“What’s the leopard for?” asked Neeps.
“Shut up about the leopard! I hate the leopard!” Rose lunged forward and swung the animal like a club. The youths jumped back. Rose dropped to his knees and smashed the leopard against the deck so violently that one of the glass eyes popped out and rolled away. “I hate it! I hate it! And you ghouls also, you dead swindlers, transvestites, whoremongers, cheats! Why should I swear anything to you? After tonight I’ll never see you again, unless we meet in the Pits!”
From within his cabin, Lady Oggosk gave a peremptory shriek: “Nilus! That is undignified! Come here, I haven’t finished with your shirt.”
The captain grew still. He hugged the leopard once more to his chest, staring at the astonished youths. “Don’t you dare be late,” he said.
When the door closed the others drifted forward along the portside rail, through the mad scramble of departure-less-fifteen-hours. The ghosts were still visible to Thasha but they kept a respectful distance. If she faced one of them directly, it bowed.
“Do you realize what he was telling us?” said Neeps. “He wants to come along! Rose! And he didn’t even stop to ask whether or not we’re going through with it.”
“He should have asked,” said Pazel, “because there’s no mucking way we can. We’d never see the ship again. We’d never see other humans again. Besides, we’d draw all sorts of attention on that highway, just as we’ve done here. I’ll bet Arunis has paid someone to keep watch for anything outlandish coming his way-human beings, for instance.”
Pazel’s argument was met with silence. He was trying to convince himself as much as anyone, Thasha mused. They walked on toward the bow, dodging the busiest work areas. Neeps tried to take Marila’s hand but she would not let him. Then out of nowhere, Bolutu rushed up and pointed excitedly at the quay.
“A snow heron! A snow heron has flown right into the city! It is a sacred bird, a blessing that comes in times of change. Look there to starboard; you will see it.”
A play of shadows in the lanternlight: then a huge, long-legged bird swept over the quay, its eight-foot wings beating slow and fragile. It was pure white, and by the lanterns’ soft glow its unruly feathers were ghostly. With a raucous croak it alighted on the Chathrand’s forecastle, a few yards from the Goose-Girl figurehead. On the quay the dlomu stood staring, their work forgotten. The heron folded its wings and stood motionless, its back to the ship, as though it knew somehow that the eight hundred humans would do it no harm.
The bird’s stillness was monumental. Thasha wanted to ask why the dlomu revered it so, but a part of her seemed to understand already. If it was an omen of change, then its stillness was the perfect opposite of what was to come. Cherish this, it might have said, for when you move again it will be gone, you will have lost it forever.
“I have seen but one other snow heron in my life,” said Bolutu. “It stood on the harbor wall as I sailed out of Masalym to cross the Nelluroq. They were rare even then, two centuries ago. Now I understand that years go by without a single sighting anywhere in the South.”
Thasha closed her eyes. An image had burst into her mind, sudden and unsought. A sky above a marsh, full of blowing confetti, living snow. Thousands, she thought, as the image sharpened, and the roar of their mingled calls echoed inside her. I’ve walked among these birds in their thousands.
Pazel’s hand on her elbow brought her back. She opened her eyes, the vision gone. She gave him a frightened smile.
Pazel turned to Bolutu. “Someone gave Rose a stuffed cat,” he said.
“A leopard,” said Bolutu, smiling. “Of course. It was a gift from the Naval Commander of Masalym-an old fellow with a ceremonial post; he commands a fleet of sixteen hulks and derelicts. But it was a grand gesture all the same. By tradition a departing captain must hold the leopard until the last mooring-line is cast off. Then he throws it ashore, and the well-wishers catch it, being most careful not to let it touch the earth. Good luck follows any who observe the rite; but if the creature so much as brushes the cobbles-disaster. And if the captain lets it be held for even an instant by another man aboard-well, that man will be his death.” He shrugged. “Dlomic seafarers are as superstitious as any.”
“No wonder he barked at Haddismal,” said Neeps. “But why is he so upset about the leopard?”
“I guess you haven’t noticed,” said Marila, “that he’s terrified of cats.”
“All his life,” said Bolutu, nodding. “That much I have gleaned from his exchanges with Lady Oggosk. It goes beyond Sniraga; he cannot abide cats of any sort. The sicunas must have struck him as horrors from the Pits.”
Thasha glanced at Bolutu. “You’ve lost your monk’s hat,” she observed.
“It is only put away,” said Bolutu, a bit sadly. “One day I may wear it again, if we indeed sail north together. But there is no Rinfaith here, Lady Thasha. Not south of the Ruling Sea, and not in my heart.”
A few sailors stopped their work and looked at him. “That’s a funny sort of faith, Brother Bolutu,” said Mr. Fegin.
“I don’t disagree,” said Bolutu, “and yet I am bound to respect the Ninety Rules, and the second of these is the call to honesty. For twenty years my body was human. Now it has reverted to its old form, and I find my old, ancestral faith contending with my adopted one.”
“But the Gods are the Gods, all the same.”
“Are they?” asked Bolutu. “We have no Gods here, Mr. Fegin. And yet we know we are observed. The Watchers, we call them: those who do not intervene, do not speak, do not instruct. One day they will be our judges. But until then they tell us absolutely nothing.”
“Well, that just beats everything,” said another sailor. “What kind of Gods-or Watchers or what have you- refuse to tell you how to worship ’em?”
“The best kind,” said Bolutu, smiling, “or so we are taught as children. There is no divine law given us, no rules, no scripture. What we are given is here, and here.” Bolutu tapped his forehead, then his heart. “Wisdom, and an instinct for the good. It is to those things we must strive to be true. As for worship, what good has it ever done? In the Last Reckoning the Watchers will judge our deeds, not our praise of them, our flattery.”
“Deeds, eh?” said Fegin, turning back to his work. “D’ye suppose they’ll like what they see?”
Mr. Bolutu looked down sadly, as if the same question had occurred to him. He walked away from the youths, trying for a closer view of the heron. The bird had not moved a feather. Thasha wondered if it would see them off at sunrise.
She drew a deep breath. “We’re really going, aren’t we?” she said.
Pazel drew her close, rested his chin on her shoulder. “Love you,” he whispered, so softly she could barely hear. Thasha wished suddenly to pull them all close, to tell them they mattered to her more than anything, more than their quest. She turned and kissed Pazel, felt his urgency, his hammering heart, and wondered just how long they had before dawn, and then Marila said, “I’m with child,” and they all looked at her, speechless. The heron lifted off, as though it had come for just this information, and Neeps covered his face with his hands.
11. Admiral Isiq’s letters refer to the dour gentleman with the cat as “Great-Uncle Torindan, the war hero.” — EDITOR.
Trust
5 Modobrin 941
In the dead of a moonless night in Northwest Alifros, in the midst of the coldest spell of weather the Crownless Lands had seen in fifty years, two boats ran afoul of the same reef in the Straits of Simja. They were light, swift vessels; they had been shadowing each other with lamps extinguished; they were under orders to avoid a firefight. One was an Arquali kestrel-class frigate, the other a Mzithrini tirmel. Neither boat could break free of the reef, and with the first light of dawn they became visible to each other. There was shockingly little distance between them.
On the Arquali boat, a certain aging weapons officer found himself in possession of a full gun-team, a fair shooting angle and a lit cigar, but rather less tranquillity of mind than the moment called for. His cigar served as a match; his cannon boomed; a thirty-two-pound ball skipped over the water and shattered on a knob of exposed
