The Red wolf conspiracy

Midnight Council

2 Vaqrin 941

12:02 a.m.

"The boy must be killed at once."

Taliktrum spoke from the fifth shelf, the highest, which was where he slept. Five feet below, on the first, Diadrelu looked up at him from the clan circle and shook her head.

"Not yet," she said.

Taliktrum sat cross-legged, sharpening a knife on the sole of his foot. Here in the bow, where the gap between the inner and outer hulls reached nearly three feet wide, they were as safe as anywhere aboard, yet his hands seemed always on his weapons. She did not like this constant fingering of blades, this stabbing at timbers and caressing of hilts. It set a bad example for the younger folk, who were busy hiding their nervousness (call it what it is: fear) behind jokes and horseplay. Survival lay in good sense, not in bravado. Yet it was easier to provoke bravado than thought.

"He must die," repeated Taliktrum. "And the sooner the better. He's a monster, a giant with ixchel ears. Already he knows enough to doom us all. We were lucky tonight that his punishment shamed him into silence. At dawn it will be another matter."

"Taliktrum," said Dri, "come down among the clan."

He obeyed with insolent slowness, climbing down the inner hull with his knife between his teeth. Three feet above the shelf where his aunt and thirty other ixchel stood, he jumped, and landed nimble as a cat at the circle's center.

"Sheathe your knife, and act no more the fool with it," said Dri. "Listen: we do not know why the boy was silent."

"And you would wait to find out, Dri?" asked Ensyl. "What if he rises tomorrow and guesses they were ixchel voices he heard?"

"He will have guessed already," she said. "Ludunte says he looked right at our crawlway. The giants know we ride their ships. And though none can hear our natural voices-none ever, before this boy-still they know we can speak."

"They know, because some of us beg for our lives when the Arqualis catch us," said Taliktrum, looking bored and irritable. "Beg in the name of Rin and his Angel and the Milk of the One Tree. All those things the giants claim to worship. To no avail."

"Most kill us, given the chance," Dri agreed. "Not all, however. If we are to survive this mission we must not overlook those precious few."

"You believe he held his tongue for our sake?" said Taliktrum.

"I believe he is an Ormali as you guessed. That means he may have no love for this Empire."

"Odd crew he's chosen to ship with, in that case."

Now a few snickered openly. Dri waited until they fell silent of their own accord. Then she said, "Foreign-born youths do not serve the Empire at their pleasure. They serve to keep themselves out of gutters, or chains. And do you suppose that any of them has an inkling of the true purpose of this voyage? How could they, when after ten years of spying, we ourselves are still forced to guess?"

"I will tell you what I guess," said Ludunte. "I guess this monster-boy will speak of us to someone."

"Who will speak to someone else," said Taliktrum. "And so on, until we are the talk of the Chathrand. The cargo is still but half loaded. The giants can afford to tear the ship apart searching for us, and they might. No, the moment to strike is now. A fire started in a tuft of grass can be left to spread until the whole plain is burning. Or it can be snuffed out."

"Or," said Dri, "the tuft of grass can be carried to the hearth, and logs lit to keep us from freezing. Think of the ally he could make! We could speak to him in the presence of other giants. We could tell him what to ask, what to look for as he makes his rounds."

"He could get us fresh water," said someone.

"He could leave doors ajar."

"He could throw the witch's cat into the sea."

"Maybe," said Taliktrum coldly, "he will sprout wings and carry us all wrapped together in a blanket to Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. Rin's name! Why do you ply us with fantasies, Dri?"

"The founder of Ixphir House was saved from death by a giant woman," said Dri. "One hundred and sixty years ago, in the gardens of the Accateo Lorgut. That is not fantasy. We would none of us be here without her."

"Legend," said Taliktrum. "Pretty stories for children at bedtime. Will you still take comfort in them when your gentle giants have killed us all?"

It was late when the council adjourned. Dri bid them all go to their rest on the sleeping shelves, and they went uneasily, but without grumbling. In an ixchel clan circle everyone speaks who would speak, but when the conference ends the leader must be obeyed.

She was exhausted: her ribs still ached like fire from her contortions on the rat funnel. The absurd thing was that the cursed devices never worked: the ship was boiling with rats. They slipped up gangways, burrowed into straw bales carried aboard for the manger, or merely leaped past the funnels like the ixchel themselves. And how they multiplied! A ship could set sail with just a few dozen and make landfall a few months later with thousands of starving animals in her hold.

Lying on her shelf, she could hear them in the forward hold, scurrying and chattering and chanting their songs of greed. Her people would have to guard against them as well. Rats could not be trusted. They would promise peace, and sometimes struggle to keep it for a week or two. But when food grew scarce their eyes took on a certain gleam. They would gather around the edges of ixchel bunkers, or trail menacingly behind a scouting party, or lie in wait…

But humans are not rats, Taliktrum, she thought, with a pleading quality she would never allow herself to voice. She could almost hear his laughing reply: True enough, Aunt. They're worse.

"… be still, Ormali boy, wake and be still. You hear me, do you not? Wake; and as you value your life, be still."

In the darkness, Pazel opened his eyes. He lay in his hammock among fifty other tarboys, slung about the stuffy berth deck like hams in a smokehouse. Reyast was sleeping two feet beneath him, and Neeps two feet above. Snores and wheezes drifted about the lightless deck.

But the voice was no dream.

It came from somewhere just behind his head. It was a woman's voice, but it had the same weird, thin sound as the voices from the hatch. The crawlies. They had found him already. Even if he had wished to disobey, Pazel was too frightened to move.

"Good," said the voice. "Now listen well, boy. I hold a sword at your throat. If necessary I will slash your great vein and put your own knife in your hand, and in the morning the crew will bury you at sea without a death-prayer, as a suicide. Your life hangs by a thread. At any moment we choose, anywhere on this ship, we can snap that thread. And snap it we shall, instantly, if you give us the slightest cause."

