The River of Shadows

In the Jaws of Masalym

24 Ilbrin 941

Hunger, thirst, loss of blood: such was Dr. Rain’s diagnosis. Fortunately the bleeding proved easy to control; the prince’s wounds were ugly but not deep. A cabin was readied with lightning speed, the bed salvaged from the ample store of first-class wreckage, a new mattress stitched and stuffed, a coal stove mounted on the floor and its chimney pipe routed out through the porthole. “I’m not cold,” the prince mumbled, waking briefly, but Rose took no more chances. He brought his own feather pillows for the invalid, and plumped them as the prince was carried in. Thasha watched his efforts with grim amusement. The captain didn’t mean to be executed at their first port of call.

But was the man truly who he claimed? The other two dlomu certainly thought so. Ibjen said he knew the prince’s face from coins, and even Bolutu declared that he recognized the features of the ruling family.

Olik did wake again, heavy-lidded and weak, but only long enough to seize the captain’s arm and speak a warning. “Hug the shore, as tightly as you dare. That will keep you out of the rip tide. And you must also manufacture a flag in great haste-a leopard leaping a red sun, both on black-or the Masalym cliff batteries will rain down enough iron to sink this ship by weight alone.”

“That is your banner… Sire?” asked Rose.

Olik nodded wearily. “And when you pass safe under those guns, perhaps you will consider yourself repaid for the Karyskans’ assault. Go to Masalym, Captain. Only there can you safely repair your ship. Now, I think-”

He plummeted again into sleep. This time it was profound, and Rose ordered the cabin off-limits to all save Fulbreech and Rain.

About the time of the prince’s collapse a great smoke began to rise in the south. It spread quickly (or they were swept quickly toward it), low and black and boiling over land and water. Beneath the lid of smoke the dark hulks, the weird shimmer of the armada came and went, licked now and then by flashes of fire. Thasha aimed her father’s telescope at the melee. It was still too distant-fortunately-for her to make out individual ships, but even blurred and indistinct the scene was terrifying. Wood and stone, steel and serpent-flesh, water and city and ships: they were all in collision, blending and bleeding together in a haze of fire. Nandirag: that was what Prince Olik had called the city. What would it be called after today, and who would be left to name it?

By nightfall the Chathrand had drawn within a league of the shore. From this distance one could see the effects of the rip tide with the naked eye: a powerful leeway, a slippage, as though the ship were a man walking across a rug while a dozen hands pulled it sideways. How far did it carry us? wondered Thasha, studying the shore through her father’s telescope. How long before it sweeps us right into the fray?

Nearer to the Chathrand, the coast was a line of high, rocky hills, silver-gray and crevassed like the hide of an elephant, crowned with shaggy meadowlands. In the last minutes of daylight Thasha saw dark boulders and sharp solitary trees, a wall of fieldstones that might have marked some pasture’s edge, and here and there an immense clinging vine dangling garlands of fire-red flowers over the sea. Among the flowers, winged creatures, tiny birds or great insects or something else altogether, rose and settled in clouds.

Darkness was falling when they cleared the rip tide. It was unmistakable: a line of churning water and disordered waves, a sudden heaving swell to starboard, a rise in the apparent wind. A scramble ensued: Rose actually spread sail, driving them another half-league shoreward in a matter of minutes. Then he brought the ship about to the north and ordered nearly all the canvas taken in. Until dawn they would creep northward, following a narrow, safe path between the current and the cliffs.

Thasha watched the ship wheel northward and felt a chill. It was happening. They were doing exactly what they had said they must never do: taking the Nilstone straight to evil hands. Was there any doubt that Masalym was evil? It was a part of Bali Adro, the Empire that was even now destroying the city at their backs, that Nandirag. But was there any other choice? The ship was sinking. Without repairs she could neither run nor fight well enough to keep the Nilstone safe much longer. And there was the small matter of food.

Neeps and Marila had gone to sleep on the floor of the brig, next to Pazel’s cell. Thasha wanted to go to them, ached to do so, could not. She went to Fulbreech and kissed him long and deep, her arms over his shoulders, her back against the doorway of his cabinette. His hands gripping her hips, two fingers grazing her skin beneath the shirt. He tried to coax her into his chamber but she shook her head, breathless and shivering; it was not yet time. She left him, ran blind across the lower gun deck, pounded up the Silver Stair and through the magic wall. She flung open Hercol’s cabin door and flew at him and struck him with both fists in the chest. Hercol kicked the door shut. In the room adjacent Bolutu heard her curses and her sobs, and the warrior’s answering voice, low and intimate and stern.

Sergeant Haddismal tossed and turned in his cabin. When he managed to sleep, the same object rose persistently in his dreams. An arm, pulsating, yellow-gray, somehow both dead and alive, groping through the ship on a mission of its own.

It was the Shaggat’s arm, and his dream was hardly stranger than the reality that had prompted it. He had inspected the Shaggat that very evening: first with his naked eye, then with a tape measure. Impossibly, the cracks that were threatening the statue had stopped growing, and even-very slightly, but unmistakably, for Haddismal was a meticulous record keeper-shortened. The mad king was not just alive inside his stone curse. He was healing.

