The Rats and the Ruling sea

32

8 Umbrin 941

178th day from Etherhorde

The war between Plapp's Pier and Burnscove Boys took a novel twist when Kruno Burnscove awoke one morning in his bed (his gang had built him the little bed out of pilfered lumber, stuffed a mattress with hay stolen from the cows; he was too important to sleep in a hammock; besides, Darius Plapp had a bed) to find a severed hand dangling six inches above his forehead. It was black and withered and seemed to beckon him with the crook of one mortis-curled finger. On another finger the Burnscove Boys ring. Kruno let out an undignified squeal, and across the berth deck the Plapps replied with hoots and catcalls.

There was no mystery about the provenance of the hand. One of the Burnscovers killed in the storm had been mutilated in the surgical annex, before his body could be given to the sea. The crime was in retaliation for the looting of the three Plapps Pier dead. The only lingering question was where the hand had spent the previous twenty-five days.

This was the Chathrand 's sixth week on the Nelluroq: the longest stretch between landfalls that many sailors had ever seen, and yet by Elkstem's calculus they had more than half of the crossing yet before them. After the severed-hand incident, Rose asked for volunteers to mediate a truce. Fiffengurt and Dr Chadfallow stepped forwards, and the next morning they brought the most influential Plapps and Burnscovers together in the wardroom. Mr Teggatz provided scones.

Chadfallow came last to the wardroom, and he cut an impressive figure in the silk coat and dark purple cape of an Imperial envoy. He wore the ruby pendant of the Order of the Orb, and the bright gold fish-and-dagger medallion of a Defender of the Realm. The latter pendant, as most of them knew, was possessed by only a half-dozen living men, and was pinned to a man's chest by the Emperor alone, never a surrogate.

The adversaries sat at opposite ends of the wardroom table. Kruno Burnscove had just fired a particularly creative and personal epithet at his rival, and the doctor's appearance had made Darius Plapp lose his train of thought as he struggled to reply. He glared at Chadfallow, while the other gang members looked away in confusion, wondering what power if any remained to this friend of His Supremacy.

Chadfallow approached the furious gang leader. He rested one long-fingered hand upon the table before him, and let the silence grow.

'You are the eponymous Plapp?' he said at last.

Darius Plapp's face went rigid. He pushed back his chair and stood up. He spoke through gritted teeth.

'Who's eponymous? Yer mother's eponymous.'

The meeting went downhill from there. Rather than brokering peace, the doctor and the quartermaster were treated to comprehensive accounts of the murders, abductions, broken cease-fires, insults to virtuous gang mothers, slop buckets emptied on wedding parties, insinuations in mixed company that this or that leader's manhood was not as it should be, libellous publications and stolen pets. Fiffengurt walked out in disgust. Chadfallow laboured on straight through the afternoon and the dinner shift, but when the session finally collapsed at midnight the only agreement he had managed to wring from Plapp and Burnscove was that he himself was stubborn enough to join either gang.

Chadfallow's report to the captain noted that mental instability was a growing threat to the safety of the ship.

Two nights later, as evening fell, the now-familiar noise of the 25-foot seas was shattered by the cries of the lookout: On the bow! Hard on the bow! Great gods, what is it?

Men stampeded to the rail, and at once began to shout with wonder, and not a little fear. Stretched across the southern horizon, as far as the eye could see, was a ribbon of pale red light. It was not quite the colour of sunset, nor of fire; but there was something about it that reminded one of fire: a trembling, flickering quality. A volcano? No, there was no ash, and no telltale rumble. The ribbon reached as high as the lid of clouds on the horizon, so that it looked a bit like a glowing sword, held between the blue-grey tongs of sea and sky. How far away it might have been was difficult to tell. What was certain was that it lay directly across their path.

The ribbon burned on through the night. When morning broke, it swiftly faded, and by the time the sun was fully risen it was no more to be seen. But all through the night the watch-captains had observed how Arunis stood on the forecastle, gazing steadily southward, face bathed in the glow, eyes ravenous with expectation.

'I've imagined seeing you dead,' said Diadrelu. 'Or more likely, hearing that you had died, and never seeing for myself. As it was with Talag. I've imagined my own death, likelier still. But never did I think to see you locked in the brig.'

