The River of Shadows

The Fugitive

24 Ilbrin 941

223rd day from Etherhorde

To: The Honorable Captain Nilus Rotheby Rose

Commander and Final Offshore Authority

IMS Chathrand Nilus, Victory shall yet be ours. The prison has not been built, nor trap devised, nor deception plotted, that can snare a man of the lineage of Rose. Very soon you will walk free, reclaim your rank and powers. And then, son, I charge you: have no mercy, bar no punishment, sterilize your ship of doubters. It is yours, after all. Let those who think otherwise do so on the seabed.

(“How does he know she’s not just making it up?” murmured the tarboy Saroo. “She just scribbles and moans and stares at the ceiling. She don’t even pause to think.”

“Keep silent, fool,” said the Trading Family representative, Mr. Thyne, “unless you want boils under your tongue, or crocodile dreams, or some nastier curse. She’s the most famous witch in the Merchant Fleet.”

“She’s never done no conjuring in front of me,” said Saroo.

“Count your blessings,” grunted Thyne.) Now to the matter of your “accomplishments.” You saw the Chathrand safe across the Nelluroq. What of it? You are not the first to make the crossing. The Great Ship alone has passed over the Ruling Sea thirty times in her six hundred years. I would not shame you with cheap congratulations. Besides, in matters of discipline your conduct is highly questionable.

(“She doesn’t even look down at the paper,” whispered Neeps to Marila. “I can’t work out how she writes in straight lines.”) It is all very well to sentence mutineers to death. You will recall that I applauded the decision. But once pronounced, such a sentence cannot be delayed. It shocks me to learn that Pathkendle amp; Co. yet walk free upon your ship. You suggest that they provide you with certain services: to wit, the containment of the mage through fear, and perhaps the distraction of Sandor Ott from more venal meddling into your affairs. Rubbish. Kill them. Extract the Nilstone from the Shaggat’s hand, and hang them within the hour. The bodies must accumulate at some point, if you are to discover the spell-keeper, the one whose death returns the statue to human form.

(“I wish she’d apply her witching skills to finding the leak,” said Elkstem, “or finding out where in Alifros we should be making for.”

“Or getting us out of this stinking trap,” said Kruno Burnscove.) Your other excuse for clemency is shabbier still. You were chosen, you say: by a “guardian spirit,” resident for an age within the scarlet wolf. Arunis melts the wolf; the molten iron spills and burns you; your burn resembles those of the scoundrel mutineers. And this implies a common destiny? Has it occurred to you, Nilus, that you are playing the fool?

(“Mr. Fiffengurt told me she gave up casting spells,” whispered Neeps. “He thinks something must have gone wrong, badly wrong, to make her want to quit. But I wonder if she’s not just saving herself for the right moment. She’s deadly, I tell you. Just look at her.”) If I brand a bullock with my initials, have I given it some higher purpose? If six such animals roam about within a herd, do they serve as the keepers, the “conscience” (that weakling’s word) for the rest? You have all the destiny you require, being my son. When you are governor of the Quezans, when your children bring you sacks of gold from the manors they supervise, your bastards eliminate your foes, your Imperial soldiers collect taxes and your courtesans compete to give you pleasure-then write to me of destiny. Until that day I forbid it. As for your mother “Undrabust,” drawled Sandor Ott from his corner, “move away from the witch.”

Neeps slid a wary step back from Lady Oggosk. He had learned weeks ago to obey Ott quickly, instantly in fact, but he still hadn’t learned to hide his anger. For that he relied on Marila: the only person he’d ever known who could always, it seemed, hide her feelings.

“Come,” she said, rising and leading him away, keeping herself between him and the spymaster.

Without her I’d be dead already, he thought.

They stepped carefully among the sprawled and sleeping men. Rose, crouched behind Oggosk’s chair, noticed them with a start, the way a bird notes sudden movement. He was twitchy all the time now, and carried on mumbled conversations with no one, and sometimes lunged at phantoms. Neeps made sure they stayed clear of his fists.

But you could dodge the threats only so well. The cabin was about five paces by six. One window, one yard of translucent skylight, a curtained corner for the chamber pots. One door onto the topdeck: never locked by their ixchel jailers, but latched from within by the prisoners themselves, lest the wind or some unthinking sailor throw it open and plunge them all into agony. And a smudge-pot in the corner, where burned the little berries whose vapor kept them alive.

The gang leaders, Darius Plapp and Kruno Burnscove, sat always against opposite walls. Their hatred of each other was so legendary, and their dedication to doing each other harm so well demonstrated, that Rose had found it necessary to tie their fates together: “If one of you should die, I will personally kill the other before the body cools. No exceptions. No appeals.” So far this threat had kept the peace. Late at night, when Kruno Burnscove developed a racking cough, Neeps was fairly certain he’d heard Darius Plapp offer him his blanket.

The one most likely to die in the night was the sfvantskor, Jalantri. Chadfallow had treated his wounds; the ixchel had dutifully brought everything he required from sickbay. There was no question that the big man was healing. But he was a blood enemy, in a chamber crowded with Arqualis-including the spymaster who had led Arqual’s war in the shadows against the Mzithrin for forty years; and the Turachs, whose very corps was created (as they took to mentioning frequently) to counter the sfvantskors on the battlefield. And Kruno Burnscove had made it known that he held the Mzithrin responsible for his family’s decline, after his great-grandfather’s farm was torched in Ipulia.

Of all the prisoners, it was Sandor Ott who enjoyed the most room. His servant Dastu had a bit of coal, and drew a circle around the spymaster wherever he chose to sit or sleep. No one had dared to cross that line; even the two Turachs avoided it with care. But for Neeps, Dastu himself was the greater danger. The older tarboy had been a favorite of both Neeps and Pazel, befriending them the day they boarded in Sorrophran, and standing by them when so many others turned their backs. Naturally they had thought of him first when plotting their rebellion. And it was Dastu who had betrayed them, testified to their mutinous plans, nodded with satisfaction when Rose condemned them all to hang. Neeps had a recurring urge to break something large over Dastu’s head. But the older boy was Ott’s protege, and a terrible fighter in his own right. Neeps could outdo him only in rage.

Marila claimed a bit of wall, tried to tug him down beside her. “I want another story,” she said, “about Sollochstol, about the salt marsh and your grandmother.”

It was another way she tried to keep him out of trouble. Neeps gently freed his hand. “Just a minute,” he said, and walked alone to the window.

Chadfallow was there, of course. He spent as much time at the window as Rose and Ott permitted. He stood until he swayed. What did he hope to see? The land? Impossible, until they changed course. The deck? But what had changed? Mr. Teggatz, his mouth closed tight as a clamshell and wooden plugs in his nose, bringing their midday meal? But it was only five bells; lunch was still hours away.

You’d do the same if you weren’t so lazy, Neeps told himself. Don’t make a virtue of it.

He stepped up beside Chadfallow. In fact there was something different on deck: a little conference of ixchel, four of them shouting and gesturing, with Fiffengurt and Alyash crouched beside them, trying to get a word in edgeways. Ludunte and Myett were among the ixchel; the other two were Dawn Soldiers, cold-eyed and tensed. Myett held a bag like a doctor’s case against her chest.

Neeps felt murderous at the sight of Ludunte and Myett: betrayers of Diadrelu, both of them. “What are they doing, the little bilge-rats?” he asked.

“Speaking of us, I think,” said Chadfallow.

“Captain,” said Ott suddenly from the back of the room. “You know prison etiquette as well as I do. Share and share alike. If one of us gets mail, he lets us all have a taste.”

Oggosk had finished her dream-scribble; Rose was poring over the scrap of dirty parchment, the wet ink smearing on his fingers.

“Have a heart, Captain,” said Kruno Burnscove. “Give us some news of the outside world. I mean, if that’s the appropriate term-”

Rose shot the gang leader a savage look. Ott laughed, delighted. “Outside, inside, under? Good question, Mr. Burnscove. Which world are your parents in, Captain, and where do they go to find a post office? Come, read it aloud.”

