'We're not not handing over her body, if that's what you--' handing over her body, if that's what you--'

'Thasha is alive and restless in her stateroom,' said the witch with finality. 'And you'll do exactly as I say. Dine with her, conspire with her, let her and the Tholja.s.san teach you to handle a sword. Flirt with her, if you like. I know better than to expect young men to do otherwise, even when to do so is to risk everything. Glah Glah, that's a permanent flaw in humanity, and there's no cure under Heaven's Tree.

'But let your kisses be cold ones, boy. Do not love her. Do not let her love you. Enjoy yourself, but if she looks at you with tenderness you must laugh in her face, or walk away, or show her some other form of contempt. Do you understand me?'

'I understand you to be out of your nasty mind.'

'We should have brought other girls aboard,' said Oggosk, vexed. 'Girls your age, I mean. There are a number of women in steerage, however, and some have a look of experience about them. One or two are even attractive.'

'Goodbye,' Pazel sang out, for that was all he could do short of cursing her aloud. He made quickly for the door. He was appalled; he felt as though she had torn open a secret part of him and defiled it.

Oggosk's voice froze him in mid-stride. 'This is the only warning you will receive. Where Thasha is concerned I shall not be in the least forgiving. If that girl begins to love you I will send Sniraga into the Chathrand Chathrand 's depths, and have her bring back an ixchel body to lay at Rose's feet. When he learns of the infestation he will slay the whole clan in a matter of hours - and believe me, the captain knows how it is done.' 's depths, and have her bring back an ixchel body to lay at Rose's feet. When he learns of the infestation he will slay the whole clan in a matter of hours - and believe me, the captain knows how it is done.'

Pazel spoke over his shoulder. 'You'd kill them all, just to punish me.'

'I would,' said Oggosk. 'I do not shrink from the obligations of history. But they need not die. You may advise them to disembark at our next landfall - provided you do as I say with Thasha. Give her no reason to love you, and your ixchel friends may survive to raid another ship.'

'As if anyone would trust you to keep a bargain like that,' said Pazel.

'You have no choice but to trust me,' said Oggosk simply. 'But listen: why not tell Thasha about the murth-girl? Say that you're still fond of her, that she fascinates you, haunts your dreams. You wouldn't even be lying, would you? But never let Thasha set a finger on you here!' - Lady Oggosk indicated her collarbone - 'Rin save you if you break the heart of a murth.'

He was dreaming. Not even Oggosk could be so senselessly cruel. But when she spoke again her voice was in deadly earnest.

'Removing the admiral from the scene was no pleasure,' she said. 'Don't share his fate, Mr Pathkendle. What Thasha is to do, she must do alone. You can only get in her way.'

Once more Pazel met the old woman's eyes. There was no gloating in them, and no hesitation either.

'I hate you,' he said. 'I hate all of you, with my soul.'

'Souls are exactly what concern me,' said Oggosk. 'Get out.'

13.

Illusions at Talturi

29 Teala 941 108th day from Etherhorde

The Honourable Captain Theimat Rose Northbeck Abbey, Mereldin Isle, South Quezans

Dear Sir, Fond greetings from your only son.3 We are making no less than fourteen knots as I write these words, for the gale that carried us from Simja still blows favourably, east by south-east, and the warm Bramian Current works to our advantage as well. Today we pa.s.sed the islet called Death's Cap: that lone round rock with its forest of poles, on which for countless years the Arquali Navy has displayed the skulls of pirates and mercenaries, and others who dare to live untamed by Magad's fleets. Our last glimpse of Imperial civilization. We are making no less than fourteen knots as I write these words, for the gale that carried us from Simja still blows favourably, east by south-east, and the warm Bramian Current works to our advantage as well. Today we pa.s.sed the islet called Death's Cap: that lone round rock with its forest of poles, on which for countless years the Arquali Navy has displayed the skulls of pirates and mercenaries, and others who dare to live untamed by Magad's fleets. Our last glimpse of Imperial civilization.