Many others shared the Turach’s restlessness. All night Lady Oggosk sat awake in the forecastle house, irritating the other prisoners, mumbling Thasha’s name. All night Rose paced the quarterdeck, listening to his ship, pretending not to heed the taunts and whispers of the ghosts who walked at his side. All night the chain-pumps clattered, and the men sang songs from the far side of Alifros, pouring out the sea as it poured in through the ship’s hidden wound.

The cliffs were higher at daybreak, the vegetation atop them more lush and green. Now Rose took the prince’s advice and brought them closer, barely a mile off the rocks. There were grazing animals (not quite goats, not quite sheep) upon a windy hillside, and a dlomic herdsman with two dogs that sprinted in circles around the beasts. When he saw the Chathrand the dlomu goaded his animals into a run. They swept over the hill and disappeared.

The day was bright, the water clear to eight fathoms. Nonetheless it was tricky sailing, for the winds were erratic, and for all Rose’s fury his men were clumsy and slow. They were weakening with hunger, distracted by fear. Rumors passed like foul vapors through the ship: the ixchel were planning executions. Dlomic attackers were still at large in the hold. Arunis was stalking the topdeck by moonlight. Pazel and his friends were fighting because one of them had gone over to the sorcerer’s side.

Late morning they came suddenly upon a tiny cove, high-walled and round as a saucer. The remains of a few stone buildings crouched just above the waves, roofless and forlorn. And there were stairs-long, steep flights of them carved into the rock, beginning at the ruins and snaking back and forth up a cleft in the wall. Five hundred feet overhead they reached the sunny clifftops. There the sailors saw with delight the shapes of fruit trees-three fruit trees, their branches laden with bright yellow globes.

“Apples!” declared someone, starting excited chatter.

“I wonder,” said Hercol.

Thasha glanced briefly at her tutor. He was right to be doubtful, she thought. Hercol was always right; you could almost hate him for the trait. But Thasha quickly rejected the thought, and flushed with shame.

Bolutu appeared on deck and warned aloud that there were many fruits in Bali Adro, some fit only for wild creatures. But the men were not listening. They had found an orchard, and the trees were groaning with apples. Their days of hunger were at an end.

Rose summoned his officers to his day-cabin. Taliktrum, uninvited, joined the conference. The sailors paced, beside themselves, devouring the shore with their eyes. But they did not have long to wait. Ten minutes later the door flew open and the captain strode out among the waiting men. There was a bottle in his hand: fine Quezan rum.

“We will launch the short pinnace,” he said. Then, shouting above their cheers: “Not for apples-they are secondary, and we may even forgo them, should danger arise. What we seek above all is tactical information. We need a glance at this country before we sail into an unknown harbor on the word of a stowaway, and-”

“We must be very fast,” Taliktrum broke in. “Who knows how many eyes are watching us from the clifftops, even now?”

The sailors were gasping: no one interrupted the Red Beast. Rose himself looked tempted to smack Taliktrum into the sea. But breathing hard, he continued:

“I need someone who can take those stairs at a run. The apple-pickers will follow at our signal, if that man finds no danger. His will be the first foot to touch the Southern mainland, and there is great honor in such a deed. Tell me now: who is strong, who is bold? Who wants to make history today?”

Many hands went up, including Thasha’s and Hercol’s, but the captain chose a tall Emledrian sailor named Hastan. Thasha smiled at the choice. She liked Hastan, a quiet topman who was usually too abashed to speak in her presence, but who had danced with her on the topdeck when Mr. Druffle played his fiddle.

Rose passed him the bottle of rum. “Drink deep!” he said. “That’ll give you strength and courage both.”

Hastan took a giddy swallow, smacked his lips. “You’re a gentleman, Captain.”

Rose took the bottle back, glaring at him: “Chew the apples thoroughly. Don’t let me see you gulping food like a hog.”

Minutes later the boat was in the water, with six rowers, two ixchel observers (“I trust our eyes more than theirs,” said Taliktrum) and baskets large as the sailors’ hopes. Every eye followed her progress, her glide into the sheltered cove, Hastan’s leap into the surf and wallow up the shingle, his running assault on the stairs. Rose had chosen well: Hastan was as nimble as a mountain goat. He had climbed a hundred feet before the others had the pinnace out of the waves.

The five basket-carriers huddled near the ruins, awaiting Chathrand’s signal that it was safe to climb. The men with telescopes watched Hastan, still running as he neared the top. Only on the last flight did he pause for breath. Then he marched up the last steps and moved in among the trees.

There he stood, leaning against a trunk, gazing at an unknown world. He was motionless for a surprising time. When at last he turned to look at the Chathrand his face was full of wonder. Slowly he waved his raised palm to the sky: the all-clear signal. Then he picked an apple, sniffed it and took a bite.

Breathless anticipation: Hastan chewed, considered, swallowed. Then he tossed the apple in the air, caught it and set about devouring it with a will. The men on the topdeck roared.

