Pazel was losing patience. "I don"t care if they caught it from earthworms," he said. "Something in this land of yours gave it to human beings, and made it spread like wildfire."
The old man was just reaching them; he nodded cordially, but with obvious unease. He put down his bundle of sticks but kept the sack in his hands. "Not like wildfire," he said. "More like a snowfall. Everywhere at once, but softly, quietly. We took no notice at first. Who minds a few snowflakes on the wind?" He looked up at them, and his eyes were far away. "Until they turn into a blizzard, that is."
"The plague has to do with woken animals," said Thasha. The others looked at her, amazed. "Well doesn"t it stand to reason? Animals bursting suddenly into human intelligence, humans turning suddenly into beasts?"
The phenomenon of waking animals had been a strange part of life in Alifros for centuries. Strange and exceedingly rare, at least in the North: so rare indeed that most people had never seen such a creature. But in the last several years the number of wakings had exploded.
"Are there woken animals in the South, Mr. Isul?" asked Bolutu.
The old man"s look of worry intensified. "Thinkers, you mean? Beasts with reason, and human speech? No, no more. They were wicked creatures, maukslarets maukslarets, little demons." He looked down, suddenly abashed. "Or so we were told."
"What happened to them?" asked Pazel, dreading the answer.
Isul drew a finger across his throat. "Condemned, all condemned," he said. "Back when I was a child. And it"s still the law of the land: you"re obliged to kill a Thinker on sight, before he works black magic against your family, your neighbors, the Crown. You can get away with harboring tol-chenni tol-chenni, if you"re careful-in Masalym there"s even a place that breeds breeds "em-but get caught with a thinking mouse or bird under your roof, and it"s the axe. They"re all dead and gone, is what I reckon. And if there are any left you can be sure they won"t let you know they can think. You could be looking right at one, a stray dog, a dune tortoise, and be none the wiser." "em-but get caught with a thinking mouse or bird under your roof, and it"s the axe. They"re all dead and gone, is what I reckon. And if there are any left you can be sure they won"t let you know they can think. You could be looking right at one, a stray dog, a dune tortoise, and be none the wiser."
Now it was Thasha"s turn to look at Bolutu with rage. "We should never never have trusted you," she said. "They started killing woken animals when he was a have trusted you," she said. "They started killing woken animals when he was a child child? That was a lot more than twenty years ago! Why didn"t you warn us? Do you realize what we might have done?"
Aboard the Chathrand Chathrand was a woken rat, their dear friend Felthrup Stargraven. Despite his suspicion that something terrible awaited them ash.o.r.e he had wanted to join the landing party-to share in any danger, he"d said. They had almost agreed. was a woken rat, their dear friend Felthrup Stargraven. Despite his suspicion that something terrible awaited them ash.o.r.e he had wanted to join the landing party-to share in any danger, he"d said. They had almost agreed.
The old man put a hand on the side of his woolen sack, probing something within. He glanced uncertainly at Bolutu. "Twenty?" he said.
Bolutu rose to his feet and dusted off his trousers. "Mr. Isul," he said, "be so good as to tell us the date."
"You know I can"t," said the other, a bit testily.
"The year will suffice."
It was then that Pazel noticed the tremor in Bolutu"s voice. The old man, however, was put at ease. "That much I know," he said. "We haven"t lost our bearings altogether out here. It"s the year thirty fifty-seven, His Majesty"s ninth on the throne."
Thasha looked at Bolutu. "You use a different calendar in the South. You told us that weeks ago."
Bolutu nodded, his face working strangely. He bent and plucked a stick from the old man"s bundle. He squinted at it, picked at the bark.
"Of course, after all those years in Arqual, you"d know both both calendars," said Pazel. calendars," said Pazel.
Another nod. Bolutu raised the stick and considered it lengthwise, as though studying its straightness. It was not very straight.
"What"s wrong with you?" said Thasha sharply. "What are you trying to tell us?"
"If Mr. Isul is correct-"
"You don"t believe me, go ahead, ask anyone," said the old man.
"-we have rather misjudged our time on the Nelluroq. By your calendar, it is Western Solar Year Eleven Forty-four, and we have been two centuries at sea."
In the silence that followed Pazel heard the drums of the armada, still echoing faintly from the gulf. He heard the breakers on the north beach, the wind in the forest, the cry of a hawk as it circled the abandoned tower. Then another sound, a faint flapping, close at hand. Mr. Isul lifted his sack and gave the contents a poke.
"Wood hens for dinner," he said.
Now, lying awake in the darkness by his shipmates, Pazel almost wished the armada had borne down on the village, landed some undreamed-of army, slain them all. Eleven forty-four Eleven forty-four. His mind still screamed with laughter at the notion-absurd, preposterous, tell me another-but his heart, his body, his nerves were not so sure.
