The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “Hear, hear,” said Neeps approvingly.

  But the ixchel woman shook her head. “This is a grave matter for the ixchel. Our survival has always depended on strong clans, and the very bone and sinew of a clan is obedience. I have come to understand, however, that there are higher allegiances even than clan.”

  “You speak the truth,” said Hercól. “The carnage Arunis will unleash if he finds a way to use the Nilstone—through his Shaggat, or by some other means—will sweep aside the little people and the large. Does Taliktrum know of the oath we took together, then?”

  “Rin forbid!” said Dri. “If any part of him believes in me still, it will die when he learns of that oath! No, the story is far simpler. When Taliktrum discovered my use of blanë and its antidote on your wedding day, he chose to call it theft. When I told him that I had killed the Shaggat’s son, he thanked me for my ‘decades of service to the clan,’ and imprisoned me.”

  “It was you who killed him, then,” said Hercól. “I did wonder about that curious accident.”

  “It was I,” said Diadrelu, “though I had no joy in the act. Those two were children when the Shaggat began his crusade. They are as much the victims of his evil as anyone. First they paid with their sanity; now Pithor Ness has paid with his life!”

  Dri suddenly pricked up her ears, and so did Pazel: his Gift had tuned his ears permanently to the ixchel register no normal human could hear. A young ixchel woman was announcing Thasha’s return. A moment later Thasha entered the passage, breathless, her dreamy look quite gone.

  “We’re tied up beside the whaler,” she said, “and their captain’s aboard, talking with Rose in his day-cabin. But it’s strange: Rose is keeping the whole crew on alert. They’re all at their stations, waiting. Oh, Dri!”

  Thasha’s troubled face lit up. She bent down, and the ixchel woman reached out to touch her hand.

  “It is good to be back among you!” said Dri. “But I fear the chance will not come often. Taliktrum’s fanatics lurk outside my door, as if expecting some wickedness to issue from it. They do not yet know of this secret passage—my sophisters and I built it alone, some months ago—but how long before they begin to enter my quarters without knocking? Some call me a traitor already.”

  “How dare they!” hissed Thasha.

  Dri smiled sadly. “They dare more every hour,” she said. “The time may soon come when I flee this way not to return, and then you shall have yet another lodger at your inn, Thasha Isiq. Now hear me: I have come with both pleas and warnings. You know, first of all, of the accusation hurled by the Mzithrinis, back in Simja.”

  “Know of it!” said Pazel. “I translated it. They accused someone on the Chathrand of sending a murth or demon or somesuch creature to attack their old priest—the one they call the Father. And they say he died fighting the beast.”

  Dri nodded. “We had our spies on the topdeck that day, as every day. Some of my people found that standoff between your giant-clans amusing.” She shook her head. “They might have felt otherwise if Taliktrum had shared the report I gave him.”

  Then she told them of the night Arunis had communed with Sathek, the dead spirit with the terrifying voice; and of the arrival of the incubus out of the storm, of its rage, and how Arunis at last had commanded it to go and retrieve a scepter of some sort from the mainland.

  “Sathek’s Scepter!” cried Thasha. “That was it! I saw a drawing of it in the Polylex months ago! That was the scepter in the Father’s hand!”

  “Well, this is splendid,” said Neeps. “Add summoning demons to the list of foul things Arunis can do. Who is this Sathek? Or who was he, when he lived?”

  “I hoped you could tell me,” said Diadrelu.

  “I can,” said Hercól.

  The others turned to him in surprise. Hercól’s face was very grave. “Sathek was the father of the Mzithrin Empire,” he said. “Mind you, he is not a father they care to speak of today, much less embrace. Some say he was part demon himself. What is certain is that he was the first warlord to conquer all the Mzithrin lands, from the Mang-Mzn to the Nohr Plateau. He did not rule long—the Worldstorm was already raging by the time he built his palace on Mount Olisurn. And his cruelty inspired rebellion. His own people called him the soulless one. Nonetheless he created them, in a sense: the five city-states that rebelled most fiercely grew into the five kingdoms of the Mzithrin Empire.”

  “And the scepter?” asked Pazel.

  “He is always depicted with a scepter,” said Hercól. “But I know nothing of its purpose. Consult that book of yours, Thasha.”

