The Rats and the Ruling sea

36

9 Umbrin 941

Diadrelu felt like weeping, though she could not have said if it was with grief or joy. How they commingle, those pure extremes, whenever one feels them fully.

Two yards from her, Felthrup sat with his head on his forepaws, his throat still puffy with Dr Chadfallow's water injection, the blood from whatever battles he had survived stiff and dry in his black fur. His eyes had opened very slowly a moment ago, and were open still. But Dri knew they did not see her.

'I thought he was gone,' she said. 'I feared Mugstur had killed him at last.'

Hercol reached through the bars. She turned and leaned into his palm with a sigh. 'We are all of us exiles,' she said. 'That is what binds us: our not-belonging, our homelessness. The way our natural kin have turned on us, or turned us out, or become so strange to us that we no longer fit. But none of us are so exiled as he. Back on the Nelu Peren he begged us, begged us to accept him as a friend. My brother responded by locking him in a pipe.'

'You responded differently,' said Hercol. 'If he dies now, he at least will have known what it is to be cared for.'

Dri raised her arms in his direction. Hercol lifted her through the bars and kissed her forehead, ever so gently. When he withdrew she bent double, placed her palms flat on his open hand, and there before his worshipful eyes pressed up into a handstand, perfectly balanced and still. She smiled, crossed her legs. Hercol breathed a sigh.

'Diadrelu Tammariken,' he said, 'you're the marriage of all the dreams of women my heart has entertained.'

She laughed, gazing down at his palm. 'You yourself are not quite as perfect as all that,' she said. 'Just perfect enough for me to believe that you're real, and that you might stay with me awhile.'

'Awhile?' he said. 'After I leave this cell, I hope never to know another morning when I wake and do not find you beside me.'

'And the incomprehension of your people? And mine?'

'You spoke the answer,' he said. 'We're exiles already. We're a new people. Mongrels now, later the creators of a race.'

'The warrior becomes a visionary.' Dri lowered her legs with the same perfect control, and reclined as before on his forearm, head pillowed on his hand. 'I hope your Empress Maisa has room for such a people. Giants who yearn for crawlies, crawlies whose love their touch. Magad the Fifth would lock you in a madhouse, and feed me to the snappers in his reflecting pool.'

'Maisa, on the other hand, will receive you as one queen to another, or I never knew the woman,' said Hercol. 'She is the visionary, not I. But her visions are of solid things, things that may come to be. She is not always evoking Rin or Heaven's Tree or the promise of a paradise to come, like her stepchild the usurper. "The only paradise that concerns us, Asprodel," she told me once, "is the one we can build for all people, here in this world where we live." '

'I like that,' said Diadrelu. 'We ixchel are raised on a diet of paradise, you know. Stath Balfyr, Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. A place that was stolen, a dream of an island that was ours, where perhaps our brothers dwell yet. Talag was the only one who ever thought to seek it in anything but poetry or song. But we all loved it. Sanctuary, the dream of it, made sense of our lives. It was the paradise we clung to.'

She caressed his palm. 'I don't need it anymore. Strange: two days ago I still did. Now there's something else, something closer and more real. I can let that vision go.'

A sudden noise made them both freeze: a little whimper or cough, barely audible. It seemed to come from the direction of Felthrup's cell. A moment later it came again.

'He's in pain!' said Dri, sliding to the floor. She ran towards the iron bars that separated the two cells. Hercol started to his feet.

'Keep your distance!' he said. 'Felthrup himself warned me not to reach through the bars. He gave Chadfallow a savage bite.'

'I won't get too close.'

Diadrelu slipped into Felthrup's cell. As Hercol hissed objections, she peered at the dark shape in the middle of the floor.

'He is not moving at all, Hercol.'

'Dri-!'

She took a cautious step closer, then another. 'I cannot see him breathing,' she said.

'Stay away! Lover, I beg you again! If you wish to save him, find Bolutu. Felthrup cannot even tell you what he needs.'

Diadrelu hesitated, then turned around and started back to Hercol. 'You're right,' she said, 'I will go to Bolutu at once.'

