The River of Shadows Page 9

“I heard that Rain had quarantined the man,” said Hercól. “Something about a fever.”

  “He has no fever now,” said Felthrup. “When that serpent neared the Chathrand, and every man aboard feared the worst, Mr. Duprís fled his post, screaming, ‘I won’t touch it, I won’t, I won’t!’ That sort of nonsense. Later his friends dragged him to sickbay. He was in a terrible state, but he grew calmer once they strapped him down: indeed he thanked the doctor for strapping him down. But then the surgeon’s mate discovered his high temperature. Fearing he might infect the rest of the ward, he persuaded Rain to send the man to an empty cabin. They moved him late at night. But on the way to the cabin, Duprís asked for some fresh air, so Rain and the mate brought him to one of the open gunports and let him bend down. He took a deep breath. Then he looked over his shoulder at them. ‘He cannot make me do it. I’ll never touch that cursed thing.’ With those words Duprís cast himself into the sea.”

  A silence fell. “Arunis,” said Pazel at last. “He was talking about Arunis.”

  Thasha sighed. “And the Nilstone, of course.”

  “So Arunis has begun to kill,” said Hercól, “as he always promised he would. It is terrible news that he has grown strong enough to attack our minds in such a way. I always thought that he managed it with Mr. Druffle through some prolonged contact with the man—through potions or torture. Now it appears he can do so without ever touching his victim—from hiding, where no one can interfere. During the crossing, when the Turach committed suicide by placing his hand on the Stone, I thought the poor man had simply despaired. Now I wonder.”

  “Why isn’t the whole ship talking about Duprís?” asked Pazel.

  “Mr. Alyash feared to start a panic,” said Felthrup, “and so he ordered Rain and Fulbreech to keep the man’s death a secret. But I can tell you something more, friends: I was not alone in listening to their conversation. There were ixchel, somewhere close, for I heard their whispers. They did not hear me, I think. I have become a better spy on this voyage, if nothing else.”

  “What did they say?” asked Thasha.

  “Something very curious. They said, ‘So it’s happening to the giants as well.’ ”

  A low groan escaped Pazel’s chest. “Arunis must be working on the ixchel too. And why not, since they’re in charge? But what in blazes does he want? He still needs a crew to sail the ship, doesn’t he?”

  “We should go to the council,” said Thasha. “Not that anyone’s going to listen to us.”

  “Whether they listen or not, we must keep our purpose clear,” said Hercól. “We swore to place the Stone beyond the reach of evil—and that we must do, somehow. Where is that place? I do not know. Even Erithusmé, greatest wizardess since the time of the Amber Kings, did not know. But it exists, or Ramachni would not have set us looking for it. Taking the Nilstone to that place will be impossible, however, so long as the Chathrand remains in the grip of evil men. We must break that grip.”

  “That could mean killing,” said Thasha.

  “I expect it will,” said Hercól. “Arunis will never relent; Sandor Ott does not know how. If we have truly leaped forward two centuries, then his Emperor is dead, and the very dynasty of the Magads may well have failed. That at least would be no tragedy. But Ott does not know this, and my heart tells me he would not believe it even if he stood before the tomb of the last Magad to sit on the Ametrine Throne. No, he will fight on, even as a prisoner of the ixchel. Other hearts may change, however. In that possibility we must always have faith.”

  “Not all change is for the better,” said Felthrup.

  “That’s blary true,” said Thasha. “Those horrid ships—they were flying Bali Adro flags. The whole Empire that Bolutu thought would come to our rescue must have turned into something foul.” She looked up at Hercól with sudden dread. “We can’t let them take the Chathrand.”

  “Now you see it,” said Hercól. “If Bali Adro is ruled by mass murderers, what greater crime could we commit than to bring them the Nilstone? We are charged with keeping it from evil, not laying it at evil’s foot. Once we imagined the South an empty land, where we might persuade the crew to abandon ship in sufficient numbers to strand her, until the villains gave command of her to us. Now the villains may well be everywhere. A sound ship and a willing crew are our only hope of survival.”

  Pazel felt anger tightening his chest. “You want us to go on helping these bastards? Helping Rose and Ott, Alyash and Taliktrum and his gang?”

  “We cannot proceed without them, Pazel. Of course I don’t imagine that they will make it easy. But we must remember the lesson of the fishermen and the crocodile.”

