The River of Shadows

Springing the Trap

1 Modobrin 941

Later that morning Arunis killed again.

This time the one who came for the Nilstone was Latzlo, the animal dealer and one of the “illustrious passengers” referred to in Old Gangrune’s report. He had once been illustrious enough, or at least very rich. To this day he still wore the same broad snakeskin belt, although he had lost so much weight that it could have gone twice around his middle, and the black scales were falling out. The journey had not been kind to Latzlo: he had come aboard to woo Pacu Lapadolma, a young woman who despised him, only to watch her marry the Mzithrini prince in Thasha’s stead. After Simja, like many others, he had been kept aboard at spear-point. During the crossing of the Nelluroq he had watched his fortune in exotic animals disappear one by one, sometimes into the galley, and thence the ever-hungrier mouths around Rose’s table. A great number had literally disappeared, during the battle with the rats. The animal-seller had grown steadily more ill-tempered and withdrawn.

He was not universally despised, however. Mr. Thyne, the other “illustrious passenger” trapped against his will aboard the Great Ship, had kept up a friendship of sorts with Latzlo. When the disaster came the two men, along with a young midshipman by the name of Boone, were playing a fitful game of spenk on the topdeck.

They were playing for sugar cubes. Latzlo was winning handily, though his face showed no joy. Thyne was down to six cubes when he executed a particularly daring bluff, and won a round.

“Back in the game, Ernom!” He laughed, slapping Latzlo’s knee.

“Ouch,” said Latzlo.

“Never say die!” added Boone, who had a gold earring and a voice that sounded too deep for his skinny frame. “Bet you thought you had him, didn’t you, Mr. Latzlo?”

Latzlo rubbed his knee, scowling. “I quit,” he said.

“Oh, come now, that isn’t sporting,” said Thyne. “You’ve still got three-quarters of the cubes.”

“Do you think it tickles, when you slap a man?”

Startled, Thyne glanced at Latzlo’s knee. “What, have you got a rash there? I didn’t know.”

Latzlo rose to his feet. “Keep the sugar,” he said. “I know where there’s something sweeter by half.”

“Do you now?” said Thyne as Boone began to scoop up Latzlo’s cubes. “Where’s that, I should like to know?”

“Where it’s always been,” said Latzlo. “Right there in his hand.”

He turned to portside and walked quickly away, like a man with an urgent errand to perform. Thyne watched him a moment, frowning. Then he noticed Boone’s sugar-grab and forgot Latzlo for a moment. The men scuffled, scattering cards and sugar, until Thyne froze with horror in his eyes.

“Rin’s Angel, he’s talking about the Shaggat Ness!”

They bolted after the animal-seller. By now Latzlo was halfway down the No. 4 ladderway. When he heard them coming he too began to run. They caught up with him only as he reached the doors to the manger-unlocked, by the strangest coincidence, for the changing of the Turach guard.

“Stop him, stop him! He’s going for the blary stone!”

The replacement guards were due any minute. Of course the men of the earlier shift were still at their posts. Never for one minute would the Shaggat be left unattended.

“Don’t hurt him!” cried Thyne.

There were six Turachs in all, wielding maces and clubs. They had waited for such a moment since the deaths of their comrades, and they formed a deadly line in front of the Shaggat. Latzlo went into a frenzy. He lunged for the Shaggat-and the soldiers slammed him to the ground. He had never been strong, and not even possession by Arunis could give him the strength to overpower half a dozen marines. Still, he writhed and kicked and spat and howled. He bit his tongue; blood oozed from his lips. Then suddenly he began to scream: “Thyne! Thyne! Help! My knee!”

The soldiers dragged him to a corner. “His blary knee again,” said Boone. “Look, he’s hurting something awful!”

A Turach poked Latzlo’s knee. The animal-seller howled in agony: “Get it off, Thyne! Cut it off! It’s burning straight through my leg!”

“That snakeskin belt’s all in knots,” said a Turach.

“Cut it away, there, something’s wrong!” shouted Thyne. “Hurry, you louts! It’s killing him!”

“Nothing to cut with,” said the Turach in command. “No blades allowed in the same room with the Nilstone, after-!”

“I have one! Take mine!” said Boone, unfolding his stockman’s knife.

Latzlo twisted, screaming louder than ever. “Just cut the mucking trousers!” shouted Thyne.

Boone leaned in and slashed. The knife was sharp; the cloth parted, and a soldier ripped the trouser leg open to Latzlo’s hip.

There was no visible wound. But there was something. Words, in fact, scrawled in ink above the knee. Thyne leaned closer, morbidly curious, and read aloud:

“All…of… you… in… time.”

Latzlo stopped screaming. The chilling words hung in the air. Then came a dull thump: an object falling to the deck from a height of some six feet. It was the midshipman’s knife.

Boone himself was nowhere to be seen. Once again, however, there was a small incision in the canvas hiding the Nilstone. And beneath the Shaggat’s upraised arm, several buttons, a gold earring and a few withered ounces of mortal remains.

“It’s almost as though he planned it that way,” said Neeps.

“Arunis, you mean?” said Pazel, blowing the sawdust from his sanding-stone.

Neeps shook his head. “Olik. As though he’d warned us that he was with Arunis, and then had to prove it by nudging him to kill again.”

They were on a scaffold over the tonnage hatch, along with Thasha, Marila and Hercol. They were sanding a part of the enormous pine trunk that would replace the makeshift foremast. The pine was their one spare mast-trunk, the other having been lost to fire. It was propped at a diagonal, one end jutting out over the quay, the other six decks below, where men were still ripping away the bark with drawknives, tackling knots with chisels and planes. The dlomu had taken charge of the Chathrand’s exterior-their own scaffolding rose on either side of her damaged hull-but they had so far left all other repairs to the crew.

“He didn’t quite say he was with Arunis,” said Thasha. “I mean, yes, he said Arunis was with the Ravens, and he called them a ‘noble Society.’ But he never claimed to be part of that Society himself. And even when he stopped pretending to like us-stopped saying ‘my friends’ and all that, and told us how reckless we’d been-even then he never praised Arunis. It would have been easy to say ‘the Great Mage’ or ‘my master’ or anything of that kind. But he wasn’t gloating, the way Arunis does himself. He really did seem to be warning us.”

“To judge by Bolutu’s despair,” said Hercol, “all such warnings must be in vain, if the Ravens have truly seized control of Bali Adro. They were, you recall, the very ‘gang of criminals’ who opposed the old, just regime he so proudly served-the gang who sent Arunis to the North in the first place, to seek the Nilstone.”

“If Olik is with the Ravens,” said Neeps, “then we can’t trust what he said about the Red Storm, either. He may just have wanted to keep us off-balance, by giving us hope that we might return to our own time one day, or something close to it. So that we’d spend our time pondering that, instead of ways to fight him.”

Hercol shook his head. “I think he spoke the truth about the Red Storm, at least. Think of Arunis. If we cannot return to the North without leaping centuries into the future, what sense is there in his plans? Either he has always been ignorant of the Storm’s nature, or he is counting on the Shaggat cult remaining powerful enough to trigger open warfare hundreds of years after his first rise to power. Neither is likely. Therefore Arunis, too, must be counting on a weakened Storm.”

Neeps gave them a stubborn look. “I still say Olik’s lying big about something,” he said. “You know I can tell when people lie.”

“Oh please,” said Marila.

“There was something wrong about his whole visit,” said Pazel. “Neeps is right, it doesn’t add up. And every other time a mystery like this has surfaced, we’ve eventually traced it back to Arunis. Credek, we may have just let one of his servants walk around in the stateroom.”

“Why is Arunis doing all this killing lately, anyway?” said Thasha. “Obviously he’s not afraid anymore of what will happen if he kills the spell-keeper, and the Shaggat comes back to life.”

“Or rather,” said Hercol, “he is no longer constrained by the fear of chancing upon the spell-keeper, when he kills. And that can only mean that he has found a way to rule certain people out. And that can only be because he has learned who the spell-keeper is. Either that, or he has despaired of the Shaggat altogether, and no longer minds the risk. He had his own copy of the thirteenth Polylex for a short time, before Pazel destroyed it. Perhaps in that time he glimpsed some other method of using the Nilstone. Some more remote chance, but one that he never forgot. Maybe he is groping toward it even now.”

“You think he’s doing some kind of experiment?” said Neeps. “Sending one person after another to touch the Nilstone, and watching what happens?”

“But the same thing happens with each of them,” said Pazel. “They shrivel up and die. And anyway he’s not there watching, unless he’s turned into an ant or a flea.”

“Maybe he’s watching their minds, not their bodies,” said Thasha.

They worked in silence for several minutes, and then Pazel spoke again. “I’m going to have a fit.”

All the others stopped work and looked at him. They knew what “a fit” meant in Pazel’s case. Thasha reached out as if to touch his arm, but hesitated. “Soon?” she said.

Pazel shrugged, applying his sanding-stone with force. “Maybe two days from now. Four at the most. The taste in my mouth started this morning. And the purring sound.”

“No fear, mate,” said Neeps. “We know what to do. You just run for the stateroom, bury your head in pillows. You won’t hear much in-well, in the admiral’s old room.”

The last time Pazel’s fits had come, he had fled to the reading cabin-that tiny, beautiful, glassed-in chamber off the stateroom. But the reading cabin was adjacent to Thasha’s own. For days now she and Fulbreech had passed an hour or two each evening in her cabin, laughing and murmuring. They kept their voices low, but it pierced the walls nonetheless. During his fits any voices at all were a torture to Pazel. Thasha and Fulbreech’s would be unbearable.

“Those signs, the purring and the evil taste,” said Hercol, “mean that your Gift is at work even now?”

“This very minute,” said Pazel, “for all the good that does us.”

“And your hearing’s sharper too?” asked Marila.

“I don’t know yet,” said Pazel. “It used to work only with translated voices-as if my mind was reaching for them, you understand? But the last time, when Chadfallow gave me that drug, I could hear almost everything. Birds, breathing, whispers fifty feet away. That was on Bramian. A lot of things changed on Bramian.”

