The Night of the Swarm

13

25 Modobrin 941

Pazel’s leg grew worse in their first hours in Ularamyth. He took to bed, much to everyone’s relief, but the pain did not abate. The selk doctors frowned and whispered: the spittle of the flame troll had burned deep into his flesh, and even penetrated the bone. To fight it they had to probe deeply themselves, extracting tiny particles of filth and sand, cutting the dead flesh away. For Pazel the ordeal was very strange. He was in agony; at times he could not keep from screaming aloud. And yet somehow the pain was a distant thing. He observed his own suffering as though from a mountaintop, where a part of him remained at peace. Was it the magic of Ularamyth, or had the selk given him some rare draught that divided body from mind?

The next stage of his recovery was terrible, however. Chills and fevers raced through him, and his wounded leg became too heavy to move. He slept, but in his dreams he saw the Swarm of Night moving among the clouds over Alifros: huge and hideous. Where its shadow passed over the land, colours faded, growing things turned sickly, backs bent with weariness and care. And the Swarm grew larger even as he watched.

Then a morning came when he woke to the sound of shutters opening, and sunlight bathed his face. Neeps was at the window, dressed in fine new clothes, a boy prince on holiday. When Pazel sat up he turned, beaming, then rushed to Pazel’s side.

‘Well, mate, you look like you recognize me, and that’s an improvement. How’s that blary leg?’

‘Fine. Marvellous, actually. What do you mean, recognize you?’

Neeps said that in Pazel’s delirium he would wake but appear not to see anyone, or to know where he was. ‘You were peaceful, fortunately — no mad capers like Felthrup. And the selk told me that faraway look was a good sign. They said it meant you were busy, fighting back to strength.’

‘They were right,’ said Pazel, kicking away the bedclothes. ‘Is there anything to eat? I’m famished.’

‘You should be,’ said Neeps. ‘Four days you’ve lain in that bed. There’s food in the common room — if you’re sure that leg is steady.’

‘Steady!’ Pazel laughed and sprang to his feet. ‘I feel as if I could run.’

‘Try it and I’ll smack you,’ said Thasha from the doorway.

She was dressed with simple elegance, like Neeps, and her golden hair was braided in a style he had never seen before. She came to him slowly, eyes thoughtful and serene. Pazel could feel her health when he embraced her.

Neeps looked away, instantly unsettled. ‘She wouldn’t budge from your side,’ he said stiffly. ‘We were thinking of tying her to a tree.’

Thasha stared hard at Neeps a moment. Then she flung an arm around his neck and pulled him close, and kissed both boys’ foreheads until they laughed and squirmed.

When Pazel had dressed they stepped out into the sunny courtyard. The white dog Shilu rose to greet them, but there was no one else about. Neeps handed Pazel a bowl of rice and vegetables, and Pazel attacked it, not bothering to take a seat at the table.

‘Where is everyone?’ he asked between mouthfuls.

‘Exploring,’ said Neeps, ‘except for Hercol and Ramachni, who will be studying the Nilstone and discussing the Swarm with the elders. And Cayer Vispek, of course. He’ll be crouched in some little room, praying or contemplating death.’

‘Neeps!’ cried Thasha.

‘I’m not blary exaggerating. The man even makes Neda uncomfortable, and she half-worships him. Sorry, mate, but it’s true. And if you ask me, it’s real work to be unhappy in this place. It’s been just four days, but I feel as if I’ve rested four weeks, at home on Sollochstol, with my Gran fussing over me.’

‘It’s the food,’ said Thasha, ‘and the water, and the air. It’s richer, somehow.’ She looked around. ‘That’s strange. Bolutu and Lunja were here a moment ago. I wonder why they ran off so quickly.’

‘Because we’re here,’ said Neeps, ‘and soon enough we’ll all wake up and find ourselves back on some stony trail, cold and damp and surrounded by wolves. Finish eating, piglet; there’s glory awaiting.’

Pazel finished, and they walked out into Ularamyth with Shilu at their heels. Thasha and Neeps had not done much exploring (Pazel suspected that they had both been watching him night and day, but they had seen something of the immediate area. The township was called Thehel Urred, and tiny though it was, it brimmed with hidden gardens and waterways and strange alleys tucked just out of sight. They showed Pazel a fountain where marble cranes strutted in glittering spray; a woken tortoise who dozed beneath a brysorwood tree, mumbling in his sleep; a pool from which a water spirit was said to emerge in the hour before dawn; a hedge maze where Bolutu had gotten lost chasing beetles and dragonflies, until Big Skip went in after him, unwinding a string.

The selk stopped them often, always with good cheer. They gave the youths small cups of wine or cider, and showed them places Thasha and Neeps had yet to discover. An amphitheatre, a gold smithy, a stone table where gems lay unguarded among scattered leaves, a glasshouse full of silkworms, an archery range where Nolcindar was practising, landing arrows in a spiral shape upon her target, neat as a tailor stitching a sleeve.

‘You’re getting tired,’ said Thasha, watching Pazel’s laboured breath. ‘One more stop, then it’s back to bed with you.’

The last stop was a little hill on the edge of the township. It was round and solitary, and a steep staircase led to its peak. At the summit, benches formed a circle about a strange hole fringed with ashes, from which steam puffed like a handkerchief shaken in the wind. It was a fumarole, a volcanic steam vent, like the ones they had seen on the lava field called the Black Tongue.

‘No flame-trolls,’ said Thasha, ‘but plenty of fire underground. You can find these all over Ularamyth. Nolcindar brought us here yesterday, and showed us a thing or two.’

They turned Pazel this way and that. To the west, high on the crater’s rim, stood the landing with the willow trees where they had arrived. On the north rim, higher still, a dark triangular doorway opened in the rock: that led to the Nine Peaks Road, an ancient trail over the mountaintops, by which no one journeyed any more. To the south the floor of the crater was all forest, moist and dark, with white mists drifting over the trees. And a mile east lay the great lake they had spotted from the landing, with its tall and solitary island.

‘We’re not allowed there,’ said Thasha. ‘In fact we’re barred from three places in Ularamyth: the tunnels leading out of the city, a certain temple guarded by wolves like Valgrif — and that lake, which they call Osir Delhin.’

Pazel started. ‘Do you know what that name means?’

‘ “Lake of Death”,’ said Thasha. ‘Ramachni told us. But the selk won’t talk about it at all.’

They sat down together on the turf, outside the ring of benches; the dog dropped down beside them with a contented whine.

‘I don’t understand the selk yet,’ said Pazel. ‘There’s something different — really different — about them. Something you can’t just see, like the strangeness of their eyebrows.’

‘I feel it too,’ said Neeps, ‘every time they glance at me. And here’s something else you can’t tell by looking: Ramachni says there are just five thousand of them.’

‘Five thousand in Ularamyth?’

‘Five thousand in all the world.’

Pazel froze.

‘A lot of them are here, in Ularamyth and the surrounding mountains,’ said Thasha. ‘The rest are scattered over Alifros. In the Northern world there are hardly any — maybe a few dozen all told.’

‘Five thousand,’ said Pazel again. The idea shocked him profoundly. There were more humans in little Ormael City than selk in the whole of Alifros. ‘Where are their children?’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen a single one.’

‘I’ve seen a few,’ said Thasha. ‘But they’re very quiet about their children, and seem to want to keep them out of sight.’

‘Who knows when they stop being children,’ said Neeps. ‘At age twenty, or two hundred?’ He looked out wistfully at the green landscape. ‘I wish Marila were here. She would love this. I don’t think she’s ever known much peace.’

A silence fell. Pazel wished he’d never mentioned children. ‘You shouldn’t have clung to my bedside, you two,’ he said at last.

Neeps and Thasha exchanged an awkward glance. ‘It wasn’t just for you, mate,’ said Neeps. ‘The doctors have been poking and prodding me around the clock. Weird treatments. They gave me mare’s milk. And they asked Lunja to sit and stare into my eyes — which she did very reluctantly, I might add. None of those tricks changed anything, as far as I can tell. But Ularamyth has. The truth is, I felt my head clearing as soon as we stepped out of that tunnel. It’s no cure; I can still feel something’s wrong up here-’ he rapped on his forehead ‘-but I think it may be buying me some time.’

Pazel could find no words for his friend. He was trying to imagine Neeps staying here, safe in Ularamyth but cut off from everyone he knew, from Marila, from their child. .

He glanced nervously at Thasha. What about you? he thought. But he could not bring himself to ask, not yet. Instead he linked arms with both of them.

