The Rats and the Ruling sea

8

8 Teala 941

The incubus hurled itself landwards through the storm. Every minute spent in this world was a torture, a pricking and burning as of a thousand acid-tipped needles in its flesh. Nothing existed here but hate: for the pale and wriggling humans, the rain that scalded, the black wind, the reeking sea.

The city loomed closer, its gas lamps hazy in the downpour. The celebrations had moved indoors, now: every tavern, temple, flophouse and cut-rate bordello had been swamped by revellers, still drunk on bad wine and universal brotherhood. The incubus lifted a ragged wing and veered north, over a corner of the wall. A figure appeared at the parapet: a sentry in helmet and ring mail, looking down on the sodden fields. The incubus did not stop to think: it let itself plummet onto the wall a few yards from the man, gasping, burning, freezing all at once, and when the man turned with a shout its bloodlust rose and it flew at him.

The sentry raised his spear, but the demon struck like a frenzied cat. It dodged the weapon, gripped the mail in its claws, shredded the hand that groped for it, then rose to do the same to the detested face. The man was still alive when he fell from the wall, but he died before his body struck the ground.

The incubus lifted away from the falling corpse. Blood soothed it. Like many creatures whose souls extended beyond a single world it suffered immense change when dragged from one to another. In its homeworld it was a passive domesticated animal rather like a sheep, though its keepers sometimes fancied they saw mischief in its eyes.

The rain stripped the blood from its body. Long before the creature reached the shrine the needles of acid were back.

A sceptre. A sceptre. A gold thing with a black crystal surmounting. The incubus could sense it ahead of him.

The Mzithrinis were feasting that night, for their visiting princes would depart in the morning, along with most of the official retinue. They had erected a great tent in the fields beside the shrine, along with brick ovens for the roasting of poultry, venison and shark. The crowd had overflowed the tent, filling the nearby pastures. At the height of the revelry the Mzithrinis were vastly outnumbered by other guests: the meat was excellent, and they were all friends now.

The tent was open-sided and the rain gusted in. Some of the guests were giving up, running for carriages back to the city. The incubus landed on the shrine's gabled roof, and scuttled crablike towards the edge, mewing and snarling with pain.

The artefact it had been summoned to steal lay beneath its feet. But to enter the holy shrine, the creature knew, would be to increase its torments beyond measure. Of course the sceptre was guarded, too. A mage, thought the incubus, feeling the throb of magic through the roof, the thing is in the hand of a mage. And for all its pain and bloodlust the little demon was afraid. I will not enter. I will not fight him in his lair. It stood shivering, moaning, gnawing its wrists until they bled.

Sandor Ott found the rain pleasant against his scars. He was rarely cold. He sat on a low bluff overlooking the shrine, beyond the glow of the sputtering fengas lamps in the tent, feeding scraps of venison to the falcon beside him, watching the cream-coloured bird swallow each piece before giving him another. Now and then he paused to stroke the animal's neck.

'The Sizzy sailors have all gone, then? The officers, I mean?'

'Every one,' said the falcon, his voice like a high cello chord.

'And Kuminzat — the admiral — he left his daughter with that elder priest?'

'She walked a while at her birth-father's side, Master. But she is a sfvantskor. There are three young sfvantskor women, four young men. The Father keeps all of them close.'

'And he never left the shrine, this old Father?'

'Not since the procession yesterday. And then only to the top of the stairs.'

'Where he knelt to King Oshiram,' said Ott, and a grin passed briefly across his face. He looked approvingly at the falcon. 'Your report is precise, as always. I shall reward you one day, Niriviel.'

'Arqual's glory and gain,' said the bird at once, as if the phrase were something it had learned to say at such moments. 'That is my reward. That is the only true reward for those who love the Empire.'

Childlike pleasure in the raptor's voice. Ott fed him the last bloody morsel. 'Are you ready for the journey, finest falcon?'

'I am, Master,' said Niriviel.