Thasha was looking at him, pensive. “That thing you spoke with. The eguar.”

Pazel’s encounter with the deadly, magic-steeped eguar was one of the worst moments of his life. “What about it?” he said.

“It mentioned the South, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Pazel. “I told you. It called the South the world my brethren made.”

Thasha nodded. “Last night I was reading-”

Pazel bit his lips. With your darling Fulbreech.

“-and I learned something about eguar. Not under ‘Eguar’ of course; the Polylex doesn’t make anything that easy. But there was a little paragraph under Longevity. It says that eguar live an extraordinarily long time-longer than the oldest trees. Some of the oldest were born before the Dawn War, in the time when demons ruled Alifros. They can spend a year without moving, a decade between meals. And the book said, This near-immortality, along with the terrible black magic concentrated in their blood and bone, has long fascinated the wizarding folk of the South.”

“Ah! That is telling,” said Hercol. “Bolutu studied magic at Ramachni’s knee, though he says he never succeeded in becoming a mage. And he reacted strongly when you mentioned the eguar, I believe.”

“Strongly!” said Pazel. “He acted as though I’d met the prince of all devils, and caught the talking fever to boot. And Chadfallow wasn’t much better. He said Ramachni had spoken to him about eguar. He made us bathe in the first river we came to. When we got back to the camp he burned all our clothes, and made Ott’s men scrub the horses down with gloves on.”

“Well then,” said Neeps, “those Ravens wanted the Nilstone, but they haven’t got it. Maybe they found some other way to make themselves mighty-something involving the eguar.”

“Gods,” said Pazel, suddenly shaken, “that’s right, I’m sure it is. That shimmer over the armada-that weird, bright haze, you remember? It was how the air looked around the eguar, from a distance, when we first saw it basking in the sun. And the leader of the swimmers who attacked us-there was something of it around him as well. Just a touch. I could barely see it through the telescope.”

“I will speak to Bolutu about these eguar,” said Hercol. “In any case, Pazel, I am glad the creature never touched you.”

“It didn’t have to touch me,” said Pazel, flinching at the memory. He began to sand again, quickly, needing to move. Once more Thasha reached for him, and once more she stopped her hand.

“When you came back,” she said, “you were so different, for a while. So strange.”

“Must have been hard for you,” said Marila, “Pazel changing like that.”

Thasha turned to her as if she’d been slapped. Marila picked up her stone and began to work again. But she added quietly, “You let Fulbreech see the book whenever he wants. Handle it, too. He knows you have a thirteenth Polylex.”

“You’re a damned little spy.”

“Thasha,” said Marila, “you came out of your cabin last night with the Polylex under your arm. He took it before he… greeted you.”

Pazel sanded harder, faster.

Then Hercol straightened his back and glanced at the darkening sky. “We should leave off until the morning. Teggatz will be calling us to our meal.”

“Think I’ll work a little longer,” said Neeps, his voice as cold as Marila’s.

Thasha laughed bitterly. “I’ll go,” she said. “Then you’ll all be happier.”

She pushed past them, walked to the end of the scaffold and stepped over the rail onto the topdeck. Then she turned and looked back at them.

“I’m ending this tonight,” she said. “Do you hear me? I won’t play your game anymore.”

“For some of us it never was a game,” said Neeps.

But Pazel thought, Who is she talking to?

Thasha marched to the Holy Stair and descended. Toward sickbay, Pazel realized, where Fulbreech worked.

“She’s right,” said Neeps. “I do feel better.”

Hercol looked at him with quiet regret. “You speak proudly, both of you,” he said. “Well and good: but if shame should follow, remember what you said to that girl.”

Then he departed as well. Pazel, Neeps and Marila sanded wordlessly in the gathering dark. But despite the shadows Pazel saw his two friends exchanging glances. “All right,” he said at last, “spill it. What is it you want to tell me?”

“Listen,” said Marila. “You know I tried to take her side at first. I was wrong. She’s lost her mind over him, and it’s ruining everything, and it has to stop. We should push him down a hatch.”

“Marila!” cried both boys.

“I mean it. Something terrible is going to happen-and Thasha’s helping it happen, damn it. We bumped into each other last night-really bumped, in the stateroom, it was pitch dark. I started to fall and she caught me, helped me up. But then she wouldn’t let go of my arm. ‘Let me do what I have to do,’ she said, ‘with him.’ ”

“Thasha said that?”

“There’s worse, Pazel. I said she was becoming another person, and she said, yes, she was. Then I said I liked the old one better, and she said, ‘What you like makes no difference. Just stay out of my way.’ Then I said what we’re all thinking. ‘Arunis. He’s gotten hold of you, hasn’t he?’ And Thasha laughed and said, ‘Arunis is scared to death of me. He always has been. And you should be too.’ Then she shoved me aside and I did fall, blary hard, and she walked right out of the room.”

Marila blew away more sawdust, felt the smoothness of the pine with her fingertips.

“She’s going bad, I tell you. I don’t want to believe it, but all you have to do is look at her when he walks in the room. She forgets everything else, and goes all dreamy and warm. I think she’s going to end up-you know-knitting little boots.” Pazel dropped his sanding-stone.

He swore, and they all screamed warnings down the tonnage shaft, where men were still working by lamplight. There came a loud thud and a barrage of curses. You careless Gods-damned tarboy dog! That was two feet from my head!

Time to quit, they decided. Fleeing guiltily along the starboard rail, they saw the “birdwatchers” gathered together on the quay. They were arguing, waving their hands, now and then gesturing at the Chathrand as if to emphasize a point. Tomorrow, Pazel thought. What’s going to happen to us tomorrow?

“She’s probably in the stateroom with him right now,” said Marila. “He likes to see her right after his shift.”

“There’s the dinner bell,” said Neeps.

“And Hercol,” added Marila furiously, “does nothing but defend her.”

Pazel stopped walking. Defend her. That was what he had promised himself he would always do. No matter what it took. No matter what Thasha said or did. How could he ever have allowed himself to be confused on that point? He turned and looked at his friends.

“Is there any doubt at all,” he said, “that Fulbreech is a liar?”

“No,” said Neeps.

Both boys looked at Marila. She closed her eyes a moment, thoughtful. “No,” she said at last. “Not if he really said ‘error corrected’ after you punched him in the eye.”

“I’m going to see her,” said Pazel.

“Oh, stop it, mate,” said Neeps. “You’ve tried. She doesn’t want to hear you. She doesn’t want to believe.”

“I don’t care.”

He would make her hear. He would explain word for word, and Thasha would see at last that he wasn’t simply jealous. And he would explain about the antidote, how even though Fulbreech had appeared to be chasing Alyash, as they were, he was really on the bosun’s side. No one else could have slipped the antidote through the doorway at the bitter end. It was Fulbreech who had freed the hostages, paving the way for Rose’s bloodbath.

He reached the Silver Stair and plunged down, among the crowd of hungry sailors making for the dining compartment.

“You can’t just walk in on them!” Marila shouted.

“Bet I can,” he shot back.

The sailors grinned and winked. Pazel could not have cared less. Walking in on Thasha and Fulbreech was exactly what he planned to do. Let her choose who to believe, once and for all, face to face with both of them. At least she wouldn’t be able to feign a need to be elsewhere.

Neeps’ hand closed on his elbow. “At least let Marila go first, Pazel. She’ll tell you if it’s all right to go in there.”

“Damn it all, leave me alone!”

Pazel wrenched his arm away. But as he turned he found the passage blocked by Mr. Fiffengurt. “Pathkendle!” he said. “And Undrabust too. What luck. I have a little job I need your help with.”

“Now?” said Pazel.

“Right now,” said Fiffengurt, strangely anxious. He bent closer, and spoke in an ominous whisper. “Urgent business. The hag’s cat, Sniraga. She’s alive.”

“I’ve heard. I’m sorry.” Pazel began to slip by, but Fiffengurt lurched in front of him.

“You don’t understand. She’s in the bread room. She’s slipped inside, the little monster.”

“So what?” said Neeps, briefly forgetting his own efforts to stop Pazel cold. “Best place to put her if you ask me. That’s no blary emergency.”

“We don’t even have any bread,” said Pazel.

Fiffengurt turned his gaze from one to the other. He looked confounded by their response. “Why! Anyone could tell you-a cat, loose in the-Oh, blast you both, come along! That’s an order!”

Fulbreech sat in the chair by Thasha’s writing desk, hands on his knees, his pale face troubled. “All of them,” he said, “believe that my intentions toward you are… dishonorable?”

“Yes,” said Thasha, “entirely.”

She sat cross-legged on her bed, in an old pair of red trousers and a loose white shirt of Admiral Isiq’s. “I don’t care, Greysan. I don’t care what they imagine.”

He shook his head. “You should care. They love you dearly, Thasha.”

They were sharing a glass of water and some dlomic biscuits. They had not touched since she led him into the room. The desk was cluttered: jewelry, creams, pencils, knives, a whetstone, the admiral’s flask, the Merchant’s Polylex. Behind all these, the softly ticking mariner’s clock, Ramachni’s doorway from his own world into Alifros.

The wind had risen. The night would be cool. Against the hanging oil lamp a weird Southern moth tapped hairy antennae; its huge shadow wriggled on the bedspread. Thasha was looking down at her hands.

“Not like this,” she whispered.

They were both very still. “Of course,” he said, “what I feel for you is different.”

Thasha smiled.

“But I have been blind-blind, and selfish. These evenings with you, learning of your life, hearing your dreams: Thasha, I’ve been drunk on them. But now I fear your friends are talking about us, and not just among themselves.”

“Let them.”

“No,” he said, “that won’t help, making enemies. Your good name is priceless, even though our society is reduced to one mad ship, hung out to dry in an alien port.”

“You say all that because you think you have to.” Thasha touched a hole in her trouser knee. “But I know what you’re feeling.”

“Do you really think so?”

