The Rats and the Ruling sea

15

4 Freala 941

113th day from Etherhorde

In a way unimagined by even the most superstitious crewmembers, the Great Ship had become a ghost ship, living but presumed deceased. The effect this had on those aboard her is difficult to pinpoint. At first there was bravado, and much talk of the cleverness of Rose and their Emperor. The gang leaders, Darius Plapp and Kruno Burnscove, led the cheering: they were competitors in patriotism (or what passed for it) as in every other sphere. 'We've a right to be proud,' Burnscove declared. 'Arqual's going to remake the world. A world without the Black Rags, a world of straight talk, straight deeds, and Rin's Ninety Rules taught to every wee baby with his mother's milk. And don't we know that means a better world?'

Darius Plapp had less to say on the matter, trusting his sonorous voice and deep-set eyes to carry the message. 'We're sailing into history,' he would announce, with a grave, portentous nod.

Sergeant Drellarek played his part as well. Amazingly, he had managed to portray the execution of one-seventh of his men as a victory for the rest. The price of greatness, he said, had always been far higher than ordinary men could understand. But Turachs were different: they were Magad's warrior-angels, they were the fine edge of the knife with which the Emperor was pruning the tree called Alifros. 'In the end this world will be a fair reflection of the Tree above us,' he told them. 'Most men would shrink from such a challenge. But not us. When Turachs pass through fire they emerge with the hardness of steel.'

These three men — Burnscove, Plapp and Drellarek — also began to talk about the enemy. This was done rather quietly, and often late at night, after one or more of them appeared unexpectedly to pitch in with a bit of labour, or to top off the men's grog with a flask produced from none-knew-where. Talk of the Mzithrinis invariably meant talk of war crimes, atrocities committed by whole legions or a bloodthirsty few.

'Little Orin Isle, now,' said Drellarek with a sigh, at one such gathering. 'That little speck of a place off the side of Fuln, with no more than three thousand men. You wouldn't think it would be worth much bloodshed to take her, now would you? Ah, but you're not thinking like a Black Rag! Orin had a fortified jetty, and strong memories of what them butchers did to their grandfathers. So they fought like tigers, and kept the Sizzies from landing for a week. The Sizzies took 'em at last, of course. And when the brave men of Orin knew they were beat, they lay down their weapons, and their leaders came forward and gave their word of honour that they'd fight no more, and asked for mercy.

'Do you know what sort of mercy they got? The Sizzies marched every man who could still walk out to a lead mine in the hills. They sent 'em underground, all chained together. And then they knocked out the roofing timbers and the tunnel collapsed.'

Drellarek paused, looking grimly at the shadow-etched faces about him.

'Their women and children dug with picks and spades, with their blary fingernails. For days on end. They could hear the tap-tap-tapping, the cries from under the earth, the calls for water. But each day the voices were fainter, until one by one they stopped. Can you imagine what that silence was like, gentlemen? For the little children? For the wives?

'That's the Black Rags' idea of honour. And that's why His Supremacy launched this ship. Not for some make-believe Peace. Oh we played along with their charade, all right. But just like those brave men on Orin, some of us remember. The Black Rags kill, mates. And if the Shaggat Ness gets them killing each other again — so be it. We can watch them kill each other, or wait for them to kill us. Which do you prefer?'

Soldiers and sailors alike did their best to look satisfied with this reasoning, and to a certain extent they were. None had ever dreamed of being part of such a grand effort — the triumph of Arqual, the remaking of the very order of the world! Part of the crew breathed easier, thinking of Mzithrini atrocities. Most at least felt they understood what the journey was all about.

