The Night of the Swarm (Chathrand Voyage 4)

by Robert V. S. Redick

  When the wave-surge passed he was against the hull, still gripping the rope, still in command of his limbs. He climbed. Nothing was broken, and even the pain was a distant thing. New shouts from ixchel: they had thought him dead for certain. Arrows fell around him, none too close.

  Saturyk was screaming at his archers, abusing them. Felthrup was forty feet above the water, then sixty, then over the rail.

  He looked back. The ixchel were milling at the surf’s edge, racing back when the foam advanced, trying for impossible shots. Only Talag remained on the hilltop, motionless on the rock wall, watching.

  ‘You see, Mr Saturyk, there are always choices,’ shouted Felthrup.

  ‘Palluskudge! Bastard!’ Saturyk howled. ‘You’re mucking dead!’

  ‘Not in this world,’ Felthrup shouted back. Then he turned and ran for home.

  9

  The Editor Confronts Death

  I had better let the cat out of the bag and confess that I do not love everyone equally. On certain figures in this narrative it is difficult to lavish warmth. Say what you like about their upbringing, their acquaintance with hunger, the bad company they kept in formative years: they are bad, they are hideous; and the sooner I can wash my hands of them, the better.

  This morning a young man tried to kill me. He was a rude fellow and I did not treat him gently; but I did not kill him, either, and have worried since that this was a mistake. He may avoid me, forget me even; or he may return with others who know how the job is done.

  It was early, the garden shadows still deep and promising, the fly-catchers lancing above the roofs. Students in the Academy trudged by at the street corner, barely awake. I was feeling vigorous, if a little guilty. I had chosen to set my book aside and go walking, with a little hound for company and my ancient cane to lean on. There was a time when I made such choices easily, thoughtlessly. One plucks the last roses of the season with more attention than the first.

  My would-be killer stepped out of a bush – fell out of it, really – and swept the dust and leaves from his jacket. He was well fed and short and perhaps a little cross-eyed. Chewed fingernails. Beginner’s beard. The dog wagged its foolish tail.

  ‘Professor!’ cried the man, as though delighted by a chance encounter. He smiled a covert little smile to which I naturally took offence.

  ‘The dog bites,’ I said.

  ‘Such a distinct pleasure!’ he declared, ignoring my warning. His smile implied that we already shared a secret. He might even have groped for my hand, but one was in my pocket, the other fingering the cane with what I hoped was obvious intent.

  I am very old and my face is disfigured. I draw stares but scarcely mind them. Either a person knows me, in which case he is humble and discreet; or he has never heard of me, in which case he is frightened and discreet. There are no catcalls or screaming children – yet. When I begin to move about on all fours it may be another matter.

  This man was determined to show no disgust. He had a way of both looking and not looking at me. I gazed past him down the alley.

  ‘My name is—’ he began. And then, as if a more dramatic possibility had just occurred to him: ‘My name is unimportant.’

  ‘Quite so,’ I agreed, and hobbled on.

  I am occasionally sociable (hail falls occasionally in summer) but my time is too dear to squander on cheap theatrics. Today I had to write a difficult letter to my patrons about the state of The Chathrand Voyage. The bedclothes needed laundering, too, and my skin was itchy, aflame. My bones ached as they do all the time; walking soothes this misery, and others.

  The man chuckled, but the sound died when he saw how swiftly I was leaving him behind. I may rely on the cane but I am a champion hobbler.

  ‘Professor, wait!’ He caught up to me and blocked my path. ‘You haven’t seen what I brought you.’

  With a sly grin he drew some pages from his vest pocket and waved them at me, like a treat for which I could reasonably be expected to beg. Angry now, I sidled past him again, and he pouted.

  ‘Can’t you spare me a moment, sir? I waited hours in that hedge.’

  ‘Hedge!’

  I stopped short. Then I bit my tongue and looked at him, smouldering. He had tricked me into granting him my full attention. Such a low tactic. To refer to a single, fruit-bearing, once-potted, certainly solitary plant as a hedge: intolerable, intolerable.

  ‘If this is about demonology class, you’ve waited in vain. Professor Holub has taken over my teaching chair. Holub, with the dimples. The one the girls follow about.’

