Unfettered III

  They went on eating, wiping their mouths on linen napkins, reaching for more. With a shudder, Thasha recalled what she had seen in the painting: the feast among tombstones, the ghouls.

  “Do you know what I really want?” she told them. “A bit of bread. I’ll bet Teggatz has some warm heel he can—”

  “He doesn’t,” said Fiffengurt through a mouthful. “Sorry, m’lady, I asked.”

  Thasha sidled toward the doors. “Then I’ll just . . . see what else he’s cooking. Doesn’t matter, really.” She frowned. “Right, where are my boots? I left them right here by the doors. Which of you tidied up, and where did you put them?”

  No one answered. But above their smacking lips and grunts of satisfaction she heard another sound, a sound that chilled her blood.

  It was very low, at the threshold of her hearing. But it was not her imagination. The sound was a moan of deathly pain or paralyzing fear, or both. It was the voice of someone in agony. And it was calling her name.

  Thasha whirled, panic-stricken. “Rin’s love, people, can’t you hear—”

  The sound vanished in a puff of steam: Marila was filling a teapot from the samovar. Thasha steadied herself against the door.

  Is this hell? Am I dead already? Will you take me apart if I sit down, skin me, devour me raw?

  “My dear daughter—eat!” said the admiral, passing Marila his teacup. “Or at the very least have a cup with us. Chereste plumroot, your favorite. Sit down, keep an old man company. I’ll tell you a story about your mother, if you like.”

  “I’d like that, when I return,” said Thasha.

  “Now see here.” The admiral wagged a finger. “You must abandon this talk of tramping about the ship. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  “In the galley? It’s hot as the Nine Pits in there.”

  “Captain Rose is in a foul mood, too,” said Fiffengurt. “There’s a reef in this mist, and he’s all nerves, shouting at the crew to peel their eyes every second they’re aloft. You don’t want to cross paths with him today.”

  “Rubbish,” said Thasha. “What’s he going to do, Mr. Fiffengurt, confine me to quarters? Oh Gods, where are my boots?”

  The others chewed more slowly now, watching her sidelong.

  “I understand,” said Hercól, “that a cough is spreading among the crew.”

  “Then I won’t kiss anyone,” said Thasha, gripping the left-hand doorknob. And to hell with it, I’ll go barefoot.

  At the table, Marila nudged Felthrup sharply, eliciting a squeak. “Hercól is right!” he blurted. “I took a turn about the decks just this morning, and how I wish I had not! Coughs, wheezes, sniffles, leaky noses—”

  “I don’t care,” said Thasha.

  “—neglected hygiene, mucus, sores and burst blisters, every manner of effluent discharging from sailors, tarboys, passengers, from every part of them at once, from their arsenal of orifices—”

  “Shut up, Felthrup!” The rat shook himself, and Thasha felt somewhat cruel. But she pressed on. “Listen, I don’t care if the whole mucking crew is wallowing in dysentery. I’m going for a walk.”

  “Will you, then?” Felthrup cocked his head and hunched his shoulders in a fair impression of listening. “And after all, why not? Master Hercól, Master Fiffengurt, perhaps we are mistaken? Perhaps—”

  “I forbid you to leave the stateroom, girl,” boomed her father.

  Thasha turned the knob.

  Hercól, Fiffengurt, and Marila leaped to their feet and rushed her. The mastiffs followed, howling. Felthrup flung himself from the table. Thasha pulled at the door with all her might—it had become preposterously heavy, the door of a bank vault, or a crypt. But it moved. She gripped its edge, gasping, and just managed to wedge her shoulder through the gap.

  Hercól snatched at her arm. Marila grabbed a handful of shirt. She fought back, swearing, kicking.

  “Let me go! What’s the matter with you? Are you my friends or my mucking jailors?”

  “Let her go! Why not?” Felthrup nipped at their ankles. “Freedom! More precious in the last than shallow safety! Thou art my oath and my covenant, my homunculus, oh hell, that’s not what I—”

  “VARAK!”

