The Red wolf conspiracy

The Miracle of Tears

5 Modoli 941

53rd day from Etherhorde

A gray dawn came, and rain soon after. Thunderheads brooded on Cape Ultu; Firecracker Frix watched them nervously through a telescope. Beyond that cape lay Uturphe, but Mr. Elkstem took no chances and steered a wide course around its rocky point. A hundred sailors sighed at his orders, but no one cursed him. Elkstem's nose for safety was legendary.

Once around the cape the rain grew stronger. Hatches were battened down; frantic tarboys swabbed rainwater off the deck. The town when it appeared was less than heartwarming: behind its green granite wall, iron towers and pointed rooftops stood like files of teeth. From his cabin window, Eberzam Isiq studied cold, closed Uturphe and thought, No place to look for doctors.

The town lacked a deepwater channel, so at a distance of two miles the order came to furl sails and drop anchor. Around the mainmast a handful of men in oilskin coats roared their disapproval. These were whiskey and brass merchants, desperate to buy as much as they could for resale in the west. Before the anchor struck bottom they were clustered about Mr. Fiffengurt. When might the boats be launched? How bad would the storm be? How many men could he spare for rowers? How long would they stay?

"Stand off, gentlemen!" he growled. "We've a life to save if we can."

Hercуl was carried out by Isiq's honor guard. Rain battered his face, and Thasha held his cold hand, weeping: he looked dead already. For the first time, Fiffengurt thought he might like one of the noble-born youths. Most were ninnies who wailed if their soup wasn't salted or their jackets brushed. One day of tarboy labor and galley grub would teach them to appreciate good fortune. But Lady Thasha was a different sort. She was crying, yes, but silently, and she made no complaints. The quartermaster cocked his head sideways, to see her better.

"You be brave now, Lady," he said. "Everything possible will be done for Mr. Hercуl."

"That it will be," said Sandor Ott.

The boat was lowered, with Ott and Fiffengurt side by side in the bow, and the men pulled for shore. Thasha felt suddenly that she would never lay eyes on Hercуl again, and not wanting her last memory of him to be that white, deathly face, she turned away. If she had not, she might have noticed that one of the honor guards did not row with his right arm, but only moved it stiffly, even painfully, in time with the oar.

Merchants were crowding, jostling to be next into a boat. One cackled beside her: "No one will eat crayfish in Uturphe tonight-no one! I bought them all. I can sell them on Rukmast for four times what I pay these beggars. A few didn't want to sell, but the duke of Uturphe persuaded them-fishermen's huts are quite flammable, you know, and the duke only asked ten percent for his services."

"Very reasonable," said another.

"Very! Oh, when will that fool let us land? I tell you I bought them all."

Disgusted, Thasha turned-and nearly collided with Pazel Pathkendle.

He was being hustled aft by two enormous soldiers. He had a soggy bundle in his arms and wore an old coat with a red patch at the elbow. No hat, no shoes. His brown hair was plastered flat by the rain.

He offered a weary smile. "You got your necklace back."

The soldiers appeared ready to cuff him for his familiar tone, but one look at Thasha changed their minds.

"I tried to make Prahba keep you," she said. "He just wouldn't listen."

Pazel shrugged. "I didn't listen either, did I? Where's Neeps, do you know?"

Thasha nodded. "He's working the pumps. Six hours-a punishment from Swellows. For fighting, I think."

"Tell him I said to cut that out," said Pazel, shaking his head. Then he looked at her and switched to Opaltik. "Don't forget what Ramachni said. There's an evil mage aboard, and someone else coming soon-someone even worse. Be careful, Thasha. And try to remember me, will you?"

Thasha could barely summon her school-taught Opaltik. What's wrong with me? she thought, blinking.

"Someone worse, yes," she muttered.

"I'm sorry about all this, Thasha," he said.

"Sorry you?" She shook her head, furious with her clumsy tongue. "Why are you feeling it? I have no ideas."

Shivering and drenched, Pazel laughed. "You have too many."

The soldiers pushed him forward. Merchants and sailors were crowding into the second boat, but one bench was empty still.

"I have to tell you something," said Pazel. "Get closer."

"I have to tell you something," Thasha mimicked. But she could not say it in Opaltik, and when he looked her in the eye she found she could not say it at all.

"Hold that man! I want to see him!"

