The Red Wolf Conspiracy

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “Captain!”

  The voice came from the ixchel man, bowing so low that his last remaining strands of hair dragged the floor.

  “Allow me to inform Your Honor that he is but half correct. I heard a voice wish me well—a spirit-voice, certainly!—but this boy heard it not. If he looked startled it is only because I jumped suddenly to my feet.”

  Rose looked from the prisoner to Pazel and back again. His eyes narrowed, but slowly the pressure on Pazel's hand decreased, and he let it go. Pazel stepped backward, cradling his hand, and for just an instant his eyes met those of the ixchel prisoner. The man who had lied with such skill an instant before now gave Pazel a look full of wonder, and even—dreadful in that ruined face—hope.

  Another knock. The ship's clerk was at the door, with Pazel's new coat and hat. Rose shoved the cage back into his desk, suddenly business-like. He made Pazel try on the coat, corrected his posture, even drilled him on how to address the noble family.

  “Your Excellency is all you need say to Ambassador Isiq. For his consort, my lady or Lady Syrarys will do. And the girl is to be called Young Mistress—or if she should insist, Lady Thasha. When he compliments you for what he believes you did today, thank him. Do not chatter on. If I learn that you have been familiar or clever with His Excellency I'll make you wish I'd left you in Uskins' hands.”

  Pazel was barely listening. Thasha, he thought. Her name is Thasha.

  Rose put the cap on his head. “These clothes are Ambassador Isiq's gift. Wear them at all times. Go and scrub your face, boy, and then report to his stateroom.”

  Pazel made to leave, but at the door Rose's voice stopped him cold. “A strange turn, isn't it, Pathkendle?—that of all the lords and nobles of this Empire, the one who favors you should be the conqueror of Ormael.”

  On the main deck, Elkstem called for topgallants. The winching was done, the miles of kedging-line were hauled slithering back into the Chathrand. Somewhere out on the bay a warship saluted with a cannon-shot, and all the Great Ship's poultry began to squawk. Pazel had to find Neeps. If he didn't tell someone about his morning he would simply explode. But did he dare mention Steldak? Would Diadrelu see even that as a betrayal?

  He had heard Swellows order Neeps to the tailor's nook, to help with mending the reserve sails. But Neeps was not there. Pazel bent down beside Reyast, the shy tarboy with the stutter, and asked after his friend. Reyast looked up from his lapful of sailcloth and blinked.

  “P-P-P-Paz-zel. You have a n-n-n-ew c-c—”

  “I'll tell you about the coat later, Reyast. Where's Neeps gone off to?”

  “S-s-s-s-sickbay.”

  “Sickbay! Why? What's wrong with him?”

  Some minutes later, Reyast had succeeded in telling Pazel that Neeps was badly bruised. He had been pushed down a hatch by a new tarboy, brought aboard just yesterday. The newcomer was “a b-b-b-baddy,” Reyast declared: older and stronger than any of them, except Peytr and Dastu perhaps, and he acted as though he were in charge of the smaller tarboys. He was enraged with Fiffengurt, who had given him no special rank, and was taking it out on the younger boys. When Neeps passed through the berth deck to retrieve his turban, the new boy had ordered him to trade shipboxes—his own had a lid that fastened poorly. Neeps laughed in his face. There were too many sailors about for a fight (which Reyast considered lucky for Neeps), but when the bigger tarboy saw the chance he had shoved Neeps from behind, sending him crashing through a hatch into the steerage compartment below—where Neeps had almost landed on a baby.

  Pazel, who had seen enough cruelty for one day, found himself livid. “What's this pig's name?” he asked.

  Reyast screwed up his face with effort. “D-f-dj-d-Jervik!” “Jervik!” cried Pazel, aghast. “A big lout with a hole in his ear?” Reyast nodded. Pazel questioned him no more, but ran straight for the sickbay. Jervik aboard! Had Captain Nestef finally caught him at his cruelty and sent him packing? No matter how it had occurred it was terrible news, and he hoped that somehow Reyast was mistaken. Pazel flew across the lower gun deck to the sickbay. Over the clinic's door he saw a curious sign:

  SICKBAY

  DR. CLAUDIUS RAIN

  The first name was neatly painted in red. The second, like the line through Chadfallow's name, was a messy blue scrawl. Pazel had to steady himself on the doorjamb. Chadfallow had meant to serve on the Chathrand. But why had he changed his mind, and told Pazel to jump ship? I intend to see them, he had said of Pazel's mother and sister. Was that the reason he had planned to be aboard—or the reason he wasn't?

