The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Suddenly he laughed. “Religious lunatics. Someone had better break it to them, that’s all. Listen, you dumb bastards, the dead don’t just wake up one day and return to life.”

  Then the king stopped laughing, and looked at the man uneasily. “Of course, you did,” he said.

  The tailor bird had overheard the king. “Isiq, your name is Isiq! A splendid name! And an admiral, did I get that right?”

  The man neither nodded nor shook his head. Something the king had said made him feel it would be wrong to answer.

  “No matter! Isiq! We have that, and it’s more than we had yesterday! Every twig in the nest, eh? Tomorrow I’ll listen to His Highness again, and we shall add another twig.”

  Eberzam Isiq put his fingers in the aperture. The bird for the first time let him touch its velvet throat.

  But for almost a week the king did not come. Isiq heard him pass through the lower chambers, his voice high and merry as he shouted to his scribe and chamberlain. When he came at last he slipped in quietly and chattered for an hour about things that had nothing to do with war.

  Isiq returned his smile, for he felt the king’s new joy as his own. Something on the admiral’s face must have revealed his curiosity, for the king laughed and drew his stool closer.

  “I can tell you, can’t I? You won’t go gossiping. I’ve fallen in love. I’m smitten, I tell you, done for.”

  Isiq sat up straight. The king went right on talking.

  “Oh, she won’t be queen—that’ll be dreary Princess Urjan of Urnsfich, one of these years—ah, but this girl! Once in a lifetime, Isiq. A dancer, with a body to prove it. But she’s had a hard life. Was forced to dance for piggish men in Ballytween—dance, and maybe more than dance. Now she’s too timid to step in front of an audience, or even enter a crowded room. I seem to have been born to shelter—Never mind, sir, never mind. Ah, but she dances for me, Admiral. I wish you could see her. Beauty like that would make you recall your youth in a heartbeat.”

  None of this made any great impression on Eberzam Isiq. He knew only that the king’s visits would be rare henceforth, and they were. The doctor came, and the nurse brought food, and new books, and laundered clothes. The little tailor bird came and spoke sadly of his mate. The winter deepened. And Isiq grew somewhat stronger. His body at the very least was healing. He started calisthenics, though he could not recall having learned them fifty years ago as a cadet.

  One day, nibbling soda bread with a blanket across his knees, staring at a page of Arquali poetry as the bird pecked crumbs from the floor, he heard the king beneath him, laughing deep in his throat. The monarch raised his voice to a shout: “Yes, yes, darling, you win, by all the gods! Your wish is my own!” And then, very faintly, Isiq heard a woman’s musical laugh.

  He shot to his feet, scaring the bird back to the window. Book and blanket and cake fell to the floor. He took a step forward, lips trembling, possessed by yearnings the very existence of which he had forgotten.

  “Syrarys?” he whispered.

  “Isiq!” screeched the tailor bird, beside himself. “Isiq, best friend, only friend, you can talk!”

  43

  A Meeting of Empires

  20 Ilbrin 941

  219th day from Etherhorde

  With the lookout’s cry at dawn, grown men wept with relief.

  “Tower ashore! Tower ashore!”

  Felthrup’s eyes snapped open. Had he heard correctly?

  He was in the doorway of the wedding cupboard, under Hercól’s chair. Hercól was already on his feet. “A tower!” he cried softly. “Thank the sweet star of Rin!”

  “We are saved!” said Felthrup. “Any settlement will have water! They cannot refuse us enough to stay alive!”

  “To me, little brother,” said Hercól, and lifted the rat to his shoulder. Felthrup clung tight, reveling in the strength of his three good legs. Just like Master Mugstur, he had seen his battle-wounds healed when he took monstrous shape. Then (a far greater blessing) the Red Storm had nullified the hideous change, restoring him to his true body, just as it had done to Belesar Bolutu. Even with his burning thirst, Felthrup had not felt so strong in years.

  The door to Pacu Lapadolma’s cabin opened, and Bolutu himself stepped out, his silver eyes shining with anticipation. The dlömic man had lately moved into Pacu’s cabin, which like Hercól’s cupboard stood inside the magic wall. He wore an amulet about his neck: a lovely sea-green stone, inlaid with gold likenesses of tiger and snake. It was a sacred emblem, he’d explained vaguely: and this was the first time he’d dared display it in twenty years.

