The Rats and the Ruling sea

7

8 Teala 941

87th day from Etherhorde

Uthrol, Sarabin, Elegortak, Ingod-Ire of the Killing Dream. Nelu in the lightless depths, and Droth the Master of Masters, Despoiler of Worlds. From a circle of ash within a circle of salt within a circle of tomb earth I call thee, old powers never equalled, ye Lords of the Houses of Night.'

The sorcerer's chant was sibilant and low. He sat on the floor of his cabin; the room was closed, airless; musky smells of bile and camphor and cured meat hung about it. Midnight had come and gone; a blustery wind rattled the glass on the porthole. The white dog slept beneath the bed. From a shelf, a walrus-oil lamp cast its failing light on Arunis, hunched inside the three circles like a dark, thick-bellied spider at the centre of a web.

'Shamid, Woedenon, dread Varag in the Ice…'

Now and then, from a crack in the wall over the mage's shoulder, the light also illuminated a tiny, copper-coloured spark: the gleam of an ixchel eye.

'A demon,' said Ludunte. 'He is a demon in human form.'

'Perhaps,' said Diadrelu. 'And perhaps he is something worse.'

They were inside the wall, supporting themselves with their legs, feet pressed to the planks of Arunis' cabin and backs against those of the adjoining room. They looked down on the sorcerer through a gap in the planking no wider than a needle. They had made the gap themselves, with a spyjack: a mechanical wedge that could be hammered between two boards and widened with a crank. For the ixchel it was a survival tool.

'Is he summoning those beings?' whispered Ludunte fearfully.

Diadrelu shook her head. 'If he could bring the Night Gods among us to do his will he would have little need of the Shaggat Ness, or perhaps even the Nilstone. Yet no doubt he seeks their aid. Those circles are a magic quietus: through them he seeks to cleanse himself of any spells placed on this cabin that might prove distasteful to the gods he flatters. And possibly to protect himself. From what I cannot say.'

'You are very learned, Mistress.'

'Call me Dri.'

'As you will, m'lady. Did you not say he must be weakened, after all his black sorcery of recent days?'

'So Ramachni believed,' said Diadrelu. 'And if nothing else we have learned one thing tonight: he still fears Ramachni, unless there is another mage aboard to cast the spells he is fighting.'

'Where did Ramachni go? When will he return?'

'Far off — and not for a long time,' said Dri gravely. 'We must stand alone through many dangers, I fear. And speaking of which, why were you alone? Did my brother's order of two men per watch expire with his death?'

Ludunte dropped his eyes, suddenly uneasy.

'Ah,' said Diadrelu, in a changed voice. 'Taliktrum has ordered you not to discuss matters of the clan with me. Am I right?'

Ludunte gazed at her, in plain distress, but he said not a word.

'This was to be expected,' said Diadrelu, turning away. 'Well, well. Keep your silence, of course.'

She spoke as if of something trivial, but could not quite hide her displeasure. Ludunte was Diadrelu's sophister, her apprentice. Ixchel swore seven-year vows of obedience to their mentors, with only one chance — on the day they completed their second year — to rescind the vow without disgrace. Ludunte's second-year confirmation had come and gone as they lay in port at Ormael. Dri had missed it, and the ceremony she conducted on her return was perhaps less than Ludunte had hoped for: she had simply gathered his friends and the clan elders, described his progress without exaggeration, and passed the House Cup full of spiced wine from hand to hand. That was her way: she did not fuss and flatter. To be one of just five sophisters she had accepted in thirty years should be honour enough.

Of those five, two had completed their studies and moved on. Another, Nytikyn, had been killed before the start of the voyage, by a tarboy on the pier in Sorrophran. Nytikyn had been engaged to marry Ensyl, the youngest of Dri's sophisters. Dri had refused Ensyl at first, fearing that her sympathy for the grieving girl might cloud her judgement. But Ensyl had proven herself brave and thoughtful on the voyage to Simja, and shortly before their arrival Dri had accepted her vow.

Now Ensyl and Ludunte alone were left to her. By immutable law they must obey her every command, yet if she ordered them to disobey Taliktrum, the clan leader, she would be condemning them to join her in disgrace.