  “Ah!” said Felthrup. “An excellent parable; I have heard it myself. Two fishermen made long war over a favorite spot to cast their nets. Each day they came and bickered, racing each other in their labors. Finally, at the end of one hot, sticky, altogether infelicitous day, they came to blows, and one man clubbed the other nearly senseless, and left him crawling on the banks. There Tivali the crocodile found him, and delightedly feasted.”

  “Oh joy,” said Pazel.

  “I have not finished, Pazel,” said the rat. “When the other fisherman returned, he was glad to have the spot to himself, and stayed all day, filling his baskets. But in the shadows of evening Tivali crept up and seized his leg. The crocodile was strengthened by his earlier meal, and before he ate again, he remarked through his teeth that he had never dared attack both men together. ‘You did my work for me,’ he said. ‘I knew I could depend on you.’ You’re right, Master Hercól. Rose and Ott may be monstrous, but without them we cannot face the crocodile. And we all know who that is.”

  “Arunis,” said Pazel, “of course. But Pitfire, there must be a better choice than that.”

  “There will be,” said Hercól, “when Ramachni returns.”

  “ ‘When a darkness comes beyond today’s imagining,’ ” said Thasha, echoing the mage’s parting words. “But hasn’t that time come and gone, Hercól? I don’t have any intention of giving up—and neither does Pazel, he just talks rot—but Rin’s eyeballs, how dark is dark enough?”

  “Ramachni has never failed us,” said Hercól, “and I cannot believe that he will fail us now, as the battle of his lifetime nears its conclusion. But we must go. The villains await us in the manger.”

  “I will be near you, under the floor,” said Felthrup. “There are passages the ixchel never dared to use, passages that belonged to the rats. They are all mine, now.”

  “For a time, perhaps,” said Hercól. “Go softly, little brother.”

  Felthrup scurried off. The humans returned the way they had come, and proceeded to the aftmost passage of the orlop deck. Foul air, sticky floorboards. Pazel knew with a hint of shame that he had not only been worrying for Thasha’s sake. He hated the manger like no other part of the ship.

  The passage brought them to the looted granary, and thence to the manger door. Here the stench was astonishing: fur, blood, bile, ashes, rot. Pazel saw the flicker of lamplight, heard the voices of men and ixchel, arguing.

  “—can’t let one person beyond this room know what’s happened to human beings,” Fiffengurt was saying. “I’ve seen vessels in the grip of plague-panic. They can’t be sailed. The men get frightened of every cough, sneeze, hiccup—”

  Thasha and her dogs stepped into the chamber. The mastiffs tensed and growled, and the talking ceased.

  “At last,” snapped Taliktrum’s voice. “What took you so long, girl? Do you think we assembled here for the pleasure of one another’s company?”

  Pazel and Hercól followed her inside. The manger was wide and deep, built to store fodder for two hundred cattle, in the days when the Great Ship had carried whole herds across the Narrow Sea. Their own cattle had all perished: some had broken legs or hips during the Nelluroq storms and had to be slaughtered quickly; most were savaged by the rats. But no one had yet removed the hay.

  Pazel looked at the wall of square bales tied up at the back of
the chamber, saw the stain down the front like a dark dried stream. He and Thasha had made their stand on that wall. The rats had seemed endless in number, demonic in their hate. Pazel had fought with every ounce of his strength; Thasha, ten times the fighter he was, had hewn the creatures down like weeds. But the rats had swarmed around them, leaping from behind. They would have perished in minutes without the Nilstone.

  It was still there, at the center of the manger, clenched in the stone hand of the Shaggat Ness, that lifeless maniac, that king become a statue. Pazel could not see the Stone—Fiffengurt had ordered the Shaggat’s arm draped with cloth, and the cloth firmly tied about the statue’s wrist—but he could feel it all the same. What was he sensing? Not a sound, not a glimmer. The feeling was closest to heat. With every step into the chamber he could feel it grow.

  The Shaggat himself was kept upright by a wooden frame, girdling his waist and bolted heavily to the floor. He stared at his upraised hand with a weirdly shifting expression: triumph giving way to terror and shock. He had remained flesh and blood just long enough to see the weapon he craved begin to kill him.