Diadrelu stepped through the iron bars. Hercol watched her from the darkness, sitting back against the wall, smiling through his seven-week beard. It was hours past midnight; except for the pair of Turachs outside the compartment door, the mercy deck was deserted. Two cells away, the captain of the whaler, Magritte, was talking in his sleep, a low, despairing babble. He had boiled over during his first interview with Rose after the sinking of the Sanguine, calling him murderer, pirate, Pit-fiend, devil-swine, and when he paused for breath Rose informed him that he would serve a week in the brig for each insult, plus a fortnight for his behaviour in Rose's quarters, where he had displayed 'verbal incontinence' and a tendency to gulp his food.

Hercol for his part never seemed but half asleep. The ixchel woman had come to see him with increasing frequency, not quite certain what she was looking for, and often enough forced to depart without speaking to him, if Magritte proved restless, or the Turachs left the door ajar. And though she moved silent as dust on a puff of wind, each time she reached his cell she found his eyes open, and that slight smile of expectation on his haggard face.

And yet with each visit her worry grew. Hercol's mouth was dry; he was using a good part of his water ration to clean a wound on his chest. There were bloodstains on his shirt near the collar; when he moved a cloud of flies lifted briefly from the spot. Does he know about ixchel eyes? she wondered. Does he know that I can see him, better than any human could?

'I have a little water,' she said. 'And meat. And an herb you can rub into your skin, to keep those flies away.'

'You take too great a risk with these visits,' said Hercol.

'Not especially,' said Diadrelu. 'You're a deadly fighter. Your people wouldn't dare approach this cell without lamps and noise.'

'But yours might.'

'Well, then!' she said, trying to sound lighthearted. 'If I'm not wanted-'

'Need I respond to that, my lady?'

She put down her pack, leaped in one bound to his knee, and sat, folding her long legs beneath her.

'Need I stick a pin through your lip to stop you calling me lady?'

Hercol laughed softly. 'Thirty years of service to the noble-born have made some habits unbreakable,' he said. 'Very well, just-plain-Dri: how goes the journey? Is there anything to see but the empty horizon?'

'I told you of the sky-ribbon.'

'That was days ago. Has it returned?'

'Yes. Men are calling it the Red Storm, a name out of some old tale of the Ruling Sea. They say Rose glimpsed it decades ago, that he sailed this far, and then turned back to safety to the north.'

'Curious,' said Hercol. 'But that is not what concerns you most, I think.'

She was surprised that her voice had given away so much. Disappointed, too: why worry him with things he could not change?

'The Vortex is in sight again,' she said. 'A little nearer, this time. The first watch saw it pull a thunderhead down from the sky and devour it, lightning and all, and this has put the fear of death in the men. Before today we were fairly flying southward. But now Rose has us beating west, away from that monster.'

Hercol's smile was gone. His eyes slid once around the cell block, professionally.

'You truly think you can break out of here?' she asked.

'It has been arranged,' he said, matter-of-fact, and glanced briefly at the ceiling. 'But the harder question is, whom can I help by escaping? When I break out, I shall have only a short time to accomplish something before I'm put back in again. I could run to the stateroom, and perhaps find refuge there, but I do not wish to do so while Rose is leaving our friends in relative peace. They would merely place ten Turachs on the doorstep, and we should all be prisoners together.'

'You would be safe, at least,' said Diadrelu.

Not a flicker of response showed on Hercol's face. 'What news of our friends?' he asked.

Diadrelu sighed. 'Neeps and Marila have become somewhat more than friends; Pazel and Thasha, somewhat less. They are cold to each other. Pazel simply will not remain in her presence, and Thasha is too proud to ask him why. In any case, they have all been busy recruiting people to our cause — and debating how much to tell them.'

'They are going ahead with the council meeting, then?' asked Hercol.

'It begins just minutes from now,' said Diadrelu. 'That's why I've woken you at such an hour, I — well, it was an impulse, I was passing near-'

'You're not going to show yourself to six strangers!'

'Hercol,' said Diadrelu, 'I am an outcast, not an imbecile. My sophisters and I will keep watch from the ceiling.'

Hercol nodded, realizing he had overstepped. 'What of your quarrel with the clan?'

'It is not a quarrel,' she said. 'It is death, if they should lay hands on me. And not because my people are hot for my blood. No, if it came to that, I think a good number would rather die defending me than obey Taliktrum's order to kill. I should have to help them do it, and swiftly.'