  “Arunis was not capable of summoning the incubus himself,” said Dri thoughtfully. “If he could have, why beg for Sathek’s help? In fact he seemed to fear for his life, until the creature left his cabin.”

  She sighed. “I must proceed to my other warning. Something is amiss with the insects aboard the Chathrand. The night I killed the Shaggat’s son I very nearly died as well, on the stinger of a wasplike beast as large as myself. It was deadly, but also tormented and deformed. In a strange way it reminded me of a boar I saw once in the Emperor’s own piggery on Mol Etheg. The creature had been bred too aggressively, and fed too much. It was as if Magad had set his heart on having the world’s largest, meanest swine. What he got was a beast heaped with more muscle than its own frame could endure. It was in constant pain, and attacked even those who came to feed it, and had to be slaughtered before it was full grown. This insect was misshapen too, and for all its speed it flew somewhat drunkenly. I thought later that it would soon have died even if I had not slain it.”

  “And you fear there could be more of these things?” Pazel asked.

  “I do,” she said. “The clan has not met with any—I have a few loyal aides of my own, who bring me news. But a scout in the afterhold reported a moth as large as a human dinner plate, writhing in the air as if in agony. Yesterday, moreover, I heard my earnest caretakers speaking of the biggest, ugliest horsefly ever to wing out of the Pits. And there is one more thing: the rats in the hold and lower decks are miserable with fleas, of a kind more bloodthirsty than any known to rat-kind.”

  “Felthrup was complaining of fleas,” said Thasha. “I’d forgotten all about it. He drowned them in a saltwater bath.”

  “Since my arrest I have begged for the right to share this warning with you,” said Dri. “My nephew has always refused. When humans pay attention to insects, they pay attention to rats, and we shall all perish if Rose decides to cleanse the ship of rats. Such is Taliktrum’s argument, and on this point I cannot disagree. But you have proven your good faith. And why not seek out the source of these deformed insects ourselves?” Dri sighed. “He will not spare one ixchel for the task.”

  “Fleas.” Neeps sat back on his heels, squeezing his eyes shut with the effort of memory. “I’ll be damned if someone else wasn’t talking about them. Who was it? Pitfire.”

  “There is another matter,” said Dri. “Too strange for coincidence, I think. Both the Shaggat’s son and Arunis mentioned something called the Swarm. The mage said that armies would wilt before it like flowers in winter. Can he mean that a horde of such insects is breeding somewhere? Or is it another kind of threat altogether? Whatever the truth, this Swarm has something to do with the Nilstone, and that scepter. I know no more than this—but be on your guard, and learn all that you can.”

  “Lady Dri,” said Pazel with a certain reluctance, “there’s something I have to tell you. We’re not the only ones who know about your people anymore.”

  The ixchel woman turned to face him. A look of pure dread appeared on her face.

  “What are you saying?”

  Pazel told her of their summons by Oggosk, and how the witch spoke of Diadrelu and Taliktrum by name, and how she claimed Sniraga had brought Lord Talag’s body to her in her jaws. He left out only her final threat, concerning Thasha and himself. Dri listened, mute as a stone. Something close to disbelief shone in her eyes.

  When she spoke at last h
er voice was changed. “The witch told you one of us came for my brother’s body?”

  Pazel nodded.

  “And she gave it to him?”

  “That’s right, Dri. I’m sorry.”

  Suddenly Diadrelu began striking violently at her own head and face. The humans cried out. Thasha raised her hand—and dropped it just as quickly. There could be no graver insult than to use force, even loving force, against this tiny queen. “Stop, stop!” they begged her. A moment later she did, and stood with moist and furious eyes, looking at nothing.

  “He will have been parceled,” she said. “I was not told. I should have been there, done him that last service, or shared it with his son at least.”

  “Parceled?” asked Neeps quietly.

  “Drained of blood, then cut into twenty-seven pieces and incinerated. There is never any delay, no time of mourning such as you have. The pieces are bound in clean cloth, with private messages from the twenty-seven closest to the dead one tucked within. If a clan is at sea, where burning is difficult, the pieces are tied with stones or bits of lead ballast, and sunk in the dead of night. It is always done thus, so that the body may not be found by your people, and our loved one’s souls may depart without fear for the clan.”

