The Red Wolf Conspiracy

by Robert V. S. Redick

  But it was happening. Sailors aloft—leechlines freed—the big square sails flashing open—

  “Hold on!” Pazel shouted.

  The ship leaped forward. Timbers groaned, old sheets struggled to rip bolt from frame; on the spars above men clung to anything that seemed likely to be there a moment later. The wind was soon moaning through the stays, and the waves on the bow were like men trying to kick in a door.

  Pazel and Neeps had heard all these sounds before—but never all at once, and never on such an obviously ghastly ship. But if they were frightened, the other boys were terrified. One fell seasick in the first few minutes and had to lean over the rail in the lashing spray.

  Druffle, however, looked almost merry. He staggered about the deck, black coat flapping scarecrow-like, gazing up with approval at the great spread of canvas.

  “He's a loon!” said Pazel. “This old hulk won't take such speed!”

  Neeps shook his head. “This is bad business, mate—I can smell it. But what are we to do? It's plain they don't want our opinion.”

  “They don't,” Pazel agreed. But he couldn't take his eyes from the sails.

  “Come on,” said Neeps. “Let's get out of this wind. And talk, if we can.”

  They took shelter behind one of the Rupin's sorry-looking lifeboats. At first they could still barely hear each other. But by lying on their stomachs with their heads close together, they managed to talk almost normally. And Neeps had much to tell about the Chathrand. The mystery of the slaughtered rats was just the beginning. A rumor had also spread among the tarboys that the ship's carpenters and blacksmiths were at work on a secret project, deep in the ship. Whole decks were off-limits, night and day, except to sailors cleared by Rose himself.

  “Reyast heard talk of an iron door and a padlock,” said Neeps. “He thinks they're building an extra brig.”

  “But there's nobody locked up in the regular brig. What do they need two for?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” said Neeps.

  “I can't guess at all,” said Pazel. “But you haven't told me what happened to you.”

  “I'm coming to that. I told you it was Jervik's doing—blast him!—but it was also Thasha's. Honest to salt, that girl is a menace!”

  It seemed Thasha and Syrarys had had a ripping fight. Thasha had caught the consort opening vials of Ambassador Isiq's headache medicine: vials sealed by Dr. Chadfallow back in Etherhorde. Syrarys claimed she was merely adding an herbal tonic to calm Isiq's nerves. “Tasteless and harmless,” she told Thasha. “You could drink it by the glass.” But Thasha didn't believe a word of it. She accused Syrarys of poisoning her father.

  “But they're married—or close enough!” said Pazel.

  “Well, mate, ain't that the question?” Neeps gave him a hard look. “Is it close enough for her to inherit his gold, if Isiq knocks off?”

  “Are you saying she wants him dead?”

  “Who knows? Thasha might be cracked. She thinks that old crone Oggosk is spying on her—ever since the woman's cat got hold of her necklace. And she also suspects Jervik.”

  “Jervik, a spy? Who would be fool enough to use him?”

  “Nobody, but Thasha's convinced of it. We met an hour after they took you ashore. You might as well know she was crying her eyes out.”

  “For her father?”

  “For you, you thick stump. Days running.”

  Pazel thought the wind had played a trick on his ears. Neeps couldn't suppress a laugh.

  “Aye, Pazel, she's a wee bit fond of you! 'Money, why didn't I give him some money?' she kept wailing—not a bad question, either. But she's in trouble herself now. Her father took Syrarys' side in that fight. 'You may want what's best for me, girl,' he told her, 'but Syrarys knows what is.' That just about broke Thasha's heart. And it was while she was telling me all this—we were down on the mercy deck—that we heard a thump a few yards away. It was Jervik, and two other tarboys what've become his bootlicks. They were crouched behind a bulkhead, listening.

  “They claimed Uskins had sent them to check on a noise in the rudder-chains. But Thasha went wild on 'em. ‘Do I sound like a rudder-chain? Is that why you follow me around? Is that why you pressed that ugly ear to my door last night?’ Jervik said he never did. But he said it with a wink at his mates. Oh, Pazel”—Neeps grinned from ear to ear—“he should have skipped that wink.”

  “What happened?”

  “She whacked him silly, mate. I've never seen the like. Jervik was pinned up against the wall before he knew what hit him, protecting his tender parts. One of his mates took off running. The other one grabbed Thasha's arms from behind. I got him off—clipped him two good ones in the stomach—but he, well—”

  “He beat you,” said Pazel.