  ‘I don’t want demonology, Professor. I know exactly who you are, and—’ his voice dropped to reverential tones ‘—who you were. In the Old World. In the beginning.’

  Then I knew. He was one of the crazies, the fanatics who had decided (out of boredom, out of hope?) that The Chathrand Voyage was a sort of key to Creation, a guide to the universe and all it contained. One of my ‘assistants’ (a famished schemer with garlic breath) had planted the idea among the younger students, and like a virile weed it had proven impossible to kill.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘the Voyage is just a history. Old, long-winded, violent and obscure. There are others. The library is stuffed with them.’

  ‘They told me you were modest,’ he said. ‘How could you be otherwise, when you knew them? The Heroes. In the flesh.’

  ‘You refer to my shipmates?’

  He nodded, awestruck.

  ‘Dead,’ I told him. ‘All dead, every last one of them. Dead for centuries.’

  ‘Not all,’ he said, gazing on me as one might a relic in a tomb. Suddenly I was afraid he wanted to touch me, and backed away a step.

  ‘I’ll join them soon enough,’ I said. ‘Anyway, why can’t you take a history for what it is, instead of whipping it up like a blary custard—’

  ‘A whatty custard?’

  ‘—into a religion, a myth? You lot amaze me. These were real people; they lived and breathed. They’re not symbols, not lessons for your moral improvement. You make me wonder if the chancellor isn’t right to want the whole manuscript tossed on the fire.’

  ‘Of course he’s not right!’ cried the young man, trembling. ‘So it’s true, then, you’re fighting with the chancellor? Has he really tried to censor parts of the Voyage? Why, why would he do such a thing?’

  To the first question I replied that the chancellor and I never fought. To the second: yes, he tried. To the third: because he is a spineless man who does not wish this hallowed school to be engulfed in scandal, or even controversy. A coward, that is. A glad-hander, with everything to lose but self-respect, which was lost beyond retrieval before he ascended to his current post.

  ‘And now, good day.’ I moved to tip my hat, then recalled that I had left it behind, since the changing shape of my skull had made it uncomfortable. I walked on, but the young man pranced beside me, brandishing those grubby sheets.

  ‘You must protect it from him,’ he said. ‘No other tale contains such wisdom, such meaning, such burning truths about the world gone by. Professor, admit it, won’t you? My friends and I have guessed the truth anyway. You’re telling the lost history of our race. The Heroes, they’re our ancestors, the ones who founded our nation and our people, the blessed seed from which we sprang!’

  I shook my head, but he ignored me, rhapsodising. ‘Let it all be told! Let the world drink of their wisdom – drink deep, and feel the menace of the Swarm, the black fire of the eguar, the thousand beauties of Uláramyth! The tale must be published in all its glory! It must see the light of day!’

  ‘If it’s as dear to you as all that,’ I said, ‘why are you robbing me? The Uláramyth chapter isn’t even finished yet. You’ve seen a stolen copy, you atrocious little grub.’

  His mouth opened wide. My accusation had caught him off guard.

  ‘I am not a grub,’ he said, ‘and if you’ll permit me, it is only thanks to a so-called stolen copy – and what is stealing, Professor, really? – that I am here today. I’ve broug
ht you a warning. You’ve made a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Mistake?’ I said. ‘How could you possibly know if I made a mistake? Who the devil are you?’

  ‘I speak,’ he said, placing a hand on his chest, ‘on behalf of the Greysan Fulbreech Self-Improvement Society.’

  I blinked at him. ‘A student club? A joke fraternity of some sort?’

  ‘I am the Society’s president.’

  ‘You’re a cuckoo bird.’

  ‘We are the Sons of Fulbreech,’ he said. ‘He is the true and rightful Hero, and we knew it from the start. Of all your shipmates, only Fulbreech never slumbered, never waited for things to happen to him. He made history. He took matters in his own hands. When Thasha warmed to him and discarded Passive Pathkendle, we cheered. We knew that she and Fulbreech were destined to be father and mother to us all.’

  I pushed by him, wincing as our shoulders bumped. There was no hope whatsoever in words.

  He kept pace with me easily. ‘Have you read the epic called The Choices of Yung Fulbrych?’

