The Night of the Swarm

‘Wine?’ said Thasha.

‘Yes,’ said Ramachni, ‘wine.’

The tarboys jumped. The mage stood there in the disordered gloom, with Felthrup squirming beside him. No one had heard them approach.

‘The wine of Agaroth, to be precise,’ said Ramachni. ‘Now there is something I never thought to lay eyes on again, or hoped to. Be careful, Thasha: you are holding a relic more ancient than the Nilstone itself.’

‘It feels sturdy enough,’ she said.

‘That is not what I meant,’ said the mage. ‘A spell is at work here. I cannot quite sniff it out, but it is a dangerous charm, perhaps even deadly. I think you feel it already, Thasha. And there is another matter: be careful how long you hold that bottle without shifting your hand, and warming it. Those figures were painted by the dead.’

Most of the tarboys turned and ran for the compartment door. But Felthrup was overjoyed. ‘We are saved, we are saved! It is right there in the Polylex! The wine of Agaroth takes away all fear — and fear alone makes the Nilstone deadly to the touch! One gulp of that wine, and the Fell Princes could hold it in their naked hand.’

‘Like Arunis’ idiot, in the Infernal Forest,’ said Pazel.

‘If you like,’ said Ramachni. ‘Both knew freedom from fear: the idiot through total madness, the Fell Princes through the taste of this wine. But I do not think the wine’s effect lasted long. No tales speak of the princes marching to war with the Nilstone in one hand and a bottle in the other. But drink they did, and wield the Nilstone they did — briefly, and to evil purpose. In the end they turned orgiastic, and gulped the wine like fiends. I never imagined that any bottle survived in Alifros.’

Thasha’s right hand was cold. She shifted the bottle to the crook of her arm. Brought here from death’s border, she thought. Who could do such a thing? Who could even dream of trying?

But inside her the wheels were turning faster and faster, and the answer came: I could.

Thirty minutes later she was on the quarterdeck with the bottle in hand. Ramachni and Hercol stood with her, the latter holding a canvas sack. Behind them, at the wheel, stood Captain Fiffengurt. Lady Oggosk had somehow argued her way onto the quarterdeck as well. The witch stood apart from the others, dressed in mourning black. It was the first time Thasha had seen her.

At Thasha’s feet lay the Nilstone, in the steel box Big Skip had fashioned for it in Ularamyth. Hundreds watched them from the topdeck below. Between the crowd and the quarterdeck ladder stood forty armoured Turachs armed with spears. Haddismal’s precaution, and a good one: if any man aboard were seized by evil thoughts, or evil spirits, or plain madness, he would have no hope of reaching the Nilstone today.

‘Right, Lady Thasha,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘Both anchors secured; we’re Roating free. The tide’s not with us, but somehow I think that’s the least of our troubles.’

He trained his good eye at the cliffs, where the drachnars were waiting, quite openly now, for any move by the Chathrand to flee the bay. A hundred more waded along the north shore, gripping enormous logs in their trunks.

Thasha looked down at the deck. Every friend left alive was watching her. Pazel made himself smile at her for an instant; Neeps and Marila wore looks of deep concern. In Marila’s arms, Felthrup gazed at Thasha and never seemed to blink.

‘Go on, Hercol,’ said Thasha.

With a last look at Thasha, Hercol crouched beside the Nilstone. First he laid a hammer and chisel on the deck. Then he removed a key from the sack and unlocked Big Skip’s box. Reaching into the bag once more, he removed a pair of fine metal gauntlets and slipped them on. Next he gripped the steel box in both hands and twisted. His muscles strained. The box split in two.

Boom. The plum-sized sphere of glass fell to the deck with a sound like a dropped cannonball. Hercol stopped its rolling with his hand, then whipped the hand away and used his boot.

‘It burns,’ he said, ‘through selk glass and selk gauntlets, it still burns a little.’

‘It won’t burn me,’ said Thasha. ‘Break the glass, Hercol.’

