'I do, Mr Coote.'

Coote pointed with his big East Arquali nose. 'We'll be headin' in among the Black Shoulder Isles tonight. At least that's my supprazichun.'

Dead ahead, six or eight miles off Bramian, ran a string of uninhabited islets: the Black Shoulders. They were small and jungle-clad, built of dark volcanic stone that still shook and grumbled, troubling the waves and dropping great shelves of rock into the depths on occasion. What slim fondness sailors had for them was due to the harbour they could give, in a pinch, from the battering ram of a northbound Nelluroq storm.

'Do you know why, Mr Coote?' Pazel asked. 'I mean, what have the Black Shoulders got that we need?'

Coote glanced up at him for the first time, and almost smiled. 'Thought maybe you'd know, with all your tricks.'

'I don't have many tricks, Mr Coote. I wish I did, believe me.'

Coote shrugged. 'Well, water, maybe - can't never have too much sweet water in your casks. That one to our north is Sandplume - what some call the Isle of Birds. She might have a pond worth pumping. Come on in, Pathkendle; there's no more work to be done out here.'

'Oppo, sir. I'm right behind you.'

Coote lumbered off, but Pazel didn't leave the bowsprit. He faced the sea again, his arm draped over the Goose-Girl. She was a pretty lump of wood, although her grip on the necks of her two geese always struck him as savagely tight. He had stood here that first day on the Chathrand Chathrand, when Fiffengurt told him to pry the limpets off her, and Dr Chadfallow raced along Sorrophran Head on horseback, crying across the water to Pazel: Jump ship! Jump ship in Etherhorde! Jump ship! Jump ship in Etherhorde!

He could have done it, probably. Where would he be now, who who would he be, if he had obeyed? would he be, if he had obeyed?

The thought left Pazel strangely chilled. For more than five years his only dream had been to find his parents and sister, rebuild his shattered family. Just how that miracle was supposed to happen he had never quite worked out. Not even Chadfallow, personal friend of the Emperor and one of the only men in Arqual with connections inside the Mzithrin, had been able to carry off a prisoner exchange - he wasn't even sure Pazel's mother and sister were were prisoners, only that they had both been in Simja on Treaty Day. And his father - well, Captain Gregory had found prisoners, only that they had both been in Simja on Treaty Day. And his father - well, Captain Gregory had found him him, all right, after the battle on the Haunted Coast. He simply hadn't cared.

Pazel closed his eyes. There was a great black oak in Ormael, in a stand of such trees between the plum orchards and the path to the Highlands. It was not the tallest in the stand, but it was a mighty tree. Pa.s.sing beneath it one day on a walk with his father, Pazel had declared with confidence that no one could climb it. Captain Gregory had laughed and shimmied up the oak like a topman scaling the shrouds. At eighty feet, he'd pulled out the knife Pazel carried today and begun to carve, slowly and carefully, at the joint of a limb.

When he had returned to the ground, Pazel had asked, 'What did you carve there, Papa?'

Gregory had just ruffled his hair. 'Go and have a look yourself,' he'd teased, making Pazel laugh aloud. It would be years before he could reach the lowest branch.

Gregory never told Pazel what he'd carved, and after his desertion Pazel had decided that he didn't care. He could climb as well as his father, now. But even if he one day saw Ormael again, why should he go looking for that tree? For years he'd tried to convince himself that his father had some heroic reason for abandoning them. But the Haunted Coast had provided a simpler, uglier truth. Captain Gregory didn't give a d.a.m.n.

All at once Pazel realised that he was quite cold. He'd lingered too long, grown too still, and his pants were soaked with chilly spray. It was time to get out of the wind. Carefully reversing his grip on the Goose-Girl, Pazel negotiated an about-face. He looked down at the forecastle - and saw Arunis gliding towards him with a smile.

The mage had not harmed a soul since the day of Thasha's wedding, but the few sailors in his path leaped away as if from a marauding tiger. Pazel suddenly realised how very vulnerable he was. Everyone but the lookouts had fled the forecastle, and even the latter two sailors stood uneasily by the ladder, as though weighing the danger of abandoning their posts against the threat of that figure in black.

