The Red Wolf Conspiracy

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “Tonight, for instance?” said Ott.

  “Tonight she did go,” admitted Thasha unhappily.

  “Ah,” said Ott.

  “You think I'm a fool.”

  Ott shook his head. “On the contrary. I am humbled by your insight.”

  “Don't say that unless you mean it,” she pleaded. “Commander Nagan, this isn't the babble of a jealous daughter. Promise me you'll take this seriously!”

  Sandor Ott took her hand. “Forty-eight years have I served the Ametrine Throne,” he said. “I was just your age when I took the oath, at the feet of His Supremacy's grandfather. Mind and marrow, bone and blood, to strive till my hand drop the sword and my soul leave the flesh. For Arqual, her glory and gain. Believe me, Lady Thasha: I take nothing more seriously than that.”

  The Miracle of Tears

  5 Modoli 941

  53rd day from Etherhorde

  A gray dawn came, and rain soon after. Thunderheads brooded on Cape Ultu; Firecracker Frix watched them nervously through a telescope. Beyond that cape lay Uturphe, but Mr. Elkstem took no chances and steered a wide course around its rocky point. A hundred sailors sighed at his orders, but no one cursed him. Elkstem's nose for safety was legendary.

  Once around the cape the rain grew stronger. Hatches were battened down; frantic tarboys swabbed rainwater off the deck. The town when it appeared was less than heartwarming: behind its green granite wall, iron towers and pointed rooftops stood like files of teeth. From his cabin window, Eberzam Isiq studied cold, closed Uturphe and thought, No place to look for doctors.

  The town lacked a deepwater channel, so at a distance of two miles the order came to furl sails and drop anchor. Around the mainmast a handful of men in oilskin coats roared their disapproval. These were whiskey and brass merchants, desperate to buy as much as they could for resale in the west. Before the anchor struck bottom they were clustered about Mr. Fiffengurt. When might the boats be launched? How bad would the storm be? How many men could he spare for rowers? How long would they stay?

  “Stand off, gentlemen!” he growled. “We've a life to save if we can.”

  Hercól was carried out by Isiq's honor guard. Rain battered his face, and Thasha held his cold hand, weeping: he looked dead already. For the first time, Fiffengurt thought he might like one of the noble-born youths. Most were ninnies who wailed if their soup wasn't salted or their jackets brushed. One day of tarboy labor and galley grub would teach them to appreciate good fortune. But Lady Thasha was a different sort. She was crying, yes, but silently, and she made no complaints. The quartermaster cocked his head sideways, to see her better.

  “You be brave now, Lady,” he said. “Everything possible will be done for Mr. Hercól.”

  “That it will be,” said Sandor Ott.

  The boat was lowered, with Ott and Fiffengurt side by side in the bow, and the men pulled for shore. Thasha felt suddenly that she would never lay eyes on Hercól again, and not wanting her last memory of him to be that white, deathly face, she turned away. If she had not, she might have noticed that one of the honor guards did not row with his right arm, but only moved it stiffly, even painfully, in time with the oar.

  Merchants were crowding, jostling to be next into a boat. One cackled beside her: “No one will eat crayfish in Uturphe tonight—no one! I bought them all. I can sell them on Rukmast for four times what I pay these beggars. A few didn't want to sell, but the duke of Uturphe persuaded them—fishermen's huts are quite flammable, you know, and the duke only asked ten percent for his services.”

  “Very reasonable,” said another.

  “Very! Oh, when will that fool let us land? I tell you I bought them all.”

  Disgusted, Thasha turned—and nearly collided with Pazel Pathkendle.

  He was being hustled aft by two enormous soldiers. He had a soggy bundle in his arms and wore an old coat with a red patch at the elbow. No hat, no shoes. His brown hair was plastered flat by the rain.

  He offered a weary smile. “You got your necklace back.”

  The soldiers appeared ready to cuff him for his familiar tone, but one look at Thasha changed their minds.

  “I tried to make Prahba keep you,” she said. “He just wouldn't listen.”

  Pazel shrugged. “I didn't listen either, did I? Where's Neeps, do you know?”

  Thasha nodded. “He's working the pumps. Six hours—a punishment from Swellows. For fighting, I think.”

