The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “I mean to,” said Pazel. “But Erithusmé: remember your promise. When the Nilstone is gone, you’ll give that body back to her, you swore—”

  “Never in two thousand years have I broken an oath!” she shrieked. “Get on, you needling brat! This is the last deed of my life, and you are making it unbearable!”

  “It’s because I love her,” he said.

  She laughed, indifferent. Then she blinked, turned to gaze at him with deeper understanding. “And she you.”

  He nodded.

  “Desperately,” she said. “That was it, that was what made her keep fighting me. That was the power that kept rebuilding the wall. She could want to give way to me, let me return and deal with the Nilstone. But she couldn’t ever truly want to lose you. She mated with you, with doom hanging over you both like a pall.”

  “Something you can’t understand.”

  The mage considered. “Quite right. I cannot. But I know power when I feel it. And I will return Thasha her body when this job is done—and only then. Now for the last time, run.”

  He ran. The dunes fought him, swallowing his feet. He doubled back to grab the blanket but could not find it, and then, in the thicket of trees, he could not find the stairs. When at last he did he took them two at a time, ambushed by the fear of having waited too long.

  If he drowned today she’d be searching for a dead man.

  At the top of the fourth staircase he saw her climbing an accordion-ladder. By the time he topped the seventh, the gunports were sealing themselves, one by one. He was already winded. Thirteen to go.

  Far above, the last of the climbers were spreading out along the ridgetop, hundreds of feet above the saddle where the canyon began. There were Jorl and Suzyt; there was Marila’s round belly, and Neeps holding her close.

  Twelve staircases behind him. Now he could look back over the sound, all the way to the Arrowhead, the stone that ought to fall. Thirteen staircases. On the beach, the Chathrand suddenly righted herself, slid into deeper water, turned her prow to face the wall.

  Fourteen staircases. A tremor shook the earth.

  Pitfire. Pitfire. I’m too late.

  He could barely feel his legs, but they still served him, he still climbed. Not high enough. You can’t stop. Keep going. He was dizzy, falling and bouncing to his feet again, scraping his hands. Was this the fifteenth staircase? The sixteenth? He was no longer sure.

  The wall still loomed above him. He was crawling. And that wouldn’t do.

  Then the Arrowhead fell.

  “Oh credek, no!”

  It toppled straight inland, like a tree. Millions of cubic feet of rock struck the water in an instant. And then the wave came, like a second mountain. Like an act of vengeance by the Gods.

  He was seeing stars. The wave was big enough. That was all he could think of, all that mattered. It would lift the ship and everything else on that mile-long beach, and would not stop for anything, anyone, between here and death.

  A monstrous roaring filled the canyon. As the canyon narrowed the wave grew taller and taller still. He crawled a few more steps. A wind rose that nearly knocked him flat.

  Yes, it was big enough, and Erithusmé was there with her hand on the Nilstone, holding her broken ship together by will and sorcery. That was enough. It would have to be enough. He had earned his rest.

  “Get up, you damned fool!”

  Neda. Neeps. They had come out of nowhere and seized his arms, one on each side, and all but carrying him they flew up the stairs, swearing in Sollochi and Ormali and Mzithrini, dashing and stumbling beside drops of five or six hundred feet, looking back with horror in their eyes. They were above the wall, now, and Pazel saw the long, dismal canyon, and a black funnel in the distance, a place even the Swarm could make no darker than it was.

  The wave crested thirty feet above the wall, and twenty below the spot where Neeps and Neda ran out of strength and dropped beside him in the dirt. Then the wall collapsed, and stones the size of mansions blasted into the canyon beyond. Finally the Chathrand came, pitching and rolling but beautifully afloat, and the Goose-Girl swept them with her wooden eyes.

  The water swept like lightning down the canyon. The three of them lay there, spent, the wind still tearing at them, and watched the unfathomable torrent’s progression. By the time the wave reached the abyss they had lost sight of the Chathrand. But the abyss swallowed the wave, and surely everything it carried. And everyone.

