'Why didn't you tell the captain, if you're so afraid of ixchel?' Pazel asked.
Oggosk looked at him severely. 'I reveal what I choose, at the time of my choosing.'
'That's right,' said Neeps, sounding even angrier than Pazel felt. 'We take the chances. You just croak and complain about how badly we're doing, and pile up your stories, and shoes, and things to chuckle over. Your cat goes out stealing and murdering, and you sit there like a plum duff-'
'Have a care,' said Oggosk. 'I've killed smaller fry than you.'
'We risk our lives fighting Arunis and Ott and your mad old butcher of a captain-'
'Silence!' snapped Oggosk. For the first time she looked truly furious. 'Insult Nilus Rose again and you'll learn just how much these old bones are capable of!'
Pazel laid a restraining hand on his arm, but Neeps shrugged it off. He got to his feet, a move that scarcely made him more imposing.
'I'm not afraid, you blathering old hag.'
Pazel leaped up, throwing himself in front of Neeps. Oggosk rose stiffly from her chair. Her milk-blue eyes were pitiless and bright. 'You should fear me, Neeparvasi Undrabust,' she said. 'What I may do, and even more, what I may choose to neglect.'
'Get out of here, Neeps,' Pazel pleaded, shoving his friend towards the door. 'I'll handle this, go on!' Neeps protested, but Pazel was unyielding. At last Neeps stormed out, slamming the door behind him with a noise that set all the chickens squawking.
'It's a wonder that boy has made it through sixteen years,' said Oggosk, settling back into her chair. 'You choose odd friends, Mr Pathkendle.'
'Neeps is my best friend,' said Pazel coldly.
''Odd' is not a term of disparagement, boy,' said the old woman. 'I rather like him, if you care to know. We Lorg Sisters admire purity among other virtues, and your Neeps has a glimmer of purity about him — at least where pride is concerned. That doesn't mean he won't get himself killed, of course. The Lorg also teaches respect for the sebrothin, the self-doomed. He certainly qualifies.'
She bent down and picked up Sniraga, groaning a little as she straightened. The cat quite filled her arms.
'He isn't doomed,' said Pazel, thinking that he would soon be as angry as Neeps if she kept on in this vein. 'He loses his head sometimes, but that's what friends are for — to step in and catch you. Isn't that what you're always doing for the captain?'
Oggosk stroked her cat, watching him steadily. 'Arunis has a Polylex,' she said at last.
'So what?' said Pazel. 'Everyone has a Polylex.'
'Arunis,' said the witch with growing irritation, 'has a thirteenth edition Polylex.'
Pazel started. The forbidden book! The same magic volume Thasha kept hidden in her cabin. 'How — how did he get it?' he whispered.
'Like any merchant, he bought it,' said Oggosk. 'Between the things that are bought and sold and the things that cannot be had for any price, there is a third category: things that appear to be beyond anyone's reach, but which may sometimes be acquired for a phenomenal price. The thirteenth Polylex is one of those. Arunis must have hired someone to search for it on his behalf — search the world over, for only a handful survived the bonfires of Magad the Third. It's a pity you take so little stock of your surroundings. Whoever found the book for Arunis must have passed it to him right there in Simja, under your noses.'
Pazel felt his anger rise again, and tried to suppress it. 'What is he doing with the thing?'
'What Thasha should be,' said Oggosk with a little sneer. 'He's reading it — night after night, at a fever pitch. Do I really need to tell you what he's searching for?'
Pazel was silent for a moment, then shook his head. 'The Nilstone,' he said. 'He wants to learn how to use the Nilstone.'
