I cleared my throat. ‘See here, Commander, I figure this man belongs in your hands—’
Stiff-Neck cut me off, his voice strange & thin. ‘He calls you warden – that is a kind of jailor, yes? You kept this monster in secret. It’s all true. Your depravity exceeds our wildest dreams.’
‘The cold has come, and the darkness!’ boomed the Shaggat suddenly. ‘My wrath has brought them, and will devour you.’
‘Oh shut up, it ain’t your doing,’ I said.
The Shaggat’s eyes were still locked on my face. ‘It is long since I saw you kneel,’ he said.
‘You’ve never seen it, you old bilge-mop.’
‘Warden,’ he said, ‘I am going to rip open your skull, stake you writhing to the ground, slash your stomach open and pour in scalding—’
Neda gave an eagle’s scream. She jumped high, turning in mid-air like a temple dancer, & as she came to earth she buried her knife in his chest.
The Shaggat gave a little cough, shut his eyes deliberately, & fell forward, dead, with a crash that dislocated his jaw.
‘Partha, it is done,’ she said.
Hercól was the first to come to life, jumping between Neda & the Sizzies. I don’t know what he expected, but their response floored everyone but Neda. They ran. Even the commander leaped for the door, naked fear in his eyes. Only then, after all this time, did I grasp the power of the Shaggat cult. These men had always loathed him & all he stood for. They’d all have sworn on their grandmothers that he’d died long ago – that was the official story of their faith. But they still feared him. They still thought he might be a God, or a devil. They expected us all to be blasted right out of the manger.
‘Stay, stay!’ bellowed Hercól. ‘By the Unseen you revere, be brave! He was a man, nothing more, and now he is dead!’
The soldiers were out the door already. But Stiff-Neck raised his hands & grabbed the door frame, as though restraining himself by brute force. He struggled there a moment, then turned with a jerk to stare at the corpse.
‘Your sister has killed the Shaggat Ness,’ said Hercól.
The man was trembling, drenched in sweat. I didn’t think he would ever find his voice. But at last he looked at me & spoke.
‘Embalm him. Now, very quickly. Can you do it?’
‘We can manage,’ I said.
‘And the knife: do not clean it! His blood, his blood must be left there, to dry.’
‘I’ll send for a coffin.’
He whirled on Neda, hissing something, & Hercól drew Ildraquin with a swish. But the man wasn’t threatening her. Bending low, he touched her feet. Neda blinked in amazement & made him rise.
I got no more Arquali out of Stiff-Neck; he was too moved to use our tongue. But hours later over a cup of selk wine (the Shaggat in vinegar, Neda’s knife sealed in a box), Hercól explained what had transpired.
‘She gave them his death,’ he said, ‘but also his body. His unmistakable body, with all its tattoos and birthmarks and legendary scars. The Mzithrinis have tried to stamp out the Shaggat cult for decades, Captain. But how do you prove a man dead without his corpse? Now that they have it, they believe they can at last eradicate belief in this madman, and heal their faith. Of course, none of this will matter, unless we triumph at Gurishal, and lift the curse of the Swarm.’
‘What about Neda?’
‘They are already calling her the Assassin, and speaking of her like a saint.’
Hercól looked a bit unsteady, & I told him so. He smiled wistfully.
‘I am fond of the girl, that’s all. I wish no destiny upon her, or her brother for that matter. They have both seen trouble enough.’
Fond of her, is he? Rin bless ’em both, though nothing is likely to come of it. Neda Pathkendle is still too much the Mzithrini, & Hercól likes his women small. As in eight inches.
‘There’s something else gnawing at you, though, ain’t there?’ I asked.
After a moment, he nodded. ‘I have been to see my old master,’ he said.
‘What, you mean Ott? In the brig behind the Green Door and all?’
‘I had to tell him, Fiffengurt. About what Neda did. All his life Sandor Ott has dreamed of destroying the Mzithrin. His plot was brilliant, to stoke the fires of the Shaggat cult to war again. But now it seems that all his effort could have the opposite effect. He has, perhaps, done them the greatest turn of any Arquali in history.’
‘You said that to Ott, did you?’
‘Not for gloating’s sake. I merely needed him to see how things had ended.’
‘What did he do?’
Hercól took a thoughtful sip of wine. ‘He called me a traitor, as he always does. Then he sat down and wept.’
