The Red wolf conspiracy

On the Trail of the Sorcerer

3 Teala 941

81st day from Etherhorde

"Diadrelu!" cried Pazel.

For it was she, in an astounding feathered cloak that seemed to turn her arms into wings, her body into that of a dusky bird. Neeps was speechless: he had never in his life beheld an ixchel, let alone one that could fly.

"What are you doing here?" Pazel cried out.

"Saving your lives," said another voice. "Isn't it obvious?"

Pazel knew that voice: it was the younger ixchel, Taliktrum. There he was, swooping down in a suit like Diadrelu's. Pazel flinched, remembering how Taliktrum had scraped his knife back and forth behind his ear.

Diadrelu turned to Pazel. "You spoke of our presence aboard the Chathrand," she said severely. Then she continued more gently: "But it was only to pass word that one of our kin lay in chains, and so we pardon you."

"What's she talking about?" cried Neeps, still looking as though he expected to be bitten.

"It's a long story," said Pazel.

"Not so long," said Taliktrum with a shrug. "He gave my aunt his word. He did not keep it. Some of us died as a result, and if the girl spoke as well, before she fled the ship, Rose and his killers may be murdering our whole clan. That's the story."

"Thasha fled the Chathrand?"

"Yes," said Dri. "She slipped away into Ormael, and no one knows her whereabouts. The governor's men are tearing the city apart: her wedding is but five days off. But she did not reveal our presence, as you well know, Taliktrum-not even to her beloved Ramachni, the mage. It was the rat Felthrup who told him."

"They're crazy, right?" Neeps looked desperately at Pazel.

"Diadrelu," said Pazel, "what brings you out here?"

"A conspiracy," she said gravely.

"A merchant," said Taliktrum. "A fat man who sells soap."

"Soap?" said Pazel. "You mean the Opaltine fellow-Ket?"

"That is one name he uses. But come: we have miles to cover before nightfall, and the Volpeks hunt you still."

"What about Druffle? What did you do to him?"

"Something very costly, for us," Dri said. "We pricked him with an arrow soaked in blanй, or foolsdeath. He will soon wake: the arrow bore a minimal dose."

"Why do you carry such a strange poison?"

"That's none of your business," snapped Taliktrum. "The poison saved you from this man's blade-isn't that enough?"

"There is much to discuss," said Diadrelu. "Once we reach higher ground."

The ixchel led them north, flying from branch to branch, returning to rest on the boys' shoulders. Flying clearly was no easy matter for them, for they had landed exhausted, and Pazel wondered how on earth they had journeyed so far from the Chathrand.

But if the ixchel were tired, he and Neeps were wrecks. They slogged along after Dri and Taliktrum in a dumb agony of bruises, cuts and aching limbs. An hour passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees.

Then all at once they were on solid earth. Pazel could hardly believe his eyes. It was a raised road of packed dirt, with two wheel-ruts carved into it and moss growing between them. Left and right it curved away through the Fens.

"By this road we entered the Fens this morning," she said, "with Mr. Ket, and a most suspicious train of wagons. He left Ormael City in the dead of night. We were hidden in a tool chest, and could not observe what he did along the way. But three times the wagons stopped, and we heard the cries of children. When the chance came we snuck out, and saw how the wagon train entered the Fens at a place well hidden with brush and vines. My guess is that this is a smugglers' road. Ket must be far along it by now.

"You are undone," she told the boys. "Rest now; we will keep watch."

The boys made no argument, but flung themselves down. Pazel watched the ixchel fly to a branch some dozen feet above the road, where they began to pace and whisper. Taliktrum pointed at the boys and made gestures of outrage. Dri motioned for calm.

An hour later she was nudging them awake. It was now quite dark, the sun no more than a dull red glow among the trees to the west. The boys rose, groaning and stiff. The ixchel watched them with folded arms.

"Now listen well," said Dri at length. "Since your eviction, foul deeds have been done on the Great Ship. The rat-king, Master Mugstur, has declared Captain Rose a heretic and sworn to kill him. Sandor Ott-disguised as one Commander Nagan-and his lover Syrarys-"

"I knew it!" cried Neeps. "That harpy!"

"— have so weakened Thasha's father that he barely rises from his bed. We don't know what poison she employs, or how. But they will not kill him until after the marriage of Thasha and Prince Falmurqat the Younger. Nothing will be done that might prevent Thasha's wedding."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Pazel.