There was the Red Storm. A band of scarlet light, stretching east to west across the Nelluroq. They had sailed right into it; the light within was liquid, blinding; it had filled their clothes, their lungs, eventually their minds, until they swam in the light like fish in a red aquarium, and then it was gone.
And later, when he and Thasha and the others began to discuss it: hadn"t they all asked much the same question? How long was I in there? Why can"t I account for the time? How long was I in there? Why can"t I account for the time?
His friends Neeps and Marila thought it had lasted days. But Hercol felt it had blown past them in six or eight hours, and Ensyl, the ixchel woman who had become their friend and ally, spoke of "that blind red morning." Pazel himself had not dared to guess, and when he had asked Thasha how long she thought they had spent in the storm, she had looked at him with fear. "Not so long," she"d said. But her voice brought him no comfort.
Two hundred years. How could he toy with believing that? If it were true, then everyone he"d left behind was dead. No more searching for his mother and sister. No more hope that one day his father, Captain Gregory Pathkendle, would return and beg forgiveness of his abandoned son.
Angry now, Pazel opened his eyes. Rin, how he wished he could talk to Neeps. Pazel felt astonishingly lost without the smaller tarboy, his first friend on the Chathrand Chathrand. Neeps was clever and fiercely protective of his friends, but he was also a hothead with a knack for getting in trouble. Look at him now: trapped with Marila and Captain Rose and a dozen others, held hostage in a cabin filled with a poisoned vapor that would kill them if they stopped breathing it. What would happen to them? Would they ever leave that room alive? Every thought of his friends was black and terrifying, like that plunge into the sea.
He studied Thasha again: smooth apple of a shoulder, yellow lock of hair across her lips. Day by day the way he looked at her was changing. He wanted to be with her all the time. The fascination shamed him, somehow. Thasha was one of just a handful of women on the Chathrand Chathrand, and if Pazel could not stop himself from thinking of her in this way, could not sleep with those smooth limbs in view, could not banish the thought that when the world was ending they could do as they liked in the final hours-then what about the rest of the men?
But you love her, Pazel. It"s different with you.
That wasn"t the point. Order on the Chathrand Chathrand was breaking down. Arunis was still aboard her, in deep hiding; they could feel the sorcerer"s presence like a whiff of something explosive in the musty air. The hostage standoff, meanwhile, was in its sixth week, with no end in sight. The captain could hardly lead from inside a cage, yet the sailors trusted no one as much as savage, greedy, unbalanced Nilus Rose. He terrorized them, but he kept them working for their own survival. Now they were fighting among themselves: a thing Rose had brutally suppressed. Could even the Turachs keep the peace? When the ghastly news escaped, would they try? It was awful to reflect that their safety hinged on these men, elite killers all, and part of the same Imperial army that had sacked his city and beaten him into a coma. If they despaired it meant anarchy, a doomsday carnival. And who would protect the women in that case? Who would stop men who wished to die from taking their last, low pleasures with Thasha Isiq? was breaking down. Arunis was still aboard her, in deep hiding; they could feel the sorcerer"s presence like a whiff of something explosive in the musty air. The hostage standoff, meanwhile, was in its sixth week, with no end in sight. The captain could hardly lead from inside a cage, yet the sailors trusted no one as much as savage, greedy, unbalanced Nilus Rose. He terrorized them, but he kept them working for their own survival. Now they were fighting among themselves: a thing Rose had brutally suppressed. Could even the Turachs keep the peace? When the ghastly news escaped, would they try? It was awful to reflect that their safety hinged on these men, elite killers all, and part of the same Imperial army that had sacked his city and beaten him into a coma. If they despaired it meant anarchy, a doomsday carnival. And who would protect the women in that case? Who would stop men who wished to die from taking their last, low pleasures with Thasha Isiq?
He heard their muttering, vile and explicit (how often they forgot about his horde of languages). What they needed, how exactly they wanted her to touch them, who they imagined she already was- "Pathkendle."
Pazel jumped. It was Hercol who had whispered. The Tholja.s.san lay with his eyes open, looking at him intently, and Pazel blushed, wondering how much Hercol had guessed of his thoughts.
"I wasn"t-"
Hercol put a finger to his lips. Then, after a long, listening moment, he rose to his feet, beckoning Pazel to do the same. Pazel stood, balancing carefully among the sleepers. Hercol moved swiftly down the beach toward the gulf. Pazel followed reluctantly. Two steps away from the fire and he was cold.
The moon suddenly brightened, and looking back Pazel saw it emerging from behind the twisted snag of Narybir Tower. Hercol walked in the foam, through the rainbow threads of surf. "Do as I do," he whispered. "Stay deep enough to hide your tracks. I don"t want them waking and following us."