  “Tell him I said to cut that out,” said Pazel, shaking his head. Then he looked at her and switched to Opaltik. “Don't forget what Ramachni said. There's an evil mage aboard, and someone else coming soon—someone even worse. Be careful, Thasha. And try to remember me, will you?”

  Thasha could barely summon her school-taught Opaltik. What's wrong with me? she thought, blinking.

  “Someone worse, yes,” she muttered.

  “I'm sorry about all this, Thasha,” he said.

  “Sorry you?” She shook her head, furious with her clumsy tongue. “Why are you feeling it? I have no ideas.”

  Shivering and drenched, Pazel laughed. “You have too many.”

  The soldiers pushed him forward. Merchants and sailors were crowding into the second boat, but one bench was empty still.

  “I have to tell you something,” said Pazel. “Get closer.”

  “I have to tell you something,” Thasha mimicked. But she could not say it in Opaltik, and when he looked her in the eye she found she could not say it at all.

  “Hold that man! I want to see him!”

  The voice was Uskins'. He emerged from the wheelhouse, his blond hair flattened by the rain, and shoved his way toward the boats. Thasha followed his gaze and saw another prisoner beside the rail: a scruffy, hungry-looking man from third class. His face was sallow and bruised, and his hands were chained behind his back.

  “Wrong man! Wrong man!” he shouted as Uskins neared. The first mate raised a hand for silence, then reached out and stretched one of the man's eyes wide open. He gave a satisfied nod.

  “A deathsmoker, to be sure.”

  “Lies!” shrieked the man. “They put a gooney sack on my head! Filled it with deathsmoke!”

  “Who did?” said Uskins.

  “Don't know—they come at night, took me someplace dark, alone. Made me breathe that blary drug till I fainted. Now look how I shake! But I never used it before! I'm a tea picker is all!”

  Uskins laughed aloud. “You should have picked a milder tea.”

  “I never touched that poor Mr. Hercól! I swear on the Milk of the Tree!”

  Uskins slapped him. “Save your blasphemy for the court, you wretch! Load him in!”

  As the man screamed and struggled, Thasha found herself beginning to doubt Nagan's story all over again. But before she could work out a way to intervene, Pazel leaned close to her and spoke very quietly through his teeth.

  “There's another prisoner aboard.”

  “What are you talking about?” Thasha whispered back.

  “You've got to find Diadrelu. Tell her Rose has him. In his right-hand desk-drawer.”

  “What, a key?”

  “The prisoner!”

  “Pazel,” said Thasha, “have you lost your mind?”

  “They'll kill you if you talk,” he whispered. “They're ixchel, Thasha.”

  “Ay! Ormali dog! How dare you touch the Lady?”

  He hadn't, in fact, although his lips had nearly brushed her ear. But touch or no touch, Pazel's guards were embarrassed at their oversight and struck him so hard he fell to the deck. Almost blind with pain, Pazel felt someone lifting him again. Uskins' leering face swam into view.

  “Allow me,” said the first mate. “Some ballast is a pleasure to drop.”

  He tossed Pazel into the waiting boat with a crash. Thasha shouted, “No! No! No!” and Uskins turned to her and said not to worry, the filthy boy would never bother her again.

  Pazel found his seat beside the presumed murderer, who was still shouting, “Wrong man!” Paz
el looked for Thasha, wondering what she had wanted to tell him, but the rail was crowded, and then his boat was lowered to the sea.

  “You saw it,” said Talag Tammaruk ap Ixhxchr.

  “Saw what?” asked Diadrelu.

  “Do not fence with me, sister,” said Talag. “The boy whispered in the bridal girl's ear. And shocked her. Now do you see why we must never take chances? What good are your threats, once he is safe ashore? Taliktrum was right. You should have killed him.”

  The two ixchel were wedged in the solid oak of the quarterdeck, half choked with fresh sawdust, peering through drill holes no human eye could locate. Their spying ledge was scarcely big enough for them to lie side by side. It had taken their people four days' labor, burrowing like termites through the ancient wood, pausing with every lull in the wind lest their chisels and hammers be overheard. But it was worth it: they now had a splendid view of the mizzen topdeck, where boats disembarked and officers clustered, the very crossroads of the ship.

