The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “That’ll be a pleasant change,” said Neeps, watching the bay. “Dancing devils! Why are those rowers so slow?”

  “Because you’re watching ’em,” said Fiffengurt.

  Pazel paced the dock, trying not to look at the bundle at Hercól’s feet. After an interminable wait the skiff reached the pier. The men at oars saw Thasha and began shouting at once: “Who did it, Mr. Fiffengurt? Who would lay a finger on her? Can we kill him, sir?”

  Lowering Thasha into the boat was an undignified affair. The Babqri love-knot slipped, and her golden hair spilled onto the slimy floor. They could not stretch her out, and at last placed her feet on the bench between the rowers. Neeps tried to clean her hair on his trousers.

  The sailors wept. Like most of the crew they had not cared much for the Treaty Bride at first. Noble-born passengers came and went, often greeting sailors, if at all, with a barely disguised sneer. The men returned the favor, and accounts of first-class ignorance, seasickness, fear of rats and fleas and bedbugs and general uselessness were traded like hard candies on the lower decks.

  But they had not sneered long at Thasha Isiq. Rather than fine food or bleached petticoats she had wished for a chance to climb the masts or explore the black cavern of the hold. She was also a virtuoso swearer: a lifetime of eavesdropping on captains, commodores and other guests at her father’s table had made her a walking scrapbook of naval curses. By the Chathrand’s first landfall men were boasting of her beauty, and when a rumor spread that she had flattened a pair of thuggish tarboys in a brawl, they had added ferocity to her list of virtues. She was “a good ’un,” they decided, and there was no higher praise.

  A sudden voice from the Chathrand: “What is this, Quartermaster?”

  It was Captain Rose. The red-bearded man was studying them with intense suspicion, his enormous hands gripping the rail. Beside him stood Lady Oggosk, his witch-seer, old eyes gleaming from beneath a faded shawl.

  Before Fiffengurt could reply, Hercól shouted: “This, Rose, is the end of your conspiracy—and what will concern you far less, the end of one nobler than certain minds can grasp.”

  “I’ve seen enough of corpses. Bury that one in Simja, whoever he is.”

  Hercól reached out and uncovered Thasha’s face, now deathly gray.

  “You would do well not to impede the return of Thasha to Etherhorde. His Supremacy will wish to pay his respects.”

  “What, what?” cried Oggosk. “The girl is dead?”

  “I believe I just said that, Duchess.”

  Rose did not stand in their way. Indeed he helped by clearing the deck of all but essential hands. Nonetheless as the lifeboat drew alongside the towering vessel, Pazel heard cries of anguish and disbelief. Oggosk’s voice had carried: the news was already loose on the ship.

  The davit-lines were made fast, and heave by heave the men of the watch hauled the lifeboat up the ship’s flank.

  “Line a casket with paraffin,” said Rose when they reached the topdeck. “We’ll send ashore for an embalmer.”

  “Dr. Chadfallow will do,” said Hercól.

  Rose nodded. “She was brave. I am saddened by this.”

  Pazel looked at him with fury. Liar.

  Across the deck men stood gaping, holding their caps. Lady Oggosk muttered a prayer. As they lifted Thasha from the boat, the witch suddenly put a hand on the girl’s cold, colorless forehead. Oggosk’s milk-blue eyes opened wide. She turned her gaze on Pazel, and for a moment he was transfixed. It was as if she could see right through him.

  “What have you done?” she whispered.

  With a great effort Pazel wrenched his gaze away. Oggosk stepped back, but Pazel seemed to feel her eyes drilling at a point between his shoulders as they crossed the endless topdeck, silent but for creaks of the rigging and the sighs of stricken men.

  Demons of cruelty had sewn his wedding shoes.

  Half a mile behind the bearers of Thasha’s corpse, Admiral Isiq kicked the silk things into the roadside brush. At once he felt better. He had been no poor runner once—ages ago, before his first command—and the feel of dry, dung-laced earth on his bare feet summoned memories of Túram, the old Isiq homestead in the Westfirth, where his father had killed a marauding bear with just a hunting knife. He loosened his cravat. He was gaining on them.