  Nama stood up. Her knitting fell to the floor; her blue shawl fell; her gray hair writhed about her shoulders; the mastiffs cringed; something was in flames at Thasha’s feet. Nama, shaking with fury, reached with one blue-veined hand toward the doorway, and finally, finally, someone met Thasha’s eye.

  Reeking breath, warm wet tongues. Her dogs were competing for access to her face. Their dumb affection: what else in the universe promised so much comfort? Even before she opened her eyes, Thasha reached out to scratch them, a reflex action. But her hand met rough wool. Nama was standing by her bed.

  They were in Thasha’s cabin adjoining the stateroom. The nurse’s lips were sealed tight, but her jaw chewed curses. The door to the outer chamber was closed.

  “What did you do?” Thasha asked.

  “What I swore to do, girl,” snapped Nama. “Protect you from all harm. Including harm from yourself.”

  “I wasn’t about to—”

  “Shut up. You have no idea what you were about to do.”

  “Nama, don’t talk to me that way.”

  “What an ignorant slouch of a girl you are. Why did I choose you? Anyone would have served. A fisherman’s daughter. A dairy maid. A wet nurse. The hat-check girl at the Etherhorde Lion.”

  “Served . . . for what?”

  “Shelter, of course. A roof over my head. Now behave yourself, do you hear me? By the Gods, it’s almost over.”

  Thasha felt suddenly cold. “Something caught fire,” she said. “I smelled it too. Like burning skin.”

  Nama studied her warily. “Nothing is burning now,” she said. Then she turned away, only to pause again beside the door. “If you feel unwell, call Dr. Chadfallow. Use the speaking tubes; they’re labeled. P for—”

  “Physic. I know.”

  “Very good. Now lie still and—”

  “But Nama, Dr. Chadfallow is dead.”

  The nurse froze. Thasha waited, scarcely daring to breathe. Deny it. Chadfallow was stabbed on the lower gun deck, we were a month from landfall, we buried him at sea. Deny the memory. I dare you.

  Nama spoke over her shoulder.

  “Call whomever you like then. Call for food, call a tarboy to empty the chamber pot. Just don’t bother me again, girl. Let me work.”

  She slammed the door behind her. Thasha’s limbs felt cold. She’d caught a glimpse of the men and Marila: lurking in the stateroom, vacant, lost, waiting for the nurse to return.

  Let me work. Nama was not speaking of her knitting.

  Thasha swung her feet to the floor.

  Nama was not Nama.

  She stood up, horrified. If her nurse was not her nurse, then Hercól and Marila were not themselves either. Nor Felthrup, nor Fiffengurt. Nor even her father.

  She looked down at the mastiffs. Nor you, you pair of lummoxes?

  She took a step toward the door. Instantly, Jorl and Syzyt began to pace, whining deep in their chests. Thasha hushed them, made them lie down. All her life they had been obedient to a fault. Now they watched her in anguish. When she reached for the doorknob, they erupted in howls.

  Security guards.

  This was a jail after all.

  She dashed to the porthole window. Madness: the glass was painted over from the outside. Some fool sailor’s mistake, and no time to correct it in the rush to launch in time for the wedding.

  No! Thasha struck the wall with both fists. No mistake. If my family’s not my family, then even this ship, these timbers . . .

  She paced the cabin: window to door, dresser to writing table. Portrait of her parents on their wedding day. Antique mirror, antique mariner’s clock upon her dresser. Speaking tubes. Her dagger and her training sword on the wall above the headless, blade-scarred practice dummy. Her private bookshelf. Her basket of sweat-stained clothes
.

  She looked at her knuckles: there were splinters from where she’d struck the wall. If this was an illusion, it was nearly flawless. This cabin was her own. And she was not meant to leave it until the thing that looked like Nama finished its work.

  And by then, Thasha knew in her bones, it would be too late.

  She crossed her hands over her chest, calming herself as Hercól had taught her. A perfect counterfeit, all this. But in its very perfection, could there be hope? For Thasha had tricks of her own. If only she could remember them.

  She lay back on her bed, searching her thoughts. Then, as if at the prompting of a dream, she rose and approached the mariner’s clock. It was a masterpiece, this clock. It told not just the time but the seasons, the phases of the moon. A circle of leaded glass protected the clockface, which was an extravaganza of rosewood, walrus ivory, gold lacquer, and mother of pearl. The face itself was mounted on a hinge, as though the centuries-dead clockmaker had wanted easy access to the guts of the machine.

