Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

'I know you trust the quartermaster,' she said, looking down at them intently, 'but I must tell you that we consider him one of the most dangerous humans aboard. He is inquisitive, and he knows more about the crawlways and secret spaces of the Chathrand than anyone save Rose himself. And when he speaks of my people they are crawlies, and a note of disgust enters his voice.'

'Fiffengurt hates ixchel?' said Neeps. 'I don't believe it! He's the most soft-hearted old sailor I've ever met.'

'But a sailor nonetheless,' said Diadrelu, 'and schooled in the vices of sailing folk. I do not know if his feelings stem from his past experience or general fear. But I will not soon reveal our presence to this ally of yours.'

'We wouldn't ask you to,' said Pazel.

Dri gestured at the stateroom door. 'Someone tried to pick the lock while you were on the island,' she said. 'Twice. I jammed the mechanism with my sword.'

'Well done,' said Neeps.

But Hercol shook his head. 'What if they had forced the door? You would have been caught in plain sight.'

'Hercol Stanapeth,' said the ixchel woman, 'I have lived my whole life within yards of human beings, men who would have killed me without a second thought. You have little to teach me about stealth.'

Hercol smiled, not quite conceding the point. 'Are you ready, my lady?' he asked.

For an answer the woman descended — three shelves in the blink of an eye, a spring to the back of Isiq's divan, another to Hercol's shoulder, and a last jump to the bench under the window, a few inches from Thasha's neck. When their eyes caught up with her they saw that she was holding something sharp and translucent. It was an ixchel arrow, two inches long — fashioned, as she had told them earlier, from the quill of a porcupine.

'Who will say what must be said?' she asked.

'That had better be Hercol,' said Pazel.

'No,' said Hercol. 'You were there when she fell, Pazel, and yours was the last face she saw as her eyes dimmed. The task is yours.'

Pazel took a deep breath. 'All right,' he said. 'But I'd feel better if a doctor were here. I'd even settle for crazy old Rain.'

'Kneel,' said Diadrelu.

Reluctantly, Pazel obeyed. He put his face close to Thasha's own. It was only then that he realised how truly frightened he was. Thasha's eyes looked withered. The lips he had kissed the night before were flecked with dirt.

Diadrelu reversed her grip on the arrow — and with the whole force of her arm plunged it into a vein in Thasha's neck.

Her eyes flew open. And Pazel began to talk as fast as he could. Don't shout don't shout Thasha you're safe you're with us you're with me Thasha trust me don't shout.

She did not shout. She leaped away from him in terror, nearly crushing Diadrelu beneath her and striking the window so hard that a crack appeared in the nearest pane. When Pazel tried to steady her she kicked him savagely away.

'Peace!' hissed Hercol. 'By the Night Gods, Thasha Isiq, I may have trained you too well! Your pardon, Lady Diadrelu, and you too, Pazel! Enough, lass, take a breath.'

Pazel picked himself up, relief breaking over him in waves. She was awake, alive-and free of Arunis' trap. It had all gone according to plan.

Or had it? Thasha's eyes were strange, savage. At last she appeared to recognise their faces, but would let no one comfort her. She shivered as though from deadly cold.

'It worked,' said Neeps softly. 'You were perfect, Thasha.'

Thasha raised a hand to her throat. Her voice was a dry, pained whisper.

'We fooled Arunis?'

'We fooled them all,' said Hercol. 'You did not marry, and Ott's false prophecy cannot come true.'

He spread a blanket over her legs. Thasha looked out at the sunny bay. Looking at her, Pazel thought suddenly of a group of sailors he had glimpsed long ago: hurricane survivors, coaxing a ruined ship into Ormaelport, their faces ravaged by memories of wild fear.

'I touched ice,' Thasha whispered. 'I was in a dark place all crowded with people, but there was no light, and then I began to see without light and the people were hideous, they didn't have faces, and that old priest was there waving his sceptre, and there was ice under my wedding shoes, and black trees with little fingerbone-branches that grabbed at me, and there were eyes in the slits of the trees and voices from holes in the ground. I was freezing. I could feel you holding me, Pazel; I could even feel the scar on your hand. But then the feeling stopped. And then everything began to vanish in the dark — the monster-people went out like candles, one by one. And the voices faded, until there was just one strange voice calling my name, over and over, like something that would never stop, like water dripping in a cave forever. But there was no water, no walls, there was nothing but ice, ice under my skin, ice in my stomach and my brain.'

She hugged herself, looking slowly from one face to another.

'Was I dead?'

'No,' said Diadrelu, 'but you were as close to death as a human can be, and return unharmed. Blane means foolsdeath, but not because it deceives only fools. The name means rather that the spectre of death himself should not know the difference, if he came upon one in the grip of the drug.'

'And brandy on top of that,' Neeps sighed.

'Did old Druffle go through something like this, when you and Taliktrum drugged him?' Pazel asked.

The ixchel woman shook her head. 'There are several forms of blane, for various uses. We only needed Druffle to sleep. But when Thasha drove that quill into her palm on the marriage dais, she had to appear dead beyond all suspicion. That called for blane of the purest kind — and the most dangerous. Without the antidote, Thasha never would have woken from its grip. She would have slept until she starved.'

'I'm still cold,' said Thasha.

'You will not cast off the chill for days, perhaps,' said Diadrelu. 'My father once pricked his thumb with pure blane. A week later he still suffered nightmares, and felt the drug's cold grip. Sunlight helped, he said.'

'Alas, she will have little of that for a time,' said Hercol. 'This cabin must be your cage, Thasha, until King Oshiram learns the truth of our mission. If I can find a way to contact him at all, that is.'

'And what then?' asked Diadrelu. 'Has he the stomach to quarantine the Great Ship, and fight his way aboard against a hundred Turachs?'

'We must hope so,' said Hercol. 'But there is another question: what if he succeeds? No doubt he will destroy the Shaggat, lest by some guile of Arunis the madman be returned to life. But the Nilstone he cannot destroy: no power in Alifros can. Will he consent to guard it until some better resting place is found? It could break his dynasty — for although its merest touch slays the fearful, someone will always dream of using it, and perhaps succeed. Arunis for one believes that is possible.'

He looked gravely at each of them in turn. 'We must never forget that our fates are tied to the Stone. By our oath, first — to place it beyond the grasp of anyone vile enough to seek to use it — and by the mere fact that we are children of this world. Alifros is great, but the power of the Nilstone is limitless. There will be nowhere to hide if its power is unleashed.' Hercol turned to Thasha with a sigh. 'I had counted on your father's help in persuading Oshiram. But now-'

Thasha gasped. 'Oh, the fool! What happened? He hit the king, didn't he?'

The others smiled at each other but did not laugh. It would not do to be overheard; they were in mourning after all. Before anyone could explain, however, they were interrupted by a shrill cry.

'Hark the voice!'

They jumped. By the door to the washroom stood Felthrup Stargraven, the woken rat, terribly injured in yesterday's battle. They crowded around him, overjoyed. He seemed remarkably steady on his three good feet (the fourth had been crushed by a drainpipe lid) and he twitched his short tail impatiently (another rat had long ago bitten it in two). Jorl and Suzyt barrelled forwards and licked him, an act of love in which Felthrup might soon have drowned. But the rat shook them off and squeaked again: