The Red Wolf Conspiracy

by Robert V. S. Redick

  They checked the hold, the galley. Last of all, the captain's cabin.

  “Pazel!” cried a familiar voice. Neeps was still breathing—and tied by his own rope to the foot of an ancient bed frame. “Get me out of here!” he cried. “That sea-vixen fooled me!”

  Pazel was so relieved he pulled the murth-girl into a hug. She glowed like the full moon at his touch.

  “You let her do this to you?” Pazel asked, turning back to Neeps.

  Possibly the first boy ever to do so underwater, Neeps blushed. “She said she'd be right back.”

  “Never mind. We've got to get you back to the surface. Help us, Klyst.”

  The rope was no match for the murth-girl's teeth. As she chewed she stared at Neeps with unmistakable loathing.

  “What's wrong with this one?” Neeps asked. “She looks like she'd rather eat me than set me free.”

  “She's jealous,” said Pazel. “It's not her fault, exactly. Come on, your charm's wearing off.”

  Out through the stern windows they swam, Klyst tagging moodily behind. The bathysphere was rising: in fact it was halfway to the surface. As they sped toward it, a lone diver plunged from its dark mouth. It was Marila.

  No murth-magic had been done to her: she was holding her breath, and still looked far too weak to be diving. At the sight of the boys her eyes lit up with astonishment. She didn't smile (could she smile?) but still she managed to look as close to happy as Pazel had seen her. Dropping her sinker, she rose with them into the sphere.

  The Volpeks gaped in amazement at the boys' return. From a shelf above the waterline, Mintu laughed. “Pazel! Neeps!” he cried. “I told them you weren't dead!”

  “Two of us are,” said Pazel. “And Neeps almost made three. Do you hear?” He raised his voice to Volpek level. “DON'T SEND ANYONE ELSE. I'LL BRING YOU THE WOLF.”

  “YOUFOUND THE RED WOLF?!”

  “JUST GIVE ME A ROPE, WILL YOU?”

  Marila leaned close, whispering to fight the echo. “Hurry,” she said. “They're nervous up above. Something about a mist closing in. They're afraid it's black magic.”

  “We shouldn't be here,” said Pazel. “Humans, I mean. It's not our coast.”

  “Pazel,” said Neeps, “you're not still under that murth-girl's charm, are you?”

  “Of course not!” said Pazel. Rope in hand, he dived. Klyst emerged from the weeds and all but tackled him.

  “I thought you wouldn't come back,” she said, clinging to his arm. “Who was that ugly, wicked girl?”

  “Nobody,” said Pazel, exasperated. “Klyst, you've got to let me have that Wolf. I swear all these men will leave the Coast as soon as they get it.”

  “And you'll leave with them.”

  “I have to, Klyst.”

  “Then I'll follow you. I'll follow your ship.”

  “This is nonsense!” said Pazel. “We're trying to stop a war! A huge war, do you understand? And that is much more important than you and your silly—”

  But then he saw her tears oozing into the water again. Before he could find a word of comfort she broke down completely. “HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO!”

  She tore out handfuls of hair, braided shells and all. Then she dived. Pazel gave chase, but it was like a kitten chasing a mountain lion. When at last he found her she was kneeling by the coral arch, tearing the orange worms from the rock and stuffing them one after another into her mouth. Their venom burned her lips, but she kept chewing, weeping all the while.

  Pazel caught her by the waist and dragged her back from the arch. “Spit them out! Out!”

  She put her hands over her ears.

  “You heard me!”

  Reproachfully she spat out the worms. “If you go I will die! I love you!”

  “Tell me how to reverse the love-ripestry.”

  “You can't!”

  “Is that true?”

  She glared and glared. “You can. But it's not easy. And I'll kill myself before you do it!”

  Defeated, he let her go. “Just show me the Wolf,” he begged. “As soon as they have it we can sit down and talk.”

  “About getting married?”

  “About anything you want.”

  She wiped her eyes and pointed into the arch. “We buried it here long ago. It attracts the worms, and other bad things.”

  “Right here?”