  Pazel waited. The Swarm felt almost close enough to touch. He was not going to flee it down the mountain again, into that flooded devastation. He was finished.

  Nor did he have to flee. Before his eyes the great mass began to shrink, to implode. Faster and faster it shrank, the sky brightening by the minute, and the withering shadow it had cast over land and sea contracting too. He stood up. The Swarm contracted to the size of the Arrowhead, then the size of the beach. At last it too began to race toward the abyss, as though it were tied by an invisible cord to the Nilstone, and the cord had at last run out. Pazel shielded his eyes and saw it falling, a black star, leaving Alifros for the land where its evil was no evil but the order of things. He watched it vanish. He felt the warmth of the sun.

  For a time no one spoke. Pazel could hear Jorl and Suzyt barking hysterically in the meadows above.

  “Thank you,” he said at last.

  Neeps turned around and looked at him. “You’re a nutter,” he said. “What in Pitfire were you doing down there?”

  “Woolgathering.”

  “Sense of humor, too. What are you, a tarboy?”

  Pazel grinned at him. Neeps did not grin back. Slowly Pazel’s smile began to fade.

  Neda said, “You are on Chathrand, since Serpent’s Head?”

  “Neda!”

  His sister jumped. So did Neeps. “Listen, mate: who are you? How do you know her name? We know you’re one of Darabik’s boys, but why’d you bother to come aboard, if you were just going to hide out below?”

  “I am seeing him before,” said Neda. “I think so. Maybe.”

  Pazel tried to speak again, and failed. At last Neeps shook his head.

  “Maybe he’s afraid of sfvantskor tattoos, Neda. After all we’ve just been through! Well, come up and join us, mystery boy, when you’re done quaking in your boots. We’re all on the same side, you know.”

  They trudged wearily up the ridge, leaving him sitting there. Pazel put his head in his hands. The Master-Word had done its job, all right. But it had not stopped with erasing him from Thasha’s mind. It had reached up the mountain and touched his best friend, and his sister. And who knew how many more.

  He climbed up to the meadows, among the hundreds of men and women with whom he’d crossed the world. Some were laughing with relief; others were crying, or just lying flat and spread-eagled, making love to the earth. A few looked at him with curiosity, or pity when they saw his distress. But not with recognition, none of them. Even Neda merely frowned at him, puzzled. Fiffengurt sat beside the travel case into which Thasha had packed her clock. Hercól offered him water. Marila stood up and brought him something wrapped in her kerchief.

  “It’s called mül,” she said. “It doesn’t look like food, but it is.”

  He held the tiny package, dumbstruck, lost. “Thanks,” he whispered at last.

  Disconcerted, Marila went back and sat beside Neeps. They were talking about Thasha, speculating on her fate. Pazel moved past Bolutu and Prince Olik, who nodded at him distantly. When he crouched in front of Felthrup, the mastiffs growled.

  “Hush, you boisterous brutes!” said Felthrup. “Never mind them, sir. They’re a bit uneasy around strangers, but they will do you no harm.”

  “Look what I found in my pocket,” said Hercól. On his palm lay the ivory whale Pazel’s mother had given him so long ago. “Rin knows where it came from,” said Hercól, “or why it especially caught my eye. You want it, Neda Phoenix-Flame?”

  Pazel climbed a little higher and sat on a rock. They had their arms
around one another. They were tending the wounded, wiping away tears, wondering aloud how soon the Nighthawk would come for them, and what would happen next. Even laughing, just a little. They were starting to allow themselves to imagine their lives going on. It was a conversation in which he played no part.

  An hour passed, and the survivors of the voyage began a careful descent. “You there, lad!” Hercól called to him. “I don’t know your story, or how you came to be aboard. But never mind that. You’re alive, and the world is new. Get up, come along with us. This is still a dangerous island. You don’t want to stay here alone.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Pazel heard himself say.

  It was a lie, of course. He wasn’t going to move. As for being alone, that was something he’d be getting used to.

  A slight sound: he turned and saw Ramachni seated beside him, gazing as he was at the canyon, the water still draining backward into the sea.

