The River of Shadows

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Rose stopped dead. Neeps and Marila skidded to a halt behind him, and both cried out in amazement. Just ahead, a passage intersected their own, and at its center was a huge red cat. It crouched for an instant, startled by their voices, and then with a twitch of serpentine tail it vanished down the right-hand passage.

  “That’s Sniraga!” said Neeps. “She survived the blary rats! How did she manage, where has she been?”

  “Nothing can kill that animal,” said Rose. “It will never leave off, never cease to plague me, until I answer for its wounds.”

  He was trembling, hoarse with fear. Then he shook himself back to life and pounded on. The Holy Stair was just ahead, and it was with immense relief that they watched Rose enter the ladderway and start to climb. He moved swiftly, raising himself by the handholds as much as the steep steps.

  But one flight below the topdeck he stopped again. “Have a look at these,” he said, bending down.

  They leaned around his elbows. Beside the wall, a brass speaking-tube cut through the ladderway, emerging from a hole in a step and vanishing through the ceiling. And on the step beside the pipe sat a small canvas bag. Rose lifted it, and Neeps heard the clink of metal.

  “What’s that, sir?” he asked warily. “Coins?”

  Rose smiled curiously. “Not coins. Payment, yes, but not coins.”

  Suddenly he grabbed Neeps by the arm. There was a flash of iron, a sharp click, and suddenly Neeps found himself handcuffed to the speaking-tube. He shouted and kicked at Rose. Marila screamed and struck at the captain’s face. Rose cursed, trying to catch her arms. Marila was quick and slippery: if she had obeyed Neeps (who begged her to Run, please, run away!) she might have escaped up the stairs. But she didn’t try, and in a moment the captain overpowered her and clipped a second cuff about her slender wrist. He dragged her to the brass pipe and snapped the other cuff in place around it.

  Then he stepped back, out of range of their blows.

  Neeps screamed at him: “You mad bastard! What in the Pits are you doing?”

  Rose leaned back against the wall. Neeps threw himself downward, wrenching his arm, but the pipe did not even shake. Marila twisted her arm in the iron cuff, but it was too tight for her hand to slip through. Overhead, the ship’s bell began to peal again, urgently.

  “You can’t kill us!” cried Neeps.

  “Can I not?”

  “You could lose the Shaggat! You will lose him! Marila’s the spell-keeper, do you hear me? If she dies—”

  “Undrabust,” said Rose, “you may be gifted at detecting lies, but in telling them you have no skill at all. Lady Oggosk determined weeks ago that no one in the forecastle house carries Ramachni’s spell. Given the tension in that chamber, and the presence of Sandor Ott, I decided to keep her discovery to myself.”

  “They’re calling for us,” said Marila.

  And indeed men were shouting overhead: Where are they? Captain Rose! Undrabust! Miss Marila! Your hour’s up! Hurry, hurry, for the love of Rin! The voices of the ixchel, furious and confused, piped above the rest.

  Neeps and Marila pulled together. Rose shook his head. “Those fittings have lasted centuries. They’ll not give way now.”

  The youths began to shout for help. Overhead, someone caught their cries and exclaimed, “The Holy Stair! The Holy Stair!” Boots pounded toward the ladderway.

  Then Rose took the strangest step of all. Wading into their blows again, he pulled a third set of handcuffs from the bag and locked himself to the pipe.

  “You’re insane!” shouted Neeps. “If you want to die, at least let us go!”

  Now they were close enough for Neeps to sense the terror in Rose’s flesh. His teeth were locked in a grimace, his fists were clenched. “Out of time, out of time,” he murmured.

  The boots smashed nearer, and then a crowd of sailors, led by Big Skip and the doughy-faced Mr. Teggatz, appeared and all but stumbled over them.

  “Milk of Heaven’s Blessed Tree, shipmates, our captain’s a suicide!” cried Teggatz—easily the longest utterance Neeps had ever heard from the cook.

  “He’s a murderer!” shouted Marila. “Get these cuffs off, get us away from him!”