Thasha nodded. “I know you’re… impatient.” She laughed, trying to make a joke of it, then blushed and had to look away. He smiled too, generously.

“Are you afraid of something, Thasha?” he asked.

She looked at him shyly, then glanced at the Polylex. “In Etherhorde, in Dr. Chadfallow’s house-you know he was a family friend-there was a book about Mzithrini art. Did you know that the Old Faith has nothing against showing… men and women?”

“Lovers, you mean?” Fulbreech squirmed a little. “I may have heard something about that.”

Thasha paused as if to steady her nerves. “I used to take out that book whenever we visited. There was a painting of a sculpture in a Babqri square. Three women on their knees, reaching desperately for a man being lifted away by angels. He’s beautiful, naked of course… and he’s forgotten the women; his eyes are on the place the angels are taking him, some other world, I suppose. But when you look closer you see that the three women are really just one, at three moments in life. Young, and older, and very old, shriveled. And the name of the sculpture is If You Wait He Will Escape You.”

Thasha looked at him, blinking nervously. “I’ve been dreaming of their faces. Greysan, you must think I’m crazy-”

“Nonsense.”

“I’m afraid you’ll escape me.”

She sat there, trembling, and then his hand closed over hers. Neither of them speaking. His fingers rough and warm between her own.

“Impatient.” Fulbreech gave her an awkward smile. “Perhaps that is your delicate way of saying vulgar. Listen, darling: I would sooner die than insult you. Only it seems I can hide nothing in your presence. Not my dreams for our future, certainly. And not even”-he took a deep breath-“dreams of another kind.”

He flinched; surely he had gone too far. But Thasha’s gaze only softened, as though she had known this was coming and was glad the wait was over. She reached out and gently touched his face.

In the torchlight from the quay she saw struggle in his eyes. They were traveling her body, but now and then they stopped, uncertain. Some idea, some duty maybe, giving him pause.

“Later the others will be here,” he said.

Thasha stood in one smooth motion. She raised the water glass and drank it dry. Then she set the glass beside the Polylex and blew out the lantern.

“Later we’ll have to be quiet,” she said, and sat astride him.

She used her mouth as she never had in any previous kiss. She heard him gasping, felt his hands on her thighs, his legs moving beneath her. She sat back trembling. The struggle was almost over.

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” she said.

“No?”

“I was raised by Syrarys as much as my father. She came out of the slave-school on Nurth. She was trained in love. I spied on them for years. How she moved, what she said. I saw how she… made him happy.”

“You can’t have known what you were seeing.”

“I was at the Lorg School, too.”

“Learning to be a wife?”

Thasha didn’t answer. Slowly, watching him, she unbuttoned her shirt.

Fulbreech was motionless. Thasha’s lips were parted, her face almost stern. When his own hands moved at last she put her head back and closed her eyes. Do not think. That is crucial. Do not let it be real.

He was atop her; she lay back and put a hand in his hair. When his kisses became more urgent she squeezed her left hand into a fist. The wolf-scar on her palm, self-inflicted years ago, felt suddenly raw and unhealed.

Voices in the outer stateroom. Greysan froze, cat-like, his chin an inch above her breast. “It’s Hercol,” she whispered. “Damn him, damn him. Why can’t he just stay away?”

“Bolutu as well,” he said, frustration in his voice. “Thasha darling, we can be careful-”

“No!” she whispered. “I can’t, I’m sorry, if they heard me, I’d-”

Fulbreech could not catch his breath. He began again, and she stopped him instantly, her hand tight on his wrist.

“They don’t know you’re in here,” she said. “Just stay with me, Greysan, stay right here and hold me. And later, when they’re asleep-”

He looked at her. For a moment she thought he’d gone beyond the reach of words. Then a sigh of anticipation passed through him, and he settled by her side.

In the bread room, Neeps was pounding on the door. “Fiffengurt! You’ve blown your gaskets! Open this blary door!”

“Not possible, Undrabust,” came Fiffengurt’s voice. From the sound of it he was seated with his back to the sturdy, tin-plated door. They had already heard him telling puzzled sailors to mind their own business.

“What in Pitfire did we do?” shouted Neeps.

“You didn’t do anything. Just calm down, now, save your breath. And speaking of breath, you’d better snuff those lanterns. That’s an airtight room.”

Neeps turned his back and began mule-kicking the door. “Why-why-why-why?”

“Ouch! Stop that! Screaming will do you no good.”

Pazel sat in the center of the chamber, in the flour and the dust. The entire room-walls, floor, door, ceiling-was lined with tin, as a protection against nibbling mice. Their lanternlight reflected dimly from the walls.

Fiffengurt had caught them easily: told them to clear away the stacked and empty bread-racks, since “that red monster’s got to be lurking in one of the corners,” then slipped out as soon as the work began to throw the deadbolts. Neeps had exploded, but Pazel had not said a word. Everything that had happened since Thasha stalked away from the tonnage hatch was suspicious. But he could not for an instant believe that Fiffengurt would betray them. Nor would Thasha, for that matter. Something else was going on.

“Liar!” spat Neeps at the door. “You made all that up, about Sniraga!”

“ ’Course I did,” said Fiffengurt. “Now just sit tight like Pazel’s doing, there’s a good lad. I’m not doing this for fun, you know.”

Neeps was working himself into a lather. “You’re a lunatic! Let us out! Pazel, why don’t you mucking do something?”

“I am doing something,” said Pazel. “Be quiet. Let me think.”

“You’re a daft white-whiskered fat old pig, Fiffengurt!” bellowed Neeps. “What have you done with Marila?”

“Oh come off it, Undrabust,” said Fiffengurt. “How should I know where Marila went? Back to the stateroom, I imagine. Ah no-fancy that! — here she is in the flesh.”

“Hello, Mr. Fiffengurt. Hello, Neeps.”

Marila’s voice was oddly circumspect, but Neeps paid no heed to her tone. “About time!” he shouted. “Get around that old pig, Marila, and slide those bolts!”

“I can’t, Neeps.”

“Then run and tell Hercol that Fiffengurt’s a lying, sneaky, sell-’im-cheap-to-the-sausage-grinder fat old pig.”

“Neeps,” said Marila, “try to be like Pazel for once.”

“Listen to your lady, Undrabust,” said Fiffengurt. “Sit down and relax.”

Neeps threw his body against the door. He staggered, bruised, and backed up for another run. Pazel shook his head. It was never a good idea to tell Neeps to relax.

Thasha, for her part, was already unconscious. She lay holding Fulbreech, her long hair pooled around them, her breath deep and even. Fulbreech touched her with his fingertips. He, of course, remained wide awake. Sandor Ott would murder him if he fell asleep on the job.

Bolutu was gone at last, but Hercol remained in the outer stateroom, reading; Fulbreech could hear the scratch of turning pages. The girl was right, sound carried; it would have been madness to pleasure himself on her until the Tholjassan retired. She had saved him from a grave mistake. A human mistake, as his master would have said with scorn.

But his hunger for this girl: that was human too. He saw no reason why he should not have her when the man departed. He could allow himself that much. So many months of waiting, performing, drawing her in but never seeming to, never arousing her suspicion. Even Ott would agree that the timing was right. And yet he’d held back, let her own hunger flourish, her curiosity. Let her worry in her girl’s foolishness about him “escaping her.” Yes, it was very well done. If she was ready to give her body she’d give anything. The Polylex, whenever he wished to take it. The truth about Pathkendle’s Gift, the whereabouts of Ramachni, the secrets of that lovely clock.

But how close he had come to ruin, merely through the weakness of the flesh! Ah, but you didn’t, Fulbreech: and hasn’t your whole life been a gamble for the highest of stakes? For that was what he was: a gambler, possessed of exceptional instincts, and addicted to the dare. Some gamblers played with caution, and hoarded what they feared to lose; others raised their bluffs without a backward glance.

Thasha Isiq, of course, was a trifle. His master might arrange for him to keep her, but if not-well, for a chancellor of a new world power, there would be as many women as nights to fill them. And for the moment, in any case, the girl was his. Fulbreech lay there, savoring the image of her fingers freeing buttons, her brief abandon, that foretaste of the meal to come.

Then Bolutu returned. The youth’s anger flared: did they plan to come and go all night? But the dlomu was now in a very different state of mind. His boots pounded across the floor, and quite audibly, he said, “It’s happening! They’re taking him! Tomorrow at dawn!”

Fulbreech held his breath.

“Tomorrow?” said Hercol, incredulous. “Are you certain?”

“Prince Olik himself will lead the team,” said Bolutu, “with sixty handpicked warriors at his side. His man just handed me a note over the gunwale. I went straight to Rose, of course, and the captain promised once again to cooperate. What else can we do, he said to me, with that sorcerer killing left and right?”

“Those may be the sanest words Rose ever uttered,” said Hercol.

“Haddismal was present as well, and he concurs: ‘Let them have it,’ he said, ‘the sooner the better.’ He was quite relieved, I think: the Nilstone is not an enemy he knows how to fight.”

“But they could kill the Shaggat trying to extract the Stone from his grip,” said Hercol. “Haddismal must not understand the risk.”

“He understands perfectly,” said Bolutu. “He’s simply come to see what we always hoped he would: that armed with the Nilstone, the sorcerer threatens Arqual itself. ‘My oath is to the Ametrine Throne,’ he said, ‘not any one order that comes down from it. His Supremacy didn’t know about the Nilstone when he sent us off to deliver the Shaggat. If he orders me to prune his garden and I see killers climbing over the wall, do I go on snipping roses? Is that how I prove I’m a loyal subject?’ ” Bolutu laughed. “For all his talk, though, I think he holds out hope that they will manage to take the Stone without destroying the Shaggat altogether. The prince, apparently, told Rose that they would spare no effort to do just that.”

Fulbreech lay petrified. Rose, Haddismal and these traitors, collaborating? The Shaggat and the Nilstone, removed? This was all wrong. His master had assured him nothing would happen for a week.

Hercol too sounded suspicious. “How did Olik convince the Issar to go along with this plan?” he demanded.