  He had also taken to wearing a broadsword. Felthrup didn’t know where the sword had come from, but he knew why Bolutu kept it at hand, and why he had changed his quarters. The mood on the Chathrand was explosive; men were almost as thirsty for a scapegoat as they were for water. Felthrup himself went nowhere without a guardian. The only thing worse than being the sole dlömu aboard the Great Ship was being its last surviving rat.

  Scores of men were already rushing up the Silver Stair, with ixchel flowing past them left and right. Hercól threw open the stateroom door. “Thasha! Pathkendle!”

  Pazel and Thasha stumbled into the passage, blinking. Ensyl was there as well, riding on Pazel’s shoulder. Felthrup leaped into Thasha’s arms. “Wake up, my lady!” he said, wriggling with excitement. Thasha nodded vaguely; she did not seem to know quite where she was.

  Bolutu was first up the Silver Stair. As soon as he reached the topdeck a cry of joy burst from his lips.

  “Narybir! Ay dorin Alifros, beloved home! That is the Tower of Narybir, Guardian of the East! We have reached Cape Lasung! There is a village beside the tower, and fresh water to spare! And see, there is the inlet we were hunting for!”

  The others rushed up the ladderway. A joyful clamor was breaking out above: A village! A village with water to spare!

  On the topdeck, Bolutu stood with his half-webbed hands spread wide above his head. Men crowded around him, suddenly indifferent to his strangeness, hanging on his every word. Others gazed with longing from the portside rail.

  Felthrup sniffed the wind and shivered with excitement. Forest! He could smell wet bark and pine sap, and a boggy smell like an inland swamp. Then Thasha moved forward, and Felthrup saw the tower.

  “Rin’s eyes,” said Hercól beside them.

  It stood at the end of the Cape: a magnificent spire of rust-red stone. The surface was irregular and deeply grooved. The tower was broad at its foot, with curving buttresses that vanished, root-like, into the sand. As it rose the structure leaned and twisted, so that from afar it resembled some ancient, wind-guttered candle. A little wall ran along the shore at its base. Inland from the wall stood a grove of rugged pines, and then, perhaps a mile from the tower, a village of low stone houses.

  Eastward, the island tapered to a sandy point. Then came a mile of open sea, and beyond it the Northern Sandwall resumed, a ribbon of dunes curving away into the distance.

  “Did I not promise you?” said Bolutu, turning to Pazel and Thasha. “Did I not say that the worst lay behind us?”

  “You told us,” said Thasha uncertainly. Pazel stood hugging his coat tight about him, watchful and uneasy. Felthrup caught his eye, and felt a spark of worry ignite in his heart.

  “Bolutu!” shouted Taliktrum, looking down from the quarterdeck, where he perched on Elkstem’s shoulder. “Is that a naval installation? Will they confront us with warships if we enter the gulf?”

  “There is a small detachment of Asp warriors, if I recall, sir. But it was never a great fighting base. Narybir is a watchtower; her ships are meant to carry warnings with all possible speed to the City of Masalym, thirty miles across the gulf, where no doubt an Imperial warship or two lies at anchor. Her signal-lights also send messages to the ships themselves, and keep them from wrecking on the Sandwall.”

  Another whisper of joy swept the deck. Thirty miles to the mainland—to a city, a city, did you hear him?

  “
Can we have washed up right in the heart of your blary Empire?” demanded Taliktrum.

  “No indeed,” said Bolutu. “Masalym is the easternmost of the Five Pillars of the Bali Adro Coast. Sail east another hundred miles and you leave the Empire for the Dominion of Karysk and the Ghíred Vale, and beyond that I cannot say. Our capital lies in the other direction, two thousand miles to the southwest. Farther still lies my birth-city: beautiful Istolym, westernmost of all.”

  “Have you ever set foot in this Masalym then?” demanded Elkstem.

  The dlömu shook his head. “Our ship set sail from Bali Adro City. I know the tower before us from paintings only, but it is unmistakable. Trust me, Sailmaster! I know exactly where we are.”

  As he spoke these last words he glanced quickly at Pazel and Thasha, and touched the corner of one silvery eye. To the others it looked like a thoughtless gesture, but Pazel understood at once. His masters, the mages of the South. They know where we are too, now. He’s just shown them.