The voice was Uskins'. He emerged from the wheelhouse, his blond hair flattened by the rain, and shoved his way toward the boats. Thasha followed his gaze and saw another prisoner beside the rail: a scruffy, hungry-looking man from third class. His face was sallow and bruised, and his hands were chained behind his back.

"Wrong man! Wrong man!" he shouted as Uskins neared. The first mate raised a hand for silence, then reached out and stretched one of the man's eyes wide open. He gave a satisfied nod.

"A deathsmoker, to be sure."

"Lies!" shrieked the man. "They put a gooney sack on my head! Filled it with deathsmoke!"

"Who did?" said Uskins.

"Don't know-they come at night, took me someplace dark, alone. Made me breathe that blary drug till I fainted. Now look how I shake! But I never used it before! I'm a tea picker is all!"

Uskins laughed aloud. "You should have picked a milder tea."

"I never touched that poor Mr. Hercуl! I swear on the Milk of the Tree!"

Uskins slapped him. "Save your blasphemy for the court, you wretch! Load him in!"

As the man screamed and struggled, Thasha found herself beginning to doubt Nagan's story all over again. But before she could work out a way to intervene, Pazel leaned close to her and spoke very quietly through his teeth.

"There's another prisoner aboard."

"What are you talking about?" Thasha whispered back.

"You've got to find Diadrelu. Tell her Rose has him. In his right-hand desk-drawer."

"What, a key?"

"The prisoner!"

"Pazel," said Thasha, "have you lost your mind?"

"They'll kill you if you talk," he whispered. "They're ixchel, Thasha."

"Ay! Ormali dog! How dare you touch the Lady?"

He hadn't, in fact, although his lips had nearly brushed her ear. But touch or no touch, Pazel's guards were embarrassed at their oversight and struck him so hard he fell to the deck. Almost blind with pain, Pazel felt someone lifting him again. Uskins' leering face swam into view.

"Allow me," said the first mate. "Some ballast is a pleasure to drop."

He tossed Pazel into the waiting boat with a crash. Thasha shouted, "No! No! No!" and Uskins turned to her and said not to worry, the filthy boy would never bother her again.

Pazel found his seat beside the presumed murderer, who was still shouting, "Wrong man!" Pazel looked for Thasha, wondering what she had wanted to tell him, but the rail was crowded, and then his boat was lowered to the sea.

"You saw it," said Talag Tammaruk ap Ixhxchr.

"Saw what?" asked Diadrelu.

"Do not fence with me, sister," said Talag. "The boy whispered in the bridal girl's ear. And shocked her. Now do you see why we must never take chances? What good are your threats, once he is safe ashore? Taliktrum was right. You should have killed him."

The two ixchel were wedged in the solid oak of the quarterdeck, half choked with fresh sawdust, peering through drill holes no human eye could locate. Their spying ledge was scarcely big enough for them to lie side by side. It had taken their people four days' labor, burrowing like termites through the ancient wood, pausing with every lull in the wind lest their chisels and hammers be overheard. But it was worth it: they now had a splendid view of the mizzen topdeck, where boats disembarked and officers clustered, the very crossroads of the ship.

Dri pulled back from her spy-hole and looked at Talag. "Thasha was scared, true enough. But what did Pathkendle whisper? That is something we cannot presume."

"Can't we?" said Talag. "Do you mean to say the freak tarboy might possess another secret as awful as the fact that we're aboard?"

"There are such secrets," said Dri. "Last night we saw the ambassador's own guard torment an innocent man with deathsmoke and demand that he confess to the murder we prevented."

"You take the lot of them for innocent men," said Talag derisively. "And you prevented that murder, not the clan. You fired the quill into the murderer's leg and made him stumble, even though that fat soap merchant might have seen you-"

"He saw nothing," said Diadrelu.

"— and the killer himself may find your quill later and expose us all."

"He will not find my quill, Talag. It is deep in his skin. And should he dig it out, he will find a splinter, half dissolved, and never know it for ixchel work."

"Who is presuming now?" Talag asked.

"What would you have done?" she demanded. "Let the valet die?" She knew Talag was goading her (who but a brother could do it so well?), but knowing did not make his taunts any more bearable. "I am not a fool, Talag! I presume no goodness among giants. But neither do I presume that they are all identical, mere strands in a single rope destined to be the hangman's noose for the innocent race of ixchel. The world is full of wickedness, yes. But none of it is simple."

