The Ruling Sea (65 page)

But also a rat with a mission. And once he had bounded down into the gloom of the mercy deck, Felthrup realized just how perilous his mission was. The normally abandoned deck was caught up in a frenzy such as he had never seen. Hurricane lamps whirled through the half-light. Sailors were running, striking at one another, bellowing for greater speed. Every voice was raised, and still they could scarcely be heard above the thunder of feet on the boards above.
Don’t stop, darling Felthrup, run now or you’ll never run at all
.

So Felthrup ran, straight through that frightened stampede, with men slamming and shouldering crates and hogsheads about as fast as they possibly could, securing everything that might slide or topple when the Great Ship fled.
This I do for Dri. For the lady who saw me as I truly am
.

In their cargo-crate fortress the ixchel huddled, hearing the madness of the giants spread, feeling the tremors as cargo-restraining boards were slapped down and nailed to the deck within a few yards of them. Young ixchel warriors stood armed and tensed; their elders sighed with remembered massacres; parents clutched children tight to their sides. Not one in six hundred made a sound, not even the youngest: ixchel learn not to cry in their first month of life, and never do so again except in silence.

When they heard the rat’s voice, octaves above that of the giants, they did not know what to do. It did not sound like the normal witless rat-prattle. Indeed it
could
not be: there was too much of truth about it.
You can hear me, cousins, I know you can. Your lady is wounded; the rest remain on Sandplume. Be fearless now or lose them forever. Send me one
—
no more. Just one brave soul prepared to fly
.

He struggled to shout over the humans—most bellowing orders, a few exclaiming about a woken rat, and a growing number declaring that miraculous or not, they would stomp the rodent dead if it didn’t shut up.

Thasha followed the captain up the No. 5 ladderway, squeezed by the men rushing headlong in both directions. It had taken Rose nearly a full minute to believe her, she mused, but the crew of the
Chathrand
had taken his word without a second thought.

They stepped out on the topdeck and she paused, overwhelmed. She thought she knew what an active ship looked like, but past emergencies paled before this whirlwind. At every hatch the watch-captains punished their kettledrums. Sailors by the hundreds were leaping for the halyards, and between them Turachs were falling in with crossbows, longbows, and
vascthas
that flung discs of sharpened steel. The rigging boiled with men, laying aloft, running out the spars, freeing the clews on sail after sail. Tarboys raced down both sides of the ship, emptying sacks of sawdust for footing. The windscoops were capped, the running-lights struck down, the few passengers in sight were driven below, the tonnage hatch was sealed with oilskin, and great rolls of netting were stretched between the shrouds, to guard the men on deck from falling mastwood.

Captain Rose marched toward the waist of the ship. “Odd mains, Mr. Alyash,” he cried, with that tireless trumpet-blast voice he could keep up for hours. “Mr. Frix, cut us free. Uskins, turn out Byrd’s crew to the carronades, Tanner’s to portside forward, and get Drellarek’s replacement to the quarterdeck as soon as his men are in hand. Mr. Jonhelm, see that the galley fire’s put out. Lady Oggosk, I beg you to stay indoors.”

“Soon enough, Nilus. I want a look at her first.”

The witch had an excited gleam in her eye. She meant the
Jistrolloq
, Thasha knew: but if they caught sight of her while still trapped in the cove it would be the last thing they ever saw.

After his first explosive shout the captain had become extraordinarily calm. His voice when he raised it was deafening, but he spoke most of his orders softly to his lieutenants, who relayed them mast by mast along the ship. His face was emotionless; his eyes slid over the crew with an abstracted look. To Thasha, who had seen Rose spitting and furious over a misplaced pen, this subdued Rose was more unsettling than a thousand bellows.

“Let us have topgallants, Mr. Alyash. But stand by to clew up the moment we clear the rock.”

Alyash looked at the cove’s western headland. “Oppo, sir. I can hear that wind. Not that it’s doing
us
any good.”

“Full parties to the braces nonetheless,” said Rose. “We’re going to have to swing the mains about like a lady’s parasol to scrape out of here.”