“Quiet, you silly apes!” hissed Fiffengurt, though he was as happy as the rest. The signalman waved his flag, and the basket carriers started to climb.

Hastan finished the apple and tossed away the core. “Glutton,” said Rose.

The men reached the summit and set about stripping the trees. They worked quickly, and soon had taken all the fruit in easy reach. But there were eight hundred men awaiting apples, so one by one they moved away from the cliff’s edge, seeking more. Thasha watched them go through her telescope, thinking, Perhaps it is an orchard, at that.

But the men did not return. Five minutes passed, then ten. “Damn the fools!” cried Taliktrum. “They’re gorging themselves like brats in a sweet shop! You giants can’t be trusted with the simplest task!”

Twenty minutes. Not a branch stirred on the clifftop. The men looked at one another with growing alarm. Then Thasha saw Hercol do a startling thing: he touched Rose’s elbow, drew the captain back from the rail and whispered in his ear.

At first Rose showed no reaction to Hercol’s words. Then he shook the warrior off, walked to the quarterdeck rail and leaned over his crew. “No shouts, no cheering,” he said in a low and scathing rumble. “Haddismal, ready your Turachs. Alyash, I want a hundred sailors backing them up. Blades, helmets, shields-empty the armory if need be. Fiffengurt, clear the eighty-footers for immediate launch. We are going to get our men.”

Instantly the crowd splintered, every man racing to his job. Eager, approving looks passed among them: they were afraid, but waiting helplessly was worse. An assault! Whoever had seized their shipmates had no idea what they were in for.

“Rose is guilty of a million sins,” said Fiffengurt softly to Thasha, “but leaving crew behind ain’t among them.”

The hands swarmed around the longboat and the eighty-foot launch, freeing them to be hoisted into the gulf. Turachs were assembling, strapping on breastplates and chain collars, feeling their longbows for cracks. They worked in an eerie hush, as Rose had ordered-until the lookout’s cry shattered everything.

“Sail! Three ships from the armada, Captain! Breaking our way!”

Rose’s telescope snapped up to portside. Thasha raised her own and swept the coast. It was true: three frightful vessels had broken away from the warring mass. All three belched fire, and shimmered in that strange, unsettling way. And their bows were clearly aimed at the Chathrand.

“Captain,” she said, “how fast do you think-”

But the captain was already twenty feet up the mizzenmast. Thasha had seen before how Rose handled himself aloft. He moved like a younger man, confidence and fury making up for stiffness and girth. In minutes he had reached the topgallant lookout, snatched the man’s bigger telescope and raised it to his eye.

The whole ship was still. Even Taliktrum waited in silence, watching the captain. Rose moved the telescope from the approaching ships to the deserted clifftop and back again. Then he turned his face away and roared-a wordless howl of sheer frustration that echoed all along the coast. He looked down at the quarterdeck. “Abort!” he bellowed. “Hard about to starboard! Fiffengurt, get your men to the sheets!”

They were running away. Thasha closed her eyes, fighting the tears that came so suddenly. Tears for Hastan and the others, men who had sailed the ship for her, danced with her, men she hardly knew. And two ixchel. She hoped they’d all tasted the apples. She hoped the fruit was sweet.

Once more the Chathrand was fleeing for her life. Some of the men looked daggers at Rose behind his back-so much for loyalty to crew-but it was soon apparent that he had made the right, indeed the only, choice. The things pursuing them (ships, of course, but what kind, and why did the air quake above their decks?) were still distant, but already the gap was shortening. When the Chathrand put out topgallants and began her run, the three at once changed course. There could be no doubt: they meant to intercept the Great Ship.

And they were very fast. It was still impossible to say just how large they were, or what sort of weapons lay hidden in their dark, armored hulls. But one thing was perfectly clear: if nothing changed, they would catch the Chathrand in a matter of hours.

Rose tried to wake Prince Olik, but the dlomu only moaned and shivered.

“Toss him out in a lifeboat, Captain,” said Alyash. “You’ll soon learn if it’s him they’re after.”

“Don’t be an animal, Bosun!” said Fiffengurt. “He could capsize and drown in his sleep.”

“Or be picked up and tortured, or killed,” said Thasha. She gave Alyash a look of loathing. “How can you speak of such a thing?”

“Because it may have to be done,” said Rose. “Not yet, however. He’s a card up our sleeve-a royal card, for that matter. I’ll not toss him away until we’re dealt a better hand.”

How noble. Thasha glanced sidelong at Rose. Just when I was starting to think you might be human. But then with a flash of bitterness she reflected that she was no different: she kept who she needed, discarded the rest. Don’t think that way. You have a man now, and his name is Greysan Fulbreech.

When Thasha returned to the stateroom she caught Marila in her private cabin, going through the contents of her sea chest. Books, blouses, shirts, underthings lay about her in heaps. The Tholjassan girl was so flustered she let the lid of the chest fall on her thumb.

“Buchad!” she swore, jerking her hand away. Then, glaring at Thasha, she said, “Fine, I’m snooping. You’ve given me plenty of reason to, after all.”