Diadrelu cast her eyes down. After a moment, she said, "The prisoner, Steldak, has told us a great deal. But we paid a high price for his knowledge."

"My father's death," said Taliktrum. "That was the price. Sniraga the assassin bore him away. And we are lost without him."

"Talag was also my brother," said Dri. "Yes, we are lost. But for his sake we must try not to be. Talag used to say that death was the moment when everything loses value but the truth. I never understood what he meant, but I think I do now. For if we remember something untrue about the dead they are doubly lost to us-in memory as well as fact. Perhaps that is how we ixchel came to the custom of writing letters to the fallen on the night they pass away-letters kept in family archives, to be read by children and grandchildren. But Talag long ago made us promise not to do so-indeed, to serve him no death-rites whatsoever until we reached-"

"Aunt Dri!" shouted Taliktrum, enraged.

Dri blinked, as if starting from a dream. "Reached the end of the struggle he lived for-that is all I meant. But there is more sad news. As we neared Ormael, the bosun Swellows murdered one of your own. You must have known him: a dark-haired tarboy with a stutter."

"Reyast!" both boys cried in anguish. In a flash Pazel recalled the gentle, often bewildered face of their friend, quick to laugh, more often laughed at.

"That monster Swellows!" he hissed. "Why?"

"To grasp that," said Diadrelu, "you must first know the true mission of the Chathrand."

Then, as the boys' flesh crawled with horror, she told them of the visit to the Prison Isle, and the Shaggat Ness, and the use the Emperor planned to make of him.

"The Shaggat's return is foretold by a prophecy," she said, "dreamed up by Sandor Ott himself and spread by spies in Gurishal: He will return, it declares, when a Mzithrin prince takes an Arquali soldier's daughter for a wife."

"Thasha," said Pazel.

"Of course," said Taliktrum. "But the prophecy is little known outside Gurishal. Only when the marriage is sealed, and the news runs like wildfire through their lands, and the Shaggat's worshippers rise, will the Mzithrin Kings realize how they have been fooled. And kill your Thasha Isiq in a heartbeat, naturally."

"Just as Swellows killed Reyast," said Dri. "Smothered him with a sheet, because the boy managed to befriend the augrongs-and one of them showed him what they guard: the hidden cell where the Shaggat is kept."

"Swellows made the sign of the Tree over the murdered boy," said Taliktrum. "And then he jammed a chicken bone into his throat, to make it seem the boy had choked on stolen food."

There was another silence. Pazel blinked away tears. He was cold and terrified, and had never felt so helpless in his life. But he had to act, he had to keep thinking-Thasha would be killed if he stopped.

"Just a moment," he said. "The Shaggat's followers were exiled to Gurishal. That's far in the west. The Sizzies won't let us pass through thousands of miles of their waters to drop him off."

"No indeed," said Diadrelu. "But Chathrand has no intention of going through them. She will go around."

"Around!" cried both boys. "Through the Ruling Sea?"

"Where none can follow her, and none shall suspect," said Dri. "That is why Rose had to be tracked down and made to pilot the Great Ship again. No other captain has braved the Nelluroq and lived."

"What happens if they succeed?" Pazel whispered.

"Civil war in the Mzithrin," said Taliktrum. "And millions dead. Cities burned, legions of soldiers slain on the battlefield or drowned with their fleets. Of course, the Shaggat will die, too-this time the Mzithrin Kings will make sure of it. But it will be a costly extermination. They will have no strength left to stop Arqual from seizing the Crownless Lands. And Magad will seize them-all of them, within a year or two."

"That's, that's… savage!" cried Neeps.

Taliktrum laughed. "But that is nothing. In time, with Arqual grown so mighty and her enemy crippled-don't you see?"

"The Mzithrin? Arqual would attack the Mzithrin itself?"

"Some madmen dream of it," said Diadrelu. "Especially the Rin-fanatics, the ones who want the idols of the Old Faith broken, and their sect destroyed, and the Rinfaith forced on all the world."

"My law is Peace, and my kingdom Brotherhood," recited Taliktrum, sneering. "Therefore dwell in my kingdom and keep my law. Such lovely words, in the mouths of murderers and thieves. Delightful to be a giant, no? The chosen people, the lords of Alifros, squatting on a throne of skulls."

