The Rats and the Ruling sea

12

10 Teala 941

89th day from Etherhorde

'You are Alifros,' shouted Captain Rose.

He stood at the quarterdeck rail, red beard tossing in the wind. As he spoke, he swept a hand over the sailors and tarboys, the hundred Turachs, the forty passengers let out on deck for the first time since Ormael: literally the whole ship's company, swelling away from him across the gigantic topdeck, or watching from their stations on the masts.

No one looked impressed by his remark. At the wheel behind Rose, Elkstem shook his head slightly, as if to say Any old tosh — though neither he nor any member of the crew would have risked such facial dissent in Rose's sight.

They had sailed thirty-nine hours, east by south-east: a fast, flawless running. The waters east of Simja were deep and well-charted; there would be no hazards sooner than Talturi, another day's journey at the least. No rain, nor any hint of it. Still it was odd to summon all hands just to talk philosophy.

But then everything was odd. The sailors gazed up at Rose, fear and anger mingled in their eyes. Most had not set foot on land since Tressek Tarn, eight long weeks ago. None had gone ashore in Simja. And their noble mission had been reduced to one of plotting and deceit. Thasha was dead; none knew why. Pacu Lapadolma had married the Sizzy in her place; then the Sizzies had come and called them murderers.

That particular notion was becoming more likely by the day. The men were filthy and stiff and tired of each other's smells. The new hands (including five new tarboys) were still in shock: the night before Rose had called them to his cabin and, surrounded by Turachs, revealed that they were not, in fact, bound home to Etherhorde. By the time he had explained their true mission the boys were shaking, and the men pale as death.

Some of the old crew had yet to move beyond such terror. Most, however, had turned it into a sort of doomsday rage. Their ultimate fate was beyond their control: they were little people caught in the affairs of kings. But they bitterly resented the loss of the earthly joys of shore leave.

Fear might nonetheless have kept these longings buried had not the Lily of Locostri, a floating brothel famous throughout the Crownless Lands, made an appearance in Simja. For two nights she had worked her way quietly about the bay, passing close enough for the breeze to carry hints of jasmine and mysorwood perfume to the Chathrand. Such teases were bad enough, but the sound of young women's laughter had sparked fights and fits of weeping, self-inflicted wounds with rusty knives, the drinking of walrus oil and other acts of pure hysterical frustration. Mr Teggatz, the mildest-mannered cook in fleet history, had thrown back four pints of basting wine, insulted the gods, chased his tarboy assistant with a meat cleaver and vomited into a dumpling stew. And then the orders had come: Stations! Weigh anchor! All hands make ready to sail!

'If we're Alifros, Rin save this blary world,' muttered Neeps.

Rose had yet to speak again. He gaze swept fore and aft, and his hand was still raised above the crowd.

'He's up to something,' said Pazel. 'He's got that gleam in his eye.'

Jervik Lank, standing right in front of them, glared over a burly shoulder. 'And you've got bilge for brains, Muketch. Shut your gob.'

There were sniggers from several tarboys. Pazel looked at Jervik's broad back with contempt. The older boy's hatred of Ormalis was as strong as ever, but his superstitious fear of them had lately diminished. That could be remedied: a few Flikkerman-hisses or Augronga roars would set him straight. Pazel was far more worried by Jervik's new ties to Arunis. He had spotted them together again just that morning.

'What's the matter, then, Undrabust?' said Jervik, seeing Neeps' look of rage. 'Ah, I know. You're missin' that village girly, ain't you? I've been hearin' about the two of you.'

Pazel struggled to hide his fury. Jervik could only mean Marila, the Tholjassan girl they had met among Arunis' captives, and left behind with her little brother in Ormael. Neeps turned scarlet, and Pazel wondered if he had taken taken a shine to Marila.

'Let it go, Neeps,' he said softly.

'Tha's right,' laughed Jervik. 'Listen to your mate, Undrabust. After all, his girly's dead.'

His laughter carried to Mr Uskins, who turned and froze the boys with a stare. Pazel clenched his fists until the nails bit into his palms. Jervik was goading them, as he had done from the start of the voyage, as he had done to Pazel for years on an earlier ship. But knowing that his abuse was tactical did not make it any easier to bear, and neither did the fact that Thasha was actually safe and sound. Pazel felt a loathing for Jervik so tangible he could almost chew it.

'You are Alifros,' Rose repeated at last. 'Few among you will understand me, and the time has not yet come for me to explain. But there is one matter about which you should have no doubt. Everything has changed. The known world lies behind us. The lives you have lived, the comforts you grew fond of, the very people you have been until this moment — gone!'

He bellowed the last word, snapping more than a few wandering eyes back to his face. When he continued his voice was lower.

'We've said our goodbyes, men. Not just to the Imperium, but to the world of law itself — any law, save that of nature and her occulted guardians. You're amused, I know. You think, "We're not even out of the Peren, who does he think he's fooling?" But you're wrong. Everything has changed. Very soon you will discover this for yourselves.'

He leaned towards them, daring eight hundred souls to give so much as a giggle. No one obliged. Then Rose straightened, nodded to Uskins, and went to stand beside Elkstem at the wheel.

Mr Uskins leaped up the quarterdeck ladder and faced the crowd. He raised a sheet of parchment above his head. The first mate's teeth were set in a grimace. He crushed one end of the parchment in a fist.

'New crewmembers will fall in on my left and be recognised!' he screamed, in a voice that suggested he would fall on them with beak and talons. 'Face forward, order of rank! And by the lions of the sea, if you waste our time I'll have you lick every man's heel on the Chathrand, beginning with those sporting boils or open sores, Rin drown me if I lie! Mr Kiprin Pondrakeri, seaman!'