Then the spymaster took a ring from his finger. It was a simple thing of brass, much like a tarboy's citizenship ring, though the numbers engraved upon it were subtly different. He took out a leather cord and tied the ring to the bird's outstretched leg. 'Be careful with this; it is the one thing I have kept from childhood.' he said. 'You know whom I wish to receive it, I think.'

A moment later the bird was winging north towards Ormael, and Sandor Ott was circling the tent, silent as an old panther, well hidden in the dark. He could pick out his agents among the guests in the tent, one arm-wrestling a Sizzy, feigning drunkenness; another seducing a young Locostrin priestess with his eyes. Ott was especially careful to stay hidden from these men. Spying on his own agents was a part of the game.

His inspection complete, Ott walked north around the shrine and started down the narrow goat-path to the sea. Niriviel had reported a single figure there, wading in the surf, with the distracted air of a sleepwalker. A fool in love, probably. But tonight it merited a look. The Mzithrinis' own spy network, the Zithmoloch, had thus far been conspicuous by its silence. Ott almost hoped for some encounter with his rivals before their departure. It was a matter of professional courtesy.

The storm was ending, and the moon thrashed about in the thunderheads, seeking open sky. Ott crouched where the pasture crumbled into sand. He could see no one on the beach in either direction. Not a structure or a stone. He waited for the moonlight, his thoughts on the days ahead, the war he was brewing among these Sizzy savages, the dire importance of timing and tact. He had placed the fate of the Empire on a single ship, and the twitching madman who captained her. Rose! If there were anyone else but that delusional Quezan swindler and his witch!

Ott loathed magic, a province from which he knew he was barred. There was altogether too much of it on the Great Ship. Lady Oggosk, Ramachni, Arunis. The Nilstone, a weapon he had never believed in, and could not use — yet. And Pazel thrice-damned Pathkendle, who had saved the Shaggat's life, but only by turning him to stone.

'Why don't we just knock the blary thing out of his hand?' Drellarek the Throatcutter had demanded yesterday. 'You could put a spear through the belly of that Ormali runt tomorrow. You could kill the lot of 'em. They're no more use, are they, with the wedding behind us?'

So very tempting. But a close inspection of the Shaggat proved the notion impossible. The Shaggat's hand was tight about the Nilstone: that hand at least would shatter if they sought to loosen it by force. And hairline cracks radiated down his arm as far as the shoulder — many cracks, and branching. The whole arm might go, and the madman bleed to death in seconds, when he became a man of flesh once more.

Ott shut his eyes. He was feeling his age tonight. Arqual's triumph would come, sure as that yellow orb would clear the clouds. And Rose would play his part. Whatever else he was, the old bull was always ambitious.

He stood and walked down to the beach. Someone had come this way; he could see the footprints even by the fitful moonlight. One person, barefoot, about his height. A night swim? Ott peered at the dark water; there was nothing to see but the waves.

Then the moon broke free and drenched the beach in silver. Ott looked right, left — and there, as if the moon itself had spawned her, he saw a young woman stepping naked from the sea.

She was about twenty yards from him, climbing quickly out of the surf, eyes straight ahead. Ott held his breath. The girl's hair was cut short as a naval cadet's; her limbs were pale and well-muscled. She could not have been much more than twenty but she moved with the gliding step of a warrior.

She reached the top of the beach where the grass began. Crouching beside one of the denser clumps, she pulled out a bundle of clothes. Ott watched her dress: black blouse and leggings, loose-fitting but tight at wrists and ankles. Then she bent down again and lifted a knife.

Gods of death, she was a sfvantskor! For the knife was unmistakable: the glint of quartz, the hawksbill curve at the tip. It was the ritual blade from the wedding ceremony — the only weapon King Oshiram had permitted the Mzithrinis to bring ashore. Only the vadhi, the Blessed Defenders, could carry such knives. And the only vadhi as young as that girl were the newly-trained sfvantskors. There'd been a report. Girls among them. Yes, three of the seven were girls.

