Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

'Locks are nothing to worry about,' she said. And with that she produced a large brass key. It was the ship's master key — the very one Frix had used to sneak into my cabin and steal my first journal, the one he'd dropped just before I kicked him in the rump. When I babbled, 'How — how-' Marila pointed at Diadrelu, fencing with shadows on the bearskin rug.

'She found it in a crevice on the berth deck. And she brought it to us, Mr Fiffengurt, not to her clan.'

I knew what Marila was telling me: the crawly had chosen sides, turned her back on her own people, in favour of us. But she's just one, I thought.

'Listen,' I said to Marila, 'you must never be caught with that key on your person. Rose would murder you in cold blood. And that's not a figure of speech, lass. Our captain's a man of extremes, you might say — but you've not seen him angry 'till you've seen him dealing with a trespasser! Paranoia, that's what ails him. He'd think you were looking for the Imperial horde, wherever they've hidden it — or worse, spying on him, sneaking into his cabin for a look around.'

'So this does open his chambers,' said Marila, satisfied. 'How about the steerage compartment? And Arunis' cabin?'

I didn't much like the drift of her questions, amp; said so. Her response (she is a girl after all) was to ask another question. 'How many days until the dark of the moon?'

'The dark of the moon? Well now. Six, eight. Why do you ask?'

'Because that's how long we have to choose someone to bring to the council. You've got to bring someone, too. Pazel says it doesn't matter if they're strong or brave or clever — just absolutely trustworthy. But I don't trust anyone except the people who come to this room. Who should I bring, Mr Fiffengurt?'

Neeps' arms were slowing; the mandoloro moaned like a lynx in heat.

'Best come alone,' I said at last. 'Don't take chances. Guess wrong and Rose will have us all killed.'

Marila shook her head. 'He won't kill Pazel or Thasha. Haven't you noticed how strange he is about them? He arrests and abuses Pazel, then sets him free and invites him to lunch. He plans to sell Thasha to the Leopard People, then keeps her by his side all through the battle. Why does he put up with them, or any of us? All he'd have to do is cut off our food until we surrender.'

She might have read my mind — or this journal — so close did her wonderings mirror my own. But I'd come up with a theory amp; was anxious to tell someone. 'D'ye know what I think, missy? I think he doesn't want to beat Pazel or Thasha. He needs 'em. He wants 'em walking this ship, free and visible, and for one very good reason: because they frighten Arunis.'

Marila looked at me in blankly.

'Thasha defeated the mage's fleshancs,' I went on, 'and there's her friendship with Ramachni to consider. And Pazel turned his Shaggat into a lump of stone. As long as Arunis has them to worry about, he won't be so quick to try something else. Like taking over the Chathrand.'

'You're right,' said Marila, her face creasing with thought. 'Oh, how stupid I am! Yes, yes — and that's why there are Plapps and Burnscove Boys.'

'Eh — um-'

'Aboard the Chathrand, I mean. That's why Rose brought so many Plapps onto a Burnscove ship. Don't you understand? As long as the crew's divided he never has to worry about a mutiny, no matter what he puts us all through. It makes perfect sense.'

It did make perfect sense, amp; little Marila is anything but stupid. The crew is one third Burnscove Boys, one third Plapp's Pier, amp; one third men from neither gang. Foolproof, you might say. Their numbers were large enough to divide the crew, but too small for either gang to take over. And if the thought of mutiny ever did cross a few minds — well, the only way they could dream of taking on those deadly Turachs would be as a ship united. And we'll see the moon hatch tadpoles before that day ever comes.

These thoughts all but crushed me. 'We have no hope, do we, lass? They've been planning this for decades.'

'So has Ramachni,' she said.

'Was he planning for Arunis to whack him so hard he could barely crawl home?'

My tongue had got ahead of me; I didn't mean to speak such words of despair to this brave young thing. Marila took it calmly, however.

'I don't know,' she said, 'but I bet you'll get a chance to ask him.'

Wednesday, 27 Norn, 941. The sorcerer has murdered Peytr Bourjon. Old Gangrune saw it happen, in the passage outside his cabin. Seems the daft tarboy never had quite left off serving Arunis. Gangrune watched them through a crack in his cabin door: they met, talked, the boy pleaded for something on his knees. Arunis held out his hand amp; Peytr took it. Then the monster reached out and snapped his neck. One-handed. Gangrune slammed his door and started howling murder murder murder. Arunis merely walked away.

No clue from any quarter as to how Bourjon had angered the mage. Perhaps he never did. Perhaps Arunis merely wanted to attract our attention, lest anyone imagine his powers or his wickedness decreased.

How sick I am of death, of walking, living, sleeping among killers. Of serving as their quartermaster, their fool. There's little I wouldn't hazard to put an end to them. Forgive me, my Anni, my heart.

24 Freala 941

The White Reaper, pride of the Pentarchy, holy avenger of the Mzithrin, spun beneath the killing waves in a state of chaos no seafarer had ever lived to describe. Up was down, falling was rising, solid rails became splinters; the very air one tried to gulp was seawater that stabbed one to the heart with cold, and the blackness of the depths was over and under and within her. She was vanquished, and her four hundred men were perishing in the imploding coffin of her hull.

Neda Ygrael felt her body whirl in the blind cyclone, heard her people's screams extinguished chamber by chamber as the sea advanced, felt the ship's armoured bulk cleaving down into the permanent night of the Nelluroq. She was on the berth deck, somewhere; footlockers were smashing about like boulders; shreds of hammocks caught at her limbs. Her brother sfvantskors had been near her when the Jistrolloq rolled, and she could still hear them, crying to one another, only a shade less mad than the rest. Nurin was closest, and when the lamps went out he cried her name. There was an instant when she felt his hand, a clawing thing as violent as the sea, groping at her with broken fingers before the water tore him away. Then another hand seized her, Cayer Vispek's this time, and wrenched her up (or down?) through a hatch and onto a deck where air remained, where it was possible if agonizing to thrust the debris and bodies aside and raise one's head above the flood, where a pale green glow illuminated the horrors around her. The glow came from Sathek's Sceptre, wielded in desperation by Cayerad Hael.

The elder sfvantskor was bleeding from the scalp. As the ship rolled over and over he was thrashed about like a rag doll. But he held on to the sceptre, and Neda groped towards him, to what purpose she could not say, and when she and Cayer Vispek were within ten feet the old man screeched one intelligible word:

'Soglorigatre!'

With the word came a red light, a searing light, and a blast of steam that made her plunge again beneath the water. At once the dead face of Cayerad Hael's steward rose before her, the boy's mouth open wide as a well. Then something else burst in the ship and the body was sucked instantly away. Down, down they were plummeting, her ears all but bleeding from the pressure, and not knowing if she were fighting to live or to hasten a merciful death, Neda thrust her head above the surface again.

Cayerad Hael had called the red flame from the sceptre, just as he had on Sandplume, but now he had used it to burn a ragged hole in the side of the ship. He himself was scalded terribly, his hand a black stump fused for ever to the magic artefact, though for ever would be brief enough. But he lived yet, and commanded them yet; and most amazing of all, four of his sfvantskors remained alive to be commanded. Neda and Cayer Vispek, bobbing and thrashing towards him; and huge Jalantri close behind; and last of all, clear-eyed and furious, Malabron.