Neeps sat up, glaring. "At least we don't drill holes in ships full of women and children, and drop 'em on the seafloor!"

"You use cannon," said Taliktrum. "Life means nothing to your kind."

"What do you know, you vicious little-"

"Neeps!" cried Pazel.

"What do I know?" said Taliktrum, with a terrible edge to his voice. "Shall I tell you a bit of history, Arquali?"

"No, you shall not!" cried Diadrelu, leaping between them. "And he will not tell you that he would rather be a maggot than a son of Arqual. Fools! While we fight our enemies grow stronger! And they are strong already-stronger than you know, Taliktrum."

Her nephew looked at her, waiting for an explanation. By a sliver of moonlight Pazel saw fear in Diadrelu's eyes.

She took a deep breath. "Thasha does not suspect Sandor Ott. Her father does not suspect Syrarys. But no one suspects the most dangerous man aboard, the man who led us all to this place."

"You're speaking of Ket again, aren't you?" said Pazel.

"Ket is the name he goes by on Chathrand," said Diadrelu, "but in the dark annals of history his name is Arunis."

Taliktrum laughed aloud.

Dri ignored him and went on. "Arunis was the Shaggat's sorcerer. His was ever the diabolical hand behind the Shaggat. Most believe that he himself invented that twisted strain of the Old Faith that justified the God-King's rise. If that madman had defeated the other kings in the last war, the true emperor of the Mzithrin would be Arunis.

"When the Shaggat and his sons were plucked from the sinking Lythra, so was the sorcerer. All four were hidden in Licherog. But Arunis struggled to escape, and once nearly succeeded. It was then that Sandor Ott decided that he was too dangerous to live. Arunis was hanged on the Prison Isle, cursing his captors, the Gods, the universe entire. His body was left nine days on the gibbet, then cut to pieces and tossed into the sea-and yet he lives. Somehow, he lives."

Pazel looked from one ixchel to the other. "This Arunis… is aboard the Chathrand?"

"No," said Taliktrum bluntly.

"Yes," said Dri. "Or he was until she landed yesterday, and he began his journey here. Rose, Ott, Drellarek, Uskins-not one of those villains suspects him. Nor did we ixchel. By great efforts we discovered Ott's plan, and a monstrous discovery it was, like a pit beneath a banquet hall. Yet my heart tells me there is a pit beneath the pit."

"What do you mean?" Pazel asked. "Doesn't Arunis want the same thing as Ott and the Emperor-to start a war?"

"Oh yes," said Diadrelu. "But I think he wants a different ending."

"Arunis the sorcerer, risen from the dead," sneered Taliktrum.

"Or never dead at all," said Diadrelu.

"Diadrelu," said Pazel, "Mr. Ket saved Hercуl's life. If he's such a wicked man, why would he risk his own life for a stranger?"

"We saved Hercуl together," said Diadrelu with a sigh. "The arrow that made the cutthroat stumble was mine. Mr. Ket appeared moments later, and fought the man quite viciously-too viciously for a well-fed merchant. But I have asked myself the same question a hundred times since that night. Does Arunis need Hercуl alive for some reason? Could they possibly be allies?"

"Absolutely not!" said Pazel. "Hercуl loves Thasha like a younger sister. And he's a good man, damn it-you can just tell."

"No," said Diadrelu, "you cannot. I hope you never learn that the hard way, Mr. Pathkendle. Still, I'm inclined to agree with you about Hercуl. Otherwise I should not have tried so hard to save him."

"Tried unwisely," said Taliktrum, "and failed ultimately. The valet is surely dead."

"He is a Tholjassan warrior," said Diadrelu, "and such men are hard to kill."

"Suppose you're right about Ket," said Neeps. "If he is a sorcerer, what's this shipwreck-raid all about? What's he trying to find?"

Diadrelu shook her head. "I thought I knew. I feared he sought the Nilstone. For once I am most glad to have been wrong, if wrong I am, for that cursed rock might indeed bring doom to this world in the hands of the Shaggat. But these men speak only of finding gold in that wreck-gold, silver and a certain iron wolf, red in color, with a forepaw raised. They are very keen on that wolf."

"A red wolf!" said Pazel. "The man in Thasha's garden said something about a red wolf, just before he was killed. Hercуl said it was connected with great evil. And it vanished-Neeps! That's it! It vanished at the end of the last war!"