The anchor went by the board: Frix and Fegin, wielding a two-man hawser saw, cut through the tree-thick line in a few dozen strokes. Thasha felt the sudden kick as they floated free, and turned just in time to see the mainsail flash open, like a white castle wall suddenly raised in their midst. The forecourse and spanker-course followed: the odd-numbered mainsails, far enough apart not to fight one another for the meager wind. Thasha raised her eyes even higher and saw men bending topsails. The upper canvas might catch a wind that the lower sails missed, but would all of them together give them speed enough to escape the cove in time? Between the stone cliffs the
Chathrand
stood nearly becalmed—even as the
Jistrolloq
raced toward them on the open fetch of the westerlies.

Suddenly a vast noise erupted to port, followed by the screams of ten thousand birds. All eyes whirled toward Sandplume. From the highest point on the island, a column of scarlet fire was rising heavenward. Taller and taller it grew, until it resembled a great burning tree, while around it the seabirds rose in one contiguous mass of flapping terror. Many of the birds collided or wheeled out of control into the fire itself, where they blazed for an instant and were gone.

“Silence, fore and aft,” boomed Rose over the cries of the sailors. “Mr. Coote, I want fire hoses ready at the bilge-pumps.”

Even as he spoke the tree of flame blinked, trembled and was gone. But smoke still rose from the hilltop, and Thasha saw that the flame had set the brittle underbrush alight. She winced.
All those blary nests
.

Then Rose’s hand closed on her shoulder. In a growl meant for her ears alone, he asked, “What in the Nine Pits is happening, girl?”

“I don’t know anything about that flame,” she said, leaning away from him. “But there’s a man on Sandplume—a priest, maybe. He has the scepter that belonged to the old Mzithrini Father. Sathek’s Scepter, it’s called. I don’t know what it’s for.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all I know, Captain.”

Rose bent even lower, drawing her into a huddle that shut out the deck. In a throaty whisper, he asked, “Which one of them told you?”

Thasha dared not say a word. Did he know about the ixchel after all? Then Rose glanced surreptitiously down at their feet, and Thasha’s skin went cold. There were other feet beside their own, other men, pressing close as if trying to listen in. Their boots were old and battered and darkly stained. Thasha felt the same whirling disorientation that came to her when she opened the
Polylex
, the same desire to turn away.

Rose flashed her a knowing look. “You can tell me,” he said. “Was it Captain Mauloj, with the facial tic? Or old Levirac, with the bad teeth? Or Farsin, maybe—the one with raw meat on his breath?”

Stiff with amazement, Thasha murmured: “N-no, sir. It was … someone else.”

“Doesn’t matter. You keep them away from me. Say whatever you like, just order them to keep their distance. Only if Kurlstaf appears, you listen to every word he says and share it with me instantly, do you hear?”

“But which one is he?” Thasha pleaded.

“Kurlstaf, Captain Kurlstaf!” said Rose, exasperated. “The pansy with the lipstick and painted nails!” With that he released her and bellowed for Fiffengurt—only to find the quartermaster already at his elbow.

“That flame was a signal to the
Jistrolloq
, Captain, or I’m a knave.”

“Aye, Quartermaster,” said Rose. He turned forward and boomed again: “Tactical team to the quarterdeck. Mr. Alyash, have a look at the gun decks before you join us. Mr. Uskins, I want a report on the doings of the sorcerer: beat on his door until he opens it. And you—” He jabbed a finger at Thasha. “—close the shutters in that private palace of yours, then return to my side.”

I’m going mad
, Thasha told herself, running for the stateroom.
My mind’s coming to pieces; I’ve always wondered what it would feel like and now I know
.

She was seeing the dead, seeing ghosts. They had vanished when Rose released her shoulder, without her ever catching a glimpse of their faces. But before she left the topdeck she had looked back at the captain, and there they were, milling about him like flies. They did not look monstrous—or rather, they looked monstrous in the same way Rose did: hard-bitten, brutal, weathered by years at sea. One was dressed like her great-uncle, in the old regalia of the Merchant Service. Two others wore the blue sash and high collar of the old Imperium: a uniform instantly familiar from the portraits that had adorned her father’s study, portraits of naval captains of the First Sea War. A fourth was dressed in brown, like the axe-wielding men who had chased her belowdecks. Yet another wore a frock coat with outlandish tails, and grimaced with muscle spasms.

