The Rats and the Ruling sea tcv-2

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Hands trembling, he took the carved stone from his mouth and held it out to Pazel. Flabbergasted, Pazel reached for the stone-and squeezed too hard. The wet stone popped like a grape from between his thumb and forefinger. Rose made a wild grab, and only managed to send it flying like a shuttlecock across the room. In the darkness they heard it strike the wall — and then a soft splash.

  Oggosk shrieked. Rose dealt Pazel a blow that sent him flying. The sibyl gave a wail of regret, and the enchanted light swept across the floor in the direction of the stone. But as it passed Arunis, the sorcerer's hand shot out and seemed to close on something invisible. The voice gave a cry of pain.

  Arunis pulled hard, like a fisherman setting a hook, and grimaced as the light throbbed in his fist. There was no doubt: he had her. And with the Polylex in one hand and the sibyl trapped in the other, he leaped headlong over the flames, up the stones rings, and vanished through a lightless arch.

  'After him! After him!' shrieked Oggosk. 'Didn't you hear the sibyl? His book has a drawing of a spirit cell! If he copies it out and imprisons her inside, she'll be forced to tell him anything he wants. Do you understand? Anything! Run, run, you jackdaws!'

  The next minutes were mad. The men and tarboys (except Peytr, who crouched in the doorway where Rose had left him) marauded into the darkness after the sorcerer. Thasha started to go as well, but Oggosk grabbed at her arm.

  'Not you, girl. You stay here at my side.'

  Thasha was incensed. 'Let go! I have to help them!'

  'You will be. By staying put.'

  'I can fight as well as they can! And Pazel's barefoot, and hurt, thanks to your favourite thug. Why does it have to be me?'

  Oggosk slapped her.

  'Because I wish it, you arrogant girl! Because I'm your elder five times over! Because you'd still be flouncing about in your nightdress on the Chathrand if I hadn't brought you along!'

  Thasha was bleeding; the witch's rings had cut her face. 'Why did you bother?' she asked.

  Oggosk leaned close to Thasha, blue eyes shining in the blue firelight. 'Listen to me, you fool. If he succeeds — if Arunis wrests a means of controlling the Nilstone from that creature — you and I just might be able to stop him. It would kill me, and damage your mind forever. But no one else in this world would have a chance. Now shut your mouth and draw your sword. I'd damned well prefer to get out of this alive.'

  For Pazel the hour that followed was one of the most desperate, frightened and confused times he had ever known. There was no light, except in chambers where the blue fire gleamed. There were pits and caved-in hallways, and others on the point of caving in. Worse still, a great deal of the level to which they had descended was full of water. Some of it was cool, but most of it was hot — very hot, even scalding. When they neared such waters they were forced to turn back and seek another way.

  They could hear the sibyl wailing, her strange voice echoing in the dark. But the depths of the temple were as tangled as the rooms above, and there was no telling into what distant chamber Arunis had fled, bearing his enchanted book and supernatural captive. They split into pairs, groping along the walls, feeling for stairs and holes and drop-offs. Pazel was with Chadfallow, whose hand on his arm felt like a surgical clamp. The darkness was horribly complete; they groped, swore, cracked their heads on unseen walls. Sometimes the passage dwindled to a crawlway; at other times they wriggled through gaps only to find themselves in tiny, tomblike spaces that seemed to shrink as they patted the stones. At every moment Pazel expected an ambush. Chadfallow carried a sword strapped to his back, but Pazel had only his skipper's knife, small and sweaty in his hand. Yet what scared him most was the thought of the unseen, scalding water. He could hear it in side-passages, bubbling and hissing. He thought suddenly of a crab he'd watched Teggatz drop into a boiling kettle. It had died with one twitch of its claws.

  Chadfallow whispered constantly, mostly warning Pazel of dangers as they groped down those hideous halls. But at one point he said: 'Find the book. That's all that matters. Until he copies out the design of that spirit-cell he cannot make the sibyl tell him anything. Take the book before he finishes, lad, and then run, run for your life.'

  There came a flash of blinding light from the room ahead, and Chadfallow whipped out his sword. But it was only Drellarek and Dastu. They had relit their torches, somehow. Both man and tarboy looked deranged, their faces bright with soot and steam, their eyes wild and twitchy.

