The Night of the Swarm

9 Fuinar 942

297th day from Etherhorde

‘Ah, Master Stargraven! I knew you would be back.’

Felthrup led the way down the ancient passage with its rotting wares. Ahead in the enchanted brig, the antique lamp burned on its chain as before, and the light gleamed on the unlocked cells. He was terrified, and elated. His scholarship was paying off — and more importantly, he had friends beside him. Marila and Fiffengurt would need his guidance. They had never faced a demon before.

This time the maukslar had not bothered with a disguise. It stood at the centre of its cell looking just as Felthrup remembered: talons, wings, bloated body, gleaming gold eyes. Its hands rested lightly on the bars of the cell; lamplight glittered on its rings.

‘Shall we bargain, rat?’ it said.

‘Oh yes,’ said Felthrup. ‘That is indeed why we came.’

The three humans remained silent, as he had hoped they would. Marila and Fiffengurt each held a little pouch. The demon studied them, allowing its eyes to linger pointedly on Marila’s belly. Unblinking, the Tholjassan girl met its gaze.

‘Oho, little wife,’ said the maukslar. ‘Ferocity suits you. It will not protect you, however.’

The maukslar turned to the last figure in the brig. It smiled, fat cheeks folding in on themselves. ‘Nilus Rose. Are you come to join your good friend Captain Kurlstaff? He was an amusing companion, while he lived.’

Rose’s eyes betrayed nothing. His voice was low and deadly. ‘Kurlstaff has spoken of you, monster.’

‘Has he spoken of your death? It is very near. You will know shame, then agony; then the plague will simply melt your mind away. You will try to hold on, to remember yourself, to keep your human soul intact. But you will fail. It will pour from you in a rush, like bilge down a drain.’

Captain Rose stepped forward. A show of courage, but he did not truly feel it: Felthrup could smell the terror in the big man’s sweat.

‘Not too near, Captain!’ he squeaked.

Even as he spoke the maukslar hurled itself against the bars with a snarl. Its reach was longer than anyone could have foreseen: one jewelled hand clawed the air just inches from the captain’s face. Fiffengurt hauled Rose back by the arm.

The maukslar straightened, its calm suddenly restored. It held something red between two fingers: a bit of Rose’s beard.

‘I think I shall keep this,’ it said.

‘Abomination!’ shrieked a voice from behind them. ‘Fat toad of Slagarond! Drop that hair!’

It was Lady Oggosk, hobbling down the passage, brandishing her stick. Felthrup winced. He’d been wrong to tell the captain about this place. Neither he nor his witch could help them now.

‘Drop it!’ Oggosk shrieked again. But the maukslar did not obey. Instead it put the wisp of Rose’s beard into its mouth, and swallowed. Oggosk’s face twisted in horror. She struck the iron bars and snapped her stick in two. The maukslar held its vast belly and laughed.

‘Enough, enough!’ cried Felthrup. ‘Duchess, you are not to interfere! Captain Rose, I thought we had an understanding, you and I.’

Rose took Oggosk’s elbow, firmly. ‘Go back to the door,’ he told her, ‘and see that no one approaches. That is my command.’

For once, Oggosk heeded him, though she wept and swore and as she departed, clutching half her stick.

‘The ghosts are thick around you, Captain,’ said the maukslar. ‘They know when one is soon to join their number.’

Marila nudged Felthrup with her foot. She was right; it was for him to take charge.

‘Tulor!’ he said, inching nearer. ‘I am ready for you today, but I warn you that I shall not tolerate behaviour unbecoming in a — that is, poor behaviour of any kind. You have knowledge to barter with? Very good, that is what I require. To begin with-’

‘Free me.’

Mr Fiffengurt snorted. ‘Now there’s a laugh,’ he said.

Felthrup suppressed an urge to bite his ankle. ‘To begin with, I will ask you a simple thing. Is Arunis gone for ever, now that Mr Uskins is dead? Or is there still a man aboard who he has. . infected, as it were?’

The maukslar spat.

‘Hmmph!’ said Felthrup. ‘That is because you don’t know.’

The creature bristled. ‘I was perfectly clear with you, rodent. I will tell you nothing more until I am set free.’

‘But I think you will. I think you will trade knowledge for food.’

‘Food!’The creature looked at him with contempt. ‘Little squirmer! You may keep your shipboard slops. I do not hunger here.’

‘How ungracious!’ said Felthrup. ‘But you must offer him a taste all the same, Marila.’

Marila reached into her pouch and withdrew a gold coin. Taking care not to lean too close, she tossed it through the iron bars. The coin rolled in a half-circle and landed near the maukslar’s taloned feet.

The maukslar did not look at the coin, but it grew very still. Wait, thought Felthrup. The humans were looking at him, perplexed. In his thoughts he begged them to keep silent.

The maukslar crossed its arms. It glared, defiant, its vast chest rising and falling.

Wait.

The fat hands twitched. The golden eyes looked away. Then suddenly the creature threw itself down like a dog before the coin, and ate it. The demon moaned, as a spasm of wild pleasure crossed its face. Droplets of gold sparkled in its mouth, as if the coin had melted there. But the creature’s joy lasted only seconds. It turned Felthrup a look of redoubled hate.

‘Vermin.’

Felthrup sat back on his haunches. ‘There is a great deal more, but you must earn it.’

‘I shall skin you alive, each of you. I shall roast you on a spit.’

‘You will answer my questions,’ said Felthrup, ‘or we will depart.’

The maukslar roared. It threw itself against the bars again, with even greater violence. The charmed door held fast. Twisting, screaming, the demon changed its body: suddenly a tall, savage-looking man with a red beard took its place, eyes fixed on Captain Rose.

‘Nilus!’ the man thundered. ‘Free me at once!’

Rose’s eyes went wide. The man in the cell bellowed again, and the captain flinched, as though expecting a blow. Then his eyes narrowed again, and he looked at the figure squarely. ‘You are not my father,’ he said.

‘Worthless cretin! I order you to open this door!’

‘But I wish you were,’ Rose went on, ‘that I might stand here before you, and lift not a finger on your behalf.’

The figure gaped at him — and then, in an eyeblink, it changed again. Within the cage there suddenly appeared Neeps Undrabust, dressed just as he had been the night before he left the Chathrand. The night Rose had married him to Marila. Neeps turned to his young wife, eyes brimming with emotion, and reached out a trembling hand.

‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘It’s truly me. Come here, let me touch you. Let me touch our child.’

‘Marila, leave at once!’ cried Felthrup. But Marila’s eyes remained fixed on her lover; she stood as though turned to stone. Fiffengurt closed one hand tightly on Marila’s arm. She started and shook her head.

‘I’m dying, you know,’ said the thing that looked like Neeps. ‘The same way Rose is dying. Of the plague. I don’t want to die without touching you again.’

Tears streamed down Marila’s face. Then she placed two fists over her eyes, and began to shout in Tholjassan. Felthrup could not understand the words, but he knew curses when he heard them, and so did the maukslar. The figure of Neeps disappeared, and was replaced by a perfect replica of Marila herself.