‘Do you know why I wouldn’t let them carry me?’ he said. ‘Because if we live — if some of us do — I want us to have this. A memory of seeing this place for the first time, together. Because right now we’re alive, and I’m blary grateful for that — and, well, that’s all, really-’

Thasha squeezed his hand. Neeps looked him up and down. ‘Pitfire, now he’s going to start with the blary kissing.’

Pazel tackled him, and Thasha joined in, besting them both, and they were still laughing and rolling when they heard a sharp canine woof.

Valgrif stood over them, looking amused, if that were possible in a gigantic white wolf. ‘You look as healthy as cubs,’ he said, ‘but come quickly, Master Undrabust, for the doctors have been waiting to see you this hour and more.’

Neeps jumped up. ‘Credek, is it time already?’

‘We’ll come with you,’ said Pazel, rising.

Neeps shook his head. ‘Don’t bother, mate. No others allowed when I’m being tested. No other humans, at least. Bolutu’s often there, and Lunja. Devil take these tests, anyway! What good are they doing?’

‘Go on,’ said Thasha firmly. ‘You told me this morning that they were almost finished. Don’t quit now.’

Still grumbling, Neeps followed the wolf down the stairs. When he was gone Pazel looked at Thasha quickly. ‘Have they said anything else to you? Privately, I mean?’

Thasha nodded. ‘That there’s hope. Real hope, but nothing certain.’ She leaned into him, looking stunned. ‘We were sitting here yesterday at this time, and a dozen tol-chenni shuffled by. They live here safely, like the birds and the deer. Some of them were chewing bones. The selk feed them, Ramachni says. And Neeps made a joke about how if he became one of them at least he’d never have to mend his socks.’

She gazed at him, as if asking how the world had ever produced so singular a creature as his friend. Pazel found himself laughing, and soon Thasha was laughing too, and it went on until she was limp and winded in his arms. ‘We’re supposed to keep him happy and relaxed,’ she said. ‘Of course the second part’s impossible, since it’s Neeps we’re talking about. Still, that’s our job.’

‘Could be worse,’ he said, and kissed her. It was an impulsive kiss more than a passionate one, but Thasha returned it desperately, clutching him about the neck. When he stopped to breathe she whispered I found a place, and he let her help him down the stairs, giggling at his clumsy urgency. She led him south, by footpaths and alleys, through the scattered buildings at the town’s edge, across a meadow, over a stile, and at last deep into a field of green grass that rose higher than their shoulders. On they went for hundreds of yards, and the warm grass smell was shot through with richer scents, lavender and sage, and Thasha turned to him with burrs clinging to her hair and put a hand under his shirt. He felt the edge of her nails, a warning.

‘You keep it away from me this time, or it’s going to bleed.’

‘Right,’ he said at once, repressing a gesture of self-protection.

‘You think I’m kidding. That I’m going to let you, no matter what I say.’

‘Actually, I don’t.’

‘You’d better not. Because later we won’t be able to do even this much. It’s what I told you before. Later we’ll have to think of other things.’

‘I know that. And Thasha, listen: what I said on that island, in the river-’

Thasha shook her head. Beneath his shirt her hand began to move. He touched her cheek; she was trembling. There were tears at the corners of her eyes.

Time passed like a dream in Ularamyth: a dream of peace and healing. It was the very end of summer, here in the Southern world, but the cold of the coming season had yet to arrive. Even at midnight (and Pazel was often awake at midnight, listening to selk music, or trading tales with them, or simply walking under the stars) there was as yet no chill, and by day the sun filled the crater-realm like liquid amber.

He thought: The Swarm is out there, growing, gorging on death. He knew that was the truth, but part of him was working hard to deny it. No world that held Ularamyth could hold that as well. And yet they themselves had brought a thing into Ularamyth that gave the Swarm all its power. A black sphere, a little flaw in the world’s fabric, a tiny leak in the ship. Give it time and it would sink the ship, every last compartment, even one this small and secretive and blessed.

Often Pazel found himself thinking of Chadfallow. The man was not his father by blood: Pazel had finally forced him to answer that question definitively. But what was blood? Nothing more than an illusion, a lie. Captain Gregory Pathkendle was his blood, but Gregory had abandoned his family and never looked back. If anyone had earned the right to call himself Pazel’s father, it was Ignus Chadfallow.

And how he would have loved Ularamyth! How he would have begged the selk to show him its wonders, to open their libraries, clinics, laboratories, to teach him everything. Chadfallow might have found peace in the Vale. And perhaps the two of them could have made up a little for all the wasted years.

We’ll start that the day I get back to the Chathrand, Ignus. The very minute. I swear.

The others in their party had found pursuits of their own. Big Skip had befriended smiths and carpenters among the selk. Corporal Mandric was fascinated by their weaponry. Myett had travelled the forests with Valgrif, and Ensyl had been invited underground, and returned speaking of wondrous chambers of fire and ice. Hercol and Ramachni walked often with Lord Arim and Nolcindar and other leaders of the selk, but they were never long away, and stayed particularly close to the youths.

Only Cayer Vispek held himself apart. He was courteous, and showed true joy at the speed with which their wounds were healing. But he was not enraptured by Ularamyth, and he kept a stern eye on Pazel’s sister. Neda herself was obedient to her master and dutiful in her prayers. Yet when Vispek allowed it she sought Pazel out, and no sfvantskor discipline could keep her from grinning at him, with that rare Neda grin he had almost forgotten. It had vanished so long ago, that grin. It had sailed with Gregory Pathkendle.

No one spoke yet of leaving Ularamyth. Thasha said that she thought the reason was probably simple: they had nowhere to go. The wilderness was vast, but beyond it lay the Bali Adro coast and the forces of the Ravens. Others reasons for the delay occurred to Pazel, however. Neeps, for starters. But he, Pazel, had not healed fully either, despite how good he felt. Walking was one thing, but if he ran or climbed any distance his leg began to burn. Each day the feeling lessened, but it never quite disappeared.

And then there was Thasha. Her body was healed, and by day her spirits were as bright as the late-summer skies. One morning she even challenged Hercol to a wrestling match, and laughed when he pinned her to the ground: ‘What an old man you are! I remember when you could do that in half the time!’ But at other moments, at night especially, a wall of strangeness descended. Pazel had seen it before: the chilliness in her eyes. The bleeding away of all recognition of those around her. The fierce awareness of something no one could see.

One night Pazel’s sister shook him awake and led him to a window in the common room. Over the streets of Thehel Urred, the Southern moon hung like a pale blue fish egg — and beneath it, in her nightdress, stood Thasha, arms raised as if to pull it down from the sky.

‘You know what’s happening, don’t you?’ said Neda in Mzithrini. ‘The wizardess is stirring inside her.’

‘Of course,’ said Pazel.

‘My master says that Erithusme took a part of her own soul and wiped it clean of memories, and let it grow for seventeen years, into Thasha. Is he right, Pazel? Is she living with just part of a soul?’

‘No,’ said Pazel. ‘There’s nothing partial about her. She’s a whole person, the same as any of us.’

Neda glanced over her shoulder, as if afraid someone else might see her. Then she took Pazel’s hand. ‘Thasha is my sister. I swore as much on the battlefield, and even my master cannot say that I was wrong. But Pazel, there is a martyr’s look in her eyes. We call it kol-veyna, the gaze into darkness. Cayer Vispek says-’

‘Neda, don’t.’

She saw it then, how hard he was fighting for control. They both fell silent. But when Thasha began to drift away from the square, Neda herself walked out into the moonlight, woke her with a touch, and led her back inside.

It was hard for Pazel to remember such moments when Thasha was in his arms, or when she and Neeps bickered contentedly, as they’d been doing since their first encounter on the Chathrand. Together the three youths ranged further across Ularamyth, exploring woods and keeps, caves and towers; and they guarded the memories of those joys for the rest of their days, like windows on a sunlit land.

Early one evening they heard shouting in the street, and left the house to investigate. From all the doors of Thehel Urred, selk were emerging, running and all in the same direction. The youths watched, mystified, until a selk man paused and looked up at them.

‘Join us, citizens!’ he cried. ‘Join us at the Armoured Chamber! The elders have spoken: Thaulinin your benefactor will go free!’

He ran on without a word. Overjoyed, the three friends made to follow at once. ‘As a matter of fact, you two should run,’ said Pazel. ‘Try to get there before he’s released. I’ll come as quickly as I can. Well go on, hurry!’

For once neither argued with him, but merely raced off. Pazel followed impatiently; most of the selk were drawing away. He broke into a cautious run, and had to smile. He could have kept pace with them after all: his leg was finally healed.

A selk man crossed the path ahead of him. Pazel glanced at the figure — and nearly stumbled in amazement.

‘Kirishgan!’

For once again it was he. Pazel’s friend from Vasparhaven was running like the other selk, but in a completely different direction. ‘Wait!’ cried Pazel. ‘By the Tree, Kirishgan, can’t you just stay a moment?’