  'Not a sign of him,' said the Turach, spitting. 'And Rose scalded his blary leg halfway to bacon, stumbling into a pool. I had half a mind to knock him over the head and carry him out of here. But your friend Hercol had other ideas. It almost came to blows.'

  'We must stop Arunis,' wheezed Chadfallow.

  'We can stop him by sailing away!' Drellarek poked the doctor in the chest. 'You're supposed to be bright. Tell me: is this madness or isn't it?'

  'It will be over soon,' said Chadfallow.

  Pazel and Dastu exchanged a look. 'Aye,' whispered the older tarboy, 'one way or another. Here, take this.' He handed Pazel his torch.

  'Thank you,' said Pazel, gripping his arm with feeling.

  Dastu managed a feeble smile. 'Watch them bare feet of yours,' he said.

  They parted and went on. It should have been better with a torch, but it was not. There was too little air, and too much of the cloying scent, and the shadows seemed to leap out threateningly at every turn. And now that they could see the walls, they found that many bore hideous murals: sinking canoes, slaughtered animals, men maimed and fleeing through palm forests, warriors lifting severed heads.

  Pazel was sweating and breathing hard. Time and again he had to crouch low, out of the worst of the steam, just to catch his breath. Chadfallow fared even worse. He discarded his coat, wrenched his shirt open at the collar. Soon he began to stop, crouching low, gasping as though about to faint. Pazel would creep a few paces ahead, considering the choices, longing for daylight as much as any glimpse of the sorcerer.

  Then Chadfallow disappeared. Pazel felt a stab of panic. How could he have missed him? How far had he crept alone? He rushed back down the corridor, around their last two turns. He raised his voice to shout, but the steam burned his lungs so badly that he staggered and clutched at his chest.

  The torch spilled all its embers. They lay at his feet, hissing and dying, the only light left in the world. Pazel began to crawl forward, croaking, 'Ignus, Ignus.' After a few yards his hand came down in hot water. He jerked back with a cry of pain. Trapped, blinded, burned. He closed his eyes in despair.

  And then something startling occurred. Pazel thought once more of his mother. It was not the same vision as that on the balcony. This time Suthinia was looking at him as she so often had: sternly, but with love. Your Gift, our sacrifices, all these years you've survived on your own. Is this what they were for?

  Pazel was shaken. Almost six years since he had heard that voice, but how vividly it came back to him now! He turned and crawled back to the torch, shook the wetness from his hands. Then, using embers that had already died, he coaxed the few live coals back into the mantle. He lifted the torch and blew gently, and soon a meagre flame sprang to life.

  Just then a loud wail echoed down the corridor. It was the sibyl, nearer than he had yet heard her — dead ahead, unless the echo deceived him. He went forward on hands and knees, until he entered a taller chamber, where the steam was not as thick. Here he rose, swaying a little. It was an unusual room: painted with images of a rice harvest and grazing animals along a palm-lined river, not slaughter and war. And right across the floor ran a deep, gushing stream in a tiled sluice. The water when he touched it was clean and cool.

  There were several exits from the room. Pazel listened for the sibyl again, but no sound came. Then on a sudden impulse, he bent and splashed the water against his face. The feeling was blissful. He cupped more water and soaked his chest, holding the torch at arm's length. He closed his eyes and sighed with pleasure.

  Th
e third time he put his hand in the water, something took it and held tight.

  He should have been terrified. But recognition came too soon for fear. Gold, a wondrous rush of gold through mind and heart, and joy like sudden deliverance from pain. He opened his eyes and there she was, rising from the water, her face aglow.

  'Land-boy,' she said.

  It was Klyst, the sea murth who had tried to kill him on the Haunted Coast, only to fall magically in love with her intended victim. Klyst, who had begged him to stay with her, to live enchanted in her people's kingdom in the Gulf of Thol.

  She looked strange and unhealthy. Her impossibly thick hair hung like a great mat of seaweed on her head, the hundreds of braided kulri shells merely a limp bead curtain tangled up in the mess. Her gown, which had once seemed a net of lights, was now a threadbare rag that clung like soggy tissue to her body.

  But her eyes were unchanged. The love-spell had not broken, though she had never meant to cast it on herself.

  'It's really you, isn't it?' he said. 'You're not a phantom, not a trick.'