‘Your man does not love you,’ it said, in Marila’s own voice. ‘He’s found another lover. A finer one, a beauty.’

‘Liar,’ said Marila calmly. ‘You don’t know him. I do. Besides, he’s in a land without human beings.’

The false Marila laughed. ‘And you think that has stopped him? You are the one who does not know the man, or the soul of men writ large. No depravity is beyond them.’The creature touched its bulging stomach. ‘What do you think is growing, here? A healthy baby, from his seed? Shall I tell you the truth?’

At that Fiffengurt suddenly came to life. Spitting out a few choice curses of his own, he lifted Marila from the ground and ran with her down the passage. In the cell, the maukslar laughed and clawed at its belly. ‘A grub, a flesh-eating grub! It is gnawing you, gnawing its way to the light!’

Felthrup heard the quartermaster’s voice at the distant doorway, and a croaking reply from Oggosk. Moments later Fiffengurt returned alone. He had torn open his pouch. Before Felthrup could stop him he poured out a shower of golden coins upon the floor of the cell. The few that rolled in the maukslar’s direction he stamped flat under his boot.

‘Fiffengurt, Fiffengurt!’ cried the rat. ‘That is not the procedure!’

‘It is now,’ snarled Fiffengurt. ‘Go on, bastard, eat your muckin’ fill.’

The maukslar resumed its true form. Its small bright eyes fixed on the gold, and a moan came from its chest. It dropped to its knees and stretched out its jewelled hands as far as it could go. The nearest coin was barely an inch out of reach.

Crack. Mr Fiffengurt brought the broken end of Oggosk’s staff down on the fat, squirming knuckles. The maukslar’s hand jerked back. It sat up, wings half-spread, its eyes flickering between their faces and the gold.

‘Give me some,’ it hissed.

‘Answer the rat’s blary question!’

‘One coin first. Just one.’

Fiffengurt shook his head. ‘Two, when you talk.’

The maukslar was gasping with want. Set free, it would tear them all to pieces; of that Felthrup had no doubt.

‘Arunis is banished,’ it said. ‘He trapped Uskins through the white scarf, which was his soul’s portal. Without it he cannot return, until the Swarm completes its work, and Alifros lies dead and cold.’

The quartermaster glanced at Felthrup. ‘Well, Ratty?’

Felthrup shook his head. ‘That answer does not merit two coins.’

Before the maukslar could howl again, he raised a paw. ‘It merits twenty.’The maukslar started, eyes ablaze with doubt and hunger.

‘Yes, twenty coins,’ said Felthrup. ‘If you will swear that what you say is true.’

‘Wretched animal. I spoke no lie!’

Felthrup told Mr Fiffengurt to count the money out. The quartermaster looked dubious, but he bent to the floor and gathered twenty coins, and stacked them at Felthrup’s side.

‘Now swear,’ said the rat.

The demon’s eyes were locked on the coins. ‘I swear that what I have said of Arunis is true.’

‘And that everything you say to us henceforth shall be true.’

‘Yes, yes — I so swear! Give me the gold!’

‘Now repeat after me. “I shall speak no word of falsehood to those gathered here before me.” ’

‘I shall speak no word of falsehood to those gathered here before me.’

‘ “Nor seek to harm them, or their friends, or their just interests.” ’

‘Nor seek to harm them, or their friends, or their just interests.’

‘ “To this I swear by my name-” ’

‘To this I swear by my name-’

‘ “Kazizarag.” ’

The maukslar’s eyes snapped up. Then he exploded in horrible wrath, flying about his cage wreathed in yellow flame. Felthrup and the two men waited for a time, then gathered the coins and made to depart. Only then did the creature relent, and swear by his true name.

‘Very good, thing of evil!’ squeaked Felthrup. ‘I knew you were no Tulor. And since a promise from your kind is binding only when witnessed by the living and the dead, I thank you for confirming the presence of ghosts in this chamber. Now feed him, by all means! We keep our promises too.’

Fiffengurt tossed the coins by twos and threes, and the maukslar snatched them up and devoured them like a starved zoo animal. When it had eaten all twenty it sat down in the middle of the cell, closed its eyes and crooned with pleasure.

‘Kazizarag,’ said Rose. ‘The spirit of Avarice. How did you deduce this, Felthrup?’

Felthrup almost choked on his answer: the captain had never before used his name. ‘I know more of the history of this ship than you might suppose, Captain,’ he said. ‘There are long passages in the Polylex, along with many words on the art of extracting oaths from things demonic. I even learned why Avarice here was imprisoned, and by whom.’

‘Then you know I have served my time,’ said the maukslar, still glowing with contentment.

‘If that’s a bid for freedom, you can choke on it, blubber-pot,’ said Mr Fiffengurt. ‘We’ll never in a thousand years let you-’

‘Fiffengurt!’ shrieked Felthrup.

The maukslar’s eyes opened wide. ‘I should have known,’ it hissed. ‘You decided my fate in advance. Well, rat, I am sworn to speak nothing but truth. But I took no oath to speak at all. What is more, I can wait you out. That meal was my first taste of gold in centuries. It will hold me for. . some time.’

‘How long?’ asked Rose. ‘A day, a week?’

The maukslar grinned; flecks of gold shone in its teeth. ‘Longer than you have, Captain,’ it said.

Felthrup rubbed his paws together. Blast Fiffengurt to the moon’s cold backside!

‘I also did not swear to hold my tongue,’ said the maukslar. ‘Here is a dainty just for you, rat. You’re a child of the plague. The same twisted spell that created you is killing Captain Rose, and others. And if the spell should ever end there will be no more woken creatures born. You will be alone in Alifros, and in a generation or two most will doubt that you existed at all.

‘But in fact there will be no more generations. For here is another truth I am free to tell: Macadra is coming. She has staked her very soul on the winning of the Nilstone, and when she has it she will never give it up.’

‘But why is she coming?’ cried Felthrup. ‘Does she believe we have the Nilstone? Or is she chasing someone who does? Is that it? Is another ship coming our way?’

The maukslar looked at him with loathing. ‘Whether Macadra finds you first or the Nilstone does not matter. You will die at her hand, or die when the Swarm takes Alifros in its black embrace. Macadra may try to stop the Swarm, but she will fail. No sunrise will end that night, little rat. Life itself will perish, blind and frozen. Only we deathless ones will remain, feeding on the corpse.’

‘Demon,’ said Captain Rose, ‘do you know where the Stone must be taken?’

‘I know,’ said the maukslar, smiling, ‘but that is not all. I could tell you of the crawlies’ secret power. I could plot a true course for you across the Nelluroq, since the one you have is nonsense. I could help you pass safely through the Red Storm. I could tell you the fate of those you left behind.’

‘We are prepared to bargain further,’ said Felthrup. ‘We have another sixty coins-’

The creature made a sound of disdain.

A pause. Then Captain Rose said, ‘We have more than sixty — far more. There is a great hoard secreted upon the Chathrand. We can bring you ten thousand.’