Hercol leaned nearer, blinking in the darkness. 'Help them? What are you saying?'

'That I would take my own life, rather than watch my clan torn to pieces by a blood feud. That is our way. Surely by now you understand?'

Suddenly Hercol cupped his hands beneath her and lifted, as though she were an injured bird that might start into flight. Diadrelu froze, her breath caught in her throat. It was all she could do to keep her mind from battle patterns, the twenty ways she had learned to slash and bite and twist out of such hands. The swordsman brought her close to his face.

'I do not understand,' he said. 'How can you think the clan would be well served by your death? Surely your nephew's rule will tear it apart anyway?'

'Not surely, my friend. Only probably. That is beside the point, however. Of all my people's maxims, the most sacred is clan before self. None of us quite live up to that maxim, but all of us aspire to. When we abandon the effort, we die. It has happened countless times in our history, as we learn when the survivors of massacred Houses share their tales. Almost always the death of a clan can be traced back to selfishness. A leader who has lost the people's love tries to stay in power through fear. An ixchel chased by humans runs towards the clan house instead of away. Two ixchel duel over a lover, and one dies — or two.'

'Or even three, if the lover is too heartbroken to live on,' said Hercol. 'So at least it happens in our fables.'

'I think you do understand me, Hercol,' she said. 'The sort of questions you people face only in wartime or feuds of passion, we face endlessly, throughout our lives. What deed of mine will protect the clan? What will endanger them? What will keep death at bay until tomorrow?'

Hercol's hands trembled slightly beneath her. 'I have been thinking of that day,' he said. 'The day you asked us to kill Master Mugstur.'

'I had no right to address you thus,' said Diadrelu.

'You had every right. How were you to know that we were not your equals in honesty?'

'Honesty?' Dri frowned. 'Speak plainly, man. I must go soon.'

'Of course I am a killer,' whispered Hercol. 'Did I not say that I was Ott's righthand man? That I worked his will, pursued his mad notion of Arquali "interests," until the day he went too far?'

'The day he ordered you to slay the Empress and her sons,' said Diadrelu. 'You told us.'

'I failed the sons,' said Hercol. 'They were the age of Pazel and Neeps — indeed I look at those two and am reminded of Maisa's children. Like the tarboys, they grew up with danger and loss, and yet somehow their hearts remained open. They would be grown men by now, if I had saved them. Ott keeps their bodies packed in ice, in a cave under Mol Etheg. Shall I tell you why he goes to such trouble?'

'If you wish to,' she said.

'When a spy has completed all his other training, he must pass one final test. He must go with Ott to that cave and look at Maisa's sons, lying there grey and wrinkled with their throats slit. Princes of Arqual, he tells the trainee, but also enemies of Magad the Fifth — and therefore of all the people. Ott asks for the trainee's opinion. If the young man objects, or questions the idea that blind loyalty is what Arqual needs; if he so much as looks troubled, then he never joins the Secret Fist. Instead he joins the host of the disappeared, one more sacrifice on the altar of the State.'

'You left that world behind,' said Diadrelu softly, 'and have atoned for it thrice over. As for her sons: you must let those memories go. You cannot save everyone, Hercol. That is another thing we ixchel learn as children.'

The warrior's hands were still trembling. A bit impatient now — did he think his burden so special? — she turned her head, so that she was looking down on the fingers encircling her.

'Herid aj!'

Someone had been at his fingernails. On his left hand, one nail was torn out completely, and the finger hideously swollen. Another nail had had slivers cut from it, as though by the tip of a very sharp knife, and the shards that remained dangled by their roots. On Hercol's right hand the fingertips were blue-black, the nails crushed into the flesh. It might have been done with a hammer, or the heel of a boot.

'No,' she said, breathless with fury. 'Hercol — brother — who did this to you?'

'My old master,' said Hercol, setting her carefully on the floor, 'though I swear he did not enjoy himself. Perhaps Ott still dreams that I will return to the fold, and lead the Secret Fist when he no longer can.' Hercol considered his hands. 'Something held him back, in any case. If he had enjoyed himself I would be far worse off.'

The ixchel woman drew her sword. 'All the same, he has signed his death warrant.'

'Are you mad?' said Hercol, starting upright. 'This is Sandor Ott we are speaking of. A man who has listened for the assassin's tread for fifty years. Put revenge out of your mind.'

