The Rats and the Ruling sea

23

21 Freala 941

130th day from Etherhorde

Her heart is a throbbing beast, her body a wilderness, her shores a stone wall and her few harbours held by savages who roast their foes on spits. Great teams of explorers set off for her interior; months later broken men straggle out with tales of whip scorpions and swarms of carnivorous bats, and great monsters that bask on riverbanks or blend with the trees. There are also stories of lost races of thinking beings, whole cities perhaps, in the valleys of her central range.

Whatever the truth of such tales, on this you may rely: Bramian is merciless. If you contemplate some exploitation of her riches, be warned: only the very wealthy, and very disciplined, have succeeded in turning a profit on this island twice the size of the Westfirth. 'Above all,' writes one old survivor, 'let your stay be brief. Cut a swathe of jungle, mine a little ore, take a few hundred hides — and be gone. If you do this you may live to enjoy your takings, however smaller than your appetite they prove.'

— The Merchant's Polylex, 18th Edition (959), p. 4186.

He passed a night of dark dreams in which he crept over canyons on bridges of scrapwood and straw. Every step caused the bridges to groan and bend, and yet he had no choice but to cross the dismal gorges. Now and then he would half-wake and find himself curled against the wall of the brig, intensely grateful for its solidity, for the absence of an abyss, but then the drug's haze would claim him again.

At dawn the spymaster came for him. Pazel leaped up with raised fists, light on his feet if nearly out of his mind, striking the stance Hercol had taught him at their first lesson in the stateroom. It seemed necessary to demonstrate his hatred of the spymaster, of his whole clan of murdering liars. But Ott just laughed and sidled towards him without making eye contact and felled him with three blows. Pazel never saw Ott's hands at all, until they lifted him by the shirt.

Minutes later he was on the floor of a skiff, descending the dark wall of the Chathrand to the rhythmic clanging of the davit-chains. Ott and Drellarek were seated near him, and ahead of them sat the tarboy brothers Swift and Saroo. Neither of the Jockeys glanced at him as the boat rattled seaward. He could hear the murmur of other men, the rasp of Turach armour. A man's voice chattered indignantly from the stern. You should treat me as an equal, Warden. And even that is a great concession. Remove these straps! You are a mortal man. I am the son of the divine.

They struck the waves with a smack. Pazel bolted upright, only to feel Drellarek's stone-hard hand on his shoulder. Men were fighting the chains, fending them off the Chathrand with oars, while the twenty-foot skiff pitched like a rocking horse. Even in his delirium Pazel knew he must keep still.

At last they were clear. The sail shot up. Elkstem held the wheel, Rose the gaff, and together they calmed the boat and took her out of the cove.

Pazel ground his teeth. Chadfallow had a drug that could force his mind open to languages, force his Gift to start performing on command. That, Pazel thought, was the missing piece of the puzzle. The doctor had not brought Pazel along as some sort of favour. He did not mean to reunite him with his family at all, because Pazel's family reunited was the last thing he wanted. No, he had brought Pazel along as a tool: one that could help him regain Suthinia, wherever she was; and one that could keep Chadfallow himself in the good graces of Rose and Sandor Ott. Whoever or whatever they met with on this voyage, Pazel would be there to offer his special services. You haven't stopped the conspiracy, you've become a part of it.

Bramian groped towards them, a giant on hands and knees. The sound of waves shattering against her cliffs grew to awesome proportions, as if Bakru's lions were indeed prowling the breakers, hurling their wrath against the land. Pazel knelt in the cold bilgewater, nauseous and dizzy. He put his fingers in his ears, but there was another kind of roaring inside.

The shore birds found them, and began to wheel and shriek. There was no shore: just the stone cliffs, and a number of titanic rocks half-submerged in the swell. Where were they to land? Elkstem kept them running straight for Bramian, while Ott stood watching at the bow. They're all mad, Pazel thought, shutting his eyes, unless I am.

When he looked again time seemed to have leaped forwards. They were in the island's shadow, right among the rocks. The sail was furled and the mast struck down, and straight ahead of them was a round black hole in the cliff.

'Pathkendle!' roared Elkstem. 'Take your blary oar!'

He stumbled to an oar-seat. The cave mouth, which all but vanished with each swell, was the width of a minor temple's doorway. On either side the waves exploded against the cliffs, vaulting skyward in spray and foam. But at the cave itself the sea raced into the dark, only to flow out again with a vast obscene slurp. 'Row!' Elkstem was screaming. Everyone but he and the Shaggat's son had taken up oars.

Twenty feet: they rose and plunged, and the sea broke over the stern. The foam atop each wave nearly brushed the roof of the cavern. Pazel saw Drellarek make a hasty sign of the Tree.

'Save me, Father!' wailed Erthalon Ness.

'Ship oars!' Rose bellowed. 'Heads down and hands inside!'

Pazel wrenched his oar into the skiff. He threw himself down, the daylight vanished, the gunnels scraped the top of the cave mouth, and then like a grape sucked through greedy lips they were through, blasting down a straight stone tunnel on the force of the wave. Pazel crouched in two feet of water, Alyash on one side and Drellarek on the other. It was impossible to guess how far the wave had borne them.

But just as it began to recede more shouts erupted — shouts from somewhere beyond the boat. A grinding noise echoed behind them, and instantly they slowed.

Pazel raised his head. The cave had widened into a circular chamber some sixty feet across. Around the perimeter stone ledges had been cut at various heights, and bright fengas lamps hung from wooden posts. Pazel looked back the way they had come, and saw men labouring on an iron platform, bolted to the rock near the tunnel mouth. They were turning a heavy wheel, connected by chains and pulleys to a half-submerged granite slab. The slab itself was mounted on rails, and it was sliding over the tunnel mouth. Even as Pazel watched it ground to a halt. The tunnel was sealed. 'Welcome to Bramian, Master,' said someone ashore.

The next thing Pazel remembered was climbing a stair. The way was steep and dark; far ahead someone carried a single bobbing lamp. 'Where is my brother?' Erthalon Ness was whimpering. 'You killed him, didn't you? Are you going to kill me?'

It was on the stair that Pazel noticed the sharpened hearing that sometimes accompanied his Gift. He could catch every whisper and echo: Alyash's soft curse in Mzithrini, Rose's wheeze as he lurched up each step.

How is it going to end? When will the mind-fit come?