  The sailors tried to do just that. Big Skip put his lumberjack’s arms to the task of breaking the pipe, while Swift the tarboy ran for a hacksaw. Teggatz spat on Marila’s hand and tried to ease it through the iron cuff, but only managed to bruise and bloody her. Neeps, who had felt the icy stab of the ixchel’s poison whenever the door swung open or the fire ebbed, wondered that he was still drawing breath. The hour had passed. They were living on borrowed time.

  When Swift returned with the hacksaw, Rose snatched it from his hand and broke the blade over his knee. Big Skip growled in mystified rage. He wrenched at the pipe with all his strength. Other hands shoved in close beside him, and Neeps and Marila joined too. The pipe bowed, and its housing popped loose from the timber.

  “Help us, Captain, you crazy old loon!” cried Big Skip.

  “I already am,” said Rose.

  It was a good eight minutes before the tugging, combined with the work of a second hacksaw (kept well out of the captain’s reach), at last succeeded in breaking the pipe. Instantly many hands lifted Marila and Neeps and slid them, cuffs still trailing, to freedom. But even as they made to dash up the Holy Stair, they heard Rose began to laugh.

  “It’s permanent, you witless whelps,” he said. “Haven’t you guessed yet? The crawlies blundered. They gave us the same pills they gave Haddismal and Swift. You’re cured. Go back in there and you’ll start the poison cycle all over again.”

  Teggatz, blubbering, tried to push the youths up the stairs. “He’s mad! Oh, misery! Run!”

  “Aye, run!” said Big Skip. “If he ain’t mad, he’s lying! Get to safety, you two!”

  But Neeps didn’t move. “We should have died ten minutes ago. He’s not lying. We’re free.” He looked at Rose, who was still shaking with mirth. “But you are crazy, and vicious as a snake. Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “First, because you’re an irritating brat and a mutineer,” said Rose. “Second, because you’d never have believed it. You’d have run straight back into the chamber, just to be on the safe side.” He took a small key from his pocket and unlatched the cuff on his wrist. Then he held out the key to Neeps. “Admit it, Undrabust. You owe me for this. You may even owe me your life.”

  Neeps snatched the key from his hand. When he and Marila had shed their cuffs, he turned to Big Skip and the others. “I thank you,” he said pointedly. Then he turned to Rose again. He was about to lacerate the man with every choice Sollochi insult he could summon when Marila laid a hand on his arm. Her face was anxious, and Neeps understood at once. Rose was free; he would be taking charge again; there would be consequences for every word that escaped their mouths. And if he really knew that neither he nor Marila was the spell-keeper, he could even carry out the suspended executions.

  Marila took his hand and pulled. “Let’s just get out of here,” she whispered.

  Neeps let himself be persuaded. But he would not go back to the stateroom: his anger at Thasha burned too bright. Hercól, he thought. Alone. The swordsman had some answering to do. He knew better than to trust Greysan Fulbreech. How could he have stood by as the older youth swept Thasha off her feet?

  He followed Marila to the topdeck. The moment they emerged a great cheer went up from the assembled sailors. Cries and rumors had preceded them. Now here was the proof: two of their number had beaten the ixchel at their own game. Men crowded forward, clapping their backs and almost hugging them, bellowing good wishes, howling derision at the ineptitude of crawlies. The ixchel on deck merely watched. They were furious, but little had really changed. They still had twelve hostages to bargain with.

  Neeps caught a glimpse of the forecastle window. Half a dozen faces were pressed to the glass—Ott, Saroo, Chadfallow, Elkstem—even Lady Oggosk had claimed a spot. Our good luck is their bad, he realized. The ixchel will neve
r hand out any more pills.

  Thasha appeared in the crowd. She was making her way toward him, and her eyes were beseeching. She shouted over the din.

  “—tell you something—what you think—believe me—”

  Neeps began to turn away, but Marila caught his arm. “Listen to her,” she shouted in his ear. “Just once. You owe her that much.”

  Thasha reached them. She was alone; there was pain in her eyes. Neeps stood his ground, fuming, gazing furiously at her. “Well?” he said at last.

  Thasha had no time to answer, for at that moment Rose climbed out from the hatch, and the cheering doubled. Hysteria, thought Neeps. Most of them don’t even like him. Rose twitched irritably at the commotion, but no one quite believed he was angry. The men chanted his name, brandishing weapons and tools above their heads. Plapps and Burnscoves cheered shoulder to shoulder. Somewhere the stomp-stomp-clap, stomp-stomp-hey! of an Etherhorde flagball game began, and soon nearly everyone on deck had joined in. The men wanted something to celebrate, some victory of will over reason. For the moment Rose was it.

