Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

'I don't put much store in Chadfallow,' said Neeps, 'but didn't Ramachni say almost the same thing? That the Chathrand was chock-full of old magic — "spells and shreds of spells," as he put it?'

'That she is,' said a voice at their feet. 'No one who dwells in her shadows could think otherwise.'

To their great joy Diadrelu stood before them, in the now-open trapdoor. Pazel and Neeps crouched down to welcome her, but the ixchel woman silenced them with a hand.

'Why is the deck so empty, at this time of day? Are you certain you're alone?'

When they told her of the whaler, and that Rose had called all hands to duty stations, Dri seemed to breathe a little easier. She did not look particularly well. Her face was weary and sad, and her copper skin was paler than Pazel remembered.

'My sophister Ensyl is watching the compartment door. If she calls a warning I will be gone before you can wish me goodbye.'

'We've been worried sick about you, Dri,' he said. 'It's been over a month! Where have you been?'

'Under arrest,' she replied. 'House arrest, merely: no fear, I'm quite comfortable. But I am forbidden to leave my quarters except when accompanied by Taliktrum's personal guard.'

'Your nephew gives you orders now?'

'Lord Taliktrum rules over us all,' said Dri stiffly. 'But certain orders I find impossible to obey.'

'Hear, hear,' said Neeps approvingly.

But the ixchel woman shook her head. 'This is a grave matter for the ixchel. Our survival has always depended on strong clans, and the very bone and sinew of a clan is obedience. I have come to understand, however, that there are higher allegiances even than clan.'

'You speak the truth,' said Hercol. 'The carnage Arunis will unleash if he finds a way to use the Nilstone — through his Shaggat, or by some other means — will sweep aside the little people and the large. Does Taliktrum know of the oath we took together, then?'

'Rin forbid!' said Dri. 'If any part of him believes in me still, it will die when he learns of that oath! No, the story is far simpler. When Taliktrum discovered my use of blane and its antidote on your wedding day, he chose to call it theft. When I told him that I had killed the Shaggat's son, he thanked me for my "decades of service to the clan" and imprisoned me.'

'It was you who killed him, then,' said Hercol. 'I did wonder about that curious accident.'

'It was I,' said Diadrelu, 'though I had no joy in the act. Those two were children when the Shaggat began his crusade. They are as much the victims of his evil as anyone. First they paid with their sanity; now Pithor Ness has paid with his life!'

Dri suddenly pricked up her ears, and so did Pazel: his Gift had tuned his ears permanently to the ixchel register no normal human could hear. A young ixchel woman was announcing Thasha's return. A moment later Thasha entered the passage, breathless, her dreamy look quite gone.

'We're tied up beside the whaler,' she said, 'and their captain's aboard, talking with Rose in his day cabin.' But it's strange: Rose is keeping the whole crew on alert. They're all at their stations, waiting. Oh, Dri!'

Thasha's troubled face lit up. She bent down, and the ixchel woman reached out to touch her hand.

'It is good to be back among you! said Dri. 'But I fear the chance will not come often. Taliktrum's fanatics lurk outside my door, as if expecting some wickedness to issue from it. They do not yet know of this secret passage — my sophisters and I built it alone, some months ago — but how long before they begin to enter my quarters without knocking? Some call me a traitor already.'

'How dare they!' hissed Thasha.

Dri smiled sadly. 'They dare more every hour,' she said. 'The time may soon come when I flee this way not to return, and then you shall have yet another lodger at your inn, Thasha Isiq. Now hear me: I have come with both pleas and warnings. You know, first of all, of the accusation hurled by the Mzithrinis, back in Simja.'

'Know of it!' said Pazel. 'I translated it. They accused someone on the Chathrand of sending a murth or demon or some such creature to attack their old priest — the one they call the Father. And they say he died fighting the beast.'

Dri nodded. 'We had our spies on the topdeck that day, as every day. Some of my people found that standoff between your giant-clans amusing.' She shook her head. 'They might have felt otherwise if Taliktrum had shared the report I gave him.'

Then she told them of the night Arunis had communed with Sathek, the dead spirit with the terrifying voice; and of the arrival of the incubus out of the storm, of its rage, and how Arunis at last had commanded it to go and retrieve a sceptre of some sort from the mainland.

'Sathek's Sceptre!' cried Thasha. 'That was it! I saw a drawing of it in the Polylex months ago! That was the sceptre in the Father's hand!'

'Well this is splendid,' said Neeps. 'Add summoning demons to the list of foul things Arunis can do. Who is this Sathek? Or who was he, when he lived?'

'I hoped you could tell me,' said Diadrelu.

'I can,' said Hercol.

The others turned to him in surprise. Hercol's face was very grave. 'Sathek was the father of the Mzithrin Empire,' he said. 'Mind you, he is not a father they care to speak of today, much less embrace. Some say he was part demon himself. What is certain is that he was the first warlord to conquer all the Mzithrin lands, from the Mang-Mzn to the Nohr Plateau. He did not rule long — the Worldstorm was already raging by the time he built his palace on Mount Olisurn. And his cruelty inspired rebellion. His own people called him 'the soulless one.' Nonetheless he created them, in a sense: the five city-states that rebelled most fiercely grew into the five kingdoms of the Mzithrin Empire.'

'And the sceptre?' asked Pazel.

'He is always depicted with a sceptre,' said Hercol. 'But I know nothing of its purpose. Consult that book of yours, Thasha.'

'Arunis was not capable of summoning the incubus himself,' said Dri thoughtfully. 'If he could have, why beg for Sathek's help? In fact he seemed to fear for his life, until the creature left his cabin.'

She sighed. 'I must proceed to my other warning. Something is amiss with the insects aboard the Chathrand. The night I killed the Shaggat's son I very nearly died as well, on the stinger of a wasplike beast as large as myself. It was deadly, but also tormented and deformed. In a strange way it reminded me of a boar I saw once in the Emperor's own piggery on Mol Etheg. The creature had been bred too aggressively, and fed too much. It was as if Magad had set his heart on having the world's largest, meanest swine. What he got was a beast heaped with more muscle than its own frame could endure. It was in constant pain, and attacked even those who came to feed it, and had to be slaughtered before it was full grown. This insect was misshapen too, and for all its speed it flew somewhat drunkenly. I thought later that it would soon have died even if I had not slain it.'

'And you fear there could be more of these things?' Pazel asked.

'I do,' she said. 'The clan has not met with any — I have a few loyal aides of my own, who bring me news. But a scout in the afterhold reported a moth as large as a human dinner plate, writhing in the air as if in agony. Yesterday, moreover, I heard my earnest caretakers speaking of the biggest, ugliest horsefly ever to wing out of the Pits. And there is one more thing: the rats in the hold and lower decks are miserable with fleas, of a kind more bloodthirsty than any known to rat-kind.'

'Felthrup was complaining of fleas,' said Thasha. 'I'd forgotten all about it. He drowned them in a saltwater bath.'

'Since my arrest I have begged for the right to share this warning with you,' said Dri. 'My nephew has always refused. "When humans pay attention to insects, they pay attention to rats, and we shall all perish if Rose decides to cleanse the ship of rats." Such is Taliktrum's argument, and on this point I cannot disagree. But you have proven your good faith. And why not seek out the source of these deformed insects ourselves?' Dri sighed. 'He will not spare one ixchel for the task.'