The Ruling Sea (85 page)

“Hate,”
cantica of Ixphir House

9 Umbrin 941

“You’re fast, girl,” said Sandor Ott. “Almost fast enough, had you guessed that the danger lay behind as well as before you. Don’t struggle, now, and for pity’s sake don’t try any of Hercól’s tricks. Remember he learned most of them from me.”

Only now did Pazel realize what he’d sensed in the room: not a difference but a
sameness
that should have warned him. The room should have felt emptier; instead it was as crowded as before. Rose was seated; it was his boot on Pazel’s chest. Dastu, holding a fengas lamp, stood to the captain’s right. Sergeant Haddismal and another Turach were in the room as well. The sergeant had a thrusting dagger fitted over the knuckles of his right hand. The blade was red to the hilt.

Behind the Turachs sat a row of bound men. Four had their faces concealed by leather hoods; the fifth, Lieutenant Khalmet, was slumped sideways against the wall, mouth open, blood darkening his chest.

Haddismal glared down at Pazel. “I’ll cut off your ears if you so much as sigh for that dung-eating dog! Khalmet swore to live and die for Magad the Fifth. There hasn’t been such an oath-breaking in the history of the Turachs. A stab through the heart was a mercy he never deserved—and he knew it, the coward, he all but lunged on my blade. The rest of you won’t be so lucky.”

Despite the hoods, Pazel recognized the others. Fiffengurt was still in the shirt he’d worn to the council meeting; he hadn’t even rolled down his sleeves. Pazel spotted Druffle by his gauntness, Big Skip by his size, Bolutu by his monk’s cloak and the blackness of his neck below the hood. The men’s hands were tied very firmly behind their backs. All four were trembling.

“Pazel Pathkendle,” said Dastu, almost sadly, “you never should have let old Chadfallow mix you up in all this. I hear you had a fine arrangement on the
Eniel
, and were halfway to citizenship.”

Pazel looked at him, and could not even feel the hate he expected. He was numb to any sensation but a kind of appalled disappointment. “Why?” he said.

“You should be asking why not,” said Dastu. “You never knew me, of course. You knew my second self—the one I’m done with
at last
, I think, Master?”

“Yes, lad, you’re done with it,” said Ott. “You’ve passed the exam with rare distinction.” He caught Pazel’s eye and gave a hideous grin. “What do you say, Pathkendle? Top marks for Dastu? Certainly he had
you
believing in him. The good tarboy, the one without cunning or prejudice or vice, the one nobody could hate.” Ott looked appreciatively at Dastu, who basked in the praise. “Six years he’s been refining the part. Fiffengurt wanted to make him a midshipman; he saw
officer
material there. I think the truth hurt more than the blows.”

Rose withdrew his sword, and his boot. “Stand up, Pathkendle. Ott, you will release the girl’s hair. She knows better than to fight you.”

Ott slid his hand from Thasha’s hair to her shoulder. “There are a dozen Turachs behind me in the passage,” he said, his lips almost touching her ear.

Pazel got to his feet, still aching from the blow to his stomach. “Dastu, how can you be with them?” he said, still incredulous in his shock. “You were at the council. You know what they’re doing is insane. You know that Arqual can’t win another war—that
nobody
can, except Arunis.”

“I know you cannot face the truth,” said Dastu, “but that doesn’t surprise me. How could you be expected to embrace Arqual’s coming supremacy? You lost your mother and sister in the Rescue of Chereste. You’re an Ormali, with an Ormali’s small, stay-at-home mind. I understand these things. But the world is large and cruel, Pazel. It needs Arqual more than ever.”

“That’s not you, talking,” said Pazel. “That’s just something they told you.”

“Something real,” said Dastu.

“I guess believing that is also part of the exam,” said Thasha.

Dastu turned her a look that made the hair stand up on the back of Pazel’s neck. But Sandor Ott just laughed. “Yes,” he said. “An essential part—and the only part your tutor failed, Thasha Isiq. Hercól called it freedom of thought, but in fact his freedom began to bleed away the moment he left the Secret Fist. Was he free when he lived like a hunted thing in the Tsördons? Was he free when his lands were seized, his sister and her family beggared, his ancestral home in Tholjassa burned to the ground?”

Thasha twisted in his grasp. “You!” she spat. “Did you do those things to him?”