“I know nothing of that,” said Bolutu. “I am only glad that he succeeded. Think of it: six hours from now, that accursed Stone will be off the Chathrand.”

“And beyond the mage’s grasp,” said Hercol. “Belesar, can it really be true?”

“It is true, friend. Our oath will be fulfilled at last-for neither Arunis nor any other power will be able to wrest the Nilstone from that guardianship. With the sunrise, Erithusme’s long task will be over-and the worst part of ours as well.”

What were they doing, embracing? Yes, by the sound of it they were hugging each other and laughing. “Over,” said Hercol, as though savoring the word. “The horror, the decades of treachery, the slow strangulation of two Empires.”

“Three,” said Bolutu. “You cannot forget what Arunis did to these lands of mine.”

“I will never forget his crimes,” said the swordsman, “and his ultimate punishment I will deliver with this sword, Rin willing. But first things first. Ah, Belesar! Tomorrow will be a bright day for Alifros-for the world as a whole, not these splintered tribes we call nations, which greed and villainy have made mad. Come, let us go to Oggosk at once.”

Oggosk! Fulbreech’s amazement boiled over into a twitch. He froze: Thasha mumbled in her sleep, pressing closer to his side.

“The duchess awaits us even now,” Bolutu was saying. “But where are Pazel and Neeps? For that matter, where are the young ladies?”

“All abed,” said Hercol. “Come, snuff that lamp for me; we shall go at once. I’ll wake Thasha and the tarboys when I return. They will want to be up and watching when this nightmare comes to an end.”

Moments later the outer door closed behind them. Fulbreech found that he was drenched in sweat. His master had been deceived! The youth was outraged, and very frightened. The wondrous future that had opened before him was about to be snatched away.

But his training under Sandor Ott had never failed him, and it did not fail him now. Terror manifests in a sphere of inaction; make your choice and it falls away, mud from the runner’s feet. Calm returned. Dawn was still hours off. With consummate patience, Fulbreech slid from Thasha’s embrace, untangling one limb and then another, soothing her with kisses when she stirred, for to this girl his presence was safety and his kisses a drug; and because he would never have her now (uncoerced, at any rate) he bent to graze her breast with the lips that had lied to her since Treaty Day, and then he was out of her bed and easing open the cabin door.

The dogs watched him emerge. They had never taken to him, never licked his hand; indeed their eyes chilled him slightly, as though the brutes knew better than their mistress what he was about. Still, he had Thasha’s protection, and he passed unhindered between their hulking shapes. Like a mother hen, Suzyt crouched atop what could only have been Felthrup, precocious little dreamer, another whose death could not come soon enough.^ 9

He pressed his ear to the stateroom door. Not a sound from the corridor. He smiled, turned the handle and stepped out into the hall. No light in the passage: better still. He moved down it, soundless, congratulating himself already. Even after this night she might trust him, he realized suddenly. Why not? They came and went for hours, darling; surely it was best that I stole away?

But what was he thinking? After tonight there would be no more games with Thasha Isiq. His master would have other tasks for his clever, his irreplaceable aide.

Seconds later Fulbreech passed through the magic wall. He felt nothing, but Thasha did. Her eyes snapped open. She pressed a hand against her mouth. She rose and groped beneath the bed for the wide bowl she’d placed there for such a moment.

Somewhere in Etherhorde the Mother Prohibitor was smiling: So you were paying attention after all, child? Never forget who taught you, who made you what you are. Thasha’s stomach heaved. The food they’d shared burst out of her, an acrid pulp. It was the first good feeling in days.

Of course she’d not slept an instant-but feigning sleep had been, by far, the easiest part of the act. She buttoned her shirt. It was her father’s but all the same she would burn it. She ran to the washroom and plunged her face into a bucket of salt water. Don’t blame us, Thasha Isiq. You hated us, spat on our tutelage, pretended you’d never need such skills. We gave them to you anyway. Are you still too proud to thank us?

A growl, murderous, bestial, wanted to tear itself from her throat.

No time for that. Back in the stateroom she donned her sword, knife, gauntlets. She called her dogs: they rose like dark lions, eager to hunt. Out through the stateroom door they went, then down the passage, through the magic wall and the Money Gate.

“They’re waiting for you, Thasha,” came a voice from the wall.

“Thank you,” she said. “And remember, Ensyl-you promised.”

“When we give our word, Thasha, we do not forget. Listen for me; I will come.”

Thasha raced up the ladderway, swift and soundless. Let it be me, Rin, only me who deals with Fulbreech. I’ve earned that much, haven’t I?

On the topdeck the night shift was still at repairs. It was very windy; the lanterns sputtered, and the torches of the dlomic guard writhed fitful and low. Thasha’s bare feet were cold on the dew-spattered planks. But just ahead of her the door to Rose’s cabin beneath the quarterdeck creaked open an inch, and there was Rose himself, scowling, beckoning. “What took you so long?” he whispered, tugging her in.

Pazel stared at the lamp before him. Fiffengurt was right: it would have to be extinguished. Already the bread room was filling up with fumes.

Outside the door there was an ominous silence. Marila had not spoken again, and Fiffengurt had stopped answering questions. But there were new sounds, creaks and cleared throats and footfalls, and they didn’t belong to the quartermaster and Marila alone.

Neeps was still pacing, raging, coughing on the smoke. In time he heard the new voices as well. Staggering over to Pazel, he whispered, “They’ve brought reinforcements. Good show, mate, sitting there like that. When things get rough, drop on your bum and brood, I always say.”

Pazel caught him by the arm. “Be quiet. Please.”

“Quiet? Quiet? You’ll be saying that when Arunis grabs the Stone and fries us like a skillet of clams!”

Pazel closed his eyes. In the depths of his brain an idea was fighting for air (as he himself was, with growing difficulty). No matter how he struggled it slipped away, just out of reach. Neeps went back to the door, coughing and shouting for Marila.

At last Pazel had it. He opened his eyes and turned to face a cluttered corner. The very corner where he had briefly crouched, looking for Sniraga. He crawled forward, shouldering the bread boxes to one side.

Neeps saw him and hurried back to his side. “What is it? You have a scheme, don’t you? Tell me!”

“The floor,” whispered Pazel. “Look at it, right there.” He pointed at a spot some three feet out from the wall. Neeps stepped closer, squinting: almost imperceptibly, the tin floor sagged.

“My knee did that,” said Pazel. “I put my weight there, and felt it bend. I’d nearly forgotten-it happened just as Fiffengurt was locking us in.”

“A weak spot?” said Neeps.

“Something even better,” said Pazel. “A bare spot is what I’m guessing: a place with no planks beneath the tin.”

“What on earth makes you say that?”

“Think about it,” said Pazel. “This is the orlop, and we’re two compartments forward of the Holy Stair.”

“So?”

“Neeps, that’s damn near dead center above the spot where the ixchel set their trap.”

“The charge, you mean? The black-powder charge that nearly blew Ott to pieces?”

“Right,” said Pazel. “Uskins was talking about it only yesterday-in the middle of his rant about finding and killing the remaining ‘crawlies,’ remember?”

Neeps’ eyes gleamed suddenly. “Pazel, you’re a wonder! He said the blast tore up the ceiling, didn’t he?”

“Right again,” said Pazel. “Now give me a hand.”

He turned and began shoving the bread boxes closer to the door. Neeps pitched in at once, asking no further questions. The fumes were by now very strong; when they stood up they could hardly breathe at all. Somehow they managed to push the majority of the boxes close to the door; then they hurried back to the corner.

“Hold this,” said Pazel, passing Neeps the lamp.

By its dim light Pazel crawled toward the low spot in the floor, pounding experimentally with the heel of his hand. At first the tin rang dully against solid wood: the low solid planks of the underlying floor. But as he neared the spot, it changed. It sounded hollow, and his blows caused the metal to shake. He rose to his feet and jumped. From beneath him, faintly, came the sound of falling debris. “We’re getting out of here,” he said.

“Don’t be… too sure,” Neeps replied between coughs. “The metal’s nothing sturdy, I know. But we’d still need… tin shears, or a hacksaw maybe. I’m sorry… you know I want out of here as badly as-Pitfire, watch it! What do you think you’re doing?”

Pazel had kept one of the bread boxes near at hand. Now he was raising it with difficulty above his head. He pointed one sharp metal corner at the floor. “Stay back,” he said, and brought it down with all his might.

The resulting crash was very loud. Outside the room, voices exploded: “Pathkendle! Undrabust? What in the sweet Tree’s shade are you doing?”

The box had dented the floor, but not pierced it as he’d hoped. He raised it again, and slammed it down once more.

“Muketch! Stop it, damn you!”

This time the box gouged a pinhole through the tin. Pazel struck a third time, and the hole became a matchstick-length tear.

“Blow out the lamp, Neeps,” he said.

“Now? You’ll be blind as a mole!”

“Hurry!”

Neeps blew out the lamp, and darkness swallowed them. Pazel struck out blind, again, and again. His lungs were burning, his mind in a haze. Then the door flew open and someone leaped into the room.

“Muketch! Undrabust!”

It was Sergeant Haddismal. The Turach waved his hands before his face, choking on the fumes, and began to thrash among the bread boxes.

Pazel struck once more. Haddismal spotted them and lunged. He swatted Neeps from his path with one hand. On an impulse Pazel tossed his box aside, leaped in the air and came down hard on both heels.

The floor split like an awning stabbed by a knife. Pazel scraped through, bloodied, and was running before his feet touched the floor of the deck below.

Fulbreech glided past the gunports, the dormant cannon, the heaps of rigging struck down for repairs. Not hiding: he was the surgeon’s mate, after all, and this was the way to sickbay. No one would ask where he was bound, at this or any hour. Still, it was a pleasant surprise to find the ship so quiet. Hardly anyone about, save a few tarboys scrubbing pots in the galley, and the night shift on the main deck, shaping crosstrees for the mizzenmast. As if they were going to take her anywhere, he thought with a moment’s unease. But then he reminded himself that it no longer mattered. Once his master heard what was coming he would have no choice but to act.