  Open it, her mind insisted. Somehow, the clock’s interior would lead her to a friend.

  But that was nonsense. What friend could fit inside a clock? No answers, only the teasing storm. She began to pace again, cursing under her breath. She studied the clock from all angles, pressed her ear to its side.

  She snatched her practice sword from the wall and drove it blade down through her bed.

  Ramachni!

  The name surfaced like a whale. Ramachni, her lifelong ally, linked to her somehow by the clock. Was he a mage, a woken animal, a warrior like Hercól? Was his face hidden in the clock’s artwork, in that setting sun or gibbous moon?

  Then, horror: the practice dummy was bleeding, gushing from its severed neck, bleeding as living tissue pierced by a hundred wounds—

  No! She shook her head; those were only old stains and stitches. Don’t look, don’t give in to delirium, get back to the clock.

  Hand shaking, she unscrewed the glass cover on the clockface. The firefly thoughts of him shone instantly brighter. Yes, a mage. Whatever this false Nama was attempting, Ramachni would put a stop to it. He made things right.

  She touched the minute hand. Memories swarmed from it: climbing her fingertips, her arm, spreading through her veins. Spin it forward, that’s it. Around again, and again. The hour hand followed, advancing through the day. With each revolution, Thasha’s mind grew clearer. And at last she knew.

  Twelve minutes past seven. That was their code, the trigger for the spell that would call out to him across all distances. But she had to stop at nine minutes past the hour. For three minutes the clock would handle the spell alone. Then the clockface would click open of its own accord, and he would come.

  The sweep of the second hand brought him ever closer. Thasha felt warmed from within. Ramachni did not fail, did not abandon his friends. The minute hand reached eleven. She knew his power in battle, the way he’d crushed foes greater than these. What a surprise for her jailors. The minute hand ticked to twelve.

  Nothing happened.

  She tugged. The hinge would not move. She touched the clockface with two fingers and nearly burst into tears.

  “Ramachni.”

  She could feel him on the other side—inches away, a world away, his hand pressed against her own.

  Oh Thasha, my champion.

  “Come through,” she whispered. “Open the door.”

  You know I cannot. There is only one mage aboard the great ship, and she will brook no interference. Nor can I cross this abyss between us. I can only wait for you here.

  “Help me.” She was reduced to begging, babbling. “Help me, I’m alone.”

  Not entirely.

  “The others aren’t real. Gods, I don’t know if anything’s real.”

  You are real, Thasha. And so am I.

  Her fingers were sweating. She believed him, but his words were not enough. “I can’t face her. My mind’s in a thousand pieces. I can’t remember my life.”

  All those pieces make a whole.

  “Ramachni, you say I’m not alone. Do you mean Felthrup? He heard me, finally. He took my side.”

  I am sorry. Felthrup is gone.

  His words brought it back to her: the flash of light, the small flame at her ankles. Burning skin—and yes, burning fur.

  “She killed him! She murdered Felthrup!”

  I must go.

  “Ramachni, was he real, like you? Is that why he tried to help me?”

  She will sense me, Thasha, and things will be worse.

  “You don’t understand, there’s death everywhere I look here, it’s seeping in through the walls. I’m going mad. I can feel it.”

  Goodbye.

  “Tell me what’s real, Ramachni. Tell me, if you’ve ever loved me at all.”

  Have you never understood, then? Mages do not love.

  It was like a blow to the face. Thasha wept where she stood, and almost took her hand from the clockface. Then rage boiled up in her, and she snarled.

  “Yes, they do. One of them at least. But he lies about it.”

  The silence that followed was absolute, but she could still feel him, feel his struggle. And then she felt his surrender, and his voice began again.

  It was your choice. There was evil loose in Alifros that only she could overcome. You may not love her, but she bested that evil. She did what we could not.

  “My choice? Are you saying I promised her my service?”

  No, Thasha. Your body. Your senses. Your mind.

