Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

He thought suddenly of Neda and Cayer Vispek, and his unsettling dream about the burial at sea. The Isiq girl wants to be rid of him. He felt ill. Maybe his mind-fit was coming early. Or maybe Thasha wanted to be married before the dlomu came to take them off for their visit to the Issar.

But hold on: the dlomu. Perhaps there was another way off this deck. He turned on his heel and ran straight back the way he had come. When he passed by the wreckage of the ixchel’s fortress he saw lamplight shining down through the hole in the bread room floor. Fiffengurt’s voice sounded hoarsely, calling his name. He didn’t answer. Straight on he ran, and minutes later reached the forward scuttle: a tiny, neglected laundry-chute of a staircase dropping sharply down to the hold.

He descended. Rin’s eyes, the smell. The flooding had washed out some of the cinders, blood and rat-filth, but what remained was exposed to the air now, and rotting… he shut his mind to such thoughts and groped into the darkness ahead. He had one chance, and if it came he would have to seize it instantly.

The scuttleway let onto a flying catwalk: a kind of bridge some twenty inches wide and eighty feet long, spanning the cavernous hold. No rail, and no way of telling if the boards were intact. Pazel set out across it, utterly blind, restraining a suicidal urge to run. The catwalk felt sound. He walked with arms stretched before him, but in fact he had no idea of his distance from the hull. And what then? How on earth would he get down to The catwalk ended. His foot met with empty space. He fell like a stone, and almost before he had time to be afraid struck the curving wall of the hull, and rolled and spun and crashed to the bottom of the hold.

First, a moment of stunned stillness; then the pain rushed in, and he cursed in a cascade of languages. But he was not dead, so he’d keep moving. He could still make everything all right. He crawled through a blackness of soaked and stinking wreckage. Bags of spoiled grain, ends of cables, shards of broken amphorae and scraps of wood. At times he was almost swimming in it. He doubted that he was moving in a straight line, but when he could touch the solid hull he corrected his path.

And suddenly there it was: moonlight. Not from any window above him, of course, but from below, reflected in a puddle on the stone quay beneath the Chathrand, through the hole in her flank. The shipwrights had not yet closed the wound: two enormous planks, or wales, remained to be fitted in place. Pazel dragged himself through the sawdust (fresh sweet smells) and looked out through the belly of the Chathrand. He was at the very bottom of her, just yards from the keel, and about fifteen feet off the ground.

Thasha. Love and fury blended hopelessly inside him. He had been too timid in protecting her, too selfish and slow. Aya Rin, let me get there in time.

He dangled from the bottommost wale, and let go. Pain shot up his legs where they struck the stone, but he managed a clumsy take on the straight-drop-and-roll maneuver Thasha herself had tried so hard to teach him. Landfall at last, he thought absurdly, struggling to his feet. Then he ducked under the keel, dashed to the opposite scaffold and began to climb.

The cool air brought flashes of hope. Sometimes bad luck was a whale that devoured you. Sometimes you crawled out of its belly and fought on.

The dlomu ashore did not notice Pazel at first, and by the time they did, they could think of nothing to do about him. Humans were not to leave the ship, but this youth’s only wish seemed to be to get back inside. They might have scolded him, but they were under orders not to speak to the crew except in emergencies, and so held their tongues. The decision, as it happened, cost lives.

Pazel had climbed about eighty feet when, on the lower gun deck, Fulbreech stepped out of the pump room and quickly closed the door behind him. For the last time in his life he put on his old, false face. He was ready with a laugh and a self-effacing story about ducking into the chamber to collect himself, after some ugly work in sickbay-but no one had seen him, the passage was still deserted. Once again he opened the pump room door.

Arunis swept into the passage, his great mace raised before him. Fulbreech thought again how ghastly he had become. Once the mage had been stout; today he was a skeletal, staring creature, large of build but wasted within his dark, enveloping coat, the old white scarf twined about a dry and scrawny neck. And yet there was power in those hands that gripped the cruel weapon like a plaything, and his eyes still gleamed with appetite.

He was marching aft at a swift pace. “The Stone is in the manger yet,” he said, more to himself than to Fulbreech, who was half running to keep up. “I will not have to touch it. I will take it, of course. No one will dare to cross me. The Turachs will flee their posts, and those who do not flee I will burn. I will claim the Stone tonight, and it will know me for its master, the shaper of worlds, the next ascendant to the Vault of the Skies. The Stone brings death only to weaker souls. All the same I will not touch it. Why should I touch it, before I know that I can?”

“You should cross the ship by the orlop deck, Master,” said Fulbreech, touching his sleeve.

“We cross here,” said Arunis.

“On the lower gun deck? As you will, Master. You may be lucky here as well.”

Sorcerer and servant hurried on, past the gunners’ cabins and the armory. Finally the passage ended and they stepped out into the central compartment. Moonlight filtered dimly through the gunports, and the glass planks overhead. The long rows of cannon gleamed blue-black in the shadows. Arunis hesitated, glaring.

“Empty,” he said.

“As I say, Master, you’re fortunate tonight. Stanapeth and Bolutu may be huddled with Lady Oggosk, but in general the ship is asleep.”

“It is not asleep,” snapped Arunis, shooting him a furious look. “Scores of men are awake, whether they dare to stir from their chambers or not. I can feel them, crouched and frightened. Why should they be frightened? What has been happening this last hour, Fulbreech?”

“This last hour? Nothing, Master. I told you, I was with the girl. Pathkendle and his friends retired early. Bolutu spoke with someone dispatched by Prince Olik, who delivered the awful news.”

Arunis began to walk quickly down the row of cannon. “Delivered it to him, not the entire crew. I begin to wonder if you’ve kept up appearances, Fulbreech. Does Sandor Ott still consider you his agent, or has he seen through your mask?”

“He relies on me utterly, sir,” said Fulbreech, with a hint of pride. “It was he who sent me in pursuit of Thasha to begin with, as you know.”

“Then what is the great Arquali spy telling you?”

“Master, he knows nothing of Olik’s plan to take the Nilstone.”

“Sandor Ott is awake, fool! Rose is awake! I smelled their nervous brains the moment I stepped from my chambers! Why are they nervous, Fulbreech? What are they waiting for?”

“Your death, sorcerer. These many years-but no longer.”

It was Hercol. The swordsman rose from a crouch between two gun carriages. With a gliding step he moved to block their way, Ildraquin loose in his hand, murder in his eyes.

The sorcerer’s face convulsed with rage. “My death,” he managed to scoff, but there was fear in the spiteful voice.

“I think,” said Hercol, “that you have taken an interest in this blade, since last we met. Certainly your creature here saw fit to question Thasha about it-in the most unassuming way, of course.”

“You must satisfy his curiosity, Stanapeth,” said a second voice.

Arunis and Fulbreech whirled. Sandor Ott had appeared behind them, a Turach sword in hand, wearing his savage smile.