The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  The names came even faster. “Coote, the old bloke from the Swan.”

  “Tarsel the blacksmith.”

  “And that half-deaf gunner—Byrd.”

  “And Mr. Druffle,” said Thasha.

  The naming stopped. Four pairs of eyes snapped to Thasha.

  “What’s the matter?” she demanded. “I know he was under Arunis’ spell—that’s why I thought of him. Druffle hates Arunis more than anyone aboard.”

  “It’s not just the spell he was under,” said Pazel uncomfortably. “Druffle is … strange.”

  “So are you,” said Thasha. “We can’t rule people out just because they give you a funny feeling.”

  “We can’t?” said Felthrup, dismayed.

  Thasha slapped the notebook down on the table. “This is hopeless. They’re going to beat us like a blary rug.”

  Neeps glanced at her cautiously. “Listen to me, that letter—”

  Thasha lunged at him. Neeps smiled, but only for an instant. Thasha was on him before he could stand, and when he raised an arm to shield his face she grabbed it and threw him over her outstretched leg. Jorl and Suzyt exploded in barks. When Neeps hit the floor Thasha dropped on top of him, pinning his throat to the ground with the point of her elbow.

  “Thasha! Thasha!” said Pazel, struggling not to shout. “What in Pitfire’s wrong with you?”

  “Bakru’s Beard, Mistress!” hissed Fiffengurt. He and Pazel leaped to their feet, but the mastiffs’ growls froze them where they stood. Felthrup ran under Isiq’s reading chair, whimpering Rabies, fever, musth.

  Thasha let go of Neeps and rolled smoothly to her feet. The tarboy seemed to spring up by the force of his embarrassment. “Come on, nutter girl, face to face!” he growled as softly as he could.

  Now Pazel was struggling not to laugh. “Don’t make it worse, mate.”

  “But what in the Great South Sea was that about?” said Fiffengurt.

  Thasha dropped into her father’s chair with a sigh. “I wasn’t about to hurt you, Neeps. But it’s true what Mr. Fiffengurt says. We’re in danger, and we don’t have many fighters on our side. Without Hercól we’d be nearly helpless.”

  “I’ve been fighting since I could walk!” Neeps snarled. “You bring a damn Volpek in here and I’ll take him on!”

  “That’s the problem,” said Thasha. “You would. And I already know how Pazel fights.”

  Pazel reddened in turn: he had never quite gotten around to telling Neeps about their first encounter, when Thasha had flattened him even more quickly. “Don’t like fighting,” he muttered.

  “I do!” said Neeps.

  “Hush, you donkey!” said Thasha. “Can’t either of you think? If we have to fight I want you to blary win. For that you need training and practice. Swordplay, knifeplay, bare-knuckle, staves. Archery. Trickery. Everything.”

  The boys looked at her, finally starting to understand. “And if Hercól leaves now,” she went on, “there’ll be no one to teach you but me.”

  “You’re good enough,” said Pazel.

  “Good enough!” said Fiffengurt. “You’re a right monster, you are, Thasha!”

  She turned him a curious look. “I declare, Mr. Fiffengurt, no matter how bad this conversation gets, a smile keeps creeping back onto your face. Do you know something we don’t?”

  Fiffengurt glanced vaguely around the room—more vaguely than most people were capable of, given his wandering eye. He looked for a moment as though he might deny the charge of happiness.

  “You wouldn’t be the sort to talk, or think ill of me?” he said.

  Never, they assured him.

  With that the struggle ceased. He leaned forward and whispered: “I’m going to be a father!”

  The boys and Thasha muffled whoops of surprise. Felthrup hopped and squeaked. “Hooray, hooray! A new litter of Fiffengurts!”

  The quartermaster pulled a folded sheet from his jacket and kissed it. “Just got the letter, dated the twenty-first of Vaqrin—that’s nine days after we left! The wee thing’ll be born before the new year!”

  “I didn’t even know you were married,” said Pazel.

  “Well now,” said Fiffengurt, blushing, “that’s the ‘don’t think ill of me’ bit.”

  Felthrup ceased hopping.