We are yet some days from the Ruling Sea; by my reckoning the ship is currently due west of the Quezans. I shall raise a gla.s.s in your direction at supper tonight. raise a gla.s.s in your direction at supper tonight.

In fact I should like a bit more of a storm. Not only to speed us on our way, but also to keep lesser boats in port. Now that the deed at Talturi is done we must, above all things, remain unseen. And while we have kept to the loneliest stretch of the Nelu Peren, there is always the chance of an encounter. Last Thursday a ship appeared on the northern horizon, but she was too far even to count our masts, let alone identify us.

We kept our distance until nightfall, and when the dawn came there was fog to the north, and we saw her no more.

Rougher seas would have made the great charade at Talturi more convincing as well. You know the island: brave mariners along the western coast, especially those from the city-state of Manturl Cove. But the north-east is another world: the men there are witless clam-diggers and reef fishermen, all under the sway of a daft Bishwa who has them forever building seawalls against a tidal wave that never appears. This is where we chose to sink.

The fog might have ruined everything - for on this one occasion we had to be noticed. Fortunately it did not reach Talturi until well past dusk, and in the end it even worked to our advantage. Just before nightfall we paraded, close and clumsy, along the north sh.o.r.e and the Village of Three Rivers. I made certain they saw us; I even saluted their mean little wharf with one of the forecastle guns. The storm was chasing their fishing-fleet home with tucked tails, though of course we barely felt it on the Great Ship. We ran before the wind with excessive canvas. If any true sailors watched, they must have noted our fouled mizzentop, our wagging rudder, our overall carelessness (it cost me much to force the men to work poorly; it appalled my every instinct, and theirs). Worst of all, we ran due east: straight at Talturi Reef, as though we knew nothing of it and could not hear the clang-clang-clang of the warning buoy. The fisherfolk leaped and gestured, and one or two signalled danger with a scarlet flag. We ignored them and ran on.

But as soon as night closed in we tacked three points to windward, circ.u.mnavigated the reef, and crept back under shortened sail to Octurl Point, the eastern extreme of Talturi Island. The Bishwa keeps a lighthouse there, but its lamp is weak and could not pierce the fog: only the buoy told us our distance from the coral. I need not explain to you that the danger was real: dropping anchor was out of the question, and yet we were not half a league from a submerged wall that would tear the bottom out of Chathrand Chathrand as surely as any other ship. as surely as any other ship.

We turned Chathrand Chathrand into the wind, striking all but the fore topsail in order to keep us pointed true, and to hold our sh.o.r.eward drift to a minimum. Then I set six hundred men to work. into the wind, striking all but the fore topsail in order to keep us pointed true, and to hold our sh.o.r.eward drift to a minimum. Then I set six hundred men to work.

All that vital and expensive wreckage had been raised from the hold already: broken spars, shattered mastwood and gunwales, cabin doors with bra.s.s nameplates, boxes of engraved cutlery, footlockers, water casks, wine bottles, life preservers, a perfect replica of the Goose-Girl, a fine Arquali cello, first-cla.s.s children's toys, a ruined longboat with IMS Chathrand IMS Chathrand emblazoned on her stern. All was genuine; even the tar on the tattered rigging matched our own. At my orders men pried open the crates, slit the burlap, severed the ropes that had secured all this flotsam, and dragged it to the gunwales, port and starboard, bow to stern. It was a weird sight, Father: our untouched emblazoned on her stern. All was genuine; even the tar on the tattered rigging matched our own. At my orders men pried open the crates, slit the burlap, severed the ropes that had secured all this flotsam, and dragged it to the gunwales, port and starboard, bow to stern. It was a weird sight, Father: our untouched Chathrand Chathrand, draped in artifacts of her own demise.

Then we distributed the bodies of our slain. Rarely have I seen men look more mutinous, sir. Even that trader in pelts and carca.s.ses Mr Latzlo (still mooning for the Lapadolma girl, who despised him) roused himself to grumble about the wrongness of tossing our own sailors and soldiers out with the garbage, especially as they had died fighting for the ship. Probably Sandor Ott intended to use the bodies of criminals: the governor of Ormael had some twenty waiting to be executed. But after the violence in which Ott was driven from the palace, the governor (too great a fool to be trusted with details of the Plan) was no longer cooperative. In a sense we are indebted to Arunis for killing as many of us as he did: shipwrecks must have bodies. Old Swellows, who served you as a tarboy on the Indomitable Indomitable, lay among them: bloated and red-faced, a drunkard even in death.

