The Ruling Sea (76 page)

Fiffengurt, for his part, had actually brought two men. His own choice was “Big Skip” Sunderling, the new carpenter’s mate. Big Skip was tall and ox-strong, a woodsman before he took to the sea. His eyes were small but very bright, often with amusement, and his hands when at rest seemed merely to be waiting for the next opportunity to wield a saw or chisel. Pazel had rarely seen him without a good-natured smile. But he was not smiling now.

The second man was Hercól’s choice: Lieutenant Khalmet. Everyone in the room stole glances at the Turach soldier. Khalmet looked just as strong and twice as dangerous as Big Skip. He could not have been over thirty, but there was a hardness to his face, as if he had seen or done things that had robbed him of all merriment. Pazel wondered if any Turach escaped such a fate.

Khalmet had given only the slightest of hints that he might oppose what was happening on the Great Ship. The first had been his suggestion that Rose free Hercól, the second his warning to Marila (‘someone is listening’) nine days ago. Then one day he had begun to deliver Hercól’s food—without stealing from the dish, like the man he replaced. Finally, yesterday, Hercól had put all their lives in the soldier’s hands by telling him of this council meeting.

Once again the risk had paid off—or at least not backfired yet. For here he was, without his Turach shield and helmet, but still wearing his longsword. Pazel felt safer just looking at the man. Then he recalled that over a hundred other Turachs stood ready to cut them down.

He looked again at Thasha, and a welter of feelings—anger, worry, grief—stole over him. They’d stopped shouting at each other days ago, but they had never made up. They talked coldly of the tasks before them, and nothing else. Pazel had returned to the stateroom, but now he slept in the little reading chamber that hung like a glass shelf from the
Chathrand’s
starboard flank. The room was freezing by morning, and he often woke with his face pressed to the cold glass, looking out on the slate-gray emptiness of the Ruling Sea. But Thasha’s reproachful looks, and his own fear that she was going to see
Greysan
each time she left, kept him from the common room. Behind the door of the reading room he succumbed to a new temptation, and pressed his ear to her cabin wall. Often he heard her reading aloud from the
Polylex;
once, three nights ago, he caught a sob.

Last night, over a meal of rye mush and figs, Thasha had told them that she would be coming alone. Everyone was shocked, and Pazel had asked immediately if she’d misjudged someone’s character. Thasha had popped a fig into her mouth and skewered him with a look.

“Maybe,” she said.

Of all strange things, she had brought a suitcase to the council. A bulky cloth-sided case, embroidered by some spinster aunt; Pazel had seen it belching shirts and sweaters onto her floor. Now it sat before her, tightly sealed, and crowding their toes.

“At last,” said Dastu suddenly. “At last we’re starting to fight back.”

Thasha was looking straight at her candle flame. “I don’t know how to start,” she said, “so I’ll start by saying thank you. For being brave enough to come here. For not doing the easy thing, which would be to turn us in. The day Arunis tried to give the Shaggat the Nilstone, some of us found out that we
had
to fight back. We’re kind of stuck—me, Pazel, Neeps and Hercól, and a few others we’re still looking for. But the rest of you—well, you could have just chosen to look away, and wait for some chance to escape. Or you could have decided we were crazy, that there was no hope at all. But you’re here. And now I know we have a chance.”

She
is
older, Pazel thought. Where was the awkwardness, the rich-girl confusion that irritated him so? Where had that look of knowing come from, and that confidence? Was it Fulbreech or the
Polylex
that had turned her into a woman before his eyes?

Pathkendle is staring at Thasha Isiq
, said a male ixchel above him.

Pazel jumped, and dropped his candle underfoot. The other two ixchel began to scold the man.
Pathkendle can hear us, you silly ass
, said Diadrelu.

Pazel scooped up his candle. “Sorry, Thasha,” he muttered.

“Now look here, Mistress,” said Druffle suddenly. “Just by gathering we’ve put ourselves in danger, even in this devil’s washtub in the dead of night. So I’ll be blunt, shall I? This is hopeless, or nearly hopeless. Who are we to think we can take on these bastards? Ten malcontents, against eight hundred enemies. Of which one hundred are blary Imperial commandos.”

“One hundred and nine,” put in Khalmet, “with the reinforcements from Bramian.”