  Dri pulled back from her spy-hole and looked at Talag. “Thasha was scared, true enough. But what did Pathkendle whisper? That is something we cannot presume.”

  “Can't we?” said Talag. “Do you mean to say the freak tarboy might possess another secret as awful as the fact that we're aboard?”

  “There are such secrets,” said Dri. “Last night we saw the ambassador's own guard torment an innocent man with deathsmoke and demand that he confess to the murder we prevented.”

  “You take the lot of them for innocent men,” said Talag derisively. “And you prevented that murder, not the clan. You fired the quill into the murderer's leg and made him stumble, even though that fat soap merchant might have seen you—”

  “He saw nothing,” said Diadrelu.

  “—and the killer himself may find your quill later and expose us all.”

  “He will not find my quill, Talag. It is deep in his skin. And should he dig it out, he will find a splinter, half dissolved, and never know it for ixchel work.”

  “Who is presuming now?” Talag asked.

  “What would you have done?” she demanded. “Let the valet die?” She knew Talag was goading her (who but a brother could do it so well?), but knowing did not make his taunts any more bearable. “I am not a fool, Talag! I presume no goodness among giants. But neither do I presume that they are all identical, mere strands in a single rope destined to be the hangman's noose for the innocent race of ixchel. The world is full of wickedness, yes. But none of it is simple.”

  “They stole us from Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. They exhibited us like insects in their museums, colleges, zoos. And like insects they have killed us, ever since we escaped to infest their ships and houses. Simple, Dri. And true.”

  “The Abduction was five hundred years ago,” said Dri. “The giants don't even remember it, and they consider our island a myth. It's over.”

  Talag looked at her with cold disdain. “It will be over when we are home,” he said. “Since the wreck of the Maisa only one ship remains that can take us there, across the Ruling Sea. Her name is Chathrand, and by the sweet star of Rin, I'll see that she does.”

  Dri said nothing. A moment later the ship's bell rang half past eight.

  “We must go,” said Talag.

  Moving about in the daylight was, of course, the gravest danger for the ixchel, yet there was no other way to reach the spy-ledge. Like the hollow at the center of an old tree, their tunnel bored straight down through the compartment wall, then back toward the stern by way of a two-inch gap they had found by tapping. Near the end of this crawlway Talag had drawn an X in charcoal: that marked the spot directly beneath the binnacle, or ship's compass. Talag had plans for the binnacle, but he would tell no one what they amounted to.

  The crawlway ended in a tiny crack, at the ceiling of a short passageway. From there all one had to do was scurry down the rough wood to the floor, run six feet along the passage to the foot-drain and dive inside. During a storm, a bathtub or two of rain and salt spray might blow into the passage each time a sailor came in from the topdeck. The foot-drain was merely the tin pipe that let such water flow back into the sea. It had a little spring-loaded lid that swung open with the weight of water and shut again to keep out the cold ocean wind. For the ixchel it was a simple matter to cut other holes in this pipe (along its top edge, to control any telltale dripping) and use it as a corridor between the decks.

  The trouble was the battalion clerk. A pale boy with the scars of recent chicken pox on his face, he crouched on a stool by the door to Sergeant Drellarek's cabin from dawn to dusk, a big weather-stained notebook on his knees. His only functions were to carry messages from Drellarek to the Chathrand's officers and to keep records of the shifts and duties, the complaints and fevers and upset stomachs of the hundred soldiers under Drellarek's command.

  The clerk was always there, except when running messages, and for five minutes at the change of the watch when Drellarek had him collect reports from the sergeants-at-arms and the sailmaster. Only at these times (and only if no one else was in the hall) could the ixchel come or go from their spy-ledge. Now was such a time, and Dri and Talag made haste to descend to the floor.

  Even as they did so, Midryl, their replacement on watch, slipped out of the foot-drain and began climbing swiftly. When he reached the other two he paused for instructions.

  “You will pay great attention to any new passengers who board today,” said Talag. “And make a note of who speaks to the captain, should he appear.”

  “Yes, m'lord.”

  “The ambassador may go ashore as well,” Dri added. “See that you notice who goes with him, and who returns.”

  “Of course, m'lady.”

  “The way is clear below?” Talag demanded.

