The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Isiq released him. “A great mess,” he agreed. “Nothing for it now but to start the cleanup.”

  So it was that hours before dawn the tiny fleet that stood for Maisa of Arqual left the port of Ormael. At the harbor mouth they divided into three, saluted one another with roars and cannon fire, and began their lives as hunted men.

  Isiq took his squadron east, and was under fire by noon. A second squadron tacked west into the Nelu Gila: waters that no Empire but the Mzithrin had ever held. And Commodore Darabik took his forces south toward Locostri, and was caught by a task force of Arquali destroyers. The latter vessels had the wind, and closed quickly, and Darabik’s entire squadron went down under a bright blue sky.

  27

  Souls Set Free

  “By all that’s holy, doubt your instincts!” my mother told me when I came of age, “and trust even less in those weak organs, the eyes. Wait for the heart’s eye to open. Then you’ll know how long you’ve lived in the dark.”

  —Embers of Ixphir House

  by Hercól Ensyriken ap Ixhxchr

  9 Fuinar 942

  297th day from Etherhorde

  “Ah, Master Stargraven! I knew you would be back.”

  Felthrup led the way down the ancient passage with its rotting wares. Ahead in the enchanted brig, the antique lamp burned on its chain as before, and the light gleamed on the unlocked cells. He was terrified, and elated. His scholarship was paying off—and, more important, he had friends beside him. Marila and Fiffengurt would need his guidance. They had never faced a demon before.

  This time the maukslar had not bothered with a disguise. It stood at the center of its cell looking just as Felthrup remembered: talons, wings, bloated body, gleaming gold eyes. Its hands rested lightly on the bars of the cell; lamplight glittered on its rings.

  “Shall we bargain, rat?” it said.

  “Oh yes,” said Felthrup. “That is indeed why we came.”

  The three humans remained silent, as Felthrup had hoped they would. Marila and Fiffengurt each held a little pouch. The demon studied them, allowing its eyes to linger pointedly on Marila’s belly. Unblinking, the Tholjassan girl met its gaze.

  “Oho, little wife,” said the maukslar. “Ferocity suits you. It will not protect you, however.”

  The maukslar turned to the last figure in the brig. It smiled, fat cheeks folding in on themselves. “Nilus Rose. Are you come to join your good friend Captain Kurlstaff? He was an amusing companion, while he lived.”

  Rose’s eyes betrayed nothing. His voice was low and deadly. “Kurlstaff has spoken of you, monster.”

  “Has he spoken of your death? It is very near. You will know shame, then agony; then the plague will simply melt your mind away. You will try to hold on, to remember yourself, to keep your human soul intact. But you will fail. It will pour from you in a rush, like bilge down a drain.”

  Captain Rose stepped forward. A show of courage, but he did not truly feel it: Felthrup could smell the terror in the big man’s sweat.

  “Not too near, Captain!” he squeaked.

  Even as he spoke the maukslar hurled itself against the bars with a snarl. Its reach was longer than anyone could have foreseen: one jeweled hand clawed the air just inches from the captain’s face. Fiffengurt hauled Rose back by the arm.

  The maukslar straightened, its calm suddenly restored. It held something red between two fingers: a bit of Rose’s beard.

  “I think I shall keep this,” it said.

  “Abomination!” shrieked a voice from behind them. “Fat toad of Slagarond! Drop that hair!”

  It was Lady Oggosk, hobbling down the passage, brandishing her stick. Felthrup winced. He’d been wrong to tell the captain about this place. Neither he nor his witch could help them now.

  “Drop it!” Oggosk shrieked again. But the maukslar did not obey. Instead it put the wisp of Rose’s beard into its mouth, and swallowed. Oggosk’s face twisted in horror. She struck the iron bars and snapped her stick in two. The maukslar held its vast belly and laughed.

  “Enough, enough!” cried Felthrup. “Duchess, you are not to interfere! Captain Rose, I thought we had an understanding, you and I.”

  Rose took Oggosk’s elbow, firmly. “Go back to the door,” he told her, “and see that no one approaches. That is my command.”

  For once, Oggosk heeded him, though she wept and swore as she departed, clutching half her stick.

  “The ghosts are thick around you, Captain,” said the maukslar. “They know when one is soon to join their number.”