He started west, and Pazel splashed along behind. "You"re taking me to read that memorial, aren"t you?" he asked.
"No need," said Hercol. "I told a lie back there, lad. I could read the inscription well enough. It is in their Imperial Common, and even in written form it resembles Arquali. But the message is somewhat terrible."
"What does it say?"
Hercol paused in his march. He spoke without looking back at Pazel. Here two hundred traitors were thrown chained into the sea. Here the Chaldryl Resistance met its demise. We are Bali Adro, the Limitless; in time we will conquer the sun Here two hundred traitors were thrown chained into the sea. Here the Chaldryl Resistance met its demise. We are Bali Adro, the Limitless; in time we will conquer the sun.
Pazel felt the words like a blow to the chest. "Oh Rin," was all he could say.
"I thought it best to spare the others," said Hercol. "They have heard enough bad news tonight. Come on, then, lad."
With that he stepped out of the surf and began to climb the beach again.
"But where are we going?" asked Pazel, hurrying after him. "Did you find a village, like the one across the inlet?"
"Nothing of the kind. Ibjen spoke the truth: this place is abandoned."
"Then what are we doing out here?"
"Spying," said Hercol. "Now hold your tongue."
They crossed the beach and mounted to the dunes, which were tall and crowned with brush and cast black shadows. It was perhaps the strangest walk of Pazel"s life: naked, freezing, the enormous crabs darting suddenly across their path, lifting armored claws. Spying on whom? Bolutu had claimed that there were still other peoples, neither dlomic nor human, in his beloved South. Was that what lay ahead?
They threaded a path through the dunes, Hercol now and then bending to pluck some small twig or sh.e.l.l from the ground, which he would examine and then toss aside. In this way they slogged a mile or more. It was hard going, but the exertion lessened the cold.
"Hercol," Pazel asked, "what"s the matter with Thasha? Do you know?"
Hercol stopped long enough to take a single breath. "I cannot say," he answered at last, "nor have I ever known just what ails her, since the day Empress Maisa sent me to Etherhorde, to keep watch over her family. But I think we must expect her condition to grow worse before it improves. Worse, or at the very least more intense. Ramachni, Oggosk, Arunis himself-every pract.i.tioner of magic she has ever encountered-has taken an interest in Thasha, and that cannot be coincidental. And now, when we face a deluge of magic, Thasha herself has begun to change."
"She"s changing, all right. But into what?"
"I will not voice my guesses until I can trust them further," said Hercol. "Yet of one thing I am certain: Thasha faces a trial that will demand all her strength. And as her friend, Pazel-her irreplaceable friend-it may demand just as much from you."
He marched on, and Pazel, brooding grimly on his words, struggled to keep up. At last they came to a point where they could hear the Nelluroq booming distantly on their right. Before them stood the tallest dune they had yet seen, a great hill of sand crowned with sea oats and brush.
"When we reach the summit you must move only as I do," said Hercol. "Flat as snakes we must crawl, and slowly, slowly through the underbrush."
It was a long, awkward climb. Halfway to the top, Hercol stopped for a moment and pointed silently to the south. Pazel turned, and felt a thrill of wonder: low on the horizon hung a pale blue light, smaller than the moon, but larger than any star.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"A legend of the South proved true," said Hercol. "The Polar Candle, the Little Moon of Alifros. North of the Ruling Sea it cannot be glimpsed, not ever. Bolutu tells me that many in the South think it has power over their lives and fates. Come, we are almost there."
At the dune"s flat summit, the roots of shrubs and sea oats bound the sand into a fibrous mat. Hercol wriggled forward, keeping his head well below the height of the gra.s.s. Pazel imitated him, cursing inwardly as burrs and thorns began to pierce his skin. There were crawling, biting insects too, and many small burrows from which came scurrying sounds. He would have been miserable, Pazel thought, even fully clothed.
The dune was wide, but they crossed it at last. And suddenly they were lying, side by side, looking down upon a wide sand basin. It was about the size of the village square across the inlet, and ringed on all sides by dunes, except for a narrow gap on the north side leading down to the sea.
In the center of the basin a fire was crackling, somewhat larger and brighter than their own. And beside the fire three figures crouched.
"They"re human!" Pazel whispered.
"Yes," said Hercol.
"Not, not the-"
"Not tol-chenni tol-chenni, no. Be very still, Pazel, and watch."
They were roasting a small animal on a spit. They wore tattered clothes-but they were were clothes, not sc.r.a.ps and rags like the clothes, not sc.r.a.ps and rags like the tol-chenni tol-chenni. Indeed the three figures had an encampment of sorts: crates stacked up like building blocks, a makeshift tent of rough fabric, jugs and amphorae squatting in the sand. And the figures were armed: swords, daggers, some kind of club. All three looked strong and capable.