  In the sickbay he found Neeps, slung in a hammock, with a split lip and an oilskin bag of cool water over one eye. The small boy was furious, grinding his teeth, swearing he'd teach Jervik to keep his distance.

  Pazel hushed him: the new doctor, Rain, was bustling by, white eyebrows knitted. As he passed they heard him muttering to himself: “Undrabust, Neeps Undrabust, ha ha, almost broke his neck, you boys shouldn't fool about the hatches …”

  “Let him come near me again,” said Neeps when the doctor was out of earshot. “Jervik, I mean—the cowardly rat.”

  “But how did he end up on Chathrand?” said Pazel miserably.

  “Said he'd just gotten rid of some tarboy he hated on his old ship,” growled Neeps. “Boasted how he 'smacked 'im round fer a year, and the blary fool never hit back.' And then he helped some fat bosun strand the tarboy in Sorrophran. His captain overheard and threw a fit such as nobody'd ever seen, and chucked Jervik ashore with his own hands.”

  “That was me!” Pazel cried. “The one who got stranded!”

  Neeps' unbruised eye fixed on Pazel. “I'll smash 'im,” he said. “I'll knock that gold tooth down his throat. I'll wring him out like my turban.”

  “Neeps!” said Pazel, gripping his shoulder. “Don't fight him! Rose'll throw you to the sharks! Besides, Jervik's huge, and a dirty fighter! He'll flatten you, mate!”

  “Let him try it!”

  It came out twy it, because of Neeps' swollen lip. His tiny fists clenched at his sides.

  Pazel rose slowly and set his forehead to the wall. “Everyone on this ship is insane,” he said.

  “Hello!” said Neeps. “Where'd you get that coat?”

  And then, like a plunge into the sea, it happened. Two sailors passed the sickbay door, chatting lightly about a woman, and suddenly their voices changed—mutated, ballooned—and became a monstrous squawking.

  “No!” cried Pazel, leaping up.

  “Pazaaaaaaak?” said Neeps.

  Dr. Rain, turning, cried, “Squa-qua-quaaaak?”

  There it was: the pressure on his skull. And filling the air, the smell of custard apple, worst odor in the world. His mind-fit had begun.

  Leaving Neeps wide-eyed, Pazel ran from the sickbay into a horror of a ship filled with deafening, predatory bird-noises. He couldn't think where to hide—hide for four hours or more!—but hide he must, immediately. If they thought him mad he'd be tossed out with the bilgewater, or worse.

  The lower gun deck was filled with newcomers, soldiers of some sort, busy, laughing, squawking. They gestured at him, wanting something. He ran. The hold, he thought. Get to the hold. Maybe the ambassador wasn't really expecting him just yet. Maybe no one would miss him.

  He reached the No. i ladderway and began racing down the stairs. But at the berth deck Fiffengurt suddenly appeared, blocking his path. He smiled up at Pazel: “Bachafuagaaaak!”

  Pazel made a helpless face and began climbing again, which made Fiffengurt squawk the louder. Pazel leaped out at the next deck, the upper gun deck, and fled down the long row of cannon. Men were all around him, malicious and terribly loud. It's never been so bad, he thought. And then he saw Jervik, dead ahead.

  Both boys froze. Jervik's eyes grew wide; he squeezed the deck-mop in his hands like something that might fly away. Pazel had the sudden idea of trying to be friendly—they'd had to work together sometimes on the Eniel, after all—but how exactly was he to do that? He could
n't speak, so he tried a smile and a little wave.

  Jervik threw the mop at him like a spear.

  So much for friendliness. Pazel dodged the mop and tried to do the same with Jervik, but the big tarboy caught him by the shoulder.

  “Gwamothpathkuandlemof!”

  Jervik tore at Pazel's new coat; brass buttons popped. Hit me, you imbecile! thought Pazel. Fiffengurt would surely evict him if he did. But Jervik merely gushed with noise, his grip tightening. And Pazel realized that in another moment Fiffengurt would appear and catch them both. That can't happen. They'll lock me up.

  He turned and faced Jervik. “Let go!” he cried, gesticulating madly. “I'm Muketch, the mud-crab sorcerer of Ormael, and I'll turn your bones to pudding if you don't!”