A muscular sailor with a shaved head and tattooed arms leaped forward through the crowd, knocking aside men and boys in his haste.

'Mr Vadel Methrek, seaman!'

A turbaned man followed the first. As they scrambled for the ladder the crew struck at them — not gently at all — and hissed, and growled Rotter or Lousehead or Bottom o' the barrel! The soldiers joined in; even the tarboys struggled to land a few blows.

The mystified passengers looked on, appalled. But the crew were relieved: now at last they knew why they had been called on deck. No one, not even Uskins, was truly angry. This was a procedural passion, and one more way of seeking good luck on the voyage. From time out of mind it had been the practice of the Merchant Service (and the Arquali navy) to induct crew members with threats and insults — the better to protect them from the ghosts of dead sailors, who might feel jealous if they received smiles and friendly applause. Every recruit knew of these rights. They would, in fact, have taken grave offence if treated kindly.

Pazel and Neeps jostled with the rest, looking for someone to abuse. By the weird logic of the service, to hang back now was the only true form of contempt. Rounding the starboard windscoop, Pazel saw a wiry Simjan sailor rushing forward, arms wrapped protectively about his head. 'Scum!' he cried, and pulled back his fist.

A rough hand caught his arm. He was yanked backwards, off balance. Jervik's fist came down like a club against the side of his head. The next moment he was on the deck. Moisture struck his chin: Jervik's spit.

'You ain't crew no more,' he said. 'Don't you forget it.'

Then Jervik was gone into the melee. Pazel felt as though a horse had kicked him in the face. In a blind rage he forced himself to stand — and just as quickly fell, dizzied and weak. I'll get you, Jervik, I'll get you, damn your dumb soul.

Neeps found him as the free-for-all came to an end: Pazel had crawled to the back of the crowd and laid his face against a cool iron breastplate. Neeps helped him stand up. The look the small boy wore might have given a Turach commando pause.

'That's it. Jervik's dead. He's blary dead, is all.'

Pazel probed the already-welling bruise at his cheekbone. He knew his immediate problem was no longer Jervik but Neeps, who might just be capable of attacking Jervik in front of eight hundred witnesses. But before Pazel could speak a new hush fell over the ship. Rose was stepping forwards. Once more all eyes were on the captain.

'Our new bosun, Mr Alyash, will be making some changes to the rotations-'

'Alyash looks like he just got sick on himself,' snarled Neeps, who hated everything at the moment.

Pazel looked at the short, broad, powerful man on the quarterdeck. His skin was very dark, but on his chin and at the corners of his mouth there were pale pink blotches. A few ran in streaks halfway down his neck.

Pazel squinted. 'There's nothing on him, you dolt. That's his skin. If he got that way by a wound it must have been a long time ago.'

'A wound?'

'Don't ask me,' said Pazel. 'And for Rin's sake don't ask him either! I'll bet you he's an improvement on Swellows anyway.'

'Captains of the watch will report to Mr Alyash when we adjourn,' Rose was saying. 'Now then: as we set sail, Dr Rain was struck down by gout. I have relieved him of his duties. Henceforth Dr Chadfallow will be our chief medical officer.'

There were hisses, but not too many. Chadfallow stood accused of many things — even of collaboration with Arunis — but poor medicine was not among them. Rain on the other hand was a fumbling menace. Better to be cured by a traitor than killed by a quack.

'Admission to sickbay requires his signature,' Rose continued, 'but for minor concerns you may apply to our new surgeon's mate, Mr Greysan Fulbreech.'

The boys could scarcely believe their ears. During the ceremonial violence neither had heard Uskins shout out his name (it must have come after Jervik laid Pazel on the deck). But there Fulbreech stood among the new recruits: the same glamorous young man who had accosted Hercol during the wedding procession, making the same shallow, almost condescending bow.

'Say, we can ask him about Thasha's father!' said Neeps.

Pazel nodded. 'And we can ask him what in the Nine Pits he's doing aboard.'

'There is one further matter,' said Rose, silencing the crowd again. He nodded to someone below, and the tarboy Peytr Bourjon started up the ladder to the quarterdeck. Peytr was a tall, lean whip of a youth. He and Dastu were the ship's senior tarboys, just one voyage away from making full sailors. Peytr was climbing awkwardly. As he stepped onto the quarterdeck, Pazel saw why: he had a large red object tucked under one arm.

'I'll be blowed, that's a gumfruit,' said Neeps.

So it was: a scarlet gumfruit. The lumpy, bright-red fruit was about the size of a pineapple. The flesh was said to be spongy and bitter; they were no one's favourite, as far as Pazel knew. Pazel had never seen one aboard a ship: they spoiled quickly and attracted flies.

'Gumfruits come from Ibithraed,' said Neeps. 'My grandmother used to buy 'em for Fifthmoon dinner.'

'Peytr's from Ibithraed too,' said Pazel thoughtfully.

'Is he? Pitfire, that's why he hates me! He thinks my granddad pissed on his granddad.'1

Peytr handed the gumfruit to Rose, and took a few steps back. Clearly someone had explained what was wanted of him.

'The worst is behind us,' shouted Rose unexpectedly. 'Do you know why that is, men? Because we've left something heavy, something suffocating, behind us in the Empire. That something is hope. I see your faces! You would laugh at me if you dared. But look at the old men among you. They are not laughing. They know what you will come to know. Hope was never something to cling to. Not for us, lads. Not for you, or for me.'

