A time came when he knew he must enter the pit. He realised that Ott could not have left such an obvious means of escape; he knew also that the rats came from the pit, and that he risked being gnawed alive. Somehow none of that mattered. A sense of the physical s.p.a.ce around him was one of his few holds on sanity, and the pit was a blank spot on the map.

He swept each foothold with his boot. There was a great smell of dung. He eased himself down and felt the air grow fouler; a mould-heavy dampness bathed the walls. Far-off noises, drips and splashes. After twenty footholds his boot met the ground.

An ovoid pit; a low-roofed pa.s.sage; a shattered door. And then rubble. He knelt and groped. Big rocks, sand, masonry, utterly filling the corridor. A large part of the ceiling must have collapsed.

He felt every inch of the rubble-mound before him, and met with no rats at all. Near the top of the mound, however, he located the fist-sized tunnel by which they surely came and went. He plugged the hole with the largest stone he could lift, but the earth was soft around it, and he knew it would not slow even a single animal very long.

But for many days the rats did not come.

He flexed his finger: it was almost healed. He had an idea that this was his twentieth day among the statues. He had a pair of weapons, now: an iron bar and a vaguely axe-shaped stone, both of which he had pulled from the detritus at the bottom of the pit. The bar had not been worth the trouble: it was too heavy to swing, too thick to pry into cracks. Since heaving it up from the pit he had found no use for it at all.

But the stone was another matter. He swung it experimentally, thinking again of the blow he had not landed on Ott's face, when the arrogant old killer sat beside him. Maybe what Ott said was true, and the attack could only have failed. Or maybe that was pride: perhaps there had been a window between his inspiration and Ott's awareness of the danger, when he might have struck. Why do we wait? Why do we wait? thought the admiral, suddenly on the point of tears. For his daughter's face had risen before his eyes. thought the admiral, suddenly on the point of tears. For his daughter's face had risen before his eyes.

What had they done with her her body? They were not going to Etherhorde, so Thasha would never lie beside her mother in the family plot on Maj Hill. The best he could hope for was that she had been buried at sea, with honours, like the soldier another world might have let her become. body? They were not going to Etherhorde, so Thasha would never lie beside her mother in the family plot on Maj Hill. The best he could hope for was that she had been buried at sea, with honours, like the soldier another world might have let her become.

Sudden noise from the middle of the chamber. Clanging, rasping - the same horrid mix. Isiq left the dancer and shuffled towards the central pillar, taking his time. He did not much want to see what awaited him there.

The pillar was six or eight feet in diameter. It was made of heavy brick, not soft stone like the rest of the chamber. Gaps the size of half-bricks had been left intentionally, and from them crept a smell of ancient coal. The pillar also had a great iron door.

It was unmistakably a fire-door, of the kind installed on furnaces. It had a small square window that must once have been glazed. The door was rusted shut, the heavy bolt and staple fused with age into a solid thing, but there was no lock his fingers could detect. For several days he had struggled to open the door, to no avail. Then, on the third day after the rat bite, the noises had begun.

Isiq bent his ear to the window. Crashing, hissing, sc.r.a.ping. All from below - the pillar must have contained a shaft of some kind - and blurred by echoes and distance, but soul-chilling nonetheless. He was hearing the rage-stoked violence of living creatures, battering and biting whatever they could find. And speaking And speaking. That was the true horror of it. Most of the voices (he had noted at least a dozen) spoke only gibberish, a snarling, whining, moaning, murderous barrage of nonsense sounds. They suggested some horrible perversion of babies trying out their vocal cords for the first time - but the throats that made those sounds must have been larger than a grown man's.

