The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Alyash regarded her coldly. “The Lady Oggosk makes reference to my scars,” he said at last. “Would you like to know how I earned them, Duchess?”

  “Not if it delays our meal.”

  “When the Nessarim suspect a man of treason they hand him a knife and a mug of seawater. In the water floats a sarcophagus jellyfish—a creature so deadly that merely to touch one’s lips after handling it means certain death. The suspect is given a choice: to open his veins then and there with the knife, or to swallow the whole mug of water at a gulp, jellyfish and all, and pray that the divine Shaggat neutralizes the poison. They believe him capable of such miracles, even before he returns from the dead. They believe he waits in heaven, watching everything they do.

  “I was accused of being a sfvantskor informant. I struck my chest three times, swore allegiance to the Shaggat, and demanded the mug. As they filled it I went to a corner to pray, and swallowed all the antitoxins I kept on my person. The fanatics knew quite well that no Mzithrini drug could protect against a sarcophagus jelly. But I had drugs from Arqual. That was my sixteenth year in Ott’s service.”

  “In the service of the Emperor,” Ott corrected.

  “To swallow a sarcophagus jelly is to die in seconds,” said Alyash. “I lay writhing for six minutes, burning inside. Then the believers decided I was one of them, and shoved a goad into my mouth, and I vomited onto my chin and chest, where the dissolved jellyfish burned deep into my skin. I lost consciousness, and they were afraid even to wash me clean. That, Lady Oggosk, is how I earned my souvenirs.”

  Lady Oggosk’s eyes were downcast. Then all at once she glanced up, realized he had finished, and waved at Rose impatiently. “Serve the ham, Nilus, the ham!”

  Ott and Alyash took their seats. Chadfallow walked to the threshold of Rose’s day-cabin, and leaned on the door frame, watching the others attack their meal.

  Rose pointed at Ott with his serving fork. “You have robbed me of a bosun, Spymaster.”

  “Not at all,” said the spymaster. “Alyash has always worked from the deck of a ship—albeit a Mzithrini ship. There’s more of worth in this officer than you realized, that’s all.”

  Chadfallow asked a clipped question in Mzithrini. Alyash glanced up at him, then lifted his bowl of crab stew and slurped.

  “The doctor wishes to know how I came to be in Simja,” he said as he finished.

  “That is the best part of it,” said Ott. “The madmen on Gurishal were close to the truth, of course: Mr. Alyash was not the Shaggat-worshipper he claimed. But they guessed that he was a sfvantskor, rather than what he was: a member of the Zithmoloch, the Pentarchy’s formidable, if rather outmatched and archaic, guild of spies. But neither the Shaggat’s men nor the Zithmoloch itself suspected the deeper truth: that he was our man from the start. Alyash told the Five Kings what we wished them to believe concerning Gurishal: that the Nessarim were weak and divided, that the Shaggat’s return was a fading dream. Of course quite the opposite is true. And Alyash, meanwhile, propagated a myth among those zealots, those people starving for hope.”

  “Ah!” said Drellarek. “Then it was you who spread the prophecy of the Shaggat’s return!”

  “I laid the tinder and struck the match,” said Alyash. “But the prophecy spread of its own accord, like a blaze in dry grass. And when word reaches Gurishal that the daughter of an Arquali general has wed into a Mzithrin royal family, every man, woman and child on Gurishal will know that the hour of their God-King’s return is at hand.”

  “To complete the story,” said Ott. “The Mzithrinis had never seen such an effective spy—of course they hadn’t; I trained Alyash myself—and they were not about to let his service end with Gurishal. So they extended his scars to the back of his neck, obliterating his Mzithrini tattoos, and sent him to a place they wished desperately to infiltrate: Simjalla City, where the Great Peace would begin.”

  “It was a natural choice,” said Alyash. “My father traces his family line back to the Crownless Lands. At least a part of me is Simjan.”

  Ott smiled, giving his brandy an interrogatory sniff. “You might not think so,” he said, “but most of the best spies in history are mongrels. Transplants, half-bloods, children of vagabond fathers or women taken in war.”

  “Is that so for you, Mr. Ott?” said Uskins, through a mouthful of ham. “You’re His Supremacy’s best, of course, so—”

  “Uskins,” said Rose, “finish your meal in silence.”

  “Oppo, sir.”

