The Night of the Swarm

in such detail, Leheda mori, was that Goodbye in this lifetime, goodbye in this world?

Idle fool. What impulse had brought her here? She had meant to rise and go straight to the struggle, that inner assault at the wall between herself and Erithusme. It was how she had begun every day on the Promise: seeking desperately for any fissure, any hidden latch or keyhole. Smashing, flailing. And finding nothing. You’re out of time, out of time, chided a voice in her head, and every day it rang more true. If they were caught on the high seas, pincered between warships or snared by some Platazcra devilry, what then? The selk and nineteen fishermen could not fight off a host, or shield the Promise from withering cannon-fire. No one could help — save possibly Erithusme, furious and caged. And every day she feared Hercol would draw Ildraquin and learn the dreaded news: that the Chathrand was leaving, setting off into the Ruling Sea, waiting no longer.

The others felt the same urgency, now. Hercol had questioned her about every moment in the last year when she had noticed any trace of that other being inside her, however remote. She answered his questions dutifully, but they brought no breakthrough. Then Lunja and Neda had taken her off to a little cabin in the stern and asked other questions, mortifying questions, about Greysan Fulbreech. It seemed the builder of the wall might be Arunis himself, and Greysan the tool he used to put it in place. But Ramachni had said that to do so would have required some force, and that Thasha would have felt it — unless greatly distracted. Were there such moments? Scarlet, Thasha admitted that there had been: two times, before her suspicions of Fulbreech became acute. No, she’d not let him go too far. But yes, Rin help her, she’d been distracted, aware of nothing but his kisses, his hands.

A soft sound from the deck above. Someone was waiting for her: Hercol or Pazel or Neda or Neeps. Waiting and hoping: had she found the key at last? Thasha closed her eyes. One more day of disappointment. One more day when they would cheer her, warm her, salute her for the fight she was waging.

She turned and ducked under the bowsprit, seized the top of the rail, pulled herself to the height of the topdeck. And froze.

A few yards from her lay an ungainly brown bird. A pelican. It was splayed on its side, one black eye gazing skyward. It was so still Thasha feared it was dead.

She slid over the rail. Nolcindar and several dlomic crewmembers had also noticed the bird. The dlomu stared with wonder, and Thasha realised with a start that she had not seen one pelican south of the Ruling Sea. The dlomu were edging nearer, but when Nolcindar saw Thasha she waved for them to be still. Thasha stepped closer. A muscle twitched in the pelican’s wing, but otherwise it did not move.

Thasha knelt. The pelican was breathing, but only just; its eye had begun to glaze over. The moment felt unreal and yet absolutely vital: she was kneeling beside a bird and the bird was half dead of exhaustion and the fate of their whole struggle was in that failing eye. She stared: the orb was dreadfully parched. Once more bowing to impulse, she breathed on the eye, and saw the fog of her breath upon its surface.

Then the eye blinked. The two halves of the yellow-orange beak parted minutely, and a sound emerged. It was not that of any bird. It was a voice, huge and deep but extremely distant, like an echo in a canyon far away. She could catch no words, but there was an awesome complexity to the sound, thunder within thunder, lava boiling in the earth. And Thasha knew she had heard the voice before.

‘Bring Pazel,’ she said aloud. ‘Someone fetch him, please. And hurry.’

Pazel must have been already on his way, for seconds later he and Neeps were beside her. Thasha took Pazel’s hand and drew him down.

Neeps stared with wonder at the pelican. ‘Where did that come from? Is it dead?’

The strange voice was fading. Thasha pressed Pazel’s head closer. ‘Listen! Can’t you hear it?’

He strained to hear — and then he did hear, and looked up in horror.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Neeps. ‘What in Pitfire’s going on here?’

Thasha just shook her head. ‘Get ready,’ was all she managed to say. Pazel was shaking. ‘Oh credek. Help me, help me. Gods.’

His lips began to work. Thasha had no idea how to help, so she embraced him, and Neeps wrapped his arms around them both. The three were bent over the pelican like a trio of witches, but only Pazel was caught in the spell. His mouth opened and closed; his tongue writhed, his face twisted and he clung to them savagely. A soft rasping noise came from his throat.

