The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Pazel looked off into the night, and thought of Felthrup. That choice, at least, was something he could understand.

  Erithusme sighed. ‘The Red Storm, incidentally, has stopped the mind-plague from spreading north. That is the Storm’s whole purpose, as perhaps you’ve surmised. If your ship should eventually pass through it, you will all be cleansed.’

  ‘And propelled into the future. Another unfortunate side effect.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Better to lose all our friends and loved ones than to lose everything. That’s how you see it.’

  The mage appeared puzzled. ‘Is there another way to see it?’

  Pazel looked at her with immense dislike. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘the Red Storm is dying. Or so Prince Olik told us.’

  ‘Your prince is quite right. Not all spells are for ever. Within a decade or two it will give no protection at all. But it doesn’t matter. The Swarm of Night will kill us all long before the mind-plague reaches any Northern land. And listen to me, boy: we cannot fight the Swarm.’

  She seized his hand with her cold, thin fingers. ‘All our effort must be to rid the world of the Stone. Nothing else. Take the Nilstone from this world, and all the forces it compels — the Red Storm, the mind-plague, above all the Swarm of Night — will falter and die. The Nilstone is the air that feeds those fires. To snuff the fires we must cut off the air. Nothing else we do will long matter if we fail in that.’

  He nodded, leaning back heavily against the bench. He had understood the power of the Nilstone for a long time, but getting rid of it felt more impossible than ever.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll do the impossible again,’ he murmured.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Something Ramachni said. Just before we burned Arunis.’ He turned to face her, nose to nose. ‘If we win,’ he said, ‘Thasha gets to go on living — just like that? No tricks, no complications? You’ll depart and leave her in peace?’

  ‘I stand amazed,’ she said, ‘at the ill luck of your desire for that girl. You bear my mark. You were chosen. And here you sit brooding, like a child who doesn’t want to share his candy.’

  Another silence. Her avoidance of his question dangled between them like a corpse. Erithusme glanced up at the moons. ‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘I’m going to tell you. And Rin save Alifros if I err in doing so.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘How to use the Nilstone.’

  Pazel’s breath caught in his throat. The mage nodded at him solemnly. ‘Any of you can do it. Any who bear my mark. You need only be touching one another — six of you at least — and concentrate on fearlessness. Then one of you may set his hand on the Stone, and whatever fear is in that one will flow out into the others. The one emptied of fear can command the Stone as I did — very briefly, perhaps only for a matter of seconds, but it might be long enough to kill Macadra, say, or blast a hole in a pursuing ship. You should try it here in Ularamyth, first, with the guidance of the selk.’

  Pazel’s mind was reeling. ‘Six of us?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, six. The Red Wolf marked seven, in case one of you should be killed. Whatever’s the matter now, boy? I know that the ixchel woman died — but six of you still breathe, I think?’

  He nodded, wondering if he’d be ill.

  ‘Out with it!’

  ‘Five of us are here,’ he said. ‘The sixth is Captain Rose.’

  ‘Rose?’

  ‘He talked about coming with us.’

  ‘Nilus Rose?’

  ‘I almost believed him, but when it came time to leave the Chathrand he went into his cabin and didn’t come out.’

  ‘Get up. Move away from me.’

  ‘What?’

  She shot to her feet. The light around her changed. She clenched her fists, muscles straining, face contorting, and then she screamed with a fury that grew and grew and the sound was like the breaking of a mountain. Pazel crouched behind the stone bench. Light was pouring from her; the air convulsed with shock waves like the recoil of a cannon; his chest was imploding; the stone of the bench began to crack.

  Illusion?

  Then it was gone. Erithusme stood there, breathless. The fury still throbbed in her, but it had changed, transmuted into something soundless and cold.

  ‘With six of you, and the Nilstone’s aid,’ she said, ‘you could have removed that wall in Thasha Isiq, no matter what its origin. You could have let me return.’

  Pazel stared at her. That’s why she gave us the power to use the Stone.

  Erithusme looked at the motionless trees, bending in an arrested gust of wind. ‘The Chathrand has sailed without you, hasn’t she?’

