'Another trinket from the Tarn, I guess,' he said, toeing the yellow fangs.
Thasha turned to look at him. 'My grandfather killed that bear with a hunting knife, on his farm in the Westfirth. Syrarys uncrated it because her feet were cold.'
Pazel pulled back his toe. Thasha gave him a wry smile as she crossed the stateroom.
The money, Pazel thought. Feelings crashed together as he followed her: he was dirty, she was pampered, he was nothing, he was better than this girl.
We had old things too, he thought, trying furiously to remember. But the few objects he could recall from his life in Ormael seemed shabby and humdrum beside this splendor. On a table by the samovar lay a piece of coffee cake no one had bothered to finish. Tarboys had fistfights over less. What am I doing here? he thought.
Thasha opened the door to her own cabin. With monstrous thumps, Jorl and Suzyt rolled off the bed to greet her. She glanced instantly at the clock on her dresser: as before, its hinged, moon-patterned face stood ajar. She tugged Pazel into the room.
'Ramachni,' she said. 'It's me. I've brought Pazel Pathkendle.'
'Have you indeed?'
The voice, high and velvet-soft and utterly inhuman, seemed to emanate from Thasha's pillows. Despite himself Pazel jumped: to his chagrin he saw an amused smile on Thasha's face.
She closed the cabin door. The pillows shifted, and from among them emerged the black mink. For a moment it was almost comical, this tidy creature shaking free of the bedclothes. Then it looked at Pazel and grew still.
Pazel did not move either: the black eyes were wide, and bottomless, and fortunately very kind. It knows me, he thought, and trembled a bit at the oddness of the notion. Then the little creature stretched luxuriously and sprang into Thasha's arms.
She laughed as it rubbed, cat-like, against her chin. 'I've missed you so much!' she said.
'And I have missed those fingernails in my fur. This ship is infested with fleas of a most bloodthirsty order.'
'Where have you been hiding, Ramachni?' asked Thasha. 'Her-cуl and I have worried ourselves sick! We only knew you'd come aboard because Pazel told us.'
'I am sorry to have abandoned you,' said Ramachni. 'I truly had no choice. There is a murderous power loose aboard the Chathrand: I sensed it with my first breath. It probes, and listens, and spies on our thoughts, and it thinks no more of killing than of wiping dust from a tabletop. I was caught off-guard. I could not tell who or what it was, for it keeps its face well hidden. The best I could do was to hide myself from it, so that it would not know that a power to match its own had come aboard-and not threaten those who befriend me. So I waited, just inside the clock, listening as best I could, until it seemed you had all left the cabin. But I was wrong-Mr. Pathkendle remained, and saw me, and I had to place a spell of protection on him to keep that Other from reading his thoughts.'
'You used magic on me?' asked Pazel sharply.
'Trust me-I had no wish to do so,' said Ramachni. 'This is not my world, and when I come here I must use spells the way a nomad uses the water he carries, knowing it must last him across the desert. But fear not: the spell has long since snapped. And our meeting may yet prove lucky for us both.' He flashed his white fangs at Pazel. It was perhaps as close as he could come to grinning.
Thasha sighed, and dropped him on the bed. 'So you've been aboard all this time?'
Ramachni nodded. 'Deep in the hold, out of sight. I had to listen to the ship, and try to gain some understanding of your peril.'
'And this 'Other,'' Thasha went on, 'did you learn who it is?'
'Alas, no. But I did learn what he is. He is a mage-a magic-weaver like myself.'
'But less powerful, of course,' said Thasha.
'Oh no,' said Ramachni. 'He is mightier, for he belongs to this world. I could not, for example, pierce his veil of secrecy-and with secrecy this mage is obsessed. Yes, he is strong indeed, and that troubles me. He could be a disciple of Arunis, the Blood Mage of Gurishal, the foulest sorcerer this world ever spawned. Arunis' greed was infinite. He even plundered other worlds, my own among them, in his search for deeper powers. I fought him there a century ago, in the great Library of Imbrethothe-Under-the-Earth, and cast him from my world. He limped back to Alifros, to the Mzithrin lands, and took refuge in the court of the Shaggat Ness. And the Shaggat was his doom, it seems: Dr. Chadfallow assured me that he died shortly after the Mad King himself.'
