The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Now Sandor Ott had very little time. He seized the linen tablecloth and tore it into strips. The first he tied, mercilessly tight, above the wound on his arm. The second he doused with gin from Rose’s cabinet. Strong, antiseptic gin. He wiped his face with it, hissing with pain. He splashed more gin on his wound.

  Crack. They were axing the doors. Ott cursed, and hurried back to Rose. He found the padlock key quickly enough, but what was that round thing in his vest pocket? He drew it out, and gasped at the weight in his hand. Then he saw what he held — and for the first time since childhood, experienced a moment of undeniable fear.

  The Nilstone.

  The Nilstone?

  The black thing lay there in his hand, a pulsing orb, a tiny black sun. How was this possible? What had Arunis made off with, if not the Stone? Had the mage spirited it back aboard, somehow, through his control of Uskins? And why wasn’t it killing him?

  Crack!

  No time. Leave it or take it. Decide.

  Ott took it. Then he turned and staggered to the door.

  ‘Leave off with that axe!’ He wiped the knob with great care, then slid the bolt. Men poured into the room, Turachs, common sailors, Fiffengurt the traitor, Haddismal the loyal fool. All screaming like children. As if blood were something beyond their experience. As if murder were the exception, not the rule.

  ‘The captain’s dead! The captain’s dead!’

  ‘The madness came for him,’ said Ott. ‘Sergeant, where is your field kit? I need bandaging.’

  Haddismal raised his eyes from the carnage. He stared at Ott. Everyone was staring at something.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Ott. ‘You can see what happened here.’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘The mind-plague took him. I heard sounds of violence, and came in to find him thrashing his steward. The man was still breathing, and I tried to revive him. Rose stabbed me while my back was turned, yet I bested him. Two dead. Very simple. Get me those bandages, dullard! Why do you-’

  He froze. Against the far wall of Rose’s cabin lay a woman of some twenty-five years: naked, motionless, her hands and face soaked with blood.

  Night Gods. The cat. The hag’s horrible cat!

  ‘Who is she?’ said Haddismal. ‘A passenger? I’ve never seen that woman before.’

  ‘Did Rose kill her too?’ said Fiffengurt. ‘Why didn’t you mention her, Ott? Mr Ott?’

  But the spymaster was already running. Their shouts exploded behind him: Commander Ott! What is it? Stop him, bring him back! For the first time since childhood, Ott felt inadequate to the moment. He had looked at that gory beauty and found himself without his best and oldest weapon, the winning story, the necessary lie.

  ‘She must have been mad as well,’ said Haddismal. ‘Look at her. Even her feet are soaked in blood.’

  Fiffengurt just gazed at the carnage. Their captain dead, and stiffer than a week-old corpse. The steward with his head facing backwards. And a third victim, a naked woman no one could identify, though Fiffengurt began to think he had seen her before.

  ‘I’m not sure anyone here was mad,’ he said.

  ‘You calling Sandor Ott a liar?’

  Fiffengurt knew better than to answer. He brought a sheet from Rose’s bed to drape over the woman. But when he drew near, she sprang to life, hissed at him, and scurried on all fours under the table.

  28

  Reunion

  12 Fuinar 942

  300th day from Etherhorde

  ‘That, my dear selk, is a Bali Adro exclusion flag,’ said Prince Olik, training the telescope on the bay, where the Chathrand sat at anchor. ‘A warning, in other words: Keep a safe distance.’

  ‘We shall do so,’ said Nolcindar. ‘Stath Balfyr is unchanged, then. A lovely bay one must not enter, an island where no landing is allowed.’

  The Promise was three miles offshore, sweeping north past the mouth of the bay. It was almost noon, but the east wind was frigid, and now it looked like rain. Thasha gazed at their beloved Chathrand, and felt a stab of irony: twenty-eight days racing to meet her, and now that they’d finally arrived she was warning them off.

  ‘Not an ixchel in sight,’ said Hercol, who had the only other telescope. ‘Perhaps they have all gone ashore, somehow. In any case, Lord Talag has proved himself a genius — of a sort. He said he would bring the Great Ship here, and he has done it. However deranged, the plan was a strategic miracle.’