I could take it now, he had told Fulbreech. Just as surely as she did, ages past, from that cavern in the Northern ice. But she was weaker than I, weaker by far. The Stone marked her, burned her hand, and from that first tiny incision the great Erithusme began to die. I have been more careful, Fulbreech-her fate will not be mine. All the same I will wait a little longer, if I can.

Thus had Arunis spoken at their last clandestine meeting, just hours after Thasha had come to Fulbreech in tears, and said, I told Pazel, Greysan. About us. He didn’t want to believe me, but he did at last. There’s no one between us anymore.

His master had smiled at that.

But Fulbreech knew there would be no smiles tonight. His master forbade any visit to his hiding place, his lair, between their scheduled meetings. Had threatened to skewer him alive if he did so, in fact-unless disaster threatened them, or threatened the Nilstone. In that case, you must come to me instantly. Decide nothing for yourself beyond the practical. You understand? While you are in my service you may entertain no philosophy, no questions of motive or end. You could never grasp the answers. Concern yourself with how, not why. You are my puppet, Fulbreech. You are my eyes, ears, hands. That would all change, his master had promised, in the life to come. But for now there was a disaster to avert.

Fulbreech quickened his pace. Just this once he was tempted to abandon the guise of the young medical apprentice. But could he bypass sickbay altogether? No, that would draw attention; he must walk through the ward at least. There was time. He’d been quick. Twenty minutes ago he’d still been fondling that girl.

He entered sickbay, with its reek of iodine and sweat, and to his unspeakable rage found Ignus Chadfallow on duty. The man was indefatigable. After midnight, and here he was, bothering patients, kneading their scalps, taking notes on the discharge from their eyeballs, poking that thermometer in whatever orifice was nearest to hand.

“Fulbreech! I’ve been looking for you, lad. Would you like to observe a nearly flawless vestibular spasm?”

“Nothing would please me more, Doctor,” said Fulbreech, “but I must beg your indulgence for ten minutes; I haven’t come for my regular rounds, you see.”

“Quite right,” said Chadfallow. “You’re here for Tarsel, naturally.”

“Tarsel,” said Fulbreech, eyes darting.

“You have a surgeon’s passion, Fulbreech. At noon I give you Lognom’s Joints and Their Injuries, and twelve hours later here you are, ready to set a man’s thumb.”

“As it happens, sir, I’m not entirely ready.”

“Good!” replied Chadfallow. “Overconfidence is a plague in our line of work. And such manipulations cause agony, nearly every time.”

Fulbreech gave a deferential nod. He had not even glanced at Joints and Their Injuries. “I hope you won’t hold this against me, sir.”

“Not at all, my boy.” Chadfallow stood and led him down the row. “Why, I too needed help restraining the patient, the first time I wrenched a thumb.”

The man in question, Tarsel the blacksmith, lay with his right hand floating in a tub of some aromatic broth of Chadfallow’s. The thumb, pointing backward, was swollen up like the thumb of a drowned man. Tarsel lay shaking. His good hand was clamped on the edge of his cot.

“Doctor,” he said, “I can’t wait no more.”

Chadfallow put his own hand in the tub. “Still warm,” he said. “The ligaments should be pliant enough. Go ahead, Mr. Fulbreech.”

“What, him?” cried Tarsel, raising himself in the bed. “Nay, Doctor, nay!”

“Silence!” said Chadfallow. “You’ve no cause for alarm. This is a simple procedure.”

“Simple for you,” said the blacksmith, “but this lad here, he’s just a clerk. And he’s nervous as a maid on her wedding day!”

Fulbreech was staring at the hideous thumb. How hard, he asked himself, could it be?

“Mr. Tarsel,” said Chadfallow, “you will kindly lower your voice. Men are sleeping. Besides, you risk distracting the surgeon, to your own inconvenience.”

“My inconvenience!” screamed Tarsel. “Look at him, he’s set to soil his breeches! Keep him away from me!”

“Shall we proceed, Mr. Fulbreech?” said the doctor.

Fulbreech never knew how he got through that wrestling match with the blacksmith, whose arm was muscled like the haunch of a bull, and whose screams must have woken men far beyond sickbay. He was not really aware, or much interested, in his own efforts to wrench the thumb. His mind was on the story he would have to tell to escape the doctor’s clutches. He finished piecing it together just as the blacksmith fainted dead away.

“Low pain tolerance,” said Chadfallow, placing two fingers on the man’s neck. “Ah well, finish up. You’ll have no trouble now.”

Somehow, brutally, Fulbreech snapped the thumb back into place, with a pop that made him fear he might be ill. Chadfallow’s praise was restrained: he might be blind to other matters, but in medicine little escaped him. Then Fulbreech explained that he would have to forgo the pleasure of the vestibular spasm, as he had actually been sent for headache tablets. “The captain’s own request, sir: he’s lying in the dark, quite unable to sleep.”

It was a perfect fib: even if the captain later denied asking for the pills, Chadfallow would attribute the contradiction to Rose’s lunacy. Chadfallow took a small vial out of a cabinet and tossed it to Fulbreech. Then he looked the youth squarely in the eye.

“You may wish to consult Lognom again,” he said.

“Before I sleep, sir,” promised Fulbreech, and slipped out.

All this time Ensyl had waited in the ceiling of the darkened passage. Her people had once had a spy-hole beneath a cot in sickbay, but it had been deemed too risky: Chadfallow liked to rearrange the furniture, and to inspect the walls for fungus with a magnifying glass. She kept watch now above a spring-loaded trapdoor. Fortunately there was no other entrance to sickbay.

What were they doing stalking Greysan Fulbreech? A fool’s watch, a fool’s errand-or the most vital task on Alifros? Ensyl had no way of knowing which of these she had undertaken. But Dri had died believing in Hercol as well as loving him. And who was she, Ensyl, if not the guardian of her mistress’ beliefs?

It had grown harder, though. Hercol explained so little. Worse, he had become morbidly obsessed with Thasha: her moods, fancies, above all her romance with the surgeon’s mate. Was he another Dastu, another spy for Sandor Ott? Ensyl had demanded. Hercol had begged her not to ask, and more strangely, not even to think overmuch about what they were doing.

It weighed on her, that last request. Don’t think? Blind obedience? That was part of what Dri called “the madness of Ixphir House,” the disorder she feared would ruin the clan. And what if Hercol was wrong about Fulbreech? What if he was no more than he seemed? A fuse was burning, Dri had whispered once: a fuse that will end in a blast to set the world on fire. The Nilstone, she’d believed, was the explosive at the fuse’s end, only waiting for its spark. How much time did they have? How many more mistakes could they survive?

Then Fulbreech stepped back into the passage, and Ensyl forgot her doubts. The youth’s eyes were desperate, his mouth tight and strained. Those were not the eyes of one whose work was done. He slid to the left of the door and stood there, back to the wall, like a hunted thing. Seeing no one in the corridor, he suddenly darted across it and threw open the door opposite sickbay.

Ensyl swore. Hercol was right all along. For the place Fulbreech had entered was a tiny pump room, a service cabin for the machinery that lifted water from the bilge or the open sea, for dousing shipboard fires. It was probably the least-visited cabin on the deck. No other door led into the chamber. Nothing stored there was used in sickbay.

She pulled the trapdoor open wide. The passage was deserted all the way to the bend at the foremast. But just around that bend, she knew, waited her accomplice. Dangling upside down, she spread her lips, tightened the muscles in her throat and produced a high, soft cheeet: very much like a cricket’s song. An answering shadow flickered at the bend in the passage. Ensyl nodded to herself, jerked her head back inside and sealed the door.

On soundless feet she ran to the space above the pump room. Four large bilge-pipes rose through the ceiling and continued to the upper gun deck. Like all handiwork on the Chathrand they were tight-fitted, built to allow no seepage of wind or moisture from one deck to another. But what luck-there had been damage here as well: a seam between board and pipe had opened, by warping or trauma to the ship. It was no more than the width of two fingers-two ixchel fingers-but it allowed Ensyl a view of half the chamber.

Fulbreech had struck a match and now was lighting a candle stub. Ensyl watched as he glued it with its own wax to the top of a cabinet. Then he pulled something else from his pocket: a brass jar, very small, no larger than a cherry. Lifting the lid, Fulbreech inserted a finger and scooped out a tiny amount of white cream. This he proceeded to rub into his palm. He rubbed thoroughly, entirely focused on his task. Then he put the jar back in his pocket and turned to face the door.

That’s it? thought Ensyl, for already Fulbreech was reaching out (with the cream-coated hand) for the knob. But no, he wasn’t exactly. The hand was aiming for a space above the doorknob. He moved slowly, and with trepidation, as though reaching into a darkened burrow. Then suddenly the hand stopped. The fingers probed, gripped, tightened. Fulbreech inhaled sharply. He stood as though holding a second doorknob, mounted above the first, but Ensyl could see plainly that he was holding only air.

Until, suddenly, he wasn’t. She gasped, and thanked Mother Sky that her voice was an ixchel’s and could not be overheard. Fulbreech was holding a second doorknob. She had seen no flash or puff of smoke. The knob was simply, suddenly there.

Fulbreech was shaking with fright. His free hand seized a pipe and held it rigidly, like a backstay in a gale. Slowly, with his eyes tightly closed, he turned the knob.

Something terrible happened. The door flew wide, Fulbreech stumbled, Ensyl drew back her head. The candle was extinguished-and strangely, no light at all came from the passage beyond. But in the last instant of light, Ensyl thought she had seen through the open door-but not into the passageway. Instead she had glimpsed a strange, dark space, not framed with wood but carved from solid rock. Ensyl had sensed some great bulky shape lunging forward, but then the light had died.

Mother Sky, what’s happening?

A low sound, half slither, half shuffle, rose from darkness. Ensyl felt like running; she felt like a child in a darkened bedroom in the clan house, frightened by the echo of human footfalls. But there was nothing human about the sound coming from the darkness beyond the door.

