Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

Chadfallow approached the furious gang leader. He rested one long-fingered hand upon the table before him, and let the silence grow.

'You are the eponymous Plapp?' he said at last.

Darius Plapp's face went rigid. He pushed back his chair and stood up. He spoke through gritted teeth.

'Who's eponymous? Yer mother's eponymous.'

The meeting went downhill from there. Rather than brokering peace, the doctor and the quartermaster were treated to comprehensive accounts of the murders, abductions, broken cease-fires, insults to virtuous gang mothers, slop buckets emptied on wedding parties, insinuations in mixed company that this or that leader's manhood was not as it should be, libellous publications and stolen pets. Fiffengurt walked out in disgust. Chadfallow laboured on straight through the afternoon and the dinner shift, but when the session finally collapsed at midnight the only agreement he had managed to wring from Plapp and Burnscove was that he himself was stubborn enough to join either gang.

Chadfallow's report to the captain noted that mental instability was a growing threat to the safety of the ship.

Two nights later, as evening fell, the now-familiar noise of the 25-foot seas was shattered by the cries of the lookout: On the bow! Hard on the bow! Great gods, what is it?

Men stampeded to the rail, and at once began to shout with wonder, and not a little fear. Stretched across the southern horizon, as far as the eye could see, was a ribbon of pale red light. It was not quite the colour of sunset, nor of fire; but there was something about it that reminded one of fire: a trembling, flickering quality. A volcano? No, there was no ash, and no telltale rumble. The ribbon reached as high as the lid of clouds on the horizon, so that it looked a bit like a glowing sword, held between the blue-grey tongs of sea and sky. How far away it might have been was difficult to tell. What was certain was that it lay directly across their path.

The ribbon burned on through the night. When morning broke, it swiftly faded, and by the time the sun was fully risen it was no more to be seen. But all through the night the watch-captains had observed how Arunis stood on the forecastle, gazing steadily southward, face bathed in the glow, eyes ravenous with expectation.

'I've imagined seeing you dead,' said Diadrelu. 'Or more likely, hearing that you had died, and never seeing for myself. As it was with Talag. I've imagined my own death, likelier still. But never did I think to see you locked in the brig.'

Diadrelu stepped through the iron bars. Hercol watched her from the darkness, sitting back against the wall, smiling through his seven-week beard. It was hours past midnight; except for the pair of Turachs outside the compartment door, the mercy deck was deserted. Two cells away, the captain of the whaler, Magritte, was talking in his sleep, a low, despairing babble. He had boiled over during his first interview with Rose after the sinking of the Sanguine, calling him murderer, pirate, Pit-fiend, devil-swine, and when he paused for breath Rose informed him that he would serve a week in the brig for each insult, plus a fortnight for his behaviour in Rose's quarters, where he had displayed 'verbal incontinence' and a tendency to gulp his food.

Hercol for his part never seemed but half asleep. The ixchel woman had come to see him with increasing frequency, not quite certain what she was looking for, and often enough forced to depart without speaking to him, if Magritte proved restless, or the Turachs left the door ajar. And though she moved silent as dust on a puff of wind, each time she reached his cell she found his eyes open, and that slight smile of expectation on his haggard face.

And yet with each visit her worry grew. Hercol's mouth was dry; he was using a good part of his water ration to clean a wound on his chest. There were bloodstains on his shirt near the collar; when he moved a cloud of flies lifted briefly from the spot. Does he know about ixchel eyes? she wondered. Does he know that I can see him, better than any human could?

'I have a little water,' she said. 'And meat. And an herb you can rub into your skin, to keep those flies away.'

'You take too great a risk with these visits,' said Hercol.

'Not especially,' said Diadrelu. 'You're a deadly fighter. Your people wouldn't dare approach this cell without lamps and noise.'

'But yours might.'

'Well, then!' she said, trying to sound lighthearted. 'If I'm not wanted-'

'Need I respond to that, my lady?'

She put down her pack, leaped in one bound to his knee, and sat, folding her long legs beneath her.

'Need I stick a pin through your lip to stop you calling me lady?'

Hercol laughed softly. 'Thirty years of service to the noble-born have made some habits unbreakable,' he said. 'Very well, just-plain-Dri: how goes the journey? Is there anything to see but the empty horizon?'

'I told you of the sky-ribbon.'

'That was days ago. Has it returned?'

'Yes. Men are calling it the Red Storm, a name out of some old tale of the Ruling Sea. They say Rose glimpsed it decades ago, that he sailed this far, and then turned back to safety to the north.'

'Curious,' said Hercol. 'But that is not what concerns you most, I think.'

She was surprised that her voice had given away so much. Disappointed, too: why worry him with things he could not change?

'The Vortex is in sight again,' she said. 'A little nearer, this time. The first watch saw it pull a thunderhead down from the sky and devour it, lightning and all, and this has put the fear of death in the men. Before today we were fairly flying southward. But now Rose has us beating west, away from that monster.'

Hercol's smile was gone. His eyes slid once around the cell block, professionally.

'You truly think you can break out of here?' she asked.

'It has been arranged,' he said, matter-of-fact, and glanced briefly at the ceiling. 'But the harder question is, whom can I help by escaping? When I break out, I shall have only a short time to accomplish something before I'm put back in again. I could run to the stateroom, and perhaps find refuge there, but I do not wish to do so while Rose is leaving our friends in relative peace. They would merely place ten Turachs on the doorstep, and we should all be prisoners together.'

'You would be safe, at least,' said Diadrelu.

Not a flicker of response showed on Hercol's face. 'What news of our friends?' he asked.

Diadrelu sighed. 'Neeps and Marila have become somewhat more than friends; Pazel and Thasha, somewhat less. They are cold to each other. Pazel simply will not remain in her presence, and Thasha is too proud to ask him why. In any case, they have all been busy recruiting people to our cause — and debating how much to tell them.'

'They are going ahead with the council meeting, then?' asked Hercol.

'It begins just minutes from now,' said Diadrelu. 'That's why I've woken you at such an hour, I — well, it was an impulse, I was passing near-'

'You're not going to show yourself to six strangers!'

'Hercol,' said Diadrelu, 'I am an outcast, not an imbecile. My sophisters and I will keep watch from the ceiling.'

Hercol nodded, realizing he had overstepped. 'What of your quarrel with the clan?'

'It is not a quarrel,' she said. 'It is death, if they should lay hands on me. And not because my people are hot for my blood. No, if it came to that, I think a good number would rather die defending me than obey Taliktrum's order to kill. I should have to help them do it, and swiftly.'

Hercol leaned nearer, blinking in the darkness. 'Help them? What are you saying?'

'That I would take my own life, rather than watch my clan torn to pieces by a blood feud. That is our way. Surely by now you understand?'

Suddenly Hercol cupped his hands beneath her and lifted, as though she were an injured bird that might start into flight. Diadrelu froze, her breath caught in her throat. It was all she could do to keep her mind from battle patterns, the twenty ways she had learned to slash and bite and twist out of such hands. The swordsman brought her close to his face.