'What rubbish!' said Thasha when he had finished.
But Neeps looked worried. 'Maybe it's not,' he said. 'Rose is just crooked enough. And the tribals on Bramian wouldn't get much out of killing you, would they? Not as if you're a threat, once they've whisked you off into those jungles. More likely they'd make you a slave or a servant. That way if you turned out to be the spell-keeper the Shaggat would still be in the clear.'
'Think about it,' said Pazel. 'How else could Rose get you off the ship, keep you from dying, and prevent you from warning the outside world?'
'Thasha,' said Neeps, 'just keep to the stateroom for a while. Until we're away from Bramian.'
She looked from one to the other, exasperated. 'What's got into you two? Hide? Is that all we're going to do, until Rose decides to starve us out, or Ott starts cutting off our fingers? We need to fight back. We need to get back to the list.'
'The list?' said Neeps.
'The list of allies, you donkey — potential allies, I mean. And we need to do it soon. We can't beat them without more people on our side.'
'You're right about that,' said Neeps. 'But we'll have to be so damned careful.' He leaned closer, whispering, 'I have no idea why Rose has been so easy on us, but one thing's for sure: he won't go easy on mutineers.'
Pazel sighed. 'All right, genius. You come up with a plan.'
'We start with one person each,' said Thasha instantly, as though she'd only been waiting for someone to ask. 'Just one. Surely we can each find one person to trust on this ship? If Hercol and Marila do the same thing, we'll have ten people on our side.'
Neeps looked at her eagerly. 'And once we've all met, and decided the best way to fight these cretins-'
'We go out and find ten more,' Thasha finished. 'And if we can just keep doing that, we'll have half the crew on our side before we know it. Of course the trick will be to find them before anyone else knows it.'
Neeps was shaking his head in wonder. 'Thasha, you're as clever as my old Granny Undrabust! You really do have a head for — what's the word?'
'Tactics,' said Pazel.
'Tactics, that's it. All right then: we've got our plan, don't we?'
Pazel didn't answer. The others looked at him in surprise. At last he said, 'How can you possibly think this will work? If we guess wrong about just one person, we're dead as slag. Everything hinges on trust.'
Neeps and Thasha exchanged a glance. 'Trust, yeah,' said Neeps. 'Well, that's something we have, and they don't.'
Pazel shrugged. Once again Thasha was seeing it, that sudden darkening of his spirits, that drawing away. It was agony for her to watch, and she fought back an impulse to reach for him, right in front of Neeps. You're afraid of feeling something. Why?
Then, to her amazement, Pazel clutched her arm — tightly, a warning. He pointed up at the main yard, the giant horizontal timber that secured the Chathrand 's largest sail. The yard was still bathed in orange sunlight, although the deck beneath it lay dark. And at the end of the yard sat a bird of prey.
It was a falcon, small and exquisite, black above, cream-yellow below. It was examining them with one bright eye.
Almost as soon as Thasha saw it the bird was in flight, dropping casually from the main yard to vanish below the rail. The three youths raced across the deck. But here at its midsection the ship was over two hundred feet wide, and by the time they reached the rail and leaned out over the sea the bird was gone.
'Damnation!'
'It had to be-'
'Of course it was!'
They dropped back onto the deck, once again earning stares from the crew. Pazel groaned aloud. 'That's all we need! Pitfire, why did Ramachni have to let him go?'
But Thasha felt oddly tense, as if tremors had suddenly shaken the boards at her feet. 'He's circling,' she said.
'What?' said Neeps. "How can you know that? What's wrong with you?'
Thasha turned in place, her gaze flung wide, as if trying to catch up with something in a hurtling orbit around the ship. 'I don't know how I know,' she said, 'but he's above the deck again, teasing us — he's slowing — there!'
A blur of wings, a shrill cry, and there it was, landing neatly on a brace-line seven feet above their heads. Men shouted, pointing: a few of them remembered the falcon. None better than Thasha, however, who had watched the bird for years — loved it, she imagined, though it never paused in its flight — from the gardens of the Lorg Academy.
'Welcome back, Niriviel,' she said.
'You should not welcome me,' said the falcon, in that fierce, high voice she recalled so well: the voice that somehow belonged to both a predator and a homeless child. 'I bring you no good tidings, Thasha Death-Cheater. No comfort to the betrayers of Arqual.'
