The Red Wolf Conspiracy (49 page)

It became impossible to speak. Soaked and freezing, they watched the crew battle the storm. Pazel's teeth chattered and his feet turned a pale blue. Yet somehow he drifted into a miserable kind of sleep. He dreamed he was an eel himself, swimming at great speed around a white tower that rose from the seafloor to pierce the waves, and reached beyond them far into the sky. Around him churned fish with glowing bodies, purple gem-like eyes, dagger teeth. There were submerged windows in the tower, and even a door, still closed tight against the weight of the ocean. Then a banshee wail erupted, and Pazel woke.

The boys were leaping up—only to fall again as the
Rupin
plunged sickeningly to port.

“The topsail!” someone cried. “The topsail's split in two!”

Pazel groped for a handhold, trying to make sense of the chaos rushing his senses. Hours must have passed. The night was black, the wind furious—and something terrible lay dead ahead.

He didn't know how he knew. Around the ship all was heaving darkness. Torn canvas snapped above their heads with a sound like galloping hooves. Wind and waves and thunder drowned the cries of the men.

Lightning crackled. For an instant the world glowed madly bright and fifty sailors screamed like infants: a cliff towered over them, straight ahead and impossibly close.
Dead!
was all Pazel had time to think, and then the ship struck.

But it was no cliff: it was rain, a monstrous rain front that shattered on the bowsprit like a great glass wall. Everyone was blinded. The boys hugged the rails, the chain, one another. Somewhere the captain was screaming, “Up the fore! Up! Up!” In the next flash men could be seen already halfway to the topsail yard, axes thrust in their belts to cut away the ruined canvas. It was terrible to see them, barely supported by the rotten ropes, lashed by so much rain they seemed to be trailing icicles.

A forestay snapped like a giant bowstring. The mast tilted, a sailor screamed, and by the next bolt Pazel saw him plummeting seaward, arms flailing. Darkness took him before the sea.

Panic was spreading among the boys. Some were weeping, others screaming for Druffle to unlock them before they drowned. And they
would
drown, Pazel knew, if the bow dug under—as fast as that fallen man.

But Druffle was beyond earshot, or perhaps beyond caring. In the end Pazel did the job with a sailor's axe. Two boys were left trailing chain, but at least they were free.

“For Rin's sake, stay where you are!” Neeps shouted at them. “The rail won't give unless the ship herself breaks to pieces!”

Pazel could never afterward say how long they rolled and pitched through that storm. But a moment came at last when they swept out of it, quite as suddenly as they had entered. The rain blew past; they heard it hissing away eastward like a swarm of curses. The wind dropped; then it dropped further. Soon the only sounds were the pumps churning belowdecks, water jetting from the scuppers into the sea—and the hoarse oaths of Mr. Druffle.

“A racer, eh? A swift sea horse! That's what you called the
Rupin
, wasn't it, Captain Snaketongue? Blast you to Bramian! This ship is a disgrace!”

“Only when you drive her like a madman!” shot back the captain, miserable.

“Watch yourself, blubber-guts!”

“I've had enough!” the captain went on. “You Volpeks, there—what good's his money if we're all drowned? And how much have you seen, anyway?”

“Half,” grunted one of the Volpeks, eyeing Druffle with some suspicion.

“And the rest on delivery of the goods!” snarled Druffle. “You know the rules.”

“Your rules,” said another Volpek. “Not ours.”

“Eight feet of water in the hold!” The captain stamped his feet. “We're drinking the sea! Join with me, you fighting men! We can save this ship! And after we unload this screaming monkey we've a rendezvous with the Guild! That's right, Gregory's Guild! They'll have work for you—man's work, not sending young boys to their—”

“SILENCE!” boomed Druffle, raising his hand. The change in his voice was astonishing: it cracked like a whip across the deck. The captain stumbled backward, clutching his jaw as if reeling from a blow.

Druffle cackled. “You should know better, Captain! And you, you warty brutes”—here he turned to the Volpeks—“has Dollywilliams Druffle ever cheated a man? What's his reputation built on, then? Gah, you insult me.”

Last of all he faced the boys. “You'll be wondering at my powers, lads. How'd I make this old muskrat behave? Well, the fact is I'm a mage by family inclination. My dad was a great enchanter, what we call a
thumbaturg
, as he needed just one finger to work his spells. My uncles were sea-sorcerers in the pay of the Becturium Viceroys. And my own mother had some river-weird blood. So you see, it's best not to cross me: I'm liable to blast you to jelly whether I mean to or no.”