  Behind him, the mob wailed in their thousands. Soon the youngest would catch up, shout their sympathies, get in his way. He broke into a cautious run. Misery it seemed, like fury, could give one strength.

  I’ve lost my girl. Lost her mother twelve years before. Lost Syrarys—she was ever my foe but I possessed her body, her hands, possessed a lovely illusion. Even that they have taken from me. But not this body, you bastards, you filth. Not this mind pitted against you forever.

  He was thinking of his Emperor, and Rose, and above all Sandor Ott. Arunis might have killed Thasha, but Ott had spun the web in which the sorcerer found her, hopelessly tangled. Arunis had come out of nowhere; Ott had shadowed Isiq for years, disguised as an honor guardsman.

  By the gods, it felt good to run again. The road burned the soles of his feet and each slap said, You live, you can act, you have nothing left to fear.

  He saw now what he had to do. Thasha’s sacrifice meant the prophecy was annulled: no stirrings of revolution would begin on Gurishal, no preparations for the return of their god. But the Shaggat remained. So did the will to make him flesh again. Above all, so did the Nilstone.

  Which meant that some other vessel would have to bear his daughter home: the Chathrand must never leave this port. And there was only one power in the Bay of Simja that could stop it. For all their show of guns, the Mzithrini ships would never dare to act against an Arquali vessel. Not here anyway, before the eyes of the world. But King Oshiram would have every right. Simja’s navy might be a pitiful thing, but ten or twelve warships were surely enough to hold the Chathrand, immense as she was. You never dreamed I would go this far. You have counted on my blind love of Arqual, my soldier’s oath. You will regret it.

  Thasha’s body passed through the North Gate, and Isiq was but minutes behind. The flower-collectors pointed the way. He would be mortally sick with fatigue when this task was done. But done it would be, and let the night come after.

  “Your Excellency!”

  He raised his eyes: a dark two-horse carriage was pulling up to the corner. The driver reined the animals in, but it was not he who had called to Isiq. On the seat beside the man sat the same well-dressed youth who had approached Hercól in the procession.

  “Your valet bid me fetch you a carriage, sir.”

  “Kind … not necessary …” Isiq found he could barely speak.

  “Bless me, sir, you’re unshod!”

  The young man leaped down, ran to Isiq and took his arm. By the time they reached the corner the driver had opened the door and placed the footstool. The inside of the carriage was plush and empty. Isiq paused and stared at the boy.

  “Who—?”

  “Greysan Fulbreech, Ambassador. King’s clerk, and your humble servant. Come, we shall reach the port in no time.”

  He whipped a fresh handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to Isiq. The admiral mopped the sweat from his bald head and entered the carriage. A moment later the driver cracked his whip and they were off, and at startling speed.

  But why were they turning? He was quite sure the port lay dead ahead. Isiq groped at the door and found no handle to open. He reached for the window: barred. Then he felt the handkerchief, still clutched in his fingers, yanked roughly through the bars. As the horses charged ahead he saw the Fulbreech boy on the street corner, waving goodbye.

  The joyful whines of the mastiffs turned to whimpers: their mistress had not stirred to greet them. Jorl nudged Thasha’s chin with his muzzle. Suzyt padded in breathless circles as the party crossed the stateroom.

  “Quickly, now,” said Hercól.

  They laid her on the bench under the tall gallery windows. Hercól opened the cabinet beneath th
e bench and reached inside, and when his hand emerged it held a naked sword. Pazel had seen Hercól’s sword before—seen it dark with blood, and a whirl in fights—but he had never beheld it this closely. The blade was dark and cruel, and nicked in two places. A flowing script ran up the steel, but the years had worn the engraving almost to nothing.

  Hercól noticed his look. “Ildraquin,” he said. “Earthblood. That is its name. One day I shall tell you its story.”

  He turned and swiftly inspected the chamber, then moved on to the sleeping cabins and the Isiqs’ private washroom. When he returned Ildraquin was sheathed.

  “No one has entered in our absence,” he said. “We are as safe here as one can be on this ship.”

  “Then I’d best see to my duties, if you don’t need me,” said Fiffengurt.

  “We need you,” said Hercól. “But we need you most as quartermaster. Who else will keep us informed of Rose’s schemes?”

