Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

They entered, warily lifting aside an old batik curtain, and saw the duchess seated on a black cushioned chair against the far wall, with her enormous cat Sniraga pacing before her, its red tail twitching like a snake. The light was dim: no lamp burned, but a six-inch-square bit of glass planking was set into the ceiling, allowing a little pale, diffuse sunlight to enter from the deck above. 'Close the door behind you,' said Oggosk, 'and sit down.'

But where? The cabin was small and preposterously cluttered. The boys' shoulders bumped together as they took in the shelves, footstools, scroll cases, stoppered flasks, ancient sun parasols, bead boxes, cigar boxes, dangling bunches of dried herbs, weird animal statuettes. It was not clear where Oggosk slept: the furniture was buried under shawls and sea-cloaks and massive age-darkened books.

There was literally no space free of clutter except for the thin path between Oggosk's chair and the door. So when Oggosk indicated with an impatient gesture that she really did mean for them to sit, that is where they did so.

'Did you hear that messenger bird on Simja?' she asked without preamble.

'The woken bird?' asked Pazel.

'Of course.'

'I did,' said Neeps, 'what of it?'

'Do you know the story of the Garden of Happiness?'

Pazel sighed. 'You can't grow up in Arqual, or anywhere near it, without hearing that stupid tale.'2

'There was a peacock, too,' said Oggosk, 'in the governor's palace at Ormael, who fawned on his brainless wife. "O saintly lady," it called her. And one of Mr Latzlo's beasts, a climbing anteater, has the look in its eye right now: the look of terror that comes before a waking. The animal should have been given to the Simjans — where is it to find ants, on the Ruling Sea? — but Sandor Ott's order that no one be allowed off the ship extends even to animals, it seems. And perhaps he was right, at that.'

The boys exchanged a look of impatience.

'That odious man spoke of selling his anteater,' she went on, 'with no more concern for its well-being than if it were a piece of taxidermy — bloodless, soulless, stuffed.'

'Like Arqualis do with slaves,' Pazel couldn't resist adding.

'Just so,' agreed Oggosk. 'Though the ban on slavery that has taken root in Etherhorde may be extended to the outer territories, soon enough.'

'Soon enough? ' Neeps said, laughing under his breath.

Suddenly the old woman's glance was sharp. 'We were discussing the waking phenomenon,' she said. 'Consider, boys: it has been going on for some eleven centuries. But in the first ten, only a few hundred animals awoke. There have been that many in the last forty years alone, and the rate is still increasing.'

'We can see that,' said Pazel. 'But what does it have to do with us?'

'Try thinking before you ask,' she said. 'What happened forty years ago?'

'The great war ended,' said Neeps at once.

'And?'

'The Mzithrin drove the Shaggat's followers back to Gurishal,' said Pazel, 'and Arqual took the Shaggat prisoner, in secret.'

'Yes, yes, and?'

'The Red Wolf,' said Pazel. 'The Red Wolf fell into the sea.'

'With the Nilstone inside it,' said Oggosk. 'Precisely. The Shaggat Ness, with Arunis goading him on, squandered the last of his military strength on a suicidal raid on Babqri City. He took the Wolf from the Citadel of Hing, though the Mzithrinis blasted most of his ships to matchwood as he did so. But the Shaggat escaped with the Wolf, and made it as far as the Haunted Coast before we sank his ship. And from that day the Nilstone itself began to wake.

'The Citadel, you see, was a containment vessel for the Stone — a protection against its evil, like the Red Wolf itself. Half our protection, then, was stripped away forty years ago when the Shaggat raided the Citadel. The rest melted away with the Wolf.'

'So the Nilstone is behind all these wakings!' said Neeps.

'The Nilstone's power, yes,' said Oggosk, 'but the spell was cast by a living person.'

Her lips formed a tight line, and she studied them as though reluctant to share anything more. But after a moment she continued: 'Beyond this world and its heavens, in the Court of Rin if you like, there is a debate about the worth of consciousness. What good is intelligence? What's it for? Shouldn't Alifros be better off without it? And if not, which creatures should possess the sort of minds we call woken? It is an ancient debate, and a hard one, even for eternal beings. It is not settled yet.

'But centuries ago, an upstart mage decided to take matters into her own hands. Every other wizard and seer in Alifros opposed her — but she held the Nilstone, and did not listen. Ramachni may have told you about this mage; I am certain he told Thasha. Her name was Erithusme.'

'He told us,' said Pazel. 'He said she was the greatest mage since the Worldstorm.'

'Undeniably,' said Oggosk. 'She healed many a country devastated by the Storm, and drove the Nelluroq Vortex away from land, and put the demon lords in chains. But Erithusme laboured under a curse, for her power had been sparked by the Nilstone. She was the first being capable of using it in twelve hundred years, and no one has succeeded since. Courage made it possible: Erithusme was born with an almost total lack of fear, and as you know it is through fear that the Nilstone kills. Without the Stone, her magical powers would have been unremarkable. With it, she changed the course of the world — and not for the better, mind.'

'Are you saying she was evil?' Pazel asked.

'I am merely saying that she relied on the Stone,' said Oggosk, 'and the stone is evil perfected: a coagulate lump of infernal malice, spat into Alifros from the world of the dead. She never let it master her, as the Fell Princes did of old. She was that strong. But no mage is strong enough to stop the side effects of using the Stone. Every miracle she worked came with a cost. She chained the demon lords, only to learn that it was in their nature when free to devour lesser demons, who began to flourish like weeds. She banished the Vortex to the depths of the Ruling Sea, but the spell-energy that pushed it there also doubled its size.'

'And the wakings-'

'The wakings, yes. They were Erithusme's last great effort. She looked at the world's suffering, its violence and greed, its long history of self-inflicted harm, and decided that it all began with thoughtlessness. And so she decided that the cure must be more thought, and more thinkers. She prepared a long time in secret, for what would be the mightiest deed of her life. And when she was ready she took the Stone in hand and cast the Waking Spell.

'It swept over Alifros like a flame. Everywhere, animals began erupting into consciousness. Soon they were learning languages, demanding rights, fighting for their lives and territories. But the spell did not stop with animals. There were stirrings even among the lowest things, a hum of thought in certain mountains, awareness in the flow of rivers, contemplation in boulders and ancient oaks. Her idea was to let all the world talk back to man, to help him see his mistakes, end his plunder, live at last in balance with the rest of Alifros. Paradise would be achieved, she thought, when all creation found a voice.

'The Nilstone, of course, had other ideas. Rather than create a Garden of Happiness, the Waking Spell plunged Alifros into a nightmare. The side effects! The monsters unleashed into Alifros, the diseases! The talking fever is but one example, and far from the worst. What does a mountain think, when a wizard shakes it from peaceful slumber? Not thoughts of gratitude, I can assure you.'

Pazel fidgeted; Oggosk's gaze always seemed to unsettle him. 'Couldn't Erithusme just cancel the spell?'

'Obviously not,' snapped Oggosk. 'Her mastery of the Stone was not total — otherwise she would hardly have devoted the rest of her life to getting rid of it, would she? No, she is gone, but the Waking Spell continues. And will continue, in all its glory and perversion, so long as the Nilstone remains to give it power. With the Red Wolf destroyed, that spell is returned to its full force, and we are all in danger.'