"They stole us from Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. They exhibited us like insects in their museums, colleges, zoos. And like insects they have killed us, ever since we escaped to infest their ships and houses. Simple, Dri. And true."

"The Abduction was five hundred years ago," said Dri. "The giants don't even remember it, and they consider our island a myth. It's over."

Talag looked at her with cold disdain. "It will be over when we are home," he said. "Since the wreck of the Maisa only one ship remains that can take us there, across the Ruling Sea. Her name is Chathrand, and by the sweet star of Rin, I'll see that she does."

Dri said nothing. A moment later the ship's bell rang half past eight.

"We must go," said Talag.

Moving about in the daylight was, of course, the gravest danger for the ixchel, yet there was no other way to reach the spy-ledge. Like the hollow at the center of an old tree, their tunnel bored straight down through the compartment wall, then back toward the stern by way of a two-inch gap they had found by tapping. Near the end of this crawlway Talag had drawn an X in charcoal: that marked the spot directly beneath the binnacle, or ship's compass. Talag had plans for the binnacle, but he would tell no one what they amounted to.

The crawlway ended in a tiny crack, at the ceiling of a short passageway. From there all one had to do was scurry down the rough wood to the floor, run six feet along the passage to the foot-drain and dive inside. During a storm, a bathtub or two of rain and salt spray might blow into the passage each time a sailor came in from the topdeck. The foot-drain was merely the tin pipe that let such water flow back into the sea. It had a little spring-loaded lid that swung open with the weight of water and shut again to keep out the cold ocean wind. For the ixchel it was a simple matter to cut other holes in this pipe (along its top edge, to control any telltale dripping) and use it as a corridor between the decks.

The trouble was the battalion clerk. A pale boy with the scars of recent chicken pox on his face, he crouched on a stool by the door to Sergeant Drellarek's cabin from dawn to dusk, a big weather-stained notebook on his knees. His only functions were to carry messages from Drellarek to the Chathrand's officers and to keep records of the shifts and duties, the complaints and fevers and upset stomachs of the hundred soldiers under Drellarek's command.

The clerk was always there, except when running messages, and for five minutes at the change of the watch when Drellarek had him collect reports from the sergeants-at-arms and the sailmaster. Only at these times (and only if no one else was in the hall) could the ixchel come or go from their spy-ledge. Now was such a time, and Dri and Talag made haste to descend to the floor.

Even as they did so, Midryl, their replacement on watch, slipped out of the foot-drain and began climbing swiftly. When he reached the other two he paused for instructions.

"You will pay great attention to any new passengers who board today," said Talag. "And make a note of who speaks to the captain, should he appear."

"Yes, m'lord."

"The ambassador may go ashore as well," Dri added. "See that you notice who goes with him, and who returns."

"Of course, m'lady."

"The way is clear below?" Talag demanded.

"Safe and clear, Lord Talag. A rat limped by on the gun deck, nothing more. My brother Malyd is on watch."

"Go swiftly, then."

Midryl bowed his head and vanished into the crevice above. Dri and Talag reached the floor and hurried to the foot-drain. They could hear the voices of giants on the topdeck, the hiss of rain, the soggy, low-spirited gulls.

But the drain's lid would not open. Normally it swung with almost no effort at all, but though Dri and Talag pushed with all their might, it would not budge an inch.

"That fool!" Talag raged. "He's broken the hinge from the inside!"

Together they hurled themselves against the metal lid, but to no avail.

"We're trapped!" said Dri. "But what happened? How could this be an accident?"

"It was not an accident, Lady Dri," said a voice from the foot-drain.

"Who goes there, damn it-a rat?" snarled Talag in disbelief.

"No, Lord Talag," said the voice. "I am Felthrup Stargraven, and I must thank you for teaching me a great-nay, a vital-nay, an indispensable lesson! You see, I am not a rat. And yet I suffered so very long believing that I was. Believing, babbling, drowning in kelp-"

"Vermin!" shouted Talag. "Get your mange-rotted bodies out of our pipe!"

"I am quite alone, Lord Talag. I have jammed the door with a timber-screw."

"Remove it now," said Diadrelu quietly. "We are in danger, here."

"I regret that, m'lady," said Felthrup. "But surely you understand my own desperate circumstances? Once Lord Talag explained to me that I was not a rat, I realized it was madness-literally madness! — to go on pretending. The warren is no place of safety if you rouse the suspicion of Master Mugstur, as I have, or bear any disfigurement or sign of weakness, as I do. Are you aware of how you marked me, Lord Talag?"

