The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Damn you, Kirishgán! Are you trying to get yourself killed?

  Cooler heads dragged the fighters apart, and a kind of order returned to the topdeck. The Promise shrank away toward the southern horizon. Then Kirishgán turned his sapphire eyes on Pazel. Neither one of them had moved.

  “Why?” said Pazel.

  Kirishgán folded his hands upon the rail. “My path had become a mystery to me,” he said. “I was without purpose, and that is a fearful thing for any creature, young or old. The mists only began to clear when you arrived in Vasparhaven. The stories you told me of the North, that night over tea—they echo yet in my mind. Arqual, the Mzithrin, the Crownless Lands: they have forgotten the selk altogether. A great part of Alifros no longer knows that we exist. I must change that. I must look for my brethren, and find a way for them to speak once more to the peoples of the North. Or if I cannot find them—if they are all dead or departed—I must do what I can alone. If nothing else, I can remind your people that the story of Alifros is longer than the story of humankind.”

  “Just by showing your face?”

  “By doing as you have done,” said Kirishgán. “By telling stories.”

  “The story I heard,” said Pazel, struggling for calm, “is that I’ll somehow be involved with your death.”

  The selk nodded. “I have heard the same. Nólcindar said that you had glimpsed my soul.”

  “Well, I don’t mucking want that!” said Pazel. “I’ll stay away from you. I’ll turn and walk the other way when I see you. Forever. Starting now.”

  He turned away from the rail. Before he had taken five steps, he heard Kirishgán’s bemused voice behind him. “Go then, Pazel Pathkendle. I know you do so out of kindness. But it will make no difference: if it is your fate to cause my death, that fate will find you in time, even though you hide on the bottom of the sea.”

  Pazel’s shoulders slumped. He turned to face the selk again. “You’re still cracked for staying, you and Bolutu both,” he said. “Have you forgotten what they’re like, Kirishgán? They’ll panic, or throw stones. They’ll lie to you, and take advantage of your honor. They won’t listen to your stories.”

  “They?”

  “We. Human beings. Oh credek, Kirishgán, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m part of the ‘we’ anymore.”

  Now the selk smiled broadly. “There is your answer, Pazel. I am going North to encourage such doubts.”

  Hard about, and due north. It was Fiffengurt’s aim to sail as close to the Red Storm as they dared (some ten miles), and then tack west to meet Niriviel, keeping well clear of Stath Bálfyr and her shoals. Soon they were close enough to the Storm for Pazel to make out its texture: strands, snowflakes, rippling sheets of light. That storm had thrown his mother two hundred years forward in time. No wonder she’s so odd. She isn’t just a foreigner in the North. She’s a visitor from a world that no longer exists. And Bolutu’s another. How have they been able to stand it? How have they done so well?

  He recalled what Erithusmé had said, how the Red Storm had stopped the plague from spreading North, how every human being in Arqual and the Mzithrin owed his life to that red ribbon of enchantment. Against all that, the time-exile of a few sailors counted for nothing. Unless you were one of them, of course. He looked again at the pulsing Storm. The world’s edge, that’s what it is. We’re ten miles from the end of everything we know.

  But the Storm did not tame the ocean. The minute the Chathrand cleared the shoals, every person aboard felt the huge, unbridled swells, and knew that they had at last returned to the Ruling Sea. There was almost no transition: suddenly the waves were gigantic, moving hills that barreled toward them, tireless, infinite. The Chathrand rode them easily; she could stand much worse. Still, the sensation left men thoughtful. Worse was something everyone remembered.

  They tacked west into a headwind, which they battled for the next six hours. It was hard work for the night watch; but then there was no true night this close to the Red Storm. The strange light caused some headaches, and a sense of unreality as men fumbled about in its saturating glow. But the urge to flee was strong. They left Stath Bálfyr behind (Myett and Ensyl watched it vanish, two women seeing the death of a dream) and at sunrise caught a favorable wind, upon which Kirishgán said he could taste the scent of honey-orchids in Nemmoc, and the dust of the Ibon Plain. But the human crew smelled nothing, and they caught no further glimpse, then or ever, of the lands of the South.