  “Not all forms of blindness endure, my lad,” he said.

  “You know me?”

  “I know you, curiously enough. Perhaps because I was the one who gave you the Master-Words to begin with, or perhaps because I am a mage. But there is a certain flavor to permanent transformation, and another to the temporary sort. This is the latter. They will remember you, in time.”

  “How long? Days?”

  “Longer, I think.”

  “Months? Years?”

  Ramachni gazed at him quietly. “I don’t know, Pazel. But I can tell you this: Erithusmé, and Thasha within her, left the world aboard the Chathrand. My mistress called out to me in the mind-speech as she passed. And her last words were these: Tell him my promise stands.”

  Pazel caught his breath. “What does that mean? Her promise to return Thasha’s body, to let her live?”

  “Unless she made you some other.”

  “But how can she keep that promise now?”

  Ramachni turned and looked toward the abyss. “By passing through death’s kingdom, and out the other side. Erithusmé has the strength to attempt such a journey, but it will not be an easy one, or short. Thasha’s soul will be protected, in that back chamber of the mind where Erithusmé dwelt so long. She will not age, or suffer any harm.”

  Deep in Pazel’s chest a spark flared up. It had almost been extinguished, but he thought he might just keep it burning now.

  “You must temper your hopes,” said Ramachni. “Like other portals you have passed through—the River of Shadows, the Red Storm—any return from the land of the dead runs the risk of metamorphosis. If you find her again, she may have taken a different shape, a different name. She may be older than you, or have stayed frozen in time while you yourself have aged.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care at all.”

  Ramachni leaped up into his lap, and rested his chin on Pazel’s knee. “But you do care, Pazel Pathkendle, and that has made all the difference, in the end.”

  37

  The Editor Pauses for a Drink

  My time has come; my inkwell runs dry. This hand is a paw once more. When I gnaw through the string that holds the quill in place, I will not be able to tie it again. The voyage of the Chathrand ends, and with it my voyage in human form.

  I have shrunk, too: no longer can I reach the tower window. But the sounds from the courtyard reach me better than ever: the roar of the students (they have rallied to the Fulbreech Society), the shouts of the Academy Police, the clatter of hooves on the cobblestones, the murmur of the swelling mob. The Academy’s donors are here for their conference, and are witnessing the scene. I have caused a scandal. I have spent their money on something other than the greater glory of the Academy.

  Here at last is the final sound: a battle on the staircase, harsh cries from the flikkermen, steel against steel. There are eight stone floors between us, yet. I cannot tell who is storming the tower: my allies, or the chancellor’s thugs? Are they coming to carry off my manuscript or consign it to the fire? Will history be rescued or erased this day?

  Allies or enemies, they will find no mad professor here. Only his clothes, and his gold spectacles, and a black rat named Felthrup Stargraven. I see him now, his face reflected in the dish of water from which I drink. He has been swimming a long time. He has spent their gold on truth, to which no glory attaches, now or ever. He has tried to rescue the past as a gift to the future, and he only hopes the gift will suffice. Take it, Alifros. Call it my parting prayer.

  Ah, but the battle is still raging, and the words still come. Let us play a game, shall we? Let us see how far I get.

  Epilogue

  The Nighthawk could not enter the sound, now that the Arrowhead lay barely submerged across its mouth. But the following morning the rest of Maisa’s ragtag fleet caught up with her, and the smaller boats shuttled the survivors offshore. Admiral Isiq divided them according to his boats’ capacities, but he kept all those who had been closest to Thasha at his side. Thus what remained of the circle of friends stayed together, for a time.

  Ramachni put two requests to the admiral. The first was that he extend his personal protection to the whole of Ixphir House, until their new leader, Lady Ensyl, decided where the most traveled clan in history might start anew. This Isiq granted gladly. “If they wish it, they may dwell in the vessels I command until we take back the Throne of Arqual, and beyond,” he said.

  The mage’s second request was that the mystery boy, who called himself Pazel Chadfallow, be kept aboard the Nighthawk as well.