But not all were comforted. Many recalled what Captain Rose had said the day Peytr Bourjon ate his gumfruit. Strip that rind away, he'd said. Go on without dreaming of hope. On slow watches, over breakfast biscuit, or high on the topgallant yards, they began to murmur, to frown. In their hammocks, blind to one another in the dark, they whispered: We don't exist, boys. We wiped the slate clean at Talturi. Our girls will cry, but not too long. Don't kid yourselves. They'll dry their eyes and paint 'em pretty, women are faithless useless calculating gossipy gone-with-a-sob-and-a-hankie. And what about us, eh, what about us on this ship? Memories. Names mumbled by an old aunt, a quick prayer in the Temple, a list on page ten of the Mariner, used to wrap someone's pound of halibut. That's all we are, by Rin.

For the three youths it was a time of anxiety. Thasha could tell that Pazel was struggling with some new fear: he walked about as though under a stormcloud, waiting for lightning to strike. But she never could find a chance to ask him about it, for he seemed to go out of his way not to be caught with her alone.

Their allies were troubled as well. Fiffengurt raged and sulked; he had not forgiven himself for getting his Annabel with child ('like a common rascal on shore leave'), and he was half out of his mind at the thought of Rose, or worse yet Uskins, going through his private journal. Felthrup still cried out in his sleep.

Hercol, for his part, expected an attack: some midnight assault by one of Ott's men, or a siege by Rose and Drellarek, or worst of all an attack by the sorcerer. 'Why Rose allows us to come and go from these chambers is a mystery,' he said. 'But of this I am certain: nothing could be more dangerous than coming to depend on that magic wall.'

He abandoned his valet's cabin in favour of a small chamber that Pacu Lapadolma and several other first-class passengers had used for storage. The room was still crammed with footlockers and crates and swinging garment bags, but it had the advantage of being just outside the stateroom door. He refused to sleep in the stateroom itself, saying that if some enemy should find a way through the wall he intended to be the first one they met. His own door he never closed.

He strongly embraced the idea of training the tarboys, and quickly carved two blunt-edged practice swords. But he was dismayed at the anger in the youths.

'Anger is a fire,' he told them. 'And that fire is your servant — potentially. But right now all I see is two fools trying to grab it barehanded. That may get you burned, but it won't get you through a swordfight.' When this warning failed to cure the boys of recklessness, he made them recite the first apothem of Tholjassan battle-dance at the start of every lesson — not just in Arquali, but also in their individual birth-tongues:

A fight is won or lost in the mind, not the body. The mind is present in the fingertips, the eyelash, the leaping forward and the holding back, the side-spring, the death-blow, the choice not to fight at all. The mind discerns the needle-narrow path to victory among the thickets of defeat.

His melees with Thasha were bruising affairs, which Pazel and Neeps watched in awe. Thasha had a good sword of her own, but Hercol had Ildraquin, and decades of skill and cunning. He was merciless and calculating. He mocked and insulted her, trying to break her concentration. He hurled bricks and staves and chairs at her, shouldered over the crates they'd stacked up as obstacles. He drove her in circles around the stateroom, kicked and beat and even cut her if she gave him a clumsy opening. After watching the first such lesson the boys realised they had been treated like children.

Pazel and Neeps found her breathtaking, but Thasha felt slow and awkward in her lessons. She had no idea why it was happening: Hercol had not actually injured her, and the chill of the blane was a fading memory. But though she held her own the fights were more taxing than they should have been, and her mind felt clouded with vague fears and phantoms. A similar feeling had lately come at night, just after she blew out the candle by her bedside — a sudden rush of doubts about her choices, the tasks before them, herself. Then she would fall asleep and dream of whirlpools, as she had been doing for months.

She knew Hercol was aware of her distraction — you could not hide that sort of thing from your martial tutor, not when he was coming at you with a blade — and knew as well that he was holding back out of concern. It was only a slight handicap, but it flew in the face of his code as a teacher. He had sternly forbidden her ever to ask for lenience, and to do so had never crossed her mind. Now she was deeply shamed. Hercol was not even reprimanding her when the lessons ended. He didn't think she could take it.

Her agitation reached a new pitch some three weeks after the Talturi affair, when she awoke with an irrepressible desire to eat an onion. She had never felt such a weird craving — an onion, for Rin's sake — but it swept over her like the onset of fever, and before she knew it, she was back in the main cabin, poking about in the food cupboards, popping open tins.