  “Only because of his rings,” said Neeps, turning scarlet. “Otherwise I'd have had him. Tubsung, that smelly hulk. Anyway, I blacked out for a moment. When my head cleared Tubsung was on the deck. So was Jervik, curled up in a ball. Thasha was standing over them, shouting, calling them worms. I mean loud, mate. Like screaming. WOOOORMS!”

  “Oh,” said Pazel. He could guess what happened next.

  “A crowd came—sailors, steerage passengers, marines. Uskins was the first officer to arrive, and he had the marines whisk Thasha off to her cabin in a flash. She shouted: 'I started it! Don't blame him!' But Uskins never believed she'd done any fighting. Jervik, that filth-tongue, said I was the one pestering the Young Mistress. And what could I say? How could I tell 'im what we were doing on the mercy deck, when it's off-limits now? Then Jervik showed off his bruises. Said I attacked him after he caught me asking Thasha for unseemly favors. What do you suppose that means? First-class food?”

  “It means kisses and the like, Neeps,” said Pazel, smiling in his turn.

  Neeps blushed brighter than before. “That scum,” he said. “I'll kill him!”

  “Don't even joke about that!” said Pazel, surprising himself with his own sharpness. “Besides, you can't kill all the Jerviks and Uskinses in the world.”

  “I'll settle for one or two.”

  Pazel sighed. “You still haven't explained how you ended up here.”

  “Simple enough,” said Neeps. “They would have chucked me ashore at the next port of call. But about the time Uskins separated us the lookout spotted the Lady Apsal—the grain-carrier, you know her, don't you?”

  “Of course.” said Pazel. “She's an Etherhorde ship.”

  “She was bound back to Etherhorde, actually. We tied up to exchange mailbags. And seeing as her next stop was Uturphe, Rose asked their captain to toss us out there ‘with the rest of the garbage.’ How do you like that?”

  “About as much as you do. What happened next?”

  Neeps was working himself back into a temper. “The final touch came from Swellows—may his tongue rot out! He told me he'd sent you to an inn on Blackwell Street. Naturally I went looking for you straightaway.”

  “And found the Flikkermen.” Pazel lay down on the deck, a hand over his eyes. “I'm sorry, brother.”

  “Listen, mate, never call me that.”

  “What, brother? Why not, Rin's sake? I've never had a better friend than you!”

  “So call me friend. Not brother—not on your life.”

  There it was again: that seething fury in Neeps' eyes. Pazel knew better than to argue the point.

  “Friend it is,” he said, a bit awkwardly. Then he squinted at Neeps' collar. “Pitfire! That's a right nasty bruise on your shoulder. It's black as ink.”

  Neeps gaped. “Kick me, mate, I forgot! It is ink! It's a message for you.”

  “A message?” Pazel raised his head. “From whom?”

  Once more Neeps grew angry. “Jervik, if you ask me. I woke up and someone had written it on my skin. Jervik knew I'd go looking for you in Uturphe. Maybe he wanted to gloat one last time. Can you believe the nerve? The oddest thing is that he used some foreign language. None of us tarboys could read it.”

  �
�But flaming fish, Neeps, I could have read it! And what if it wasn't Jervik?”

  “Who else would do such a nasty thing?”

  “The ixchel!”

  “Ixchel? Ixchel?” Neeps' eyes went wide. “Are you saying Chathrand's infested with crawlies?”

  “Don't call them that.”

  “You mean you knew—and you let one use me for an ink blotter?”

  “They're not as bad as we think.”

  “Really!” said Neeps. “And why didn't you tell anyone about your little ship-sinking friends?”

  “They said they'd kill me.”

  “How nice. I suppose your Gift let you hear them?”

  “That's how it started. But if they want to be heard they just strain a little—bend their voices, they say—and out comes words that anyone can hear.”

  Pazel tugged Neeps' collar back, revealing more of his shoulder, and gave a cry of dismay. “It's nearly all washed off! I can't read anything but ‘Simja’ and ‘must.’ Oh, Neeps, you offal-head! What if it was important?”