'It is not for revenge alone that I shall strike,' she said, 'though revenge is cause enough.'

'Dri,' said Hercol, 'the man is poison. I have heard him give lectures on the dangers of ixchel infestations.'

'Infestations!'

Before Hercol could say more she raised her hand. A voice was calling from the passage. It was Ludunte, shouting in ixchel-speech. 'Hurry, mistress! All the giants have assembled!'

'I come,' Dri shouted back. To Hercol, she said, 'The council begins, I must go. But when it is over I will return to you. That I promise.'

'The promise I ask is that you stay away from Sandor Ott,' said Hercol.

'You do not have it,' she said. 'None of this would be happening if it were not for that man's evil inspiration. And he was not aboard when Ramachni cast his spell, so he cannot be the spell-keeper. Let us discuss it no further. I am a warrior, the same as you, and will choose my own kill.'

'No, I say! He is too deadly. Not for nothing has he lead the Secret Fist for so long.'

'Long enough, I think. Infestations, he actually-'

'Damn it, woman, I forbid this!'

'Forbid?' said Diadrelu. 'Am I your dog, then, to be sent to a corner? One man on this ship has a claim to my obedience — my nephew Taliktrum — and him too I have chosen to disobey. Forbid! Think carefully, human, before you use that word with me again.'

Hercol dropped forwards onto an elbow, forcing her back a step. 'Hear me,' he pleaded, his voice quite changed. He held up his fingers. 'I will recover from these wounds. Don't leave me with one from which I never shall.'

She had never been so utterly lost for words. The human's breath washed over her. His eyes, rheumy and dilated and as big as her head, were close enough to touch. She could not look at both of them at once.

'Mistress!' called Ludunte again.

Now it was Dri who was trembling. What was wrong with her? She closed her eyes and reached out, burying her hand in the warm bristles of his eyebrow, which leaped at her touch like a horse's flank.

'I will never understand you people,' she said.

The space between the floor of the mercy deck and the ceiling of the hold was just four inches. Dri entered through a 'jug-stopper,' a quick improvised door, cut by Ludunte that very morning. As soon as she was inside Dri knew rats had been here before her. The smell was faint, but not old. A terrible place to meet with rats. They would have every advantage here.

She crawled forwards, through dust that lay like a grey snow, deeper than her wrists. She saw her hand in his eyebrow, parting the sleek black hairs. When he spoke she felt the vibration in her arm.

The planks stretched in all directions. In such crawlspaces one could usually spot the humans three compartments off, by the splinters of lamplight that pierced the cracks in floor or ceiling. Tonight not a glimmer met her eyes. But ixchel can see without the light of the sun or lamp: there ahead lay her sophisters, looking down through the tiny gap Ensyl had opened with the spyjack.

Dri crawled up between them. 'We must take care with this dust,' she said. 'Humans cannot hear our speech, but coughs and sneezes are another matter. The day may come when we stand with them — stand as brothers, but-'

Ensyl glanced at her in surprise; Dri was not one to lose the thread of her pronouncements. Angry with herself now, Dri wiped the dust from her clothes.

That man is not here. Banish him, face and voice.

'They're just sitting down there,' said Ludunte. 'I don't understand, mistress. For ten minutes they've just been sitting in the dark, blind as puppies, not saying a word.'

'Ten minutes was my suggestion,' said Diadrelu. 'If no one approaches, if no footfall sounds an alarm — then it will be safe to proceed.'

'There is our resistance force,' said Ensyl, shaking her head. 'Rin save us.'

Diadrelu set her eye to the crack. Ensyl was right; the scene did not inspire confidence. Ten humans perched on barrels and boxes, timid in the dark, unable to see each other's faces. Their alliance, their sea-wall against the worst storm of villainy ever to bear down on the world. 'Pazel,' she said aloud, 'if you can hear me, scratch the back of your neck.'

Pazel scratched the back of his neck. Months ago he had learned that his Gift extended his hearing to ixchel frequencies — an ability that had almost cost him his life, for Taliktrum had realised what he was hearing before Pazel himself. It was comforting, if a bit strange, to know that Dri was watching from eight feet overhead. He cleared his throat twice in the darkness. It was another sign they had agreed upon, this one for Thasha and Neeps: it meant All present and accounted for.

'Right, let's begin,' said Thasha nervously. 'I think we've been quiet long enough.'

'That's for damned sure,' growled Fiffengurt.

