Where, by the Blessed Tree, to begin? With the dead men? With the blessing of the goat? Or with the fact that Heaven’s Tree doesn’t even hang over us here, so help me Rin?^ 7
No: I shall start with Pathkendle, since I have just seen him amp; the lad’s misery is fresh in my mind. I had just taken my turn in the rigging, same as nearly everyone aboard. The dlomu were still staring at us, but their numbers were dwindling. Perhaps they were moved by the doomsday-babble of that screaming hag. Perhaps we misspoke, somehow, hurt their feelings. However that may be, we soon concluded that we weren’t to be fed, or even greeted with more than fear amp; superstition, before daybreak. They hemmed us in with cables to stop our drift amp; placed guards at the ends of the walkway amp; left us to stew in our own sinking ship.
A few men exploded, cursing them. Others begged loudly for food. The dlomu, however, did not look back amp; when they were gone from sight even the timid hands joined in until the whole topdeck was bellowing insults, fish-eyes, black bastards, cold-hearted freaks amp; then someone gave an embarrassed little, “Ahh, umm,” amp; we saw that one of the cables was moving like a trawling-line amp; dangling upon it were bundle after canvas bundle. Wisps of steam escaped them amp; the smell when we hauled them in brought a low moan of ecstasy from the nearest men. Ibjen had shamed them, apparently. Ghosts or no ghosts, we wouldn’t be starved.
Inside were warm rolls amp; slabs of fresh cheese amp; smoked fish, the river clams Bolutu had gone on about for days, and cloth packages filled with strange little pyramid-shaped confections, a bit smaller than oranges amp; coated with sugar and hard little seeds. We nibbled: they were salty-sweet amp; chewy as whale blubber. “Mul!” Bolutu cried at the sight of them. “Ah, Fiffengurt, you’ll find nothing more authentically dlomic than mul! They’ve been the salvation of many a sea-voyage, or forced march through the mountains.” But what were they? “Nutritious!” said Bolutu, amp; quickly changed the subject.
There was dark bread, too; amp; as I live amp; breathe, many bundles of what we took for fat white worms. A dozen of these fell to the deck when we tore open the first basket amp; wriggled away like lightning for fifty feet or so amp; then lay still. Bolutu snatched one up, peeled off its skin like a blary banana amp; ate it: the things are fruits-pirithas, he calls ’em: “snake-beans.” They fall from a parent tree amp; squirm away, seeking new places to grow. “If it doesn’t wriggle it’s not worth eating,” he said.
I was about to brave one of these dainties myself (having already wolfed down bread amp; cheese amp; fish the latter stained green whatever they touched amp; made us all look frightfully murthish about the mouth) when Lady Thasha appeared with a platter heaped with all the aforementioned. “Will you take this to Pazel?” she asked me.
“We can do better than that,” I told her. “It’s well past midnight, ain’t it? That’s three days. Let’s get ’im out of the brig, my dear! You come along.”
But Thasha shook her head. “You do it, Mr. Fiffengurt. And see that he eats, will you? There’s enough food for the sfvantskors, too.”
Considerate, that was: the food would be gone in minutes. But the compliment I thought to pay her died on my lips when she turned amp; walked back to Greysan Fulbreech. Old Smiley fed her a piece of bread amp; she grinned through the mouthful at him amp; suddenly I was enraged. A nonsense reaction, of course: young hearts are fickle amp; Thasha’s has clearly left Pathkendle in favor of this youth from Simja. Why does the sight of them fill me with such indignation? Perhaps I merely hoped the girl had better taste.
I ducked down the Holy Stair, bickered with the crawlies at the checkpoint amp; was finally escorted (how the word sticks in my throat) onto the mercy deck amp; aft to the brig. The four Turachs (two for each sfvantskor, none for Pathkendle) were licking clean plates of their own; they turned spiteful when they realized I wasn’t bringing second helpings. At the far end of the row of cells the two sfvantskors watched me with bright wolf eyes.
I unlocked Pathkendle’s cell; he walked out, slow amp; dignified amp; hurt. Some spark in his eye was gone. I might never have become of aware of its existence, that lad’s blary spark (what do I mean, spark? Here’s my old dad’s answer: If you have to ask you ain’t never goin’ to know) but for its absence then.