  The day passed without incident, though the ship creaked and complained from spots Mr. Fiffengurt had hoped were sound. Rain struck, benevolent and cool; when it passed on into the Red Storm it blazed like falling fire. Another bright night began. A pod of whales surrounded the Chathrand, and swam along with her for hours. Felthrup sat alone in a gunport and listened to their clicks, chirrups, rumbles, their pipe-organ breaths.

  Deep in that night without darkness, someone screamed. It was not a sound anyone aboard had ever heard before. It was a selk’s cry of anguish; it was Kirishgán. They found him near the bowsprit, crouching down as though praying. His body shook. When he raised his head there were tears in his brilliant eyes, and he told them that he had felt the death of kinsmen.

  How many? they asked.

  “Many,” he said. “More than on any night since the Plazic generals began their exterminations.” But he could not say which of his people had fallen, or at whose hand.

  Some hours later a different sort of cry—Niriviel’s—woke Pazel for the second time that night. He tried to rouse Thasha, but she only groaned, so he left her sleeping and ran barefoot to the topdeck, pausing only to grab his coat. Hercól and Ramachni were there already, along with most of the dog watch. They were clustered around the ship’s bell, and atop the latter stood Niriviel, exhausted, his cream-yellow chest heaving. When he could speak he confirmed the worst.

  “I was far from both vessels, but I saw the Death’s Head giving chase, and the Promise leading her away to the southwest. The Promise was faster, and drawing away. Then a shot from Macadra’s vessel brought down her mainsail, and the Death’s Head closed very fast. When she was within half a mile, she fired again. But it was not a cannon she fired, this time. It was a ball of red fire, spit out from some foul weapon on her quarterdeck. It struck the Promise square on her hull.”

  Pazel felt as though he himself had been struck, very hard in the stomach. This, of course, was what Kirishgán had felt. Lunja. Prince Olik. Nólcindar. They had led Macadra astray, given Chathrand time to flee. And for their courage they’d been killed.

  “Macadra carries Plazic weapons, then,” said Hercól.

  “Like the Behemoth’s,” said Pazel, “but why in the Pits didn’t she use them before?”

  “Perhaps because she feared to sink the Nilstone to the seabed,” said Ramachni, “and this time, drawing near enough to sense its absence on the Promise, she did not hesitate to strike a lethal blow.”

  “Do not think of aiding her,” said Niriviel. “She is too far away, and the Death’s Head would catch you first. Where is my master? Wake him! Macadra is still racing toward us.”

  Pazel cast an involuntary glance over his shoulder. It was a good question: where was Sandor Ott? Why hadn’t he shown his face even once since their return to the Chathrand?

  “There is something else,” said Niriviel. “The Red Storm is weaker ahead: with each mile it shone less brightly. I saw no gap, but I did not fly so far as I hoped. When the Death’s Head turned in your direction, so did I.”

  “And the Swarm?”

  “That horror I did not see. I never wish to see it again.”

  “Pazel,” said Hercól, “go and wake the captain. And you, brother Niriviel—”

  “Do not call me that.”

  “Your pardon. Whatever else you wish to be called, I hope strong and valiant are permissible. Come, I will tell you of your master while you rest.”

  Captain Fiffengurt had ordered a thorough cleaning and straightening of Rose’s cabin, and condu
cted business there, but he still slept in his old quarters. Who could blame him? The stink of blood might be gone, but the memory of that carnage would take years to fade, if it ever did.

  He woke like a startled cat at Pazel’s knock, and dressed while Pazel related all that they had learned. “Tree of Heaven, the Promise burned—and for our sake! And here we are running away from her. But we cannot help her, not from this distance. She’ll have beaten that fire or succumbed to it long before we could arrive.”

  Then Pazel asked him about the spymaster. “Niriviel keeps asking for him. Wherever he is, can’t someone take the bird there, even for a short visit?”

  Fiffengurt stopped buttoning his uniform. “No,” he said, “the bird blary well cannot pay Ott a visit. Hasn’t anyone told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  Fiffengurt leaned close to Pazel and lowered his voice. “That monster’s locked away.”

  “In the brig?” said Pazel. “You locked Sandor Ott in the brig?”