Rose snarled. He had done just that twice before, to everyone’s amazement: it was not like him to give a damn what anyone wanted of him. Anyone, that is, but Oggosk herself-and the readings enraged Oggosk no end.

Neeps was almost sympathetic. He hated Oggosk, but couldn’t deny that she had a strange, beleaguered dignity. This shattered it: making up stories for the distraction of her darling captain, telling him they were messages from the Beyond. (Which Beyond? The Nine Pits seemed too good for Rose’s father.) That was bad enough-but to hear them read aloud? Rose apparently wanted to convince his listeners that the letters were real: to prove his sanity, maybe. It was having the opposite effect.

Today he simply refused. “The letter is of a private nature,” he growled, folding it in two. But a moment later he changed his mind, turned to face Ott with eyes ablaze. “I will soon walk free. In short order I will resume my command.”

There were smiles, a brief chuckle from one of the Turachs. Neeps shuddered. Insubordination! On Rose’s ship! They’re giving up on him-or on everything. Is the same thing happening outside? The thought chilled his blood.

Then Chadfallow started. Neeps turned back to the window and saw the smuggler, Dollywilliams Druffle, ambling toward them. Mr. Druffle had not done well on the Ruling Sea. Already one of the thinnest men on the Chathrand, he now had the look of a boiled bone. Fresh water had brought most of the men’s faces back to life, but Druffle’s skin appeared beyond redemption, like those biscuits that fell and petrified in the back of the galley stove. He had shaved off his greasy hair (lice) and given up entirely on shoes (fungus), but to rum and grog he remained faithful as ever.

He approached with a drunkard’s care, watching each step. When he caught sight of Chadfallow he paused, scowling. The two were not on speaking terms.

“The cretin,” hissed Chadfallow.

“Shut up,” said Neeps. “He’s got something to say.”

“Always. And never to any purpose but mischief or slander.”

“Just back off, why don’t you? Spare yourself.”

Chadfallow withdrew, and Druffle slouched up to the window. “Can you hear me?” he bellowed.

“At fifty paces,” said Neeps.

Druffle covered his mouth, deeply contrite. Then he squinted and leaned close to the glass. “Where’s the doctor? He’s a muckin’ swine. D’ye know we’re moving sideways?”

“Sideways?”

Druffle illustrated with a wobbly gesture.

“But that’s crazy,” said Neeps. “A ship can’t move sideways, unless you pick her up and carry her.”

“Or the sea does, my heart. We’re in a rip tide. Miles wide and infinite long, or so it seems. It snatched us up in the night sometime-you felt the wind die?”

Neeps was flabbergasted. “I did,” he said under his breath. “But Mr. Druffle, that means Rose was right. He said we were moving sideways.”

Druffle nodded, his eyes red and bleary. “The going’s been smooth as buttercream since that rip tide caught us. You can’t even tell, ’cept by fixing on a spot ashore with a telescope. That’s what I did, y’see. Then I went to Alyash and made him own up. ‘Keep it to yourself, Druffle, you boozy arse!’ he quips. ‘We don’t want a panic. There’s fear enough in the men till we find that leak and plug it. And maybe we can sail right out again, just like we sailed in, and no harm done but a little lost time.’ That’s what the bosun said. But I say, panic. Panic! It’s devilry, this ripper, and it’s sweepin’ us along after that armada, like it wants us to catch up. See here, lad: we were aimin’ to make landfall to the west of that all-edges city, ain’t that so?”

“All-edges?” said Neeps.

“As in we ain’t sure if it’s real.”

“The buffoon means alleged,” murmured Chadfallow from the room behind.

“Well now we’re leagues to the west of it, Undrabust,” Druffle continued. “All night long we’ve been slippin’ backward. And those flashes ain’t lightning, my heart. They’re the fires of war. Of course, that ain’t what I came here to tell you.”

“There’s something else?”

“You should have stayed on Sollochstol. I’ve been there. You could do worse. You did do worse, he he.”

“Mr. Druffle,” said Neeps, “are we sinking?”

“Palm wine and marsh-turtle soup. And the girls in them lily tiaras.”

Neeps sighed. “Thanks for coming by,” he said.

The smuggler looked up, and his glance was suddenly sly. He leaned forward until his nose touched the glass. “It’s your mate, Pathkendle. He’s in the brig.”

“What?” cried Neeps in dismay. “The fool, the fool! What’s he done now?”

“Shh!” admonished Druffle, liberally spraying the window. But it was too late: Chadfallow rushed forward and demanded that Druffle repeat himself. The smuggler hesitated, swaying and leering at the doctor, and Chadfallow called him a revolting sot. Druffle made an obscene gesture, asked whose wife he’d lately y’know, y’know, and then both men began screaming abuse, and the Turachs laughed, and Oggosk shrieked in sudden general loathing, and Rose yanked the doctor away for fear he’d break the window.

It was in this melee that Myett and Ludunte climbed down through the smoke-hole, walked to the room’s center and announced that the prisoners were to enjoy an hour’s liberty for good behavior.

The hubbub vanished. “Liberty?” said Darius Plapp, his voice barely higher than a whisper.

“Temporary liberty,” replied Ludunte. “You shall enjoy these furloughs once per week, if you try nothing foolish during the given hour.”

Neeps was too astonished for words. For the first time in weeks he saw hope in the prisoners’ faces.

“Captain Rose has done this once before,” Ludunte continued. “The rest of you, take heed.” He pointed to the bag in Myett’s hands. “This is the temporary version of the antidote. It lasts an hour only, and it is very precise. Use the hour as you like, but do not be late in returning.”

“Why do you do this now?” said Rose.

The two ixchel said nothing for a moment. “Our lord Taliktrum is concerned for your comfort,” said Myett at last, in her cold, sibilant voice.

“You must listen for the ship’s bell,” said Ludunte. “It will ring stridently when ten minutes remain. Hurry back when you hear it. Step into this cabin, breathe in the drug. Otherwise you will die, as surely as though you’d taken no pill at all.”

“Remember this, too,” added Myett. “Below the berth deck the ship is off-limits to humans, except by special permission. Do not try our patience. Above all, do not imagine that you have any hope of finding where we hide the drug. The lives of those who remain in this chamber are forfeit if you try.”

The ixchel explained that only three hostages would be released at a time. “By evening, all of you will have had your turn. We shall begin with the youngest, and the women. Lady Oggosk, Marila, Undrabust: step forward. The rest of you, prepare to hold your breath when they open the door.”

Marila took Neeps by the arm. She almost never smiled, but he had come to know when she was happy by the wideness of her eyes. They were wide as saucers now.

“This is wrong,” said Dastu suddenly. “My master should be first, or Captain Rose-not these two traitors and the witch.”

Rose waved a dismissive hand; he would never seek favors from “crawlies.” Sandor Ott cracked his old, scarred knuckles and smiled wolfishly. “They won’t let me out,” he said with certainty. “Not for an hour, or a minute. Not first or last. I certainly wouldn’t in their place. I’m right, aren’t I? Those are your orders?”

Ludunte regarded him nervously. “I have nothing else to say,” he murmured at last.

“No matter,” said Ott. “I will free myself, by and by. And then we shall see about Lord Taliktrum’s concern for comfort.”

Myett looked at him with loathing, and not a little fear. Then she opened her bag and removed a small cloth package bound with string, which she quickly untied. Within lay three white pills. Side by side, they barely fit on Myett’s palm: clearly they had been made for humans.

“You must swallow your pills at the same time, all three of you, and exit together.”

“Glah,” said Oggosk, pointing irritably at Rose. “Give him my dose. I’ll go later, when the heat passes. Let the captain see what’s become of his ship.”

“Are you certain, Duchess?” said Rose.

“Was I ever otherwise, you fool? Take the offer, and leave me in peace.”

Two minutes later the door flew open with a bang. Rose stormed out and barreled for the quarterdeck, shouting for Fiffengurt and Alyash, watch-captains, duty officers, his steward, his meal. All around him men leaped to attention. Neeps and Marila stepped out more fearfully and shut the door. They clenched each other’s hands (for who knew, who knew?), closed their eyes and inhaled.