  “And chew your food as befits a man.”

  Sandor Ott was looking at Uskins as one might a horsefly whose buzzing one has resolved to suffer no more. Under his gaze the first mate became quickly unnerved. His knife squeaked. He chewed with great concentration.

  “Stukey,” muttered Alyash in disgust.

  Rose shot him a dark look. “Alyash, is it the Mzithrini in you that thinks it well to visit your captain’s table with a rag knotted at your neck?”

  Alyash whipped the sweaty bandanna from his throat. “Your pardon, sir.”

  “I sent ashore for a bosun, not a spy. And I do not require a bosun of divided loyalties. Tell me, whom do you serve?”

  “By the will of His Supremacy, sir, you are Captain and Final Offshore Authority. That means the mission is in your hands.”

  “I know exactly how far my authority extends,” said Rose, “but do you?”

  “Sir, I am a true servant of Magad the Fifth. My loyalties are as clear to me now as they have been since I boarded.”

  Rose looked at the man, visibly displeased with the answer. Then Lady Oggosk cleared her throat. Scraping at a patch of flaking skin on her hand, she said, “Nilus, you should not give them leave to walk into Bramian. The island is an eater of men, and I’m not just speaking of the savages. The Lorg has a prayer-history for the husbands of its graduates who died in unwise excursions there, and the prayer takes days to chant.” She raised her milky eyes and looked squarely at Ott. “Dreamers fare the worst,” she said.

  Ott met her gaze, unblinking. “It might surprise you to know, Duchess, that my men have been at work inside Bramian for over a year.”

  “Fifty yards inside,” said Oggosk. “And mostly underground. Not exactly the work of heroes, is it?”

  There came a knock at the door. The steward answered, and whispered with someone on the threshold. Then he walked to the captain and bent to his ear.

  “Let him be brought in at once,” said Rose. “Dr. Chadfallow, you will hold your tongue, or I shall have you removed.”

  The steward returned to the door and swung it wide. There stood Pazel Pathkendle, held roughly by a gargantuan Turach. The youth’s hands were tied behind his back, and a gag pulled his lips back severely. Fitted around his neck was a broad leather collar with iron studs, a bit like those worn by fighting dogs, except that this collar had an odd, ratchet-like device on one side.

  The Turach dragged Pazel forward, into the sunlight. It was clear now that the collar was very tight, and that the rag in the boy’s mouth was dark with blood. Pazel turned wild and furious eyes from one face to another. When at last they fell on Dr. Chadfallow the rage that burned in them grew even stronger.

  “I didn’t hit him, Sergeant Drellarek,” said the soldier defensively. “He just bit his tongue.”

  “And then bit you?”

  The Turach glanced sheepishly at his own bandaged forearm. He shook his head. “That were the Treaty Bride,” he said. “She had a blade.”

  Rose was livid. “My orders were not clear, then?”

  “Sir, they were very clear; you wanted her brought as well. It mortifies me to tell you that she slipped away. I think she was expecting us, sir—she was that wary. And the Tholjassan and the Undrabust brat got in our way, and next thing we knew she was back in her blary luxury suite. But we have the Tholjassan in chains.”

  Sandor Ott looked at him with amusement. “You captured Hercól of Tholjassa? How many Turachs did that require?”

  T
he soldier glanced rather stiffly at Ott. “We gave him a knock to remember, sir, I promise you that. Captain Rose, I—”

  Rose waved a hand for silence. “Tie Pathkendle to the stanchion. Then go.”

  The man did as he was told. Pazel, bound hand and foot to the wooden post, looked again at Chadfallow. He tried to speak: just one word through the bloody cloth. It might have been traitor. Chadfallow was very still, but his eyes were full of thought, fear, calculation. He looked like a man resigned to being hated.

  Ott dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, then stood up. “My good Niriviel overheard a fascinating confession from this boy,” he said, approaching Pazel. “To wit, he is not the keeper of the Shaggat’s spell, although he cast it. That explains why Arunis dared try to kill him. And why we may do so, if necessary.”

  He laid a hand on the back of the collar around Pazel’s neck. Then he looked deliberately at Chadfallow. “Objections, Doctor? Now would be a fine time to share them.”

  Chadfallow did not even look at the spy. His eyes were locked on Pazel, and they were bright and beseeching.