  They would have lifted him onto their shoulders if he had not suddenly lurched forward. His face changed; all at once his outrage was very sincere indeed. Shoving his way through a dozen men, Rose pointed at a figure some thirty yards away by the No. 2 hatch.

  “Who in the entrails of the blackest blary fiend is that?” he exploded.

  “Him, Captain?” laughed a joyful Mr. Fegin. “Why that’s just Mr. Bolutu, he—Oh Pitfire!”

  It was not Bolutu. The cheers turned to roars of challenge. The figure was quite obviously a dlömu, as tall and strong as any of those who had attacked the ship. He stood straight and proud, although he wore only tattered breeches, a white shirt missing all its buttons and a fortnight’s beard. His thick hair hung in tangles to his elbows. He had a lean face and a hawk-like nose, and his eyes were full of bright intelligence. As the sailors charged he raised his hands in surrender.

  The men were less than calm. They fell on him, howling threats and curses, and dragged him all the way to the gunwale. There they lifted him half over the rail, so that his torso dangled above the sea.

  “Hold!” shouted Rose, lumbering forward.

  “On your guard, Captain, there may be more!” cried Alyash.

  “There are,” said the strange dlömu.

  “Knew it!” said Alyash. “They’re on the lower decks with the crawlies! They must be!”

  “Your knife, Mr. Fegin.” Rose squeezed in among his men. Burying his hand in the stranger’s hair, he pulled downward, until the man was looking right at the sun. The dlömu winced and closed his eyes. Rose laid the edge of Fegin’s knife against his throat.

  “How many?” he said.

  “Six or eight, I should say.”

  “You should say exactly. You should give me a reason to spare your life.”

  “They are not my comrades,” said the stranger. “Indeed, they wish to kill me. I have been running from them this last month and more.”

  “You’re the fugitive? The one those madmen attacked us for?”

  “I fear so.”

  “Aye, you fear it—because for that alone I should slit your throat. How in blazes did you get aboard?”

  “You’re human beings, aren’t you?” said the stranger. “Amazing. I never thought I’d live to see this day.”

  His words sent a ripple of alarm through the sailors: He’s never seen a human, did ye hear? We’re alone, marooned with them monsters, alone!

  Taliktrum appeared on the shoulder of a reluctant main-topman. He urged the sailor forward impatiently. Then Neeps saw Bolutu and Ibjen at the back of the crowd. The young dlömu stared at the newcomer, and Neeps saw recognition in the look.

  Bolutu cried out: “By the Dawn Star, brother, don’t provoke him!”

  “Provoke him?” said the stranger. “In this position? Why, I haven’t even learned his name. Nor he mine.”

  “The captain asked you a question, blacky!” snapped Alyash.

  “Did he? Would you kindly repeat it, sir?”

  Neeps caught his breath. He had never heard anyone but Lady Oggosk take a tone of levity with Nilus Rose, the man who flogged tarboys for hiccups. The stranger did not know the peril he was in.

  Captain Rose slid his hand to the knife-blade, pinched it between two fingers and a thumb. A few sailors winced, as if from bitter memory.

  “I’ll repeat it,” said Rose.

  He set the point of the knife on the man’s chest, directly over the heart. With a slow and merciless movement, he began to cut, scoring the flesh in a semicircular pattern. The man twisted and writhed in the sailors’ grasp. He bit his lips, tears starting from his eyes.

  “Stop, stop!” cried Ibjen in distress. “Captain Rose, you’re in Bali Adro! You can’t draw his blood!”

  “You mucking animal!” shouted Neeps at the captain’s back. “Taliktrum, make him stop!”

  “Why should I?” said Taliktrum. “Those savages tried to sink us. Proceed, Rose—go further, if you must.”

  Rose glared at Taliktrum over his shoulder: Give me permission, will you? Then he turned back to his torture. The cut was now some eight inches long. Suddenly Neeps realized that Rose was carving a symbol in the man’s flesh. A question mark. He finished it with a deep prick that made the stranger gasp.