At last they reached a broad wooden door. Ott stepped to the front and gave a sharp, four-note whistle. From the far side, startling everyone but Ott himself, came a woman's laugh.

Bolts slid free. The door swung outwards, forcing them to shuffle backwards. A brighter lamplight flooded the stair. And in the doorway stood Syrarys Isiq.

She put out her hand to the spymaster. Her beauty left the men abashed. She wore a white blouse embroidered with red coral beads and a necklace of cobalt-blue pearls. Her olive skin glowed in the lamplight, and her sumptuous lips curled with mirth, as if the men crowded below her on the steps were part of some great parlour-game whose rules she knew better than anyone. 'We beat you by a full day, darling,' she said.

Ott took her hand and kissed it. 'I have been here four,' he said, 'keeping watch by sea, until the Great Ship reached her hiding place.'

Syrarys spread the fingers of the hand Ott had kissed. Along with rings of gold and silver, diamond and bloodstone, she wore a simple, tarnished ring of brass. 'A little bird gave me that one,' she said.

Ott laughed, then took the ring from her finger and slipped it on his own. 'Come, Syrarys,' he said. 'You know what this day holds.'

He swept through the door and into a great stone chamber, and the woman who had raised Thasha from a child went with him. As he stepped into the chamber Pazel recalled the creaking bridges of his dreams. He felt as if he were upon one again. They told us she died in Ormael. They told us she leaped from a tower into the sea. We know nothing, we're toys in their hands.

They bound his wrists with metal cuffs and sat him in a corner, too far from the hearth to be warmed in that chilly underground. Unlike the chamber below this was not a natural cave; the room, and several others adjoining, were carved from the living rock. They gave him water and ship's biscuit, later a handful of berries that resembled coffee beans and tasted like sweet smoked grubs.

Syrarys came to look at him, with Ott beside her. Hatred shone in her eyes.

'Thasha's little friend,' she said. 'Do you know what her father did to me, bastard? Something much worse than rape or beatings. He bought me, like a dog. He groomed and bathed me and took me out in society on a leash, so that the Etherhorde nobles could admire my tricks.'

'That's not what I heard,' said Pazel. 'I heard Isiq never asked for a slave at all. That the Emperor sent you to him, and the old man didn't think he could refuse.' He looked at Ott. 'I wonder who gave His Supremacy that idea.'

Syrarys slapped him, hard. Pazel raised his shackled hands to his face. 'I believe the part about doing tricks, though,' he said.

She would have struck him again if Ott hadn't drawn her away. Pazel found himself wondering what Thasha would do if Syrarys returned to the Chathrand.

The drug-delirium came and went. Several hours in that windowless chamber simply vanished. When his memory returned it moved in leaps, like a stone skipping on a lake. Men around a table. Captain Rose brooding over a chart. Elkstem waving his hands, shouting, I can't blary say, Captain! You don't get that close to the Vortex and live to tell! Drellarek sharpening a hatchet. The Shaggat's son chained to the wall, asleep.

At another moment he woke with Syrarys' voice in his ears, and flinched, expecting pain. But she was nowhere near him. He raised his head and saw her with Ott on the far side of the chamber. They were kissing, and arguing between the kisses. Pazel's strange hearing brought it all to his ears.

Want to go with you.

No, dearest. The job in Simja only you can accomplish.

You said Isiq would be the last one!

I said I hoped, Syrarys. But there was madness when the girl collapsed.

You bastard. I'll make you pay. I'll sleep with your spies. The pretty ones, the youngest.

Don't try it. They fear me even more than they desire you.

Care to bet?

Pazel's head swam. He fought to stay awake, to hear more of their argument, but the darkness closed over him again.

Later they stood him up and walked him to the table. It was by now covered with books, scrolls, loose vellum sheets. Nearly everything was old; some of the books appeared positively ancient. Look, they said, and spread before him something that might have been a scrap of sailcloth with old grey stains. Look there. What is that?

'Your finger?' he said.

Rose seized his ear and twisted savagely, as if annoyed to find it so tightly fastened to his head.

'There's writing, Pathkendle. Lean closer.'

Tears of pain in his eyes, Pazel leaned over the canvas. The faces around the table watched him breathless. Rose was pointing at a symbol in pale blue ink. Was it a character, a word? The only thing Pazel was sure of was that he'd never seen its like before.

His vision blurred; he shut his eyes, and when he opened them again he read the word as easily as though it were his own name:

' "Port of Stath Balfyr." '

The men exclaimed: some relieved, others in doubt. 'I told you,' said Syrarys, her voice softly ardent. 'I told you it came from a chart.'

'What's that language, then, cub?' asked Drellarek, pointing at the canvas.

Pazel hesitated. 'N-Nemmocian,' he said at last. It was the truth, but he only discovered it by speaking the word aloud.

'Where is the tongue spoken, lad?' asked Sandor Ott.

'How in the Pits should I know?'

'The boy's Gift does not extend so far,' said Dr Chadfallow. 'He learns nothing of the culture of the languages he… acquires. Nothing but what one may deduce from the words themselves.'

'Then we're no better off than before!' huffed Alyash. 'Why, we could spend the rest of our lives looking for a place called Stath Balfyr, where they may or may not speak something called Nemmocian. And begging your pardon, Lady Syrarys, but we can't be certain this was torn from a chart.'

'I don't understand,' said Pazel.

The men looked at him uncertainly. It was Sandor Ott, of all people, who broke the silence.

'The world beyond the Ruling Sea,' he said, 'is not entirely forgotten. What you see before you is all that the libraries, archives and private collections of the known world have yielded to my investigators, after a decade of searching.'

He lifted an ancient book, cracked it open, blew. The page flaked and crumbled.

'Not much to show for our labours, is it?' said Ott. 'But there were a few helpful discoveries: that first canvas gives us some idea of the shape of the coastline we may reach. Another document seems to be a list of surnames — royal families, in all probability — and the lands they govern. But the jewel in this musty hoard is a page from a diary or log-book. I will not show it here, for it is so delicate that each time we remove it from its case a portion crumbles to dust. We have copied it out, however — word by word, number by number.'

Pazel's head was swimming; he was finding Ott's words very difficult to follow. 'What… does it tell you?' he managed to ask.

