Robert Redick - The Night of the Swarm

Seaside taverns were better than the Polylex , Pazel decided. A day later he heard an even stranger rumour, concerning Gurishal. As planned, the Mzithrinis had paraded the body of the Shaggat Ness before his worshippers, and that had crushed their spirits, all but destroying the faith. But on Gurishal too a new cult had arisen: the Shaggat Malabron. A scepter-wielding madman with the powers of a sorcerer, who was quickly taking control of the great island. At his side he was said to keep a strange, foreign counsellor, an old man with scars and a wolfish grin.

Pazel sighed, and drank up. They had killed one Shaggat, but two had taken his place.

At long last he made his way home to Ormael. The city was rank, crowded, penniless, beautiful. He saw his own home, with kindly-looking strangers behind the windows and mewling cats in the yard. He walked up into the plum orchards and helped himself to a plum. He sat in the late afternoon sun and closed his eyes and knew an hour’s peace. He thought that love had nearly killed them all but love had also saved them, more times than he could count.

Later that year he bought a passage to Opalt. He had no clear purpose in going there, except to lose himself in bustling Ballytween, one of the greatest cities of the North. In the flood of strangers’ voices, he thought he might not hear the one voice that followed him everywhere. And that would bring relief, of a kind.

Things did not go as planned. On his first walk through the port district, he saw a public house called Annabel’s. The place was large and crowded, and he walked right by. But at the corner he paused, looking back at the bright doorway. Then he walked back and stepped inside and bought himself some ale and fritters at the bar. He was finishing his second pint when he saw Fiffengurt at a corner table, playing chess with Felthrup.

He took the table beside them, and started chatting when the opportunity arose. Captain Fiffengurt was the brother of the bar’s owner; he was also very drunk. Felthrup drank only water; he was intent on winning the game. But they seemed to like talking to him. They stayed, even as the crowd grew thinner, and Pazel bought them ale and food and asked them to tell their stories, and they obliged. By midnight they had forgotten the chess match, and were telling Pazel of the great waterworks of Masalym. By closing time they had brought him to the wreck on Gurishal.

‘I ran her clean aground,’ put in Fiffengurt. ‘But that wasn’t the end, was it, flatty? Oh no. We watched her from the meadows on the clifftops. Watched her swept away to perdition, and Lady Thasha still aboard. I still, still dream-’

He staggered away from the table, looking sick. ‘Why does he drink so much?’ Pazel asked.

‘You might too, Pazel, if you had lost five years of your life, and come back to find everything changed.’

Pazel looked down into his tankard: nearly empty. The rat had a point.

‘And Captain Fiffengurt has his sorrows,’ Felthrup continued. ‘Oh, he calls himself lucky, very lucky, to be here again with his beloved Annabel, and to know his dear daughter. They fled here from Etherhorde, during the worst part of the fighting. And it has been good for everyone: there are no beer-wars on Opalt, no breweries torched by rivals.’

‘What’s his worry, then?’ asked Pazel.

‘Anni married his brother, Pazel. Years before our return. She is quite fond of him; the man is a good husband and father. But the child is Fiffengurt’s. You must keep that last fact to yourself.’

Pazel rested his chin on his hand, and sighed. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’

‘Good,’ said Felthrup. ‘I have a feeling I can trust you. In fact I will now share a secret of my own. I mean to become a historian.’

‘Do that!’ Pazel slapped the table and laughed.

‘Ah, you are flippant, but I spend every day in the archives, here in Ballytween; it has become a second home. But there is something more. Where that voyage is concerned I have a special advantage. Do you know what I did, when the Great Ship lay smashed on the beach?’

Pazel thought about it. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘I drank the blood of the keel. They brought me to shore on a raft, and while the others were boarding I caught a strange, warm, resinous smell, and then I saw it dripping, dripping from a crack in the good ship’s spine, where it arched overhead. I licked the spot. It tasted like nothing I have ever experienced. And the next day the memories began.’

‘Memories?’

‘Of everything, my lad. I can summon the memories of everyone who made that voyage with us. The cook. The tarboys. The anchor-lifters. The ixchel. Erithusme’s ship had a soul, Pazel Pathkendle, but the difference is this: it was a composite soul. All of us together made up that soul, and now it speaks to me. And I must listen and remember. That is the least I can do.’

‘Felthrup?’

‘Yes, lad?’

‘You just used my last name. But I never told it to you. Did I?’

Felthrup nibbled his fritter, thinking. ‘No, it was Diadrelu who told me. Before you and I ever met.’

‘Felthrup!’

‘Yes, lad!’

‘You remember me! I mean, you just started to remember me. When I walked in here you didn’t know who I was!’

The rat looked at him blankly. Then he squealed so loudly that he stopped all conversation, and even the piano player. He leaped over the table into Pazel’s lap. He began to hop up and down.

‘I forgot you! I forgot you! And then I remembered, and forgot that I had forgotten!

Oh, Pazel Pazel Pazel -’

The lamentable truth is that he wet himself, and Pazel in the process. Pazel could not have cared less. He held the lame rat against his cheek and tried not to cry. Nearly four years had passed since anyone had looked at him with recognition.

Of course Felthrup at once shared all he knew of their friends. Bolutu had remained in Simja, and with the King’s blessing — and the help of one particularly talented dog — opened the Royal Inter-Species Institute. ‘He sent a letter not two months ago. They’ve purchased a villa with extensive grounds. The humans who come there will learn from woken animals, and vice versa, and both will take their understanding out into the world. I dare say the work is needed. Many a dog, horse, hare and raven still lives in fear of opening their mouths.’

‘But you’re not afraid. You’re right here in the middle of the pub, playing chess.’

‘That’s because he’s Felthrup Stargraven,’ boomed Fiffengurt suddenly. ‘Where’ve you been the last few years, lad? This rat’s a hero of Alifros. He’s battled sorcerers and pudgy devils, and an ugly, nasty daddy-rat, GRAAAA -’

He dropped to all fours and did an impression of Master Mugstur, to the other patrons’ delight.

‘Never mind him,’ said Felthrup. ‘I have news of your sister.’

Neda! Tell me, for Rin’s sake!’

‘She and Hercol are together, and deeply in love. They would They are Empress Maisa’s special envoys to the Mzithrin, and have done a great deal to ensure that the peace will never again be broken, so long as Maisa is a power in this world.’

‘They’re married, are they?’

‘Alas, no,’ said Felthrup. ‘In his last letter, Hercol said he dared not ask your sister for her hand, ‘while so many enemies remain to contend with, and so much evil flourishes in the dark.’ I fear for them, Pazel. I am very much afraid they will undertake a mission into the heart of Gurishal, to confront the Shaggat Malabron, and Sandor Ott. Both of them feel bound to the task.

‘But enough! It is late. You must stay with us tonight, my boy. And change those smelly breeches, for shame!’

Felthrup and Fiffengurt shared rooms above the tavern. Pazel set the rat on his shoulder, passed through the kitchen and up a darkened stair. The rooms, when they entered, surprised him pleasantly. They were spacious and fine.