Thasha shook her head. 'We haven't betrayed anyone, Niriviel. We tried to explain that to you in Simja.'
'After you stabbed my master in the leg. Do you deny this?'
Thasha winced. 'I — no, Niriviel, I don't.'
'Oh come off it, Thasha,' said Pazel. 'It was only a dinner fork.'
Niriviel's wings were aflutter. 'You raised your hand against Sandor Ott, first defender of His Supremacy! If you are not a traitor then the word means nothing at all!'
'Fine,' said Thasha, in what she hoped was a soothing voice. 'You can call me what you like. But even if we're on different sides, I want you to know something. I'm happy to see you again.'
The bird gave an agitated hop.
'It's strange,' said Thasha, 'but I feel you're part of my life, and always will be. I can't watch you fly and not feel, I don't know — joy, I suppose.'
'Twaddle,' said the falcon.
Neeps had had enough. 'What do you want, bird?' he demanded.
Thasha motioned desperately for silence. 'I'm not lying to you,' she told the falcon. 'But why have you come back to us, anyway?'
The bird paused. His head cocked, dipped, darted. Then Thasha had a terrible thought. 'Oh, Niriviel. You didn't… lose him, did you? Sandor Ott, I mean?'
Niriviel peered at her with great intensity. Thasha arched her neck back.
'You can tell me,' she said. 'I know he was like your father. Is that why you're back? Because you have nowhere left to go?'
'What nonsense!' cried the falcon suddenly. 'And what a fool you take me for! It is not I who has lost someone. Where is your own father, girl?'
'He stayed behind. In Simja.'
'And beyond that you cannot say. Beyond that you dare not imagine.'
'What do you mean?' cried Thasha. 'Do you know something about my father? Tell me!'
'Nothing for traitors.'
Pazel tried to take her arm, but Thasha shook him off. 'I'm no traitor, you stupid bigoted bird! I'm an Arquali, do you hear? What else could I be?'
'An orphan?' said Niriviel.
Thasha was almost sobbing. 'Tell me! Tell me what you know!'
But Niriviel only cried aloud — a mocking cry, perhaps — and leaped once more into flight. Seconds later he had vanished westwards, towards the black wall of Bramian.
20
A Sleepless Night
17 Freala 941
Mr Coote had guessed correctly: within the hour the Chathrand was among the Black Shoulder Isles. They were dark and stone-shored and choked with greenery, miniature copies of their great mother to the west. Plenty of sea-room, thought Mr Elkstem: two or three leagues between one Black Shoulder and the next, and Bramian itself no closer than five. Still he took no chances.
'Topgallants and courses down, Mr Frix, if you please. We'll stand in on fore and spanker topsails, double-reefed.'
In the moonlight the watch furled sail after sail, and the bow wave sank to nothing. When the log was cast they were all but stationary, rocking forwards at a quarter knot. Shore birds, night jars and kestrels, spun hopefully above the deck, their shrill cries blending with the distant, mortal booming of the Bramian surf.
The three youths were still on the topdeck. Thasha had led the boys on a meandering march, port to starboard, bow to q
uarterdeck and back. She had barely spoken since Niriviel's departure, but she was glad of their company, and they seemed to understand her silence. The falcon's insinuations about Eberzam Isiq might have been pure spite, but Thasha could scarcely breathe for fear that something real lay behind them.
Eventually their random tour of the topdeck ceased to distract her, and began to make her think of animals in cages. She chose a quiet spot near the No. 3 hatch, folded her legs and sat.
'I don't want dinner tonight,' she said. 'You two had better go ahead.'
She leaned back against a coiled hawser. The boys looked at each other, and she imagined stomachs and solidarity at war. Then Neeps sat down on her left and Pazel, after a bit of awkward foot-shuffling, did the same on her right. She tried to catch his eye, but he avoided it, staring up at the gently billowing mainsail. Sailors of the third watch moved around them, chattering, while off to portside someone attempted (perhaps for the first time in his life, for the sound was painful) to tune a fiddle.
She sat between them, watching them fidget, wondering which of them would break the silence first, and with what kind, doltish attempt to ease her fears. Just when she had decided it could only be Pazel, Neeps began to talk.
