The Ruling Sea (99 page)

He shot to his feet, scaring the bird back to the window. Book and blanket and cake fell to the floor. He took a step forward, lips trembling, possessed by yearnings the very existence of which he had forgotten.

“Syrarys?” he whispered.

“Isiq!” screeched the tailor bird, beside himself. “Isiq, best friend, only friend, you can talk!”

43
A Meeting of Empires

20 Ilbrin 941
219th day from Etherhorde

With the lookout’s cry at dawn, grown men wept with relief.

“Tower ashore! Tower ashore!”

Felthrup’s eyes snapped open. Had he heard correctly?

He was in the doorway of the wedding cupboard, under Hercól’s chair. Hercól was already on his feet. “A tower!” he cried softly. “Thank the sweet star of Rin!”

“We are saved!” said Felthrup. “Any settlement will have water! They cannot refuse us enough to stay alive!”

“To me, little brother,” said Hercól, and lifted the rat to his shoulder. Felthrup clung tight, reveling in the strength of his three good legs. Just like Master Mugstur, he had seen his battle-wounds healed when he took monstrous shape. Then (a far greater blessing) the Red Storm had nullified the hideous change, restoring him to his true body, just as it had done to Belesar Bolutu. Even with his burning thirst, Felthrup had not felt so strong in years.

The door to Pacu Lapadolma’s cabin opened, and Bolutu himself stepped out, his silver eyes shining with anticipation. The dlömic man had lately moved into Pacu’s cabin, which like Hercól’s cupboard stood inside the magic wall. He wore an amulet about his neck: a lovely sea-green stone, inlaid with gold likenesses of tiger and snake. It was a sacred emblem, he’d explained vaguely: and this was the first time he’d dared display it in twenty years.

He had also taken to wearing a broadsword. Felthrup didn’t know where the sword had come from, but he knew why Bolutu kept it at hand, and why he had changed his quarters. The mood on the
Chathrand
was explosive; men were almost as thirsty for a scapegoat as they were for water. Felthrup himself went nowhere without a guardian. The only thing worse than being the sole dlömu aboard the Great Ship was being its last surviving rat.

Scores of men were already rushing up the Silver Stair, with ixchel flowing past them left and right. Hercól threw open the stateroom door. “Thasha! Pathkendle!”

Pazel and Thasha stumbled into the passage, blinking. Ensyl was there as well, riding on Pazel’s shoulder. Felthrup leaped into Thasha’s arms. “Wake up, my lady!” he said, wriggling with excitement. Thasha nodded vaguely; she did not seem to know quite where she was.

Bolutu was first up the Silver Stair. As soon as he reached the topdeck a cry of joy burst from his lips.

“Narybir!
Ay dorin Alifros
, beloved home! That is the Tower of Narybir, Guardian of the East! We have reached Cape Lasung! There is a village beside the tower, and fresh water to spare! And see, there is the inlet we were hunting for!”

The others rushed up the ladderway. A joyful clamor was breaking out above:
A village! A village with water to spare!

On the topdeck, Bolutu stood with his half-webbed hands spread wide above his head. Men crowded around him, suddenly indifferent to his strangeness, hanging on his every word. Others gazed with longing from the portside rail.

Felthrup sniffed the wind and shivered with excitement.
Forest!
He could smell wet bark and pine sap, and a boggy smell like an inland swamp. Then Thasha moved forward, and Felthrup saw the tower.

“Rin’s eyes,” said Hercól beside them.

It stood at the end of the Cape: a magnificent spire of rust-red stone. The surface was irregular and deeply grooved. The tower was broad at its foot, with curving buttresses that vanished, root-like, into the sand. As it rose the structure leaned and twisted, so that from afar it resembled some ancient, wind-guttered candle. A little wall ran along the shore at its base. Inland from the wall stood a grove of rugged pines, and then, perhaps a mile from the tower, a village of low stone houses.

Eastward, the island tapered to a sandy point. Then came a mile of open sea, and beyond it the Northern Sandwall resumed, a ribbon of dunes curving away into the distance.

“Did I not promise you?” said Bolutu, turning to Pazel and Thasha. “Did I not say that the worst lay behind us?”

“You told us,” said Thasha uncertainly. Pazel stood hugging his coat tight about him, watchful and uneasy. Felthrup caught his eye, and felt a spark of worry ignite in his heart.

“Bolutu!” shouted Taliktrum, looking down from the quarterdeck, where he perched on Elkstem’s shoulder. “Is that a naval installation? Will they confront us with warships if we enter the gulf?”

“There is a small detachment of Asp warriors, if I recall, sir. But it was never a great fighting base. Narybir is a watchtower; her ships are meant to carry warnings with all possible speed to the City of Masalym, thirty miles across the gulf, where no doubt an Imperial warship or two lies at anchor. Her signal-lights also send messages to the ships themselves, and keep them from wrecking on the Sandwall.”

Another whisper of joy swept the deck.
Thirty miles to the mainland
—
to a city, a city, did you hear him?

“Can we have washed up right in the heart of your blary Empire?” demanded Taliktrum.

“No indeed,” said Bolutu. “Masalym is the easternmost of the Five Pillars of the Bali Adro Coast. Sail east another hundred miles and you leave the Empire for the Dominion of Karysk and the Ghíred Vale, and beyond that I cannot say. Our capital lies in the other direction, two thousand miles to the southwest. Farther still lies my birth-city: beautiful Istolym, westernmost of all.”

“Have you ever set foot in this Masalym then?” demanded Elkstem.

