the violent rolling of the ship had ended too. Thasha cast a wild eye back over her shoulder. What in the Nine Pits is happening?
Marila gazed at her, perfectly expressionless and still. Then she threw her arms around Thasha and hugged her, shaking from head to foot. Thasha patted her back. The girl smelled rather worse than the cows.
They walked on in silence. Daylight streamed down from the tonnage hatch. As they passed the surgery Thasha heard Chadfallow lecturing Fulbreech on the miracle of blood coagulants.
'There's Thasha now,' said an approving voice, farther ahead. 'Right on time.'
It was Hercol. The Tholjassan stood with the tarboys at the spot where Neeps had opened the ixchel door. But when the boys caught sight of Marila they ran forwards, muffling shouts of astonishment.
'You mad cat!' said a delighted Neeps. 'I thought we'd seen the last of you in Ormael! Where's your little brother? What on earth are you doing here?'
'Stowing away,' said Marila, in the flat tone she used so often.
'But what on earth for?' Neeps pressed.
Marila hesitated, looking at him. 'I didn't want to go home,' she said at last.
The boys looked at her awkwardly. 'Home must be blary rotten,' said Pazel.
Marila shrugged. 'There's always work in Etherhorde.'
It was never easy to read emotion on Marila's face, but when they told her that the ship was not bound for Etherhorde the corners of her mouth drooped visibly. And when they told her they were bound for the Ruling Sea her mouth fell open and her breath caught in her throat. She looked at them each in turn.
'You're crazy,' she said. 'We're all going to die.'
No one was prepared to argue the point. Then Thasha shook herself, as if trying to cast off a sudden drowsiness. 'The fire,' she said.
'Fire, fire?' cried the others.
Only Marila looked at her with comprehension. 'The fire! The men with axes! Where did they go?'
She and Thasha struggled to make themselves understood. Everything that had happened in the darkness — the freezing cold, the violent pitching of the ship, the quick, bloody battle — had very nearly disappeared from their minds. Only when Marila had said the word die had the memory rushed back, whole, like a dream recovered by them both. Now Marila was terrified. She had crept out of the sack where she'd been hiding because of the cold, she explained. But the ship she had found herself in was almost unrecognisable.
'I didn't know the men, or their clothes, or the language they spoke. They were horrible, like pirates or Volpeks.'
'They're gone,' said Thasha, looking restlessly up and down the passage. 'Can't you tell, Marila? They're not hiding. They're… somewhere else entirely. And the fire's gone too, and the storm.'
'It wasn't a dream,' said Marila firmly. 'One of them tore out my hair. It still hurts.'
Thasha winced: a man had torn Marila's hair, and Thasa had slashed his belly open. If one was real, surely so was the other? She crossed her arms over her own belly, revolted.
Pazel noticed her distress. 'What's the matter with you?'
Thasha shook her head. 'Nothing. Dropped my knife, I think.' She groped at her belt as if making sure. The others were looking at her closely. She had not mentioned what she had done with that knife, and didn't much want to. 'I think I'm going to be sick,' she said.
'I am sick,' said Marila. 'And thirsty. I drank the last of my water yesterday.'
'Thasha,' said Hercol, 'take Marila to the stateroom and see to her needs, and your own. One of you boys put your coat over her head and shoulders. Let her pass for one of you if she can.'
'Right,' said Neeps, shrugging off his coat. 'Get some rest, Marila. You're looking green.'
Thasha took Marila to the ladderway, and they climbed out of sight. Hercol watched them go, then turned with sudden vehemence to face the boys.
'Do either of you have a guess as to what just occurred?'
'Yes,' said Pazel.
Neeps turned to him in surprise. 'You do?'
Pazel nodded. 'I think Marila stumbled into a disappearing compartment. Remember the rumours, Neeps, when we first came aboard? Places that just vanish, ghosts trapped in timbers, the names of everyone who ever died on Chathrand etched on some hidden beam? What if some of those rumours are true?'
'Ignus has always contended that mages played a part in the making of this ship,' said Hercol.
'He said there were old charms on her, too,' said Pazel, 'and that some of them slept until triggered, one way or another.'
'I don't put much store in Chadfallow,' said Neeps, 'but didn't Ramachni say almost the same thing? That the Chathrand was chock-full of old magic — 'spells and shreds of spells,' as he put it?'
'That she is,' said a voice at their feet. 'No one who dwells in her shadows could think otherwise.'
To their great joy Diadrelu stood before them, in the now-open trapdoor. Pazel and Neeps crouched down to welcome her, but the ixchel woman silenced them with a hand.
'Why is the deck so empty, at this time of day? Are you certain you're alone?'
When they told her of the whaler, and that Rose had called all hands to duty stations, Dri seemed to breathe a little easier. She did not look particularly well. Her face was weary and sad, and her copper skin was paler than Pazel remembered.
'My sophister Ensyl is watching the compartment door. If she calls a warning I will be gone before you can wish me goodbye.'
'We've been worried sick about you, Dri,' he said. 'It's been over a month! Where have you been?'
'Under arrest,' she replied. 'House arrest, merely: no fear, I'm quite comfortable. But I am forbidden to leave my quarters except when accompanied by Taliktrum's personal guard.'
'Your nephew gives you orders now?'
'Lord Taliktrum rules over us all,' said Dri stiffly. 'But certain orders I find impossible to obey.'
'Hear, hear,' said Neeps approvingly.
But the ixchel woman shook her head. 'This is a grave matter for the ixchel. Our survival has always depended on strong clans, and the very bone and sinew of a clan is obedience. I have come to understand, however, that there are higher allegiances even than clan.'
'You speak the truth,' said Hercol. 'The carnage Arunis will unleash if he finds a way to use the Nilstone — through his Shaggat, or by some other means — will sweep aside the little people and the large. Does Taliktrum know of the oath we took together, then?'
'Rin forbid!' said Dri. 'If any part of him believes in me still, it will die when he learns of that oath! No, the story is far simpler. When Taliktrum discovered my use of blane and its antidote on your wedding day, he chose to call it theft. When I told him that I had killed the Shaggat's son, he thanked me for my 'decades of service to the clan' and imprisoned me.'
'It was you who killed him, then,' said Hercol. 'I did wonder about that curious accident.'
'It was I,' said Diadrelu, 'though I had no joy in the act. Those two were children when the Shaggat began his crusade. They are as much the victims of his evil as anyone. First they paid with their sanity; now Pithor Ness has paid with his life!'
Dri suddenly pricked up her ears, and so did Pazel: his Gift had tuned his ears permanently to the ixchel register no normal human could hear. A young ixchel woman was announcing Thasha's return. A moment later Thasha entered the passage, breathless, her dreamy look quite gone.
'We're tied up beside the whaler,' she said, 'and their captain's aboard, talking with Rose in his day cabin.' But it's strange: Rose is keeping the whole crew on alert. They're all at their stations, waiting. Oh, Dri!'
Thasha's troubled face lit up. She bent down, and the ixchel woman reached out to touch her hand.
'It is good to be back among you! said Dri. 'But I fear the chance will not come often. Taliktrum's fanatics lurk outside my door, as if expecting some wickedness to issue from it. They do not yet know of this secret passage — my sophisters and I built it alone, some months ago — but how long before they begin to enter my quarters without knocking? Some call me a traitor already.'
'How dare they!' hissed Thasha.
Dri smiled sadly. 'They dare more every hour,' she said. 'The time may soon come when I flee this way not to return, and then you shall have yet another lodger at your inn, Thasha Isiq. Now hear me: I have come with both