Pazel scrambled down the bowsprit. But Arunis, with startling quickness for such a heavyset man, leaped up to the marines' walk - that narrow platform that was the only way on or off the bowsprit. He raised an open hand, as if warning Pazel to remain where he was.

Pazel stopped. He was some eight feet from the sorcerer, and had no doubt that he could keep out of the mage's grip long enough to shout for aid. But the marines' walk had only two knotted ropes for rails. If he tried to squeeze by onto the deck Arunis could attack him, perhaps even push him into the sea.

'What do you want?' he said.

Arunis' white scarf flapped in the wind. He placed a hand on each rope. 'A little of your time,' he said. 'You have more to spare than other boys on this ship, after all.'

'I don't have anything to say to you. Murderer.'

Arunis gazed at him, unperturbed. 'Even as enemies we have rather a lot to learn from each other,' he said, 'or hasn't Hercol taught you that first maxim of the fighting man? "In single combat, your foe is the only one who can help you defeat your foe." But that, I hope, shall prove beside the point. For there is no reason why we should remain enemies, Mr Pathkendle.'

Pazel laughed. 'No, none at all. Except that you fed me powdered gla.s.s, and nearly strangled Thasha. To say nothing of what you told the sibyl on Dhola's Rib. Something about "scouring the world for its new dispensation," wasn't it? Care to explain that that one to me?' one to me?'

'I would like nothing better,' said Arunis. 'It is the horror of my life, being misunderstood. What you heard on Dhola's Rib, for instance: of course it sounded vile. And so must all my actions, since we were introduced as enemies. But you do not truly know me, yet - and you do not know the burden I carry.

'I am the greatest mage in Alifros. I am thrice the age of the Empire of Arqual. The Old Faith was but a collection of prayers and mumbles when I first walked the paths of Ullum, and the name of Rin had yet to be spoken by human lips. I have served this world as seer and counsellor for thirty centuries, lad. Her destiny is my destiny; her life is what I live for.'

Pazel snorted. 'Funny how much joy you take in ending ending lives, in that case.' lives, in that case.'

Arunis shook his head. 'No more than the gardener who pinches cutworms between his fingers to save the crop. You have closed your mind for sentimental reasons, Pazel. Did not Ramachni himself warn you to seek allies in unlikely places?'

Pazel was shocked. How Arunis could have come by such knowledge he could not begin to imagine. He's spying on us somehow. I've got to warn them He's spying on us somehow. I've got to warn them.

'You are convinced you wish my defeat,' Arunis went on. 'You are persuaded that the breaking of two corrupt empires - for that is what the s.h.a.ggat's victory will mean, the end of both Arqual and the Mzithrin - will be a bad thing for this world.'

'I'm persuaded that a world ruled by you would be a thousand times worse.'

Arunis stepped towards him, impatience flashing in his eyes. 'And why is that? What do you know of my true intentions? Nothing. But I know a great deal about yours. I know you dream of finding your mother and sister. Would you like my help? I could locate them within the hour, by my arts, and tell you how they fare.'

For a moment Pazel could not speak.The faces of his mother and sister, their smiles, their laughs-- 'No,' he said. 'I don't want your help. You wouldn't, anyway.' Arunis drew closer still. 'I know that you hate Arqual for its crimes. How could you not, when you've seen it destroy your family, your home, your very nation? When you know it is ruled by those who seduce their enemies with talk of peace, all the while hiding a knife called the s.h.a.ggat behind their backs? A knife with which they plan to reopen their enemies' deepest wound?

'Think, Pazel, of what will happen if I step aside. Either Sandor Ott's plan will succeed, and the s.h.a.ggat will rise and cripple the Mzithrin, and within a decade the Pentarchy will collapse, routed by the armies of Arqual. Or the plan will fail, and provide an immaculate excuse for a new global war - a war of equals, a war of blackest hatred, a war without end.

'In either case the innocent will die in countless numbers, and the survivors inherit a ruined world. If Ott triumphs, you may imagine the future as a b.l.o.o.d.y rag in the fist of the Magad dynasty, a fist that tightens forever, even when there is no blood left to wring out. And should he fail - two fists contending for the rag, Arquali and Mzithrini, tearing, pulling, shredding it ever finer.'