Kirishgan stopped. He turned back to look at Pazel — but as before, appeared to do so with reluctance or difficulty. Their eyes met. Pazel stepped nearer, and a smile appeared on the face of the selk. But the next instant he turned, as though hearing a summons he could not ignore. Then he sprinted down the path and vanished among a stand of apple trees.

Pazel was confused and saddened. Kirishgan had never acted so strange in Vasparhaven Temple. Why on earth did he refuse even to speak? But there was no hope of catching up with him. Pazel went on his way.

In the square of the Armoured Chamber a crowd had gathered — and there on a platform stood Thaulinin, a free selk once again. The selk did not cheer, as humans might have done at such a time, but hundreds of them pressed close to the platform, obviously delighted. Only a few, at the edges of the square, looked on with unease.

Neeps and Thasha had found Hercol, and Pazel made his way to them through the crowd. When he arrived he saw that Ramachni was there as well, curled like a cat in Thasha’s arms. Pazel had barely greeted them when a hush fell over the crowd. Thaulinin was about to speak.

‘I have little to tell you,’ he said. ‘You all know my heart. But my freedom is a small matter, beside all that we face. Change is upon us. The earth trembles, the Swarm is loosed and spreading its dark cloak over Alifros. The return of human beings is one sign; if you would have another I can provide it. Our pilgrims are coming home, as they always have before a crisis. Some, like great Nolcindar, bring us joy and song. Others pass in silence. Among these is our brother Kirishgan. I saw him through my window this morning, running the silent race.’

A sorrowful murmur rippled through the crowd. ‘I saw him running as well,’ said Nolcindar. A few others spoke up then, saying much the same. Confused and unsettled, Pazel raised a hand.

‘I saw him tonight,’ he said, as hundreds of blue selk eyes turned his way. ‘He was in a great hurry, I think.’

His words caused a stir. ‘Could you not have been mistaken, Pazel?’ asked Thaulinin. ‘You met Kirishgan in Vasparhaven, but this is a very different matter. And no doubt we selk look rather alike to you.’

‘No you don’t,’ said Pazel. ‘and it was Kirishgan. I called his name, and he turned to look at me, and smiled.’

The sounds of amazement grew. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ asked Thasha. ‘Isn’t this Kirishgan welcome in Ularamyth?’

‘As much as any selk who breathes,’ said Thaulinin, ‘but perhaps we should speak of this later. Night comes soon, and there is much to decide.’

The selk began to disperse, glancing thoughtfully at the humans as they went. ‘You never fail to surprise me, Pazel,’ said Ramachni, ‘but I should have told you about the selk. You befriended one weeks ago, after all.’

‘Told him what?’ Neeps demanded.

‘I will let Thaulinin answer that question, now,’ said Ramachni. ‘And others, perhaps. Let us go.’

Thaulinin was waiting by the edge of the square. Beckoning, he led them down a twisting staircase bordered by junipers, and then into a dark, moss-covered tunnel. Pazel thought it must lead to some forbidding place, but on the far side lay a pleasant, hidden yard tucked into the bend of a swiftly running stream. A cool breeze touched their faces, carrying smells of nectar and pine. Thaulinin sat down by the stream’s edge, and the others followed his lead.

The selk looked grimly at Pazel. ‘See here, don’t be angry,’ said Neeps. ‘No one told Pazel to keep quiet.’

‘Oh, I am not angry,’ said Thaulinin. ‘It is just that we are all saddened by these glimpses of Kirishgan, and stunned that he answered Pazel’s call.’ He closed his eyes, and the feathered eyebrows knitted. ‘In many ways my people are unique in Alifros. We neither live nor die as you do.’

‘Are you saying. . that you are immortal?’ asked Pazel.

Thaulinin shook his head. ‘Such beings exist, but we are not among them — nor aspire to be, like your enemy Arunis. But our difference is indeed a difference of the soul. Among humans, the soul remains with the flesh, or at least very near it. The souls of dlomu range further afield — much further, during the nuhzat ecstasies. But for the selk, the soul is a distant brother or sister. It roams over Alifros, free and fetterless, and it is our life’s work to seek it out. That is why we are nomads, you see. That is why even blessed Ularamyth is no home for long. Ten years one of us may dwell here, or fifty — even a hundred, in rare cases. But these are only brief pauses in the journeys of our lives.’

Leaning back, Thaulinin cupped a palmful of water from the stream and drank. Then he said, ‘Death comes when at last we find our soul. It is a sacred moment, and no tragedy for the one whose life is complete. But it is sad for those left behind. Much changes in the lifetime of a selk: forests die; streams widen into rivers; kingdoms become entries in books. Our friends, however, witness all this change, and remember with us.’

The shadows were lengthening; far off at the crater’s rim, Pazel saw the last rays of sunset glittering on an icy peak.

‘During our lives, we see no more than hints of our soul: far-off shadows, images, flickers of movement in the corners of our eyes. Only at the very end do we see our souls face to face. Those who will survive us — our soul’s witnesses — may see it somewhat earlier. In outward form the soul is identical to its owner, but it cannot speak, or tarry. We say that it is running the silent race. That is what you saw, Pazel: Kirishgan’s soul. But it was your second revelation that amazed us: that his soul heeded you, and even turned. Except in rare cases, only dear friends and close kin may cause a soul to pause in its flight.’

‘We’re hardly close,’ said Pazel. ‘I mean, he was very kind, marvellous in fact — but for Rin’s sake, we just met once, for a few hours in a temple. We’re not old friends.’

‘Some forms of friendship elude all definition,’ said Ramachni.

‘Yes,’ said Thaulinin, ‘but there is another group of persons to whom our souls must answer: though it happens far more rarely. I speak of those who kill a selk by their own hands.’

Pazel was appalled. ‘This is getting crazier by the minute,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to kill him! I like him, for Rin’s sake!’

‘Something must explain his turning at your call,’ said Thaulinin.

‘Let us hope it is merely friendship,’ said Ramachni. ‘Pazel’s is a most open heart.’

‘But Kirishgan’s not even here, is he?’ said Thasha. ‘Truly here, I mean, in the flesh?’

Thaulinin shook his head. ‘Remember that our notion of soon is unlike yours. Kirishgan’s death may be months away, or years. And when Pazel does meet him in the flesh, he may well be far from the Secret Vale.’

‘But where can we go?’ asked Neeps. ‘Back to Masalym? Further down the Ansyndra?’

Thaulinin’s blue eyes were starting to gleam in the darkness. ‘Neither,’ he said. ‘Only a few reports from the wider Peninsula have reached us lately, but they were worse than our darkest fears. A retreat to Masalym is impossible. The Inner Dominion is held by two Plazic legions, and the pass at Ilvaspar is closed. Soldiers have been billeted in great numbers in all the towns of the northern coast. The Lower Ansyndra and her tributaries are swarming with Imperial troops, and upriver the hrathmogs are innumerable. There will be no escape that way either. And the sorceress has even infiltrated these mountains, vast as they are.’

‘Is Ularamyth threatened, then?’ asked Hercol.

‘Not by Macadra,’ said Ramachni. ‘The mountains are too deep, and this haven is protected by a magic as old as the mountains themselves. Even her winged servants cannot see it.’

‘What about Dastu?’ asked Thasha. ‘What if he’s captured, and tells everything he knows?’

‘Dastu might indeed say much to our disadvantage,’ said Thaulinin. ‘He could tell Macadra that we bear the Nilstone, if she has not guessed already. But he cannot help her find Ularamyth. Your companion was far from here when he deserted, and we would have known if he tried to follow us. No, two things alone could bring ruin on this land: the Nilstone wielded by an enemy, or the Swarm of Night as it completes its killing work. But beyond Ularamyth nothing protects us at all, and I fear the Ravens will have spies at every crossroads.’

‘What’s left to us, if we can’t go back, or follow the rivers to the coast?’ asked Pazel.

Before Thaulinin could answer, something splashed in the stream. It was Bolutu, dressed in some kind of swimming trousers. He climbed up onto the bank, laughing at their surprise; evidently he had covered some distance underwater. Bolutu had been swimming every day in Ularamyth, and had already shared many a story of rainbow-hued fish, flooded ruins, green river dolphins that nipped his toes. But this time he told no tales.

‘Mr Undrabust, why are you not at the house? The doctors are waiting. I have been seeking you high and low.’

‘You are such a donkey,’ said Thasha, socking Neeps in the arm.

‘Ouch! Not fair! I didn’t forget; they had at me first thing this morning. They never do it twice in one day.’