  Of course nothing but bird-babble came from his mouth. Usually talking during a mind-fit was the worst tactic imaginable, but today it saved him. Jervik was terribly superstitious. He froze, wide-eyed. Pazel pointed at his disfigured ear and cackled. “When I'm done that'll be the handsomest part of you left! Now GO!”

  Terrified, Jervik released him, stumbling backward, and slipped on one of Pazel's lost buttons. Pazel ran for his life.

  Screeches, hoots, a wet stretch of floor. He smashed into one crewman after another. Grown men leaped away as if he might bite them. This is ending badly, he thought.

  Then a hand much stronger than Jervik's seized his arm, and Pazel felt himself whirled around. For an instant he saw a man's face—gray temples, bright eyes that tapered to points—and then he was shoved bodily through a doorway, into warm smells of coffee and perfume and talc.

  Little of what followed was clear to him afterward. The ambassador's face appeared in a dressing-mirror, half shaven, mouth agape. A beautiful woman swept into the room with arms outstretched, shrieking, her voice demonic. And from somewhere the golden-haired girl from the carriage appeared and looked at him with astonishment but no fear.

  Then a flask was pressed to his lips, and his head forced back, and he knew no more.

  The Uses of the Dead

  12 Vaqrin 941

  The men of two battle-scarred warships, anchored farther out than the rest of the Imperial fleet, were the only witnesses as Chathrand sailed out of Etherhorde Bay. Pennants went up their masts in salute: the green-star signal that meant nothing more complicated than “safe travel, speedy return.”

  A miracle if either happens, thought Sandor Ott, sealing his cabin's porthole. More likely they would be slaughtered en masse. Not he himself, perhaps, nor that lethal captain. Rose had cunning in his very pores. No doubt he had planned his own escape down to the last lie or knife-thrust or spot of blackmail. But these sailors, soldiers, boys—they could never be trusted with what they would come to know.

  Eighteen million gold cockles! Four chests of bloodstone! If his own men did not betray him, surely their western partners would. The minute that prize becomes more than a rumor, a hope in their vile hearts, we are fair game. The minute we place it in their hands, they'll wish us dead.

  Before a tall mirror, he pinned on his breast the medals that turned him into Shtel Nagan, commander of the ambassador's honor guard. He took a moment to consider his hands: brutalized, rock-steady. Then he left the cabin and climbed to the topdeck.

  A fine summer's evening, the sun still whole and red above the Emperor's mountain. He could just make out Castle Maag at the summit, and his own tower, waving a wry farewell.

  In fair weather the first-class passengers could meander as they pleased about the topdeck (never the quarterdeck: that was officers' territory), and a dozen or so were at it now. Smoke Hour was past, so they chewed sapwort or sweetpine. Children galloped about, pretending to be tarboys. Men nipped whiskey from flasks.

  Just one lady was on deck, but she was the only woman Sandor Ott took any interest in. Syrarys Isiq's skin glowed like polished amber in the evening light. She stood holding the arm of Eberzam Isiq, the old fool. Sandor Ott approached, but not too near; he was a bodyguard and not an equal. But when Syrarys turned her head halfway in his direcion there was a gleam in her eye.

  “Commander Nagan?” said a voice behind him.

  Ott turned sharply. It was Bolutu, Brother Bolutu, the veterinarian. They shook hands, and Ott gave the black man a formal smile.

  “You have a ravishing friend,” said Bolutu.

  Ott said nothing, but his heart quickened in his chest.

  “I mean the bird, of course. Your moon falcon. Extraordinary.”

  Damn him to the Pits! thought Ott, recovering. But he said, “Ah, Niriviel! A friend indeed. He may catch us a grouse from the Dremland hills, if we pass near enough.”

  This one could prove a nuisance, he thought. Never a threat: no black man could be that powerful in an empire ruled by the porcelain-pale Magads. Yet Bolutu's star was rising. This very spring he had met the Queen Mother, and cured her pig of something dreadful: hiccups, maybe. He was also a longtime friend to the Trading Family. Lady Lapadolma herself had wanted him aboard the Chathrand: she had a soft spot for animals, if little else, and no doubt shed tears at the thought that Mr. Latzlo's cargo might suffer on the journey, before being sold for pelts and potions in the west.