  ‘They had no choice,’ said Pazel, ‘Macadra was bearing down on them. But we can still catch up. They haven’t crossed the Ruling Sea.’

  Erithusme nodded distantly. Then she said, ‘The fire is nearly out. Goodbye, Mr Pathkendle. In spite of everything, we will meet again. On that you may bet your precious little life.’

  Pazel jumped. He had been holding in his own questions, overwhelmed by her non-stop talk. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘Ramachni told me something else I’ll never forget: “The world is not a music box, built to grind out the same song for ever. Any song may come from this world — and any future.”’

  The mage turned him a faint, ironic smile. ‘Ramachni was ever the romantic.’

  She moved towards the fire cauldron. Pazel ran to her and seized her arm. He was more afraid of her departure now than anything she might do to him.

  ‘Diadrelu wasn’t supposed to die,’ he said, ‘Rose wasn’t meant to stay with the ship. And Thasha wasn’t supposed to have a wall inside her to stop you from trading places. But those things happened. Nothing’s guaranteed. And if nothing’s guaranteed, maybe you won’t be able to return after all. What then?’

  ‘What if the sun explodes?’

  ‘Oh, stop that. You must have thought about it at least. What if this is the end? What if it’s your last chance to do anything to help us win the fight?’

  ‘Then we are doomed.’

  ‘That’s not blary good enough!’

  ‘It’s how things stand. Now take your hand off my arm, tarboy, or I will set it afire.’

  Pazel tightened his grip. ‘You want it to be true,’ he said. ‘You want to believe that you’re the only one who matters. That there’s no point even trying, unless we bring you back to save us all. But be honest, for Rin’s sake! You’re twelve hundred years old. Isn’t there anything else in that mind of yours that we should know about, that could help us do this thing without you, if we must?’

  Erithusme flung her arm, and there was a Turach’s strength behind the gesture. Pazel reeled and fell. When he looked up the mage was bending over the cauldron.

  ‘Arrogant brat!’ she said. ‘I did not stumble unprepared into this Court! Seventeen years I have been preparing for nothing else but this battle, this last task of my life. You could sit here thinking for a decade and not come up with a question I have failed to consider. I am on top of things, boy. I have determined how to rid Alifros of the Stone! I set thousands labouring at the task, though none of them ever knew the cause they truly served. The drug-addled Emperor of Arqual reunited me with my ship. Sandor Ott devised a scheme to take that ship to Gurishal, to the very door of the kingdom of death. And you and Arunis, together: you raised the Stone from the seabed and brought it onto the Chathrand, where I waited in disguise. I left out nothing. It is a master plan.’

  ‘It’s failing,’ said Pazel.

  For a moment her look was so deadly that he feared she would attack him. But Erithusme was gripping the cauldron, now, and did not appear to want to release it. ‘Destroy that wall!’ she snarled. You can’t beat them without me. You’ll die under Plazic cannon, or the knives of Macadra’s torturers. You’ll die the first time the Swarm descends from the clouds, and in that black hell you’ll curse your own stupid waywardness, that has cost Alifros its life.’

  ‘Erithusme,’ said Pa
zel, ‘I can see right through you.’

  ‘The Pits you can, you imp.’

  ‘I mean literally,’ said Pazel.

  The mage raised a hand before her eyes: it was transparent. She sighed. But it was not only the mage whose time had come. The entire court was fading. He could see the hillside through the ruins, the dry earth through Erithusme’s chest. The mage growled and plunged a hand into the cauldron, digging furiously. At last she straightened, and in her soot-covered hand lay a last, softly glowing coal.

  ‘I am coming back,’ she said, ‘and you, Thasha’s lover: you are going to make it possible. I know this. I have known it since I first heard your name. But I said I would answer your question, and I shall. If all seem lost — and only if it does — then take Thasha to the berth deck. Show her where you used to sleep, where you first dreamed of her. When she is standing there she will know what to do.’ A wry smile appeared on the ancient face. ‘And if that day comes, and you find new reasons to hate me — well, remember that you insisted.’

  Her hand closed. He saw smoke through her fingers.

  She was gone.

