The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  But her next thought was like a blow to the face: Talag’s not the problem, girl. You are.

  All the self-loathing that had assaulted her in the Infernal Forest, and at the Demon’s Court in Uláramyth, welled to the surface once more. She was failing them, and her failure was bringing the house down upon their heads. They could not wait. Macadra was drawing closer; the Red Storm was weakening. Any day, any hour, the Swarm might slip through into the North. They could not wait, and yet they waited. For her.

  All that month on the Promise, her friends had tried to help her. Oh, the things they’d tried! Ramachni, exhausted as he was, had gone on a journey into her sleeping mind. It was a complex spell that had taken him days to prepare, but the journey itself had lasted only a single night. He had reached the wall, examined it—and declared on waking that it had nothing to do with Arunis.

  “But it has everything to do with Thasha’s will to live,” he had continued. “It is built of the same stuff as the outer, permanent walls of her mind, and its foundation. For good or ill, Thasha, the creator of that wall is you.”

  His words made her think again of what she had felt in the Demon’s Court. That Erithusmé would return if she perished, and only then. She was ready to die. A part of her knew quite well she had the courage. But Ramachni had sensed the direction of her thoughts, and intervened.

  “Listen well to me, Thasha: your death is not the solution: on that point Erithusmé gave her word.” Pazel went even further, claiming that the mage had told him that Thasha’s death would mean Erithusmé’s as well. But the feeling persisted: only her death could break down the wall.

  Nólcindar had also tried to help. She had sat with Thasha across the length of three cold, clear nights when the seas were calm. It had been a kind of selk meditation, Thasha supposed, but it had also felt like enchantment, for she had found herself transported to distant times and places in Alifros, walking green paths under ancient trees, or through deep caves where veins of crystal blazed in the lamplight, or down the avenues of cities that had fallen centuries ago to drought or pestilence or war. Sometimes Nólcindar was there at her side; often she was not. Alone or accompanied, Thasha had felt each of the places tug powerfully at her heart. When it was over, Nólcindar said that she had merely been telling stories of certain lands Erithusmé was known to have traveled, in the hope of stirring memories that would open a crack in the wall. The memories had been stirred, maybe; but only distantly, and the wall remained sound.

  Then it had been Hercól’s turn. His efforts harked back to their thojmélé training, which placed clarity of mind and strength of purpose above all virtues. Late one night he took Thasha to a lower deck of the Promise and showed her a doorway blocked with sandbags. They were tightly fitted, reaching all the way to the top of the door frame. “Sit alone beside this barrier,” he said, “until it becomes the wall within your mind. Then pass through. Fear nothing, hope for nothing; do not dwell in emotion. This is a challenge, but not a judgment. If it is in you to do this, you will.”

  Then he had taken the light away, and Thasha had put her hands on the black sandbags and calmed herself in the thojmélé manner. For two hours she had not moved or spoken. Then Thasha stood, limbered her body, tightened her boots. She planted her shoulder against the wall of sandbags and pushed, and felt a shout of inner despair that made a mockery of her training. The bags might as well have been stone. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, reciting the codes Hercól had taught her across the years. The task demanded of the body is welded to the task of the mind. Neither is a true accomplishment without the other. When you have mastered the Thojmél you will perceive but a single task, and know when you may achieve it, and when to forbear.

  Her training promised clarity, not success. It became very clear that she would not be passing through the door. When Hercól returned he showed her the wetted boards they had stacked between the sandbags. The wood had expanded with the moisture, creating a wall so tight they could only dismantle it by slitting the bags and letting the sand spill out. “I made sure you had no knife,” he said. “You were not to pass through without the mage’s help.” For that, after all, was the whole point.

  The tarboys had suggested no experiments, but they had helped more than anyone, simply by being near her, breaking her morbid silences, helping her think. Pazel still had a Master-Word: the word that would blind to give new sight. For over a year he had known it, carried it about like an unexploded bomb, and he still didn’t know what it would do.

  “What if it doesn’t cause real blindness?” Neeps had asked him. “What if that just means forgetfulness or ignorance about some specific thing? Maybe Thasha needs to forget about Erithusmé altogether, before setting her free.”