  Marila nudged Felthrup with her foot. She was right; it was for him to take charge.

  “Tulor!” he said, inching nearer. “I am ready for you today, but I warn you that I shall not tolerate behavior unbecoming in a—that is, poor behavior of any kind. You have knowledge to barter with? Very good, that is what I require. To begin with—”

  “Free me.”

  Mr. Fiffengurt snorted. “Now, there’s a laugh,” he said.

  Felthrup suppressed an urge to bite his ankle. “To begin with, I will ask you a simple thing. Is Arunis gone forever, now that Mr. Uskins is dead? Or is there still a man aboard whom he has … infected, as it were?”

  The maukslar spat.

  “Hmmph!” said Felthrup. “That is because you don’t know.”

  The creature bristled. “I was perfectly clear with you, rodent. I will tell you nothing more until I am set free.”

  “But I think you will. I think you will trade knowledge for food.”

  “Food!” The creature looked at him with contempt. “Little squirmer! You may keep your shipboard slops. I do not hunger here.”

  “How ungracious!” said Felthrup. “But you must offer him a taste all the same, Marila.”

  Marila reached into her pouch and withdrew a gold coin. Taking care not to lean too close, she tossed it through the iron bars. The coin rolled in a half circle and landed near the maukslar’s taloned feet.

  The maukslar did not look at the coin, but it grew very still. Wait, thought Felthrup. The humans were looking at him, perplexed. In his thoughts he begged them to keep silent.

  The maukslar crossed its arms. It glared, defiant, its vast chest rising and falling.

  Wait.

  The fat hands twitched. The golden eyes looked away. Then suddenly the creature threw itself down like a dog before the coin, and ate it. The demon moaned, as a spasm of wild pleasure crossed its face. Droplets of gold sparkled in its mouth, as if the coin had melted there. But the creature’s joy lasted only seconds. It turned Felthrup a look of redoubled hate.

  “Vermin.”

  Felthrup sat back on his haunches. “There is a great deal more, but you must earn it.”

  “I shall skin you alive, each of you. I shall roast you on a spit.”

  “You will answer my questions,” said Felthrup, “or we will depart.”

  The maukslar roared. It threw itself against the bars again, with even greater violence. The charmed door held fast. Twisting, screaming, the demon changed its body: suddenly a tall, savage-looking man with a red beard took its place, eyes fixed on Captain Rose.

  “Nilus!” the man thundered. “Free me at once!”

  Rose’s eyes went wide. The man in the cell bellowed again, and the captain flinched, as though expecting a blow. Then his eyes narrowed again, and he looked at the figure squarely. “You are not my father,” he said.

  “Worthless cretin! I order you to open this door!”

  “But I wish you were,” Rose went on, “that I might stand here before you, and lift not a finger on your behalf.”

  The figure gaped at him—and then, in an eyeblink, it changed again. Within the cage there suddenly appeared Neeps Undrabust, dressed just as he had been the night before he left the Chathrand. The night Rose had married him to Marila. Neeps turned to his young wife, eyes brimming with emotion, and reached out a trembling hand.

  “It’s me,” he said. “It’s truly me. Come here, let me touch you. Let me touch o
ur child.”

  “Marila, leave at once!” cried Felthrup. But Marila’s eyes remained fixed on her lover; she stood as though turned to stone. Fiffengurt closed one hand tightly on Marila’s arm. She started and shook her head.

  “I’m dying, you know,” said the thing that looked like Neeps. “The same way Rose is dying. Of the plague. I don’t want to die without touching you again.”

  Tears streamed down Marila’s face. Then she placed two fists over her eyes, and began to shout in Tholjassan. Felthrup could not understand the words, but he knew curses when he heard them, and so did the maukslar. The figure of Neeps disappeared, and was replaced by a perfect replica of Marila herself.

  “Your man does not love you,” it said, in Marila’s own voice. “He’s found another lover. A finer one, a beauty.”

  “Liar,” said Marila calmly. “You don’t know him. I do. Besides, he’s in a land without human beings.”

  The false Marila laughed. “And you think that has stopped him? You are the one who does not know the man, or the soul of men writ large. No depravity is beyond them.” The creature touched its bulging stomach. “What do you think is growing, here? A healthy baby, from his seed? Shall I tell you the truth?”