  “Now, don’t jump to conclusions!” said Fiffengurt hotly. “My Annabel and I have been pledged to each other for ten years. But her parents want no more seafarers in the family. Two of her uncles died on a frigate in the Sugar War, and her grandfather drowned hunting seals. Arrigus Rodd, Anni’s father, brews beer. They’re good folk but strict as schoolmarms. Old Arrigus is fond of quoting Rule Fifty-three of the sacred Ninety.”

  The boys glanced at Thasha expectantly. The Sisters of the Lorg Academy had made her recite the Ninety Rules every morning before breakfast.

  “‘Love must sometimes bow to elder wisdom, patron and keeper of her honor,’” said Thasha.

  “Aye, m’lady, but Arrigus leaves out the sometimes. He’ll not consent to our marriage without my pledge to sail no more forever. He’s fond of me, though. I’ve apprenticed myself to that old man at every shore leave, learning his trade. This past spring I was set to give that pledge and take over as Master Brewer. Want to know why I didn’t? Thugs from the Mangel Beerworks came in the night, that’s why, and torched his little brewery.”

  “Oh no,” said Thasha.

  “Anni and her folks barely got out alive,” said the quartermaster, staring fixedly at nothing. “Her mother spent the winter in bandages. Those Mangels already sell nine of every ten pints of ale in the city, you know, but it seems that wasn’t, wasn’t—”

  He got to his feet, shaking all over, and raised both fists in the air. “The bastards! The bastards!”

  They implored him to lower his voice, but it was some time before he could continue.

  “Well, then,” he huffed. “No family business to join, and no money for me and Annabel to set up a household with. And so it’s back to sea for Fiffengurt. But what now? A little baby? How could I do this, how could I get her with child?”

  “Same way as anybody else,” said Neeps.

  “That’s enough out of you, Undrabust!” Fiffengurt snapped. Then he dropped back into the chair with a moan.

  “Sounds like you’re the one who should abandon ship,” said Thasha.

  “Can’t swim half that far,” said Fiffengurt, with a glance toward Simja. “They’d find me washed up on the jetty. No, there’s only one thing to do—and I’m going to do it, by damn, I’ve made up my mind.”

  Looking rather proud of himself, Fiffengurt took out another letter, fresh and unwrinkled, and waved it significantly.

  “I’m telling her to marry my brother, Gellin. He’s a bachelor and plannin’ to stay that way—never could settle on just one girl, he said. But he worships the ground I walk on, and he has a snug little watch-mending business. And here’s the best part.”

  He leaned closer, eyes twinkling again. “My first name’s Graff. And we both sign our names G. Fiffengurt, see?”

  Pazel glanced at the others. “Uh—not quite, sir.”

  “Well now, the neighbors don’t much know what those G’s stand for. And you can be sure the monk who marries ’em won’t. So Gellin will just sign my name to the marriage deed, in place of his! On the sly! When I get back I’ll be Anni’s husband already, and that babe’s legal father!”

  He could scarcely contain himself. “Gellin won’t refuse, I know it! He loves Anni, calls her sister already! Hey now, what’s the matter?”

  All of them, even Felthrup, were looking at him with pity. But no one met his eye.

  “They won’t let you send the letter,” said Pazel at last.

  The quartermaster’s face froze. He had been so obsessed with matters in Etherhorde that he had completely forgotten his inability to affect them. Now the plain truth crashed down all at once. His chest heaved, the muscles in his throat constricted. Suddenly he leaped up again and tore the
letter once, twice, thrice before their eyes. Then he ran for the stateroom door.

  “Wait, wait!” they cried, as Thasha dashed for cover.

  But it was too late. Fiffengurt threw the door wide. And there at the cross-passage, some twenty feet away, stood Dr. Chadfallow.

  The surgeon’s jaw dropped. Realizing what he had done, Fiffengurt slammed the door anew. Then he beat his head against it until it shook.

  “Fool, fool, fool!”

  “Stop that!” hissed Thasha. “Pazel, Chadfallow knows—he looked me right in the face. Go after him! Hurry!”

  “I don’t trust him,” said Pazel bitterly.

  Thasha dragged him to the door. “We have to tell him something—he’s supposed to be embalming me! Oh, catch him, Pazel, quickly, before he talks! And get back in here as fast as you can.”

  She opened the door just wide enough to shove him out. Chadfallow had not moved from his spot at the intersection of the passages. His face was bewildered, and he seemed unable to catch his breath.

