The Ruling Sea

by Robert V. S. Redick

  Except for one, thought Pazel, looking back at the gargantuan, battle-scarred ship. Taliktrum had ordered a search for Arunis, deck by deck, but somehow the mage had eluded them. What’s he hiding for? Did he find out, somehow, about Bolutu’s allies? Could they be closer than we think?

  The jetty began at the foot of the tower, and was built of the same red stone. It swept in a graceful curve out into the gulf, shattering the waves from the inlet, and leaving the water within its embrace almost becalmed. Stairs descended to the water in three places, and at one of these they moored the boat. From there, it was a short, awkward jump onto the weedy stairs.

  As he climbed Pazel felt terribly dizzy. The very stillness of the jetty was to blame, he knew: after months at sea only constant motion felt natural. They’d be gone again before he got his land-legs.

  His comprehension didn’t stop him from slipping, however. He might have tumbled right off the wet stones if Thasha’s arm hadn’t shot out to catch him. Her eyes snapped to his own, and for a moment the Thasha he knew rose within them. She gave him a slight, teasing smile, her parched skin wrinkling. He felt more relief at the sight of that smile than he had to be saved from falling. But even as they stepped onto the jetty the haunted look was creeping back over her face. He clasped her hand, tightly. Stay with me, he thought.

  From the top of the jetty, Pazel looked up at the soaring tower, its bone-like barrenness, the hundreds of narrow windows gaping darkly overhead. Then one of the soldiers cried out in surprise and pointed.

  Four humans stood watching them, where the jetty met the shore. Two men, two women. All four naked. They were lean, sun-darkened, their hair long and tangled. They were motionless as deer.

  For a startled instant no one said a word. Then Fiffengurt turned to Bolutu with an exasperated gesture. “Speak, man, speak!” The dlömic man cupped his hands to his lips.

  “Waelmed!” he shouted. “Peace te abbrun ye, en greetigs hrom ecros ke Nelroq!”

  The four figures turned and ran. One of the women gave an odd, keening cry. Then all four vanished around one of the root-like buttresses of the tower.

  The others in the party scowled in bewilderment. What Bolutu had shouted was almost Arquali, and yet unlike anything they had ever heard.

  “What in the tar-bottomed Pits was that gibberish?” said Fiffengurt.

  “That was their language, Quartermaster,” said Bolutu promptly, “and my own. I’m happy to tell you that our Imperial Common Tongue, which we call dlömic, is first cousin to your Arquali, for the simple reason that your Empire was founded by exiles from Bali Adro, many centuries ago. Didn’t I say Pazel’s Gift would not be needed? Give yourselves a week or two, and you’ll understand almost anyone you meet. You speak a dialect of dlömic, my friends, and have done so all your lives.”

  “Exiles?” said Thasha faintly.

  “Human exiles,” said Bolutu, “but in Bali Adro every child—human or dlömu or otherwise—learns Imperial Common. Your histories don’t reach back that far, m’lady, but ours do, and they leave little doubt. Your great Empire began as a colony of our own.”

  He spoke with humility, as if he knew his words would shock. They did, of course. But no one exclaimed, or asked questions. They had gone beyond shock in recent weeks, and thirst was making it hard to think or care about anything else.

  Yet in some part of his mind Pazel was still fearful and confused. “Why did they run off, if you were speaking their language?” he asked.

  “They didn’t understand a word!” said Alyash vehemently. “They’re savages, obviously.”

  “In these parts? Nonsense!” said Bolutu. “I expect they were swimming, and we startled them.” His silver eyes glanced at them sidelong. “You should see yourselves. I might run too, if you popped suddenly out of the sea.”

  They headed for shore, through the cool spray of the breakers striking the jetty’s seaward face. The village was out of sight behind the wall along the shore, except for a few roofs and steeples in poor repair. Little sand-colored crabs ran before them. Gray pelicans swept by overhead.

  Pazel was frowning. “It doesn’t add up,” he whispered to Thasha. “The way they just froze, staring at us. And then ran off without a word.”