The maukslar rose on its bird-feet and pointed at Rose. ‘You could bring me far more than that,’ it hissed. ‘I have seen the gold — and the pearls and gemstones — hidden all over this ship. Under the stone ballast, inside false stanchions on the mercy deck, sealed in iron shafts between the hulls. I saw you bring the hoard onto the ship in Arqual. I watched Sandor Ott remove a part of it for the son of the Shaggat Ness, saw another fraction discovered and seized by the shipwrights of Masalym. What remains you mean to give to the fanatics on Gurishal, to finance the Shaggat’s uprising and destabilise the Mzithrin. I have seen them, Rose. They tortured me, shining there, just out of my reach.’

‘We can still liberate a great many coins,’ said Rose. ‘if we take care not to alert Sandor Ott, or Sergeant Haddismal, or any of their informers. We can bring you gold by the sackful.’

‘And taunt me as you have done today? I think not. You see, I had not eaten in decades — not since Captain Kurlstaff’s day. I was starving. You fed me. Now my agonies have ceased.’

A rush of despair came for Felthrup, then. He is not lying. We can no longer make him talk. And we learned almost nothing! Not even whether our friends are alive. You proud fool, Felthrup! To think you could match wits with such a beast!

‘Why speak of agonies?’ he tried, desperate. ‘We can feed you in the finest style. Gold and more gold! Why settle for enough, O Avarice, when you can be replete?’

‘Replete, replete, that’s the word!’ said Fiffengurt.

‘Shut up, Quartermaster! Demon, you were born to be — capacious. How long since you knew the satisfaction of gluttonous excess?’

The maukslar’s jewelled hands caressed its belly. ‘I shall know it again without your help. Kazizarag was born to eat, not to suffer mockery and jibes. I shall wait out your doom. And your doom is coming, insects. Whether Macadra brings it, or the Nelluroq storms, or your own limitless folly. I need only wait for the Chathrand’s spine to snap. When it does, every spell laid down by selk or mage or murth-lord will be sundered. These bars will melt away, and I shall be free to swallow that hoard, all of it, though it lie on the bottom of the sea.’

They filed back down the passage, watched by the silent denizen of the brig. Marila and Lady Oggosk were waiting outside the Green Door. When Felthrup and the two men had all clambered out into the mercy deck, the witch made a sound of disgust and prepared to slam the door.

‘Wait!’ said Marila. ‘You haven’t given up, have you? If you close that door the blary thing will vanish, and we’ll have to start hunting it all over the ship again.’

‘You’re right, Marila!’ said Felthrup. ‘Dr Chadfallow’s study of its comings and goings is not foolproof. It might be days before we find it again.’

‘Days we don’t have to spare,’ put in Fiffengurt, ‘and who knows? Maybe that tub of grease really can help the ship escape.’

Oggosk scowled at him. ‘What, then? Leave it open? You saw that monster’s cunning, Nilus. He knew just how to attack you.’

‘He’s not Arunis, though, is he?’ said Fiffengurt. ‘We had him furious enough to dice us up for soup. But he didn’t use one charm that reached beyond his cell.’

‘He cannot,’ said Felthrup. ‘If he could, that cell could not have held him for centuries.’

‘He has a mind infernal,’ said Oggosk, ‘and he will use it against any guard we place here.’

Rose stared at the door. ‘Find Tarsel, Quartermaster,’ he said at last. ‘The door swings outward. We will fasten a plate to the floor to prevent its closing fully. Also thick chains, and padlocks, so that it may not open more than a few inches. You yourself shall hold the keys.’

‘Him? The idiot?’ cried Oggosk. ‘Why not keep them yourself? Or pass them to Gangrune? Keys are the purser’s duty.’

‘Mr Gangrune is somewhat addled of late,’ said Fiffengurt.

‘And you were born addled, you old salted sea-rat! Nilus, choose someone else, this cross-eyed bungler will only drop them down the heads, or throw them-’

‘Oggosk, be silent!’

Something in his voice made Felthrup look up in alarm. Rose was pressing his temples. His eyes were closed and his face was clenched with an expression of painful effort — or perhaps simply pain. The others noticed as well. Mr Fiffengurt and Lady Oggosk exchanged a glance — the first without rancor that Felthrup had ever witnessed.

Then Rose opened his eyes, and he swept them all with a furious glance.

‘That creature has knowledge that could save this ship. Get it out of him, you four. Nothing else concerns you. Quartermaster, your duties will pass to Mr Byrd. Consult your Polylex, consult the Quezan harpooners, consult the mucking stars if you like. But bring me something to try by sundown. That is all.’

But it was not all. Captain Rose was lumbering up the Silver Stair, brooding and stiff, when the shouting of his men pierced his thoughts. He raced up the ladderway, past the orlop and berth decks, bellowing for a report. The crawlies, Skipper! men were shouting. The crawlies are coming back!

‘Beat to quarters, fools!’ he shouted.

His command raced ahead of him. Drums sounded, the ship roared to life. When Rose burst out upon the main deck he found the crew staring up at the sky.

A flock of birds was winging towards them from the island: the same oversized swallows, bearing the little people in their claws. A large flock, but not as large as the one two days ago that had spirited Talag’s fighting force off the Chathrand. Rose made a quick estimate: some two hundred crawlies were returning to the ship.

What in the Nine Pits for? Can they possibly mean to attack?

A voice at his ear whispered suddenly: ‘There’s been blood on the wind for days, Rose. Crawly blood. We’ve smelled it.’

The ghost of Captain Maulle, almost invisible in the crisp morning light.

‘Turachs to the deck!’ Rose howled. ‘Bindhammer, Fegin, get your men aloft — don’t concede the rigging to those mucking lice! Fire-teams to the chain pumps. Haddismal, send that sharpshooter of yours to the main top! The rest of you — stand by, stand by.’

Sandor Ott stood on the roof of the wheelhouse, bow in hand. The flock was swift approaching. Marines boiled from the hatches like armoured ants.

But this time the birds did not swoop down on the deck. Instead they flew straight and level across the Chathrand’s waist, parting around the top of the mainmast and flapping on, with the crawlies still held tight in their claws. A moment later the crew amidships was pelted with tiny objects, raining in their hundreds from above. ‘Take cover, lads!’ Fegin was shouting, but a moment later he added: ‘Belay, belay. What in Pitfire, Captain Rose?’

The bombardment ceased. Rose gaped in wonder at the objects littering the deck: tiny swords, tinier knives, bows and arrows fit for dolls’ hands. The ixchel had thrown down their arms.

‘Stand by!’ he shouted a second time, though no one would dare to move without his consent. The swallows turned eastwards, sailing out towards the mouth of the bay. They stayed far from the cliffs, as though the ixchel themselves feared assault from that quarter. Rose shouted for his telescope. By the time he had the birds in his sights they were descending again, upon one of the larger rocks beyond Stath Balfyr. As he watched they came in for a gentle landing on the barren stone, just a few yards above the lashing of the sea.

‘What’s that about?’ cried Sergeant Haddismal. ‘What in Rin’s name would make them want to come to rest out there?’