  She nodded. “You can't dig it up, though. It would take you all day.”

  Pazel sighed. “I was afraid you'd say that. Well, I'll go and tell the others. We can dig in shifts, and maybe—”

  “No,” said Klyst. “No more humans.”

  “Why not?”

  “They'll be killed,” she said. “Very quickly. We start by using girls, but when that fails we have … other ways. Do you understand? My people won't wait much longer.”

  Pazel peered into the kelp forest. “Tell me what to do,” he said.

  Klyst paused, thoughtful. “Get ropes,” she said at last. “All the ropes you have. The Wolf is very heavy. When you come back I will tell you more.”

  “What are you going to—”

  “Go, land-boy Hurry.”

  She glanced up at the bathysphere. He watched her for another moment: there was something she did not want to say. But he had to trust her—what choice did he have?

  “Wait for me here,” he said, and rose.

  He met the bathysphere just below the surface. At once he shouted to the Volpeks for more ropes. Neeps, Marila and Mintu watched him with looks of dread, but none of them said a word. Suspicious, the Volpeks threw him all the rope-ends they had.

  “THE CUSTOMER DIDN'T SAY IT WAS HUGE.”

  Not bothering to reply, Pazel dived once more, five ropes uncoiling behind him.

  Was Klyst alone? For a moment Pazel thought he saw more than one figure near the coral arch. Then the darkness fell and he swam on by memory, and when he could see again there was no one beneath him but the murth-girl.

  She flitted to his side and pulled him quickly down into a little rocky crevasse.

  “I thought you said it was under the arch,” said Pazel.

  “It is. Give me the ropes.”

  Quickly she wound the ends of all five ropes around a coral knob. Then she backed deeper into the crevasse and beckoned him to do the same.

  “Crouch down. Hold on.”

  There was barely room for the two of them. She smiled to be so close to him, her serpentine legs against his own. She took on a soft yellow glow.

  “Klyst,” he said stiffly, “we must go and get that Wolf.”

  “We are.”

  She grew very still. The sea too seemed to hold its breath. And then out of nowhere the scarlet ray shot by like a great leathery dragon, raked them with an indecipherable look, and vanished over the top of the coral wall. And in its wake came a storm of silver.

  They were needlefish, thinner than broom handles and faster than arrows, and they blasted by a yard from Pazel's face in a school so tight it was like a solid body. The sound was like nothing he had ever known: a soft enormity, the pulse of a giant's vein. The school plunged right through the coral arch, blotting out all view of worms and urchins as they passed.

  “What was all that for?”

  “Ripestry,” she said. “Don't move.”

  The needlefish were gone. But then Pazel felt the sea begin to change. A gentle tug at first, then a stiff current like the recoil of a wave, flowing unmistakably toward the arch. Klyst put her arms around him. The current doubled, then doubled again. It was a riptide now, gushing quietly but with immense power through the arch. Sand rose from the tunnel floor. The vile worms began peeling away.

  Embracing him, Klyst began to sing. In song, her voice and language were suddenly beautiful, and free of all fear. It was strange to hear joy in her voice, for the words were somber.

  Mothers from out of the ancient cold,

  Fathers from fire descended,

  Bound to a destiny none foretold,

  Birthed us, the never-inten
ded.

  Oh never, never again to be

  Of this mortal world, this migrant sea.

  Children of lsparil's morning call,

  Sired on Night's feral steed,

  Heirs to a promise that none recall,

  Prisoners of dawn-thwarted need.

  Oh never, never again to be

  Of this wounded world, this wastrel sea.

  The current was lifting more and more sand from the seafloor, whirling it away through the tunnel. And slowly a figure appeared.

  It was encrusted with old limpets and barnacles, clams, algae, knobs of withered coral. But it was unmistakably a wolf, and its color was a dark blood-red. It stood upright, iron muzzle raised in a silent howl. Pazel felt a great menace in it, although he could not have said why.

  “It's no bigger than a real wolf,” he said.

  “Heavy, though,” said Klyst.

