The River of Shadows

by Robert V. S. Redick

“Tell me about the note, Ignus,” said Pazel quietly.

  “It was vile and sarcastic,” said Chadfallow. “Play God, it said. Hand out life and death like sweets to children. The ones who die first may be the luckiest. It was written by an ixchel hand, I’m certain of that. And the ink was not yet dry.”

  Pazel looked away, and for several minutes he and the doctor just studied the deck. No, it was not all good. Taliktrum’s Dawn Soldiers were eating in a huddle apart, scowling at those of their brethren who mingled most freely with the humans. A Turach glanced from a pie to a group of ixchel and back again; he frowned, as though concluding that they had touched it.

  “You can’t just let them out,” whispered Pazel.

  “No,” said Chadfallow, “not yet.”

  “You should hide the pills.”

  After a moment the doctor nodded. “Hide them, and negotiate. Once we are certain who speaks for the little people. Is it Talag, now that his son has fled? Or Taliktrum’s security chief, the one called Saturyk? In either case, if we are intelligent we may prevent bloodshed altogether.”

  Their eyes met. To his own surprise Pazel actually smiled. “Diplomacy, Ignus?” he said.

  The doctor inclined his head. “My specialty.”

  They both laughed—and it hurt to share a laugh with Chadfallow, after so much betrayal and deceit. But it felt good, too. Ignus had once been like a second father. He had even saved Pazel from slavery. After Pazel’s real father, Captain Gregory, abandoned them, Chadfallow had protected the family, and at last revealed his consuming love for Pazel’s mother. But halfway across the Nelluroq, Mr. Druffle (who had also known Gregory) had told Pazel that the doctor’s love for Suthinia had begun years earlier—that it was, in fact, the very thing that had driven Gregory away. Pazel had begged Chadfallow to deny it. The doctor had only replied that things were more complicated than they appeared.

  Pazel doubted he could ever forgive Chadfallow for breaking up his family. Still, in the midst of so much waste and ruin and killing, that sort of sin, loving another man’s wife, suddenly appeared very small. Of course, Chadfallow had done other things, darker and more suspicious, things that love could not explain.

  “You let Arunis board the ship, Ignus,” he said. “That day in the Straits of Simja. Why in the Pits did you do that?”

  “He was about to kill Thasha with that necklace. Wouldn’t you have done the same?”

  Pazel scowled. He’d asked himself the same question, many times. No answer he could come up with made him feel good.

  “You would have done so out of love for the girl,” said the doctor. “I might have wished to do so out of love for her father, but I would not have. No, I would have let her die, if I had not felt—”

  “What?”

  Chadfallow drew a slow breath. “A hunch, nothing more,” he said at last. “An instinct, that her death would bring a greater disaster than any of us could foresee. I feel it still. In the way Hercól speaks of her; the way Ramachni called her ‘my champion.’ They have never trusted me with the whole story of Thasha Isiq. Nor have any of you.”

  Pazel averted his eyes. He thinks I know more than I do. But he’s right, I haven’t trusted him. How could I, how could I, after—

  “Ignus,” he heard himself say, “why didn’t you warn us of the invasion? You could have saved us then and there. We could have escaped.”

  It was the question he had never dared ask, the question that had burned inside him for almost six years. Chadfallow looked as though he had expected it.

  “Escape?” he said. “Do you think Suthinia Sadralin Pathkendle would have been content to escape, to run off into the Highlands with her children? Or”—he hesitated, swallowed; his face was suddenly vulnerable and young—“with me?”

  “Definitely not with you,” said Pazel. “Oh, damn it—that’s not what I meant—”

  “She would have raised the alarm. She would have stormed out into the city and told everyone the Arqualis were coming.”

  “They’d never have listened. They all thought she was crazy.”

  “But they did not think I was,” said Chadfallow. “Suthinia would have named me as her source immediately. And I could not afford to lie. I was doing everything I could to negotiate Ormael’s peaceful surrender, with guarantees that the city would not be looted, the people enslaved or slaughtered, the women raped.”

  Pazel shut his eyes. Neda, he thought.