  She dried her eyes with a sleeve. “You must find it a grisly custom. But it is how we say goodbye.”

  “No people should have to face the choices yours have,” said Hercól. “It is not for us to judge you, ever.”

  Dri looked up at the swordsman with affection. Just a month ago he had been struggling with a deep distrust, perhaps a hatred, of ixchel, born of some long-ago tragedy of which he never spoke. Ramachni had chastised him: who among them took the greatest risk in giving trust? The mage’s reprimand had shaken Hercól. Solemnly he had asked Dri’s pardon, not denying the anger that dwelt in him but swearing to defeat it, and he had proved better than his word. Give me one flawed but honest man, she thought, and keep your legions of hypocrites.

  She took a deep breath. “Now for my plea,” she said, looking at the three youths. “It is a bloody thing I ask, but you are the only ones who might accomplish it.”

  “Tell us,” said Thasha.

  “My nephew has made many errors in his first weeks as commander,” said Dri. “I did not want to admit the extent of them. I told myself they were flaws of inexperience, that he would grow into wisdom as he faced the daily urgencies of leadership. I believed this despite my own arrest, despite his denial of the menace of the Nilstone, despite misgivings about his every action since the death of his father.

  “Until today. With my breakfast Ensyl slipped me a note, revealing that Taliktrum has been meeting in secret with the rat-king, Master Mugstur. The same animal who has murdered twelve of our people since we boarded in Sorrophran, and left their nibbled corpses outside our dwellings. The same creature who ambushed and nearly killed his father, to say nothing of his aunt. The same Rin-obsessed lunatic who has sworn to kill Captain Rose for his ‘heresy’ and to eat his tongue. And Taliktrum calls me a traitor!

  “He has tried to keep these meetings secret, of course, and Ensyl could not get close enough to hear what he and the rat discussed. But Mugstur will keep no promises, except possibly those he makes to the Angel of Rin.”

  “What do you want us to do about all this?” asked Pazel.

  “I want you to lure Master Mugstur into the open,” said Diadrelu, “before some terrible harm is done to us all. Use blasphemy, use bribery—use your Gift, Pazel, if it gives you rat-speech, although Mugstur speaks a passable Arquali. Say whatever you must to coax that murderous beast out of his warren and into the cabin of your choice. And be sure he does not leave that cabin alive.”

  “You’re asking us to kill a woken animal?” said Thasha, frowning. “The only woken rat on the ship besides Felthrup himself?”

  “Mugstur’s fate is sealed already,” said Diadrelu. “He thinks himself the instrument of divine retribution. When he attacks Rose he will die, but what harm might he do with my nephew’s help before then?”

  “Incalculable harm,” said Hercól.

  Dri nodded. “Together they might even deal the Chathrand her fatal blow. Yes, I am asking you to commit a murder, if by that act you prevent many hundreds more. Have no illusions, my friends. We shall all of us be murderers before this voyage ends.”

  “You sound like my father,” said Thasha, “telling Pazel why he had to destroy Ormael before someone else did. Well, I don’t believe anyone’s fate is sealed.”

  “Mugstur’s is,” Dri insisted. “He has sealed it himself, and tightens the screws every waking hour.”

  “But that’s the point, he’s woken. You know what Ramachni told us, that when these creatures suddenly—” Thasha waved her hands. “—erupt into consciousness, after years as simple animals, they’re so frightened it’s a wonder they don’t all run mad. It must be horrifying! Like your mind-fits, Pazel, but with no escape.”

  Pazel shuddered. “What would you have us do?” he said to Thasha. “Go down into the hold and reason with him? Tell him this Angel business is all in his head?”

  Thasha looked wounded by his spiteful tone. “We could trap him,” she said. “In a box, or something.”

  “We’re talking about a rat,” said Neeps.

  “Oh, just a rat!” said Thasha furiously. “Just another vermin. Not worth the air he breathes. Where have I heard that before?”

  “Everywhere,” said Hercól. “It is the false, cursed verdict of our times. Somewhere in Alifros one resentful soul inflicts it on another, every minute of every day. Thasha, the moral point is yours, but the tactical goes to Diadrelu. Mugstur threatens the very survival of this ship—and intentionally so. He must therefore be stopped.”

