The Rats and the Ruling sea tcv-2

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Thasha gasped. 'Him! That tramp who shouted at me in the garden? The one who knew about the Red Wolf?'

  Bolutu nodded. 'Machal, he was called: and Ott's arrow saved Arunis the trouble of killing him. Machal was one of the last. Arunis had sought us from the Crownless lands to East Arqual. One by one he sniffed us out: he had found a way to detect the spells our masters worked through us, you see. By the time we grasped this, just two of us from Bali Adro were left alive: myself and one human being. Only his ignorance protects us. He does not know who we are, or that any of our number survive.'

  'But he read your mind,' said Pazel. 'That day in the Straits of Simja — didn't he?'

  'That day,' said Bolutu with a shudder, 'Ramachni shielded me, to his own great pain. The sorcerer glimpsed only what was foremost in my thoughts. Be in no doubt: if he had learned all I know — learned of my masters, awaiting him — he would have fled this ship before we entered the Nelluroq. And if he learns of them now, he will risk anything, kill anyone, to stop us reaching the South. That is why my masters cannot act through me, and why I cannot even speak to them, or see their faces. They look through my eyes, but hide from his. They approach me only in dreams.'

  'What does Arunis expect to happen, when we reach the South?' Pazel asked. 'Does he know that the ones who sent him — the Ravens, you called 'em? — have been put in jail?'

  'I don't know,' said Bolutu. 'But whether he is aware of their downfall or not, he has long since abandoned the Ravens. He has his puppet-king, through whom he hopes to wield the Nilstone. More importantly, he has ambitions all his own. The Jackals dreamed only of dominion; Arunis dreams of something darker still. And from the South he wants only what Rose and Ott desire: provisions, a course heading for Gurishal, a swift and stealthy departure.' Bolutu gave them an unsettling smile. 'They will all get more than they bargained for.'

  'What happens when your masters take the Nilstone?' asked Pazel quietly.

  'It will not be for me to decide,' said Bolutu, 'but I imagine that the conspirators will all be jailed, and that you will be guests of Bali Adro for as long as you like, unless you wish to take the Chathrand home again, under another commander.'

  'But this is incredible,' said Neeps. 'Pazel, Thasha, do you hear the man? We're saved.'

  Not if you don't get out of that chamber, hissed Diadrelu.

  'We have but one task,' said Bolutu. 'To be sure Arunis finds no new, unforeseen way to use the Nilstone in the weeks ahead. Once we reach the south, my masters will take care of the rest. Trust me, friends: this journey began with treachery and loss, but it will end with redemption for us all.'

  Neeps was staring at Bolutu as though suddenly fascinated. Pazel turned to Thasha, forgetting the need to scorn her, wanting her help. 'I don't know what to say, Mr Bolutu,' he said. 'You've changed everything, and it's wonderful, unbelievable. But-'

  'I'm not sure this is how it's supposed to happen,' said Thasha.

  'I'm sure,' said Neeps suddenly. He took a mystified Bolutu by the shoulder and made him bend, then pointed to the back of his neck. There, faint but unmistakable against the black skin, was a scar in the shape of a wolf.

  34

  Alliances Redrawn

  9 Umbrin 941

  Pitch darkness. The candle had burned out; there was no time to light another. Neeps and Thasha had departed; in a moment Pazel and Bolutu were to follow.

  Hopes and fears spun madly together in Pazel's head; it was like warming one's hands over a fire while being pelted by sleet. Bolutu carried the wolf scar. They had found their seventh and final ally; and his masters, so he claimed, were stronger than all their foes put together. Certainly they were doing as the Red Wolf had intended: bringing the Nilstone back to those Erithusme had thought could guard it best. Surely it was all going as planned.

  So why did Pazel feel such dread? Was it all too good to be true? Or were the sleepless nights, the bad food, the reek of bilge and the foul, close air just catching up with him? He tried to force himself to concentrate; it might be days before he could speak to Bolutu again.

  'If you'd decided to tell us — the three of us, I mean — why did you wait so blary long? We could have started working together months ago.'

  'I did as my masters advised,' said Bolutu's voice in the darkness. 'There was no way to tell you just a little, and I feared to tell you a lot. Nor did I have any idea that the scar on the back of my neck was anything special. Dlomu have excellent vision, but we're no better than humans at seeing out of the backs of our heads. You say that Rose, of all people, bears this mark?'