  Thasha blinked, as though struggling to focus on his words. “Their hair was still dry,” she managed finally. “They hadn’t been swimming.”

  Pazel squeezed her hand tighter. The behavior of the humans was certainly strange, but Thasha’s troubled him even more. Her awareness of him, and for that matter of all that surrounded her, came and went like the sun through drifting clouds. Often her gaze turned inward, as though her body were forgotten, and she was living in some distant country of the mind. But at other times her eyes jumped and darted, chasing things invisible to his eyes. Was it the Nilstone at work? She had touched it with the hand he held now, the one she’d maimed years ago in the garden of the Lorg. He ran a finger over the scar. It was warm to the touch.

  Her hand twitched as though he’d found a ticklish spot. She gave him a look that was briefly clear, and once more that hint of a smile played over her lips.

  “Oggosk can’t do much to us now,” she said.

  Pazel nodded, avoiding her gaze. It was true: they were free. The ixchel were no secret; Oggosk had run out of blackmail. But the witch had had a reason for her threats, something she believed absolutely. What Thasha is to do, she must do alone. You can only get in her way.

  They reached the jetty’s end. Fiffengurt stepped ashore, knelt, and kissed the sand at his feet.

  “Hail Cora, proud and beautiful,” he said, and the others mumbled an affirming “Hail.” It was a ritual never to be skipped: the commander’s greeting to Cora, Goddess of the earth, at the end of any particularly deadly voyage. Failure to do so, it was thought, could bring disasters ashore to match those just avoided at sea.

  As Fiffengurt rose, something caught his eye. He chuckled, pointing. Scattered on the earth were several piles of blue-black mussel shells, still wet from the sea. A few had been cracked open. Pazel looked down, and saw the little shells clinging thickly to the base of the jetty, right at the waterline.

  “So that’s what they were up to,” he said. “But why didn’t they bring a basket? How were they going to carry them home?”

  “No clothes, no baskets, no tools,” said Alyash, frowning. “Right free spirits, ain’t they?”

  “It is strange—I confess it,” said Bolutu sharply. “But there are strange folk everywhere. Come, let us go and clear this matter up.”

  Suddenly a cry, faint but urgent, reached them from the Chathrand. They turned and looked at her, but could see nothing amiss. The sound did not come again.

  “We must find that water,” said Hercól. “The crew’s patience is at an end.”

  The tower doors were shut; a bolt as thick as Pazel’s upper arm lay across them, with locks at either end the size of dinner plates. Sand buried the foot of the ramp leading up to the doors. “This makes no sense at all,” said Bolutu, “unless the tower became unsafe while I was gone. But what am I saying? It has stood for a thousand years! Why should it weaken in the last twenty?”

  The path to the village ran along the outside of the seawall, and was overgrown with trefoil and gorse. A mile ahead, near the quay with its crumbling docks and outbuildings, it passed through a stone archway. “There should be a common well,” said Bolutu, but the confidence was gone from his voice.

  They made for the village. But they had not gone twenty paces when one of the Turachs grunted, “Look there!”

  A man had stepped from the archway. He was naked like the other four, and like them strangely crouched and shuffling. He darted back through the gate before Bolutu could call to him.

  Bolutu rushed along the track, no longer able to hide his concern. Fiffengurt shouted after him: “Wait for us, damn it, don’t you dare—”

  Bolutu did not wait. He broke into a run, sandals slapping along the dusty track. The others followed
him in some confusion, not certain whether more haste or less was called for. Hercól drew Ildraquin from its sheath.

  A sudden shout came from their left, echoing off the stones. It was a man’s voice, but it uttered no words. It was simply a hoot, challenging and somehow derisive.

  “Where are you, blast it?” cried Fiffengurt, turning in place.

  “There, sir!” said a Turach, pointing upward. A child’s face, wild of hair and eye, ducked quickly behind the seawall.

  “We should double back,” said Alyash. “I don’t fancy walkin’ alongside that wall. They could rain stones down on us, or worse.”

