Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“Well, proceed,” said Taliktrum.

Gangrune took a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his vest pocket, considered the filthy lenses, folded them anew. He opened the logbook and considered it for nearly a minute with the deepest disappointment. At last Haddismal snatched the book, flipped it right-side up, and placed it again in Gangrune’s hands. The old man glared at the sergeant as though he had been tricked. Then he cleared his throat.

“It is my joy,” he shouted, “in this, my thirty-seventh year as purser aboard the Imperial Mercantile Ship Chathrand, registration four-o-two-seven-nine Etherhorde, to present you with another exact and impeccable accounting. To begin with the human assets, gentlemen: our splendid vessel currently boasts three hundred and ninety-one ordinary seamen, one hundred and forty able seamen, twenty-two midshipmen, sixteen lieutenants and sub-lieutenants, two gun captains, six deck officers in full command of their mental faculties, another deck officer, a glorious and decorated captain, a famous and educated sailmaster, a doctor and another who petitions our belief that he is such, a surgeon’s mate, two illustrious passengers entitled to partial refunds due to our tardiness in returning to Etherhorde, nine specialists, seven mates, a veterinarian with webbed fingers, a master cook, a tailor, thirty-four tarboys of no distinction or morals, ninety-one Turach marines with full mobility and one who suffers headaches and is prone to falling forward, a regimental clerk, a foul witch, an experienced whaling-ship commander and his nineteen surviving crew members, including four Quezan warriors indecently fond of nakedness, thirty-three steerage passengers, among them twelve women, four boys, three girls and an infant with a cleft lip, eight-”

“Silence!” screamed Taliktrum. “Mr. Gangrune, what are we to do with such a rubbish heap of detail? I asked you for a summary statement.”

Gangrune countered that he was presenting a summary, that a full company report would have required him to be “rather more specific.” He was about to resume his reading, but Taliktrum cut him off.

“That will do, Purser, thank you ever so much. Post your summary in the wardroom as I requested. Now then-” The young lord’s eyes swept the room, and at last settled on Thasha again. “Step forward, girl.”

Thasha hesitated, then moved toward the ixchel and the Shaggat Ness. She regarded Taliktrum coldly.

“We have decided to keep this plague of idiocy a secret from the crew of the Chathrand. Have you or your friends spoken of it to anyone?”

“Of course not,” said Thasha.

Nothing about the time-skip, Pazel thought. Hercol’s right. It’s safer this way.

“When we fought the rats in this chamber,” Taliktrum went on, “I saw a thing I cannot explain. Pathkendle saw it too, and my father, and a handful of my guards. I am not sure whether you saved our lives or inspired the rats to start the bonfire that nearly killed us all. Will you tell us what happened?”

A brief pause, then Thasha shook her head.

“Perhaps you distrust certain persons here?” suggested Taliktrum. “Will you speak to me privately, to help me better command this vessel?”

Grunts and murmurs escaped the humans. Command, he says. One of the Turachs turned aside to spit.

“No,” said Thasha, “I won’t.”

“Do not toy with us,” said Taliktrum, his voice rising. “By now you of all people must know that we of Ixphir House do not bluff. We have no desire to see any more of your people killed-”

“What about your own?” muttered Fiffengurt.

“-but if you refuse to face the truth of your situation, you will leave us no choice. Look at me when I address you, girl.”

“Her name is Thasha Isiq,” said Hercol.

Every head in the chamber turned. Taliktrum started; Myett’s hand went to her bow. Hercol had spoken quietly, but Pazel had rarely heard such depths of hatred in a voice.

Hercol and Diadrelu had been lovers. Pazel did not know what that meant, between a human and an eight-inch-tall ixchel queen. A few months ago he would not have believed it possible: it was the stuff of tarboy jokes. But he had seen Hercol when they found her, hours too late but still beautiful, naked save for her bandaged neck, surrounded by those of her clan who had loved her to the end. Hercol’s agony had been like a second death, and Pazel had felt ashamed of his doubt.

That courage, he thought, and that proud, quiet loneliness. She was perfect for him.

A sudden rustling from the hay bales. Pazel raised his eyes: eighty or ninety ixchel had materialized there in an eyeblink, ranged like a miniature battalion, armed and silent. Every one of them was focused on Hercol.

Alyash gestured irritably. “We’re all on the same blasted ship, Stanapeth. We’ve the right to know what her game is.”

The right to know! Pazel was speechless at the bosun’s gall. But he wouldn’t be speechless, not this time, he “Awful, isn’t it,” said Fulbreech, his voice dripping sarcasm, “when people keep secrets?”

Thasha smiled at Fulbreech again.

“You shut your Gods-damned mouth, boy,” said Alyash. “You’ve no business here anyway.”

“We were summoned, we were dragged,” Dr. Rain protested.

Thasha just shook her head. “I won’t explain because I can’t. I simply don’t know what happened that day. I touched the Nilstone and it didn’t kill me, though it should have. And I told the rats I was the Angel they worshipped, and they believed me. Of course I didn’t know that the Angel’s coming would make them want to go to heaven on a puff of smoke.”

Taliktrum stared at her a moment, then nodded to Myett. Agile as spiders, the two ixchel crawled onto the Shaggat’s arm and set about untying the ropes.

The cloth slithered to the ground. “Behold your ally, men of Arqual,” said Taliktrum.

The hand, etched in stone but withered to a skeleton, was every bit as hideous as Pazel recalled, but now he saw long cracks extending down the arm, nearly to the shoulder. And there, clenched in the fleshless fingers, was the Nilstone. It was no larger than a walnut, but terrifying all the same, for the Nilstone was black beyond seeing. To look at it was like staring at the sun: a black sun, that dazzled without light.

“Oh,” said a man’s voice, weak and troubled. “Oh dear, that is wrong.” It was Dr. Rain. He was shaking his head and pointing at the Stone. “Crawlies, Mr. Fiffengurt-that is all wrong. Do you hear me? Wrong! Wrong!”

Suddenly he was shouting, red-faced, hands in fists, stamping his foot so hard on each Wrong! that his body jerked in a kind of circular war-dance.

“Get him out of here!” snapped Haddismal, gesturing to his men. But before any of them could move Rain straightened up, drew a great sucking breath and fled the chamber.

“Why in the belching Pits did you summon that fool?” said Alyash.

“He’s a doctor,” said Myett, her voice low and feline, “and your precious Shaggat is disintegrating.”

“From his dead hand down,” said Taliktrum. “Mr. Fulbreech, Mr. Bolutu, you’re the only medical men left here. What do you see? What would happen to this madman should the enchantment end?”

Fulbreech and Bolutu approached the Shaggat, flinching when their eyes passed over the Nilstone. Bolutu, among so much else, was a renowned veterinarian. Fulbreech, by contrast, was a mere surgeon’s mate, and a new one at that. But his tutor over the past four months of storm and combat had been none other than Ignus Chadfallow, and Pazel well knew what a driven teacher the doctor could be.

“If those cracks become lesions?” mused Fulbreech. “No question, gentlemen. He will lose the arm.”

“And his life, should the cracks spread greatly,” added Bolutu.