  Even as she spoke the blasting current died away. Klyst freed the ropes from the coral and at once began trussing up the wolf. She was good with knots—Pazel tried not to imagine what she practiced on. Two ropes she looped around the Wolf's head, another two about the midsection. The last she braided through its legs.

  When she had finished, Pazel gave the ropes two stiff tugs. The Volpeks responded at once. The lines tightened, shifted, tightened again. But the Wolf did not budge. This was, Pazel knew, extremely weird: five ropes and pulleys should have allowed the men to lift an iron hippopotamus. He looked up: more Volpeks were leaping through the dive portal and entering the sphere. A moment later the ropes snapped tight again.

  The Wolf slid forward an inch, then another. The ropes strained tight as bowstrings. At last, like a tree wrenched from the earth, it left the seabed. First it swung out of the arch; then, revolving slowly, it rose.

  Pazel heaved a great sigh. “Your people can stay,” he said. “These men will be gone before you know it. They're all afraid of the Haunted Coast. They can't wait to get out of here.”

  With many a jerk and stutter, the Wolf climbed inexorably toward the bathysphere.

  “I know you do not lie,” said Klyst, taking his hand. “This is why you've come, why the Lord of the Sea gave you to us. This is why it is my fate to love you, a curse that is no curse.”

  Pazel was glad it was taking so long to raise the Wolf, for he had no idea how he would convince Klyst to let him break the enchantment. Simple reasoning (that he didn't eat other humans, that his ripestry was just a spell gone wrong) would clearly get him nowhere. He would have to tell her the worst: that he did not feel what she felt, and didn't want to.

  Then he would have to command her not to do herself harm.

  Silent, they watched the Red Wolf enter the sphere. Then Klyst turned and led him beneath the arch, which now bore an unfortunate resemblance to a chapel doorway. They knelt. Pazel's stomach twisted in knots. He had to tell her the truth. But there she was, beaming at him, pulling his hands into her hair—strange, thick hair, with those braids of tiny kulri shells. He felt as if he was holding the sea itself

  “Nine hundred shells in my hair,” she said. “All perfect, white, clean. That is the rule for murth-girls: a very strict rule of purity. But one shell I keep secret. It has a rose heart. Look.”

  He took his hands away. And although he had not pulled or grasped at anything, there it lay on his palm. A shell like all the rest, but blood-red on the inside. She took it from him and held it for a long time, and he wondered if she was having second thoughts. Then she reached out and pressed it against his chest, just below his collarbone.

  The shell vanished.

  “Where did it go? Did you drop it?”

  “Pinch your skin,” she said.

  Pazel pinched a fold of his skin, just where she had placed the shell. “It's inside me,” he whispered.

  She nodded. “A shell is a home that drifts. I have named you my secret home, given you my secret heart. If you want me to stop loving you, cut it from your flesh. Otherwise I am yours. Will you marry me, land-boy, and live on starfish and coral wine, and learn the songs of my grandfathers, and know the million wonders of the murth-world?”

  She touched his cheek. His heart was beating so hard he thought he might faint. He no longer knew what he wanted. Images of Thasha and Neeps, of his family, of sorcerers and kings, passed before his eyes like drawings in a storybook, or a dream he was quickly forgetting. Nothing was real but her eyes.

  On Klyst's face he saw the gentlest of smiles appear. He felt the beginnings of an answering smile on his own face, and a warmth where she touched him.

  And at that precise moment, his mind-fit struck.

  It came like a stampede of horses, thundering, trampling. Panic took him entirely. Klyst was shouting, but he heard only that dreaded noise. He knew he could not speak a word—but what was worse, silence or gibberish? Either way she would think he hated her.

  “SQUALAFLAGRAPAGA! PAJ! NAG! ZELURAK!”

  She was weeping and screaming. He fell back on the seafloor, covering his ears. But there was no shutting it out. And the next instant her voice was joined by others, much lower and angrier. A dozen sea-murth men were laying hands on him, biting, strangling, piercing him with their sharp nails and teeth. They must have been watching all along. Behind them Klyst wailed and pleaded.