"If you really believe this nonsense," Taliktrum demanded, "why did you say nothing to my father-to any of the clan?"

"I wanted proof," Diadrelu said. "And I thought it would only be found when Arunis left the ship behind awhile, along with his disguise."

"What disguise?" roared Taliktrum. "He is a greedy merchant, not a mage! He is plundering a wreck, not making war on Alifros!"

"None will be happier than I should that be so."

"That mad wagon-ride from Ormael," said Taliktrum, his voice rising. "Daylight use of the swallow-suits, one of which you have destroyed, the pointless rescue of beggar boys-"

"Well!" said Pazel and Neeps together.

Taliktrum pointed furiously at Diadrelu. "I revered you once, Aunt. You were never my father's equal, but I admit I thought you wise. But when we return I shall ask the clan to consider your fitness to lead."

"That is your right," said Diadrelu quietly, but anger crackled behind her calm.

"You did not tell me," Taliktrum went on, "because you knew I would oppose this ludicrous excursion, and without my vote-"

"Be quiet!" said Neeps.

"Dog!" exploded Taliktrum, drawing his sword. "How dare you interfere!"

"I see torches! Quiet, fool, they'll hear you!"

Swift as mice, the ixchel scaled the boys' bodies. It was true: someone was on the Fens road, coming their way. "Off the road, off!" whispered Dri from Pazel's shoulder. "And be silent, if you value your lives!"

The boys crept back into the swamp. It was hard to be silent in that darkness of logs and vines and mudholes, but somehow they managed it. After thirty feet Dri pointed to a thicket of sedge, and there they crouched and looked back.

A horse's neigh was the first sign, and then the creak of wooden wheels.

"It is he," said Diadrelu.

There were four wagons, each pulled by a pair of sturdy mules. The men driving them were Volpeks-even from this distance Pazel could see their short beards and iron armbands. There were dozens of them, marching on either side of the wagons. Some carried spears, like Druffle's men; others bore war-hammers or cruel axes. Huge and grim as they were, they moved uneasily, casting nervous glances at the Fens.

But the light did not come from torches. Pazel felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp: floating and bobbing before the wagons flew three blue-green orbs, like pale lanterns held by ghostly hands. Other lights of the same sort glided above the wagons themselves. All appeared to have minds of their own.

The ixchel leaped from the boys' shoulders to a low-hanging limb. "Those are bog-lamps," said Dri softly. "Trickster spirits that dwell in fens and salt marshes. They lure men to their graves in quicksand and feed on their dying souls. I did not know they could be tamed."

By the eerie light, Pazel saw that the first two wagons were heaped with work materials: rope, pulleys, saws, iron hooks. The next looked like a wooden cage on wheels, of the sort used for taking prisoners to jail. To his horror Pazel saw that it was full of young people-boys' faces, and even some girls', were peering out at the night. They looked both frightened and resigned, as if after so many shocks they lacked the strength to worry about what would come next.

The third wagon, finer than the rest, was enclosed by a hooped canopy. Pazel could see nothing of its contents except a little white dog that ran in and out of the canopy, its corkscrew tail wagging-the one eager member of the party. The final wagon was jammed with canvas sacks and other bundles.

Now and then a sharp rasping noise came from the third wagon. It reminded Pazel of a man trying to clear his throat.

"Blast me," whispered Neeps. "I've seen that dog before!"

There was no danger of being seen themselves, hunkered down in the bush. Still the boys held their breath as the strange procession passed. Some of the men carried heavy crossbows. None of them said a word.

Then the lead wagon stopped. The bog-lamps buzzed in circles, then whirled forward, and Pazel saw a good-sized tree lying across the road.

"Strange!" whispered Diadrelu. "Arunis' men have been passing this way for days. That tree must have fallen within the last hour or two."

Still wordless, the Volpeks climbed down and began trying to tug and hack at the tree, now and then glancing back fearfully at the covered wagon. Then the ixchel gave a sharp hiss of surprise.

"What is it?" Pazel whispered.

"Can you see nothing?" said Taliktrum. "Someone is in the last wagon, under the wares."

The final wagon stood momentarily abandoned, its drivers having joined the struggle with the tree. But then Pazel saw it: a figure squirming beneath the piled sacks. A slim arm worked its way free, and then the figure raised its head and looked around, bewildered.

