The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “The sorcerer’s reek is still about the Nilstone,” he said. “Stay as far from the sack as you can. If anyone should reach for it, we must assume his mind is under siege, and stop him by force.”

  “To do so would be simple mercy,” said Hercól. “Four men on the Chathrand touched the Stone, and four men’s bodies withered like leaves in a fire. Come, it is time we left this place.”

  Together they dragged the raft into the shallows. Hercól and Vispek held the frame as the others scrambled aboard. The raft heaved and shifted, but it bore their weight. They spun away from the clearing, pushing off with long poles, and Thasha felt the current gather them into its arms.

  Big Skip laughed aloud. “We’re ridin’ a blary jellyfish,” he said. “By the Tree, I hope I live just to hear what people say when we tell ’em.”

  “They’ll say we are liars,” said Bolutu.

  “Be still, now,” said Ramachni. “We are above the very spot where the River of Shadows roars up most powerfully into the Ansyndra. The blend of shadow and water is very thin here. If we do not sink in these first minutes, we may have hope for the rest of the journey.”

  They brushed the side of the tower where it jutted out into the stream. “We are sinking!” cried Ensyl. And it was true that the raft was suddenly very low, ripples and wavelets lapping over the frame.

  “Spread out! Lie flat!” Ramachni hissed, and they hurried to obey. The raft was teetering, one side and then another vanishing beneath the surface. Thasha lay on her stomach, half submerged, watching the river slosh around the crude surgical scar in the middle of the raft. She prayed, a reflex. The water black and chilling. They knocked along the tower wall, spinning like a leaf, then gyred out into the swifter current.

  No one was laughing now. Thasha was dizzy and cold. She sensed a frightful nothingness below her, as though an endless black cavern waited for her there, lightless and roaring with wind; and this river surface, delicate as a soap bubble, was all that held them above its maw.

  They sank lower still, clinging to the frame and to one another. The craft was all but submerged; the hole was like a pair of sealed lips just inches above the water. Helpless, Thasha watched the first surge of water pass over it. There were oaths. A second surge followed. Air bubbled around the wound.

  And then, by the Blessed Tree, it stopped. The raft held steady, and even—was she imagining it?—began to rise. Thasha glanced at Ramachni, wondering if he had cast a spell after all. They rose higher and picked up speed. “We’re out of it, aren’t we?” said Pazel.

  “The worst of it, yes,” said Ramachni. “Almost pure shadow lay beneath us for a moment. It was there that the Swarm of Night burst forth into Alifros, when our enemy called it yesterday. The farther we drift from that spot, the thinner the darkness beneath us—but do not be deceived. The Ansyndra will go on mixing with the River of Shadows for hundreds of miles. We must try to avoid swimming—and never, ever dive.”

  They were far from shore now. Thasha looked back but could not see the campsite, the place where they had bled and triumphed, where she had killed a mage but failed to become one herself, where Ramachni had at last been free to tell her the truth of her birth. A strange truth, an awful truth. She had thought herself the child of Erithusmé; now she knew that she was the great mage, one soul shared between them: Erithusmé’s soul. The wizardess had sparked life in the sterile womb of Thasha’s mother, but not as an act of kindness. She had needed a hiding place as her enemies closed in. She had bricked up her memories and magic behind a wall in the back of the unborn child’s mind. Out of everyone’s reach, even the girl’s own. For seventeen years Thasha had lived in ignorance of that wall and the force behind it.

  And now she had to let it out. Ramachni had told Pazel that they could not win otherwise. In fact Ramachni had believed that his mistress had already returned, after Thasha beheaded Arunis. But it was Thasha who had done that killing, not Erithusmé. Arunis’ head had told the truth: Erithusmé could not return. The wizardess might have dismantled her own wall, but the young girl had built another. No one knew how or why, least of all Thasha herself. She only knew that it had to be broken.

  “The current is swift,” said Hercól. “Very soon we must face the darkness again.”

  Thasha gazed ahead, where the vast trees arched out over the river, their thick leaves fusing together, shutting out all light. She felt Pazel’s hand on her own and gripped it fiercely, caught his eye and saw the love there, and marveled. How he steadied her. The things he did without speaking a word.