  At that Fiffengurt suddenly came to life. Spitting out a few choice curses of his own, he lifted Marila from the ground and ran with her down the passage. In the cell, the maukslar laughed and clawed at its belly. “A grub, a flesh-eating grub! It is gnawing you, gnawing its way to the light!”

  Felthrup heard the quartermaster’s voice at the distant doorway, and a croaking reply from Oggosk. Moments later Fiffengurt returned alone. He had torn open his pouch. Before Felthrup could stop him he poured out a shower of golden coins upon the floor of the cell. The few that rolled in the maukslar’s direction he stamped flat under his boot.

  “Fiffengurt, Fiffengurt!” cried the rat. “That is not the procedure!”

  “It is now,” snarled Fiffengurt. “Go on, bastard, eat your muckin’ fill.”

  The maukslar resumed its true form. Its small bright eyes fixed on the gold, and a moan came from its chest. It dropped to its knees and stretched out its jeweled hands as far as they could go. The nearest coin was barely an inch out of reach.

  Crack. Mr. Fiffengurt brought the broken end of Oggosk’s staff down on the fat, squirming knuckles. The maukslar’s hand jerked back. It sat up, wings half spread, its eyes flickering between their faces and the gold.

  “Give me some,” it hissed.

  “Answer the rat’s blary question!”

  “One coin first. Just one.”

  Fiffengurt shook his head. “Two, when you talk.”

  The maukslar was gasping with want. Set free, it would tear them all to pieces; of that Felthrup had no doubt.

  “Arunis is banished,” it said. “He trapped Uskins through the white scarf, which was his soul’s portal. Without it he cannot return, until the Swarm completes its work, and Alifros lies dead and cold.”

  The quartermaster glanced at Felthrup. “Well, Ratty?”

  Felthrup shook his head. “That answer does not merit two coins.”

  Before the maukslar could howl again, he raised a paw. “It merits twenty.” The maukslar started, eyes ablaze with doubt and hunger.

  “Yes, twenty coins,” said Felthrup. “If you will swear that what you say is true.”

  “Wretched animal. I spoke no lie!”

  Felthrup told Mr. Fiffengurt to count the money out. The quartermaster looked dubious, but he bent to the floor and gathered twenty coins, and stacked them at Felthrup’s side.

  “Now swear,” said the rat.

  The demon’s eyes were locked on the coins. “I swear that what I have said of Arunis is true.”

  “And that everything you say to us henceforth shall be true.”

  “Yes, yes—I so swear! Give me the gold!”

  “Now repeat after me. ‘I shall speak no word of falsehood to those gathered here before me.’ ”

  “I shall speak no word of falsehood to those gathered here before me.”

  “ ‘Nor seek to harm them, or their friends, or their just interests.’ ”

  “Nor seek to harm them, or their friends, or their just interests.”

  “ ‘To this I swear by my name—’ ”

  “To this I swear by my name—”

  “ ‘Kazizarag.’ ”

  The maukslar’s eyes snapped up. Then he exploded in horrible wrath, flying about his cage wreathed in yellow flame. Felthrup and the two men waited for a time, then gathered the coins and made to depart. Only then did the creature relent, and swear by his true name.

  “Very good, thing of evil!” squeaked Felthrup. “I knew you were no Tulor. And since a promise from your kind is binding only when witnessed by the living and the dead, I thank you for confirming the presence of ghosts in this chamber. Now feed him, by all means! We keep our promises too.”

  Fiffengurt tossed the coins by twos and threes, and the maukslar snatched them up and devoured them like a starved zoo animal. When it had eaten all twenty it sat down in the middle of the cell, closed its eyes and crooned with pleasure.

  “Kazizarag,” said Rose. “The spirit of Avarice. How did you deduce this, Felthrup?”

  Felthrup almost choked on his answer: the captain had never before used his name. “I know more of the history of this ship than you might suppose, Captain,” he said. “There are long passages in the Polylex, along with many words on the art of extracting oaths from things demonic. I even learned why Avarice here was imprisoned, and by whom.”

  “Then you know I have served my time,” said the maukslar, still glowing with contentment.

  “If that’s a bid for freedom, you can choke on it, blubber-pot,” said Mr. Fiffengurt. “We’ll never in a thousand years let you—”

  “Fiffengurt!” shrieked Felthrup.