  The murth-girl nodded. She took an uncertain step in his direction. As though he might be the phantom, an apparition that could vanish with a word.

  'Klyst, look at you,' he said. 'You're not well. What's happened to you?'

  'Nothing,' she said, recoiling slightly. 'It's the waters of this place. They're unhappy. I'll be… pretty again, once I'm back in the sea.'

  'You followed me in here,' he said, aghast. 'You've been following us all along, haven't you?'

  She nodded again, and flashed him the briefest smile — just long enough to show her glistening, razor-sharp teeth. She put her arms around his neck. 'I followed,' she said, 'because you called.'

  Pazel was sure he had done no such thing. He struggled to think — there was no time for this, no time to talk gently, as he'd have to if she was ever going to understand. No time to remember how he'd made her cry.

  'You don't come aboard the Chathrand,' he said.

  Klyst shook her head. 'Not allowed. Not on the Wind Palace. I'd be trapped there, forever.'

  Then she opened her mouth against his shivering chest. For a moment he feared she was about to use those teeth. But no, it was a kiss, right on his collar bone, and he felt the tiny rose-coloured shell — her heart, she'd called it, when she placed it beneath his skin — begin to warm.

  You're still pretty, he thought.

  Suddenly the sibyl cried out again — in rage or pain, and very near. The wail came from a waist-high tunnel on his left.

  Klyst turned and looked down the tunnel. Suddenly she clutched him tight. 'You'll die if you stay here,' she said.

  'That occurred to me already,' he said. 'But there's something I have to do first. Can you come with me?'

  He led her, crouching, down the low tunnel, in the direction of the scream. It was very hot; and once more the steam thickened around them. He could hear a waterfall, of all things, growing louder as they went. He tried to explain, in whispers, what Arunis was seeking, and why they had to stop him. Klyst listened, anger flashing in her enormous eyes. It was Arunis who had brought evil to her country to begin with.

  The tunnel curved. Suddenly a pale blue light glimmered ahead of them. Pazel put a finger to his lips, and set the torch carefully against the wall. They crept nearer. There was the waterfall: steaming, boiling, a lethal curtain of water capping the tunnel. And through it Pazel saw Arunis, distorted but unmistakable. Beside him lay a book that could only be the Polylex.

  The sorcerer was in a large cave. It was lit by the same blue flame as the main temple chamber, but here the burning oil ran in rivulets across the floor. Arunis had placed the book on a flat, table-like rock, some ten feet from the waterfall. It lay open. He was studying a page.

  As they watched, Arunis suddenly left the Polylex and ran to a spot across the cave, skipping over the little streams of fire. Pazel nearly gasped: there at the far side of the cave stood the glowing figure of a woman. She twisted and struggled, as though trying to free herself from invisible bonds. Arunis was circling her. He held a lump of charcoal, and was drawing an elaborate pattern of words and symbols on the floor.

  'A cage,' said Klyst, with hatred in her voice. 'He is drawing a cage for Dhola. A cage of twisted ripestry — what an ugly, ugly, thing!'

  'We're too late, aren't we?'

  'No,' said Klyst. 'But almost. He hasn't finished the drawing; she can still break free. And he has to draw carefully. One little mistake and the cage will break.'

  Arunis returned to the book, placed his finger on the open page. Then once more he left it on the rock, hurried back to the captured sibyl, and started to draw.

  Pazel struck the wall with a fist. 'Pitfire! It's right there!' He put out his hand, cautiously, until a fingertip just grazed the waterfall, then jerked it back with a silent curse. The water was scalding.

  'I'm going to have to find another entrance,' he said. 'The one he used. Somehow.'

  'Leave him,' said Klyst. 'Leave with me. I can make you like you were in the Nelu Peren, when we met.'

  Her voice was miserable with longing. Pazel took a deep breath, remembering what it felt like to breathe water, to hear her laughter echoing in the deeps. 'Listen, Klyst, I've never lied to you, do you hear? Not once.'

  'You couldn't. You don't know how.'

  'You only love me because your ripestry went wrong.'

  She stared at him, bewildered. 'What do you mean? Bad ripestry goes wrong. Good ripestry goes right.'