  “You nearly took my ship,” he said. “And in fleeing you, we damaged her, fatally for all I can tell. Now you dare to make sport of her commander. I wish you to understand that to do so again will be fatal.”

  “I make no sport of you,” said the stranger, as his blood trickled into the sea. “It’s just that I should have died so long ago that I find humor in my own survival.”

  “The joke may have run its course,” said Taliktrum.

  “I came aboard in a water cask,” said the stranger. “I kicked it open just minutes ago, to warn you about the others. I waited on the lower decks until the stair was clear.”

  Rose was outraged anew. “Are you saying we smuggled you aboard ourselves?”

  “You did, Captain. The villagers were rather clever—I think smuggling is not an infrequent practice in Narybir. They secured stones and water-sacks inside the cask with me, so that you should detect no difference by weight or sound.”

  “I was pledged to help him, Captain!” shouted Ibjen suddenly. “To be certain he reached the mainland. I gave my word.”

  Taliktrum laughed. “And then tried to jump ship on two occasions,” he said.

  The stranger looked at Ibjen sharply, and the boy dropped his head in shame.

  “Why would the villagers help you in this way?” asked Rose.

  “Because I was in great need, sir. Your scratch is nothing compared with what the Karysk Expeditionaries would have done, if they had laid hands on me.”

  “Karyskans!” cried Bolutu. “Is it true, then—there is war between the Empires, that were once fast friends?”

  “War is too glorious a name for it,” said the stranger, “but there is a great deal of mindless killing. I was in Karysk to warn them of the impending attack.”

  “Warn them?” said Rose. “If you were delivering such a helpful message, why did they pursue you like their most hated enemy?”

  “Because,” gasped the stranger, “I bear a striking resemblance to their most hated enemy—the man who pushed hardest for the attack.”

  “Mistaken identity on such a gigantic scale?” said Taliktrum. “That is hard to credit.”

  “We are of the same family, he and I,” said the stranger. He paused, then added, “The Karyskans, I think, are hiding among your cattle.”

  Rose’s hand moved with startling speed. The knife cut a short gash in the stranger’s cheek. Ibjen stifled another cry.

  Ibjen was wailing: “Captain Rose! Captain Rose! Make him stop, Thashiziq, for your own sake, for the ship’s!”

  Thasha started forward, and Neeps and Marila with her, but the mob of frightened sailors stood with Rose now, and he
ld them back. Thasha put a hand on each friend’s arm and shook her head: Not this way.

  “We have no cattle,” said the captain. “Our livestock are dead. And you will be next, for your mouth is full of lies.”

  “No livestock at all?” said the man, sounding genuinely perplexed.

  Rose leaned close over his captive. “We will proceed to fingers,” he said, “and since your kind can grow back fingers and tongues and other parts, I’ll take two for every falsehood.”

  “All these years,” sighed the stranger, “and this is how our races come together again. Captain Rose, I see that I must explain a few points. You are drifting toward the Karysk frontier. You have sailed into an artificial current, summoned to carry the Last Armada of Bali Adro at great speed into enemy waters. If you continue east you will soon reach Nandirag, the first great city of Karysk, and a conflict more horrible than words can express. You must sail out of the current at once, and turn west while the good wind holds. You might find you could repair your ship in Masalym, and I could perhaps do you a favor in that regard.

  “But the city of Masalym is part of the Empire of Bali Adro, and so is all the coastline beyond it for a thousand miles. It is cursed, my beloved Tarum Adrofynd, and quite possibly dying. But it is not dead yet. And there is one law that shall endure a great while: that no one but my kin may draw the blood of my kin. All other offenders must be executed.”

  Rose stood as if turned to stone. Neeps felt cold at the back of his neck. “Captain,” he said, “be careful, sir. I think he’s telling the truth.”

  “Of course he is!” said Ibjen. “His face—”

  “Ah yes, my face,” said the newcomer. “I can hide my chest under a shirt, but my cheek is another matter.”

  “You’re speaking of a race law, then?” said Rose. “Only a dlömu may harm another dlömu, is that it?”

  The stranger laughed, wincing as he did so. “Even in our glory years we were not that kind to one another,” he said. “No, Captain, by kin I mean my extended family, nothing more.”