to know that forever. But I'm not making sense. I'll be quiet. Striglyffn-chik. Sorry.'
This time the silence was longer. The others had winced at the screeching noise: sea-murth syllables torn from a human throat. Marila and Mintu gaped like fish. 'He's got the hiccups,' whispered the small boy.
'Pazel,' said Thasha slowly, 'what will you have to know forever?'
'That word,' he said. 'It's the only word they have for 'human.' But it means 'the beasts who will kill us all.' That's how they see us. I wish I didn't know.'
When no one resumed the tale, Pazel took a deep breath. 'What I do want to know is how you beat so many Volpeks. You were outnumbered, what? Three to one?'
'Closer to four,' said Dr. Chadfallow. 'We owe our success to Tholjassan tactics.'
'And unnaturally good luck,' Hercуl added. 'The mist that rolled off the Fens allowed us to move unseen, and within it sounds were deadened, too. First it blanketed Arunis' shore compound, and we fell on the Volpeks there and slew them almost in silence. Then the mist moved out to sea like a great wall, and we followed. Was it the work of Coast spirits, or the murths you befriended, Pazel? I do not know. But within that uncanny fog we stole aboard the cargo ship, and though some of our people fell we took her, too, and still Arunis suspected nothing.'
'I saw your handiwork,' said Pazel grimly, recalling the dead Volpek he had feared was Neeps.
'Afterward we launched her boats and sailed west into the main current, where we could fall upon the Hemeddrin from behind. It was vital to take her next. Her guns could have blown the sea barge to matchsticks.'
'We noticed,' said Neeps.
'That was the freebooters' doing,' said Hercуl. 'A bit too eager to kill Volpeks, as it happened. We Tholjassans never planned to fire a shot. Yet there was a danger that the Volpeks would harm their captives if they learned that we had taken their fighting ship. What if they sank the sphere with captives still inside her? That is why I sent Thasha out with the last cage full of divers. And that is why four of us slipped from our boats as we passed the sea barge, and trod water in the mists and kelp, awaiting her signal that you were all safely out of the sphere.'
'Only I couldn't signal,' said Thasha, 'because you were still missing.'
'And then the freebooters fired the cannons?'
'At the sea barge,' said Hercуl, with a nod.
'On top of us, in other words,' said Marila.
'You were very lucky, Pazel,' said Neeps. 'Mintu here saw you just as you were starting to sink. You were out cold.'
'I owe you one, mate,' said Pazel. Mintu smiled and looked at his toes.
Hercуl smiled at the brother and sister. 'Our countrymen will see you all safely home to your villages, once you have rested a bit in Ormael. Fasundri, fearless ones: that is how you shall be known.'
He touched his closed fist to his forehead, the very gesture Thasha had seen him make on the bridge in Gallows Park in Ether-horde, and the Tholjassan boy and girl did the same. Pazel looked at Marila, and saw that Neeps was doing the same. They would miss her, strange cold fish that she was.
'And that is nearly the end of the story,' said Chadfallow. 'The Tholjassans took the ship, and paid the freebooters a tidy sum for their trouble. All the artifacts stolen from the Lythra they wisely returned to the sea. Many Volpeks died, along with some who fought them. But no divers perished, except the two boys killed by the sea-murths. I cannot say whether Arunis died, but at least his plans have been thwarted.'
'And the Red Wolf?' said Pazel. 'What became of it?'
Chadfallow and Hercуl exchanged a look. The doctor closed the wardroom door.
'It is here,' he said, 'in the hold. Do not speak of it to anyone. When Chathrand sails back to Etherhorde I shall gather the best minds in the Empire: we shall try to learn why Arunis wanted it so badly.'
'You should start with Ramachni,' said Thasha, sullen, as if this were a point made before. Chadfallow did not even look at her.
'My great fear, Pazel, was that Arunis sought the Nilstone, a cursed thing of horrible power. It was in the keeping of the Mzithrin Kings, and vanished during the last war. The Shaggat Ness craved it to the point of madness, and one rumor placed it in his hands at the moment the Lythra sank. No doubt Arunis also dreams of possessing the Nilstone-and if it were here, I cannot imagine him spending his time on anything else. Still, I sense a powerful spell on this Wolf: perhaps it too is a weapon of some kind.'
'Do you think he wanted it for the Shaggat Ness?' asked Pazel.
The doctor turned him a sharp look. 'What do you mean, for him?'
Before Pazel could answer, a cry went up on the topdeck: 'Port stations! Ormael City! Clew up, boys! Furl those Volpek rags!'
Everyone jumped to their feet.
'We can discuss this later,' said Hercуl. 'Now we must act. Thasha, you know your part?'
A gleam appeared in Thasha's eye. 'Know it? I can't wait for it.'
'Very good,' said Hercуl. 'Then listen well, Pazel Pathkendle, for we shall need your help as well. We have dealt with one conspirator, but two more await us.'
The Imperial Governor of His Supremacy's Territories of Ormael and the Trothe of Chereste was having a bad evening. The sword-fish was off. His cook had the measles. He hated this wing of Ormael Palace (the evening sun through the famous round, red window behind him slowly cooked the back of his neck), but where else could he entertain? The formal dining hall was still roofless and derelict, five years after the Rescue. The repair funds-like most of those promised for the city-had mysteriously evaporated. In truth such a theft of Imperial gold did not bother him half as much as not being invited to participate.
His subjects loathed him, an Etherhorder sent to rule Ormael in the name of a violent conqueror. And for the first time since his reign began five years ago: cannon fire along the Coast! Were they pirates, freebooters, Mzithrini? He hardly dared imagine.
It was the third straight dinner with his Chathrand guests, and they had long since run out of pleasantries. Uskins and Fiffengurt, two officers brought along tonight to make conversation, did nothing but glower at each other across the table. Each time Ambassador Isiq looked at him, the governor heard a silent accusation. Why are you eating dinner? Why did you sneeze? Why aren't you out there looking for her?
For of course nothing mattered beside the grand catastrophe hanging over him. The Isiq daughter, gone. Six hundred vessels descending on Simja for a wedding that could not occur. Day by day they were drifting toward an embarrassment that would sting for centuries. And he would be at its epicenter: the fool in Ormael who lost the Treaty Bride.
'This wine is splendid, Governor,' said Syrarys.
Bless her, thought the governor. She does try to help.
'Jasbrea Vineyards,' mumbled Captain Rose, frowning at his fish. 'On Fulne.'
'Right you are, Captain!' said the governor. 'You're a connoisseur.'
'I'm a drinker.'
First Mate Uskins laughed: a sound like a sheep poked with a dagger. The governor's wife tut-tutted and made the sign of the Tree.
''Drink is bottled woe, I shall abandon it,'' she said. 'The twenty-first Rule of Rin. Don't you find, Captain, that…'
Across the table, Lady Oggosk raised her milky eyes and studied the governor's wife coldly. The woman let her voice trail away.
A servant entered. By his look of nausea it was clear he bore bad news. Keep it to yourself, the governor thought. But he let the man whisper in his ear.
In fact the news was anything but bad. The governor jumped to his feet.
'She is found!'
'Found?' cried Eberzam Isiq. 'Thasha, found? Where is she?'
'I'm right here, Prahba.'
And there she was at the door! Unharmed, even tranquil. She did not run to her father but merely walked, slowly and calmly, and put a hand on his.
'My child!' he said, choking on emotion or swordfish. 'Where did you-'
'Wicked girl!' shrieked Syrarys, embracing her. 'I've worried myself sick! I haven't slept, do you know