Thursday, 25 Teala. My worst fear is realised: the keel has cracked a second time. I can hear the rasping, the splintering, feel the shudder in the keelson when we crest. I do not know if the repairs in Masalym have failed, or the Nelluroq storms have broken her along some other part of her spine. Perhaps this is why her stern rides low? Who can tell? In these waters there’s no hope of an inspection, let alone a patch. We must simply pray that her strength does not give out before the mission’s end. Oh dear Grey Lady, what we’ve asked of you.
Friday, 26 Teala. The lamp oil is running out. We are freezing, groping about in the dark like human moles. Stiff-Neck frowns and paces the forecastle. He’s in an odd fix: surrounded by enemies in his Empire’s home waters, escorting a ship launched to destroy his people, guarding a corpse that could heal their divisions, racing with his foes against a common doom.
And there’s more. At five bells today we passed an islet no larger than a castle & shaped like a broken tooth. The Sizzies took one glance at it & starting muttering afresh. Pazel listened in & reported to me: they knew that barren rock, & did not understand how we could be anywhere near it without encountering patrols.
Even with the damaged keel I have pushed the Chathrand to her limits, & we have left the other ships in our flotilla behind – all save Stiff-Neck’s own vessel, & the warship Nighthawk, with Darabik at the helm. But just where are we? Stiff-Neck responds to my question with a stare, as though perhaps I don’t deserve to be told. Then he grits his teeth & says, ‘Close to Gurishal. Within days of her, in fact. They must have disbanded the wide-perimeter guard, to add more ships to the battle at Serpent’s Head. But the inner guard still awaits us.’
Perhaps, but his men still gaze fearfully into the distance. And tonight there were strange lights to the north: bright flashes, orange & green. To my mind they were obscurely familiar.
Saturday, 27 Teala. Another black dawn, another day on sunless seas. No land, no stars. Among the men, no talk or smiles or appetite. Felthrup & Marila are tearing through the pages of the Polylex, for what aid I cannot fathom. Thasha sits in her room facing the wall, Pathkendle says, with her face clenched in furious concentration. Lady Oggosk is praying on the quarterdeck.
In short, despair, & Captain Fiffengurt has no special immunity. But when I retreated to my cabin this evening I found a gift beneath my pillow, & I record it here as the day’s token source of hope – and a peace offering, maybe. I know who brought it, though it came with no card. It is a great blue pearl.
Sunday, 28 Teala. Another glimpse of the sky: miles off to westward, and receding. It was night, but a little moonlight bathed the sea. How many has the Swarm killed, now? How many shiver beneath it, waiting for the end? And the animals: pity the creatures, mad with fear, running from the writhing mass above and never escaping. Off with this lamp now; my oil ration too is spent.
Monday, 29 Teala. I stood on the (slightly aft-tilted) quarterdeck & made a speech about the ixchel. How many are left alive (besides Ensyl and Myett) we do not know, I told them, but we must show forbearance if they appear again. The world is dying, I said, and I’ve reason to think they know it too. Let us be practical, I said. We may find they’re a help to us in the final hour.
It was not a brilliant speech: I lack Rose’s gift for rousing
a crew. Mutterings & murmurs swept the topdeck. ‘They have a talent for ship-sinking, Captain,’ someone growled.
‘Who do you think you’re educating, damn you?’ I fairly shouted, on the point of telling them about the Adelyne, my drowned uncle & his babe of three. Instead I just dismissed them, with a warning that the man who harmed an ixchel would answer to me.
An utter fiasco. If Talag was offering peace or help with that gift of a pearl, his spies will warn him now to keep his distance. I am a weak captain and a fool.
Wednesday, 1 Freala. Horror, horror. Very well, let it come. Annabel, you’re the keeper of my heart; I close this journal until I hold you again, in this world or the next. We have reached Gurishal, but we are not the first. Macadra’s ship is here, guarding the entrance to the Arrowhead Sound, & a demon crouches on the burning wreck of a Mzithrini patrol. They are waiting. They are daring us to approach.
35
Last Actions
‘Just bring it, Hercól.’