What in Rin's name was she up to? The way she held the knife — as though it were burning her, but impossible to drop — told him she had blood to draw. But whose? The girl was walking back to the waves, with resolve and something like fury in her movements. Someone else in the sea? There was light aplenty now, and Ott saw no one at all.

Then the wind gusted from her direction and it carried a sob and he knew at once what was happening.

We will never belong among those who belong.

Neda set the knife to her throat. The waves striking her knees made it hard to stand still. One swift cut, long but shallow, not over the vein. She had to be strong enough to swim beyond the breakers, where the sharks would find her before she sank.

Bad blood in her. Sooner or later it had to come out.

They were out there, hungry, circling. They would come like flies to a feast. She had moved among them in another form, with her brothersNo, no, they were not brothers or sisters. They hated her, the Ormali intruder, the walking shame. They had always known she would fail, and yesterday she had. What had the Father forbidden her? To speak to Pazel, and that she had done. Someone at the wedding had noticed, and word had come to Cayer Vispek, the great sfvantskor hero who served on the Jistrolloq. Cayer Vispek had whispered to the Father. The old priest had jerked his head upright, looked at her quizzically across the shrine, and some pride or hope for her had fled his eyes. It had not returned at sunset, when the sfvantskors performed feats of strength and acrobatics for the awestruck crowd. Nor at predawn prayers, when he touched her forehead with the sceptre and pointed at the sea. Go and swim, and forget this pain. Above all forget the one named Pazel Pathkendle. She swam, she changed, she became herself again, but she did not forget. She would never forget, and the Father's look of love would never return.

The other aspirants knew she had fallen into disgrace. Malabron, big pious Malabron of Surahk, had started the gloating. Bad blood. It's not her fault, really. The faith burns right through weaker souls. Like fire through a thin-bottomed pan.

Little Phoenix-Flame, another had whispered, his voice dripping scorn. And Suridin, Admiral Kuminzat's daughter, had simply watched her with knowing eyes. She was the best of them, Neda thought, and her silent judgement hurt more than all the insults combined.

Bad blood. She had known it even as a child. Blood of Captain Gregory the Traitor. Blood of Suthinia Pathkendle, who had tried to poison her children. Look what had become of Pazel. He was no slave. He loved those Arqualis, the people who had burned their city, stabbed children in Darli Square, rutted inside her one after another for a day and a night. There were words for women like her in every tongue. Unclean. Unchaste. Damaged goods.

She knew now that the Father had only wanted to spare her pain. He had forbidden her to speak to Pazel, or even to remember him, because Pazel like their other enemies had forsaken his soul.

Tasmut. Stained. That was how you said it in Ormali. She was a stained rag, fouled, reeking, and no power in Alifros could'Lower that blade, lass.'

She whirled. An old man in a dark shirt and leggings stood behind her with his feet in the surf. Not armed, not moving. A scarred and battered face, bright with savagery and thought. He had spoken Mzithrini, but he was not one.

'Get away,' she said, in a warning tone.

The old man shook his head. 'You don't want to fight me. I can see you'd be a blary hellcat, but odds are I'd kill you. I've had more practice in the art, you see. More practice than a man ever should.'

Neda rushed him. Astonishingly he did not move. As she raised the knife for a killing stab he looked casually aside, and something in his very calm made her freeze, shocked and terrified. He turned and glanced up at the blade.

'You wouldn't mind me killing you,' he said, matter-of-fact. 'You were about to do it yourself, after all. But you're a sfvantskor, a true believer. And if I do manage to kill you, I'll carry your body back to the shrine and tell your priests the simple truth — that I'd interrupted a suicide. And I know you don't want that.'

Neda gaped at the ugly old man. Suicide was an unforgivable sin.

'Or maybe,' he said, 'you're not a believer any more? Is that what's brought you to this pass?'

'I will kill you,' she stammered. 'Monster. Who are you?'

'A spy,' he said. 'And you, lass, are a brilliant young novice with much to live for, though obviously you cannot see it. What's the matter, then? Lost your faith in the Faith?'

'No!'

'It's strange,' he mused. 'When the thing we most fear comes to pass — the thing all our will is bent on avoiding — it sometimes proves exactly what we need.'