  Neeps looked at him over his shoulder. Then he closed his eyes. “Relaga Pazel Pathkendle eb Simja glijn. Ilenek ke ostrun hi Bethrin Belg. So there. I memorized it, just in case. Pazel! What's wrong?”

  Pazel had begun to shake all over. Still he dropped his eyes. “Find something to do,” he whispered. “Don't make Druffle suspicious. We're going to have to escape.”

  “You know what it means, do you?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Pazel. “It's in their tongue, the ixchel's. And it's very plain: ‘Tell Pazel Pathkendle he must come to Simja. They're going to murder the bridal girl.’”

  Toward midday the wind ebbed slightly. Druffle again produced his eel, soot-black after hours of roasting in the galley stove, and sectioned it with an axe on the topdeck. Inside the flesh was tender and pink. Druffle tossed each boy an eel-steak large enough to choke a bear, and with bear-like ferocity they ate where they sat, forgetting their fears. Only the seasick boy lost out.

  “Clean them bones!” Druffle laughed. “We need you strong for our little job on the coast!”

  “What coast is that, Mr. Druffle, sir?” asked Pazel.

  “Wait and see, my Chereste heart! And don't talk with your mouth full.”

  Pazel and Neeps leaned back against the lifeboat, chewing steadily. Escape felt more possible on a full stomach—but only just. They looked at the raucous Nelu Peren, this Anything-but-Quiet Sea. There was a dark smudge of mountains to starboard. That would be the mainland, just two or three leagues off, but it might as well have been the moon.

  “We're not going anywhere while this weather lasts,” said Neeps.

  Pazel nodded. “And it's going to get bad again, can't you feel it?”

  “I can,” said Neeps. “Worse than ever, I'd guess. There's a right storm brewing, maybe.”

  “The other problem,” Pazel went on, “is where to escape. All we know for certain is that Chathrand's taking Thasha to Simja.”

  “We're heading west,” said Neeps, “so I suppose those mountains could be part of Ipulia. But I thought Ipulia was a land of lakes—it's called the Blue Kingdom, after all.”

  “Maybe it has mountains, too,” said Pazel. “Or maybe we're west of Ipulia already, and that ridge is part of the Trothe of Chereste. That's Ormael, Neeps. My home—or what's left of it.”

  “Didn't you say Ormael is just a day's journey from Simja?”

  “Less,” said Pazel. “But even if we land in Ormael, and somehow get away from these nutters, who's going to take us across the Simja Straits? We're not tarboys anymore. Simja may be outside the Empire, but it still uses the Sailing Code. All the Crownless Lands do.”

  “They won't know we're not tarboys in Ormael.”

  “Won't they? If I know Uskins, the first place he'll go is the Boys' Registry. We're probably already on the blacklist.”

  “That skunk!” said Neeps. “How I wish the augrong had eaten him.”

  The wind soon revived. They talked a little more, but the waves too were growing, and their little shelter was regularly doused with spray. The other boys were huddled as far from the sides as possible, looks of shock on their faces.

  At nightfall Druffle chained them to the fife-rail. The boys themselves asked for the chain, for the sea was by this time breaking steadily over the bow, and there was a real danger of being washed overboard. Pazel and Neeps refused the chain (it carried risks of another kind), but they locked elbows with the other boys in the lee of the forecastle. Plunging, plowing, the ship kept up her hysterical westward run.

  It became impossible to speak. Soaked and freezing, they watched the crew battle the storm. Pazel's teeth chattered and his feet turned a pale blue. Yet somehow he drifted into a miserable kind of sleep. He dreamed he was an eel himself, swimming at great speed around a white tower that rose from the seafloor to pierce the waves, and reached beyond them far into the sky. Around him churned fish with glowing bodies, purple gem-like eyes, dagger teeth. There were submerged windows in the tower, and even a door, still closed tight against the weight of the ocean. Then a banshee wail erupted, and Pazel woke.

  The boys were leaping up—only to fall again as the Rupin plunged sickeningly to port.

  “The topsail!” someone cried. “The topsail's split in two!”

  Pazel groped for a handhold, trying to make sense of the chaos rushing his senses. Hours must have passed. The night was black, the wind furious—and something terrible lay dead ahead.

  He didn't know how he knew. Around the ship all was heaving darkness. Torn canvas snapped above their heads with a sound like galloping hooves. Wind and waves and thunder drowned the cries of the men.