It was past midnight; the sounds of the ship were at their lowest ebb. Felthrup, who had yet to lose his battle against sleep, poked his weary nose out from her cabin door. Neeps groaned from his spot under the windows. 'Dogs,' he said.

Pazel sat up. 'No, it's Thasha. What in the Nine Pits are you up to?'

'I want an onion.'

'Well you're as loud as a pig in a pantry — did you say onion?'

Thasha turned to look at him. The sharpness in his tone caught her quite off guard.

'Well?' he demanded.

'Yes,' she said, 'onion. Didn't we have one? A big red thing.'

'What do you think we could do with a big red onion? Eat it raw?'

That was exactly what she had in mind. 'I know how crazy this sounds, Pazel, but-'

'No you don't,' he said. 'Go away and let me sleep.'

Thasha returned to her cabin without a word. But moments later she was back, fully dressed, and making for the stateroom door. 'Oh, stop, stop,' Pazel groaned. 'Wake up, Neeps, Thasha's gone mad.'

They pleaded with her to forget the onion. Thasha began to scratch nervously at her arms.

'I can't stop thinking about it. I don't know what's happening.'

'Sounds like Arunis' handiwork to me,' said Neeps, rubbing his eyes.

'Maybe,' said Thasha. 'I've been feeling a little strange for days. Not sick. Just… strange. But this is a different feeling. How late does Mr Teggatz work in the galley?'

'Depends on what's for breakfast tomorrow,' said Neeps, who'd often worked the galley shift.

'I will fetch my lady an onion,' Felthrup volunteered.

'That's blary good of you, Felthrup,' said Neeps. 'We accept.'

'No we don't,' said Pazel. 'Rin's chin, mate, you want him killed? Teggatz brags he can skewer a rat with a cleaver at thirty feet.'

The boys pulled on their clothes, surly as gravediggers at dawn. Outside the cabin door they found Hercol in a chair, sleeping with his back to the door and his hand on the pommel of Ildraquin. As Thasha opened the door he surged to his feet, unsheathing the great sword even as he leaped sidelong into fighting stance.

'What's the matter?' he said. 'Where are you going at this time of night?'

'Onions,' grumbled Neeps.

'Just one,' Thasha protested, still scratching at her arms.

Hercol also failed to turn Thasha from her goal, and so he sheathed Ildraquin and joined the march to the galley. The heat of the day was gone, and Thasha wished she had brought a coat. She wished even more that she had slipped out of the cabin without waking the boys. Neeps might groan and fuss, but then he was always groaning and fussing. There was nothing mean about it, ultimately. Pazel, on the other hand, had sounded furious, and his anger stung all the worse for being so unexpected.

But as they neared the galley she could think of little but her thirst for the vegetable. Let it be open, let it be open'Closed,' said Mr Teggatz, rounding the corner, wiping his waterpruned hands on his apron. His soft mouth gave its usual smile, one that apologised for the incoherent words that usually came from it. 'All closed, cleaned, locked. How terrible, Master Hercol. Hello.'

'We don't need food, exactly,' said Pazel.

'Of course you don't,' said Teggatz. 'So be it. Good night.'

'Mr Teggatz,' sad Hercol. 'The lady requires an onion.'

Teggatz looked mortified. 'Impossible. There's a directive. Punishments, too! If I lie Rin can squash me like a roach.' He stomped in violent demonstration, eliciting groans from the berth deck.

Neeps sighed. 'He's right, you know. Rose is a monster when it comes to galley privileges. No badgering the cook, no requests to be honoured once the galley's closed, no arguments, on pain of who-knows-what.'

Thasha scratched as if her arms were covered with biting ants. Teggatz balled up his apron in a knot. Four enemies of the crown were trying to get an onion out of him at midnight. It was more than he could bear. He bolted for the passage.

'Five bells,' he said over his shoulder. 'That's when we light the stove. Not before. Captain's rules.'