  “Admiral Isiq agreed,” said Chadfallow, “although it meant disobeying his Emperor. We had it all arranged, Pazel. Not a shot was to be fired, not a woman touched. The Turachs hated the plan, but we had them under control. Tenuous control, boy. Any friction and we knew they’d riot. It was your own lord, the Suzain of Ormael, who provided that friction. He dug in his heels and swore Ormael would fight to the last man.”

  Pazel’s head felt rather light. “Against all those Turach battalions? Against that whole mucking fleet?”

  “Why do you think the palace was so badly damaged? They had to pry him out like an oyster from a shell. Your fool of a leader could not accept the simple truth, that his days of courtesans and clotted cream were over. He preferred to bask in glory—in the bonfire Arqual made of your city.”

  “But for Rin’s sake, Ignus! Why didn’t Thasha’s father just tell me all this? Did he think I wouldn’t believe him?”

  “You had just called him a mass murderer, as I recall,” said Chadfallow.

  Pazel squeezed his eyes shut in pure frustration. A peaceful surrender. It wouldn’t have been justice, but it wouldn’t have been that, either: the burning and looting, the blood and death and rape. The terrible words of the eguar rang in his ears: Acceptance is agony, denial is death.

  Suddenly he realized that he was once more staring at the leather pouch with the antidote inside. He started. “Pitfire, Ignus, you shouldn’t be walking around with that thing!”

  “I don’t know where to hide it,” said Chadfallow. “Someone is still doing Ott’s work, you know. I find small items moved in my cabin, and in the surgery too.”

  “Well put it in your pocket, for Rin’s sake. Are you daft?”

  Chadfallow glared at him, then sighed and looked down at the pouch.

  “Listen,” said Pazel, “why don’t you let me hide them in the stateroom? There’s no safer place. Thasha hasn’t shut me out, yet, and even if she does, Neeps or Marila could—”

  “Hello there, Doctor.”

  The voice, loud and abrasively cheerful, belonged to Alyash. He had sidled up to them without a sound. Above the grotesque scars on his throat and chin he was smiling, and his eyes were bright and merry. His hands dangled empty at his sides.

  Chadfallow started to get to his feet, but Alyash put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t you blary eat? You’ve got to get your strength back, after all those weeks locked in a cage.”

  “Don’t answer, he’s up to something,” said Pazel in Ormali. Alyash just went on smiling.

  Chadfallow looked nervously at the bosun’s hand. “I ate my fill,” he said.

  “No discomfort, then? Mr. Elkstem had a little discomfort.”

  “Of course he did,” said Chadfallow, sounding a bit like a cross professor. “He ate sausage. He spurned my advice. When one has been confined to a small space for weeks with little to eat, the gut contracts and heavy foods become the enemy, for a while.”

  “Ignus,” said Pazel.

  “Elkstem should have concentrated on the vegetables,” Chadfallow went on. “That is what I did. Naturally my stomach is at peace.”

  Alyash’s grin widened. “The vegetables, you say?”

  “And for my circulation, an ounce of fish.”

  “An ounce of fish! Well, that’s blary fine.”

  Alyash dealt him a vicious backhand blow. The doctor fell sprawling, and Alyash scooped up the leather pouch and ran.

  Pazel exploded to his feet. “Stop him!” he cried, frantically giving chase. “Oh credek, stop him, someone!”
<
br />   Alyash was making for the bows. To Pazel’s great relief he saw Thasha take in the scene and rise with the quickness of her training to join the pursuit. For a moment they ran side by side, leaping over amazed parties of men and ixchel still sprawled upon the deck. Then Thasha, always the stronger, pulled ahead.

  Neeps and Marila and even Fulbreech were pounding after the bosun as well, but no one could match Thasha’s speed. She was within an arm’s length of Alyash when a wall of Turach muscle seemed to rise out of nowhere. Thasha slammed into them, fighting for all she was worth. She actually threw two of the soldiers to the deck as the others piled on—they knew from hard experience what a fighter she was. But Thasha’s fall had opened a path. Rolling and sliding, Pazel suddenly found himself beyond the Turachs, and raced on with all his might.

  Alyash was past the mainmast now, holding up his prize, shouting to Sandor Ott. From the corner of his eye Pazel saw Fulbreech, sprinting—he too had somehow eluded the Turachs. The youths flailed forward. Alyash rounded the tonnage hatch, the forward guns, the jiggermast. Pazel saw Ott’s face at the window. No, he thought, no! From somewhere he found the strength to run even faster.