  “Listen now, for I have a solution of sorts,” said Ramachni. “There is a light peculiar to this forest, produced by the plants and mushrooms themselves. Your eyes cannot perceive it, but mine can. I can share my vision—but with no more than two of you at a time. We must defend the raft, three at a time. Come here, Thasha and Neeps; you shall be the first.”

  “Why the boy?” said Cayer Vispek. “He is brave-hearted, but new to the warrior’s arts.”

  “Trust his choices, Cayer,” said Hercól.

  Thasha and Neeps crept close to Ramachni. “Shut your eyes, and cover them as well,” he said.

  Thasha obeyed. A moment later Neeps gave a yelp of pain. “Keep your hands in place, Neeparvasi Undrabust!” snapped Ramachni. “Do not move until I speak!”

  Thasha was shocked; Ramachni had never snapped at anyone before. His paw touched her chin, lingered there a moment, withdrew. Thasha waited. “I don’t feel a thing,” she said at last.

  “That is because you listen to your betters,” said Ramachni. “Lunja, come closer. If this knave has not seared his eyes with daylight, you must lend him your sword.”

  They were back in the Infernal Forest: Thasha could feel its hot, moist breath on her skin. The noise of the river grew, as though it were echoing in a cave. “Keep your eyes covered,” said Ramachni, “until we round the first bend, and the clearing is gone from sight. Not long now—”

  Such heat! Already Thasha longed to splash water on her face. But when at last the mage told them to uncover their eyes she forgot everything but the message of her eyes.

  A purple radiance, a kaleidoscope of melting images and hues, flooded her vision. She stretched out her arms and could not see them. She blinked, and the radiance moved. Slowly the kaleidoscope began to settle, the colors to sharpen and divide. There were her hands, two flickering lights. Here was the raft, a spinning pool of jade, and her friends like burning spirits upon it. And the forest, Aya Rin! Endless, vast pillars of tree-trunks, supporting the distant roof of joined leaves, in which veins burned like hot wires, and eye-stabbing colors flashed like wormy lightning and were gone.

  Along the banks, the riot of mushrooms overwhelmed her: they bled color and form in such profusion that she simply had to look away. The river itself had become a thing of glass, revealing a second forest of water-weed and knobby coral-like growths beneath their feet. Some reached to within a few yards of the surface; in other places the lights flickered from startling depths. There were fish like tiny particles of fire, fish as large as sharks with glowing gills, fish that resembled arrows, hatchet-heads, stingrays, moths. And under everything ran veins of darkness, pulsing, impenetrable, but thinning like ink as they rose. Thasha shuddered: those were the depths she had sensed at the beginning, when they had almost sunk. Veins of shadow from the River of Shadows. The blood of another universe, leaking into their own.

  “Well, I’m not blind,” said Neeps, “but Rin’s gizzard, Ramachni: wouldn’t it have been easier to light some magic lamp, if you can’t bring back the fireflies?”

  “Savant!” said Ramachni. “Thank heaven we brought you along.” Then, more gently, he added, “I considered it, lad. And of course I could produce such light at need. But a mage-lamp bright enough to pierce this River’s depths would make us visible for miles about. It would also take more from me than sharing my vision. I prefer to do as much as possible with as little as possible, for now.”

  Thasha felt
a nervous tightening of her limbs. He’s been drained. He gave all his strength fighting Arunis, keeping us alive.

  But Ramachni, as if reading her thoughts, added, “My powers are far from spent—but we are far from our goal as well. And no rest in this world will allow me further magic than what I harbor within me now. Do you remember when I spoke of carrying water across the desert, Neeparvasi?” He sighed. “There is a final desert before us. My powers must see us across it, to the place where our work is done at last.”

  “And then you’ll return to your own world, and recover,” said Pazel. “Won’t you?”

  The little mage did not answer. Thasha’s fear redoubled. He came back to Alifros from this river, but he can’t go home without my clock. He’s trapped here, unless we somehow make it back to the ship.

  Then she recalled the first time she had seen Ramachni drained of magic, in Simja, after their first great fight with Arunis. He had warned them that he had no choice but to leave. If I do not go while I have the strength to walk away, I shall still depart, by burning out like a candle.