Brother Bolutu prayed beside each corpse, and sent their spirits to final rest with the sign of the Tree. His gesture calmed the men. It was the first time he has proved useful since the start of the voyage.

For two hours I stared into perfect darkness. The clanging buoy grew louder, nearer; all over the ship men listened, barely breathing. We were surely no more than a quarter-mile off the reef.

In another minute I would have given the order to abort and run. Then a dim glow swept over the Chathrand Chathrand. It was the lighthouse: the fog was thinning at last. 'Over the side!' I declared. 'Over the side with everything, the whole confabulation! They can see our lights too, make haste, make haste!' I did not shout, for the wind was behind us and my voice might have carried to the lighthouse keepers. But the lieutenants took up the command, and at once the men began to heave and hurl the wreckage into the sea. Ott's attention to detail was flawless, not to say maniacal: he had lain away bags of straw, silage, chicken feathers and other debris that would toss on the wave-tops, and casks of walrus oil and turpentine to stain the Talturi sh.o.r.e.

The corpses proved most difficult: even after Bolutu's blessing we had to tear some of them from the arms of their shipmates, who sobbed like children. I let them. If those voices reached Talturi, so much the better.

Next we extinguished every light aboard, save the running lights facing the island, and a few handheld lamps. There are five of these running lights: big fengas contraptions designed to self-extinguish if their gla.s.s hoods so much as crack. With great care my men detached them from the rigging and lowered them, still burning, towards the sea. Those of us holding lamps rushed and staggered, dipped and bobbed: I think Mr Uskins was quite enjoying himself.

By now I could hear voices hailing us from Octurl Point. We answered with screams, distress-whistles, frantic peals of the ship's bell. Teggatz beat a cauldron with an iron spoon. Alyash, the new bosun, lit a flare and hurled it in a blazing arc into the sea. Of the officers, Fiffengurt alone stood silent, arms crossed, as if the scene was highly offensive to him. I know what you will say, Father: that I have not punished him sufficiently, taught him to fear my every glance, my least displeasure. Better a dead man than a disobedient one, etc. But I cannot do without Fiffengurt yet. Although he suspects nothing, he is going to betray his friends to me. He is a man with too much to lose.

The storm had us rolling, and one of the running lights smashed against our hull. But the others we managed to drown in the waves - one after another, as though our keel had shattered on the reef and we were flooding fast. I sent the men with the deck lamps a short way up the masts: they were the lone survivors, now, trying to keep their heads above water. One by one we snuffed the lamps. I dangled the last one from the quarterdeck, waved it fitfully and blew it out. And in deep darkness the men set mainsails, and we tacked sharp into the wind and bore away.

'Congratulations, Nilus,' said Lady Oggosk, who had come out into the rain to watch the show. 'Once more you prove that you were born to deceive. By mid-autumn all Etherhorde will know that the Great Ship went down off Talturi. Lady Lapadolma will die of heartache. Come to think of it, she'll learn of her niece's death at about the same time.'

'She took the Chathrand Chathrand from me once,' I said. 'Now I have taken the ship from her and her d.a.m.nable Company, for ever.' from me once,' I said. 'Now I have taken the ship from her and her d.a.m.nable Company, for ever.'

It was then that the ghost intervened. Oggosk's lips kept moving, she was cackling and delighted, but instead of her voice I heard another, cold as a tomb, and saw the walking shadow approaching me from the jiggermast. 'For ever!' it hissed. ' That is but one of the black immensities! You know nothing of them, but I do. I know them, Nilus Rose. They gape at me like cavern mouths. One of them shall claim and devour me.'