"Thasha!" cried Pazel.

Incredibly, it was her: he would recognize that golden hair and defiant look anywhere. He felt suddenly lighter, stronger-and then appalled by the sheer madness of what he was seeing.

"The idiot!" he said. "What in Rin's name is she up to? Where is she going?"

"To her own death, if she is discovered," said Diadrelu. "Arunis will show no mercy."

"Folly!" spat Taliktrum. "Why do we waste our time with these children?"

At that moment Pazel leaped up and dashed toward the wagon. "Pazel, no!" hissed Neeps, but he paid no attention, lurching through mud and marshwater, until at last he reached the hard surface of the road.

Except for pale moonlight the wagon sat in darkness: the bog-lamps were at the other end of the train, hovering about the Volpeks as they worked. No one looked back along the road.

If he was stunned to see Thasha, she looked ready to faint when he emerged from the Fens. Disbelief and joy and fear mingled in her eyes. "P-Pazel? How-"

"Keep your head down!" he begged, tugging a loose sack over her golden curls. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you?"

"Get out of that wagon!" he said. "Climb down, hurry!"

Thasha shook her head firmly. "No."

"You blary fool!" he hissed, tugging at her arm. "You're in terrible danger! Climb down!"

Still Thasha refused. "Neeps was right. You're in danger when you're with me. And this is my last chance to get away."

"But why are you with him?"

"Hitching a ride, isn't it obvious? As we came into Ormael I heard Ket tell Latzlo the animal-seller that he was leaving the Chathrand and heading north-'to collect something very special that was left for me there.? I didn't know what he meant, and I still don't. I just knew he could get me out of the city. But he didn't go directly; first he went to a poor part of Ormael and met this wagon team. I chased 'em on foot until dark, then climbed in. Ket himself is under that canopy. Only he's not just a soap man, he's-Neeps!"

For Neeps had appeared beside them, looking mortified. "Have you both lost your minds?" he said. "They're almost finished with that blary tree!"

The boys begged, and even tried to pull her bodily from the wagon. But she shook them off.

"I tried to fight them aboard, to build a counter-conspiracy like Ramachni wanted. But they're too vicious. They killed Hercуl."

"We don't know if… I mean, I went to the morgue-" Pazel tried to break in.

"They sold you to the Flikkers. And then poor Reyast. He came and told me he was your friend-and I put him to work looking for the Shaggat. No more! Ket keeps talking about a ship. I'll stow away, ride it as far as I can, then find another-"

"It's not a ship," said Pazel. "It's a shipwreck. And I blary well know he's more than a soap man! He's the evil sorcerer Ramachni was looking for, and you can bet your eyeballs he's not done with the Chathrand. Diadrelu's with us, and she thinks his name is Arunis-"

The moment the name left his lips, disaster struck. The little dog two wagons ahead launched itself into the air with a berserk howl. It landed running and reached them in a matter of seconds, biting and snapping at their heels. The bog-lamps whipped about and screamed toward them. Pazel just had time to shove Thasha under the tarp before they arrived, circling the boys like wasps, blinding them, singeing their arms with cold fire.

The sorcerer did not leave his wagon. Only his voice emerged.

"How did they escape?"

The voice was silk-smooth, and somehow all the more chilling for its gentleness. The men aiming crossbows at Pazel and Neeps glanced at each other in distress.

Finally, one said: "There's a loose slat in the roof of the pigpen, sir. But I never dreamed it was possible to escape that way! The little one's cut his shoulder. He must have squeezed through-somehow-and then pried the slat open wider for his friend."

"Nail it fast."

"Oppo, sir."

"And inform them all: henceforth you shoot to kill."

The mage cleared his throat, violently. The boys could see nothing but the glow of his pipe, which came and went under the dark canopy. Then they heard a soft chuckle.

"You wanted a little food to see you back to Ormael, eh?"

Pazel and Neeps shot each other a furtive look. They nodded.

"Idiots," said the voice. "You would not have survived the night. There are creatures in the Fens that thirst for living souls and gulp them down like wine. Stray but a little in the dark, and they have you. How lucky you are that my little dog heard your whispers. Oh, he is not a woken dog-not yet. But he is clever. He knows I do not like just anyone speaking my name. And he has very sharp ears."

