The Red wolf conspiracy tcv-1

by Robert V. S. Redick

  "You can't say no to Ramachni."

  "No?"

  Pazel looked back at the mage, who had walked calmly into the stateroom. "Do it to Thasha the Brave, here," he said. "One Gift was enough to ruin my life."

  "It will not be enough to save your world from death," said Ramachni.

  Pazel froze, the cake halfway to his mouth. Ramachni sat back on his haunches.

  "Eavesdropping is difficult in the hold of a ship, but it is a thousand times more difficult from another world. For ninety years Alifros has been my chief concern, bound as it is to my own world by blood and happenstance. Dawn to dusk have I listened, and midnights, too. Now at last the moment comes. A fell power is brooding over the Chathrand. Greater than the evil mage already aboard her, or the horrible man who will board soon-though they perhaps seek to use it. What is it? When and how will it strike? I do not know. But I know that it cannot be ignored, for I have walked in lands where it prevailed, where men hoped it would pass them by, and were wrong. Trust me this far, Pazel Pathkendle: you do not know the meaning of ruin."

  Pazel looked at him: a small creature on a bearskin rug, its black eyes blazing.

  "What do you want?" he said.

  "To listen with you. And if you should hear something… extraordinary, to teach you a word to know it by. Perhaps several words. It depends on what you hear."

  "That's all?"

  "That, Pazel, is enough to shake the foundations of this world. The words I would teach you are Master-Words: the very codes of creation, spoken in that ethereal court where will is matter, and rhymes become galaxies. Normal men cannot learn them, you see-"

  "But he can," said Thasha.

  "Perhaps," said Ramachni. "But Pazel's Gift is a tiny spark compared with the wildfire power of such words. Only two or three do I dare teach you-for your sake, and that of Alifros itself. And Pazel, you will only be able to speak each word once. After that it will vanish from your mind forever."

  "But why don't you use them yourself?" Thasha asked.

  "I am a visitor here," said Ramachni. "The Master-Words belong to this world, not mine. They would be as dust on my lips."

  Still Pazel hesitated. "What am I to do with these Master-Words?"

  "Fight the enemy."

  "But how? You don't even know who he is!"

  "In time he will show himself. And then you must choose the word, and the moment for its use. And you must choose wisely, for there will be no second chance."

  "This is… absurd!" sputtered Pazel. "I don't even know who I'm supposed to fight! How can you expect me to beat him? What if he just stabs me in my sleep?"

  "He will not know about you, either, nor of the power in your keeping. And years may pass before he strikes-years, or days, or mere hours. Try to understand: this is a battle in the dark, and I am as blind as any. I know only that I have found in you and Thasha my best champions-the very best in ninety years of searching. Will you refuse?"

  Pazel walked slowly to the table and put down the cake. "No," he said. "I won't refuse."

  "Then as soon as we can arrange a time-"

  "Now."

  Ramachni twitched his tail in surprise. "Are you certain? It will tire you greatly."

  "I'm certain. Do it now. Before I change my mind."

  Ramachni drew a deep breath. He looked at Thasha. "When this is done, Pazel will be tired, but I shall be exhausted. Too exhausted even to return to my world through your clock. I will go to my secret place in the hold, and sleep for some days. Can I depend on you, Thasha? Will you guard him, and guard yourself, and be strong for everyone till I awake?"

  Beaming at his confidence in her, Thasha said, "I will."

  "Then go to the window, Smythнdor, and lie down."

  Pazel walked to the gallery windows. The window seat was eight feet long, with red silk cushions propped in the corners. Did they have time for this magic? Was he wrong to have insisted it happen now? He lay down, trying not to touch the cushions. Even after his bath he was still too dirty for this room.

  The little mage sprang up into Thasha's arms, then twisted about to face him.

  "Do not think," he said. "Thought is the task of all your life in this frail universe, but just now it is the wrong task. Instead, listen. Listen as though your life depended on it, as one day it shall."

  Pazel looked at him, but the mage offered no further instructions. So Pazel crossed his arms on his chest and listened.

  At first he merely heard the ship-sounds so familiar he scarcely noticed them anymore. Beneath the windows her sternpost churned the swell, and her rudder creaked as Mr. Elkstem turned the wheel. Gulls cried. Men laughed and shouted. There was nothing strange about any of it.

