The Ruling Sea (91 page)

“What is it?” asked Hercól.

“Thundersnuff. A stimulant, putrid, exceptional. Part of a mad Quezan cocktail, they use it as punishment for sloth. If only I can remember the third ingredient. Something very common, it was … cloves, or horseradish …”

Fulbreech returned with a bottle, black and unmarked. “There’s some mistake, sir, this is
grebel.”

Grebel!
Pazel nearly dropped the little box. It was the nightmare liquor, the madness drink. He’d had it forced on him as punishment, by certain sadistic men on other ships. Fear, panic, hallucinations—these were all he recalled of the experiences. Except—

“I didn’t sleep,” he said. “I didn’t sleep for days! But that was just because of the fear, wasn’t it?”

“Salt!” said the doctor, ignoring him and surging to his feet. “The third ingredient is salt! I have gypsum salt, it will do, we can chew it—here!”

He snatched a leather pouch from the floor, ripped at the drawstring, and took a large pinch of gravel-like salt. Without preamble he gulped it, crunched it audibly in his teeth, and grabbed the bottle from Fulbreech. He favored the
grebel
with a look of loathing and respect. Then he tilted the bottle and drank.

“Glah! Horrid! Quick!”

He gestured at the little box. Pazel unscrewed the lid, breaking the seal. Inside was a teaspoon’s worth of fine red dust. The doctor bent until his nose was directly over the box. He covered one nostril and sniffed. Then he began to scream.

“OH DEVILS! OH GODS OF FLAMING DEATH!”

He straightened, spasmodically, as Pazel had seen men do when stunned by a flikkerman. He gave an incoherent roar.

“It’s working!” said Fulbreech.

Looks of terror and wild mirth chased themselves across the doctor’s face. He reeled, clutching at the air.
Grebel
sloshed from the bottle in his hand.

Hercól caught the doctor’s arms. “Hold on man! It will pass!”

Chadfallow thrust the swordsman aside and bent over the table. He put his forehead down, moaning. In his grip the table began to vibrate. Then, shaking violently, he raised his head to look at them, and spoke through chattering teeth:

“Twice … the
… grebel …
half … the … snuff.”

Those were his last coherent words. Fortunately they were the right ones. When the others had chewed the salt, swallowed the
grebel
and inhaled the tiniest whiff of thundersnuff, they felt weird and sick, but not deranged. Chadfallow for his part sat grinning, hugging himself, occasionally letting out a strangled scream.

“Well, we’re awake,” said Thasha, twitching. “But there’s no more
grebel
—Chadfallow spilled half of it on the floor. We’re not going to be able to give this treatment to
anyone.”

“And a hundred monsters in the hold, waiting for their chance,” said Fulbreech.

“Or more,” said Hercól. “And there is no way to know how much time we have gained. No matter—we shall fight the fight we are given. But be careful! You are not yourselves. Above all, beware your courage. It may be heightened beyond all reason, and lead swiftly to your death. Pazel, are you quite all right?”

“Yeah,” said Pazel, sniffing. “Just hot. I feel like I’m standing next to a fire.”

“The
grebel
came around to you last,” said Hercól. “I wonder if you had enough?”

“I left him half of what came to me,” said Fulbreech quickly.

“I’m all right,” Pazel insisted. “But listen. We can’t do this alone. It’s blary impossible. We’re going to need—”

“Prayer,” said a voice from the doorway, “though what mongrel god might answer you I cannot guess.”

It was Arunis. Pazel, who had not seen him since Bramian, was shocked by the change in his appearance. He had lost all the round plumpness of Mr. Ket. His face was pale, almost spectral, and a deathly light shone in his eyes. He gripped his cruel iron mace in one hand, and in the other the neck of a large and bulging sack. He looked amused at the sight of the doctor.

“The Imperial Surgeon,” he jeered. “Prince of Arquali intellectuals. Whatever you have done to him is an improvement.”

To Pazel’s surprise it was Fulbreech who spoke first. “Get away, sorcerer! You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as this man! And if you have any powers at all, use them to reverse what
you
did, to the rats.”

“I?” laughed Arunis. “You witless dog! I have done nothing to the rats! You humans left the Nilstone in a compartment overrun with fleas. You humans failed to notice an ixchel clan in your midst, or a woken rat possessed by holy lunacy. Yes, I work for your destruction as a race, noble cause that that is. But how little you force me to do! My only fear is that the
Chathrand’s
crew of savages will destroy itself before it carries us to Gurishal.”

