The Red Wolf Conspiracy

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “Ramachni's Observatory. That's what he calls it.”

  “Where … where is it?”

  “In the mountains of another world.”

  “His world?”

  She nodded. “I've been there. In a manner of speaking.” She laughed. “There's a secret way to open the clock, and they didn't think I knew it. But I'd watched Hercól do it once, pretending to be asleep, and the next night I felt like talking to Ramachni before bed, and opened the clock myself. He wasn't home, but I left the clock ajar. And that night I passed along the tunnel somehow and stepped into the Observatory. I saw wonders—a sleeping cat with smoke puffing from its nose, a bookshelf that became a wall each time I put out my hand, a great glass house full of trees and flowers, hot as anything, but built on a snowpeak.

  “Suddenly Ramachni was standing among the flowers. He looked quite human. He offered me a strawberry, and when I'd eaten it he asked me to take a walk with him. We passed through the glass house and into a kind of dark toolshed, very cold—the floor was a mix of snow and sand—and then he threw open the far door and there were the peaks, huge frozen peaks all around me, and the air was thin and icy. We stepped out and I realized we were on the very edge of a cliff. So high, Pazel—I can't begin to tell you how high and terrifying it was. The wind was screaming and the ground was slick ice under my night socks, but you could see forever, and there were creatures larger than whales in the distance, gliding among the clouds. And then he asked if I knew where home lay. I was in tears, but he laughed and covered my eyes. He said the tunnel was not a plaything, and that I might be able to visit him by it just twice more in my lifetime. Then he took his hand away and I was back in my room in Etherhorde.”

  “Thasha has a most spectacular dream-life,” said Hercól.

  “It wasn't a dream,” she said fiercely. “My socks were wet afterward.”

  “But why does he visit you?” Pazel asked. “You particularly, I mean?”

  A brief silence: Thasha looked at Hercól. “They won't tell me,” she said at last.

  “All that I am given to tell, I tell,” said Hercól. “Complain to the mage of his mysteries, once we find him. But just now, boy, I would like to test your Gift a little further.”

  He then asked Pazel questions in Tholjassan and Talturik and Noonfirthic, and when Pazel answered each in turn Thasha laughed in delight. Pazel smiled despite himself. She wasn't the only one with something special to her name.

  “There's another thing,” he said. “Sometimes I hear better than normal. Just voices—and come to think of it, just translated voices. If you went into the next room and whispered in Arquali, I wouldn't hear a thing, because I learned Arquali before my mother cast the spell. But I would hear perfectly if you spoke in, say, Nileskchet—”

  He stopped dead.

  Hercól's eyes narrowed.

  Bewildered, Thasha looked from one to the other. “Nileskchet. That's a funny name for a language. I've never even heard of it. What is Nileskchet?”

  “Yes,” said Hercól, in a changed voice. “Can you tell us that?”

  Pazel knew he had made a terrible blunder. However kind these new friends appeared, they would never forgive him for associating with crawlies. And what about the ixchel themselves? Even Diadrelu had promised to kill him if he revealed their presence.

  “It's just some old language,” he stammered. “I don't think anyone uses it today, except in poetry.”

  Hercól bent toward him, hawk-like. “Do you, by any chance, enjoy Nileskchet poetry?”

  “I've never heard any.”

  “Few men have.”

  “Why are you so strange all of a sudden, Hercól?” said Thasha. “We should be deciding what to do about him.”

  Hercól kept his eyes on Pazel for another long moment. Then at last his gaze softened and he sat up. “True enough,” he said. “Four hours of work you've missed. They know you're in here, of course, so we must invent a story to explain it. My suggestion is that we tell the truth: you have been entertaining us with your languages.”

  “Languages!” said Thasha suddenly. “Pazel, tell me this, if you can: who or what is a mighra cror?”

  Pazel looked at her, startled anew. “Those are Mzithrini words, the first I've heard in five years. And they mean ‘red wolf.’”

  “Red wolf?”

  He nodded. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

  “From a man who hid in our garden,” said Thasha. “Just before someone put an arrow in his heart.”

  Hercól was looking from one to the other. “You are both quite sure?” he said softly. “Of what you heard, Thasha—and you, boy, of the meaning?”

  They assured him they were.