The drug worked. They were free, if only for an hour. Neeps opened his eyes. A mob was cheering, chasing after Rose. But three figures pushed through it in their direction. The first was running headlong: Thasha. She skidded to a halt and threw her arms around them both and laughed and shouted and kissed their cheeks. Behind her Hercol and Bolutu came striding, wide smiles on their faces.

“Nutter girl!” Neeps laughed, hugging her until it hurt. “How’ve you and Pazel managed to stay alive so long without us?”

“It was Hercol who got you out,” said Thasha, her own eyes bright with tears. “The council was about to explode, but he calmed everyone down and shamed Taliktrum into this furlough idea.”

“Sometimes it takes a fighter to stop a fight,” said Bolutu. “Come, away! The hour will pass quickly. We have food-of a sort-in the stateroom, and hot water for bathing is on its way, two buckets apiece. And Felthrup is simply going mad.”

“First things first,” said Neeps. “What in the nine stinking Pits happened to Pazel?”

There was an awkward silence. Thasha dropped her eyes, and to Neeps’ amazement her ears began to redden. Then a voice from behind her called out: “I’m afraid I did, Undrabust.”

Greysan Fulbreech, one eye purple and bloodshot, walked up and extended his hand. Neeps just stared at him. Then to his astonishment he saw Thasha take Fulbreech’s other hand, tenderly, like something she cherished.

“I tried so hard, Neeps,” she said, her voice a plea. “To tell him sooner, to explain. It wasn’t anything Pazel did wrong.”

“No one is to blame,” said Hercol.

“Least of all Pathkendle,” said Fulbreech, his fingertips brushing Thasha’s arm. “He was in shock, you know. He really does care for her. Because of that I can’t be angry. In fact I’m hopeful that one day we’ll all be friends.”

Neeps hit him. Savagely, in the stomach. He had Fulbreech down on the deck before they tore him away.

“You rabid Rinforsaken slobbering dog.”

Only Marila could deliver insults that cutting in a voice that calm. “I told you I’m sorry,” said Neeps, pressing clean gauze (provided by Fulbreech) into his nose.

“Brilliant. Just blary brilliant,” Marila continued. “Thirty minutes left. If we’re lucky your nose will stop bleeding for the last three.”

“Why don’t you go do something, then?”

“I hate you. I hate you.”

“You’re not being fair to him,” said Pazel, hands on the bars of his cell.

“Don’t tell me about fair,” said Marila, still in that deadpan voice. “You think I feel sorry for you, locked up for three whole days?” She looked hard at Neeps. “Taliktrum will never let you out again after this.”

“Listen, Marila,” said Neeps, his head still tilted back, “Fulbreech is a liar. A fake. He’s found a… weak spot, see? A weak spot in Thasha, and he’s exploiting it.”

“Thasha is not a fool,” said Marila. “If she’s with him, she has to have a reason. And if you ask me it’s because she’s taken a fancy, the same way anybody else does.”

“Then she’s a fake,” said Pazel. “She doesn’t love him. She’s pretending.”

“Well she’s doing a blary good job.” Then, seeing Pazel cringe at her words, she added in a louder voice: “I never say things the right way. I know that. If you want somebody to lie and make you feel better, maybe I should go.” She paused, breathing deeply. “But if you ask me you’re better off without her, that mucking rich grugustagral. You weren’t the only one she fooled. I was there when she told you she was done with Fulbreech. I know what you’ve been through with her. For her.”

Neeps whispered, “What’s a grugu-gu-”

“Shut up,” said Marila.

“Thasha’s a good person,” Pazel insisted miserably. “And we need her, too. We’re supposed to be a team.”

“Exactly,” said Marila. “Those burn scars mean you’re supposed to stick together, you three and Hercol and Bolutu and even Rose, somehow-to stay and fight together to the blary end. Besides, you and Thasha-” She puffed out her round cheeks, angrily. “It’s like magic. You love her despite the invasion of Ormael, despite her father. I think you even managed to love her father. And if she wants to throw all that away just because some handsome-”

“Handsome?” cried both boys. “He’s not! He’s a goon!”

Marila looked from one to the other. “Hopeless,” she sighed.

Neeps turned back to Pazel. “Hercol must be in on it,” he said. “But why are they doing it, and why won’t they tell you? That’s what you have to figure out.”

“Right,” said Pazel. But Neeps could see that his heart had gone out of it. Marila’s argument had struck home; he was at last considering the possibility that Thasha’s change of heart was real.

All at once he seemed to reach a decision. “Get up, you two,” he said. “You’ve wasted almost your whole hour on me. Go and eat something, walk around. And wash off that blood, mate. Go on, right now. I mean it.”

Neeps felt like a heel, but his guilt at keeping Marila from enjoying any of her furlough was gnawing him, and Pazel was unyielding. All three got to their feet. Pazel linked hands with them through the bars.

“Every other time, she trusted me,” he blurted. “Even when she was scared or ashamed. Why would she start hiding things now?”

Marila looked Pazel in the eye. You had to know her well to realize how much sympathy she felt. “That’s my point, Pazel. She wouldn’t, and she’s not.”

But as they walked away Pazel was still shaking his head.

The ten-minute bell clanged its strident warning. In the stateroom, Neeps and Marila jumped up from the table, and the little feast their friends had assembled. Hercol and Bolutu rose as well. Neeps looked across the room and stifled a growl.

It just kept getting worse. Thasha and Fulbreech were standing by the windows, close together. She had brought him through the invisible wall. Since its sudden appearance three months ago they had found that Thasha alone controlled access to the stateroom, merely by commanding the wall to admit chosen friends. Uskins had marked it with a red line of paint on the deck; it ran from port to starboard, straight down the middle of a cross-passage twenty feet from the stateroom door. No one but those Thasha named could cross that line. They had no idea where the wall had come from, or why it answered only to Thasha, but they were all glad of its protection. Now without consulting anyone she had added Fulbreech to their circle.

She had tried to make peace between them. Fulbreech had been willing; but Neeps had turned his head with a bitter laugh, and Marila’s look made Jorl and Suzyt whimper deep in their throats. After a moment Fulbreech had simply withdrawn to the other end of the stateroom. Thasha had tried to talk to them-about the attack of the dlomic army, the council meeting, the fruitless search for Arunis. Hercol and Bolutu had urged them to eat. Felthrup, in nervous agony, had babbled like a soul possessed, now and then stopping to chew his stumpy tail. At last he had burst into tears and fled into Admiral Isiq’s old quarters. Hercol had followed him inside, and emerged minutes later, shaking his head.

“Are you sure it was wise, Thasha, to indulge his request?”

“I’m not sure of much these days,” she responded, her voice suddenly hardening as she glanced at Hercol.

“What are you talking about?” said Marila. “What request?”

Thasha sighed. “Felthrup believes that he’s accomplishing something vital-in his sleep. You know he used to have those terrible nightmares, the ones he’d wake up from squealing and shaking? Well, they’ve stopped, thank Rin. But he has an idea that they weren’t normal dreams at all. He thinks they were sent by Arunis.”

“What?” said Fulbreech, touching her elbow. “Your rat friend thinks the sorcerer was attacking him through dreams?”

“That’s his suspicion,” said Thasha, “although he’s never been able to remember any details. When the nightmares were happening he was so afraid that he stopped sleeping at all-for ages. I think it nearly killed him. And now he’s just obsessed. He’s been reading about sleep and dreams and trances in the Polylex-you know, my particular copy-”

“Right,” said Marila quickly as Fulbreech raised his eyes with sudden interest.

She’s cracked! thought Neeps. She practically just told that slimy bloke that she’s got a thirteenth edition! Why doesn’t Hercol put a stop to this?

“He wanted a place to sleep in the daytime,” Thasha continued. “He asked for a dark nest, and I provided it-found an old hatbox, lined it with scarves, placed it with the open side facing the back of the closet. Then I hung a curtain over the closet door to keep light from leaking in. With all of Father’s uniforms and Syrarys’ dresses still hanging in there, I guess it’s about as dark and quiet as anyplace on the ship.”

