He s.n.a.t.c.hed a leather pouch from the floor, ripped at the drawstring, and took a large pinch of gravel-like salt. Without preamble he gulped it, crunched it audibly in his teeth, and grabbed the bottle from Fulbreech. He favoured the grebel with a look of loathing and respect. Then he tilted the bottle and drank.

'Glah! Horrid! Quick!'

He gestured at the little box. Pazel unscrewed the lid, breaking the seal. Inside was a teaspoon's worth of fine red dust. The doctor bent until his nose was directly over the box. He covered one nostril and sniffed. Then he began to scream.

'OH DEVILS! OH G.o.dS OF FLAMING DEATH!'.

He straightened, spasmodically, as Pazel had seen men do when stunned by a Flikkerman. He gave an incoherent roar.

'It's working!' said Fulbreech.

Looks of terror and wild mirth chased themselves across the doctor's face. He reeled, clutching at the air. Grebel sloshed from the bottle in his hand.

Hercol caught the doctor's arms. 'Hold on man! It will pa.s.s!'

Chadfallow thrust the swordsman aside and bent over the table. He put his forehead down, moaning. In his grip the table began to vibrate. Then, shaking violently, he raised his head to look at them, and spoke through chattering teeth: 'Twice . . . the . . . grebel . . . half . . . the . . . snuff.'

Those were his last coherent words. Fortunately they were the right ones. When the others had chewed the salt, swallowed the grebel and inhaled the tiniest whiff of thundersnuff, they felt weird and sick, but not deranged. Chadfallow for his part sat grinning, hugging himself, occasionally letting out a strangled scream.

'Well, we're awake,' said Thasha, twitching. 'But there's no more grebel - Chadfallow spilled half of it on the floor. We're not going to be able to give this treatment to anyone anyone.'

'And a hundred monsters in the hold, waiting for their chance,' said Fulbreech.

'Or more,' said Hercol. 'And there is no way to know how much time we have gained. No matter - we shall fight the fight we are given. But be careful! You are not yourselves. Above all, beware your courage. It may be heightened beyond all reason, and lead swiftly to your death. Pazel, are you quite all right?'

'Yeah,' said Pazel, sniffing. 'Just hot. I feel like I'm standing next to a fire.'

'The grebel came around to you last,' said Hercol. 'I wonder if you had enough?'

'I left him half of what came to me,' said Fulbreech quickly.

'I'm all right,' Pazel insisted. 'But listen. We can't do this alone. It's blary impossible. We're going to need--'

'Prayer,' said a voice from the doorway, 'though what mongrel G.o.d might answer you I cannot guess.'

It was Arunis. Pazel, who had not seen him since Bramian, was shocked by the change in his appearance. He had lost all the round plumpness of Mr Ket. His face was pale, almost spectral, and a deathly light shone in his eyes. He gripped his cruel iron mace in one hand, and in the other the neck of a large and bulging sack. He looked amused at the sight of the doctor.

'The Imperial Surgeon,' he jeered. 'Prince of Arquali intellectuals. Whatever you have done to him is an improvement.'

To Pazel's surprise it was Fulbreech who spoke first. 'Get away, sorcerer! You don't deserve to breathe the same air as this man! And if you have any powers at all, use them to reverse what you you did to the rats.' did to the rats.'

'I?' laughed Arunis. 'You witless dog! I have done nothing to the rats! You humans left the Nilstone in a compartment overrun with fleas. You humans failed to notice an ixchel clan in your midsts, or a woken rat possessed by holy lunacy. Yes, I work for your destruction as a race, n.o.ble cause that that is. But how little you force me to do! My only fear is that the Chathrand Chathrand 's crew of savages will destroy itself, before it carries us to Gurishal.' 's crew of savages will destroy itself, before it carries us to Gurishal.'

