Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

And now Pazel was angry — angry as he'd never been before in his life. He glared at the sorcerer, who stood swaying across his path, doubled over, drawing laboured breaths.

'What's it all for, Arunis?' he demanded. 'You want to rule the world — why? You'd still be a rotten beast full of hate and lies and ugliness. You'd still be you.'

Arunis sagged against the ropes, but there was an odd gleam to his exhausted eyes. 'No I wouldn't,' he said.

But Pazel was no longer listening. 'You're the one who should get off at Bramian. The greatest mage in Alifros! Go on, get out of my way.'

Swaying feebly, Arunis shook his head. Pazel could stand it no longer: he leaned forwards and grabbed Arunis' fingers, prying them easily from the rope.

'Nauldrok!'

The mage's voice whiplashed through Pazel's mind and limbs. He felt himself driven backwards. He seized desperately at the ropes, stumbled, caught himself on the bowsprit proper — and there he froze. His fingers went numb, his body weak and lifeless. The heat from Klyst's shell was gone.

Arunis looked even worse than Pazel felt. He might have been a man afflicted by a wasting disease, too weak to do more than prop himself up on the ropes, yet triumph shone in his eyes. After a few more gasping breaths, he found his voice.

'You are about to die, maggot. I would prefer to strangle you, but that would be noticed, and you have caused me difficulties enough.'

He forced himself upright. 'I am what I claimed,' he said. 'Who is greater than Arunis? Your mother, who turned you into a convulsive? The mighty Ramachni? But they show no signs of coming to your aid. And where, for that matter, are Neeps and your lovely Thasha? It appears no one is thinking of you at all.'

Pazel knew where Thasha was — in her cabin, reading the Polylex and comforting the still-frightened Marila. She would not be looking for him, true enough — he had been rude to her again, unable to forget Oggosk's threat. Neeps would not come either: he was too irritated with the sailors who had spurned their aid. And if those lookouts or the men on the spars were watching, as surely they must be, what would they notice? Arunis had not laid a hand on him.

'Ah!' said the sorcerer. 'Take heart, Pathkendle. You are not friendless after all.'

Pazel just managed to raise his eyes. Up the forecastle ladder was climbing the last person on earth he wished to see: Jervik. The older tarboy stopped to speak to the lookouts, and glanced warily at Arunis.

'You will soon lose your grip,' said the mage, 'and plummet into the sea. By then I shall be in my quarters. But I have a few thoughts for you to ponder ere you fall.

'It was your own pride that doomed you, of course. Did you feel protected by Ramachni's spell? Idiot. You were safe, until you touched me of your own volition. By doing so you let me see through you like a glass. Now I know that you are not the spell-keeper, and I risk no harm to the Shaggat by killing you.

'Consider this as well: your friends will know agony. What Thasha suffered by that necklace is but a foretaste. She will become the plaything of the Gurishal lunatics, or of the Shaggat himself if he wants her. She will bear children who will be taken from her and raised in the knowledge that their mother was a whore. Neeps Undrabust will be lowered into tanner's acid, gradually, until his screaming stops. Fiffengurt will be blinded and abandoned to the lepers of Ursyl. Hercol's queen will be devoured by wolfhounds before his eyes.

'And then there is your city. When I rule this world through the Shaggat, I shall finish the job Arqual began five years ago. Ormael will be razed, the adults taken into the Straits of Simja and drowned, the children scattered to other lands and made to forget their language. All this I shall see to personally — in memory of you, Pazel Pathkendle. Goodbye.'

The mage departed without a backward glance. As he passed Jervik he made a sharp gesture in Pazel's direction. Jervik nodded and hurried to the bowsprit.

'Muketch,' he said, in a low, gleeful voice. 'What've you got yer brown arse into now?'

The lookouts were back at their designated spots on the port and starboard rails. Pazel tried to speak, but only managed a feeble moan. With each pitch of the ship he felt his fingers loosening.

'Quiet, eh?' said Jervik. 'He said you might be. Tha's all right. I can sit here as long as you like. But if you try somethin' I'll deck you proper, s'help me Rin.'

With immense effort, Pazel shook his head. Jervik grinned, his face like a wide-mouthed frog. Then, with a glance over his shoulder, he pulled something from his shirt and held it up for Pazel to admire.

On a leather cord beside his brass Citizenship Ring hung a thick gold bead. It might have weighed as much as eight or nine Arquali cockles, and been worth ten times that, if the metal was as pure as it looked.

'I'm rich,' he said. 'I'll have one o' these every week I do his biddun.'

Pazel was finding it difficult to blink. A few more pitches of the bow and he would drop like a stone.

'What're you doin' out there, you daft pig?' said the older boy after a moment. 'Get in here. I'm s'posed to watch you, is all. I'm not gonna hurt you.'

He stepped forwards. He was getting annoyed at Pazel's silence. And all at once Pazel understood the part Arunis had in mind for Jervik.

You poor imbecile.

There was no way to warn him. When Pazel's head lolled down to his chest he could not raise it again.

'I said, get in 'ere!'

Jervik cuffed the back of his head — signing his own death warrant (for murderers at sea were hanged from the yardarm, no exceptions) if he only knew. Pazel barely felt the blow, but with the next pitch of the Chathrand his arm slipped from the Goose-Girl. Jervik gave a sort of woof of surprise. Pazel was looking head-down at the churning sea. Then, as the bowsprit rose again, he fell.

Onto an outstretched arm.

Belesar Bolutu was there, shirtless, wrenching Pazel out of his fall and against his black chest. The man had leaped past Jervik and straddled the bowsprit, clinging for dear life with his legs. An incoherent howl escaped his tongueless mouth.

For a hideous moment Pazel felt them both sliding into a fall — he lifeless as a sack, Bolutu with his arms locked around his chest. Then the lookouts dived on Bolutu with cries of By the board! By the board! and hauled the two of them to safety.

Dimly, he felt hands stretch him out on the deck. The forecastle was suddenly crowded: others must have flung themselves down from the rigging the moment his fall began. The voices were far away.

'Another fit! The boy's a menace to himself!'

'He was pushed! Jervik Lank did it, the dirty bastard!'

'Are ye sure it was Lank? What about that damned Arunis?'

Sudden silence. Pazel wheezed, and they all looked down at him thoughtfully. Somewhere in the depths of the ship the white dog began to bark.

'Arunis didn't lay a finger on him,' said one of the lookouts. 'He just talked and went his way.'

'Why don't the muketch say nothin'?'

'He jumped! He jumped! Didn't he, Brother Bolutu, sir?'

A pail of seawater struck his face. Pazel gasped, and found he could move again. Even as he struggled to sit up, Neeps and Thasha pushed their way through the crowd.

'Pazel!' cried Neeps. 'Burning devils, what's happened to you now?'

'I'm all right,' he said, letting them pull him to his feet.

He was very dizzy. Scores of off-duty men surrounded them, but only Neeps and Thasha held his arms. 'What did you want die for, Pathkendle?' asked one of the lookouts.

'Oh shut up!' said Thasha. 'Pazel, it was Jervik, wasn't it? That vicious thug, I'll-'

'No,' said Pazel. 'Not this time.' He took a stumbling step, and the crowd parted before him. 'Where's Bolutu gone?' he said. 'That man just saved my life.'