She lowered the knife halfway to his throat. The old man watched her arm. 'Bastard!' she hissed. 'You're an Arquali!'

'Like the shedding of a skin,' he continued. 'One we'd die inside, if we didn't cast it off. Ah, but once we let it fall — new worlds, lass. New worlds await us.'

Suddenly Neda leaped back and away. 'You don't know a gods-damned thing! A spy, an Arquali spy!' She was weeping, outraged and disbelieving that he should be here, poisoning her last thoughts, coming between her and death.

For the first time he took a step, in her direction. Stiff, old, slow! He was mad, or lying. He would be easy to kill.

'I don't know why you want to die,' he said, 'but I know the sfavntskor way — better than you, perhaps. I've watched your kind for years. Go on, lass, give it up. You don't want soul-traitor for an epitaph. You don't want to be buried with the waste from the slaughterhouse.'

Such was the fate of suicides in the Mzithrin. The man knew. Perhaps he was exactly what he claimed.

'I'll kill you,' she said again, without conviction.

The man grinned — wolfish, hideous. 'Don't make threats,' he said. 'Not when I can tell your masters exactly what I saw tonight. And I saw quite a lot, lass. A privilege: I suppose no other man ever shall, until the day they strip you for the tomb. Unless the old Father's more corrupt than I know?'

Neda lunged. No man alive would slander the Father to her face. As she drove forward she tossed the blade expertly from right hand to left. Her eyes did not betray the move, nor did her right hand fall away. It was a feint she'd practised ten thousand times.

But her left hand closed empty. The man had moved like a cobra and plucked the knife from the air, and in the split-second that followed Neda learned the astonishing limits of her skills. She was face-down, choking on sand and seawater, helpless with the pain of blows she'd never seen coming.

He spoke from off to her right. 'You're the foreign-born sfvantskor,' he said. 'I've heard rumours about you. Tell me, where did the father dig you up? Where is home?'

With a gasp Neda rolled on her side. The man was holding the blade by two fingers as he studied her face. 'Do you know,' he said in a changed voice, 'I've just had the strangest — Rin's blood, the strangest — idea about you.' He squatted close to her. 'How's your Ormali, girl?'

She spat out a mouthful of sand. The old man laughed and shook his head. Then he rose and walked around her, not too close, and started up the beach.

'If you are his sister, consider this: he was smitten with the Treaty Bride. The daughter of the man who sent the marines into Ormael. He'd have died in her place, I'll warrant.'

Neda managed hands and knees. She crawled after him, feeling her strength return. The man called over his shoulder:

'They told you no Arquali could outfight you, didn't they? Well, girl, I've stolen your death tonight: a shameful death it would have been. Go back, and wonder what other lies your masters are peddling.'

He was gone. Neda put her forehead down on the sand. Wishing her heart would stop, knowing it wouldn't. Even at death she was a failure.

Pazel, in love with that butchering admiral's daughter? That couldn't be. She'd seen what they did to him. She'd watched the blows, felt them. The old man was a liar and a fiend.

Then she saw the glint of the knife. He'd left it blade-down in the sand. She rose and went to it and pulled it free, and as she did so she felt exactly what he had described, a rupture of her certainties, a skin tearing away. What was beneath it? Was there anything she would recognise as herself?

A flash of red light. Brilliant, almost blinding. Neda froze: it had come from the direction of the shrine. Then, faint above the noise of the waves, she heard the screams begin.

'Father!'

She ran as she had never run before. The Father was using Sathek's Sceptre: he was facing some terrible threat. She clawed her way up the beach, passed the horrible old man (transfixed, staring), and flew straight at the shrine. There was fire in the courtyard: fire among the pillars, fire spinning overhead like a great ignited bird.

She could hear war-cries from Cayer Vispek and Suridin, and then came the Father's roar and another flash of light. Neda ran blind, smashing through the underbrush. When her eyes cleared she saw an impossibly hideous shape — burning, fanged, dog-like, child-like — dive from the air over the courtyard.