  Ott also needed a skilled veterinarian aboard—the best, in fact. How was it that the best was this reformed nomad, this Slevran born in some warren or wattle-house, educated by monks in an outpost temple, and seeing great Etherhorde for the first time only as a grown man? Why were there no true Arqualis fit for the job?

  “Does he travel with you everywhere?” Bolutu was asking.

  Ott shook his head. “The captain indulges me greatly, allowing him aboard. Have you seen him already, then?”

  “I have just come from the coop. Your bird is unhappy with the darkness, but he lives in a mansion compared with the rest. He can spread his wings, and move about, and smell the chickens if not taste them. Commander, have we not met before?”

  “Indeed, sir,” said Ott smoothly. “As a bodyguard I have had the privilege of serving many of the Empire's finest gentlemen of trade. You I remember from the Midwinter Ball at Lord Sween's.”

  “And not from Castle Maag?”

  “I have served in the castle, too. It is not impossible.”

  “Certainly it was there. Tell me, why have we taken so many soldiers aboard?”

  “Only six answer to me, sir.”

  “Exactly,” said Bolutu. “The rest are not here to guard the ambassador, as you do. And Chathrand is no longer a warship. What is the use of carrying a hundred soldiers on a merchant ship? Especially one on a mission of peace?”

  “Mr. Bolutu,” said Ott mildly—he would not be unsettled again, no matter how prying the man became—“you should direct your inquiry to their commanding officer. But I can offer a guess if you like. In a word, pirates. The Emperor's dominion stops at Ormael. The next six hundred miles are a chaos. No outright wars, but no peace, either. Sea-banditry is already common, and growing more so. The Crownless Lands do not wish our protection—”

  “Curious, that.” Bolutu smiled slightly.

  “—and yet they cannot guard their own seas. There is no order, sir. Except the savage order of the Mzithrin, in the distant west.”

  “Does Simja know that His Supremacy is sending not just an ambassador and a child bride, but a vessel packed with Imperial marines? And such marines! They make the Emperor's regular forces look like milksops.”

  “Dear sir, you exaggerate,” said Ott. “Perhaps you have not been quartered so close to His Supremacy's infantry before?”

  Bolutu hesitated. “I have not. That is true.”

  “In any event, to leave our home waters prepared for the worst is but common sense—although I hope that will not be demonstrated.”

  Ott bowed to Bolutu and excused himself. Moving toward the center, or waist, of the ship, he thought: Yes, definitely a nuisance. I do not like your tone, pig doctor.

  Two of Ott's own men watched Ambassador Isiq from a respectful distance: the
old man would never be left on deck unattended. One of these was Zirfet, and when he looked at Ott his very stillness sent a message: a twitch at wrist or elbow meant all's well, and his men never forgot.

  He nodded, giving the big fighter permission to approach. When they stood alone at the portside rail, he said, “Let's hear it, quickly.”

  Zirfet was trying to appear professional and bored; in fact he looked rather seasick. “Master,” he whispered, “Hercól Stanapeth is aboard!”

  Ott's face froze. He had served three generations of Magad Emperors, but never had he needed to hide such total surprise twice in an evening. He succeeded, of course: Zirfet had no inkling of the turmoil inside him.

  “Tell me everything,” said Ott.

  “He came aboard with the servants,” said Zirfet, “but he has a cabin—a tiny berth—next to the ambassador's own. I saw him just minutes ago, Master: I knew him at once from the Book of Faces.”

  Ott nodded. Anyone of the least possible interest to the crown—foreigners, nobles, rabble-rousers, soldiers who grumbled about their pay—had a portrait in the Book of Faces. His spies learned to pick them out of a crowd at a glance.

  “He does not know me, of course—nor any of the others,” Zirfet went on. “But you—”

  “Me he knows,” said Ott, nodding grimly. Hercól was his great failure: an expert fighter when Ott recruited him to join the Secret Fist. A far better fighter—admit it: his best—when the training was done. But Hercól never had the stomach for spy work. Idleness and wealth had not poisoned him, as they had these youngsters. Hercól was simply unwilling to kill. Tholjassans revere life, he had told Ott years ago, possibly the last time they had spoken. So do we, Ott had answered. But sometimes a knife in the dark is the only way to prove it.

  He strolled aft, Zirfet at his side. He was perfectly calm now: twisting bad luck to his advantage was as familiar as putting on his shoes. “Tell me what steps you have taken, Zirfet,” he said.