Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

'Brother Bolutu took off near as fast as he got here,' said the watch captain, hitching his thumb at the ladder. 'Didn't say a word. Oh, but then he can't, can he?'

They left the gaping men behind. Pazel's hands shook on the ladder, and when he had descended to the topdeck he found himself short of breath. He steadied himself against the wall of the forecastle house, blinking gratefully at his friends.

'Arunis… is spying on us,' he gasped. Despite his exhaustion he knew the spell was fading; already the warm tropical evening had driven the cold from his limbs. He told them of the mage's attack and the part Jervik had played. But he could not bring himself to confess how Arunis had exploited his feelings for Thasha.

'At least we know he's still weak, still recovering from Dhola's Rib, or even before. He can still cast spells, obviously — but it cost him something terrible. I doubt he could have managed the second one if I hadn't touched him.'

'Not likely he was shamming, either, since he thought you'd be dead,' said Thasha.

'He's afraid of you, Thasha. He wants to get you off this ship. Maybe he really is weak, right now. He didn't want anyone to know that he had killed me, so he left Jervik to take the blame. That fool doesn't know how close he came to earning a jump from the mizzenmast.'

'With a noose for a necktie,' said Neeps. 'And I for one wouldn't have shed a — Thasha, what's wrong?'

Thasha's eyes were gleaming with sudden realisation. 'Chadfallow was right,' she said.

Neeps looked at her, then started. 'Blow me down. So he was.'

Pazel looked from one to the other. 'What do you mean? Right about what?'

'There was a fight on the berth deck,' said Thasha. 'Half the crew ran to see it. The crowd was so thick you could hardly move.'

'What sort of a fight?'

Neeps shrugged. 'Plapps versus Burnscoves, that's all we ever heard. It started in the mess hall. Dastu took a few nasty hits — seems he tried to keep the peace, and nobody thanked him. Marila's with him right now in sickbay.'

'By the time we arrived the fight was getting ugly,' said Thasha. 'Hercol was tossing men left and right, shouting at both gangs to come to their senses. I could have helped, but Marila grabbed me around the waist and wouldn't let go. Then Neeps got knocked over and she had to let go of me and grab him before he jumped in and got himself killed.'

'Stubborn little devil, that one,' muttered Neeps.

'The next thing we knew Chadfallow was shouting at us from the edge of the mob: "On your guard! This is not a coincidence!" That's when we asked ourselves what had happened to you.'

'A diversion,' said Neeps, 'the whole blary fight. Arunis didn't want anyone watching the forecastle.' He looked at Pazel sharply. 'And you're a daft one, aren't you?'

'Daft?' said Pazel.

'As a dicky-bird!' said Thasha. 'How could you just sit out there with your back to the ship? Do you have any idea how foolish that was?'

'And it's not even the worst part,' said Neeps. 'He grabbed Arunis by the hand! Rin's chin, mate! Why didn't you just hand over your old man's knife and say, Stab me? '

They began a lively quarrel over the signature moment of Pazel's stupidity. Pazel, who thought of both friends as outrageously devoid of fear, was alarmed to realise how badly he'd shocked them. What he'd done was idiotic, to be sure. For some reason he recalled a question Chadfallow had thrown at him as a challenge, years ago, at their dinner table in Ormael: What's the real tragedy, lad? To fall from a cliff and perish — or to be the sort of man who cares so little for his life that he risks it?

He watched his friends argue: exasperating, irreplaceably dear. He wanted to live for any number of reasons. But first among them was to stop Arunis from carrying out the threats he'd made on the forecastle.

He sighed; there was worse to confess. 'He saw through me when I touched him,' he said, as Neeps and Thasha turned to stare. 'At least that's what he claimed. He said that Ramachni didn't make me the spell-keeper, when I used the Master-Word. So the Shaggat won't be made flesh again if I'm killed.'

A moment's silence. Then Thasha grabbed him by the collar, her hands literally vibrating with rage. 'You imbecile.'

'Just go straight back to the stateroom,' said Neeps, 'and get comfortable. You can make the tea from now on.'

Pazel was livid, but he knew his friends were right. Arunis had nothing to lose by killing him now. And why wouldn't he? Pazel had come closer to stopping him than anyone aboard.

'Listen,' he said. 'I'm sorry. But if you want me to spend the rest of this float in the blary stateroom you'll have to tie me up.'

'That's an idea,' said Thasha.

Pazel glared at her. 'In any case, you're the one who's in danger.' And he told them about Arunis' claim that Rose intended to sell her to the Bramian natives.

'What rubbish!' said Thasha when he had finished.

But Neeps looked worried. 'Maybe it's not,' he said. 'Rose is just crooked enough. And the tribals on Bramian wouldn't get much out of killing you, would they? Not as if you're a threat, once they've whisked you off into those jungles. More likely they'd make you a slave or a servant. That way if you turned out to be the spell-keeper the Shaggat would still be in the clear.'

'Think about it,' said Pazel. 'How else could Rose get you off the ship, keep you from dying, and prevent you from warning the outside world?'

'Thasha,' said Neeps, 'just keep to the stateroom for a while. Until we're away from Bramian.'

She looked from one to the other, exasperated. 'What's got into you two? Hide? Is that all we're going to do, until Rose decides to starve us out, or Ott starts cutting off our fingers? We need to fight back. We need to get back to the list.'

'The list?' said Neeps.

'The list of allies, you donkey — potential allies, I mean. And we need to do it soon. We can't beat them without more people on our side.'

'You're right about that,' said Neeps. 'But we'll have to be so damned careful.' He leaned closer, whispering, 'I have no idea why Rose has been so easy on us, but one thing's for sure: he won't go easy on mutineers.'

Pazel sighed. 'All right, genius. You come up with a plan.'

'We start with one person each,' said Thasha instantly, as though she'd only been waiting for someone to ask. 'Just one. Surely we can each find one person to trust on this ship? If Hercol and Marila do the same thing, we'll have ten people on our side.'

Neeps looked at her eagerly. 'And once we've all met, and decided the best way to fight these cretins-'

'We go out and find ten more,' Thasha finished. 'And if we can just keep doing that, we'll have half the crew on our side before we know it. Of course the trick will be to find them before anyone else knows it.'

Neeps was shaking his head in wonder. 'Thasha, you're as clever as my old Granny Undrabust! You really do have a head for — what's the word?'

'Tactics,' said Pazel.

'Tactics, that's it. All right then: we've got our plan, don't we?'

Pazel didn't answer. The others looked at him in surprise. At last he said, 'How can you possibly think this will work? If we guess wrong about just one person, we're dead as slag. Everything hinges on trust.'

Neeps and Thasha exchanged a glance. 'Trust, yeah,' said Neeps. 'Well, that's something we have, and they don't.'

Pazel shrugged. Once again Thasha was seeing it, that sudden darkening of his spirits, that drawing away. It was agony for her to watch, and she fought back an impulse to reach for him, right in front of Neeps. You're afraid of feeling something. Why?

Then, to her amazement, Pazel clutched her arm — tightly, a warning. He pointed up at the main yard, the giant horizontal timber that secured the Chathrand 's largest sail. The yard was still bathed in orange sunlight, although the deck beneath it lay dark. And at the end of the yard sat a bird of prey.