“Thasha,” Pazel said between gasps, “doesn’t love you… idiot.”
“Keep thinking that, if it eases the pain. Just don’t lie to yourself about yourself. Once you realize that you’re nothing, maybe you can start to change that fact.”
“You’re using her for something. You planned it all.”
“Planned?” Fulbreech looked amused. “Now you flatter me. Granted, I don’t leave much to chance. Old Chadfallow tells me I’m thorough in the extreme. But I did make one error.” He seized Pazel’s arm in mock concern. “I say, you’re a delicate little blossom, aren’t you? Can you breathe? Do you need to sit down?”
“Go screw yourself.”
Fulbreech raised an eyebrow. “That will be your comfort from now on, Pathkendle. Not mine.”
Pazel lashed out again. This time his fist caught Fulbreech squarely in the eye. The Simjan did not strike back; instead he twisted away, disengaging, so that Pazel’s next blow went wide. Pazel advanced, but before he could strike again someone grabbed him by the hair and jerked him sideways, off-balance. It was Mr. Alyash.
“Fiffengurt!” he cried. “The Ormali’s just put a shiner on our surgeon’s mate! Right unprovoked, too: I watched the whole thing. But I suppose you’ll let it pass. Different rules for favorites of the commander, eh?”
Fiffengurt gaped at Pazel. “You didn’t, lad. Tell me you didn’t.”
Pazel rasped: “Mr. Fiffengurt, it wasn’t like-”
“I am the commander!” piped up Taliktrum, standing on the No. 2 hatch comb. He sprang to the deck and advanced between the men’s legs. “Pathkendle, always Pathkendle! You act as though you were a law unto yourself. What was Fulbreech’s offense, pray? Did he steal your shoelaces?”
“Not exactly,” said Alyash with a smirk.
“We cannot have brawls, Fiffengurt. You know that as well as anyone. I want him in the brig for two days.”
“But Taliktrum-” cried Pazel.
“Three,” snapped the ixchel leader. “And another day for every word that leaves his mouth. See to it, Bosun! And by the Nine Pits, let us return to the matter of the leak.”
Alyash sent for wrist cuffs. Fiffengurt looked on, sorrowful and aghast. Pazel knew he could not intervene, and that Taliktrum’s wishes had little to do with it. Fights on the Chathrand were like sparks in a hayloft: they had to be squelched at once, or the barn would be in flames.
Pazel stood there, skewered by their looks, boiling with rage and shame. Fulbreech touched the spot where Pazel had hit him. The eye would bruise, all right, and everyone would ask who had done it. Thasha would ask. Fulbreech looked at Pazel and gave him the plainest smile yet. “Error corrected,” he said.
5. The mucking author did. We must conclude, with the benefit of near-infinite hindsight, that Thasha Isiq is being ironic. Nowhere in the thirteenth edition of the Polylex do we encounter an outright falsehood about the person it identifies as “the Smythidor.” And while Thasha quotes her brief passage correctly, she might have spared Pazel no little anxiety had she but continued. The next part of the entry reads: “Thus, and only thus, was he known in Alifros, and to the people of the ship on which he served.” But it is not Thasha’s part to comfort Pazel tonight. - EDITOR.
The Fugitive
24 Ilbrin 941
223rd day from Etherhorde
To: The Honorable Captain Nilus Rotheby Rose
Commander and Final Offshore Authority
IMS Chathrand Nilus, Victory shall yet be ours. The prison has not been built, nor trap devised, nor deception plotted, that can snare a man of the lineage of Rose. Very soon you will walk free, reclaim your rank and powers. And then, son, I charge you: have no mercy, bar no punishment, sterilize your ship of doubters. It is yours, after all. Let those who think otherwise do so on the seabed.
(“How does he know she’s not just making it up?” murmured the tarboy Saroo. “She just scribbles and moans and stares at the ceiling. She don’t even pause to think.”