'Headings,' said the spymaster. 'Course headings, and distances, from Stath Balfyr to lands on this side of the Ruling Sea. Lands we know, cities that yet exist, even though the names have changed. Eldanphul, the old name of Uturphe. Marseyl, that the Noonfirth Kings renamed for their founder, Lord Pol. And one island whose name has not changed: Gurishal. Do you see, Pathkendle? If we can but find this Stath Balfyr, we will know the exact course to the Shaggat's kingdom, and the multitude that awaits him.'

'If we find it,' said Alyash, shaking his head.

'Yes,' said Ott, 'if. Unfortunately the collector of ancient manuscripts who owned this particular scrap of writing… died, trying to stop my men from seizing it. And his records contain no mention of the page.'

Syrarys turned impatiently from the table. 'You needn't explain things to the tarboy,' she said.

Ott looked Pazel up and down. 'I am following my instincts with this one,' he said. 'The ignorant make poor servants. For as long as he is with us, he must grasp the fundamentals. Of course, he will not be with us for ever.'

'What do you mean by that?' demanded Chadfallow, leaning forwards.

The spymaster ignored him. 'Pathkendle,' he said softly, 'do the words Stath Balfyr mean something in themselves?'

'No,' said Pazel.

It came out too quickly, a blurted denial. Sergeant Drellarek sat back with a laugh.

Ott turned to look at Chadfallow. 'There's an answer for you, Doctor. Your tarboy has just lied, very clumsily. My boys in the School of Imperial Security tell better falsehoods after thirty minutes of training. How long will Pathkendle be with us? A short time indeed, if he fails to answer my questions. But long enough to hear one or more of his friends beg for death: a death Ramachni's spell, alas, will make it inconvenient to provide.'

Pazel swallowed. He was only too aware how easily Ott could carry out his threats. Thasha, Neeps and Marila would be forced to leave the protection of the stateroom in short order if Rose let the spymaster cut off their food.

'Look at him, he's stalling,' said Syrarys.

Fascination glimmered in Ott's eyes. 'No, he is considering his choices. He's a thoughtful lad.'

Diadrelu. Pazel closed his eyes. Forgive me.

'Answer the question, Pathkendle,' said Rose.

'Sanctuary,' said Pazel. 'Stath Balfyr means Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. '

Broad daylight. Somehow Pazel had slept the night away, chained once more in his corner. He shook his head fiercely. He had no memory of waking at all.

He was on horseback, clinging to the saddle horn, startled out of his trance. Birds were singing; the great black horse pranced in the mud; and around him a million leaves and fronds and flowers glittered from a recent downpour.

It was already hot; Pazel felt as though some great animal were breathing on him. Yet the noise of the sea was close and loud, and off to his left he saw a place where the trees ended, and blue sky began. He knew suddenly where he was: atop the cliffs, on the edge of Bramian's great wilderness. It felt like trespassing, like putting a toe through some forbidden doorway just to see what would happen.

Ott climbed into the saddle behind him. Pazel stiffened: it was frightful to be so close to the assassin, with his scarred and deadly hands gripping the reins on either side. Pazel had heard the phrase Stath Balfyr whispered among the Ixchel. Only once or twice, when they forgot his abilities; and they spoke it with reverence, like a holy name. He had given something sacred to the most profane man he'd ever known.

Ott turned the horse in a half-circle, and Pazel caught a glimpse of the cave mouth, low like a burrow and all but invisible with greenery. There were other horses: one bore Chadfallow, another Alyash. Swift and Saroo were mounted also; their horses carried large leather purses secured to chaps before the riders' knees. The last and largest steed bore Drellarek and Erthalon Ness, the latter gazing in horror at the jungle about them.

Ott waved his men back underground. Then he turned to the other riders and raised a cautioning hand.

'The first part of this journey is likely to be the foulest,' he said softly. 'Stay close to me, and do not stop unless I do. Trust your horse's footing: these are the noblest animals His Supremacy could provide, and mountain-trained from birth. Away, now! Ride fast and silent, as you value your lives.'

With that he spurred his horse into the bush. There seemed no path at first, and they crashed (far from silently) through great sprays of palm and ferns and creepers. But very soon the underbrush thinned. Huge trees loomed over them, craggy black-barked monsters laden with vines and mosses and dangling epiphytes. The horses were indeed magnificent. They dodged roots and rocks, and somehow guarded their riders' balance at the same time.

They began a steep ascent, criss-crossing a gurgling stream. In patches of sunlight over the water Pazel saw butterflies of iridescent blue, rising in sapphire clouds at their approach.

'Where are you taking us?' he asked.

'Quiet!' said Ott. 'Or you'll find I've taken you only to your grave. We are ascending the mountain known in the Outer Isles as Droth'ulad. An evil corner of a vast, evil isle.'

'Evil?' said Pazel. 'But it's beautiful. Look at it.'

'I am most certainly looking,' said Ott, who was in fact peering deep into the trees ahead. 'Yes, evil: the name means Skull of Droth, the Demon-Prince. But it is not Droth who threatens us now. I am looking for the Leopard People. This has been their part of Bramian for longer than anyone from the outer world has been coming here. Fortunately for us they fear to climb Droth'ulad, but they will slip around its base sometimes, to hunt monkeys or wild dogs. They are master archers, and will kill us if they can.'

'Why do they fear the mountain?'

'Because something lives at the summit that kills them. Not the demon himself, I think, but perhaps something not greatly to be preferred. We would do better to avoid that place ourselves. But the ridgetop is the only swift path to our destination, and Elkstem swears we must put to sea in a matter of days or be kept from all hope of safe passage by the Vortex.'

'But what in the Nine Pits do you want on Bramian?'

'Nothing whatsoever. It is our allies' wants that concern me.'

'Allies?'

'Be silent, lad.'

The way grew steeper yet, and they were forced to slow the horses to a walk. There was a path of sorts, now: a meandering mud track, full of roots and snags and fallen trees. Weird shocks of colour met their eyes: a fleshy orange fungus that seemed to glow in the shadows, a scarlet hummingbird, a metallic-gold moth. Now and then the path left the cover of the forest to skirt clifftops, jutting like grey teeth from the blanketing green. At such moments Pazel looked down on steaming valleys, over lakes and serpentine rivers, and once he saw a ring of standing stones upon a treeless hilltop, and a thread of rising smoke.