Fulbreech’s voice came out hoarse and aghast. “M-master?” he said.

He was answered, if answer it was, by an assortment of foul vocalizations. They were mouth-sounds, maybe, but they formed no words. The sounds were sucking, gurgling, the licking of foul slobbery lips. Suddenly Fulbreech moaned, as though he had touched something unspeakably loathsome, or been touched by it. He stumbled backward; she heard his body collide with the pipes. The door creaked shut again, and clicked.

For almost a full minute there was silence. Then a voice said, “Have you brought another match?”

The voice belonged to Arunis.

“Y-y-”

“Relight the candle, Fulbreech, and tell me why you have disturbed my rest.”

Pazel knew the Turachs were on his heels. Their pounding boots sounded right above him; they could probably hear his own progress through the sleepy ship almost as well as he heard theirs. But they would never catch him. The ship’s four great ladderways all ended on the orlop deck: there were of course other staircases, but you had to know where to find them. It kept pirates from racing straight to the hold-and a few weeks ago, mutant rats from swarming straight to the topdeck. The Turachs would have to run all the way to the tonnage hatch, where they could swing down, if catching Pazel was worth such acrobatics. Otherwise they would press on to the midship scuttle. Pazel was running for that narrow stair himself: it was the fastest way up from the mercy deck as well.

But already his heart was sinking. He had escaped the bread room, but the Turachs knew the layout of the ship as well as he did, and they were larger and faster. They’d be waiting for him at the scuttle. They’d be waiting on every Gods-damned stair.

He stopped. It was hopeless. A weird alliance of his friends and enemies was determined to keep him from getting anywhere near Thasha. And maybe that was sign enough that he ought to sit still, just as Marila had told Neeps to do. Something that could make Fiffengurt and Haddismal work together was surely a matter of life and death.

Unless…

He laughed at a sudden, ridiculous idea. Could Rose be marrying them? Could that be how Thasha meant to “end it”? Were they keeping him away out of pity, for fear he’d attack Fulbreech on the spot?

Impossible. A ship’s captain could marry anyone, it was true… but Thasha couldn’t be that far gone. Could she?

He thought suddenly of Neda and Cayer Vispek, and his unsettling dream about the burial at sea. The Isiq girl wants to be rid of him. He felt ill. Maybe his mind-fit was coming early. Or maybe Thasha wanted to be married before the dlomu came to take them off for their visit to the Issar.

But hold on: the dlomu. Perhaps there was another way off this deck. He turned on his heel and ran straight back the way he had come. When he passed by the wreckage of the ixchel’s fortress he saw lamplight shining down through the hole in the bread room floor. Fiffengurt’s voice sounded hoarsely, calling his name. He didn’t answer. Straight on he ran, and minutes later reached the forward scuttle: a tiny, neglected laundry-chute of a staircase dropping sharply down to the hold.

He descended. Rin’s eyes, the smell. The flooding had washed out some of the cinders, blood and rat-filth, but what remained was exposed to the air now, and rotting… he shut his mind to such thoughts and groped into the darkness ahead. He had one chance, and if it came he would have to seize it instantly.

The scuttleway let onto a flying catwalk: a kind of bridge some twenty inches wide and eighty feet long, spanning the cavernous hold. No rail, and no way of telling if the boards were intact. Pazel set out across it, utterly blind, restraining a suicidal urge to run. The catwalk felt sound. He walked with arms stretched before him, but in fact he had no idea of his distance from the hull. And what then? How on earth would he get down to The catwalk ended. His foot met with empty space. He fell like a stone, and almost before he had time to be afraid struck the curving wall of the hull, and rolled and spun and crashed to the bottom of the hold.

First, a moment of stunned stillness; then the pain rushed in, and he cursed in a cascade of languages. But he was not dead, so he’d keep moving. He could still make everything all right. He crawled through a blackness of soaked and stinking wreckage. Bags of spoiled grain, ends of cables, shards of broken amphorae and scraps of wood. At times he was almost swimming in it. He doubted that he was moving in a straight line, but when he could touch the solid hull he corrected his path.

And suddenly there it was: moonlight. Not from any window above him, of course, but from below, reflected in a puddle on the stone quay beneath the Chathrand, through the hole in her flank. The shipwrights had not yet closed the wound: two enormous planks, or wales, remained to be fitted in place. Pazel dragged himself through the sawdust (fresh sweet smells) and looked out through the belly of the Chathrand. He was at the very bottom of her, just yards from the keel, and about fifteen feet off the ground.

Thasha. Love and fury blended hopelessly inside him. He had been too timid in protecting her, too selfish and slow. Aya Rin, let me get there in time.

He dangled from the bottommost wale, and let go. Pain shot up his legs where they struck the stone, but he managed a clumsy take on the straight-drop-and-roll maneuver Thasha herself had tried so hard to teach him. Landfall at last, he thought absurdly, struggling to his feet. Then he ducked under the keel, dashed to the opposite scaffold and began to climb.

The cool air brought flashes of hope. Sometimes bad luck was a whale that devoured you. Sometimes you crawled out of its belly and fought on.

The dlomu ashore did not notice Pazel at first, and by the time they did, they could think of nothing to do about him. Humans were not to leave the ship, but this youth’s only wish seemed to be to get back inside. They might have scolded him, but they were under orders not to speak to the crew except in emergencies, and so held their tongues. The decision, as it happened, cost lives.

Pazel had climbed about eighty feet when, on the lower gun deck, Fulbreech stepped out of the pump room and quickly closed the door behind him. For the last time in his life he put on his old, false face. He was ready with a laugh and a self-effacing story about ducking into the chamber to collect himself, after some ugly work in sickbay-but no one had seen him, the passage was still deserted. Once again he opened the pump room door.

Arunis swept into the passage, his great mace raised before him. Fulbreech thought again how ghastly he had become. Once the mage had been stout; today he was a skeletal, staring creature, large of build but wasted within his dark, enveloping coat, the old white scarf twined about a dry and scrawny neck. And yet there was power in those hands that gripped the cruel weapon like a plaything, and his eyes still gleamed with appetite.

He was marching aft at a swift pace. “The Stone is in the manger yet,” he said, more to himself than to Fulbreech, who was half running to keep up. “I will not have to touch it. I will take it, of course. No one will dare to cross me. The Turachs will flee their posts, and those who do not flee I will burn. I will claim the Stone tonight, and it will know me for its master, the shaper of worlds, the next ascendant to the Vault of the Skies. The Stone brings death only to weaker souls. All the same I will not touch it. Why should I touch it, before I know that I can?”

“You should cross the ship by the orlop deck, Master,” said Fulbreech, touching his sleeve.

“We cross here,” said Arunis.

“On the lower gun deck? As you will, Master. You may be lucky here as well.”

Sorcerer and servant hurried on, past the gunners’ cabins and the armory. Finally the passage ended and they stepped out into the central compartment. Moonlight filtered dimly through the gunports, and the glass planks overhead. The long rows of cannon gleamed blue-black in the shadows. Arunis hesitated, glaring.

“Empty,” he said.

“As I say, Master, you’re fortunate tonight. Stanapeth and Bolutu may be huddled with Lady Oggosk, but in general the ship is asleep.”

“It is not asleep,” snapped Arunis, shooting him a furious look. “Scores of men are awake, whether they dare to stir from their chambers or not. I can feel them, crouched and frightened. Why should they be frightened? What has been happening this last hour, Fulbreech?”

“This last hour? Nothing, Master. I told you, I was with the girl. Pathkendle and his friends retired early. Bolutu spoke with someone dispatched by Prince Olik, who delivered the awful news.”

Arunis began to walk quickly down the row of cannon. “Delivered it to him, not the entire crew. I begin to wonder if you’ve kept up appearances, Fulbreech. Does Sandor Ott still consider you his agent, or has he seen through your mask?”

“He relies on me utterly, sir,” said Fulbreech, with a hint of pride. “It was he who sent me in pursuit of Thasha to begin with, as you know.”

“Then what is the great Arquali spy telling you?”

“Master, he knows nothing of Olik’s plan to take the Nilstone.”

“Sandor Ott is awake, fool! Rose is awake! I smelled their nervous brains the moment I stepped from my chambers! Why are they nervous, Fulbreech? What are they waiting for?”

“Your death, sorcerer. These many years-but no longer.”

It was Hercol. The swordsman rose from a crouch between two gun carriages. With a gliding step he moved to block their way, Ildraquin loose in his hand, murder in his eyes.

The sorcerer’s face convulsed with rage. “My death,” he managed to scoff, but there was fear in the spiteful voice.

“I think,” said Hercol, “that you have taken an interest in this blade, since last we met. Certainly your creature here saw fit to question Thasha about it-in the most unassuming way, of course.”

“You must satisfy his curiosity, Stanapeth,” said a second voice.

Arunis and Fulbreech whirled. Sandor Ott had appeared behind them, a Turach sword in hand, wearing his savage smile.

Arunis turned and seized Fulbreech by the throat. “Maggot! Your death shall be the first of many!”

“Snap his neck and you’re doing him a mercy,” laughed Ott. “My own punishment for traitors would take several minutes just to describe. But you’ve got it wrong, Arunis. I was the one he betrayed, not you.”

Arunis turned Ott a look of hateful suspicion. All the same he let go of Fulbreech. The youth fell to the floor, wheezing in agony. Arunis kicked him flat, then held him still beneath his boot.

From the corner of a bruised eye, Fulbreech saw Ott draw something from his belt: a short, cylindrical device of wood and iron. The old spy raised an eyebrow at him. “Remember this, do you, lad?”

Fulbreech did remember. The thing was a pistol: a sort of handheld cannon, the first of its kind in all the world. It was clumsy, inaccurate, fragile and useless without a match. But on Simja, Ott had shown him how the device could fire a lead sphere through an armored chest. Fulbreech had thought: The Empire that could build such a thing cannot be opposed. That’s the winning side, my side. And until he’d met Arunis, he’d been right.

