Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“We’re trapped,” Ensyl agreed. “There are a hundred dlomu on the topdeck, at least five times that number surrounding the port. And by day there are the shipwrights, the dockworkers, inspectors going through every compartment and cabin. There will be no fighting our way out of the Jaws of Masalym, even if all the humans fought at our side. I doubt we could master the river-machines, the gates and shafts and spillways, without destroying the ship in our trial and error. No, there’s no escape by sea. If we leave this city, we do so without the Chathrand.”

Myett did not look at her. Sullenly, she asked, “What does Lord Talag say?”

Ensyl hesitated, and then Myett did look at her, with a certain gleam of understanding. “You missed the rendezvous on the orlop,” she said. “You were in the stateroom with your true friends. Of course.”

“I was fighting the sorcerer,” said Ensyl. “Do you know where they went?”

She nodded. “A safe place indeed. Even the dogs will not sniff them out. But Ensyl: I will not go there with you, nor tell you how to find it.”

Ensyl was taken aback. “Sister,” she said, “everything has changed now. Perhaps you did not see them? Arunis is allied with the rulers of the city. They do his bidding, or much of it. We cannot quarrel among ourselves. Your lover accused me of treason, and it is true that I disobeyed him. But that is all beside the point. Doom is coming for us like a great wave, Myett. We must help one another to higher ground or be washed away.”

“Everything has changed,” said Myett, nodding, “and I have changed with it. Your treason is nothing to me, nor is your standing, or mine, or all the old stale points of honor. Let our fellow crawlies help one another to escape the wave, if they can find the will to do so. I want no part of that struggle. I am alone.”

For an ixchel, the last statement was close to heresy. Ensyl struggled to keep her voice even and low. “Sanctuary awaits us, sister,” she said.

“We will never reach it,” said Myett, “and they-they do not deserve it.”

Her look was adamant, and Ensyl’s heart sank. Myett the worshipful had become Myett the indifferent. She had not run off, like Taliktrum, but she had exiled herself all the same. The clan was crumbling; foolishness and self-deceit would be their epitaph.

“But, sister-”

“I am no one’s sister anymore.”

Ensyl could not summon the strength to argue. But Felthrup, who had been gaping at Myett, shook himself and stood up from his meal. “Now see here,” he squeaked. “You owe your life to Ixphir House.”

“Don’t lecture me, rodent,” said Myett with a caustic laugh. “I know my debts, all right.”

“Be quiet, you know very little,” said Felthrup, his mouth twitching so hard that crumbs flew from his whiskers. “You have a grievance with Taliktrum. That is plain as a bruise on your face. Be quiet, be quiet! You have no grievance with Ensyl, who has only shown you kindness. And you have no right to destroy the clan that raised you. No right by your people’s laws, nor by the moral constant that unites all woken souls.”

“You read too much,” said Myett.

“A clan, a crew, a colony of rats: they are neither blessed nor damned, neither chosen nor cast out. But they are your family. Some have mistreated you. What of it? The rest need your strength, and more wisdom than you’ve shown.”

What had happened to Felthrup in his sleep? Ensyl wondered. He was shaking and nervous as ever, but at the same time he was speaking in a rapture of certainty, not breaking eye contact with Myett.

“They need you,” he said, “and that matters more than your damage and pain. You must let it matter more.”

“They despise me,” said Myett. “They have taken decades of my life and given back only scorn.”

“And did they take nothing from me?” Felthrup displayed his mangled forepaw. “They sealed me in a bilge-pipe to suffocate. But they rescued me, too-from my family, my diseased and mutant kin, the ones who bit three inches off my tail. I gnawed at that stump, Myett-gnawed it back to bleeding, each time it started to heal. Oh, how I pitied myself! I dreamed of drowning, and I did not care who drowned with me.”

At the word drowning, Myett’s face changed. “That was you, scrabbling in the dark!” she cried. “You little vermin. You followed me, you watched. You watched me and said nothing!”

“I watched you rush into the hold as the water rose,” said Felthrup, “and wondered what you sought there. I never dreamed it was death.”

Ensyl turned her back, so as not to shame the young woman before her. Aya Rin, Myett. Was it love of Taliktrum that drove you to this?

“I will not tell you again,” said Myett, breathing hard, “to leave me in peace.”

“That is what I mean to do,” said Felthrup. “I will go to the manger, to have a look at the Nilstone. And you, friend Myett: you will do the right thing, and be strong. Take Ensyl to warn your people. The water spared you for a reason, as that pipe spared me. It is up to us to discover those reasons, I think-and if we cannot, then to find reasons, create them if necessary. Yes, I mean it. Sometimes we must fabricate reasons to live.”

Ensyl looked at Myett once more, and saw a broken agony in her face, a desperation. Myett lifted a hand toward her knife, and Ensyl froze. Don’t make me fight you, Myett. Don’t make one of us die. We’re both victims of our love for that family.

Myett’s hand hovered over the knife. Then it rose, slowly, as though she would touch Felthrup on the muzzle. She did not complete the gesture, but something in her own face changed, and she turned swiftly to the wall. She could not face them, maybe, but Ensyl thought she stood a little straighter than before.

“Damn you, Stanapeth! We’re not ready to tackle the ship!”

Alyash was fuming. Neither Sandor Ott nor Hercol responded to his whispered outburst. They were moving as only trained assassins could, shadow to shadow, crouch to crouch. Alert to the tiniest noises, wearing dark clothes swapped with or stripped from other crew members, faces and hands and bare feet blackened from a pouch of soot. Boots would have been safer: glass and splinters and rusty nails littered the streets. But they had no proper, soft-soled footwear, and one accidental thump could make the difference between life and death.

“Do you hear me? Nabbing the Stone tonight is blary impossible! We’ll be lucky to get aboard her at all.”

Ott did not like sudden changes to careful plans anymore than Alyash. But Hercol’s reasoning was sound. Take the Nilstone tonight or lose it to enemies tomorrow. Lose it to enemies, and you will never defeat them.

But Alyash had a point as well. The ship was under heavy guard, and they had not yet cased her fully. Blind terrain! How he hated it! Ott himself had already been attacked: a dozen creatures, like small monkeys but for their hairlessness and fangs, had exploded from the window of a gutted house. All on him, coordinated as a wolf pack, and Ott wondered if they had somehow decided that he was the weakest of the three. He had responded with a frenzy of killing, and sent the few survivors screeching into the night.

In fact the ruined state of the Lower City was mostly to their advantage. Only near the cliff where the Middle City began did the streets come to life. Descending that cliff had been a moderate challenge. It had been more difficult to persuade Thasha Isiq to go with Dastu, seeking an exit to the mountains, a place they might flee to, a hideout.

They were halfway to the port.

Right now the greatest danger was the dogs. Killing them was too dangerous: they had only six arrows and one bow, of strange dlomic design, taken off a man Ott had personally authorized Dastu to kill. A foot soldier, sent back to the barracks for a cough, and quite unaware of the falcon gliding soundlessly overhead, guiding Dastu through the darkened city. The cough, at least, would bother him no more.