The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Arunis turned away once more. He placed a hand on the open Polylex, on a page with a large circular diagram. Drellarek looked sharply at Rose, drew his fingers across his neck. The mage was as vulnerable now as he would ever be. Hercól raised a cautioning hand, and Oggosk shook her head. Rose hesitated, eyes full of wrath and distance. Then he glanced up at Drellarek and nodded.

  Drellarek moved with brutal swiftness. He glided softly down to the orange stone, unsheathing his Turach greatsword as he went. Nearing Arunis, he raised it for a single, killing blow.

  “Can your witch detect a lie?” said Arunis, without moving.

  Drellarek hesitated, looking back over his shoulder.

  “She can,” said Rose, “if her captain requires it.”

  “Then ask her the truth of this, you spawn of a toad-faced polygamist: I, Arunis Wytterscorm, have the power to sink your ship whenever I choose, and will do so if you harm me.”

  For a moment no one breathed. Oggosk put out her withered hand and took hold of Rose’s coat, made him bend to her ear and whispered urgently. Rose’s face hardened with repressed fury. He pulled irritably away from the old woman, and waved Drellarek off.

  Arunis laughed, closing the Polylex. He tossed the end of his white scarf over his shoulder and rose slowly to his feet. Thasha saw that he had concealed a weapon beneath his cloak: a black mace, studded with cruel iron spikes. She had never seen it before.

  “I told you in the Straits,” said the mage, looking them over, “that I was the sole master of the Chathrand. What you did to my king only delayed the last reckoning. You are my instruments. You are small flutes and horns in the symphony of my triumph. What do I care if you manage the occasional squeak?”

  “You monster,” said Pazel suddenly. “We’ll see who plays with whom when Ramachni comes back.”

  “Ramachni?” said Arunis, as though trying to remember. “Ah yes. The mage who enlists you to a deluded cause, then scurries away to safety like the rodent he is, leaving you to fight alone. The trickster who hides under the skirts of a girl, only to cast her off when it seems her life is forfeit. Would he return if you were writhing in pain again, girl? Not sure, hmm? Never fear, you will be.”

  Pazel started forward, seething, and Thasha barely had time to grab his arm. Then she saw that Hercól too was moving toward Arunis. His sword was sheathed and his hands were empty; still Arunis took a hasty step backward, raising his mace. Hercól drew a step closer, well within the weapon’s reach. But now it was Arunis who looked uncertain.

  “Do you know when a man speaks the truth?” Hercól said.

  Arunis gave a nervous laugh. “Better than the man himself.”

  “I thought as much,” said Hercól, and turned away. But when he had taken two steps he moved with a speed not even Thasha had ever witnessed, and suddenly Ildraquin was in his hands, and its tip rested on the soft flesh beneath the mage’s ear.

  “This is Ildraquin, the Curse-Cleaver, the Tongue of the Hound of Fire,” he said. “And this is my promise: Ildraquin will end your cursed life if you should ever again touch a hair on the head of Thasha Isiq.”

  Arunis sneered, and pushed the tip of the blade away—but gingerly, as if he hated to touch it even with his fingertips. “Only a fool makes promises he cannot keep,” he said.

  “Quite so,” said Hercól.

  “We are not here to kill one another,” said Drellarek awkwardly—it was an unusual statement from the Throatcutter. “Captain, you have your tarboy back. Now let’s say we forget that silly sibyl and be on our way.”

  “Save your breath,” said Oggosk. Then suddenly she raised her scrawny arms, so that her gold bangles clattered, and her milk-blue eyes were wide. “Be still, Nilus! Be still, all of you! We have come in the right year, and the right season for divination. This, now, is the right hour—the only hour, for another nine years. Put out your torches! Quickly!”

  “Do it!” snapped Rose.

  With some difficulty Drellarek and Dastu extinguished the torches. The room was now lit only by the blue flames dancing in the cracks of the stone. Arunis turned in circles, like a wary cat. Oggosk groped for Rose’s arm.

  Then she pointed, high across the chamber. There, upon one of the ruined balconies, shone a tiny pool of light. It was daylight, a single focused beam. Tracing it with her eyes, Thasha saw that it had entered by a tiny hole in the domed ceiling. She realized that there were scores of such holes. All at once she remembered the odd little windows in the temple roof. They’re not just windows, they’re light-shafts. Just like those on the Chathrand that brought light to the lower decks, except that these must have run through immense tunnels of stone, and were so narrow that only a pencil-thin beam of light could pass through.

