The Rats and the Ruling sea tcv-2

by Robert V. S. Redick

  They stood, holding each other's gaze for the first time in weeks. And Pazel knew it was over. The farce, the poor acting job he'd tried to make her believe in for the sake of the ixchel. He would hide what he could from Lady Oggosk, but there was no point in lying to Thasha any more. Not when she could see right through his skin.

  'All right,' he whispered. 'You've got to listen to me carefully. Will you do that?'

  Before Thasha could answer a noise erupted from the brig. It was an animal's screech, blood-curdling, over the shouting voices of the men. Hercol was urging someone to be careful; Magritte wanted something killed; the guard was swearing; Chadfallow was crying, 'I'll get him, stand back!'

  'He's killing Felthrup!' cried Pazel. He tried the door, but the guard had locked it behind him. 'Kill it!' Magritte was shouting. 'Stick it with your spear!' Thasha tried to draw Pazel away, but he ignored her, pounding the door and shouting, 'Ignus! Stop it! Leave him alone!'

  Felthrup's cries ceased as suddenly as they had begun.

  The door opened at last, and there stood the outraged guard — and Chadfallow, wiping blood from his hands.

  'You mucking bastard!' cried Pazel, leaping at him. This time, however, Thasha caught him tightly around the chest. Chadfallow looked at him sadly. Then Pazel saw the hypodermic needle clutched in his hand.

  'Felthrup was dying of thirst,' he said, as Pazel relaxed in Thasha's arms. 'He was too far gone to absorb water by drinking alone. I injected him with saline — clean water, just slightly salty, as it is in the body.'

  'He bit you,' said Thasha.

  'You're all blary cracked!' said the guard. 'And this doctor's a liar! He didn't want to give the Tholjassan no pills! And the Tholjassan himself's the maddest of the lot. Says that drooling rat in there's his pet — his pet! Out of here, all of you! The captain's goin' to hear about this!'

  'Where's Felthrup?' asked Thasha.

  Chadfallow examined his bites. 'I could not… persuade him to leave,' he said.

  'You'll be comin' down with whatever that rat has, now,' groaned the Turach.

  'Very possibly,' said Chadfallow.

  'Ignus,' said Pazel. 'I'm sorry.'

  Chadfallow smiled dryly. 'Long time since anyone called me a bastard.'

  'Yer a bastard,' said the Turach. 'Now get away from my post.'

  Through all this the Chathrand was making fair speed to the south. The morning clouds had vanished, so there were no telltale disturbances to help them locate the Vortex. But there were other signs. The waves, uniform these many days, had lost their shapeliness, and were a bit collapsed on their eastern side. And the east wind, when it came, was strikingly cold, as if it had blown over some expanse of frigid water, churned up from the depths.

  In mid-afternoon, one such cold gust reached in through the porthole of the chart room. Elkstem felt it, snapped his drafting pencil in two, and stormed out to the quarterdeck. 'Let go the wheel!' he said. 'Just let it go, boys, that's right.'

  The baffled sailors looked at one another and obeyed. The wheel spun like a giant fishing reel, the bow of the Chathrand swung quickly to windward, and Elkstem shook his head in dismay. 'Catch her, catch her, gents!' he cried, then snapped his fingers for a midshipman. To the thin-lipped Sorrophrani who answered the summons, he dictated: 'A memo to the captain: my compliments, and be aware that the bow's leeward drift is approximately ten degrees. I can comfortably assume therefore that we are in the outer spiral of the Vortex, and that without intervention, our course will decay. Your servant, etc. Put the message in Rose's hand, lad, wherever he may be.'

  About this time, Pazel, Thasha, Neeps and Marila found themselves together in the stateroom for the first time in days. Syrarys' dressing-table had been screwed down in place of the one destroyed. It was small, but then so were their meals, lately. Thasha had opened one of their few remaining delicacies: a jar of tiny octopuses, pickled in brine. Her father had always kept several jars of the rubbery pink creatures in the pantry at home, and Nama had seen that a dozen were laid away before they sailed from Etherhorde. Thasha had grown up hating them. But after months of galley food she ate octopuses with a will, as did the other three: spearing them with their knives, slicing off the beaks, chewing them whole. They tasted of home, and were gone in five minutes flat.

