The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

‘Stand by!’ he shouted a second time, though no one would dare to move without his consent. The swallows turned eastwards, sailing out towards the mouth of the bay. They stayed far from the cliffs, as though the ixchel themselves feared assault from that quarter. Rose shouted for his telescope. By the time he had the birds in his sights they were descending again, upon one of the larger rocks beyond Stath Balfyr. As he watched they came in for a gentle landing on the barren stone, just a few yards above the lashing of the sea.

  ‘What’s that about?’ cried Sergeant Haddismal. ‘What in Rin’s name would make them want to come to rest out there?’

  For several minutes nothing else happened, save that the dawn grew brighter, the air slightly less chill. Then the lookout cried that a single bird was flying back their way from the rock.

  Rose found it with his telescope. The bird was carrying a crawly, and as it drew near he saw that it was none other than Lord Talag. As before, the swallow stayed high above the deck. But this time as they drew near, Talag shook himself free of the bird’s claws and flew on his own, in the swallow-suit, in a circle about the ship. His flight was laboured, and brief: he flew only as far as the tip of the main topsail yard, some four hundred feet above the deck. There he landed, folded his legs, and sat. Now Rose could see that the swallow-suit was in tatters, and stained with dark blood.

  Fiffengurt was right. They’ve been fighting the island crawlies. And those two hundred — are they all that remain of his clan?

  Commotion aloft: Talag was shouting to the topmen. They relayed the message at once down the human chain. Rose made them say it twice, as he could scarcely believe his ears. Talag was asking Rose to climb the mainmast, near enough for a private talk, ‘between men who care for their people’.

  The gall! thought Rose. As if listening to more lies and duplicity could help my crew.

  ‘If the crawly wants to talk he can descend to the quarterdeck,’ he said aloud. ‘Otherwise, let him rot there.’

  ‘Better yet,’ said Ott, approaching from aft, ‘let me knock him off his perch with an arrow. You know he deserves it.’

  There was a gleam in the spymaster’s eye. Rose frowned. ‘He has earned death,’ he agreed. ‘Very well, spymaster: bring the Turach sharpshooter as well. If the crawly does not explain himself in twenty minutes, you and he will have an archery contest, and the men may place bets.’

  Ott looked at him, pleased. ‘You surprise me, Captain. I had almost decided that you’d gone hopelessly soft.’

  The men relayed the captain’s answer to Lord Talag. The ixchel’s reply came immediately. Talag claimed to know the secret of the boulder-throwers. He would share it, too, if only Rose would climb up and talk.

  You cunning bastard, Rose thought. A chance to free the ship was the one hope he dared not spurn. Even to appear indifferent would demoralize the crew. And now a dozen men at least knew what Talag had promised.

  ‘Clear the mast,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll speak with the crawly alone.’

  He expected rage from Ott, but the spymaster merely gazed at him, eyes bright with curiosity — a more disturbing response than anger. Rose climbed. It had been years since he had ventured as high as topgallants. The descending topmen eyed him with concern, but they knew better than to speak. Captain Cree, lounging at his ease in the fighting-top, had no such reticence: ‘Take your time, old man! Nothing’s more pathetic than a captain fallin’ to his death on his own ship.’

  Rose actually smiled at the ghost. Cree had done just that.

  He was light-headed by the time he reached the topgallant spar. Lord Talag had risen and walked in along the heavy timber until he was a few yards from the captain. The two men were alone on the mast.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ said Lord Talag.

  Rose was gasping. He heaved one leg over the spar, hooked an elbow around a forestay, and leaned back against the mast. The sun was hot on his face.

  ‘What do you want, crawly?’

  ‘Death,’ said Talag, ‘but I have yet to earn that release.’

  Rose shielded his eyes. Talag was seating himself on the mast, and though he tried not to show it, Rose knew he was in stabbing pain. The blood was not only on his swallow-suit: it had dried on his hands, his leggings, had congealed his hair into a sticky mass.

  Talag spread his hands. A slight barren smile on his lips. ‘Behold, your enemy. The Ninth Lord of Ixphir House, the master of his clan. Of what is left of his clan.’

  ‘Why did you take your people out to that rock? They can’t be safe out there.’