For several minutes nothing else happened, save that the dawn grew brighter, the air slightly less chill. Then the lookout cried that a single bird was flying back their way from the rock.

Rose found it with his telescope. The bird was carrying a crawly, and as it drew near he saw that it was none other than Lord Talag. As before, the swallow stayed high above the deck. But this time as they drew near, Talag shook himself free of the bird’s claws and flew on his own, in the swallow-suit, in a circle about the ship. His flight was laboured, and brief: he flew only as far as the tip of the main topsail yard, some four hundred feet above the deck. There he landed, folded his legs, and sat. Now Rose could see that the swallow-suit was in tatters, and stained with dark blood.

Fiffengurt was right. They’ve been fighting the island crawlies. And those two hundred — are they all that remain of his clan?

Commotion aloft: Talag was shouting to the topmen. They relayed the message at once down the human chain. Rose made them say it twice, as he could scarcely believe his ears. Talag was asking Rose to climb the mainmast, near enough for a private talk, ‘between men who care for their people’.

The gall! thought Rose. As if listening to more lies and duplicity could help my crew.

‘If the crawly wants to talk he can descend to the quarterdeck,’ he said aloud. ‘Otherwise, let him rot there.’

‘Better yet,’ said Ott, approaching from aft, ‘let me knock him off his perch with an arrow. You know he deserves it.’

There was a gleam in the spymaster’s eye. Rose frowned. ‘He has earned death,’ he agreed. ‘Very well, spymaster: bring the Turach sharpshooter as well. If the crawly does not explain himself in twenty minutes, you and he will have an archery contest, and the men may place bets.’

Ott looked at him, pleased. ‘You surprise me, Captain. I had almost decided that you’d gone hopelessly soft.’

The men relayed the captain’s answer to Lord Talag. The ixchel’s reply came immediately. Talag claimed to know the secret of the boulder-throwers. He would share it, too, if only Rose would climb up and talk.

You cunning bastard, Rose thought. A chance to free the ship was the one hope he dared not spurn. Even to appear indifferent would demoralize the crew. And now a dozen men at least knew what Talag had promised.

‘Clear the mast,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll speak with the crawly alone.’

He expected rage from Ott, but the spymaster merely gazed at him, eyes bright with curiosity — a more disturbing response than anger. Rose climbed. It had been years since he had ventured as high as topgallants. The descending topmen eyed him with concern, but they knew better than to speak. Captain Cree, lounging at his ease in the fighting-top, had no such reticence: ‘Take your time, old man! Nothing’s more pathetic than a captain fallin’ to his death on his own ship.’

Rose actually smiled at the ghost. Cree had done just that.

He was light-headed by the time he reached the topgallant spar. Lord Talag had risen and walked in along the heavy timber until he was a few yards from the captain. The two men were alone on the mast.

‘Thank you for coming,’ said Lord Talag.

Rose was gasping. He heaved one leg over the spar, hooked an elbow around a forestay, and leaned back against the mast. The sun was hot on his face.

‘What do you want, crawly?’

‘Death,’ said Talag, ‘but I have yet to earn that release.’

Rose shielded his eyes. Talag was seating himself on the mast, and though he tried not to show it, Rose knew he was in stabbing pain. The blood was not only on his swallow-suit: it had dried on his hands, his leggings, had congealed his hair into a sticky mass.

Talag spread his hands. A slight barren smile on his lips. ‘Behold, your enemy. The Ninth Lord of Ixphir House, the master of his clan. Of what is left of his clan.’

‘Why did you take your people out to that rock? They can’t be safe out there.’

Talag looked at him. ‘Safe,’ he said. ‘That is a fine word. Safe.’

‘Don’t start blary raving.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Talag. ‘Only that is what the dream was about, you see. To be safe. That was what I promised them, years ago. That is why we brought the Chathrand to this isle.’

A ruined man, a broken man. At another time it would have angered Rose simply to be in his presence. Today what he felt was something darker: recognition, a likeness between them. Rose was chilled by the thought.

‘You promised me some word about those boulder-tossers.’

Talag nodded. ‘I will tell you everything I know of my. . brethren, on Stath Balfyr. Indeed I’m prepared to tell you anything and everything I know, save the location of my people on your ship. My word on that. And no conditions.’

‘You want nothing in return?’

Talag fixed his vanquished eyes on Rose. No anger in them, no hope for himself. And no pride, utterly none. It was as if the man before him had been skinned.

‘I want something immense, Captain,’ he said. ‘But I know I cannot bargain for it. I am here to beg.’

Rose and Talag spoke for a surprisingly long time. Many on the deck below watched their conference for a while, before beginning to mill about in impatience. Only Sandor Ott stood like a statue, his telescope fixed on the pair from beginning to end.

The end was bellicose: Rose shaking his bushy head, the crawly pacing the spar and gesturing with increasing urgency, at last both of them shouting, and Lord Talag Rying away from the Chathrand in a fury.

Scores of hands gathered by the mainmast, watching Rose slowly descend. When he reached the deck at last Sandor Ott handed him a glass of fresh water.

‘From your steward.’

The captain drank like a horse, then wiped his beard and shouted: ‘Clear out, you staring gulls! Have you not duties enough?’

The crew dispersed, leaving just Ott and Haddismal. Rose picked up his coat, drew out a clean kerchief and mopped his face.

‘They’re done for,’ he said. ‘The islanders are less like Talag’s people than we’re like the Black Rags. They’re all crawlies, I don’t mean that. They can understand each other’s speech — or enough of it. But they have nothing else in common. Stath Balfyr is religious, and divided. They treat the lower orders worse than dogs.’

‘What do you mean, lower orders?’ said Ott. ‘The clans have different ranks, different privileges?’

‘There are no clans any more,’ said Rose. ‘It’s a theocracy. The nobles live like sultans, make the laws, talk to the Gods. The lower-downs just follow. And the lowest of the low-’ Rose shook his head. ‘Talag said he saw a man dangling from a noose by the trailside. He asked what the man’s offence was, and they said, “He was caught uphill from his betters.” Just standing uphill. Because water flows downhill, and he might have rendered that water unclean.’

‘Gods of Death!’ said Haddismal.

Sandor Ott gazed out at the mouth of the bay. ‘Those two hundred, on the rock?’

‘All that remain alive,’ said Rose. ‘The islanders were prepared to grant Talag a higher status, because of the magic of the swallows. But not his people — they were unclean. Any outsider, ixchel or otherwise, is unclean. And when they tried to herd them into work sheds, under lock and key-’

‘Talag exploded.’

‘Of course he did,’ said Rose. ‘That last mobilisation was a rescue party. And a great defeat. Talag’s people are the better fighters, but there are tens of thousands of crawlies on that island. They rule every inch of her. That rock out there was the only place they could land.’

Ott gazed at him, unblinking. ‘Besides this ship, you mean. That is what he asked you for, wasn’t it? Safe return to the Chathrand, the ship they seized once, the ship they almost destroyed?’

‘That was his request,’ said Rose. ‘He doubts the swallows are strong enough to bear them to another island. Even the nearest.’