  Fiffengurt shook his head. “Rose trusts me like I trust a rattlesnake. Still, I overhear things, now and again. What I learn, I’ll share. And I’ll send Thasha’s father to you the instant he boards.”

  “You’re a good plum, Mr. Fiffengurt,” said Pazel.

  “Seeing as you’re an Ormali, lad, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  They locked the door behind him. For a moment no one moved or spoke.

  Then Hercól said, “Are you here, Diadrelu?”

  “Of course.”

  The voice came from overhead. There she was, atop the book cabinet: a woman with copper skin, short hair, black clothes, gleaming eyes. An ixchel woman, a queen until she cast her lot with humans. Crouched on the edge of the cabinet she looked no larger than a dormouse. Standing, she might have been eight inches tall.

  “I know you trust the quartermaster,” she said, looking down at them intently, “but I must tell you that we consider him one of the most dangerous humans aboard. He is inquisitive, and he knows more about the crawlways and secret spaces of the Chathrand than anyone save Rose himself. And when he speaks of my people they are crawlies, and a note of disgust enters his voice.”

  “Fiffengurt hates ixchel?” said Neeps. “I don’t believe it! He’s the most softhearted old sailor I’ve ever met.”

  “But a sailor nonetheless,” said Diadrelu, “and schooled in the vices of sailing folk. I do not know if his feelings stem from his past experience or general fear. But I will not soon reveal our presence to this ally of yours.”

  “We wouldn’t ask you to,” said Pazel.

  Dri gestured at the stateroom door. “Someone tried to pick the lock while you were on the island,” she said. “Twice. I jammed the mechanism with my sword.”

  “Well done,” said Neeps.

  But Hercól shook his head. “What if they had forced the door? You would have been caught in plain sight.”

  “Hercól Stanapeth,” said the ixchel woman, “I have lived my whole life within yards of human beings, men who would have killed me without a second thought. You have little to teach me about stealth.”

  Hercól smiled, not quite conceding the point. “Are you ready, my lady?” he asked.

  For an answer the woman descended—three shelves in the blink of an eye, a spring to the back of Isiq’s divan, another to Hercól’s shoulder, and a last jump to the bench under the window, a few inches from Thasha’s neck. When their eyes caught up with her, they saw that she was holding something sharp and translucent. It was an ixchel arrow, two inches long—fashioned, as she had told them earlier, from the quill of a porcupine.

  “Who will say what must be said?” she asked.

  “That had better be Hercól,” said Pazel.

  “No,” said Hercól. “You were there when she fell, Pazel, and yours was the last face she saw as her eyes dimmed. The task is yours.”

  Pazel took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “But I’d feel better if a doctor were here. I’d even settle for crazy old Rain.”

  “Kneel,” said Diadrelu.

  Reluctantly, Pazel obeyed. He put his face close to Thasha’s own. It was only then that he realized how truly frightened he was. Thasha’s eyes looked withered. The lips he had kissed the night before were flecked with dirt.

  Diadrelu reversed her grip on the arrow—and with the whole force of her arm plunged it into a vein in Thasha’s neck.

  Her eyes flew open. And Pazel began to talk as fast as he could. Don’t shout don’t shout Thasha you’re safe you’re with us you’re with me Thasha trust me don’t shout.

  She did not shout. She leaped away from him in terror, nearly crushing Diadrelu beneath her and striking the window so hard that a crack appeared in the nearest pane. When Pazel tried to steady her she kicked him savagely away.

  “Peace!” hissed Hercól. “By the Night Gods, Thasha Isiq, I may have trained you too well! Your pardon, Lady Diadrelu, and you too, Pazel! Enough, lass, take a breath.”

  Pazel picked himself up, relief breaking over him in waves. She was awake, alive—and free of Arunis’ trap. It had all gone according to plan.

  Or had it? Thasha’s eyes were strange, savage. At last she appeared to recognize their faces, but would let no one comfort her. She shivered as though from deadly cold.

  “It worked,” said Neeps softly. “You were perfect, Thasha.”

  Thasha raised a hand to her throat. Her voice was a dry, pained whisper.

  “We fooled Arunis?”

  “We fooled them all,” said Hercól. “You did not marry, and Ott’s false prophecy cannot come true.”