  “Trust me, all of you!” Bolutu went on joyfully. “My mission was a famous one, and even if the name of Bolutu Urstorch has been forgotten after twenty years, that of my ship Sofima Rega never shall be. The men of Narybir will welcome us with open arms.”

  “And flash a message to that city in an instant, maybe,” said Taliktrum, “from which one or two—or twenty—gunships will be launched.”

  “Aye,” grunted Alyash, who had appeared at the rail. “A Segral from across the Nelluroq won’t be greeted with a shrug, now, will it? They’ll want to stop us cold. They’ll never let us go on our merry way, traipsin’ east to west through their waters. At the very least they’ll board us and inspect every last corner of the ship. And what d’ye suppose they’ll make of the Nilstone?”

  “Better if we had struck land in a wilderness,” said Taliktrum, “for your purposes, and ours.”

  For a moment no one spoke. On Thasha’s shoulder, Felthrup began to fidget. He sniffed the air again. “Don’t like it, don’t like it,” he murmured.

  “You say men live in that village by the tower,” said a skeptical voice in the crowd. “Do you mean real men, or your sort of thing?”

  It was Uskins, looking pale and rather sickly. He was keeping a sheepish distance from the other officers since his blunders in the Vortex. Bolutu glanced at him briefly.

  “As it happens I mean both, sir,” said Bolutu. “Let me say again: in Bali Adro the races live together in peace.”

  “But you things rule, don’t you?”

  “Uskins!” snapped Taliktrum. “Living creatures are not to be referred to as things. And you in particular must learn to keep your mouth shut. Nothing but foolishness comes out of it.”

  “Mr. Taliktrum,” said Elkstem nervously, “they may have flashed that signal already.”

  Taliktrum looked at him, startled. The crowd was abruptly tense.

  “He’s right,” said Alyash. “What good’s a watchtower if it’s not quick with its warnings? And even if the mainland can’t spot its signal light, there must be boats on the gulf that can. And they’ll relay the message to that city, if it’s really there.”

  “No,” muttered Felthrup.

  “They could be weighing anchor even now!” said an ixchel at Taliktrum’s side.

  “And our men are in no shape for a fight,” added Uskins.

  “Fight?” cried Bolutu. “My dear sirs, you do not grasp the situation at all! We are a secure and confident people. No power in Alifros need give Bali Adro a moment’s fear. We do not attack strangers who arrive on our doorstep! Why should we? Go and get your water, gentlemen! No one is going to take your ship away.”

  “Listen to him!” shouted someone, and the crowd rumbled agreement.

  “No, no, no,” said Felthrup, who was now practically writhing on Thasha’s shoulder.

  “Can’t you keep that rat quiet?” Alyash snapped at Thasha.

  Thasha returned his stare with loathing. “What’s the matter, Felthrup? Don’t listen to him. Go ahead, speak up.”

  All eyes turned to the rat. Felthrup opened his mouth to speak—but his brain was working too quickly, and his nerves got the better of him. He began to sniff hard and fast, like a monk at his breathing exercises. Then he gasped aloud.

  “Grease,” he said. “Cookfires. Last night’s dinner!”

  Alyash made a sound of contempt.

  “I don’t smell a blary thing,” said Elkstem.

  “You ain’t a rat, are ye?” said Fiffengurt. “They can stand on a roof and smell a bean in the basement. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if those smells fetched across the water.”

  “No!” wailed Felthrup. “I can’t smell anything! Wake up, wake up!”

  He began to squeal pitifully and rub his snout with his paws. Thasha cradled him, whispering soothing words, but he only grew worse, convulsing with dry heaves. He spoke no more, and with a look of concern Thasha bore him away.

  Myett whispered something urgently into Taliktrum’s ear. He nodded, as though the thought had occurred to him already.

  “Mr. Elkstem,” he said, “plot a course through the inlet. We shall go and get our water—quickly—unless there is some coherent objection?”

  A roar of approval from the men. Pazel and Hercól exchanged a look. In the swordsman’s eyes Pazel saw a reflection of his own unease. Felthrup had an extraordinary way of thinking. His nerves had betrayed him the same way in Simja, when he guessed Ott’s trick with Pacu. Some deep part of him seemed to grasp things before he could explain them, even to himself.

  But what choice did they have? Without water, the men would soon be more delirious than Felthrup. And then they would start to die.