“What are you looking for?” asked Thasha, her voice flat and cold.

“Some sign that you haven’t gone completely mad. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to him?”

“To Greysan?” Thasha asked, startled.

Marila looked as though she couldn’t believe her ears. “I was talking about Pazel. Remember Pazel, our friend? The one who’s got another twenty-four hours in the brig?”

“He put himself there,” said Thasha. “Greysan tried to make peace with him and got a black eye for his trouble.” She looked at a leather folder in Marila’s lap, from which trailed the edges of many crumpled papers. “That’s my blary letter satchel,” she said. “How dare you.”

The satchel contained the few letters she cherished-from her father, a few favorite aunts and uncles, and one particularly dear one from Hercol. It was still tied shut, but Marila’s intentions were plain. Controlling herself with effort, Thasha rounded her bed and held out her hand. “You had better leave,” she said.

Marila surrendered the letters. She trained her unreadable eyes on Thasha. “Listen to me,” she said. “I know Pazel’s been daft around Fulbreech, but you haven’t shown any sense at all. He could be anybody, Thasha. And he’s strange. I heard you talking last night.”

“Oh, you heard me, did you?” Thasha raised her voice.

“I couldn’t help it, you were ten feet away. Thasha, he was asking you about your Polylex, wasn’t he? How can you be sure the book is safe? Why would he ask that, if he’s just interested in you?”

“Because I told him how important it was to keep the book away from Arunis,” said Thasha.

Marila gave her a long, steady look. “You really love him?” she said at last.

“That’s my business,” said Thasha.

“What does Hercol say?”

Thasha’s hands were in fists. “He says he trusts me. He’s a friend.”

“So am I.”

“Oh, Marila, I know you are, it’s just-”

“Pazel hasn’t slept or eaten since he went in there. And Neeps is almost as bad. He’s worried himself into a blary stomachache. He won’t talk about anything but you.”

Thasha realized suddenly that she was looking at jealousy. I can’t do this anymore. The thought flashed unbidden through her mind; and then, rallying her courage: Yes, yes you can. She brought her memories of Fulbreech’s face, his soft kisses, to the front of her mind and held them there. “I thought,” she heard herself say, “that you of all people might understand.”

Marila began to shove Thasha’s clothes back into the chest. “Understand what?” she said. “That in the middle of fighting for our lives you suddenly decide you’d rather-”

“Marila,” said Thasha, almost pleading, “what if it’s not like that? What if this is part of fighting for our lives?”

“What in the Pits does that mean?”

Too far, Thasha told herself. She hid her face in her hands, stalling, thinking with furious speed. “For my life, then,” she said at last. “For my chance to live just a little before I die. Is that so unforgivable?”

“Thasha, once he gets what he wants, he’s going to-”

“Stop!” Thasha shouted. “Damn it, he’s not some animal, running me down. He hasn’t even tried.” She bent and hauled Marila to her feet. “But if he does, I’ll make my own choices. Tell that to Pazel and Neeps. They put you up to this, didn’t they?”

Marila shook her head. “They don’t even know I’m here.”

Thasha laughed in her face. Now that she’d started the words came easier. “Don’t you ever lecture me again. I was locked up in the Lorg School. They call it the Academy of Obedient Daughters, but it was just about turning us into wives-rich wives, powerful wives. The kind nobody ever loves, except for fifteen minutes at a time. Those she-devils they call Sisters, they made us dance like whores. They told us to fake pleasure when we didn’t feel it, ‘the first night, and every night.’ My own father sent me to that place, Marila, to make a suitable present out of me, a plaything for a forty-year-old Black Rag. And then I fell for a boy who’s in love with a fish.”

“Pazel’s in love with you. And Klyst isn’t a fish, she’s a sea-murth.”

“A fish,” Thasha repeated. “And don’t tell me about fighting for our lives. The Red Wolf didn’t mark you, did it? You’re not even one of us.” She jabbed a finger into Marila’s chest. “You think you can tell me who I should want, and why? You don’t know a Gods-damned thing. You’re a peasant.”

Marila stared at her in shock. Thasha wouldn’t have been surprised if she had spat in her face. But instead Marila just walked slowly from the cabin. In the doorway she stopped, and looked at Thasha with a frozen blankness.

“I used to feel sorry that you didn’t have a mother,” she said, “but you had one, all right. Her name was Syrarys.”

The winds were spiteful and weak. There was barely room to maneuver between the rip tide and the cliffs, and the hunger-weakened men had no rest at all between tacks. The loss of the landing party appalled and frightened them. And to top it all, a great dark vulture came and landed on the Goose-Girl, and defiled her-the worst luck imaginable. Just how their luck could sink lower, however, they did not dare to discuss.

Thasha took a turn at the chain-pumps, battling the hidden leak. It felt good to throw herself into mindless work. But down the row of crankshafts she saw Neeps and Marila, pulling together, drenched in sweat. Their eyes passed over her like the eyes of strangers. Thasha made herself look away.