  On the mad king’s shoulder stood tiny Lord Taliktrum. His consort, Myett, crouched beside him, one hand on his calf, tensed for flight or combat as she always was when humans approached. Pazel felt a keen hatred for the pair. Murderers. They had not actually slain Diadrelu, Pazel and Thasha’s dear friend and the ixchel’s former commander. But they might as well have. Steldak, the ixchel man who had jerked the spear through her neck, was deranged, and perished himself in short order. It was Taliktrum and his fanatics who had ambushed Diadrelu, and held her while the deed was done. Pazel would never forgive them.

  Around the statue were gathered some twelve or thirteen humans, along with Bolutu and Ibjen. Pazel still marveled at the dlömic boy’s willingness to help them. He had said no more about it since the fire on the beach, never explained who had told him that some on the Chathrand were trying to “redeem the world.” But his courage was being sorely tested. He’d been promised a safe return to the village by nightfall. From the look on his face he was counting the hours.

  Six Turachs were present, including Haddismal. And there was Big Skip Sunderling: a welcome surprise, for the carpenter’s mate was a trusted friend. Not so the bosun, Mr. Alyash, who greeted the newcomers with a scowl: a gruesome expression, owing to the blotchy scars that covered him from mouth to chest. Alyash was a spy in the service of Sandor Ott. The scars, Pazel had heard him claim, were marks of torture with a sarcophagus jellyfish by the followers of the Shaggat Ness.

  Mr. Uskins was here as well—tall, fair Uskins, the disgraced first mate. The man had loathed Pazel and Neeps from the start—they belonged to inferior races, but failed to cringe before their betters—and the tarboys returned the sentiment. But lately Pazel had begun to feel sorry for Uskins. The man looked like a shipwreck. Once fastidious in the extreme, he had neglected both his beard and his uniform. His blond hair dangled greasy and uncombed. When he looked at Pazel his eyes lit with antipathy, but it was a vague, distracted sort of hate.

  The last two figures were even more unexpected. One was Claudius Rain—addled Dr. Rain, the worst quack Pazel had ever encountered. Rain had barely stirred from his cabin since the legendary Dr. Chadfallow replaced him as ship’s surgeon. But here he was, following the flies with his gaze, muttering to himself. And there beside him, damn it all, stood the surgeon’s mate, Greysan Fulbreech.

  The handsome Simjan youth beamed at Thasha, who returned a brief, uneasy smile. Pazel wanted to smash something. He was visited by the absurd idea that Fulbreech, five or six years older and unbearably decent to everyone, was the true reason Thasha had insisted on attending the meeting. Fulbreech had appeared suddenly one day in the wedding crowd on Simja, bearing a mysterious message for Hercól. Pazel had mistrusted him from that first moment, though he had to admit he had no definite cause. Not for mistrust, anyway; jealousy was another matter. He knew quite well that Thasha had fancied the surgeon’s mate—had kissed him once or twice, even, when Oggosk’s threats made Pazel treat her with disdain. Of course, that was over now—

  Fulbreech gave him a frank, friendly smile. “Hello, Pathkendle.”

  Pazel nodded, failing to bring an answering smile to his lips. Do I hate him just because Thasha doesn’t? What’s the matter with me?

  Behind them, Alyash closed the chamber door.

  Taliktrum cleared his throat. “We’re alive,” he said. “That is something. But no one should suppose that we have earned the right to breathe easy. Only giants think in terms of merits and rewards; our people think of survival. That is what we are here to determine: how to survive together, until we can go our separate ways.”

  Fiffengurt laughed grimly. “Did you see that Gods-forsaken serpent? Did you hear those drums? We’re babes in the woods, Mr. Taliktrum. How in Pitfire do you determine the best way to survive in a world you know nothing about?”

  “You must address him as ‘commander’ or ‘lord,’ ” hissed Myett.

  “You are not equipped to understand,” said Taliktrum, “but we are. The ixchel have not grown fat in their time of exile; they have not grown soft and selfish. Every house in Etherhorde, every dog-prowled, cat-infested alley, was to us a place of menace and persecution. Do you see how fortunate you are that we seized your drifting helm? Trust me, you are adrift no longer. The Chathrand shall move through this great, strange South as the ixchel move through a city: in the shadows, in darting runs and swift concealments, inch by hard-won inch.”

  His words tumbled out like an unpracticed speech, or a man trying to convince himself of his own consequence. When he finished, he appeared at a loss. Without releasing his leg, Myett looked up and caught his eye, and then subtly directed his attention to Old Gangrüne.