  ‘But a heartless one,’ said Ensyl, anger darkening her voice. ‘All of us have paid dearly for his dream. I only hope our brethren find happiness there.’

  ‘More flags,’ said Hercol. ‘One is white with two red bars. Another, blue with a white half-circle.’

  ‘Arquali pennants,’ said Pazel, taking a turn at the scope. ‘Two red bars: that’s Enemies near. And the other is — damn, I’m forgetting. .’

  Thasha cast her mind back — so very far back, almost another life — to her days sitting in the family library, poring over her father’s books. ‘Ambush,’ she said at last.

  ‘Ambush! Right.’ Pazel gave her a private smile. He had mocked her sailing-savvy once. That too was a lifetime ago.

  He looked again through the telescope. ‘She’s been in a firefight. Look at the cathead. Scorched.’

  ‘To the Pits with your cathead,’ said Neeps, ‘don’t you see any people?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the prince. ‘The deck is busy with sailors. Human beings, and a few dlomu — my loyal Masalym guardsmen, they must be. Have a look for yourself, Mr Undrabust. Perhaps you’ll spot your wife.’

  Neeps pounced on the telescope. Thasha watched his face, and knew in short order that Marila was not on the topdeck. She glanced at Pazel: he looked almost sick with frustration. To be stopped this close to the Chathrand!

  Still, things were much better than they’d feared. Day after day, Ildraquin had whispered to Hercol that Rose was motionless, and what was more likely to account for that than a wreck? To find her whole and apparently seaworthy should count as a miracle. The ixchel, or some other ‘enemies’, might be holding them prisoner, but at least they were alive.

  ‘There’s that old rotter, Latzlo,’ said Neeps, ‘and Swift and Saroo, by the Tree! But where are the officers? Where’s Captain Rose?’

  ‘I still say we should circumnavigate the island,’ said Corporal Mandric.

  ‘There is no other harbour,’ said Nolcindar, ‘and by the time we return to the mouth of this bay we may find Macadra guarding it.’ She raised her telescope again. ‘They have not been boarded, unless those who boarded have come and gone. The men on deck are not starved or sickly. But I believe they are sick with fear. Shall we try mirror-signals? If there are real sailors among your guard, Prince, they will know the Maritime Code.’

  ‘Look there!’ cried Neda, pointing.

  From the deck of the Chathrand, flashes of sunlight were leaping: short, measured, steady as a ticking clock. ‘They are one step ahead of us,’ said Kirishgan. ‘Let us answer quickly.’

  A silver platter was fetched from the pantry, and Nolcindar angled its polished face at a halfway angle between the zenith of the sky and the Chathrand. She adjusted the angle again and again, until a pause in the Chathrand’s signals told her that contact was established. She waited, and the flashes from the bay resumed. Now the pattern was more complicated. After a moment Nolcindar frowned.

  ‘I know codes of Bali Adro, Thudryl, Nemmoc and beyond, but I do not know this one. I expect it is a human code out of the North.’

  ‘It’s the Turach cypher!’ said Corporal Mandric, squinting. ‘That’s one of my mates! Here, give me that trinket, Captain. Rin help me, it’s been so long-’

  Mandric was indeed out of practice, and the roll of the ship did not help matters. Time and again he interrupted the Chathrand with flashes from the silver platter, muttering: ‘Repeat, repeat, you jackass, that’s not right, it can’t be-’

  Letter followed doubt-ridden letter. With excruciating slowness, words took s
hape.

  BOULDERS — FROM — CLIFFS — REEFS — NORTH — NO — EXIT — NO — ENTRANCE — HELP

  The flashes stopped. The travellers looked at one another. ‘Strange, but useful,’ said Hercol. ‘At least we know something of the nature of the trap.’

  Mandric pointed at the clifftops. ‘There’s your boulders.’ Thasha saw that it was true: the cliffs were strewn with great loose stones, giving the whole ridge a shattered look.

  ‘And reefs north,’ said Pazel. ‘Do you know, I think they mean the north side of the inlet to the bay. Look at all that choppy surf.’

  ‘I fear you’re right, Pazel,’ said Ramachni, studying the waves. ‘Well then: reefs on the north side, boulders from the south. Little wonder the ship cannot escape.’

  ‘The Chathrand is ten times our size and draught,’ said Nolcindar, ‘but reefs are reefs, and the Promise will never clear them.’