  He wasn’t risking exile by standing with them now. He was risking death.

  The three of them took up positions at the edges of the raft. The others, perfectly blind, kept low and still. The hardest job was keeping the raft off the coral-like growths and fallen tree limbs. They loomed up suddenly, and Thasha and Neeps had to scramble to pole the raft left or right. “Faster!” Ramachni chided them. “One scratch from below and our proud ship could sink! Above all, do not lose your balance! We have no means of stopping for you—or of knowing what lurks in these waters. Thasha—on your right!”

  Over and over they lunged with the poles. The light was deceptive: what they took for coral proved a surface mirage; what looked like soft weeds would resolve into a branch. There were also dangers from above: vines that stuck to them like taffy, or burned at the touch—and the groping white tentacles of the trees themselves. Neeps and Thasha hacked at them, and lengths of the tentacles fell upon the raft, still writhing, among their blind companions.

  The struggle went on and on. Thasha’s head hurt and her eyes were throbbing. Tentacles snatched at them; a spiny fish leaped onto the raft and flopped about like a living pincushion; a storm of bats swept around them in a cloud. The river curved and twisted and appeared to have no end.

  When Hercól and Bolutu relieved them at last, Thasha dropped beside Pazel and pulled him close. He fumbled for her, bathed her face with a river-wet rag. She put her lips to his, forced his mouth open, kissed him in hunger and exhaustion. Before the kiss was over Ramachni’s magic left her and she was blind.

  She lost track of the hours. Hercól and Bolutu’s shift ended; Pazel and Cayer Vispek took their places. Thasha found being blind and motionless every bit as awful as manning the poles. Every sound became a danger. Every tilt or shudder in the raft meant they were sinking at last. But somehow the vessel bore them on, mile after lightless mile.

  There were spells of calm, in the deep center of the river where no snags threatened them, no tentacles groped. During her second shift Thasha was paired with Pazel. She watched Ramachni’s mage-sight come over him: a gasp, disorientation, finally a grin as his eyes met hers. They shared a strange privacy for a time. Thasha waited until the mage looked elsewhere, then leaned close to Pazel and mouthed I want you, and laughed when he nearly dropped the pole. After their shift Pazel sat beside her, kissed her, slipped a hand beneath her ragged shirt. Thasha laughed again and pushed his hand away. Pitfire, he’d thought she was serious.

  Later she must have dozed. A hand touched her again, but it was not Pazel. It was Big Skip, shaking her by the shoulder and whispering: “Lady Thasha, wake up. Something’s amiss.”

  She bolted upright. The raft was not moving. “What happened? Did we wreck?”

  “Softly!” came Hercól’s voice. “We are not wrecked but beached in the shallows, and we are all of us blind. Ramachni has canceled the seeing-spell. There was a strange sound from behind us. Like thunder, or a monstrous drum.”

  “Where has Ramachni gone?”

  “Up a tree, with Ensyl,” said Bolutu. “We couldn’t talk him out of it—or very well prevent his going. Hark!”

  This time she heard it: a deep rumbling, far off but furious. An eruption, or the peal of some war-drum of the Gods. The sound rolled past them like a storm front. When it ended, the silence was profound.

  “Closer, this time,” whispered Bolutu.

  “What he is wanting in the tree?” hissed Neda. “I think to climb is not sensitive.”

  “Sensible, lass,” corrected Mandric.

  “The sound came from outside the forest,” said Pazel. His voice was oddly strained. Thasha reached for him, wishing she could see his face. “Pazel?” she said.

  His arm trembled beneath her fingers. “My mind-fit’s coming,” he said. “Soon, I think. And it’s going to be a bad one.”

  Dastu muttered a curse. “Brilliant timing, Muketch,” he added.

  “Your hearing is sharpened, then?” asked Cayer Vispek.

  “Yes, it is,” said Pazel. After a moment, he added, “Ramachni’s singing to himself, up in the tree. I think he’s weaving a spell. And that wasn’t thunder, Hercól. It was a voice.”

  “A voice,” said Dastu, scornful. “You’re mad as a mudskipper, Pathkendle. What sort of voice?”

  Pazel was silent for a very long time. Then he said, “A demon’s?”