  “W-What have you been doing, boy?” he stammered.

  “It was the only way to save her,” Pazel said. “We had to make Arunis believe she was dead.”

  “You fooled someone far more difficult than that sorcerer. You fooled me. How did you do it?”

  Pazel shook his head. They had made a promise to Diadrelu: no other humans would learn that ixchel were aboard without permission from the clan.

  Chadfallow stared at him fixedly. “What would Ramachni make of this showing off?” he demanded.

  “Showing off?” said Pazel. “Ignus, what are you talking about? Anyway, Ramachni’s gone.”

  The doctor looked as though he’d been struck in the face. “Gone, now? He leaves us now?”

  “He had to,” said Pazel. “He was so worn out he could barely walk. Look, if you won’t come in—”

  “I am no mage,” Chadfallow interrupted, “but I know more about these arts than you ever shall, boy. I know their dangers, their limits. Above all I know what they do to those who dabble in them untrained.”

  “So naturally,” snapped Pazel before he could stop himself, “you helped Mother experiment on me and Neda.”

  Chadfallow was furious. “Helped? You wretch, I opposed it with all my heart!”

  “After providing everything she needed,” said Pazel. “The books, the strange little jars and potions—the custard apples.”

  Chadfallow appeared to bite back a retort, and Pazel nodded, satisfied. It had been a guess, but a safe one. The night before his mother tried her hand at spellcraft, the doctor had come to their house in Ormael with a bundle wrapped in heavy cloth. Long after the children were in bed he had argued bitterly with Pazel’s mother, and finally left in a rage. The next morning she had greeted Pazel and Neda with frothing mugs of custard-apple juice.

  “I had no idea what use she had in mind for those apples,” said Chadfallow. “I was thrown out that night, if you care to know. Such apparently is the fate of those who would befriend your family—to stand like fools on the threshold.”

  He reached into his vest and withdrew a pale white cylinder. It was a parchment case, made of some fine wood. “Is Ramachni truly gone?” he asked.

  Pazel nodded again. “I haven’t been lying,” he said pointedly.

  It was the last straw for Chadfallow. Grimacing, he tore open the case and pulled out a sheet of parchment. He held it up to Pazel, displaying an elegant, formal script. Then (much in the same manner as Fiffengurt) he tore the sheet to pieces, flinging the bits in the air as he did so. When the deed was done he turned on his heel and left.

  All this Pazel watched with folded arms. He barely noticed when the door behind him opened and Neeps stepped close.

  “I guess he didn’t care to come in, eh mate?”

  “I guess not.”

  Neeps went forward and picked up a few bits of parchment. He turned them this way and that, fitting them together. Then he grew still.

  “Pazel,” he said. “Come here.”

  Pazel didn’t much care what the parchment said. Anything from Chadfallow’s hand was a lie. But there was something odd in Neeps’ voice. He moved behind Neeps and read over his shoulder.

  —ay, 26 Halar 941

  —der the auspices of His Royal Highness King Oshiram of Simja:

  Negotiant:

  Dr. Espl. Ignus CHADFALLOW Envoy Extraordinaire to His Supremacy Magad V, Emperor of Arqual

  and

  The Honorable Acheleg EHRAL Vocal, Court of His Celestial Highness King Somolar of the Holy Mzithrin

  LET THESE BE THE NAMES PUT FORWARD BY ARQUAL: LORD FALSTAM II OF ETHERHORDE, COMMODORE GILES JASBREA OF ETHERHORDE[HIS LIVING PERSON OR UNDESECRATED REMAINS], TARTISHEN OF OPALT[SON OF LADY TARTISHEN], SUTHINIA PATHKENDLE OF ORMAEL (NON-NEGOT.), NEDA PATHKENDLE OF ORMAEL (NON-NEGOT.), AREN MORDALE OF SORHN—

  Pazel snatched at the bits of parchment. Suddenly nothing else mattered. “This was written in Halar—last spring.” Pazel’s mind was racing. “That was two months before we sailed. He’s been carrying this blary thing all along!”

  Neeps picked up the last of the pieces. “There’s another list here,” he said, “with Mzithrini names, or I’m a dog! Pazel, do you realize what this is?”

  Pazel looked at him blankly. Then all at once he went sprinting after Chadfallow.