Dri looked sharply at her brother. "You've spoken to this creature before!"

"Souls aflame!" shouted Talag. "It can't be that one! The same prattling, snooping rat we caught in Night Village?"

"The one who came looking for you," said the voice, "in such terrible need. Poor, frightened Felthrup, always drowning, so close to despair. But not a rat, m'lord. Have you forgotten your lecture? Rats do not think; they only appear to think. But I most certainly think-deep, true, tireless thoughts, machinations, meditations, bursting rockets of the mind! Therefore, despite my appearance I cannot be a rat. I think."

"You told me nothing of this," said Dri to Talag.

"Of killing a rat? Why should I? There was no bloodshed, even. We sealed him up in a bilge-pipe to suffocate."

"You see how I failed to oblige him, m'lady? I do so deeply regret it."

Dri could not tell if the voice was laughing or crying. "We have no time for this," she said. "What do you want?"

A sniffle. "You won't believe me," said the voice.

"OPEN THIS DOOR ERE WE SLAUGHTER THE WHOLE FESTERING HORDE OF YOU!" bellowed Talag.

The laughter or tears grew nearly hysterical.

Dri hissed at her brother: "Haven't you done enough? It's your cruelty drove him to this act!"

Talag opened his mouth to speak, but did not. The human voices on the deck outside grew louder.

"You there, Felthrup!" said Dri. "A giant comes! Speak now, or we both must flee. What is it you would ask of us?"

"A small thing," said the choking voice. "Your oath on the clan: not to hurt me, and to listen."

"You have my oath on the clan," said Dri.

"You cannot give your oath to a rat," said Talag.

"I am NOT A RAT!"

"Talag!" said Diadrelu. "Stop taunting him! Where is your wisdom gone? Speak your oath, quickly, or mount to the crevice! Decide!"

Talag's fists were clenched so tight that veins stood out on his hands. "You have my oath by clan and kin," he said.

That very instant the outer door banged open and the pockmarked clerk appeared. At the same time they heard a scraping behind the foot-drain. The boy fumbled with the door in the slashing rain, still turned away from them. Talag pushed: the lid was free, and both ixchel dived into the pipe. Beside them, Felthrup let the lid snap shut. Brother and sister lay motionless where they fell, holding their breath. From inches away came the sound of the boy's heavy footfalls. He was swearing at the weather-Salvation! — for if he had just seen two crawlies he would have forgotten all about a little rain.

Quiet as shadows, the ixchel crawled down the pipe; Felthrup scurried behind them with a strange hopping sound. Only after fifty feet, where the pipe took a bend in a cable shaft far from human ears, did the odd threesome pause. They were as safe there as anywhere. Diadrelu struck a match and saw two black eyes gleaming next to her.

"But of course you're a rat," she said.

Then she winced. The beast's left forepaw was hideously mangled. That explained the hopping. Felthrup saw her look and nodded.

"The price of living," he said. "Four days I lay trapped in that pipe, m'lady. Clearing the dried blood with my teeth, so air might trickle in."

"Your name," said Diadrelu. "It sounds like a Noonfirth word."

"How wise you are, Lady!" said Felthrup in delight. "For I am a Noonfirther, and the name I chose myself. The word means 'tears.' Do you know what a miracle tears are, Lord and Lady? Rats do not shed them: rats cannot grasp what they are for. And I was no different from any other beast in Pуl Warren until the sunrise I tried to steal crumbs from a bakery. The fresh bread smelled so very tempting that morning, honeyed and butter-kissed-"

"Memories of the stomach," said Talag. "Is that why you risked our deaths?"

"No, Lord Talag, but it is part of why you should not wish to kill me."

"Tell your tale," said Diadrelu. "But quickly, pray."

Felthrup bowed. "It was still dark. By a broken window I leaped into the basement, then crept up the stairs and peeped into the bakery proper. There she stood! By the clay oven, her black face glowing by firelight. The first thing I saw was that she was alone. Always before her husband had worked beside her, but now he was gone. Why did I even notice? He had not taken the crumbs with him; there was plenty for me to eat. But somehow I could only stand there, watching, wondering. And the woman went into another room and returned with a painting of the two of them in wedding finery-how did I know, how? — and with a strange moan she threw the painting into the oven. Then she sat back on a stool. And cried!

