Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

' "What do you hunt, Your Majesty?" I asked her.

' "Why, my throne," she said, as if surprised by the question. And yet anyone would have forgiven me if I had laughed. She had been a stateless monarch for thirty years. I had been with her for the last twelve, and had watched her entourage dwindle from seven hundred to sixty, half of them old, less than a dozen true warriors. Nine-tenths of her gold was spent, and her sons were in ice-coffins sailing back to Magad the Fifth. How could she even begin?

'I learned soon enough. "Open that chest by the window, Asprodel, and bring me what lies therein," she said. I obeyed her, and this what I found.'

Hercol seized the hilt of his sword, and in a swift, quiet motion pulled the weapon from its sheath. In the dim light the blade was little more than a shadow, and yet somehow they could all sense its nearness, as though it were radiating heat, though they felt none.

'"That is Ildraquin," Maisa told me. "Earthblood, in the tongue of the Selk, who made it from the steel of the Gates of Idharin, when that city was no more. Six miles beneath the earth they forged it, under Wrath Mountain. It was their gift to Bectur, last of the Amber Kings." '

' "I have heard of that sword," I told her, "but under a different name: Curse-Cleaver, men call it, do they not?" '

'"They do," she said, "for in the deep heart of Alifros all curses die, and something of that heart's molten power was caught, they say, in the tempering of the blade. And Ildraquin did break the curse that had wrapped the Amber Kings in misery and sloth, they say, for Bectur's reign was like a last ray of sun beneath the thunderheads, before a long night of storm. It was far too late to prevent the storm. Let us hope we are not too late again."

'With that she sheathed the sword and passed it to me. I began to object, but she silenced me with an impatient gesture. "Whom do you imagine I am guarding it for? A son?" I found no words to answer, so she continued: "Gather your things, Asprodel. You ride today upon the river, with the timber-men to Itholoj, and thence to the coast, and by the first ship bound for Etherhorde. A great ally awaits us there: probably the greatest we shall have in this campaign, although he shall never wield a sword. He is a mage, Ramachni Fremken, and he has stepped already into the life of the daughter of my admiral, Eberzam Isiq."

'Ha!' cried Pazel, turning to Thasha. 'And you thought Ramachni had befriended you just so that he could find me, and teach me those Master-Words. But he's always been part of something larger.'

'Well I knew that much,' said Thasha. 'In fact I always thought he was part of something enormous — bigger than who rules Arqual, or whether it fights another war with the Mzithrin. I suppose that something was the Nilstone. But to this day I feel like there's more to the story than he's telling me.'

Hercol was studiously avoiding her eye. 'Ott had chosen you already to play a part in the Shaggat's return,' he said stiffly. 'The prophecy with which he had infected the Nessarim required a military daughter. Ramachni knew of his interest in you almost from the moment of your birth, and bid me watch over you, and befriend your father. Alas, I never came close to guessing the nature of that interest.'

'So the admiral's on Maisa's side as well!' said Neeps excitedly. 'Right, Hercol?'

The Tholjassan shook his head. 'Eberzam suspects that Maisa lives, and even that I am pledged to her cause. But he has always had the tact not to pose the question to me directly, lest he force me into an admission that would inconvenience us both. The admiral long ago swore an oath to Magad the Fifth, and it has cost him terribly to break it. Only knowledge of the Shaggat conspiracy proved strong enough.'

'The loyalties of a lifetime are hard to part with, even for the finest reasons,' said Dri, still gazing at Hercol.

'I wish he were aboard,' whispered Thasha.

Pazel heard the stifled misery in her voice. He had to fight the urge to take her hand, right there before them all.

Suddenly the shell embedded in his skin began to burn. Pazel clenched his teeth. Klyst knew, Klyst always knew, when his heart went out to Thasha. And if the murth-girl — wherever she was, whatever she had become — could read his feelings so plainly, couldn't Oggosk do the same?

Where Thasha is concerned I shall not be in the least forgiving.

He looked at Diadrelu. He could kill this woman and all her people, just by caring too much for the girl at his side.

Sealed fates, he thought. All of us murderers before the end. He could almost have laughed at the absurdity of it all.

And then the cannon fire began.

From the new journal of G.Starling Fiffengurt, Quartermaster

Wednesday, 11 Freala 941. Little lad or lass, in Etherhorde or wherever Anni has gone to bring you safe into the world: say a prayer for your father amp; his shipmates.

What perfect nonsense; the babe is not yet even born. Nor do I see the point in begging those above, whose wisdom after all is perfect, to act according to my reckoning of what is right. Nor do I know what is right. All gone, those certainties. Should I scuttle this ship? Light a flame in the powder room, blow Miss Thasha amp; Pathkendle amp; Undrabust amp; that wee babe's foolish father to smithereens, along with Rose, Arunis, Alyash, Drellarek amp; the rest of these rabid hyenas?

Should I kill eight hundred men?

Rin help you, Fiffengurt, you're lost.

Early this morning the whaleship Sanguine raised a cheerful flag[water damage: four lines illegible]

— comed their captain aboard, amp; with us officers in attendance took him to the wardroom for honey-cakes amp; beer. Rose had Mr Thyne of the Chathrand Trading Family pulled out of mothballs for the charade, and Latzlo too; the old hide-hustler could talk whaling better than most of us, and soon had the Sanguine's skipper [one Cpt. Magritte of Ballytween] rattling on about those Cazencian whales we chanced among twelve days ago.

Was that Cazencian blubber he had boiling in his try-pots? Latzlo asked, his face aglow with excitement. No, no, said Magritte: they had spotted marblebacks just yesterday, and caught one with ease. But one Cazencian was worth fifty common marblebacks, he reminded us, 'for you just don't meet with 'em no more.' The Sanguine had chased the pod from Rukmast without taking a single animal, amp; Magritte was overjoyed to hear that we had spotted them again.

'I'll catch 'em yet!' he declared with a twinkle. 'Lost two of my lads to those tricky fish. My best harpooner sank his shaft in the largest, and the creature dived, and the line played out a half-league or more — and then a snag! Tragedy, gents! Don't know if it was someone's leg wrapped in the line, a shorn timber, an oarlock — but away that little boat flew, east towards Perdition-knows-where, and by the time the other boats were shipped and we tacked to chase 'em the fog was on us. We've been hunting for 'em ever since.'

I kept on munching cakes. When he hailed us this morning, were his first words, Have ye seen our lost boys? No: he asked after the whales, even though that harpoon crew must have cut themselves free in the first half-hour. And didn't they stop to skewer that marbleback? It's profits he was dreaming of, not the rescue of his men.

He had news of his own, this whaler. Volpeks to our east in great numbers. Nine warships at a glance, he claims to have seen, amp; suspects a raid on the Ulluprids is in the works. Captain Rose thanked him for the warning amp; poured more beer.

'I am glad the fog lifted, and allowed this happy rendezvous,' he said. But his voice was as cold as a judge preparing to send a man to the gallows.

'And shall I tell you a preposterous rumour?' said Magritte. 'They say the isle of the lunatics is up in arms. I mean Gurishal. That's right, sirs, the stronghold of that murdering madman, the one our fathers killed for the Sizzies. His cult isn't dead; and the strangest part is that those crazies think their old Shaggat's coming back from the dead. That's why they're all stirred up.'