  Then Ramachni whispered something to Thasha, and she leaned over Pazel and flung open a window. Wind filled the chamber, lifting her hair, and Ramachni slid from her arms to the window seat. Gingerly he crept onto Pazel's chest.

  "Shut your eyes," he said.

  Pazel obeyed, and the instant his lids closed he was gone-hurled like a leaf on a vast cyclone of sound. It was not loud, but it was deeper than the sea itself. He heard a thousand beating hearts: every one on the Chathrand, from the slow kettledrum hearts of the augrongs to the bipbipbip of newborn mice in the granary. He heard the sound of Thasha blinking. He heard Jervik laugh secretly at something, and Neeps retching at some foul chore in the galley, and the lookout sobbing a girl's name ("Gwenny, Gwenny") in the privacy of the crow's nest. He heard a rat speaking, howling, about the wrath of the Angel of Rin. He heard Rose whisper, "Mother!" in his sleep.

  But the sounds of the Chathrand were but a puff of wind in the storm. Pazel could hear all the waves in the Nelu Peren, breaking on every rock and raft and seawall in the Empire. He could hear the layers of the wind, pouring over the world like drifts of snow, mile over mile, and thinning at last to the icy flute-song of the void. He heard sea turtles hatching on a warm Bramian beach. He heard a creature many times Chathrand's length devouring a whale on the floor of the Nelluroq.

  Then a gentle breeze tamed the cyclone. It was Ramachni's breath, Pazel knew, and it flowed into that mad cauldron of sounds and silenced them-entirely. In seconds it was all gone, even his own heartbeat was gone. The world might have been dead, or frozen for eternity in solid diamond. And into that perfect silence Ramachni spoke three words.

  He was sitting up. Dizzy, dazed. Thasha was stumbling toward an armchair. Ramachni trembled at his side.

  What had happened? How much time had passed? For a moment Pazel was reminded of the time years before when he had woken to find the lilies grown tall in his mother's garden, and himself barely escaped from death. But no, not this time. Minutes had passed, not weeks, and he wasn't ill. Just full, to the very edge of madness, with remembered sounds.

  "I heard the whole world breathing," he said.

  Slowly, achingly, Ramachni raised his head. Pazel met his gaze.

  "The words," he said. "I have them. I can feel them in my head! But what are they for?"

  "They are the simplest of Master-Words. But when you speak them they will be spells of fabulous power. One will tame fire. Another will make stone of living flesh. And the third will blind to give new sight."

  "Blind to give new sight? What does that mean?"

  "You will know."

  "Look at this place," said Thasha vaguely. "It's a disaster."

  So it was: a whirlwind seemed to have passed through the stateroom. Pictures were crooked, chairs overturned, crumbs of cake spread everywhere. Thasha herself, with her hair bedraggled and her silver necklace twisted over one shoulder, looked as if she had just climbed down from a mast.

  Ramachni touched Pazel's arm. "Remember: each word is gone forever after you speak it. Everything depends on your choices. Listen to your heart, and choose well."

  He crept down from the window bench, wheezing like an old man. Thasha hurried forward and lifted him. Her face was suddenly very worried.

  "Be strong, my warrior," Ramachni said to
her. "Now go and find Hercуl, and let him take me to my rest."

  But there was no need to go looking for Hercуl. Seconds later he threw open the outer door, leaped inside and slammed it behind him.

  "Ramachni, you have kept them too long!" he whispered. "Hide! Her father comes! By the Night Gods, you two-straighten your clothes and sit down to your studies!"

  Ramachni vanished into Thasha's cabin while Hercуl began frantically putting the room in order. Snatching up Thasha's grammar book, he thrust it into Pazel's hands.

  "For the love of Rin, watch that tongue of yours!"

  They had just enough time to drop into studious postures before Eberzam Isiq flung open the door.

  "So," he said with a glance at Hercуl, "you found them."

  He was furious. Pazel reflected dimly (his mind was still rather thick) that he had never apologized-but how could he apologize for speaking the truth?

  Hercуl cleared his throat. "I found them. Hard at the books, Your Excellency."

  "But not in public chambers," said Isiq. "Did I give you the run of my cabin, Pathkendle?"

  "No, sir," said Pazel, struggling to his feet. His voice sounded odd to his own ears. Thasha started to rise as well, then sat again with a thump.

  "And yet you dare return," said Isiq, breathless with rage, "after your insolence a month ago."