  “Ignus! Ignus!”

  He raced across the upper gun deck, past a group of Turachs betting excitedly on an arm-wrestling match. They’d watched the doctor march through the compartment “steaming like a fumerole,” they said. But when Pazel left by the forward door he was nowhere to be seen.

  He tried the surgery, the sickbay, and the doctor’s own cabin. He climbed back to the topdeck and walked the length of the ship. No one had seen Chadfallow. Defeated, Pazel started back to the stateroom.

  All around him the ship was in a frenzy. The anchors were rising, and yard by yard the green, slippery, thirty-inch-thick cables attached to them were spooling in through the hawse-holes, where teams of sailors wrestled them into coils that rose like battlements above their heads.

  The agitation in Pazel’s own heart was even greater, however. Chadfallow had been at work on a prisoner exchange with the Mzithrinis—and his mother and Neda were on the list. Clearly the doctor still loved Pazel’s mother. And for the first time since the invasion of Ormael Pazel felt he understood the man. In one respect at least they shared the same loss.

  Neeps, to Pazel’s great surprise, was still standing at the center of the crossed passageways, twenty feet from Thasha’s door. He turned to face Pazel, wide-eyed.

  “You’re not going to believe this, mate.”

  He raised both fists over his head and brought them down, hard. At the precise center of the passage they stopped dead, and soundlessly. He spread and tensed his fingers, as though trying to push a heavy crate. He looked for all the world like a mime.

  “It’s Arunis,” he whispered. “He’s found a way to pay us back already.”

  Pazel felt his breath grow short. He drew up beside Neeps and cautiously put out his hand.

  Nothing. His fingers met no resistance at all. He stepped forward, then looked back accusingly at Neeps. “Will you stop mucking around?” he snapped.

  “Mucking around, is it?” Neeps leaned again—but this time at an impossibly steep angle. He pressed his face forward and squashed a cheek against thin air. It was true: they stood on opposite sides of an invisible wall.

  “It runs the whole length of the passage,” said Neeps. “Port to starboard, hull to hull. The whole stateroom’s closed off behind it. So is Pacu’s old cabin, and that cupboard where she stuffed the wedding gifts, and two more cabins at the end of the hall.”

  “No wonder Ignus was so angry,” said Pazel. “But why can I pass through?”

  Behind Pazel the stateroom door opened a crack, and Thasha peeped out. “What’s wrong with you two clowns?” she hissed. “Get in here!”

  The instant she spoke Ne
eps fell to the deck with a crash and a florid Sollochi curse. But when he rose and stretched out a hand there could be no doubt: the wall had disappeared for him as well.

  They locked the stateroom door behind them (though to do so suddenly felt unnecessary). Fiffengurt was gone; Felthrup was reading the bits of his letter on the dining table. When the boys told them about the invisible wall, Thasha paled. After a long silence, she said, “I made it possible for you to come in, didn’t I? Just by telling you to.”

  “It sure looks that way,” grumbled Neeps, rubbing his kneecaps.

  “I felt it,” said Thasha. “I mean, I didn’t know the wall existed. But just as I said Get in here, I felt something on my palm, right here—” She pointed at the wolf-scar. “—like the scratch of a little nail. I also felt it when you left, both of you.”

  “Why didn’t the wall stop me, though?” asked Pazel. “You hadn’t said anything when I stepped back through it.”

  “But she had,” said Felthrup, sitting up on his haunches. “Don’t you remember, Pazel? Before you ran after the doctor, Lady Thasha said, Get back in here as fast as you can.”

  Pazel looked at the rat, amazed. “I’ll be blowed, you’re right.” He stood thinking for a moment, then turned back to Thasha excitedly. “What if it’s not a curse? What if something’s protecting you, by letting you decide who can enter the stateroom?”

  Thasha sank slowly into a chair. “Ramachni,” she said. “Who else could it be? But he was so tired, so drained. Where did he find the strength for this sort of magic? And why me?”

  “That last bit’s an easy one,” said Neeps. “These are your rooms, Thasha. And only yours, now that the admiral—”

  “Neeps!” said Pazel.

  Thasha looked at them vacantly. “Now that he’s gone. And Syrarys too. At least we’ll have plenty of space. We can move the furniture and have your fighting-classes right here.”