  “Hush!” whispered Fiffengurt. “No, not the regular brig. We couldn’t do that; Ott has too much support among the Turachs, and a fight between soldiers and sailors would mean the end of this ship. No, Ott locked himself up. Do you mean Ratty hasn’t told you about his great adventure? About what he found behind the Green Door?”

  “Yes, yes, but I thought he was raving. He said there was a demon on the other side.”

  “Not anymore there ain’t. Someone let it escape—probably Ott himself, though he swears otherwise. I say he’s lying. Why else did he run straight there after he killed the captain?”

  Pazel had to steady himself on the door frame. “Sandor Ott killed Rose?”

  “ ’Course he did. You don’t think that woman murdered our huge captain, and his steward, and very nearly Ott himself, all with her bare hands? And why was Ott there at all, before sunrise? And there was no blood on the steward—just a broken neck. A very precisely broken neck. No, Sandor Ott went to Rose’s cabin with murder in mind, and found more than he bargained for in our skipper. There’s one last proof, too: what else d’ye suppose is in the cell with the spymaster? Captain Rose’s footlocker, that’s what. Ott says he just found it there, and stepped into the cell to examine it, and the cell door slammed behind him. I’ve no doubt that last bit’s true. But there’s the Green Door too. You know it was wedged open with a metal plate.”

  “Was?”

  “I’m comin’ to that. As it happened, Mr. Druffle sauntered by, and saw that the chains had been loosed around the Green Door. He poked his head inside and saw Ott, fouled with dry blood and trapped in a cage with no lock. And the best bit of luck is that Druffle came to me straightaway. I swore him to secrecy, and we’d all best hope he keeps his word. Then I paid Ott a courtesy call.

  “He took one look at my face and knew I wasn’t there to free him. He spat out all sorts of threats, but he was powerless, and I think the fact shocked him deeply. He tried to appeal to my love of Arqual. I told him no one could have done more to harm my love of Arqual than he. I’d brought a sack full of food and water and some medical supplies, and I tossed them all in through the bars of the cell. Then I just walked out. Back in the passage, I pried loose the metal plate with a crowbar and shut the Green Door. It vanished at once. Sandor Ott’s in a cage he can’t open, in a brig no one can find.”

  Pazel shuddered. He was glad, relieved—but behind his loathing he felt a pity for the horrible old man. Pazel alone knew the bleak, savage story of Ott’s life: the eguar on Bramian had shown it to him. Compared with Ott’s, Pazel’s own childhood had been a romp through fields of clover. Still it angered him, that pity. He wondered if the lack of it was what allowed beasts like Ott to rule the world.

  “I won’t breathe a word, Captain Fiffengurt,” he said.

  Fiffengurt put a hand on Pazel’s shoulder. “You don’t have to say ‘Captain’ when we’re alone, lad. Not to me.”

  Pazel grinned at him. “Oppo, sir,” he said.

  It was the hour before dawn when he returned to the stateroom. The chamber was still; Jorl and Suzyt rose to greet him without barking; Felthrup twitched in his sleep upon the bearskin rug. Neeps, to his surprise, lay wrapped in a blanket in the corner, alone. Pazel winced. From the moment he saw Neeps and Lunja together on the Nine Peaks Road he had known pain lay ahead for both of them, and Marila. It will fade, he thought. His heart’s full of her now, but she’s gone and not coming back. It will fade, and Marila will still be there.

  He crossed to the master bedroom and slipped inside. The air was close, stuffy. They had removed the bed’s broken legs and nailed the frame directly to the floor. He smiled. Thasha had kicked away the blanket. She wore her father’s shirt like a nightgown; there must have been twenty of them in the wardrobe. Pazel sat on the edge of the bed and touched her hand.

  “Thasha? Oh, Pitfire—Thasha!”

  She was burning with fever. The shirt was soaked through, the sheet beneath her damp.

  “Where were you?” she said, waking. But her voice was strained, and when he touched her face he found her teeth were chattering.

  “Why didn’t you answer me, Pazel?”

  “Answer you? When?”

  “I saw you, but you wouldn’t speak. I heard Marila crying, but that was—I don’t know when. And the birds. Thousands and thousands, all flying east.”

