The Night of the Swarm (Chathrand Voyage 4)

by Robert V. S. Redick

  ‘Just rest,’ said Thasha. ‘We’ll do the fighting, next time.’

  Ramachni let his head drop onto her knee. ‘I believe you just might,’ he said.

  The moment they cleared the rail, Neeps jumped to the deck and threw his arms around Marila. She had watched them ascend, wild-haired, round-bellied, hands in fists. She had screwed her face up into a frown, struggling desperately not to cry. Now he kissed her and the struggle ceased. Her arms went around her husband, and her loud, nasal sobs made Thasha understand why she tried so hard to repress her feelings at other times. Neeps laid a gentle hand on her stomach, and a look of wonder came over his face.

  Felthrup, for his part, had stopped shouting only because he too had been choked by tears. ‘Thasha, Thasha, you have been gone a lifetime. You have brought goodness back to this ship and redeemed her!’

  ‘Not yet, Felthrup dear.’

  ‘And you have done it, you have taken the Nilstone back from Arunis, and killed him!’

  ‘Felthrup! How did you know that?’

  ‘Arunis,’ said the rat. ‘Oh dear, there are volumes to tell—’

  ‘Rascals! Reprobates!’ Fiffengurt was laughing, an arm around the neck of both tarboys, coating his uniform with soot. ‘Lady Thasha, how’d you manage to live so long with this pair of apes?’

  ‘How did you manage to keep the ship afloat without us?’ said Pazel. Neeps was about to make a quip of his own, but his smile vanished when he looked at the wounded dlömu, who were being treated a short distance away by the tonnage hatch. The youths had been making their way to the dlömu to give them their thanks, and to help bind their wounds if they could. Hercól and Bolutu were already among them.

  Marila looked at Neeps’ face. ‘What is it?’ she said.

  Neeps pulled away from Fiffengurt and ran ahead. He pressed among the wounded, shouting. Then Hercól rose and took him by the shoulders.

  Neeps cried out, his voice sharp as a child’s, and covered his face with his hands. Marila turned to the others in a panic. ‘Someone’s died,’ she said. ‘Who was it? Tell me, Thasha, for Rin’s sake!’

  Bolutu came and spoke to them. It was Lunja who had peeled off from the other swimmers. Not with the hope of saving herself, but because she knew the sharks would follow her, bleeding profusely as she was from her cuts on the reef. ‘That is the Bali Adro I remember, the way of love and sacrifice,’ said Bolutu. ‘My brethren owe their lives to Sergeant Lunja as surely as to Ramachni.’

  ‘What about Neeps?’ asked Marila. ‘Did she save his life too?’

  Yes, they told her, so swiftly that they sounded false. As though there were something to be ashamed of, some betrayal. Marila closed her eyes. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said. ‘I want to hear it from him.’

  Thasha looked at Pazel. ‘The berth deck,’ she said. ‘Take me right now. Before anything else happens.’

  ‘What could happen?’

  ‘Oh Pazel, don’t say that! Just take me there, you buffoon.’

  ‘One thing first,’ said Pazel. ‘I won’t be a minute, I swear.’

  He ran forward, skipping through the well-wishers who tried to stop and cheer him, who slapped his back and shouted, ‘Bravo, Muketch, you’re a wonder, you’re a man!’ en he raced down the Holy Stair and was gone.

  Thasha smiled. ‘He’s heading for sickbay,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t tell me he’s ill,’ said Marila.

  Thasha shook her head and laughed. ‘For once, he’s not. There’s nothing wrong with him at all.’

  A look of understanding, and deep dismay, came over Marila. She glanced at Fiffengurt, whose face had also darkened. Then she raced after Pazel, shouting his name.

  ‘Oh Missy,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘There ain’t been time even to mention it yet. Dr Chadfallow was murdered.’

  Tears, once more – how they could surprise one. She had never warmed to Chadfallow, but surely that would have changed. She knew Pazel loved the man, though he had spent half the voyage pretending otherwise.

  ‘Niriviel told us that there was just one doctor aboard,’ she said. ‘I thought he meant that Dr Rain didn’t count. Who killed him, Mr Fiffengurt? Was it Ott?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘That bastard’s in no position to hurt anybody. He’s got himself in a fix, and I can’t say I’m sorry.’

  ‘Who did it, then? Who would kill a blary doctor?’

  Fiffengurt drew a deep breath. The weight of all that had transpired seemed etched in his dry and weary face, and Thasha knew she would only ever grasp a part of it, that most of the tale would be lost.

  ‘Arunis,’ said Fiffengurt.