  Lightning crackled. For an instant the world glowed madly bright and fifty sailors screamed like infants: a cliff towered over them, straight ahead and impossibly close. Dead! was all Pazel had time to think, and then the ship struck.

  But it was no cliff: it was rain, a monstrous rain front that shattered on the bowsprit like a great glass wall. Everyone was blinded. The boys hugged the rails, the chain, one another. Somewhere the captain was screaming, “Up the fore! Up! Up!” In the next flash men could be seen already halfway to the topsail yard, axes thrust in their belts to cut away the ruined canvas. It was terrible to see them, barely supported by the rotten ropes, lashed by so much rain they seemed to be trailing icicles.

  A forestay snapped like a giant bowstring. The mast tilted, a sailor screamed, and by the next bolt Pazel saw him plummeting seaward, arms flailing. Darkness took him before the sea.

  Panic was spreading among the boys. Some were weeping, others screaming for Druffle to unlock them before they drowned. And they would drown, Pazel knew, if the bow dug under—as fast as that fallen man.

  But Druffle was beyond earshot, or perhaps beyond caring. In the end Pazel did the job with a sailor's axe. Two boys were left trailing chain, but at least they were free.

  “For Rin's sake, stay where you are!” Neeps shouted at them. “The rail won't give unless the ship herself breaks to pieces!”

  Pazel could never afterward say how long they rolled and pitched through that storm. But a moment came at last when they swept out of it, quite as suddenly as they had entered. The rain blew past; they heard it hissing away eastward like a swarm of curses. The wind dropped; then it dropped further. Soon the only sounds were the pumps churning belowdecks, water jetting from the scuppers into the sea—and the hoarse oaths of Mr. Druffle.

  “A racer, eh? A swift sea horse! That's what you called the Rupin, wasn't it, Captain Snaketongue? Blast you to Bramian! This ship is a disgrace!”

  “Only when you drive her like a madman!” shot back the captain, miserable.

  “Watch yourself, blubber-guts!”

  “I've had enough!” the captain went on. “You Volpeks, there—what good's his money if we're all drowned? And how much have you seen, anyway?”

  “Half,” grunted one of the Volpeks, eyeing Druffle with some suspicion.

&n
bsp; “And the rest on delivery of the goods!” snarled Druffle. “You know the rules.”

  “Your rules,” said another Volpek. “Not ours.”

  “Eight feet of water in the hold!” The captain stamped his feet. “We're drinking the sea! Join with me, you fighting men! We can save this ship! And after we unload this screaming monkey we've a rendezvous with the Guild! That's right, Gregory's Guild! They'll have work for you—man's work, not sending young boys to their—”

  “SILENCE!” boomed Druffle, raising his hand. The change in his voice was astonishing: it cracked like a whip across the deck. The captain stumbled backward, clutching his jaw as if reeling from a blow.

  Druffle cackled. “You should know better, Captain! And you, you warty brutes”—here he turned to the Volpeks—“has Dollywilliams Druffle ever cheated a man? What's his reputation built on, then? Gah, you insult me.”

  Last of all he faced the boys. “You'll be wondering at my powers, lads. How'd I make this old muskrat behave? Well, the fact is I'm a mage by family inclination. My dad was a great enchanter, what we call a thumbaturg, as he needed just one finger to work his spells. My uncles were sea-sorcerers in the pay of the Becturium Viceroys. And my own mother had some river-weird blood. So you see, it's best not to cross me: I'm liable to blast you to jelly whether I mean to or no.”

  He looked down at them happily. No one knew what to say.

  But Pazel was thinking Gregory's Guild?

  Dawn revealed a ship in ruins. From bow to stern lay a tangled mass of rigging and ribboned sails. The foremast sprawled in pieces across the deck. The main topsail yard, a thirty-foot timber, had fallen through the quarterdeck and split the captain's bed neatly in two.

  But they were still moving west. A pair of trysails had survived the night, and together they just managed to keep the floating wreck in motion. It was a gentle, sunny morning. Neeps slept like a stone. But Pazel felt an odd excitement in his chest. On skinned knees and rope-burned hands he crawled to the starboard bow. And there he saw an image from his dreams.

  Sandstone cliffs. Lush meadows at their heights, bold black rocks in the surf below. A pencil-thin waterfall, dissolved to spray by the wind before it touched the waves.