  "Don't blame him, Prahba," said Thasha, her voice equally strange. "I couldn't stand the noise in the lounge. I made him come here."

  He looked at her, clearly taken aback. "You brought him? Well, then-it is not your fault, Pathkendle. But it is most improper that you two should be alone! Bring Syrarys, next time-or fetch Nama, or Hercуl. Hmmph! And how is her Mzithrini, boy?"

  Pazel swallowed. "She… amazes me, Excellency."

  Isiq demanded a demonstration. Thasha cleared her throat and said, "My husband is not always a pencil."

  "Are you laughing, boy?"

  "No, sir." Pazel gave a gagging cough. Isiq took a step closer, studying him.

  "Chadfallow might have adopted you," said Isiq.

  Now it was Pazel's turned to be startled. "Yes, sir," he stammered. "I owe the doctor a great deal."

  "You're an educated boy. Why did you risk insulting me that day?"

  Pazel gripped the chair. "I have no excuse, Your Excellency."

  "Just as well." Isiq forced out a chuckle. "You learned Mzithrini from their envoy, didn't you? Chadfallow called him a barbarian in silks. Perhaps a little barbarism rubbed off on you? Not a bad thing, that. A little barbarism fortifies a man."

  "Yes, Excellency."

  "Let us forget the past, shall we? You showed great valor with those augrongs. And when I learned that you were the son of Gregory Pathkendle I naturally wished to meet you. That coat is to your liking?"

  "Yes, Excellency; I thank you."

  "We shall forget the past." Isiq ruffled Pazel's hair. "A strange meeting for us both, eh? You're the first Ormali I've spoken to since the Rescue. And naturally I am the first soldier of that campaign to speak with you."

  "No, Excellency. The first to speak with me was the corporal who kicked me unconscious because he wanted to rape my mother and sister, and could not find them."

  After Hercуl had clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him from the stateroom (with a look that made it clear just how thoroughly Pazel had cooked his own goose), after Uskins appeared and stripped him to the waist and tied his wrists to a fife-rail, after men gathered by the score to gawk and mumble about Rose's wrath, after someone began to lash him with a knotted whip and a gleeful Uskins shouted, "Harder, wretch, or I'll demonstrate on you," after Pazel heard a sob and realized Neeps had been made to deliver the punishment, after Pazel felt tears streaming down his cheeks and blood trickling to his breeches-only then did the worst result of his outburst occur to him.

  He would never see Thasha again.

  But that was the least of his troubles, wasn't it? He had never much bothered with girls: everyone knew they spelled disaster in a seafarer's life. Like coral isles, went the saying: pretty at a distance, ringed by reefs.

  He shouldn't care. He didn't even know her, and what he did know-that she was the daughter of the man who had burned Ormael, and pampered, and rather violent, and indiscreet-he did not much like. Did he?

  Fire and fumes, Pazel. You do.

  It was a final, unexpected lash. She might have been a friend-after all these years, a friend! — but he would never find out now. And Neeps, his other friend: he would vanish, too, and kind Mr. Fiffengurt, and-oh, sky! — the chance of finding his parents and Neda again! If Dr. Chadfallow had really been guiding him back to them, Pazel had just thrown the chance away.

  Suddenly he wished very humbly for the protection of the Imperial surgeon. What would happen to him? Who would care if he died?

  Dr. Rain cleaned his wounds with eucalyptus oil and sent him back to his hammock. He could not lie in it, so he lay on his stomach on the filthy floor, hardly daring to sleep for fear that boys would tread on him in the blackness. And yet he must have slept, for sometime in that miserable night he found himself suddenly awake, possessed of a terrible awareness.

  I've lost all my people.

  But even as the thought crossed his mind, Neeps returned from his night shift, felt his way to Pazel and gripped his arm. Pazel sat up, wincing, and Neeps handed him a pouch.

  "What's this?"

  Neeps did not make a sound. Pazel untied the pouch and felt inside. Coins, six or eight of them. By the weight Pazel knew they were gold.

  "Where'd you get these, mate?"

  Neeps said not a word. He pressed a second object into Pazel's hand. It was a folded knife.

  "Neeps! Is that my father's knife? It is, isn't it?"

  Neeps was still fumbling in his pockets. At last he produced a final gift: the ivory whale.

  "Did you have to fight Jervik?" Pazel whispered.