  “Does it mean something to you, Hercól?” Thasha asked.

  “It may, and it may not. I know of just one red wolf. It was a magic statue or talisman of old, fashioned by Mzithrini alchemists from enchanted iron, fused with the blood of a living man. The stories all connect this Red Wolf with some great evil that plagued the Pentarchy a thousand years ago. And yet, strangely, the Five Kings' worst fear seemed to be that it might be stolen: they carved out a mountain citadel over Babqri and placed the Wolf at its center, guarded by walls and traps and sfvantskor warrior-priests. Why they should keep a thing of evil at the heart of their Empire I cannot guess. The tales, in any case, are half forgotten, in this age when east and west do not speak. What is certain is that the citadel, for all its protections, was destroyed at the end of the last war. The fate of the Red Wolf is anyone's guess. What a peculiar thing for that man to say.”

  “In the middle of Etherhorde,” added Thasha, shaking her head. “In Mzithrini.”

  “Stranger still, he said it to you,” added Hercól. “The Treaty Bride, on the eve of her journey.”

  She turned back to Pazel. “If you speak Mzithrini, that means you heard someone speak it once when your Gift was working, right?”

  “Yes,” said Pazel. “The Mzithrin Kings had an envoy in Ormael, just like Arqual did. He had to leave when the troubles began, but in earlier days he and Dr. Chadfallow used to sit on our terrace and talk about peace—or argue about war.”

  “But I thought your mother cast the spell while Chadfallow was back home in Etherhorde,” said Thasha.

  “She did,” said Pazel. “But the Mzithrini envoy … well, he fell in love with my mother, and spent time with us right up until the Arqualis attacked. My mother didn't particularly like him, but he kept trying. Especially after Dr. Chadfallow left.”

  “Ignus said she was a great beauty,” said Hercól.

  Pazel dropped his eyes. “He proposed to her,” he said at last.

  “Who?” asked Thasha. “The doctor or the Sizzy fellow?”

  “Both,” said Pazel after a moment.

  “Ah!”

  “She was—she is beautiful,” Pazel went on. “And she did like Ignus. But I can't understand why she took so long to say no to the Mzithrini.”

  “Just imagine!” laughed Thasha. “If she'd married him, you might have gone to live in Babqri City and learned the Casket Prayers, and had your neck tattooed with the name of his tribe, and learned how to ride a war elephant!”

  “And found Captain Gregory,” said Hercól.

  Pazel looked up at him sharply.

  “Or if she'd married Chadfallow,” said Thasha, “he might have taken you to Etherhorde, and we'd have met years ago, and Hercól could have taught you thojmélé fighting, too. And you'd never have become a tarboy at all. You'd be Pazel Chadfallow, and you'd have been safe and sound in the doctor's house right through the Rescue of Ormael.”

  “Rescue?” said Pazel, turning on her in amazement. “The Rescue of Ormael? Do you people really call it that?”

  “Well, yes,” she said, taken aback. “It was a rescue, wasn't it? Otherwise you'd have been killed by the Mzithrin Kings, all of you, and had your blood mixed with milk.”

  “Come, Thasha, you know better,” said Hercól.

  Thasha was by
now quite red. “Do I? Prahba says it was only a matter of time before someone invaded Ormael. At least we didn't kill everyone.”

  “You tried,” said Pazel.

  “Mr. Pathkendle!” said Hercól.

  “You killed half the men in the invasion—that's what it was, Thasha, an invasion—and enslaved the rest. You sold us boys to the mining companies, and our sisters to old fat men.”

  “Nobody sold you to any mining company,” said Thasha, but she could no longer meet his eye.

  “You burned the city to the ground!”

  “She didn't,” said a voice behind them. “I did.”

  Admiral Eberzam Isiq stood in the doorway, heavy and grim, a pale turquoise vein standing out on his bald head. No one had heard him approach.

  “Who is this boy, who calls my daughter by her given name? Why is he in her cabin?”

  “Sir,” said Hercól, bowing his head, “I do humbly beg your pardon. This is the tarboy you wished to congratulate, the tamer of the augrongs. I understood you were napping, and as we waited on your pleasure the boy revealed that he speaks the Mzithrini tongue.” He raised a book from Thasha's table. “I thought it worth putting to the test.”