The wind tore at its burial wraps. The rain pa.s.sed through it, however: a sign of one whose years of death do not yet outnumber those of his life, if you believe the Polylex Polylex.

'Captain Levirac,' I guessed aloud, pretending I did not feel its icy hand on my heart.

'No more!' hissed the faceless thing. 'I am forbidden that name, any name, they took my names from me as they shall take yours from you.'

All the same it was Levirac. His wheezing voice had not changed in forty years: from the time when he commanded the Chathrand Chathrand, and I the young purser waited on his orders. I fancied I could still smell his rotten teeth: in life he chewed sugar cane day and night.

'Go to your rest, and pay me no further visits,' I said (one must never show weakness before a ghost).

The thing slipped behind me. I heard its voice at my shoulder. 'Beware. You insult the dead. When all else is robbed of a man in death, he has yet dignity. This you stripped from your fallen sailors, using their bodies to gild your lie.'

'The Emperor's lie,' I protested, but the spirit clawed at me, annoyed by the contradiction. ' This false wreck you have auth.o.r.ed, Rose: it is a prelude. A rehearsal for the death awaiting Chathrand Chathrand, a ship that was mine and many others', in a proud fellowship over centuries. Never once was that fellowship broken except by death or honourable retirement, until you in disgrace were relieved of command.'

'd.a.m.n your crooked tongue! I was reinstated!' 'For a little while,' said the ghost. 'Her next pilot is already aboard.' His insolence astonished me. 'Her next pilot? Get hence, you old vapour, or I'll have my witch root you out of these boards with a cleansing spell!'

That frightened Levirac: I felt him withdraw a step or two behind me. His voice was softer now: 'One other will stand at Chathrand Chathrand's helm - and that one briefly, briefly. You are this vessel 's doom.'

'And you're a lying, man-shaped stench. Prove you know something, Levirac. Give me a name.'

The spirit only t.i.ttered behind me. I started away, and then under his breath I heard him slander you and Mother, sir, with a lie too noxious to repeat. I turned on him in wrath.

What a shock! In his place stood Thasha Isiq, alive, solid as the hand that writes these words. Her mastiffs were beside her; they held me in their gaze and growled. I said nothing; I was waiting for her to thin and vanish like any ghost. But those blue-black dogs were real - and so, I knew in a moment, was the girl.

Pathkendle and Undrabust came up the ladderway and stood beside her, and all three glared at me with hatred. Then I knew who the real deceivers were.

' You sent Pacu Lapadolma to her grave,' I told them.

'We didn't,' said Pathkendle. 'You did. You and Ott and your Emperor and your whole b.l.o.o.d.y gang.'

Then Firecracker Frix saw the girl and squealed like a pig. The commotion was immense: first terror, then wonder, at last elated cheers. ' Thasha Isiq! Thasha Isiq! The longest of lives to Thasha Isiq!'

If I had been quicker I might have moved against them: killed the mastiffs, tossed the girl overboard, declared her a risen corpse and an abomination. I know this is what you would have done in my place, Father, and you need not chastise me for the missed opportunity. I am not perfect. This we both know, and I humbly suggest we cease pretending otherwise.

Now in any case it is too late: the men are quite aware that she is flesh and blood. They were only too happy to learn that the former Treaty Bride had been hiding from them, behind the spell-wall that keeps us from the stateroom. The only gloomy faces were those of the youths themselves. They saw how well our 'sinking' went, and knew that for all their tricks, the Plan marched forward, unstoppable, with war and ruin (and riches, for some) its only conclusion.

Fiffengurt meanwhile has gone from bad to worse. He is often red-eyed, as if from crying, and goes on about a 'wife' back in Etherhorde who will soon be reading of our deaths at sea. He may have a sweetheart or two, but I know for a fact that he has no wife. Man's capacity for self-deception is a wonder, is it not?

This morning we found ourselves in a pod of Cazencian whales. I had thought the great toothed things all but extinct, for the folk of Urnsfich like nothing so much as the taste of 'sweet whale,' as they name them. On another voyage I should have put down a boat or two and given chase. But Cazencians are fierce fighters, though small for whales, and I should have trusted no one but myself to take them on. Above all our time is short. Each day we linger the Vortex grows, and with it the danger of the crossing.