Thasha plunged down the Silver Stair, not once looking back. From her tone Pazel knew she expected to be obeyed. He and Neeps raced after her, fighting through the press of sailors dashing to their stations. Over the drums and the bellowing of the officers, Neeps said, ‘She’s right this time. We all wanted her to drink off the wine, save herself from the poison. She said a day might come when we needed her to use the Nilstone again. Well this is the day, mate.’
Just before they entered the ladderway, Pazel felt Neeps grip his arm. The tarboy was gazing off to starboard at the dark shape of Gurishal. Or rather, above it.
‘By the Pits, mate: those are stars!’
Pazel’s heart leaped at the sight: ten, no, twelve stars, exquisitely normal, unbearably lovely, from a patch of naked sky. After a moment Pazel’s eyes could make out the edge of the gap, round and ragged, in the fabric of the Swarm.
‘That’s a big hole,’ he said. ‘More than a hundred miles, I expect.’
Neeps looked at him soberly. ‘It’s big … unless it’s all that’s left. Unless the rest of the world is already under the Swarm.’
Pazel snorted, incredulous. Then he looked at the gap again, and shivered. Neeps could be right. But if that hundred-mile hole was all that remained, why would it just happen to be here, so close to them? Could the Swarm be avoiding Gurishal by some sort of instinct? He remembered how it had leaped from the River of Shadows in the heart of the Forest, at the moment Arunis brought it into the world. And there on Gurishal the River surfaced again, before it poured into death’s kingdom. Could that portal be exerting some force that actually pushed the Swarm away? And if so, what effect might it have on the Nilstone?
Such questions would have to wait, he knew. They fought their way down the Silver Stair to the upper gun deck. Somewhere in the crowd, the Mzithrini commander was shouting: ‘Why this panic? We are three warships, and she cannot manoeuvre with her back to the cliffs! Is the maukslar so very deadly?’
Neeps and Pazel stepped through the invisible wall and raced along the aft-leaning corridor to the stateroom. Most of their friends were already here. Thasha had gone straight to her cabin, leaving the door ajar.
‘Macadra!’ shrilled Felthrup. ‘She is every bit as vile as her brother! But is she mindless, too? Can she be blind to the abomination above us?’
‘No,’ said Ramachni, from the bench by the gallery windows, ‘but perhaps she believes that with the Nilstone in hand she can simply banish the Swarm. If so, she is deluded. The Swarm is close to swallowing Alifros, as a snake gulps down an egg. No spell will affect it now.’
‘But how did they manage to repair the Death’s Head so quickly?’ asked Marila. ‘They needed two masts just for starters.’
‘They did not act quickly,’ said Kirishgán. ‘Don’t you see, Marila? The sorceress needed only to choose a better moment than we did to plunge through the gap in the Red Storm. It was weakening, after all. For every day she waited, she could expect to reach this side earlier, not later. The Death’s Head may have spent a month in some sheltered harbour in the Island Wilderness, cutting and fitting those masts, and yet arrived well ahead of us.’
‘They made short work of the Mzithrini patrols boat, in any case,’ said Bolutu. ‘Who knows? Perhaps they have driven the Shaggat’s worshippers inland, if there were any nearby.’
‘Or enlisted them,’ said Neeps.
Pazel moved to the gallery windows. The Arrowhead Sound. It was a great fjord, wide at its mouth but narrowing as it pierced the towering cliffs of southwest Gurishal. And right in the mouth of the fjord stood the Arrowhead itself: a truly monstrous stone, the size of five hundred Chathrands. It had evidently once been part of Gurishal, for it stood as tall as the cliffs. But the rock had eroded from the waves upwards, leaving the base much thinner than the crown. The arrow was balanced on its tip.
He thought of his sister’s words. The rock that ought to fall, but doesn’t. The place the old masters went to die.
And from atop the Arrowhead, he knew, the maukslar was watching them. It had flown there, clutching a half-eaten Mzithrini sailor, when the burning patrol ship finally sank. You could see the demon plainly through a telescope, though not with the naked eye. The Chathrand stood four miles out, and Fiffengurt was keeping them here until they chose their next move. Pazel could see the Death’s Head, however. She stood at anchor beneath that massive stone, as though tempting fate. They could not possibly enter the sound without confronting her.
Hercól arrived and made at once for Thasha’s chamber. Pazel and the others followed. Thasha had opened the outer door of the hidden cabinet. The bottle of Agaroth wine stood on her desk beside the Polylex. On her bed lay the two halves of Big Skip’s steel box and the gauntlets from Uláramyth. Thasha looked straight at Hercól and held out her hand.