“Rin’s gizzard, it just gets worse!” said Druffle. “Turachs, Ott’s spies, that serpent of a mage. How are we supposed to take ’em all on? We’d have a better chance of stopping an avalanche!”

“If that’s your verdict, why’d you come here?” asked Fiffengurt testily.

Druffle looked sidelong at the quartermaster. “I owe my life to these two,” he said, looking at Pazel and Neeps, “and I’ll give it for them, if the time comes. But that doesn’t mean I want to hasten the day.”

“Nobody does,” said Thasha. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’re not about to march on the quarterdeck, Mr. Druffle. The point of this council, if you want to call it that, is to come up with a next step. One that doesn’t get us killed by morning. Of course Mr. Druffle’s right about the odds. Whatever we do, we’ll need more people to do it.”

“Then let’s start with some names,” said Dastu. “Are there others you trust?”

A moment’s silence ensued. “There have to be,” said Thasha at last, “but choosing them may be the hardest thing we ever do. For the moment, trust me. There are more than you think.”

She’s right
, said Diadrelu.

“And the next step
is
to find more people, Dastu,” said Pazel. “But when we do, we’re going to need to be able to tell them we have some sort of a plan.”

Big Skip shook his head slowly. “I’ve been worrying over that one,” he said. “A plan the crew might stand up and support has to do one thing. It has to keep ’em alive. You want to beat these villains? Scuttle the ship. Wreck her. Drive her onto a lee shore, if we ever see land again. Or sail her right into the Vortex. But most folk don’t want to die, see? Where’s the plan that gets ’em off this ship alive?”

Fiffengurt leaned forward. In a whisper, he said, “We could fill a crate with powder-charges and blast this ship’s belly wide open. The ten of us could handle that.”

His hand shook as he drew it across his face. Pazel looked at him, aghast. Had it really come to this?

“No,” Pazel heard himself saying, “not yet. I don’t think Ramachni wants us to kill ourselves. And I think the Nilstone might be a danger to this world even at the bottom of the sea.”

“Then what
is
our plan?” said Neeps. “What are we going to tell the next ten people we try to recruit for this mutiny?”

No one moved, no one breathed. Neeps had said it, the hangman’s word, the word from which there was no turning back. Suddenly Pazel realized the terrible danger they were in.
All it would take is one of them to panic. To get up and try to leave right now. We could stop him, but not quietly enough. If anyone moves, we hang
.

The one who moved was Fiffengurt—but only to hook Neeps around the neck with his elbow, like a fond uncle. The quartermaster turned his good eye this way and that, and he smiled a mad, anxious, damn-’em-all-to-the-deep-depths smile.

“Here’s a plan for you, blast it. We work our backsides off for Captain Rose. We give two hundred percent, and we’re humble about it. We warm their blary hearts with our good natures, see? And we sail this Gray Lady safe across the Nelluroq.”

“All the while recruiting,” whispered Pazel.

“Bull’s-eye,” said Fiffengurt. “And when we’ve brought the
Chathrand
into whatever sheltered harbor awaits us on the far side, what’ll we have? A fighting chance to turn the rest of ’em—or at least
enough
of ’em—to rush the boats. We desert, like rats. If necessary we battle our way to shore. And we refuse to come within five miles of the
Chathrand
until they hand over the Shaggat, nailed up tight in a crate where that damnable Stone can’t kill anybody.”

“And drive off Arunis at the point of a spear,” said Druffle, “or drive a spear
through
’im. Keep talking, Quartermaster.”

“We would have to scatter across the land,” said Khalmet, “else the Turachs could rout us with a single charge.”

“Oppo, Lieutenant, whatever you say.” Fiffengurt was growing excited. “They can rage and spout and murder us—I’m sure they’ll do a lot of all three—but they can’t sail the Great Ship without a crew, now, can they? And it beats dying in gods-forsaken Gurishal.”

“We’d have to win over hundreds of men,” said Thasha doubtfully.

“Three hundred, I figure,” said Fiffengurt. “With that many we’ll have taken a big enough bite out of the crew to make handlin’ the mains impossible. The Great Ship won’t be going anywhere until we say so.”

They had all leaned closer as Fiffengurt spoke. Pazel glanced from face to candlelit face, and sighed with relief. No one was backing out. The deadly moment had passed.

“Thasha,” said Marila suddenly, “if you’re going to do it—”

“Yes,” said Thasha, “it’s time.”