All the same he leaped up and ran for the communal house. Bolutu watched him go, then turned and looked at Ramachni. His look of elation was gone. ‘Have you told them?’ he asked.

His words struck Pazel cold. ‘What’s happened now?’ he asked.

‘I do have good things to tell you, on occasion, Pazel,’ said the mage. ‘This is one such occasion. There is new hope for your friend.’

Joy welled up in Pazel’s chest. Thasha’s eyes lit with happiness, and even Hercol’s face brightened. But Ramachni quickly raised his paw. ‘I did not say that we had found a cure, for there is no cure for the mind-plague, until the Nilstone is cast out of Alifros. But Neeps has suffered no real damage yet, and we have devised a plan that could — if all goes well — delay the advance of the plague by several years. By that time our struggle with the Nilstone will have ended one way or another.’

‘What plan?’ said Thasha. ‘Tell us, for Rin’s sake!’

‘And say how we may help,’ added Ensyl.

‘The latter is easier by far,’ said Bolutu. ‘You may help by not minding any strange behaviour on Undrabust’s part, and never letting on that he is being. . treated at all.’

He turned and looked away upstream. And Pazel saw that another figure was swimming towards them, dark and swift. With a splash the figure broke the surface: it was Lunja. She stood with the water about her calves, her soldier’s arms crossed before her and her silver eyes bright and wary.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘The elders have spoken,’ said Ramachni. ‘If you are willing it may begin tonight.’

‘I’ve told you already that I am willing, if there is truly no other way,’ said Lunja, ‘but I do not do this gladly. The notion repels me. I wish that you could promise success.’

‘No one can, woman of Masalym,’ said a voice from their right.

It was Lord Arim, standing by the tunnel’s mouth. He walked slowly into the yard, and behind him came Valgrif the wolf.

‘From the first ragged militias in their stand against the Chaldryl Argosies, Bali Adro soldiers have been courageous,’ he said. ‘Now you must show courage of a different sort, if you are to help your friend.’

‘Friend?’ said Lunja. ‘Is that what he is?’

She stepped out of the stream. To Pazel’s great surprise it was to him that she came — haltingly, looking him up and down. Only when she stood right before him, lovely and alien and severe, did Pazel realise the extent of her unease. Her face was rigid. Forcing herself, she reached out and placed a wet, webbed hand upon his cheek. She held it there, silently, studying his face. Just when Pazel was about to demand that someone explain, Lunja turned and marched swiftly past Lord Arim and into the tunnel. There she paused, and spoke without turning back.

‘Forgive my selfishness. He is my comrade too, and I will do what I can to save him. Only do not force me to speak of this idly. I will tell you when it is done.’

She vanished, a shadow among shadows. Pazel and Thasha looked at the others, amazed. ‘What in the bubbling Pits was that all about?’ said Thasha. ‘What does she have to do with Neeps’ cure?’

‘As Sergeant Lunja is one of just two dlomu in Ularamyth, she has everything to do with it,’ said Thaulinin. ‘But you will see soon enough. Come, my lord Arim: would you sit with us?’

‘There is no time,’ said the old selk. ‘We make the crossing tonight.’

Ramachni nodded, but Thaulinin looked gravely concerned. ‘Tonight!’ he said. ‘My lord, I fear the youths are not ready.’

Arim came slowly forward, gazing at Pazel and Thasha in turn. ‘Pazel Pathkendle is stronger than you know, and Lady Thasha will not benefit from delay. In any case it must be tonight.’ He raised a trembling hand and pointed. Nearly invisible (for there was light yet in the evening sky), the little Southern moon gleamed over the mountains. ‘The Candle passes through the horns of its mother-moon, and will not do so again for ten years. I must prepare, and you should rest while you can. After your meal we will find you.’

That evening the youths had little appetite, but others in their party were eager to talk. Myett had spent two days on the far fringes of Ularamyth, riding Valgrif’s broad shoulders. Big Skip, traces of sawdust in his beard, described the skills he was learning from his artisan friends. Neda and Cayer Vispek were in foul spirits, however, and ate apart. Lunja and Neeps did not come to dinner at all.

When Pazel, Thasha and Hercol stepped outside, the night was distinctly cold. Above was a sky full of brilliant stars, and a sliver of the yellow moon. A selk in dark robes was waiting for them beside a carriage. The two horses were black and solid as rhinos, but their eyes were the shining blue of the selk.

They set off. The roads of Ularamyth were empty, and for three dark miles no one spoke. Pazel was afraid for Thasha: the distance was back in her eyes. He glanced at her now, gazing from the carriage window, breath puffing white as smoke through her lips. A haunted face. He thought suddenly of the girl who had climbed atop another carriage, in the bedlam of the Etherhorde waterfront, to gape at him with a child’s mischief. The admiral’s daughter. He had never expected to so much as speak to her.

The driver spoke softly to the horses. The carriage stopped, and the three humans climbed out upon the barren shores of Osir Delhin, the Lake of Death.

It was a chilling place. The wind moaned like a voice from a melancholy dream. Both moons had cleared the horizon, and by their light Pazel saw driftwood and black stones, and small waves lapping the shore. The island too was dark. What are we doing here? he thought.

‘We have to wait here,’ said Thasha.

‘Yes,’ said the driver, climbing down from the carriage. ‘A boat will come for you. If you like you may wait in the carriage, out of the wind.’

Thasha began to walk towards the water. ‘Beware!’ called the driver. ‘The lake has a curious property: it cannot be swum. If you try, you will sink to the bottom as though wrapped in chains.’

Thasha kept moving, and Hercol and Pazel rushed after her. Pazel had a growing sense that the night held something terrible for Thasha. She had been distant so many times, but this would be something else, something altogether more drastic. There was no telling what she might do — or what might be done to her.

A few yards from the water they seized her arms. ‘Far enough,’ said Hercol gently. To Pazel’s immense relief she made no objection, but merely folded her legs and sat. Pazel and Hercol did the same on either side of her. Thasha laid her head on Hercol’s shoulder, and put her arms around her chest. She did not glance at Pazel at all.

‘I could do it,’ she said. ‘I could walk right into that lake.’

‘I doubt that you are immune, Thasha,’ said Hercol. ‘There is magic here as old as Alifros itself.’

Thasha closed her eyes and smiled. ‘Of course I’m not immune. I’d drown like anyone. Otherwise, what would be the point?’

‘Don’t talk that way!’ hissed Pazel. But Thasha just clung tighter to Hercol. ‘The boat is coming,’ she said. ‘You have to stay here.’

She hadn’t looked, but it was true: a small, lightless craft was approaching from the island. Pazel could see neither oars nor sail. Strangest of all, the boat appeared to be empty. But as it drew nearer he saw that that was not quite true. Ramachni stood upon the bow, like a dark figurehead. When at last the boat struck ground he flicked his tail.

‘Come,’ he said.

They were on their feet now. Hercol took Thasha’s hands in his own. ‘Be strong, Thasha Isiq,’ he said. ‘I will be here when you return.’

She raised her head and kissed him briefly on the lips. ‘Someone will return,’ she said.

Pazel watched her climb into the boat. He raised a hand as if to touch her, then let it fall to his side. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t choose among the thousands of words he needed to say. ‘Thasha, wait!’ he managed to croak at last.

Only then did she look at him. In her face he saw alarm for the first time, indeed shock, to find him still ashore.

‘We are waiting, lad,’ said Ramachni. ‘Get in, and be quick.’

Speechless, Pazel scrambled into the boat. Thasha had been telling Hercol goodbye, but not him. Not yet. ‘What a fool I’ve fallen in love with,’ she said, touching his arm. Her voice ethereal, a distant echo of the one he knew.

The crossing was swift and frigid. Ramachni stood at the bow as before, and Pazel wondered if the force that moved them was his doing or some magic of the selk. Thasha’s mind cleared briefly: she looked at Pazel and told him plainly that Erithusme’s memories were trickling into her mind.

‘A drop here, a drop there. Like a leaky tap.’ Thasha tried to smile.

‘What does that mean? Is she waking up?’

Thasha considered the question, then shook her head. ‘I don’t think she’s ever been asleep.’

The island drew near. It was stark and forbidding, and larger than Pazel had supposed. Ancient trees, vast of girth but bent low to the ground and twisted into writhing dragon-shapes, stood scattered over the dry earth, their roots clawing among paving stones and broken columns and the remains of tumbled walls. The wind was tearing the first leaves of autumn from their boughs, hurling them like playing cards into the night.

The boat ground ashore. Ramachni leaped out, and the youths followed, and soon they were marching up a dusty trail onto higher ground. They had not gone far when Thaulinin appeared, running sure-footed and soundless.