But the sounds were a torment. Whistles, hoots and howls: the noise of countless birds and beasts, never seen except as shadows, flickers of movement, hints of wings. Worst of all were the insects. His altered hearing made their whines, drones, chirps and buzzings hideously distinct. When they bit him near his ears he heard the piercing of his skin.

Up they went, hour upon hour. Rain came and went with astonishing force. When it grew strong enough to blind them Ott would signal a halt, and the horses would stand steaming in the cold spray as the path became a river gushing about their legs. Pazel covered his ears, deafened. But the downpours were brief, and it seemed that the instant the last drops fell the sun came dappling through.

Once more Pazel's mind became clouded, and he lost all sense of time. One minute he would be clinging to the horse's mane as the animal struggled up some narrow ravine; the next he would be staring at a hairy vine as thick as his arm, only to discover that it was a monstrous centipede, scurrying up a trunk.

At still another moment he found himself listening to the half-hearted daytime hoot of an owl. No one else seemed able to hear the bird, and Pazel could not find it in the canopy overhead. But he heard its mate answer, and a soft flutter of wings. And then (Pazel caught his breath sharply) the first owl spoke in words. Its voice was black and velvety, the voice of a night hunter woken by day.

'I should like to know where they think they're going.'

'You could ask,' said the other, in a higher voice.

'They're savages, my dear fool. They speak no tongue of Bramian.'

The second owl trilled uneasily. 'I do not like this mountain. I can taste sea air, and it frightens me. The shorebirds' talk is always full of fear, warships, movements of men. Let us go inland tonight. Where the world is still whole.'

'We will go to the Court of Grethim,' said the first owl. ' The priest will welcome us, and let us hunt in the spice gardens, and perhaps I will read another story from his book of leaves.'

Pazel never told anyone about the woken owls. He had an awful image of Sandor Ott trying to shoot them from the branches. He stopped searching for them with his eyes, and the birds did not speak again.6

Onwards, upwards. At last Pazel's acute hearing diminished, and he began to feel more like himself. Far above them, he thought the texture of the forest changed, as though something immense stood among or behind the trees. Then Drellarek reined in his horse. He pointed up into a nearby tree. A large white monkey dangled there, its back to them, motionless, dead. It was pinned to the trunk by an arrow.

Ott cursed. 'We've startled them,' he said. 'The Leopard People don't just abandon their kills. And blood is yet leaking from that wound. Forward! It is a race now, and we must win.'

He said a soft word to his horse and it charged up the slope, abandoning the trail in favour of a straight line for the summit. Pazel heard the other horses thundering behind.

Suddenly a human voice spoke from the jungle. 'What are they, Uncle?'

Pazel jumped, startling both Ott and the horse.

' They are men like us,' replied another, older voice. 'But they are slavers from across the sea. Don't fear them, boy. They will take no slaves today.'

'Damn you, be still!' growled the spymaster.

'Mr Ott,' said Pazel, struggling to keep his voice low and calm.

'They've found us. They're watching.'

Suddenly Erthalon Ness gave a squeal of terror, pointing a finger at the jungle to their left. Pazel turned and saw them: scores of long-limbed figures, racing through the forest with the swiftness of cats. They wore loincloths only, and their pale yellow bodies were dabbed all over with spots of black. Some of the men carried strange iron hooks, and all had bows over their shoulders.

The riders cried out, and the horses increased their speed. But the footing was terrible now that they were running sidelong to the slope, and more than once Pazel would have been thrown from the saddle if Ott had not held him fast.

'Talk to me, Pathkendle!' he roared.

'Talk?'

'Why do you think you're here, fool? Use your Gift! Tell me what they're saying!'

Pazel listened. But the men were only shouting things like Fast and That way and Not the horses!

'Just keep going!' he said to Ott. 'They're only — Wait! Damn! They're in the trees, Ott! They're going to shoot us from the trees!'

Even as he spoke Alyash howled in pain. A long black arrow quivered in his thigh. Somehow the bosun managed to spur his horse on. Above them, scores of voices cried out, like hounds on the hunt. More arrows whizzed about their ears. Looking back, Pazel saw the trees filled with the spotted men, climbing down head-first from the upper canopy, using the hooks they carried like claws. In a heartbeat they had dropped to the ground.

'Turn!' cried Ott. 'They will drive us into another trap if they can! We must gain the mountaintop!'

Once again they aimed their steeds uphill. The poor creatures were frothing with the effort now, their legs and bellies plastered with mud. But they ran on, and seconds later Ott's fears were confirmed. An even larger band of the Leopard People rose from the underbrush to their right: just where the horses would have carried them in another few strides.

The pursuit was fierce, but not even those born to the forest could run with the speed of horses. Soon only the fastest runners were still giving chase. Pazel heard them shout to one another as they fell behind:

Why do the horses obey them?

They enslave horses too.

They're going to the Ma'tathgryl.

They will die.

For ten minutes longer they charged uphill. Then at last the spymaster reined in his mount, and they walked, dazed and stumbling. Chadfallow rode up alongside Ott and Pazel.

'Your savages climbed higher on Droth'ulad than you reckoned with, Ott.'

'They hate us a great deal,' said Ott, grinning wolfishly. 'They take all outsiders for Volpeks, who set snares for their children and make mercenaries out of them, or hawk them to the Flikkermen.'

'Then their hate is warranted,' said Chadfallow, 'since your operations here depend on Volpek supply ships. Let me extract that arrow, Bosun, before you faint.'

'Pah,' said Alyash. 'We should not stop here. I have lost but little blood.'

'You may before we reach the summit.'

'Look up, Doctor,' said Sandor Ott.

Pazel raised his eyes, and gasped. They stood nearly at the mountain's crest. And looming over them, all but lost in the trees crowding the summit, rose a wall.

It was a clearly a ruin — but such a ruin! Pazel had seen walls as high in the great keeps of Etherhorde and Pol, but those walls lay in the hearts of mighty cities, not lost in the wilderness. And the wall before him ran east and west along the mountain-top until it vanished in the trees. The builders, whoever they were, had not flattened the ridge but carved mammoth, sinuous yellow stones to fit its curves. The effect was of something more alive than constructed.

They drew closer; Pazel arched his neck. High overhead the wall sprouted turrets and towers and vine-laden balconies. Birds flew through gaping windows; orchids flowered in cracks. Yet for a thing so clearly ancient the wall was surprisingly intact.

