Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

Only now did Pazel realise what he'd sensed in the room: not a difference but a sameness that should have warned him. The room should have felt emptier; instead it was as crowded as before. Rose was seated; it was his boot on Pazel's chest. Dastu, holding a fengas lamp, stood to the captain's right. Sergeant Haddismal and another Turach were in the room as well. The sergeant had a thrusting dagger fitted over the knuckles of his right hand. The blade was red to the hilt.

Behind the Turachs sat a row of bound men. Four had their faces concealed by leather hoods; the fifth, Lieutenant Khalmet, was slumped sideways against the wall, mouth open, blood darkening his chest.

Haddismal glared down at Pazel. 'I'll cut off your ears if you so much as sigh for that dung-eating dog! Khalmet swore to live and die for Magad the Fifth. There hasn't been such an oath-breaking in the history of the Turachs. A stab through the heart was a mercy he never deserved — and he knew it, the coward, he all but lunged on my blade. The rest of you won't be so lucky.'

Despite the hoods, Pazel recognised the others. Fiffengurt was still in the shirt he'd worn to the council meeting; he hadn't even rolled down his sleeves. Pazel spotted Druffle by his gauntness, Big Skip by his size, Bolutu by his monk's cloak and the blackness of his neck below the hood. The men's hands were tied very firmly behind their backs. All four were trembling.

'Pazel Pathkendle,' said Dastu, almost sadly, 'you never should have let old Chadfallow mix you up in all this. I hear you had a fine arrangement on the Eniel, and were halfway to citzenship.'

Pazel looked at him, and could not even feel the hate he expected. He was numb to any sensation but a kind of appalled disappointment. 'Why?' he said.

'You should be asking why not,' said Dastu. 'You never knew me, of course. You knew my second self — the one I'm done with at last, I think, Master?'

'Yes, lad, you're done with it,' said Ott. 'You've passed the exam with rare distinction.' He caught Pazel's eye, and gave a hideous grin. 'What do you say, Pathkendle? Top marks for Dastu? Certainly he had you believing in him. The good tarboy, the one without cunning or prejudice or vice, the one nobody could hate.' Ott looked appreciatively at Dastu, who basked in the praise. 'Six years he's been refining the part. Fiffengurt wanted to make him a midshipman; he saw officer material there. I think the truth hurt more than the blows.'

Rose withdrew his sword, and his boot. 'Stand up, Pathkendle. Ott, you will release the girl's hair. She knows better than to fight you.'

Ott slid his hand from Thasha's hair to her shoulder. 'There are a dozen Turachs behind me in the passage,' he said, his lips almost touching her ear.

Pazel got to his feet, still aching from the blow to his stomach. 'Dastu, how can you be with them?' he said, still incredulous in his shock. 'You were at the council. You know what they're doing is insane. You know that Arqual can't win another war — that nobody can, except Arunis.'

'I know you cannot face the truth,' said Dastu, 'but that doesn't surprise me. How could you be expected to embrace Arqual's coming supremacy? You lost your mother and sister in the Rescue of Chereste. You're an Ormali, with an Ormali's small, stay-at-home mind. I understand these things. But the world is large and cruel, Pazel. It needs Arqual more than ever.'

'That's not you talking,' said Pazel. 'That's just something they told you.'

'Something real,' said Dastu.

'I guess believing that is part of the exam, too,' said Thasha.

Dastu turned her a look that made the hair stand up on the back of Pazel's neck. But Sandor Ott just laughed. 'Yes, he said. 'An essential part — and the only part your tutor failed, Thasha Isiq. Hercol called it freedom of thought, but in fact his freedom began to bleed away the moment he left the Secret Fist. Was he free when he lived like a hunted thing in the Tsordons? Was he free when his lands were seized, his sister and her family beggared, his ancestral home in Tholjassa burned to the ground?'

Thasha twisted in his grasp. 'You!' she spat. 'Did you do those things to him?'

'He did them to himself, lass,' whispered Ott, pressing his lips even closer. 'And where is he now? In a cage, at the end of a wasted life. All for a withered old woman named Maisa — a cause as hopeless as petitioning the sun to rise in the west. Dastu, I'm glad to say, shows no such taste for lost causes.'

'You put it best, Master,' said Dastu. 'Arqual is the future of Alifros. In time we will need just one name, for world and Empire alike.'

'Boy,' said Rose, 'you've served your purpose well, but I don't give a damn for your Imperial platitudes. Fawn on your master elsewhere; for now concentrate on the task. Nine mutineers you spoke of; only seven have you produced.'

'Captain,' said Dastu, 'I fear I played the part too well. Undrabust and the stowaway girl meant to come, but I protested, the better to assure they'd not suspect I wanted-'

'Go and find them,' Rose interrupted. 'If they are still behind the magic wall, lure them out. Tell them their friends are in need; tell them whatever occurs to you. Haddismal, send a man along with him. I want the stateroom emptied once and for all.'

Dastu smiled. 'I have an idea already, Captain.' He looked to Ott, received a nod from the spymaster. Then he handed the fengas lamp to another Turach, and slipped out of the room with Haddismal's lieutenant.

Rose turned a stern and formal look on the captives before him, and pointed his sword at each in turn. 'Pazel Pathkendle. Thasha Isiq. As Captain and Final Offshore Authority of the IMS Chathrand, I hereby charge you with the crime of mutiny. The crime was both premeditated and sustained. You have held council with the aim of planning the seizure of this ship. You have recruited others to your cause. You have already assumed control of the admiralty-level stateroom, and held it by magical means, creating a space beyond the reach of shipboard justice. You have taken oaths to persevere in this crime as far as it leads — even to the destruction of this vessel, and the death of its entire crew.'

At the last words, Mr Fiffengurt began to squirm and kick, and cry out beneath his hood.

'Your quartermaster begs to differ,' said Rose. 'He would put all the blame for that last notion upon himself. But Dastu tells us that the whole council discussed the possibility — that you hoped it wouldn't come to that. Which means you accepted that it might.' Rose turned to the four captives seated behind him. 'Remove their hoods, Sergeant,' he said to Haddismal.

One by one the Turach unlaced the leather hoods and wrenched them free. Druffle spat at the commando, and received a blow that rang loud in the little chamber. Fiffengurt already had a gash across his forehead, straight as a chart line. Blood had trickled down one side of his nose, and left a cinnamon stain on his white whiskers.

'Pazel,' he said miserably, 'Miss Thasha. Forgive-'

'Silence!' barked Haddismal.

Big Skip was still and watchful, like a bear that has given up struggling in its chains. Bolutu, unhooded last of all, did not even glance at his captors. His eyes too went straight to Pazel and Thasha, but what was that keen glance trying to say? Help me? Save yourselves? Have faith in my plan?

A sudden glimmer of hope leaped in Pazel's mind. Dastu left the council before Bolutu told us that his masters could see through his eyes. He can't have told Rose and Ott. They don't know that we're being observed, that Bolutu's empire is expecting us.

Rose opened the chamber door, and beckoned. Turachs began to file into the room, hugely muscled men in leather armour, gauntlets, and short blades for close-quarters fighting. Two lifted the body of Khalmet and bore it from the room. The others, at a word from Haddismal, tugged the bound prisoners to their feet and made them face the captain.