‘And in exchange, he told you how we might escape this Godsforsaken bay?’

Rose hesitated, and the other men saw his face darken. ‘Nothing of the kind,’ he said at last. ‘That was only a ploy to make me hear him out.’

He drew a deep, brooding breath, then turned and started lumbering towards the stern.

‘But Captain, what did you tell him?’ asked Haddismal.

Rose paused, looking back over his shoulder. ‘What did I tell him? That he had best hope the birds are stronger than they appear. Or else wait for a storm to wash them from that perch and end their suffering. That I would rot in the Pits before I’d welcome his ship-lice back aboard.’

Haddismal was speechless, caught between approval and horror. Sandor Ott too held very still, clutching the folded telescope and studying the captain minutely.

Once in his cabin Rose told the steward to pour him a generous snifter of brandy, then moved to his desk and began to write a letter. When he had his drink he set the steward to polishing the floor. But minutes later he glanced from the page and barked:

‘What are you doing there? Off your knees, and bring me that lamp.’

The steward lowered the walrus-oil lamp from its chain and brought it to the captain. Rose blew on the letter, folded it twice. From a desk drawer he took a stick of sealing wax and a spoon. As he melted a bit of wax above the hot lamp he gazed at the other severely.

‘How old are you?’ he said.

‘Forty-nine or fifty, sir. My parents weren’t much for dates.’

‘You are to leave the Merchant Service and learn a trade in Etherhorde. If you are not killed, that is. If you are killed, I submit that you must practise discretion in the afterlife. Tell no one you were a servant. You are well-spoken, and your table manners are fine. No one will guess your humble origins.’

‘Oppo, Captain,’ said the steward. He had been years in Rose’s service and was incapable of surprise.

‘This letter is for the duchess,’ said Rose. ‘Deliver it when she rises tomorrow. Until then keep it with you, safe and out of sight. Now go and eat.’

‘But. . your own dinner, sir-’

‘Go, I say. Come back at sunrise with my tea.’

Alone, Rose sat with both hands flat upon his desk. Not a sound, not a scurry. The ghosts had all stayed outside his door. He nodded to himself: their reticence was a sign, a threshold passed. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

He was still there at midnight, wide awake, the brandy untouched. He seemed gifted tonight with exceptional hearing. All the sounds of his vessel, the pounding, stumbling, swearing human machine, reached his mind like an incantation known by heart. At two bells past midnight there was a scratch at his door. He stood and walked to the door and opened it, and the red cat with the maimed tail looked up at him, questioning.

‘Come in, then,’ he said, and the animal did.

For the last hour he sat with Sniraga on the desk before him, purring. Then he passed a hand over his face (dry, flat, pitted, a face like an abandoned pier), and blew out the lamp. Now the room was lit by the stars alone, filtering dimly through windows and skylight. He stood up and took the cat to his bedchamber, shutting it within. Then he walked to the gallery windows.

The ship was as peaceful as it would ever be. Rose unlatched the tall starboard window, pushed it wide, then crossed the chamber to port and did the same. The chill night breeze slithered into the cabin, bringing with it the slosh of the bay against the hull, the creak of the mizzenmast stays.

Very soon they arrived. Soundless, as Talag had sworn they would be. A black river of birds, flying in at one window and out by the opposite. They never landed, never slowed. But as they passed, the crawlies dropped from their claws, landing on soft cat-feet, running for cover even as they touched the ground.

Of course, they had nowhere much to go. His cabin had no cracks or crevices, no bolt-holes by which they could escape. Quite a few were too injured to run in any event. The crawlies formed a circle in the middle of his rug, backs to the core — unarmed, pitifully vulnerable. The strongest lifted the maimed onto their backs.

Lord Talag was the last to arrive. From the windowsill, he made his people count off, their mouths opening and closing as they silently shouted. Then Talag flew to the rug and turned to face Rose. He made a curious salute, raising the sword he no longer had, then sank to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.

Rose scowled. He had not thought Talag capable of such a gesture, or that he, Rose, could ever find it sincere. It was sincere. ‘Get up,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘There’s your conveyance. Will you fit?’

He pointed to a battered sea chest by the wall. Talag nodded. ‘We will. There are breathing-holes, I trust?’

‘You’ll see them.’ Rose walked to the chest and tipped it on its side, holding the lid ajar. ‘Hurry, damn you,’ he whispered.

The crawlies flowed like ants into the chest. When they were all inside Rose slowly tipped the chest upright and closed the lid. Then he tested the weight.

Bile of Rin.

Two hundred crawlies — and what, two pounds apiece? He flexed his hands, his shoulders. He walked to his cabin door and listened: no one about. He propped open the door and walked back to the chest, glaring at it like an enemy. In his youth he had carried a five-hundred-pound whisky barrel up a gangway on a dare. But his youth was a memory, a visitor who had come with dreams and promises. A visitor whose face he could no longer recall.

He lifted the chest. The crawlies shifted. He moved to the door, stagger-stepping like a draft animal. He pictured himself collapsing, spilling crawlies down the ladderway, found by Turachs with the stark evidence of madness and treason in his arms.

How he managed the descent he could not begin to say. Did the ghosts aid him; could they lend him bodily strength? Or was it merely his conviction that a path once chosen must be walked to the end?

On the threshold of the orlop deck he braced the chest against the wall and slid it to the ground. Pain like a knife in his back. Torn muscle. He raised the lid. Lord Talag, and the bleeding remnants of Ixphir House, looked up without a sound.

‘Run, you little bastards,’ he gasped. ‘Run for your lives, and don’t let me ever see your faces again.’

They vanished across the orlop, quiet as a sigh of wind through reeds. Not one of them failed to bow before they fled. Why had he done it? How had Talag compelled him to care?

Too late for such questions. Rose lifted the chest (so nearly weightless, now) and continued down to the mercy deck. His work not done. The greater test was waiting somewhere in the dark.

‘Kurlstaff,’ he whispered. ‘Come along, you old pervert. Spengler. Levirac, Maulle. Why are you hiding, tonight of all mucking nights? Come out, I say. I need your witness.’

They came, stumping along in the darkness. They were reluctant, gazing at him with uneasy respect. Only Kurlstaff, with his lipstick and his bangles and his battleaxe, dared to speak. ‘You’re the maddest of us all,’ he said.

Rose moved on, and the ghost-captains trailed in his wake. At last he stood before the Green Door, padlocked as he had ordered. He set down the chest and fumbled in his pocket. From the start of his career Rose had never once dispensed a key without retaining duplicates himself. He freed the locks and let the chains fall away.

The dangling lamp sputtered to life as he approached. Kazizarag stood as before in the centre of the room, his gold eyes seeking Rose. This time the demon was silent, as though he knew (and perhaps he did) that taunts were the last thing he needed tonight. But he grinned at the captain, a wide sly grin full of teeth.

Rose dropped the chest and stared him down.

‘You can have the gold,’ he said. ‘All of it, and the other treasure as well. As Final Offshore Authority it is mine to dispense with. I give it to you.’