Ott began to circle the pair, slowly, casually. “Well, Stanapeth,” he said, gesturing at Fulbreech, “you promised this would be worth my time, and I’m happy to admit you spoke the truth. A traitor in the Secret Fist! If we were in Etherhorde I’d be submitting my resignation at Magad’s knee. But why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“For the same reason I told almost no one,” said Hercol, starting to circle as well. “Because this mage has been listening to our thoughts. He cannot probe below the surface, maybe, but when our minds turn to killing and betrayal, the surface is enough. It was all I could do to keep myself from brooding on Fulbreech, and thus giving everything away. And of course there were appearances to maintain in front of the Simjan himself.”

Arunis turned where he stood. He looked suddenly like a cornered animal, his gaunt lips drawn back from his teeth.

“Deceiving the deceivers,” said Ott. “You always were the best in your class.”

“We had a strong incentive to succeed,” said Hercol.

“We?” said Ott.

“Yes,” said another voice in the shadows, “we.”

It was Bolutu. He walked up quickly in the moonlight on Hercol’s left. He looked at Arunis, and his face, usually so placid, was transformed by rage. “Twenty years have I given to your downfall. Twenty years-and two hundred. I lost my family, my whole world. The only friends left to me were my shipmates, those who had sailed North with me, and them too I watched you hunt down and kill. You are depravity incarnate, mage. But you have not managed to kill us all.”

“Then let us amend that,” said Arunis, and leaped at him.

“Ah-ah-ah!”

The voice was Lady Oggosk’s. Arunis was suddenly floundering, as though he had collided with an invisible curtain, or a net. There was the old woman, hobbling around the edge of the tonnage hatch, leaning heavily on her walking stick. At her feet slithered the Red River cat, Sniraga, all her fur on end.

“I warned you, sorcerer,” she said, “that if you boarded the Chathrand she would be your tomb. Do you remember that day, in the Straits of Simja? Do you remember how you laughed?”

“I am laughing still,” said Arunis.

“Liar,” she cackled, “you’re scared to death, and well you should be. I have done little witchcraft since we met-very little these past forty years, truth be told, and I’ll do little more in the time I’ve left. But I saved my strength for tonight, and that’s more than you can say. Your power’s been squandered of late, hasn’t it? Dream-journeys, thought-spying, healing the cracks in the Shaggat’s arm. Above all, burrowing like a ferret into weakened minds, and then throwing them at the Nilstone to see how fast it would kill them. What did those experiments teach you, eh? Were you going to claim the Stone at last?”

Arunis let the mace fall from his hands. He struggled: it was as if cottony walls enclosed him, tightening the more he fought. “The witch’s web,” he sneered. “A charm for island pranksters, for tripping the town drunk when he steals eggs from your henhouse. The most primitive magic in Alifros!”

“So primitive I doubt you’ve bothered to learn a counter-spell,” said Oggosk.

“Witless hag. This charm will not hold me.”

Oggosk kept her blue eyes fixed on the sorcerer. “Not for long, no,” she said. “But long enough. And when I wish to-”

She pinched two fingers together. Arunis ducked his head and hissed, as though the walls had just closed tighter.

“-I’ll bind your arms to your sides, for just half a minute, maybe: plenty of time for one of these men to step forward and harvest your head. Fight on, bastard! Give me a reason to do it now! Do you really need proof that I can?”

“Old woman,” growled Arunis through clenched teeth, “I am going to roast you to slow death, over a pit of coals and fire-weirds. Release me. You do not know whom you are toying with.”

“Neither do you.”

This time the voice was Thasha’s, from the ladderway behind the spymaster. Out she stepped, armed and armored, and the hatred in her eyes made Ott himself look up with respect. Ensyl rode upon her shoulder. Behind her came Captain Rose.

Fulbreech lifted his head to gaze at Thasha. A small sound of terror escaped him.

“Yes, Greysan,” said Thasha, “I know who you are.”

“But you’re wrong, girl,” said Arunis. For the first time a gleam of craftiness returned to his eye. “You see, I know all of you, quite well. But you still do not know one another.”

He kicked at Fulbreech. “You, for instance, may have known what this worm had in mind for you from the start. But do you know what he did to your father?”

Thasha’s hand tightened on her sword-hilt. She looked at Lady Oggosk. Now, her eyes seemed to say.

“Do you know that your suitor here delivered him personally to Sandor Ott? And that this diseased old spy, this abomination, tortured your father to madness in a dungeon under Simjalla City?”

“Kill him, Hercol,” said Thasha quietly.

“And the noble Tholjassan!” cried Arunis. “The one you’ve always trusted, worshipped, adored. The first man whose touch you ever dreamed of, isn’t that so?”

“Bind his tongue, witch!” said Rose. Oggosk glared at him sidelong, as if to say, How much do you think I can manage?

“He told you how he served Ott for years, but did he ever elaborate? Did he mention how he doted on your father’s torturer, like every lackey in the Secret Fist, like Dastu and Fulbreech himself? Did he name the deeds that made him Ott’s right-hand man? Did he confess who really killed the children of Empress Maisa?”

Rose, Bolutu and even Ensyl looked shocked. Hercol’s face was grim. Thasha’s, however, did not change. She merely stepped close to her old mentor and touched his arm. “Yes,” she said, “he told me. And I love him. Will you end this now, Hercol?”

“Arunis,” said Hercol, his voice tight but steady, “you are defeated, and in seconds you will be dead. Once before I urged you to turn back to your true path-the path you swore to follow when your Gifts were bestowed. You responded by trying to kill us, yet again. Now there is but one thing you can do to save your life, and only if you do it this very moment, without delay or deceit.” Hercol looked at Bolutu. “Tell him,” he said.

“You must cast the Spell of Abdication,” said Bolutu.

“Ha!” cried Arunis. “To save my life! That is very droll. Cast the Final Charm, the Last Command, the spell that reduces mage to mortal, with no possibility of ever using magic again. Cripple myself, and then surrender! A kindly offer from a failed dlomic mage and a reformed assassin. How can I refuse?”

“Very well,” said Hercol. “Madam.”

Oggosk threw her scrawny arms upward. “Saikra!” she shrieked. The spell-word crackled through the deck. Arunis twisted backward one painful step toward the gunports. There he froze, arms flat against his chest, writhing only in face and fingertips. He appeared to be trying to speak, but his lips were clumsy, quivering. Oggosk, straining, gestured with one claw-like hand at Hercol.

“Do it!” she snapped. “A swift, clean stroke!”

Hercol raised Ildraquin and started forward.

Arunis’ eyes swiveled to stare at Thasha. With immense effort, he said, “Y-your mother lives.”

Thasha showed no response for an instant; then her calm shattered like a vase hurled at a wall. “Stop! Please!” she cried, leaping forward to grab Hercol’s arm.

“Do not stop!” bellowed Rose. “The duchess is tiring! Kill him!”

“Clorisuela is dead, Thasha Isiq,” said Ott. “I can guarantee that. I’m sorry.”

“Clorisuela was b-barren,” said Arunis, leering now. “Ask Ch-ch-chadfallow.”

“Chadfallow?” said Thasha.

If Arunis was breaking free of Oggosk’s spell, it was happening from the head down: already he spoke more easily. “The d-doctor c-couldn’t help her. Isiq gave up, and w-went looking elsewhere. Can you guess who he found?”

“Thasha,” said Hercol, “your mother’s name was Clorisuela Isiq.” But Thasha still held his sword-arm.

“Your mother’s name is Syrarys,” said the mage. “Isiq began to bed her years before his wife was killed. Ott arranged everything. He needed Isiq to have a daughter, after all. For Treaty purposes.”

“Lies, Thasha, lies,” said Hercol.

“Isiq paid for her rooms in the banking district. He had her two or three times a week-as often as Ott himself could stay out of her bed.”

Thasha was weeping. Ott shouted at Hercol: “Do it now, Stanapeth, or step aside.” He had pulled a box of matches from his coat.

Hercol freed his sword-arm from Thasha’s grasp.

“The whore was your mother, that’s a certainty,” said Arunis. “The question is, who was your father?”

Then came a madman’s shout from beyond the ship. Like an apparition, Pazel flung himself in through the gunport. He knocked the sorcerer from his feet, landed on his chest and struck him a blow to the face that might have broken a weaker man’s jaw.

“No! No! Idiot!” screamed Oggosk.

Pain flashed through the mage’s contorted features-and then he gasped, and his limbs moved naturally, free from Oggosk’s spell.

His first act was to shout a spell of his own: a terrible spell. The black mace rose and flew at Thasha. At the same time, two cannon swiveled on their frames like batons. The first blocked Hercol’s killing blow with Ildraquin. The second flailed at Sandor Ott. But the old spy was too quick: he leaped over the gun, pistol in one hand, a burning match in the other, and as he came down there was a deafening noise (a cannon, raised three octaves), and Arunis screamed aloud.

But the mage was far from slain. His second act was to throw Pazel upward, with such violence that nails popped in the ceiling-planks where he struck. Pazel thought his back must be broken, yet somehow he did not lose consciousness: his determination to kill Arunis, before he could strike again, with hands or spells or lies, was simply too great. But as he crashed to the floor Arunis shouted again, and darkness engulfed them all.

It was a tangible darkness, like ink poured in water. Pazel vanished into it, and found himself in a bedlam of howling, whirling bodies. Fists and feet struck at random. He heard Rose shout, “I have him!” and felt several thunderous blows shake the deck. Then the captain roared in agony, and a body lunged near Pazel, and something crashed onto the boards of the scaffold outside. Even as Pazel groped in the direction of the noise there came two similar crashes. Then Pazel found the edge of the gunport and thrust his head out.

The mage-darkness stopped at the window: beyond it, plain moonlight resumed. Pazel saw Hercol and Sandor Ott hurling themselves down the scaffolding like a pair of acrobats. Thirty feet below, something dangled over a rail: a body, it appeared, kicking feebly, perhaps even dying. When Pazel looked back into the ship the magical darkness was gone. Rose was supporting Oggosk; one of them was bleeding fast. But where was Thasha?