When they reached the wall Ott turned them east. Chadfallow trailed a hand over the mossy stone. 'In Etherhorde we have one broken column, and a bit of an arch,' he mused.

'What's that you're saying?' asked Pazel. The doctor looked at him, startled. It was the first time Pazel had spoken to him on the island.

'I am saying that this is the work of the Amber Kings,' said Chadfallow. 'That this whole great edifice was built before the Worldstorm, and survived it.'

'That's a lot to swallow,' said Drellarek.

'Look at the stonework. Only the first lords of Alifros had such skill.'

'Why would the Amber Kings want to build in the middle of a jungle?' asked Erthalon Ness.

The riders stopped their horses, staring at him. Pazel had never heard half so sane an utterance come from the Shaggat's son. Chadfallow looked the man up and down, clearly fascinated. Pazel half-expected him to take the man's pulse.

'Well?' the son demanded.

'The jungle has grown back,' said Chadfallow. 'In their time — over two thousand years ago — the Amber Kings cleared many a mountain, with fire and the axe. They built great cities atop them. Fortress-cities, whole settlements in one mighty structure. No enemy could dream of taking them.'

'No enemy but Alifros herself,' said the Shaggat's son.

'Quite so,' said Chadfallow, still more amazed. 'But the Worldstorm did not strike all lands equally. Somehow this corner must have been spared — perhaps the great bulk of Bramian sheltered it from the driving winds. In any event the Amber Kings ruled from their summit cities for hundreds of years before the Storm. By day farmers descended the slopes to grow food on terraces — those flat shelvings we crossed — and by night they slept soundly in their fortress chambers. That is what the old tales tell. Do you understand me, Erthalon Ness?'

The Shaggat's son gave a nod. Then he looked back down the mountain.

'When my father returns he will cut no trees,' he said dreamily, 'for I will ask him to be kind to the white monkeys. This will be their republic. They will bear my name.'

It was almost a relief to hear him raving again. They said no more, but walked on in the shadow of the wall. Pazel found himself wondering if a sane man lay trapped somewhere inside the lunatic. The fate seemed worse than any lightless prison. And could the reverse be true? he wondered. Do sane folk carry madmen locked in their minds?

After a quarter-hour they came to the remains of a mighty gate. The ironwork had melted away with the centuries — only a few rusty spokes protruded from the stone — and no one could say what kind of sculpted beasts crouched on the pedestals to either side. A heaving of land that might once have been a road curved away from the opening and down into the trees.

Inside the gate was a portico, roofless and choked with greenery. Just beyond it a mighty staircase ascended, also open to the sky. It climbed all the way to the top of the fortress, where the sun beat down dazzling on the yellow stone.

Ott checked his horse at the threshold.

'Water the mounts,' he said, 'and dig the stones from their hooves. Give them no food, but eat a bit yourselves. Here, Pathkendle, take the reins.'

With that he slipped to the ground, adjusted his weapons belt and ran with quick, catlike movements up the stair.

'What in the Nine Pits is he up to?' said Alyash. 'He said the fortress was our destination. Now he talks as though we've another ride to look forward to.'

'I think both may be true,' said Chadfallow. 'But now I will see to that arrow, if you please.'

The tarboys picked rocks from the horses' hooves while Chadfallow tended Alyash. The bosun never made a sound, but his face creased with agony when the doctor at last twisted the arrowhead (a barbed thing made of bone) out of his thigh. After that he was quite calm. He chatted and joked as Drellarek cut slices of bacon with his dagger, and Chadfallow plucked bits of legging from the wound with tweezers.

'Mend the trousers when you're done with the leg,' said Drellarek with a laugh. 'We want him to make a good impression on our allies, don't we? Here, boys, eat.'

'Who are these allies, Mr Drellarek?' asked Swift through his first mouthful. But the Turach shook his head and made no answer.

Pazel took his slice of gristly bacon. He was famished, but all the same he felt a stab of guilt. Eating from the Throatcutter's hand. Part of the team. Like Chadfallow, just doing a job.

By the time they finished eating Sandor Ott was descending the stair. As he reached them Pazel saw that his face was strained.

'What's wrong, Master Ott?' asked Drellarek.

The spymaster's hands twitched at his sides. When he spoke there was a tremor in his voice. 'The stair leads onto the roof of the fortress-city, ' he said, 'and from there a path runs straight and level to the place where we descend. You will ride on my left, at a walk, and you will not speak. But if I give the order you must gallop like the very wind. I have just learned who is master of this mountain. It is an eguar.'

Chadfallow's eyes snapped up. 'You saw it?' he said.

Ott nodded. 'It lies basking in the sun.'

'Fire from Rin,' whispered Drellarek.

'An eguar?' squealed Erthalon Ness. 'An eguar! What is that?'

Ott whirled and struck the man across the face. 'Something that will gladly devour you, if only you keep screaming.' To the gaping tarboys, he said, 'Never mind, lads. We shall be in the city for but half an hour, or less. And eguars cannot outrun horses any better than the Leopard People can.'

Chadfallow shook his head. 'They do not run far,' he agreed, 'but at close range they move with blinding speed.'

'Enough of your airs!' snapped Ott. 'There is no book from which to learn the truth about such a creature. And you have never walked the wild places of Alifros, as I have done all my life.'

'Yet I know this to be true,' said Chadfallow.

'How?' demanded Alyash.

The doctor closed his eyes. 'From Ramachni the mage,' he said at last, 'who makes his home in greater peaks than these, among dragons and shadowmambers and hrathmog hordes. And yes, eguar. They can catch horses, Ott. And they have means of killing even that which they do not catch.'

'But what does it look like?' pleaded Saroo.

'You'll see soon enough,' said Ott. 'Now pay attention: if we are separated, ride straight at the lowering sun. You'll see a little station-house, and beyond it a triple archway, the only one of its kind. Ride through those arches, and down the stairs beyond them. We will regroup at the bottom and resume our journey.'

'Master Ott,' said Drellarek, 'there is always the sea route.'

Ott glanced at the Turach with disappointment. 'We stand here because the sea route is closed. The waves are too high for smaller vessels, and we cannot wait for a calm.'

'But the Chathrand could easily-'

'The Chathrand must not be seen again by any living soul, Sergeant Drellarek! I thought you at least understood that.'