  Idiotic question. My first published manuscript was, and remains, the definitive refutation of the Choices. ‘That thing,’ I hissed, walking faster, ‘was written two centuries ago, to flatter a despot. Fulbreech died two thousand years ago. The author had no notion of what that boy’s life and death amounted to – nor much curiosity, either. It is no record of our time on the Chathrand. It is a heap of bad verse, penned in the service of bigoted power and bamboozeldry, not revelation or learning.’

  He was visibly mortified. I clicked my tongue. ‘You object – to what? The notion that I was a witness, that I’ve been displaced in time?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘That your hero died? Pitfire, man, what do you think Fulbreech was? A visiting demigod? The angel of Rin?’

  The lunatic shook his head. ‘It is all right that you kill him, in your tale. We know he was mortal, though his aura, his essence – never mind, sir, that can wait. But the death you paint in Book Three! Unworthy, sir, unworthy. Greysan Fulbreech could not meet such an end. Have you never once reconsidered?’

  ‘Reconsidered? I can’t even follow you. That statement makes no sense.’

  ‘Or perhaps,’ said the man with a sudden twinkle, ‘you’re planning to bring him back? Perhaps his death was an illusion?’

  I was starting to feel like a drowning man.

  ‘So you stole a copy of the fourth volume,’ I said slowly, assembling the pieces, ‘hoping to read that Fulbreech had … come back?’

  ‘Or never died, never died! The Infernal Forest was a place of illusions, wasn’t it? Say it, Professor! You can trust me; I won’t breathe a word.’

  ‘Arunis broke his back, and left him in a tank of fungal acid. Then a dlömic boy drove Hercól’s sword straight through his gut. He died.’

  The man wilted where he stood. He stared unfocused at my chest. Almost inaudibly, he murmured, ‘Those last words you say he spoke. They’re false too, of course. They make him sound weak and mean and frightened.’

  He shook himself, then barked at me: ‘A villain, that’s what you’ve turned him into. And that is a lie! Passive Pathkendle – what is he? A lucky fool, a sap. Fulbreech is Will Incarnate. Redeem him, reward him!’ He waved the paper in my face. ‘Professor, we of the Society have written four possible endings to The Chathrand Voyage. We ranked them for your convenience, but any one of them would be acceptable, provided – Ouch!’

  My cane was stout ironwood, and I had brought it down hard on his toe. He hopped around me, squeezing his foot. My anger was only stoked by the ridiculous sight.

  ‘I do not invent, sir. I was given access, nothing more. Access to the past, my own past, the one I shared with them. I write it, sort it, add the odd footnote when I must. I am not some wretched novelist, rubbing my hands together, spewing diversions for a penny a page! Believe what you like, worship whom you like. Just leave me in peace. My days are numbered, my hands are changing shape; my incisors bleed on the pillow at night.’ I snatched his pages, shredded them, tossed the bits over my shoulder. ‘Let me finish the story. After that you can do as you please. Forward, Jorl.’

  I hobbled on. The man stood rooted to the spot. I turned the corner into the boulevard, saw the first bustle of students on the lawn – saw Holub himself, in his mob of nubile demonologists. I closed my eyes. Of all the weird marvels of this body, lust was the most pointless and intractable. I wondered if it would be the last to go.

  Then Jorl snarled. I twisted, and the knife in the hand of the president of the Greysan Fulbreech Self-Improvement Society missed my cheek by a hair.

  My nascent transformation has certain benefits, among them dexterity and strength. My leap amazed him, and hurt me terribly, but I landed squarely and had at him with the cane. He crumpled, all but falling into the dog’s mouth, and for a few priceless seconds little Jorl could have been a mastiff like his namesake. The fool dropped the knife. His head was unprotected; I could have cracked it like an egg. Instead I hauled him up and shook him.

  ‘Listen, fool. I write the truth as I knew it. Not what you prefer in your fever-dreams, nor the chancellor in his cowardice, nor the Young Scholars in their fashionable savagery, nor I in my pain. Fulbreech was a poisonous toad. You’ll sanctify him over my dead body. Get hence.’

  I shoved him away. The man fled, stumbling and bleeding, and Jorl chased him all the way across the lawn.