  “Mugstur’s too smart to crawl into a box,” said Pazel.

  “Oh, can’t you blary concentrate,” snapped Thasha. But in fact she was finding it difficult to concentrate herself: the axeman’s cries of agony still rang in her mind. “Listen, Hercól. I can kill if I have to. You’ve been teaching me how to do it for years. But I’m not a murderer.”

  “I am,” said Diadrelu. “And I daresay so is your tutor.”

  “I will speak for myself, Lady Diadrelu,” said Hercól quietly.

  Dri gave him a startled glance. “I mean no insult. You come from a warrior people, and have lived a warrior’s life. This is not a secret, I think?”

  “There is more to the Tholjassan Dominion than warcraft,” said Hercól, “and more to me as well. I must agree with Thasha in this matter: our fates are what we make of them.”

  Dri shook her head. “That is not what we ixchel believe. We say it is our slumbering hearts that choose for us, and that in them resides the will of a thousand years of ancestors who cannot be denied. And it has always seemed to me that this philosophy is borne out even more by your history than our own. How many wars might have been avoided but for ancient grievances, long-dead matters of honor and revenge? We at least admit this part of ourselves.”

  “If that is so,” said Hercól, “why not tell us what honor or ancestry requires of your clan, such that it risks annihilation by boarding the Great Ship on this voyage?”

  “You go too far,” said Diadrelu. “You know that I am not free to speak of such things.”

  “We know that much,” said Hercól, “and not a word more.”

  For a moment Diadrelu was speechless. Neither she nor Hercól seemed to trust themselves to continue. At last the ixchel woman turned to look at Thasha.

  “If you do not believe that fates can be sealed,” she said, “I suggest you look to the mark all five of us carry on our skin. A wolf can mean different things to different people, but all wolves are predators.”

  “We got these scars to help us save the world from the Nilstone,” Thasha countered, “not to let us kill anyone who gets in our way.”

  “Mugstur is not just anyone. He is a lethal zealot, a depraved and dangerous rat.”

  “Felthrup’s a ra
t, too,” said Thasha. “What if he somehow threatened our safety? Would you kill him, just like that?”

  “Yes,” said Dri. “As I killed the son of the Shaggat Ness—just like that. No ixchel would be alive today if our people had not answered such questions in their hearts long ago.”

  “But you spared me,” said Pazel.

  The others looked at him in surprise.

  “You fought your whole clan the night we met,” he went on. “They wanted to stab me dead in my hammock, but you wouldn’t let them. And come to think of it, you spared Felthrup too—didn’t Talag want to kill him after he blocked your escape down that storm-pipe?”

  For the first time in many days Thasha looked at him fondly. Pazel dropped his eyes. “I think I know how the Red Wolf chose us,” he said. “I think it wanted people like you, Dri. People who can do whatever it takes—even kill—but who hated the idea of killing so much that they’d even fight their friends to avoid it. Because we all do hate it, don’t we?”

  A long silence. Diadrelu would not look at Hercól. The swordsman, for his part, sat back against the wall. His eyes took on a distant look, as though he were quite alone in the passage, or in some other place altogether.

  “Shall I tell you how I broke with Sandor Ott?” he said suddenly. “It is a dark story, and too long to tell in full, but at the heart of it was my refusal to kill a mother and her sons. They were the lever that has moved my life: had I not faced that choice, to murder innocents or join them in exile, I would today perhaps be serving Ott rather than fighting him. I do not know if you are right about the Red Wolf and its choices, Pazel, but you are surely right about us.”

  “What happened?” asked Thasha in a whisper. In all her life Hercól had never spoken so openly of his past.

  “We fled together,” said Hercól simply, “from the Mindrei Vale in Tholjassa over cold Lake Ikren, and thence by the Pilgrims’ Road into the icewalled maze of the central Tsördons. And Ott’s men pursued us, village by village, peak by peak. For eleven years I gave myself to their protection, and used all I knew of the spymaster’s methods against him. It was not enough to save the children. Ott tracked them down and killed them, and took their bodies back to Etherhorde on slabs of ice.”