Robert Redick - The Night of the Swarm

‘You remember ?’

‘Yes. No, I mean — no. I believe you, that’s it. Well, er, shipmate, goodbye.’

They shook hands awkwardly, and Mandric hurried off to take his leave of the others. Pazel saw then that he would never know if his friends believed or merely pitied him, if they were speaking from affection or fear.

So he refused. Ramachni sighed, and spoke again to the admiral, and in four days his passage was arranged. It was Neeps who brought the news, late one night as Pazel was stringing up his hammock on the Nighthawk .

‘Mystery boy. Roll up your things in that hammock and step lively. There’s a boat waiting for you.’

‘A boat? Whose boat?’

‘Just hurry, if you want to catch it. These louts are kind of impatient.’

It had never crossed his mind that he would leave this way, another mad scramble in the darkness, with his friends asleep in scattered beds across the city, and no chance to say goodbye. Not to his sister and Hercol, who were inseparable now. Not to Felthrup. Not to Fiffengurt. Not to Olik or Nolcindar or Bolutu, or the old admiral, father of the woman he loved. Not even to Ramachni, who would have known who stood before him, saying goodbye.

Neeps led him up the ladderway, with that half-awake stumble Pazel knew so well.

‘Hey, stop.’

Startled, Neeps looked back over his shoulder.

‘I need to ask you a question. About Marila. How did you. . come to be sure?’

‘Sure of what? That I loved her? That’s kind of a personal question, mate.’

‘Right,’ said Pazel, furious with himself. ‘Just forget it. I’m sorry.’

Neeps came back down the ladderway. ‘No, I’m sorry. You’re not much of a talker, and I reckon you wouldn’t ask unless it mattered a lot. You have a woman, then?’

Pazel just looked at him. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said at last.

‘Well that’s common enough.’ Neeps took a deep breath. ‘I was forced to dive once, into a shipwreck. We got into some trouble with sea-murths. The girls touch you, and suddenly you can breathe water. But the same spell makes you fall in love with the one you touched. And that one lures you away from the others and kills you. They got half a dozen of us that way.’ He looked at Pazel for a moment, then plunged on. ‘It happened to me again, you see, with another sort of woman. Just one touch. Only she didn’t want to kill me. She was saving my life. And the love was real. I mean, Pitfire, I don’t know that there’s any other sort of love.’

‘What about the murth-girl? Do you still think about her?’

‘Oh, not at all. That was just a charm, just a little confusion. Magic can’t change the heart, Pazel. They told me that in — well, in a place where they know about such things. And I found it out myself, the hard way. Trust me: if it lasts more than an hour, it’s real.’

He looked over his shoulder, then leaned close to Pazel and said, ‘You remember Thasha, don’t you? Thasha Isiq? The one who stayed on the ship?’

Pazel spoke very carefully. ‘I remember her just fine.’

‘They say she’ll come back one day. From the land of the dead.’ Neeps’ eyes were moist. ‘Lunja, my woman Lunja, won’t be coming back. But if she did-’

He broke off Pazel wanted to embrace him. They looked away from each other, suddenly abashed. ‘I have no idea why I’m talking to you,’ said Neeps.

‘Because you’re a good bloke, that’s why.’

‘Lunja made me a better one. She made me larger, you see. She made room in my heart. And that’s better for everyone, I guess.’

Marila stood wrapped in a blanket under the starlight, bedraggled and enormously pregnant. ‘Hello, tarboys,’ she said sleepily, as Neeps pulled her close. ‘What took you so long? They got tired of waiting. They’re running a loop out there somewhere, and coming back for you, Pazel.’ She yawned. ‘I don’t know why they’re crossing in the middle of the night.’

‘You didn’t have to get up,’ Pazel said.

‘I wanted to,’ she said simply. ‘Oh, and Ramachni sent you a package; it’s already aboard.’ She looked at him, thoughtful. ‘He cares a lot about you. Why is that, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘We have friends in common.’

It was too vague an answer for Marila, but this time she merely shrugged. ‘Be careful out there, will you? The world is stranger than you think.’

‘That’s hardly possible,’ he said. ‘All right, then. Good luck with that school.’

They smiled. Long ago Marila had admitted that she wanted to start a school for the deaf. The dream was still with her, and Neeps, it appeared, had begun to see the possibilities as well.

Pazel looked at Marila’s round belly. ‘What about a name?’ he asked. ‘Have you chosen one yet?’

They hesitated, glancing sidelong at each other. ‘It’s strange, really,’ said Neeps. ‘We’re agreed that if it’s a girl we’ll call her Diadrelu, after a friend who died. But if it’s a boy — well, that’s the odd part. We chose one. We both remember making a decision, and being very sure. But we can’t for the life of us remember what it was.’

‘It was such a good name,’ said Marila, looking at him earnestly. ‘So good we don’t want to talk about any others, just yet. We’re still hoping we remember.’

Pazel looked at her with wonder. ‘I hope so too,’ he said at last.

‘Well, here’s your boat,’ said Neeps, a bit relieved, as a sleek little clipper drew alongside. ‘Goodbye, Pazel. If you ever make it out Sollochstol way, you’ve got friends.’

‘I’ll remember,’ he said. Then he took their hands and held them a long while, until he knew he had made them uncomfortable. On the clipper, a man was shouting. All aboard who’s coming aboard .

‘Thank you for everything,’ said Pazel, and let them go.

He spoke as little as possible to the men on the clipper. He did not look back to see if Neeps and Marila were still standing by the rail. They were bound for the Outer Isles, and it seemed likely that he would never see them again. At the moment the thought was more than he could bear.

The package was heavy. Inside, he found a purse of gold: fine gold cockles from the wreck of the Chathrand , a bit of the fortune that Sergeant Haddismal had saved. The purse did not a fortune make, but it was enough to live on, frugally, for a few years at least. There was also a sharp knife, and some clothing. At the bottom of the crate, wrapped carefully in oilskin, lay Thasha’s copy of the thirteenth Merchant’s Polylex.

When he did begin to speak to the men, he learned at once why they were crossing by night. They were freebooters, smugglers, dodging the new tariff collectors of the Crownless Lands. ‘These upstarts have got nothin’ on the old Arquali Inspectorate,’ said one of the men, cheerfully. ‘We’ll have some good years here, before they learn our tricks.’

‘And there must be scarcity, too?’ said Pazel.

‘Oh, aye, lad, scarcity!’

‘So higher prices, higher profits for you.’

‘Right on the kisser!’ laughed the man. ‘You talk like you know the trade. Do you drink as well?’

He took a drink. They were the happiest people he had seen since Ularamyth. Pazel was almost beginning to enjoy himself when his mind-fit struck.

The freebooters scratched their chins. They set him up on the fife-rail, where everyone could watch him babble and moan. Pazel could not tell whether they thought him possessed, but if so, they worried less about having a devil aboard than the attention it might bring in Ormaelport. They conferred awhile, then gave him a wineskin and locked him in the hold. Pazel wished he could thank them. When he drank, his legs gave out, and he knew he had been drugged.