And some were using words. Simjan words; he caught no more than the odd interjection. Mine! Stop! Egg! Mine! Stop! Egg! Isiq was cross with himself for not following the meaning - he was amba.s.sador to Simja; he had been tutored in the tongue - until he realised that the words were not arranged in sentences. At most, two or three were strung together and repeated endlessly, with a kind of agonised inflection. Isiq was cross with himself for not following the meaning - he was amba.s.sador to Simja; he had been tutored in the tongue - until he realised that the words were not arranged in sentences. At most, two or three were strung together and repeated endlessly, with a kind of agonised inflection. Hagan reb. Hagan reb. Hagan hagan hagan REB! Reb reb reb reb reb--' Hagan reb. Hagan reb. Hagan hagan hagan REB! Reb reb reb reb reb--' The words broke off in screeches of lunacy. The words broke off in screeches of lunacy.

All save one. A nattering, sorrowful, sharp-edged voice. Penny for a colonel 's widow? Penny for a colonel 's widow? Just those words, gabbled and blurted and wept. Just those words, gabbled and blurted and wept. Penny for a colonel 's widow? Penny for a colonel 's widow? The voice appeared never to tire. The voice appeared never to tire.

'Rin's mercy, what do you mean mean ?' groaned Isiq. ?' groaned Isiq.

At once he clapped a hand over his mouth, silently cursing. He had never uttered a sound near the pillar. The creatures fell absolutely silent. Then they all began screaming at once.

'Hraaaar !'

'Egg!'

'Penny for a--'

'Mine!'

Sounds of spittle and claws. The thrashing grew so crazed that the pillar actually shook. Then, beneath the pandemonium, his ears detected a tiny squeak. Putting out his hand, he found that the great bolt had at last broken free of the rust. It would move. With a bit of a struggle he could slide it free.

But why open the door? What if they could climb? Nothing but this slab of iron would stand between him and them. Fortunately the door was mighty, the bolt despite its rust still ma.s.sive and intact. This was where they stoked the fires This was where they stoked the fires, Isiq realised suddenly, this is what turned the prison into a kiln. this is what turned the prison into a kiln.

Futile to fight on. d.a.m.n it, that was the truth. Already the things were scratching open the little tunnel at the base of the pit.

He was sweating again. Those things must have devoured the rats. How is it that they speak? What will they do when they find me? Where is my suit of stone? Those things must have devoured the rats. How is it that they speak? What will they do when they find me? Where is my suit of stone?

He stumbled away from the pillar, holding his forehead, trying not to moan aloud. Almost at once he collided with a statue, his faithful sentry, the woman choking on the dark. She toppled; he tried to catch her but her weight defeated him; she struck the floor with a m.u.f.fled boom.

'Oh my dear madam, forgive me--'

He found pieces of her in the blackness. Various digits. Her forehead, shattered on the stone. He felt the sting of other eyes, the focused hate of all the statues, that frozen family, that congregation of the d.a.m.ned.

He would have to watch himself.

15.

The Voice of a Friend

4 Freala 941 113th day from Etherhorde

In a way unimagined by even the most superst.i.tious crewmembers, the Great Ship had become a ghost ship, living but presumed deceased. The effect this had on those aboard her is difficult to pinpoint. At first there was bravado, and much talk of the cleverness of Rose and their Emperor. The gang leaders, Darius Plapp and Kruno Burnscove, led the cheering: they were compet.i.tors in patriotism (or what pa.s.sed for it) as in every other sphere. 'We've a right to be proud,' Burnscove declared. 'Arqual's going to remake the world. A world without the Black Rags, a world of straight talk, straight deeds, and Rin's Ninety Rules taught to every wee baby with his mother's milk. And don't we know that means a better world?'

Darius Plapp had less to say on the matter, trusting his sonorous voice and deep-set eyes to carry the message. 'We're sailing into history,' he would announce, with a grave, portentous nod.

Sergeant Drellarek played his part as well. Amazingly, he had managed to portray the execution of one-seventh of his men as a victory for the rest. The price of greatness, he said, had always been far higher than ordinary men could understand. But Turachs were different: they were Magad's warrior-angels, they were the fine edge of the knife with which the Emperor was pruning the tree called Alifros. 'In the end this world will be a fair reflection of the Tree above us,' he told them. 'Most men would shrink from such a challenge. But not us. When Turachs pa.s.s through fire they emerge with the hardness of steel.'