  Talag looked at him. ‘Safe,’ he said. ‘That is a fine word. Safe.’

  ‘Don’t start blary raving.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Talag. ‘Only that is what the dream was about, you see. To be safe. That was what I promised them, years ago. That is why we brought the Chathrand to this isle.’

  A ruined man, a broken man. At another time it would have angered Rose simply to be in his presence. Today what he felt was something darker: recognition, a likeness between them. Rose was chilled by the thought.

  ‘You promised me some word about those boulder-tossers.’

  Talag nodded. ‘I will tell you everything I know of my. . brethren, on Stath Balfyr. Indeed I’m prepared to tell you anything and everything I know, save the location of my people on your ship. My word on that. And no conditions.’

  ‘You want nothing in return?’

  Talag fixed his vanquished eyes on Rose. No anger in them, no hope for himself. And no pride, utterly none. It was as if the man before him had been skinned.

  ‘I want something immense, Captain,’ he said. ‘But I know I cannot bargain for it. I am here to beg.’

  Rose and Talag spoke for a surprisingly long time. Many on the deck below watched their conference for a while, before beginning to mill about in impatience. Only Sandor Ott stood like a statue, his telescope fixed on the pair from beginning to end.

  The end was bellicose: Rose shaking his bushy head, the crawly pacing the spar and gesturing with increasing urgency, at last both of them shouting, and Lord Talag Rying away from the Chathrand in a fury.

  Scores of hands gathered by the mainmast, watching Rose slowly descend. When he reached the deck at last Sandor Ott handed him a glass of fresh water.

  ‘From your steward.’

  The captain drank like a horse, then wiped his beard and shouted: ‘Clear out, you staring gulls! Have you not duties enough?’

  The crew dispersed, leaving just Ott and Haddismal. Rose picked up his coat, drew out a clean kerchief and mopped his face.

  ‘They’re done for,’ he said. ‘The islanders are less like Talag’s people than we’re like the Black Rags. They’re all crawlies, I don’t mean that. They can understand each other’s speech — or enough of it. But they have nothing else in common. Stath Balfyr is religious, and divided. They treat the lower orders worse than dogs.’

  ‘What do you mean, lower orders?’ said Ott. ‘The clans have different ranks, different privileges?’

  ‘There are no clans any more,’ said Rose. ‘It’s a theocracy. The nobles live like sultans, make the laws, talk to the Gods. The lower-downs just follow. And the lowest of the low-’ Rose shook his head. ‘Talag said he saw a man dangling from a noose by the trailside. He asked what the man’s offence was, and they said, “He was caught uphill from his betters.” Just standing uphill. Because water flows downhill, and he might have rendered that water unclean.’

  ‘Gods of Death!’ said Haddismal.

  Sandor Ott gazed out at the mouth of the bay. ‘Those two hundred, on the rock?’

  ‘All that remain alive,’ said Rose. ‘The islanders were prepared to grant Talag a higher status, because of the magic of the swallows. But not his people — they were unclean. Any outsider, ixchel or otherwise, is unclean. And when they tried to herd them into work sheds, under lock and key-’

  ‘Talag exploded.’

  ‘Of course he did,’ said Rose. ‘That last mobilisation was a resc
ue party. And a great defeat. Talag’s people are the better fighters, but there are tens of thousands of crawlies on that island. They rule every inch of her. That rock out there was the only place they could land.’

  Ott gazed at him, unblinking. ‘Besides this ship, you mean. That is what he asked you for, wasn’t it? Safe return to the Chathrand, the ship they seized once, the ship they almost destroyed?’

  ‘That was his request,’ said Rose. ‘He doubts the swallows are strong enough to bear them to another island. Even the nearest.’

  ‘And in exchange, he told you how we might escape this Godsforsaken bay?’

  Rose hesitated, and the other men saw his face darken. ‘Nothing of the kind,’ he said at last. ‘That was only a ploy to make me hear him out.’

  He drew a deep, brooding breath, then turned and started lumbering towards the stern.

  ‘But Captain, what did you tell him?’ asked Haddismal.

  Rose paused, looking back over his shoulder. ‘What did I tell him? That he had best hope the birds are stronger than they appear. Or else wait for a storm to wash them from that perch and end their suffering. That I would rot in the Pits before I’d welcome his ship-lice back aboard.’

