The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  He walked out to the quarterdeck rail, fighting his body, and the urge to cling to the wheel, to pretend. When he was certain his voice would not betray him, he shouted the order to his crew. Hard to starboard. Into the Storm.

  They dragged nearly the whole contents of the bedroom out into the central chamber. They ran with armfuls of books and charts, dumping them, sifting them, running back for more. They combed through the remains of the limewood desk from the chart room, the shards of floorboards, the shattered cups and inkwells, magnifying glasses and drafting instruments, Rose’s tactical chalkboard, Elkstem’s brass spittoon.

  “Did you feel that?” cried Pazel. “That was a direct hit to the hull.”

  “Glancing, not direct,” snapped Mr. Druffle. “Drop that rubbish, Undrabust! I told you I checked it!”

  “And you watch those blary boots,” Neeps shot back. “That’s Myett you nearly trod on.”

  They fetched lamps, got in one another’s light. They shook out the bedclothes in which Thasha had lain. They found Pazel’s mother’s ivory whale, last seen before the ship reached Bramian, and a diamond earring that could only have belonged to Syrarys, which Thasha hurled at the wall.

  “We’re changing tack again,” said Thasha, stumbling to the porthole. “Oh, Gods, he’s heading into the Storm!”

  They flung aside the horsehair mattress, the remains of the brass bed. They kicked and scrabbled through the ruins, checking everything again, waving at dust clouds, cutting their hands.

  Suddenly, from the topdeck, a great collective scream. Midnight blackness drowned the glow of the Storm.

  Felthrup wailed as though his heart would break—“No! No! Not yet!”—and then Ensyl found the key, jammed beneath the dressing mirror’s broken foot, which was still bolted to the floor.

  It came out of the east like a sentient cloud. It had swollen, larger than the bay of Stath Bálfyr, larger perhaps than the island itself, and it flew arrow-straight and arrow-swift for the gap in the Red Storm. Kirishgán gave a keening cry and turned his face away. Ramachni faced it, but his tiny body shook.

  The Swarm of Night. Hercól looked at the thing that had leaped skyward months ago, when Arunis held the Nilstone. Leaped from the River of Shadows, no larger than a little fish. It was obscene, solid, writhing like a clot of black worms. It reached the Death’s Head first, and only then did Hercól realize that it was lower than the mastheads. The Swarm flowed around the high timbers, and those sailors who did not dive into the sea were swallowed by it, and when the Swarm moved on the ship’s rigging was devoid of life.

  “Abandon masts!” Hercól screamed, waving his arms. “Down, down for your lives!” A few men heard; a few were quick enough to live. Then the thing was above them, swallowing the masts as low as the topsails, and not even screams escaped.

  There above the Chathrand the Swarm of Night paused, a cat with a mouse beneath its foot. The ship heaved; the masts were immobilized, and the waves wrenched and tore as though the ship had run aground. Hercól braced himself for the snapping that would mean death to them all. But it did not come. The masts held; the Swarm flowed on, anxious for the gap. The red light of the Storm washed over them again. But of the sixty men who had been working the upper masts, not a body or a drop of blood could be seen.

  The Swarm entered the gap, racing toward the North and its bloodshed, its feast of death. It had almost vanished when a new light appeared on the Chathrand. A strange, white-hot light, pouring out through her gunports, and then up from the Silver Stair.

  “Thasha!”

  She looked like a woman possessed. The light came from the Nilstone in her naked hand. Hercól shouted again but there was no reaching her; she knew what she meant to do. With the Stone thrust high she reached out with her free hand, as if to seize the vanishing Swarm. And indeed her fingers seemed to close on something. Thasha screamed, in fury or agony or both, and every muscle in her body tightened with effort. She threw her head back; she clawed at the air. Miles away, the Swarm of Night faltered, swerved.

  Thasha gave a violent wrench of her arm. The Swarm leaped sideways, right out of the gap and into the Red Storm’s light. There was a brief flash and it was gone.

  Not a voice could be heard. Thasha straightened, flexing her shoulders and her neck. A wild fury still glowed in her eyes. The ship was spinning, bobbing like a derelict. She staggered to the rail and Hercól followed. The light of the Nilstone was dimming. When he drew near her, he caught the smell of burning skin.

  “Put it down, Thasha! Put it down before it kills you!”