‘You’re here!’ he said. ‘Very good, it is time.’ He took a wine skin from his shoulder and filled a cup. ‘Have a sip to warm you — and then follow quickly. We dare not arrive too late.’

Pazel drank when his turn came, and felt the night’s chill retreating to his fingertips. Thaulinin led them on, over hills, up staircases of shattered stone, among the shells of ancient halls and towers. The trees cast twin shadows in the double moonlight. A great number of them, he saw now, were dead.

‘Why is this place so miserable?’ Pazel asked Thaulinin. ‘When did your people abandon it?’

‘You ask questions that would take all night to answer,’ said Thaulinin. ‘The selk never dwelt here, and the fall of those who did was a great tragedy, which some name as the moment this world lost her innocence. They were defeated in a war before the Dawn War, and Ularamyth became the seat of a demonic power. Wauldryl, it was called: the Place of Despair. If ever a land was hated, it was this one that we love. Its king dwelt on this island, in a secret chamber no one shall ever see again. Over the ages we have healed most of Ularamyth, but our successes here have been smaller, for the damage was profound.’

He glanced quickly at Pazel. ‘If Dastu had come here, all Ularamyth might have looked this way to him. Few persons have ever come to our realm against their will, but those who do find themselves in another place altogether — a deathly land, poisoned by the fumes of the volcano, where all that lives becomes rapacious and foul. It is always thus. We never spoke of Ularamyth in Dastu’s hearing, but his heart must have sensed what he would find here, and turned from it. May it find peace somewhere in Alifros, or beyond.’

They were nearing the top of the longest staircase yet, winding up the side of a barren hill. Pazel wished Thaulinin would go on speaking, if only to distract him from the mournful wind. The stars were sharp as cut-crystal, and for a moment Pazel imagined that he saw them through as the selk did: mute witnesses, looking down in judgement or pity. We are all young beneath the watchful stars. Would he ever understand just what that meant to the selk?

On the hilltop they stepped into the full blast of the wind. There was a railed platform here; it was the highest point on the island. And looking down at the back of the hill, which had been hidden until this moment, Pazel saw an extraordinary thing.

He took it at first for a walled pond or water tank. It was fifty or sixty feet square, and surrounded by a number of the ancient trees. Black and lustrous, it reflected the moons and the stars with an uncanny brilliance, like a mirror polished to perfection. But a moment later Pazel saw that it was not liquid he was gazing at, but stone.

The trail descended from the hilltop to the edge of this strange black courtyard. Beside the latter stood Lord Arim, alone and still, his bright blue eyes gazing up at them.

‘Go to him quickly,’ said Thaulinin. ‘I must remain here and keep watch. Farewell, Thasha Isiq!’

Thasha and Ramachni started down without a word. Pazel glanced at Thaulinin — why had he wished Thasha alone farewell? — but the selk only beckoned him on.

Arim did not move as they approached, but when they reached him the old selk turned and waved a hand over the square. ‘The Demon’s Court,’ he said. ‘Nothing older will you ever behold in Alifros. You are the first humans to stand here in many centuries, and you may well be the last. It was brought to this island in the dark times, for a dark purpose. But it is not evil in itself — not exactly.’

‘Remove your shoes,’ said Ramachni. ‘You must walk unshod upon the stone.’

Lord Arim’s feet were already bare. The old selk pointed up at the sky, and Pazel saw that the Polar Candle now stood precisely between the horns of the thin yellow moon.

‘Follow me when you are ready,’ said Lord Arim. With that he stepped up onto the stone, onto his own perfect reflection. Slowly he walked away from them. Pazel stared, transfixed. He was quite certain the stone was dry, and yet with each footfall its black surface rippled slightly, as though Lord Arim were walking on the surface of a pool.

Ramachni nudged Pazel’s ankle. ‘Crouch down, both of you. I want to see your faces.’

They obeyed, and Pazel saw stars reflected in Ramachni’s great black eyes. ‘Do you know why you are here?’ asked the mage.

‘Of course,’ said Thasha. ‘To bring Erithusme back. So that she can fight for us. So that she can help us take the Nilstone out of Alifros, and defeat the Swarm. But before that can happen you need to get me out of the way.’

‘That is about half right,’ said Ramachni. ‘We need her aid, and desperately, for without it we are hopelessly unmatched. And though many count me wise, since the death of Arunis I have not felt so, for I cannot explain what prevents Erithusme’s return. But with any luck that will change tonight.’

‘Gods damn it all!’ said Pazel, startling them both. He gripped Thasha’s arm. ‘What about her? You say they share a soul, but I can’t believe that. Thasha is Thasha. She’s seventeen. You can’t flood her with ten centuries of memory-’

‘Twelve,’ said Ramachni.

‘-and expect anything of her to be left intact. That’s like-’ he shook his hands desperately ‘-like pouring a cup of wine into a lake, and saying, “Don’t worry, the wine’s still there.” Well it’s not there, it’s ruined.’

‘Calm yourself,’ said Ramachni. ‘That is not how things stand.’

‘You’re a mage,’ said Pazel. ‘Seventeen years is nothing to you. But to Thasha it’s everything. If you do this, her life will be drowned, do you hear? It will be just some little moment that Erithusme recalls now and then. Like a fever, a time when she was not herself. You might as well kill her.’

‘Right,’ said Thasha. ‘Kill me.’

‘Over my dead body!’

‘Pazel Pathkendle!’ said Ramachni, his fur bristling. ‘I will tell you this but once. You love Thasha. You are hardly alone in that distinction. There is great danger to her in what we do tonight, and that cannot be avoided. She may even die — or you may, or I myself. But she was never singled out for sacrifice. This is not Treaty Day on Simja, boy, and I am no Sandor Ott.’

‘Ramachni,’ said Thasha, ‘where did Lord Arim go?’

Pazel started. The old selk had simply disappeared.

‘No more talk,’ said Ramachni. ‘Follow, unless you would undo all that we have worked to achieve.’ He stepped onto the stone of the courtyard, then looked back over his shoulder, waiting. Thasha groped for Pazel’s hand. Together they stepped onto the stone.

Pitfire!

The sensation was like a plunge into frigid water. And yet the shock was far deeper than that: he felt it in his muscle, his blood, his very bones. It was a moment of total annihilation, of not existing. But he was still here, still holding Thasha’s hand. Both of them were gasping, and their breath sounded oddly loud. Then he knew why: the wind had vanished, utterly. It was as if someone had just sealed a hatch.

‘What’s happening, Ramachni?’ Thasha whispered.

‘Look there,’ said the mage, pointing with his eyes. Pazel turned and saw nothing at first. Then his eyes made out a brown autumn leaf just beyond the edge of the courtyard, one of countless leaves tumbled by the wind. It was five feet off the ground — and perfectly motionless, as though trapped in a pillar of glass.

‘We have stepped outside of time,’ said Ramachni. ‘Once every ten years, when the moons conspire, anyone who enters the Demon’s Court may escape time’s dominion, for an hour or an age. When we depart, not a minute will have passed in the world outside. The old king of Wauldryl raised demons here, gaining servants overnight that would otherwise have needed centuries to mature. And there were other uses: prisoners who resisted interrogation saw their loved ones brought here, and made elderly in a heartbeat. Royal children were brought instantly to marriageable age. But the selk have turned even this place to the good.’

The mage crept forward, choosing each step. The perfect silence only added to Pazel’s fear, his sense that Thasha was walking to her doom. Inwardly he raged at himself: Trust Ramachni. Like you always have, like she’s done all her life. But at the same time a part of him recalled Thaulinin’s words by the streamside: I fear the youths are not ready.

At the centre of the Court, Ramachni stopped and closed his eyes. ‘Now, Thasha,’ he said, ‘lift me up.’

Thasha glanced quickly at Pazel, then bent and gathered the mage into her arms. ‘Step forward!’ barked Ramachni, and Thasha, startled, obeyed at once. Her bare foot came down upon the stone-

— and passed through, as smoothly as if she had stepped off the end of a pier. She fell, too amazed even to shout as her body vanished into blackness. Pazel cried out and lunged for her. Too late. Thasha and Ramachni had fallen through the stone. Pazel struck the glassy surface; it felt hard as steel. But within the stone he could still see them falling — Thasha reached for him, horrified — deeper, deeper, gone.

He beat the stone, howled their names, very close to despair. He looked around wildly for help. Death he could manage; death he had so often faced; but not survival without them, left alone with that last image of them sinking in the dark.

A mistake, he thought, sobbing uncontrollably. Ramachni had made them before. Rin help them, bring them back or take me too.

Something touched his shoulder. He leaped away in shock. Upon the stone before him stood a human woman, tall and tremendously old, dressed in a green woollen cloak. Her skin was translucent, her arms stick-thin. In her eyes was a fascinated gleam.