  Pazel looked at him thoughtfully. “It could work that way. But I’ve no way to know. The Master-Words, they’re like faces moving deep underwater. I can see them, but they’re dark and blurry. I only know exactly what will happen when they surface. And they only surface at the bitter end, just before I speak. This last one, now: sometimes I think I could direct it at a single person, but other times I think it might change the whole world. Ibjen thought I should never use it at all. What if I start a blindness plague?”

  “I think Ibjen was wrong, this time,” said Thasha.

  “So do I,” said Neeps. “The first two words shook you up, I know that. But in the end they didn’t change anything beyond the ship, did they?”

  Pazel hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said. “But this wall inside you already exists, Thasha. If you forget about Erithusmé, you might not see any reason to tear it down.”

  “I don’t know that I’d even be able to find it, without her voice calling to me from the other side,” said Thasha. “And not being able to find it, to feel it: that would be just as bad—”

  “As not being able to tear it down,” said Pazel.

  Thasha nodded, and the conversation had died. She could certainly feel the wall today, however. It was both real and unreal, a solid obstruction and the hazy symbol of her failure. Almost nightly she stood before it, the same stone wall she had dreamed of on their last night in Uláramyth. But now the cracks were closing, not widening; and the voice from the other side was growing faint. Rather than crumbling, the wall was growing stronger, more determined to stand.

  Failure. Turn your mind in that direction and you’d find madness waiting, a vulture in a tree. Failure was darkness, death, a world devoured by the Swarm. Lifeless seas, barren hills, dead forests crumbling year by year into dust. No colors but the colors of stone. No spring renewal. No animals. No children.

  She dreamed of children, now and then. She could close her eyes and almost see them: those angelic phantoms, impish and laughing, clumsy and perfect, blends of Pazel’s features and her own. She wanted, with brute selfishness, to live on through them. Not her cheekbones or her eyes or nose but her cherished memories, the sweet story of the alliances they’d made, the trust they’d earned and given, the terrors that had proved less potent than love.

  No children would learn any of that. No tales would be shared. No history could be written of a world that had died.

  As she stared, helpless and angry, one of the seabirds lifted above the rest. It was making for the open water. Thasha stood up, frowning. The bird was flying very straight and swift—not directly toward them, but just a bit north.

  An intercept course.

  Thasha’s heart was pounding. She walked back to the others and interrupted their talk. “You can put down that platter now,” she said.

  The others just stared at her. Thasha couldn’t help it, she laughed aloud. Then she turned and shouted a name into the wind, and the moon falcon answered with a shrill, savage cry.

  Niriviel’s report confirmed the earlier signals. The bay’s entrance was a death trap: reefs to the north, flying boulders from the south. “I can come and go as I please,” he said, “but I am the only one.” And yet the travelers had no choice but to seek entrance s
omewhere. For Niriviel had also warned them that the Chathrand’s crew was nearing the breaking point.

  “Forty-three have succumbed to the plague. Forty-three locked in cages, reduced to mindless beasts. And Plapps and Burnscovers kill each other in the shadows, and the deathsmokers show their faces by daylight, and there is only the one fool doctor to treat them all. The traitor Fiffengurt has been made captain, and Sergeant Haddismal permits this, and submits to his will. Or pretends to. But this is only because there is no other leader the sailors trust. Not since Captain Rose was killed.”

  “By a feral madwoman,” added Hercól, “who appears out of nowhere, sneaks by night into his cabin, kills Rose and his steward, and succumbs instantly to the mind-plague. Quite a tale, is it not? My sword Ildraquin has led me to corpses before, but never to so mysterious a death.”

  “I tell you only what others claim,” said the bird. “Lady Oggosk says the woman is innocent, but she was found alone with the corpses, her mouth and hands dripping blood.”

  “What does your master say?” asked Thasha.

  “Ask him yourself, but do not expect an answer. I cannot even—” Niriviel stopped, as though aghast at his own words.

  “Go on,” said Ramachni.