  Haddismal was speechless, caught between approval and horror. Sandor Ott too held very still, clutching the folded telescope and studying the captain minutely.

  Once in his cabin Rose told the steward to pour him a generous snifter of brandy, then moved to his desk and began to write a letter. When he had his drink he set the steward to polishing the floor. But minutes later he glanced from the page and barked:

  ‘What are you doing there? Off your knees, and bring me that lamp.’

  The steward lowered the walrus-oil lamp from its chain and brought it to the captain. Rose blew on the letter, folded it twice. From a desk drawer he took a stick of sealing wax and a spoon. As he melted a bit of wax above the hot lamp he gazed at the other severely.

  ‘How old are you?’ he said.

  ‘Forty-nine or fifty, sir. My parents weren’t much for dates.’

  ‘You are to leave the Merchant Service and learn a trade in Etherhorde. If you are not killed, that is. If you are killed, I submit that you must practise discretion in the afterlife. Tell no one you were a servant. You are well-spoken, and your table manners are fine. No one will guess your humble origins.’

  ‘Oppo, Captain,’ said the steward. He had been years in Rose’s service and was incapable of surprise.

  ‘This letter is for the duchess,’ said Rose. ‘Deliver it when she rises tomorrow. Until then keep it with you, safe and out of sight. Now go and eat.’

  ‘But. . your own dinner, sir-’

  ‘Go, I say. Come back at sunrise with my tea.’

  Alone, Rose sat with both hands flat upon his desk. Not a sound, not a scurry. The ghosts had all stayed outside his door. He nodded to himself: their reticence was a sign, a threshold passed. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  He was still there at midnight, wide awake, the brandy untouched. He seemed gifted tonight with exceptional hearing. All the sounds of his vessel, the pounding, stumbling, swearing human machine, reached his mind like an incantation known by heart. At two bells past midnight there was a scratch at his door. He stood and walked to the door and opened it, and the red cat with the maimed tail looked up at him, questioning.

  ‘Come in, then,’ he said, and the animal did.

  For the last hour he sat with Sniraga on the desk before him, purring. Then he passed a hand over his face (dry, flat, pitted, a face like an abandoned pier), and blew out the lamp. Now the room was lit by the stars alone, filtering dimly through windows and skylight. He stood up and took the cat to his bedchamber, shutting it within. Then he walked to the gallery windows.

  The ship was as peaceful as it would ever be. Rose unlatched the tall starboard window, pushed it wide, then crossed the chamber to port and did the same. The chill night breeze slithered into the cabin, bringing with it the slosh of the bay against the hull, the creak of the mizzenmast stays.

  Very soon they arrived. Soundless, as Talag had sworn they would be. A black river of birds, flying in at one window and out by the opposite. They never landed, never slowed. But as they passed, the crawlies dropped from their claws, landing on soft cat-feet, running for cover even as they touched the ground.

  Of course, they had nowhere much to go. His cabin had no cracks or crevices, no bolt-holes by which they could escape. Quite a few were too injured to run in any event. The crawlies formed a circle in the middle of his rug, backs to the core — unarmed, pitifully vulnerable. The strongest lifted the maimed onto their backs.

  Lord Talag was the last to arrive. From the windowsill, he made his people count off, their mouths opening and closing as they silently shouted. Then Talag flew to the rug and turned to face Rose. He made a curious salute, raising the sword he no longer had, then sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.

  Rose scowled. He had not thought Talag capable of such a gesture, or that he, Rose, could ever find it sincere. It was sincere. ‘Get up,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘There’s your conveyance. Will you fit?’

  He pointed to a battered sea chest by the wall. Talag nodded. ‘We will. There are breathing-holes, I trust?’

  ‘You’ll see them.’ Rose walked to the chest and tipped it on its side, holding the lid ajar. ‘Hurry, damn you,’ he whispered.

  The crawlies flowed like ants into the chest. When they were all inside Rose slowly tipped the chest upright and closed the lid. Then he tested the weight.

  Bile of Rin.