  “I have asked our purser,” said Taliktrum at once, “to remind us of the assets that remain aboard this ship. That is the purser’s duty, among other things. Are you prepared, Mr. Gangrüne?”

  The old, bent fellow nodded sourly. He was fussing with an extremely tattered and dog-eared accounting book.

  “Well, proceed,” said Taliktrum.

  Gangrüne took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his vest pocket, considered the filthy lenses, folded them anew. He opened the logbook and considered it for nearly a minute with the deepest disappointment. At last Haddismal snatched the book, flipped it right-side up, and placed it again in Gangrüne’s hands. The old man glared at the sergeant as though he had been tricked. Then he cleared his throat.

  “It is my joy,” he shouted, “in this, my thirty-seventh year as purser aboard the Imperial Mercantile Ship Chathrand, registration four-o-two-seven-nine Etherhorde, to present you with another exact and impeccable accounting. To begin with the human assets, gentlemen: our splendid vessel currently boasts three hundred and ninety-one ordinary seamen, one hundred and forty able seamen, twenty-two midshipmen, sixteen lieutenants and sub-lieutenants, two gun captains, six deck officers in full command of their mental faculties, another deck officer, a glorious and decorated captain, a famous and educated sailmaster, a doctor and another who petitions our belief that he is such, a surgeon’s mate, two illustrious passengers entitled to partial refunds due to our tardiness in returning to Etherhorde, nine specialists, seven mates, a veterinarian with webbed fingers, a master cook, a tailor, thirty-four tarboys of no distinction or morals, ninety-one Turach marines with full mobility and one who suffers headaches and is prone to falling forward, a regimental clerk, a foul witch, an experienced whaling-ship commander and his nineteen surviving crew members, including four Quezan warriors indecently fond of nakedness, thirty-three steerage passengers, among them twelve women, four boys, three girls and an infant with a cleft lip, eight—”

  “Silence!” screamed Taliktrum. “Mr. Gangrüne, what are we to do with such a rubbish heap of detail? I asked you for a summary statement.”

  Gangrüne countered that he was presenting a summary, that a full company report would
have required him to be “rather more specific.” He was about to resume his reading, but Taliktrum cut him off.

  “That will do, Purser, thank you ever so much. Post your summary in the wardroom as I requested. Now then—” The young lord’s eyes swept the room, and at last settled on Thasha again. “Step forward, girl.”

  Thasha hesitated, then moved toward the ixchel and the Shaggat Ness. She regarded Taliktrum coldly.

  “We have decided to keep this plague of idiocy a secret from the crew of the Chathrand. Have you or your friends spoken of it to anyone?”

  “Of course not,” said Thasha.

  Nothing about the time-skip, Pazel thought. Hercól’s right. It’s safer this way.

  “When we fought the rats in this chamber,” Taliktrum went on, “I saw a thing I cannot explain. Pathkendle saw it too, and my father, and a handful of my guards. I am not sure whether you saved our lives or inspired the rats to start the bonfire that nearly killed us all. Will you tell us what happened?”

  A brief pause, then Thasha shook her head.

  “Perhaps you distrust certain persons here?” suggested Taliktrum. “Will you speak to me privately, to help me better command this vessel?”

  Grunts and murmurs escaped the humans. Command, he says. One of the Turachs turned aside to spit.

  “No,” said Thasha, “I won’t.”

  “Do not toy with us,” said Taliktrum, his voice rising. “By now you of all people must know that we of Ixphir House do not bluff. We have no desire to see any more of your people killed—”

  “What about your own?” muttered Fiffengurt.

  “—but if you refuse to face the truth of your situation, you will leave us no choice. Look at me when I address you, girl.”

  “Her name is Thasha Isiq,” said Hercól.

  Every head in the chamber turned. Taliktrum started; Myett’s hand went to her bow. Hercól had spoken quietly, but Pazel had rarely heard such depths of hatred in a voice.

  Hercól and Diadrelu had been lovers. Pazel did not know what that meant, between a human and an eight-inch-tall ixchel queen. A few months ago he would not have believed it possible: it was the stuff of tarboy jokes. But he had seen Hercól when they found her, hours too late but still beautiful, naked save for her bandaged neck, surrounded by those of her clan who had loved her to the end. Hercól’s agony had been like a second death, and Pazel had felt ashamed of his doubt.