“He retreats to that nest for hours at a time,” said Bolutu, “and when he emerges, he is strange and preoccupied, but he never tells us why.”

“I don’t like this at all,” said Neeps.

“Nor do I,” said Hercol, “but I have come to trust that rat’s intuition almost as much as my own. He often senses far more than he understands. But we must be off, my friends. The hour is ending, and it is a long walk to the forecastle house.”

“Thank you all,” said Neeps. “You’re first-rate, I mean it.”

Thasha came forward, her eyes bright, and took his hand in both of hers. “We miss you,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Neeps, glancing around, as though for someone who wasn’t there.

“We’ll go with you, of course,” she said. Then she added awkwardly, “Greysan’s going to stay here.”

A difficult silence. Marila turned to look at the Simjan. “Alone?” she said.

“Yes, alone,” said Thasha, a bit sharply. “Why shouldn’t he?”

Neeps took a deep breath, and held it. Because it’s insane, that’s why. Because you’re out of your mind if you let him poke around in the stateroom. The magical Polylex was here, and so was Mr. Fiffengurt’s secret journal, and the letters he’d written to his unborn child. There were also Bolutu’s notebooks, and Thasha’s own, and even some jottings Pazel had made in the back of an old logbook.

“We’ll go back by ourselves,” said Marila suddenly. “You can all stay here.”

Neeps quickly agreed: it was as if Marila had read his mind. The others protested, but he and Marila stood firm. Wishing their friends a last hasty goodbye, they bolted from the stateroom.

What occurred next shocked them both. Just beyond the red line that traced the invisible wall they found Rose waiting, terribly tense, fingering something in his pocket. “What kept you?” he barked. “Come along, quickly!”

“We have to get back, Captain,” said Neeps. “I can already feel the pain beginning.”

“Save your breath,” said Rose. “Come with me, that’s an order.”

He plunged across the upper gun deck, not looking back, confident of being obeyed. Neeps and Marila stood rooted to the spot.

“He’s going the right direction,” said Neeps at last. “We can start off following him, and break for the topdeck if things get strange.”

“Things already are,” said Marila.

Nonetheless they followed the captain as he barreled past the startled carpenters and gun-repair teams, around the tonnage hatch and into the starboard lateral passage. “He’s still aiming for the forecastle house,” whispered Neeps. “In fact we’ll probably get there sooner this way. No crowds to slow us down. But would it hurt him to-”

Rose stopped dead. Neeps and Marila skidded to a halt behind him, and both cried out in amazement. Just ahead, a passage intersected their own, and at its center was a huge red cat. It crouched for an instant, startled by their voices, and then with a twitch of serpentine tail it vanished down the right-hand passage.

“That’s Sniraga!” said Neeps. “She survived the blary rats! How did she manage, where has she been?”

“Nothing can kill that animal,” said Rose. “It will never leave off, never cease to plague me, until I answer for its wounds.”

He was trembling, hoarse with fear. Then he shook himself back to life and pounded on. The Holy Stair was just ahead, and it was with immense relief that they watched Rose enter the ladderway and start to climb. He moved swiftly, raising himself by the handholds as much as the steep steps.

But one flight below the topdeck he stopped again. “Have a look at these,” he said, bending down.

They leaned around his elbows. Beside the wall, a brass speaking-tube cut through the ladderway, emerging from a hole in a step and vanishing through the ceiling. And on the step beside the pipe sat a small canvas bag. Rose lifted it, and Neeps heard the clink of metal.

“What’s that, sir?” he asked warily. “Coins?”

Rose smiled curiously. “Not coins. Payment, yes, but not coins.”

Suddenly he grabbed Neeps by the arm. There was a flash of iron, a sharp click, and suddenly Neeps found himself handcuffed to the speaking-tube. He shouted and kicked at Rose. Marila screamed and struck at the captain’s face. Rose cursed, trying to catch her arms. Marila was quick and slippery: if she had obeyed Neeps (who begged her to Run, please, run away!) she might have escaped up the stairs. But she didn’t try, and in a moment the captain overpowered her and clipped a second cuff about her slender wrist. He dragged her to the brass pipe and snapped the other cuff in place around it.

Then he stepped back, out of range of their blows.

Neeps screamed at him: “You mad bastard! What in the Pits are you doing?”

Rose leaned back against the wall. Neeps threw himself downward, wrenching his arm, but the pipe did not even shake. Marila twisted her arm in the iron cuff, but it was too tight for her hand to slip through. Overhead, the ship’s bell began to peal again, urgently.

“You can’t kill us!” cried Neeps.

“Can I not?”

“You could lose the Shaggat! You will lose him! Marila’s the spell-keeper, do you hear me? If she dies-”

“Undrabust,” said Rose, “you may be gifted at detecting lies, but in telling them you have no skill at all. Lady Oggosk determined weeks ago that no one in the forecastle house carries Ramachni’s spell. Given the tension in that chamber, and the presence of Sandor Ott, I decided to keep her discovery to myself.”

“They’re calling for us,” said Marila.

And indeed men were shouting overhead: Where are they? Captain Rose! Undrabust! Miss Marila! Your hour’s up! Hurry, hurry, for the love of Rin! The voices of the ixchel, furious and confused, piped above the rest.

Neeps and Marila pulled together. Rose shook his head. “Those fittings have lasted centuries. They’ll not give way now.”

The youths began to shout for help. Overhead, someone caught their cries and exclaimed, “The Holy Stair! The Holy Stair!” Boots pounded toward the ladderway.

Then Rose took the strangest step of all. Wading into their blows again, he pulled a third set of handcuffs from the bag and locked himself to the pipe.

“You’re insane!” shouted Neeps. “If you want to die, at least let us go!”

Now they were close enough for Neeps to sense the terror in Rose’s flesh. His teeth were locked in a grimace, his fists were clenched. “Out of time, out of time,” he murmured.

The boots smashed nearer, and then a crowd of sailors, led by Big Skip and the doughy-faced Mr. Teggatz, appeared and all but stumbled over them.

“Milk of Heaven’s Blessed Tree, shipmates, our captain’s a suicide!” cried Teggatz-easily the longest utterance Neeps had ever heard from the cook.

“He’s a murderer!” shouted Marila. “Get these cuffs off, get us away from him!”

The sailors tried to do just that. Big Skip put his lumberjack’s arms to the task of breaking the pipe, while Swift the tarboy ran for a hacksaw. Teggatz spat on Marila’s hand and tried to ease it through the iron cuff, but only managed to bruise and bloody her. Neeps, who had felt the icy stab of the ixchel’s poison whenever the door swung open or the fire ebbed, wondered that he was still drawing breath. The hour had passed. They were living on borrowed time.

When Swift returned with the hacksaw, Rose snatched it from his hand and broke the blade over his knee. Big Skip growled in mystified rage. He wrenched at the pipe with all his strength. Other hands shoved in close beside him, and Neeps and Marila joined too. The pipe bowed, and its housing popped loose from the timber.

“Help us, Captain, you crazy old loon!” cried Big Skip.

“I already am,” said Rose.

It was a good eight minutes before the tugging, combined with the work of a second hacksaw (kept well out of the captain’s reach), at last succeeded in breaking the pipe. Instantly many hands lifted Marila and Neeps and slid them, cuffs still trailing, to freedom. But even as they made to dash up the Holy Stair, they heard Rose began to laugh.

“It’s permanent, you witless whelps,” he said. “Haven’t you guessed yet? The crawlies blundered. They gave us the same pills they gave Haddismal and Swift. You’re cured. Go back in there and you’ll start the poison cycle all over again.”

Teggatz, blubbering, tried to push the youths up the stairs. “He’s mad! Oh, misery! Run!”

“Aye, run!” said Big Skip. “If he ain’t mad, he’s lying! Get to safety, you two!”

But Neeps didn’t move. “We should have died ten minutes ago. He’s not lying. We’re free.” He looked at Rose, who was still shaking with mirth. “But you are crazy, and vicious as a snake. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“First, because you’re an irritating brat and a mutineer,” said Rose. “Second, because you’d never have believed it. You’d have run straight back into the chamber, just to be on the safe side.” He took a small key from his pocket and unlatched the cuff on his wrist. Then he held out the key to Neeps. “Admit it, Undrabust. You owe me for this. You may even owe me your life.”