Once again we have spotted a ship to the north: the same vessel, I think, and a little closer than before. There is still no danger of being recognised, but I must end this letter and adjust our course.

Enclosed is a diamond wristlet. Mr Druffle the freebooter gave it to me in exchange for a midshipman's berth. How Druffle, threadbare slave of the sorcerer that he was, came by such a priceless thing I cannot guess. But maybe it will bring a smile to Mother's eye.

As ever I remain your obedient son, Nilus R. Rose

P.S. If you are, in fact, dead, may I trouble you to state as much in your next communication?

14.

Among the Statues

Lightless. The cage was lightless, and his mind was already succ.u.mbing. Not a cage; why had he called it a cage? That was for animals. This was a dungeon made for ordinary people. Bakers, shopkeepers, farmers on the fertile slopes above Simjalla. A carpenter. A schoolboy or -girl with her books still under her arm. His arm? What did it matter, when arm and books and heart were locked in clay?

He walked carefully, heel to toe, from the carpenter to the dancer, arms outstretched in the blackness. He was far from the door, which smelled vaguely of food and was therefore a place of danger. Rested his hand on a gritty clay elbow. They are safer than I. The beasts will attack me first, each other second. Last of all these bodies in their stony sheaths. They are safer than I. The beasts will attack me first, each other second. Last of all these bodies in their stony sheaths.

He had done as Ott knew he would. He had touched them, explored their features, wondered at the attention to detail. Noses, eyebrows, lips. He would not give them names, though: that was a game for madmen, and Admiral Eberzam Isiq was not yet mad.

Ott himself came no more. The spymaster had stood outside the door on two occasions, issuing hushed, clipped commands to someone who called him 'Master.' Had he hoped Isiq would cry out, beg for deliverance or deathsmoke, weep? The admiral would not give him that satisfaction. When you lose your sword you have your hands. When your hands are tied there remain your teeth. When you are gagged and bound you may still fight them with your gaze When you lose your sword you have your hands. When your hands are tied there remain your teeth. When you are gagged and bound you may still fight them with your gaze. Isiq clung to the litany, an old War College saw from forty years ago, and tried to keep his mind from mocking it.

The want of deathsmoke. He huddled often with his back to the door, sweat-drenched in the hollow cold, heart racing, mind prey to ghoulish fixations. The eyes of the statues. The last thoughts baked into their brains.

Syrarys had kept him from feeling these pangs, by mixing an extract from the deathsmoke vine with the other poisons she pa.s.sed him in sweet teas and brandies. Just enough to ease him along, believing himself sick but not envenomed, slowly forgetting what it meant to be well.

The detail, the ludicrous ludicrous detail. Nearest the door stood a woman (do not recall how you learned it was a woman) clutching her throat with her left hand and reaching down it with her right. Choked on a shard of bone, a bit of gristle or hard bread. She was his height. He would not name her. She seemed to be aware of the door. As if dreaming that some bright angel would yet appear there, melt her agonies with a waking touch, lead her by the arm into paradise. detail. Nearest the door stood a woman (do not recall how you learned it was a woman) clutching her throat with her left hand and reaching down it with her right. Choked on a shard of bone, a bit of gristle or hard bread. She was his height. He would not name her. She seemed to be aware of the door. As if dreaming that some bright angel would yet appear there, melt her agonies with a waking touch, lead her by the arm into paradise.

They slid his dinner plate halfway to this woman at every meal, with an insolent shove that left part of the contents behind on the floor. Isiq had to pounce on it, kicking at the rats that hurled themselves on the food the instant it appeared, stumbling quickly behind the choking woman with his prize. A metal plate with three sections; he had licked it clean after every squalid meal, saying 'fourteen', 'fifteen'; struggling thus to keep count of the days he had lain in Queen Mirkitj's private h.e.l.l. But what if they did not come at regular times? What if they fed him twice in one day and skipped the next altogether? He had only the cycles of his body to judge by, and they were becoming erratic. To breathe on one's hand and be unable to see it. To rest one's chin on a stone shoulder and have no idea of the face.