  While the others stood undecided, Thasha pulled Pazel forward, toward the gate. There was an urgency in the way she tugged him, as though she both needed and feared what lay ahead. Hercól came after them. Despite the others’ protests the three were soon running after Bolutu, who was by now a good distance ahead.

  Long before they could reach him he gained the archway. There he paused, and spread his hands as if in delight. He turned and flashed them a smile, the white teeth very bright in the black face, and then he vanished through the archway.

  They were a hundred yards from the opening when they heard him scream. It was a sound of horror, or of pain. Hercól redoubled his speed, his black sword held aloft. Pazel and Thasha followed as fast as their legs would carry them.

  An ambush, thought Pazel. Aya Rin, we’re probably too late.

  They reached the archway and skidded to a halt. They were not too late: there at twenty paces stood Bolutu, in a little square formed by dilapidated structures of stone. There was a round stone basin at the center—a basin with water, Pazel saw with a flash of pure longing. And before Bolutu stood two of his own kind—two dlömu, blacker than black, their eyes four bright silver coins. An old man and a young. They wore tattered work clothes, wool caps pulled low over their silver hair, boots of sunbleached leather. They held no weapons, and showed no sign of threat.

  Bolutu stood by the basin, gazing at them. His mouth was open, and his face was clenched like that of a man told something so ghastly that he was struggling to spit it from his mind. The other two were speaking to him gently, insisting that there was nothing to fear. “Don’t worry,” they said, again and again. “Don’t worry, they obey us, they’re tame.”

  “Tame?” cried Bolutu, his voice almost unrecognizable.

  “Of course,” said the younger dlömu. “We knew they could be—”

  He broke off with a frightened shout. He had spotted the three newcomers in the archway. “Gods unseen!” he shouted. “Look at them, Father, look!”

  Bolutu gestured desperately: Don’t come in here, stay back. But Hercól marched boldly through the gate and into the village, and Pazel and Thasha followed. The dlömu backed away from them.

  “A miracle,” said the old man, trembling. “A miracle. Or a curse.”

  “Bolutu,” said Pazel, “for Rin’s sake tell them we’re friends.”

  Bolutu looked at his hands.

  The father and son glanced behind them, as though tempted to run. The younger man pointed at Pazel. “Did you hear it, Father?” he cried, his voice breaking with excitement.

  “Don’t … say ‘it,’” murmured the old man.

  “Belesar,” said Hercól to Bolutu, “speak to us this instant! Why are they so afraid? Why are you?”

  Bolutu turned to face them. He clutched at the amulet around his neck. He was shaking uncontrollably. “No,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “No. Rin. No.”

  Pazel felt Thasha grope for his hand. She stepped forward, toward the three motionless figures, and Pazel walked beside her.

  The younger dlömu was steadying his father, but his eyes never left the newcomers. He struggled to speak again.

  “It’s just that we’ve never—I mean, Father has, as a child, but I’ve never seen—”

  “What?” said Pazel, “A human? But we just saw them—we saw six of them.”

  The young dlömu shook his head. Then he locked eyes with Thasha, who had drawn nearer still. Releasing Pazel, she put out the hand that had touched the Nilstone. Slowly, cautiously. A blind girl groping for his face.

  “Say it,” she told him. “You’ve never seen—”

  “A woken human,” said the other, softly.

  Thasha’s face paled, and her eyes went wide and cold. Pazel reached for her arm, even as he grappled with the horror of what he’d just heard. She was trying to speak but could only gasp. He thought suddenly of Felthrup’s terror on the quarterdeck, and knew that something like it was stirring in his mind.

  Hercól gave a warning shout: across the little square, between two crumbling structures, a small human crowd was gathering. Some were dressed, after a fashion—scraps of leggings, torn and filthy shirts—but most wore nothing at all. They stood bunched together, or bent low, staring at the newcomers, obviously afraid. One man was biting his finger. Two or three uttered wordless moans.

  Thasha clutched desperately at Pazel’s arm. “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “It was never supposed to happen. You believe me, don’t you?”