“A noble cause was laid before you, long ago,” said Hercól. “But you chose another path, and have cleaved to it ever since. It has made you very strong, and very empty. Will you not abandon it, Arunis? There is still time to choose a new purpose—a higher purpose, beyond your poisoned dreams.”

“Spare me the sermon,” jeered Arunis. “Delusion is not to my taste. Was ever a life more empty than your own, Hercól Stanapeth? Where has your higher purpose led? You could have been Ott’s successor—the brain behind the Ametrine Throne. You could have been the most powerful man in your Empire. But instead you chose fantasy—a mist of promises and hopes. And so did the rest of you. Where is Ramachni? Where is your father, girl? A safer place than the
Chathrand
, that is where! And the crawlies! For months you denied their true nature. You couldn’t admit that they were simply beasts, born rabid, ready to kill. You wanted them to be your tiny brothers. You wished to befriend them, or—” He looked at Hercól with disgust. “—to train them to perform … other services.”

Hercól moved before anyone could stop him. He vaulted over the table and flew at the sorcerer, his black sword raised to strike. Arunis took a step back, lifting his mace, and shouted a word in a strange, harsh language. There was a flash of white light, and Pazel felt himself hurled backward, as by the slap of some giant’s invisible fist. Thasha and Fulbreech were thrown as well. But Hercól did not falter; he only slowed his step, as though fighting upwind in a gale. Ildraquin glowed faintly in his hand, and he shouted a challenge in his native tongue.

Six feet from Arunis he slashed suddenly at the air. Now it was Arunis who felt an unseen blow. He stumbled backward into the passage, amazed and furious. Once more he cried out in the harsh language. There was a second flash. Again Hercól swung at nothing; again the mage fell back. As the swordsman came at him a third time, Arunis hurled the mace with all his strength, and ran.

Hercól might have dodged the mace—but not without endangering those behind him. He caught it full on his shield, which cracked in two. With a snarl of pain he cast the two pieces to the ground. Then he groped for a wall. He was badly shaken.

“After him!” he gasped. “He is about to commit some atrocity, I felt it as we fought! Do not let him get away!”

“You’re hurt!” cried Thasha.

Hercól shook his head. “Leave me with Fulbreech! Stop the sorcerer, girl.” With sudden decision he stood and thrust Ildraquin into her hand. “Go!” he bellowed, pushing her out.

Thasha ran, and Pazel with her. They could hear the sorcerer’s feet pounding across the deck. They entered the main compartment, and there he was, fifty yards ahead, running for the Silver Stair.

He was exhausted; they were gaining on him swiftly. As he reached the stair he looked back and saw Ildraquin in Thasha’s hand, and fear shone in his eyes.

Pazel and Thasha gained the stair and hurled themselves down. Pazel could feel the
grebel
starting to work on his mind: that bad-dream feeling, the way dark and wriggling shapes clustered at the edge of his sight, only to vanish when he looked at them directly. He would have to warn Thasha.
You’re not mad, it’s the drink, it’s the snuff, it’s every blary thing but you
.

The berth deck passed in a whirl; then they heard Arunis exit onto the orlop. “I know where he’s going!” said Thasha. “To the Nilstone! To the Nilstone and the Shaggat Ness!”

They reached the foot of the stair—and backed away in horror, not daring to breathe.

A swarm of giant rats was crossing the orlop, port to starboard, flowing around the foot of the Silver Stair. They were eerily quiet: no more screeching, though soft cries of “Kill!” still boiled from a few bloody mouths. Their stench was alarming: not only the rat-reek the youths had suffered for hours, but a new, oily, heady smell that made them cover their mouths, lest they cough.

As they flowed by within feet of the two humans, the rats suddenly raised their twisted, nasal voices and began to sing:

Fearless the child of Rin proclaims:
“Death is the promise that breaks my chains.”
Cold is the journey, but bright the glade
Where believers rest in the Milk Tree’s shade
Faith on fire, blood on the sea
,
Rin’s fair Angel, set me free
.

Eighty or ninety of the monsters passed, staring straight ahead, as Pazel and Thasha watched without moving a muscle. When the last had scurried by, the youths leaned back against the wall, gasping with relief.