  He spread a blanket over her legs. Thasha looked out at the sunny bay. Looking at her, Pazel thought suddenly of a group of sailors he had glimpsed long ago: hurricane survivors, coaxing a ruined ship into Ormaelport, their faces ravaged by memories of wild fear.

  “I touched ice,” Thasha whispered. “I was in a dark place all crowded with people, but there was no light, and then I began to see without light and the people were hideous, they didn’t have faces, and that old priest was there waving his scepter, and there was ice under my wedding shoes, and black trees with little fingerbone-branches that grabbed at me, and there were eyes in the slits of the trees and voices from holes in the ground. I was freezing. I could feel you holding me, Pazel; I could even feel the scar on your hand. But then the feeling stopped. And then everything began to vanish in the dark—the monster-people went out like candles, one by one. And the voices faded, until there was just one strange voice calling my name, over and over, like something that would never stop, like water dripping in a cave forever. But there was no water, no walls, there was nothing but ice, ice under my skin, ice in my stomach and my brain.”

  She hugged herself, looking slowly from one face to another.

  “Was I dead?”

  “No,” said Diadrelu, “but you were as close to death as a human can be, and return unharmed. Blanë means ‘foolsdeath,’ but not because it deceives only fools. The name means rather that the specter of death himself should not know the difference, if he came upon one in the grip of the drug.”

  “And brandy on top of that,” Neeps sighed.

  “Did old Druffle go through something like this when you and Taliktrum drugged him?” Pazel asked.

  The ixchel woman shook her head. “There are several forms of blanë, for various uses. We only needed Druffle to sleep. But when Thasha drove that quill into her palm on the marriage dais, she had to appear dead beyond all suspicion. That called for blanë of the purest kind—and the most dangerous. Without the antidote, Thasha never would have woken from its grip. She would have slept until she starved.”

  “I’m still cold,” said Thasha.

  “You will not cast off the chill for days, perhaps,” said Diadrelu. “My father once pricked his thumb with pure blanë. A week later he still suffered nightmares, and felt the drug’s cold grip. Sunlight helped, he said.”

  “Alas, she will have little of that for a time,” said Hercól. “This cabin must be your cage, Thasha, until K
ing Oshiram learns the truth of our mission. If I can find a way to contact him at all, that is.”

  “And what then?” asked Diadrelu. “Has he the stomach to quarantine the Great Ship, and fight his way aboard against a hundred Turachs?”

  “We must hope so,” said Hercól. “But there is another question: what if he succeeds? No doubt he will destroy the Shaggat, lest by some guile of Arunis the madman be returned to life. But the Nilstone he cannot destroy: no power in Alifros can. Will he consent to guard it until some better resting place is found? It could break his dynasty—for although its merest touch slays the fearful, someone will always dream of using it, and perhaps succeed. Arunis for one believes that is possible.”

  He looked gravely at each of them in turn. “We must never forget that our fates too are tied to the Stone. By our oath, first—to place it beyond the grasp of anyone vile enough to seek to use it—and by the mere fact that we are children of this world. Alifros is great, but the power of the Nilstone is limitless. There will be nowhere to hide if its power is unleashed.” Hercól turned to Thasha with a sigh. “I had counted on your father’s help in persuading Oshiram. But now—”

  Thasha gasped. “Oh, the fool! What happened? He hit the king, didn’t he?”

  The others smiled at one another but did not laugh. It would not do to be overheard; they were in mourning after all. Before anyone could explain, however, they were interrupted by a shrill cry.

  “Hark the voice!”

  They jumped. By the door to the washroom stood Felthrup Stargraven, the woken rat, terribly injured in yesterday’s battle. They crowded around him, overjoyed. He seemed remarkably steady on his three good feet (the fourth had been crushed by a drainpipe lid), and he twitched his short tail impatiently (another rat had long ago bitten it in two). Jorl and Suzyt barreled forward and licked him, an act of love in which Felthrup might soon have drowned.

  But the rat shook them off and squeaked again: “Hark the voice, the voice in the distance! Can’t you hear?”

  They held still. And hear it they did: a man’s voice from an impossible distance, rising and falling gravely.