  Shark bites were ragged, hideous things. Eleven dlömu had been attacked; one man was in danger of losing his arm. Neeps moved among them, his eyes red, cleaning wounds with an iodine solution someone had brought from the surgery. The survivors grinned morbidly, passing around a yellow, serrated tooth the size of a playing card. It had been extracted from a swimmer’s leg.

  At length Bolutu took the humans aside. ‘Your help is a blessing,’ he said, ‘but another task awaits you. Go, and take the Nilstone, and do what my people fought and died to let you do. We have enough hands here.’

  ‘We must find Pathkendle first,’ said Hercól.

  That was not hard: Pazel and Marila were seated in the passage outside sickbay, leaning against the wall. Pazel’s eyes were very red; Marila held his hand.

  Across from them, bearded now but otherwise unchanged, sat Jervik Lank. He jumped to his feet.

  ‘I wanted to greet you up top,’ he said, ‘but the ward’s a handful, m’lady, and there weren’t nobody to cover for me.’

  ‘It’s horrible in there,’ said Marila. ‘The beds are full of deathsmokers, strapped down so that they can’t hurt themselves. And others who’ve been knifed or beaten up. The gangs don’t have tactics any more. They just hate each other, and the marines, and anyone who tries to stay neutral.’

  They too stood up, and Thasha put a hand on Pazel’s cheek. He smiled sadly at her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Ignus wasn’t my father, you know. Although in the end he’d have made a pretty good one.’

  ‘This ship’s gone mad,’ said Jervik. ‘Until this morning, anyway. I could hear ’em cheering you, all the way down here. They did that for Rose, on New Year’s Day. But there ain’t been a blary moment since when the crew felt like a crew. You done a fine thing just by comin’ back.’

  ‘And you’ve helped save the ship we came back to,’ said Thasha. ‘I’ll always be grateful for that. A lot of men would have just given up.’

  ‘A lot of men did,’ said Marila.

  The older tarboy fairly glowed with their praise. ‘When a Lank makes up his mind to do something, he does it.’ Then all at once he looked abashed. ‘No, no. That ain’t the truth. You know what my life’s been – the life of a great pig, eh, Muketch? I nearly killed you, once or twice.’

  ‘Forget it, mate,’ said Pazel, barely listening. ‘We’ve all of us changed.’

  ‘Have we?’ said Jervik. ‘You’re all still clever. And me—’ He shrugged. ‘Ragweed don’t make roses, and dullards don’t grow wise. That’s me, ain’t it? You don’t have to pretend.’

  Marila stepped close to Jervik. She reached up and took hold of the tarboy’s jaw, which dropped in amazement. ‘Promise me something,’ she said.

  ‘Wha?’

  ‘That you will never say that again. You’re not stupid. It’s a lie somebody told you, because they couldn’t mucking say you were weak. Spit it out.’

  There was a silence. Jervik’s eyes swivelled to the other tarboys.

  ‘If you want your chin back, you’d better promise,’ said Neeps.

  Jervik blinked. ‘No lady never asked me for my word on nothin’,’ he said. ‘But since you want it, well – I promise, Mrs Undrabust. On my departed mother and the Blessed Tree.’

  The tarboys’ quarters were almost directly beneath sickbay. Neeps and Pazel slipped inside first. Thasha he
ard boys scrambling and swearing. ‘All right,’ Neeps shouted. ‘Everyone’s dressed, after a fashion.’

  Within, the compartment was a maze of dark hammocks, dropped clothes, open footlockers, unwashed plates. Had inspections ceased, Thasha wondered, or just the consequences of failing them?

  There were only a handful of tarboys about. Among them were the twins, Swift and Saroo, who had been cold to Pazel and Neeps since the massacre of the ixchel. They were cold now, too.

  ‘Your whole gang’s back, is it?’ said Saroo. ‘And your pal Mr Fiffengurt’s in charge. You must be tickled pink.’

  ‘Just what the Chathrand needs,’ added Swift, ‘another gang.’

  ‘Ease up, mates, they’re heroes, like,’ said the freckle-faced Durbee, a tarboy from Besq.

  ‘Fiffengurt will make a good skipper,’ said Neeps.

  ‘I suppose from now on you lot will decide what’s good and what’s bad,’ said Swift.

  ‘We didn’t all make it, actually,’ said Pazel. ‘Big Skip was killed, and Dastu. And nearly all the marines. And Cayer Vispek and Jalantri.’

  ‘The Mzithrinis,’ said Neeps, when the tarboys looked blank.