  The four friends sat gazing at the empty jar. They had changed roles since yesterday, Pazel thought. He had his bare foot atop Thasha's own, enjoying the dusty warmth of it, the trust. Somewhere deep inside him a voice still protested: take it away, take it away. Was it fear of what Oggosk would do to the ixchel, or Klyst's jealousy? Whatever it was, he felt powerless to obey. He simply could not be cruel to Thasha any longer. And then, he thought, as her dry, calloused toes slid restlessly against his own, there's this.

  Neeps and Marila, on the other hand, were barely speaking. Marila had not forgiven Neeps for pushing her to bring 'that loudmouthed, slave-trading drunk' to the council. Neeps had objected that Druffle wasn't really a slave trader, that he had only dealt in bonded servants, but his hair-splitting just made her angrier.

  'Tell me what the difference is, when you get deeper in debt each time your master gives you a rag to wear, or some little piece of garbage to eat.'

  Marila's anger was something to behold: icy, soft-spoken, hard as nails. She had talked Neeps into corners three times in the last two hours. They were perfect together, Pazel thought.

  'Anyway,' Neeps was saying, 'I don't think Druffle specialised in buying and selling human beings. Arunis sent him to the Flikkermen, under his spell.'

  'Which is another reason to stay away from him,' said Marila. 'For all we know he's still in Arunis' power.'

  Pazel shook his head. 'Ramachni set him free. We know that.'

  'But what if there's some part of him that's been weakened?' said Marila. 'What did Jervik tell you? "He pick-pick-picks at me." What if Arunis picked a hole in Druffle's mind, and can read it now?'

  'She's right, Pazel,' said Thasha quietly. 'Arunis managed to read your mind, and control you. Or at least put ideas in your head, and make you freeze.'

  'But it cost him,' said Neeps. 'I'll bet he put a lot of eggs in that basket, trying to get rid of Pazel and his two Master-Words. And he couldn't read Pazel's mind, actually — not until Pazel touched him. Druffle won't make that mistake.'

  'Druffle would make any mistake,' said Marila. 'He's an idiot. Toads and ice.'

  'Stop!' Pazel pleaded, raising his hands. 'It's done, and we can't undo it, and we can't waste any more time wishing we could. Think about what Hercol said, for Rin's sake. We stand together or we die.'

  Neeps and Marila glared at one another across the table. Thasha gave Pazel a private smile.

  'I still want to know something,' said Marila abruptly. 'Why isn't Arunis dead? Chadfallow says he was hanged for nine days on Licherog, chopped up and tossed into the sea. That sounds blary dead. So what happened? What's he doing here at all?'

  Even Pazel found himself glancing in Thasha's direction. 'I know what you want,' she said at once. 'But I told you, I can't touch the Polylex. I'm sorry. Felthrup was helping me for a while; he'd turn the pages, and read aloud. That made it bearable — just. Since then I've been trying to read it on my own, but it's too awful that way. I go too fast, I learn… too many things.'

  'Like what?' said Neeps. 'Can you tell us something, just so we understand?'

  Thasha put her elbows on the table, looking down at her plate of snipped-off octopus beaks. She sighed.

  'There was a barge anchored on the Ool, in Etherhorde. The spy who ran the Secret Fist before Sandor Ott had it put there to terrify the Nunekkam. It had an eight-foot wooden wall instead of a rail, and shackles all over the deck. If they didn't cooperate with his spies — tell them all about their clients, hand over their business records — he'd take their families and roll them in salt and chain them there, for days. They have soft skin, the Nunekkam, they blister in the sun, birds would come and-'

  'All right!' said Neeps ha
stily. 'Sorry I asked.'

  Thasha shuddered. 'It isn't even those stories, exactly. It's that I feel like I'm remembering them. As if I used to know these things, and a few lines bring it all back. It's like going into your house after it's been sealed up for years, and tugging off the dustcloths, and finding the furniture all covered in blood.'

  'Just stay away from the Polylex, then,' said Pazel. 'Felthrup thought you should, too.'

  'Ramachni said she had to read it,' said Marila.

  'Maybe Ramachni was wrong.'

  Marila gave Pazel a sceptical glance, as if she knew very well what was behind his argument. Neeps drew patterns in the brine on his plate.

  Suddenly Thasha rose to her feet. Without a word she seized Pazel's hand, making him rise too, and led him into her cabin. She marched around the bed, wrenched savagely at the latch on the porthole and flung open the glass.