  “So this is Pathkendle!” boomed the ambassador. “Captain Gregory's boy! I didn't know him in that coat—but of course, it's the very coat I gave him, isn't it? Hmm! Now tell me, Pathkendle: what has happened to my doctor?”

  “I … I've no idea, sir.”

  “Chadfallow has vanished,” declared Isiq. “Normally he writes every week or two, but it has been almost six. His last letter said that he had booked passage on the Eniel to Sorrophran, where he was to board this ship. You served on the Eniel, I believe.”

  He's sharp, thought Pazel. Who told him that?

  “Did you see him, boy? Speak to him?”

  Pazel nodded.

  “Well, what did he say? Out with it!”

  “We spoke about the Chathrand, sir,” said Pazel carefully. “And about the last war with the Mzithrin. Were you in that war, sir?”

  “Of course. Continue.”

  Pazel hesitated. Chadfallow had spoken to him in great secrecy. He and Isiq were old friends, and perhaps the doctor had hoped Pazel would pass on a message—but how could he be sure?

  “He … hinted at things, Your Excellency. That the Chathrand is heading for the Mzithrin lands, for instance.”

  “Well, so we are—to Simja, right on the border of their empire.”

  “Excuse me, sir: not close to but into Mzithrini waters. That's what he meant, I think.”

  Isiq looked sharply at Hercól, then back to Pazel. “You must have misheard.”

  “Not him,” snarled Thasha. “Mr. Pathkendle has very sharp hearing.”

  Isiq laughed aloud. “She's fond of you. Can't you tell?” Then, abruptly, he winced and raised his hands to his temples.

  Thasha rushed to his side. “Prahba,” she said, clutching his arm. “Are they getting worse?”

  “I'm quite all right,” he grumbled. “And when we land at Tressek Tarn I shall be better still.”

  Pazel supposed Isiq meant to visit the famous mineral baths of Tressek Tarn; they were said to cure all manner of diseases. What was wrong with him, though? One could tell at a glance that he suffered from more than headaches.

  Isiq smiled at his daughter. “Your hand is strong,” he said. “You'll represent our Empire well in this new age of peace. Now come here, Pathkendle. I have something to say.”

  Pazel came forward uneasily, and the admiral rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “We burned your city,” he said. “It was a terrible deed, and fate repays me in the same coin—I too am burning, with a brain fever that never quite subsides. But know this: my orders were far worse, not just to burn Ormael City but to flatten her, roll her founding-stone into the sea, fill her wells with corpses, plow her fields with salt. Our Emperor did not think we could hold Ormael, so far from the heart of Arqual, so close to the Mzithrin Kings. He wanted a wasteland, therefore: something no enemy could ever reclaim.

  “I meant to give him his ruin. I sailed there with such purpose, believing the safety of Arqual depended on it. But when I arrived and saw proud young Ormael, beautiful as a Dlómic city out of legend, I could not.”

  He paused, worrying his knuckles. Thasha looked at Pazel expectantly, and Pazel felt like bolting from the room. What did they want? To be thanked?

  “Imagine if I had done nothing,” said Isiq at last. “Do you know what would have happened then? I should have been imprisoned, my consort given to another man, my daughter to Gods know whom. And your city would have bled all the same. Indeed, to see the job done His Supremacy would have sent one of his butchering Turach generals next. The best I could do was limit the damage and take Ormael for the Empire, alive but wounded.”

  “The bodies piled in Darli Square didn't look wounded,” muttered Pazel.

  “Silence!” barked Hercól, as Isiq's jaw dropped in amazement. Thasha's tutor leaped forward to catch Pazel by the arm. “Curb your tongue, rascal! Whom do you think you're speaking to? Your Excellency, a thousand pardons! I shall remove him immediately—or after his humblest apologies, if that is your wish.”

  As Hercól fell silent, Pazel saw that the ambassador was furious: red-faced, mouth a-quiver. How long had it been since anyone dared contradict him? Backed against the wall, Thasha was staring at him, wide-eyed: for better or worse Pazel had impressed her again.

  Isiq rubbed his temples with both hands. “I am more interested to know if the boy himself wishes to apologize,” he said.