The glowing pipe made a swift motion. "Get them back in the pigpen."

He didn't recognize us, Pazel thought, and then: Of course! We're caked with mud!

The door of the "pigpen" was opened and the two boys hurled inside, where the other youths backed away in fear-they at least knew quite well that Pazel and Neeps had not come from among them. A moment later the wagons began to roll.

By the light of the bog-lamps (which went on pestering them) Pazel saw some two dozen filthy, frightened captives. He and Neeps tried befriending them, asking their names, where they came from, if the Flikkermen had caught them, too. But for nearly an hour not one replied to their questions.

Finally, a girl with bright round eyes asked, "Are you ghosts?"

Then Pazel understood: this was the Haunted Coast, after all, and he and Neeps had seemingly appeared from nowhere. "Of course we're not ghosts!" he said. "I'm an Ormali, f'Rin's sake! Arun-Ah, that man, what do you call him?"

"The Customer," said a small frightened boy.

"The Devil," said the girl.

"Well, the man who bought us from the Flikkers works for him, too," said Pazel. "We gave him the slip. If he ever catches up we'll be in trouble all over again."

Eventually the others had to concede that Pazel and Neeps were human. Then everyone began to whisper at once. The prisoners were from Ormael and Йtrej, and nearly half, including all the girls, came from a distant Tholjassan town famous for its sponge-divers.

"But shipwrecks are different," they said. "What do we know about wreck diving? And this is the Haunted Coast."

Pazel leaned forward and whispered, "What are we looking for?"

Twenty voices replied in unison: "The Red Wolf!"

On this matter Arunis had already addressed them. Many treasures might be found on the Lythra, and he would take them. But he didn't care about anything so much as a red iron statue of a wolf with its left forepaw raised. They were to seek this artifact above all things. No one would go home until it was found.

Pazel and Neeps were fools, it was agreed, to get themselves caught over a few wormy biscuits.

"We weren't after biscuits," said Neeps. "But I'm a fool anyway. Ket bought that dog off a bloke at Tressek Tarn. I watched him bring it aboard. If only I'd remembered!"

"What does he mean, not woken yet?" asked the girl. "Can sorcerers wake up an animal, just like that?"

"No," said Pazel firmly. "My mother used to talk about woken creatures. She said they were a great mystery. No one could force a waking, she said, and no one knew why the number of woken animals was increasing."

"And my mother talked about four-legged ducks," put in someone.

"Hush, you!" growled Neeps. "My mate's the son of a mighty conjurer. If she says it can't be done, it can't, even by a mage who's returned from the-"

"Neeps!" Pazel hissed, grabbing his arm. The others were frightened enough.

A silence. The girl trained her unreadable eyes on Pazel.

"Too bad your mother's not here," she said.

All through the night the wagons rolled. Fallen trees blocked the road several times again, making the Volpeks grumble and peer nervously into the Fens. Dazzled by the eerie lights, Pazel could see almost nothing of the Fens, but strange cries of birds and animals echoed in their depths, and often the horses started and pranced with fear. He wondered where the ixchel were now.

It was nearly impossible to sleep, for there was nowhere to lie down except on top of someone else. Still Pazel must have dozed off, and this time he dreamed of thirst-terrible thirst-as he dragged himself out of an unspeakably violent ocean upon a beach of black sand. Thasha crawled beside him, half drowned. Far along the beach huge creatures like woolly elephants were wading placidly toward them, heedless of the breakers that shattered on their flanks, and he wondered if the beasts would offer help when they arrived, or merely grind them into the sand…

The wagon bounced to a halt. Pazel opened his eyes. A pale dawn was beginning, and he really could hear waves. The trees had shrunk to bushes, separated by wastes of sand. Timid now, the bog-lamps hugged the wagons, as if the salt-laced breeze might blow them away.

"Stuck again!" someone was saying. "A night full of spooks and specters, and a downed tree every mile, and now these blary sinkholes! Are we cursed?"

The lead wagon had indeed fallen into a hole-a wet cavity in the sand nearly six feet deep and apparently hidden from view. Neeps and Pazel exchanged a look. This was no accident. Someone was trying to slow them down.

Arunis gave a sharp hiss. The bog-lamps, like hounds unleashed, darted back into the shadows of the Fens.