  Thasha nodded. She made to drop the Stone at his feet. Then her eye caught something beyond the rail, and she froze.

  The Death’s Head had spun into view, no more than half a mile away. Replacement crew were scaling her masts, and even as they watched, cannon were sliding out through the gunports, sixty or eighty strong.

  Thasha stared at the vessel. She looked as though vomit or blood might be rising in her throat. But what she unleashed from her chest was a howl of rage and madness, and a force that leaped the water and slammed like a hurricane into Macadra’s ship. The Death’s Head rolled onto her beam-ends; the dlömu who had raced up the masts were swept away. Hercól fell on his knees, covering his ears, feeling the noise shake the Chathrand to her frame.

  Thasha gave a strange, feline twist of her head and dropped the Nilstone. Hercól’s foot shot out and stopped it as Thasha collapsed in his arms. Pathkendle appeared, and the others close behind. Hercól looked at the Death’s Head. It was not sunk, but its rigging was destroyed, and two of its five masts had been flung like straws across the sea.

  Fiffengurt began to shout: “Strike the jibs! Get that mess off the jiggermast, we can’t steer a blary wreck! Fast, boys, we’re drifting!”

  Thasha raved: “Pazel, help me. Oh, Gods. Oh, Gods.”

  Pazel turned over her hand and stifled a cry: Thasha’s palm was a mass of blisters, white and oozing. “Get some bandages, Neeps! She’s scalded!”

  Thasha spoke through her gasps. “Doesn’t matter … I have to kill them, Pazel … bring the wine.”

  No one moved to obey her; no one was even tempted. Hercól raised his eyes. “Look, girl! We’re going to make it, thanks to you.”

  They were in the mouth of the gap. It was undulating, and rafts of red light drifted across it like icebergs, but it was wide enough, and the wind they had ridden was pouring through it into the North. For a moment Hercól saw the world beyond: their own world, their own time. Then he felt Thasha’s fingers tighten on his arm. Her fury had rekindled. “Bring the wine, Pazel,” she said.

  “No,” said Pazel. “No more, not for a while, anyway. You held the Stone much too long, Thasha. You can’t just pick it up again.”

  “Can’t I?”

  Thasha straightened, pushing away from Hercól, and began to stalk across the quarterdeck. His foot was still upon the Nilstone; he could not follow her. When Pazel did she turned him a glare so vicious that Hercól could scarcely blame the lad for hesitating.

  But Fiffengurt did not see the look. Passing the wheel to Elkstem, he ran to intercept her.

  “Miss Thasha, enough! You don’t need to strike them again; they’re barely afloat! And that foul wine’s gone to your head—”

  Thasha threw her shoulder against him, brutally. Fiffengurt was knocked off his feet, and Thasha crossed to the ladder, shouting: “Damn you all! Hercól, don’t you dare move the Nilstone!”

  She threw herself down the ladder, onto the main level of the topdeck, and began to march toward the Silver Stair. But after just a few steps, something changed. Her feet slowed; her shoulders drooped. She cursed and stumbled. By the time she reached the Silver Stair the fight was over. She knelt, leaning heavily on the hatch coaming. She raised her eyes with effort, scanned the frightened faces. Then she toppled gently onto her side.

  Ramachni gazed down at her from the edge of the quarterdeck. “Sleep and heal,” he said.

  Pain flared suddenl
y in Hercól’s foot: the Nilstone was burning him, straight through his boot. He switched feet, staring into the impossible darkness. “Pathkendle,” he said, “fetch me those gauntlets, before I kick this thrice-damned thing into the sea.”

  The tarboy did not move. “Pathkendle! For Rin’s sake—”

  Pazel had gone rigid, his face full of wonder and fear. All around them, pale, nearly invisible particles of light were swirling, drifting like a fine scarlet snow. A silence engulfed them, like the closing of a vault. Hercól raised his hand and saw the particles adhering to his skin. Unlike snow they did not melt.

  The gap was imperfect. The substance of the Storm was thin here, but not gone. Only the world was gone. Behind them, ahead of them, North and South, Hercól could see nothing but a featureless glow. The veil of Erithusmé’s spell had fallen. And when it rose again, how much of their world, their time, would it have stolen away?