She looked at Ludunte, and thought for the first time what a terrible burden she had placed on the two of them. Mother Sky, she thought, I've ruined everything.

Since the arrival of Pazel, the tarboy who could speak their language and hear their natural voices — and Dri's terribly unpopular decision not to kill him — her reputation for wisdom had been thrown into doubt. Over the course of the summer, as the Chathrand ploughed west towards Simja, she had fought for the life of the boy with her brother, Lord Talag, with whom she had shared the rule of Ixphir House for decades. It was an ancient house and a proud family. Their direct ancestors had founded it, abandoning the nomad practice of living in ships for the first time since her race was stolen, in cages and specimen jars, from across the Ruling Sea.

The whole of that House was now aboard the Chathrand: six hundred ixchel men, women and children, following a dream of escape that had come to Talag in childhood and pursued him to his death.

There, again: the blunt blow to the heart. A vision of her brother in the mouth of Sniraga, as the huge cat leaped away down a passage. His limbs were scarlet; he flopped like a dead thing in her jaws. They had never recovered his body.

'Feel that thunder,' said Ludunte, pressing a hand to the wall. 'A storm will be here by morning.'

Diadrelu had had no time to grieve for Talag; with his death she had become sole leader of the clan. Talag had been about to recognise his son, Taliktrum, as a full Lord of Ixphir. That task had fallen to Diadrelu — but she had not done so. Taliktrum was of age, and had passed every test of strength and courage. But what of judgement? Dri could not see herself standing before the clan. Here is your liege, your shield and protector, trust him with your lives. Ritual words, some would say. But for Diadrelu they contained a promise she could not give lightly.

For with Talag dead, his son would have joined her as co-commander the instant his title was conferred. And he was not ready. Talag had been a genius, if angry and vain. Taliktrum was merely ambitious. Like his father he distrusted the very air humans breathed, but never realised that Talag's anger, however blinding, was born of a careful study of history. If Taliktrum actually believed in the same dream as his father — to lead their people to safety on Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea, the island from whence they'd come — he did so without the least curiosity as to what they might find when they got there.

When Taliktrum was a child Dri had loved him as best she could. But she doubted that he had ever looked at her and seen a loving aunt. For his tenth birthday she took him on a daring expedition: an ice-skate by moonlight on the frozen River Ool. He had been cross to learn that skates could be worn and used by anyone, not just ruling elites. 'Why do we bother with them, then?' he asked, bewildered.

'There's the rain now,' said Ludunte.

No, Taliktrum had seen only the Lady, the office, the power in her hands. It had taught her a lesson, that cold appraisal. It had made her distrustful of titles for ever.

Now this boy of twenty had the power he had always wanted, and she had none. To a people used to being slaughtered by humans, sparing Pazel's life had been bad enough. Revealing their presence to a cabin full of humans was simply unthinkable. The clan assembled; a Council of Witness was elected to hear the case, and three hours later her people stripped her of command. Dri knew it might have been worse: Taliktrum had wanted her guarded day and night, and barred from all further contact with those he mockingly called 'her tame ones'. What would he do if he learned that she had sworn to stand beside those humans, even before her own kin, until Arunis fell and the Nilstone was somehow put beyond use?

'Mistress,' said Ludunte. 'He is on his feet.'

She took his place at the spyhole. Arunis was standing in the centre of the three rings, watched by his motionless dog. Taking care not to brush the circles with his cloak, he reached onto the shelf and took down the lamp, a ceramic water jug and a small wooden box. The first two items he placed on the floor just outside the circles. Then he opened the box and took out several handfuls of downy weed of the sort used for packing breakables. Tossing these aside, he at last removed a black kerchief bound carefully with string. Gingerly he untied the string and unfolded the cloth.

'Rin's blood,' said Diadrelu.

On the kerchief lay a handful of human bones. There were three teeth, what might have been a fragment of rib, and an entire, articulated finger. All were yellow-brown and clearly old, perhaps even ancient. The mage looked at them warily, like things that might jump from his hand. Then he returned the box to the shelf and took down a small brass bowl.

