The Night of the Swarm
Page 84
Thasha turned so suddenly that they collided. She shoved past him. He turned to follow.
“Let’s go back to the others,” he pleaded, “maybe Hercól has thought of something.”
“We’d know. There’d be shouting.” Thasha stalked on, not looking back.
They passed out of the compartment, around the entrance to the Silver Stair and down the long corridor. Dust and soot coated the magic wall, rendering it visible. Thasha stepped through it and turned to him. The dirt had come off on her face and clothes, leaving a vaguely Thasha-shaped window through which they faced each other.
“Macadra’s our last hope,” said Thasha. “Sometimes lunatics come to their senses, when things get dark enough. Look at Rose, for instance.”
“Sometimes the darkness just makes them crazier. Look at Ott.”
“Do you have a better idea? Do you have any ideas at all?”
His cold breath fogged the wall between them. “No,” he admitted, “not yet.”
“Then you can’t come in.”
“What?”
She turned away, marching for the stateroom door. He moved to follow—and for the first time in almost a year, the wall stopped him dead. It answered to her even now. She had withdrawn her permission; she was shutting him out.
“Don’t do it,” he heard himself say. “Don’t leave me before we die. Neeps is right, Thasha, I am a one-note whistle. Nothing matters to me anymore but being with you.”
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She turned and struck the passage wall with her fist. She was weeping. He called to her, begging, and the third time he did so her shoulder slumped, and the wall let him through. He ran to her and dried her tears away.
“Stop it,” she said.
“Why?”
Thasha shook her head. When he touched her hair again she started, then took his hand and dragged him brutally into the stateroom and kicked the door shut. She put her hands beneath his clothes, kissed him wildly, avoiding his eyes. She pressed her body against his own.
“What are you doing?” he said, appalled.
“Make love to me.”
“Thasha, stop. What in the Pits is wrong with you?”
She tripped him, threw him down upon the floor. In Pazel’s mind instinct took over, and he pulled her down with him as he fell. They grappled, smashing against the admiral’s reading chair, the samovar, the tea-table from which he’d snatched a piece of cake on his first visit to the stateroom. The time he’d nearly walked out of her life. He did not know if this was a real fight or something else altogether, if she was angry or aroused. Whatever it was, he didn’t want it: not this way. He stopped resisting, letting her win. Glaring, she pinned his back to the floor.
“You still don’t trust me,” he said. “After everything, you’re still not sure I’m on your side.”
“What mucking rubbish.”
“If you trusted me, you’d just tell me what was wrong.”
Thasha slapped the floor beside his head. “Would I? Would that help? Will anything help us now?”
“You’re giving up?”
“I’m going to pick up the Stone myself. Erithusmé created me. She made my mother conceive. It won’t kill me as fast as it kills other people. I might have a minute or two.”
“Oh, Thasha—”
“But you have to stay away. If you’re there I won’t be able to make myself do it.”
“It took you five minutes to get the ship out of the bay at Stath Bálfyr, with that wine in your stomach. And you only had to move the ship a mile.”
“I know that, bastard. I was there.”
Then the words began to spill from her, a wild, almost delirious plan for moving the Nilstone down that canyon, an idea so ludicrous it made him ache to hear the desperate hope she placed in it; a fantasy, a dream.
“In two minutes?” he said.
“Maybe I’ll have longer. I could fight the Stone. Fight back.”
“Do you think you can do it, Thasha? Just tell me the simple truth.”
Her eyes were furious. She was going to hit him, bite him, burn him with her hate.
She laid her head down on his shoulder. One hand found his cheek and rested there, gently. It grew quiet. He could hear the waves breaking softly against the stern.
“No,” she said.
He put his arms around her, and they both lay still. Through the tilted windows he could see the writhing underbelly of the Swarm.
“In the mountains,” she said, “when you lifted Bolutu’s pack by the cliff, I didn’t think you were going to throw it over the edge. I thought you were going to jump.”