The task was easier said than done: the selk glass was amazingly sturdy. Watching Hercol’s great overhand blows, Thasha couldn’t help but think of that other ceremony, when Arunis had assembled the crew to witness his triumph. But this time was different. They knew exactly what the Nilstone would do to anyone unlucky enough to touch it. And they were drawing on its power only to help them get rid of it. Not to annihilate the world as a proof of one’s powers, but to save it. For that reason, and that reason alone.

At last the chisel cracked the polished surface. Hercol struck again, and the crack widened. On the third blow the glass split like an eggshell, and the Nilstone slithered between the shards onto the deck.

Ramachni’s fur stood on end. Thasha had not looked plainly at the Stone since that day in the Infernal Forest, after she beheaded Arunis, when it had fallen inches from her leg. She stared into its depths. Hideous, fascinating, beautiful. Too dark for this world; so dark that its blackness would stand out within a sealed cave, a cave under miles of earth, a cave sealed for ever. Thasha had the strange idea that she could put her hand right through it, as she had with the stanchion, but that this time she would be reaching into another world. Another Alifros, maybe a better one, where deep wounds had yet to be inflicted, hard curses never cast.

Ramachni clicked his teeth.

Thasha blinked, and wrenched her gaze from the Nilstone. Beside her, Hercol too looked shaken from a dream. How many had been seduced by the Stone and its mysteries, before it killed them?

A hand touched her arm: Lady Oggosk. Hercol tensed, ready to intervene. But Oggosk merely looked at Thasha and murmured. ‘I will do this thing, if you wish.’

Thasha looked at her in amazement, and more than a little suspicion. ‘The power won’t last, you know,’ she said, ‘and it has limits. You can’t use it to bring back Captain Rose. Not even Erithusme could raise the dead.’

‘I know all that, girl!’ said Oggosk irritably. ‘But there is some danger here that we have yet to identify.’

‘She knows, Duchess,’ said Ramachni. ‘All the same this task falls to Thasha alone.’

‘Why?’ asked Oggosk. ‘I am old, wretched. I cursed my sister. And I have outlived my son — yes, my son, I have every right to claim him!’ Her old eyes flashed, as though someone might venture to object. If I fall, no matter. But her life is barely started. You don’t have to-’

‘Yes,’ said Thasha, ‘I do. Thank you, Lady Oggosk. I never dreamed you would make such an offer. But I can’t accept.’

‘For what it’s worth, I received the same answer, Duchess,’ said Hercol.

‘No one but I would be standing before the Stone, had Erithusme not been clear in her instructions,’ said Ramachni. ‘Stand aside, Duchess: the time for talk is past.’

Oggosk retreated to the wheelhouse. And Thasha, resisting the urge to look at Pazel one last time, broke the seal, uncorked the bottle, and drank.

When she tilted her head, the front of Thasha’s pale neck shone in the mid-morning sun, and the crowd below could plainly see the scars left behind by the cursed necklace, almost a year ago. A stab of old pain leaped through Pazel at the memory. But it was nothing compared to the fear he felt when Thasha lowered her head.

Her eyes were wide open, and she did not blink. She was looking past them into the distance. Pazel saw one droplet at the corner of her mouth; then her tongue snaked out and licked it away.

Her throat seized. She was fighting not to vomit. She thrust the bottle into Hercol’s grasp and fell to hands and knees, staring down at the deck. Her back arched and veins stood out livid on her arms. When she raised her head again her face was twisted, crazed.

‘Pah! The wine is poisoned! It’s going to mucking kill me!’

Eight hundred voices rose in cries. Pazel thought he would go mad. He made a run for the ladder, but the Turachs stood firm. Then Thasha shouted: ‘Get away from the quarterdeck! Get back!’

She lurched away somewhere beyond his sight, and when she appeared again the Nilstone was there in her hand. Pazel’s first thought was terrible: She looks like the Shaggat. For Thasha was unconsciously mimicking his gesture, lifting the Stone high in a single hand, as though pitting its darkness against the light of the sun.

‘Get back!’