Reluctantly, Hercól passed her the silver rod. Neeps was right: they had no choice but to prepare. Thasha had used the Nilstone twice already and survived. Once more and it would all be finished: the wine, the poison, the temptation.
Thasha turned the key in the round hole, then seized the handle and gave a fierce tug. With a shriek of metal the iron slab slid out into the room.
Everyone winced: the Nilstone was throbbing, blazing with an energy so fierce it was like the heat of a bonfire. And yet there was no heat. Pazel shielded his eyes. Was it because they were so near their goal, so near the end of the River of Shadows, so close to death’s kingdom? Was the Nilstone reaching out for the land it came from?
Thasha returned the key to Hercól and put on the gauntlets. ‘What do you mean to do, Thasha?’ asked Felthrup.
‘Show Macadra the Stone,’ said Thasha. ‘If she clears out I’ll let her go. But if she so much as aims one cannon our way, I’ll hit the Death’s Head so hard she’ll have nothing left to repair.’
‘Alas for my brothers aboard,’ said Bolutu. ‘Some of them serve only out of fear or hunger, I expect.’
‘Like soldiers everywhere,’ said Kirishgán. ‘But Lady Thasha, hear me a moment. Macadra will have mighty telescopes, and things more powerful than telescopes, trained on us. I do not think you should show her the exact location of the Nilstone.’
‘Kirishgán’s right,’ said Pazel. ‘Remember the Promise. She wants to take the Stone, not sink it to the sea floor. That may be the only reason she hasn’t—’
A howl cut him off: a cry of abject terror from the topdeck, on five hundred throats.
‘It’s started,’ said Hercól simply, leaping for the stateroom. The others followed. Through the gallery windows, Pazel saw that a ball of red fire had risen from Macadra’s ship. It was hurtling towards them, slower than a cannonball but still very fast, illuminating the black underbelly of the Swarm.
‘Away, away from the windows!’ howled Felthrup. ‘Thasha, call your dogs!’
Neeps was standing on the window bench. ‘Get down from there, idiot!’ screamed Marila, hauling at his arm. Neeps tugged his arm fiercely away.
‘Look! That ball’s
off-target. It’s going to miss us by a mile. Unless—’
The fireball screamed by the Chathrand to portside. There came a boom and a blinding flash. Literally blinding: Pazel groped forward, seeing nothing but white-hot stars. As his vision returned he saw that someone had thrown open the door to the reading room, which had a view to portside. Through the doorway he saw the Mzithrini ship in flames. The ball, it seemed, had exploded against her stern.
The ship was devastated. Her sternpost split in two. The decks above the waterline were pulverised; the quarterdeck collapsed into the inferno below. Already the sea was gushing in through the shattered hull.
Oh Gods. All those people.
There were two hundred men on the Mzithrini ship.
‘Now we know what happened to all those Mzithrini patrols,’ said Marila.
Thasha looked Pazel straight in the eye. Her face was set, her look beyond fury. She removed the selk gauntlets, let them fall to the floor.
He almost stopped her, almost said Wait – but how could he? The next target would be the Nighthawk. What exactly were they waiting for?
They followed her back into the cabin. Thasha lifted the bottle from her desk and stepped in front of the pulsing Nilstone. Then she tore open the stopper, tilted the bottle to her lips and drank it dry.
Her gaze softened. She lowered the bottle and passed it to Marila. In the sudden silence Pazel heard Fiffengurt giving orders for a rescue operation. Thasha placed a hand on her chest.
‘I’m … cured,’ she said. ‘The poison is gone. I can feel it.’
Pazel threw his arms around her, undone with relief.
‘And if I touch the Stone again, I will die.’
The feeling of doom that gripped Pazel in the next few minutes was unlike anything he could recall. The dregs of the Agaroth wine had done their work, but had given Thasha no last moment of fearlessness. She would never use the Nilstone again – not as Thasha, at any rate. And now they were helpless. Macadra had weapons they could never hope to match, and the maukslar as well. Pazel glanced at Neeps and saw an echo of his own shame. They had never admitted it, but they had counted on Thasha to save them once more.
The Night of the Swarm (Chathrand Voyage 4) Page 79