‘What’s he doing?’ cried Neeps. ‘Is that the demon’s language? The one he learned in the Forest?’

‘No,’ said Thasha, ‘it’s worse.’

A convulsion struck Pazel like a lightning bolt, the spasm so violent that they were all three hurled backwards. He kicked and flailed, and Thasha shouted at Neeps to hold on.

The sound exploded from Pazel’s chest, an impossible roar that seemed to lift him with its power, that shook the deck of the Promise and trembled her sails and made the selk recoil in frightened recognition.

Then it stopped, cut off at a stroke. Pazel gasped, restored to himself but coughing, gagging on blood — his own blood; he had bitten his tongue. But he didn’t care about that. He was trying desperately to pull them to their feet.

‘Away, get away!’

The bird was twitching. They dived away from it as from a bomb. Out of the corner of her eye Thasha saw the transformation, the small form expanding with the suddenness of cannon-fire, and then across the bow of the Promise sprawled an eguar, forty feet long, shimmering, blazing, black. Its crocodilian head punched straight through the portside rail. Flames licked at shattered timbers. The creature’s fumes rolled over the deck in a noxious cloud; everyone in sight had begun to choke.

The eguar pulled its head back through the rail and stood. Rigging blazed and snapped; the foremast listed. ‘Nolcindar, Nolcindar!’ the dlomic fishermen were crying. ‘We are finished! What have the humans done?’

The creature’s white-hot eyes swept over them. Beneath its stomach the deck was smoking. Then its eyes found the youths and remained there. Its jaws spread wide. Thasha heard Pazel groaning beside her, ‘No more, please-’

The jaws snapped — and the eguar vanished. The fumes immediately thinned. There at the centre of the devastation stood Ramachni, the black mink.

‘Hail, Nolcindar,’ he said. ‘Permission to come aboard?’

Then he fell. Thasha ran and lifted him in her arms. The mage’s tiny form was limp. ‘Water,’ he said. ‘Pumps, hoses. Tell them, Thasha: they must scour the vessel clean.’

Nolcindar was already shouting orders: eguar poisons were no mystery to the selk. Thasha pressed Ramachni to her cheek and wept. ‘Oh you dear,’ she babbled. ‘You mad, dear disaster.’

The other travellers crowded near them. ‘Ramachni, master and guide!’ cried Bolutu.

‘And friend,’ said Hercol. ‘Once again we have been lost without you. Heaven smiles on us today.’

‘I was the one lost,’ said the mage. ‘Sitroth gave me his form, and gave up his life so doing, but his life was just a part of the cost. Oh, I am weary. But have I hurt you, Thasha? Hurt anyone?’

There were no injuries — save for Pazel, who had bruised himself badly. Neeps was still gripping his shoulders. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said. ‘He won’t talk.’

‘His tongue is bleeding, fool,’ said Lunja.

‘It’s not just that,’ said Neeps. ‘Look at him. There’s something wild in his face.’

Pazel sat gripping himself, as though chilled, but there was sweat on his brow, and his eyes darted fitfully. Behind the bloody lips his teeth were chattering.

Ramachni leaned out, and Thasha held him close enough to touch Pazel’s cheek. The tarboy flinched, then gazed at Ramachni as if seeing him for the first time, and his look of fear lessened slightly.

‘Pazel called me back,’ said Ramachni, ‘in the last tongue I could hear in this world. Sitroth and I fought the maukslar together, and made it flee to the Pits. The fight was terrible, but it was the journey that nearly finished me. Twelve days have I sought you, and that is too long for me to take any shape but this, my prime form in Alifros. But there was no trace of you, so each day I went on as owl or pelican. And each day it grew harder to remember who I was, or the path back to myself. At last in despair I flew the length of the Sandwall, until I came to a tiny inlet with an abandoned outpost, and signs of a fight. It was my one chance. Blindly, I set out north over the open sea, driving myself to death’s door with the effort. By the time I saw the boat I had lost speech, reason — almost every part of my thinking self.’