The Night of the Swarm

‘We must find Pathkendle first,’ said Hercol.

That was not hard: Pazel and Marila were seated in the passage outside sickbay, leaning against the wall. Pazel’s eyes were very red; Marila held his hand.

Across from them, bearded now but otherwise unchanged, sat Jervik Lank. He jumped to his feet.

‘I wanted to greet you up top,’ he said, ‘but the ward’s a handful, m’lady, and there weren’t nobody to cover for me.’

‘It’s horrible in there,’ said Marila. ‘The beds are full of deathsmokers, strapped down so that they can’t hurt themselves. And others who’ve been knifed or beaten up. The gangs don’t have tactics any more. They just hate each other, and the marines, and anyone who tries to stay neutral.’

They too stood up, and Thasha put a hand on Pazel’s cheek. He smiled sadly at her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Ignus wasn’t my father, you know. Although in the end he’d have made a pretty good one.’

‘This ship’s gone mad,’ said Jervik. ‘Until this morning, anyway. I could hear ’em cheering you, all the way down here. They did that for Rose, on New Year’s Day. But there ain’t been a blary moment since when the crew felt like a crew. You done a fine thing just by comin’ back.’

‘And you’ve helped save the ship we came back to,’ said Thasha. ‘I’ll always be grateful for that. A lot of men would have just given up.’

‘A lot of men did,’ said Marila.

The older tarboy fairly glowed with their praise. ‘When a Lank makes up his mind to do something, he does it.’ Then all at once he looked abashed. ‘No, no. That ain’t the truth. You know what my life’s been — the life of a great pig, eh, Muketch? I nearly killed you, once or twice.’

‘Forget it, mate,’ said Pazel, barely listening. ‘We’ve all of us changed.’

‘Have we?’ said Jervik. ‘You’re all still clever. And me-’ He shrugged. ‘Ragweed don’t make roses, and dullards don’t grow wise. That’s me, ain’t it? You don’t have to pretend.’

Marila stepped close to Jervik. She reached up and took hold of the tarboy’s jaw, which dropped in amazement. ‘Promise me something,’ she said.

‘Wha?’

‘That you will never say that again. You’re not stupid. It’s a lie somebody told you, because they couldn’t mucking say you were weak. Spit it out.’

There was a silence. Jervik’s eyes swivelled to the other tarboys.

‘If you want your chin back, you’d better promise,’ said Neeps.

Jervik blinked. ‘No lady never asked me for my word on nothin’,’ he said. ‘But since you want it, well — I promise, Mrs Undrabust. On my departed mother and the Blessed Tree.’

The tarboys’ quarters were almost directly beneath sickbay. Neeps and Pazel slipped inside first. Thasha heard boys scrambling and swearing. ‘All right,’ Neeps shouted. ‘Everyone’s dressed, after a fashion.’

Within, the compartment was a maze of dark hammocks, dropped clothes, open footlockers, unwashed plates. Had inspections ceased, Thasha wondered, or just the consequences of failing them?

There were only a handful of tarboys about. Among them were the twins, Swift and Saroo, who had been cold to Pazel and Neeps since the massacre of the ixchel. They were cold now, too.

‘Your whole gang’s back, is it?’ said Saroo. ‘And your pal Mr Fiffengurt’s in charge. You must be tickled pink.’

‘Just what the Chathrand needs,’ added Swift, ‘another gang.’

‘Ease up, mates, they’re heroes, like,’ said the freckle-faced Durbee, a tarboy from Besq.

‘Fiffengurt will make a good skipper,’ said Neeps.

‘I suppose from now on you lot will decide what’s good and what’s bad,’ said Swift.

‘We didn’t all make it, actually,’ said Pazel. ‘Big Skip was killed, and Dastu. And nearly all the marines. And Cayer Vispek and Jalantri.’

‘The Mzithrinis,’ said Neeps, when the tarboys looked blank.