Two were men. The figure on the left, turning the spit, might have been forty: he had a severe face and black hair streaked with gray that fell in curls to his shoulders. Across from him crouched a younger and much larger man, big as any Turach. His eyes were shut and his hands folded before him; he might well have been speaking a prayer. The third figure, whose back was to them, was a young woman.
"Then it"s not true," Pazel hissed. "The mind-plague, it hasn"t hasn"t wiped everyone out! Hercol, maybe it never struck anywhere but the village. And if they"re wrong about the plague, they could be wrong about the two hundred years!" wiped everyone out! Hercol, maybe it never struck anywhere but the village. And if they"re wrong about the plague, they could be wrong about the two hundred years!"
"Gently, lad," said Hercol.
But Pazel, clutching suddenly at hope, was not to be calmed. "Maybe the village was quarantined-way off the mainland, see?-because everyone there went mad together, dlomu and humans alike."
"Come," said Hercol. "The humans become idiots, and the dlomu at the same time at the same time fall victim to a shared delusion about the cause?" fall victim to a shared delusion about the cause?"
"Why not? It"s more likely than what they claim, isn"t it?"
"Watch the girl, Pazel."
Pazel looked: she was lifting a blackened kettle from the embers. Turning, she filled three cups beside her with steaming drink. Pazel saw her silhouette against the fire, and thought his heart would stop.
"Neda," he said.
"Ah," said Hercol.
"Aya Rin," said Pazel. "Hercol, she looks said Pazel. "Hercol, she looks exactly exactly like my sister Neda." like my sister Neda."
"Perhaps she is."
Pazel gazed helplessly at the swordsman. He could not speak for fear. It wasn"t the villagers, or Thasha, or half the human race who had gone mad. It was just him, Pazel. Actually mad: he would shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he"d be in sickbay, feverish, his tenth day without water; or still tied up in that cave on Bramian. That was the only explanation.
"When one of the men turns away," said Hercol, "try to catch a glimpse of his neck."
"You never met my sister. You couldn"t know what she looks like. I think I"m crazy, Hercol."
"Enough of that. I"ve looked at her portrait a hundred times. It hung for years in Dr. Chadfallow"s study in Etherhorde, alongside your mother"s and your own. It hangs in his cabin now. But that portrait must be ten years old. I could not be sure it was her, until you saw for yourself."
"But how in the blary howling Pits could she be here here?"
"Look! There"s an answer for you, or the beginning of one."
The older man was reaching for something on his right. He leaned forward, and his long hair fell away from his neck. The firelight showed a black tattoo, a pattern of strokes and diamonds.
"Lord Rin above," said Pazel. "They"re Mzithrinis."
So they were: three citizens of the Mzithrin Pentarchy, the enemy state, the rival power that had fought the Empire of Arqual to one blood-soaked draw after another, for centuries. Dr. Chadfallow had always claimed that he"d placed Neda in the hands of a Mzithrini diplomat, to save her from becoming a slave or concubine of the invading Arqualis. It could have happened, Pazel thought: she might have taken on their customs, their beliefs. In five years she might have become almost anyone.
"What should we do?" he whispered.
"I brought you here that you might help me decide," said Hercol. "They are Mzithrini, to be sure. Which means that they, like us, have somehow crossed the Ruling Sea. But they are not common sailors. Those tattoos declare holy orders. They are sfvantskor sfvantskors, warrior-priests. And if they choose to attack us, they will win."
"Neda won"t attack me."
"Pazel, if she has taken the Last Oath and become a true sfvantskor sfvantskor, she will do whatever her leader commands. In some parts of the Mzithrin the newly sworn are told to leap one by one into a covered pit. Most find the bottom filled with rose petals, but one lands on razor-sharp stakes. The rest honor his sacrifice with prayers, and taste his blood for discipline."
"That"s horrible!"
"No worse than what a Turach endures. Those three, however, may have a special reason to detest us: the loss of their ship. The men were aboard the Jistrolloq Jistrolloq when it drew alongside us in Simja. I dare say your sister was as well." when it drew alongside us in Simja. I dare say your sister was as well."
"She spoke to me," said Pazel suddenly. "A sfvantskor sfvantskor girl in a mask whispered to me in the shrine-she told me to turn away from evil, as if one girl in a mask whispered to me in the shrine-she told me to turn away from evil, as if one could- could-Hercol, how can they be alive? We sank the Jistrolloq Jistrolloq months ago, in the middle of the Ruling Sea." months ago, in the middle of the Ruling Sea."
"Months," said Hercol, "or two hundred years?"
Pazel froze, then lowered his face, grinding his forehead into the sand.
"If we decide to speak to them," said Hercol, "let us take care not to speak of that that. So far it has been a secret among the two of us, Thasha and Bolutu. Let it remain so, for now."