“Your Excellency!” said Chadfallow. “You cannot believe these claims!”
“About Shaggats and sorcerers risen from the dead? Of course not.”
“Then her marriage must go through!”
“An age of peace cannot begin with a plan stained by treachery,” said Isiq, “nor by the sacrifice of an innocent soul. Don't argue, Doctor! Let the Emperor condemn me if he dares. But from this moment I swear before you all: Thasha Isiq's life is no one's but her own.”
FROM THE SECRET JOURNAL OF
G. STARLING FIFFENGURT, QUARTERMASTER
Friday, 6 Teala. The most horrible day of my life. Is all the world gone mad? Nay, it has long been so; I just had no eyes to see it.
Fell asleep last night still jotting down all that transpired at the governor's table. Frightening enough, especially the attempt on Lady Oggosk's life, & the outlandish things Pathkendle & Lady Thasha shouted at the end. But those events were nothing.
As Mr. Hercól predicted, the remaining five of Ambassador Isiq's “honor guards”—all Ott's men—somehow received a signal from their master, & fled the ship before we returned. We informed the palace, & left it at that. We departed Ormael with the sunrise, making eight knots on an honest easterly.
Not a league out of Ormael port, however, a sloop came up behind us with two red pennants on her foremast: grave tidings. We heeled round, & in minutes the little ship was alongside.
Such awful news: the governor's whole palace struck down with talking fever! Fifty guards, servants, cooks, groundskeepers—& of course the governor, his wife & eight children. All babbling & foaming at the mouth. The palace was sealed tight—no one allowed in, or out. But there was worse. The Lady Syrarys, dead! Out of her mind with fever or remorse at her own evil acts, she hurled herself from her prison tower into the sea. The body is yet to be found: it seems she was in chains, & the iron bore her to the depths. Mistress Thasha & her father are still weeping, even though the woman betrayed them. Love is such a pitiless thing.
But surely the fever threatened Chathrand, too? After all, we dined with them night after night. Dr. Chadfallow bellowed questions to the sloop's commander, & soon believed his report: talking fever, without a doubt. Then came the only good news of the day. Turning to us, he said we had nothing to fear. “Talking fever strikes instantly, if it strikes at all,” he said. “We are none of us infected.”
He refused to return to Ormael, but gave strict orders for the treatment of the sick. “Millet and prunes! Nothing else for a fortnight! And send word to me in Simja of their condition!”
Rattled, we took the Chathrand on. We did not fall sick: thank the Gods the doctor was right. But I declare this ship is changed since Ormael. For the first time, a report of a fight between the Plapp's Pier & Burnscove Boys. Not a big fight, but as a taste of things to come it could not be worse: in Ether-horde, the two gangs never break a truce without eventually going to war.
The first-class passengers have locked themselves behind the Money Gate, afraid of the fever despite the doctor's words. And the sudden return of the ex-tarboys, Pathkendle & Undrabust, has set tongues wagging on every deck.
It is no secret that they & Lady Thasha had some adventure along the Haunted Coast & that the doctor & Mr. Hercól rescued 'em. This scares the men half to death. A mob of sailors stopped the boys on the pier & emptied their pockets, asking if they had any trinkets from the Coast. Nothing at all, they replied—but Pathkendle said this while pinching the skin of his collarbone & staring off into the distance, like a man missing his sweetheart. Of course, I knew who she must be—the somber little sponge-diver girl, Marila—but it was a weird look all the same & the men were hellish disturbed.
No one searched the rich folk, naturally, & that was how the trouble began. Hercól came aboard this morning with only his sword & a shoulder-bag, but the good doctor arrived with a crate. It was no larger than a pushcart, but it took nine strong stevedores to wrestle it up the gangplank. Was it full of lead? Chadfallow gave no sign. “To my quarters with that!” he ordered, directing them.
But as they set foot on deck, we all heard it: a man's voice, far away, roaring. It seemed to come from the lower timbers of the Chathrand itself. It was the voice of a madman—wicked, murderous & joyful at once:
“GIVE IT TO ME! GIVE IT TO ME! GIVE IT TO ME!”