  The sudden wind slammed shut her cabin door. Pazel rounded the bed, studying her, more worried than he liked to admit. Thasha bent to the porthole, gulping the cold breeze, and the evening sun lit her face. There were dark rings under her eyes, and the golden flag of her hair had lost much of its shine. The blane, he thought: wasn't that where it started? Had she ever fully recovered from that taste of death?

  He put his hands on her shoulders, and they lifted eagerly against his palms. Thasha sighed and let her head fall forwards. Pazel squeezed, then gave a nervous laugh. 'You're so blary strong,' he said.

  'Syrarys used to beg me to be lazy,' murmured Thasha. 'She said with my shoulders no man would-Ouch! No, don't stop, that was a good ouch. Don't stop ever.'

  He did not stop, but to his great vexation he could think of nothing to say. Thasha swayed under his hands. In the stateroom Marila and Neeps resumed their argument.

  Talk to her. Tell her something clever and calm. Or just kiss her. Do something, fool, before you lose the chance!

  He raised a hand to her cheek. At once the spark of pain flared up in his chest, but he didn't care. He leaned nearer, until he could see that her eyes were closed. Her breath came in little puffs against his fingertips.

  'What are you thinking about?' he said.

  'Greysan.'

  He could not have pulled away faster if she had tried to give him a rattlesnake. What was he doing here? What kind of mucking game was this for her? But as he turned to go Thasha caught his arm.

  'You don't understand,' she said.

  'I don't think I want to.'

  He tugged his arm free and lurched for the door. To his back, Thasha said, 'I was thinking that if you and Neeps really don't trust him, then I can't either. And I won't.'

  Pazel glanced back over his shoulder. 'It didn't stop you before,' he said.

  'Stop me?' said Thasha, reddening.

  He shrugged. 'From, well-'

  'You're a prize pig, you know that?' said Thasha. 'Tell me this: why haven't you cut that shell out of your chest?'

  Pazel said nothing. He had been dreading the question for months.

  'Well?' she demanded. 'Isn't that how you're supposed to tell Klyst she's wasting her time?'

  Still Pazel was silent. 'I just can't,' he said at last. 'I don't know why. It isn't that I mind the blood, you know.'

  In the stateroom perfect silence had resumed. Thasha gazed at him like one contemplating murder. All at once she appeared to reach a decision. She pointed imperiously at the chair at her desk. 'Sit down,' she said.

  Pazel obeyed, and Thasha went to the secret wall cabinet and took out the Polylex. She set it down quickly before him, as though even that brief touch was something she'd rather avoid.

  'We're going to find an answer to Marila's question,' she said. 'Or rather you are. One hint, though: don't look up an obvious word like "Arunis" or "Nilstone." Remember that the authors were trying to sneak in information, so that the Emperor would let it be published. You have to use your intuition if you want to find anything.'

  Pazel took a deep breath. 'I'll try Licherog.'

  Thasha dropped back on her bed. 'That'll do. It's probably too easy, but maybe it will lead us somewhere.'

  Pazel opened the book, astonished by the thinness of the dragonfly-wing paper. The print was small and ornate, the entries infinite and strange. Lamb's blood. Lycanthropy. Lorg Academy (Origins). Lead Tomb. Lich of Greymorrow.

  And finally, Licherog, Prison Isle of.

  The entry ran to nine pages, and was full of horrifying detail, such as the recurrent problem of cannibalism when food shipments were delayed, and the prison guards who were held hostage for sixteen years when a rebellion broke out on an underground floor. There was quite a lot about the Shaggat Ness, his sons, and the palace vacated for him by the Warden of Licherog. Of Arunis, however, there was only a brief mention: how he was held for twenty years with his master, tried to escape, was wounded by a guard's arrow, recaptured, and hanged.

  'It says he cursed the guard before he died, and the poor man had a breakdown, quit the army, moved back in with his mother on Opalt, and slowly went mad.' Pazel shook his head. 'There isn't much more. Arunis the sorcerer died upon the gibbet, and dangled there nine days. The birds who pecked his flesh fell stone dead, as from poison; and the sharks, when he was chopped and given over to them, were found later belly-up upon the sea. That's all. Weird, but not much help.'

  'Try "Death" then,' said Thasha quietly.

  Pazel turned more pages. Death included some macabre speculations about the least and most painful ways of inflicting it, and the posthumous torments of the sinful, and Agaroth, death's shadowy Border-Kingdom in the underworld. But Pazel saw nothing about ways to cheat death, or return from it to this life.