  Ott’s hand yanked at the buckle. There was a loud click, and Pazel gave a strangled moan. The collar had visibly tightened.

  “Another two clicks, and I crush his windpipe. Not a very good interrogation tool, as one of my men pointed out: Mr. Pathkendle is already deprived of speech. But marvelous for extracting signatures and the like. Would you really shed no tears, Chadfallow, after sponsoring the lad for so long? Come, we all know you loved his mother. Surely you can’t be indifferent to the fate of her son?”

  Slowly the doctor raised his eyes to Ott’s face. “Entirely,” he said. Then he turned and walked back toward the window.

  Click.

  Chadfallow whirled about. Pazel was writhing in his bonds; a pink froth was on his lips.

  Drellarek sat up, professionally interested. Uskins gaped in horror. A faint sound escaped Pazel’s throat, like the squelch of a deck-rag being twisted dry.

  “For Rin’s sake, Nilus, we’re eating,” grumbled Oggosk.

  Rose gestured at the collar. “Remove that thing,” he said. “Chadfallow, if you do not intend to dine I suggest you make preparations.”

  Ott touched something on the buckle. The collar sprang loose, and Pazel fell forward with an agonized gasp. The spymaster returned to his meal.

  “What I still cannot fathom,” said Drellarek, passing his plate, “is the nature of the uprising you have engineered. Let us presume for a moment that the mage is mad—that he cannot grant the Shaggat the power to wield this Nilstone, however great or small a weapon it may be.”

  “We presume nothing in this campaign,” said Ott. “We will take the Nilstone for ourselves, and tame or kill the sorcerer, long before we arrive at Gurishal. Indeed it will be the first order of business, once the Shaggat is restored to life.”

  “All the better,” said Drellarek. “But how is the Shaggat’s horde to threaten the Mzithrin? They have no navy, surely?”

  Alyash shook his head. “Fishing boats, near-shore vessels, a few broken-down brigs.”

  “Why then,” said Drellarek, “how are they even to engage the White Fleet—let alone threaten it? Have they any hope of a general breakout from Gurishal?”

  “They have hope in their prophecy,” said Ott. “And their faith is ferocious, while that of the Five Kings is weak. Remember that the Mzithrin nearly conquered the world, only to be defeated from within by the splintering of their own religion. The Nessarim, by contrast, have belief in a god who walked among them: a god who defied the greatest empire in Alifros, and who may yet return to rule it. Nothing will turn them from that dream.

  “They have useful delusions; we have specific tactics. And tomorrow’s excursion will play a part in both.”

  Ott sat back, and Rose leaned his massive elbows on the table. In the silence Pazel raised his head and found all of them looking at him.

  “Are you quite finished, Duchess?” Rose inquired.

  Oggosk pushed away her soup bowl. “Glah.”

  “Very well,” said Rose.

  Pazel tensed. His tormentors’ eyes shifted. Pazel turned his head and saw Chadfallow coming toward him with what looked like a small, swan-necked watering pail. The doctor was very quick. He grabbed Pazel’s hair in his left hand and wrenched his head back, then forced the pail’s spout through the boy’s lips and past the bloody rag. Before Pazel knew what was happening he had swallowed a mouthful of something bitter and warm. Chadfallow removed the spout and caught Pazel’s chin in his hand, making sure the rest of the liquid went down his throat. His look was fierce and dangerous, but unlike Ott he showed no sign of enjoying what he did. A moment later he released Pazel and stepped back.

  “You may proceed,” he said to the spymaster.

  “So soon?”

  “It will have happened already, if it is going to happen at all.”

  Sandor Ott moved in front of Pazel, who was coughing and shaking. “Calm yourself,” he said. “It is no poison. Where that’s concerned I scarcely need a doctor’s help. Now listen to me carefully, Pathkendle. Urtale preda nusali ch’ulthanon.”

  The words were like a kick to the stomach. Pazel stared up into Ott’s cold eyes. The spymaster nodded. And Pazel slammed his head back against the stanchion with a wail of grief that racked his body more terribly than the pain of a few minutes before.

  “Great Rin above!” said Drellarek. “He understood!”

  “Peace, boy!” laughed Ott. “I was citing ancient literature, not telling you of my actual deeds. Urtale preda nusali ch’ulthanon: I sent your mother to an early death. The confession of the doomed hero of the Song of Itash, written nineteen centuries ago by an anonymous whore in the court of the Amber Kings.”