"I saw her tears, cousins. And in that instant the great change occurred. I was shaken, terrified. I thought some parasite was erupting in my bowels. Yet it was not an affliction but a miracle: I had noticed tears. She was weeping for love and I understood it. And so much else, miracle after miracle! Her noise woke her little girls, they came thumping down from the loft-and suddenly, family! I grasped that, too! And names-she spoke their names, and I knew they were permanent names, not made up on the spot like wart-face and slop-head and other names used by rats. I sat there as the daylight grew, blind to my danger, hypnotized. She told them their father had run off with the butter-churn girl, and that they must all go to temple and pray that he quickly tired of that fat, faithless slut and came back to them. And then she pulled the picture from the oven and smothered the flames with her apron. But his head and feet were burned off already, and she cried to wake the dead. And I understood it all!"

Dri looked at her brother. "Are you satisfied, Talag? The rat is clearly woken. You tried to kill an innocent, thinking soul."

Talag looked away. "Next it will be fleas," he said. "And then barnacles, cabbages, scraps of wood. This ship is infested with freaks. In all history there has never been a truly woken rat. How was I to know this babbling thing possessed reason?"

"By using your own."

"We are fighting for our lives," said Talag. "That creature was a danger to our fort in Night Village. Three times he blundered about us, drawing attention, speaking aloud. And so far I've heard nothing about why."

Felthrup looked at Talag. His nose twitched.

"Oh good and gracious Lord!" he said. "How you always return me to my purpose! I bow, I sigh, I wheeze my gratitude! Will you forgive me if-just to make things simpler, marvelous Talag-I once again call myself a rat?"

"Get on with it!" spat Talag.

"Then, as a rat-as a woken rat-I must tell you that I am not quite alone."

"What!" cried Dri. "Do you mean that there is another woken rat aboard?"

"Yes, m'lady, just one. The only one I have ever met. He rules the warren, and he is thoroughly evil and depraved. His name is Master Mugstur."

"Have you spoken with this creature?"

"Yes, m'lady, but I did not let him know I was awake. He would certainly have killed me, for he wants no rivals."

"What does he want?" said Talag.

"He wants to eat the captain."

There was a rather long pause.

"Specifically his tongue," Felthrup continued. "The reason is simple enough. After he woke, Master Mugstur became religious, you see. He is a quite fanatical adherent to the Rinfaith-although his version of it is somewhat… what is the word? Homicidal? Yes, exactly! Oh, Lady Dri, do you know how I have dreamed of such enlightened conversation? A rat would say blary, bloody, munchy, delicious-never homicidal! I am the luckiest being alive!"

"Felthrup," said Dri.

"Yes, yes! Forgive me! The point is, Captain Rose has also declared himself a believer, but he is only pretending. He takes meals with Brother Bolutu and has the man set him lessons from the Ninety Rules, but he never studies them: the old witch Oggosk answers all the questions. He says he will retire to a life of quiet prayer on Rappopolni, when in fact the Emperor has already promised him governorship of the Quezans, and many slave-wives, and a royal title. This has infuriated Master Mugstur, who will allow no one to disrespect the faith."

"Skies of Fire!" said Talag. "Rose is to govern the Quezans? He must be doing something unspeakable for the Crown!"

"We know he is," said Dri. "But what does this Mugstur imagine he can do about it?"

"Eat his tongue," said Felthrup. "It is his fate to kill Rose, he thinks. My miracle was tears; Master Mugstur's was betrayal. He watched a man selling Nunekkam emeralds to a jeweler. 'These are splendid!' said the jeweler. 'How did you come by them?' 'Oh, the Nunek gave them to me!' The other laughed. 'He needed them sent to his granddaughter in Sorhn, as a wedding gift. It's been planned for three years, that wedding. And for three years I've made it a point to be that Nunek's best friend. So when I happened to tell him I was traveling to Sorhn on business, he asked me to deliver them to the bride. Said he would trust no one else, ha ha!'"

"Very rat-like," said Talag.

"Not at all rat-like, Majestic Lord," said Felthrup. "Normal rats may lie to one another, or jump out of shadows and bite. But betray they cannot, for betrayal is not possible without trust, and rats never trust. They do not understand the word."

"He woke at that moment, as you woke in the bakery?" asked Dri.