  “Done,” said Isiq. “What else?” He would have given Ramachni the moon, in a saucer with caramel and cream. The mage had sworn to him that his daughter, though missing, was still very much alive.

  “But I am curious about your tarboy,” he added. “Is he quite sane? He makes no serious claim to kinship with the late doctor, I hope?”

  “Not in my hearing,” said Ramachni, with a voice that made it plain the matter was closed.

  After a crossing of twenty days they touched ground on tiny Jitril. There they learned that the Defender of the Crownless Lands, King Oshiram of Simja, now commanded the largest surviving fleet in Northwest Alifros, for the simple reason that no large part of it had engaged in battle after the Swarm spread its cloak. They learned too that the black cloud had swept some twelve battlefields clean, though none half so great as the ocean of slaughter at Serpent’s Head. It had also frozen much of the Northern harvest in the ground, and a hungry winter was expected. Above all, the people of Alifros had been frightened out of their minds.

  The pious declared it heaven’s final warning. Practical men knew it was a chance to change the world. In twenty days, peace had replaced war as the fascination of princes, merchants, even generals, even priests. For some, this new passion was to become a sturdy faith. But others felt war’s charms returning even before the spring.

  Maisa’s forces were made to wait at Jitril for a fortnight, until Oshiram himself gave leave for their passage through the Crownless Lands. Then the first separations occurred, with part of the little fleet heading east to Opalt, where rumors of a great new insurrection against Etherhorde had arisen, and others making south to Urnsfich, where the Mzithrinis were to be collected by their countrymen. The Nighthawk, however, headed north to Simja. There Oshiram heard their story and professed to believe it. He called them the saviors of Alifros, and promised that every refugee from the Chathrand would be granted sanctuary in Simja for as long as they needed it, and citizenship if they desired to stay.

  But the king was a busy man, and his ministers took him at his word. Only recognized members of the Chathrand’s crew were extended this welcome. Others would have to apply like any normal refugee, and inhabit the barges set aside for them in the Bay of Simja until their appeals could be heard. Pazel took one look at those floating houses of misery and asked Ramachni to help him get across the Straits of Simja to Ormael.

  “I will do it, Pazel,” said the mage, “but have you not heard what they are saying? Ormael may be free, but it is poor and ra
vaged; it changed hands five times during the war. And there is still fighting in all the lands surrounding the city. It could be a hard place, even for a native son. But how much simpler if you would tell your friends the truth! I would gladly help you explain.”

  But Pazel could not bear the thought. He had spoken the truth to one of their number already: to Corporal Mandric, as it happened, just before the Turach left to join the Opalt campaign. Mandric had laughed at first, then grown cross, trying to find a flaw in Pazel’s story. At last he had become strangely meek and quiet, nodding at Pazel’s every word.

  “Do you believe me, then?” Pazel asked.

  “Oh, I do, lad, sure enough! You were with us, right? On that whole Rinforsaken expedition, ’course you were. I remember.”

  “You remember?”

  “Yes. No, I mean—no. I believe you, that’s it. Well, er, shipmate, goodbye.”

  They shook hands awkwardly, and Mandric hurried off to take his leave of the others. Pazel saw then that he would never know if his friends believed or merely pitied him, if they were speaking from affection or fear.

  So he refused. Ramachni sighed, and spoke again to the admiral, and in four days his passage was arranged. It was Neeps who brought the news, late one night as Pazel was stringing up his hammock on the Nighthawk.

  “Mystery boy. Roll up your things in that hammock and step lively. There’s a boat waiting for you.”

  “A boat? Whose boat?”

  “Just hurry, if you want to catch it. These louts are kind of impatient.”

  It had never crossed his mind that he would leave this way, another mad scramble in the darkness, with his friends asleep in scattered beds across the city, and no chance to say goodbye. Not to his sister and Hercól, who were inseparable now. Not to Felthrup. Not to Fiffengurt. Not to Olik or Nólcindar or Bolutu, or the old admiral, father of the woman he loved. Not even to Ramachni, who would have known who stood before him, saying goodbye.