Robert Redick - The Rats and the Ruling sea

Alyash shrugged. 'What could I have done?'

'Examined her credentials before we passed them to that raving Babqri Father, of course. Not that he's raving any longer. That incubus tore him open like a pomegranate; I watched it all from the shadows.' He lowered his voice, leaned close to Alyash. 'Tell, me, has Fulbreech been exposed?'

'Not a bit of it,' murmured Alyash with a smile. 'He has even claimed a little territory in the heart of Thasha Isiq.'

'Has he, now? Fine work; but let him understand that I will tolerate no scandal. Young fathers make useless spies; if he gets her with child I will toss him from the quarterdeck myself. Here, have a look at this.'

Ott freed the top button of his coat, and from an inner pocket drew out a strange device of wood, bronze and iron. On one end was a handle, somewhat like that of a saw; on the other a dark metal tube.

'What is it?' said Alyash. 'It looks like a toy cannon, except for the handle.'

'That is no toy,' said Sandor Ott. 'It is a pistol. All the mechanics of a ship's gun are right there in miniature.'

Alyash's jaw gradually slid open. 'By the iron kiss of the Arch-Devil,' he said, turning the instrument gingerly in his hands.

'You heretics amaze me,' said Ott, his tone a blend of scorn and affection. 'You're obsessed with purity, yet you invoke only the corruptors — the Pit fiends, the devils you detest. Where do you hide your god?'

Alyash shook his head. 'We've been over this ground for years, Ott — like two old nags. We of the Old Faith do not speak of that which you call "god." We do not cage the infinite in the small mind of man; that vanity we leave to others. Tell me, what is this lever for?'

'That is the serpentine; it lowers a burning match onto the powder charge. The explosion tends to ruin the serpentine, and sometimes the pistol itself. In truth it is not yet a practical tool. An arrow is swifter to fire, and much more accurate; a vasctha is deadlier if it strikes. But there can be only so much power in bent wood and stretched sinew, while the potential latent in this-' He gazed rapturously at the weapon '-is infinite. You are looking at the invention of our age. In time it will bring an end to all wars, for the alternative — can you imagine it, Alyash? A world equipped with these, and using them? — would simply be too ruinous for everyone.'

Alyash shook his head grimly. 'No, I can't imagine such a world.'

'When that day comes, the world will have no more need of us,' said Ott, sliding the pistol back into his coat. 'Enough, where's the captain? We must bear north immediately.'

Alyash led the spymaster forward, past rows of gaping sailors. When he caught their whispers ('Nagan, it's Commander Nagan!') Ott chuckled softly. They knew him — or rather, they knew the captain of Eberzam Isiq's honour guard. That costume, that papier-mache man, one of the myriad counterfeit selves he had lived within.

Sandor Ott had lately come up with an image for his life. A solitary man on a desert road, the sun at perpetual noon, the road vanishing straight as an arrow behind him, and littered with bodies to the edge of sight. Usually he thought of these bodies as his aliases, the soldiers and merchants and monks he had not just impersonated but become, so completely that he suffered confusion when his fellow spies addressed him by his real name. Sandor Ott: what was that, anyway, but an earlier invention? Not a talisman, not a family name, for he had known no family but the Arquali Children's Militia, outlawed now, and slowly being rubbed out of the Empire's official histories. He did not know who in the militia had named him. He did not even know the name of his first language, or where in the Empire it was spoken, or quite when Arquali had replaced it for ever as the language of his thought.

At other times the bodies on the road were simply those who had stood in his way.

He and Alyash walked the length of the topdeck. Ott's eyes darted everywhere, studying the ship he had departed six weeks ago in Ormael. He asked questions in a sharp military style: 'How many tons of grain have you left? When did the men last eat vegetables? Has anyone been murdered? How in the Nine Pits did you damage your shrouds?'

At the mizzen they went below, and continued forward along the upper gun deck. Halfway down the portside battery, Alyash paused and looked the spymaster in the face.

'They sent me, Ott. They ordered me to seek a position.'

'Aboard an Arquali ship?'

The bosun shook his head. 'Aboard Chathrand. Specifically.'

Sandor Ott held very still. His eyes slid away from Alyash, darting again — but this time they were studying abstractions, facts arrayed before him, words and signs and evidence.

'They suspect us,' he said at last.

'Yes,' said Alyash.

'They cannot know of what. But they do suspect us. That's interesting.'

The bosun turned and spat. 'I suppose that's one word for it. Another would be "disastrous." '

Still Ott did not move. He might have been blind to the ship about him.

'The Babqri Father,' he said. 'Your orders came from him, didn't they?'

Alyash nodded. 'We answered to him, you realise: the Zithmoloch put their spies under his command for the duration of the wedding. And do you know who that girl was — the one the demon killed alongside the old priest?'

'A sfvantskor trainee — fully trained, almost, by the way she fought.'

'Ott, she was also the daughter of the Mzithrini admiral, Kuminzat.'

Sandor Ott's eyes refocused on the bosun, and a fascinated smile took possession of his face. Alyash squirmed at the sight of it. He had known Ott for decades, and that smile came to him only when the spymaster sensed an assault or an ambush, violence approaching like a predator from the woods. No, not like a predator. Not in your case, Ott. More like a loved one, his cherished intimate, whose absence he could bear only so long.

By midday they had rounded the little isle of Sandplume. On the north shore, two headlands like swollen knuckles bulged northwards, forming a dark, cliff-mantled cove. The reef, as Ott had promised, had been reduced to scattered rubble on the sea-bed, and the Chathrand glided easily into the sheltered waters. Inside, she was hidden from any possibility of view from south, east or west; and unless a ship was running between the isles, the next Black Shoulder to the north would hide them from that direction as well. The spymaster's cutter had arrived before them; her anchor was already down.

Captain Rose had not emerged that morning. He had Uskins greet Sandor Ott, to both men's displeasure. But once the Great Ship lay at ease beside the cutter he sat at his desk, uncapped a speaking-tube that rose like a beheaded snake from the corner, and began to issue commands.

Thirty minutes later Ott and Alyash arrived at his door, and the steward waved them in. Rose's cabin was bright, the air close and steamy: hot midday sun poured through the skylight and glittered on the silver service. Rose stood at the head of the table, carving a slab of salt-cured ham on a platter garnished with potatoes and turnips and slices of withered orange. There was also a cold crab stew in a gyroscopic cauldron, its feet screwed into the tabletop, the bowl itself on ball-bearings that kept it level against the rolling of the ship. Lady Oggosk and Drellarek were seated. Uskins was at the sideboard, pouring snifters of brandy.

Drellarek rose and gave Ott a precise military bow.

'Sergeant,' said Ott amiably.

'A great pleasure to have you back, sir,' said Drellarek.

Something hissed. Captain Rose gave a violent start. Ten feet away on his desktop, Sniraga stood with bristled fur, baring her fangs at the spymaster.

Ott's eyes travelled to the far end of the cabin. There, looking out through the gallery windows, stood Dr Chadfallow. He was drawn and dour, and clearly did not mean to offer any greetings of his own.