He lifted the great scarlet fruit above his head. 'Look at this gorgeous thing,' he said. 'Brighter than the red lanterns on the Lily of Locostri. Brighter than the girls' painted nails. Who wants a bite? First come, first served! Come on, no tricks — who wants a great, juicy bellyful of red?'

The eight hundred before him stood silent, for everyone knew that gumfruit rind was toxic.

Rose nodded, satisfied. Then he lowered the fruit and squeezed hard with his left hand, digging in with his fingers. With wrenching motions he tore the rind away in inch-thick chunks, letting them fall carelessly about the deck. Ten seconds, and it was done. Now his hands cradled the inner fruit, cream-white and slippery as a newborn.

'Hope is the rind,' he said. 'Beautiful, and poisoned. This is life, naked life, and it's all we've ever really had. Do you hear me, lads? You've got to strip that rind away.' His eyes were blazing now as they had not done once since Etherhorde. 'I couldn't do you that service until now — Ott would have stabbed me, if Sergeant Throatcutter over there didn't do it first. But I'm doing it today — I'm handing you the blary respect you deserve.

'Hope is back there in Simja, back in Ormael and Opalt and Etherhorde and Besq. Hope belongs to somebody else. We're done with it. And that means I don't have to lie to you any more. Fact: we do the Emperor's bidding or he kills us, and kills our kin. Fact: we're to cross the Ruling Sea with no trial run, and in the time of the Vortex. Fact: what awaits us in Gurishal is worse, if we're ever lucky enough to get there.'

Moans began escaping from the onlookers, but Rose spoke over them. 'Keep looking at this fruit. Look hard. It's not a choice of this or something better. We don't even have the choice of tossing it and going hungry — not unless we want our families nailed up for the birds to pick. Now get over here, Mr Bourjon, and tell me what you think of gumfruit.'

Peytr jumped; he had been gazing at Rose in blank confusion. 'The… the truth, Captain?'

'Gods of Death, boy, the truth!'

'I… I like 'em, sir. Always did. Since I was small.'

Rose looked hard at him, then nodded. Very carefully, the captain passed the wet pulpy fruit into the tarboy's hands. Turning to face the mob again, he raised his sticky fist before his face and sniffed appraisingly.

'Gumfruit kept his people from starving, through nine known famines, ' he said, pointing at the tarboy. 'He likes it, d'you hear? When it's what you've got, you learn to like it. And that is how you stay alive! Eat it, Peytr! Show us how it's done on Ibithraed!'

By the way the youth ate he might have spent days in preparatory fasting. He anchored his fingers deep in the fruit and tunnelled with his mouth, biting, tearing, swallowing, now and then pausing to sop his chin with his shirtsleeve. It was amazing how quickly he diminished the fruit.

'Eat it! Eat it!' The chant began somewhere among the tarboys, and was quickly taken up by all the crew. Peytr rose to the occasion, gobbling even faster, barely seeming to breathe.

'The koyfruits we grow on Sollochstol are tastier,' said Neeps.

'Oh shut up,' said Pazel.

In less than five minutes a pulp-smeared Peytr had completed his mission, and nearly every voice on the Chathrand was roaring approval. He gave them a woozy grin. Rose held out his hand for the gumfruit pit, then raised the other for silence once again.

The thumb-sized pit was the same bright scarlet as the rind. Rose held it aloft. His face showed neither mirth nor anger, but his eyes blazed still.

'That's hope, too, lads,' he said, extending his hand towards them. 'Hope when the bitter meal's finally over, hope at the end of everything. The kind of hope you plant in fair soil and pour sweet water on, year after year. Let an island man tell you: gumfruit trees are kindly things — good shade, sweet spring blossoms. We just might have that kind of hope to look forward to, if we're as strong and smart as I think we are, which is stronger and smarter than any crew in the history of this grandest of ships. But if you weaken yourselves by dreaming about that hope — never, never.'

He closed his fist around the seed. 'We're off to the Nelluroq, on a voyage of ruin and death,' he said quietly. 'Some of us will perish. All of us certainly may. But so long as you count yourself among the living, guard this thought: no one can give you this little red seed but me. Some will lie and claim otherwise, but you know who tells you the truth. Dismissed.'

Six sharp notes from the bell: it was eleven o'clock in the morning. Down on the berth deck, Pazel and Neeps were lending the other boys a hand caulking seams — driving tar-coated bits of old rope, called oakum, into tiny crevices between planks, then painting on hot resin to seal the crack against moisture and decay. The crevices were so tight one needed a mallet and chisel to force the oakum into place. But without such tender care the planks would soon leak; Pazel could touch his tongue to an old seam and taste the salt of the ocean, fighting to get in. The work was never completed: hammer in the oakum, slap on the hot resin, chalk off the plank, trade with your mate when your arm grew tired or the resin-fumes made you too dizzy to aim. Up and down ladders. Up and down the endless curve of the hull. Four times a year for six hundred years, and counting.

'That crafty, cunning, sneaky old beast,' said Pazel, hammering. 'He's got the crew back in his pocket, doesn't he?'

'He's a good liar,' Neeps conceded, slapping hot resin over the seam Pazel had just filled.

'He's a monster,' said Pazel. 'He kept an ixchel man locked in his desk, and only brought him out to check his food for poison. He probably made Swellows kill Reyast, too, come to think of it.'