'A n.o.ble cause was laid before you, long ago,' said Hercol. 'But you chose another path, and have cleaved to it ever since. It has made you very strong, and very empty. Will you not abandon it, Arunis? There is still time to choose a new purpose - a higher purpose, beyond your poisoned dreams.'

'Spare me the sermon,' jeered Arunis. 'Delusion is not to my taste. Was ever a life more empty than your own, Hercol Stanapeth? Where has your higher purpose led? You could have been Ott's successor - the brain behind the Ametrine Throne. You could have been the most powerful man in your Empire. But instead you chose fantasy - a mist of promises and hopes. And so did the rest of you. Where is Ramachni ? Where is your father, girl? A safer place than the Chathrand Chathrand, that is where! And the crawlies! For months you denied their true nature. You couldn't admit that they were simply beasts, born rabid, ready to kill. You wanted them to be your tiny brothers. You wished to befriend them, or--' He looked at Hercol with disgust. '--to train them to perform . . . other services.'

Hercol moved before anyone could stop him. He vaulted over the table and flew at the sorcerer, his black sword raised to strike. Arunis took a step back, lifting his mace, and shouted a word in a strange, harsh language. There was a flash of white light, and Pazel felt himself hurled backwards, as by the slap of some giant's invisible fist. Thasha and Fulbreech were thrown as well. But Hercol did not falter; he only slowed his step, as though fighting upwind in a gale. Ildraquin glowed faintly in his hand, and he shouted a challenge in his native tongue.

Six feet from Arunis he slashed suddenly at the air. Now it was Arunis who felt an unseen blow. He stumbled backwards into the pa.s.sage, amazed and furious. Once more he cried out in the harsh language. There was a second flash. Again Hercol swung at nothing; again the mage fell back. As the swordsman came at him a third time, Arunis hurled the mace with all his strength, and ran.

Hercol might have dodged the mace - but not without endangering those behind him. He caught it full on his shield, which cracked in two. With a snarl of pain he cast the two pieces to the ground. Then he groped for a wall. He was badly shaken.

'After him!' he gasped. 'He is about to commit some atrocity, I felt it as we fought! Do not let him get away!'

'You're hurt!' cried Thasha.

Hercol shook his head. 'Leave me with Fulbreech! Stop the sorcerer, girl.' With sudden decision he stood and thrust Ildraquin into her hand. 'Go!' he bellowed, pushing her out.

Thasha ran, and Pazel with her. They could hear the sorcerer's feet pounding across the deck. They entered the main compartment, and there he was, fifty yards ahead, running for the Silver Stair.

He was exhausted, they were gaining on him swiftly. As he reached the stair he looked back and saw Ildraquin in Thasha's hand, and fear shone in his eyes.

Pazel and Thasha gained the stair and hurled themselves down. Pazel could feel the grebel starting to work on his mind: that bad-dream feeling, the way dark and wriggling shapes cl.u.s.tered at the edge of his sight, only to vanish when he looked at them directly. He would have to warn Thasha. You're not mad, it's the drink, it's the snuff, it's every blary thing but you. You're not mad, it's the drink, it's the snuff, it's every blary thing but you.

The berth deck pa.s.sed in a whirl; then they heard Arunis exit onto the orlop. 'I know where he's going!' said Thasha. 'To the Nilstone! To the Nilstone and the s.h.a.ggat Ness!'

They reached the foot of the stair - and backed away in horror, not daring to breathe.

A swarm of giant rats was crossing the orlop, port to starboard, flowing around the foot of the Silver Stair. They were eerily quiet: no more screeching, though soft cries of "Kill!" still boiled from a few b.l.o.o.d.y mouths. Their stench was alarming: not only the rat-reek the youths had suffered for hours, but a new, oily, heady smell that made them cover their mouths, lest they cough.

As they flowed by within feet of the two humans, the rats suddenly raised their twisted, nasal voices and began to sing: Fearless the child of Rin proclaims: 'Death is the promise that breaks my chains.'