  'That's odd,' he said suddenly. 'The entry breaks off in mid-sentence. There's room for more words, but it's unfinished, listen to this-'

  'Don't!' said Thasha sharply. 'I don't want to hear it!' Her voice was tight with pain, as though she were walking barefoot on glass. 'Remember what I told you the night before the wedding, about how the book adds entries on its own? That's how it happens: first a blank space, then words that grow like a vine to fill the space. But when I read those new parts I feel horrible. Look up something else. "Sorcery," maybe.'

  Pazel tried to move faster. But Sorcery was no help, and neither was Necromancy or Resurrection. By the time he'd moved on to Mage Thasha had backed to the far side of the bed, hugging herself into a ball.

  Pazel took in her vacant, frightened eyes, and slammed the book shut. 'Right, I'm putting this thing away. Matter of fact, let's put it further away from you. We can hide it in your father's cabin; that's still inside the magic wall.'

  'No!' said Thasha. 'I have to keep it near me. I'm… responsible for it.'

  Pazel was about to argue, but at that moment the door creaked, and Neeps looked into the cabin.

  'I could hear all that,' he said.

  'Sorry to bother you,' said Pazel sarcastically.

  'Don't be an oaf, I thought of something. You read about the guard who shot Arunis with the arrow — the one he cursed. Remember where it says he went?'

  'Back to Opalt, with his mum,' said Pazel.

  'And who else came from Opalt?'

  Thasha raised her head slowly. 'Ket,' she said. 'The soap merchant. Arunis' false identity, when he first came aboard. Neeps, you could be onto something.'

  She hopped from the bed, as Pazel opened the book and began leafing through it again.

  'What do you know, he's in here,' he said after a moment. 'But there's hardly anything, just two lines. Ket, a merchant family of Opalt, specializing in salves and soaps. The m-'

  Pazel stopped in amazement, all but choking on the words. ' The most successful member of the family to date, Liripus Ket, joined the family trade after a complete recovery from madness, which befell him during military service in his youth.'

  Pazel looked up from the book, first at Thasha, then at Neeps. A chill seemed to have descended on the room.

  'Ket was the guard on Licherog,' he said. 'Arunis d
idn't just curse him — he became him. That's how he escaped the island nobody ever escapes. He can do more than just get inside someone's head. He can take over. He can blary move in.'

  At that moment Marila's voice called from the outer stateroom. 'Thasha! Come out here, hurry up.'

  Thasha sprang from the cabin, with the boys right behind her. Marila was at the stateroom door, which was open a crack. 'It's Dastu,' she said. 'He's just outside the magic wall, with the guard. He wants to come inside.'

  'Oh, I have to blary invite him, don't I?' said Thasha. She opened the door wide and beckoned, and Dastu stepped through the magic wall and hurried towards them. He looked as though he were barely able to keep from breaking into a run. Slipping into the room, he eyed the four of them with a mixture of relief and anxiety.

  'You're all here,' he said, shutting the door behind him. 'That's good. Listen to me close, now. I found Bolutu.'

  'You found him!' they cried.

  Dastu nodded. 'He's down in the liquor vault, and he's in a bad way. That change he was expecting? Well I think it's started, mates. And he says he's got to tell you something before it's done, Pazel. Somethin' about Rose — about "how to get the better of Rose." He won't say more than that to me.'

  'Why didn't you bring him here?' said Neeps, looking at Dastu nervously.

  'Bring him?' Lord Rin, mate, you'll see! Pazel, you've got to come down there! It's safe, for the time being. There's nobody in the Abandoned House. And I think we can manage without a lamp.'

  'We'll all go,' said Neeps.

  'Come on, Undrabust!' said Dastu, more high-strung than Pazel had ever seen him. 'This ain't the dead of night. What'll our story be if we're caught? What if that guard decides to tell somebody that we all charged out of here together?'

  'I am going,' said Thasha. 'If Bolutu's really got something to do with Ramachni, I have to be there.'

  Dastu squirmed with impatience. 'Whoever's going has to come with me now. You don't know what's going on in there!'

  Pazel turned to Neeps and Marila. 'It'll be four bells in, what, twenty minutes? Come after us then, if we're not back. Just take the long way around, and for Rin's sake, don't let anyone see you on the scuttle! All right, Dastu, let's go.'