  Pazel looked at him in silence, remembering flies and the smell of blood. Hercól gave his arm a ferocious squeeze.

  Still Pazel hesitated—and then it was too late. A door crashed open in the outer stateroom, a woman gasped and Syrarys was there, lovely and furious, eyes ablaze.

  “What is this? Eberzam, you're shaking! You've exhausted yourself!”

  “I'm fine,” said Isiq, but his voice rang suddenly weaker. “Syrarys, where have you been?”

  “Making arrangements for your baths at Tressek. Sit down! Oh, Hercól, what have you done? Get that wretched boy out of here!”

  “I invited him,” said Thasha. “And he's no more wretched than you.”

  The consort turned her a scalding look. “Haven't you done enough? Will you only be satisfied when your father collapses? Hercól, take him away!”

  Hercól bowed and tugged Pazel roughly from the cabin. Pazel had only a fleeting impression of the outer stateroom: an immense, glittering chamber, someone's greatcoat tossed casually over a blue divan, a pair of crossed swords mounted on the wall, red ribbons wound about their sheaths. As the door closed he turned and glanced back at Thasha. Her eyes were on him still.

  “Splendid work,” said Hercól furiously. “In ten minutes you managed to make Thasha cry, her father hate you and her tutor seem a colossal fool.”

  “I'm sorry,” Pazel said, “but you don't know what it was like.”

  “Nor do you know my life's tragedies, nor hers, nor those of hundreds on this ship! Does that make your outburst any wiser? It is not a question of feelings but of self-control!”

  “So I should have lied to him? Or acted grateful?”

  “You should have held your tongue. Think, boy! Your father has become a Mzithrini! If anyone can help you rejoin him it will be Eberzam Isiq.”

  Pazel started. Rejoin his father! It had never seemed remotely possible. But if peace took hold between the empires, almost anything could happen. And even though his father had not wanted it, Pazel did know a bit about sailing now. Wild hopes began to swirl in his head.

  They crossed the gun deck, heading forward. Sailors muttered as they passed: “That's him, that crazy Muketch. Talks like a ghost's in his guts.”

  “Will the baths help Thasha's father?” Pazel asked Hercól.

  Hercól looked grave. “Who can tell? His illness is most peculiar; it is a bad time to be without Ignus Chadfallow
. Now then: if anyone asks, you were helping Thasha practice her Mzithrini vows. And if you can keep out of trouble for a few days, I might be able to make truth of that little lie—that is, to arrange for you to be Thasha's language tutor. Of course, that would mean spending an hour or two with her every day.”

  Pazel stopped in his tracks.

  “What is the matter?” said Hercól. “You do not wish it?”

  Pazel's first thought was Of course not! But something made him hold his tongue. He thought again of how she'd looked at him from atop the carriage in Etherhorde, felt again her hand on his arm. She stood up for me in front of Syrarys. Why?

  “Rose won't give me time off to be a teacher,” he said.

  “He might if your bond debt were paid,” said Hercól.

  Pazel gaped at him. “Would you do that for me? Really?”

  Hercol laughed. “I would do so for every bonded servant in Arqual, if I could. Unfortunately the gold to my name would scarcely buy the two of us a good meal in Tressek Tarn. No, if you're to teach his daughter it will be the ambassador who buys your freedom. We've spoken of it already. Use your head, Pazel, and don't insult those who stand ready to help you. Hallo there, Mr. Fiffengurt! I dare say you're looking for this lad.”

  Night Village

  26 Vaqrin 941

  14th day from Etherhorde

  My terror is the terror of the rat, but my soul is my own. My soul is my own. My soul is my own.

  Say that when the panic comes. If it's true then you're safe, saved, sane. You shall prosper and escape this murdering cold water of loneliness, this whirlpool, this swill of violence and want. Find love, dry land, eyes that don't hate you when they discern you from shadow.

  If it is not true—then there is no you to be saved, darling Felthrup.

  So thinking, the black rat worried a path among the ghostly stores and cargo of the mercy deck. He was moving in circles: not lost, but searching in frantic haste, staring into the near-perfect blackness, straining his nocturnal eyes. What he sought was a light, the smallest, palest red light. Three times he had glimpsed it already and dashed forward with hope leaping in his heart, only to see it vanish without a trace.