“Arunis must have been
barely
ahead of them,” whispered Pazel.

“That chant,” said Thasha. “It’s a hymn. The same one we used to sing at the Lorg, except for that bit about blood. And Pazel—did you see an
ixchel
walking with them?”

Pazel started. “No, I didn’t. Listen, Thasha, don’t trust your eyes. That
grebel
—”

“I know,” she said. “It started back in sickbay. I saw my father standing behind Fulbreech, terribly angry, reaching for his neck. And then—”

She was overtaken by a yawn.
Aya Rin
, thought Pazel,
she’s not going to last
. Thasha looked at him, frightened, furious, tightening her grip on Ildraquin. “Let’s go,” she said.

They stepped onto the orlop. They could hear the rats scurrying off to starboard, and a voice—Master Mugstur’s voice—berating them about their souls. Pazel was glad to find the compartment door torn asunder: it let them pass through without a sound.

They had stepped into a small chamber, a granary for the ship’s livestock. The grain bins had been smashed and plundered. By the far doorway stood a pool of blood.

“The next room’s the manger, where Rose put the Shaggat,” said Thasha. “Stay behind me, Pazel, and for Rin’s sake don’t try anything brave.”

At another time he might have made some retort. Now he only nodded. The
grebel
had turned the pool of blood into a black and steaming pit; he winced as Thasha walked through it, dispelling the illusion.

He followed her into the manger. Dead ahead they could see the stone form of the Shaggat, chained tight to the stanchion. Clenched in his fist was the Nilstone, darkness made visible, nothingness given form. Bodies lay around the mad Mzithrini king: Turach bodies, and rats. Square bales of hay lay in blood-darkened mounds. But there was no sign of Arunis.

Thasha smacked herself furiously on the head. “Wrong again! This wasn’t where he was going at all!”

“But it is where you are going to die, giants,” said a voice behind them.

They whirled: alone in the doorway, bare feet in the pool of blood, stood Steldak. He had never looked more vicious or depraved. His gaunt lips were stretched wide and grinning, and his pale eyes shone with glee.

Before Pazel or Thasha could move, he turned and shouted: “Come, Mugstur! I told you it was not Arunis! It is but two humans—the last, maybe, to have escaped our vengeance.”

A great screech went up behind him, and rats began to pour through the doorway. With a decisiveness that saved both their lives, Thasha grabbed Pazel by the arm and pulled him to the back of the chamber. They clawed their way up a stack of hay bales, then turned and raised their weapons. “Strike first!” Thasha whispered to him. “Every gods-damned time!”

The rats were on them in seconds. Pazel fought even more desperately than he had on the mainmast, driving Isiq’s sword into one set of snapping jaws after another, struggling for balance on the shifting bales. As scores of rats converged on the youths, Mugstur himself waddled into the chamber. He was astonishingly swollen and ugly. His transformation in the liquor vault seemed to have closed the wound Hercól had given him, leaving only a purple scar on his bone-white chest. But something had changed: Mugstur, and indeed all the rats, had become slick and slimy, as if coated with some viscous substance.
Hallucination
, thought Pazel, as a rat prepared to spring.

He killed that one, and the next, by stabbing downward with both hands on the sword-hilt. There were four scrambling to take their place, however, and eight or ten attacking Thasha. And the creatures were still shoving through the door.

He had stabbed his fifth rat when Steldak let out a piercing cry. At almost the same time a voice shouted, “Hold! Hold, beasts, or your master dies!”

Mugstur snarled, and his servants froze where they stood. Clinging to Mugstur’s shoulder was Taliktrum. The ixchel twisted the rat’s loose flesh with one hand, while the other reached around the hairless neck to the base of his jaw. There he held a long knife, point upward. One sharp thrust would bury it to the hilt in Mugstur’s brain.

Four other ixchel—Dawn Soldiers, all—were racing up Mugstur’s hairy sides to stand with their leader, weapons drawn. On the floorboards, Steldak lay with an arrow in his chest.

“Surrender, vermin,” said Taliktrum.

Master Mugstur reared suddenly on his hind legs. He had been thrice an ixchel’s size before his transformation; he was thirty times it now. But the five ixchel held fast, and Taliktrum remained poised for the kill.

Mugstur flexed his claws, one by one, a weirdly human gesture. Then he laughed, deep in his throat.