She paused, and he reached for her. She was fully dressed; indeed she had on her boots. “Goodbye,” she mumbled, kissing his hand. “I came to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
“Hercol and I are going over the wall. Shhh!” Thasha touched his lips with a finger. “We’re all going to break out of here, Pazel. But it’s going to take some time to do it right.”
“No,” he murmured, “wait.”
“Listen before you say no. We’re not going to live here, are we? But what good will it do us to break out, into a city where we’re the only humans? We can’t do anything by day. Our only chance is to learn as much as we can about the city after sundown-on the darkest nights, like this one, cloudy nights with no moon-and then get out, somehow, to the mountains, or in a smaller boat.”
“How are you getting out of the building?”
“Don’t ask me that. Hercol wants you to be able to say you have no idea, in case anything goes wrong. It won’t, though. His plan’s a good one. It may take a few nights of doing this before we find a safe place to hide.”
“Don’t go,” he said.
She sighed deeply, and nuzzled against his cheek, and he knew she’d misunderstood. “No,” he said, “Thasha, something’s happened. I talked to my mother.”
“You were dreaming.”
“Yes, yes, of course I was dreaming. Oh, Gods, it’s still coming back. Felthrup, the Ravens, Pitfire! Thasha, we don’t have a few nights. We’ve got to get out of here now.”
Suddenly Neeps woke with a start. “Thasha! Pazel! What’s the matter?” he whispered.
“Everything, that’s what,” said Pazel. “Thasha, I need to talk to Hercol before you go anywhere.”
Thasha was in no position to refuse, trying as she was to keep from waking still more sleepers. The three youths groped as quietly as they could from the bedchamber to the dining area, where Hercol was crouched in silence. He was not happy to see the tarboys emerge. But he listened as Pazel whispered the fantastic story of his dream.
“It’s so weird that it has to be true,” he said. “Felthrup trailing Arunis to some sort of tavern, overhearing his plans, going back night after night, telling his story to a blary ghost, who tells my mother, who tells me? I couldn’t dream that up.”
“It does have a certain mad air of truth,” said Hercol. “Something, after all, drove Felthrup to spend so long in that closet. But if it is a true message, then all the more reason for us to go as planned, Thasha. We cannot leave the others here to rot in this asylum, but we cannot just set them loose in a city of unknown dangers. Come, girl, it is barely two hours before dawn. Pazel, Neeps, go back to your beds and do not watch what happens next.”
“Ha!” scoffed Neeps. “You take us with you.”
“I will do nothing of the kind,” said Hercol, “and if you think a moment, you will realize how right I am to refuse. If something should happen to me and Thasha, who else stands any chance of finding a way forward? Chadfallow? Possibly, but we all know his limits. No, the burden will fall on you two, and Marila.”
Suddenly Thasha started. “I heard wings, wings flapping!” she said. “Didn’t you hear them?”
“No,” said the Tholjassan firmly.
“What exactly are you looking for?” said Pazel to Hercol. “A way out of the city? And just for us, or for the whole crew?”
“If we don’t go now,” said Hercol, “it won’t matter what I’m looking for.”
“You’re lying,” said Neeps.
Pazel heard the ring of conviction in his voice, and something inside him clicked. Neeps wasn’t always right when he thought he smelled a fib, but he was better at it than anyone else Pazel knew.
“The Stone,” he said, looking at Hercol. “You’re going to try to sneak aboard, and take the Nilstone yourselves, tonight. Break it out of the Shaggat’s hand before someone else does. Hide it somewhere. Take it… take it-”
“Beyond the reach of evil,” said Thasha, looking at her mentor. “He’s right, isn’t he? That’s what all this is about.”
Hercol stared hard at Pazel. “Of all the irksome, interfering tarboys,” he whispered at last. “Yes, I mean to fulfill the oath I took upon the wolf-scar, and that means taking the Nilstone. But I had never meant to do so tonight. First I meant to scout the Lower City, and especially the quay: a failed attempt would only signal to Counselor Vadu that the Stone is worth guarding to the hilt. Of course he may already be doing so, but Fulbreech’s slip of the tongue suggests that Arunis has lied about the Stone, convinced Vadu that it is no more than a trifle. In such tiny errors lies our hope. We must pray that there is more jealousy among our foes: between Arunis and the sorceress, Macadra; among those who call themselves Ravens; among any of the warlords who appear to rule this once-great land.”
“So what do you mean to do now?” asked Neeps.
“Throttle you to start with, Undrabust, if you can’t lower your voice! Be silent, let me think!” Hercol shut his eyes, frowning with concentration. “In light of this… message,” he said at last, “I will seek the Stone tonight. But you, Thasha, will not be going anywhere near the ship. You are to do exactly as we discussed: locate the safest, surest exit from Masalym. If we must run with the Stone to fulfill our oath, so be it.”
“What sort of rubbishy plan is that?” hissed Pazel. “You’re going to send her off into this blary city alone? And try to storm the manger, unarmed, steal the Nilstone and make off with it by yourself?”
“I will not be unarmed for long,” said Hercol. “Ildraquin lies just inside the magic wall, waiting for me. And neither of us will be going alone. Vadu’s seizure of the Chathrand did not catch quite everyone unprepared. It did not, for example, catch me. Or those with my training.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Thasha.
Hercol looked up sharply. Pazel followed his gaze: twenty feet above them, on the roof of the main building, a figure crouched, one arm held out straight before him. A large, powerful bird was just lifting from his arm.
“Oh, Pazel!” said Thasha. “That’s him! That’s Niriviel!”
So it was: Niriviel, the beautiful, woken moon falcon, who had disappeared on the eve of the Chathrand’s plunge into the Nelluroq. A miracle, Pazel thought: that the bird had survived, and that it had found them. For a moment he did not care that the bird was a fanatical Arquali, and had always called them traitors.
The falcon was gone in an instant. On the roof, the figure moved with cat-like silence to the corner. Suddenly its arm snapped toward them, and Hercol, standing straight, caught the end of a rope.
“Time to kill,” whispered Sandor Ott from above.
Stealing the Nilstone
5 Modobrin 941
Ensyl leaned back against the scabbard of Ildraquin, winded. The dust was going to make her sneeze. With a bit of string she’d found under Thasha’s bed she had just hoisted the weapon to the top of the cupboard in the stateroom. Not much of a hiding place, but it would be out of sight from the floor, and as long as the ship was on dry land there was no danger of it shifting. In any case it was better than leaving it inside the straw mattress in Bolutu’s cabin, where she had stashed it three nights ago, in desperate haste, just to keep Vadu from fishing it through the tiny hole he’d cut in Thasha’s wall.
She had watched that deed from the inside, watched him slide his arm toward Hercol’s blade. She had charged, ready to hack the fingers from that hand, but then the wall itself had attacked Vadu, burned him, and she had danced sidelong into the shadows again, still unseen. When Vadu retreated she had dragged the sword to Bolutu’s chamber, then raced back by the ixchel’s secret paths to a vantage point on the quarterdeck.
Like so many heads of cattle, the humans were being herded ashore. Far down the lightless avenue she could see them trudging in the chilly rain, soldiers on sicunas pacing among them, dogs to either side watching for strays. Where were the tarboys, the young women, Hercol? She had not caught sight of any of her friends since well before the dlomic charge.