  A click. Thasha whirled as the door opened. The thing that was not Nama stood there, glaring.

  “What are you doing with that clock?”

  Thasha could feel her heart slamming in her chest. But were they hers, any longer, if what Ramachni said was true?

  “Are you deaf, girl? I said, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “You killed Felthrup,” Thasha whispered. “You murdered my friend.”

  The Nama-creature blinked at her, cold as death. “Who were you speaking to?” it said at last.

  “My dogs,” said Thasha. “Are you going to burn them to cinders too?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Thasha looked past the creature’s shoulder: Hercól and Fiffengurt had drawn chairs up against the stateroom doors. They sat with crossed arms, waiting.

  Snap.

  Thasha twitched. “Your name,” she said. “I’ve remembered your name.”

  “Shall I congratulate you?”

  “But I don’t know why you’re holding me prisoner, or where we are. This isn’t the Chathrand, of course.”

  The Nama-creature made a face, as though the question was difficult to settle.

  “And I don’t know why you’ve crushed my memories to bits. Are you experimenting on me? Are you dissecting my mind like a frog?”

  “Of course. And I throw babies to wolves as a pastime. However did you guess?”

  “You’re Erithusmé,” said Thasha. “You’re the greatest mage to walk the earth in centuries.”

  “Millennia, as it happens.”

  “But there was still someone more powerful, wasn’t there?”

  “Never,” said the mage. “I am unmatched since the first days of the Worldstorm, when Mäsithe of Ullum was lost upon the Ruling Sea. But five war-hounds may kill a wolf, and fifty sorcerers lusting for power—yes, they very nearly killed me.”

  “And I was the tool that prevented it?”

  “There are better words than ‘tool.’ Nothing was forced on you.”

  “You’re a mucking liar,” said Thasha. “If I’d agreed, you’d never have broken into my mind, made me forget—”

  Erithusmé hissed through her teeth, and Thasha jumped. The three hands of the clock detached themselves from the mechanism, flitted past her shoulder, and landed on the mage’s palm.

  “I did not take that hammer to your memories, girl. You arranged for it yourself.” She closed a wrinkled fist around the clock hands and left the room without another word.

>   Thasha crossed the room, placed a hand on the door. “You can’t use me any longer,” she whispered. “Whatever I agreed to, it wasn’t this.”

  She glanced at the disabled clock. Ramachni could not return, but the fact that he had spoken with her at all meant that Erithusmé did not control everything. If this was hell, she was not the queen of hell. This false Chathrand could still surprise her, even if she was the reason it existed at all.

  Thasha pulled the sword from the mattress. It felt good in her hand, familiar. On an impulse, she retrieved the sword-belt and scabbard from her wardrobe, buckled it around her waist. She could fight—the trickle of memories included numerous battles—but no, that wasn’t the answer. Erithusmé could disarm her with a word, gag her, bind her to the bed. For that matter, why hadn’t she done so already? And why provide her sword and dagger? And why in the Nine Pits didn’t she simply lock all the doors?

  She didn’t want to shut me in my cabin. She needs me strong, healthy, well fed. She needs me to be ready. But for what?

  For long captivity. For oblivion. For a year, a lifetime in these chambers, playing with jigsaws, pissing in pots. Damn Ramachni and his non-interference! Damn him for his caution, for leaving her utterly alone.

  But all at once his words came back to her: Not entirely.

  What had he meant? Who else could she possibly call upon, and what could they do against the mage?

  She sheathed the sword, glanced at the array of copper speaking tubes, sprouting from the wall like the pipes of a miniature organ. She went to them, wiped away dust, read the engraved labels. G for Galley, P for Physic, SA for Sanitary Assistance (the chamber pot), Q for the quarterdeck, the command center of the great ship, the domain of—

  “Rose? Captain Rose?”

  She murmured the name aloud, then shook her head: what was she thinking? Rose was the last person on earth she would choose as an ally. He was always ill-tempered, frequently violent, more than a little unhinged. He was obsessed with oral hygiene and afraid of cats.

  He was also, like Dr. Chadfallow, dead. Thasha was not sure that mattered in this land of imposters. But it could hardly be an advantage.

  Or could it?