  And then Alyash tripped.

  He rolled almost instantly to his feet—he had his own training with the Secret Fist to draw on—but the stumble made all the difference. Pazel closed the space between them. It was his one chance. He leaped.

  The jump did not carry him as far as he hoped, but as he fell, Pazel reached out and caught Alyash by the leg. The bosun crashed to the deck. The leather pouch shot out of his hand and slid forward. It struck the wall of the forecastle house, just beside the door.

  Alyash was kicking Pazel in the head, but he would not let go. “Fulbreech!” he managed to cry. The youth shot past them, and Pazel heard a door creak open and slam shut. Then Alyash’s boot struck him hard in the temple, and for a moment his eyes went dim.

  Only seconds had passed. He had let go of Alyash’s leg, but the bosun just lay there, gasping—laughing, by Rin, a ragged, evil sound. Pazel raised his head: Fulbreech was slumped by the door, utterly winded. There was nothing in his hands.

  “Where is it?” Pazel cried through his throbbing pain. “What have you done with it, Fulbreech?”

  “Done with what?” said Fulbreech, and flashed Pazel a grin.

  Turachs hauled Pazel and Fulbreech to their feet. Uskins was there, Rose’s daft enforcer, screaming, “What is happening, Bosun? Did these boys assault you?”

  Fulbreech hid his smile away, and glanced expectantly at the door. Alyash turned on his side to look as well. Soon everyone was looking at the door, though few could have said quite why.

  The reason soon appeared. Muffled cries came from within, and the sound of a brief struggle. Then the door sprang open and Sandor Ott raced onto the deck, battering sailors out of his path. After some forty feet he stopped dead, closed his eyes, and inhaled.

  No collapse. No writhing pain. Slowly, the chief assassin of Arqual turned about where he stood. His cruel, bright eyes took in the crowd, the ship, the dlömu watching from the quay. Then he laughed aloud, raced five steps forward, sprang into a dizzying roll—and uncurled with his hand around an ixchel. The ixchel drew his knife, but Ott was faster. He dashed the tiny man against the deck so hard it sounded as though he were wielding a club. Then he tossed the limp body over the side.

  Horrified, Pazel jumped to his feet. Everywhere he looked, ixchel were running, vanishing. Some over the sides. Many down the ladderways, deeper into the ship.

  Ott had now seized a rigging-axe, one of the heavy tools kept on deck for cutting away fallen sheets and canvas in a storm. He lifted the axe above his head and turned to face aft. “I am free!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Captain Rose! All of us are free!”

  With that he turned and raced for the Silver Stair, yards behind a clump of ixchel. Pazel could just see Rose, still as a chess piece on the quarterdeck. Ott did not appear to be the focus of his attention. Pazel followed his gaze back to the forecastle house and saw Lady Oggosk framed in the doorway, leaning heavily on her walking stick, gold rings gleaming on her ancient hands. She gave Rose an irascible wave: Yes, Nilus, here I am.

  “Now we’ll see something,” said Alyash, delighted.

  The captain howled an order. It was a brief command, just one word in fact, but the crew understood it perfectly. From all parts of the ship men took up the word, repeated it, made it their battle cry, and the word was Death.

  A waking nightmare: that was how Pazel thought of the next few minutes. As if three-quarters of the crew had been seized by devils. How they ran to their task! Alyash organized the watch-captains to take their men to various points belowdecks, saying, “Kill on the way, kill when you get there, kill as you come back to report!” Haddismal sent his men to secure the gun decks. Mr. Bindhammer sent a team to fetch the sulphur barrels, to be used to smoke the ixchel from their hiding places. Uskins climbed to the mainmast fife rail and bellowed encouragement (“Exterminate! Exterminate all the little lice!”). This was revenge: an insane, wildfire revenge, carried out by men who just minutes ago had been savoring the fullness of their stomachs and the warmth of the sun. From hundreds of mouths came the throbbing refrain: Death! Death! Death!

  Pazel ran blindly along the topdeck. Ixchel bodies, some horribly mangled, littered his path. The men who had refused the order were faring badly: there was Big Skip Sunderling, being shoved and pummeled by several men. And humans had fallen too: with horror Pazel stumbled over Mr. Lapwing, open-eyed beside the tonnage hatch, one hand clutching at his bloody throat. Off to his left, a midshipman was limping, dragging one foot as though the tendon had been slashed. The ixchel would not go down without a fight.