When she emerged midafternoon the land had grown even more rugged and steep, and the mountains that had looked so distant loomed nearer, towering grandly over the cliffs. Thasha could see the rocky point Bolutu had described: one corner of this vast Efaroc Peninsula. Beyond that headland lay the cove called the Jaws of Masalym.

But now their pursuers had closed half the distance. She looked up and saw the new flag the tailor had patched together: the leopard and the rising sun. It clearly made no difference to the ships in pursuit.

The work grew frantic. They tightened backstays and spread more sail. Rose called for topgallants on the spindly foremast, and even stood a team ready to jettison their precious water. The ixchel ran up and down the strained rigging, looking for any sign of failure.

The hunters were within ten miles of their prey when the Chathrand cleared the point. Rose saw Alyash and Fiffengurt exchange looks of relief. Once the ship turned the wind would be with her, helping instead of hindering. And there in the west, like a deep bite out of the towering cliffs, was the cove.

“You can hear the falls already,” said Bolutu. Thasha heard them, a far-off thundering. From the mouth of the cove a white mist rose gleaming in the sun.

“They won’t catch us now, will they, Mr. Fiffengurt?” asked Ibjen.

“No, lad, they won’t,” said Fiffengurt, “especially if the rip tide’s where we think it is. They’ve been sailing on the far side, but they’ll have to cross it if they want to get any closer. That should set ’em back another hour at least. We’ll make your city, all right.”

“Unless Masalym too has come to hate this Olik and his flag,” said Taliktrum. “If that’s the case, we are dead men.” He pointed: all along the cliffs ran dark windows, out of which the black iron fingers of cannon jabbed down at the gulf. Other guns sprouted from towers on the clifftops, and still more from steep-walled forts built on rocks to either side of the cove.

“Friend or foe, Olik spoke the truth about Masalym’s defenses,” said Hercol.

“The guns?” said Ibjen. “They are not the city’s main defense. In fact you could say they’re unnecessary.”

The truth of his statement was soon evident to all. For as they swept west along the shore the Jaws of Masalym opened to their sight. The great cove was a river mouth, well over a mile wide. The cliffs, twice as high as those where the apple trees blossomed, towered over several miles of sand flats littered with driftwood and fallen rock-and then closed in a staggering array of waterfalls. There was a huge central cataract, where enough water to fill a hundred Chathrands poured each second, churning up the white they had seen from afar. On either side of this mighty curtain towered other falls, great in themselves though small beside the giant. Spray billowing from the deeper crevasses suggested still more falls, but into these places they could not yet see.

Atop the cliffs, great stone walls marched to the very edge of the cataract. Behind them, through the windblown spray, Thasha glimpsed towers and domes. Cliff, wall and water: the folk of Masalym lived behind mighty defenses indeed.

“No enemy has ever taken our city,” said Ibjen. “She is impregnable as the Mountain of the Sky Kings, and her people justly proud.”

“She can’t be much of a sea power, though, can she?” said Fiffengurt. “I don’t see a single boat, nor pier to tie it to.”

“There’s no port at all!” cried Alyash. “How in the devil’s belly are we supposed to fix the old ship here?”

“You will see,” said a voice behind them. Thasha turned: Prince Olik was emerging from the No. 4 hatch, assisted by Rose and Fulbreech. He blinked at the light, looking rather frail. He leaned heavily on Fulbreech’s arm.

“Display me to them, sirs,” he said. “They would be fools to attack a vessel under my flag, but we can never rule out the presence of a fool. And the sight of humans, after all, is bound to shock.”

Then he noticed that Ibjen was on his knees. The boy’s head was bowed, and his arms were crossed over his chest. “Oh, come, lad, that is very formal,” said the prince.

“I failed you, Sire,” said Ibjen. “What they said is true. I tried to jump ship and return to my village, not once but twice.”

“Mmm,” said the prince. “This is a grave matter, of course. For what has a man who has not the honor of his word?”

“Nothing, Sire.”

“In my youth I saw men fight tigers in the circus pits, to atone for broken promises to their lord. How does that strike you?”

Some of the nearest sailors laughed. Ibjen looked even more ashamed. “I cannot fight, Sire,” he said. “My mother bade me take the Vow of the Saints-Before-Saints”-he glanced uncomfortably at Thasha-“to carry no weapon, ever, nor to learn the arts of war.”

“And why did she make such a demand of you?” Olik asked. Ibjen looked down at the deck.

“The press gangs? Did she hope that your vow would make the army pass you by?”

Ibjen, shamefaced, gave an unhappy nod.

“It would not have succeeded,” said Olik. Then he touched Ibjen gently on the forehead. “A vow given to a mother is more sacred even than one given to a prince,” he said. “But then again, it was your father who gave you into my service. How could you have faced him, if you had succeeded in abandoning me?”

Miserable, Ibjen lowered his head even farther.

“Well, well,” mused the prince, “stay near me, lad. We will find another way for you to make amends.”

At that very moment there came an explosion. Everyone winced: it was one of the mainland guns. But no cannonball followed. Instead, looking up, Thasha saw a ball of fire sailing from the clifftops. It burst above the cove in a shower of bright red sparks.