  ‘Oh, them,’ said Saroo. ‘Well now. I don’t suppose even you cried much for a pair of blood-drinkers.’

  ‘The stanchion’s over here,’ said Pazel, as if Saroo hadn’t said a word. Despite the twins’ hostility he had spoken with no rancour at all. Thasha felt an ache in her chest – just pride, just love for her friends. These tarboys were all roughly the same age, but how much older Pazel and Neeps seemed. And no wonder, she thought. Tear your heart and your body to pieces, bleed and burn and freeze and make love and lose love and kill – and heal just partly, and hide what will never heal. Then try it. Try to stay innocent, try to pretend you’re still the person you were.

  ‘That’s my muckin’ post!’ said Saroo, when Pazel stopped before the stanchion with the eight copper nails. ‘You can’t just come back and swipe it. You ain’t slept there in months.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Pathkendle?’ said Swift. ‘Fleas in your girl’s brass bed?’

  Pazel drew his knife.

  ‘Pitfire, mate, there’s no cause for that!’ said Durbee, jumping between them. But Pazel only reached up and cut the hammock rope around the upper part of the stanchion. He sheathed the knife and glanced at Thasha.

  ‘Erithusmé said you’d know what to do. Was she right?’

  Thasha looked at the copper nails. They were arranged in a half-circle, with the open side facing the ceiling, like a cup or a bowl. She stepped nearer the rough wooden post, ran her fingers down its length. It felt like rock.

  ‘Mr Fiffengurt says that’s one of the oldest bits of wood on this vessel,’ said Durbee cautiously. ‘He says it was ancient when the boat was built. We all figured that’s why you had such good luck, Pazel. Because there was some sort of charm on it. And that’s why Saroo claimed it after you left.’

  ‘Aught good it’s done me, though,’ grumbled Saroo.

  Thasha closed her eyes. Trying with all her might to listen, to heed the voice behind the wall. Almost of its own accord, her left hand slid up to the nail-heads.

  She hammered these herself. She laid power away for just such a moment.

  Her hand passed through the wood as if nothing were there.

  Swift and Saroo backed away in fright; Durbee made the sign of the Tree. Eyes still closed, Thasha found that the nails remained solid: she could feel them, suspended in the phantom wood. And just beyond them, more solid objects. Two of them. She closed her hand on the smaller and drew it out.

  It was a short, tarnished silver rod. One half was quite plain, the other scored with a complex set of notches and grooves.

  ‘What is it?’ Pazel asked her. ‘Do you know?’

  Thasha stared at the little rod. She should know, she almost knew. But if a memory lurked inside her it belonged to Erithusmé, and she could catch nothing more than its echo. She gave the rod to Marila. ‘Hold this for me,’ she said.

  The larger object was rough and slightly top-heavy. She took a firm grip and lifted it out past the nails. There in her hand was a stout bottle made of clay. It was stoppered with a cork and sealed in thick red wax. The bottle was chipped, dust-darkened, unimaginably old. It was solid and rather heavy. She turned it: a slosh of liquid, deep inside.

  Thasha blew away the dust. The bottle was painted in thin white lines. Prancing skeletons of men and horses, dragons and dogs. Bare trees with what looked like eyes. Thasha shifted the bottle to her right hand and gazed at her left. It felt rather cold.

  ‘Thasha,’ said Marila, ‘do you know what you’re holding?’

  She turned her head with effort; her thoughts felt strangely slow. ‘Do you?’ she asked.

  Marila hesitated. ‘Put it back,’ she said.

  ‘Back inside the post?’ said Neeps. ‘That’s plain crackers. What if she can’t get it out again? Marila, tell us what you know.’

  ‘Nothing, nothing, so put it back!’

  ‘Marila,’ said Pazel reluctantly, ‘don’t get mad, but you’re a terrible liar.’

  ‘That’s because I’m honest.’ Marila’s hands were in fists. Then she saw their baffled looks and the fight went out of her. She sighed. ‘I think I know what’s in the bottle. Felthrup was reading the Polylex, or talking about what he’d read. It was wine.’

  ‘Wine?’ said Thasha.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ramachni, ‘wine.’

  The tarboys jumped. The mage stood there in the disordered gloom, with Felthrup squirming beside him. No one had heard them approach.

  ‘The wine of Agaroth, to be precise,’ said Ramachni. ‘Now there is something I never thought to lay eyes on again, or hoped to. Be careful, Thasha: you are holding a relic more ancient than the Nilstone itself.’

  ‘It feels sturdy enough,’ she said.