We all froze. All except Pazel Pathkendle, who ran up to Chadfallow & caught his sleeve. “You can hear him! I know you can! Please, Ignus—”
The doctor turned & shoved him so hard the boy fell to the deck. Pathkendle jumped up & turned to us, pointing.
“You heard him! All of you heard him!”
But had we? The voice was silent now, & the sailors made the sign of the Tree & ran about their business. And Rin forgive me, so did I. Was ever a man given a plainer choice of bravery or skunkish fear? I chose fear, & whatever follows now I shall blame myself.
Later in the morning I crossed paths with the boys again. Pazel Pathkendle had a fresh black eye. “What leprous dog gave you that?” I demanded. “Who's next off this ship?”
They hung their heads. “Rose,” whispered Pathkendle at last. “He said it was my last warning.”
Then my shame grew stronger. I took a deep breath & marched to the captain's door. I knocked. In a heartbeat Rose threw the door open.
“What is it?” cried he. “Danger, Fiffengurt? I heard no cry. Are we beset? Tell me, tell me, blast you!”
When I stammered out that I had come to learn the reason for the beating of one of my tarboys (for the Code bars even a captain from striking a boy in the absence of witnesses), he looked at me as if I were mad.
“Pazel Pathkendle,” he said, “is the most dangerous person on this ship. I shouldn't have smacked him—I should have put a knife in his gut. Look out!”
He flinched, staring wildly past my shoulder. I jumped half out of my skin & turned about: nothing. Rose slammed the door behind me.
I cleared my throat. “I won't stand for this, Captain,” I shouted, not very boldly, though. He made no answer, & I turned & descended the ladderway, down & down, to the afterhold, seeking that mysterious voice. The augrongs were there, half dozing as always, & a fair number of enormous rats. But no strange men. I worked my way forward, searching for anything unusual. I was startled by how well stocked we were—enough grain & hardtack & beef chips to see us home to Etherhorde, with food to spare. Had it all been laid away in Ormael, while I was out looking for the Lady Thasha? I made a point to question Swellows.
So there I was, moving aft, when who should appear before me but that cripple-footed rat! He sat there on his haunches, waiting for me.
“Git, you!” I shouted, looking for something to throw.
And save me, Rin, the beggar answered, “No, Mr. Fiffengurt.”
I nearly dropped the lamp. “You can talk!” I whispered.
Ratty just nodded, like I needn't state the obvious. Which I promptly did again.
“My name is Felthrup Stargraven,” said Ratty. “You rescued me from the bilge-pipe. I am in your debt forever.”
“By the buddin' branch of the blary beautiful Tree!”
“I should love to make conversation,” Ratty tells me. “Nothing more so! But I am fleeing a monster. Will you kindly examine the goods stowed by the mizzenmast step?”
“You can talk!”
“Goodbye, Mr. Fiffengurt. I thank you for your idrolos, and for my life.”
He turned & limped off into the darkness. At the edge of my lamplight, he pulled up short & looked back at me. “By the way,” he squeaks, “everything they told you is true.”
Then he was gone. And a second later Sniraga rushed past my legs. I chased after her—what if I heard 'im plead for mercy in her mouth? But she was gone in the darkness, same as Ratty.
My Annabel likes that word, idrolos. The courage to see. I stood there, worried my brain had sprung a leak. Then I made my way to the mizzenmast step.
The hold of Chathrand is like the
basement of a castle. It has rooms & shafts, catwalks & tunnels. It takes a solid week just to count what's stored down there. Naturally we carry enough wood for any repairs the Great Ship might require. There's spare mastwood, wales, planking, transom knees. A spare bowsprit. Even a lump of oak for carving a new Goose-Girl, should we lose Her Ladyship. But when I crept down to the foot of the mizzenmast I found timbers that had nothing to do with repairs. They were broken, smashed & filthy Twisted bolts & snapped cleats & bits of rigging trailed from 'em. Some of the wood was even burned.
“Gods of fire!” I said. “It's parts of a wreck!”
But what wreck? It hadn't come from the Haunted Coast—these pieces were stowed under goods we'd taken on in Ether-horde. We'd carried this trash for months! Huge timbers, too: some of the largest I'd ever seen—except for what the Chathrand herself is made of. And what for pity's sake was it good for? Nothing at all, so far as I could see, except tossing over the side …
'Twas then I heard a rustling behind me. “Come out, whoever the blary hell you are!” I growled, spinning round. “Fiffengurt's not afraid of you!”