‘If.’

‘If you will swear not to seek it until the ship meets its death. A death you will not hasten.’

‘You are not much of a bargainer tonight,’ said the maukslar. ‘I cannot leave the vessel until the Chathrand’s keel is cracked, and her blood spills, along with all the magic that courses through her. Only then will this prison release me.’

Rose glanced back at Kurlstaff, who stood uneasily at the threshold. The other ghosts had not dared to enter. ‘What about our prison, Rose?’ demanded Kurlstaff. ‘When the ship sinks, will we go to our rest? Or will we rot for ever along with the carcass of the ship? Ask him, ask him!’ Rose faced the maukslar again. ‘The woken rat,’ he said, ‘tells me you can look through the walls of this ship as though they were glass.’

The demon just waited, gazing at him.

‘Everywhere, that is, save the stateroom. The latter, I assume, is guarded by a magic stronger than your own. Arunis could not pierce it either. The chamber is off limits to magical probes. We could even be hiding the Nilstone within it, could we not?’

‘You could, but I know better.’

‘The question is, does she?’

‘What are you driving at, Captain?’

Rose ignored the question. ‘The rat also said you claimed you could make a hen’s egg glow like the sun.’

‘Easily.’

‘Could you make it burn, though? Burn with death-energy, throb with curses like an altar of the damned? Could you make it so black that it swallows light the way you swallow gold?’

The maukslar stared at him, fascinated and appalled. ‘Lunatic. You are asking for a second Nilstone. Of course I cannot make such a thing, any more than I could lay new foundations under this world. And if I had such power, I should never offer the Nilstone as a gift. Not to you, not to Macadra. Not even to my mortal father, the Firelord who spawned me in his house of fear.’

Rose shook his head. ‘I do not want another Nilstone. Only a counterfeit copy. Something Macadra will sense at a distance, and take for the real item.’

Once more the demon grinned. ‘A decoy, you old wolf?’

‘A lure,’ said Captain Rose.

‘For her, eh? For the White Raven. Nilus Rose, you are unpredictable, and that is the highest compliment I can give. A counterfeit: why not? But you would have to provide some solid artefact. I cannot anchor such a spell on thin air.’

Rose nodded. He put a hand into his coat and withdrew a small object that glittered in the lamplight. It was the glass eye of the Leopard of Masalym, the good luck charm on which he’d nearly choked.

The demon studied it appraisingly. ‘That will serve,’ he said. ‘But now we come to it: what will you give me?’

‘The gold is not enough?’

‘I have answered that question already.’

‘Your freedom, then,’ said Rose.

‘My freedom!’ spat the creature, enraged. ‘And what truth-telling oath will you take, king of swindlers? Do you know how many have come here through the ages — sailors, officers, tarboys, third-rate wizards, lovers seeking a trysting-place, assassins with bodies to hide? Do you know how many have promised me my freedom, Captain — sworn they would open the cell, right away, never fear — if only. If only I will grant them this, cure them of that, spread the secrets of eternity before their nibbling little minds. You are all the same. You strike poses. And when you have taken much from me, you walk out that door, and spend the rest of your lives not thinking about the prisoner you left in the dark.’

Still Rose’s gaze was implacable. ‘Do I look like them? Do I look as though I have time to waste?’

The maukslar blinked, conceding the point.

‘I will free you, Avarice,’ said Rose. ‘The world is rife with demons, chained and unchained. The mischief you add will not be decisive.’

He waited. The maukslar gazed at him with the focus of a tiger watching its prey.

‘Give me the bauble.’

‘I will not accept a poor imitation,’ said Rose. ‘Do not forget that I have seen the Nilstone close at hand.’

‘My arts will not disappoint you. Give it here.’

Rose held the eye closer, but not close enough. He asked several further, pointed questions, and the maukslar, hungry in an entirely new way, spat out the answers like seeds. Then he made the demon recite his oath, and his name, just as Felthrup had done. Kurlstaff was still here, death’s witness: the bond would presumably hold. Rose tossed the glass eye through the bars-

The maukslar leaped like a dog, caught the glass eye in its teeth, and swallowed it.

‘You stinking fiend!’ cried Rose.

The maukslar threw its head back and moaned. Gnarled hands clawed at its stomach. Its body twisted like toffee; its head spun around upon its neck. Then the neck unwound with a snap, the belly heaved, and the monster vomited something onto the floor of the cell.

Rose hissed. Even Kurlstaff shielded his ghostly eyes. It was the Nilstone. Perfect in its blackness, horrible in the waves of power it flung out in all directions. It lay there, silently throbbing, an exact duplicate of that shard of death on which the fate of Alifros so strangely hung.

The maukslar nudged it with a taloned foot. ‘It will not fool her, or any mage, if they summon the courage to touch it. Nor will it do anyone grievous harm. You may lift it and take it away.’

‘But from a distance?’

‘It would fool its very maker. And when Macadra draws near — within a few miles, say — it will call to her.’

‘A few miles! Is that all?’

The demon shrugged. ‘You did not ask me to improve on the Nilstone.’

Rose ran his fingers through his beard. ‘No, I did not. And it is better this way. For perhaps she knows the true stone well.’

‘She saw it wielded by Erithusme,’ said the maukslar, ‘and since that day it has haunted her dreams.’ Then the creature gripped the bars of the cell, and its voice grew soft and deadly.

‘Rose. . ’

The captain felt an unfamiliar kick inside his ribcage. His own heart. His tongue, too: all wrong, the way it cowered against the roof of his mouth. He looked for Kurlstaff. The ghost was fleeing down the passage with a swish of tattered skirt. The maukslar’s teeth were showing. Rose pulled open the door.

Not everyone heard it, and most who did thought that they dreamed. A strange dream, a dream that was pure sound. A whoop, a wild cry that made eyes snap open all over the ship. Was it man, dog, steam whistle? No one could be sure, for in the very act of opening their eyes the sound had gone. No one was moved to investigate. A few men whispered prayers, curled in their hammocks like babes in the womb.

In the secret brig, Rose climbed painfully to his feet. The maukslar was gone. It had become a whirlwind, knocked him flat on his back. The cell stood open. The false Nilstone lay in the centre of the floor.

Bastard. You might have kicked the mucking thing out of the cell.

Captain Kurlstaff had warned him about the cell doors, and Rose believed every word: the man had died here, after all. Rose walked to the cluttered passage, and combed through the detritus on hands and knees until he found a battered pike. He carried the weapon back into the brig, carefully avoiding the door, and teased the false Nilstone out through the bars, never letting so much as a finger cross the threshold.

So black! he thought. You told the truth, creature: I am not disappointed. The leopard’s eye had become a well into which one could pour all the light in the world. It hurt to look at it: he struggled to focus on a thing that was all absence, a thing that was not there.

And this is just an imitation.

He picked it up. No, it did not kill at a touch. But it dizzied him, throbbing with enchantment, and it weighed a great deal. Once in his pocket, however, both weight and dizziness abated. He kicked the empty sea chest towards the cell, then finished the job with the pike, nudging it inside as far as he dared.