“No!” cried Hercol suddenly. Pazel looked and saw him holding Arunis’ empty black coat. “Trickery, illusion! Find him before he escapes!”

Pazel dived back into the ship. Rose, leaning heavily on a cannon, waved a bloody arm toward the center of the compartment. “That way! They’re chasing him! Run, run, damn your soul!”

Pazel ran. In a moment he caught sight of Bolutu, rounding the capstan, sprinting with his sword drawn. Up ahead it was brighter: moonlight was flooding down the tonnage shaft. The great foremast timber still lay there, propped at an angle-and suddenly, as his eyes traveled its length, Pazel saw Thasha, scaling the timber as fast as she could. Above her, much higher, climbed Arunis.

“Bolutu, this way!”

Pazel put on a burst of speed. He reached the tonnage hatch and climbed out onto the scaffold and then the mast. Up he went, much faster than Thasha: climbing was perhaps the only physical activity in which he outdid her.

Past the upper gun deck, the main deck, the topdeck where they had all stood and worked together a few short hours ago. Then cries rang out from the shore. Pazel glanced up-and thanked the Gods.

Fifty or sixty dlomu, mostly fighting men in uniform, had just stormed onto the quay. They were arguing, some quite heatedly. Several were fitting arrows to bows.

From the topdeck, Bolutu cried out: “Shoot him down, brothers! Shoot him, for the love of Alifros!” Seconds later Fiffengurt’s voice joined Bolutu’s, urging much the same.

Then came a general shout of alarm. Pazel looked up and saw Arunis jump from the mast. He had reached a height where it extended well past the Chathrand’s rail toward the quay. The distance looked impossibly great: Arunis, he thought, was going to fall short of the quay, plummet some 150 feet and strike hard stone, close to where Pazel had crawled out through the hull.

But it did not happen. Arunis cleared the gap with ease. The soldiers caught him, supported him-and then (Pazel felt a sudden, powerful urge to leap himself) stood back from him and raised their weapons in salute.

The mage’s voice came from below, faint but clear: “Bring a horse, and send another rider ahead to announce me. I have business in the Upper City, and I do not wish to be stopped and questioned at the gates.”

Someone darted away through the crowd. Arunis staggered over to one of the broken lampposts and leaned against it while the soldiers milled about him, offering him water, bread, someone’s coat. Arunis touched his leg, and the gaunt hand came away bloody. Then he felt his jaw, and winced. As if remembering, he turned and looked up at the mast where Pazel clung. Youth and sorcerer locked eyes for a moment. Then Arunis smiled, nodded to him almost cordially, and turned his back on the Chathrand.

“Shameless, interfering, cow-headed dullard!”

Lady Oggosk cracked her walking stick over Pazel’s back. Pazel, climbing over the tonnage hatch rail, took the pain as his due. Facing Hercol and Fiffengurt, as he did when he stood upright, hurt considerably more.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You sure as five-week fishcakes are,” said the quartermaster. “Why couldn’t you do as you were told, just once?”

“That would not be Pazel Pathkendle, would it?” said Sandor Ott, who was studying his cracked-open pistol with some disappointment.

“He didn’t know what was happening,” said Thasha, climbing over the rail in turn.

“Be silent, you impious girl,” shrieked Oggosk. “Many who played their part did not know what was happening. The captain did not know, Sandor Ott did not know, Fiffengurt remained ignorant as a stump.”

“That’s a tad overstated, Duchess,” said Fiffengurt.

“Shut your mouth, you walking salt-dried carcass of a toad! Arunis escaped death because this boy defied you, and leaped on him before Stanapeth could strike. It’s true, my spell was a weakling’s charm. I held him not with iron but with thread, and I only managed that because I’d been spooling and hoarding my thread for thirteen years. Even so I knew the spell would break the instant anyone touched the mage. If not for this lovesick tarboy Stanapeth would have killed him with ease! We’d be standing around his corpse now, toasting our victory! Oh, damn you, damn your low Ormali blood-”

“Leave him alone,” said Thasha, her voice suddenly dangerous. Oggosk, to general amazement, obeyed.

Hercol turned to Sandor Ott. “I keep my promises,” he said, “even when no good can come of them.” With that he unbuckled Ott’s white knife from his belt and held it out, sheathed, to the spymaster.

Ott’s eyes were locked on Hercol’s. He took the blade without looking down. “You did well to ferret out that snake,” he said. “He was a greater threat than I ever understood. But we’ve learned this much: he still has cause to fear a blade. At least, certain blades.”

“And yet he bested us all,” said Hercol. “Rose had a good grip on his arm, but he lost two fingers when the mage produced a knife of his own. Lady Oggosk herself suffered blows-”

“Pah,” spat the old woman.

“And you, Thasha: let me see what that mace accomplished. Right away, if you please.”

Thasha reluctantly lifted the edge of her shirt. On her ribs were a wide, blackening bruise and two gashes, left by the teeth of the sorcerer’s mace.

“Fool!” said Hercol. “You climbed a spar with that? You might have lost consciousness and fallen to your death!”

“But I didn’t, did I?” said Thasha.

“Go to the surgery at once. Pathkendle, take her there, drag her. Chadfallow is already at work on the captain. Have him examine you, too, when he’s finished with Thasha. You may have a hard head-”

“A gargoyle would envy it!” said Lady Oggosk.

“-but I saw you strike those ceiling-planks. And there’s your fall into the hold as well. Go on.”

“Hercol,” said Thasha, “was Arunis telling the truth? Did my father know Syrarys… years before?”

“Nonsense!”

“You weren’t in Etherhorde when I was born,” said Thasha. “You were still in hiding with Empress Maisa. You never saw Clorisuela with child.”

“What of it? Go to surgery, I say, before you collapse.”

“Is Syrarys my mother, Hercol?”

“Thasha Isiq: as your martial tutor, I command you to seek treatment for that wound.”

“Come on,” said Pazel, touching her arm.

Thasha pulled her arm viciously away. She looked at Hercol for a long moment, and then moved slowly toward the hatch.

Pazel walked at her side. They did not speak as they descended to the orlop. Thasha marched aft with hands in fists. Ahead in surgery Rose gave a howl of pain. All at once Thasha stopped and turned to face Pazel, her eyes enraged and wet. A lock of her golden hair was pasted to her shoulder with someone’s blood.

Pazel stammered: “You know, to me-I mean, I don’t care whose daughter you-”

“Shut up.”

He waited. Thasha steadied herself against the wall. It would take hours to spit all the curses from that mouth, and she was not speaking, not saying a word. He wondered how much blood she’d already lost.

“I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?” said Pazel.

Thasha clamped a hand over his mouth. With that gesture they both grew still. Her hand tightened; she swayed closer to him. Then, not weeping but shaking from head to toe, and sighing with all that she had not said to him in weeks and could find no words for now, she was in his arms.

9. What Fulbreech glimpsed was not Felthrup, who by that time slept only in his closet. In all likelihood it was Bolutu’s veterinary bag. If he had taken it, the youth would have been startled to find inside a notebook with the very words the dlomu and Hercol had just spoken-“a bright day for Alifros,” etc.-written out like a playscript in Bolutu’s hand. -EDITOR.

THE EDITOR REFLECTS ON THE CONDUCT OF HIS HEROES

They are, of course, too young.

You know of what I speak. With the exposure of Greysan Fulbreech there can be no remaining (logical) impediment to a carnal encounter between Lady Thasha and Pazel Pathkendle. In dramatic terms such an encounter is almost obligatory. Neither youth is hormonally defective. Both have considered the possibility for months-and with unseemly specificity, in the case of Mr. Pathkendle. They show no signs of disease or contagion. And they have been supplied with a preposterous array of opportunities: a magic wall, no less, deflects all rival suitors from intruding on their presumably impending bliss.

But I repeat: it cannot happen. Said bliss cannot, and therefore does not, impend. They are too young.

My own status as philosopher and moral paragon is beside the point. Anyone, from the lowliest fishwife to the most venerated saint, can grasp the fundamental wrongness of such a liaison. We need not elaborate. The Great Designer unquestionably decreed that human beings should reach bodily maturity at a certain age precisely that they might refrain from expressing that maturity for another five to ten years. In ancient Senadria the legal age was thirty-three (although we now know that in its declining years the republic collected a third of its income from the sale of special permits to younger citizens); in fair Elynon it was thirty (twice the age at which boys were forced onto the battlefield, and girls into factories to stitch their boots). Truly enlightened cultures, such as the Elari in their frigid fishing townships, aspire to eliminating the behavior completely. A few no doubt succeeded.

Yearn then, Pazel and Thasha, but yearn alone. We do not wish you joy, indeed far from it. The matter is not open to debate.

Except, of course, in the fugitive territories of their minds. However trivial the latter (it is not their inclination, after all, that concerns us) we should note in passing that neither Mr. P. nor Lady T. views the matter with our own precise and perfect clarity. This is where the moral lesson resides.

You may encounter persons who should not mate. Be ready to explain things. If, as with Pazel, they feel that to do so is no more than the natural expression of a love that is beyond question and well proved, urge them to doubt the very notion of “natural.” If, as with Lady Thasha, they feel the desire to give what is most intimately their own to the one of their choosing, remind them that there is nothing sacred in that choice. Magic may surround them (one may say I love you in twenty-five tongues, another be strong enough to hold death’s orb in her hand) but magic does not inhabit the sordid act of love.

If they protest that an overwhelming mutual tenderness draws them together, observe that virtually all cases of first love end in separation and tears, and that consequently they should do better to skip the experience. If they reply that some love has to be one’s first, unless one would go through life playing come-not-hither, tell them not to split hairs.

If, finally, they live in fear that at any day it may be too late: that the death stalking fleets, cities, empires must surely catch up with them; or that some morning soon they will wake up and find themselves asleep-that is, mindless, insensate tol-chenni with no possibility of experiencing love-well, that changes nothing. Virtue is virtue, and no one should face death without its comforts. Tell them this, if ever you have the chance.