  ‘That is not what I meant,’ said the mage. ‘A spell is at work here. I cannot quite sniff it out, but it is a dangerous charm, perhaps even deadly. I think you feel it already, Thasha. And there is another matter: be careful how long you hold that bottle without shifting your hand, and warming it. Those figures were painted by the dead.’

  Most of the tarboys turned and ran for the compartment door. But Felthrup was overjoyed. ‘We are saved, we are saved! It is right there in the Polylex! The wine of Agaroth takes away all fear – and fear alone makes the Nilstone deadly to the touch! One gulp of that wine, and the Fell Princes could hold it in their naked hand.’

  ‘Like Arunis’ idiot, in the Infernal Forest,’ said Pazel.

  ‘If you like,’ said Ramachni. ‘Both knew freedom from fear: the idiot through total madness, the Fell Princes through the taste of this wine. But I do not think the wine’s effect lasted long. No tales speak of the princes marching to war with the Nilstone in one hand and a bottle in the other. But drink they did, and wield the Nilstone they did – briefly, and to evil purpose. In the end they turned orgiastic, and gulped the wine like fiends. I never imagined that any bottle survived in Alifros.’

  Thasha’s right hand was cold. She shifted the bottle to the crook of her arm. Brought here from death’s border, she thought. Who could do such a thing? Who could even dream of trying?

  But inside her the wheels were turning faster and faster, and the answer came: I could.

  Thirty minutes later she was on the quarterdeck with the bottle in hand. Ramachni and Hercól stood with her, the latter holding a canvas sack. Behind them, at the wheel, stood Captain Fiffengurt. Lady Oggosk had somehow argued her way onto the quarterdeck as well. The witch stood apart from the others, dressed in mourning black. It was the first time Thasha had seen her.

  At Thasha’s feet lay the Nilstone, in the steel box Big Skip had fashioned for it in Uláramyth. Hundreds watched them from the topdeck below. Between the crowd and the quarterdeck ladder stood forty armoured Turachs armed with spears. Haddismal’s precaution, and a good one: if any man aboard were seized by evil thoughts, or ev
il spirits, or plain madness, he would have no hope of reaching the Nilstone today.

  ‘Right, Lady Thasha,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘Both anchors secured; we’re Roating free. The tide’s not with us, but somehow I think that’s the least of our troubles.’

  He trained his good eye at the cliffs, where the drachnars were waiting, quite openly now, for any move by the Chathrand to flee the bay. A hundred more waded along the north shore, gripping enormous logs in their trunks.

  Thasha looked down at the deck. Every friend left alive was watching her. Pazel made himself smile at her for an instant; Neeps and Marila wore looks of deep concern. In Marila’s arms, Felthrup gazed at Thasha and never seemed to blink.

  ‘Go on, Hercól,’ said Thasha.

  With a last look at Thasha, Hercól crouched beside the Nilstone. First he laid a hammer and chisel on the deck. Then he removed a key from the sack and unlocked Big Skip’s box. Reaching into the bag once more, he removed a pair of fine metal gauntlets and slipped them on. Next he gripped the steel box in both hands and twisted. His muscles strained. The box split in two.

  Boom. The plum-sized sphere of glass fell to the deck with a sound like a dropped cannonball. Hercól stopped its rolling with his hand, then whipped the hand away and used his boot.

  ‘It burns,’ he said, ‘through selk glass and selk gauntlets, it still burns a little.’

  ‘It won’t burn me,’ said Thasha. ‘Break the glass, Hercól.’

  The task was easier said than done: the selk glass was amazingly sturdy. Watching Hercól’s great overhand blows, Thasha couldn’t help but think of that other ceremony, when Arunis had assembled the crew to witness his triumph. But this time was different. They knew exactly what the Nilstone would do to anyone unlucky enough to touch it. And they were drawing on its power only to help them get rid of it. Not to annihilate the world as a proof of one’s powers, but to save it. For that reason, and that reason alone.

  At last the chisel cracked the polished surface. Hercól struck again, and the crack widened. On the third blow the glass split like an eggshell, and the Nilstone slithered between the shards onto the deck.

  Ramachni’s fur stood on end. Thasha had not looked plainly at the Stone since that day in the Infernal Forest, after she beheaded Arunis, when it had fallen inches from her leg. She stared into its depths. Hideous, fascinating, beautiful. Too dark for this world; so dark that its blackness would stand out within a sealed cave, a cave under miles of earth, a cave sealed for ever. Thasha had the strange idea that she could put her hand right through it, as she had with the stanchion, but that this time she would be reaching into another world. Another Alifros, maybe a better one, where deep wounds had yet to be inflicted, hard curses never cast.