Someone's name engraved on the back of the plate. Isiq had caught himself licking the signature, over and over, for his tongue was more sensitive than his fingertips, though not sensitive enough to feel out the tiny letters. Had an earlier prisoner used this plate, etched his name in it somehow, declaring, I still exist, you have not reduced me to perfect nothingness for I remember myself, you have not erased me, you have not won. I still exist, you have not reduced me to perfect nothingness for I remember myself, you have not erased me, you have not won.

More likely it was the name of the manufacturer. Do not believe it Do not believe it. Believe it was defiance, stubborn will, blazing on like a mad candle in the dark.

Such were the orders he gave himself. He who had commanded fleets, abolished nations with a word, shaped the lives of thousands with a sharp decision, was now reduced to praying for obedience from an army of one.

He succeeded for a time. With the edge of the plate he was able to sc.r.a.pe a thin groove in the floor, a barely perceptible scratch, from the doorway to the choking woman, from the woman to the room's central pillar, from the pillar to the pit. When Isiq got lost, when the smothered feeling rose in his chest and threatened obliteration, he dropped to hands and knees and sought out the groove, and followed it like an ant from one marker to the next, until he returned to the door. And with his forehead pressed to the crack between door and frame he could actually detect a light, the palest imaginable gloaming, a microscopic flaw in this perfection of darkness, this black stomach in which he was being digested.

That is why they wear stone. It makes them harder to digest.

Madness. He took deep breaths, forcing the air from his lungs over and over, as if pumping bilge from a hold. What if the light is imaginary? The light is not imaginary. And he did not need a speck of light, a name on a food plate, a companion in agony. I am a soldier, I solve problems, I will go about my tasks. I am a soldier, I solve problems, I will go about my tasks.

Leaving the plate near the door he had set off on a tour of h.e.l.l, groping left along the wall. It was a slow and frightful business. He had not gone forty squatting, creeping paces when he nearly died. A pit, yawning beneath his outstretched foot. He had teetered, then let himself fall sidelong, landing on the edge of the pit and just managing to twist back onto the floor. He had lain there, petrified. Cold air flowed from the pit like some fiend's long and rapturous sigh. At last he had risen to hands and knees and groped on.

The pit was shaped like a tongue. At the point where it curved furthest from the wall his fingers had brushed a k.n.o.bby protrusion. A foothold. He had extended his arm and found another below. One could climb down, deeper into h.e.l.l. He had lain on his side and reached farther. And then screamed with pain and rage.

The rat's bite was deep; its jaws had locked onto his flesh with a starved thing's ferocity. 'd.a.m.n you! d.a.m.n you! ' Isiq had rolled away from the pit with the creature still attached to his hand, swung it writhing and squealing over his head, slammed it down on the stone floor beside him. Again. And again. Only on the fourth blow had it released his finger, slashed to the bone by the rodent's teeth. Even then it had refused to die, but had leaped on his stomach and thence back into the pit, splattering him with his own blood. ' Isiq had rolled away from the pit with the creature still attached to his hand, swung it writhing and squealing over his head, slammed it down on the stone floor beside him. Again. And again. Only on the fourth blow had it released his finger, slashed to the bone by the rodent's teeth. Even then it had refused to die, but had leaped on his stomach and thence back into the pit, splattering him with his own blood.

For two days he had urinated on the wound: Dr Chadfallow's field trick for avoiding infection. Miraculously it had worked; the cut was painful but clean. Gangrene in this festering hole would be certain death.

That night as he pawed at his food, a flaky substance met his fingers. Ashes? Not quite. A herb, sprinkled on his half-raw potato? He touched it with his tongue. And dropped the plate in a panic. And squatted, and sc.r.a.ped together what food he could. And flung it down again, howling in rage and hunger. They They were the beasts, his jailkeepers. They had dusted his meal with deathsmoke. were the beasts, his jailkeepers. They had dusted his meal with deathsmoke.