  Suddenly both Oggosk and Arunis began to chant. The old woman’s voice was loud and strong, but somehow humble, almost pleading:

  Sélu kandari, Sélu majïd, pandireth Dhola le kasparan mïd.

  But Arunis, though he chanted similar words, cried out in a harsh and threatening voice:

  Sathek kandari, Sathek majïd, ulberrik Dhola le mangroten mïd!

  At the same time he drew a gray powder from his sleeve and tossed a handful of it into one of the flaming cracks. It burned in a flash of blue sparks.

  Witch and sorcerer were both watching the light on the balcony. The sounds of wind and seals blended into a weird, throbbing moan. Rose looked anxiously up and down the beam of light, from balcony to window and back again. His fists opened and closed; he looked like a man whose time was running out. Of course! Thasha realized. It can’t last more than a few minutes. Once the sun moves at all it will be gone.

  She felt Pazel’s hand in her own—but no, it was Dastu’s; the older boy thought she was frightened. She wasn’t, or not severely; in fact her strongest feeling was curiosity. Was there a different light-shaft for every holy day in the old monks’ religion? Was there a soul alive who knew what they had believed? She looked again at the light on the balcony—and cried aloud, and so did everyone else.

  Later, no one could agree as to what had happened on that balcony. They all said that the light had changed, growing less like daylight and more like that of the moon, or fireflies, or something spectral. They agreed as well that someone had appeared. But no two of them saw the same figure.

  Thasha saw her mother, waving to her (or to her husband?) with a smile of recognition; then the banister parting, and horror replacing joy as Clorisuela Isiq fell to her death. Sergeant Drellarek saw the woman he had killed six years ago while drunk on grebel, after she insulted his manhood in a brothel in Uturphe. Dastu saw the Etherhorde nurse who had saved him from consumption.

  Dr. Chadfallow saw Pazel’s mother Suthinia, driving him from her door. Hercól saw a gray woman in a silver crown, with two dead boys at her feet, pointing an accusing finger. Lady Oggosk saw an enraged woman sixty years her junior, who nonetheless resembled her greatly, except for the sleek red tail that twitched behind her. Captain Rose saw almost the same figure, but tailless, and with larger, more heartbroken eyes.

  Pazel saw his sister, Neda, struggling in the hands of Arquali soldiers who tore at her clothes. But as she fought and whirled, the figure changed. One turn, and she was his mother, shaking her head and mouthing those heartless words: We will never belong among those who belong. Another turn, and she was a woman in the prime of life: a woman of great beauty and seriousness and strength, holding up her arms in a roaring wind. He had never seen her before, and yet he felt, strangely, that he knew her as well as his mother or sister.

  Arunis too must have seen a figure, but his reaction was not one of awe, like that of the others. He tossed another handful of dust into the flames, and shouted at the balcony.

  “Dhola! Come down! I am Sathek’s heir! I am the new steward of Alifros, the hand that moves the Shaggat, the will that bends Empires to my purpose! I shall wield the Nilstone, and loose the Swarm of Night, and scour this world for its new dispensation! Come, sibyl! Come kneel before me!
”

  On his last words, the light vanished: the figure disappeared. Captain Rose gave a howl of frustration, but Oggosk silenced him with a wave. No one moved. Then Arunis whirled to face the right-hand wall.

  A new pool of light, small and blue and restless, hovered restlessly on the wall above a dark doorway. This time it took no human form. But a voice came from it all the same: a woman’s voice, distant as thunder’s echo, yet somehow clear as temple bells.

  “Arunis Wytterscorm,” it said. “Great mage, death-deceiver, Elder of Ajadhin. You whose gifts were given that you might seal the wounds of Alifros, the torn flesh, where the black blood of the underworld seeps in. You who preferred the commerce of devils and wraiths, theft from neighbor worlds, a shameless auction of your own. Why should I kneel? You are not my elder. And this is my house. No, I do not kneel, but I challenge you: catch me, blood mage! Catch me and drink of my wisdom, or go with my curse!”