'And in your future?'

'In mine, quite simply, the s.h.a.ggat's triumph will be so swift that Alifros will be spared the worst part of war. Fleets will burn, but not cities. Armies will be destroyed, but not the countries they hail from. There will be death, but how much less so than otherwise! My future is the least of the evils arrayed before us - surely you see that now?'

Pazel said nothing. Arunis rested a foot on the bowsprit.

'Listen to me, boy. Your morals are a good thing. But they are simple hand-tools, and the world, like this ship, is a vast machine. You cannot expect your notion of the good to serve all purposes, any more than you could cut new lumber for this ship with a pocketknife.'

Pazel averted his eyes. The late sun was blazing behind Arunis, yet he felt colder than ever - almost numb with cold, and his mind was dull and doubtful.

'I don't believe you,' he said.

The mage smiled again. 'But at least you hear me - that is enough. Pazel, there are moments in history when what appears to be an evil is the only path to the good. Humans are a flawed creation. Gather them in any numbers, and they kill. Dreamers like Hercol will never admit this truth - and in the end it is they who must be blamed when their pretty fantasies collapse. Arqual and the Mzithrin are the twin banes of Alifros. How would you you choose, in your youthful clarity of heart? Destroy two wicked empires - or stand back and watch them destroy the world?' choose, in your youthful clarity of heart? Destroy two wicked empires - or stand back and watch them destroy the world?'

Pazel clung there, six feet from Arunis, shaking his head. 'Neither,' he managed at last.

'That too is a choice - to do nothing, shrug off the burdens fate gives us, pray that others will lead in our stead. But I do not think you are that kind of man. You're a captain's son, after all.'

Pazel looked up sharply. The mention of his father brought all his anger back in a flash.

'I'll give you one more chance to tell me what you want,' he said, 'before I shout for the guards.'

The mage looked at him steadily. 'You are shivering,' he said. 'Are you coming down with a cold?'

'I've been out here a long time.'

'Quite true,' said Arunis. 'You have been alone in more ways than most men experience in a lifetime, and you have known no rest. Your life has been marked by one terrible change after another. And I can only offer you another - a frightful change, I know, but I promise it will be the last. For you are a Smythidor Smythidor, a being changed by spellcraft for ever, and because of that you will never belong with any but your own kind. You belong with me, boy, at my side as student and disciple, heir to my wisdom and arts. This is what I offer you. Will you not consider?'

Pazel found himself trapped by the mage's eyes, which had taken on a cold, bright sheen. The heat of his rage was no match for that glow, that spider's hunger. He could not look away.

'At . . . your side?'

'Yes, said Arunis, 'for ever. Shall I tell you something? You may be aware that I called a spirit to my cabin, before we left the Bay of Simja. It was the ghost of Sathek, a mage-king of the ancient world, and a wise and terrible king he was. Sathek told me that I should meet a child of Alifros aboard this ship who would grow into as mighty a spell-weaver as I am myself. Of course I knew at once that he meant you.'

'I'm not a mage,' said Pazel.

'But you will be,' said Arunis, extending his hand. 'Come, Pazel Pathkendle. I am the home you've been looking for. I am your natural ally. Not a coa.r.s.e island boy like Mr Undrabust. Not the doctor who l.u.s.ts after your mother. Not the vixen child of the man who laid waste to Ormael.'

'Who - who do you . . . ?'

'Thasha, you simpleton, the girl who laughs when she beats you with sticks.'

'Don't you try--' Pazel's shook his head with tremendous effort. '--don't you dream dream of turning me against her, d.a.m.n you, I--' of turning me against her, d.a.m.n you, I--'

He broke off. Why were they even talking? Why wasn't he shouting for help?

Arunis looked at him thoughtfully. When he spoke again his voice was quite changed. 'I would never try to turn you against Thasha,' he said. 'Oh no! You misunderstand me entirely. Do you think that we mages plumb the secrets of the several worlds, yet remain ignorant of the n.o.blest of all human feelings? Do you think us so stupid and cold?'

'C-cold--'

'No matter. Tell me of your feelings for Thasha Isiq. It will do you good to speak of them.'