With all eyes upon her, she passed Marila her candle and began to unbuckle the suitcase.
What is this?
the ixchel were muttering,
what’s she doing, Mistress, what’s in the case?
Pazel waited just as anxiously, and just as much at a loss.

The buckles freed, Thasha looked up at the ring of faces. “Except for Big Skip, you were all aboard when Arunis attacked,” she said. “And except for Marila, who was still in hiding, you saw what happened.”

“Gods below, lass, we’ll never forget it,” said Fiffengurt.

“You saw Ramachni. You know he’s our leader, a mage as good as Arunis is evil. And maybe you’ve figured out that after that fight he … couldn’t stay.”

“He was hurt,” Neeps interjected. “Exhausted, like. He had to go back where he came from, to rest.”

“You mean he got off the boat in Simja?” said Druffle.

“No, Mr. Druffle,” said Thasha. “He’s from farther away than that.”

She raised the lid of the suitcase, and there, packed carefully between folded sweaters, was the mariner’s clock. The instrument was standing upright, the second hand sweeping noiselessly over the exquisite mother-of-pearl moon that was its face. Pazel started from his crate. Neeps and Marila looked at him and laughed, and Thasha’s smile said
Serves you right, bastard
. Pazel didn’t care. They could laugh at him for the rest of his life.

“Thasha!” he gasped, euphoric.

His self-discipline had vanished. She was looking into his eyes and knew everything—or knew at least what he felt for her, despite all the weeks he’d spent trying to deny it.

Fiffengurt too appeared light-headed with joy. “Sweet Heaven’s Tree! Does this mean—”

“Yes,” said Neeps, “it does.”

“What they’re so happy about,” said Marila, “is that it’s time for Ramachni to come back.”

“You knew!” said Pazel. “All three of you! How?”

“I’ll only know when he jumps into my arms,” said Thasha, but her eyes were shining with confidence. “I’ve had this feeling for weeks. A feeling that someone was coming, someone different from any of us, and that everything would change when he got here. It’s just like the feeling I got when Ramachni sent me the message in the galley. But this time instead of needing an onion, I need to open that clock.”

“What for?” said Dastu. “It doesn’t look broken to me.”

Thasha grinned at him. “No,” she said, “I don’t think it is.”

With that she bent down and opened the clock’s glass cover. Around and around she spun the minute hand, until the clock read precisely 7:09. “Now we wait three minutes,” she said.

“What are we waiting for?” asked Big Skip.

“Deliverance,” said Fiffengurt. “Just watch, and trust the lady!”

They all watched the second hand. As it swept through its third revolution, Thasha bent even nearer to the clock face. And just as the hand reached twelve, she whispered, “Ramachni!”

There was a sharp
pop
, and the clock face sprang open on its hinge. Thasha sat back, glowing. But no whirl of black fur emerged from the clock. Nor did Ramachni step out with royal dignity, as Thasha had sometimes described to Pazel, giggling. He did not emerge at all. The only thing that emerged was a breeze—a sudden, cold breeze that extinguished Pazel’s candle, and made the others quickly shield their own—and a little of the dark sand that always blew from the magic tunnel between the worlds. Thasha knelt down before the clock, and Pazel, on an impulse, dropped beside her. Thasha tugged the clock face wide.

“Sorcery,” muttered Druffle.

“Hush up, man!” snapped Fiffengurt.

The breeze became a wind, frigid and gusting. It tugged at their ankles, and blew Thasha’s golden hair away from her face. “Ramachni!” she said again, as loud as she dared. “Ramachni, what’s the matter? Where are you?”

She tried to look into the tunnel, but grains of the black sand stung her eyes. Another candle blew out. The wind began to moan from the clock face.

This is madness!
Diadrelu cried from above.
Pazel, close that thing, before you wake the ship!

Pazel moved to obey—but Thasha caught his hand tightly in her own.

“Wait,” she said, “please.”

The newcomers were backing against the walls, trying to get farther from the clock—all save Bolutu, who stared at it as though at some frightful revelation. Even Fiffengurt looked anxious. Thasha’s grip tightened; Pazel wondered if he would still be sitting there, holding her hand, when the Turachs kicked in the door.

If this continues your fight is over
, said Dri.

Pazel turned to Thasha, but as if she guessed what he would say she shook her head fiercely.
Please
, she mouthed. The wind grew stronger, louder; the door of the vault began to shudder in its frame.