“I’ve been noticed already, it appears,” said the prince.

“There’s the proof you wanted, Captain!” said Bolutu excitedly. “Fireworks have always greeted the Imperial family when they return from the sea.”

“Yes,” said Olik, “and a measure of our popularity can be taken by the length and splendor of the display.” He smiled, indicated the now-empty sky. “I am recognized, as you see, but hardly with boundless joy.”

Rose led Olik to the forecastle, a long walk for the weary prince. Moving beside them, Thasha seethed. It’s all over. For better or worse. They were at the mercy of this dlomu, this stowaway, this less-than-popular prince. Olik struck her as a good man-but she had been wrong before-disastrously wrong. What if he betrayed them? What if the Karyskans had been hunting him precisely because he was a criminal?

No time to wonder: the ship sailed right in between the soaring cliffs. The shadow of the western rocks fell over them; the roar of the falls grew loud.

“We’ll lose the wind if we sail much farther,” said Rose. “What then?”

“They will send boats with a towline,” said Olik. “We should bear a little to starboard-that way.” He pointed at the cove’s deepest corner, a recess still largely hidden from sight. Rose shouted the course change into a speaking-tube. The helm responded, and with sagging sails they glided on.

A few minutes later they neared the recess. It was an uncanny sight. The cliff walls drew close together here: so close in fact that they formed a cylinder, open only in front, and rising straight from the surface where the Chathrand floated to the top of the falls, eight or nine hundred feet above. The walls of the cylinder had been shaped with great precision, with teeth of carved stone to either side of the opening. Thasha did not care for those teeth: they made her think of a wolf trap. Another waterfall, straight as a white braid, thundered down at the back of this stone shaft and flowed out through the narrow opening. Thasha glimpsed huge iron wheels half hidden in the spray.

“There is the cable now,” said Olik.

A pair of boats emerged from the recess, each rowed by ten dlomu, and each dragging a rope that vanished behind it into the water. They came right for the Chathrand, which was now almost motionless. But at the sight of the humans on the deck the rowers all but dropped their oars.

“Carry on, there!” the prince shouted at them. “Don’t be afraid! Be glad, rather-they’re woken humans, all right.”

“A miracle, my lord,” one of the rowers managed to croak.

“Very likely. But savor it after you’ve done your job. Come on, boys, we’re hungry.”

The boats drew near; the lines were coiled and tossed to the Chathrand’s deck. Following Olik’s instructions, sailors began hauling in the lines as quickly as they could. They were light at first, but soon grew much heavier, the cordage twice as thick. Three sailors hauled at each, and then the ropes’ thickness doubled again. Now a dozen men worked in unison, running from starboard to portside, lashing the lines to the far gunwale, returning for more. In this way at last they raised the ends of two chains nearly as thick as anchor-lines.

“Secure those to your bow, gentlemen, and your work is done,” said the prince.

Rose so ordered. The men awkwardly horsed the great chains to the catheads and made them fast. Then the prince waved to the boatmen, and one raised some manner of bugle to his lips and blew a rising note.

A grinding noise, low and enormous, began somewhere within the stone shaft, and Thasha saw the wheels at the back of the falls turning slowly, like the gears of a mill. At once the chains began to tighten.

“By the Night Gods,” said Rose, “that is fine engineering.”

“But you’ve only seen the simplest part, Captain.” Ibjen laughed delightedly from the deck. “Is it not so, my prince?”

Olik just smiled again. The cables drew taut, and the Chathrand moved swiftly, smoothly through the narrow opening.

Inside the shaft it was cooler; the spray misted the deck and soaked into their clothing, and the falls’ thunder made it necessary to shout. The area enclosed was about three ship’s lengths in diameter. Other dlomu were at work here, rowing in and out of tunnel mouths, blowing whistles, signaling one another with flags. Thasha looked up and saw that the tunnel openings were scattered up the length of the cylinder, like windows in a tower, and that flagmen stood in many of them, relaying signals from below. They had an air of practiced efficiency, except when they stopped to gape at the Chathrand.

“It may be dark before we reach the city,” said Olik, looking up in turn.

“I dare say,” said Rose. “Forgive me, Sire, but you hardly seem fit for such a climb.”

The prince turned to look at him. “Climb,” he said, and broke suddenly into laughter.

There came a sound like the earlier grinding, but far louder and closer. A shout arose from the stern, and Thasha turned to see that a vast piece of the shaft wall was moving, teeth and all: sliding to close the gap by which they had entered. The moving portion appeared to begin at the river bottom and reached some hundred feet over their heads.

“Don’t be afraid, Thashiziq,” said Ibjen. “No harm will befall us. All boats reach the shipyard in this way.”

He pointed up the shaft. Thasha gaped at him. “The shipyard… is up there?”

The teeth meshed; the moving wall grew still. Instead of a recess in a cove the ship was now in a basin, sealed to nearly a hundred feet. A basin into which a mighty waterfall was still thundering.

“Have your men drop the lines,” said Olik. “Quickly, sir; the shaft will fill in minutes.”