  Mr. Fiffengurt took a tally: of the sixteen officers charged with record keeping, eleven reckoned the date to be 20 Ilbrin of the year 941.* He sent a request to Captain Rose to make the date official: Without that we agree on the date, sir, I fear the men’s hearts will go evermore adrift. Rose agreed at once, and the date of the IMS Chathrand’s entrance into the Gulf of Masal was fixed for all time.

  Fiffengurt assumed that the day would be remembered for the meeting of two worlds so long divided, and in a sense he was right. It was in any case a day no one aboard was ever able to forget.

  They cleared the inlet with nine fathoms to spare. On the leeward side Cape Lasung formed a broad sandy hook, with a number of small, rocky islands clustered near the point commanded by the Tower of Narybir. Several of these inner isles had stone houses and fortifications. But no voices hailed them, from tower or village, and the channel-markers Bolutu had predicted could not be found.

  “Where’s the fishing-fleet?” said Pazel.

  “Out on the gulf, obviously,” said Mr. Uskins, as though glad to be addressing someone of lower status than himself. “Still bringing in the night’s catch.”

  “Every last boat?” said Pazel dubiously.

  “How many do you imagine they have?” said Uskins. “Even by Ormali standards this hardly represents a—Look there! A ship! Ship on the starboard quarter! What did I tell you, Muketch?”

  He had indeed spotted a vessel on the gulf. But it was no fishing boat. It was a strange, slender brig, eight or ten miles off, appearing and disappearing behind the islands. Telescopes revealed three similar vessels at a greater distance.

  They were not making for the cape. All four were sailing due east—and swiftly, by their spread of sail. Those sails were tattered, however, and one of the brigs had lost its mizzenmast. Strangest of all, Mr. Bolutu could make no sense of their blazing red pennants, which were not the colors of Bali Adro. “The world is vast,” he said, shaking his head.

  Perhaps, but the village at the foot of Narybir was tiny. It was hard to imagine danger of any kind lurking in that clutch of meager cottages, listing fences, crumbling barns. Only the stonework—the mighty tower, the low wall above the waterline, a jetty protecting the fishing harbor—suggested that the outpost had any connection to an Empire.

  And still there was
no one to be seen. No voices answered their shouts and horns and whistles. Bolutu suggested they fire a cannon in greeting, but Taliktrum forbade it. None of the brigs had yet altered course, and he wished to keep it that way. Why announce their presence to every ship in the gulf?

  “You will get your water and return with all possible speed,” he told Mr. Fiffengurt. “But do not forget the hostages. Attempt any betrayal, and the lives of your people are forfeit.”

  They lost depth rapidly. Three miles from the village Fiffengurt brought them up short. “Furl the mains, Mr. Alyash, and heave to. We’ve not come thousands of miles to split our keel on a blary sandbar.”

  Fiffengurt pointed at the jetty. “We’ll load our water there. It’s a bit outside the village, but at least it’s solid stone. Mr. Fegin, we shall bring the water on board with the sixty-foot yawl. See to the placement of casks in her hold, and put a cargo lift together. And for Rin’s sake brace her main yard stoutly. When they’re full those casks will weigh two thousand pounds apiece.”

  “Oppo, Cap—Mr. Fiffengurt, sir,” stammered Fegin.

  “And have the carpenter get started on a wagon, for moving the casks about on shore.”

  “Sir, that is pointless labor!” said Bolutu, laughing. “There are surely wagons in the village. And these are seafaring folk. They will come out in the hundreds to help fellow sailors in need.”

  “All right,” said Fiffengurt, “don’t have him build it just yet, Fegin. But let the plans be drawn up all the same. Meanwhile we shall launch the pilot boat, and go looking for these timid folk.”

  The pilot boat could carry twelve. Six of those, at Taliktrum’s insistence, were Turachs. Besides Bolutu, Fiffengurt also asked Hercól, Pazel and Thasha to come ashore, for no clear reason except that he trusted them. The last member of the landing party, Alyash, he included for the opposite reason: because he didn’t trust Ott’s man to be left alone on the ship.

  “In some ways,” added Fiffengurt quietly to Pazel as the Turachs rowed for shore, “the ixchel made our lives easier. The most dangerous men on Chathrand are all locked in her forecastle.”