‘You’re the tarboy, aren’t you? Pazel Pathkendle. The one who keeps trying to get her britches down.’

He stared. She stared back. She wore glass bangles and a blood-red scarf that looked for all the world as though it were made of fish scales. He felt a powerful urge to get away from her but did not move an inch.

‘You’re not going to fall through the stone, if that’s what concerns you,’ said the woman. ‘Ramachni and Old Arim had to work to make it happen, just as I did to rise to the surface.’

Her accent was a bit like Cayer Vispek’s. Yes, he thought. Erithusme was born in Nohirin, a Mzithrini land.

She squinted at him, perplexed. ‘Can’t you talk?’

He was about to answer, but he stopped himself. Let her do the talking. Let her explain why he shouldn’t hate the sight of her. But the woman only clicked her tongue and stomped towards him. Before he could decide whether to fight or flee she slapped one bony hand over his eyes, and when she lowered it the Demon’s Court was changed.

There were columns, now, and a partial roof. There were heaps of sand and masonry. A wall with chains and shackles. Stone benches so old and worn they looked like waxworks left out in the sun.

‘This is how the Court appeared in the days when I wielded the Stone,’ she said. ‘They kept prisoners in that corner, over there; if you look carefully you can still find their teeth. I am glad the selk cleared all this rubbish away.’

‘Why did you bring it back, then?’

‘I needed something to sit on. The ground may do for tarboys, but not respectable ladies like me.’

She laughed. Pazel did not. The woman shrugged and walked to a bench.

‘Let us get down to business,’ she said. ‘Time has stopped outside the Court, but it is passing for you and me — and for them, especially for them. Watch out for the fire.’

‘What do mean? What fire?’

‘The one directly behind you.’

He turned: not five feet away stood an iron cauldron on three stout legs. Within it a few small logs crackled spitefully. The smoke rose straight as a plumb line to the heavens.

‘The fire is our timepiece,’ she said. ‘We may talk as long as it burns, and no longer. Come and sit beside me.’

Pazel stood his ground. The mage looked at him with some irritation.

‘I am not some lurking spirit, boy. I have not spied on you two. A little of her knowledge and emotion reaches me, faintly, like noises through a wall. Otherwise I have had nothing to do with her.’

Liar, he thought. Aloud, he asked, ‘Where are they?’

‘Deep in the earth,’ said Erithusme, ‘and you should be glad of that, because what we are doing would be impossible if they were anywhere else.’

‘What are we doing, exactly?’

‘Thasha is experiencing the anguish that results when a part of oneself leaves the flesh. Ramachni and Lord Arim are protecting her. And I–I am a soul without a body, a soul who has hidden in Thasha’s body for seventeen years, deaf and mute. I could not speak with Ramachni, or the selk, or the few other vital allies the Ravens have yet to kill. Not even, maddeningly, to Thasha. But tonight, and tonight alone, I am free to speak with you. To help our cause if I can.’

She pinched her arm. ‘This flesh is illusion, of course. I can manage illusion even without a body, in this exceptional place.’

Pazel walked slowly to the bench. ‘I don’t believe you’re a part of Thasha.’

‘Nor am I.’

He felt a surge of relief — but then the mage tossed her head back, laughing like a crow.

‘Ridiculous idea! Of course, Thasha is a part of me. And only a tiny part, a cutting from a sprawling vine. The fact that the girl has a body, and that I destroyed the one you’re gaping at when I hid from my enemies within her — those are incidentals, nothing more.’

‘You’ve been trying to steal Thasha’s body,’ said Pazel, hating her. ‘I’ve watched the whole blary struggle. You’ve been clawing at her from the inside, trying to get out.’

‘No, Pazel. Thasha has been begging me to come out.’

‘What?’

‘From a few hours after she slew Arunis. Waking and sleeping, in her thoughts and her dreams. She knows that I must rejoin the fight — and so do you, if you are honest with yourself.’

‘We’ve managed without you. We killed Arunis without you.’

The mage looked at him silently. Pazel met her gaze, not at all sure if he were defending some vital truth or simply making a fool of himself. They had also let Arunis unleash the Swarm.

‘The job must be done, boy,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘It is worth the sacrifice of a life. Any life.’

‘Isn’t that just what you’ve planned, you and Ramachni? For Thasha to remember, to welcome you back, with your twelve hundred years of memories? To die, in other words?’

Erithusme laughed again, but now the laugh was bitter. ‘A genius,’ she said. ‘He’s seen right through our wicked hearts! Listen to me: Thasha Isiq was never meant to die — but I was.’

He stared at her, dumbfounded. The old woman sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. ‘Thasha Isiq’s mind has two chambers. The first is where her soul resides. It controls her body, her senses; it is entirely in charge. The second chamber is my deep refuge, my cave. I am free to leave it — but should I do so anywhere but here, where time is at a standstill, I should be dispersed like smoke on the wind: truly dead at last. Of course you’d like that.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ he said.

‘Just look at your face. Why, you’d break into song. You and Macadra, and the ghost of Arunis, and the Night Gods waiting to settle Alifros when the Swarm has done its work. I can read a face, boy. I know you wish me death.’

Pazel turned and walked to the cauldron. The fire was much lower, a shrinking blossom in a grey wreath of ash. ‘You can’t read my face,’ he said. ‘In fact I’m not sure what you can do, except talk and lie.’

The mage’s eyes flashed, but Pazel found he truly wasn’t afraid. She had her plans. She’d keep to them. Tossing insults back at her wouldn’t change things.

After a moment Erithusme dropped her eyes. ‘We should not quarrel. We are allies in the greatest fight since the Dawn War. The fight I was thrust into twelve hundred years ago, when I was little older than you. Before I ever suspected I might be a mage. No, I cannot die just yet. And neither can Thasha Isiq.’

She jabbed a bony finger at him. ‘Watch her. She is tempted to destroy herself. She thinks that if she drowns or suffocates it might let me return, but that is not true. It would be the end of us both.

‘And it would indeed kill Thasha if we attempted to share one consciousness — to merge into a single, undivided being. As you guessed, her soul would simply drown in mine. She is indeed a little cutting from my ancient stem, you see. But that cutting has grown roots and leaves and branches. It came from me, but ultimately you’re quite right, boy: it is not part of me any longer. Her soul is tiny, but complete in itself. How did you know?’

A silence. The mage looked him up and down. ‘Never mind that,’ she said. ‘Just listen, for the love of Rin: Thasha’s soul and my own must dwell in separate chambers, always. But we can still pass in the hall.’

‘The hall?’

‘Between the two chambers of her mind. Between the seat of consciousness and my darkened cave.’ She spread her hands. ‘There, now you have it. The great nefarious plan came down to this, boy: that our souls would trade places, until this damnable fight is won. Sit down, will you?’

Pazel just looked at her. ‘Trade places, until we deal with the Nilstone?’

‘Until I deal with it.’

‘And what then?’

Erithusme looked away, gazing at the suspended leaves, the frozen figure of Thaulinin on the hilltop, the untwinkling stars. ‘Then,’ she said heavily, ‘I concede the truth of what her mother told me at the start: that it is time for my long life to end. Then I leave both chambers to Thasha Isiq, and let the wind take my soul where it will.’

‘You promise that?’

She shot him a startled look. ‘I promised to let Thasha choose freely.’ An awkward silence fell. Something’s missing, Pazel thought. Is she lying, or just holding something back?

‘If what you say is true,’ he asked, ‘if Thasha wants to go into hiding, and let you return, if she’s begging for it — then why in Pitfire hasn’t it happened?’

The mage leaned forward, eyes bright with rage. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘someone or something has walled off Thasha’s chamber, with her soul inside it, and that wall is harder than this demon’s rock under our feet. I cannot get in. Thasha cannot get out. And it is entirely possible that the girl herself has raised that wall, to enclose herself like a nautilus or a snail.’

Pazel felt a surge of panic. He knew suddenly what would come next. She was going to ask him to help her break down that wall. To overpower Thasha. She would say that it all came down to him, that their quest would fail if he refused. This was why she had asked for him — for ‘the one who keeps trying to get her britches down’.

Because Thasha would trust him with her soul.

He went to the cauldron: only embers remained. He lowered his hand and felt no heat. Their time was almost up.

‘I can’t do it,’ he whispered.

‘I dare say,’ sighed the mage.

He blinked. ‘Weren’t you — that is, don’t you want me to convince her?’

‘Are you thick, Mr Pathkendle? She is already convinced. She wants me to return. The trouble is that none of us know quite what is preventing me. Learn the nature of that wall — that is what I am asking. Between you and Thasha and Ramachni and the selk, you must learn how it formed, and how in Rin’s name we can destroy it.’