  And with that the light made a furtive, teasing dart into the doorway.

  But Arunis scowled and stood his ground. “I will not follow where you lead,” he said.

  The voice laughed softly. “And I will not suffer your evil touch. I see what is in your book. You would draw the six-sided prison and trap me inside. But that will never be.”

  “Ah!” cackled Lady Oggosk. “That’s your game, is it, mage?’

  The blue light emerged from the doorway, slid down the stone rings one by one, and vanished into the flames. A moment later Dastu pointed: there it was again, sliding from the burning water on the opposite side, pausing on a broken step.

  “Hercól of Tholjassa,” said the woman’s voice. “Have you come to ask for knowledge, or forgiveness? I think you have great need of both.”

  “As do all who walk the earth,” said Hercól, gruff and startled. “But I do not seek them here.”

  “You were always wise,” said the voice, soothingly. “Love, then—love, which is where knowledge and forgiveness meet; love, which alone is balm to broken souls. You have lived too long without it, warrior. You have fought in its name, but the love was always for others to enjoy. Come and take it, before you grow old, before it is too late forever. For you too carry an open wound.”

  Thasha looked with distress at her friend and tutor. Hercól told her so little about his past—nothing of the Secret Fist, next to nothing of what came before it, or after. Was the sibyl speaking the truth? What kind of wound could he be suffering from, and why hadn’t she seen it herself?

  Again the light began to slide toward an archway. Hercól watched in silence. But when it reached the threshold, his eyes changed. A shocked and naked look stole over him, and he reached out helplessly toward the light. He took a step forward, and Thasha moved to stop him. To her surprise, Dastu’s hand tightened on hers.

  “Let him go,” he whispered. “Poor man, let him find her, whoever she is.”

  Thasha hesitated, then shook her head. She pulled away from Dastu and rushed to Hercól. At the touch of her hand the swordsman jumped. “Thasha!” he breathed, like a man waking from a dream.

  Thasha glanced up at the doorway, and her breath caught in her throat. Just beyond the threshold, where the dancing light hovered still, the floor ended in a steaming pit. Hercól had been walking toward his death.

  Now the light pulled away from the door and came to rest at Thasha’s feet.

  “For you,” it said softly, and almost in a tone of respect, “I have nothing to offer. For what good is a lighted lamp, or a book lain open on the table, until the reader takes her hands from her eyes?”

  Thasha felt her skin grow cold. The sibyl had to be speaking of the Polylex. It was ghastly, however, to realize that a creature that had just tried to kill her oldest friend seemed to be giving the same advice as Ramachni.

  The blue light vanished into the flames once more, and when it emerged it began to circle Pazel. Three times it swept around him, and several times Pazel reached out, only to drop his hands swiftly, as if fighting some impulse he knew to be dangerous. When the light spoke at last, it used a strange, inhuman language that made Pazel cover his ears in sudden distress. Thasha had heard it before: it was the unforgettably strange tongue of the sea-murths, who had nearly killed Pazel and Neeps along the Haunted Coast, before helping them to raise the Red Wolf from the depths. Then the light abandoned Pazel and raced to yet another doorway.

  “Well, Captain,” said the woman’s voice, suddenly bright and airy. “Twelve years ago you fled my Manse with unsightly haste, and I doubted you would ever return. Yet here you are. Curiosity was ever the death of cats and pleasure-seekers, isn’t that so?”

  Oggosk glared in sudden anger. Rose bowed his head and said nothing.

  “And what can I do for the commander of the Wind-Palace,” the voice continued, “that I could not do when last we met?”

  “Accept a gift, Lady,” said Rose. “A small token of my esteem, and an apology for the noise and violence of our last encounter.”

  “It is not to me that you should tender your regrets,” said the voice. “But if you have brought me something, some warm and pretty megigandatra—”

  She said several more strange words, and slowly the light descended toward the broken stone once more. Thasha was amazed: despite her coy words, the voice was suddenly childlike, hungry for the captain’s gift, trying and failing to hide its eagerness. Thasha reeled at the wonder of it all: they were haggling with a strange and mighty being, spiteful and even murderous, and yet no more immune to loneliness and want than the very beings she was trying to entrap.

  “Falindrath,” said the sibyl, as the light crept nearer. “Apendli, margote, bri?”