  The maukslar’s eyes opened wide. “I should have known,” it said. “You decided my fate in advance. Well, rat, I am sworn to speak nothing but truth. But I took no oath to speak at all. What is more, I can wait you out. That meal was my first taste of gold in centuries. It will hold me for … some time.”

  “How long?” asked Rose.

  The maukslar grinned; flecks of gold shone in its teeth. “Longer than you have, Captain,” it said.

  Felthrup rubbed his paws together. Blast Fiffengurt to the moon’s cold backside!

  “I also did not swear to hold my tongue,” said the maukslar. “Here is a dainty just for you, rat. You’re a child of the plague. The same twisted spell that created you is killing Captain Rose, and others. And if the spell should ever end there will be no more woken creatures born. You will be alone in Alifros, and in a generation or two most will doubt that you existed at all.

  “But in fact there will be no more generations. For here is another truth I am free to tell: Macadra is coming. She has staked her very soul on the winning of the Nilstone, and when she has it she will never give it up.”

  “But why is she coming?” cried Felthrup. “Does she believe we have the Nilstone? Or is she chasing someone who does? Is that it? Is another ship coming our way?”

  The maukslar looked at him with loathing. “Whether Macadra finds you first or the Nilstone does not matter. You will die at her hand, or die when the Swarm takes Alifros in its black embrace. Macadra may try to stop the Swarm, but she will fail. No sunrise will end that night, little rat. Life itself will perish, blind and frozen. Only we deathless ones will remain, feeding on the corpse.”

  “Demon,” said Captain Rose, “do you know where the Stone must be taken?”

  “I know,” said the maukslar, smiling, “but that is not all. I could tell you of the crawlies’ secret power. I could plot a true course for you across the Nelluroq, since the one you have is nonsense. I could help you pass safely through the Red Storm. I could tell you the fate of those you left behind.”

  “We are prepared to bargain further,” said Felthrup. “We have another sixty coi
ns—”

  The creature made a sound of disdain.

  A pause. Then Captain Rose said, “We have more than sixty—far more. There is a great hoard secreted upon the Chathrand. We can bring you ten thousand.”

  The maukslar rose on its bird-feet and pointed at Rose. “You could bring me far more than that,” it hissed. “I have seen the gold—and the pearls and gemstones—hidden all over this ship. Under the stone ballast, inside false stanchions on the mercy deck, sealed in iron shafts between the hulls. I saw you bring the hoard onto the ship in Arqual. I watched Sandor Ott remove a part of it for the son of the Shaggat Ness, saw another fraction discovered and seized by the shipwrights of Masalym. What remains you mean to give to the fanatics on Gurishal, to finance the Shaggat’s uprising and destabilize the Mzithrin. I have seen them, Rose. They tortured me, shining there, just out of my reach.”

  “We can still liberate a great many coins,” said Rose, “if we take care not to alert Sandor Ott, or Sergeant Haddismal, or any of their informers. We can bring you gold by the sackful.”

  “And taunt me as you have done today? I think not. You see, I had not eaten in decades—not since Captain Kurlstaff’s day. I was starving. You fed me. Now my agonies have ceased.”

  A rush of despair came for Felthrup, then. He is not lying. We can no longer make him talk. And we learned almost nothing! Not even whether our friends are alive. You proud fool, Felthrup! To think you could match wits with such a beast!

  “Why speak of agonies?” he tried, desperate. “We can feed you in the finest style. Gold and more gold! Why settle for enough, O Avarice, when you can be replete?”

  “Replete, replete, that’s the word!” said Fiffengurt.

  “Shut up, Quartermaster! Demon, you were born to be—capacious. How long since you knew the satisfaction of gluttonous excess?”

  The maukslar’s jeweled hands caressed its belly. “I shall know it again without your help. Kazizarag was born to eat, not to suffer mockery and jibes. I shall wait out your doom. And your doom is coming, insects. Whether Macadra brings it, or the Nelluroq storms, or your own limitless folly. I need only wait for the Chathrand’s spine to snap. When it does, every spell laid down by selk or mage or murth-lord will be sundered. These bars will melt away, and I shall be free to swallow that hoard, all of it, though it lie on the bottom of the sea.”