Robert Redick - The Red wolf conspiracy

"Never mind!" said Pazel. His voice rang in the sudden silence.

Rose turned to him, unblinking. "It sounds like a crawly name."

"How dare you!" squeaked the governor's wife. "This is the ambassador's daughter! And you imply that she talks to… ship maggots! For shame, for shame, Captain Rose!"

Before Rose could reply, Lady Oggosk made a sound of disgust. Leaning forward on her elbows, she gestured at Ott with a butter knife.

"I saw them together-that man and Syrarys. Of course they're lovers. I caught her with him months ago, at Castle Maag. She confessed. He was tired of being a servant, she was tired of the ambassador. Once Thasha married the Sizzy prince, and peace reigned, these two would grow rich in the new world of trade between the empires. Bribes, usury, imaginary taxes. They'd be fat as sultans. The ambassador was too sick to decide much himself, she told me. Of course, I didn't know she was poisoning him."

"You treacherous cur!" said Isiq to Ott. "You'll hang!"

The governor stood up, trembling all over. "Mr. N-Nagan," he pleaded, "or whatever your name is-will you kindly lay down your sword?"

Ott stepped forward. Hercуl's eyes narrowed and his hand went to his own sword-hilt. But the spymaster merely bowed and laid his sword upon the table. A knife followed, long and white and well worn.

The governor heaved a great sigh of relief and sat down. And Ott lifted his knife again and hurled it straight at Lady Oggosk.

The next three seconds were astounding. Hercуl lunged and caught the knife in midair. Oggosk screamed. Sandor Ott leaped onto the table and ran its length. Thasha plunged her dinner fork into his leg, but Ott, never slowing, dealt her a savage blow to the face. Then, reaching the table's end, he planted a foot on the governor's head, driving it facedown into his dinner, and leaped straight at the round window behind him.

But something else flew at Ott's head in that instant: a hissing red blur. Sniraga.

A horrid noise, and a downpour of colored glass. A moment later, Hercуl reached the window.

"He's in the courtyard!" he shouted. "Drop the portcullis! You there! Drop that gate!"

Silence. Then a resounding clang. Hercуl's shoulders slumped.

Turning back to the room, he said, "The cat is safe in the gardenias, Duchess, and her claws have marked the spymaster for life. Governor, your men have sealed the palace-"

"Victory!" cried his wife.

"— one second after Ott departed it." Hercуl sighed. "You may call out your constables, your bloodhounds, the port marines. You may tear what's left of this city apart. But you won't find him."

"Do you mean to say that they had been planning this for years?" said the governor, as one servant picked swordfish from his beard and another lit his pipe.

"I'm certain of it," said Isiq, despondent. "Syrarys was always the one most eager to move to Simja. Now I know why."

"They subjected you to deathsmoke in Tressek Tarn," said Chad-fallow quietly.

"Deathsmoke!" cried Thasha, aghast. "The monsters! Thank heaven we were only there a night."

"I will have to perform some tests," Chadfallow went on, "but I am very much afraid that the droplets you've been taking were also a deathsmoke concoction."

"But you can cure him, can't you?" demanded Thasha.

The doctor lowered his eyes.

"No," said Isiq. "He cannot. There is no permanent cure. One grows stronger with the passage of years, but a deathsmoke addict craves the drug until he dies. I have seen men die for it, too, in the navy."

"You will not die," said Chadfallow. "That much I can promise you. But you may have to fight, Excellency-like a tiger, to master yourself."

"Speaking of tigers…," said Pazel.

There was a scrabble of claws, and Sniraga pulled herself in through the window. She walked primly to Lady Oggosk. Furtively, Thasha watched the old woman lift her pet. Why did you help us?

Oggosk seemed to feel her gaze. Her cloudy blue eyes rose to Thasha's own.

"Where thou goest, I follow fast," she whispered.

Those words. Where had Thasha heard them before? At first the memory refused to surface. Then she had it: the Mother Prohibitor's emerald ring. The words were inscribed about the emerald. Could Oggosk be a Lorg Sister? Did she have her own cherry tree in the Orchard? Had she prayed before dawn, kneeling on icy stones? Had she sat on Thasha's bench?

Dimly she recalled the Mother Prohibitor's words: On the path you are doomed to tread one of us at least will be near you. In dire need you may call upon her; she cannot refuse.

"If you're a friend," she whispered to Oggosk, "why did you send your cat to steal my necklace?"

Oggosk looked at the silver chain on Thasha's neck, and gave a violent sort of squirm. "Too late for all that, too late," she muttered.

"What do you mean, too late?"

But Oggosk would no longer meet her eye.

"Such lengths the villains went to!" the governor was saying. "To play with the life of His Supremacy's ambassador, to arrange a marriage across both empires-"

"Without Thasha's wedding there would be no ambassadorship," said Chadfallow, "and thus no way for Ott and Syrarys to leave Arqual. And that was the only chance they had of a life together. His Supremacy would never let Ott retire. He was too useful to be allowed to fall in love."

"Whereas I," said Isiq, "was useful only because I fell in love."

"Then you bring us no peace!" cried the governor's wife. "This marriage was a trick, and we must go on living with Sizzy threats and raids, and fearing a third sea war!"

"Wrong, madame," said Chadfallow.

Pazel and Thasha looked up at him, startled.

"Sandor Ott twisted events for his own purposes," Chadfallow continued, "but the wedding of Thasha and Prince Falmurqat is no trick. The Mzithrini want peace, and so does the Emperor."

"What?" cried Thasha and Pazel together.

"Hush, children-"

"The Emperor doesn't want peace!" Pazel blurted. "He wants the Sizzies fighting themselves! He wants a civil war!"

Chadfallow looked at him calmly. "Don't speak of what you don't understand, Pazel."

"Well then, how do you explain what happened on the Haunted Coast?"

"The two events are unconnected," said Chadfallow. "Arunis hired the Volpeks to help him raid a treasure-wreck. Had he not kidnapped Tholjassan sons and daughters-and had Thasha not found Hercуl and the smugglers in good time-he might have succeeded. But one greedy conjurer hardly matters, weighed against the chance for an era of peace."

"One greedy conjurer?" said Thasha. "That's what you call Arunis?"

"Oh, Thasha," said the doctor. "You cannot think that we are speaking of the Arunis? That man was hanged forty years ago! This is an upstart who took the sorcerer's name, the better to frighten us with."

"Like pirates, eh?" said the governor. "There were six Billy Blacktongues."

"Just so," said the doctor. "And you see how well the tactic works? Even Thasha believed in him."

Now the young people were too afraid to shout.

"Hercуl?" said Thasha quietly.

The Tholjassan was looking very hard at Chadfallow. "I am not a statesman," he said.

"But I am," said Chadfallow. "And I hope that you will trust my judgment as ever, Hercуl. This so-called Arunis was a passenger on Chathrand, but he had nothing to do with the other criminals aboard."

"Unless you two have a… special source of information?" said Rose.

Pazel and Thasha looked at each other. They were trapped. To mention the ixchel would be to condemn Diadrelu and her kin to death.

"But they were working together," Thasha pleaded. "This is one big conspiracy!"

Chadfallow shook his head. "Two small ones, merely," he said. "And we have just dealt with both."

"You're mad!" shouted Pazel. "The Shaggat Ness is aboard the Chathrand!"