'What is that devil up to now?' asked Ludunte.

'More than prayer, I think,' said Diadrelu.

Arunis sat again upon the floor. The kerchief he spread before him, within the innermost circle. The bowl he placed between the rings of ash and salt, and Dri saw now that it contained a few teaspoons of a pale, lumpy substance like crumbled cake. From the folds of his cloak he produced a match. Lighting it by the oil lamp, he held it above the black kerchief.

'Lords of Night,' he whispered, 'unbar your ways, unlock your gates and posterns, withdraw your jealous guard. Let the one who dwells with you gaze on these relics of himself.'

He dropped the match into the bowl. The yellow substance blazed ferociously, crackling and spitting. The air filled with a reek so sharp and bitter it even passed through the ixchels' tiny spyhole, and Dri reared back for a moment, fearful she would cough. The dog whined. Ludunte was almost gagging.

'What is it? A drug, a poison?'

Dri could make no answer. When she looked again the walrus-oil lamp was out, and the fire in the bowl was reduced to a low, sputtering flame. Arunis had not moved a muscle.

And then the flame spoke.

'Hideth venostralhan, Wytter.'

Ludunte stifled a gasp. Dri seized his arm in warning, though she herself felt stabbed with horror. The voice was cold and dry and powerful, but what made it truly ghastly was its indifference. She had no idea what the words meant, but they were said with the drawling unconcern of one who would cut off another's limb out of boredom, or perhaps his own. It was appalling even to know that such a voice could exist.

'He has brought it, Sathek,' said Arunis. 'He has brought it to this island, not three miles from here, and I must have it for my king.'

The voice from the flame spoke again, with the same lazy savagery.

'Your time in this world has passed,' said Arunis. 'But through the Shaggat I can complete your work.'

A flat, slow sigh: a death sigh, or the ghost of a laugh.

'Yet I must have it,' said Arunis. 'With or without your help. Only if you help me our victory will be more swift. Imagine him when the Swarm returns. The Nilstone in one fist, your sceptre in the other! Armies shall wilt before him, like petals in the frost.'

'Saukre ne Shaggat prelichin.'

'He will be flesh again. Mark my word. Not even Ramachni of Nemmoc can prevent it.'

They spoke on. The sorcerer was angry and pleading by turns, but the voice of the other never changed. The fire dimmed in the bowl. Whatever it was consuming was almost gone.

'M'lady, the fumes-'

'Hush, Ludunte!'

'I ask nothing for myself,' hissed Arunis, leaning over the dwindling flame. 'Near death have I been, and wrung dry of magic, yet I seek no help on that score. But can you not stir yourself for the sake of what you built? Can you truly wish it left for ever with that old Babqri fool? Do this for yourself, Sathek. Let me be your instrument of revenge!'

The sorcerer spread his palm an inch above the jumbled bones.

'Do this, and when I regain the Nilstone I shall build a tomb for your relics the size of a castle, upon a peak in Olisurn. Deny me, and I shall toss them into the bay.'

The fire winked out.

'Sathek!'

The sorcerer froze, listening intently. The cabin was black. With their exceptional night vision the ixchel could still see well enough, but Dri could not tell if his expression was one of triumph or defeat. She kept her hand on Ludunte's arm, warning him not to make a sound.

For several minutes Arunis did not seem to breathe. Then suddenly he rose to his feet and leaped out of the circles. Rushing to the porthole, he tore frantically at the bolt and threw open the round glass window. The sound of rain filled the cabin; Dri could hear it lancing against the floor. Arunis bent and peered through the opening, then gave a laugh that must have carried through several decks.

The dog yipped from beneath the bed. At the sound Arunis looked at it for the first time, and an alarming thought seemed to strike him. Rushing to the bed, he snatched up the dog and leaped back within the three circles, holding the squirming animal tight against his chest.

A thump. Something had alighted in the porthole. It was about the size of a gull, but it was not bird-shaped. It was so black Dri found she could not make out its features. Did it have two legs, or four? Was that a tail or a lanky braid?