'Poor Reyast,' said Neeps, remembering the gentle tarboy with the stutter. 'He would have stood with us for sure. He did stand with us, for a little while. But let me tell you something about lies, Pazel. The best kind, the kind hardest to see through, are the ones that mix a little truth into the recipe. Take Captain Rose, now: he says he's the only one who can give us hope. Well that's nothing but a dog-dainty. But it is true that he's the only one aboard who's commanded a boat on the Ruling Sea. No, he didn't cross her, but he flirted with her and lived to tell the tale.'

'So what?' said Pazel. 'I'll bet a lot of ships have made little darts into the Nelluroq in good weather. How do we know Rose did more than that?'

'The Emperor must think so,' said Neeps, 'otherwise he'd have put someone else in charge. Your arm tired yet?'

'No.'

Pazel liked striking the chisel: he could pretend it was Jervik's skull. And the scent of resin made him think of pine trees in the Chereste Highlands, on summer days long ago. Beside him the wall sizzled like bacon with each stroke of Neeps' brush.

Pazel shot Neeps a cautious smile. 'You did like her, eh?'

Neeps blinked at him. 'Who, Marila?' he said, flushing. 'Don't be a clod, mate, I barely spoke to her. I just think she might have come in handy, that's all. She sure did on the Haunted Coast.'

'She seemed blary smart,' Pazel ventured.

Neeps shrugged. 'She was just a village girl. She probably had even less schooling than I did.'

A note of bitterness had crept into Neeps' voice. Pazel stared at the wall to hide his unease. You could be both smart and unschooled, of course, and he wanted to say so. But how would that sound coming from someone who'd gone to city schools, and been tutored by Ignus Chadfallow?

No, he couldn't say anything of the kind. And before he could find another way to break the silence it was broken for him by a pair of tarboys approaching from portside. Swift and Saroo were nicknamed 'the Jockeys,' for the brothers claimed to be great riders. They were nimble, quiet boys with sharp glances. Rumour held that their father had been a horse thief in Uturphe, and was shot dead in the saddle on a stolen mare.

'Give us them tools,' said Swift. 'We're to relieve you, Uskins' orders. You're wanted topside, double quick.'

'Wanted by Uskins?' said Pazel with a groan.

'Not exactly,' said Saroo.

Neeps lathered boiling resin on a final seam. 'Who wants us, then?'

Saroo leaned close. 'It's Oggosk,' he said. 'Lady Oggosk. She wants to see you in her cabin. Uskins was just passing the word.'

Pazel and Neeps traded startled glances. 'Oggosk?' said Pazel. 'What can she want with us?'

The Jockeys shrugged, in a way that made it clear they would rather not know. 'Just don't keep her waiting,' Swift advised. 'One dirty look from that witch could kill a buffalo.'

Pazel and Neeps handed over their tools. But even as they turned to leave cries broke out in the next compartment.

'You give that blary thing back to me, Coxilrane!'

'Can't, sir, can't!'

'Blast you to Bodendel! It's mine!'

All down the passage boys were turning from their work. The voices drew nearer. Suddenly Firecracker Frix galloped into the compartment in a kind of terror, his long beard flapping and a notebook of some sort tucked under his arm. Behind him came Fiffengurt, barefoot and red with fury, shaking his fists above his head.

'Thief, thief!' he roared. 'I'll tear out your damned beard by the roots!'

Frix apparently believed him: he was running for his life. But as he drew even with Pazel he took a bad step. Groping for balance, his palm slapped the last spot on the wall Neeps had painted with resin. There was an audible sizzle. Frix screamed; the notebook flew from his hands, slid across the deck — and stopped at the feet of Mr Uskins, who had just entered the passage from the opposite side.

'What's all this, Second Mate?' he snapped.

'My h-hand-'

Uskins scooped up the book and examined it suspiciously.

'Now, Uskins, don't involve yourself,' shouted Fiffengurt, closing the distance.

Uskins put his back to the quartermaster. 'Mr Frix?' he demanded.

'It's his p-private journal, sir,' said Frix, still shuddering on the deck. 'Captain Rose knew about it, somehow. He sent me to take it from his quarters — it wasn't my idea, Mr Fiffengurt! See here, he gave me the master key and all! Whoopsy!'

Frix dropped the key and scrambled after it. Fiffengurt kicked his prominently displayed backside, then reached out to Uskins for the book. Uskins ignored the gesture. He had opened the journal and was flipping through the sheets of neat blue handwriting.

'There must be two hundred pages,' he said. 'You've kept yourself busy, Quartermaster.'

'It's none of your business,' said Fiffengurt. 'Hand it over.'

'"I doubt I have ever missed her more,"' Uskins read aloud with mock reverence. '"All the beauties of this world are dust without my Annabel." '

'Devil!'

Fiffengurt lunged for the journal, but Uskins kept his body between the quartermaster and his notebook. He was very nearly laughing. 'Carry on, Frix,' he said. 'I'll see that this reaches the captain.'

'But it's my blary property!' shouted Fiffengurt.

Uskins looked at him with naked malice. 'I am glad to hear you say so. First, because you will be held to account for whatever libel or mutinous matter I find in these pages.'

' You find?' said Neeps.

'And second,' Uskins continued, 'because to keep such a journal is a crime in itself.' He backed in a circle, holding off the quartermaster with one hand and waving the open book above his head with the other. 'Except for letters home, an officer's every written word is the property of the Chathrand Trading Company. Imperial law, Fiffengurt. We'll see how Captain Rose decides to punish-Ach!'

Pazel had crept around behind him and grabbed the journal. Uskins was caught off guard and stumbled over the resin-can, which oozed bubbling across the deck. But he kept his grip on the book. Furious, he slammed Pazel against the wall with his shoulder, even as Neeps and Fiffengurt grabbed at the book themselves.