Neeps snatched the key from his hand. When he and Marila had shed their cuffs, he turned to Big Skip and the others. “I thank you,” he said pointedly. Then he turned to Rose again. He was about to lacerate the man with every choice Sollochi insult he could summon when Marila laid a hand on his arm. Her face was anxious, and Neeps understood at once. Rose was free; he would be taking charge again; there would be consequences for every word that escaped their mouths. And if he really knew that neither he nor Marila was the spell-keeper, he could even carry out the suspended executions.

Marila took his hand and pulled. “Let’s just get out of here,” she whispered.

Neeps let himself be persuaded. But he would not go back to the stateroom: his anger at Thasha burned too bright. Hercol, he thought. Alone. The swordsman had some answering to do. He knew better than to trust Greysan Fulbreech. How could he have stood by as the older youth swept Thasha off her feet?

He followed Marila to the topdeck. The moment they emerged a great cheer went up from the assembled sailors. Cries and rumors had preceded them. Now here was the proof: two of their number had beaten the ixchel at their own game. Men crowded forward, clapping their backs and almost hugging them, bellowing good wishes, howling derision at the ineptitude of crawlies. The ixchel on deck merely watched. They were furious, but little had really changed. They still had twelve hostages to bargain with.

Neeps caught a glimpse of the forecastle window. Half a dozen faces were pressed to the glass-Ott, Saroo, Chadfallow, Elkstem-even Lady Oggosk had claimed a spot. Our good luck is their bad, he realized. The ixchel will never hand out any more pills.

Thasha appeared in the crowd. She was making her way toward him, and her eyes were beseeching. She shouted over the din.

“-tell you something-what you think-believe me-”

Neeps began to turn away, but Marila caught his arm. “Listen to her,” she shouted in his ear. “Just once. You owe her that much.”

Thasha reached them. She was alone; there was pain in her eyes. Neeps stood his ground, fuming, gazing furiously at her. “Well?” he said at last.

Thasha had no time to answer, for at that moment Rose climbed out from the hatch, and the cheering doubled. Hysteria, thought Neeps. Most of them don’t even like him. Rose twitched irritably at the commotion, but no one quite believed he was angry. The men chanted his name, brandishing weapons and tools above their heads. Plapps and Burnscoves cheered shoulder to shoulder. Somewhere the stomp-stomp-clap, stomp-stomp-hey! of an Etherhorde flagball game began, and soon nearly everyone on deck had joined in. The men wanted something to celebrate, some victory of will over reason. For the moment Rose was it.

They would have lifted him onto their shoulders if he had not suddenly lurched forward. His face changed; all at once his outrage was very sincere indeed. Shoving his way through a dozen men, Rose pointed at a figure some thirty yards away by the No. 2 hatch.

“Who in the entrails of the blackest blary fiend is that?” he exploded.

“Him, Captain?” laughed a joyful Mr. Fegin. “Why that’s just Mr. Bolutu, he-Oh Pitfire!”

It was not Bolutu. The cheers turned to roars of challenge. The figure was quite obviously a dlomu, as tall and strong as any of those who had attacked the ship. He stood straight and proud, although he wore only tattered breeches, a white shirt missing all its buttons and a fortnight’s beard. His thick hair hung in tangles to his elbows. He had a lean face and a hawk-like nose, and his eyes were full of bright intelligence. As the sailors charged he raised his hands in surrender.

The men were less than calm. They fell on him, howling threats and curses, and dragged him all the way to the gunwale. There they lifted him half over the rail, so that his torso dangled above the sea.

“Hold!” shouted Rose, lumbering forward.

“On your guard, Captain, there may be more!” cried Alyash.

“There are,” said the strange dlomu.

“Knew it!” said Alyash. “They’re on the lower decks with the crawlies! They must be!”

“Your knife, Mr. Fegin.” Rose squeezed in among his men. Burying his hand in the stranger’s hair, he pulled downward, until the man was looking right at the sun. The dlomu winced and closed his eyes. Rose laid the edge of Fegin’s knife against his throat.

“How many?” he said.

“Six or eight, I should say.”

“You should say exactly. You should give me a reason to spare your life.”

“They are not my comrades,” said the stranger. “Indeed, they wish to kill me. I have been running from them this last month and more.”

“You’re the fugitive? The one those madmen attacked us for?”

“I fear so.”

“Aye, you fear it-because for that alone I should slit your throat. How in blazes did you get aboard?”

“You’re human beings, aren’t you?” said the stranger. “Amazing. I never thought I’d live to see this day.”

His words sent a ripple of alarm through the sailors: He’s never seen a human, did ye hear? We’re alone, marooned with them monsters, alone!

Taliktrum appeared on the shoulder of a reluctant main-topman. He urged the sailor forward impatiently. Then Neeps saw Bolutu and Ibjen at the back of the crowd. The young dlomu stared at the newcomer, and Neeps saw recognition in the look.

Bolutu cried out: “By the Dawn Star, brother, don’t provoke him!”

“Provoke him?” said the stranger. “In this position? Why, I haven’t even learned his name. Nor he mine.”

“The captain asked you a question, blacky!” snapped Alyash.

“Did he? Would you kindly repeat it, sir?”

Neeps caught his breath. He had never heard anyone but Lady Oggosk take a tone of levity with Nilus Rose, the man who flogged tarboys for hiccups. The stranger did not know the peril he was in.

Captain Rose slid his hand to the knife-blade, pinched it between two fingers and a thumb. A few sailors winced, as if from bitter memory.

“I’ll repeat it,” said Rose.

He set the point of the knife on the man’s chest, directly over the heart. With a slow and merciless movement, he began to cut, scoring the flesh in a semicircular pattern. The man twisted and writhed in the sailors’ grasp. He bit his lips, tears starting from his eyes.

“Stop, stop!” cried Ibjen in distress. “Captain Rose, you’re in Bali Adro! You can’t draw his blood!”

“You mucking animal!” shouted Neeps at the captain’s back. “Taliktrum, make him stop!”

“Why should I?” said Taliktrum. “Those savages tried to sink us. Proceed, Rose-go further, if you must.”

Rose glared at Taliktrum over his shoulder: Give me permission, will you? Then he turned back to his torture. The cut was now some eight inches long. Suddenly Neeps realized that Rose was carving a symbol in the man’s flesh. A question mark. He finished it with a deep prick that made the stranger gasp.

“You nearly took my ship,” he said. “And in fleeing you, we damaged her, fatally for all I can tell. Now you dare to make sport of her commander. I wish you to understand that to do so again will be fatal.”

“I make no sport of you,” said the stranger, as his blood trickled into the sea. “It’s just that I should have died so long ago that I find humor in my own survival.”

“The joke may have run its course,” said Taliktrum.

“I came aboard in a water cask,” said the stranger. “I kicked it open just minutes ago, to warn you about the others. I waited on the lower decks until the stair was clear.”

Rose was outraged anew. “Are you saying we smuggled you aboard ourselves?”

“You did, Captain. The villagers were rather clever-I think smuggling is not an infrequent practice in Narybir. They secured stones and water-sacks inside the cask with me, so that you should detect no difference by weight or sound.”

“I was pledged to help him, Captain!” shouted Ibjen suddenly. “To be certain he reached the mainland. I gave my word.”

Taliktrum laughed. “And then tried to jump ship on two occasions,” he said.

The stranger looked at Ibjen sharply, and the boy dropped his head in shame.

“Why would the villagers help you in this way?” asked Rose.

“Because I was in great need, sir. Your scratch is nothing compared with what the Karysk Expeditionaries would have done, if they had laid hands on me.”

“Karyskans!” cried Bolutu. “Is it true, then-there is war between the Empires, that were once fast friends?”

“War is too glorious a name for it,” said the stranger, “but there is a great deal of mindless killing. I was in Karysk to warn them of the impending attack.”