'Go,' Arunis told it, and the fear was naked in his voice. 'Go and get it, creature, and bring it to me.'

The thing made an animal yowl and leaped at the mage. But at the edge of the first circle it stopped short, groping at the air as if entangled in a web. It spat and clawed, but could not break through. In a fury the creature circled the cabin, smashing cups and flasks and inkwells, overturning the table, emptying the shelves, as Arunis shouted Go, go! and the dog barked murder. But the thing would not cross the lines on the cabin floor.

'Your master set you a task, incubus! You dare not return to your sphere without seeing it done, and the night is half-spent already. Obey him!'

The creature hurled itself once more at Arunis, and once more the circles proved impossible to cross. Hissing with rage it returned to the porthole, then seemed to twist and look back. Lightning crackled over the bay, and in its glow Dri saw a face out of nightmare, a baby fused with a rabid dog, and then the thing was gone.

Arunis leaped to the porthole and slammed it fast. Dropping his pet, he staggered back to his bed and threw himself down. Gasping, he covered his face with his hands.

Dri motioned to Ludunte: We climb. In a few seconds they were up the wall and crawling away across the ceiling of the adjacent cabin. When a good distance separated them from the mage, Dri sat down and began to work the cramps out of her legs.

Ludunte spoke in a hoarse whisper. 'He summoned a fiend, m'lady. Right before our eyes.'

She looked up at him sharply. The boy was in shock.

'Even now,' she asked, 'will Taliktrum deny the peril this mage represents? Does he think Arunis will suffer a nest of crawlies to divert this mission for ends of their own?'

Ludunte swallowed. His mouth twisted in frustration.

'I begin to understand,' said Diadrelu. 'He placed you here alone because you are loyal to me, didn't he? So that whatever you might observe should be tainted and unconvincing to the clan. After all, you're just the sworn servant of a madwoman.'

'No, no-'

'And then of course there were the fumes. Perhaps we hallucinated. Who wouldn't prefer to think so? Especially if believing meant turning away from that old story, ixchel against all humans everywhere, and admitting that we must find some to put our faith in, or die with them all alike?'

'M'lady, do you order me to speak?'

'No!' said Dri quickly. 'Heridom, I order you not to. You must be able to stand before Taliktrum and declare in all truth that you never told me anything. If he intends to spy on me I'd rather he use you than anyone else. I depend on you now more than ever.'

Ludunte gazed at his feet for a moment. Then he raised his head and asked, 'Where did Arunis send that creature, do you know? To attack your friends in the stateroom?'

Dri shook her head. 'His ultimate goal is to recover the Nilstone, but he sent the incubus ashore. Not three miles from here, he said. Whatever he wants is on the island, and in the hands of the one he called that Babqri fool. A Mzithrini, in other words. Well, it is time we left. Go and close the hole.'

'M'lady, I do not have the spyjack crank.'

Dri thought she had misheard. She got to her feet, and there was cold fury in her voice.

'They left you tending a spyjack with no means to close it behind you?'

Ludunte nodded reluctantly.

Dri took a deep breath. 'Listen to me, sophister. You will never again consent to watch a spyjack you cannot close — not if the ghost of Yalidryn the Founder himself should rise and demand it. Go to Night Village and fetch a crank. There is no shortage of them. Report what we have seen to Taliktrum, then come back and close the hole. Those are my express commands.'

'Yes, Mistress.'

Night Village was the mercy deck; the nearly lightless floor just above the hold, where the ixchel dwelt in a fortress of cargo-crates, ten yards from the bow.

'Report all that we have seen to Taliktrum,' Dri continued. 'It may be some time before I return.'

Ludunte looked at her fearfully. 'Where are you going, mistress?'

She hesitated, then smiled and laid a gentle hand on his arm. 'Where the clan must not follow,' she said.

She did not go directly where she had planned, however. There was one other matter to attend to first.

Hercol Stanapeth still slept in his valet's cabin on the berth deck. Diadrelu had no means to enter the stifling little chamber, but as she wriggled between the ceiling and the floor above she heard him move. A rustling in the darkness, then a slight scrape. A pale shaft of light sprang up through a crack she would never otherwise have seen. Hercol was lighting a candle. Dri crawled forward to the crack and looked down.