  Neeps sniffed. Only then did Pazel realize that he was sobbing with rage and shame.

  "By my grandmother's bones on Sollochstal," he said in his squeaky voice, "I'll see them pay for what they made me do to you."

  From the secret journal of G. Starling Fiffengurt, Quartermaster

  Saturday, 13 Ilqrin. Quiet sailing on a nervous ship. Rose is tyrannical amp; Uskins cruel, but both have kept to themselves these two days since the flogging of Pazel Pathkendle, as if sated by that wicked business. For Mr. P. P. of course there is no future: he shall be put ashore in Uturphe with a purse of horsemeat amp; the mark of shame upon his papers. Uskins that great hog tried to brand his wrists-I for Insolent on one, R for Reckless the other. He had Pathkendle in the smithy amp; was heating a branding iron when I arrived amp; intervened. Not very gently, either: I told him that iron would find new amp; uncomfortable quarters if he tried to use it on one of my boys. Uskins sneered at me for defending the Muketch-the boys' strange nickname for Pathkendle. I gather it has something to do with crabs.

  Uskins did quite enough damage when he made the boy's best friend, Neeps Undrabust, dole out the lashes. Mr. Undrabust walks about looking as if he'd killed someone. He has also been fighting: Mr. Jervik Lank apparently remarked that Pathkendle was a "girly" because he'd cried under the lash-as if marines amp; mercenaries didn't as well! — amp; that Undrabust was worse, as he'd cried just because he had to whip a "daft Ormali." Undrabust went for him like a wildcat. Fortunately Peytr amp; Dastu were on hand amp; tore him away before anyone was hurt.

  I looked the other way on this occasion, but I won't be able to do so again. Fighting is a plague that must be stamped out quickly, lest it escape all control.

  Sunday, 14 Ilqrin. Foul dreams: Anni sick, her father forced to beg a loan from the Mangel thugs to buy medicine, a swarm of black insects over Etherhorde, a baby crying in the hold. Such visions have plagued me for weeks-since that awful night, in fact, when Mr. Aken of the Chathrand Trading Family was lost overboard, just a few leagues out of Ellisoq Bay. Only Swellows saw him fall, amp; though we dropped
sail amp; put out the lantern craft, no trace of his body was found. Swellows claims he was staggering drunk, but I said nothing of this in the letter I wrote to his wife. His cabin showed no trace of liquor, amp; the offending bottle, if bottle there was, went with him to the deep. Rose led us in a prayer for the man's good soul-so sincerely that I could at last imagine the captain ending his days as a monk.

  Currently Rose sits whole days at his desk, scribbling, leaving only for the sailmaster's report amp; his evening meal. Turwinnek Isle came amp; went, amp; the ruins of the ancient city of Nal-Burim on the southeast tip of Dremland. Commander Nagan's moon falcon was sent inland amp; returned with a fat grouse, which was served with mint at the captain's table tonight. Mr. Latzlo offered five hundred cockles for the bird, but the soldier loves his Niriviel amp; would not hear of it. One has to admire such gentle feelings in a fighting man.

  Wednesday, 17 Ilqrin. Confusion amp; delays. Strong SW winds had us tacking all but back toward home from Wednesday last to yesterday morning. Since then no wind to speak of: we are reduced to a crawling two knots.

  The confusion though concerns our heading. Nal-Burim is the usual signal to trim due west, for any ship bound for the Crown-less Lands. But to general amazement Rose has given no such command: we are holding a south-by-southwest course, amp; leaving the mainland behind. Mr. Elkstem inquired at the Capt.'s door amp; was told to steer as instructed amp; blast his curiosity.

  Last night Pazel Pathkendle was attacked by other boys in the darkness-tied into his hammock amp; pissed upon, told that he "should have been made a slave" amp; not "disgraced the best ship of the best people in Alifros." His friends Undrabust and Reyast were elsewhere. No one will give me names.

  For his own safety I have moved Pathkendle's hammock to the brig, where he will sleep under lock and key until expelled in Uturphe. If we ever get there.

  Monday, 22 Ilqrin. Harpooned a reaper shark; Teggatz made a soup. In his gullet (the shark's) found the whole skeleton of a human hand, with a fine silver ring on one finger. Our cook presented it to me with much blinking amp; rubbing of hands, amp; minutes later managed to say: "Bad shark." I shall give the ring to Annabel one day, without the tale of its provenance.