He looked down at them happily. No one knew what to say.

But Pazel was thinking
Gregory's Guild
?

Dawn revealed a ship in ruins. From bow to stern lay a tangled mass of rigging and ribboned sails. The foremast sprawled in pieces across the deck. The main topsail yard, a thirty-foot timber, had fallen through the quarterdeck and split the captain's bed neatly in two.

But they were still moving west. A pair of trysails had survived the night, and together they just managed to keep the floating wreck in motion. It was a gentle, sunny morning. Neeps slept like a stone. But Pazel felt an odd excitement in his chest. On skinned knees and rope-burned hands he crawled to the starboard bow. And there he saw an image from his dreams.

Sandstone cliffs. Lush meadows at their heights, bold black rocks in the surf below. A pencil-thin waterfall, dissolved to spray by the wind before it touched the waves.

“Ormael!”
He leaped up, forgetting his pain, forgetting everything.
“Ormael! Ormael!”

He would have gone on shouting for the next five leagues, but a hand seized his elbow and yanked him down. It was Druffle.

“Get off there, you hullaballoonish clown! You trying to wake the whole shore?”

“But no one lives there, Mr. Druffle!”

“I know that. Ain't good for a thing, Quarrel's Cliff.”

“It's good for kite-flying, Mr. Druffle! And my father says it's good for a stealthy approach to the city. Is that why
we're
sailing so close, Mr. Druffle, sir?”

“He he.”

“Mr. Druffle, what is Gregory's Guild?”

“You're an Ormali. You must know about Captain Gregory Pathkendle.”

Pazel's heart leaped in his chest. And in almost the same instant it occurred to him that Druffle had never once asked his name.

Before he could find his voice, one of the other boys chimed in: “Pathkendle the Traitor.”

Pazel whirled, clenching his fists. Druffle raised an eyebrow.

“Now, now,” he said. “That's none of our concern. Why he joined up with the Sizzies no one rightly knows. But he left 'em, see? Found himself better mates among us freebooters, and that was our lucky day. Yes indeed! To us Captain Gregory was a prince. And old Snake-tongue over there is lying. Gregory never dealt with scum like him.”

Freebooters
meant smugglers, Pazel knew. “Are
you
part of Gregory's Guild, Mr. Druffle, sir?”

“You ask a right heap of questions.”

“Thank you, sir! Is Captain Gregory still alive?”

But Druffle only wagged a finger, none too angrily, and turned away.

They crept nearer to Ormael. Pazel watched Quarrel's Cliff give way to the four named rocks (the Stovepipe, the Old Man, the Monk's Hood, the Hound). He saw goats in a high meadow where he'd picnicked once with his mother and Neda, and green bulges that he knew must be the crowns of the tallest plum trees.
My father isn't with the enemy
, he thought.
He's a smuggler. Is? Was?
Then the ship rounded the point, and he saw Ormael.

The city as he knew it was gone. Half the proud wall lay in ruins, and looking up, he could gaze—as no one at sea level should have been able to—right into neighborhoods where he had run carefree and thoughtless, five years before. They were like ash dumps. Ormael Palace itself was crumbled along one side, poorly patched with new stones and surmounted by the Arquali fish-and-dagger flag in place of the Ormali sun. Everywhere rose the black sooty skeletons of old towers, temples, shops.

Without a word, Neeps stepped up beside him.

“My house is still standing,” said Pazel numbly. “See there on the ridge? It's the one with the vine-covered wall. The Orch'dury. I wonder who lives there now.”

“Quite a job they did on the city,” said Neeps. “On Sollochstal they just burned our shipyard. And drafted the men, of course. And fed our Queen to the crocodiles.”

“I didn't know that.”

“How could you? Not as if it was printed in the
Mariner.”

“Thasha's father did this,” said Pazel. “He commanded the fleet.”

“And do you know what I think?” said Neeps. “It's going to happen to them. To Arqual. To Etherhorde itself, one day. Things will get out of control, and somebody, somewhere, is going to take revenge.”

Pazel looked at him. For once Neeps' voice was not fierce: he took no joy in his prediction. Then Pazel's gaze slid past his shoulder. And he froze.

The
Chathrand
was anchored in the Bay of Ormael.

“Neeps—”

“I see her!”

