Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

When he had returned to the ground, Pazel had asked, 'What did you carve there, Papa?'

Gregory had just ruffled his hair. 'Go and have a look yourself,' he'd teased, making Pazel laugh aloud. It would be years before he could reach the lowest branch.

Gregory never told Pazel what he'd carved, and after his desertion Pazel had decided that he didn't care. He could climb as well as his father, now. But even if he one day saw Ormael again, why should he go looking for that tree? For years he'd tried to convince himself that his father had some heroic reason for abandoning them. But the Haunted Coast had provided a simpler, uglier truth. Captain Gregory didn't give a damn.

All at once Pazel realised that he was quite cold. He'd lingered too long, grown too still, and his pants were soaked with chilly spray. It was time to get out of the wind. Carefully reversing his grip on the Goose-Girl, Pazel negotiated an about-face. He looked down at the forecastle — and saw Arunis gliding towards him with a smile.

The mage had not harmed a soul since the day of Thasha's wedding, but the few sailors in his path leaped away as if from a marauding tiger. Pazel suddenly realised how very vulnerable he was. Everyone but the lookouts had fled the forecastle, and even the latter two sailors stood uneasily by the ladder, as though weighing the danger of abandoning their posts against the threat of that figure in black.

Pazel scrambled down the bowsprit. But Arunis, with startling quickness for such a heavyset man, leaped up to the marines' walk — that narrow platform that was the only way on or off the bowsprit. He raised an open hand, as if warning Pazel to remain where he was.

Pazel stopped. He was some eight feet from the sorcerer, and had no doubt that he could keep out of the mage's grip long enough to shout for aid. But the marines' walk had only two knotted ropes for rails. If he tried to squeeze by onto the deck Arunis could attack him, perhaps even push him into the sea.

'What do you want?' he said.

Arunis' white scarf flapped in the wind. He placed a hand on each rope. 'A little of your time,' he said. 'You have more to spare than other boys on this ship, after all.'

'I don't have anything to say to you. Murderer.'

Arunis gazed at him, unperturbed. 'Even as enemies we have rather a lot to learn from each other,' he said, 'or hasn't Hercol taught you that first maxim of the fighting man? "In single combat, your foe is the only one who can help you defeat your foe." But that, I hope, shall prove beside the point. For there is no reason why we should remain enemies, Mr Pathkendle.'

Pazel laughed. 'No, none at all. Except that you fed me powdered glass, and nearly strangled Thasha. To say nothing of what you told the sibyl on Dhola's Rib. Something about "scouring the world for its new dispensation," wasn't it? Care to explain that one to me?'

'I would like nothing better,' said Arunis. 'It is the horror of my life, being misunderstood. What you heard on Dhola's Rib, for instance: of course it sounded vile. And so must all my actions, since we were introduced as enemies. But you do not truly know me, yet — and you do not know the burden I carry.

'I am the greatest mage in Alifros. I am thrice the age of the Empire of Arqual. The Old Faith was but a collection of prayers and mumbles when I first walked the paths of Ullum, and the name of Rin had yet to be spoken by human lips. I have served this world as seer and counsellor for thirty centuries, lad. Her destiny is my destiny; her life is what I live for.'

Pazel snorted. 'Funny how much joy you take in ending lives, in that case.'

Arunis shook his head. 'No more than the gardener who pinches cutworms between his fingers to save the crop. You have closed your mind for sentimental reasons, Pazel. Did not Ramachni himself warn you to seek allies in unlikely places?'

Pazel was shocked. How Arunis could have come by such knowledge he could not begin to imagine. He's spying on us somehow. I've got to warn them.

'You are convinced you wish my defeat,' Arunis went on. 'You are persuaded that the breaking of two corrupt empires — for that is what the Shaggat's victory will mean, the end of both Arqual and the Mzithrin — will be a bad thing for this world.'

'I'm persuaded that a world ruled by you would be a thousand times worse.'

Arunis stepped towards him, impatience flashing in his eyes. 'And why is that? What do you know of my true intentions? Nothing. But I know a great deal about yours. I know you dream of finding your mother and sister. Would you like my help? I could locate them within the hour, by my arts, and tell you how they fare.'

For a moment Pazel could not speak.The faces of his mother and sister, their smiles, their laughs'No,' he said. 'I don't want your help. You wouldn't, anyway.' Arunis drew closer still. 'I know that you hate Arqual for its crimes. How could you not, when you've seen it destroy your family, your home, your very nation? When you know it is ruled by those who seduce their enemies with talk of peace, all the while hiding a knife called the Shaggat behind their backs? A knife with which they plan to reopen their enemies' deepest wound?

'Think, Pazel, of what will happen if I step aside. Either Sandor Ott's plan will succeed, and the Shaggat will rise and cripple the Mzithrin, and within a decade the Pentarchy will collapse, routed by the armies of Arqual. Or the plan will fail, and provide an immaculate excuse for a new global war — a war of equals, a war of blackest hatred, a war without end.

'In either case the innocent will die in countless numbers, and the survivors inherit a ruined world. If Ott triumphs, you may imagine the future as a bloody rag in the fist of the Magad dynasty, a fist that tightens forever, even when there is no blood left to wring out. And should he fail — two fists contending for the rag, Arquali and Mzithrini, tearing, pulling, shredding it ever finer.'

'And in your future?'

'In mine, quite simply, the Shaggat's triumph will be so swift that Alifros will be spared the worst part of war. Fleets will burn, but not cities. Armies will be destroyed, but not the countries they hail from. There will be death, but how much less so than otherwise! My future is the least of the evils arrayed before us — surely you see that now?'

Pazel said nothing. Arunis rested a foot on the bowsprit.

'Listen to me, boy. Your morals are a good thing. But they are simple hand-tools, and the world, like this ship, is a vast machine. You cannot expect your notion of the good to serve all purposes, any more than you could cut new lumber for this ship with a pocketknife.'

Pazel averted his eyes. The late sun was blazing behind Arunis, yet he felt colder than ever — almost numb with cold, and his mind was dull and doubtful.

'I don't believe you,' he said.

The mage smiled again. 'But at least you hear me — that is enough. Pazel, there are moments in history when what appears to be an evil is the only path to the good. Humans are a flawed creation. Gather them in any numbers, and they kill. Dreamers like Hercol will never admit this truth — and in the end it is they who must be blamed when their pretty fantasies collapse. Arqual and the Mzithrin are the twin banes of Alifros. How would you choose, in your youthful clarity of heart? Destroy two wicked empires — or stand back and watch them destroy the world?'

Pazel clung there, six feet from Arunis, shaking his head. 'Neither,' he managed at last.

'That too is a choice — to do nothing, shrug off the burdens fate gives us, pray that others will lead in our stead. But I do not think you are that kind of man. You're a captain's son, after all.'

Pazel looked up sharply. The mention of his father brought all his anger back in a flash.