  Thaulinin beckoned to him from the hilltop: apparently he was still forbidden to descend. The Demon’s Court had vanished, and in its place lay nothing more than a barren slope. Pazel shivered as he climbed; the wind was unrelenting.

  Clouds had appeared, pursuing one another across the sky, swallowing and disgorging the moons. He was exhausted, suddenly. The dead earth, so unlike any other place in Ularamyth, spoke to him of the endless brutality of the road ahead. Do not forget the world outside, Thaulinin had warned them. As if one could, even in a land of dreams.

  The selk greeted him with a sombre nod. ‘Were you successful?’ he asked.

  Pazel leaned on the iron fence. ‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure what that means any more.’

  Thaulinin looked at him strangely. ‘That is unfortunate. Your quest is bringing greater losses to my people than anyone foresaw. I hope they are not all in vain.’

  Pazel jerked upright. ‘What are you talking about, Thaulinin?’

  ‘Come, I will show you.’ He led Pazel to the opposite side of the hilltop, facing the side of the lake they had crossed. ‘Wait for the cloud to pass. . there.’

  As if a curtain had been thrown open, moonlight flooded over Ularamyth. And there on the lower slopes of the island, near the shore, a crowd was running fast. They were selk, sixty or eighty of them, and they ran like contestants in a race, bunched close together; but in their hands were spears and daggers and long selk swords. Over a small rise they passed, fluid as horses, then down onto the rocky beach and-

  ‘No!’ Pazel shouted. ‘Oh Pitfire, no!’

  — straight into the lake, one after another, without slowing or appearing to mind when the water closed greedily over their heads.

  ‘They will emerge again,’ said Thaulinin softly, ‘but you are right to ache. I counted seventy-six. Tomorrow the tears will flow in Ularamyth: we are so few, and when those souls find their owners we will be fewer yet. If any doubted that battle lay before us we have our proof tonight. Something was decided here that will also decide the fate of the selk.’

  Noises behind them: Thasha was racing up the slope. Ramachni and Lord Arim walked behind. Pazel dashed through the gate to meet her, caught her in his arms. She was tear-streaked and shaking, and her hands trembled violently.

  Like an old woman’s. Pazel pulled sharply back from her, studying her face.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Thasha, flinching.

  ‘What happened? What did you do?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she said. ‘I just fell through the rock, down and down and down. We never reached bottom, we just stopped and hung there. It was so black, Pazel, and so ancient. I thought we were dead, and then I thought we’d died a million years ago, and our souls were caught in the demon’s rock, caught like flies in honey. But then something burst out of me and flew off, and left me in pieces. I was broken, Pazel. Ramachni and Lord Arim held me together until I healed.’

  Pazel stared deep into those frightened eyes. You’re back in there, aren’t you? Back in your cave where you belong.

  ‘Pazel?’

  He pulled her close again. ‘I’m on your side,’ he said. ‘No one else’s. Do you hear me?’

  She kissed his ear, weeping freely. ‘They broke me open. So that she could come out and talk to you. They had to, I know that-’

  ‘Did they?’

  She blinked at him, her look accusing — no, self-accusing. She swabbed her face with her sleeve.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d be so scared.’

  Her voice came out tiny, a little girl’s, a voice he knew gave her shame. He kissed her, undone by love; no force in Rin’s heaven could challenge this one; they could try anything they liked.

  ‘I’m with you, Thasha. I’ll always be with you. No matter what happens I’ll keep you safe.’

  Thasha shook her head, adamant, trembling like a leaf. ‘Promise,’ she said, weeping again. ‘Promise you won’t.’

  14

  From the final journal of G. Starling Fiffengurt

  Wednesday, 20 Halar 942.

  The wolves have finally pounced.

  As I write this, I feel how lucky we are to be alive. Whether luck and life will still be with us much longer is uncertain. For now all credit goes to Captain Rose. People change; ships grow faster, arms more diabolical. But nothing beats a seasoned skipper, no matter his moods or eccentricities.

  Five bells. Lunch still heavy in my stomach. A shout from the crow’s nest: Ship dead astern! I happened to be right there at the wheel with Elkstem, and we rushed to the spankermast speaking-tube to hear the man properly.

