The Night of the Swarm

before we stepped out of your cabin. And I heard what you said: I have something for you. Something you were passing along from another.’

Thasha bit her lips. Dri had sent the same words of hope to Ensyl and Hercol — but the kiss, that had been meant for just one. She wished she could lie, could spare this woman’s feelings. ‘Dri loved you deeply,’ she said.

Ensyl had the grace to smile. ‘I knew the fates would punish me, for unchaste dreams of my mistress.’

‘Oh, Ensyl — rubbish!’

‘Maybe. But the dreams were not.’

Thasha caught up with Pazel and Neeps on the berthdeck, where they had collapsed against a wall among a dozen others fresh from the rigging, every one of them asleep. Pazel’s hand was closed around a half-empty cup of rum. Neeps lay with his head on Pazel’s shoulder, opened-mouthed and drooling.

Thasha took the cup from Pazel’s hand, and he woke and reached for her. Neeps opened his eyes and sat up. ‘Hello, Thasha,’ he said. Then he rolled away and retched. Seconds later he was asleep against the man on his right.

‘He took a beating up there,’ said Pazel.

‘And you didn’t?’

She dabbed at his cuts with her soggy sleeve, and felt quite married, and then recalled that that would never do. She might have to die; this boy had to live, unhitched, unentangled, free. He’d do the living for both of them.

‘Did you dream of me?’ asked Pazel.

‘Endlessly. Dragonflies and buttercups and little songbirds and you. For fifty-three days and nights.’

‘Come back to the stateroom with me, Thasha.’

‘Oh you fool.’

‘I want children. With your eyes. Don’t you want that at all?’

She kissed him. ‘No.’

Pazel went on smiling. He didn’t believe her, the egotist. She didn’t know if she believed herself.

Then Pazel’s eyes darkened. ‘You don’t know, do you? About them.’

‘Who? Neeps and Marila? What are you talking about?’

Pazel reached over and tugged up Neeps’ shirt. On the smaller boy’s chest, roughly over his heart, was a tattoo of a black and sinuous animal. ‘Mr Druffle did that for him. He’s a box of hidden talents, the old drunk.’

‘Is that supposed to be Ramachni?’

Pazel looked at her. ‘It’s not a mink, Thasha. It’s an otter.’

Thasha sat back. ‘Lunja. They called her the Otter, didn’t they?’

Pazel nodded. ‘She’s all he thinks about.’

‘Wake him up,’ said Thasha, ‘so I can slap him back to sleep.’

Instead they just left him there and headed for the stateroom. Thasha was feeling weak again, and her thoughts were awhirl. One sip of wine left. One last, brief use of the Nilstone. She could quell this storm, maybe, and bring fair winds. But could she ask the Stone where in Alifros they were?

What else, in three minutes of magic? Could she find the Swarm, and push it back through the Red Storm a second time? Could she fix Hercol’s broken heart, make Neeps forget Lunja, tell Pazel’s mother that her children were alive?

They had barely reached the ladderway when the shouting began: Failed rigging! Emergency! All hands above to save the mainmast!

‘Credek,’ Pazel swore, and he was gone, running. Thasha trailed behind him, exhausted. On the topdeck she found disaster averted, the mainmast straightening, the men’s hands torn and bleeding on the backstays. Thasha stood and watched. She loved these men, these worker ants. Nothing could kill them. They bore everything and went on serving the ship.

Then the wind rose and the waves climbed higher and they fought the storm all night, and all the next day and night, and when the sun rose at last on a clear calm morning they found two men still out on the bowsprit, dangling where they’d lashed themselves, drowned by rain and spray.

Neeps was among those sent to retrieve the corpses. He had napped for forty minutes in the last twenty hours, and had dreamed of Ularamyth, the bamboo grove, long dark limbs entangled with his own. The woman loved him; she was saving his life. He threaded his fingers through hers and told himself he would never let go. Then he woke. The hand he held was all wrong. Not webbed, not black. Marila asked about his dream, but Ularamyth was a word that she could never hear.

‘I dreamed of home,’ he said. ‘Nonsense stuff. Can’t remember a thing.’

Marila looked at him, then laid her round cheek on his arm. ‘I am home,’ she said.

He ought to say something to that. Something grand and gentle. About how he’d felt the child kick, as he had, when Marila’s tight spherical belly pressed his own in the night, trying to nudge him off the bed. He stroked her hair, kissed her forehead, saw Lunja in the galley of the Promise, back against the door, eyes in nuhzat, angry. Give me something, give me something back, boy. Quickly, quietly. Now.’

Marila raised her head. ‘Are you crying?’

‘Don’t be daft. Let’s get out of this bed.’

Lunja had arms like a wrestler’s. She had whispered the whole time, but the words melted into sounds, just sounds, urgent and then more urgent, and Neeps thought her voice had become like the sea’s voice for an old mariner, inescapable, behind and under everything for the rest of his life. But not that day. Three minutes and it was over, for the last time, and later she did not speak to him at all.

‘Nothing blary fits any more,’ said Marila, struggling into her pants.

They went out. The sun rose; the dead men were discovered. Coote’s crooked finger directed Neeps to the team scrambling out along the bowsprit. Marila stood and watched, making him clumsy, making him nick himself with the knife. The dead men were so cold and tangled. Their eyes wide open, astonished. Neeps couldn’t help himself: he followed the dead man’s gaze.

So it was that he, Neeps Undrabust, saw the light that flashed on the horizon. Blink. . blink- blink…blink. A lantern, not a mirror-signal. In another minute it would have vanished in the brightening day.

For all the changes in his life and heart, Neeps was still a tarboy, and knew his Sailing Code. The light was a distress signal — from an Arquali ship. Neeps stood and shouted, and marked the light’s position relative to the sun, and by midday they were fishing survivors from the sea.

Their commander said his name was Captain Vancz, his boat an Urnsfich grain-hauler, its doom a sudden gale that carried her south into the Ruling Sea. ‘We were halfway to Pulduraj, Captain Fiffengurt. Sixth year in a row I’ve been hired as a barley-boat. Never saw a storm like that one, by all the Gods.’

He was a young captain with a sleek brown moustache and wary eyes, one of twenty men they’d found bobbing like corks on the waves. Now Vancz and a handful of his men had been brought to Rose’s cabin. They sat in a circle, wearing the last, precious dry clothes on the Chathrand, drinking hot grog. Except for one bewildered, grey-bearded senior they were all young and fit: the sort you would expect to find still fighting for life twenty hours after a shipwreck.

‘You’re an Urnsfich man yourself, sir?’ asked Pazel.

‘Born and raised, worse luck,’ said Vancz.

‘Your boat’s prow was still above the waves this morning, when you signalled us,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘How’d you manage to lose her slowly, way out here? You can’t have struck something?’

Vancz shook his head. ‘Not in these depths. She was just smack-battered by the storm and sprang a fatal leak. We never did find it. The end was slow, but not that slow.’

‘You look a mite familiar,’ said Fiffengurt. ‘Have we met?’

Vancz glanced quickly at his men before he answered. ‘I’d be surprised if we hadn’t,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it was in Ballytween, a few years back? At that public house, what’s it called now — the Merchant Prince?’

‘No doubt,’ said Fiffengurt.

No doubt at all, thought Pazel, because everything he’s saying is a lie.