  Pazel’s heart was hammering. His eyes were wide with terror and confusion.

  “And yet you scarcely noticed me switching tongues,” Ott went on. “Your Gift is working, lad. Chadfallow’s drug has just induced it. And to you, Doctor, my hearty congratulations. If we can truly access his Gift whenever the need arises, Mr. Pathkendle may yet prove as beneficial as once you claimed.”

  Pazel twisted around to look at the doctor. Whatever mix of emotions he had felt before was gone. There was nothing in his eyes but hate.

  Chadfallow did not meet his gaze. “The drug is not perfect,” he said. “The boy may suffer some disorientation, some loss of bearings, until the process ends in the normal manner.”

  “Normal,” said Drellarek with a smirk. “You mean with jabbering fits.”

  “Just look at that face!” laughed Uskins. “It’s the muketch you should be afraid of, Doctor. He hates you. Give him half a chance and he’ll put a knife in your belly.”

  “Mr. Uskins,” said Rose, “you will escort Pathkendle to the brig. Have his dinner brought there, and his foul-weather clothes. And instruct the cobbler to make him a pair of shoes by evening. Shoes, not sandals.”

  “Oppo, Captain, shoes it is.”

  Oggosk squinted at Pazel. “What are you staring at, boy?”

  Pazel started. He felt as if they had beaten him with clubs. But it was true, he had been staring, mute and amazed—at Captain Rose. The man’s sleeve had ridden up toward the elbow. Seeing it now, Rose hastily pulled the sleeve down again. But it was too late, and he knew it. Pazel had seen what Rose wished no one to see: a wolf-shaped scar above his wrist.

  “Get the boy out of here,” said Rose. “And let us conclude our business swiftly. The day is waning, and tomorrow we shall all be tested.”

  “The tarboy’s passed a test already,” said Drellarek, smirking again.

  “Just one,” said Sandor Ott, “the easiest.”

  23

  Bramian

  21 Freala 941

  130th day from Etherhorde

  Her heart is a throbbing beast, her body a wilderness, her shores a stone wall and her few harbors held by savages who roast their foes on spits. Great teams of explorers set off for her interior; m
onths later broken men straggle out with tales of whip scorpions and swarms of carnivorous bats, and great monsters that bask on riverbanks or blend with the trees. There are also stories of lost races of thinking beings, whole cities perhaps, in the valleys of her central range.

  Whatever the truth of such tales, on this you may rely: Bramian is merciless. If you contemplate some exploitation of her riches, be warned: only the very wealthy, and very disciplined, have succeeded in turning a profit on this island twice the size of the Westfirth. “Above all,” writes one old survivor, “let your stay be brief. Cut a swathe of jungle, mine a little ore, take a few hundred hides—and be gone. If you do this you may live to enjoy your takings, however smaller than your appetite they prove.”

  —The Merchant’s Polylex, 18th edition (959),

  page 4186.

  He passed a night of dark dreams in which he crept over canyons on bridges of scrapwood and straw. Every step caused the bridges to groan and bend, and yet he had no choice but to cross the dismal gorges. Now and then he would half wake and find himself curled against the wall of the brig, intensely grateful for its solidity, for the absence of an abyss, but then the drug’s haze would claim him again.

  At dawn the spymaster came for him. Pazel leaped up with raised fists, light on his feet if nearly out of his mind, striking the stance Hercól had taught him at their first lesson in the stateroom. It seemed necessary to demonstrate his hatred of the spymaster, of his whole clan of murdering liars. But Ott just laughed and sidled toward him without making eye contact and felled him with three blows. Pazel never saw Ott’s hands at all, until they lifted him by the shirt.

  Minutes later he was on the floor of a skiff, descending the dark wall of the Chathrand to the rhythmic clanging of the davit-chains. Ott and Drellarek were seated near him, and ahead of them sat the tarboy brothers Swift and Saroo. Neither of the Jockeys glanced at him as the boat rattled seaward. He could hear the murmur of other men, the rasp of Turach armor. A man’s voice chattered indignantly from the stern. You should treat me as an equal, Warden. And even that is a great concession. Remove these straps! You are a mortal man. I am the son of the divine.