Cold is the journey, but bright the glade Where believers rest in the Milk Tree's shade Faith on fire, blood on the sea, Rin's fair Angel, set me free.

Eighty or ninety of the monsters pa.s.sed, staring straight ahead, as Pazel and Thasha watched without moving a muscle. When the last had scurried by the youths leaned back against the wall, gasping with relief.

'Arunis must have been barely barely ahead of them,' whispered Pazel. ahead of them,' whispered Pazel.

'That chant,' said Thasha, 'it's a hymn. The same one we used to sing at the Lorg, except for that bit about blood. And Pazel - did you see an ixchel ixchel walking with them?' walking with them?'

Pazel started. 'No, I didn't. Listen, Thasha, don't trust your eyes. That grebel--'

'I know,' she said. 'It started back in sickbay. I saw my father standing behind Fulbreech, terribly angry, reaching for his neck. And then--'

She was overtaken by a yawn. Aya Rin Aya Rin, thought Pazel, she's not going to last she's not going to last. Thasha looked at him, frightened, furious, tightening her grip on Ildraquin. 'Let's go,' she said.

They stepped onto the orlop. They could hear the rats scurrying off to starboard, and a voice - Master Mugstur's voice - berating them about their souls. Pazel was glad to find the compartment door torn asunder: it let them pa.s.s through without a sound.

They had stepped into a small chamber, a granary for the ship's livestock. The grain bins had been smashed and plundered. By the far doorway stood a pool of blood.

'The next room's the manger, where Rose put the s.h.a.ggat,' said Thasha. 'Stay behind me, Pazel, and for Rin's sake don't try anything brave.'

At another time he might have made some retort. Now he only nodded. The grebel had turned the pool of blood into a black and steaming pit; he winced as Thasha walked through it, dispelling the illusion.

He followed her into the manger. Dead ahead they could see the stone form of the s.h.a.ggat, chained tight to the stanchion. Clenched in his fist was the Nilstone, darkness made visible, nothingness given form. Bodies lay around the mad Mzithrini king: Turach bodies, and rats. Square bales of hay lay in blood-darkened mounds. But there was no sign of Arunis.

Thasha smacked herself furiously on the head. 'Wrong again! This wasn't where he was going at all!'

'But it is where you are going to die, giants,' said a voice behind them.

They whirled: alone in the doorway, bare feet in the pool of blood, stood Steldak. He had never looked more vicious or depraved. His gaunt lips were stretched wide and grinning, and his pale eyes shone with glee. Before Pazel or Thasha could move, he turned and shouted: 'Come, Mugstur ! I told you it was not Arunis! It is but two humans - the last, maybe, to have escaped our vengeance.'

A great screech went up behind him, and rats began to pour through the doorway. With a decisiveness that saved both their lives, Thasha grabbed Pazel by the arm and pulled him to the back of the chamber. They clawed their way up a stack of hay bales, then turned and raised their weapons. 'Strike first!' Thasha whispered to him. 'Every G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned time!'

The rats were on them in seconds. Pazel fought even more desperately than he had on the mainmast, driving Isiq's sword into one set of snapping jaws after another, struggling for balance on the shifting bales. As scores of rats converged on the youths, Mugstur himself waddled into the chamber. He was astonishingly swollen and ugly. His transformation in the liquor vault seemed to have closed the wound Hercol had given him, leaving only a purple scar on his bone-white chest. But something had changed: Mugstur, and indeed all the rats, had become slick and slimy, as if coated with some viscous substance. Hallucination Hallucination, thought Pazel, as a rat prepared to spring.

He killed that one, and the next, by stabbing downwards with both hands on the sword hilt. There were four scrambling to take their place, however, and eight or ten attacking Thasha. And the creatures were still shoving through the door.

He had stabbed his fifth rat when Steldak let out a piercing cry. At almost the same time a voice shouted, 'Hold! Hold, beasts, or your master dies!'