These three men - Burnscove, Plapp and Drellarek - also began to talk about the enemy. This was done rather quietly, and often late at night, after one or more of them appeared unexpectedly to pitch in with a bit of labour, or to top off the men's grog with a flask produced from none-knew-where. Talk of the Mzithrinis invariably meant talk of war crimes, atrocities committed by whole legions or a bloodthirsty few.

'Little Orin Isle, now,' said Drellarek with a sigh, at one such gathering. 'That little speck of a place off the side of Fuln, with no more than three thousand men. You wouldn't think it would be worth much bloodshed to take her, now would you? Ah, but you're not thinking like a Black Rag! Orin had a fortified jetty, and strong memories of what them butchers did to their grandfathers. So they fought like tigers, and kept the Sizzies from landing for a week. The Sizzies took 'em at last, of course. And when the brave men of Orin knew they were beat, they lay down their weapons, and their leaders came forward and gave their word of honour that they'd fight no more, and asked for mercy.

'Do you know what sort of mercy they got? The Sizzies marched every man who could still walk out to a lead mine in the hills. They sent 'em underground, all chained together. And then they knocked out the roofing timbers and the tunnel collapsed.'

Drellarek paused, looking grimly at the shadow-etched faces about him.

'Their women and children dug with picks and spades, with their blary fingernails. For days on end. They could hear the tap-tap-tapping, the cries from under the earth, the calls for water. But each day the voices were fainter, until one by one they stopped. Can you imagine what that silence was like, gentlemen? For the little children? For the wives?

'That's the Black Rags' idea of honour. And that's why His Supremacy launched this ship. Not for some make-believe Peace. Oh we played along with their charade, all right. But just like those brave men on Orin, some of us remember remember. The Black Rags kill, mates. And if the s.h.a.ggat Ness gets them killing each other again - so be it. We can watch them kill each other, or wait for them to kill us. Which do you prefer?'

Soldiers and sailors alike did their best to look satisfied with this reasoning, and to a certain extent they were. None had ever dreamed of being part of such a grand effort - the triumph of Arqual, the remaking of the very order of the world! Part of the crew breathed easier, thinking of Mzithrini atrocities. Most at least felt they understood what the journey was all about.

But not all were comforted. Many recalled what Captain Rose had said the day Peytr Bourjon ate his gumfruit. Strip that rind away Strip that rind away, he'd said. Go on without dreaming of hope. On slow watches, over breakfast biscuit, or high on the topgallant yards, they began to murmur, to frown. In their hammocks, blind to one another in the dark, they whispered: We don't exist, boys. We wiped the slate clean at Talturi. Our girls will cry, but not too long. Don't kid yourselves. They'll dry their eyes and paint 'em pretty, women are faithless useless calculating gossipy gone-with-a-sob-and-a-hankie. And what about us, eh, what about us on this ship? Memories. Names mumbled by an old aunt, a quick prayer in the Temple, a list on page ten of the Mariner Mariner, used to wrap someone's pound of halibut. That's all we are, by Rin.

For the three youths it was a time of anxiety. Thasha could tell that Pazel was struggling with some new fear: he walked about as though under a stormcloud, waiting for lightning to strike. But she never could find a chance to ask him about it, for he seemed to go out of his way not to be caught with her alone.

Their allies were troubled as well. Fiffengurt raged and sulked; he had not forgiven himself for getting his Annabel with child ('like a common rascal on sh.o.r.e leave'), and he was half out of his mind at the thought of Rose, or worse yet Uskins, going through his private journal. Felthrup still cried out in his sleep.

Hercol, for his part, expected an attack: some midnight a.s.sault by one of Ott's men, or a siege by Rose and Drellarek, or worst of all an attack by the sorcerer. 'Why Rose allows us to come and go from these chambers is a mystery,' he said. 'But of this I am certain: nothing could be more dangerous than coming to depend on that magic wall.'

