Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

There it is, thought Isiq. Your real blind spot, the one that scares you.

'A woken mink, wouldn't you say?'

Ott just looked at him. The question clearly did not merit a reply.

'Well,' said Isiq after a moment, 'perhaps he's a mage at that. The wizard who served the Becturian Viceroys could turn himself into a golden eagle, if you believe the-'

'Is he comatose, or just deeply asleep? Can he be relied upon to kill the sorcerer?'

Isiq felt his heart sink. Ramachni had answered that question clearly enough. Arunis was the stronger, at least in this world; Ramachni was a visitor, forced to crawl back to his own world in exhaustion. Isiq thought of the mage's departure, of the melancholy that had settled over them all. Ramachni had trusted them to find a way to keep Thasha alive, and they had failed. And now Ott was trying to play him again.

'Ramachni is an angel,' he heard himself say, 'one of Rin's golden angels, like my Thasha and her mother. Go ahead, recruit him if you can. But he may prove harder to deceive than I was.'

Ott shrugged again, then rose lightly to his feet. 'As you will. But don't look so morose, Admiral. You did anger me, and that is not easily done. You're not one to give up — in that sense we're very much alike. Perhaps that is why we are among the last men of our generation left fighting for His Supremacy's cause.'

'What cause? Dominion over the whole of Alifros? That is no cause of mine.'

Ott's eyes grew cold; he turned and walked to the table, where his face glowed ghastly in the candlelight. Then he opened the drawer and removed a pen, an inkstand and a sheet of linen paper.

'Speak no words of treason in my hearing,' he said. 'Tell me, does anyone have a cause you believe in? The group who meet in your stateroom, for example?'

Isiq looked up at the spymaster. In his mind's eye he saw the scars etched on the skin of his daughter and her friends: the mark of the Wolf that had safely hidden the Nilstone for a millennium.

'Yes,' he said, 'they do.'

'Then come here and write them a letter. It will be delivered, I assure you.'

He slid the blank page across the table. For a moment Isiq did not move. Then, slowly, he got to his feet and approached the table.

'Anything I want?'

'Once you've explained that you will not be returning to Etherhorde on the Chathrand — yes, anything you want. You may give such reasons as occur to you. But if you tell them that you are being held, you should expect a rescue attempt. Of course they could not find this tomb with a thousand men, but how are they to know? They will try to leave the ship, and will die with arrows in their backs. There will be no one to watch over Thasha's body on the journey home, or to see that she is buried honourably beside her mother.'

'If I'm really to go to Etherhorde, why not let me return on the Great Ship?'

Ott smiled. 'There is no hurry to assume your new post. Besides, I can't guarantee that you're ready to shape the minds of future officers, just yet.'

'You never mean to let me go, do you?'

Ott tapped the paper. 'Come, sir. If you wish to write, you must do so now. I am to meet Drellarek within the hour.'

He sat back, waiting. After another pause Isiq lowered himself in the opposite chair. He stared at Ott, his body rigid with hate. Then he took up the pen and began to write very quickly. He wrote in a kind of fever, filling the page in minutes, and signed his name with a last earnest stroke.

Ott lifted the sheet and waved it gently, drying the ink. Then he gave a sharp whistle. Light from a doorway gleamed suddenly, fifty feet or so away, and the same men who had taken Isiq from the carriage walked into the room.

This time they did not hide their contempt. They took hold of Isiq and roughly pulled him to his feet. Ott looked at the page again.

'"Comrades fall, but the mission endures,"' he read, and nodded. 'I couldn't agree with you more. Indeed your letter is quite satisfactory' — he looked up at Isiq and smiled — 'except that you neglected the star.'

Isiq grew very still.

'The star,' Ott repeated. 'That tiny, seemingly accidental ink blot that you always, without fail, let fall on the third line of your letters, and tease vaguely into a star with the tip of your pen. A sign that you are safe, and not being forced to write against your will. Leave out the star, however, and Hercol Stanapeth will know at a glance that you're a prisoner.'

Isiq felt the hope that had supported him dissolve. He was falling into darkness, and who could say where the fall would end? Ott pressed the nib of the pen to the letter, leaving a droplet, and with great care scratched it into a star. Then he looked up at Isiq and smiled.

'Years ago the Emperor commanded all his high officers to take such precautions. At my insistence. Syrarys made it a point to learn your method, of course.

'Now then: the eighth and ninth levels of Queen Mirkitj's prison are intact, along with their statues. I wish you to spend some time there, among the dead. You will have water and food but no light. Get to know them by feel; I assure you they are fascinating. Only, if you find a broken limb, move quickly away. The rats nibble at them, you see. The dry marrow, the powdery flesh. They are quite territorial, and vicious in the dark.

'When the time is right, we will return and present you with a choice. You can die at once, painlessly. Or you can return to public service, doing the Emperor's work. But know that you will forever be observed. And should you dream of mentioning what you like to call a conspiracy, then Hercol and those two tarboys and Nama your cook and any other you esteem will die by the queen's technique. And I will see you obtain souvenirs that prove it.'

His smile was gone. He nodded to his men, and they began to drag Isiq away. But then with a quick gesture Ott detained them again.

'I did not kill Syrarys, nor would I ever harm her. The years she spent with you were a misery, but she endured them out of love.'

'Love — for you?'

'And duty, Isiq.' The edge of rage was back in Ott's voice. 'To Arqual, our mother- and fatherland, the one hope of order left to this world. But this is useless talk. Some, like you, can never be enlightened. For them the darkness is best.'

'You're not enlightened, Ott,' said Isiq. 'You're enthralled. It's not remotely the same.'

'Syrarys understood,' said Ott through his teeth. 'Every kiss she gave you was necessary. Like Thasha's death. Like the death of your wife — I sawed through that balcony rail myself, Isiq — which allowed Syrarys to take her place at your side.

'I leave nothing to chance, you see. That is a way in which we are not alike.'

8 Teala 941

87th day from Etherhorde

Uthrol, Sarabin, Elegortak, Ingod-Ire of the Killing Dream. Nelu in the lightless depths, and Droth the Master of Masters, Despoiler of Worlds. From a circle of ash within a circle of salt within a circle of tomb earth I call thee, old powers never equalled, ye Lords of the Houses of Night.'

The sorcerer's chant was sibilant and low. He sat on the floor of his cabin; the room was closed, airless; musky smells of bile and camphor and cured meat hung about it. Midnight had come and gone; a blustery wind rattled the glass on the porthole. The white dog slept beneath the bed. From a shelf, a walrus-oil lamp cast its failing light on Arunis, hunched inside the three circles like a dark, thick-bellied spider at the centre of a web.

'Shamid, Woedenon, dread Varag in the Ice…'

Now and then, from a crack in the wall over the mage's shoulder, the light also illuminated a tiny, copper-coloured spark: the gleam of an ixchel eye.

'A demon,' said Ludunte. 'He is a demon in human form.'