“He did them to himself, lass,” whispered Ott, pressing his lips even closer. “And where is he now? In a cage, at the end of a wasted life. All for a withered old woman named Maisa—a cause as hopeless as petitioning the sun to rise in the west. Dastu, I’m glad to say, shows no such taste for lost causes.”

“You put it best, Master,” said Dastu. “Arqual is the future of Alifros. In time we will need just one name, for world and Empire alike.”

“Boy,” said Rose, “you’ve served your purpose well, but I don’t give a damn for your Imperial platitudes. Fawn on your master elsewhere; for now concentrate on the task. Nine mutineers you spoke of; only seven have you produced.”

“Captain,” said Dastu, “I fear I played the part too well. Undrabust and the stowaway girl meant to come, but I protested, the better to assure they’d not suspect I wanted—”

“Go and find them,” Rose interrupted. “If they are still behind the magic wall, lure them out. Tell them their friends are in need; tell them whatever occurs to you. Haddismal, send a man along with him. I want the stateroom emptied once and for all.”

Dastu smiled. “I have an idea already, Captain.” He looked to Ott, received a nod from the spymaster. Then he handed the fengas lamp to another Turach and slipped out of the room with Haddismal’s lieutenant.

Rose turned a stern and formal look on the captives before him, and pointed his sword at each in turn. “Pazel Pathkendle. Thasha Isiq. As Captain and Final Offshore Authority of the IMS
Chathrand
, I hereby charge you with the crime of mutiny. The crime was both premeditated and sustained. You have held council with the aim of planning the seizure of this ship. You have recruited others to your cause. You have already assumed control of the admiralty-level stateroom, and held it by magical means, creating a space beyond the reach of shipboard justice. You have taken oaths to persevere in this crime as far as it leads—even to the destruction of this vessel, and the death of its entire crew.”

At the last words, Mr. Fiffengurt began to squirm and kick, and cry out beneath his hood.

“Your quartermaster begs to differ,” said Rose. “He would put all the blame for that last notion upon himself. But Dastu tells us that the whole council discussed the possibility—that you
hoped it wouldn’t come to that
. Which means you accepted that it might.” Rose turned to the four captives seated behind him. “Remove their hoods, Sergeant,” he said to Haddismal.

One by one the Turach unlaced the leather hoods and wrenched them free. Druffle spat at the commando, and received a blow that rang loud in the little chamber. Fiffengurt already had a gash across his forehead, straight as a chart line. Blood had trickled down one side of his nose, and left a cinnamon stain on his white whiskers.

“Pazel,” he said miserably, “Miss Thasha. Forgive—”

“Silence!” barked Haddismal.

Big Skip was still and watchful, like a bear that has given up struggling in its chains. Bolutu, unhooded last of all, did not even glance at his captors. His eyes too went straight to Pazel and Thasha, but what was that keen glance trying to say—
Help me? Save yourselves? Have faith in my plan?

A sudden glimmer of hope leaped in Pazel’s mind.
Dastu left the council before Bolutu told us that his masters could see through his eyes. He can’t have told Rose and Ott. They don’t know that we’re being observed, that Bolutu’s Empire is expecting us
.

Rose opened the chamber door and beckoned. Turachs began to file into the room, hugely muscled men in leather armor, gauntlets, and short blades for close-quarters fighting. Two lifted the body of Khalmet and bore it from the room. The others, at a word from Haddismal, tugged the bound prisoners to their feet and made them face the captain.

“Mutiny has been a danger from this mission’s inception,” said Rose. “But despite yourselves, you have in fact helped me to prevent one.” Rose pointed at Pazel and Thasha in turn. “I have known since Ormael that the two of you, along with Undrabust and Hercól Stanapeth, wished me harm. What I could not know was just who else might wish it also. But I did not have to find them, fortunately. I simply had to wait for you to find them for me.”

Now his gaze swept all the prisoners. “The punishment for mutiny is death. As is the sentence for attempted theft of a vessel belonging to a chartered interest of Arqual. I might have found a way to construe your crimes as falling short of these worst offenses, but for the fact that you spoke of destroying this ship. For those who would hatch such a conspiracy there can be no second chances. You are all condemned men.

“The spell on the Shaggat forces me to delay most of your executions: you will be held in the brig until the matter of the Nilstone is resolved. We know Pathkendle is not the spell-keeper, but he too must wait a little longer for his punishment. That leaves us with Mr. Sunderling, who joined the crew only after the spell was cast. Since you were in such haste to mutiny, sir, I see no reason to make a slow affair of your punishment.”