  Two hundred crawlies — and what, two pounds apiece? He flexed his hands, his shoulders. He walked to his cabin door and listened: no one about. He propped open the door and walked back to the chest, glaring at it like an enemy. In his youth he had carried a five-hundred-pound whisky barrel up a gangway on a dare. But his youth was a memory, a visitor who had come with dreams and promises. A visitor whose face he could no longer recall.

  He lifted the chest. The crawlies shifted. He moved to the door, stagger-stepping like a draft animal. He pictured himself collapsing, spilling crawlies down the ladderway, found by Turachs with the stark evidence of madness and treason in his arms.

  How he managed the descent he could not begin to say. Did the ghosts aid him; could they lend him bodily strength? Or was it merely his conviction that a path once chosen must be walked to the end?

  On the threshold of the orlop deck he braced the chest against the wall and slid it to the ground. Pain like a knife in his back. Torn muscle. He raised the lid. Lord Talag, and the bleeding remnants of Ixphir House, looked up without a sound.

  ‘Run, you little bastards,’ he gasped. ‘Run for your lives, and don’t let me ever see your faces again.’

  They vanished across the orlop, quiet as a sigh of wind through reeds. Not one of them failed to bow before they fled. Why had he done it? How had Talag compelled him to care?

  Too late for such questions. Rose lifted the chest (so nearly weightless, now) and continued down to the mercy deck. His work not done. The greater test was waiting somewhere in the dark.

  ‘Kurlstaff,’ he whispered. ‘Come along, you old pervert. Spengler. Levirac, Maulle. Why are you hiding, tonight of all mucking nights? Come out, I say. I need your witness.’

  They came, stumping along in the darkness. They were reluctant, gazing at him with uneasy respect. Only Kurlstaff, with his lipstick and his bangles and his battleaxe, dared to speak. ‘You’re the maddest of us all,’ he said.

  Rose moved on, and the ghost-captains trailed in his wake. At last he stood before the Green Door, padlocked as he had ordered. He set down the chest and fumbled in his pocket. From the start of his career Rose had never once dispensed a key without retaining duplicates himself. He freed the locks and let the chains fall away.

  The dangling lamp sputtered to life as he approached. Kazizarag stood as before in the centre of the room, his gold eyes seeking Rose.
This time the demon was silent, as though he knew (and perhaps he did) that taunts were the last thing he needed tonight. But he grinned at the captain, a wide sly grin full of teeth.

  Rose dropped the chest and stared him down.

  ‘You can have the gold,’ he said. ‘All of it, and the other treasure as well. As Final Offshore Authority it is mine to dispense with. I give it to you.’

  ‘If.’

  ‘If you will swear not to seek it until the ship meets its death. A death you will not hasten.’

  ‘You are not much of a bargainer tonight,’ said the maukslar. ‘I cannot leave the vessel until the Chathrand’s keel is cracked, and her blood spills, along with all the magic that courses through her. Only then will this prison release me.’

  Rose glanced back at Kurlstaff, who stood uneasily at the threshold. The other ghosts had not dared to enter. ‘What about our prison, Rose?’ demanded Kurlstaff. ‘When the ship sinks, will we go to our rest? Or will we rot for ever along with the carcass of the ship? Ask him, ask him!’ Rose faced the maukslar again. ‘The woken rat,’ he said, ‘tells me you can look through the walls of this ship as though they were glass.’

  The demon just waited, gazing at him.

  ‘Everywhere, that is, save the stateroom. The latter, I assume, is guarded by a magic stronger than your own. Arunis could not pierce it either. The chamber is off limits to magical probes. We could even be hiding the Nilstone within it, could we not?’

  ‘You could, but I know better.’

  ‘The question is, does she?’

  ‘What are you driving at, Captain?’

  Rose ignored the question. ‘The rat also said you claimed you could make a hen’s egg glow like the sun.’

  ‘Easily.’

  ‘Could you make it burn, though? Burn with death-energy, throb with curses like an altar of the damned? Could you make it so black that it swallows light the way you swallow gold?’

  The maukslar stared at him, fascinated and appalled. ‘Lunatic. You are asking for a second Nilstone. Of course I cannot make such a thing, any more than I could lay new foundations under this world. And if I had such power, I should never offer the Nilstone as a gift. Not to you, not to Macadra. Not even to my mortal father, the Firelord who spawned me in his house of fear.’