'And then of course there were the fumes. Perhaps we hallucinated. Who wouldn't prefer to think so? Especially if believing meant turning away from that old story, ixchel against all humans everywhere, and admitting that we must find some to put our faith in, or die with them all alike?'
'M'lady, do you order me to speak?'
'No!' said Dri quickly. 'Heridom, I order you not to. You must be able to stand before Taliktrum and declare in all truth that you never told me anything. If he intends to spy on me I'd rather he use you than anyone else. I depend on you now more than ever.'
Ludunte gazed at his feet for a moment. Then he raised his head and asked, 'Where did Arunis send that creature, do you know? To attack your friends in the stateroom?'
Dri shook her head. 'His ultimate goal is to recover the Nilstone, but he sent the incubus ashore. Not three miles from here, he said. Whatever he wants is on the island, and in the hands of the one he called that Babqri fool. A Mzithrini, in other words. Well, it is time we left. Go and close the hole.'
'M'lady, I do not have the spyjack crank.'
Dri thought she had misheard. She got to her feet, and there was cold fury in her voice.
'They left you tending a spyjack with no means to close it behind you?'
Ludunte nodded reluctantly.
Dri took a deep breath. 'Listen to me, sophister. You will never again consent to watch a spyjack you cannot close — not if the ghost of Yalidryn the Founder himself should rise and demand it. Go to Night Village and fetch a crank. There is no shortage of them. Report what we have seen to Taliktrum, then come back and close the hole. Those are my express commands.'
'Yes, Mistress.'
Night Village was the mercy deck; the nearly lightless floor just above the hold, where the ixchel dwelt in a fortress of cargo-crates, ten yards from the bow.
'Report all that we have seen to Taliktrum,' Dri continued. 'It may be some time before I return.'
Ludunte looked at her fearfully. 'Where are you going, mistress?'
She hesitated, then smiled and laid a gentle hand on his arm. 'Where the clan must not follow,' she said.
She did not go directly where she had planned, however. There was one other matter to attend to first.
Hercol Stanapeth still slept in his valet's cabin on the berth deck. Diadrelu had no means to enter the stifling little chamber, but as she wriggled between the ceiling and the floor above she heard him move. A rustling in the darkness, then a slight scrape. A pale shaft of light sprang up through a crack she would never otherwise have seen. Hercol was lighting a candle. Dri crawled forward to the crack and looked down.
He was seated cross-legged on the floor, shirtless, back straight and eyes half-closed. A posture of meditation. His arms and chest were muscled like an ixchel's: no weak spots, no inch of flesh allowed to luxuriate in softness. His blackened sword lay before him like a talisman. This was good luck, Dri decided: it was hard to catch Hercol by himself.
He raised his hands in a seated stretch. How serene he was, how purposeful. She had come to tell him of the incubus — only the incubus, keep that clear. But doubts assailed her as she watched his steady breathing. What would they say, her people, if they saw her now? There were scores of men in this compartment. The walls were thin, and the air was still and noiseless. It would be reckless to make contact here.
He twisted his upper body, and she saw the wolf-scar on his ribcage, glistening with sweat. She should have gone to the stateroom, she told herself, to the tarboys and Thasha. What need did she have to approach this man directly?
Dri felt her heart begin to hammer. She rehearsed her words. I must talk with you, stand up, let me in. I will trust you with knowledge that could kill me. Not of the incubus, but ofShe caught herself up short. Mother Sky, what was she thinking? To speak… of that? Could she tell a human about that, and still call herself a member of the clan? She closed her eyes and pressed a clenched fist against her mouth, as though it might speak without her consent. Impossible. Impossible. You are losing your mind.
One level below, in the gloom of the orlop deck, the Shaggat Ness, God-King of Gurishal and Fifth Monarch of the Mzithrin Pentarchy, stood with his stone ankles buried in straw. Dri studied him with equal parts fascination and disgust. His lifeless face wore a look of outrage, and the beginnings of fear. His left hand, held high but shrunken and withered, grasped the deadliest object on earth.
The Nilstone. It was small and round and pitch black. Too black, like the body of the incubus: Dri's eyes seemed to stop working when she tried to focus on its surface.
The large compartment was known as the manger; it was a fodder room for the ship's cattle. Half the straw bales had been removed, the rest stacked against the aftermost wall to within a few feet of the ceiling. Atop these crouched Diadrelu, studying the men below.
Two of the group, dressed in yellow robes, were chained to the aft bulkhead. One sprawled on the floor, asleep; the other paced the length of his chains, scratching and arguing with himself. These were the Shaggat's sons. They looked to be in their twenties, but were in fact more than twice that age. On the prison isle of Licherog the men's chatter had so annoyed Arunis that he had cast sleeping-spells on them both. The spell had never quite worn off: to this day they were given to fits of narcolepsy.
They had aged more slowly in their sleep. But the long captivity, and perhaps the oddness of passing so much of their lives unconscious, had eroded a good deal of their sanity.
The others were all Turach soldiers. Three guarded the room's single door (left open in the vain hope of a breeze), and three more stood in precise formation around the stone king. They were gigantic and terrible men: elite commandos, rated worthy to guard the Emperor himself. They drank fire storax at dawn to shock themselves awake, gulped pills made from the bones of Slevran panthers to increase their strength (though Dri had heard Bolutu begging them to give up the 'vicious habit'), plunged their fists into buckets of gravel and scarlet chilis to deaden them to pain.
But yesterday, facing Arunis and his corpse-warriors, some of the Turachs had hesitated, seemingly afraid, and in those few seconds lives had been lost. Punishment had come this morning. Sergeant Drellarek, their commander, had stood all those who had retreated in a line on the main deck. He then told his lieutenant to recite the seventh of the Ninety Rules of the Rinfaith.
'Rule Seven,' the young man had shouted. 'Fear rots the soul and gives back nothing, but wisdom can save me from all harm. I shall cast off the first for the second, and guard the sanctity of the mind.'
Then Drellarek had drawn his knife and slit the throat of every seventh man in the lineup. Those who escaped bound their comrades' bodies in sailcloth and twine. Monstrous, thought Diadrelu. And very effective. From now on they'll fear nothing but him.
But was there nothing else to be afraid of? Yesterday they had all learned that to touch the Nilstone brought instant death to any with fear in their hearts. What about standing near it, though, for hours on end? The men looked well enough — just itchy and uncomfortable in the heat. For the moment that was all Dri needed to know. She did not think Arunis would soon come for the Nilstone or his king. By his own admission he was weak — and after Drellarek's measures, she had no doubt that these men and their eighty fellow Turachs would fight him to the death.
She tried again to see the Nilstone. How can it be there and not there at the same time? What is that damned thing? Ramachni had said it was 'death given form', and had indeed come to Alifros from the world of the dead. He had also assured them it could never be destroyed. And yet she and her human comrades had sworn to get rid of it somehow, before Arunis found a way to use it against them all.
'I want wine!'
It was the Shaggat's son. He was glaring at his captors, stamping his feet.
'Is that a fact,' muttered a sleepy Turach.
'My father is a god! His hour is come! Surely you don't want to die?'
'He's not a god, you wretch. Why don't you blary sleep?'
Diadrelu crawled back from the edge of the straw bale. Nothing more to be learned here. With a sigh she decided to return to the ixchel compound. She did not relish the abuse and ridicule that would await her there. But she was hungry — and like any member of the clan she had communal duties to perform: cooking, maintenance, care of the sick and wounded. Taliktrum had let her know that he had taken a personal interest in her chores.
'Give that bottle here!' said the Shaggat's son.