No one came. But now I was facing a broken beam with a copper faceplate. IMS CHATHRAND, it read. CAPTAIN'S DAY-CABIN. STRICTLY PRIVATE.
I felt a cold, murthy hand on my heart. I looked further: there was a cabin door with the Chathrand Family coat of arms. Tattered sailcloth with CHATHRAND sewn into the hem. A Chathrand life preserver, snapped in two.
This is wickedness, I thought. This is evil from the Pits.
It was our own wreck I was looking at. A simulation of it, I mean: about as much as would wash up ashore, if we wrecked nearby. Tossing over the side was exactly what this junk would be good for.
I had to sit down. Someone needed the world to think us wrecked. Someone meant Chathrand to disappear.
Ratty's voice echoed in my brain: Everything they told you is true. And the lad & Mistress Thasha had said we would be crossing the Nelluroq with (Rin help us) the Shaggat Ness aboard. And that his mage was alive & behind it all. And that the Emperor wanted war.
My knees were shaking. Who could I tell? Who could I trust, out of eight hundred souls? Only two tarboys, a rich girl & a rat.
Do something, Fiffengurt, I told myself. Trust someone. Form a gang. Take the ship away from Rose.
I sat down with the lamp between my feet. I let five minutes pass, then five more. And then it was too late.
“MAN ADRIFT! MAN ADRIFT! TWO POINTS OFF THE STARBOARD BOW!”
The voices reached me faintly. I thought, What now, blast it, how can things get any—*
* At this point Mr. Fiffengurt's journal is torn in two: the remaining pages are lost.—EDITOR.
The Calm
6 Teala 941
84th day from Etherhorde
“A man it most certainly is,” said Isiq, peering through his telescope. “But how did he get there? He has no sail, no mast, even. There are oarlocks, but no oars. How did that boat get so far from land?”
It was a fair question. The Chathrand was six hours south of Ormael now, almost exactly halfway to Simja. Hundreds of men, sweating in the midday sun, gaped at the sight: a forlorn little lifeboat two miles off, with one ragged occupant, seated and barely moving, nagged by shrieking gulls. There was a fighting shield propped in the stern, and some large, lumpy shape beneath a canvas at his feet. They could see no more from this distance.
On the quarterdeck, Captain Rose was speaking to his gunnery officer. Lady Oggosk and Sergeant Drellarek waited at his side.
Isiq and Hercól stood at the mizzen, with Pazel, Thasha and Neeps beside them. Chadfallow stood a little apart, brooding, wrapped in silence. Pazel had not spoken to him since the doctor shoved him to the deck.
“It is a Volpek lifeboat,” said Hercól. “And that is a Volpek war-shield in the bow, I think. But the man is small for a mercenary. I wish I could see his face.”
Thasha took the telescope from her father, and winced a little as she raised it to her eye: Sandor Ott's fist had left a wide purple bruise on her face. The man in the boat had his back to the Chathrand. He was gesturing wildly, as if carrying on an excited debate. His feet rested on a black mound of some sort.
“Those hands of his,” she said. “All skin and bones. I've seen them before, I—”
BOOM.
Smoke rose from a forward gunport: the Chathrand had fired a signal-shot. The gulls scattered briefly, but the man did not even look over his shoulder.
“He's deaf, or mad,” declared Eberzam Isiq.
“May we look through your scope, Your Excellency?” Pazel asked.
Isiq nodded and Thasha handed over the instrument, and the boys passed it back and forth. Then they looked at each other and nodded.
“No doubt about it,” said Neeps.
“It's Mr. Druffle,” Pazel said.
And so it was. The freebooter was thinner and more ragged than ever, which Pazel would have thought impossible were he not seeing it with his own eyes. His feet were bare and sun-blistered, and his black hair was snarled in dirty knots.
“How the devil did that lunkhead get out here?” Pazel asked.
“Not by chance, I think,” said Hercól.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Hercól looked at Chadfallow. The doctor would not meet his eye.
The Chathrand sailed a little nearer. Captain Rose, locked in conversation with Oggosk, stole nervous glances at the lifeboat.