'The lamp! The lamp!' cried the other boys.

Fiffengurt looked up: Uskins must have struck the oil lamp with a wild swing of the notebook. The peg on which it hung had cracked, and looked set to break at any moment. Walrus-oil lamps were sturdy but not indestructible, and fire in a passage awash with flammable resin was too grim a thought to contemplate. Fiffengurt let go of his journal and grabbed the lamp with both hands.

Uskins gave a vicious, whole-bodied tug. Pazel and Neeps held fast — and the journal ripped at the spine. Man and boys fell apart, each side gripping half the ruined book.

The first mate looked at what he held. With an approving snicker he jumped to his feet and ran off along the corridor, leaving sticky resin bootprints.

'That pig got almost everything,' said Neeps, riffling the mangled pages. 'This is the empty half of the book.'

'Are you hurt, lads?'

They assured him they weren't. Fiffengurt inspected them to be sure, moving slowly, as if in a daze. At last he turned to his beloved journal. Out of two hundred pages he was left with three.

'I'm so sorry, Mr Fiffengurt,' said Pazel.

The quartermaster stared at the crumpled sheets, as if expecting them to multiply. Slowly his jaw tightened, his teeth clenched and his hands began to shake. The tarboys shuffled backwards. Fiffengurt turned on his heel and bellowed:

'Uskins! Son of a leprous limp-teated dog-spurned side-alley whore!'

The Oggosk, Eighteenth Duchess of Tiroshi, had for reasons never well explained made her quarters in a little room inside the forecastle house, between the smithy and the chicken coops.

The cabin had been hers for a quarter century, since her first voyage with Captain Rose. When Rose was stripped of his captaincy in 929, Oggosk departed as well, but her last deed was to mark her cabin door with a strange symbol in chalk. According to tarboy legend, anyone who set foot in Oggosk's cabin from that day forward broke out in chills, boils, warts or mortifyingly confessional song, depending on who was telling the story. There was no proof of these claims. What was certain was that her little cabin had stood untouched for twelve years, until she and Rose returned in triumph to the Chathrand.

The door was painted robin's-egg blue: a strange choice for a woman nearly everyone on the ship was afraid of. Pazel had had time to reflect on this curiosity for some minutes now. Oggosk was making them wait.

'We don't have to be here,' said Neeps. 'We're not in the service; we don't have to hop when Uskins says so.'

'Don't be a fool, mate,' said Pazel. 'We may not be tarboys, but we're sure as Pitfire not Rose's guests. We'd be better off if they gave us more work to do. If Rose ever gets it into his head that we're useless, why, he'll toss us down to steerage with the rest of those poor louts, and only let us out to use the heads.'

Neeps grunted. 'I'm blary starved. When we're done here we have to make Teggatz slip us something to eat. It's our meal shift right now, you know.'

Pazel smiled. 'Your stomach's growling like a street dog.'

'I want to be strong for our fighting lesson, that's all,' said Neeps.

'There's one thing we have to do before we eat,' said Pazel, his mood darkening. 'Track down Greysan Fulbreech.' He glanced about nervously, then whispered: 'You know that the minute we're past Talturi, Thasha's coming out of hiding.'

'So?'

'Neeps, if Fulbreech has anything — well, shocking — to say about her father, I want us to know first, so we can break it to her gently.'

'Right you are,' said Neeps. Then the ship's bell began to ring, and he stamped his foot. 'That's eight bells, by damn! What in the Nine Pits can that old crone be-'

The latch clicked. The blue door swung wide, and a pungent odour met their nostrils: incense, ginger, old sweat, dead flowers. 'Come in, monkeys,' said Lady Oggosk from the shadows.

They entered, warily lifting aside an old batik curtain, and saw the duchess seated on a black cushioned chair against the far wall, with her enormous cat Sniraga pacing before her, its red tail twitching like a snake. The light was dim: no lamp burned, but a six-inch-square bit of glass planking was set into the ceiling, allowing a little pale, diffuse sunlight to enter from the deck above. 'Close the door behind you,' said Oggosk, 'and sit down.'

But where? The cabin was small and preposterously cluttered. The boys' shoulders bumped together as they took in the shelves, footstools, scroll cases, stoppered flasks, ancient sun parasols, bead boxes, cigar boxes, dangling bunches of dried herbs, weird animal statuettes. It was not clear where Oggosk slept: the furniture was buried under shawls and sea-cloaks and massive age-darkened books.

There was literally no space free of clutter except for the thin path between Oggosk's chair and the door. So when Oggosk indicated with an impatient gesture that she really did mean for them to sit, that is where they did so.

'Did you hear that messenger bird on Simja?' she asked without preamble.

'The woken bird?' asked Pazel.

'Of course.'

'I did,' said Neeps, 'what of it?'

'Do you know the story of the Garden of Happiness?'

Pazel sighed. 'You can't grow up in Arqual, or anywhere near it, without hearing that stupid tale.'2

'There was a peacock, too,' said Oggosk, 'in the governor's palace at Ormael, who fawned on his brainless wife. "O saintly lady," it called her. And one of Mr Latzlo's beasts, a climbing anteater, has the look in its eye right now: the look of terror that comes before a waking. The animal should have been given to the Simjans — where is it to find ants, on the Ruling Sea? — but Sandor Ott's order that no one be allowed off the ship extends even to animals, it seems. And perhaps he was right, at that.'

The boys exchanged a look of impatience.

'That odious man spoke of selling his anteater,' she went on, 'with no more concern for its well-being than if it were a piece of taxidermy — bloodless, soulless, stuffed.'