They stood staring at the locked galley door. 'Five bells is hours from now,' said Thasha, her voice desperate.

'You'll just have to survive until then,' said Neeps.

'Maybe we should tie her up,' said Pazel.

The others looked at him, stunned. Pazel shoved his hands into his pockets. 'To keep her from scratching herself raw, that's all I meant.'

Hercol struck a match, then whisked a candle from his pocket and held the wick to the flame. 'Pazel,' he said quietly, 'go to the next compartment and keep watch. Neeps, be so good as to do the same at the ladderway.'

'What are you going to do?' asked Pazel.

'Get Thasha her onion, what do you think?'

Astonished, the tarboys did as they were told. When they were alone Hercol took Thasha's hand.

'This is an unnatural hunger,' he said. 'You must not give in to it as soon as your hands close on an onion. It could very well be a trap.'

Thasha nodded. 'I know. But Hercol, you can't break down that door. You'll bring people running from all over the ship.'

Hercol smiled at her. With a quick glance along the passage, he put a hand through the neck of his shirt and drew out a leather strap. On it hung a tarnished brass key.

'This is one of the ship's master keys,' he said. 'Diadrelu found it on the berth deck.'

'You've seen Dri!' whispered Thasha.

'Alas, no. One of her sophisters appeared two nights ago in my cabin. I gather Mr Frix used the key to confiscate Fiffengurt's journal, and lost it in the scuffle that followed. As for Dri, I begin to worry. The ix-girl who brought that key looked troubled when I asked after her mistress, though she would tell me nothing. But hurry, now-' He lifted the key around his shoulders and gave it to Thasha. 'Get your onion, and get back out here, and whatever you do, don't take a bite.'

Thasha put the key in the lock. The door protested, and Thasha had to shake it up and down in its frame, but at last the key turned and the door sprang open.

Hercol passed her the candle, and when she was safely inside he pulled the door shut behind her. The galley was long and narrow, and stank of coal and scrubbing lye. Its centerpiece was the Chathrand 's great stove, an iron behemoth about the size of a cottage, with twelve burners, four baking ovens (one large enough for a whole boar), a firebox for coal and another for fuelwood, various warming, smoking and steaming chambers, and a hot-water boiler. Heat throbbed from it still, although the fire had been snuffed; Thasha couldn't imagine what the galley was like when the stove was roaring. Down the starboard wall ran a long cooking counter, with drawers, cabinets, and storm-safe racks of cooking implements above and below. Along the opposite wall ran the sinks and the racks of plates, bowls and cutlery.

Onion. Thasha tiptoed forward, squinting. The counters were spotless, the dishracks empty, the towels knotted on their hangers. There were garlands of dry chilis like spiny red snakes nailed up on the beams, and hanging baskets of garlic, and (Thasha caught her breath) a skinless, salt-cured deer dangling from its antlers and dotted with flies. But no onions.

Thasha rounded the stove. There had to be another storage area. Where was the flour, the rice, the biscuit soaking for tomorrow's meals? She scratched at her arms, thinking I can smell the damn thing.

Turn around.

Thasha froze. Had someone spoken? No, no: she was talking to herself. She turned around, raising the candle as she did so.

Between the third and fourth sink, which she had passed just moments ago, stood a little waist-high door. Amazed that she had failed to notice it the first time, Thasha approached. The door was cracked and pitted, its green paint flaking away; it was clearly very old. Could that be the pantry? What an odd piece of junk, she thought, in a place that was otherwise as neat Chadfallow's surgery.

She took hold of the iron knob — corroded, rough against her palm — and hesitated. For some reason she was apprehensive about the door, and what might lie beyond it. Absurd, she told herself. What could possibly threaten her in an empty galley? But this is the Chathrand, and that door's blary strange. No, it's not quite absurd to beTwang. Thump. She whirled about, drawing her knife from her belt in a flash. Dangling into the passage was a wicker basket. It was strung beneath the first and second sinks, on short cords, but one of the cords had just snapped, tipping the basket on its side. Potatoes and cabbages rolled across the floor — and yes, there was an an onion, huge and red and perfect, the very specimen she had been craving for an hour.