  ‘She was hid by the island, it’s not my fault!’ he shouted. That told us next to nothing: there were islands all about us, great and small, settled and unsettled (though with each day north we saw fewer signs of habitation), sandy and stony, lush and bone-dry. We’d been winding among them for a week.

  ‘A monster of a boat!’ the lookout was shouting. ‘Ugly, huge! She’s five times our measure if she’s a yard.’

  ‘Five times our blary length?’ cried the sailmaster. ‘Gather your wits, man, that’s impossible! Distance! Heading!’

  ‘Maybe longer, Mr Elkstem! I can’t be sure; she’s forty miles astern. And Rin slay me if she don’t have a halo of fire above her. Devil-fire, I mean! Something foul beyond foul.’

  ‘What heading is she on, damn you?’ I bellowed.

  ‘East, Mr Fiffengurt, or east-by-southeast. They’re under full sail, sir, and-’

  Silence. We both screamed at the poor lad, and then he answered shrilly: ‘Correction, correction! Vessel tacking northwards! They’ve spied us, they’ve spied us!’

  Not just spied, but fingered us for dinner, it appeared. I blew the whistle; the lieutenants started bellowing like hounds. In seconds we were preparing for war.

  From the hatches men were spilling like ants, the dlomu answering the call as quickly as the humans, if not more so. Mr Leef finally brought me a telescope. I raised it, but shut my eyes before I looked. Don’t show the lads any fear; they’re watching, I thought.

  The vessel was a horror. It was a Plazic invention to be sure, one of the foul things sustained by the magic the dlomu had drawn from the bones of the lizard-creatures called eguar. Prince Olik had told us a little, and the dlomic sailors a little more. Eguar-magic was the power behind the Bali Adro throne, and its doom. It had made her armies invincible — but their commanders depraved and self-destroying. It is a frightful state of affairs, and one that reminds me uncomfortably of dear old Arqual.

  We’d seen monster-vessels before, in the terrible armada that passed so close to us just after we reached the Southern main. But this was something else altogether. Impossibly large and shapeless, it was like a giant, shabby fortress or cluster of warehouses that had somehow gone to sea. How did it move? There were sails, but they were preposterous: ribbed things that j
utted out like the fins of a spiny rockfish. It should have been dead in the water, but the blue gap between it and the island was growing. It was under way.

  Captain Rose bounded up the Silver Stair. Without a glance at me he climbed the quarterdeck ladder, and kept going to the mizzen yard, where he trained his own scope on the vessel. He held still a long time (what’s a long time when your heart’s in your throat?) as Elkstem and I gazed up at him. When he turned to us, his look was sober and direct.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you are distinguished seamen: use your skills. This foe we cannot fight. We must elude it until nightfall or we shall lose the Chathrand.’

  The captain’s rages are frightful, but his compliments simply terrify: he saves them for the worst of moments. In such times a mysterious calm descends on him; it is deeply unsettling to observe. He hung there, face unreadable within that red beard, one elbow hitched around a backstay. He examined the skies: blue above us, thick clouds to windward. Islands on all sides, of course. Rose looked over each of them in turn.

  His eyes narrowed suddenly. He pointed at a dark, mountainous island, some forty miles off the starboard bow. ‘That one. What is it called?’

  Elkstem, who knew Prince Olik’s map better than I, told him that it was Phyreis, one of the last charted islands in the Wilderness. ‘And a big one, Captain. Half the size of Bramian, maybe,’ he said.

  ‘It appears to sharpen to a point.’

  ‘The chart attests to it, sir: a long southwest headland.’

  Rose nodded. ‘Listen well, then. We must be fifteen miles off that point at nightfall. That will be at seven bells plus twenty minutes. Until then we are to stay as far as possible ahead of the enemy, without ever allowing him to cut us off from Phyreis. Is that perfectly clear?’

  ‘By nightfall-’ I began.

  ‘Fiffengurt.’ He cut me off, suddenly wrathful. ‘You have just disgraced your very uniform. Did I say by nightfall? No, Quartermaster: my command was at nightfall. Earlier is unacceptable, later equally so. If these orders are beyond your comprehension I will appoint someone fit to carry them out.’