'And trust another giant not to betray us?' said Taliktrum's voice from the passage. 'How startling of you, Aunt.'

Diadrelu was airborne on his first word, springing away like a grasshopper, and drawing her sword in mid-air. But before her leap reached its zenith, something covered her, something entangling and strong. Her people had dropped a net from above. Its weights bore her crashing to the floor.

Hercol lunged forwards. Ixchel were hurling themselves from the cell bars, ten or more shaved-headed men and women, landing with spear and sword around the struggling Dri. Hercol shot his arm through to the shoulder, and ixchel blades began to stab it. The net was just beyond his reach. Within it, Dri stabbed and slashed, but a ring of spears already encircled her, and Steldak and Myett were struggling to catch hold of her weapon-hand.

'Diadrelu!' shouted Hercol.

Taliktrum himself had leaped into the fray. He spun to face Hercol. 'Shout!' he hissed, mocking. 'Shout aloud, wake the man in the next cage, bring your people running. Begin the extermination — and doom your lover with the rest of us.'

Hercol did not shout. Instead he threw himself with terrible force against the bars, stretching every muscle in his arm. Taliktrum danced out of reach just in time, but Hercol caught the nearest of his men between two fingers. He closed the ixchel within his fist, and squeezed.

'Let her go,' he growled, holding the figure up for them to see.

Steldak had taken Dri's sword. She retained her short knife, and had cut through the meshes with it in several places, freeing her head and one arm. But the spears jabbed her on all sides. There was no fighting her way out of that ring. Dri lowered her arms.

'Taliktrum,' said Hercol dangerously, 'let her come to me. This man's life is forfeit if she is harmed.'

'There's a giant talking,' said Steldak. 'We have not even drawn the woman's blood. He has no reason to think we mean to, yet he promises to kill.'

Diadrelu stood among the spear-points, gazing at Hercol. When her eyes moved to the man he held, something changed in her face.

'No,' she said. 'Ludunte.'

Her sophister looked down from Hercol's bandaged fist. 'You're my mistress no longer, Dri. I renounce you. I have long had misgivings, but when I heard the giants speak the name of Sanctuary, I could side with you no longer. They must be fought, not reasoned with. Their souls are not those of reasoning creatures.'

'And now she herself has spoken of Sanctuary, to her unnatural lover,' said Myett. 'Did you hear, my lord Taliktrum? She can let that vision go — she renounces the vision of your father the prophet.'

'Prophet?' said Diadrelu.

'Listen to the scorn,' said Steldak. 'Yes, woman, prophet! So do we of Ixphir name our lost Lord Talag, architect of his people's deliverance. Taliktrum is his living champion, born to complete his father's work, just as you were born to oppose him and test our faith.'

'You're not of Ixphir House,' said Diadrelu. 'We rescued you from a cage in Rose's desk. It was your mad attack on Rose that got my brother killed!'

'Lies, lies!' cried several of Taliktrum's shaved-headed fighters. 'You knew she would say that, Lord, you predicted it!'

'I share all that I see,' said Taliktrum. 'I am not my father, but I serve you as I may.'

There was a changed aspect to his voice, a self-conscious gravity. Dri took in the faces around her: Talag's volunteer bodyguard, plus a few newcomers like Steldak and Myett. In their smiles she saw bridled rage. In their eyes, the clarity of fanatics.

Hercol had tightened his grip, drawing a gasp from Ludunte. 'Believe what you will,' he said, 'but be certain of this: he will die unless you release her.'

'She is my father's sister,' said Taliktrum, 'do you think I wish her dead?'

'Then let her come to me,' said Hercol, blinking sweat from his eyes. 'I love her. I offer you this man, and my oath to be a friend to your people and a voice for their welfare all the days of my life. No matter in what land this voyage ends, or the circumstances of its ending.'

Dri raised her head sharply, as though he had said too much. 'He knows!' someone whispered. 'She told him our plan!'

Taliktrum raised a hand for silence. He turned and addressed a few words to Dri in ixchel-speech. Hercol could hear nothing, of course, but he saw the effect Taliktrum's words had on Diadrelu. She cried out, appalled. She shut her eyes and shook her head. Steldak and Myett pointed at her, their mouths forming curses or taunts. The others cheered them on. All eerily silent; then Taliktrum faced Hercol again.

