frequencies — an ability that had almost cost him his life, for Taliktrum had realised what he was hearing before Pazel himself. It was comforting, if a bit strange, to know that Dri was watching from eight feet overhead. He cleared his throat twice in the darkness. It was another sign they had agreed upon, this one for Thasha and Neeps: it meant All present and accounted for.
'Right, let's begin,' said Thasha nervously. 'I think we've been quiet long enough.'
'That's for damned sure,' growled Fiffengurt.
A match blazed; and Thasha's face appeared, dazzled by the sudden light she held. I miss her, Pazel thought, watching a strand of her hair singe as she tried to light the candle. The wick caught, and she raised her eyes suddenly, freezing him with the directness of her look. He felt as he did when he faced Ramachni: transparent, naked, perfectly understood. An intolerable feeling. He dropped his eyes.
'Remember,' he mumbled, 'if anyone asks, we're just here for a drink.'
The laughter was barely audible. Thasha passed the candle to Neeps, and Marila lit her candle from his. Soon half a dozen were burning around the chamber.
The reserve liquor vault was where the better drink was kept, rather than the briny rum used to mix the sailor's daily grog. It was about ten feet square. Floor to ceiling, it was jammed with casks of white Opalt rum and Hubbox sherry, tins of cider vinegar and cooking wine, vats of brandy, and here and there a case of something truly fine, like spruce gin or the cactus-orange liquor of Pol. Despite the bottled luxuries, the vault smelled putrid: they were only a few feet above the bilge well, that cesspool at the bottom of the ship, into which filth from every deck found its way. Because they were so far aft, the water slopped and churned, with a sound like cattle floundering in a pond. At least they would not easily be overheard.
So far, so good: not one person they'd approached had turned them down. Pazel's choice had been Bolutu. They'd met in the veterinarian's cabin on the orlop deck; when Bolutu had grasped what Pazel was talking about he had jumped from his chair and scribbled As soon as possible! on a page of his notebook. Neeps had recruited Dastu. When the older tarboy had slipped into the vault, Pazel had felt suddenly hopeful, as though only now believing that they had a chance. The other tarboys looked up to Dastu, for his decency as much as his toughness and good sense. He could bring dozens over to their side.
Marila's choice was more troubling: Dollywilliams Druffle. Neeps had urged her to choose the freebooter, reminding her that no one hated Arunis more than the one he'd magically enslaved. Pazel couldn't argue with that; Druffle grew spitting mad whenever talk turned to the sorcerer. He'd also known about the ixchel for months and not breathed a word. So for all his chatter, he could keep a secret. But did that mean they could trust him? Druffle's moods were erratic, and his way of thinking peculiar. It had never crossed his mind, for instance, to tell Pazel that his mother had had an affair with Chadfallow, until the night the doctor had insulted him. And again this morning his breath stank of rum.
Fiffengurt, for his part, had actually brought two men. His own choice was 'Big Skip' Sunderling, the new carpenter's mate. Big Skip was tall and ox-strong, a woodsman before he took to the sea. His eyes were small but very bright, often with amusement, and his hands when at rest seemed merely to be waiting for the next opportunity to wield a saw or chisel. Pazel had rarely seen him without a good-natured smile. But he was not smiling now.
The second man was Hercol's choice: Lieutenant Khalmet. Everyone in the room stole glances at the Turach soldier. Khalmet looked just as strong and twice as dangerous as Big Skip. He could not have been over thirty, but there was a hardness to his face, as if he had seen or done things that had robbed him of all merriment. Pazel wondered if any Turach escaped such a fate.
Khalmet had given only the slightest of hints that he might oppose what was happening on the Great Ship. The first had been his suggestion that Rose free Hercol, the second his warning to Marila ('someone is listening') nine days ago. Then one day he had begun to deliver Hercol's food — without stealing from the dish, like the man he replaced. Finally, yesterday, Hercol had put all their lives in the soldier's hands by telling him of this council meeting.
Once again the risk had paid off — or at least not backfired yet. For here he was, without his Turach shield and helmet, but still wearing his longsword. Pazel felt safer just looking at the man. Then he recalled that over a hundred other Turachs stood ready to cut them down.