  He pressed her head against his chest. I love her, he thought. And then: Who is she? What is this thing I love?

  The older dlömu stepped toward the crowd of men. He whistled and clapped his hands. At the sound, the whole group shuffled forward, slow and fearful and close together. When they reached the old man they pawed at him, clung to his shirt. One by one their eyes returned to Pazel and Thasha and Hercól, and there was no human light in those eyes, no consciousness but the animal sort, that fearful otherness, that measureless sea.

  HERE ENDS The Ruling Sea

  BOOK TWO OF THE CHATHRAND VOYAGE.

  THE STORY IS CONTINUED IN

  The River of Shadows

  COMING FROM DEL REY IN 2011.

  * Of the five who disagreed: two thought the date 19 Ilbrin. Another declared with certainty that it was Ilbrin the twenty-third. Mr. Teggatz, charged with keeping a daily statistical log of work in the galley, confessed to having accidentally burned his logbook in the stove. Finally, Old Gangrüne the purser admitted under questioning that he considered the entire Solar Year a mirage. The sun moved faster or slower at the gods’ whims, he declared: any fool who watched the sky knew that, and clocks and hourglasses changed their speeds to match the sun’s. It was pointed out to Gangrüne that this belief called into question his fifty years of shipboard recordkeeping. “You’re got it backward,” he retorted. “My logbook’s our only hope of keeping track of the years. I’m an Imperial asset, if you please.”

  Acknowledgments

  Kiran Asher, my partner, to whom this book is dedicated, lived with me through the journey of its writing. No one should be subjected to such a fate. I’m profoundly grateful for her patience and her love.

  A few close friends effectively kicked the door down in their eagerness to read The Ruling Sea. In addition to Kiran, Holly Hanson, Stephen Klink, Katie Pugh, Jan Redick, and Edmund Zavada all shared generous and wise responses to the rough-hewn manuscript.

  As Ruling Sea left the home laboratory, I benefited from the insights of my wonderful editors, Simon Spanton at Gollancz and Kaitlin Heller at Del Rey, as well as the indispensable guidance of my agent, John Jarrold. Additional help came from Betsy Mitchell, Gillian Redfearn, Lisa Rogers, Charlie Panayiotou, Shawn Speakman, David Moench, Jonathan Weir and teams of others whose names and heroic deeds remain trade secrets.

  In addition, for encouragement and counsel, I’d like to thank Hillary Nelson, Tracy Winn, Amber Zavada, Paul Park, Bruce Hemmer, John Crowley, Corinne Demas, Gavin Grant, Nat Herold, Jedediah Berry, Karen Osborn, Julian Olf, Stefan Petrucha, Patrick Donnelly and Jim Lowry.

  Many novels could end with a credit-roll surpassing those of Hollywood films, if every person who helped along the way received mention. Certainly this is such a book; and just as certainly, a few names that should not under any circumstances have been omitted will rise to haunt me
when I see this page in print. My apologies to those deserving souls.

  Before the book, there’s the idea; before the idea, the habits of mind in which it gestates. Since plunging into the Chathrand Voyage series I’ve had occasion to reflect, in turn, on the origins of those habits: in this case, my addiction to tales of the wondrous and improbable. I trace part of the answer to certain cherished evenings in Iowa, over three decades ago, listening to my father, John Redick, read science fiction novels to an awestruck audience of one. Years late in all instances have been my expressions of thanks, so here’s one more, Dad.

  About the Author

  ROBERT V. S. REDICK is author of The Red Wolf Conspiracy. His unpublished first novel, Conquistadors, was a finalist for the AWP/Thomas Dunne Novel Award, and his essay “Uncrossed River” won the New Millennium Writings Award for nonfiction. A former theater critic and international development researcher, he worked most recently for the antipoverty organization Oxfam. He lives in western Massachusetts.

  The Ruling Sea is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Robert V. S. Redick

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Originally published in hardcover and trade paperback in the United Kingdom by Gollancz, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd., in 2009.