But Pazel shook his head again.

'I understand,' said the mage. 'You are protecting what is new to your heart, and I shall ask no further. But you must must let me help you.' let me help you.'

His tone was sharply aggrieved. Pazel felt a sense of guilt creep over him, stealthy and quick. He felt suddenly as though he had spat on the efforts of a kindly uncle.

'Tomorrow we shall make landfall on Bramian,' said Arunis, 'and there - surely you know this already, deep inside? - the two of you must depart. For not a soul on this ship, myself included, will ever see the placid eastern world again, once we enter the Ruling Sea. It is a mission of death, my boy. Why sacrifice yourselves? Why betray Thasha, and the bliss of a life together, before it has truly begun? Tell me, as one man to another: have you not sensed the possibility possibility of such bliss?' of such bliss?'

Pazel was lost, in a cold, enveloping fog; and Thasha was the only point of warmth. 'Yes,' he said quietly, 'I have.'

'Then you must hold true to that feeling, Pazel Pathkendle, no matter what you are told. Run off with your Thasha! Hide from the savages until your Gift begins to work again. Then approach those forest men and address them in their tongue. They will not only spare your lives, but worship you, and lead you to their river strongholds, and serve you like slaves. Become Lord and Lady of Bramian! There are wonders in her interior mete for a clever lad like you to discover. And you could find no safer place in Alifros to sit out the coming war.'

Pazel gazed at him in wonder. After a moment, he said, 'Leave. With Thasha.'

'Just so,' said Arunis. 'And who could blame you? Both of you have been cruelly exploited by the Empire. But instead of seeking revenge you actually helped them, risked your lives for them, over and over. They cannot ask you for more.'

'How would we get ash.o.r.e?'

Arunis smiled. 'That will be my gift to you - a small gesture of amends for the feud we've overcome. Merely give me your hand, and think your promise to depart. Give it to me now; I shall hold your promise in my fist, and tend it like a seed, and before we reach the island my spell will be ready. Then bring Thasha to my cabin, between midnight and dawn. Ask her to trust you - as she will all her life, when she is yours alone - and when we three join hands I shall send you to Bramian in an instant.'

The sorcerer extended his hand. 'This should be an easy choice - between death and a strange rebirth, between loneliness and ecstasy. If you have the courage to change, that is.'

He made as if to withdraw his hand, and Pazel's heart leaped. He extended his own, desperately - then pulled back at the last instant, torn with doubt. How could this be true? How could they have got so much wrong about Arunis?

A spasm crossed the sorcerer's face, but he mastered it. 'You realise,' he said, 'that she's going anyway.'

'What?'

Arunis nodded gravely. 'Rose means to be rid of her, but he dares not kill her because of Ramachni's spell. How to be sure she lives, and yet tells no one of the conspiracy? Why, by giving her to the savages, people who fear and detest the outside world. They will bear her away to the heart of that gigantic island, and keep her, and make her one of them. Rose has decided already. He knows the trouble a lovely girl may cause on a ship full of desperate men.'

Pazel clutched at the ropes. The cold had reached his fingertips, the roots of his hair, his brain. And as he gazed at Arunis a vision rose before his eyes. He saw himself and Thasha, dressed in a strange finery of wool and parrot feathers and animal skins, standing before a great wooden lodge on a high hill over the jungle. Birds teemed in the treetops, and the sea glittered far away, and purple, snowcapped mountains rose at their backs. Strange men in the clearing below the lodge glanced up with fearful reverence, but kept their distance as befit the servants of a Lord. He and Thasha were older, taller, and she was more beautiful than ever, a woman full grown and splendid, and his arm was about her waist.

Arunis was leaning close to him. 'If she is not yours, and soon, she will be another's. She will give her love to a man of real courage, be it a sailor or some beast of the Bramian jungle. Is that what you want?'

Pazel clung to the knotted ropes. He was a coward, a fool. Thasha was escaping him, slipping through his fingers. She was almost a woman; he was just a tarboy from a conquered race. This was his one chance to have her, his one chance to know love. And it seemed as he extended his hand that it was not Arunis he was reaching for but Thasha herself.