A match blazed; and Thasha's face appeared, dazzled by the sudden light she held. I miss her, Pazel thought, watching a strand of her hair singe as she tried to light the candle. The wick caught, and she raised her eyes suddenly, freezing him with the directness of her look. He felt as he did when he faced Ramachni: transparent, naked, perfectly understood. An intolerable feeling. He dropped his eyes.

'Remember,' he mumbled, 'if anyone asks, we're just here for a drink.'

The laughter was barely audible. Thasha passed the candle to Neeps, and Marila lit her candle from his. Soon half a dozen were burning around the chamber.

The reserve liquor vault was where the better drink was kept, rather than the briny rum used to mix the sailor's daily grog. It was about ten feet square. Floor to ceiling, it was jammed with casks of white Opalt rum and Hubbox sherry, tins of cider vinegar and cooking wine, vats of brandy, and here and there a case of something truly fine, like spruce gin or the cactus-orange liquor of Pol. Despite the bottled luxuries, the vault smelled putrid: they were only a few feet above the bilge well, that cesspool at the bottom of the ship, into which filth from every deck found its way. Because they were so far aft, the water slopped and churned, with a sound like cattle floundering in a pond. At least they would not easily be overheard.

So far, so good: not one person they'd approached had turned them down. Pazel's choice had been Bolutu. They'd met in the veterinarian's cabin on the orlop deck; when Bolutu had grasped what Pazel was talking about he had jumped from his chair and scribbled As soon as possible! on a page of his notebook. Neeps had recruited Dastu. When the older tarboy had slipped into the vault, Pazel had felt suddenly hopeful, as though only now believing that they had a chance. The other tarboys looked up to Dastu, for his decency as much as his toughness and good sense. He could bring dozens over to their side.

Marila's choice was more troubling: Dollywilliams Druffle. Neeps had urged her to choose the freebooter, reminding her that no one hated Arunis more than the one he'd magically enslaved. Pazel couldn't argue with that; Druffle grew spitting mad whenever talk turned to the sorcerer. He'd also known about the ixchel for months and not breathed a word. So for all his chatter, he could keep a secret. But did that mean they could trust him? Druffle's moods were erratic, and his way of thinking peculiar. It had never crossed his mind, for instance, to tell Pazel that his mother had had an affair with Chadfallow, until the night the doctor had insulted him. And again this morning his breath stank of rum.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Maybe,' she said.

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

'At last,' said Dastu suddenly. 'At last we're starting to fight back.'

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

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

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

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

Pazel scooped up his candle. 'Sorry, Thasha,' he muttered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She's right, said Diadrelu.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'All the while recruiting,' whispered Pazel.

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

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

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

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

'We'd have to win over hundreds of men,' said Thasha doubtfully.

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

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

'Thasha,' said Marila suddenly, 'if you're going to do it-'

'Yes,' said Thasha, 'it's time.'

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

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

'Gods below, lass, we'll never forget it,' said Fiffengurt.

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

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

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

'No, Mr Druffle,' said Thasha. 'He's from farther away than that.'

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

'Thasha!' he gasped, euphoric.

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

Fiffengurt too appeared light-headed with joy. 'Sweet Heaven's Tree! Does this mean-'

'Yes,' said Neeps, 'it does.'

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

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

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

'What for?' said Dastu. 'It doesn't look broken to me.'

Thasha grinned at him. 'No,' she said, 'I don't think it is.'

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

'What are we waiting for?' asked Big Skip.

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

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

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

'Sorcery,' muttered Druffle.

'Hush up, man!' snapped Fiffengurt.

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

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

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

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

'Wait,' she said, 'please.'

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

If this continues your fight is over, said Dri.

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

Pazel pressed his lips to Thasha ear. 'I'm sorry,' he said. He reached down and closed the clock.

Perfect silence gripped the room. The wind had vanished; the watchers uncurled their bodies, listening. No pounding feet, no bellows or cries. The immensity of the ship, or the crew's exhaustion after weeks of storm, had saved them. The Chathrand slept on.

Thasha put her face in her hands.

Pazel touched her shoulder, but Thasha only stiffened and leaned away. Neeps looked at him and nodded. Telling him he'd done what he had to. It didn't make Pazel feel any better.

Druffle looked at Marila, eyes blazing with accusation. 'Why'd you bring me here?' he asked.