  He was terrified. He made her sit up. Her skin like something fresh from an oven. He groped for her water flask and wrenched it open.

  “Drink!”

  She stared at him in the moonlight. “Are you really here?”

  She was looking right at him, but she wasn’t sure. He stood and opened the door and shouted for Neeps and Marila. When he looked at her again she had dropped on her side.

  “If that’s you, Pazel, give me a blanket. I’m freezing to death.”

  She had saved them; she was leaving them. She loathed this world that had made her part of its destiny. Idiotic choice. Look what it’s earned you. Now I’m dying and taking your savior Erithusmé along for the ride.

  The pain grew. A cold pain from deep in her gut, moving outward. As a child Thasha had once been struck by a galloping illness: sweats and vomiting that felled her in an hour and made her imagine death. What she felt now was quite different. It was more like blanë, though the ixchel’s poison was merciful compared with this. Blanë had hurt for a heartbeat or two. This pain went on and on.

  Pazel was kissing her cheeks, asking questions: yes, he was really here. She tried to sit up a second time, at his urging. She drank a little water but it scalded her tongue. Then a stabbing light: Neeps and Marila in the doorway, staring, one of them bearing a lamp. Pazel shouted and waved his hands.

  “Get Ramachni! Get Hercól!”

  Neeps sprinted away. Felthrup was on the bed, flying in circles, sniffing. “There is no infection about her. No bile, no blood. What is it, Thasha? Who did this, my dearest darling girl?”

  “I can’t feel you,” she said. “Felthrup, why can’t I feel you with my hands?”

  Marila brought a moist cloth and Pazel drew it over her face. If only he would drop it, caress her with his hands alone. He was talking to the others: “… just fine when I went topside … weaker by the minute … doesn’t know where she is.”

  Thasha screamed. Some organ inside her had turned to glass, then shattered, exploded. Or else it was fire, or acid, or teeth.

  “She’s too cold!”

  “Her shirt’s blary dripping, mate.”

  “Get some dry clothes. Get a towel—”

  Time blurred. People spoke and then disappeared. Hercól and Bolutu were on either side of her; Bolutu’s webbed fingers probed her stomach, her abdomen.

  “There is no hard mass, and no swelling. Thasha, did you eat something strange?”

  “Not me,” she said. “It was still breathing. I couldn’t just eat it alive.”

  “Delirious,” said Bolutu.

  She could have told them that.

  The
y were fighting panic. Thasha watched them tearing through books, fumbling pills, arguing, turning away when their eyes grew moist. The cold advanced into her chest. She saw Ramachni by her shoulder, felt his paw touch her cheek. Dimly, she was aware that he was shocked.

  At a distance, in the shadows, an ixchel woman stood watching her. “Diadrelu?” she said.

  But no, Dri was dead. The woman had to be Ensyl, or Myett.

  Pazel was looking at Ramachni with a rage she’d never known was in him. “I didn’t hear you say that. You didn’t just say that. Erithusmé’s own Gods-damned spell?”

  A blackness descended, and when it lifted there was daylight through the porthole, but the cold was even worse. Her friends were fighting. Pazel was kneeling by the bed. Thasha tried to reach for him but could barely lift her hand.

  “Then she is our enemy, and has betrayed us from the start,” said Hercól.

  “No,” said Ramachni.

  “Yes,” said Pazel. “Credek, Ramachni, if the wine’s to blame, and she poisoned it—”

  “Then it needed to be poisoned.”

  “How do you mucking know?” Neeps had joined the shouting match; that was bad. “You haven’t seen Erithusmé in what, seventeen years! Pazel talked with her five weeks ago! People change.”

  “She did not change the wine of Agaroth from her hiding place in Thasha’s mind,” said Ramachni. “That was done long ago, and for a good purpose, even if we cannot now guess what it was.”

  Pazel was seething. “Erithusmé told me to give Thasha the wine.”

  “As a last resort. And she warned you that the consequences would be dire.”

  “She hinted. Why did she hint? Why couldn’t she just say, Give her the wine if the world’s ending? Marvel at my cleverness. Let Thasha save you one last time, and then watch her—”

  “Pazel, be quiet!” Marila shouted.