  'On his forearm, yes,' said Pazel impatiently. 'Do you mean to say you weren't sure you could trust us?'

  'I doubted you'd be alive long enough to trust,' said Bolutu. 'More to the point, I didn't know how well you or Thasha or Neeps could hide what you knew from Arunis. What if I had told you all this before that day on the bowsprit, when he saw into your mind?'

  Pazel shuddered at the memory, knowing Bolutu had a point. He pressed on; there was so little time.

  'I don't know what you've heard about Bramian,' he said.

  'I heard that they asked you about a place called Stath Balfyr,' said Bolutu.

  At once the ixchel began to exclaim. Stath Balfyr! Who asked the boy about Stath Balfyr? Dri, they're discussing Sanctuary! Does Taliktrum know this?He'll go mad! What if he finds out thatQuiet! shouted Dri.

  'I also,' said Pazel, struggling for composure, 'talked to a horrible thing called an eguar. It told me something very strange: "I do not think that you should die before you see the wondrous South, the world my brethren made." Those were its exact words. Do you have any idea what they could mean?'

  Bolutu said nothing at first. Pazel supposed he was thinking over the creature's words, but when his voice came again it was clear that he was in shock. 'You spoke… to a what?'

  'An eguar. Do you know what that is?'

  'Keep your distance. You should have burned your clothes. An eguar. Gods of night, you'll have contaminated the ship!'

  'We did burn our clothes,' Pazel interrupted. 'On Bramian, Dr Chadfallow insisted. And he made us scrub in a river — wash our hair, clean under our nails. We nearly froze to death.'

  Bolutu gave a great sigh. 'That's all right, then. Yes, I know what an eguar is, though I have never seen one. They are ancient creatures, ancestors of dragons. The poisons in their breath and secretions are a thousand times more lethal than that of the deadliest snake, and the magic in their blood is akin to that raging fire in which the world was made. When the maukslar, the demon lords, reigned in Alifros, they kept eguar as palace watchdogs. Most have died out. Where they die a crater opens, as if the land itself were decaying with the corpse. Living eguar are terribly rare today. I did not know that any were to be found north of the Nelluroq.'

  'And "the world my brethren made"?'

  Another pause. 'I don't know,' said Bolutu at last. 'Perhaps it merely wished to frighten you.'

  'Well it succeeded,' said Pazel. 'All right, it's time to go.'

  'And still there is more I would say,' said Bolutu with regret. 'But I suppose it must wait.'

  'You suppose right,' said Pazel firmly. 'No more talking. Follow me.'

  They opened the door and stepped out of the vault, into a narrow passage formed by stacked crates. It was just as dark and stuffy here as in the vault itself, for this entire corner of the hold was cut off from the rest by a fluke arrangement of cargo and retaining walls. The crew called the area the Abandoned House, and it hadn't taken long to see why. Pazel crept along the rattling planks over the bilge well, feeling water slop against his toes, bracing himself with his hands. After a dozen steps his right hand found the ten-inch gap he was looking for, and he made Bolutu stop. Turning sideways, they slid into this crack and shuffled another ten yards. There was a second turn, and the passage widened, and then they were at the scuttle, that narrow emergency stair that was the only way in or out of the House.

  Goodbye, Pazel! Diadrelu's
voice came softly, from twenty or thirty feet to his left. I will visit you this evening, if I can. Right now I must go to Hercol, who needs me. You've done well, my dear boy. You've kept your head, and followed your heart.

  He had never heard such open affection in her voice, and wondered at it, and wished he could say something in reply. He waved a hand in the darkness, hoping she had not turned away.

  Up the steep stair they climbed, carefully skipping the top step, and emerging at last onto the mercy deck. The blackness was still almost perfect, but Pazel could hear distant thumps and mutterings from the decks above. We've stayed too blary long. He gave Bolutu a firm nudge to starboard. That way. A hand touched Pazel's shoulder, and then he was gone.