  Their argument was deafening. But Klyst won, and the murth-men let him go. Howling with sobs, she pulled him toward the surface, the raging men just behind. Pazel found himself crying, too. But his tears did not glow, and Klyst would never know he had shed them.

  The bathysphere was rising from the waves. Klyst stopped him a yard beneath it and covered his hands with kisses. She looked at him and waited. He bent to do the same to her hands, but she shook her head. She wanted him to speak.

  He bit his lips. He would not subject her to that noise.

  Klyst saw his look of refusal and let out a final, agonizing scream. Then, with the sound still breaking from her throat, she faded. It happened suddenly. One moment she was there, solid as he was. The next he saw the kelp through her skin. And the next (the scream snuffed out like a candle) there was no murth-girl before him at all.

  Spitting hatred, the murth-men turned and fled. Pazel gasped—and choked instantly. He could no longer breathe water.

  Flailing, he surfaced. He was surrounded by boats. Clouds of white mist were racing toward them over the water. Twenty feet away, the bathysphere dangled over the deck of the sea barge. All about it the Volpeks stood gaping. And directly beneath the sphere, arms raised, stood Arunis.

  The Volpeks in the sphere were lowering the Red Wolf down through the hole. The sorcerer reached for it, ecstatic. When his fingers brushed it at last, he let out a bellowing noise that even through the distortion of his mind-fit Pazel knew for laughter.

  What have I done?

  Pazel splashed toward the barge. Knock him into the sea, drown him, drown with him.

  Saving Klyst's people had been his only thought. But in so doing he had aided a monster.

  “I'll kill you!”

  Arunis glanced around, trying to locate the source of the meaningless squawk. And then—

  BOOM.

  A violent wave. Pazel was hurled back and down. Volpeks tumbled from the deck. Arunis lost his grip on the Wolf and plunged into the sea.

  Cannon fire!

  Somehow Pazel rose. No one was motionless now. Men ran, oars churned; terror showed on every face.

  BOOM. BOOM.

  They were under attack.

  On Pazel's right a skiff was blasted to splinters. The air was full of wood, water, blood. Pazel swam toward the nearest boat, screaming for help. It was overfull: Volpeks and their young prisoners, stuffed like worms in a baitbox. And it was drawing away, much faster than he could swim.

  “Help! Help!” (“Kquak! Kquak!”)

  He chased it, but his strength was gone. Another wave sank him, and when he struggled to the surface again he knew it was for the last time.

  The drowned, like those
who die of thirst, suffer visions: every sailor knows that. So Pazel was not too surprised when familiar faces appeared in the departing boat. There was Neeps, throwing punches. There was Thasha fighting like a champion. And there, dashing one Volpek after another into the sea, was Hercól of Tholjassa. A pretty dream, he thought, not believing in it for an instant.

  BOOM.

  The fighters ducked. Something whistled overhead. Then came pain, and darkness like sudden nightfall, and quiet at last.

  A Betrayal Ended

  5 Teala 941

  83rd day from Etherhorde

  Moonlight. No sound of a battle.

  Was he sleeping on the bottom of the sea?

  No, he could not breathe water anymore. If he were under the waves it meant he was dead, and that seemed likely enough. But if he had drowned his lips could not be parched, nor his scalp tickled by what felt suspiciously like a flea.

  “Well,” said a man's deep voice, “the last time it was you who waited on me. Now I can return the favor. Care to sit up and drink something?”

  Pazel's head ached terribly. He was in a small, neat cabin without lamp or candle. And seated on the corner of the bed was Ignus Chadfallow.

  “You're here!”

  “And so, more surprisingly, are you. Don't jump up! You took a flying plank to the back of the head—a blow that would have split a coconut. Fortunately your skull is rather harder.”

  He smiled—the first smile Pazel had seen on his face in years. But Pazel found he could not return it: Chadfallow had played him one trick too many. The doctor's smile faded, and it was then that Pazel noticed how tired he looked. There were lines of care on his face that had not been there in Sorrophran, and his eyes were grim.

  A memory suddenly blossomed in Pazel's head. “My father was here!” he said. “I heard him—was it just a few minutes ago? I heard him talking about me.”