“Keep silent, fool,” said the Trading Family representative, Mr. Thyne, “unless you want boils under your tongue, or crocodile dreams, or some nastier curse. She’s the most famous witch in the Merchant Fleet.”
“She’s never done no conjuring in front of me,” said Saroo.
“Count your blessings,” grunted Thyne.) Now to the matter of your “accomplishments.” You saw the Chathrand safe across the Nelluroq. What of it? You are not the first to make the crossing. The Great Ship alone has passed over the Ruling Sea thirty times in her six hundred years. I would not shame you with cheap congratulations. Besides, in matters of discipline your conduct is highly questionable.
(“She doesn’t even look down at the paper,” whispered Neeps to Marila. “I can’t work out how she writes in straight lines.”) It is all very well to sentence mutineers to death. You will recall that I applauded the decision. But once pronounced, such a sentence cannot be delayed. It shocks me to learn that Pathkendle amp; Co. yet walk free upon your ship. You suggest that they provide you with certain services: to wit, the containment of the mage through fear, and perhaps the distraction of Sandor Ott from more venal meddling into your affairs. Rubbish. Kill them. Extract the Nilstone from the Shaggat’s hand, and hang them within the hour. The bodies must accumulate at some point, if you are to discover the spell-keeper, the one whose death returns the statue to human form.
(“I wish she’d apply her witching skills to finding the leak,” said Elkstem, “or finding out where in Alifros we should be making for.”
“Or getting us out of this stinking trap,” said Kruno Burnscove.) Your other excuse for clemency is shabbier still. You were chosen, you say: by a “guardian spirit,” resident for an age within the scarlet wolf. Arunis melts the wolf; the molten iron spills and burns you; your burn resembles those of the scoundrel mutineers. And this implies a common destiny? Has it occurred to you, Nilus, that you are playing the fool?
(“Mr. Fiffengurt told me she gave up casting spells,” whispered Neeps. “He thinks something must have gone wrong, badly wrong, to make her want to quit. But I wonder if she’s not just saving herself for the right moment. She’s deadly, I tell you. Just look at her.”) If I brand a bullock with my initials, have I given it some higher purpose? If six such animals roam about within a herd, do they serve as the keepers, the “conscience” (that weakling’s word) for the rest? You have all the destiny you require, being my son. When you are governor of the Quezans, when your children bring you sacks of gold from the manors they supervise, your bastards eliminate your foes, your Imperial soldiers collect taxes and your courtesans compete to give you pleasure-then write to me of destiny. Until that day I forbid it. As for your mother “Undrabust,” drawled Sandor Ott from his corner, “move away from the witch.”
Neeps slid a wary step back from Lady Oggosk. He had learned weeks ago to obey Ott quickly, instantly in fact, but he still hadn’t learned to hide his anger. For that he relied on Marila: the only person he’d ever known who could always, it seemed, hide her feelings.
“Come,” she said, rising and leading him away, keeping herself between him and the spymaster.
Without her I’d be dead already, he thought.
They stepped carefully among the sprawled and sleeping men. Rose, crouched behind Oggosk’s chair, noticed them with a start, the way a bird notes sudden movement. He was twitchy all the time now, and carried on mumbled conversations with no one, and sometimes lunged at phantoms. Neeps made sure they stayed clear of his fists.
But you could dodge the threats only so well. The cabin was about five paces by six. One window, one yard of translucent skylight, a curtained corner for the chamber pots. One door onto the topdeck: never locked by their ixchel jailers, but latched from within by the prisoners themselves, lest the wind or some unthinking sailor throw it open and plunge them all into agony. And a smudge-pot in the corner, where burned the little berries whose vapor kept them alive.
The gang leaders, Darius Plapp and Kruno Burnscove, sat always against opposite walls. Their hatred of each other was so legendary, and their dedication to doing each other harm so well demonstrated, that Rose had found it necessary to tie their fates together: “If one of you should die, I will personally kill the other before the body cools.