“I considered it,” he said. “That bastard with the Plazic Knife might have had a harder time lifting me and the Stone together.”
Thasha began to cry—not hysterically, this time, but with a deep, despairing release. “I wanted to stop you,” she said. “I reached into my mind and called to her, begged her to break down the wall and stop you. I gave her my blessing, my permission. And nothing happened. Even to save your life I couldn’t bring Erithusmé back. That’s when I knew I never would.”
“You will,” he said, “somehow.”
“The wall’s too strong, Pazel. I take a hammer to it in my dreams. There’s a crack, but it closes before I can lift the hammer again. It heals stronger than before.”
“What’s it made of?”
“Stone. Steel. Diamond.”
He shook his head. “Thasha, what is it made of?”
She fell silent, her hand still resting on his face. At last she said, “Greed. My greed, for a life of my own. No matter what Erithusmé told you there’s a part of me that thinks I’ll die when she returns. The woken part of me is brave enough to face that. But there’s another part I can’t control, and it takes over. Every time. Once in a while I just throw myself at the wall like a madwoman, and Erithusmé feels it, and does the same on the other side, raging and smashing, and I start to think we might just do it, might just tear the wall to pieces. That’s when the other part of me begins crying out, crying out, and it doesn’t stop until every crack is sealed.”
“Crying out to whom?”
Thasha froze, as if deeply shocked by the question. “Who do you mucking think?” she said.
Her tears grew stronger, racking her body. The loyal officer struck three bells. Pazel held her tighter, heartbroken and deeply afraid. Was he supposed to save her, sacrifice her? Was there any reason to keep trying, to torture her with hope in these final, blessed moments before the end?
As he lay there facing the ceiling, blinking his own tears from his eyes, Pazel felt something small tickle the back of his neck. He shifted his gaze and saw a hint of blue and gold. Thasha’s Blessing-Band. The embroidered ribbon from the Lorg School, meant for the wedding ceremony on Simja. He lifted it: the silk was partly torn, but he could still read the ambiguous words:
Within him, something changed. Thasha felt it. Still weeping uncontrollably, she moved her hand to his face, probing.
“What happened?” she said. “Have you started hating me?”
“Oh, Thasha—”
“You don’t have to hide it. I wouldn’t. I’d tell you the truth.”
Then he told her to stop crying, kissed her hand, her hair, and promised her he wasn’t crazy, that he loved her now and had done so since the day she first pinned him to the floor in the adjoining cabin, that they must get up and call the others together, that they must hurry, because at long last he knew.
The wall was indeed enormous, the stairs many and steep. In the pale light of early morning Pazel and Thasha watched the long procession. Men, dlömu, ixchel, augrongs, selk. Not that you could really tell them apart. Pazel smiled. From this distance they were simply his crew.
And they were making good time, he thought, even though some were bearing stretchers, and others splints. But then they had to be quick. Dry land would soon be scarce, if things went as planned.
Their friends looked back often, and w
aved: Bolutu, Olik, Nólcindar, Hercól and Neda linking hands. Above them, already blurred with distance, climbed Neeps and Marila. They had started early, in case Marila had to set a slower pace. Pazel smiled. No chance of that.
Only the Mzithrinis were slow, for they carried the heaviest and strangest burden: the Shaggat’s corpse, embalmed in the mariner’s fashion, in a coffin sealed in wax. They still had a task to perform with it, a cult of murder to destroy.
Murder. It made Pazel think of the one figure who was missing from the crowd. Sometime in the last few hours, Sandor Ott had simply disappeared. No one had seen him depart, but their last sweep of the ship had turned up nothing. Had he raced ahead of them? Was he hiding out among the trees? Or could he have escaped into a vanishing compartment? Was he sitting, even now, on that speck of an island just vacated by the ixchel, beside that other Chathrand, and a graveyard sinking into the sand?
They might never find out. Pazel merely hoped that Ott was finished with his bloody intrigues. That he would stop hurting others, perhaps even himself.