'What I should like to understand,' said Chadfallow, 'is what we're doing here at all.'

Ott took out his canteen, and watched the doctor as he drank. Then he wiped his mouth and said, 'Shorten your stirrups, and check your girth straps. We're running late.'

Alyash mounted, wincing as he swung his wounded leg over the saddle. Drellarek spat an oath, but a moment later he too was on his horse. The others reluctantly followed suit. As long as the Turach and the spies were united they had little choice. One old doctor and three tarboys could hardly fight the deadly men.

They walked the horses on the stair, trying to keep to the moss and leaf-litter, for the beasts' iron shoes echoed loudly on the stone. Ott and Pazel were in the lead. The spymaster's hand was on his sword-hilt. He whispered continually to his charger, who nickered deep in her throat despite his soothing. That falcon of his could be useful now, Pazel thought. Where's he gone?

Some dozen steps from the rooftop, Chadfallow raised a hand, and the party halted.

'Listen to me,' he whispered. 'You must not look directly at the eguar. To do so might provoke it, like a bull. And if you see some trace of the creature, some place where it has crawled, walk your horse around the spot — never through it. Above all, guard your thoughts! Stay calm! Eguar have a spellcraft all their own.'

Ott raked them with a final glance. 'No more talking,' he said.

At the top of the stair the sun met them full in the face. Pazel shielded his eyes — and saw the eguar instantly, even before his mind took in his surroundings. Fear washed over him, irrational and huge. The beast was perhaps a thousand feet away, coal black, facing them. It resembled nothing so much as a great burned crocodile with its legs tucked under its body, and a spiny fan like that of a sailfish running down its back. A vapour surrounded it — a quaking of the air, as if the creature were a living bonfire. Pazel could not see its eyes. Was it sleeping?

Ott pinched his arm savagely. Pazel wrenched his gaze from the creature and faced forwards. One by one the horses stepped onto the roof.

What he saw before him would have stolen Pazel's breath, had he any to spare. It was as if they had climbed not just onto the roof of a fortress but that of the very world, and found it hot and blinding as a desert. The courtyard was vast and severe. Towers rose at its vertices, some intact, others shattered. Clusters of rooftop halls, like minor towns unto themselves, were scattered across its expanse. There were broken domes and standing colonnades, shattered fountains, pedestals with statues of men whose features, like those of the creatures at the ruined gate, had melted over centuries of wind and rain. There was a great amphitheatre, and a bulbous cistern on stubby legs, and round shafts built straight down through the fortress-city, with staircases carved into their sides.

There were also many smooth, pondlike cavities in the stone. All were filled with black water that glistened in a way that somehow turned Pazel's stomach.

Beyond the fortress, the jungle-clad mountains swept west into the heart of Bramian; a second row of peaks marched north. The structure, Pazel saw now, stood on a bend in the range. And along both arms of the range the mighty wall raced away. It was broad as a city boulevard, and he could not see the end of it in either direction.

But from the corner of his eye he could still see the black, vapour-shrouded eguar. He felt ashamed at the extent of his fear. But the same terror shone in the others' faces, when he glimpsed them. Even Drellarek looked slightly pale.

They crept forwards. The shattered halls and pavillions dropped behind them one by one. Reason told Pazel that the triple arch was less than a mile from the stair where they had begun, yet it seemed impossibly distant. There were no leaves here, and each footfall of the horses rang out terribly distinct. Erthalon Ness appeared to be weeping.

Then the eguar opened its eyes. They were white, and burned like stars in the dark flesh. Ott stiffened. Someone's horse neighed and pranced. But still the beast did not move.

Close at hand now was the first of the water-filled cavities. Ott gave it a wide berth. Pazel saw that the gleam on the water's surface actually extended faintly to the stone on one side, as if something had been dragged from the cavity and left a trail of silvery ooze behind it. His eyes followed the trail. It meandered away from them across the rooftop, growing brighter the farther it went, until it ended (Don't look! he screamed inwardly, too late) with the eguar itself.

Pazel gasped aloud. He'd met its eyes — and a force like a hurricane struck him in that instant. But it was not a physical blow, for the others sat rigid as ever on their steeds, unaware of the power streaming from the eguar.

Pazel doubled over the saddlehorn, pain between his temples, bile on his tongue. Ott's hand tightened viciously on his arm but he could barely feel it. What was the creature doing to him? And then he glimpsed its moving jaws, and understood. It was speaking.

Pazel had heard many strange tongues, and learned to speak them, in the five years he had lived with the Gift. Flikkermen croaked and gurgled; nunekkam squeaked; the ixchels' tongue was full of sombre, minor-key music. The augrongs boomed out abstract metaphors, and Klyst and her murth-kin worked charms each time they spoke. But no language he had ever heard prepared him for the eguar's. It flooded his brain, violent as the waves beating into the sea-cave, and a hundred times more frightening.

'Have you gone mad?' hissed Sandor Ott. 'Be still. The creature is only yawning, or something like.'

'Run,' gasped Pazel.

'Pathkendle. Pathkendle. Compose yourself, or I swear on Magad's life I'll throw you from this horse.'

Pazel composed himself. The thing had stopped speaking, but the echoes of its words still washed about in his head. The horses were skittish now, and it grew steadily harder to keep them from breaking into a run. A terrible odour had arisen, too: a caustic smell, like acid thrown on a fire. Pazel felt his throat begin to itch.

Far across the plaza, the eguar snapped its jaws. The sound echoed from the turrets beside them. Erthalon Ness sobbed audibly, and Pazel felt Ott's body tense.

Then, miraculously, they were at the arch. Beyond it, stairs led down onto the wall, thirty feet below the level of the rooftop. In a matter of seconds they were through; it was over. Pazel released a huge breath, one he had held unconsciously since that first ticklish feeling in his throat. Swift and Saroo looked giddy with relief.

Ott beckoned them on another hundred yards or so. Then he turned and smiled.

'At your ease, and well done! Even you, Maggot Ness: I thought for a moment we would have to throttle you to stop those tears.'

'It didn't even try to harm us!' said Saroo. 'It just watched us go by.'

'Don't be too proud to learn something, Doctor,' said Ott. 'In my experience it is always better to understand a predator than to fear it.'

'I'm with you there,' said Chadfallow darkly, looking back at the archway.