'My aunt thinks I lack the strength to rule,' he said, 'and yet when I make strong decisions they frighten her.'

'Strength and power are not the same thing,' said Hercol.

'Who do you think to lecture?' snapped Taliktrum. 'I am the defender of this clan, and of a future race of ixchel, unless her treason prevents it. You speak of love — that is monstrous, foul. You do not know the meaning of the word.'

'I did not know,' said Hercol softly, 'before.'

Myett turned her slim body towards him and pouted, mocking. '"I did not know." We saw just what you came to know, satyr. We watched it all.'

'Then you know that Diadrelu is the noblest among you,' said Hercol, unflinching. 'You heard her speak to me of what she holds most sacred — the good of your clan. How she would take her own life before letting you kill one another over her.'

'No one here is about to take up arms for that traitor,' said Steldak.

'They would not be here if they were,' said Diadrelu, 'and I expect few of the clan know about this ambush at all — or shall ever hear about it, afterwards. Enough! This talk wearies me. Nephew, you tried to slay me on Bramian. Were you in earnest? Do you mean to kill me now? I think you must, for I will not cease fighting for our people. And the order you just boasted of giving, which you do not wish Hercol to hear, only proves again that you do not know how such fighting is done.'

Outraged cries from the spear-bearers. But her words struck a chord in Taliktrum. His solemn demeanour vanished; he could not look his aunt in the eye. 'Don't think I lack the courage,' he warned her softly.

'I merely wonder if you have the courage not to be what others expect.'

A flash of annoyance crossed Taliktrum's face. 'Swear you will not reveal the order I gave.'

'Swear it, Diadrelu,' said Hercol, 'do as he wishes. Please.'

'I cannot,' she said softly. 'In fact I will tell the humans I trust. What you have set in motion, Taliktrum, could well destroy the ship, and the clan along with it. Have you paid any attention to what the humans are actually doing, where they're actually taking us? Is vortex a word you understand?'

There were hisses around the circle. 'She taunts him! She shames our lord! You'll pay, woman, you'll pay!' Taliktrum gave his followers an uneasy look, as if torn between enjoying their adoration and wishing they would stop.

'My lord,' hissed Steldak, 'the time for talk is past! I — we, that is, we — are needed elsewhere. And quickly! Don't let her play on your family sympathies! You agreed — she is incurable. She has pledged herself to that! ' He gestured with disgust at Hercol.

Taliktrum's face looked increasingly troubled. 'Giant,' he said at last, then, with effort, 'Hercol. You care for my aunt? That… connects us, in a sense. We too were close; as a boy I learned at her knee. She was a good aunt, she understood a child's… no matter. Can you make her promise to obey me in all things? Will she do that, for love of you?'

Hercol closed his eyes. He already knew what Dri's answer would be. When he opened them she was shaking her head.

One spearpoint was resting against Dri's throat. Steldak gripped it furiously. 'All this was decided,' he said.

With a trembling sigh, Hercol lowered his hand to the floor. 'Her obedience is not mine to give, Lord Taliktrum,' he said. 'I would give it, and anything else you asked of me. Here is your servant. I shall be another, if you will have me. Give me a razor; I will shave my head. Teach me your oaths and I will take them. Only spare her, spare her, my lord.'

He opened his hand, and Ludunte sprang free, astonished. But his amazement was nothing compared to Taliktrum's. The young man's lips were slightly parted; words formed on them, only to vanish unspoken. He looked suddenly at Diadrelu, standing quiet and thoughtful in his trap, neither resigned nor hopeful, merely aware.

'Aunt,' he said, and there was a plea in his voice, as if he were the one who was trapped.

Then Steldak made a furious sound, and jerked the spear. Diadrelu gave a small, clipped cry. She put her hand on her neck. The blood leaped through her fingers, a red bird escaping, a secret no one could keep. Her eyes slid upwards, searching for Hercol, but the light went out of them before they reached his face.