"Take the divers ahead on foot," he said. "But first let them eat a little."

Pazel gripped the bars of the wagon. Two Volpeks were moving toward the food sacks in Thasha's wagon. Run! he wanted to shout-but then he recalled Arunis' warning: the men would shoot to kill. It was too late, they would find her. And "Mr. Ket" could hardly fail to recognize the Mzithrin Bride-to-Be.

The men unlaced the tarp and threw it back. There was no one in the wagon. Pazel and Neeps sat back with a sigh. Thasha at least was no fool. She had slipped away in the night.

The wagon was opened, the prisoners ordered out. Biscuits were placed in their hands, and a waterskin carried from prisoner to prisoner. It was foul water, but Pazel's thirst had been more than a dream: he felt instantly better when he drank.

A quarter mile beyond the stream the brush ended in a wall of dunes. The sound of waves was quite close now. The path wriggled up the dunes through stands of yellow sea oats, and Pazel could see by a gouge in the sand that something had been dragged seaward here not long ago: something wide, smooth and massive.

The day promised to be hot. Up the dune they slogged, among the popping of sand-crickets the same bright yellow as the wild oats. Then down the far slope, and up and down again, and now the sand began to burn their feet a bit.

Neeps looked back over his shoulder. "Where do you suppose our little friends are now?" he asked softly.

"Who knows?" said Pazel. "But they'll be back. They came all this way to learn what Arunis is up to, and they won't quit now. Thasha's the one I'm worried about. She can't pass for a sponge-diver girl with three feet of golden hair."

"Maybe she's just heading north, away from Simja and her blood-drinking prince."

Pazel shook his head. "I wish she would. But she'll never leave us in such a fix."

They were nearing the top of the highest dune yet. Pazel saw that the boys ahead of them were holding still, gazing wordlessly at something below. He scrambled up the last few yards, and stopped dead himself. There at his feet lay the Haunted Coast.

He had never seen anything like it: a pale beach two miles wide, stretching south to Cape Cуristel, north as far as the eye could see, and broken everywhere by dark tooth-like rocks, some no larger than carts, others tall as castles and snagged with mist. There were long, finger-like islands thick with brush, and pale sandbars winking above the foam, and a great oblong area of darkness beneath the water like a sunken forest. The patches of mist were low and extremely dense, cotton wool sliding among the rocks. Yet between them the air was clear, the sun brilliant: Pazel could see for miles. And all along that terrible coast lay shipwrecks.

They lay on dry sand, and in the breakers, and in the deeper sea. The closest was a mere skeleton, eighty feet long or so, its encrusted ribs combing each wave like a woman's hair. Farther out, an ancient merchantman lay wedged between rocks, her hull burst open at the waist by the endlessly pounding surf. Black hulks like stranded whales littered the beach in the distance. Leagues from shore, old masts tilted like gravestones.

But not every ship was a wreck. Close to shore a broad, clumsy two-master stood at anchor, very much alive. Men were busy on her deck-more Volpeks, to judge by their size. Some four miles out stood a much larger ship, a mighty brig, her double row of guns on full display.

Between these, in the center of the dark patch of water, stood the oddest vessel of all. It was something like a river barge: flat, squared off, free of guns or rigging. She was crowded with men and surrounded by smaller craft.

Mounted at one end of her deck was a massive cargo crane. And dangling from a chain beneath it, directly over the main hatch, was a gigantic brass ball. In the midday sun it dazzled their eyes. The sphere looked to be twelve or fourteen feet in diameter, and impossibly heavy. A row of porthole-like windows ran around its midline.

But there was more to the scene. At the other end of the barge from the crane, a sturdy scaffolding of iron rose from the deck. Attached to this little tower was a pair of ropes that ran taut above the waves all the way to the mainmast of the cargo ship, and from the latter right over the breaking surf to a great rock outcropping on the beach, where they entered some sort of pulley apparatus. Wagons, tents and horses clustered at the foot of the rock. Two men with telescopes kept watch at its summit.

A whisper passed among the youths. Bathysphere. That was what the brass ball was called; someone had heard of such things. But no one knew what they were for.