“Well, Felthrup,” said Thasha, “it’s time you were on your way.”
“But I do not wish to leave you, Thasha,” he said.
“The dogs will not climb without you,” said Ramachni, “and neither, for that matter, will I. Come, rat-friend; you know this is the only way.”
“It is cruel.”
“Perhaps, but not only cruel. And the alternative does not bear thinking about. Go, Jorl; bear him off. Suzyt and I will catch you by the second switchback.”
At a gesture from Thasha, the great mastiff bent down, and Felthrup, sniffling, crawled onto his back. “Do not forget me, Thasha!” he said. “If we do not meet again, remember that I loved you with all the heart I had.”
Thasha bent down and kissed his muzzle on both sides. “That’s more heart than anyone I know,” she said. “But this isn’t the end. I’ll find you. Just be strong until that day comes. And remember for us, will you?”
“It would appear I have no choice. I will wait for you above, Pazel Pathkendle.”
“Don’t wait,” said Pazel. “Get to the ridgetop, and for Rin’s sake, be sure there’s no one left behind you. Except me, of course.”
Thasha kissed her brave Jorl too, and stroked him and whispered loving words into his ear. Then she pointed to the mountain stair and said, “Go on.” Reluctantly, Jorl obeyed, with Felthrup crouched low upon his back.
Now only Ramachni and Suzyt were left beside them. The mage looked at each youth in turn. “I knew,” he said. “When I first saw you together, I knew I beheld a power to redeem this world.”
“That makes one of us,” said Thasha, holding Pazel tight.
“Do what you must do, Pazel,” said the mage, “and then take the stairs at a run. If you drown I shall never forgive you. As for you, Thasha my champion—”
He gazed at her a long time. “What words can be enough?” he said at last. “Know this: that long ages ago, there was one for whom I felt so deeply that I dreamed of renouncing magic, living a natural life, knowing human love. I made the right choice: this mission proves it, and there have been other proofs across the centuries. But the pain of that choice was so great that I had to flee not only my friends and family, but my body, and my world. Casting everything aside let me forget that pain, and no one ever evoked such feelings in me again. Until your birth. In you, I saw the daughter that might have been mine, the life I had chosen to forsake. That is why I asked my mistress to name me your guardian. Never was anyone so grateful for his charge.”
They walked with him into the trees, and along the path to the foot of the first staircase. Thasha lifted him a last time and squeezed him tight against her neck. “I’m all out of tears,” she said.
“Then smile for me, and for your triumph,” said the mage, “and know that I, too, plan to see you again—in this world or the next. Come, Suzyt.”
The great dog bounded after Jorl, with Ramachni clinging tight to her back. Thasha and Pazel watched them until they reached the top of the first flight and vanished around a rock. Then they walked back toward the water until the trees began to thin. They could see the huge, empty ship canted over on her side. The Swarm was closing. The starry window above them like a porthole, now, but all the more beautiful as it shrank.
Thasha glanced to their left. A soft light was flickering among the trees. “What’s that?” she said.
“A gift from Neeps and Marila,” said Pazel.
“What is it, a campfire?”
Pazel nodded, and led her to the clearing, the sweet smell of crackling pine, the heat on his legs. There was a folded blanket. He turned to Thasha and brushed the hair from her eyes.
“Now I’ll make love to you,” he said.
He knew it was what he wanted, and knew also that it would increase the pain to come, and it did. To do in haste what they would rather have done gently, slowly; to kiss her and taste her and try to know every inch of her; to risk now what they hadn’t risked before, because now was what they had and all they might ever have: yes, it would hurt for the rest of his life. And maybe sustain him, gladden him in whatever future he found.
“It might not last,” she said. “The effect, I mean. It might fade in a month or two, or even less.”
They hadn’t moved yet. He said nothing, kept his chin on her shoulder, his mind on what he’d felt, could still feel, would never feel with any other. He wouldn’t say Yes, you’re right, you know, we might be back here by nightfall. He didn’t want to start lying, to Thasha or to himself.