  Historians battle for the future, not the past. Our tales of who we were shape what we believe we can become. When I began to write, the story of the Chathrand was a collection of fragments and folk-tellings, yarns shared at bedtime or beer-time, or Rin spare us, to prove some moral point. It was a myth; and now as copies circulate it may become scripture, for a benighted few. The chancellor would gild it, peddle it with nine parts sugar to one part truth. Or else burn it and bury me. I must work faster, before I cease to have hands, before he calls a doctor or a dogcatcher and has me led away. I must finish the tale, lest they finish it for me. And that would be horrific, a mashed-together monster, a lord or lady with the head of a beast.

  10

  Sanctuary

  15 Modobrin 941

  244th day from Etherhorde

  When they realised that the selk had fed them mushrooms, Lunja and the Turach began to fight. The selk were ready, however: blindingly fast, they pounced on the two soldiers, seized their limbs, heads, jaws. Neither managed to spit the fungus out.

  Ensyl watched, appalled. Bolutu succumbed first: eyes wide, he raised both hands as though trying to pluck fruit from a tree; then his knees gave way and he toppled gracefully into the arms of a selk. Pazel followed, then Thasha and Big Skip. Dastu laughed viciously before he dropped.

  The others had time to sit down. Before his eyes closed, Hercól turned to Ensyl and reached out suddenly, his face full of longing. Ensyl drew a sharp breath. She had rarely been so unsettled by a look.

  It was done; only she and Ramachni were awake. Thaulinin looked at the mink. ‘I will not waste words on you, Arpathwin. You will sleep when you wish to, and not before.’ He turned to where Ensyl stood backed against the wall. ‘But for you it is time, lady.’

  He beckoned, and a selk came forward holding a strange object. It was about the size of whisky jug, but made of hide stretched over a round wooden frame. At one end the leather thongs had yet to be tightened, leaving an opening like the mouth of a cave.

  ‘A palanquin?’ asked Ensyl dubiously.

  ‘But without windows, alas,’ said the selk. ‘We lined it with the fur of last night’s hare. You will find a water flask within, and food as well.’

  ‘How long will I be held?’

  ‘Not long,’ said Thaulinin, ‘and you will be most comfortable.’

  Ensyl shook her head. You’re wrong there, giant. It was quite true what she had said about her people and cages. Yet she had argued for this choice, and would not be the only one of the party to back down. Taking a deep breath, she bent to squeeze through th
e opening.

  ‘I must ask for your sword,’ said Thaulinin.

  His request was reasonable: Ensyl could gouge a spyhole with a single thrust. All the same it was hard, unbuckling the tattered baldric, repaired so many times since Etherhorde. She felt naked as she laid the sword on Thaulinin’s palm.

  ‘I think I will travel with you, Ensyl,’ said Ramachni.

  ‘There is no need, Arpathwin,’ said Thaulinin. ‘You are no stranger here.’

  ‘And yet I hardly resemble the Arpathwin of long ago,’ said Ramachni. ‘Nor do all your people know me, in any form. Besides, I also wish to be carried like a lump.’

  Ensyl was delighted, even though the fit was rather tight when they had both crawled inside. Thaulinin bent to look through the opening.

  ‘Two warnings, then,’ he said. ‘You must use no magic of any kind until we release you. And do not call to us, unless one of you should be dying. That is vital. You would place yourselves and all your friends in danger if you forced us to release you early.’

  He closed the aperture, and Ensyl felt him tie the leather thongs. Then they were lifted and placed inside a sack of some kind. All was dark and close. Their little fur-lined room swayed, and by its motion Ensyl sensed that they were now dangling from a sling. Ramachni chuckled in the darkness. ‘We shall make this journey like a pair of royals,’ he said.

  Or a pair of grouse, Ensyl thought. Aloud, she said, ‘I am glad of your company.’

  ‘I hope you are still glad when my fleas discover you,’ said the mage.

  They were already moving. Ensyl thought they must surely be descending the hill, but the selk carried them so smoothly that it was hard to be sure. The palanquin did not swing wildly about, or even tilt a great deal. She was comfortable, in fact.

  ‘I could almost sleep,’ she said aloud.

  ‘You must certainly sleep,’ said Ramachni. ‘After all, we shall be in here for days.’

  ‘Days!’

  ‘When Thaulinin said, “Not long,” he was speaking as a selk. Never mind; I shall do my best to entertain you. And don’t bother to bend your voice, by the way: these ears of mine can catch your ixchel-speech perfectly well.’