friends!'
There it was, once more-that hint of fear in his voice. Yet Ramachni, claws tight on Hercуl's shoulder, bowed his head and said nothing.
'I knew it!' said Arunis. 'There's no power left in him! Stay and watch my triumph, wizard: your helplessness will make it all the sweeter. You boys!'
He pointed suddenly at Neeps and Pazel, who froze like startled deer. He's got us, Pazel thought. Oh Rin! Which Master-Word?
But Arunis showed no sign of recognizing his former captives. 'Draw a circle on the deck,' he commanded. 'Only I, the Shaggat and those I name may enter it during the ceremony. Sergeant Drellarek, your men will kill all others on the spot.'
At noon precisely 'the ceremony' began.
The first-class passengers, still locked behind the Money Gate, were the first to hear the great slouching, stomping footfalls. They drew back in horror: the augrongs, Refeg and Rer, were lumbering by, turning their fist- sized yellow eyes on the speechless humans in their finery. They had only budged from their den in the forward hold to help occasionally with anchor-lifting. Now they were squeezing up the main ladderway to the topdeck, where Arunis beckoned impatiently. When they stood at last in the sun they shuffled behind him, docile as hounds.
Below, a woman screamed. While their eyes had been on the augrongs another figure had lumbered down the passage, escorted by a dozen marines. The Shaggat Ness moved like some slow, thick-bodied carnivore. His scarred face twitched like a victim of palsy, and his clouded red eyes looked at them with such hate that even those who had not quailed at the augrongs fell back in terror. Pacu Lapadolma made the sign of the Tree. Walking behind him, the Shaggat's yellow-robed sons saw her gesture and began to mutter of executions.
By Arunis' decree, the entire crew was gathered on deck. Officers and tarboys, sailors and Turach warriors stood side by side, helpless. When the Shaggat stepped out into the light they stumbled backward, like a mob of children who had woken a bear.
Arunis knelt and touched his forehead to the deck. 'Master,' he said. 'After forty years among knaves and enemies we meet triumphant.'
'Where is it?' said the Shaggat.
Arunis gestured with one hand. On the deck before the mainmast was an ash circle twenty feet across. At its center sat the forge-a mighty oven used to mend breastplates and anchors and other huge things of iron. Heaps of coal surrounded it. Six men worked the bellows that pumped air through its heart of fire. Before its open mouth the heat was so intense no one could stand it for more than a second or two.
The Shaggat stamped his foot. 'There it is! Mine! Mine!'
Inside the forge, as if wading in the red-hot coals, stood the Red Wolf. A more fiendish-looking animal could scarcely be imagined. Its ruby eyes seemed fire themselves. The barnacles on its chest were exploding with heat; the lichen was in flames. It stood in a great steel crucible in the very hottest part of the fire. Already the Wolf's legs had begun to glow.
'The hour is come,' said Arunis to the Shaggat. 'Once you take up that which I promised you half a century ago, no horde or legion will be able to resist. And I shall walk behind you, Master of All Men-helping, teaching, guiding your hand.'
Arunis cast his gaze over the crowd. 'Do you see it at last, you conspirators? Ott's secret weapon will be more powerful than even he dared dream! We will not merely hurt the Mzithrini, we will crush them. And then we will crush Arqual. League by league we will burn both empires off the map.'
'You'll need more than a Sizzy-made Wolf,' said Oggosk with contempt. 'A relic of the Dawn War, that's what you'll need. Find the Nilstone for your puppet-king, Arunis, if you want to rule the world.'
'Puppet?' cried the Shaggat's sons. 'Hang her! Hang her!'
'Soon I shall have no need of hangmen,' said the Shaggat Ness.
The orange glow had spread to the Wolf's stomach. Its lower legs began to soften and bend.
Arunis turned to Lady Oggosk. 'You are right, Duchess. Only one weapon will do for the next Lord of Alifros. Watch now and despair.'
Pazel blinked the sweat from his eyes. The Shaggat was only an arm's length away. If he touched him and spoke the Stone-Word it would all be over-and Arunis would kill Thasha in a heartbeat.
All around them, men were murmuring prayers. 'Save us, stop him, let me live to see my wife.' Pazel looked at Ramachni. Must I do it? he thought. Must I let him kill her to stop the war? Ramachni's face told him nothing.
Then Thasha caught his eye-the same direct, dazzling look she had given him from the carriage in Etherhorde so many weeks before, but sorrowful now instead of glad. It was a look of understanding, an acceptance beyond all fear.
She was giving him permission.
Pazel looked down quickly. Let there be some other way. Any other way.
Coal flew spade after spade into the forge, to the ceaseless huffing of the bellows. The Wolf now glowed from head to tail. If Pazel spoke the Fire-Word he might make the flame go out, and delay whatever evil thing Arunis was up to. But the mage would simply light another fire, and the Word would be gone. And if what Arunis said was true it would mean Thasha's death to use the Stone-Word against him. The cursed necklace would strangle her the instant Arunis died.
Panic seized him. He was alone-surrounded by every friend he had in the world, and still utterly alone. It was up to Pazel to stop this horror, and he had no idea what to do.
But what was this? Ormali! Someone was speaking Ormali-and although it was chanted like a prayer, the words were for him.
'Look at me! At me, my Chereste heart!'
It was Druffle. There he stood at the back of the crowd: starved, bruised and shaky. But when he looked at Pazel, the freebooter's eyes lit up with rascally mischief. Druffle's gaze slid upward-and carefully, one eye still on Arunis, Pazel looked as well.
For a moment he saw nothing but the familiar jungle of ropes and spars. Then he saw him: Taliktrum. He was hidden in the mouth of a block-pulley, ten feet overhead.
'Look away from me!' he shouted.
He used the normal voice of ixchel, the voice Pazel alone could hear. Pazel obeyed at once.
'Can you stop him?' Taliktrum went on. 'Answer in Nileskchet.'
'I could if I could touch him,' Pazel said aloud. 'But I dare not.'
'No,' he agreed. 'You dare not. But stay close to him, boy. We are not beaten yet.'
'He'll murder Thasha!' Pazel cried. 'And they'll kill me if I step inside that circle. How do you expect me to stay close?'
But Taliktrum made no answer, and when Pazel risked another glance at the mainsail, he was gone.
The nearest sailors were looking at him with fear and rage: the bad-luck tarboy, speaking in witch-tongues again. But Druffle sidled up to him and clasped his arm.
'He saved me,' he said wonderingly, as if he still could not believe it. 'I had a Tholjassan arrowhead six inches deep in my back. He put his arm in the wound and tugged it out. A crawly. A crawly saved my life.'
A sigh came from the crowd: the Wolf's legs had given way and its body now lay in a pool of molten iron, half filling the crucible.
'Taliktrum,' Pazel whispered. 'You brought him back.'
Druffle nodded. 'And his sister, under my clothes.'
'Diadrelu!'
'Aye, Her Ladyship. After Arunis pushed me out of that little boat, they held my head above water until your friend arrived. They're the finest folk I ever met.'
'Where is she?'
But Druffle made no answer. Thasha and Neeps drew near. Thasha's eyes were moist. She looked as though she was taking leave of everything.
'Pazel,' said Neeps, 'Arunis is destroying the Wolf!'
'Yes,' said Pazel, still watching Druffle's face.
'What for? He nearly got us killed looking for the thing!'