He was seated cross-legged on the floor, shirtless, back straight and eyes half-closed. A posture of meditation. His arms and chest were muscled like an ixchel's: no weak spots, no inch of flesh allowed to luxuriate in softness. His blackened sword lay before him like a talisman. This was good luck, Dri decided: it was hard to catch Hercol by himself.

He raised his hands in a seated stretch. How serene he was, how purposeful. She had come to tell him of the incubus — only the incubus, keep that clear. But doubts assailed her as she watched his steady breathing. What would they say, her people, if they saw her now? There were scores of men in this compartment. The walls were thin, and the air was still and noiseless. It would be reckless to make contact here.

He twisted his upper body, and she saw the wolf-scar on his ribcage, glistening with sweat. She should have gone to the stateroom, she told herself, to the tarboys and Thasha. What need did she have to approach this man directly?

Dri felt her heart begin to hammer. She rehearsed her words. I must talk with you, stand up, let me in. I will trust you with knowledge that could kill me. Not of the incubus, but ofShe caught herself up short. Mother Sky, what was she thinking? To speak… of that? Could she tell a human about that, and still call herself a member of the clan? She closed her eyes and pressed a clenched fist against her mouth, as though it might speak without her consent. Impossible. Impossible. You are losing your mind.

One level below, in the gloom of the orlop deck, the Shaggat Ness, God-King of Gurishal and Fifth Monarch of the Mzithrin Pentarchy, stood with his stone ankles buried in straw. Dri studied him with equal parts fascination and disgust. His lifeless face wore a look of outrage, and the beginnings of fear. His left hand, held high but shrunken and withered, grasped the deadliest object on earth.

The Nilstone. It was small and round and pitch black. Too black, like the body of the incubus: Dri's eyes seemed to stop working when she tried to focus on its surface.

The large compartment was known as the manger; it was a fodder room for the ship's cattle. Half the straw bales had been removed, the rest stacked against the aftermost wall to within a few feet of the ceiling. Atop these crouched Diadrelu, studying the men below.

Two of the group, dressed in yellow robes, were chained to the aft bulkhead. One sprawled on the floor, asleep; the other paced the length of his chains, scratching and arguing with himself. These were the Shaggat's sons. They looked to be in their twenties, but were in fact more than twice that age. On the prison isle of Licherog the men's chatter had so annoyed Arunis that he had cast sleeping-spells on them both. The spell had never quite worn off: to this day they were given to fits of narcolepsy.

They had aged more slowly in their sleep. But the long captivity, and perhaps the oddness of passing so much of their lives unconscious, had eroded a good deal of their sanity.

The others were all Turach soldiers. Three guarded the room's single door (left open in the vain hope of a breeze), and three more stood in precise formation around the stone king. They were gigantic and terrible men: elite commandos, rated worthy to guard the Emperor himself. They drank fire storax at dawn to shock themselves awake, gulped pills made from the bones of Slevran panthers to increase their strength (though Dri had heard Bolutu begging them to give up the 'vicious habit'), plunged their fists into buckets of gravel and scarlet chilis to deaden them to pain.

But yesterday, facing Arunis and his corpse-warriors, some of the Turachs had hesitated, seemingly afraid, and in those few seconds lives had been lost. Punishment had come this morning. Sergeant Drellarek, their commander, had stood all those who had retreated in a line on the main deck. He then told his lieutenant to recite the seventh of the Ninety Rules of the Rinfaith.

'Rule Seven,' the young man had shouted. 'Fear rots the soul and gives back nothing, but wisdom can save me from all harm. I shall cast off the first for the second, and guard the sanctity of the mind.'

Then Drellarek had drawn his knife and slit the throat of every seventh man in the lineup. Those who escaped bound their comrades' bodies in sailcloth and twine. Monstrous, thought Diadrelu. And very effective. From now on they'll fear nothing but him.