Mugstur snarled, and his servants froze where they stood. Clinging to Mugstur's shoulder was Taliktrum. The ixchel twisted the rat's loose flesh with one hand, while the other reached around the hairless neck, to the base of his jaw. There he held a long knife, point upwards. One sharp thrust would bury it to the hilt in Mugstur's brain.

Four other ixchel - Dawn Soldiers, all - were racing up Mugstur's hairy sides to stand with their leader, weapons drawn. On the floorboards, Steldak lay with an arrow in his chest.

'Surrender, vermin,' said Taliktrum.

Master Mugstur reared suddenly on his hind legs. He had been thrice an ixchel's size before his transformation; he was thirty times it now. But the five ixchel held fast, and Taliktrum remained poised for the kill.

Mugstur flexed his claws, one by one, a weirdly human gesture. Then he laughed, deep in his throat.

'Talag's son,' he said. 'You should have brought that peppermint oil. Now you see what comes of defying a servant of the Most High. Tell us, crawly: when did you fall in love with giants?'

'I did not come for them them,' snapped Taliktrum. 'If they had been killed months ago my clan would still be safely hidden from the giants. It is you you I am here for.' I am here for.'

'Yes,' said Mugstur, 'for me. But not in the way you imagine. You have come because Rin willed it, and his Angel's power has brought it to pa.s.s. You are here because you are part of my destiny.'

'Mad creature!' said Taliktrum. 'Aren't you ashamed to peddle that pap - that watery stew of giant beliefs? Order your rats back to their warren, or my knife will decide your destiny once and for all!'

'Bring him in, my children,' said Mugstur calmly.

Noises from the granary: then a new clutch of rats entered the chamber. Two of the creatures, walking on their hind legs, carried a wooden staff between them. An ixchel man was bound to that staff, head to toe. He was gagged, and nearly as wasted and filthy as Steldak had been when Pazel first saw him in Rose's cage. All the same his look was regal. His angular face and haughty eyes resembled Diadrelu's, and Taliktrum's own. His grey beard was a wild tangle.

Taliktrum gasped. 'Father !'

'It's Talag!' whispered Thasha. 'Sniraga didn't kill him! Oggosk lied to you, Pazel!'

'Your father has been our guest since Uturphe,' said Mugstur, 'The witch gave him to Steldak, in exchange for information. And Steldak wisely brought him to me.'

'Liar !' spat Taliktrum. 'No ixchel, not even mad Steldak, could betray one of his own in this way!'

'Steldak did not wish to,' Mugstur admitted. 'He was tempted by the worship of a false prophet: you, Taliktrum. But I had hope for him always. He was a visionary like me. Weaker, of course, but as his fear left him his visions grew clearer. They gave him the strength to kill Talag's sister, when the time was right. Above all he was committed to the death of the arch-heretic Rose. It is a pity you murdered him before he could stand in triumph on Rose's corpse. But my children will not weep for him. True servants of Rin's Angel fear no death.'

'Fear no death!' howled all the rats together, as though the words were a slogan.

'Notice the ropes at Talag's wrists and ankles,' said Mugstur. 'Harm me, little lord, and my children will tear him limb from limb before your eyes.'

Pazel put a warning hand on Thasha's arm. This was going to get ugly.

'It is not I who will surrender, it is you!' roared the white rat suddenly. 'Stand aside and let us finish our kill! We are here because Steldak heard the voice of the Angel. And the last humans standing, a dark boy and a fierce pale girl, were here awaiting us - a fitting sacrifice, at the end of ends. The other humans fell before we reached them, struck down by the Angel's wrath--'

'By us us, you fool!' said Taliktrum.

But Mugstur was no longer listening. 'Our wait is over, children! The sky has turned to blood, and a great mouth has opened in the sea! Everything is clear at last! It is the promised hour! The Angel comes!'