  “Safe and clear, Lord Talag. A rat limped by on the gun deck, nothing more. My brother Malyd is on watch.”

  “Go swiftly, then.”

  Midryl bowed his head and vanished into the crevice above. Dri and Talag reached the floor and hurried to the foot-drain. They could hear the voices of giants on the topdeck, the hiss of rain, the soggy, low-spirited gulls.

  But the drain's lid would not open. Normally it swung with almost no effort at all, but though Dri and Talag pushed with all their might, it would not budge an inch.

  “That fool!” Talag raged. “He's broken the hinge from the inside!”

  Together they hurled themselves against the metal lid, but to no avail.

  “We're trapped!” said Dri. “But what happened? How could this be an accident?”

  “It was not an accident, Lady Dri,” said a voice from the foot-drain.

  “Who goes there, damn it—a rat?” snarled Talag in disbelief.

  “No, Lord Talag,” said the voice. “I am Felthrup Stargraven, and I must thank you for teaching me a great—nay, a vital—nay, an indispensable lesson! You see, I am not a rat. And yet I suffered so very long believing that I was. Believing, babbling, drowning in kelp—”

  “Vermin!” shouted Talag. “Get your mange-rotted bodies out of our pipe!”

  “I am quite alone, Lord Talag. I have jammed the door with a timber-screw.”

  “Remove it now,” said Diadrelu quietly. “We are in danger, here.”

  “I regret that, m'lady,” said Felthrup. “But surely you understand my own desperate circumstances? Once Lord Talag explained to me that I was not a rat, I realized it was madness—literally madness!—to go on pretending. The warren is no place of safety if you rouse the suspicion of Master Mugstur, as I have, or bear any disfigurement or sign of weakness, as I do. Are you aware of how you marked me, Lord Talag?”

  Dri looked sharply at her brother. “You've spoken to this creature before!”

  “Souls aflame!” shouted Talag. “It can't be that one! The same prattling, snooping rat we caught in Night Village?”

  “The one who came looking for you,” said the voice, “in such terrible need. Poor, frightened Felthrup, always drowning, so close to despair. But not a
rat, m'lord. Have you forgotten your lecture? Rats do not think; they only appear to think. But I most certainly think—deep, true, tireless thoughts, machinations, meditations, bursting rockets of the mind! Therefore, despite my appearance I cannot be a rat. I think.”

  “You told me nothing of this,” said Dri to Talag.

  “Of killing a rat? Why should I? There was no bloodshed, even. We sealed him up in a bilge-pipe to suffocate.”

  “You see how I failed to oblige him, m'lady? I do so deeply regret it.”

  Dri could not tell if the voice was laughing or crying. “We have no time for this,” she said. “What do you want?”

  A sniffle. “You won't believe me,” said the voice.

  “OPEN THIS DOOR ERE WE SLAUGHTER THE WHOLE FESTERING HORDE OF YOU!” bellowed Talag.

  The laughter or tears grew nearly hysterical.

  Dri hissed at her brother: “Haven't you done enough? It's your cruelty drove him to this act!”

  Talag opened his mouth to speak, but did not. The human voices on the deck outside grew louder.

  “You there, Felthrup!” said Dri. “A giant comes! Speak now, or we both must flee. What is it you would ask of us?”

  “A small thing,” said the choking voice. “Your oath on the clan: not to hurt me, and to listen.”

  “You have my oath on the clan,” said Dri.

  “You cannot give your oath to a rat,” said Talag.

  “I am NOT A RAT!”

  “Talag!” said Diadrelu. “Stop taunting him! Where is your wisdom gone? Speak your oath, quickly, or mount to the crevice! Decide!”

  Talag's fists were clenched so tight that veins stood out on his hands. “You have my oath by clan and kin,” he said.

  That very instant the outer door banged open and the pockmarked clerk appeared. At the same time they heard a scraping behind the foot-drain. The boy fumbled with the door in the slashing rain, still turned away from them. Talag pushed: the lid was free, and both ixchel dived into the pipe. Beside them, Felthrup let the lid snap shut. Brother and sister lay motionless where they fell, holding their breath. From inches away came the sound of the boy's heavy footfalls. He was swearing at the weather—Salvation!—for if he had just seen two crawlies he would have forgotten all about a little rain.