But was there nothing else to be afraid of? Yesterday they had all learned that to touch the Nilstone brought instant death to any with fear in their hearts. What about standing near it, though, for hours on end? The men looked well enough — just itchy and uncomfortable in the heat. For the moment that was all Dri needed to know. She did not think Arunis would soon come for the Nilstone or his king. By his own admission he was weak — and after Drellarek's measures, she had no doubt that these men and their eighty fellow Turachs would fight him to the death.

She tried again to see the Nilstone. How can it be there and not there at the same time? What is that damned thing? Ramachni had said it was 'death given form', and had indeed come to Alifros from the world of the dead. He had also assured them it could never be destroyed. And yet she and her human comrades had sworn to get rid of it somehow, before Arunis found a way to use it against them all.

'I want wine!'

It was the Shaggat's son. He was glaring at his captors, stamping his feet.

'Is that a fact,' muttered a sleepy Turach.

'My father is a god! His hour is come! Surely you don't want to die?'

'He's not a god, you wretch. Why don't you blary sleep?'

Diadrelu crawled back from the edge of the straw bale. Nothing more to be learned here. With a sigh she decided to return to the ixchel compound. She did not relish the abuse and ridicule that would await her there. But she was hungry — and like any member of the clan she had communal duties to perform: cooking, maintenance, care of the sick and wounded. Taliktrum had let her know that he had taken a personal interest in her chores.

'Give that bottle here!' said the Shaggat's son.

'It ain't wine, it's water. And it's ours. You threw yours up in the hay like a naughty baby, didn't you?'

Dri smiled: the remains of a shattered bottle lay a few feet to her left.

The son was actually starting to cry. 'You despise me.'

'Now you're catchin' on.'

'Very soon you'll be sorry. When he is flesh again, and the Swarm explodes from the grey kingdom, you shall answer to my father. I will tell him and you will be crushed. You worms, you tiny insects, you — bullies.'

'What's this swarm you're always on about?'

But the Shaggat's son had lost the thread of his rant. 'Is it so much to ask, Warden? A good bottle and a bit of cheese? Even local cheese would do.'

Dri rose, stretched — and a flash of movement overhead sent her leaping, spinning, drawing her sword in midair, and the quickness of thirty years' training saved her life.

A hideous insect crouched before her. It was as large as Dri herself, double-winged like a dragonfly, with barbed limbs, green composite eyes and a long stinger like a wasp's curled under its body. That stinger had just stabbed the spot where Dri had lain a moment before.

She drew her knife as well. The creature made a sudden deep buzz, like a crosscut saw biting into a tree. It swivelled its black hairy head, fixed an eye on her, and launched itself into the air. Skies, it's fast. She couldn't see it: then it attacked again. This time she felt the brush of a leg. She struck, but her sword cut only air.

'Wine and cheese! Wine and cheese!'

'Shut up! Shut up!'

The thing was faster than Sniraga the cat. It dived a third time, vanished, dived again and missed her neck by a finger's width. Dri spun into battle dance, into the desperate pinwheeling that can hold off four humans at once. If I stop, I die. If I leap from the hay it will sting me before I land.

The room was a blur. In ecstatic dance she moved backwards through the shards of glass. There was a higher bale there; she could back against it like a wall, burrow into it if need be. If I have time. How many are there? Then the insect was on her and the stinger pierced her cloak beside her ribs, and knowing she had won before she struck Dri snapped the stinger in two with a twist of her body and plunged her knife-hand to the wrist into the insect's eye.

It was minutes in dying. Its gore and spittle burned her, head to foot, and a barb on its leg pierced her thigh. But at last its convulsions ceased. She threw the carcass down, bleeding, dumbfounded. What in the black Pits of woe had just attacked her?

'Will you fetch my bottle, please?' sniffed the Shaggat's son.

A Turach groaned. 'Fetch it yourself — the chain's long enough. Only I think you broke it, your daftness.'

Dri took a few staggering steps. The insect's bile stank beyond description. No one in Night Village was going to believe her. She should take back its head, or what was left of it. Then the hay bales moved.

She whirled. Pithor Ness was gaping at her, chin on the edge of the straw bale, not two feet away. One hand hung frozen above the broken glass. He was terrified.