"He did, Lady, and his waking frightened him half to death. He ran all night in the streets, and just before dawn took refuge in a temple, where the droning of the monks and the burning incense put him into a state of religious fervor, and the Angel of Rin descended from the rafters and told him his fate. He would find his way to a great mansion that moved, the Angel said, and rule its depths, while a false priest ruled above. And one day he would kill that priest and devour the part of him that lied. And in that moment a thousand eyes would open."

"Rose is the false priest, then," said Dri, "and his tongue is the lying part of him. But what of the thousand eyes?"

"I do not know. Master Mugstur only speaks of his prophecy because he thinks we are all normal rats, sleepwalkers, and will not remember it anyway. But he is determined to punish Rose for pretending to believe. No matter what it takes."

"What will he try? Sabotage?"

"My lady, he would sink the ship if the Angel wished it. Or try in any case: I doubt he could manage anything so grand."

"He could destroy us nonetheless," said Talag. "If his mischief irritates the giants sufficiently they will gas the ship with sulphur. Every rat aboard will be killed or driven out. And every last ixchel."

"There will still be one," said Felthrup. "A prisoner by the name of Steldak."

"An ixchel prisoner!" cried Talag. "But he is not of our clan! Who is he? Where are the giants keeping him?"

"I don't know, Lord Talag. I only know that he is kept in a tiny cage and forced to taste the giants' food, in case there should be poison. He is said to be the most miserable of beings."

Talag looked at Dri, rage contorting his face. "All over, sister? All in the past? How can you be so blind? While you talk of fairness the giants keep us in cages yet, and torture us for sport. Why speak of peace with these animals?"

"Some try to build peace," said Diadrelu. "Some make it their goal in life."

"Like our good Captain Rose, and his peaceable mission to the west."

"How wry, Lord Talag!" said Felthrup, happy again. "For the Chathrand's mission is black indeed. I know it all: a most, most… calamitous plan. That's the word! Shall I tell you?"

Before they could answer, noises echoed down the pipe: far-off human footfalls, a squeak of metal. A sudden breeze swept past them.

"The drain has opened!" said Dri.

"The storm must be rising!" Talag raised his head, listening. "Brace yourselves-here it comes!"

"It?" said Felthrup.

A great gush of stormwater barreled into them. Felthrup squealed piercingly-drowning of one sort or another was his deepest fear, after all-but in truth he was not in much danger. Dri, however, was knocked off her feet. She was lighter than Talag (and barely half Felthrup's weight), and the water bore her down the pipe like a twig. Her brother could not reach her, but Felthrup saw her and recovered himself. As she swept by he caught her shirt with a nimble snap of his jaws, and held fast. Ten seconds later the gush of water subsided. Diadrelu put a hand on his cheek in silent thanks.

Soaked and chilly, they descended the last length of pipe to the ixchel's escape hatch. Here Talag paused and faced the rat.

"We owe you our thanks," he said gruffly, "for your courage, and your warnings. Now we know that it will be necessary to kill this Master Mugstur."

"That may be harder than you imagine, Lord," said Felthrup.

Talag actually smiled. "We shall see about that. Come! My cooks will feed you something better than rat-scrabble. And you will share what you know of Chathrand's true mission."

They pulled themselves up through the hatch and into a dim triangular chamber. This was the canvas room, in the back of the tailor's nook, a cramped compartment piled floor to ceiling with pennant silks, tarpaulins and huge bolts of white, flaxen, nearly indestructible sailcloth. They were on a wide shelf about five feet above the floor.

Somewhere in the outer compartment the tailor was humming a flat little tune beneath his swaying lamp. Diadrelu squeezed the water from her shirt.

"Felthrup," she said, "how did you learn about the ixchel prisoner?"

"And the mission of the Chathrand, for that matter?" put in Talag.

"The same way he learned about this tunnel of yours, crawly," said a low, rasping voice overhead. "I told him."

The two ixchel flew like arrows, dodging, rolling, drawing their swords even before they regained their feet. They were not a moment too soon. Five enormous rats pounced on the spot where they had stood a split second before, knocking Felthrup aside like a bowling pin.

"Hold that door!" snapped the voice. "Two die for every crawly who escapes!"

Out of the mounds of sailcloth they came, dozens of rats of all shapes and sizes and hues. Many squirmed about the doorway. Others appeared at both ends of the shelf and advanced toward Dri and Talag, white teeth snapping.