The chains fell from the catheads. Already the lowest tunnel mouths had vanished under the rising flood. Above, a second hundred-foot-high section of wall was rumbling into place above the first.

“All done with waterpower,” said Ibjen. “Water, tunnels, locks. In Masalym we have a saying: No enemy can stand against the Mai. That is our river, born in the mountains far away.”

“The Mai defends you only from the sea,” said Olik. “But it is true enough in that sense: even the armada, with its infernal power, sailed by without a second thought.”

“But why would the armada threaten Masalym?” Thasha asked quickly. “Aren’t you all part of Bali Adro?”

The prince looked at her-a sad, lonely look, she thought. “I am a citizen of no other country, and the Resplendent One, the Emperor Nahundra, is my cousin. But I would be part of no country, no Empire, no faction of any kind that would belch such a killing terror from its ports. As for Masalym’s loyalties-well, that is what I am here to determine.”

“Determine?” cried Rose. He advanced furiously on the prince. “What in Pitfire do you mean, determine? You brought us here without knowing whether they’re still part of your mucking Empire or not? They might have cut us to ribbons with those guns!”

Ibjen backed away, horrified by the captain’s tone. Olik, however, remained serene. “They fly the Bali Adro flag,” he said, “just as many of you, I gather, carry papers of Arquali citizenship. Do those papers tell me your real affections? Whether you will do good or evil, when your last choice is before you? Of course not. We must seek deeper truths than flags, Captain.”

“How do you know about Arqual, damn your eyes?”

The prince gave him a thoughtful smile. “Eyes are one place to look for truth-maybe the best, when all’s said and done. I would say it is our skins that damn us, not our eyes. Indeed we could do worse than to follow the example of snakes, dragons, eguar, and shed them when they outlive their usefulness.”

Suddenly he seized the captain’s forearm. No longer frail, or feigning frailty. Rose was clearly startled by his strength. Only Thasha, and Rose himself, knew that Olik’s hand was covering the scar of the Red Wolf.

“It is no easy task, shedding the skin,” he said. “Let us all remember that in days to come.”

And with that Prince Olik Ipandracon Tastandru Bali Adro ran across the forecastle, leaped with cat-like grace onto the rail, caught his balance-and dived, seventy feet straight down into the foam.

The Chathrand beat to quarters. Rose sent full gun crews to their stations. For the second time in a week, sailors and Turachs readied themselves for an assault.

Yet this time the frenzy had an air of make-believe. The ship was clearly trapped. The column of water had already lifted them a hundred feet and was still rising, fast. One above another the huge stone sluice-gates proclaimed their helplessness. There would be no fighting their way to freedom.

The small craft fled into the tunnels. Standing on the quarterdeck, mouth agape, Mr. Fiffengurt spotted Prince Olik across the basin, treading water, until the shaft filled enough to allow him to reach one of the staircases carved in its side. Then Olik clambered up the stairs and into another open tunnel, where more dlomu met him with bows. At the Chathrand’s stern, Mr. Alyash jumped at the sound of another splash, found a pair of sandals at his feet. Ibjen too had abandoned ship.

Huge bubbles burst as the tunnels filled. The Chathrand turned in a gentle, helpless circle. Somehow the moiling water never moved her anywhere near the fury of the falls themselves.

They rose as smoothly as any cargo pallet from the hold of a ship. But this time the ship itself was the cargo, and the pallet was water, a column of water, growing fast to nine hundred feet. Imagine the destruction, Thasha thought with a shudder, if the gates were all opened at once…

It took the better part of an hour to reach the top of the cliffs: an hour during which the men stood like statues, looking upward, saying very little. The sky above them was darkening. A few torches appeared along the rim of the shaft.

The final gate boomed into place. All at once cries of amazement were heard from the crow’s nest, then from the topgallant men, and the archers on the fighting top. And then the water ceased to rise. The topdeck remained some thirty feet below the basin’s upper rim.

“What’s happening?” said Fiffengurt. “The falls are still pouring in. Why are we holding still?”

“Since it is still flowing in,” said Hercol, “we may assume that it is also flowing out.”

“In equal volume,” said Rose. “Our hosts have opened some other gate. They’re keeping us where we are.”

“Which is where, Captain?” asked Neeps. “Blast it, I want to see.”

“Undrabust! Stand down!” boomed Hercol. But the swordsman was no officer, and the officers said not a word. Neeps and Marila leaped onto the foremast shrouds. Thasha was right behind them, climbing with a will. And suddenly she realized that scores of sailors were doing the same. On the other masts they were climbing too, as many men and boys as the lines could support. The wind brought smells of woodsmoke and algae and dry stone streets. The climbers all reached viewing-height at roughly the same time. And held their collective breath.

A vast city surrounded them. It was surely thrice the size of Etherhorde, greatest city of the North. Over rolling hills it spread, a city of stone houses, thatched roofs, dark and still in the gathering night. Narrow, sharp-roofed towers and oblong domes cast shadows over the lower structures. They had risen inside the city’s massive, many-turreted wall.

