Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

Bolutu sighed, and rubbed his face. 'Now to the worst part of my story.'

'It gets worse?' asked Dastu, incredulous.

'More shameful, anyway. Arunis, you see, did not simply choose to assault your northern lands. He was sent. Dispatched, as it were, by a league of criminals in my country, to steal something from yours.'

Aya Rin, hissed Diadrelu. Now I see.

'Of course,' said Bolutu, 'I am speaking of the Nilstone. And the league of which I speak — known as the Ravens, for they grow fat on death — has wanted it for nine hundred years. When your-'

He checked himself, as if he had almost spoken amiss. Then, taking a deep breath, he continued: 'When your great wizardess, Erithusme, set out to rid herself of the Nilstone, she found to her horror that she was less its owner than its slave. First she tried to bury it within the hoard of Eplendrus the Glacier-Worm, but the Stone only drove the creature mad, so that he took his own life, and left the hoard unguarded. She came next to our lands, where our mages met and questioned her.'

'They wouldn't take the Stone,' said Thasha. 'I know that part of the story. They made her carry it away.'

'So they did,' said Bolutu, 'but not before the mighty of Bali Adro had seen the miracles she could work with it: a river turned backwards, a forest made to bloom in winter, a tower reduced to a termite mound. Erithusme was, after all, the only being able to wield the Nilstone since the time of the Fell Princes. She knew that it would one day kill her too, if she did not relinquish it, but meanwhile it gave her powers beyond reason. She had no peer in Alifros. She was the master of the world.'

'But she never wanted to rule it,' said Thasha. 'Unless my Polylex has it wrong.'

Bolutu shook his head. 'I said master, my lady, not tyrant. No, she did not wish to rule the world. And she certainly did not wish to force the Stone on anyone. So she departed again, this time to a secret place, and there she laboured alone. Her goal was to pierce the very fabric of the world, and cast the Stone through the aperture, into the dark realm from whence it came. Never had she attempted anything so difficult; all her might as a wizardess she poured into the task. The effort nearly killed her — and failed, for in the end she could not use the power of the Stone against the Stone itself.

'When she returned to the northern world, she had lost the better part of her strength. The Mzithrin Kings gave her shelter, and Erithusme was forced to plead with them for a safe place — any safe place — to leave the Stone until such time as she could recover, and try again.'

'Aha,' said Fiffengurt. 'Then it was the Sizzies who made the Red Wolf.'

'No, sir; that was Erithusme's own work. The Mzithrin Kings built the Citadel around it, and more importantly, an armour of legends that wound the Nilstone up with their own fear of devils and corruption, lest anyone should be tempted to use it. They were fine guardians, until the Shaggat came.'

Pazel leaned back against the wall. 'It never stops,' he said, his voice full of weary bitterness. 'First we think we're at the start of a Great Peace. Then we find that Ott's using the treaty to bring the Shaggat back to power and start a war. Then we learn that Arunis is using Ott and his war-scheme to get the Nilstone, and make his precious Shaggat invincible. And now you're telling us that men from your country are using Arunis-'

'Using that damnable mage?' said Druffle. 'What for?'

'Have you heard nothing?' said Khalmet. 'To bring them back the Nilstone! They saw how powerful it was, and now they want it back!'

'Exactly,' said Bolutu. 'You have been afraid of war between Arqual and the Mzithrin, and rightly so. But another, unfinished war was simmering across the Nelluroq, and one party to that conflict, the Ravens, looked north and saw an opportunity. These Jackals included mages and men of great wealth. They were united by illusions about their own ancestry — claims that they were descended from the heroes of the ancient world — and by a certainty that they too would one day reign supreme in Alifros. No tactic was too ruthless if it increased their power.

'Fortunately they never grew strong enough to threaten the Bali Adros, our Imperial family. That is why the sorcerers among them began to dream of possessing the Nilstone. They have never forgotten it, and now they think they can master the Stone and use it as a weapon of war. Of course that is madness.'

'It's worse than madness,' said Pazel. 'It's like-'

'Being caught in a whirlpool,' said Thasha, and something in her voice made them shudder.

Bolutu turned to face her, and cleared his throat. 'Do you remember what Ramachni told Arunis, Thasha, after Pazel turned the Shaggat to stone?'

Thasha nodded slowly. 'I don't suppose I'll ever forget it. "We are never long the masters of the violence we unleash. In the end it always masters us." But where does it end, Mr Bolutu? Those Jackals, the men who sent Arunis to fetch the Nilstone. Are they just puppets too? Is someone using them?'

'I do not think so,' said Bolutu, 'and in any case, it has been nearly a century since they could truly threaten the Empire of Bali Adro. Our Empire is vast and strong — and justly governed, as you shall see. Arunis was its most vile outlaw. When it came out that the Ravens were using him, and indeed had given him a ship and helped him to flee the Crown's justice, our Emperor ordered their immediate arrest. True, some managed to flee the Empire — there is a great deal of room in the South — but most were captured and imprisoned. And we were sent north to deal with the Blood Mage.'

'Pardon me for saying so,' said Fiffengurt, 'but you've made a fishhead stew of that job. Arunis went north sixty years ago, you say? But you waited another forty to take up the chase? What took you so long?'

'Lies, first of all,' said Bolutu. 'No one knew where Arunis had gone, and the Ravens gave one false confession after another. But in a deeper sense, it's true: the fault is ours. For when at last one of the Ravens told us where Arunis had gone — and what he was sent there to find — no one believed it. We did not wish to believe. We hoped Arunis had simply fled, to harm some distant land perhaps — but not ours, never again. It was a senseless hope, but we clung to it. And so lost precious years.'

Pazel heard Diadrelu heave a sigh. Denial is death, he thought.

'It was only when Ramachni himself visited the north, and returned with the news that one of the Mzithrin Kings had gone mad, and seized the Red Wolf, and that a dark wizard stood at his side — only then did we face the truth. By your calendar it would have been the spring of 913. We mounted an expedition to find Arunis as quickly as possible. Too quickly, perhaps, for the ship was never heard from again, and surely perished in the crossing of the Nelluroq. My elder brother was aboard.'

Bolutu dropped his gaze a moment. Then he gave a small laugh. 'He was the ship's veterinarian. It's our family trade.'

'You're not a mage, then?' asked Thasha. 'Or… trying to be one?'

'Trying?' Once more Bolutu looked at her in confusion. 'My dear lady, no sane person would try to become a mage. Would you try to drown yourself, to learn what fishes think and feel? Trying to be a mage! What one gains in power and wisdom is taken away tenfold in other ways! Do you really mean to say you don't know?'

Thasha closed her eyes, remembering. 'Felthrup read me something from the Polylex, about a mage from Auxlei City, who talked to his followers before he died. The only questions he refused to answer were about his childhood. He said, "My first life" — that's what he called it — "is my own. It is the only thing that was ever mine, and it was over before I knew I could lose it." '