Drellarek shrugged. 'The creature had a full belly, perhaps.'

'No,' said Pazel, 'it's hungry.'

They looked at him, speechless. 'Is that what your Gift made of the thing's one little bark?' asked Swift.

'Little bark?' said Pazel.

Saroo screwed up his face and made a brief, clipped noise, somewhere between a roar and a burp. Swift and Drellarek laughed. But Pazel was dumbfounded. 'It was talking,' he said. 'It went on and on.'

'You have something in common with the Ness family,' said Ott. 'Madness, in a word. Come, gentlemen! We have gained the highway; now we must ride like highwaymen. Thirty miles lie ahead of us, and we must cover them by nightfall, or take our chances in the dark.'

If a more spectacular thirty miles of riding were possible in Alifros, Pazel could not have imagined where. Like a great tawny serpent, the wall climbed peak after rolling peak, and they thundered over them with the steaming valleys arrayed below and a sky full of bright sun and racing clouds overhead. Flocks of bowerbirds and finches and emerald macaws swept before them; the white monkeys scattered and hid; and once they stampeded a herd of pink-snouted peccaries, rooting by the hundreds along the wall's southern flank. Twice they passed through watchtowers, where countless grey bats slept under the darkened roofs, reminding Pazel of the stowed hammocks on the Chathrand.

There were more furious downpours, and moments when the wind grew very fierce; at such times they walked the horses and kept far from the edges of the wall. But for the most part the wall served exactly as Ott had claimed it would: as a swift, straight road above the jungle.

Several hours passed. The sun sank low over the western mountains. Then at last came a moment when Ott said, 'Here we are,' and pointed away to the south. Pazel turned and saw the coast in the distance: a deep unquiet blue, scratched with the white lines of breakers. Gazing farther, he saw a wide delta, where rocks and sand and threads of some great river all mingled with the surf.

'The sea route is closed indeed,' Drellarek admitted. 'You'd tear a boat to pieces in all that. But surely there are calmer days?'

'Not more than one in twenty,' said Sandor Ott. 'Many weeks my men have had to wait in the Black Shoulders, with a hold full of arms or mail or medicines, listening for a break in the wind. The work is hazardous and slow — and now it will be slower still, for we must abandon the land route until-'

'Right,' Drellarek finished for him, nodding grimly.

Ott won't even consider fighting the eguar, thought Pazel, not with all his men. He knows how deadly that creature is.

Another mile, and Pazel could see the river itself, a dark, twisting waterway that burrowed into Bramian, and quickly vanished there. The river looked placid enough, but it had clearly proved mightier than the will of the Amber Kings, for just above the valley the wall came to its end. There was a last tower, and no more: beyond the river the jungle stretched unbroken over the rounded mountaintops.

They rode forwards into the tower. It was larger than the others, with many dark and chilly rooms. Ott announced that they were spending the night. For a few minutes they busied themselves with the horses, who were both famished and thirsty. Then Ott unbuckled one of the large saddlebags and drew out four sacks tied with rawhide.

'You will want to see this,' he told them all. Placing one of the sacks before him, he loosened the cord and tugged it open.

Green jewels blazed in the evening sun. 'Emeralds,' said Sandor Ott. He sank his hand to the wrist, raised it, let a shower of the precious stones fall back into the mound. Pazel could scarcely breathe. All the gold he had ever seen changing hands would not buy the contents of that sack.

Ott touched another. "Blue Sollochi pearls,' he said. 'And the last two hold bloodstone — choice eastern rubies, cut by nunekkam jewellers.'

'They're all for me, aren't they?' asked Erthalon Ness, rubbing his hands together in delight.

Sandor Ott laughed. 'In a sense, Maggot. Others will guard them on your behalf — and spend them, at need.'

'Spend them?' asked Saroo. 'Where? You could leave them untended for a year in this place.'

'No you couldn't,' said Ott. He glanced at the Shaggat's son, then pointed back out the door of the tower, along the wall. 'Take our friend to see the monkeys, Saroo. He overlooked them when we entered, I think.'

'I didn't see any monkeys, Mr Ott.'

'Do as I say, lad.'

Bewildered, Saroo led a happy Erthalon Ness through the eastern archway. Ott beckoned the others to follow. He walked in the opposite direction, through several dismal rooms, and at last into a chamber with a broad window facing west. Reaching it, he gazed down with satisfaction on whatever lay below.

Chadfallow reached the window next, and visibly recoiled from what he saw. 'By the gods,' he huffed, leaning heavily on the stone.

Pazel came up beside him. Far below the tower, the river made an especially sharp bend, almost an ox-bow. The teardrop of land within its curve was about the size of the city of Ormael. It was teeming with life. Men, cattle, chickens, dogs. There were barracks and stockades, wooden halls, tents of sewn hide, grain silos, mills where water-wheels slowly revolved.

'Our allies,' said Sandor Ott.

Where the river bent closest to itself, a stout wall of timber leaped from shore to shore, with a pair of mighty wooden doors at the centre. A lesser wall ran the whole length of the riverbank, broken only by the mills and some sort of massive lumber operation at the farthest point from the observers. Towers rose at intervals, each with a stout guard compliment. The fort was protected by water, wood, and men-at-arms.

'What are they building, Ott?' asked Drellarek.

'Ships,' said Pazel.

The sergeant blinked at him. 'You need glasses, if you can't see that much,' said Pazel. 'Those are framing timbers. And cutwaters. And keels.'

'Right you are, Pathkendle. Fifty ships, to be precise. There is no shortage of wood on Bramian. And we have no shortage of funds to pay for what they cannot manufacture here — sailcloth, cannon, the finer metalwork. Here they sit in the wilderness, gentlemen, unknown to anyone in the world but us, and a few dozen of my men. And yet thousands across Alifros have laboured unwittingly on their behalf. Flikkermen tracked down and kidnapped shipwrights. The slave-school on Nurth provides the wives. And Volpeks, those exquisitely useful outlaws, bring everything to the hidden anchorage at Sandplume, where my men meet them on a flagless ship. The Volpeks have no idea who their customers are, or where in Alifros their shipments go next. Bramian itself would be the last place to cross their minds! No one trades with these savages. We had the devil's own job building that wall, with their arrows raining down on us day and night.'

'But who's the wall protecting?' asked Swift. 'Who's down there, Mr Ott?'