'Of course. And the knowledge is there, Mr Pathkendle. Hidden in that sea of printed flotsom, and — we may hope — by evasion and metaphor and double-meaning, but there nonetheless. The book's mad editor, your namesake Pazel Doldur, considered no field of knowledge too dangerous to include. And when Arunis learns the truth he will have no more need of us. He will go to the Shaggat and touch the Stone, and in that instant we shall be overwhelmed. Ramachni will hold no terror for him, and the wall about your stateroom will pop like a bubble of foam. The Shaggat will breathe again, and Arunis will take his king home to Gurishal by wind-steed or murth- chariot. There, thanks to Sandor Ott, he will find his worshippers in a fever of expectation, ready for vengeance. And with the Nilstone for a servant they will be all but unstoppable. The Mzithrin will fall, and so, in time, will Arqual and the East. Twenty years from now, boys your age in Ormael and Etherhorde could be praying to little statues of that lunatic, and marching in his batallions.'
'We'll get the book,' said Pazel, his voice low and earnest. 'We'll take it from him, before he finds out how to use the Stone.'
Oggosk's eyes widened, amusement and contempt struggling for control of her features. ' You'll get the book? The mighty Ormali and his suicidal friend? That's a capital idea. Knock on his door and ask to borrow it for the evening. No, monkey, I didn't call you here for that. I want something altogether simpler.'
'And what might that be?'
'I want you to stop caring for Thasha Isiq.'
This time Pazel gave the old woman just the right sort of look: baffled and offended, but with nothing to hide.
'I am not being spiteful,' said Oggosk. 'This is a grave matter, as important in every way as Arunis and his Polylex. Indeed the two issues are one and the same.'
'We're not handing over her body, if that's what you-'
'Thasha is alive and restless in her stateroom,' said the witch with finality. 'And you'll do exactly as I say. Dine with her, conspire with her, let her and the Tholjassan teach you to handle a sword. Flirt with her, if you like. I know better than to expect young men to do otherwise, even when to do so is to risk everything. Glah, that's a permanent flaw in humanity, and there's no cure under Heaven's Tree.
'But let your kisses be cold ones, boy. Do not love her. Do not let her love you. Enjoy yourself, but if she looks at you with tenderness you must laugh in her face, or walk away, or show her some other form of contempt. Do you understand me?'
'I understand you to be out of your nasty mind.'
'We should have brought other girls aboard,' said Oggosk, vexed. 'Girls your age, I mean. There are a number of women in steerage, however, and some have a look of experience about them. One or two are even attractive.'
'Goodbye,' Pazel sang out, for that was all he could do short of cursing her aloud. He made quickly for the door. He was appalled; he felt as though she had torn open a secret part of him and defiled it.
Oggosk's voice froze him in mid-stride. 'This is the only warning you will receive. Where Thasha is concerned I shall not be in the least forgiving. If that girl begins to love you I will send Sniraga into the Chathrand 's depths, and have her bring back an ixchel body to lay at Rose's feet. When he learns of the infestation he will slay the whole clan in a matter of hours — and believe me, the captain knows how it is done.'
Pazel spoke over his shoulder. 'You'd kill them all, just to punish me.'
'I would,' said Oggosk. 'I do not shrink from the obligations of history. But they need not die. You may advise them to disembark at our next landfall — provided you do as I say with Thasha. Give her no reason to love you, and your ixchel friends may survive to raid another ship.'
'As if anyone would trust you to keep a bargain like that,' said Pazel.
'You have no choice but to trust me,' said Oggosk simply. 'But listen: why not tell Thasha about the murth- girl? Say that you're still fond of her, that she fascinates you, haunts your dreams. You wouldn't even be lying, would you? But never let Thasha set a finger on you here!' — Lady Oggosk indicated her collarbone — 'Rin save you if you break the heart of a murth.'
He was dreaming. Not even Oggosk could be so senselessly cruel. But when she spoke again her voice was in deadly earnest.
'Removing the admiral from the scene was no pleasure,' she said. 'Don't share his fate, Mr Pathkendle. What Thasha is to do, she must do alone. You can only get in her way.'
Once more Pazel met the old woman's eyes. There was no gloating in them, and no hesitation either.