'Like Arqualis do with slaves,' Pazel couldn't resist adding.

'Just so,' agreed Oggosk. 'Though the ban on slavery that has taken root in Etherhorde may be extended to the outer territories, soon enough.'

'Soon enough? ' Neeps said, laughing under his breath.

Suddenly the old woman's glance was sharp. 'We were discussing the waking phenomenon,' she said. 'Consider, boys: it has been going on for some eleven centuries. But in the first ten, only a few hundred animals awoke. There have been that many in the last forty years alone, and the rate is still increasing.'

'We can see that,' said Pazel. 'But what does it have to do with us?'

'Try thinking before you ask,' she said. 'What happened forty years ago?'

'The great war ended,' said Neeps at once.

'And?'

'The Mzithrin drove the Shaggat's followers back to Gurishal,' said Pazel, 'and Arqual took the Shaggat prisoner, in secret.'

'Yes, yes, and?'

'The Red Wolf,' said Pazel. 'The Red Wolf fell into the sea.'

'With the Nilstone inside it,' said Oggosk. 'Precisely. The Shaggat Ness, with Arunis goading him on, squandered the last of his military strength on a suicidal raid on Babqri City. He took the Wolf from the Citadel of Hing, though the Mzithrinis blasted most of his ships to matchwood as he did so. But the Shaggat escaped with the Wolf, and made it as far as the Haunted Coast before we sank his ship. And from that day the Nilstone itself began to wake.

'The Citadel, you see, was a containment vessel for the Stone — a protection against its evil, like the Red Wolf itself. Half our protection, then, was stripped away forty years ago when the Shaggat raided the Citadel. The rest melted away with the Wolf.'

'So the Nilstone is behind all these wakings!' said Neeps.

'The Nilstone's power, yes,' said Oggosk, 'but the spell was cast by a living person.'

Her lips formed a tight line, and she studied them as though reluctant to share anything more. But after a moment she continued: 'Beyond this world and its heavens, in the Court of Rin if you like, there is a debate about the worth of consciousness. What good is intelligence? What's it for? Shouldn't Alifros be better off without it? And if not, which creatures should possess the sort of minds we call woken? It is an ancient debate, and a hard one, even for eternal beings. It is not settled yet.

'But centuries ago, an upstart mage decided to take matters into her own hands. Every other wizard and seer in Alifros opposed her — but she held the Nilstone, and did not listen. Ramachni may have told you about this mage; I am certain he told Thasha. Her name was Erithusme.'

'He told us,' said Pazel. 'He said she was the greatest mage since the Worldstorm.'

'Undeniably,' said Oggosk. 'She healed many a country devastated by the Storm, and drove the Nelluroq Vortex away from land, and put the demon lords in chains. But Erithusme laboured under a curse, for her power had been sparked by the Nilstone. She was the first being capable of using it in twelve hundred years, and no one has succeeded since. Courage made it possible: Erithusme was born with an almost total lack of fear, and as you know it is through fear that the Nilstone kills. Without the Stone, her magical powers would have been unremarkable. With it, she changed the course of the world — and not for the better, mind.'

'Are you saying she was evil?' Pazel asked.

'I am merely saying that she relied on the Stone,' said Oggosk, 'and the stone is evil perfected: a coagulate lump of infernal malice, spat into Alifros from the world of the dead. She never let it master her, as the Fell Princes did of old. She was that strong. But no mage is strong enough to stop the side effects of using the Stone. Every miracle she worked came with a cost. She chained the demon lords, only to learn that it was in their nature when free to devour lesser demons, who began to flourish like weeds. She banished the Vortex to the depths of the Ruling Sea, but the spell-energy that pushed it there also doubled its size.'

'And the wakings-'

'The wakings, yes. They were Erithusme's last great effort. She looked at the world's suffering, its violence and greed, its long history of self-inflicted harm, and decided that it all began with thoughtlessness. And so she decided that the cure must be more thought, and more thinkers. She prepared a long time in secret, for what would be the mightiest deed of her life. And when she was ready she took the Stone in hand and cast the Waking Spell.

'It swept over Alifros like a flame. Everywhere, animals began erupting into consciousness. Soon they were learning languages, demanding rights, fighting for their lives and territories. But the spell did not stop with animals. There were stirrings even among the lowest things, a hum of thought in certain mountains, awareness in the flow of rivers, contemplation in boulders and ancient oaks. Her idea was to let all the world talk back to man, to help him see his mistakes, end his plunder, live at last in balance with the rest of Alifros. Paradise would be achieved, she thought, when all creation found a voice.

'The Nilstone, of course, had other ideas. Rather than create a Garden of Happiness, the Waking Spell plunged Alifros into a nightmare. The side effects! The monsters unleashed into Alifros, the diseases! The talking fever is but one example, and far from the worst. What does a mountain think, when a wizard shakes it from peaceful slumber? Not thoughts of gratitude, I can assure you.'

Pazel fidgeted; Oggosk's gaze always seemed to unsettle him. 'Couldn't Erithusme just cancel the spell?'

'Obviously not,' snapped Oggosk. 'Her mastery of the Stone was not total — otherwise she would hardly have devoted the rest of her life to getting rid of it, would she? No, she is gone, but the Waking Spell continues. And will continue, in all its glory and perversion, so long as the Nilstone remains to give it power. With the Red Wolf destroyed, that spell is returned to its full force, and we are all in danger.'

Her cat hissed suddenly, from just behind Pazel's back. Neeps cried out, clutching his arm. There was a bright red scratch on his elbow. 'Damn that beast!' Neeps shouted. 'Why'd she attack me? I didn't even look at her!'