“Chin up, Pathkendle,” says I, much heartier than I feel. “The ship’s out of danger amp; you’re out of jail. Try a wiggler. I happen to know they’re fresh.”
“Go on,” said a grinning, green-lipped Turach, “they only look like big maggots.”
Pazel stared insolently at him amp; bit into a piece of bread. “I want,” he said, chewing, “to finish telling Neda my dream.”
Under the soldiers’ eyes we took food to the sfvantskors. Pazel sat facing them, cross-legged on the floor. They ate. To fill the silence I talked about the waterfalls, the incredible way we rose into the city. Pazel sat there slipping snake-beans into his mouth amp; gazing at his sister through the iron bars. His sister, a Black Rag priestess: the thought chilled my blood. This was the girl they’d been looking for, those countrymen of mine, during the Ormali siege. They’d beaten Pazel himself into a coma, that day, when he refused to guide them to his sister’s hiding place. He’d lain there ready to die for her. Could anything-time, training, religion-challenge a bond like that?
“Thasha painted me with mud,” Pathkendle was saying. “Head to toe. Bright red mud that she’d heated in a pot. It felt”-he glanced at me, coloring a little-“really good. The beach was windy; the mud was smooth amp; warm. I told you already what happened next.”
“She pushing you,” said Neda. Her attempt at Arquali was for my benefit, I suppose.
“Into a coffin,” said Pazel. “A fancy coffin, trimmed with gold. She slammed the lid amp; nailed it shut amp; I kicked amp; pounded from the inside. When she was done she dragged the coffin into the surf.”
“And pushed you out to sea,” said the older one, Vispek. He raised his head amp; looked at me. “The mud, the gilded coffin in the waves. Those are Arquali funeral rites, are they not?”
“Only for kings amp; nobles, these days,” I said, startled at his knowledge of us. “It’s a high honor, that sort of burial.”
“And the one who paints the body?”
“The King’s favorite girly. His whatsit, his courtesan.”
“Neda thinks the dream’s important,” said Pazel.
Her eyes flickered over me coldly. “Dreams are warning,” she said. “We not listen, then we getting die.”
“Is that a fact.”
She said something quick amp; cross in the Sizzy tongue amp; her master grunted in agreement. “The Isiq girl wants to be rid of him,” he said, “although once she pretended to love him. Like an expensive whore.”
“Now just you shut your mouth,” I said, rising to my feet. But Vispek went right on talking.
“She wished to seem as though she revered him, saw him as her equal. Never mind that she’s from one of the most powerful families in Arqual, and the boy is nothing: a peasant from a country her father destroyed. So she honors him, buries him like a king.”
“But is lie,” said Neda, wolfing cheese. “No honor if he put in water alive. Only after he getting die.”
“The girl’s touch was pleasurable, in this dream?” asked Vispek.
Pazel nodded uncomfortably. “Well then,” said Vispek, “all the better to catch you off-guard in the moment of betrayal.”
“That’s enough,” I said. “You’re a slimy beast, Vispek. You’re trying to divide us, and using Pazel’s sister to do it. By the Tree, you’re carrying on the old war, ain’t you? Right here in Chathrand’s brig, ten thousand miles from home.”
Vispek kept his eyes on Pazel. “Neda is correct,” he said. “Dreams are warnings, and must not be ignored. The next time you feel that caressing hand, you can be sure a knife will follow. Watch your step.”
“I will, Cayer Vispek,” said Pazel.
“Damn it, Pathkendle!” I sputtered. “This is Thasha you’re talking about!”
The tarboy looked up at me, chewing. “Thasha,” he said. “Thasha Isiq.” As if the last name changed something for him.
A few minutes later we left the brig, with ixchel scurrying ahead amp; behind. I was aghast at the whole exchange. What kind of horrid nonsense had Pazel been listening to, in that black cell for three hopeless days? What ideas had those Sizzies stuffed him with? I grew frantic, amp; as soon as we cleared the checkpoint I dragged him from the ladderway amp; pressed him up against a wall.
“Flimflam!” I said. “Mule dung! A man will dream anything when his heart’s broken. That don’t make it true!”