'The Angel! The Angel!' shrieked the rats, twitching with ecstasy.

Talag clung helplessly to Mugstur's neck. His eyes swept about the room, as if searching for an exit he might have overlooked. On the wooden staff, his father desperately shook his head. Taliktrum caught his eye, and a look of shame swept over him.

'I can't obey, Father,' he said. 'I can't let you die. Withdraw, soldiers! Your next commands will come from Lord Talag. Release him, Mugstur, and take me instead.'

'No!' shouted Thasha suddenly. 'Do not move, any of you! I forbid it!'

Rats and ixchel alike looked up in shock. Pazel gaped as well: her voice was astonishingly changed. This was Thasha speaking, and at the same time it was not: just as a fiddle becomes something utterly new when pa.s.sed from a novice to a master.

There was a strange, bright light in her eye. She lowered Ildraquin until it pointed at Mugstur's heart. 'You read the signs correctly,' she said, confident and commanding. 'All but the last one, that is. Your wait is is over. I have come.' over. I have come.'

Such a cacophany of squeals and howls and perplexed roars followed that not even Mugstur could make himself heard. Some of the rats had dropped on their bellies, cowering. Pazel was frightened half to death. What was happening to her? Where could she take this bluff?

'Back!' Thasha shouted with a sweep of Hercol's sword. The rats who had been attacking her and Pazel leaped away. Then in one bound Thasha jumped to the floor, landing just beside the s.h.a.ggat Ness.

Mugstur dropped to all fours and backed away. His eyes shone with doubt and wonder. 'You . . . you you are the Angel? The Blessed One, the spirit who woke me, when I was a common rat?' are the Angel? The Blessed One, the spirit who woke me, when I was a common rat?'

By way of an answer, Thasha spread her arms wide, and in that strange, powerful voice, began to sing: I come as a shadow o'er the sea Swift and certain, my decree: None who would with Rin abide May from his chosen servant hide.

Neither from his justice cower: For in that final earthly hour, Earth and ocean are as gla.s.s; Through them my burning gaze shall pa.s.s And scour all beasts from haunt or lair, Their souls to free upon the air.

It was a liturgy of the Rinfaith - Pazel had heard bits of it before, chanted by devout sailors or travelling monks. But in Thasha's voice the words were frightful. Mugstur crouched low, tucking his tail and holding his head with his paws. Taliktrum and his warriors still clung to him, too shocked to do anything but watch.

'Angel,' whimpered Mugstur. 'How can I know you? How can I be sure?'

'If you do not know me, then you were never my true servant,' said Thasha.

'That girl . . . she was always always aboard!' squeaked one of the rats. 'She's Thasha Isiq, the Treaty Bride!' aboard!' squeaked one of the rats. 'She's Thasha Isiq, the Treaty Bride!'

Thasha looked at the deformed rats. She was in a trance, Pazel thought. Then - before he could do more than scream a despairing No! No! - she reached out and touched the Nilstone, between the dead stone fingers of the s.h.a.ggat Ness. - she reached out and touched the Nilstone, between the dead stone fingers of the s.h.a.ggat Ness.

Pazel thought he was seeing her die. Something like that withering flame that had consumed the s.h.a.ggat's hand raced from the Nilstone down Thasha's arm. But it did not kill her. It swept over her body like a cold flame. All colour went out of the room, but Thasha's skin took on an unearthly glow. The black radiance of the Nilstone flowed through her fingers, brighter and brighter.

'Do you believe?' Thasha demanded.

'We believe, great Angel,' said Mugstur, squirming and grovelling at her feet.

'We believe you! We believe!' squealed the rats.

Thasha frowned. 'I do not trust in words. We shall see if you stand ready to prove your faith in deeds.'

With that she wrenched her hand away from the Nilstone. She cringed, cradling the hand, as a peal of thunder rolled through the ship. Pazel slid from the hay bales and caught her before she could fall. Then the room was still.