  The light began to coat the topdeck, the surviving rigging, the dead men sheathed in tar. Pazel was on his knees, beating the deck with both fists, unable to make a sound. Hercól longed for an enemy, for a reason to pull Ildraquin from its scabbard and whirl into battle with all his strength and skill. He closed his eyes but it made no difference; the light was inside.

  31

  The Editor’s Companions

  I see them sometimes, in the lanes and gardens of this academical village, this haven untouched by war. Among the lecture halls in red brick and green marble, the rose beds and Buriav lilacs, there suddenly will shamble Fiffengurt, scowling, kindly, pushing a pram with a burbling daughter, studying the path before him with his one true eye. A little farther, and there is Big Skip Sunderling carving meat in the butcher’s shop, up to his elbows in the job as always, happily a mess. Neda Pathkendle I have seen at the archery range, a strong, straight-backed woman of forty, teaching students to use a killing tool as a kind of diversion, a means of disciplining hand and eye, a game. I have seen Teggatz in a doctor’s coat, Bolutu pushing a broom, Lady Oggosk in the tavern where the fire is never lit, cloudy eyes on the window, eating alone.

  They do not know me, of course; or if they do they know the professor whose reputation is so odd and dubious that all familiarity is feigned, A very good day to you, sir, and how are you enjoying this fine summer morn? I don’t like it when they speak to me. Not their fault, of course, but whoever could have guessed that in telling their story I should also be afflicted with their faces, that a girl in her first student year would glance up from her book and pierce me with Thasha’s beauty, those questing eyes, that hunger for experience, for change?

  Nilus Rose teaches physic in the Advanced Science Building; Marila storms by in a barrister’s robes; Ignus Chadfallow haunts the faculty club in the guise of the eldest waiter, who will tell you softly that food is not an entertainment but a sacrament, that the rice dishes are superior to the soups. Pazel has made but one appearance, at twilight on the wooded path behind the graveyard, hand in hand with an ethereal beauty whose face was not familiar at all.

  They are here until they speak, or until I look a second time, until I summon the memories that sweep phantoms away. Sometimes I will look for them, when I am grumpy and tired of solitude, when living for the past seems less noble than cowardly, a betrayal of the warm blood still in me, a waste. The old spook at the faculty club, who is almost a friend, asked once if I didn’t also see myself about the school? Oh yes, frequently, I answered, and let it go at that. He is a gentleman; he assumes that I am sane. What would become of that charity, if he knew where my own doppelgängers appeared? The flash in the alley, the desperate little life, always hungry, always hunted, with senses too sharp for his own happiness, addicted to dreams that call him, nearer, ever nearer, dreams that terrify when they seem most true.

  32

  Men in the Waves

  The world lurched, and Thasha woke in the sling they had fashioned to keep her from being tossed from her bed, and for a time she could not be made to understand.

  It was Neda’s turn at her bedside, and their lack of a strong common language made things harder. Bright spots danced before Thasha’s eyes, and her fingertips were numb.

  “We’re out of the Storm, then?”

  Neda mumbled something. Thasha repeated her question, louder.

  “No, no, Thasha. You are not feeling it?”

  What she felt was the Chathrand heaving violently beneath her—climbing mountainous waves, clawing over the crests, rushing like a landslide into the troughs—and the soreness of muscles flung too many times against the canvas sling. What she saw was her old cabin, swept clean of any objects that could fall or fly; and Neda, balancing with sfvantskor grace, barely touching the bolted bed frame; and the sea foaming gray and furious over the porthole glass.

  The bright spots were shrinking. Thasha breathed in warm, wet air.

  “I mean that we’re out of the Red Storm,” said Thasha.

  “Of course.”

  “And smack in the middle of a blary gale. A killer.”

  “Not middle. Ending, maybe. I wish you sleep through it, sister.”

  Thasha reached for Neda’s hand. Sister. To wake and find one watching over you. A sister, something new under the sun. The voyage had brought her far more than loss.

  “How long has it been?” she asked.

  The ship rolled and heaved. The noise of the storm was strangely distant. Neda looked at her and said nothing.

  “Well?”

  “You’re awake. I am calling Pazel; he is exciting for you.”

  Thasha didn’t release her hand. “Just tell me, Neda.”

  “Five years.”

  “FIVE YEARS! RAMACHNI PUT ME TO SLEEP FOR FIVE GODS-DAMNED YEARS?”