He abandoned his valet's cabin in favour of a small chamber that Pacu Lapadolma and several other first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers had used for storage. The room was still crammed with footlockers and crates and swinging garment bags, but it had the advantage of being just outside the stateroom door. He refused to sleep in the stateroom itself, saying that if some enemy should find a way through the wall he intended to be the first one they met. His own door he never closed.

He strongly embraced the idea of training the tarboys, and quickly carved two blunt-edged practice swords. But he was dismayed at the anger in the youths.

'Anger is a fire,' he told them. 'And that fire is your servant - potentially potentially . But right now all I see is two fools trying to grab it barehanded. That may get you burned, but it won't get you through a swordfight.' When this warning failed to cure the boys of recklessness, he made them recite the first apothem of Tholja.s.san battle-dance at the start of every lesson - not just in Arquali, but also in their individual birth-tongues: . But right now all I see is two fools trying to grab it barehanded. That may get you burned, but it won't get you through a swordfight.' When this warning failed to cure the boys of recklessness, he made them recite the first apothem of Tholja.s.san battle-dance at the start of every lesson - not just in Arquali, but also in their individual birth-tongues: A fight is won or lost in the mind, not the body. The mind is present in the fingertips, the eyelash, the leaping forward and the holding back, the side-spring, the death-blow, the choice not to fight at all. The mind discerns the needle-narrow path to victory among the thickets of defeat.

His melees with Thasha were bruising affairs, which Pazel and Neeps watched in awe. Thasha had a good sword of her own, but Hercol had Ildraquin, and decades of skill and cunning. He was merciless and calculating. He mocked and insulted her, trying to break her concentration. He hurled bricks and staves and chairs at her, shouldered over the crates they'd stacked up as obstacles. He drove her in circles around the stateroom, kicked and beat and even cut her if she gave him a clumsy opening. After watching the first such lesson the boys realised they had been treated like children.

Pazel and Neeps found her breathtaking, but Thasha felt slow and awkward in her lessons. She had no idea why it was happening: Hercol had not actually injured her, and the chill of the blane blane was a fading memory. But though she held her own the fights were more taxing than they should have been, and her mind felt clouded with vague fears and phantoms. A similar feeling had lately come at night, just after she blew out the candle by her bedside - a sudden rush of doubts about her choices, the tasks before them, herself. Then she would fall asleep and dream of whirlpools, as she had been doing for months. was a fading memory. But though she held her own the fights were more taxing than they should have been, and her mind felt clouded with vague fears and phantoms. A similar feeling had lately come at night, just after she blew out the candle by her bedside - a sudden rush of doubts about her choices, the tasks before them, herself. Then she would fall asleep and dream of whirlpools, as she had been doing for months.

She knew Hercol was aware of her distraction - you could not hide that sort of thing from your martial tutor, not when he was coming at you with a blade - and knew as well that he was holding back out of concern. It was only a slight handicap, but it flew in the face of his code as a teacher. He had sternly forbidden her ever to ask for lenience, and to do so had never crossed her mind. Now she was deeply shamed. Hercol was not even reprimanding her when the lessons ended. He didn't think she could take it.

Her agitation reached a new pitch some three weeks after the Talturi affair, when she awoke with an irrepressible desire to eat an onion. She had never felt such a weird craving - an onion, for Rin's sake - but it swept over her like the onset of fever, and before she knew it, she was back in the main cabin, poking about in the food cupboards, popping open tins.

It was past midnight; the sounds of the ship were at their lowest ebb. Felthrup, who had yet to lose his battle against sleep, poked his weary nose out from her cabin door. Neeps groaned from his spot under the windows. 'Dogs,' he said.

Pazel sat up. 'No, it's Thasha. What in the Nine Pits are you up to?'

'I want an onion.'

'Well you're as loud as a pig in a pantry - did you say onion onion ?' ?'

Thasha turned to look at him. The sharpness in his tone caught her quite off guard.

'Well?' he demanded.

'Yes,' she said, 'onion. Didn't we have one? A big red thing.'