“Warn them?” said Rose. “If you were delivering such a helpful message, why did they pursue you like their most hated enemy?”

“Because,” gasped the stranger, “I bear a striking resemblance to their most hated enemy-the man who pushed hardest for the attack.”

“Mistaken identity on such a gigantic scale?” said Taliktrum. “That is hard to credit.”

“We are of the same family, he and I,” said the stranger. He paused, then added, “The Karyskans, I think, are hiding among your cattle.”

Rose’s hand moved with startling speed. The knife cut a short gash in the stranger’s cheek. Ibjen stifled another cry.

Ibjen was wailing: “Captain Rose! Captain Rose! Make him stop, Thashiziq, for your own sake, for the ship’s!”

Thasha started forward, and Neeps and Marila with her, but the mob of frightened sailors stood with Rose now, and held them back. Thasha put a hand on each friend’s arm and shook her head: Not this way.

“We have no cattle,” said the captain. “Our livestock are dead. And you will be next, for your mouth is full of lies.”

“No livestock at all?” said the man, sounding genuinely perplexed.

Rose leaned close over his captive. “We will proceed to fingers,” he said, “and since your kind can grow back fingers and tongues and other parts, I’ll take two for every falsehood.”

“All these years,” sighed the stranger, “and this is how our races come together again. Captain Rose, I see that I must explain a few points. You are drifting toward the Karysk frontier. You have sailed into an artificial current, summoned to carry the Last Armada of Bali Adro at great speed into enemy waters. If you continue east you will soon reach Nandirag, the first great city of Karysk, and a conflict more horrible than words can express. You must sail out of the current at once, and turn west while the good wind holds. You might find you could repair your ship in Masalym, and I could perhaps do you a favor in that regard.

“But the city of Masalym is part of the Empire of Bali Adro, and so is all the coastline beyond it for a thousand miles. It is cursed, my beloved Tarum Adrofynd, and quite possibly dying. But it is not dead yet. And there is one law that shall endure a great while: that no one but my kin may draw the blood of my kin. All other offenders must be executed.”

Rose stood as if turned to stone. Neeps felt cold at the back of his neck. “Captain,” he said, “be careful, sir. I think he’s telling the truth.”

“Of course he is!” said Ibjen. “His face-”

“Ah yes, my face,” said the newcomer. “I can hide my chest under a shirt, but my cheek is another matter.”

“You’re speaking of a race law, then?” said Rose. “Only a dlomu may harm another dlomu, is that it?”

The stranger laughed, wincing as he did so. “Even in our glory years we were not that kind to one another,” he said. “No, Captain, by kin I mean my extended family, nothing more.”

As if in explanation, he showed them his left hand. On the thumb shone a rough, heavy ring, like a nugget of solid silver. Rose frowned at it, hesitating, then gestured for the sailors to lower the man to his feet. “What in the Nine Pits do they call you?” he said at last.

“I am Olik,” said the stranger, wincing as his feet touched the boards.

“Just Olik?”

The stranger probed the wounds on his face and chest. He took a deep breath and straightened to his full height, which was considerable. He gazed steadily at Rose.

“My full name,” he said, “is Prince Olik Ipandracon Tastandru Bali Adro.”

He raised a hand as if to address them further, but before he could say another word, he collapsed.

The Rule of the House

24 Ilbrin 941

The thin man in the golden spectacles fled the stateroom in a rush. He was off-balance from the first, but there was no turning back. Oh, he had botched things, he was in danger-he would never again be ruled by fear. But the ship was not his. He could taste the change. A spectacular dreamer he might be, but not a practiced one, like the enemy he faced.

For ten yards the passage was silent, warm, and he sensed the life all around him. Hercol in a meditative trance. Neeps unconscious but restless in his hammock, his dream-self raising head and shoulders to gaze through wooden walls in the direction of the man in glasses. Marila awake, rigid, listening for Thasha and Fulbreech, barely allowing herself to breathe. Thasha herself far behind him in the stateroom, by the windows, hoping there would be no knock on the door. Bolutu asleep and very distant, running through dream-lands of his own.

Then the man stepped over the red line, through the magic wall, and the chaos of his dream engulfed him. The ship tilted-or was it the pull of the earth that changed-and he stumbled against the bulkhead. There was a background rumble, a groaning, in the very air, and the light was fugitive and dim. No matter, he would not be here long. He turned down the portside passage and reached for a doorknob (vaguely aware that it was the entrance to the old first-class powder room) and flung it open to see-the bakery, his own beloved bakery in Noonfirth! The humble shop where he had become a woken animal! He could smell the bread, see the black woman bent over her mixing-bowl. Couldn’t he go to her for a moment, fall on his knees, inform her of the miracle she had worked? Madam! I was a thief in your shadows, a rat. You cried one morning, your husband had run away with the butter-churn girl. I heard, and I woke: yours was the spark to the tinder that burns inside me yet.

No, he could not do that. He was looking not for comfort but for allies, and he had not a moment to spare.

Another turn, another passage. There were ghost-sailors fighting in the adjoining rooms. Translucent flashes, limbs and weapons and faces and shields, flowed by at the intersection ahead. Pirates or Volpek mercenaries, battling Chathrand’s sailors; a fight to the death among the dead. Echoes of war cries, faint sounds of steel on steel. Was it the past he was seeing? Or the disordered nightmare of another dreamer, just out of sight?

There was the door he sought. No question. He could feel eternities throbbing beyond the fragile wood. Bounding up to it (fear would not stop him) he seized the knob, turned it and pulled.

An abyss. A maelstrom. Wind tore at his cloak like a hurricane through tattered trees. All as it should be. He was better at this than he’d thought.

He forced himself to lean forward until his face crossed the threshold. The wind like a boot to the underside of his chin. He nearly lost his balance; his glasses were torn from his head and flew upward, out of sight. No matter. You don’t need them. You’ll be blind until you will yourself to see.

But he was blind for now-blind and, yes, afraid. Was it his fault if there was only darkness before him? What should he expect-warm windows, vines, music and laughter spilling onto the terrace? True, he had managed to see all that once before, and to hear a great deal. But that night he had been a stowaway in another’s dream, not the architect of his own.

Then he sensed the sorcerer.

It was true: Arunis was walking the dream-ship once again, sure enough of himself to call out with his mind: Ah, Felthrup. I wondered when you’d come back to me. Are you ready to bargain, rat?

Felthrup turned away from the door, anger crackling through his dream-body. He turned his mind in the mage’s direction. You think nothing has changed. You think you can torture me as before, use me against them, make me your fool.

I think I would know if Ramachni were guarding you, as he did last time.

Come, then. Come and talk to this rat. He is waiting for you.

He felt his dream-voice betray him. No control, no control. Somewhere Arunis was indeed rushing toward him, laughing at his forced bravado.

We have an account to settle, don’t we, vermin?

Felthrup closed the door. He turned in the direction of the mage’s voice. We most certainly do, Arunis.

He felt his slim scholar’s body throb with sudden power, hideous and sublime, the strength of a thousand-pound animal, and he spread his jaws and roared through five decks, a bear’s furious battle roar, and Arunis stopped dead in his tracks.

That’s better.

No taunting reply from the mage. Felthrup was satisfied. Within this ship, within his dream, he was his own master, and would bow to no one again.

Felthrup reopened the door. The black abyss loomed before him, unchanged; the wind made him stagger.

Where can you be going, Felthrup? said the mage, his voice suddenly affable. Come now, you don’t want to step through any… unusual doors. I know all about them, you’ll want to talk to me first.

He let go of the door frame.

Don’t you do it! You have no idea what you’re in for if you stray from this ship!

No more tricks. No more words of poison. He leaped.

As a rat he had once plunged from a moving ship into the sea. This was infinitely worse: the air current blasted him straight upward, head over heels; the door became a dim rectangle that shrank to nothing in the darkness. He rose like a cannonball fired at a midnight moon-and then the current vanished, and he became weightless, and started to fall Only for an instant. The next blast shot him faster, farther upward. Do not wake. Do not panic. Now there were windows, and cave mouths, and luminous insects somehow surviving the wind. Felthrup had lost all control of his dream. He perceived the wall of this great black tunnel, ten times the width of any mineshaft, and no sooner had he seen it than he collided, scraping along the wall shaggy with vines, while somewhere within the leaves tiny voices cursed him, You great oaf, that’s my property, you’ve knocked my mailbox into the River.

