The Night of the Swarm

‘Closer, this time,’ whispered Bolutu.

‘What he is wanting in the tree?’ hissed Neda. ‘I think to climb is not sensitive.’

‘Sensible, lass,’ corrected Mandric.

‘The sound came from outside the forest,’ said Pazel. His voice was oddly strained. Thasha reached for him, wishing she could see his face. ‘Pazel?’ she said.

His arm trembled beneath her fingers. ‘My mind-fit’s coming,’ he said. ‘Soon, I think. And it’s going to be a bad one.’

Dastu muttered a curse. ‘Brilliant timing, Muketch,’ he added.

‘Your hearing is sharpened, then?’ asked Cayer Vispek.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Pazel. After a moment, he added, ‘Ramachni’s singing to himself, up in the tree. I think he’s weaving a spell. And that wasn’t thunder, Hercol. It was a voice.’

‘A voice,’ said Dastu, scornful. ‘You’re mad as a mudskipper, Pathkendle. What sort of voice?’

Pazel was silent for a very long time. Then he said, ‘A demon’s?’

Even as he spoke, light appeared: a stabbing red light that made them all recoil. Wincing, Thasha forced herself to look: the glow came from about a quarter-mile away, at the height of the forest roof. Already it was growing, spreading. ‘Tree of Heaven, that’s fire!’ said Mandric. ‘The mucking forest is on fire!’

‘Do not move!’ said Ramachni suddenly. Thasha heard the mage and Ensyl scrambling aboard, felt Ramachni’s sleek shoulder brush her arm. ‘Be silent, now,’ he said, ‘and whatever happens, do not leave the raft. We are in unspeakable danger.’

The light became a sharp red ring: the leaf-layer, burning outward from a central point, like dry grass around a bonfire. The fire’s glow danced on the river beneath it, and soon the red-rimmed hole was as wide as the river itself. But there it stopped. The blinding light faded, leaving only a fringe of crackling fire, and another light replaced it: pale blue and gentle. It was the Polar Candle, the little Southern moon. The fire had burned through all four leaf- layers and opened a window on a clear night sky.

Oh Gods, it’s true.

In the fiery gap a monstrous head had appeared. A hideous sight: part human, part snake, larger than the head of an elephant. Fire dripped from its jaws, dark runes were etched upon its forehead, and its eyes were two great yellow lamps. A long neck followed, snaking in through the burning hole. The lamp-eyes swung back and forth, casting the trees in a sickly radiance. When they passed over her, Thasha felt a prickling in her mind. She shuddered. Now it was Pazel’s turn to reach for her, pull her close. The lamp-eyes returned. When they touched the raft again they grew still.

Deep within Thasha’s mind, another being sensed those eyes, and reached out for them as if to feel their heat. Another being, who did not fear them as Thasha did.

No girl, not another. Your maker, your soul-sharer. The part of you that’s lost.

Beside her, Ramachni tensed, bearing his tiny teeth, flexing his claws one by one. Then the creature roared: a deafening, complex blast of noise that shook them to their bones. Beside her, Pazel’s face showed a horror unlike that of the others, and suddenly she knew that he was understanding. His Gift had given him this creature’s language; there was meaning in that awful sound.

Ramachni turned suddenly to look upstream. To Thasha’s amazement the creature did the same, breaking off its roar and turning its fell eyes away from them. It looked very much as if both mage and monster were straining to catch some far-off sound. Thasha listened but heard nothing at all.

The creature faced them once more, and spat a meteoric glob of liquid fire, which hurtled towards them with a whistling noise, tore through the low vines at the river’s edge, and exploded in the shallows thirty feet from the raft. Over the wall of steam Thasha saw the snaky neck retract upwards. She caught a glimpse of ragged wings, spreading, filling, and then the beast was gone.

Ramachni was the first to move, stretching out catlike on the raft. ‘Well,’ he said, as fire fell sizzling around them, ‘now we have faced a maukslar out of Neparv Nedal. I am afraid we must get used to such things.’