‘Oh, them,’ said Saroo. ‘Well now. I don’t suppose even you cried much for a pair of blood-drinkers.’

‘The stanchion’s over here,’ said Pazel, as if Saroo hadn’t said a word. Despite the twins’ hostility he had spoken with no rancour at all. Thasha felt an ache in her chest — just pride, just love for her friends. These tarboys were all roughly the same age, but how much older Pazel and Neeps seemed. And no wonder, she thought. Tear your heart and your body to pieces, bleed and burn and freeze and make love and lose love and kill — and heal just partly, and hide what will never heal. Then try it. Try to stay innocent, try to pretend you’re still the person you were.

‘That’s my muckin’ post!’ said Saroo, when Pazel stopped before the stanchion with the eight copper nails. ‘You can’t just come back and swipe it. You ain’t slept there in months.’

‘What’s the matter, Pathkendle?’ said Swift. ‘Fleas in your girl’s brass bed?’

Pazel drew his knife.

‘Pitfire, mate, there’s no cause for that!’ said Durbee, jumping between them. But Pazel only reached up and cut the hammock rope around the upper part of the stanchion. He sheathed the knife and glanced at Thasha.

‘Erithusme said you’d know what to do. Was she right?’

Thasha looked at the copper nails. They were arranged in a half-circle, with the open side facing the ceiling, like a cup or a bowl. She stepped nearer the rough wooden post, ran her fingers down its length. It felt like rock.

‘Mr Fiffengurt says that’s one of the oldest bits of wood on this vessel,’ said Durbee cautiously. ‘He says it was ancient when the boat was built. We all figured that’s why you had such good luck, Pazel. Because there was some sort of charm on it. And that’s why Saroo claimed it after you left.’

‘Aught good it’s done me, though,’ grumbled Saroo.

Thasha closed her eyes. Trying with all her might to listen, to heed the voice behind the wall. Almost of its own accord, her left hand slid up to the nail-heads.

She hammered these herself. She laid power away for just such a moment.

Her hand passed through the wood as if nothing were there.

Swift and Saroo backed away in fright; Durbee made the sign of the Tree. Eyes still closed, Thasha found that the nails remained solid: she could feel them, suspended in the phantom wood. And just beyond them, more solid objects. Two of them. She closed her hand on the smaller and drew it out.

It was a short, tarnished silver rod. One half was quite plain, the other scored with a complex set of notches and grooves.

‘What is it?’ Pazel asked her. ‘Do you know?’

Thasha stared at the little rod. She should know, she almost knew. But if a memory lurked inside her it belonged to Erithusme, and she could catch nothing more than its echo. She gave the rod to Marila. ‘Hold this for me,’ she said.

The larger object was rough and slightly top-heavy. She took a firm grip and lifted it out past the nails. There in her hand was a stout bottle made of clay. It was stoppered with a cork and sealed in thick red wax. The bottle was chipped, dust-darkened, unimaginably old. It was solid and rather heavy. She turned it: a slosh of liquid, deep inside.

Thasha blew away the dust. The bottle was painted in thin white lines. Prancing skeletons of men and horses, dragons and dogs. Bare trees with what looked like eyes. Thasha shifted the bottle to her right hand and gazed at her left. It felt rather cold.

‘Thasha,’ said Marila, ‘do you know what you’re holding?’

She turned her head with effort; her thoughts felt strangely slow. ‘Do you?’ she asked.

Marila hesitated. ‘Put it back,’ she said.

‘Back inside the post?’ said Neeps. ‘That’s plain crackers. What if she can’t get it out again? Marila, tell us what you know.’

‘Nothing, nothing, so put it back!’

‘Marila,’ said Pazel reluctantly, ‘don’t get mad, but you’re a terrible liar.’

‘That’s because I’m honest.’ Marila’s hands were in fists. Then she saw their baffled looks and the fight went out of her. She sighed. ‘I think I know what’s in the bottle. Felthrup was reading the Polylex, or talking about what he’d read. It was wine.’