He looked again at Thasha, and a welter of feelings — anger, worry, grief — stole over him. They'd stopped shouting at each other days ago, but they had never made up. They talked coldly of the tasks before them, and nothing else. Pazel had returned to the stateroom, but now he slept in the little reading chamber that hung like a glass shelf from the Chathrand's starboard flank. The room was freezing by morning, and he often woke with his face pressed to the cold glass, looking out on the slate-grey emptiness of the Ruling Sea. But Thasha's reproachful looks, and his own fear that she was going to see Greysan each time she left, kept him from the common room. Behind the door of the reading room he succumbed to a new temptation, and pressed his ear to her cabin wall. Often he heard her reading aloud from the Polylex; once, three nights ago, he caught a sob.
Last night, over a meal of rye mush and figs, Thasha had told them that she would be coming alone. Everyone was shocked, and Pazel had asked immediately if she'd misjudged someone's character. Thasha had popped a fig into her mouth and skewered him with a look.
'Maybe,' she said.
Of all strange things, she had brought a suitcase to the council. A bulky cloth-sided case, embroidered by some spinster aunt; Pazel had seen it belching shirts and sweaters onto her floor. Now it sat before her, tightly sealed, and crowding their toes.
'At last,' said Dastu suddenly. 'At last we're starting to fight back.'
Thasha was looking straight at her candle flame. 'I don't know how to start,' she said, 'so I'll start by saying thank you. For being brave enough to come here. For not doing the easy thing, which would be to turn us in. The day Arunis tried to give the Shaggat the Nilstone, some of us found out that we had to fight back. We're kind of stuck — me, Pazel, Neeps and Hercol, and a few others we're still looking for. But the rest of you — well, you could have just chosen to look away, and wait for some chance to escape. Or you could have decided we were crazy, that there was no hope at all. But you're here. And now I know we have a chance.'
She is older, Pazel thought. Where was the awkwardness, the rich-girl confusion that irritated him so? Where had that look of knowing come from, and that confidence? Was it Fulbreech or the Polylex that had turned her into a woman before his eyes?
Pathkendle is staring at Thasha Isiq, said a male ixchel above him.
Pazel jumped, and dropped his candle underfoot. The other two ixchel began to scold the man. Pathkendle can hear us, you silly ass, said Diadrelu.
Pazel scooped up his candle. 'Sorry, Thasha,' he muttered.
'Now look here, mistress,' said Druffle suddenly. 'Just by gathering we've put ourselves in danger, even in this devil's washtub in the dead of night. So I'll be blunt, shall I? This is hopeless, or nearly hopeless. Who are we to think we can take on these bastards? Ten malcontents, against eight hundred enemies. Of which one hundred are blary Imperial commandos.'
'One hundred and nine,' put in Khalmet, 'with the reinforcements from Bramian.'
'Rin's gizzard, it just gets worse!' said Druffle. 'Turachs, Ott's spies, that serpent of a mage. How are we supposed to take 'em all on? We'd have a better chance of stopping an avalanche!'
'If that's your verdict, why'd you come here?' asked Fiffengurt testily.
Druffle looked sidelong at the quartermaster. 'I owe my life to these two,' he said, looking at Pazel and Neeps, 'and I'll give it for them, if the time comes. But that doesn't mean I want to hasten the day.'
'Nobody does,' said Thasha. 'But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We're not about to march on the quarterdeck, Mr Druffle. The point of this council, if you want to call it that, is to come up with a next step. One that doesn't get us killed by morning. Of course Mr Druffle's right about the odds. Whatever we do, we'll need more people to do it.'
'Then let's start with some names,' said Dastu. 'Are there others you trust?'
A moment's silence ensued. 'There have to be,' said Thasha at last, 'but choosing them may be the hardest thing we ever do. For the moment, trust me. There are more than you think.'
She's right, said Diadrelu.
'And the next step is to find more people, Dastu,' said Pazel. 'But when we do, we're going to need to be able to tell them we have some sort of a plan.'