A note of pride entered the spymaster's voice. 'They were castaways when we found them: war refugees, hiding in mangroves in the Baerrids, a few inches above sea level, surviving on gulls' eggs and rats. The Black Rags were unforgivably careless not to have killed them. Every year those men spent tortured by insect and typhoon, sleeping in burrows that filled with seawater, dying of scurvy or light wounds turned gangrenous, added to their hatred of the Mzithrin. They had spent a decade that way, since the Shaggat's rebellion was crushed at the end of the war.'

Chadfallow turned to the spymaster. His face was ashen. 'They're… his people?'

'Nessarim warriors,' said the spymaster, nodding. 'True believers, to a soul. As the Shaggat was fleeing east into our navy's gunsights, these poor bastards were running south, packed into one groaning vessel, just hours ahead of the White Fleet. Somewhere east of Serpent's Head they foundered on a reef, and half their number drowned. But that reef was good fortune, for otherwise the Sizzies would have caught them on the open sea. They were no longer taking prisoners by that point in the war.

'We took them first to a camp on Opalt, where the sick perished and the strong fought their way back to health. But on Opalt they could do little more than hide, and worship their mad king in secret. That is why, five years ago, we brought them shipload by shipload to this place. Now they number over three thousand.'

'And fifty ships under construction,' said Drellarek. 'That's impressive. But hardly a threat to the White Fleet.'

'Of course not,' said Sandor Ott. 'The contest will be as lopsided as pitting a dog against a bear, as Captain Rose put it once. You're a hunting man yourself, Sergeant.'

Drellarek smiled. 'How did you know?'

'I'd be a poor spymaster if I didn't know that much about the Turach commander. And I'm sure you'll agree that dogs have a role in any bear hunt?'

'That's a certainty,' said Drellarek. 'A good pack can corner a bear, bleed it with nips, exhaust it, until at last it can only watch as the hunter raises his spear for the kill.'

'Of course you must bring enough dogs,' said Ott. 'The colony below is just one in our hunting-pack.'

'And what of the dogs themselves?' asked Chadfallow quietly.

'What of them?' said Ott.

Grinning suddenly, he turned to Alyash with a gesture and a nod. The bosun hobbled forward, and Pazel saw that he too had extracted something from the saddlebags. It was a hunting-horn, stout and well-used, more powerful than lovely. Alyash faced the window, planted his feet and drew an enormous breath. Raising the horn, he sounded one long, keening blast. The high note shook the chamber, and carried far over the valley below.

When it ended, the sounds of labour from the settlement had ceased. Men were coming out of the buildings to gaze in the tower's direction. After a moment there came the sound of an answering horn.

Saroo and Erthalon Ness returned, the latter wearing an ethereal smile. He had seen his monkeys, or believed he had. Alyash passed the horn to Ott and addressed the Shaggat's son in Mzithrini.

'Forget your monkeys,' he said. 'Don't you understand where we've brought you?'

The language-switch had an immediate effect on Erthalon Ness. His glance grew sharper, his face more stern. 'No, Warden, I don't. You tell me nothing. Where are you hiding my brother?'

Alyash swept his hand over the settlement. 'Those are the Nessarim, your father's worshippers. Keepers of your holy faith.'

'Not my faith,' said Erthalon Ness. 'The common faith of all mankind, only some have yet to see it. Some are afraid to cast the demons from their hearts, to burn unto purity, become new men. They will not always be afraid, however. Is not my father a god?'

'Assuredly, sir, and these men know it better than any. They have waited long for this day. Waited for you to appear, to take your father's place as they sail forth to join him. Come, let us greet them at the river's edge.' He gestured dismissively at the others. 'These people are of no more consequence.'

Alyash put out his hand. Erthalon Ness looked at it, hesitating. A clash of emotions shone in his face: suspicion, temptation, fear — and some darker, wilder gleam.

'Men are casting off from the docks in rowing boats,' said Saroo, looking down from the window. 'And in barges, and canoes.'

Then Pazel did something that surprised them all. He ran forwards and stood between Alyash and the Shaggat's son.

'Don't go with him,' he said in Mzithrini.

'Pathkendle,' said Ott, his voice an open threat. But Alyash smiled, and raised a hand to calm the spymaster.

'They're using you,' said Pazel. 'They laugh at you and your faith. They're sending you down to die among those people.'

'Lies,' said Alyash. 'You've said it yourself, Erthalon. The time of your death has not yet arrived.'

'I will know the hour,' said Erthalon Ness, looking at Pazel uncertainly, 'and before it strikes I will be with my father again.'

'No you won't,' said Pazel. 'He's a blary statue in the hold of the Chathrand.'

Soundlessly, Ott drew his sword. Chadfallow took a step forwards, as if he would intervene. But once more Alyash waved them off.

'Whose touch was it that turned your great father to stone?' he asked. 'You were there when it happened.'

'I was there,' echoed the other, turning accusingly to Pazel. 'I had almost forgotten. It was you!'

From the river below came the sound of singing. Erthalon Ness raised his head.

'They are calling you, child of the Divine,' said Alyash. 'And have no doubt: your father will live again, and just as the old tales promise, you shall sail out to meet him as he claims his kingdom.'

'You'll sail out and be killed!' shouted Pazel.

Alyash shook his head. 'Now who is laughing at the faith?'

Pazel was desperate. With every word he spoke he grew more certain that Ott or Drellarek would kill him. But he simply had to fight. If he didn't, these men would take everything — take Alifros itself — to say nothing of the life of this broken man.

'Listen to me,' he begged, taking the other's arm. 'You must know that they hate you. Didn't they lock you up all these years?'

'I think he is referring to your palace on Licherog, Excellency,' said the bosun. 'As for your father's people, how could any sane man think we wished them harm? After all, we rescued them from starvation, and built them this place of safety and hiding, when the five false Kings were slaughtering any man pledged to your father who strayed a league from Gurishal. Enough of this nonsense, Excellency. Your people are waiting.'

The Shaggat's son looked once more at Pazel. A scowl of hatred twisted his face, and he wrenched his arm away. But as soon as he had done so the hatred vanished, and the man looked simply lost. His lips trembled, and his eyes drifted miserably over the stones.

'My people,' he said, and there was more loneliness in those two words than Pazel had ever heard a voice express.

The man permitted Alyash to take his elbow, and together they descended the stair.