So she was: a witch or seer or sorceress, just as the good people of Ormael had always feared. But not a very good one, it seemed. Neda did not acquire the Gift, and in fact showed no change at all except that her hair turned silver, like an old woman's. When Neda failed to read Jitrili, or to understand spoken Madingae, she gave her mother a look Pazel would remember all his life. Not one of anger, but of simple awareness: she had nearly killed her daughter for nothing.
'It may start yet, when you've grown,' Suthinia said, and Neda shrugged.
Despite his body's weakness, Pazel was on fire. He ate five eggs and nine strips of bacon, then ran to the city. It was annoying how few languages were to be met with in Ormael, until he reached the port. There he heard Kushal merchants denigrating the local wine; old Backlanders who feared the rains would fail; secretive Nunekkam in their domed skiffs, twittering about the crab catch; and a red-eyed lunatic, barefoot and blistered, who screamed about a coming invasion in a language no one understood.
On that first occasion his Gift lasted three days-and ended, as it always would, in a mind-fit.
This was pure horror. Cold talons seized his head, the odor of custard apples filled his mouth and nostrils, and the purr rose to an ugly, hysterical squawking. Pazel shouted for his mother. But what came from his mouth was nonsense, a baby's blather, noise.
His mother spoke nonsense, too, and Neda. 'Gwafamogafwa-Pazel! Magwathalol! Pazelgwenaganenebarlooch!'
He closed his eyes, plugged his ears, but the voices got through. When he looked again, Neda was pointing at him and shrieking at their mother, as if she were the one having fits. Soon his mother responded in kind. The sound was beyond belief
'Stop! Stop!' Pazel wailed. But no one understood. When Neda began hurling onions and saucers he ran to the neighbor's house and hid under the porch.
In three hours the fit ended with a snap. He crept out: the neighbor was singing as she cooked, a normal human voice, and no sound was ever sweeter.
But at home his mother said that Neda had tied her clothes up in a bundle and left. The next week he received a letter-she was with school friends, she was looking for work, she would never forgive their mother.
Neda sent a boy for her things. She never visited, and did not write again. But one day Pazel found a letter in progress on his mother's dresser. Come back for Pazel's sake, Neda, it read. You don't have to love me. The letter sat there for days, unfinished: too many days, as it proved.
The magic always worked the same way: first the Gift that gave him the world, then the seizures that cut him off from everyone. A few days of wonder, a few hours of hell. The Gift was incredibly useful, of course-and he never forgot a language that he gained through it-but the fits scared him half to death. Once indeed they nearly caused his death: on board the Anju, the whalers sealed him in a coal sack until he fainted. He woke locked in the pigsty, and remained there till landfall. The sailors told him he was fortunate: the captain, believing him possessed by devils, had wanted to pitch him over the side.
By chance they were in Sorhn-and Pazel made straight for the famous street where witches, alchemists and Slugdra ghost-doctors plied their trades. After many inquiries they directed him to a potion-maker, who took every penny he had saved toward his citizenship and served him a thick purple oil. It bubbled, and when the bubbles burst he heard small wheezes like dying mice and smelled something putrid. He drank it in a single gulp.
The potion worked. Nearly a year passed without a mind-fit. The fact that he would learn no more languages-magically, anyway-had seemed a small price to pay. But thanks to Chadfallow, the Gift and its horrors were back. Any regrets at his decision to break ties with the doctor vanished when he remembered that smell of custard apples, that ghastly squawking. More bitter for you than me. How could he have done such a thing?
Let the fits come at night, he thought. Not while I'm on duty, please!
Shouts and Whispers
1 Vaqrin 941
9:19 a.m.
In any case (Pazel told himself, climbing the gangway), there was no need to worry for several days. He had a new ship to discover, a new life to create.
Halfway to the topdeck someone spoke his name. Pazel turned to see the small, turbaned boy walking just behind him. The boy grinned, and spoke almost in a whisper.
'Where'd you learn that language, eh? Tell the truth!'
'I don't know it,' said Pazel, unsettled. 'Like I told Fiffengurt-someone translated for me.'
'Rubbish!' said the boy, and held out his hand. 'I have a nose for lies, and that wasn't a very clever one. You're Pazel, you said? My name's Neeps.'
'Neeps?'
The small boy's face turned serious. 'A ridiculous name, of course.'
'No, not at all.'
'It means 'thunder' in Sollochi.'
'Ah,' said Pazel, although he already knew.
'Actually, it's short for Neeparvasi,' said the boy, 'but you can't be a Neeparvasi in the Empire of Arqual. The Emperor's favorite concubine had a son named Neeparvasi who disgraced himself somehow-used the wrong fork at dinner, maybe, or stepped on the Queen Mother's foot. His Supremacy sent him off to the Valley of the Plague, and forbade anyone to mention him, or remind him the boy had ever existed. And so the name's on a forbidden list, and I'm just Neeps Undrabust.'
'Pazel Pathkendle,' said Pazel. 'How did you end up ashore?'
'Dismissed for fighting. What could I do? The blary lout insulted my grandmother.'
Pazel wasn't eager to befriend someone who turned insults into fistfights. But he had to admit he was glad to meet another boy from the margins of the Empire.
'There's a lot of us,' he whispered, looking over the crowd of boys.
Neeps caught his meaning. 'Newly conquered folk? Yes, lots, and that's very strange. Arqualis don't trust anyone with an accent, or skin like yours, or one of these.' He tapped his turban. 'In fact they hate you a little, or a lot, until your country's been part of the Empire for a hundred years-fully digested, as my old captain used to say. Well, Sollochstal's not digested, I can tell you. Not by a long shot.'
His voice was proud but not ill-humored, and Pazel found himself smiling.
'They think I'm just tanned, you know. About half the time.'
'And then you open your mouth.'
Pazel laughed, nodding. Ormali was a singsong language-and despite all his efforts its rolling cadences emerged in every tongue he spoke.
As they neared the top of the gangway the noises of the ship grew louder. Surging ahead of the boys, Mr. Fiffengurt seized a buntline and pulled himself up on the rail, giving an expansive wave.
'Aboard! Aboard! Step lively, now!'
Like goats crossing a stream, the boys leaped onto the deck. Pazel would never forget what he saw in those first moments. A city, he thought. It's a city afloat!
They were boarding amidships. Here the vessel was so wide that the Eniel could have sat athwart her without touching the rails. Fore and aft she seemed a broad wooden avenue, crowded with barrels, boxes, timbers, heaps of sailcloth, spools of cordage and chain. Swarming through these obstacles were hundreds upon hundreds of people-sailors, stevedores, customs officers, tearful sweethearts, efficient wives, a man selling little scraps of sandrat fur ('Nobody drowns with sandrat fur!'), monks leaving their holy thumbprints in ash on the foreheads of believers, two bald men fighting over a chicken, a tattoo artist etching a boar on a burly chest. The tarboys stood frozen, awed. They were the only stationary beings aboard.
A second headcount, and Fiffengurt led them aft, past the mainmast, the longboat, the tonnage hatch yawning like a mineshaft. Clerks and midshipmen shoved by without a glance. High on the yards the sailors looked distant indeed, and Pazel was not surprised to see Mr. Uskins inspecting their work with the aid of a