“There is a body beneath his feet,” said a sudden voice in Pazel's ear.
Pazel reacted as if stung by a bee, making Thasha turn and stare.
“What's wrong?” she asked quietly.
The voice belonged to an ixchel man. Not Taliktrum, and yet Pazel was certain he had heard the voice before. Whoever he was, he was hiding just a few yards away. He used his natural voice: no one but Pazel heard a thing. “A body,” he repeated. “Tell them.”
And Pazel did. Once you knew what to look for it was plainly true: Druffle's feet were resting on someone's chest, draped in a black, enveloping cloak. A heavy body, it was, of a rather portly man or woman.
All at once Pazel realized where he had heard the ixchel's voice. In Rose's cabin. It was the voice of the captain's poison-taster.
“Steldak,” he whispered.
“Yes, lad. Do not look for me, please.”
“What about Dri, and her nephew?”
“Their Lordships never returned, Pazel Pathkendle. The council tried to warn her. It was a mad caprice, to chase a mage into the wilderness. Now the clan has lost all its princes. Their noble brother died to rescue me.”
“I know,” said Pazel. “She told me.”
Motion on the quarterdeck: Rose appeared to have come to a sudden decision. He spoke to Uskins, who was hovering at his elbow. The first mate nodded, then turned and relayed the order:
“Due south! Full sail to Simja!”
A roar of disapproval broke from the crew. Shame, infamy! To abandon a man adrift! Isiq threw down his hat and made for the quarterdeck. Even Pazel, who somehow knew that horrible events would unfold if Druffle boarded, was appalled to think of leaving him here to die.
But there was only one captain of the Chathrand, and now he made his power felt. One nod to Drellarek and the sergeant was barking orders to his men. Eberzam Isiq found the quarterdeck stair blocked by crossed swords. Uskins leaned over the rail and bellowed in the face of Elkstem, who was gaping at the captain.
“Due south, Sailmaster, or is this a hangman's holiday? You want some dying, plague-breathed Ormali brought aboard, along with that wormy corpse under his toes? FULL SAIL TO SIMJA, DAMN YOUR EYES!”
With a hundred warriors breathing down their necks the sailors quickly obeyed. Elkstem spun the wheel; the port and starboard watches freed the brace-lines, and in seconds men were heaving and groaning to turn the gigantic sails into the wind.
Everyone felt the tug as the ship leaped forward. But only Pazel heard Steldak say, “Ahh, he att
ends us now.”
Pazel looked out at the lifeboat. Druffle was gazing at them over his shoulder.
“We can't just leave!” said Thasha. “Chadfallow said Arunis magicked him. Perhaps Druffle's not a bad man at all!”
“Even if he is, this is wrong,” said Pazel. “We're supposed to be better than Arunis.”
“We are,” said Neeps, glaring up at Rose.
“Something's happening,” said another ixchel's voice. “Look at the sails!”
“Look at the sails!” Pazel said aloud.
On all five masts the sails were falling limp. The wind was dropping; the pennants barely fluttered. The Chathrand's pace began to slow.
“Topgallants!” cried Rose, not bothering with Uskins now. “Starboard, lay aloft!”
Sailors raced up the lines like agile monkeys. High overhead, the topgallant sails were loosed and tightened. But the dying wind barely filled them, and the ship grew slower still.
“Spritsails! Moonrakers!” roared the captain. “Run out the blary studders, Mr. Frix! I want every last inch of canvas stretched!”
Studdingsail yards were hauled up from below and lashed to the tips of the spars. Four sailors crawled out past the Goose-Girl to extend the jib. No whispers about shame and infamy now: the vanishing wind was too strange, and the captain's fear too contagious. In minutes, a whole array of new sails had erupted from the ship, and the Chathrand looked like a great white bird spreading its wings in the sun.
For a minute, perhaps two, she gained speed: the sailors drew a nervous breath. Then the weak wind stopped blowing altogether. Thasha saw her father turn in a circle, gaping at the acres of useless sails. Even the waves flattened around them.
Suddenly Pazel noticed Jervik standing just behind them. For an instant their eyes met.
“A dead calm,” whispered Jervik. “But so sudden! This ain't natural, is it?”
The Red Wolf Conspiracy Page 45