  Pazel walked in the opposite direction, as quickly as he dared. Like every deck, the mercy had a large central compartment, surrounded by cabins, passages and storage areas. But on the lower decks, where no cannon could be placed, these central compartments were smaller, and the surrounding chambers more extensive. Pazel's escape route wound through a maze of crates and pass-throughs and dividing walls. There would not be a single soul on duty at this hour; the trouble, if it came, would be from men who were not on duty but there for other reasons, such as buying or selling deathsmoke. Some said that addicts would kill anyone who stumbled across them, lest their names be reported to the captain.

  So easy to get lost. His fingers read the walls: old tar, bent nails, cool brass of a speaking-tube. Time and again he had to stop and feel the pitch of the ship. Several times he heard gasping exhalations in the dark: addicts tended to hold the smoke in their lungs as long as possible, wanting every last iota of pleasure from the drug that was killing them.

  Then at last he caught the faint mix of smells he had been sniffing for: woodsmoke, ham, salted fish. His fingers touched a door: the smells were stronger when he pressed his nose to the crack. Pazel sighed with relief: it was the smoke cellar, where meat was cured and kept for lean times far from land. That meant the ladderway was just ahead. He could scurry up them to the orlop, slip across to the Silver Stair, and race straight to the upper decks. No one would see him, and if they did he could just say he was making for the heads, which come to think of it, wasn't a bad idea'Stop right there,' someone whispered.

  Pazel froze. He gave a silent but very passionate curse. The voice was Jervik's.

  The big tarboy stood right in front of him. Pazel could hear his breath, though he could still see only a slight perturbation in the darkness where he stood, arms spread wide across the passage.

  'Don't you blary move,' said Jervik. 'I'll make a scene, I will. I know where you've been, and what you've all been doing. Your mates have been bumping around here for twenty minutes. I watched 'em all go by.'

  We're dead, Pazel thought. But his new training did not fail him: before Jervik could move Pazel had sprung back two steps, and his hand, almost of its own accord, had drawn his father's knife. The knife Jervik had stolen once, and threatened to use on Pazel himself.

  'What are you waiting for Jervik?' said Pazel acidly. 'Run off and tell Arunis. Get yourself another gold bead. Maybe two, if Rose actually executes one of us.'

  He crouched, waiting for the attack. To his great surprise Jervik neither moved nor spoke. It occurred to Pazel that the big tarboy must actually have heard very little: they would all have known better than to talk, while still so deep in the ship. Jervik was sneaking and spying, that much was obvious. But he'd hardly be standing here, confronting Pazel in pitch blackness, if he knew what had happened in the liquor vault.

  With the thought, a great rage boiled up in Pazel's chest. Always Jervik. Every time things started to go right.

  'You're fishing for clues, aren't you?' Pazel said, barely able to keep his voice down. 'You didn't hear us at all, and now you're hoping I'll cough up something Arunis will pay you for. No matter what he can do with that something. No matter what he's trying to do to us all. The world can burn on a stake, can't it, Jervik? You'll still have your gold.'

  'Muketch-'

  'My name is Pazel, you useless sack of slag. Pitfire, I'm sick of you. Go on, get out of here. You want to make a scene, is that it? Right here?'

  'Put your muckin' knife away. I want to switch.'

  'I'll put it away in your god's-damned — what?'

  'Switch,' whispered Jervik, his voice barely audible. 'I want to switch sides, is what. Rin slay me if I'm lyin' to you.'

  Pazel had to steady himself against the wall. 'Jervik,' he said, 'are you ill?'

  Jervik was silent, and when he found his voice again it was as tight as a backstay.

  'Arunis was goin' to let me hang. He told me to watch you there on the bowsprit, but he never said you was stiff as a corpse. He wanted me to take the blame when you fell into the sea. He's unnatural bad.'

  'You're just figuring this out?'

  Jervik leaned closer; Pazel felt his hot sapwort breath on his face. 'He tries to get inside my head,' he whispered. 'To reach inside and take the wheel, you understand?'

  'Maybe, yeah,' said Pazel, retreating a step.

  'I won't let the son of a whore. He can't make me. But it hurts, Pathkendle. He pick-picks, pick-picks. Day and night. Sleepin', wakin', eatin'. I don't let no one use me that way. He's a beast from the Pits and I wish him death.'

  Jervik was halfway to tears. Pazel wished he could see the older tarboy's face, although he feared what he would see there was madness. But mad or not, Jervik had never come closer to sounding sincere.