'You were not paying sufficient attention,' said Oggosk. 'But my tale is finished now — and here, for your easier digestion, is the moral. The universe has a texture, a weave. It cannot be improved by meddling, by tugging at one thread or another, especially when the hand that tugs is an ignorant one. Disaster alone follows from such interference.'

Blood oozed through Neeps' fingers. Pazel was enraged. 'Is this why you brought us here?' he demanded. 'So you could lecture us about interfering, and attack us with your blary pet?'

Oggosk studied them with the disdain of a jeweller handed some trinket of rhinestone and glass. 'Neither of you is a fool,' she said. 'Not a hopeless and abandoned dullard, I mean.'

'Thanks very much,' said Pazel.

'Unfortunately your antics make it hard to remember.'

'Antics?' said Neeps. 'What would those be, I wonder?'

Pazel saw that the witch's eyes had come to rest on his hand — his left hand, the one burned with the medallion-hard mark of the Red Wolf. At once he closed his hand around the scar. Her eyes moved to Neeps, with keen interest. The smaller boy carried the same wolf-shaped scar at the wrist.

Pazel felt his anger deepen. 'Antics, Neeps,' he said. 'You know, like getting burned with hot iron. And stopping Syrarys from poisoning Thasha's father.'

'Ah, right,' said Neeps. 'I was forgetting. And getting Hercol out of that poorhouse before his leg rotted off. And exposing Sandor Ott.'

'And keeping Arunis and his Shaggat from using the Nilstone.'

'And harbouring ixchel,' said Lady Oggosk.

Pazel knew in a split-second that his face had betrayed him. He had given a guilty jump, and that was all Oggosk needed. She cackled, but the laugh had none of her usual acid glee: it was a savage, embittered sound. She raised a claw-like finger and pointed at the boys.

'All your high-minded dreams of stopping Arunis, stopping this final war between Arqual and the Mzithrin abomination, taking the Nilstone beyond reach of evil for ever — where will they be when the crawlies do as they have always done, for centuries without a single exception? What will you say when your Diadrelu turns and spits in your face, and laughs as the sea claims the Great Ship through a thousand secret bore-holes?'

Now Pazel was frightened as well as angry. How the blazes did she learn Dri's name?

'I don't know what you're-' he began, but Oggosk cut him off angrily.

'My time is precious, in a way almost impossible to understand at sixteen. Don't waste it. I know about Ixphir House and the crawly fortress on the mercy deck. I know about Diadrelu and her jealous nephew Taliktrum, son of the late Lord Talag. Stop shaking your heads! Look at this, you fibbing urchins.'

Twisting, she reached back over her shoulder to a little shelf. From the clutter of vials and bent spoons and bangles she extracted a tiny wooden box. She tossed it to Pazel with a flick of her wrist.

Inside the box something rattled softly. Pazel glanced warily at Oggosk, then freed the clasp and opened the lid. Inside lay two shoes, well-worn, soft-soled, each less than an inch in length.

'Those are Talag's,' said the old woman. 'Sniraga brought him to me, slain by her own fangs, I think. Another crawly came to me later, to plead for the body. I gave it to him, but in exchange I made him talk.'

'Why didn't you tell the captain, if you're so afraid of ixchel?' Pazel asked.

Oggosk looked at him severely. 'I reveal what I choose, at the time of my choosing.'

'That's right,' said Neeps, sounding even angrier than Pazel felt. 'We take the chances. You just croak and complain about how badly we're doing, and pile up your stories, and shoes, and things to chuckle over. Your cat goes out stealing and murdering, and you sit there like a plum duff-'

'Have a care,' said Oggosk. 'I've killed smaller fry than you.'

'We risk our lives fighting Arunis and Ott and your mad old butcher of a captain-'

'Silence!' snapped Oggosk. For the first time she looked truly furious. 'Insult Nilus Rose again and you'll learn just how much these old bones are capable of!'

Pazel laid a restraining hand on his arm, but Neeps shrugged it off. He got to his feet, a move that scarcely made him more imposing.

'I'm not afraid, you blathering old hag.'

Pazel leaped up, throwing himself in front of Neeps. Oggosk rose stiffly from her chair. Her milk-blue eyes were pitiless and bright. 'You should fear me, Neeparvasi Undrabust,' she said. 'What I may do, and even more, what I may choose to neglect.'

'Get out of here, Neeps,' Pazel pleaded, shoving his friend towards the door. 'I'll handle this, go on!' Neeps protested, but Pazel was unyielding. At last Neeps stormed out, slamming the door behind him with a noise that set all the chickens squawking.

'It's a wonder that boy has made it through sixteen years,' said Oggosk, settling back into her chair. 'You choose odd friends, Mr Pathkendle.'

'Neeps is my best friend,' said Pazel coldly.

'"Odd" is not a term of disparagement, boy,' said the old woman. 'I rather like him, if you care to know. We Lorg Sisters admire purity among other virtues, and your Neeps has a glimmer of purity about him — at least where pride is concerned. That doesn't mean he won't get himself killed, of course. The Lorg also teaches respect for the sebrothin, the self-doomed. He certainly qualifies.'

She bent down and picked up Sniraga, groaning a little as she straightened. The cat quite filled her arms.

'He isn't doomed,' said Pazel, thinking that he would soon be as angry as Neeps if she kept on in this vein. 'He loses his head sometimes, but that's what friends are for — to step in and catch you. Isn't that what you're always doing for the captain?'