The dlömu shook his head. “Our ship set sail from Bali Adro City. I know the tower before us from paintings only, but it is unmistakable. Trust me, Sailmaster! I know
exactly
where we are.”

As he spoke these last words he glanced quickly at Pazel and Thasha, and touched the corner of one silvery eye. To the others it looked like a thoughtless gesture, but Pazel understood at once.
His masters, the mages of the South. They know where we are too, now. He’s just shown them
.

“Trust me, all of you!” Bolutu went on joyfully. “My mission was a famous one, and even if the name of Bolutu Urstorch has been forgotten after twenty years, that of my ship
Sofima Rega
never shall be. The men of Narybir will welcome us with open arms.”

“And flash a message to that city in an instant, maybe,” said Taliktrum, “from which one or two—or twenty—gunships will be launched.”

“Aye,” grunted Alyash, who had appeared at the rail. “A Segral from across the Nelluroq won’t be greeted with a shrug, now, will it? They’ll want to stop us cold. They’ll never let us go on our merry way, traipsin’ east to west through their waters. At the very least they’ll board us and inspect every last corner of the ship. And what d’ye suppose they’ll make of the Nilstone?”

“Better if we
had
struck land in a wilderness,” said Taliktrum, “for your purposes, and ours.”

For a moment no one spoke. On Thasha’s shoulder, Felthrup began to fidget. He sniffed the air again. “Don’t like it, don’t like it,” he murmured.

“You say men live in that village by the tower,” said a skeptical voice in the crowd. “Do you mean
real
men, or your sort of thing?”

It was Uskins, looking pale and rather sickly. He was keeping a sheepish distance from the other officers since his blunders in the Vortex. Bolutu glanced at him briefly.

“As it happens I mean both, sir,” said Bolutu. “Let me say again: in Bali Adro the races live together in peace.”

“But you things rule, don’t you?”

“Uskins!” snapped Taliktrum. “Living creatures are not to be referred to as
things
. And you in particular must learn to keep your mouth shut. Nothing but foolishness comes out of it.”

“Mr. Taliktrum,” said Elkstem nervously, “they may have flashed that signal already.”

Taliktrum looked at him, startled. The crowd was abruptly tense.

“He’s right,” said Alyash. “What good’s a watchtower if it’s not quick with its warnings? And even if the mainland can’t spot its signal light, there must be boats on the gulf that can. And they’ll relay the message to that city, if it’s really there.”

“No,” muttered Felthrup.

“They could be weighing anchor even now!” said an ixchel at Taliktrum’s side.

“And our men are in no shape for a fight,” added Uskins.

“Fight?” cried Bolutu. “My dear sirs, you do not grasp the situation at all! We are a secure and confident people. No power in Alifros need give Bali Adro a moment’s fear. We do not attack strangers who arrive on our doorstep! Why should we? Go and get your water, gentlemen! No one is going to take your ship away.”

“Listen to him!” shouted someone, and the crowd rumbled agreement.

“No, no, no,” said Felthrup, who was now practically writhing on Thasha’s shoulder.

“Can’t you keep that rat quiet?” Alyash snapped at Thasha.

Thasha returned his stare with loathing. “What’s the matter, Felthrup? Don’t listen to him. Go ahead, speak up.”

All eyes turned to the rat. Felthrup opened his mouth to speak—but his brain was working too quickly, and his nerves got the better of him. He began to sniff hard and fast, like a monk at his breathing exercises. Then he gasped aloud.

“Grease,” he said. “Cookfires. Last night’s dinner!”

Alyash made a sound of contempt.

“I don’t smell a blary thing,” said Elkstem.

“You ain’t a rat, are ye?” said Fiffengurt. “They can stand on a roof and smell a bean in the basement. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if those smells fetched across the water.”

“No!” wailed Felthrup. “I can’t smell
anything!
Wake up, wake up!”

He began to squeal pitifully and rub his snout with his paws. Thasha cradled him, whispering soothing words, but he only grew worse, convulsing with dry heaves. He spoke no more, and with a look of concern Thasha bore him away.

Myett whispered something urgently into Taliktrum’s ear. He nodded, as though the thought had occurred to him already.

“Mr. Elkstem,” he said, “plot a course through the inlet. We shall go and get our water—quickly—unless there is some
coherent
objection?”

A roar of approval from the men. Pazel and Hercól exchanged a look. In the swordsman’s eyes Pazel saw a reflection of his own unease. Felthrup had an extraordinary way of thinking. His nerves had betrayed him the same way in Simja, when he guessed Ott’s trick with Pacu. Some deep part of him seemed to grasp things before he could explain them, even to himself.

But what choice did they have? Without water, the men would soon be more delirious than Felthrup. And then they would start to die.

Mr. Fiffengurt took a tally: of the sixteen officers charged with record keeping, eleven reckoned the date to be 20 Ilbrin of the year 941.
^*
He sent a request to Captain Rose to make the date official:
Without that we agree on the date, sir, I fear the men’s hearts will go evermore adrift
. Rose agreed at once, and the date of the IMS
Chathrand’s
entrance into the Gulf of Masal was fixed for all time.

Fiffengurt assumed that the day would be remembered for the meeting of two worlds so long divided, and in a sense he was right. It was in any case a day no one aboard was ever able to forget.

They cleared the inlet with nine fathoms to spare. On the leeward side Cape Lasung formed a broad sandy hook, with a number of small, rocky islands clustered near the point commanded by the Tower of Narybir. Several of these inner isles had stone houses and fortifications. But no voices hailed them, from tower or village, and the channel-markers Bolutu had predicted could not be found.

“Where’s the fishing-fleet?” said Pazel.