The River of Shadows. That is what the innkeeper called this place. And his name, and his tavern? Think of it, remember. Orfuin. The Orfuin Club. Anyone whose need is sincere can find his way to my doorstep.

No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he saw it: the little terrace and the wide stone archway, the scattered tables, the potbellied man at his tea. As if he had waited all these weeks for Felthrup to return. But how could he possibly get there? Felthrup spread his arms, the way he had seen Macadra and her horrible companions do, but his cloak only billowed about his head, and like a tossed playing card he flew spinning across the shaft, rising still, leaving the terrace behind. No control. He could almost hear Arunis laughing, though he knew the mage could not see or hear him in this place. He flailed, he kicked, he crashed again into a wall. He sank his hands into the vines. They were deep, but not deep enough. Fistfuls of the waxy leaves tore away in his hands as his body tried to lift away once more.

He should not have attempted this journey. You’re failing, rat. Still just a rat, with a rat’s small soul, even if he could dream himself into the body of a man or bear.

Then it came to him, like a gift from some mind beyond his own. Still a rat! He had that choice, too. Closing his eyes, he willed the change to happen, and it did. His fur, his half tail, his dear old claws. All at once the vines closed over his whole body. The wall of the shaft was rough, scabrous; better than the walls he scaled with ease on the Chathrand. And the wind sheared past him, deflected by the vines.

He crawled straight down. He veered left and right following the smells of the place, dark beer and gingerbread. Rat, man, bear, yddek: he could be any of these. He was Felthrup Stargraven, and for the first time in his curious life he knew with certainty that he was something more. He thought of Arunis, stalking the Chathrand like a murderous fog, killing through mind-enslavement and yet afraid to meet him, Felthrup, in dream. I am, he thought with a totally unfamiliar pleasure, a dangerous foe.

“Do you mean that you had no assistance whatsoever?” said the innkeeper, filling a saucer for the rat.

“On the contrary, sir,” said Felthrup, seated on the table beside him. “I had the assistance of the written word, and an exceptional sort of help it was. The thirteenth Polylex often leads one astray, I grant you; and it is certainly biased in favor of the Northern half of my world. There is no entry whatsoever for ‘Bali Adro,’ tragically enough; one proceeds directly from Balhindar, a Rekere dish made with green rice and termite larvae, to Baliacan, a dance in honor of the Firelords, the poor execution of which was punished-do excuse my redundant vocabulary, sir-with execution.”

“But something in this Polylex,” said Orfuin, unruffled by Felthrup’s nonstop chatter, “showed you the way to my door, though you’d never dipped so much as a finger into the River of Shadows?”

“Master Orfuin, I had no inkling that such a River existed.”

A gentle smile spread over the innkeeper’s face. “One day you may long to recover such ignorance. Then again, you may not. For now, let us celebrate your skill. Few dare to leap into that stream who are not born to it, or committed to a lifetime’s practice. You, Felthrup, are a natural swimmer.”

“How very ironical,” said Felthrup, beaming. “All my life-my woken life-I have lived in fear of drowning. But I suppose one cannot drown in a river of air.”

“There is more than one sort of drowning,” said Orfuin. “But come: tell me how you managed this miracle, and what need brought you to attempt it.”

Felthrup reached to adjust his spectacles, then laughed: they were still gone. “Cross-references, Mr. Orfuin,” he said. “I began with Dreams, an entry that ran to some forty-eight pages. Around the thirtieth, I learned of the theory of Occulted Architecture, which states that the objects in a dream-land, like those in any other world, are made of smaller building blocks: atoms, cells, particles too small for any eye to discern-except the mage’s, and those of magical creatures. They, being able to perceive the building pattern, can also learn to change it-to turn a rat into a man, candies into worms, a damp tunnel into a castle corridor. Arunis used this ability to torture me for several months, once he discovered my dream of scholarship.

“But the Polylex goes on to say that dream-lands are not exactly infinite. Like countries in a waking world, they do possess edges: frontiers, borders, watchtowers, walls. Some of the mightiest walls are those erected between dreamers. They are invisible even to the dreamer himself, but they are also essential: they prevent us from wandering, by accident or ill design, into the dreams of others.

“Mages, however, can pass through these walls as though they do not exist.”

“If that were not so I’d have fewer customers,” said Orfuin, “though not everyone who comes here does so in a dream.”

“Well, Mr. Orfuin,” continued Felthrup, “at that point the Polylex suggested I consult the entry for Trespass, Magical. How fortunate that I did! For that entry described at some length the consequences of dream-invasion for the one so violated. They are mostly horrible. Because Arunis trespassed so often and so aggressively into my dreams, I may eventually come to suffer from insomnia, sleepwalking, fear of intimacy and verbal reticence.”

“Surely not the last?” said Orfuin with concern.

“Oh, it is likely, sir, and narcolepsy, and excessive familiarity too. But that is all beside the point. What matters is this: that those whose dreams have been invaded sometimes find that they have been bestowed with an equal but opposite ability-that is, to enter the dream of the one who invaded them.”

“That is true,” said Orfuin. “The wall between two dreamers, once transgressed, is never afterward a perfect barrier.”

“So it proved with me,” said Felthrup. “My great benefactor Ramachni, wherever his true self has gone, passed into my dream and gave me the power to fight back against Arunis. That act saved my life: for sleep had become such misery that I was performing the most extreme acts of self-torture to keep myself awake. And when at last I had the courage to dream again, I made a shocking discovery: my dreams no longer just started, with a bang as it were, in the middle of a fight or dance or bowl of soup. Not at all. Since Ramachni’s visit, I see my dream coming. Like the doorway to your club, it begins as a tiny square of light in the darkness. Very quickly that square grows into a window, and before I know it, the window crashes against me, and I tumble into the dream. Strange, and useless, I thought: for I was as helpless to control this process as I was tonight, flailing around out there.”

Felthrup lifted his head, indicating the rushing blackness beyond the terrace. “The River of Shadows,” he said, musing. “What is it, Mr. Orfuin? Through which world does it run?”

Orfuin paused for a long sip of tea. “The River is the dark essence of thought,” he said at last, “for thought, more than anything else in the universe, has the power to leap between worlds. It belongs therefore to all worlds where conscious life exists. And yet strangely enough, consciousness tends to blind us to its presence. I have even heard it said that the more a world’s inhabitants unlock the secret workings of the universe-its occult architecture, its pulleys and gears-the deeper the River of Shadows sinks beneath the earth. Societies of master technicians, those who trap the energy of suns, and grow their food in laboratories, and build machines that carry them on plumes of fire through the void: they cannot find the River at all.

“But we are straying from your tale, Felthrup. You were speaking of these dream-windows. You fall through them helplessly, you say?”

“No longer!” said Felthrup. “Once again the Polylex came to my rescue. In a footnote to the Dreams entry-I revere the humble footnote, sir, don’t you? — the book provides a list of exercises for taking conscious control of the unconscious. And what do you suppose? I mastered those exercises, and found I could slow the approach of my dream-window. Eventually I learned to stop it altogether and examine the dream from the outside, like a wanderer looking in on a firelit home. If I wish to enter, I do so. If not, I simply wave my hand, and the window shatters like a reflection in a pool. But the most astonishing part was yet to come.

“Several nights ago I noticed a second window, a second dream, shining at some distance from the first. It was the sorcerer’s, Mr. Orfuin: somewhere on the Chathrand, Arunis was asleep, and sending his dream-self out to prowl the ship. I dared not approach it: suppose my new skills failed me, and I tumbled into the sorcerer’s dream? Suppose he sensed me outside the window, and by some magic drew me in? Ramachni gave me the power to master my own dreams, a task I am barely equal to. But should Arunis lay hands on me within his own-”

“You would become his slave, in waking as in dream,” said Orfuin with conviction. “And when he had finished with you, he could break your mind like a sparrow’s egg, between two fingers. Or toy with it, for the rest of your natural life.”