Outside the Green Door, he replaced the chains and padlocks. All was quiet: at least the maukslar had not roused the ship. He crossed the deck in darkness. Who needed a lamp? The Chathrand’s lines were etched for ever on his soul.

On the topdeck, a warm rain was starting, and a wind that gusted and died. He asked the duty officer for the status book, and scanned the entries as he had done four times a day for most of his life. When he was done he turned and saw that Fiffengurt had crept up behind him.

‘You again,’ he snapped. ‘What is it? Have you something to report?’

‘No, Captain,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘I. . couldn’t sleep, sir. Just taking some air.’

Rose dismissed the duty officer, then turned and glared at Fiffengurt. In a low growl, he said, ‘Your previous assignment: abandon it. That matter is closed.’

‘Closed?’

‘Thasha Isiq is alive. She is very near to the Nilstone, and they are both moving quickly.’

‘Captain! Captain!’

‘Do not shout, Fiffengurt. The creature knew no more than that.’

‘You went to see that thing? Alone?’

‘Listen to me,’ said Rose. ‘This is not a warship — not a proper warship — and the crew will never be as sharp as it was. They are weak in body and in spirit, and some of the best men with a cannon are dead.’

Fiffengurt began to mouth some reply, but Rose cut him off. ‘A man is lost in the forest.’

‘Who, sir?’

‘It’s a fable, you dullard. He is lost, and a tiger has his scent. He may be days, even weeks from the forest’s edge. He has only a little knife; the tiger has claws and strength and cunning. It is circling him. It knows the forest better and can see in the dark. How does he escape the tiger?’

‘I know!’ said a voice from inside Fiffengurt’s coat.

It was the rodent. Fiffengurt blushed, and squeezed the animal a little against his side. He had evidently told it to keep quiet.

‘I’d say you take to a stream, sir. Hide your scent, and wait for the beasty to move off on his own.’

Rose shook his head. ‘You’re on the right track. But you cannot stay submerged for long in a chilly stream.’

‘Carve a spear with that knife, then.’

‘And trust your life to one jab with a crooked stick? This is a master killer, Fiffengurt. It will come at you out of the dark like a living cannonball. It will tear you to shreds.’

Fiffengurt closed his mouth and waited. Rose gave a snort of dismay. ‘It is a wonder that you’re still among the living,’ he said. ‘Well, that is your new assignment: save the man from the tiger. Now go to sleep. There is fighting ahead.’

With that Rose made for his cabin. Fiffengurt watched him go, bewildered as ever. Felthrup’s head emerged from the fold of his coat.

‘He should have asked me,’ said Felthrup. ‘I’d have told him: climb a tree.’

Rose slipped into his cabin, closed the door, leaned on it heavily — a gesture of fatigue he had not allowed himself in forty years. He was ready for that brandy now. Ready for this hellish night to end.

He had left the window open. The rain was gusting in from starboard. Rose stripped off his own coat and hung it by the door. The papers waited on his desk; the untouched dinner setting waited on the table. He closed the windows. From this one, here, he’d thrown a man to his death. A company tattle-tale, not one of his crew. Still, just another lost simpleton, another pawn. It was no good being the pawn of any man, king or commoner, living or dead.

He whirled.

The papers, yes: they were still there. But the glass of brandy was not.

Across the large room, in the corner reserved for informal visits, Sandor Ott was tipped back in a chair with his feet upon a small round table. His left hand cupped Rose’s drink. His long white knife lay on the table, unsheathed.

‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘that you had better give an account of yourself.’

Rose moved to the dining table, breath short, mind churning. Do not hurry. Ott was always ready for violence, never for superior calm. This was how you fought him: by making sure he needed you, and by drowning him in calm. Rose struck a match and held it to the fengas lamp, but the fuel was nearly gone, and the weak flame barely lit the room. He found the brandy and poured a half shot. His favourite, this one. But tonight it was foul, bile and bathwater. What had become of his will to drink?

When he faced Ott again the spy had risen, and was moving towards the door. Rose was shamed by his own relief, the cold sweat he was drenched in, the smack of his heart. Then he glanced at the little table and heard himself say, ‘You’ve forgotten your knife.’

‘Have I?’ said Ott. ‘Well, then, I suppose I’d better not leave, just yet.’

He hesitated, fiddling with the doorknob it appeared. Then he turned and put his hands in his coat pockets and walked to Rose. For a moment, despite his scars, he looked like an old homebody, some frail Arquali blue-blood about to whistle up a dog. Rose waited for the inevitable grin to break out across his face. But Ott was not grinning. He was waiting for Rose to speak.

‘Did you pick the lock?’

‘No need. You’d left the windows open. An easy climb from the wardroom below. Why did you open them, in the rain?’

‘It wasn’t raining when I left.’

‘Then you’ve been a long time wandering your ship.’

‘That is my prerogative. Now get out.’

‘But Rose, I have suggested something better. Something decidedly better for you. If only you will heed me.’

Ott was staring up at him, and standing too close. Rose gazed at the white knife still lying on the table. He had his own, of course. Right there on his belt, just inches from his hand.

‘I will receive you on the morrow,’ he said. ‘Come back then if you would speak.’

‘The morrow is here, Captain Rose.’

As if to prove his point, the duty officer gave the bell seven strokes. A dark, wet dawn was breaking somewhere. Rose scowled and brushed past the spymaster, forcing himself to make contact with the man. Ott let himself be moved. Rose lumbered towards his bedchamber.

‘Did the crawlies threaten you, or pay a bribe?’

Rose missed a step, and glanced back sharply. There, he’d botched it. He might as well have written a confession in scarlet ink.

‘You let them reboard,’ said Ott. ‘You aided them. The creatures who poisoned our water supply, who took us both hostage. Who have imprisoned us all in this bay.’

‘The crawlies are no longer our problem, Ott.’

‘Indeed. They do not control Stath Balfyr?’

‘Not our crawlies, no.’

A knock at the door. Rose started, but Sandor Ott called without turning: ‘Enter.’

The steward crept in, with Rose’s morning papers and tea service. Ott turned and walked past the man and nudged the door shut with his toe. Then he slid the dead bolt. The steward glanced up, startled. Ott shrugged and smiled, as though he were improvising a game. The steward placed the tray on the dining table.

‘Shall I fetch another cup, Captain Rose?’

Rose made no answer. Ott walked back to the table and poured himself tea in Rose’s cup and sipped it. He drained the cup and set it back on the saucer. Then he grabbed the steward by the hair. In a blur of movement he hauled the man down, hooked his left arm around the steward’s neck, moved his right hand to the man’s chin, and pushed once, ferociously. The steward’s head turned backwards, much too far. His gaze less shocked than saddened. The crack was audible. The man fell dead.

‘What were we saying?’ asked Ott. ‘Something about “our crawlies”, I believe?’

Rose found himself backed against the wall. Sandor Ott took a napkin and dried his lips. Less than six feet separated the men.

‘You were seen on the mercy deck. Is that where you released them?’