  Even as he spoke, light appeared: a stabbing red light that made them all recoil. Wincing, Thasha forced herself to look: the glow came from about a quarter mile away, at the height of the forest roof. Already it was growing, spreading. “Tree of Heaven, that’s fire!” said Mandric. “The mucking forest is on fire!”

  “Do not move!” said Ramachni suddenly. Thasha heard the mage and Ensyl scrambling aboard, felt Ramachni’s sleek shoulder brush her arm. “Be silent, now,” he said, “and whatever happens, do not leave the raft. We are in unspeakable danger.”

  The light became a sharp red ring: the leaf-layer, burning outward from a central point, like dry grass around a bonfire. The fire’s glow danced on the river beneath it, and soon the red-rimmed hole was as wide as the river itself. But there it stopped. The blinding light faded, leaving only a fringe of crackling fire, and another light replaced it: pale blue and gentle. It was the Polar Candle, the little moon that never rose in Northern skies. The fire had burned through all four leaf-layers and opened a window on a clear, bright night.

  Oh, Gods, it’s true.

  In the fiery gap a monstrous head had appeared. A hideous sight: part human, part snake, larger than the head of an elephant. Fire dripped from its jaws, dark runes were etched upon its forehead, and its eyes were two great yellow lamps. A long neck followed, snaking in through the burning hole. The lamp-eyes swung back and forth, casting the trees in a sickly radiance. When they passed over her, Thasha felt a prickling in her mind. She shuddered. Now it was Pazel’s turn to reach for her, pull her close. The lamp-eyes returned. When they touched the raft again they grew still.

  Deep within Thasha’s mind, another being sensed those eyes, and reached out for them as if to feel their heat. Another being, who did not fear them as Thasha did.

  No, girl, not another. Your maker, your soul-sharer. The part of you that’s lost.

  Beside her, Ramachni tensed, baring his tiny teeth, flexing his claws one by one. Then the creature roared: a deafening, complex blast of noise that shook them to their bones. Beside her, Pazel’s face showed a horror unlike that of the others, and suddenly she knew that he was understanding. His Gift had given him this creature’s language; there was meaning in that awful sound.

  Ramachni turned suddenly to look upstream. To Thasha’s amazement the creature did the same, breaking off its roar and turning its fell eyes away from them. It looked very much as if both mage and monster were straining to catch some far-off sound. Thasha listened but heard nothing at all.

  The creature faced them
once more, and spat a meteoric glob of liquid fire, which hurtled toward them with a whistling noise, tore through the low vines at the river’s edge, and exploded in the shallows thirty feet from the raft. Over the wall of steam Thasha saw the snaky neck retract upward. She caught a glimpse of ragged wings, spreading, filling, and then the beast was gone.

  Ramachni was the first to move, stretching out cat-like on the raft. “Well,” he said, as fire fell sizzling around them, “now we have faced a maukslar out of Neparv Nédal. I am afraid we must get used to such things.”

  “What—what—” The old Turach found no other words.

  “A maukslar. A demon.” Pazel’s voice was hollow. Dastu stared at him, aghast.

  “The beast was a scout from Macadra,” said Ramachni. “I did not know she had grown strong enough to pluck servants from the City of the Damned. She must have wagered her very life on obtaining the Nilstone. I wonder how much she knows of us, and our friends on the ship.”

  “Why did the thing not attack?” demanded Hercól.

  “It was never certain we were here,” said Ramachni. “Some hours ago it reached the clearing and pawed the ground where we burned the sorcerer’s remains. I sensed it then, and shrouded us in a mist, and the demon turned away. But as you see, I should have done more. When it came racing back, I threw the mightiest hiding-charm I could fashion over us all. It was not quite enough, alas. The creature smelled something. It would have rushed straight at us, probably, if not for that … flash.”

  “Flash?” said Pazel.

  “Of spellcraft,” said the mage. “Somewhere miles to the east, another power showed itself—for the blink of an eye. That blink saved us. The maukslar has flown off to investigate. And we must go too, before it decides to come back.”

  “Those marks upon its forehead,” said Pazel. “I couldn’t read them all, but one of them said Slave. In the creature’s own language.”