He stood abruptly, as though shaking off a spell, and walked to the edge of his terrace, where the wind of the lightless River tore at his sparse hair.

“To be held in that mage’s invisible cell, prey to any torture that occurs to him, forever. There could hardly be a more awful fate in all the worlds.”

Felthrup said nothing. In the club, someone was tuning a mandolin.

With his back still turned, Orfuin added, “You knew this in your heart, did you not? Before you leaped willingly into his dream.”

“Ah,” said Felthrup, “you guessed.”

“Only now,” said Orfuin. “You were the little yddek that hid under my chair. The first such creature I had seen in many months. The one who swam out of the River some twenty minutes after Arunis himself.”

“I was,” said Felthrup, “though I did not know I would become that strange creature, all tentacles and jointed shell. I only knew that I must learn what he was doing, for even from a distance, gazing fearfully at the window of his dream, I knew he was preparing for a decisive step. Maybe the decisive step in his struggle with us all. How could I simply watch him take it, and not even try to learn what it was about? So yes: I drew near, and watched him pacing through your club, pretending to be no one in particular at first, but shedding the pretense little by little as his impatience grew. And when his back was turned I summoned all my courage, and jumped.”

The innkeeper turned to face him again. “You are fortunate that you became an yddek. I saw the sorcerer turn in surprise the moment you appeared. He sensed your intrusion into his dream, and raced from door to door, to see if it was Macadra who had come. His glance fell on you, but he has seen many yddeks in his time and thought nothing of it. But had you taken this form-”

“He would surely have known me,” said Felthrup, raising his mangled forepaw and twitching his stumpy tail.

“You were fortunate in another way, too,” said Orfuin. “Yddeks have very sharp ears. I assume you heard what they said on this terrace?”

“Much of it, Mr. Orfuin,” said Felthrup, “and all that I heard was terrible. Arunis seeks the complete elimination of human beings from the world! And that woman Macadra seems to share his wish, although she denies it-and something he whispered, something I did not hear, came to her as a brutal shock. Yet I still have no idea who she is. Can you tell me?”

Orfuin took a rag from his pocket and walked to one of the windows looking out onto the terrace. He breathed on a small square pane and rubbed it clean.

“Macadra Hyndrascorm,” he said with distaste, “is a very old sorceress. Like Arunis, a cheater of death. All mages tend to be long-lived, but some are satisfied with nothing less than immortality. None truly attain it. Some, like Macadra and her servants in the Raven Society, deploy all their magical skills in its pursuit. They may indeed live a very long time-but not without becoming sick and bleached and repellent to natural beings. Others, like your master Ramachni, are granted a kind of extended lease: the powers outside of time stretch their lives into hundreds or even thousands of years, but only in pursuit of a very great deed.”

Felthrup jerked upright with a squeak, almost upsetting the little table. “Do you mean that once Ramachni completes his allotted task he will die?” he cried.

“Death is the standard conclusion, yes,” said Orfuin. “But Felthrup, you must hasten to tell me what you came here for. I have a roast in the oven. Besides, my dear fellow, you might wake at any time.”

“That is precisely why I have come!” said Felthrup. “Master Orfuin, my Polylex tells me that the wall between two dreamers is not the only sort of wall. There is also, of course, the wall between dream and waking. But by one of the most ancient of laws, most of what we learn, and all that we collect or are given, must be left on the far side of the gate when we return to waking life.”

Orfuin chuckled again. Then, with an air of scholarly formality, he recited: Never night’s mysteries are exposed

To the weak mortal eye unclosed.

So wills its King, that hath forbid

The uplifting of the fringed lid.

“Or something to that effect. Have you read Poe, Mr. Felthrup? A dlomic writer of some interest; there’s a book of his in the club.^ 6 Yes, it is a balm to the soul, to travel and converse and gain wisdom in the land of dreams. But only mages can carry that wisdom out into the daylight. The rest of us must leave everything but a few stray memories on the far side of the wall.”

“But Master Orfuin, I am denied even those!” cried Felthrup, hopping in place. “If I saw Arunis’ face looming over me, or held on to some brief snatches of his words, then perhaps I could fight him. But he has placed a forgetting-charm upon me. Ramachni told Pazel Pathkendle of this charm, and Pazel told me. But Ramachni cannot dispel it, he said, until he returns in the flesh.

“And that will not do. Here as a dreamer I know all that has happened to me, in waking life and in dreams. But my waking self knows nothing of those dreams, and so I cannot warn my friends. I cannot tell them what I overheard, here on your terrace. That this Macadra and her Ravens are sending a replacement crew-isn’t that how she put it? — to seize the Chathrand. That all the wars, feuds and battles of the North are watched with pleasure, and even encouraged, by forces in the South bent on conquest. I know the most terrible secrets in Alifros! But what good is this knowledge if it vanishes each night at the end of my dream?”

“And you imagine that this old tavern-keeper can help you break what you yourself have just referred to as one of ‘the most ancient of laws’?” Orfuin sat back in his chair with a sigh. “Finish your tea, Felthrup. Come inside and eat gingerbread, listen to the music, be my guest. No matter how many years we’re allotted, we should never squander life in pursuit of the impossible.”

“Forgive me, sir, but I cannot accept your answer.”

Orfuin’s eyes grew wide. Felthrup, however, was possessed of a sudden absolute conviction. “I must take the warning back with me, somehow. I cannot possibly sit down and enjoy your hospitality if that means pretending I don’t know the fate Arunis has in mind for half the people of Alifros. If you will not help me, I must thank you for the tea and the delightful conversation, and go in search of other allies.”

“In your dreams?”

“Where else, sir? Perhaps one of the ghosts aboard Chathrand will help me, since you find yourself unable to do so.”

“There is something you must understand,” said Orfuin. “I am no one’s ally, though I try to be everyone’s friend. This club survives only because it has, since time unfathomable, stood outside the feuds and factions that plague so many worlds. No one is barred who comes here peaceably. Whether the words they exchange are words of peace or barbarism I rarely know. Wars have been plotted here, no doubt-but how many more have been averted, because leaders of vision and power had a place to sit down together, and talk at their ease? It is my faith that the universe is better off for having a place where no one fears to talk. Arunis was right, Felthrup: when I closed the club and threw them out into the River, I was doing something I had never done before, and will not hasten to do again. I was breaking the promise of this house.”

“Because you heard them plotting the murder of millions of human beings!” said Felthrup. “What else could you do at such a pass?”

“Oh, many things,” said Orfuin, rising again from his chair. “I could sell this club, and purchase a home in the Sunken Kingdom, or an apartment in orbit around Cbalu, or an entire island in your world of Alifros, complete with port and palace and villages and farms. I could break my house rule again, and then again, and soon be one more partisan in the endless wars beggaring the universe. Or I could contemplate my tea, and pretend not to have heard anything my guests were discussing.”

Felthrup rubbed his face with his paws. “I will wake soon; I can feel it. I will forget all of this, and have no way of helping my friends. I should not have come.”

Orfuin stepped close to the table and put his hands under Felthrup’s chin, lifting it gently. “You may sleep a little longer, I think.”

And suddenly Felthrup sensed that it was true: the flickering, stirring feeling, the teasing scent of Admiral Isiq’s cigars still clinging to his uniforms, had quite faded away.

“Most visitors to a tavern,” said Orfuin, “don’t come to speak to the barman.”

Felthrup glanced quickly at the inviting doorway. You cannot help me, he thought suddenly, but you spelled it out, didn’t you? What your guests speak of is none of your concern.

“Do you mean, I might yet find-?”

Orfuin released his chin. “Go inside, Felthrup. You’re a talking rat; someone’s certain to buy you a drink.”

6. Orfuin here slightly amends the original, though not perhaps for the worse. He is also mistaken about the artist’s race. Falargrin (in The Universal Macabre) presents conclusive evidence that Mr. Poe was a transplanted selk. -EDITOR.