  ‘What about landing a boat on the north side, there beyond the inlet?’ said Neeps. ‘You can see that the island narrows down to a strip.’

  ‘You may be on to something, lad,’ said Prince Olik, looking again through his telescope. ‘The spot is both low and narrow: those palms are barely above sea level.’

  ‘We could run that strip in minutes,’ said Neeps, ‘and be swimming to the Chathrand before anyone knew.’

  ‘We could swim from right here,’ said Lunja. ‘Three miles is nothing for a dlomu.’

  ‘Nor a selk,’ said Kirishgan, ‘but rocks can sink swimmers as well as boats, and the north beach too may be guarded. And once we board the Chathrand, how do we help her escape?’

  The others glanced furtively at Ramachni, and the mage saw their glances and sighed. ‘My powers will not be enough to save the ship. One or two boulders I might turn aside, but not a hail of them. And I cannot lift the Great Ship into the air — not even my mistress in her prime could manage such a feat, save with the power of the Nilstone.’

  ‘I could protect them, maybe,’ said Thasha.

  The others looked at her sharply. ‘That is yet to be proven,’ said Hercol, ‘and besides, you are not aboard.’

  ‘I can swim that far.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Thasha,’ muttered Pazel.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Thasha calmly. ‘This isn’t like that night at the Sandwall. There’s something waiting for me on the Chathrand. Something Erithusme knew could help us.’

  Hercol and Pazel turned away, and Ramachni’s eyes told her nothing. Thasha knew they would have to listen sooner or later. For months they had all been sheltering her, trying to shield her from outward danger, even as she struggled to set Erithusme free. It was hard on Pazel, and all her friends. They were carrying her like a vase through the hailstorm; she was trying to shatter on the floor.

  Then, two days ago, she had overheard Pazel and Neeps whispering about some ‘other way’. She’d confronted them immediately. At last Pazel had yielded, and shared the mage’s words:

  Take Thasha to the berth deck, to the place where you used to sleep. When she is standing there she will know what to do.

  Some hidden power, available to her alone. Thasha felt like smacking the tarboys for keeping quiet so long; but it was love, after all, that had sealed their tongues. Love, and fear. ‘Erithusme made it sound mucking deadly, Thasha,’ Pazel had told her. ‘She called it a last resort.’

  Of course, that warning had not dissuaded her: it was high time for last resorts. Any doubt of that had vanished yesterday, when they woke to find themselves looking at the Swarm.

  You could spend a lifetime struggling to forget the sight. A black mass the size of a township, high in the clouds, possessed of will and purpose. It appeared too solid to be airborne, and it squirmed, like a muscle or a clot of worms. It had been moving along the edge of the Red Storm, pausing, charging, doubling back again, an animal prowling a fence. Looking for a gap, said Ramachni. Hungering for death, for the greatest glut of death anywhere in Alifros. Hungering for the war in the North.

  Is my father in the middle of that war?

  Thasha left the others arguing by the mast. The Swarm had vanished eastwards yesterday, leaving a changed Promise in its wake: the humans and dlomu shocked and fumbling for words, the selk grim and philosophical. They had caught no sight of it today, but Thasha could still see the Red Storm, many miles to the north, a scarlet ribbon between sea and sky.

  Time barrier, she thought. We fight and fight on this side, but for what? A home we may not recognize when we get there. A future Arqual that’s forgotten us, or a dead one. Unless we too find a gap.

  Walking to portside, she leaned on the rail and stared at the wooded island. Seabirds gyred above the north shore; waves shattered on the rocks. She willed the place to open to them, somehow, to let them take their ship and their people and be on their way.

  You’ve won, Talag. You let your sister die and your only child go mad, but you’ve won. Your people are home. Don’t be so proud that you end up killing them, killing all the world.

  But her next thought was like a blow to the face: Talag’s not the problem, girl. You are.

  All the self-loathing that had assaulted her in the Infernal Forest, and at the Demon’s Court in Ularamyth, welled to the surface once more. She was failing them, and her failure was bringing the house down upon their heads. They could not wait. Macadra was drawing closer; the Red Storm was weakening. Any day, any hour, the Swarm might slip through into the North. They could not wait, and yet they waited. For her.