‘The mercy deck,’ said Rose. ‘Yes, it was there, forward of the tonnage shaft.’

‘And they fled through this strange Green Door? The door that you have, oddly enough, both padlocked and wedged slightly open?’

Rose nodded.‘Perhaps they did at that.’

‘Or perhaps not. Perhaps they are here under your mattress, or under the floorboards, or stuffed into speaking-tubes. How I wish there was trust between us, Captain. Our relations have been all wrong.’

What if he shouted? Just screamed for aid like a child? No, no: some things were forbidden him, forbidden any son of Theimat Rose.

He stepped away from the wall.

‘Take your knife, and your insinuations, and your killing glee from my sight,’ he growled. ‘Prepare a defence for this murder. At nine bells I will send the Turachs to place you in chains.’

Ott finally allowed himself a smile. He walked to Rose’s desk, tapped the papers there significantly.

‘Mr Elkstem tells me you borrowed our charts. Our crucial charts. That you brought them to your chambers. But they are not on your desk, or in your cabinets there. Would you care to save me the trouble of ripping the place apart?’

Rose felt his heart quicken. His mind had never worked faster in all his years. His eyes flicked right and back again.

Ott raised an eyebrow. ‘The washroom, Captain? What a curious hiding place. I do hope you’ve kept them dry.’

He stepped quickly to the door, passing very close to Rose again. Mocking him, daring him even to gesture at drawing that knife.

Ott pushed open the washroom door. He frowned: there were no charts in sight. He leaned in further to look behind the door.

A red whirlwind struck him full in the face. Sniraga had pounced from a shelf. Ott reeled backwards, tearing at the cat, and in that instant Rose drew his knife and stabbed.

The blade passed through Ott’s upper arm. Roaring, the cat still affixed to his face, Ott spun on his heel and kicked Rose squarely in the groin. The pain like an explosion. Like pressing one’s ear to the cannon as it fires. Rose staggered, swinging the knife before him, meeting only air.

Fall and die, fall and die. Rose slashed again, missed again. Ott tore the cat away and flung it with both hands at the wall. His face a ruin, his eyes blind with blood.

Blind. Rose charged the smaller man. He struck Ott like a bull, lifted him off the ground and crushed him against the wall. The spymaster’s head struck the solid wood. His hands clawed; he was groaning, red bubbles on his lips. Rose grappled tighter, slamming Ott again.

Ott’s teeth sank into his neck, tearing through flesh and muscle. Rose bellowed and lurched enormously. Then he slipped in the blood, and both men went down. Another crack. Ott’s head striking the table.

They were on the floor, entwined like lovers, bleeding to death. Ott’s torn mouth twitched, and he clawed feebly at Rose. The captain struck with his fists: two punishing blows, and Ott was still. Beyond the cabin men were shouting. He rolled away from Ott and groped for the desk. Haddismal and his men were out there, pounding. Somehow Rose gained his feet.

Perhaps Ott was dead. Never mind: he would hang if he lived. Rose dragged himself to the door and freed the deadbolt, but there was still something amiss. The doorknob would not turn. And then a new agony reached him, shouting to be heard above the rest. It came from his palm. He released the knob and looked at it. The flesh looked oddly burned.

Poison.

With his next breath it struck him. Like standing naked in a blast of sleet. He was paralysed, his limbs still as boards. The speed of it. Even his eyes were affected. Even the filling of his lungs.

The pounding went on. Somewhere behind him, he heard Ott begin to move.

Fiffengurt was out there too. ‘Get the rigging axe!’ he was screaming. ‘Those are siege-doors! You won’t just kick ’em in!’

Ott was crawling nearer. Then climbing to his feet. When he moved into Rose’s fixed angle of view he looked like a walking corpse. In one hand he held the shattered teacup by the handle, extending his little finger, ladylike. There it was, the grin. He turned the cup in his quivering hand, then drew the sharp edge once, swiftly, over the captain’s jugular. Blood burst out in a torrent, but Rose himself stayed rigid as he died. After a moment, professionally curious, Ott nudged him slightly, and the captain fell like a tree.

Now Sandor Ott had very little time. He seized the linen tablecloth and tore it into strips. The first he tied, mercilessly tight, above the wound on his arm. The second he doused with gin from Rose’s cabinet. Strong, antiseptic gin. He wiped his face with it, hissing with pain. He splashed more gin on his wound.

Crack. They were axing the doors. Ott cursed, and hurried back to Rose. He found the padlock key quickly enough, but what was that round thing in his vest pocket? He drew it out, and gasped at the weight in his hand. Then he saw what he held — and for the first time since childhood, experienced a moment of undeniable fear.

The Nilstone.

The Nilstone?

The black thing lay there in his hand, a pulsing orb, a tiny black sun. How was this possible? What had Arunis made off with, if not the Stone? Had the mage spirited it back aboard, somehow, through his control of Uskins? And why wasn’t it killing him?

Crack!

No time. Leave it or take it. Decide.

Ott took it. Then he turned and staggered to the door.

‘Leave off with that axe!’ He wiped the knob with great care, then slid the bolt. Men poured into the room, Turachs, common sailors, Fiffengurt the traitor, Haddismal the loyal fool. All screaming like children. As if blood were something beyond their experience. As if murder were the exception, not the rule.

‘The captain’s dead! The captain’s dead!’

‘The madness came for him,’ said Ott. ‘Sergeant, where is your field kit? I need bandaging.’

Haddismal raised his eyes from the carnage. He stared at Ott. Everyone was staring at something.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Ott. ‘You can see what happened here.’

‘Can we?’

‘The mind-plague took him. I heard sounds of violence, and came in to find him thrashing his steward. The man was still breathing, and I tried to revive him. Rose stabbed me while my back was turned, yet I bested him. Two dead. Very simple. Get me those bandages, dullard! Why do you-’

He froze. Against the far wall of Rose’s cabin lay a woman of some twenty-five years: naked, motionless, her hands and face soaked with blood.

Night Gods. The cat. The hag’s horrible cat!

‘Who is she?’ said Haddismal. ‘A passenger? I’ve never seen that woman before.’

‘Did Rose kill her too?’ said Fiffengurt. ‘Why didn’t you mention her, Ott? Mr Ott?’

But the spymaster was already running. Their shouts exploded behind him: Commander Ott! What is it? Stop him, bring him back! For the first time since childhood, Ott felt inadequate to the moment. He had looked at that gory beauty and found himself without his best and oldest weapon, the winning story, the necessary lie.

‘She must have been mad as well,’ said Haddismal. ‘Look at her. Even her feet are soaked in blood.’

Fiffengurt just gazed at the carnage. Their captain dead, and stiffer than a week-old corpse. The steward with his head facing backwards. And a third victim, a naked woman no one could identify, though Fiffengurt began to think he had seen her before.

‘I’m not sure anyone here was mad,’ he said.

‘You calling Sandor Ott a liar?’

Fiffengurt knew better than to answer. He brought a sheet from Rose’s bed to drape over the woman. But when he drew near, she sprang to life, hissed at him, and scurried on all fours under the table.