'What do you think we could do with a big red onion? Eat it raw?'

That was exactly what she had in mind. 'I know how crazy this sounds, Pazel, but--'

'No you don't,' he said. 'Go away and let me sleep.'

Thasha returned to her cabin without a word. But moments later she was back, fully dressed, and making for the stateroom door. 'Oh, stop, stop,' Pazel groaned. 'Wake up, Neeps, Thasha's gone mad.'

They pleaded with her to forget the onion. Thasha began to scratch nervously at her arms.

'I can't stop thinking about it. I don't know what's happening.'

'Sounds like Arunis' handiwork to me,' said Neeps, rubbing his eyes.

'Maybe,' said Thasha. 'I've been feeling a little strange for days. Not sick. Just . . . strange. But this is a different feeling. How late does Mr Teggatz work in the galley?'

'Depends on what's for breakfast tomorrow,' said Neeps, who'd often worked the galley shift.

'I will fetch my lady an onion,' Felthrup volunteered.

'That's blary good of you, Felthrup,' said Neeps. 'We accept.'

'No we don't,' said Pazel. 'Rin's chin, mate, you want him killed? Teggatz brags he can skewer a rat with a cleaver at thirty feet.'

The boys pulled on their clothes, surly as gravediggers at dawn. Outside the cabin door they found Hercol in a chair, sleeping with his back to the door and his hand on the pommel of Ildraquin. As Thasha opened the door he surged to his feet, unsheathing the great sword even as he leaped sidelong into fighting stance.

'What's the matter?' he said. 'Where are you going at this time of night?'

'Onions,' grumbled Neeps.

'Just one,' Thasha protested, still scratching at her arms.

Hercol also failed to turn Thasha from her goal, and so he sheathed Ildraquin and joined the march to the galley. The heat of the day was gone, and Thasha wished she had brought a coat. She wished even more that she had slipped out of the cabin without waking the boys. Neeps might groan and fuss, but then he was always groaning and fussing. There was nothing mean about it, ultimately. Pazel, on the other hand, had sounded furious, and his anger stung all the worse for being so unexpected.

But as they neared the galley she could think of little but her thirst for the vegetable. Let it be open, let it be open-- Let it be open, let it be open-- 'Closed,' said Mr Teggatz, rounding the corner, wiping his waterpruned hands on his ap.r.o.n. His soft mouth gave its usual smile, one that apologised for the incoherent words that usually came from it. 'All closed, cleaned, locked. How terrible, Master Hercol. h.e.l.lo.'

'We don't need food, exactly,' said Pazel.

'Of course you don't,' said Teggatz. 'So be it. Good night.'

'Mr Teggatz,' sad Hercol. 'The lady requires an onion.'

Teggatz looked mortified. 'Impossible. There's a directive. Punishments, too! If I lie Rin can squash me like a roach roach.' He stomped in violent demonstration, eliciting groans from the berth deck.

Neeps sighed. 'He's right, you know. Rose is a monster when it comes to galley privileges. No badgering the cook, no requests to be honoured once the galley's closed, no arguments, on pain of who-knows-what.'

Thasha scratched as if her arms were covered with biting ants. Teggatz balled up his ap.r.o.n in a knot. Four enemies of the crown were trying to get an onion out of him at midnight. It was more than he could bear. He bolted for the pa.s.sage.

'Five bells,' he said over his shoulder. 'That's when we light the stove. Not before. Captain's rules.'

They stood staring at the locked galley door. 'Five bells is hours hours from now,' said Thasha, her voice desperate. from now,' said Thasha, her voice desperate.

'You'll just have to survive until then,' said Neeps.

'Maybe we should tie her up,' said Pazel.

The others looked at him, stunned. Pazel shoved his hands into his pockets. 'To keep her from scratching herself raw, that's all I meant.'

Hercol struck a match, then whisked a candle from his pocket and held the wick to the flame. 'Pazel,' he said quietly, 'go to the next compartment and keep watch. Neeps, be so good as to do the same at the ladderway.'