'They ought to send us ashore to gather eggs,' he said. 'On the Black Shoulders, I mean. There was a Sollochi fisherman wrecked on one of 'em fifty years ago. He lived for three whole years on seabird eggs. For nine months he ate 'em raw; then he found a big clamshell and boiled his eggs inside it, but after three more months it cracked on the fire. Then the volcano came to life and there were steam vents everywhere, and he found he could cook his eggs by putting 'em in an old piece of fish-net, tying the net to a pole, and dangling it over one of the vents. And when the steam stopped coming he climbed to the lip of the volcano and fried the eggs on hot rocks, but he ended up burning his tongue so badly he couldn't taste 'em any more. But they rescued him soon after, and he lived a good long life back on Sollochstol. I guess there's a lesson in that, isn't there?'
'Sure,' said Pazel. 'Don't be a blary ass and lick hot rocks.'
Neeps leaned over and gave him a good-natured whack on the head. 'You're the ass, remember? I hate to think what you'd have done on that island. Turned your back on the volcano, for starters.'
Thasha smiled despite herself. Neeps had knocked her against Pazel's side, and she had not quite straightened up again. She did want some kind of comfort. Not an arm around her, not a voice telling her that all would be well. She'd been given those sorts of comforts her whole life, and they had usually failed. What she wanted was Pazel's hand locked in her own, fingers laced tight: a promise that he at least would not disappear. She wanted his touch, his attention, his eyes, the startled brightness of them before they'd kissed in the washroom. This is first love, she thought, slightly revolted by the banality. I love him. How absurd.
All the same she was glad of the dark. Neeps was saying something about Bramian, about Leopard People and shaggy rhinoceroses and other, stranger things said to dwell in its forests. The fiddle player attempted a song, gave up, tried again in a higher key. Thasha moved her shoulder against Pazel's arm and felt him draw a startled breath. He was shivering a little, although the night was warm. Thasha felt her own breath quicken. And then he hugged his knees to his chest and edged away.
She was angry, aroused, confused. Yes, she thought, looking at the side of his face, you would turn your back on a volcano.
For a few minutes no one spoke. Mr Thyne and Latzlo the animal-seller sauntered by, debating the long-term value of crocodile skins. Latzlo at first appeared to have an enormous growth on one shoulder, but as they drew nearer she saw that it was only his pet sloth, the one beast in his collection that the merchant treated with warmth. Thyne nodded to them uneasily, but the animal dealer frowned, and cleared his throat as if preparing to spit.
'Same to you, dung beetle,' muttered Neeps.
Thasha gave the others an awkward look. 'So,' she said, 'I guess it's time we went over that list.'
'Right,' said Pazel glumly.
Neeps glanced inquiringly at Pazel, as though to ask why his mood was so black. The fiddle fell silent once more. Then suddenly it burst into song: a wild, bereft, racing melody, a song of flight or exile, and longing for someone or something lost beyond all hope of recovery. The three youths got to their feet to see what was happening.
The musician was none other than Dollywilliams Druffle. The wiry smuggler had taken the fiddle away from its hapless owner, a wan-faced young man who stood gaping at him, holding the empty fiddle-case. Druffle sawed like a man on fire, his spine twisted and his head sharply cocked, as if he were not playing the fiddle but impaled on it — an impression magnified by his grimace of concentration. Every sailor who could legitimately leave his station (and some who could not) pressed towards him, and a rhythmic clapping began. When fifty men or more had gathered Druffle suddenly broke off playing and sang:
Hey! Out upon the Nelluroq they took my Nell
To the tower-tall waves and the typhoons fell
Oh get along ye dark mare and bear me straight
To the bottom of the Pits or to the ivory gate
To the shades that gibber by the ghostly wall
To the river-maids that whisper from the waterfall
Oh get along ye dark mare and don't ye rest
'Till I'm once-a-more asleep upon my lady's breast!
Hey!
With the final 'Hey! ' Druffle applied himself to the fiddle anew, and the song became even faster and madder. The tune was infectious; men who had laboured at the ropes for hours were capering like children, dancing and whirling, arm in arm. Mr Frix appeared from nowhere, and added to the bedlam with a goatskin drum. The deck reverberated with the sound of stomping feet.