Why do they terrify us so?
she couldn’t help thinking. But the
Polylex
had provided one answer. She could still hear Felthrup, reading aloud two nights before:
A ghost is one thing by daylight and quite another in the dark
. At nightfall would they become the faceless people she had seen in the
blanë-
sleep? Did
that
sort of creature visit the captain night after night? It would be enough to drive anyone mad.

Rose was trying studiously to ignore the spirits, as if they were beggars ready to mob him at the least encouragement. No one else knew they were there.
Except for me
, she thought.
Why me?
Was she being punished, or warned perhaps?
Is my father
dead, and calling me from the land of the dead, and giving me a way to see him? Is he searching for me right now?
The thought was like a bone in her throat.

And still she sensed them around her: a soft tug at her sleeve, a moving shadow that vanished as she turned, a voice murmuring on an empty stair.
We have him
, it seemed to say,
he’s lost to you forever, he’s ours
—

Clenched against the voices, she stepped out of the ladderway onto the upper gun deck and collided with Pazel, who was running in the opposite direction.

At the sight of Thasha his face lit up. He seized her arms, grinning, whirled her around—and then, just as suddenly, his eyes became guarded and evasive, and he banished the smile from his face.

“You’re—different,” he said.

“Oh,” she laughed. “Yes. And so are you.”

It was her first glimpse of him since the night of the dancing. His gaze slid to the deck. “Made it back alive, anyway,” he said.

“So Fiffengurt told us,” she said pointedly. “And I suppose it’s good luck that we bumped into each other, since we may not be alive an hour from now.” Her anger with him was already rising to the surface. “Excuse me, I have to close the storm-shutters.”

“Beat you to it,” he said. “The stateroom’s secured. Neeps is just finishing up.”

“How is Dri?”

“Worried. The ixchel girl Felthrup sent has never flown before.”

Thasha glanced nervously about the passage: they were still alone. “Is it true, what Fiffengurt says?” she asked quietly. “That you saw the scar on Rose’s arm, I mean?”

He nodded. “It’s true, but that doesn’t mean we can trust him. He’s still the craziest man on this ship, and one of the nastiest. Thasha … what’s happened to you?”

She knew he wasn’t talking about her nicks or bruises, or anything as simple as that. But how could she explain when she didn’t understand herself? “I stayed up late, reading the
Polylex
. What happened to
you
?”

“A giant lizard breathed on me.”

“Oh.”

“And talked. It was terrible. Thasha, are you in love with Fulbreech?”

“Maybe,” she said softly, glaring at him. Of course even
maybe
was an exaggeration; a truer reply would have been,
Not yet, but where were you?
But Pazel had no right to ask such questions. And Greysan didn’t cringe when they kissed.

“I think you got older while I was gone,” he said.

“Only by three days, you blary fool.”

“They must have been Darkling Days,” said Pazel, making her laugh uncomfortably.
^*

He reached for her again. Thasha stood frozen; Pazel made as if to brush her lips with his fingers. But some kind of doubt overcame him, and he ended up idiotically pressing her nose. He snatched back his hand, gaping like one bereft of speech.

“I drank your blood,” he said at last. “On Simja, I mean. In the milk.”

Thasha was frustrated almost to despair. “You are absolutely the
weirdest
boy I’ve ever met,” she said. Turning on her heel, she raced back up the ladderway to the topdeck.

Thirty sails, and five hundred frightened men at the ropes, and terrible slow turns when the cliffs seemed close enough to touch—but they were gaining speed, and the mouth of the cove was ever nearer. Already the wind was freshening, the jibsails full and the topgallants tight and straining. Thasha looked at the headland, a black basalt cliff falling straight as a curtain into the sea, and half expected to see the
Jistrolloq
appear from behind it, with all her guns run out, and a horde of soldiers crowding her deck. It could happen at any time: Diadrelu had not been very precise about the distance.

Rose was pulling every trick of speed a captain could in a desperate quarter hour, backing the topsails, sheeting the jibs to windward and leeward with each tack, even firing cannon from the bow so that the recoil might aid the men’s efforts at the braces. There was no hope of stealth, after all, not with that spy on the hilltop. With such a mismatch in fighting strength, moreover, the
Jistrolloq
had to know that they would run. But would they even get the chance?