Then Pazel felt it: a hand, smaller than a squirrel's paw, taking a grip on his sleep-tussled hair.

"Nod if you understand," said the woman.

Shaking with horror, Pazel nodded. The hammock ropes creaked, and he stifled a gasp. They were all over him. Legs, arms, stomach, twenty or more crawlies, tense as cats. Some infinitely pale glow from the hatches let him see their sleek movements, their limbs bristling with strength. They held swords, daggers, spears. The tip of an unseen blade scratched just below his ear-impatiently, he thought.

A tiny bare foot slapped his forehead, then another his cheek, and suddenly Pazel found an eight-inch-tall woman facing him from the center of his chest.

He could barely see her, but he knew she was their queen. Some natural dignity informed the way she stood, legs slightly apart, facing him squarely and calmly above his hammering heart.

"You will not lie," she declared, sheathing her tiny sword. "We ixchel can smell it, the change that comes over a giant when he lies. I have no wish to kill you-indeed far from it. But the path I walk allows for no turning, no mistakes. Therefore I must kill you if you lie. Tell me: have you spoken to anyone of the voices you heard on the topdeck?"

Pazel shook his head no.

"See that you do not: they will be the last words you ever speak. Now explain how it is that you can hear us, our natural voices that no human ever could, as clearly as if we were bending our speech for human ears. And tell us how you come to know our language. Speak softly, and be brief."

Nothing was more difficult for Pazel, especially when he was nervous. He opened his mouth and shut it several times.

"Speak!" the woman hissed.

"A spell!" blurted Pazel. "But it goes all wrong!"

"Are you a mage, then?"

Again Pazel shook his head. "My mother," he whispered. "It was supposed to make you better at-whatever you're good at. I'm good at languages, so the spell made me perfect. But it's awful. It works, and I can speak anything-"

"Any tongue of Alifros?"

"Anything! Then it stops, and there's terrible noises, evil bird noises, I can't-"

"We warned you not to lie, Ormali!"

It was another voice, a man's. Pazel froze. The woman looked up sharply. The voice seemed to belong to whoever was drawing the blade up and down beneath his ear.

"Any tongue in Alifros," sneered the man. "The brat thinks we're simple. And he'll be right if we go on using our tongues in place of swords."

"Peace, Taliktrum!" said the woman angrily. But all the ixchel were muttering and shifting now.

The man's voice went on: "You saw how they singled him out in the Plaza. They're using him like a terrier, to root us out. They taught him Ix, all right-from prisoners in their jails. They're moving him from ship to ship. Wasn't he tossed off a boat two days ago? And then this brainless fib! Very well, witch-child, answer me: Art thou my bloodkin, lost to storm these sundering years? Shall I name thee brother?"

Some of the crawlies sniggered. The woman whirled in a rage to face them, raising her fist in some gesture of command. But Pazel spoke first.

"Name me what you like," he said. "Brat, or bloodkin, or brother. Just don't tell me you can smell lies. My mate Neeps can do that, but clearly you can't."

The laughter had stopped at his first word. Even the woman looked stunned. "And clearly your Gift is real," she said. "Unless any here believe this lad was taught Nileskchet, dead language of our ancient bards."

She paused: no one spoke.

"I thought not," she said, and there was cold fury in her voice. "Be gone, all of you. S'an order!"

They went, silent and abashed, nearly invisible still. Pazel was left with the tiny woman standing four-square on his chest. When they were alone, she startled him by folding her hands before her face as though praying. Her voice, when next she spoke, no longer rang with power. It sounded tired and uncertain.

"My name is Dri, Pazel Pathkendle. In full, Diadrelu Tammariken ap Ixhxchr. I am the leader of my people aboard Chathrand until my brother and co-commander joins us in Etherhorde. Trust me when I say that I regret these threats and suspicions."

"I do not trust you," said Pazel.

"Wise boy," she said, and laughed. "You're quite right. Don't trust. But what I say is true nonetheless. If they catch you during your mind-fit, you'll go to an asylum. Do you know what happens if they lay hold of us?"

"I know," he said, wincing at the thought. "But I'm not one of them. Arqual destroyed my home. I'm here to find my family, if they're still alive, and once I do I'll get us all out of this blary Empire forever, if I can. Honestly, I'm not like these people. I don't hate crawlies."

"Ixchel!" she said sharply. "Never use that other word. But hear me quickly, ere dawn comes. Evil is afoot, Pazel. This ship is bound for the west-to conclude a treaty of peace, they say. But in the capital some will board her with other goals, unspeakable goals, in mind. We are not even sure who they are. But they must not succeed."

Far above on the main deck, the ship's bell tolled. Diadrelu started. "I must go," she said. "We will meet again, when the ship's business in Etherhorde is done. Until then our own business is survival. Pazel, do not prove me a fool before my own people. Speak to no one of us. I do not threaten you. I beg."

Above him, Neeps muttered, half waking. As if aware that she had stayed too long, the ixchel woman leaped suddenly past his head, and Pazel felt her climbing the hammock rope.

"Are you going to drown us?" he whispered, suddenly frightened of her leaving. "Will you sink the ship at night, like the stories tell?"

The woman paused. "Nonsense," she whispered. "How could a few ixchel sink the mightiest ship in Alifros?"

"And those evil goals, ma'am? What are they?"

Her voice came from farther away; she was climbing again. "We have but guesses."

"Then tell me your guesses, won't you?"

He heard no answer at first, and thought she had gone. Then her voice came once more, from somewhere across the berth deck, and faint as it was there was no mistaking the word, or her dread as she spoke it.

"War."