  “Stop this lunacy!” someone was shouting. Pazel whirled and saw to his amazement that it was Prince Olik. Alone of all his people he had leaped into the melee. Waving his hands, pleading. “Listen to me! We can broker a peace between your people! A just peace, an honorable—”

  No one harmed him, but they did not listen, either. On the quayside, the dlömic citizens cried out to their prince. “Sire! Sire! Get out of that snake pit! Come back!”

  Then Pazel saw Thasha, surrounded by a mob of advancing men. She was just holding them off, slashing the air with her knife. Rin above, she’s wounded, she’s holding her chest. No, not wounded, burdened: there were four living ixchel beneath her arm.

  Pazel drew his skipper’s knife and flew toward her. Whatever had changed inside her, she was still Thasha, still the one he could not live without. He had almost reached her when a terribly familiar voice cut through him like a blade.

  He whirled. A few yards to his left, two massive Burnscove Boys were squatting beside the sixteen-foot skiff, raising it and striking (with cries of glee) at something underneath. They had caulking hammers. Pazel swore under his breath and ran at them.

  Under the lifeboat he saw Felthrup, backed into a corner, snapping, biting, dodging. Beside him an ixchel woman crawled in a pool of blood.

  Pazel attacked so quickly the men never knew what hit them. As the nearer sailor raised his hammer for a killing blow, Pazel snatched it, brought it down sidelong against the face that turned by instinct, threw his body hard against the wounded man and bashed him into the other. With his knife he slashed the far man’s ear, then his cheek right at the bone, and atop the two of them he struck with head and hammer and knees and knife-hilt, until he realized that they were not fighting, they were curling into balls.

  He scooped up Felthrup, unharmed it seemed, and the ixchel with the bloody scalp. Adept at the move by now, he tucked his shirt firmly under his belt and thrust rat and woman in through his open collar. They clung there, awkward but safe, and Pazel raced to Thasha’s side.

  The madness of the fight engulfed him. Once again he found everything he had learned from Thasha and Hercól ablaze in his mind. The forward-seeing, the awareness of the blow and its consequences before he landed it, the balance and velocity
of his limbs. He was not stabbing, not fighting to kill. He was using the knife to ward and to scratch, its hilt and both fists and his elbows and knees to wound and stun. All the same there was a blade in his hand. One small mistake and he was a killer. Of his own kind. A killer of someone I don’t hate, in defense of those I don’t know …

  With her back to Pazel’s, Thasha fought like a tigress. She did not say a word; she could not spare him the attention. But when the opportunity came, with the nudge of her sweaty shoulder, the bump of her hip, she moved him in the direction of her goal: the Silver Stair.

  Of course. She was trying to bring them to the stateroom.

  From the ladderway came crashes and thumps and howls of pain. Out of the corner of his eye Pazel saw Hercól, fighting his way down through a great mob of sailors. They were armed with all manner of swords, knives, hammers, cudgels; Hercól fought bare-handed, disarming one man after another, clearing a path.

  Thasha crouched, whirling with one leg extended, and sent the gunner’s mate crashing to the deck. Pazel brandished his knife, holding off a Plapp’s Pier man and a midshipman. He leaped, and just cleared a capstan bar aimed at his kneecaps. To his dismay he saw that the one who held it was the tarboy Swift. His brother Saroo had been among the final captives. Swift looked at him with rage, and utter incomprehension. He swung a second time, and once more Pazel leaped. Again he and Thasha shuffled closer to the stairs.

  Then Alyash himself appeared and charged right at Thasha. His first blow nearly caught her, and she was forced back from the ladderway, dancing just out of his reach, barely escaping one blow after another.

  “Hercól!” Pazel cried. But the swordsman was out of sight. Pazel glanced again at Thasha—and this time Swift’s blow caught him in the ankles.

  He had just enough presence of mind to pivot as he fell, so that Felthrup and Ensyl would not be crushed. He rolled, and Swift struck him across the back. Pazel snarled with pain but still, somehow, managed to gain his feet. He rose, strangely weightless, only to realize that the sensation was due to the fact that four men were lifting him by the arms.