The Father waited beneath it, his beard half scorched away, and he caught the incubus with a blow from the sceptre that hurled it shrieking into the night.

Howls from the windswept pasture. The last of the revellers were fleeing for their lives.

Suridin chased after the thing, wielding an iron skewer from the feast. Cayer Vispek held the Father in his arms: the old man had nearly collapsed. Then Neda's feet touched marble and she was in the courtyard, shouting to them, raising the blade she had stolen to end her life. The Father whirled to face her, his eyes brightening with what looked like joy. And then the demon screamed back through the pillars and struck him in the chest.

Both men were felled by the blow. Cayer Vispek grabbed at the creature, though it was still wreathed in flames. The Father, his chest spouting blood, cried out in a strange language, and the black crystal in the sceptre glowed. A sudden change came over the incubus: the deformed creature vanished, and some milder, weaker shape flickered where it had been. Only for an instant; then the incubus resumed its monstrous form and closed its jaws on the Father's neck.

Neda closed the distance and pounced. Down she stabbed, burying the knife in the creature's spine. The incubus twisted, slashing at her arm, spitting fire. The knife shattered. The incubus released the Father and rose on its burning wings. It flew wild about the courtyard, howling with the voices of the damned, spilling gouts of blood that vanished in flames before they touched the ground.

A hand closed on Neda's arm: Suridin was hauling her to her feet. The girl shoved Neda to the left of the Father while she took his right, and Cayer Vispek tried to staunch his gushing wounds.

Again the incubus pounced — this time on the sceptre, tearing it from the Father's weakening grasp. The Father cried out. The demon leaped, beating its wings with effort, risingSuridin grabbed its leg. Neda could smell her hands burning — it was like taking hold of a log in the fire. The demon dragged her across the courtyard as Neda tried desperately to strike the creature herself. Then the incubus dropped the sceptre, twisted in mid-air, and tore into the arm that held it earthbound.

Suridin screamed in agony. With no forethought at all Neda snatched up the sceptre and struck. The incubus wailed and its flame sank low. Neda felt the power in the black crystal, shard of the Casket that was the bane of demonkind. Suridin fell; the incubus crashed beside her on the marble, and with a cry Neda brought the sceptre down again.

The fire went out. The demon fought on, a black smoking shape. Neda struck again and its howling ceased, but still its claws tore at Suridin. Once more Neda struck, with a cry of 'Rashta helid! '

And suddenly it was gone. No corpse lay beneath the sceptre. Not a whiff of its demon-smoke lingered in the air. The incubus left nothing in its wake but wounds.

Cayer Vispek brought the other aspirants back from the sea. The Father lived two hours more: long enough for Neda to summon the courage to tell him where and how she wished to begin her life as a sfvantskor, and for the old priest to give his consent. It was long enough too for old Cayerad Hael to be woken and rushed ashore from the Jistrolloq, for the sceptre belonged in the hands of the eldest sfvantskor. And it was long enough for the Father to point in the direction of the harbour, and wheeze into Neda's ear:

'The demonetta… it came from that ship… from Chathrand. I knew. I knew from the start.'

Neda did not leave the Father's side. His life was slipping away, and so was the aspirants' self-control. They bickered and shouted and stood apart to hide their tears. He could not leave them, the world could not be meant to turn out this way. But the Father looked at Neda and his smile was proud, as if to say, Remember, daughter. They despaired; you did not. You were stronger than any of them.

Could he see through her, even now? Would he learn how wrong he was?

When he died at last their grief spilled over. Malabron was the worst. He spoke blasphemies about the death of the Faith, and glared at Cayer Vispek as if he would fight him, and said that the whole tragedy was Neda's fault.

At that the others shouted him down. The Father had clung to Neda in his last moments, after all, and it was she who had dealt the creature its death blow. And Suridin, the admiral's daughter, who perished just minutes after the incubus, had put three fingers on Neda's cheek in an old Mzithrini gesture, one reserved for closest kin. 'Sister,' she'd said.