“It will last, though, won’t it?”
“It will,” said Pazel. “Long enough. Maybe forever.”
“You could just tell me about yourself. If you kept at it I’d believe you.”
He raised his head a few inches. She made a small sound of grief and clutched his hips, not letting him leave. Pazel moved his hand to her breast and cupped it, and doubted anything Ramachni had learned in twenty centuries could be worth losing this.
A memory came. Another fire, beside a cold lakeshore in the mountains, far away in the South. Thasha drying his hair with a towel, then plucking from it an exquisite shard of crystal. A shard that melted in her hand. We can possess a thing but not its loveliness: that always escapes. Kirishgán had warned him, but no warning could be enough. Thasha met his eyes, and slowly loosened her grip. Pazel rolled away, trying not to let go of her, and then they groped for their clothes.
Thasha stood. “I think I’d best face away from you.”
“Toward the Chathrand?”
“That’ll do.”
She tightened a bootlace, looked up at him with a grin. “I’m glad we weren’t careful this time. A child would fix her.”
“It can’t be what she has in mind.”
They smiled for each other. He was grateful when she didn’t force herself to laugh.
“I’ll be looking for you, you know,” she said. “When I can. If I can.”
“Don’t promise me that, Thasha.”
She nodded, wiped her eyes, kissed him swiftly once more. Then she turned away from him, and without looking back handed him the Blessing-Band.
“Trust feels good,” she said.
“Nothing better,” he agreed, and spoke the word that blinds to give new sight.
This time there was no concussion, no bending of reality, no darkening of the sun. A little pulse went through his temples, dizzying him, but it passed in a heartbeat, and he felt unchanged. Thasha tilted her head as though at a curious thought. Her back was to him, but he could have touched her. A moment ago it was so easy. He wasn’t even dry from their lovemaking.
He watched her walk away onto the open sand.
When she had gone twenty paces she looked up at the Swarm. Then into the distance. Slowly she raised her arms and wrapped them around her head. Pazel waited, barely breathing. Thasha lowered her arms, looked at her left palm, and cursed—“Bugger all, she did it! The wretched girl did as she was told!”
“What the devil?” she cried. “Is this Gurishal? Am I standing by the Arrowhead Sound?”
He said yes, that was where she was. Then he told her the rest of what she needed to know.
“I do recognize the vessel,” she said sharply. “It’s mine, after all. And I’m well aware that the Nilstone is aboard. I could feel it, even from—a great distance away. Never mind. Why are you skulking around behind me? What is it you want?”
Pazel stared at her.
“Speak up, boy!” she shouted. “Have we met?”
“Gods,” he said, “I never thought it would work on you.”
He had directed the Master-Word to blind Thasha to his existence, to make her forget she’d ever known someone named Pazel Pathkendle. But Master-Words could be brutal, or at least brutally imprecise. This one had swept right through Thasha’s mind, and erased Erithusmé’s memory of him as well.
Now her look contained the hint of a threat. “Work on me?” she said.
He did his best to explain. “Your disciple Ramachni gave me the words. This was the last of them. And yes, we’ve met before.”
“Where and when, pray?”
“A few months ago, in—”
His voice froze. The magic of Uláramyth still sealed his tongue.
She waved at him irritably. “I think you are touched in the head. If you’re not, or not too badly, start running for your life. I may have to do some terrible things in the next few minutes.”
“Oh, you do,” he said. “Look in your shirt pocket.”
She jumped, looked at him with even more vexation. She raised her hand to her pocket and removed a bit of folded parchment. “Whose writing is this?” she demanded.
“Yours. I mean hers, Thasha’s. The idea was hers, too.”
“She thought of this plan? The girl?”
“Why do you find that so strange?”
“I believe I shall do it,” said Erithusmé, amazed at her own words. “The force should suffice. It could be the only force that will suffice.” She glanced at him again. “Did I not say that you should run?”