'Chadfallow assured me he'd be aboard, taking care of Prahba,' said Thasha. 'I don't trust him. But you think this sorcerer could be Arunis' pet pupil, is that it?'
'Something of the kind,' said Ramachni. 'Mages, like tailors and poets, have styles to their names, and in the work of this sorcerer I detect more than a little of Arunis' influence-and all of his wickedness. We must be very careful.
'The only good news is that there are so many spells and shreds of spells, so many cobwebbed centuries of magic in this ship, that a few charms of my own may pass unnoticed for a time. Oh, he will find them eventually-he will know another mage is aboard, and fighting him-but with luck that will not happen soon.'
'Mr. Uskins is a bad man,' said Pazel firmly. 'And Captain Rose is horrible. Come to think of it, he also hears voices-spirits, he calls them. Could he be the one you mean?'
'Anything is possible,' said Ramachni. 'And Nilus Rose is a born conspirator. But there is no time to speculate. I have asked Hercуl to keep Ambassador Isiq and his Lady away for thirty minutes, and we have already talked for ten.'
Ramachni looked at Pazel again. 'Will you hold my paw a moment?'
Pazel hesitated only long enough to remind himself that he was not facing a wild fanged animal but a great mage, and Thasha's friend. He took the little paw in his hand.
Ramachni closed his glittering eyes. He breathed deeply. 'It's true,' he said. 'You're a Smythнdor.'
'I'm an Ormali,' said Pazel.
'Of course. But not just any Ormali. Your mother is Suthinia Sadralin Pathkendle-a mage herself, and the daughter of mages.'
'You know her name! How?'
'Elementary, boy. She signed her spell, and I have just read the signature-' Ramachni reached up to touch Pazel's lips. '-there. A formidable spell! But dissolved in some rather unsanitary fruit juice, it appears.'
'Please,' said Pazel, repressing a shudder, 'can you switch it off? Like the potion-seller in Sorhn? It almost killed me and my sister.'
Ramachni looked up at him, compassion dawning in his eyes. 'Don't you understand yet, Pazel? No one can switch it off. Your mother did not just toss a spell over you like an old coat. She changed you to the last drop of blood. In a sense, she really did kill you-killed your old self so that a new self could be born. That potion-seller did not cure you. He merely slammed a lid on the boiling kettle of your Gift-a most foolish act. If Dr. Chadfallow had not slipped those antihex-salts in your tea, sooner or later you would have run mad. As I say, lad, you're a Smythнdor, a person changed by magic forever. And I have spent half of forever looking for you.'
There was a pause. Thasha looked from one to the other.
'So,' she said in a constricted voice, 'you've found him. And I suppose all these years you only needed my clock, needed my family and me to help you find this oh-so-special tarboy. Congratulations.'
Ramachni sighed. 'I will not say that you are wrong, Thasha dear.'
Thasha looked as if she had hoped he would do just that. She seemed about to say more, but Ramachni spoke first:
'Mind you, I am also not saying you are right. Let me say instead that mages see but little more than normal folk of that mist-shrouded land called the future. Do you ever know why you make a friend, Thasha? Do you know what good or ill must come of it, in time?'
Thasha glanced shyly from mink to tarboy. Her face was crimson. 'All these weeks I've been dying to talk to you. To ask you something I can ask of no one else.'
Ramachni looked up at her. 'Ask,' he said.
'Will you help me escape this marriage? Please?'
The mink's head drooped. After a moment he said, 'Yes, I will.'
Thasha threw her arms around him in delight. But Ramachni raised a paw.
'I may not succeed. And if I do, the help may be as painful as what it remedies-or worse. But my heart tells me your fate will not be decided by marriage vows.'