  “No, no.”

  Thasha freed herself from the sling and was thrown at once upon the floor. Her balance gone, her limbs sleep-clumsy. Neda helped her to her feet. “You sleeping fifty-three days,” she said.

  “Then what’s this rubbish about— Oh. The Red Storm.”

  “Yes,” said Neda.

  “It threw us forward in time after all. But how in Pitfire do you know? Have we made landfall?”

  “Not yet,” said Neda. “We knowing by stars. Some stars turning like wheel, over and over the same. But the special stars—they are drifting, tachai? Little bit each year. Old sailors know. Captain Fiffengurt checking Rose’s book, also Ramachni knows, also Lady Oggosk. Is the truth, Thasha. We lose five years forever. Or six, if counting travel.”

  “But the war—”

  “Maybe over. Or very big, or huge.”

  Thasha was shaking. “The Swarm, Neda. I … pushed it out of the gap, into a deeper part of the Red Storm.”

  “More in future. You saving us, giving us time. These fifty days we not seeing the Swarm.”

  “Neda, what about your dreams, yours and Pazel’s? The ones where your mother speaks to you?”

  Neda turned a little away, looking angry or confused. “Nothing. Silence. Maybe she is getting dead. Or thinking us dead, giving up.”

  And her father: he’d surely have given up. “Oh, Gods,” said Thasha. “Where’s the Nilstone? What have they done with the wine? I’ve got to do something about all this—”

  “Foolish talk.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Neda’s hand seized her chin. Thasha looked up into the fierce warrior eyes.

  “Kill that fear,” said Neda. “You taking Swarm in your hands and throwing sideways. Then striking Macadra’s ship like toy. Now no whimper. Be quiet. Put the raincoat. We are going up into this storm.”

  It might have been noon. Or sunset, or dawn. The wind was monstrous, the light dull nickel; the globular thunderheads seemed low enough to touch. Thasha clung to the Silver Stair hatch coaming, appalled. The rain like fistfuls of tiny nails flung endlessly at her face. The Chathrand was the toy; and what did that make her crew? A towering wave seemed frozen above the portside bow: then the illusion shattered and the great wave pounced,
and somehow, impossibly, they slithered up its flank and toppled over the crest. Then the sick plunge, the weightlessness, the vanishing horizon and the next wave looming like death.

  The gale had blown for seven days already, Neda shouted. “And you sleeping through first one.” The crew was thin, frantic, exhausted, grinning welcome-back smiles at Thasha like gap-toothed ghouls. The next wave pounced. They had been pouncing for seven days.

  Thasha frowned: something was definitely wrong with her hearing. The whole battle with the storm was occurring in cottony undertones. Even the mad wolf-howls of the wind through the rigging were subdued.

  Neda told her that Pazel and Neeps were aloft, somewhere, but in the maelstrom Thasha could hardly recognize a soul. She wanted to lend a hand on the ropes, but she was weak: she’d had no food in fifty-three days. Nor could she imagine swallowing a morsel in weather like this.

  She found a job passing flasks of fresh water to the men on the ropes. The officers had to scream at the men to drink: they were sweating away their life’s water despite the soaking and the chill. Hours passed. She met her friends, haphazardly. Bolutu sang out with joy and kissed her on both cheeks; Marila dropped the buckets she was hauling and hugged her, tight barrel-belly pressing Thasha’s own. Thasha touched it: barely three months to go. “Chew this!” Marila told her, taking a somewhat dusty, leaf-wrapped ball of mül from her pocket. “Trust me, they don’t make you sick. Some days it’s the only thing I can eat.”

  “I still wish I knew what’s in those blary things.”

  “Eat it, Thasha. You’re paler than a cod.”

  They met Ramachni near the galley (he could venture nowhere near the topdeck). “What? Your ears?” he said. “I save you from destroying yourself with the Nilstone, and you complain about your ears? I ask you, girl: has there ever been a better time to be deaf?”

  “I’m not laughing, Ramachni.”

  “No, you’re not. Well, Thasha, you will not be deaf for long. The healing sleep dulled all your senses; they return at different speeds. But you are still in mortal danger. The sleep cooled your hunger for the Stone, but it could do no more than slow the poison in your blood. The latter has been slowed a great deal: it may be weeks before the poison strikes you again.