'I like Druffle a lot more with a fiddle in his hand than a cutlass,' said Neeps.
Thasha laughed aloud. 'He's brilliant!'
Pazel looked up at the quarterdeck. 'Uskins will put a stop to this any minute.'
Thasha turned him a look almost of loathing. But before she could find words to flay him for his dullness a voice called her name.
Dastu was on the edge of the crowd, beckoning to her. Thasha hesitated for only an instant. Then she tied back her hair and ran to him, without another glance at her friends.
The two boys watched her impressive leaps and whirls, hand in hand with a delighted Dastu. 'Hercol really did teach her more than fighting, didn't he?'
'I don't think he's that sort of dance instructor,' said Pazel. 'Dastu's trying to dance a Gold Hills ramble, but she keeps messing him up.'
'She's messing with the lot of 'em, if you ask me,' laughed Neeps.
Pazel gave him a surly look. He knew what Neeps meant: Dastu glowed with the pleasure of being close to Thasha Isiq, of having cause to touch her hand and her back. Envy shone in the eyes of the other men, combined with sheer adoration for Thasha. She was a girl (most exotic of creatures to men trapped on a ship), and a lovely one at that, and noble-born as she was, she was dancing with them. Leef the main-top-man cut in on Dastu, and moments later Coote swept her away from Leef. From man to man she went, her hair shaken loose of its hasty knot and her face flushed with joy. The crowd stomped and roared.
'Don't you want to dance?' said Neeps.
Pazel looked startled. 'With her?'
'No, you dolt, with Lady Oggosk. Hurry up, before Druffle collapses.'
Pazel shook his head. 'Why don't you dance with her yourself?'
'Because I'm not the one who's turning pea-green with jealousy.'
At that Pazel guffawed. 'You've lost your mind. Someone just tried to drown me, remember? People want us dead, and there's a statue on the orlop with the most deadly damned thing in Alifros in its hand. What makes you think I'd give birdsquat for this dancing rubbish?'
Closing his eyes, Neeps lifted his nose and sniffed. 'Mmm, smell that? Fresh from the oven. A big, buttery Ormael plum duff of a lie.'
Pazel jumped on h
im, not sure if he was furious or amused, but Neeps just laughed and said, 'Don't hit me! Have a look at Thasha now.'
The crowd had fallen back to give her room, for Thasha was at last dancing in perfect unison with a partner: Greysan Fulbreech. He wore the white shirt and close-fitting pants of his new office of surgeon's assistant: clothes so clean they might have just come from the tailor. Fulbreech danced even better than Druffle played. He took Thasha expertly by the waist and guided her through the left-back-double-right-spin of the ramble so swiftly that she never had time to make a contrary step. When they came together at the end of each cycle their faces were inches apart.
Pazel had seen enough. Without a word to Neeps he turned and marched away aft. He had a vague idea of storming into Lady Oggosk's cabin and telling her what she could do with her threats. Of course part of him realised that he could do no such thing — but how long could he keep up this charade? How long before Thasha asked him a question he couldn't lie about?
As he passed under the mizzenmast shrouds Neeps caught up with him, breathless from running.
'You're a first-class rotter,' he said. 'She's gone off somewhere with Fulbreech, and it's your fault.'
'How do you figure that?' Pazel asked without slowing his pace.
'Don't play simple,' said Neeps. 'Thasha's moody and headstrong, but you don't have to act like she's got some sort of plague. Can't you be blary decent? Nobody's asking you to marry her.'
Pazel gave a spiteful laugh. 'That's a damned good thing. She's not exactly good luck where marriage is concerned.'
Neeps leaped in front of him, stopping him dead. The smaller boy's patience was clearly exhausted. 'Are we mates, or not?' he demanded. 'When are you going to tell me what's the matter with you?'
Pazel averted his eyes, afraid of giving himself away. Oggosk had not forbidden him to talk to Neeps, but he would never forget how his friend had raged at the old witch, or her casual threat to murder him. He shuddered to think what Neeps would do if he learned what Oggosk had said after he stormed out.
But there was another reason he was keeping away from Thasha — one he could tell Neeps about, if only he could find the words to explain it.
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