'Guards,' he croaked.

'Careful! Careful, you blary-'

His hand withdrew. She saw his lips curl, forming another word, and then she flew at him, sunk her knife through his cheek, and using it for leverage stabbed down through his jugular with her sword. Blood struck her in a torrent: she was practically inside the wound. He made a sound that was not the word she feared, groped at the crimson straw, and watched her in disbelief as he died.

She leaped once more. He took four bales down with him, glass and all.

It was four in the morning when Diadrelu reached the ixchel stronghold. Men and women who had known her all their lives fell back in astonishment. Blood soaked her from head to foot; even her hair was stiff with it; yet her only wound was a minor cut on the thigh.

Taliktrum appeared, surrounded by his Dawn Soldiers, the shaved-headed fanatics he had inherited from his father. He questioned her in a sharp, peremptory voice. Was it the rat-king again? Or Sniraga? Was there danger to the clan?

'Yes,' she said.

'Of what kind, Aunt?'

She looked at him, the nervous young leader of Ixphir House. She did not know where to start.

'You must answer my questions the same as anyone,' said Taliktrum, almost shouting. 'We survive through clan cohesion. We are not threads but a woven fabric, and discipline makes the weaving strong. Let it fray in one corner and the whole cloth unravels.'

'You don't need to recite children's lessons to me,' said Dri softly. 'I taught them to you, by Rin.'

The soldiers tensed. Taliktrum looked from one to another. 'My aunt is very fond of invoking Rin,' he said with a nervous sneer. 'As often as she does Mother Sky, or the Wanderer, or any other ixchel figure.'

Dri shrugged. A part of her was screaming at his weakness, this ugly groping for standing and respect. 'The tradition's old,' she mumbled.

'And taken from the giants, like certain drugs and diseases. Tell me, Aunt: is Rin a god or a devil for you?'

She sensed the aggression in his words and was appalled. He was displaying her to his fanatics: 'Here is one unlike myself, one I have risen above, despite our kinship.' It chilled her to the core to imagine what such tactics implied for the future of the clan.

Suddenly her other sophister, Ensyl, rushed into the chamber. A thin reed of a girl with a prominent forehead, widowed before she could marry, Ensyl was quiet to the point of invisibility much of the time; but Diadrelu knew the iron at the heart of the reed. The girl elbowed her way through the Dawn Soldiers, shot one furious glance at Taliktrum, and led her mistress out.

In her own chamber, Dri let the girl tear off her ruined clothes, then sat as ordered in the herring tin that served as her bathtub. She did not speak as her sophister poured bucket after bucket of cold water over her, scrubbing fiercely at the blood and insect substances. The girl had to hack some of it from her hair with a knife.

After several minutes Dri wet her lips. 'Ludunte,' she murmered. 'Didn't he make a report?'

'He tried, mistress. Lord Taliktrum was in the High Loft and would not see him. Skies above, lady, there's glass in your hair!'

That broken bottle had been a godsend. As she crept away the guards were already debating whether the death was an accident or suicide.

'But it was neither,' Dri said aloud.

'What was neither, mistress?'

She looked up at her sophister. 'I killed a human,' she said.

The girl was quiet a moment, then nodded. 'I thought so.'

'He was afraid. I don't think he'd ever seen one of us.'

'If you did it, mistress, I know it was the right thing.'

Ensyl's faith stung worse than scorn. Dri hugged herself. Surely the word on his lips had been crawlies. What else did humans say at the sight of ixchel? Surely his death was unavoidable.

Given that she had let herself be seen.

She thought of Talag. His brilliance, the mad strength of his quest. Reveal our presence and you condemn us all. If you can't kill to silence a giant's tongue you're not fit to leave the shelter of a House. Stay in Etherhorde and be hunted. Do not follow us aboard.

The man she killed had spent nearly his whole life in chains.

'Mistress,' said Ensyl, wondering. 'You're… branded. There's a wolf burned into your skin.'

Dri nodded, covering her breast. Why was this happening, what was she doing here? How could she possibly keep faith with them all?