Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

'I'll give you one more chance to tell me what you want,' he said, 'before I shout for the guards.'

The mage looked at him steadily. 'You are shivering,' he said. 'Are you coming down with a cold?'

'I've been out here a long time.'

'Quite true,' said Arunis. 'You have been alone in more ways than most men experience in a lifetime, and you have known no rest. Your life has been marked by one terrible change after another. And I can only offer you another — a frightful change, I know, but I promise it will be the last. For you are a Smythidor, a being changed by spellcraft for ever, and because of that you will never belong with any but your own kind. You belong with me, boy, at my side as student and disciple, heir to my wisdom and arts. This is what I offer you. Will you not consider?'

Pazel found himself trapped by the mage's eyes, which had taken on a cold, bright sheen. The heat of his rage was no match for that glow, that spider's hunger. He could not look away.

'At… your side?'

'Yes, said Arunis, 'for ever. Shall I tell you something? You may be aware that I called a spirit to my cabin, before we left the Bay of Simja. It was the ghost of Sathek, a mage-king of the ancient world, and a wise and terrible king he was. Sathek told me that I should meet a child of Alifros aboard this ship who would grow into as mighty a spell-weaver as I am myself. Of course I knew at once that he meant you.'

'I'm not a mage,' said Pazel.

'But you will be,' said Arunis, extending his hand. 'Come, Pazel Pathkendle. I am the home you've been looking for. I am your natural ally. Not a coarse island boy like Mr Undrabust. Not the doctor who lusts after your mother. Not the vixen child of the man who laid waste to Ormael.'

'Who — who do you…?'

'Thasha, you simpleton, the girl who laughs when she beats you with sticks.'

'Don't you try-' Pazel's shook his head with tremendous effort. '-don't you dream of turning me against her, damn you, I-'

He broke off. Why were they even talking? Why wasn't he shouting for help?

Arunis looked at him thoughtfully. When he spoke again his voice was quite changed. 'I would never try to turn you against Thasha,' he said. 'Oh no! You misunderstand me entirely. Do you think that we mages plumb the secrets of the several worlds, yet remain ignorant of the noblest of all human feelings? Do you think us so stupid and cold?'

'C-cold-'

'No matter. Tell me of your feelings for Thasha Isiq. It will do you good to speak of them.'

But Pazel shook his head again.

'I understand,' said the mage. 'You are protecting what is new to your heart, and I shall ask no further. But you must let me help you.'

His tone was sharply aggrieved. Pazel felt a sense of guilt creep over him, stealthy and quick. He felt suddenly as though he had spat on the efforts of a kindly uncle.

'Tomorrow we shall make landfall on Bramian,' said Arunis, 'and there — surely you know this already, deep inside? — the two of you must depart. For not a soul on this ship, myself included, will ever see the placid eastern world again, once we enter the Ruling Sea. It is a mission of death, my boy. Why sacrifice yourselves? Why betray Thasha, and the bliss of a life together, before it has truly begun? Tell me, as one man to another: have you not sensed the possibility of such bliss?'

Pazel was lost, in a cold, enveloping fog; and Thasha was the only point of warmth. 'Yes,' he said quietly, 'I have.'

'Then you must hold true to that feeling, Pazel Pathkendle, no matter what you are told. Run off with your Thasha! Hide from the savages until your Gift begins to work again. Then approach those forest men and address them in their tongue. They will not only spare your lives, but worship you, and lead you to their river strongholds, and serve you like slaves. Become Lord and Lady of Bramian! There are wonders in her interior mete for a clever lad like you to discover. And you could find no safer place in Alifros to sit out the coming war.'

Pazel gazed at him in wonder. After a moment, he said, 'Leave. With Thasha.'

'Just so,' said Arunis. 'And who could blame you? Both of you have been cruelly exploited by the Empire. But instead of seeking revenge you actually helped them, risked your lives for them, over and over. They cannot ask you for more.'

'How would we get ashore?'

Arunis smiled. 'That will be my gift to you — a small gesture of amends for the feud we've overcome. Merely give me your hand, and think your promise to depart. Give it to me now; I shall hold your promise in my fist, and tend it like a seed, and before we reach the island my spell will be ready. Then bring Thasha to my cabin, between midnight and dawn. Ask her to trust you — as she will all her life, when she is yours alone — and when we three join hands I shall send you to Bramian in an instant.'

The sorcerer extended his hand. 'This should be an easy choice — between death and a strange rebirth, between loneliness and ecstasy. If you have the courage to change, that is.'

He made as if to withdraw his hand, and Pazel's heart leaped. He extended his own, desperately — then pulled back at the last instant, torn with doubt. How could this be true? How could they have got so much wrong about Arunis?

A spasm crossed the sorcerer's face, but he mastered it. 'You realise,' he said, 'that she's going anyway.'

'What?'

Arunis nodded gravely. 'Rose means to be rid of her, but he dares not kill her because of Ramachni's spell. How to be sure she lives, and yet tells no one of the conspiracy? Why, by giving her to the savages, people who fear and detest the outside world. They will bear her away to the heart of that gigantic island, and keep her, and make her one of them. Rose has decided already. He knows the trouble a lovely girl may cause on a ship full of desperate men.'

Pazel clutched at the ropes. The cold had reached his fingertips, the roots of his hair, his brain. And as he gazed at Arunis a vision rose before his eyes. He saw himself and Thasha, dressed in a strange finery of wool and parrot feathers and animal skins, standing before a great wooden lodge on a high hill over the jungle. Birds teemed in the treetops, and the sea glittered far away, and purple, snowcapped mountains rose at their backs. Strange men in the clearing below the lodge glanced up with fearful reverence, but kept their distance as befit the servants of a Lord. He and Thasha were older, taller, and she was more beautiful than ever, a woman full grown and splendid, and his arm was about her waist.

Arunis was leaning close to him. 'If she is not yours, and soon, she will be another's. She will give her love to a man of real courage, be it a sailor or some beast of the Bramian jungle. Is that what you want?'

Pazel clung to the knotted ropes. He was a coward, a fool. Thasha was escaping him, slipping through his fingers. She was almost a woman; he was just a tarboy from a conquered race. This was his one chance to have her, his one chance to know love. And it seemed as he extended his hand that it was not Arunis he was reaching for but Thasha herself.

Then something extraordinary happened. Under the skin beside his collarbone an ember of warmth sprang to life. It was distant, but real. And somewhere far away in the hollows of his mind a voice was calling, echoing, like a strange girl's voice from the depths of a cave.

Land-boy, do you forsake me?

'Klyst!'

Arunis straightened, dumbfounded. 'What's that? Klyst?'

The voice was already gone, and the heat from the murth-girl's shell was very faint. But that touch of pure longing from Klyst — still with him, still following the Chathrand! — gave Pazel the strength to tear his eyes away from Arunis' own.

The dream of Bramian vanished. The cold retreated, and strength returned to his limbs. Then Pazel saw the strain in Arunis' face, and the sweat on his brow. The spell had cost him great effort, but it had failed.