aboard without permission from the clan.
Chadfallow stared at him fixedly. 'What would Ramachni make of this showing off?' he demanded.
'Showing off?' said Pazel. 'Ignus, what are you talking about? Anyway, Ramachni's gone.'
The doctor looked as though he'd been struck in the face. 'Gone, now? He leaves us now?'
'He had to,' said Pazel. 'He was so worn out he could barely walk. Look, if you won't come in-'
'I am no mage,' Chadfallow interrupted, 'but I know more about these arts than you ever shall, boy. I know their dangers, their limits. Above all I know what they do to those who dabble in them untrained.'
'So naturally,' snapped Pazel before he could stop himself, 'you helped Mother experiment on me and Neda.'
Chadfallow was furious. 'Helped? You wretch, I opposed it with all my heart!'
'After providing everything she needed,' said Pazel. 'The books, the strange little jars and potions — the custard apples.'
Chadfallow appeared to bite back a retort, and Pazel nodded, satisfied. It had been a guess, but a safe one. The night before his mother tried her hand at spellcraft, the doctor had come to their house in Ormael with a bundle wrapped in heavy cloth. Long after the children were in bed he had argued bitterly with Pazel's mother, and finally left in a rage. The next morning she had greeted Pazel and Neda with frothing mugs of custard-apple juice.
'I had no idea what use she had in mind for those apples,' said Chadfallow. 'I was thrown out that night, if you care to know. Such apparently is the fate of those who would befriend your family — to stand like fools on the threshold.'
He reached into his vest and withdrew a pale white cylinder. It was a parchment case, made of some fine wood. 'Is Ramachni truly gone?' he asked.
Pazel nodded again. 'I haven't been lying,' he said pointedly.
It was the last straw for Chadfallow. Grimacing, he tore open the case and pulled out a sheet of parchment. He held it up to Pazel, displaying an elegant, formal script. Then (much in the same manner as Fiffengurt) he tore the sheet to pieces, flinging the bits in the air as he did so. When the deed was done he turned on his heel and left.
All this Pazel watched with folded arms. He barely noticed when the door behind him opened and Neeps stepped close.
'I guess he didn't care to come in, eh mate?'
'I guess not.'
Neeps went forward and picked up a few bits of parchment. He turned them this way and that, fitting them together. Then he grew still.
'Pazel,' he said. 'Come here.'
Pazel didn't much care what the parchment said. Anything from Chadfallow's hand was a lie. But there was something odd in Neeps' voice. He moved behind Neeps and read over his shoulder.
— ay, 26 Halar 941
— der the auspices of His Royal Highness King Oshiram of Simja:
Negotiant:
Dr Espl. Ignus CHADFALLOW
Envoy Extraordinaire to His Supremacy Magad V,
Emperor of Arqual
and
The Honourable Acheleg EHRAL
Vocal, Court of His Celestial Highness King Somolar of the Holy
Mzithrin
LET THESE BE THE NAMES PUT FORWARD BY ARQUAL: LORD FALSTAM II OF ETHERHORDE, COMMODORE GILES JASBREA OF ETHERHORDE [HIS LIVING PERSON OR UNDESECRATED REMAINS], TARTISHEN OF OPALT [SON OF LADY TARTISHEN], SUTHINIA PATHKENDLE OF ORMAEL (NON-NEGOT.), NEDA PATHKENDLE OF ORMAEL (NON-NEGOT.), AREN MORDALE OF SORHN
Pazel snatched at the bits of parchment. Suddenly nothing else mattered. 'This was written in Halar — last spring.' Pazel's mind was racing. 'That was two months before we sailed. He's been carrying this blary thing all along!'
Neeps picked up the last of the pieces. 'There's another list here,' he said, 'with Mzithrini names, or I'm a dog! Pazel, do you realise what this is?'
Pazel looked at him blankly. Then all at once he went sprinting after Chadfallow.
'Ignus! Ignus!'
He raced across the upper gun deck, past a group of Turachs betting excitedly on an arm-wrestling match. They'd watched the doctor march through the compartment 'steaming like a fumerole,' they said. But when Pazel left by the forward door he was nowhere to be seen.
He tried the surgery, the sickbay, and the doctor's own cabin. He climbed back to the topdeck and walked the length of the ship. No one had seen Chadfallow. Defeated, Pazel started back to the stateroom.
All around him the ship was in a frenzy. The anchors were rising, and yard by yard the green, slippery, thirty- inch thick cables attached to them were spooling in through the hawse holes, where teams of sailors wrestled them into coils that rose like battlements above their heads.
The agitation in Pazel's own heart was even greater, however. Chadfallow had been at work on a prisoner exchange with the Mzithrinis — and his mother and Neda were on the list. Clearly the doctor still loved Pazel's mother. And for the first time since the invasion of Ormael Pazel felt he undestood the man. In one respect at least they shared the same loss.
Neeps, to Pazel's great surprise, was still standing at the centre of the crossed passageways, twenty feet from Thasha's door. He turned to face Pazel, wide-eyed.
'You're not going to believe this, mate.'
He raised both fists over his head and brought them down, hard. At the precise centre of the passage they stopped dead, and soundlessly. He spread and tensed his fingers, as though trying to push a heavy crate. He looked for all the world like a mime.
'It's Arunis,' he whispered. 'He's found a way to pay us back already.'
Pazel felt his breath grow short. He drew up beside Neeps and cautiously put out his hand.
Nothing. His fingers met no resistance at all. He stepped forwards, then looked back accusingly at Neeps. 'Will you stop mucking around?' he snapped.
'Mucking around, is it?' Neeps leaned again — but this time at an impossibly steep angle. He pressed his face forwards and squashed a cheek against thin air. It was true: they stood on opposite sides of an invisible wall.
'It runs the whole length of the passage,' said Neeps. 'Port to starboard, hull to hull. The whole stateroom's closed off behind it. So is Pacu's old cabin, and that cupboard where she stuffed the wedding gifts, and two more cabins at the end of the hall.'
'No wonder Ignus was so angry,' said Pazel. 'But why can I pass through?'
Behind Pazel the stateroom door opened a crack, and Thasha peeped out. 'What's wrong with you two clowns?' she hissed. 'Get in here!'
The instant she spoke Neeps fell to the deck with a crash and a florid Sollochi curse. But when he rose and stretched out a hand there could be no doubt: the wall had disappeared for him as well.
They locked the stateroom door behind them (though to do so suddenly felt unnecessary). Fiffengurt was gone; Felthrup was reading the bits of his letter on the dining table. When the boys told them about the invisible wall, Thasha paled. After a long silence, she said, 'I made it possible for you to come in, didn't I? Just by telling you to.'
'It sure looks that way,' grumbled Neeps, rubbing his kneecaps.
'I felt it,' said Thasha. 'I mean, I didn't know the wall existed. But just as I said Get in here, I felt something on my palm, right here-,' she pointed at the wolf-scar '-like the scratch of a little nail. I also felt it when you left, both of you.'
'Why didn't the wall stop me, though?' asked Pazel. 'You hadn't said anything when I stepped back through it.'