  All that month on the Promise, her friends had tried to help her. Oh, the things they’d tried! Ramachni, exhausted as he was, had undertaken a journey into her sleeping mind. It was a complex spell that had taken him days to prepare, but the journey itself had lasted only a single night. He had reached the wall, examined it — and declared on waking that it had nothing to do with Arunis.

  ‘But it has everything to do with Thasha’s will to live,’ he had continued. ‘It is built of the same stuff as the outer, permanent walls of her mind, and its foundation. For good or ill, Thasha, the creator of that wall is you.’

  His words made her think again of what she had felt in the Demon’s Court. That Erithusme would return if she perished, and only then. She was ready to die. A part of her knew quite well that she had the courage. But Ramachni had sensed the direction of her thoughts, and intervened.

  ‘Listen well to me, Thasha: your death is not the solution, on that point Erithusme gave her word.’ Pazel went even further, claiming that the mage had told him that Thasha’s death would mean Erithusme’s as well. But the feeling persisted: only her death could break down the wall.

  Nolcindar had also tried to help. She had sat with Thasha across the length of three cold, clear nights when the seas were calm. It had been a kind of selk meditation, Thasha supposed, but it had also felt like enchantment, for she had found herself transported to distant times and places in Alifros, walking green paths under ancient trees, or through deep caves where veins of crystal blazed in the lamplight, or down the avenues of cities that had fallen centuries ago to drought or pestilence or war. Sometimes Nolcindar was there at her side; often she was not. Alone or accompanied, Thasha had felt each of the places tug powerfully at her heart. When it was over Nolcindar said that she had merely been telling stories of certain lands Erithusme was known to have travelled, in hopes of stirring memories that would open a crack in the wall. The memories had been stirred, maybe; but only distantly, and the wall remained sound.

  Then it had been Hercol’s turn. His efforts harkened back to their Thojmele training, which placed clarity of mind and strength of purpose above all virtues. Late one night he took Thasha to a lower deck of the Promise and showed her a doorway blocked with sandbags. They were tightly fitted, reaching all the way to the top of the door frame. ‘Sit alone beside this barrier,’ he said, ‘until it becomes the wall within your mind. Then pass through. Fear nothing, hope for nothing; do not dwell in emotion. This is a challenge, but not a judgement. If it
is in you to do this, you will.’

  Then he had taken the light away, and Thasha had put her hands on the black sandbags and calmed herself in the Thojmele manner. For two hours she had not moved or spoken. Then Thasha stood, limbered her body, tightened her boots. She planted her shoulder against the wall of sandbags and pushed, and felt a shout of inner despair that made a mockery of her training. The bags might as well have been stone. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, reciting the codes Hercol had taught her across the years. The task demanded of the body is welded to the task of the mind. Neither is a true accomplishment without the other. When you have mastered the Thojmel you will perceive but a single task, and know when you may achieve it, and when to forbear.

  Her training promised clarity, not success. It became very clear that she would not be passing through the door. When Hercol returned he showed her the wetted boards they had stacked between the sandbags. The wood had expanded with the moisture, creating a wall so tight they could only dismantle it by slitting the bags and letting the sand spill out. ‘I made sure you had no knife,’ he said. ‘You were not to pass through without the mage’s help.’ For that, after all, was the whole point.

  The tarboys had suggested no experiments, but they had helped more than anyone, simply by being near her, breaking her morbid silences, helping her think. Pazel still had a Master-Word: the word that would ‘blind to give new sight’. For over a year he had known it, carried it about like an unexploded bomb, and he still didn’t know what it would do.

  ‘What if it doesn’t cause real blindness?’ Neeps had asked him. ‘What if that just means forgetfulness or ignorance about some specific thing? Maybe Thasha needs to forget about Erithusme altogether, before setting her free.’

  Pazel looked at him thoughtfully. ‘It could work that way. But I’ve no way to know. The Master-Words, they’re like faces moving deep underwater. I can see them, but they’re dark and blurry. I only know exactly what will happen when they surface. And they only surface at the bitter end, just before I speak. This last one, now: sometimes I think I could direct it at a single person, but other times I think it might change the whole world. Ibjen thought I should never use it at all. What if I start a blindness plague?’