Big Skip’s eyes went wide. “Captain,” he said, low and serious, “don’t do it, sir. We weren’t after your ship. I’m a good Arquali like you. It’s a doomed voyage, sir, an evil one. You didn’t want to be part of it no more than me. I’ve heard the talk. They sent the flikkers after you, sir. They caught you with a ticket for an inland coach.”

“Take him aloft,” said Rose. “Put him in stocks by the jiggermast, and nail the charges above his head.” He hesitated, studying the carpenter’s mate. “Give him some water. At midday tomorrow, he hangs.”

For an instant the room looked poised to explode. Thasha cried out; Ott had given her a warning nick below the rib cage, even as the captain spoke. Pazel whirled, and felt Rose’s sword cut him through the shirt.
“Hold!”
roared the captain.

Of course there was nothing else to be done in a room full of Turachs. But as he felt his flesh torn open by the blade Pazel’s wisdom simply vanished. He struck at the captain’s sword-arm, the fastest and most thoughtless blow he’d ever attempted, and felt the wrist buckle. Rose howled in astonishment and pain, Haddismal leaped forward with his dagger raised, Thasha screamed
No!
Then a foot out of nowhere struck Pazel’s cheek with the force of a club: Ott’s foot. He had kicked the youth without taking either hand away from Thasha.

The blow turned Pazel’s body like a snapped towel. Mouth agape, he crashed into Rose. The captain, snarling, seized him, and threw him to the floor. Something—perhaps the cold, wet draft through the planks—kept him from losing consciousness. Then Rose came down on top of him and took his throat in both hands. The ferocity of his grip, the excruciating pain, left no doubt as to his intentions. Pazel smashed his knees against the captain’s ribs, but Rose only grunted, lifted Pazel’s head and slammed it down against the boards.

“I had plans for you,” he said. “Plans, or hopes at least. But I can damn well make other arrangements.”

He pressed his face to his victim’s chest, for Pazel was clawing desperately at his eyes. Thasha was fighting Ott, Fiffengurt was begging the captain’s mercy for the youths. And Pazel was dying. He knew that, even as his eyesight dimmed. There came an instant of mental lightning, when visions of his mother and Neda, Thasha and Neeps, Ramachni and the bright eyes of the murth-girl, all became beautifully distinct, like so many gorgeous playing cards fanned across a table. Then the visions began to wink out.

“Nilus!”

The voice shrieked, peremptory, commanding, from the crowded passageway. The captain jumped, relaxing his grip on Pazel’s neck with an almost guilty haste. The voice was Lady Oggosk’s.

Her red cat preceded her, slipping among the ankles of the room’s startled men. Sniraga went directly to the captain and rubbed against his leg. Then Oggosk herself appeared, elbowing a path through the Turachs, who looked twice as big beside the tiny crone. She wore a black shawl over her arms, and pointed at the captain with her walking stick.

“What are you doing, Nilus? Get up, you look a perfect fool!”

“Oggosk, how dare you interfere!” said the captain through his teeth. “Get back to your quarters; we will speak when I am finished here.”

“Pazel! Thasha!” cried Neeps from the passage. “I came as fast as I could! She’s just so blary slow on the ladderways!”

“Quiet, you odious boy!” snapped the witch. “Nilus, the Ormali must not be killed. Not yet, not while the girl is still—
glaya
, the way she is.” She gestured vaguely at Thasha, still held fast by Sandor Ott. “Have the girl and Pathkendle taken to your quarters. Leave the rest to Haddismal. There are more urgent problems, Rin knows, such as the apelike Mr. Uskins’ blunders at the helm.”

“Duchess—”

“Nilus, he is fondling her! That lascivious spy is fondling Thasha Isiq, and snuffling at her ear! He has cut her belly too! What sort of ship are you running? Get off her, you reptile.”

She jabbed at Ott with her walking stick, but the spy only pressed his knife harder against Thasha’s side. The hand on her neck had indeed slipped lower, inside her shirt. Thasha’s eyes were blazing, her lips curled back in a look of consuming hate.

Oggosk made a sound of disgust. “I’ll expect you in your cabin, Nilus. Bring the doctor to bind their wounds. You can stay here, Undrabust; try not to get killed.”

She hobbled off into the passage. Sniraga, however, remained seated by the captain’s knee, purring softly, the only contented being in the vault.