Then something extraordinary happened. Under the skin beside his collarbone an ember of warmth sprang to life. It was distant, but real. And somewhere far away in the hollows of his mind a voice was calling, echoing, like a strange girl's voice from the depths of a cave.

Land-boy, do you forsake me?

'Klyst!'

Arunis straightened, dumbfounded. 'What's that? Klyst?'

The voice was already gone, and the heat from the murth-girl's sh.e.l.l was very faint. But that touch of pure longing from Klyst - still with him, still following the Chathrand Chathrand ! - gave Pazel the strength to tear his eyes away from Arunis' own. ! - gave Pazel the strength to tear his eyes away from Arunis' own.

The dream of Bramian vanished. The cold retreated, and strength returned to his limbs. Then Pazel saw the strain in Arunis' face, and the sweat on his brow. The spell had cost him great effort, but it had failed.

And now Pazel was angry - angry as he'd never been before in his life. He glared at the sorcerer, who stood swaying across his path, doubled over, drawing laboured breaths.

'What's it all for, Arunis?' he demanded. 'You want to rule the world - why why? You'd still be a rotten beast full of hate and lies and ugliness. You'd still be you.'

Arunis sagged against the ropes, but there was an odd gleam to his exhausted eyes. 'No I wouldn't,' he said.

But Pazel was no longer listening. 'You're the one who should get off at Bramian. The greatest mage in Alifros! Go on, get out of my way.'

Swaying feebly, Arunis shook his head. Pazel could stand it no longer: he leaned forwards and grabbed Arunis' fingers, prying them easily from the rope.

'Nauldrok!'

The mage's voice whiplashed through Pazel's mind and limbs. He felt himself driven backwards. He seized desperately at the ropes, stumbled, caught himself on the bowsprit proper - and there he froze. His fingers went numb, his body weak and lifeless. The heat from Klyst's sh.e.l.l was gone.

Arunis looked even worse than Pazel felt. He might have been a man afflicted by a wasting disease, too weak to do more than prop himself up on the ropes, yet triumph shone in his eyes. After a few more gasping breaths, he found his voice.

'You are about to die, maggot. I would prefer to strangle you, but that would be noticed, and you have caused me difficulties enough.'

He forced himself upright. 'I am what I claimed,' he said. 'Who is greater than Arunis? Your mother, who turned you into a convulsive? The mighty Ramachni ? But they show no signs of coming to your aid. And where, for that matter, are Neeps and your lovely Thasha? It appears no one is thinking of you at all.'

Pazel knew where Thasha was - in her cabin, reading the Polylex Polylex and comforting the still-frightened Marila. She would not be looking for him, true enough - he had been rude to her again, unable to forget Oggosk's threat. Neeps would not come either: he was too irritated with the sailors who had spurned their aid. And if those lookouts or the men on the spars were watching, as surely they must be, what would they notice? Arunis had not laid a hand on him. and comforting the still-frightened Marila. She would not be looking for him, true enough - he had been rude to her again, unable to forget Oggosk's threat. Neeps would not come either: he was too irritated with the sailors who had spurned their aid. And if those lookouts or the men on the spars were watching, as surely they must be, what would they notice? Arunis had not laid a hand on him.

'Ah!' said the sorcerer. 'Take heart, Pathkendle. You are not friendless after all.'

Pazel just managed to raise his eyes. Up the forecastle ladder was climbing the last person on earth he wished to see: Jervik. The older tarboy stopped to speak to the lookouts, and glanced warily at Arunis.

'You will soon lose your grip,' said the mage, 'and plummet into the sea. By then I shall be in my quarters. But I have a few thoughts for you to ponder ere you fall.

'It was your own pride that doomed you, of course. Did you feel protected by Ramachni's spell? Idiot. You were were safe, until you touched me of your own volition. By doing so you let me see through you like a gla.s.s. Now I know that you are not the spell-keeper, and I risk no harm to the s.h.a.ggat by killing you. safe, until you touched me of your own volition. By doing so you let me see through you like a gla.s.s. Now I know that you are not the spell-keeper, and I risk no harm to the s.h.a.ggat by killing you.