  'I'm not a murth!' he said desperately. 'And I don't know what to do about this.' He touched the shell, and she shivered as though he'd just caressed her.

  'You know,' she said. 'Cut it out, destroy it. Then I'll be gone.'

  'Is that what you want?'

  But Klyst just looked at him. That was one question she would never answer. In the cave beyond the waterfall Arunis was again bent over the book. Pazel saw him from the corner of his eye; he could not turn his gaze from the murth-girl. His heart was hammering; she was smiling again, and her eyes seemed to have grown. Damn you, are you weaving another spell?

  He forced himself to speak, forming each word with slow concentration. 'Arunis took a stone from the Red Wolf your people used to guard. An evil stone, made of the worst ripestry in the world. If he makes that sibyl tell him how to use it, he's going to become so powerful that no one will be able to stop him. He wants to kill all of us — Rin knows why — and when he's through with humans, you can bet he'll move on to murths.'

  Before he had finished Klyst had put her head on his shoulder and started to cry — soft little Hoo's, as if she had already known what he would say, and hoped unreasonably that she was mistaken. He tried to raise her head, but she looked away.

  'Go get your book,' she said.

  Arunis at that moment was rushing back to the sibyl. And Klyst, releasing Pazel, jumped into the scalding waterfall and disappeared.

  It was all Pazel could do not to scream. He lunged forward, reaching out with both hands as close as he dared. She was simply gone. And then a tingling of his palms told him that something had changed. The waterfall had cooled. The edges steamed hot as ever, but there was a band of tepid water directly ahead.

  He touched it. She was there, she was standing disembodied in the water. He seemed to hear her voice, shouting Go go it hurts me! And then he plunged through her, and emerged into the cave.

  Arunis' back was still turned; he was drawing feverishly. In three bounds Pazel crossed to the flat rock, leaping over the flames. He swept up the book and rushed back, dived again through the waterfall, and for a strange thrilling moment he felt Klyst's body surround him once more. Then he was back in the tunnel. The Polylex was sopping, ruined. He turned to look at the waterfall and spoke her name. But the water was scalding again, and the murth-girl was gone.

  Arunis had never lain eyes on him. But as Pazel emerged from the tunnel the sorcerer began to howl. The cries grew quickly fainter, however: Arunis was searc
hing in the wrong direction. Either he had overlooked the dark tunnel, or could not believe that anyone had passed through the waterfall alive.

  'Tell him nothing,' Oggosk had commanded. 'Nothing with your voice, nothing with your eyes or your movements or your hands. Do you understand me, girl? Any slip could bring disaster. Let me match wits with Arunis, this time: you'll have your own chance, maybe, after I'm gone. Right now you have nothing to say to him that's not best said with a sword.'

  Thasha had sensed the candour in Oggosk, the rare absence of ridicule. So she had held fast to the witch's order, despite the maddening vapours and the heat, and the hypnotic dance of the blue flames in the shattered floor. She was thinking of it still when the sorcerer burst in.

  Arunis lifted the mace above his head. 'Where is it, hag?' he raged. 'Which of these bastards took it? Speak!'

  Oggosk and Thasha stood flanking the doorway that led up to the temple exit. Beside them, looking rather feeble, stood Dr Chadfallow. He had crawled into the chamber minutes before, drenched and gasping. Peytr crouched a few yards away, silent and fearful.

  The old woman leaned heavily on her stick, frowning, studying the mage's face. Then she glanced at Thasha and nodded. Thasha drew her sword.

  Arunis descended the stone rings, snarling: 'Do you think I will hesitate to kill her, hag? Do you think me that afraid of Ramachni's spell?'

  Still Oggosk said nothing. Thasha's hands were slick on the hilt of her sword. She felt terror surge in her heart — and buried it, as Hercol had taught her to do, under focused observation. The length of the mage's stride. The set of his shoulders. The bulge at the hip beneath his coat, in all likelihood a dagger.

  'I knew before I landed that I would kill today,' said Arunis, still approaching.

  Chadfallow gave a throaty cry: 'Pazel!'

  Oggosk smacked him with her walking stick. Arunis laughed, but Thasha could tell that the laugh was forced. 'The book!' raged Arunis. 'Return it now!'

  The witch placed a hand on Thasha's elbow. Arunis began to climb towards them. A look of desperation filled his eyes.