For a moment every eye on the
Rupin
seemed to be locked on the Great Ship. As always she looked too big for her surroundings: the Ormali cargo boats streaming back and forth from shore were like ants beside a watermelon. They would need a week to unload her, Pazel thought. But he doubted she would linger so long.

“Our luck's turned at last,” said Neeps. “We'll have to sail right past her to dock in Ormaelport. Close enough to shout, anyway.”

“Hush a moment!” said Pazel. Neeps obeyed, mystified. For nearly five minutes they stood in silence. Then Pazel caught his eye and led him a few paces aft.

“Those two sailors at the rail,” he whispered, glancing in their direction. “They speak Kepperish to each other, and they don't think anyone else understands. I've been listening all morning with half an ear, and they finally said something useful.”

“Something about us?” said Neeps softly.

Pazel nodded. “
‘A lovely ship, by damn,’
said the tall one, and the short one answered him: ‘Chathrand
? Aye, and rich men aboard her, brother. Oh, what rich and powerful men! One gentleman's paying for this whole excursion.’ ‘You mean he's Mr. Druffle's boss?’
said the other. The short man said:
‘Druffle calls him the Customer. He's the one who sent us after these little divers, too.’
That was all.”

Neeps stared at him. “Someone on the
Chathrand …
bought us?”

“It sounds that way,” Pazel agreed. “But who can it be? Not Rose—he had us, and didn't give a pig's whiskers. No, I'd bet my left hand it's that sorcerer Ramachni warned us about.”

“And Druffle's working for him,” Neeps said. “I'll bet
that's
why he's got a magic charm or two up his sleeve—something on loan from the mage. But why did they ever let us get picked up by the Flikkermen, if we're so blary important?”

“Because we're not,” said Pazel. “The Flikkers didn't say a word about us coming from the
Chathrand
, and Druffle didn't ask. And he almost didn't buy me at all, remember? It's divers this sorcerer wants—any divers, not us in particular.”

Neeps looked again at the
Chathrand
. “You must be right. But there's something else, mate. We're not landing at Ormael.”

Pazel jumped. It was true. In the last few minutes they had passed the near approach to Ormaelport and were already drawing away. The
Rupin
was limping on.

“We should have known,” said Neeps. “They can't sail into port with Volpeks aboard. I'm surprised we're passing this close.”

“Neeps,” Pazel whispered urgently, “could you swim as far as
Chathrand
?”

Now it was Neeps' turn to be startled. “I think so,” he said. “But it's broad daylight! And the wind's so low they'd hear us jump. And besides, Druffle's got his eye on you. Don't look! Maybe he's been nice to you, since you're both Ormali, but he's not taking any chances.”

“We'll have to risk it!” Pazel started unbuttoning his coat.

Neeps gripped his arm. “It's not a
risk
, it's a Volpek arrow through the shoulder blades. Slow down, mate. I know you want to go home.”

“That's not why! It's for Thasha!”

“You can't help her from the bottom of the sea.”

Furious, Pazel shook off his hand. But Neeps was right. Helpless, raging soundlessly, he watched his ship and city fall away.

By noon Ormael was out of sight, and the spruce-covered hills of Cape Córistel were all they could see of land. The day was bright and calm. The boys were put to work mending ropes while the sailors braced the surviving mast and spread a patchwork mainsail on its listing spars. They gained a little speed. But the captain ran frequently to the lower decks, returning each time with much anxious shaking of his head. He cast hateful glances at Druffle, and more than once was heard to mutter the word
emergency
. Pazel wondered what new disaster awaited them.

Cape Córistel was famously easy to round from east to west, and today (fortunately) proved no exception. The great surprise was what happened next. As soon as the cape's wave-battered point fell behind them, the captain shouted orders for a starboard tack. Men hauled at the makeshift sail and the
Rupin
heeled painfully around. They were going to follow the north shore. And that was simply not done.

Pazel's father had told him many stories about the Nelu Peren. One thing Pazel recalled perfectly was that
no one
, from the ancient Cherestön sailors onward, turned north from Córistel. There were many perils: a maze of rocks, riptides, a pestilential swamp called the Crab Fens that choked the mainland. But one threat overshadowed them all: the Haunted Coast. Pazel wasn't sure what it was: his father would not speak of it, and the schoolyard rumors were so many and mixed he could never make sense of them. But they all agreed on one point: any ship unlucky enough to enter those waters would never escape.