Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

Pazel watched the skiff approach. Dr Chadfallow was grim, his face hardened against the rancour virtually everyone on the Chathrand felt for him. But Arunis was smiling: a smile of triumph, or so Pazel imagined. Mr Uskins just looked afraid.

Neeps appeared beside them. He looked at Pazel, ashen-faced.

'Felthrup has this horrible idea-'

'Chathrand! Urloh-leh-li! Ahoy ship Chathrand!'

It was a shout from the Jistrolloq: a Mzithrini officer on her foremast was hailing them through a voice-trumpet. On the Chathrand 's own maintop the officer of the watch put a hand to his ear.

'Felthrup's right,' said Pazel.

Dastu looked from one to the other. 'What are you talking about? Who's Felthrup?'

'Admiral Kuminzat begs the honour of serving Captain Rose, Admiral Isiq and such officers as you choose,' boomed the Mzithrini. 'An hour past sunset, aboard this his flagship. Seven dishes and a puff pastry, with Mangali cordials to follow.'

On the skiff, Arunis put back his head and laughed.

'I think I'm going to be sick,' said Neeps.

'A soldier's daughter.' Pazel ground his fists against his forehead. 'Damn him. Gods damn that man.'

Dastu was at a loss. 'Who, damn who?'

'They're chanting her name,' said Neeps.

'Whose name, blast it?' said Dastu. 'Thasha's?'

'No,' said Pazel. 'The other soldier's daughter. The one Sandor Ott had in his pocket all this time. The girl Prince Falmurqat just married. Pacu Lapadolma.'

Without another word he and Neeps turned and headed aft. All night the circle of friends huddled in the stateroom, conspiring anew but feeling checkmated. All night the fireworks exploded over Simjalla, gold and green and silver, and when the wind blew right they heard the chanting, even to the hour of dawn: Pacu, Pacu, Queen of Peace!

I will ask you very plainly: has anything, ever, been more absurd, more whimsical, more devoid of probability and good sense? That I should be given to witness these events and record them, here in my palace of books and meditation and cold unsalted soup? That with an iron stylus I should scribble away the fair days and the foul, write past the stroke of midnight under a lamp burning the ooze of a giant beetle, gaze like a bird hypnotised by the sway of the cobra's hood at the events that shaped my life — their lives — all lives in unlucky Alifros?

Do I deserve this honour? By no means. I invite the reader to observe that I have never stated otherwise. So many deaths on the Chathrand, so many days of agony and despair, so many forms courage took, the sword through the fangs of the flame-troll, the gangrenous leg under the saw, the war in the brine-reeking darkness of the hold. But there are more fundamental questions. Who killed? Who refrained from killing? Who shielded reason, frailest blossom ever to open in the soul of man, from the hailstorms of violence and revenge?

Not me. Not this poor editor to whom the angels lend their vision for a time. I read, I write, I drink my cave-shrimp soup and pour my energies into a task for which I know I am unfit. No more can I offer history. No more do I covet for myself.

It seemed essential to me to clear this matter up. Now we may proceed.

7 Teala 941

The horses were strong, and the driver whipped them without mercy, so that the carriage flew heaving and rattling down the cobbled streets. Eberzam Isiq set his back against the wall and kicked until his bare feet bled. The door held. He shouted, but no one answered his cries.

Soon the voices in the street began to fade, as if they were leaving the city centre behind. Stone became wood under the horse's hooves: they were crossing a bridge. He tried to recall the king's chatter, where the river lay, how many crossing-points. Isiq could not even recall its name. Then blackness fell. A tunnel, the driver's shout echoing along its length, the crash of an iron gate closing behind them.

The carriage door opened. Isiq looked out into a large stone chamber. The light was dim; the clammy air was like depths of a hold. Before him stood a trio of young men. They were neatly but not elegantly clothed, and apparently unarmed. Bowing, they apologised for the rough ride. But Isiq knew military manners when he saw them, and military eyes. These men watched his hands as he climbed stiffly to the ground.

'You're Arqualis,' he said.

It was not a question, and they made no denials, but merely turned and led him across the hay-strewn chamber. He passed an open doorway, heard the flutter of some large bird in the shadows. He wondered vaguely if he could ask for shoes.

'Mind the step, Admiral.'

'Am I to be killed?'

The men looked at him, and one of them shrugged. 'We're not given to waste,' he said.

Then something caught his eye. Quick as a snake, he plunged a hand into Isiq's waistcoat vest and removed the bronze flask.

'Not much of a weapon, that,' said Isiq.

The man smiled slightly, opening the flask. 'The Westfirth,' he said, sniffing. 'Fine brandy, that.'

'Stay in the service long enough and you'll be able to afford it. Ah, no. Your kind don't live that long, do you?'

A change came over the young man's face. It was Isiq's last memory, for a time.

'Wake up, Admiral.'

'Kill you… damn and blast.'

He was slouched against a grimy wall. Searing pain, like the worst moments of brain fever induced by Syrays' poisons. His hair stank of spirits and blood. The lad had clubbed him down with his own flask.

'There is shaved ice in the bucket beside you, and a rag.'

His mind was clearing. He knew that voice, and loathed it like no other. He raised his eyes.

Sandor Ott stood before him. The spymaster's arms were crossed; his gaze was calm, but he looked even worse than Isiq felt. The tapestry of old scars that was his face was overlaid by fresh ones: the raking claw-cuts of Sniraga, Lady Oggosk's cat, who had mauled Ott two days before in Ormael. There were other gashes, made perhaps by the stained-glass window through which he had hurled himself to escape arrest. The wounds were field-dressed, but ugly all the same.

'When you became a spy,' said Isiq, fumbling at the bucket, 'did you seduce many powerful women? For I'd say those days are through.'

'When I became a spy I found I could murder any number of people who displeased me a tenth as much as you have over the years.'

'What I mean is that you're an ugly dog.'

Ott shook his head. 'Displeasure and anger are not the same thing, Isiq. You cannot anger me. I hope, however, that you will not waste my time.'

'I was tortured during the Sugar War,' said Isiq. 'I revealed nothing. And I have less reason to fear you than I did those rebels with their whips and scorpions.'

Ott sighed. 'More reason, in fact. You simply haven't been briefed.'

He sat down beside the admiral, hands on knees. Only then did Isiq realise that they were completely alone. A few yards away stood a mean little table, two chairs and a candle, the only source of light. Beyond the table he saw a vague metallic gleam, possibly a hinge or doornob. He could not see the other walls.

'Before the Oshirams came to power in Simja,' said Ott suddenly, 'there were eight King Ombroths, who were in turn preceded by a century of rule by the Trothe of Chereste. And before the Trothe this island was ruled by a demonic queen, a madwoman with a crab's claw where her left hand should have been. She had congress with spirits, and unnatural long life: one hundred and twenty years she sat on the throne. An age the Simjans would rather forget.'

Isiq looked at the man on his right. He was close enough to touch. One of his eyes was grotesquely bloodshot: the cat must have sunk a claw there. He had no visible weapon. Not that it mattered. Sandor Ott was the most notorious killer in the Empire. He could kill Isiq in seconds, any number of ways.