A thought struck Pazel suddenly. ‘I have one Master-Word left.’

‘And a great one; I can feel it from here. A word that “blinds to give new sight”. There might be something in that. When the wall crumbles, Thasha will feel some pain, and your word could blind her to it. But fear of pain alone could not have made the wall so infernally strong.’

‘What if it wasn’t Thasha? What if that wall was put there by an enemy — by Arunis, before he died?’

‘Then we must find the flaw in the spell that made it. There is always a flaw, be it only a hairline crack.’

She patted the bench beside her. Pazel shook his head. ‘I still don’t trust you,’ he said.

‘Heavens, what a surprise.’

‘You used the Nilstone for all sorts of spells. And made a right blary mess of things too.’

She waited.

‘You cast the Waking Spell,’ said Pazel. ‘You made creatures like Felthrup and Master Mugstur.’

‘I tapped the potential in their souls, to be precise.’

‘And killed every human in Bali Adro through the mind-plague. To be precise.’

‘That is true. Sit down.’

‘I’ll be damned if I will. You’re a monster. That spell is killing my best friend, right now. It’s done more harm than all the blary atrocities Arunis managed to pull off in two thousand years.’

She pursed her lips, considering. ‘Hard to say.’

Her calm was hideous. This, he thought, is the mage who lives in Thasha’s head.

‘You should know one thing, however,’ she went on. ‘The Waking Spell was not some idle joke I chose to play on Alifros. It was a final tactic in a long war between mages. Perhaps you’ve heard of Sathek?’

‘Yes,’ said Pazel. ‘The one who built that sceptre. The founder of the Mzithrin, although they hate him now. Arunis called up his spirit when we were docked in Simja Bay.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Did he indeed? That is interesting. . But what you may not know is that Sathek and Arunis were after the same prize.’

‘Godhood,’ said Pazel.

Erithusme nodded. ‘So Ramachni has told you something. Godhood, yes. And it is our great misfortune that the Night Gods, the high lords of annihilation, long ago chose Alifros as a kind of proving ground for their students.’

‘Then that part’s true as well,’ said Pazel. ‘Arunis was a student. He didn’t care about Alifros, he just had to destroy it-’

‘As an examination, a test. Sathek too tried to pass that test. It is the Night Gods’ standing challenge: scour Alifros of life, and we will make you one of us, deathless and divine. But after Sathek’s failure they made a concession. If one of their students sets the holocaust in motion but dies before it is complete, he may linger in Agaroth, death’s Border-Kingdom, and still take the prize if the world perishes within a century. That is what Arunis is doing: sitting in escrow, watching the growth of the Swarm he unleashed, praying that it kills us all.

‘Sathek’s approach was somewhat less efficient: he thought to start by eliminating animal life — all animal life, including rational beasts like humans and dlomu. To that end he launched a series of Plague Ships from his fastness in the Mang-Mzn. The Book of the Old Faith tells the story well: how those vessels dispersed across Alifros, loaded with hides and woollen goods and cured meat and grains; and how embedded like a tasteless venom in each of them was the germ of a pestilence. Each of those ships was a kind of black-powder bomb of disease, and many did their work quite well. Some lands have never recovered. But the most insidious cargo of the Plague Ships was its living animals. Rats, bats, birds, feral dogs. These were simply released in port after port — and Sathek in his cunning had crafted their disease not to start killing its hosts for several years — not until they had multiplied, and passed the dormant seed of the plague down to their offspring. Had that seed ever sprouted, it would have spread like a lethal, wildfire rabies — and no creature would have been immune. The whole web of life in Alifros could have been destroyed in a summer. Indeed it almost was.

‘By providence, I detected the plague in time — barely in time. There was no hope of a medical response. I had to fight it magically, with a single, monstrous spell: the greatest I ever attempted.’

‘The Waking Spell?’

‘Of course. Sathek’s disease attacked the mind, so my spell had to reach those minds first — thousands of them, across the whole of Alifros, without a single exception.’ She looked at him with sudden ferocity. ‘I am a great mage in my own right — greater than Arunis, greater than Macadra — but such a spell was beyond me. Or would have been, without the Nilstone. I had to use it, though I knew better than anyone how it twists all good intentions. That is just what happened, of course. Every infected animal was changed. Total ruin was averted, and the birth of woken animals was a side effect. So was the destruction of every human mind in the South.’

‘And it’s still going on.’

‘Obviously. The spell does not answer to me. Until someone casts the Nilstone from Alifros, it will continue.’

Pazel sat down on the bench. It was a struggle to find his voice. ‘You saved the world. . and killed half the human beings in the world.’

Erithusme nodded. ‘It was a single act.’

Wonder, horror, vertigo. Pazel thought of the tol-chenni in their cages in Masalym, their huddled forest packs, the stinking mob in the village by the sea. The last Southern humans, mindless and doomed. How could he be talking to the woman responsible for that?

How could he possibly condemn her?

‘I thought you were just mucking about,’ he said. ‘Experimenting. Ramachni could have blary mentioned why you cast the spell.’

‘Not without breaking his promise. I swore him to secrecy on that point.’

‘Well what in Pitfire did you do that for?’

She ignored his tone, this time. A strangely gentle look had come over her. ‘I got to know a few of them, the woken animals I’d created. I called a falcon down from the clouds once, sensing the mind awake in him, and he befriended me, and travelled with me until he died. There were others, too: a spiny anteater, a snake.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘I was almost perfectly fearless: a freak of nature in my own way, like them. But they lived with a vast, gnawing fear, a fear in the souls. Who had made them? Why were they here, scattered minds in random bodies, hunted and abused and exhibited in circuses by the humans and the dlomu who surrounded them? It was hard enough for them to stay alive, and stay sane. They needed to believe there might be a purpose behind it, a grand design. I couldn’t give them that purpose, but I let them hope. I wasn’t about to steal that away.’

Pazel looked off into the night, and thought of Felthrup. That choice, at least, was something he could understand.

Erithusme sighed. ‘The Red Storm, incidentally, has stopped the mind-plague from spreading north. That is the Storm’s whole purpose, as perhaps you’ve surmised. If your ship should eventually pass through it, you will all be cleansed.’

‘And propelled into the future. Another unfortunate side effect.’

She nodded.

‘Better to lose all our friends and loved ones than to lose everything. That’s how you see it.’

The mage appeared puzzled. ‘Is there another way to see it?’

Pazel looked at her with immense dislike. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘the Red Storm is dying. Or so Prince Olik told us.’

‘Your prince is quite right. Not all spells are for ever. Within a decade or two it will give no protection at all. But it doesn’t matter. The Swarm of Night will kill us all long before the mind-plague reaches any Northern land. And listen to me, boy: we cannot fight the Swarm.’

She seized his hand with her cold, thin fingers. ‘All our effort must be to rid the world of the Stone. Nothing else. Take the Nilstone from this world, and all the forces it compels — the Red Storm, the mind-plague, above all the Swarm of Night — will falter and die. The Nilstone is the air that feeds those fires. To snuff the fires we must cut off the air. Nothing else we do will long matter if we fail in that.’

He nodded, leaning back heavily against the bench. He had understood the power of the Nilstone for a long time, but getting rid of it felt more impossible than ever.

‘Tomorrow we’ll do the impossible again,’ he murmured.

‘What’s that?’

‘Something Ramachni said. Just before we burned Arunis.’ He turned to face her, nose to nose. ‘If we win,’ he said, ‘Thasha gets to go on living — just like that? No tricks, no complications? You’ll depart and leave her in peace?’

‘I stand amazed,’ she said, ‘at the ill luck of your desire for that girl. You bear my mark. You were chosen. And here you sit brooding, like a child who doesn’t want to share his candy.’

Another silence. Her avoidance of his question dangled between them like a corpse. Erithusme glanced up at the moons. ‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘I’m going to tell you. And Rin save Alifros if I err in doing so.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘How to use the Nilstone.’

Pazel’s breath caught in his throat. The mage nodded at him solemnly. ‘Any of you can do it. Any who bear my mark. You need only be touching one another — six of you at least — and concentrate on fearlessness. Then one of you may set his hand on the Stone, and whatever fear is in that one will flow out into the others. The one emptied of fear can command the Stone as I did — very briefly, perhaps only for a matter of seconds, but it might be long enough to kill Macadra, say, or blast a hole in a pursuing ship. You should try it here in Ularamyth, first, with the guidance of the selk.’

Pazel’s mind was reeling. ‘Six of us?’ he said.

‘Yes, six. The Red Wolf marked seven, in case one of you should be killed. Whatever’s the matter now, boy? I know that the ixchel woman died — but six of you still breathe, I think?’

He nodded, wondering if he’d be ill.

‘Out with it!’

‘Five of us are here,’ he said. ‘The sixth is Captain Rose.’

‘Rose?’

‘He talked about coming with us.’

‘Nilus Rose?’

‘I almost believed him, but when it came time to leave the Chathrand he went into his cabin and didn’t come out.’

‘Get up. Move away from me.’

‘What?’

She shot to her feet. The light around her changed. She clenched her fists, muscles straining, face contorting, and then she screamed with a fury that grew and grew and the sound was like the breaking of a mountain. Pazel crouched behind the stone bench. Light was pouring from her; the air convulsed with shock waves like the recoil of a cannon; his chest was imploding; the stone of the bench began to crack.

Illusion?

Then it was gone. Erithusme stood there, breathless. The fury still throbbed in her, but it had changed, transmuted into something soundless and cold.

‘With six of you, and the Nilstone’s aid,’ she said, ‘you could have removed that wall in Thasha Isiq, no matter what its origin. You could have let me return.’

Pazel stared at her. That’s why she gave us the power to use the Stone.

Erithusme looked at the motionless trees, bending in an arrested gust of wind. ‘The Chathrand has sailed without you, hasn’t she?’

‘They had no choice,’ said Pazel, ‘Macadra was bearing down on them. But we can still catch up. They haven’t crossed the Ruling Sea.’

Erithusme nodded distantly. Then she said, ‘The fire is nearly out. Goodbye, Mr Pathkendle. In spite of everything, we will meet again. On that you may bet your precious little life.’

Pazel jumped. He had been holding in his own questions, overwhelmed by her non-stop talk. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘Ramachni told me something else I’ll never forget: “The world is not a music box, built to grind out the same song for ever. Any song may come from this world — and any future.”’

The mage turned him a faint, ironic smile. ‘Ramachni was ever the romantic.’

She moved towards the fire cauldron. Pazel ran to her and seized her arm. He was more afraid of her departure now than anything she might do to him.

‘Diadrelu wasn’t supposed to die,’ he said, ‘Rose wasn’t meant to stay with the ship. And Thasha wasn’t supposed to have a wall inside her to stop you from trading places. But those things happened. Nothing’s guaranteed. And if nothing’s guaranteed, maybe you won’t be able to return after all. What then?’

‘What if the sun explodes?’

‘Oh, stop that. You must have thought about it at least. What if this is the end? What if it’s your last chance to do anything to help us win the fight?’

‘Then we are doomed.’

‘That’s not blary good enough!’

‘It’s how things stand. Now take your hand off my arm, tarboy, or I will set it afire.’

Pazel tightened his grip. ‘You want it to be true,’ he said. ‘You want to believe that you’re the only one who matters. That there’s no point even trying, unless we bring you back to save us all. But be honest, for Rin’s sake! You’re twelve hundred years old. Isn’t there anything else in that mind of yours that we should know about, that could help us do this thing without you, if we must?’

Erithusme flung her arm, and there was a Turach’s strength behind the gesture. Pazel reeled and fell. When he looked up the mage was bending over the cauldron.

‘Arrogant brat!’ she said. ‘I did not stumble unprepared into this Court! Seventeen years I have been preparing for nothing else but this battle, this last task of my life. You could sit here thinking for a decade and not come up with a question I have failed to consider. I am on top of things, boy. I have determined how to rid Alifros of the Stone! I set thousands labouring at the task, though none of them ever knew the cause they truly served. The drug-addled Emperor of Arqual reunited me with my ship. Sandor Ott devised a scheme to take that ship to Gurishal, to the very door of the kingdom of death. And you and Arunis, together: you raised the Stone from the seabed and brought it onto the Chathrand, where I waited in disguise. I left out nothing. It is a master plan.’

‘It’s failing,’ said Pazel.

For a moment her look was so deadly that he feared she would attack him. But Erithusme was gripping the cauldron, now, and did not appear to want to release it. ‘Destroy that wall!’ she snarled. You can’t beat them without me. You’ll die under Plazic cannon, or the knives of Macadra’s torturers. You’ll die the first time the Swarm descends from the clouds, and in that black hell you’ll curse your own stupid waywardness, that has cost Alifros its life.’

‘Erithusme,’ said Pazel, ‘I can see right through you.’

‘The Pits you can, you imp.’

‘I mean literally,’ said Pazel.

The mage raised a hand before her eyes: it was transparent. She sighed. But it was not only the mage whose time had come. The entire court was fading. He could see the hillside through the ruins, the dry earth through Erithusme’s chest. The mage growled and plunged a hand into the cauldron, digging furiously. At last she straightened, and in her soot-covered hand lay a last, softly glowing coal.

‘I am coming back,’ she said, ‘and you, Thasha’s lover: you are going to make it possible. I know this. I have known it since I first heard your name. But I said I would answer your question, and I shall. If all seem lost — and only if it does — then take Thasha to the berth deck. Show her where you used to sleep, where you first dreamed of her. When she is standing there she will know what to do.’ A wry smile appeared on the ancient face. ‘And if that day comes, and you find new reasons to hate me — well, remember that you insisted.’

Her hand closed. He saw smoke through her fingers.

She was gone.

Thaulinin beckoned to him from the hilltop: apparently he was still forbidden to descend. The Demon’s Court had vanished, and in its place lay nothing more than a barren slope. Pazel shivered as he climbed; the wind was unrelenting.

Clouds had appeared, pursuing one another across the sky, swallowing and disgorging the moons. He was exhausted, suddenly. The dead earth, so unlike any other place in Ularamyth, spoke to him of the endless brutality of the road ahead. Do not forget the world outside, Thaulinin had warned them. As if one could, even in a land of dreams.

The selk greeted him with a sombre nod. ‘Were you successful?’ he asked.

Pazel leaned on the iron fence. ‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure what that means any more.’

Thaulinin looked at him strangely. ‘That is unfortunate. Your quest is bringing greater losses to my people than anyone foresaw. I hope they are not all in vain.’

Pazel jerked upright. ‘What are you talking about, Thaulinin?’

‘Come, I will show you.’ He led Pazel to the opposite side of the hilltop, facing the side of the lake they had crossed. ‘Wait for the cloud to pass. . there.’

As if a curtain had been thrown open, moonlight flooded over Ularamyth. And there on the lower slopes of the island, near the shore, a crowd was running fast. They were selk, sixty or eighty of them, and they ran like contestants in a race, bunched close together; but in their hands were spears and daggers and long selk swords. Over a small rise they passed, fluid as horses, then down onto the rocky beach and-

‘No!’ Pazel shouted. ‘Oh Pitfire, no!’

— straight into the lake, one after another, without slowing or appearing to mind when the water closed greedily over their heads.

‘They will emerge again,’ said Thaulinin softly, ‘but you are right to ache. I counted seventy-six. Tomorrow the tears will flow in Ularamyth: we are so few, and when those souls find their owners we will be fewer yet. If any doubted that battle lay before us we have our proof tonight. Something was decided here that will also decide the fate of the selk.’

Noises behind them: Thasha was racing up the slope. Ramachni and Lord Arim walked behind. Pazel dashed through the gate to meet her, caught her in his arms. She was tear-streaked and shaking, and her hands trembled violently.

Like an old woman’s. Pazel pulled sharply back from her, studying her face.

‘Don’t,’ said Thasha, flinching.

‘What happened? What did you do?’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ she said. ‘I just fell through the rock, down and down and down. We never reached bottom, we just stopped and hung there. It was so black, Pazel, and so ancient. I thought we were dead, and then I thought we’d died a million years ago, and our souls were caught in the demon’s rock, caught like flies in honey. But then something burst out of me and flew off, and left me in pieces. I was broken, Pazel. Ramachni and Lord Arim held me together until I healed.’

Pazel stared deep into those frightened eyes. You’re back in there, aren’t you? Back in your cave where you belong.

‘Pazel?’

He pulled her close again. ‘I’m on your side,’ he said. ‘No one else’s. Do you hear me?’

She kissed his ear, weeping freely. ‘They broke me open. So that she could come out and talk to you. They had to, I know that-’

‘Did they?’

She blinked at him, her look accusing — no, self-accusing. She swabbed her face with her sleeve.

‘I didn’t think I’d be so scared.’

Her voice came out tiny, a little girl’s, a voice he knew gave her shame. He kissed her, undone by love; no force in Rin’s heaven could challenge this one; they could try anything they liked.

‘I’m with you, Thasha. I’ll always be with you. No matter what happens I’ll keep you safe.’

Thasha shook her head, adamant, trembling like a leaf. ‘Promise,’ she said, weeping again. ‘Promise you won’t.’