  'I've been a pig,' said the older boy, wringing the words out of himself. 'A stump-stupid pig. I been tearing you down for years. Woulda knifed you back on the Eniel, with your daddy's own knife. No Arquali on that boat had such a fine knife, my own was rusty trash. You didn't even know how to use that knife. You shouldn't have owned it, nor been such a cleverskins. Arqualis own things, Ormalis get owned. You shoulda been a slave, not educated, not booklearned and special. I was boss of that ship until Chadfallow put you aboard.'

  'I know that,' said Pazel.

  'Couldn't get you to blary respect it,' said Jervik with a sour laugh. 'You fought like a wee girly, but you always fought. I hated you. Rin's liver, I hated you so. It got to where I thought I'd kill you, in some dark place like this, the way a coward would do it, and — you're better, Pathkendle, better than me.'

  'Jervik,' said Pazel, 'I'm not special. Things just keep happening to me. Ever since I was small. It's not me, mate. It's just — what happens.'

  Jervik pulled himself up straight. 'I don't know what the blary hell you're talking about.'

  'Well, look,' said Pazel, 'I — Pitfire, Jervik, what do you want to do now?'

  'Told you already,' said Jervik. 'Switch sides.'

  'Right,' said Pazel, thinking in a desperate rush, glad the dark was hiding his panic. There was no question whatsoever of trusting Jervik with their secrets. But he had to say something, and fast.

  'Right, Jervik, here's the thing. We have this — circle, that's true. But there's so few of us, and if they catch us talking, they'll just stab us dead, or lock us in the brig and torture us until we snap.'

  'That's plain as piss,' said Jervik.

  'Exactly,' Pazel agreed, 'so you can bet nobody wants to get caught. That's why we made this little rule, Jervik. We have to all come together and talk it through, you see, before we bring anybody else into the circle. One mistake and we're dead, after all. You understand?'

  'Yeah,' said Jervik, his voice abruptly subdued, 'I'm hearing you, loud and clear.'

  He'd blown it. He'd said the wrong words, talked down to him a little too much. Jervik had risked everything to trust his old enemy. He'd never be able to stomach the humiliation of not being trusted in turn. Pazel braced himself. Jervik always fell silent like this, before he went off like a bomb.

  Then Pazel started. Jervik was poking him in the chest. 'Tell me when,' he demanded.

  'W-when?' Pazel echoed.

  'When I can help. What needs doing, who you want
out of your way. That's all I need to know, see? Just what you want done — you or Undrabust, or the Isiq girl. Now tell me if you understand.'

  Pazel was utterly stunned. 'Yes,' he said after a moment, 'yes, I do.'

  'All right then.' The shadow that was Jervik straightened and turned away. Pazel listened to his footfalls. Then, on an impulse, he hissed: 'Jervik! Wait!' and rushed up to him again.

  'Well?' said Jervik.

  'Listen, please,' said Pazel. 'If we're going to stand a chance, there's something I have to ask you. It's important, so don't take it the wrong way. Arunis chose to come after you — why you, and not somebody else? Do you have any idea?'

  Jervik nodded at once. 'That's an easy one. But I won't tell you, 'cept you swear on your mum's heart not to repeat it to nobody.'

  'I swear it, Jervik. I swear on her heart.'

  Jervik paused, then made a sort of grunt of acceptance. 'It's like this. Arunis thought I weren't afraid.'

  'Of him?'

  'Of nothin'. And it's true, I ain't afraid of that much. Spells and sorcerers, aye — those spook me, and the Vortex would scare any man who ain't plum crazy. But that's just it. He hoped I was crazy-brave, inhuman like. Maybe-' Jervik hesitated, his voice suddenly strained. '-because of how I act. Fightin', talkin' proud. But soon enough he found out I weren't crazy, and he stopped payin' me so much attention. I been wondering why that is. Do you know?'

  'No, I don't,' said Pazel, 'But… maybe he can only have his way with crazy folks. Maybe he can't get inside your head unless it's already a little cracked.'

  Jervik said nothing. Suddenly he gave a violent shudder, as if shaking off some cold and clammy touch. Then he laughed under his breath. 'You're smart, Muketch. Smart enough to beat these bastards. I knew it when I followed Dastu down here, and when I waited in the dark. I knew this one blary time I was choosin' right.'