Oggosk stroked her cat, watching him steadily. 'Arunis has a Polylex,' she said at last.

'So what?' said Pazel. 'Everyone has a Polylex.'

'Arunis,' said the witch with growing irritation, 'has a thirteenth edition Polylex.'

Pazel started. The forbidden book! The same magic volume Thasha kept hidden in her cabin. 'How — how did he get it?' he whispered.

'Like any merchant, he bought it,' said Oggosk. 'Between the things that are bought and sold and the things that cannot be had for any price, there is a third category: things that appear to be beyond anyone's reach, but which may sometimes be acquired for a phenomenal price. The thirteenth Polylex is one of those. Arunis must have hired someone to search for it on his behalf — search the world over, for only a handful survived the bonfires of Magad the Third. It's a pity you take so little stock of your surroundings. Whoever found the book for Arunis must have passed it to him right there in Simja, under your noses.'

Pazel felt his anger rise again, and tried to suppress it. 'What is he doing with the thing?'

'What Thasha should be,' said Oggosk with a little sneer. 'He's reading it — night after night, at a fever pitch. Do I really need to tell you what he's searching for?'

Pazel was silent for a moment, then shook his head. 'The Nilstone,' he said. 'He wants to learn how to use the Nilstone.'

'Of course. And the knowledge is there, Mr Pathkendle. Hidden in that sea of printed flotsom, and — we may hope — by evasion and metaphor and double-meaning, but there nonetheless. The book's mad editor, your namesake Pazel Doldur, considered no field of knowledge too dangerous to include. And when Arunis learns the truth he will have no more need of us. He will go to the Shaggat and touch the Stone, and in that instant we shall be overwhelmed. Ramachni will hold no terror for him, and the wall about your stateroom will pop like a bubble of foam. The Shaggat will breathe again, and Arunis will take his king home to Gurishal by wind-steed or murth-chariot. There, thanks to Sandor Ott, he will find his worshippers in a fever of expectation, ready for vengeance. And with the Nilstone for a servant they will be all but unstoppable. The Mzithrin will fall, and so, in time, will Arqual and the East. Twenty years from now, boys your age in Ormael and Etherhorde could be praying to little statues of that lunatic, and marching in his batallions.'

'We'll get the book,' said Pazel, his voice low and earnest. 'We'll take it from him, before he finds out how to use the Stone.'

Oggosk's eyes widened, amusement and contempt struggling for control of her features. ' You'll get the book? The mighty Ormali and his suicidal friend? That's a capital idea. Knock on his door and ask to borrow it for the evening. No, monkey, I didn't call you here for that. I want something altogether simpler.'

'And what might that be?'

'I want you to stop caring for Thasha Isiq.'

This time Pazel gave the old woman just the right sort of look: baffled and offended, but with nothing to hide.

'I am not being spiteful,' said Oggosk. 'This is a grave matter, as important in every way as Arunis and his Polylex. Indeed the two issues are one and the same.'

'We're not handing over her body, if that's what you-'

'Thasha is alive and restless in her stateroom,' said the witch with finality. 'And you'll do exactly as I say. Dine with her, conspire with her, let her and the Tholjassan teach you to handle a sword. Flirt with her, if you like. I know better than to expect young men to do otherwise, even when to do so is to risk everything. Glah, that's a permanent flaw in humanity, and there's no cure under Heaven's Tree.

'But let your kisses be cold ones, boy. Do not love her. Do not let her love you. Enjoy yourself, but if she looks at you with tenderness you must laugh in her face, or walk away, or show her some other form of contempt. Do you understand me?'

'I understand you to be out of your nasty mind.'

'We should have brought other girls aboard,' said Oggosk, vexed. 'Girls your age, I mean. There are a number of women in steerage, however, and some have a look of experience about them. One or two are even attractive.'

'Goodbye,' Pazel sang out, for that was all he could do short of cursing her aloud. He made quickly for the door. He was appalled; he felt as though she had torn open a secret part of him and defiled it.

Oggosk's voice froze him in mid-stride. 'This is the only warning you will receive. Where Thasha is concerned I shall not be in the least forgiving. If that girl begins to love you I will send Sniraga into the Chathrand 's depths, and have her bring back an ixchel body to lay at Rose's feet. When he learns of the infestation he will slay the whole clan in a matter of hours — and believe me, the captain knows how it is done.'

Pazel spoke over his shoulder. 'You'd kill them all, just to punish me.'

'I would,' said Oggosk. 'I do not shrink from the obligations of history. But they need not die. You may advise them to disembark at our next landfall — provided you do as I say with Thasha. Give her no reason to love you, and your ixchel friends may survive to raid another ship.'

'As if anyone would trust you to keep a bargain like that,' said Pazel.

'You have no choice but to trust me,' said Oggosk simply. 'But listen: why not tell Thasha about the murth-girl? Say that you're still fond of her, that she fascinates you, haunts your dreams. You wouldn't even be lying, would you? But never let Thasha set a finger on you here!' — Lady Oggosk indicated her collarbone — 'Rin save you if you break the heart of a murth.'

He was dreaming. Not even Oggosk could be so senselessly cruel. But when she spoke again her voice was in deadly earnest.

'Removing the admiral from the scene was no pleasure,' she said. 'Don't share his fate, Mr Pathkendle. What Thasha is to do, she must do alone. You can only get in her way.'

Once more Pazel met the old woman's eyes. There was no gloating in them, and no hesitation either.

'I hate you,' he said. 'I hate all of you, with my soul.'

'Souls are exactly what concern me,' said Oggosk. 'Get out.'