the voice behind me. ‘Despite the plague, he tried to refuse my services. But before I left the ship I persuaded him to keep my scarf, just in case. It was my voice in his ear, that scarf. It stoked his terror as the plague advanced, until he could think of nothing else. And then he let me in, and I took over the house.’

  ‘And his soul?’ I asked, shaking. ‘Where are you keeping it?’

  ‘Nowhere,’ said the voice. ‘That coward’s mind was of no use to me. I forced it out through the window, and let the breeze carry it away. You should thank me, Fiffengurt. You despised the man. Didn’t everyone?’

  The second bolt slid free, and I moved on to the third. Slowly.

  ‘I too am dead,’ said the voice. ‘Dead to this world, that is. But when the Swarm has lain it waste I shall inherit the universe. Then I shall need no more puppets. I will never stoop so low again.’

  I popped the third bolt. The door fell open — on a thoroughly empty crawlspace. I winced, expecting to feel him cuff me again. But instead I heard the sorcerer lurch violently away. I whirled. He was writhing, both hands at his neck. Behind him, holding tight to a garrotting wire, stood Sandor Ott.

  ‘Don’t do it!’ I howled. ‘He’ll kill Marila!’

  ‘Unluckily for him, I could not care less,’ said Ott. ‘Keep still, monster! I can drop your head on these boards with a twitch of the wrist.’

  A ghastly wheeze escaped Arunuskins’ throat. His eyes were locked on me. ‘But Ott!’ I pleaded, ‘He’s put some some vile thing on Marila’s forehead, he’s torturing her-’

  ‘Shut up. And stand clear, unless you want to be soaked.’

  The mage’s cheeks had hollowed out; his eyes were bulging like grapes. The wire had already drawn a little blood. A thin sound, like steam from a kettle, came from Uskin’s throat.

  Ott grinned. ‘You have some comment on the precedings? In fact I think we’ve heard quite enough from you. But if you care to bargain for this stolen body, you may try. Let me spare you some effort: we know already that Macadra has taken the Nilstone.’

  Arunuskins twitched violently. The wire bit deeper into his flesh.

  ‘Careful!’ said Ott. ‘Yes, we have that on good authority. Your old sparring partner learned it, dream-walking. I’m speaking of Felthrup of course. Macadra has taken the Nilstone, and slain Pathkendle’s gang. And she is halfway here.’

  Once again Arunuskins jumped. His face contorted with pain.

  ‘Beyond that, have you anything of consequence to say?’ demanded Ott. ‘If so, just raise a finger.’

  Arunuskins hesitated, beady eyes swivelling. Ott clicked his tongue. ‘I thought not,’ he said.

  His arm jerked fiercely. The wire slashed, the flesh parted. I slipped in the blood as I shoved past Ott and the gushing corpse, blinded by my tears. Ott called after me casually, as if to say, Don’t bother. I flew to the upper decks, smashed into sailors, incoherent with grief-

  Marila was standing on the lower gun deck, unharmed. ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘Why are you bloody? Mr Fiffengurt, are you all right?’

  I fell on my knees, hugged her, weeping like a child. All lies. They were so good at it, these spies and sorcerers. And I am hopeless and always will be. I couldn’t seem to releas
e her. I felt her heartbeat, and I felt that wee babe kick.

  Wednesday, 4 Fuinar 942.

  We found Dr Chadfallow in Uskins’ cabin, under a shroud of flies. I have no heart to write of my friend just yet. Not a word more, or I shall be unable to continue.

  Let me write instead of the scarf. Captain Rose soaked it in lamp oil, applied a torch, and held it out over the sea on the end of a boathook. A crowd gathered for the grim little ceremony: the ones who had outlived the sorcerer. No one said much. It felt good just to stand there. As the cloth burned, Thasha’s dogs whined and pricked up their ears, and Felthrup asked if we didn’t hear someone moaning, very far, very faint?

  Now in bed I am thinking of Sandor Ott. Did he have a spy watching Uskins — or watching me? It hardly matters any more. What does matter is this: that whore’s bastard didn’t know that Arunis was lying. About Marila, that is. He simply didn’t care. He’d lost a few hands of poker against the mage before, and wasn’t going to lose this one. Come what may.

  Later, in Rose’s cabin, he all but crowed. ‘I enjoyed spilling that blood. There was no reason to question Arunis further. He was dead, and you can’t threaten the dead: there’s a lesson every prince ought to learn. Nor can you bribe a man who wants nothing you possess. All we could hope for was to learn what the mage didn’t know.’

  ‘You lied to him,’ I said.

  ‘Of course. Felthrup does not know if Macadra has the Nilstone, or that she is chasing us. But now we know that Arunis hated both ideas. The two mages were not in league; or if they were, Arunis was only pretending, and planning to betray Macadra. In either case he is unlikely to have been guiding her towards the Chathrand.’

  ‘But why did he try to sink us?’ growled Sergeant Haddsimal, enraged. ‘We’ve got the Shaggat Ness on board! Didn’t he want that fiend delivered to his worshippers? Ain’t that the whole mucking idea? ’

  ‘Fool!’ snapped Lady Oggosk. ‘It was your idea. Which is to say Arqual’s. Which is to say Ott’s.’