  The falcon looked at him with one eye and then the other. “We are thousands of miles from Emperor Magad,” he said at last. “Arqual is mighty, but is it mightier than Bali Adro? Should it try to be, or will it only destroy itself, as Bali Adro has done? Master Ott says that Arqual will one day rule the world, that these corrupt lands of the South will implode, and we alone shall be left standing, the inheritors of all power. But Master Ott told me to tear Lord Talag from the sky.”

  The bird flapped and fidgeted on the rail. “I could have killed him. The crawly flies so slowly on his flimsy wings. But I have heard Talag myself begging the island crawlies to let the Chathrand go. What sense did it make to kill him? Was it merely because he embarrassed Master Ott? But Master Ott is not the Emperor, though he has been more than Emperor to me. I did not kill Talag. I let him go to the island, and Master Ott must know by now. Master Ott knows that I lied!”

  Suddenly the bird screeched with anguish. “Where has he gone, where has he gone? No one aboard will tell me. Has he died, or does he just refuse my service? How could he, when he says he trusts me like his own eyes? He said that, and more. He said I was the only thing of perfection that he has ever made.”

  “Sandor Ott did not make you, Niriviel,” said Ramachni. “I hope a day will come when you see that you are your own author, and that your tale may go on without him.”

  “We are as good as brothers, falcon,” said Hercól. “Your master said the same to me once, before sending me out to kill.”

  “We are not brothers,” said the bird. “I love my master and will fight for the Ametrine Throne. You are a traitor. You failed him, you lied—” The falcon broke off, confused. “All the same we must be … sensible. We are woken creatures after all.”

  “Sensible is quite good enough for today,” said Ramachni. “Come, let us make a plan.”

  Two bells: it was the hour before dawn. In the bay high tide was approaching, and the waters of the inlet were slowing almost to a standstill. Both moons had set, and while the Red Storm still pulsed and flickered, its light did not penetrate the bay. The Chathrand, trying to conserve lamp oil (along with everything else), stood in darkness. It was the twelfth night of the standoff, and it would prove to be the last.

  Atop the cliffs, the ixchel of Stath Bálfyr kept up their watch, looking for the selk ship that had sailed with obvious intent to the mouth of their island, and been warned away by the humans. The Promise had extinguished her running lights, but if she tried to enter the bay they would know it: their ixchel eyes could spot such a large ship even by starlight, even by the dimmest glow cast by the Red Storm, if that ship passed at their feet.

  But they could not see the lifeboat.

  Without sail or mast it went gliding, pulled by twenty dlömic swimmers who kept all but their heads submerged, and only raised the latter to gulp a little air at need. Over the submerged reefs they passed, among the dark schools of fish, the black shadows of larger creatures, guiding the boat through the coral maze. Only in the deepest troughs of the waves did the boat strike the coral, with a dull thump that carried a little distance, but not far enough.

  In the boat, Thasha crouched between Ramachni and Hercól. Neeps and Pazel were behind them, and last of all came Bolutu, who had insisted. “You heard Niriviel,” he’d told them. “Ignus Chadfallow is being run off his feet. I may be an animal doctor, but I’m a blary good one. And the sooner I get aboard, the sooner I can help.”

  He and Ramachni were the only ones Hercól had not smeared with soot. The boat too he had blackened, right down to the waterline. That line would have been higher but for the last item in the boat: the Nilstone, still safe within Big Skip’s protective shells of glass and steel. Today the Stone felt heavier than lead. Wherever they moved, it became the low spot in the boat.

  The half-mile inlet felt excruciatingly long. Some reefs were shaped like walls, others like rocky hilltops. The dlömu had to flounder among them, feeling their way in the darkness, keeping the boat from any knobs or protrusions of coral, and never turning in the direction of the cliffs.

  Lunja was out there in the water, leading the swimmers, for she was the strongest of them all. After the Promise launched the lifeboat, she had swum near them and rested a hand on the gunwale.

  “We are nearly all in our harnesses,” she had said. “And we have knives. If any of us should get entangled in the reefs we will cut ourselves free so that the others may go on, and tie on again when we can.”

  “The spare ropes are already secured,” said Hercól. “Take every care, Sergeant! The dangers may not all be from above.”