‘What — what-’ The old Turach found no other words.

‘A maukslar. A demon.’ Pazel’s voice was hollow. Dastu stared at him, aghast.

‘The beast was a scout from Macadra,’ said Ramachni. ‘I did not know she had grown strong enough to pluck servants from the City of the Damned. She must have wagered her very life on obtaining the Nilstone. I wonder how much she knows of us, and our friends on the ship.’

‘Why did the thing not attack?’ demanded Hercol.

‘It was never certain we were here,’ said Ramachni. ‘Some hours ago it reached the clearing, and pawed the ground where we burned the sorcerer’s remains. I sensed it then, and shrouded us in a mist, and the demon turned away. But as you see, I should have done more. When it came racing back, I threw the mightiest hiding-charm I could fashion over us all. It was not quite enough, alas. The creature smelled something. It would have rushed straight at us, probably, if not for that. . flash.’

‘Flash?’ said Pazel.

‘Of spellcraft,’ said the mage. ‘Somewhere miles to the east, another power showed itself — for the blink of an eye. That blink saved us. The maukslar has flown off to investigate. And we must go too, before it decides to come back.’

‘Those marks upon its forehead,’ said Pazel. ‘I couldn’t read them all, but one of them said Slave. In the creature’s own language.’

Neeps turned to him, startled. ‘Your Gift just-?’

‘Yes.’ Pazel stared at his friend in some consternation, as if the idea was still sinking in. ‘Pitfire, mate,’ he whispered, ‘I–I — Thaaurollllllgafnar, madocron, Oh credek, get it out of me, Ramachni, pull it out, pull it out-’

More ghastly, barrel-deep sounds escaped his chest. Terrified, he stuffed a hand into his mouth. His jaw went on working, biting down; his lips struggled to form words. ‘Neda!’ shouted Ramachni. ‘Come and help your brother!’

‘How help?’ she cried, rushing forward.

‘Not with your babyish Arquali, lass! Speak Ormali with him. Tell him anything, nursery rhymes if you like — only fill his ears, and do not stop speaking until he does. Pazel will master the demon-tongue, but first he must subdue it, or it will drive him mad.’

‘I am six years not speaking Ormali!’ said Neda, looking sidelong at her master. ‘Is heretic’s tongue!’

Pazel sank to his knees, gabbling and moaning. ‘It is your birthtongue, girl!’ said Cayer Vispek. ‘And you are sfvantskor, foe of devils! Obey him!’

Neda bent and took her brother in her arms. ‘Kuthyn, kuthyn, Pazeli,’ she said. Pazel fought her, but Neda’s arms were those of a warrior-priest. He took his hand from his mouth and spat the ugliest sounds Thasha had ever heard. Neda gripped him tighter, pressed her cheek against his own, her lips against his ear as she spoke. They fell; she rolled him onto his back. They looked like lovers, coming together after bitterness or pain.

But already Pazel was quieter. His eyes streamed with tears. Thasha reached out for him, but Hercol gently caught her hand.

‘You are not the one to help him, this time,’ he said.

‘His mind-fit-’

‘Has not yet begun,’ said Ramachni. ‘This is different: a human mind forced to reckon with the language of the Pits. And lest we all face a reckoning with that beast, we must go.’

He gave the mage-sight to Dastu and Lunja, and they poled the raft away from the shore. The journey resumed; the forest once more went on the attack. The hot air pressed down on them like a blanket soaked in bathwater.

Blind again, Thasha listened to Pazel’s moans, Neda’s soft chatter in a tongue she didn’t understand. She was jealous of Neda, and tried to be amused by the fact. She could hear what her father would say: You’re a fool beyond all redemption, Thasha Isiq. With a smile to make it clear that he thought nothing of the kind.

Her father. By now the admiral would have heard that she was alive, for all the good it would do him. Once