  Rose turned and lunged for Pazel, dragging him forward. “Answer her, Pathkendle!” he cried, breathless with excitement.

  Pazel waved his hands in protest. “Captain! I don’t speak—I’ve never heard—”

  “You’ll do fine! She always talks in riddles! Say whatever you like, but say it sweetly! Here, that’s a good lad, take the present, give it to her!”

  “When she asks!” hissed Oggosk.

  “When she asks!” cried Rose, shaking Pazel violently by the arm. “Only when she asks, damn it, don’t be so eager, she’s a lady!”

  Hands trembling, he took the carved stone from his mouth and held it out to Pazel. Flabbergasted, Pazel reached for the stone—

  —and squeezed too hard. The wet stone popped like a grape from between his thumb and forefinger. Rose made a wild grab, and only managed to send it flying like a shuttlecock across the room. In the darkness they heard it strike the wall—and then a soft splash.

  Oggosk shrieked. Rose dealt Pazel a blow that sent him flying. The sibyl gave a wail of regret, and the enchanted light swept across the floor in the direction of the stone. But as it passed Arunis, the sorcerer’s hand shot out and seemed to close on something invisible. The voice gave a cry of pain.

  Arunis pulled hard, like a fisherman setting a hook, and grimaced as the light throbbed in his fist. There was no doubt: he had her. And with the Polylex in one hand and the sibyl trapped in the other, he leaped headlong over the flames, up the stone rings, and vanished through a lightless arch.

  “After him! After him!” shrieked Oggosk. “Didn’t you hear the sibyl? His book has a drawing of a spirit-cell! If he copies it out and imprisons her inside, she’ll be forced to tell him anything he wants. Do you understand? Anything! Run, run, you jackdaws!”

  The next minutes were mad. The men and tarboys (except Peytr, who crouched in the doorway where Rose had left him) marauded into the darkness after the sorcerer. Thasha started to go as well, but Oggosk grabbed at her arm.

  “Not you, girl. You stay here at my side.”

  Thasha was incensed. “Let go! I have to help them!”

  “You will be. By staying put.”

  “I can fight as well as they can! And Pazel’s barefoot, and hurt, thanks to your favorite thug. Why does it have to be me?”

  Oggosk slapped her. />
  “Because I wish it, you arrogant girl! Because I’m your elder five times over! Because you’d still be flouncing about in your nightdress on the Chathrand if I hadn’t brought you along!”

  Thasha was bleeding; the witch’s rings had cut her face. “Why did you bother?” she asked.

  Oggosk leaned close to Thasha, blue eyes shining in the blue firelight. “Listen to me, you fool. If he succeeds—if Arunis wrests a means of controlling the Nilstone from that creature—you and I just might be able to stop him. It would kill me, and damage your mind forever. But no one else in this world would have a chance. Now shut your mouth and draw your sword. I’d damned well prefer to get out of this alive.”

  For Pazel the hour that followed was one of the most desperate, frightened and confused times he had ever known. There was no light, except in chambers where the blue fire gleamed. There were pits and caved-in hallways, and others on the point of caving in. Worse still, a great deal of the level to which they had descended was full of water. Some of it was cool, but most of it was hot—very hot, even scalding. When they neared such waters they were forced to turn back and seek another way.

  They could hear the sibyl wailing, her strange voice echoing in the dark. But the depths of the temple were as tangled as the rooms above, and there was no telling into what distant chamber Arunis had fled, bearing his enchanted book and supernatural captive. They split into pairs, groping along the walls, feeling for stairs and holes and drop-offs. Pazel was with Chadfallow, whose hand on his arm felt like a surgical clamp. The darkness was horribly complete; they groped, swore, cracked their heads on unseen walls. Sometimes the passage dwindled to a crawlway; at other times they wriggled through gaps only to find themselves in tiny, tomb-like spaces that seemed to shrink as they patted the stones. At every moment Pazel expected an ambush. Chadfallow carried a sword strapped to his back, but Pazel had only his skipper’s knife, small and sweaty in his hand. Yet what scared him most was the thought of the unseen, scalding water. He could hear it in side passages, bubbling and hissing. He thought suddenly of a crab he’d watched Teggatz drop into a boiling kettle. It had died with one twitch of its claws.