What became of Pazel is easily told: he had been marched to the Harbor Master's office and formally struck from the Imperial Boys' Registry. The process took about three minutes, and with that his career at sea was over. No one cared; they did not even bother to frown at him. Tarboys were thrown off ships all the time.
'Sorry about them bruises, mate,' said the guards from the Chathrand, hustling away into the rain. 'Just doing our job.'
'Don't mention it,' said Pazel.
He lingered in the warmth of the Harbor Office, gazing out the window at Uturphe. It was the wettest city on the Nelu Peren, sailors said. Rain fell all year, except in the dead of winter when it turned to driving sleet. There were canals and open storm drains gushing forever into the sea, and hundreds of little footbridges with loose stones and no railings. The countryside was bleak, a place of wildcats and sulphur dogs, so Uturphe grew its food in rainwater tanks: lakeweed, mud radishes, snails. Would his dinner tonight be snails?
He sighed, and stepped out into the rain. But the door had not yet closed behind him when he saw an unwelcome face: Mr. Swellows was waiting for him beneath the eaves. The bosun's breath, as always, stank of liquor.
'There you are, Pathkendle!' he said. 'Time to start a new life, eh?'
'Where's Mr. Fiffengurt?' asked Pazel, ignoring the bosun's smile. He had no idea why Swellows was there, but he doubted the reason could be good.
Swellows jerked a thumb down the avenue. 'Still at the hospital, with poor Mr. Hercуl and Commander Nagan.'
'I should catch up with them,' said Pazel. 'Well, goodbye, Mr. Swellows.'
'Half a moment!' Swellows placed a moist hand on his shoulder. 'Listen: I know I ain't treated you too candy-sweet. But I meant no harm. Started off as a tarboy myself, you see.'
'Oh,' said Pazel, leaning away from the bosun's hand.
'You'll need some money to keep afloat, till you find work.'
'My mates took up a collection,' said Pazel. 'They gave me eight gold.'
'Eight!' boomed Swellows, and for a moment he seemed almost outraged. Then, lowering his voice, he said, 'Why not-even for an Ormali? Well, here's a bit more.'
He took out his purse and counted out eight gold cockles, hesitated a moment, then dropped them into Pazel's hand. Pazel just stared at the coins. Eight gold was a considerable sum-enough for Pazel to live comfortably for a week.
'Why, sir?' he said at last.
The bosun looked at him with no trace of a smile. At last he said, 'When I was your age, somebody did for me like I'm doin' for you now. Swore I'd never forget.'
He held out his hand. Still uneasy, Pazel shook it.
'Don't waste money,' Swellows said. 'Respect it. Guard it!'
'But I don't even know where I'm going to sleep,' Pazel admitted.
'Ah, that's hard,' said Swellows. 'Uturphe's a city of thieves. The only honest place is the inn on Blackwell Street. That's the spot for you.'
'Blackwell Street,' Pazel repeated.
'Tell 'em I sent ye. Now I must get back to the ship. Remember me, will you, Pathkendle?'
'I certainly will, sir. Thank you, sir.'
Swellows stalked off drunkenly into the rain, head high, as if proud of his good deed. Pazel shook his head in wonder.
But there was no time to lose now. He ran up the street Swellows had indicated. He very much wanted to catch Fiffengurt at the hospital: away from the ship, he might get a chance to tell the quartermaster about the war conspiracy-if he could somehow do so without mentioning Ramachni or the ixchel.
He crossed bridges, leaped over drains. He'd find a way. Swellows' gift had raised his spirits: if kindness could come from him it could come from anywhere. And with sixteen gold he could buy a third-class passage out of Uturphe. Maybe even back to Ormael! After all, he was closer now than ever before.
But Hercуl was not at the hospital.
The nurse at the entrance told Pazel briskly that no Mr. Hercуl of Tholjassa had been admitted. Indeed, no one from the Chathrand had visited the hospital at all.
'Is there another hospital?'
She shook her head. 'Not in Uturphe.'
'There's some mistake,' said Pazel. 'Mr. Fiffengurt and Commander Nagan were bringing him here-an old fellow with one funny eye, and a short man with scars.'
'Nothing of the kind,' said the nurse.
'But I came ashore with them!'
The nurse looked at him coldly, as she might at a sack of flour. 'These things happen. But you're in luck, young man. The morgue is just across the street.'
Pazel had never visited a morgue, and ten minutes inside Uturphe's persuaded him never to do so again. The very bricks stank of death. Men on hands and knees, scrubbing viciously at the floor, made him wonder just what kind of stains they were trying to remove. But the mortician was delighted to have a visitor. Oh yes! he said. The poor fellow from the Chathrand. Was Pazel here to mourn?
'Then he's dead!' cried Pazel, grief-struck.
The man blinked at him. 'It's how they come, you see. Dead. I meet with few exceptions.'
He led Pazel across the spotless hall and down a long spiral stair. The air grew cold. At the bottom of the steps the man unlocked a door and revealed a room that perhaps you will not wish to imagine in detail. Suffice it to say that the morgue had been built for a smaller city in a more peaceful time, and that the room's thirty or forty occupants might well have complained of overcrowding, had they been in any condition to do so.
'Turn sideways-that's it,' said the mortician, sidling up to a sheeted form on a dark stone table. 'Here we are. Shall I give you a moment alone with your friend?'
He pulled back the sheet, and Pazel looked into the open eyes of a corpse. The man had dried blood in his hair and an expression of terrible surprise. But he was not Hercуl.
'Something wrong?' asked the mortician. 'You don't know this man?'
Pazel hesitated: in fact the man did look slightly familiar. But-
'This is not… who I expected,' he managed to say. 'You say he came from the Chathrand?'
'Why, yes, early this morning.'
'But he's not in a sailor's uniform.'
'No indeed. I gather he was some kind of special Imperial soldier. Part of an honor guard, they said. Name of Zirfet.' He read the tag on the man's earlobe. 'Zirfet Salubrastin. Delivered by one Commander Nagan, of Etherhorde. Funny chap, that Nagan. After the others left he took a long knife from the belt of the deceased and held it before the lad's face. 'I gave you this in the tower,' he says, 'but we both knew it was a loan, didn't we?' Those were his final words to the lad.'
One of the Isiq family guards-dead! Pazel felt a sudden acute fear for Thasha. 'Can you guess how this man died?' he asked.
'Guess!' said the mortician. 'I can do better than that. Look at his head: grave trauma. Listen to him gurgle!' His fist thumped the corpse's chest. 'That's water in his lungs, not blood. This man was struck from behind, fell into the sea and drowned. A tackle block, swinging loose from the yardarm. Happens constantly. I knew it before Nagan said a word.'
'But I didn't hear about any such accident,' said Pazel.
'Naturally you didn't. It happened just hours ago. Shall I tell you how I know that?'
Pazel politely declined. The mortician looked disappointed.
'Guess!' he repeated. 'I'll quit the day I have to guess about such a simple case. Why, there's nothing else wrong with the man, except a broken wrist. And nobody ever died from that.'
By evening Pazel was near despair. He had spent too long at the morgue, and sprinted toward the docks in a panic, hoping to catch someone, anyone, from the Chathrand willing to bear a message: Thasha and her father had to be told of Hercуl's disappearance. But his wild dash had caught the attention of a city constable, who ran him down and carried him, deaf to all protests, to the door of a windowless stone prison with the words DEBTORS amp;