But all that was at a distance. Thasha saw now that the flooded shaft did not truly end where she had supposed: it broadened into a wide basin, like a wineglass atop its stem. There was as yet no water in this upper basin, though it was clearly designed to be filled.

Projecting into the basin was a long bridge, supported by stone arches and ending in a round, railed platform overlooking the shaft where the Chathrand floated. Even now, dark figures were running out along this walkway, some bearing torches, their silver eyes glinting in the firelight. They were shouting to one another in high excitement. A great number of dogs loped at their feet.

“There is a shipyard!” cried someone. And there it was: indeed the whole eastern rim of the basin was a dark jumble of ships-ships in dry dock, raised on stilts; ships floating in a sealed-off lock, from which their spars poked out like the limbs of winter trees. Ships wrecked and abandoned in a dry, deserted square.

Thasha looked at the mighty river. Above the falls it rippled down a series of low cascades, like a giant staircase, each step flanked by statues in white stone-animals, horses, dlomu, men-that towered over the modest homes. Away to the south the cliffs rose again. There was another mighty waterfall, and above it more roofs and towers looking down on the city.

“Night has come,” said Bolutu, who was clinging close beside Neeps. “Why is the city dark? There should be lamps in the windows-countless lamps, not these scattered few. I don’t understand.”

The dlomu reached the platform at the walkway’s end. They leaned out over the rails, looking down at the ship, mighty and helpless below. They were pointing, shouting, grasping at one another in shock. There was just enough light for them to know the crew was human.

“Thashiziq!”

Ibjen’s voice. Thasha saw him, waving excitedly from a platform. The other dlomu left a little space about him, looking askance. As though in greeting one of them he had become almost a stranger himself.

She waved. Ibjen was chattering, explaining; his countrymen did not appear to be paying attention.

“Pazel should be here,” said Neeps. “He should be with us right now, seeing this.”

“Yes,” said Thasha with feeling, turning to him. But the distance in Neeps’ eyes told her that his words had been meant for Marila alone.

“Are they talking?” someone shouted from above. “Listen! Listen to them talk!”

Then Bolutu laughed. “Of course they’re talking, brothers! There’s not a tol-chenni on this ship! Hail! I am Bolutu of Istolym, and it is long-terribly long-since I walked among my people! I want black beer! I want candied fern and river clams! How long before you bring us ashore?”

His question was met with silence. The dlomu on the walkway shuffled, as though all were hoping someone else would speak. Then Ibjen startled everyone by slipping under the rail. Deaf to the shouts of his countrymen, he scrambled out onto the cornice of the last stone pillar. It was as close as one could get to the ship. In a somewhat lower voice he called to them again.

“His Lordship the Issar of Masalym must decide how to welcome you. Don’t fear, though. We are a kindly city, and won’t leave you long in distress.”

“Just so long as you don’t leave us to sink in this blary well,” said Marila.

“Ibjen,” called Neeps, “where’s Prince Olik, and why in the Nine Pits did he jump overboard?”

“His Majesty has gone to the Upper City,” said Ibjen, “to the Palace of the Issar. I am sure he will speak well of you-generally well.”

“Why did you abandon us?” shouted the mizzen-man, Mr. Lapwing, somewhat crossly.

“I was never your prisoner, sir,” shot back the youth, “and Olik bade me come ashore with him. As you know, I gave him my promise.”

“Your worthless promise,” shouted Alyash.

“People of Masalym,” said Bolutu, raising his voice, “why are your houses unlit?”

“Because we’re all out here staring at you,” ventured someone, and the dlomu on the walkway laughed. Thasha felt a prickling of her skin: that was a forced and nervous laugh. A laugh like a curtain drawn over a corpse.

“Ibjen,” she shouted, obeying a sudden impulse, “we’re running out of food.”

The crowds above grew quiet, thoughtful. “I’ve told them, Thashiziq,” said Ibjen. Then all at once he gave her a sly look. “There’s a saying among us, that even after a hundred wealthy generations, the dlomu would never forget the feeling of hunger. Barren land and empty sea: from out this womb came I and thee. In my father’s village they still teach us those rhymes. We’re old-fashioned out there, you know.”

A new kind of grumbling came from the crowd above. Thasha saw Bolutu turn away, hiding a smile. “We’ll feed them, stupid boy,” called someone. “What do you take us for?”

There were uneasy nods, but no one moved. The sun-and-leopard flag rippled in the wind. Then a very old dlomic woman cried out in a voice like a shrieking hinge:

“You’re human!”

It was an accusation.

“That’s right, ma’am,” ventured Fiffengurt.

“Humans! Human beings! Why don’t you tell us how long?”

Captain Rose, gazing upward with a malevolent frown, echoed her words. “How long?”

“Tell us!” cried the old woman again. “You think we don’t know why you’ve come?”

Now the other dlomu mobbed the woman, hushing her urgently. The woman clung to the rail, shouting, her limp hair tumbling across her face. “You can’t fool us! You’re dead! Every one of you is dead! You’ve come on a ghost-ship out of the Ruling Sea, and you’re here because it’s the end of the world. Go on, tell us how long we have to live!”