"Well done, Felthrup!" said the rasping voice. "I am glad of your service."

On the shelf above them appeared the largest rat Diadrelu had ever seen. He slouched forward to examine them, attended on either side by formidable guards. He was stark white with purplish eyes that bulged like overripe grapes. The hair had fallen or been worn away from his head and underside, revealing long scars and thick rolls of fat. But despite his belly dragging in the dust it was clear he was immensely strong.

Felthrup gazed at him with loathing. "I do not serve you!" he cried.

"Of course you do," said the big rat. "All rats on this ship serve Master Mugstur, just as he serves our holy Emperor in the Keep of Five Domes, and through him the Angel Most High. I'm not surprised you kept it from these two, of course. Yes, it was very well done. They were so caught up with your chatter they did not even notice the missing guard."

Dri and Talag exchanged looks. It was true: an ixchel guard should have been standing by at the mouth of the escape hatch. The rats snickered, and several of the biggest licked their lips.

"Lies!" screamed Felthrup. "You told me nothing! It was the bird, the moon falcon, who told me what I know! I hate you! I would never do your bidding!"

Master Mugstur shook his head slowly. "Lying is a sin," he said.

There were now a hundred or more sleek, strong rats crowded together in the nook, all watching the ixchel.

"Lady! Lord Talag!" squeaked Felthrup. "Don't listen! Run back up the pipe!"

Master Mugstur laughed. "By all means, do! One way leads to the sea; the other to the clerk on his stool. And we shall follow close behind you."

Talag caught Dri's eye a second time. With the greatest caution he signaled her: two fingers on his sword-hilt and a lifted shoulder. Dri answered with the tiniest nod.

"Tell them the truth ere they die, Felthrup," said Master Mugstur. "They tried to kill you, brother! Why shouldn't you lead them into my trap?"

"Monster! Fiend!" Felthrup was hopping up and down on his three good legs, tearful and snarling at once. "You used me to trap them! You followed me!"

"Where is our kinsman, the one we left on guard here?" Talag demanded.

For an answer the big rat spat at one of his aides. There was a shuffling noise above and then something ragged fell onto the shelf in front of them.

It was the hand of an ixchel, nibbled almost to the bone.

"Rats of Chathrand," said Master Mugstur, "you heard the crawlies' words: they planned to kill me, as they tried to kill Brother Felthrup. But thanks to my agent's courage and the mercy of Rin, their wickedness ends here. Let us pray before we dine."

Mugstur raised one long-nailed paw. The rats grew still.

And the ixchel sprang.

Talag leaped straight up, grabbed the lip of the shelf above him and swung onto it. Even as he landed he beheaded the rat lurching toward him, jumped over the corpse and slit the throat of another. Dri meanwhile ran up the side of a heap of sailcloth. The mound tipped, and as it did so she leaped high into the air and landed on the shelf beside her brother.

When ixchel train together, the battle-dance they learn becomes so quick and flawless it seems almost like mind-reading, and Dri and Talag had trained as a pair from birth. Not even a glance was needed for Dri to fall to hands and knees, and then push with all her might when she felt Talag's foot upon her shoulder. In this way she helped him sail over the heads of five rats and land upon the back of one of the two great bodyguards of Mugstur himself. The beast rolled and struck, but only succeeded in helping Talag to chop off both its forepaws with one swing. When the second rat-guard snapped at his leg, Talag did not even look: he had seen Dri move from the corner of his eye. The rat died with her throwing-knife in its skull before it could tighten its jaws.

About six seconds had passed.

But there were more rats now. They came on with idiot fury, biting at Talag and Dri as Mugstur fell back, roaring. The ixchel pressed after him, spinning like lethal tops through a spray of blood and fur. Then came a great crash as something heavy, a toolbox or a pair of sail-shears, crashed from a high shelf to the ground. Twenty feet away they heard the tailor bellow, "Ho there! What moves?" Lamplight swung toward the room.

The ixchel were fortunate. Mugstur had ordered so many rats to guard the door that they could not all hide themselves before the tailor arrived. One rat would have startled him; dozens made him erupt in an incoherent yowl. As he stomped and cursed at the fleeing rats, Dri and Talag slid down one side of the door frame and escaped the room.

Neither had been so much as scratched. But what of Felthrup? Dri risked one backward glance: she could see no trace of him among the living or the dead.