She pounced on it, and the smell made her moan. Hercol's warning stood no chance. Setting the candle on the counter, she dug her nails into the dry outer skin, found purchase, ripped.

Instantly her craving vanished. The skin of the onion came off in a single sheet, and beneath the crackling outer layer it was strong and supple as leather. Thasha turned it over in her hand. The onion itself meant nothing to her now. It was the skin she needed, the skin that had called out to her in her sleep.

She spread it flat beside the candle, with the slick inner surface facing up. She brought her face close. And where her breath touched the onion skin, words appeared: words written in fire.

She had seen their like once before, on her bedroom ceiling in Etherhorde. Pale blue fire in a handwritten script — Ramachni's script. The mage was speaking to her at last.

Forgive me, Thasha: I am weak, and fall back on what tricks and small powers I can to send word to you. Worse still, Arunis has painted your ship in spells of warding and interference. I had a long search for a means of reaching you that he would be unlikely to detect — if only because a craving for onions should strike him as too foolish to investigate.

The sorcerer taxed me more than he knows in our last battle — and far more than I wish him to know. But return I shall at the promised time, and fight again at your side. Before that day I may be able to send another message, or messenger — and then again, I may not.

For today, three warnings: first, YOU MUST READ THE POLYLEX. Knowledge cannot spare you pain, indeed it may increase your suffering, but what is that compared to the doom on the world? If you have left off reading it, as I suspect, my advice is to start at the bitter end and work back to where you stand.

Second, keep an eye on anyone who spends time with Arunis. Like me he is hiding his battle-wounds, but whatever the extent of his powers, his cunning remains. I am worried also by the way he controlled Mr Druffle: the human mind is easily swayed, but rarely seized by force. What is certain is that he will do the same to others, given the chance.

Third, beware your own great heart. Our enemies will try to use it against you, having failed to kill you or make you afraid.

You, Pazel, Neeps, Hercol and Diadrelu were singled out by the spirit in the Red Wolf. That spirit, be it Erithusme's or some other's, believed you could defend your world from the Nilstone. But this much I have learned from afar: your guess was right. There were seven, not five, burned by the molten iron of the Wolf. You must find the other two and enlist them, no matter who they are.

I will not lie to you, my champion: you stand over a precipice, upon a bridge so frail that it will crumble at the slightest misstep. And yet you must gain the other side. We all must, or perish together in the fall.

Ramachni

P.S. Here is a fourth warning: do not open that green door behind you. Keep your loved ones from it too.

Thasha blinked: the mage's scrawled signature was fading, fading — gone. And when she raised her eyes, she saw that the entire letter was gone as well. Just as before, the act of reading had erased them; the only place where they remained was in her mind.

Three warnings… anyone who spends time with Arunis… two more bearing the wolf scar… How could he possibly expect her to remember everything? She wasn't a mage; she wasn't even a particularly good student, as Pazel had reminded her over their Mzithrini lessons. But after a moment of panic, Thasha found herself growing calmer. The message was frightening, but not so complicated. And if Ramachni believed she could remember it, then she would do so. She would hurry back to her cabin and write it down.

Her eyes fell once more on the ancient door between the sinks. Keep your loved ones from it too.

As she emerged from the galley, Hercol called softly to Pazel and Neeps. The tarboys came running. 'What happened?' asked Neeps breathlessly. 'Did you find your onion?'

'Please tell me you got what you wanted,' said Pazel.

'Not exactly,' said Thasha, relocking the door. 'But don't ask me any questions. I'll tell you everything in the morning.'

'Then there's something to tell?' said Neeps.

'Lots. But tomorrow, please! Let's get some rest while we can.'

Hercol reached for the key, and paused a moment, feeling the tremor in her hand. 'Yes,' he said softly, 'I think we shall need it.'