Lying still in the sea oats at the crest of a dune, Thasha watched the Volpeks march their prisoners onto the beach. She was seething with frustration. Escaping from the wagon had been easy. Tagging along in darkness had been far worse: the Fens mist shaped itself into wraiths that groped at her, trying to drag her from the road. She had fought them with her bare hands and with a Lorg Academy chant ("My heart is sunlit, my soul is the Tree, my dance is forever: I fear not thee!"). If she attacked them head-on they dispersed like smoke. But they always came back, and their touch was deadly cold: it turned the sweat in her hair to beads of ice. Thasha knew she could not face a whole night of them alone.

Nor could she take on fifty Volpeks and a sorcerer. And now the tarboys were crossing the wide-open sand. If Thasha followed she would be seen in an instant.

There were even more fighting men at the camp by the shore. And nowhere to turn for help. As far as she could see in any direction it was the same. Dunes, fens, rocks, ruined ships. They were in the heart of a wilderness, and she still didn't know why.

She slid down the back side of the dune. Every time Pazel got near her something terrible happened to him. Blast those tarboys anyway! I ran off to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

As she lay there, raging, a flicker of movement caught her eye. She looked left-and froze in astonishment. Men were crossing the dunes. They moved in single file, crouched low, appearing to her sight for just an instant through a gap between two higher dunes. They wore black leggings and short black tabithet cloaks, and carried long swords strapped to their backs. Thasha caught her breath. She had never seen such men-and yet she had, a hundred times. They were the soldiers in countless "victory paintings" in the military households of Etherhorde. The dead soldiers. Mzithrinis.

It took just seconds for the figures to pass. Thasha scrambled headlong up the side of a dune to where it looked as if she might catch sight of them again-but when she reached the top she saw only a few snapped sea oats and dimples in the sand. She threw herself down the dune's far side and clawed up the next. There they were. Five men lying flat below her, raising their heads just enough to study the Volpeks and their prisoners. She could see their neck tattoos-a small symbol for their kingdom, a calligraphic letter for their tribe.

What were they doing here? How had they come? Surely they wouldn't dare to attack so many Volpeks?

If I could just talk to them. And suddenly she thought what a fool she had been, what an unforgivable fool, not to learn Mzithrini when she had the chance.

Yet she had learned a little, despite herself. She could still hear Pazel's exasperated voice, reciting: I enjoy, you enjoyed, we would have enjoyed.

Oh, Pazel.

She squirmed backward down the dune until she was out of sight. Then she rolled over-and found herself inches from a sword-tip.

A Mzithrini stood over her, sword in one hand and knife in another. He was gaping at her blond hair. Above the black dabs of kohl on his cheekbones his eyes were wide.

He spat out a word-nothing she was meant to answer, she thought. Then he flicked his knife sharply: Get up. Thasha stood. The man whistled softly, and in seconds a pair of his comrades stood beside him. All three stared at her wordlessly. Then they began to talk. She heard "Arquali girl" and a few other familiar words, but she could not piece them together into any sort of meaning. She tried gestures, pointing toward the shore and shaking her head: I'm not with them. The men paid no attention.

At last the one who had found her sheathed his sword-but not his knife-stepped forward, and took her roughly by the arm.

To a thojmйlй-trained fighter like Thasha, his moves (sheathed weapon, casual grab) told her all she needed to know. He expected nothing from her but weakness and fear. She let him pull her a few steps. Then she whimpered, planted her feet. She gave a little tug of protest, blinking as if on the point of tears.

The other two men had not moved. The one who held her scowled and released her briefly-long enough to strike her backhanded across the face. Thasha cringed, penitent, and followed him weeping down the rest of the dune.

She could taste her own forced tears. No, that was her blood. Wrong! Hercуl would have shouted. That is distraction! What matters now, girl? Her foe's impatience. The slide of his feet. The way he fingered the knife.

When a good twenty feet separated them from the men above, she blundered into him as if by accident. She floundered and cried out-still the frightened little girl. The man turned, perhaps to hit her again, but in that instant Thasha leaned back into an elbow-thrust that snapped his head sideways with the force of a wooden club.

He was enough of a fighter to stab at her even in his shock, but not enough of one to land the blow. Her right hand caught his wrist; her right knee drove up into his now-exposed belly, and as his own knees buckled her left fist smashed down against his jaw. Then she snatched the knife from his hand.

He could not even gasp. His eyes rolled, astonished. Before he fell she had the sword off his back and turned to face the others, her mouth blood-smeared and furious, a blade raised in challenge in each hand.