  “Whatever happens to us,” said Ramachni, “you must see the Nilstone aboard. Its power would continue to flow to the Swarm of Night from the floor of the bay, or for that matter the deepest trench in the Ruling Sea.”

  “I understand,” said Lunja. “Farewell for now.” Still she had hesitated. Then Thasha had realized that she was looking at Neeps. The tarboy was gazing at her wordlessly; his breath seemed caught in his throat. He leaned closer, but in that moment Lunja turned and vanished in the darkness. Only when she was gone had Neeps managed to speak her name.

  Now a little light glowed behind them in the east. They were almost within the bay. Once there the dlömu could pull in a straight line for the Chathrand for one more unobstructed mile—and the guardians of Stath Bálfyr, with any luck, would be powerless to stop them.

  There came a hard thump near the bow. “Upa, that was no reef,” hissed Pazel. “Something just smacked into us, by Rin.”

  “We are nearly out of the coral,” said Hercól. “Stand by oars—let us give the swimmers all the help we can. Steady, steady … now.”

  Two sets of oars plunged into the water. Neeps was left the job of holding the Nilstone, while Ramachni kept watch upon the bow. “Pull!” he urged. “The light is growing, and we are still too near the shore.”

  Suddenly Lunja’s head broke the surface next to them, along with those of two other dlömu. “That reef was like a forest of blades,” she said. “Many of us are bleeding, and some of the ropes have been cut. I fear we did not bring enough spares.”

  It was then that the cry broke out: a strange trumpeting noise, strident and huge. It began on the clifftops, but was soon taken up on the north shore, which was much nearer the boat.

  “Away, away!” cried Hercól. “They have seen us!”

  Lunja and her two companions seized the spare ropes coiled on the bow and vanished ahead. Thasha looked at the cliffs: the shadows of the boulders appeared to have multiplied.

  The trumpeting grew louder. From the north shore there came a sound of crashing and breaking limbs, as though some great herd of animals was stampeding through the forest. Then a great concussive boom sounded o
n their left. Spray struck their faces, and a wave lifted and rolled the boat precariously. “They’ve started with the rocks!” said Neeps. “Say your prettiest prayers that we’re out of range. Upa! Their aim’s improving! Can’t you blary row any faster?”

  Thasha wanted to kick him, but she did row faster. Then she heard Bolutu gasp. He was looking at the northern shore.

  In the half-light, a pale strip of sand glowed between the trees and the water, and crossing it were twenty or thirty of the largest animals Thasha had ever seen. They were shaped like buffalo, or bulls, and yet not quite like either, and they stood almost as tall as the trees themselves.

  “Pull!” cried Ramachni. “Pull for your lives! Those are drachnars, and they are the ones hurling the stones!”

  The beasts were thundering into the water. Not buffalo: they were more like elephants, great shaggy elephants that would have dwarfed any specimen in a Northern zoo. The great ogress they had fought in the mountains would scarcely have reached the shoulder of one of these. But they were not elephants either—not quite. The mouths were like shovels, with great flat incisors on the lower jaw. The trunks were much thicker and stronger than elephant trunks, and strangest of all, they divided into three halfway down their length. Yes, she thought: those trunks could grasp boulders, and hurl them. And if they could manage boulders, why not—

  “Look out! Look out!”

  A palm tree struck the water like a spear, not five yards away. The boat rocked wildly. Thasha rowed with all her might. She could see now that many of the creatures were grasping logs or stones that they had dragged out of the forest, and some were already rearing up to hurl them. Others were still wading into the bay. They had come several hundreds yards already, and the water was not yet to their necks.

  “Halfway!” said Ramachni. Pain searing Thasha’s arms, her shoulders. On the ship, lamps blazed. Thasha could hear screeching—Oggosk’s screeching; had she ever imagined she could miss it?—and the rattle of davit-chains. The drachnars pelted them with whatever they could scavange—old logs, young trees, even the remains of some other wreck. But the dlömu were swimming in formation, now, and pulling like a team, and soon the north shore fell behind them, and they were out of range.