The Night of the Swarm

can guarantee. There is a reason your dream-state was never harnessed as a tool of warriors or athletes, Bolutu. It is by nature a wild condition, a wayward grace. It liberates, but it does not willingly serve.’ He turned to Ensyl and Myett. ‘I wish we had spoken before you climbed the ruins. A bit higher, and you might have described the land downriver for us.’

‘We will climb again,’ said Ensyl.

Myett shot her a hard look: Speak for yourself.

‘A noble offer,’ said Ramachni, ‘but let us stop thinking of our escape for a while. The time has come: we must burn the sorcerer.’

He nodded at a giant cube of rock some twenty yards away: one of the structural stones of the broken tower. In the grass about it Pazel could see one withered arm, sticking out from behind the stone. The fingers were desiccated, curling like strips of parchment. The hand seemed almost to beckon him.

‘Arunis is slain,’ said Ramachni, ‘but his death opens the way to dangers that were absent before. To begin with, I expect he was using his arts to hide from Macadra.’

‘Macadra!’ cried Lunja. ‘The Emperor’s mage? What has she to do with Arunis?’

‘She may pose as a servant of your Emperor,’ said Ramachni, ‘but that sorceress has long since become the keeper, rather than the kept. In any case, Macadra Hyndrascorm covets the Nilstone as much as Arunis ever did, and will be seeking it with all her powers. Worse still, Macadra can draw upon the might of a whole empire in her hunt. Indeed she is the Empire of Bali Adro, at least for purposes of violence and intrigue. We are fortunate to be so far from any town or garrison. But this wilderness cannot protect us for long.’

‘That’s how it is, eh?’ said Mandric. ‘We were hunters, and now we’re prey?’

‘Let us hope it will not come to that, Corporal,’ said Ramachni. ‘I do not think that the Nilstone itself calls out to any mage; otherwise Arunis would have plucked it from the seabed off the Haunted Coast with far greater ease. But the corpse of a mage is very different. Magic leaks from it as well as blood, and by that magic it shines like a beacon-fire on a hilltop. We must snuff that beacon quickly, or she will know it for Arunis. It may already be too late.’

‘Why burn him?’ asked Dastu, the young Arquali spy. ‘Why not toss him into the river and be done?’

Pazel looked at Dastu with a calm, cold hate. Like Neeps and Thasha, he had once considered the older youth a friend — before he had revealed himself as a protege of Sandor Ott, the Imperial spymaster. Before his betrayal had exposed their resistance to Ott’s plans, and seen them all sentenced to death as mutineers. Captain Rose had suspended that sentence, but he had not pardoned them — and Pazel doubted any of them could pardon Dastu, either.

‘You know we can’t just toss the body in,’ said Thasha. ‘That’s no normal river. It’s a path between worlds.’

Dastu shrugged. ‘If you’re telling the truth-’

‘If?’ said Pazel. ‘Damn it all, Ibjen was right next to me. I saw him — taken. Like a leaf in a hurricane, carried off Rin-knows-where.’

‘That’s the idea, Pathkendle,’ said Dastu. ‘Arunis will just disappear.’ Then he jumped, as though struck by a sudden thought. ‘Gods of death, have we all gone simple? The Nilstone! We can throw the Nilstone into the River of Shadows as well! Right here, this very morning. No one will ever see it again.’

Utter silence. Dastu looked from face to face. ‘What’s the matter now?’ he demanded. ‘Isn’t this what you lot have been seeking? A way to toss the Nilstone out of Alifros?’

‘Yes,’ said Hercol, ‘but not this way.’

‘He has a point, though,’ said Mandric. ‘You’ve always said it can’t be destroyed.’

‘Nor can it,’ said Ramachni, ‘and indeed the Nilstone must be hurled into the River of Shadows — but where it exits this world, not here where it enters.’

‘Is that so crucial?’ asked Lunja doubtfully.

‘Utterly,’ said the little mage. ‘The stone belongs in the world of the dead. My mistress Erithusme tried with all her might and wisdom to send it back there. She failed — but she had a glimpse of how it might be done, in the last days before Arunis drove her into hiding.’

Pazel glanced at Thasha, but her eyes were far away.

‘We know the task before us. The River flows into death’s kingdom at the point where it leaves Alifros, and nowhere else. That is where we must take the Stone.’

‘And that place is the island of Gurishal,’ said Dastu. ‘But Ramachni, it can’t be done! Gurishal is on the western edge of the Mzithrin Empire. We’re standing by a river in a wasteland on the far side of the Ruling Sea, hurt and hungry and lost.’

‘While the hag who controls this whole blary Empire is out hunting for the Stone,’ put in Mandric, with a bitter laugh. ‘Us, take the Nilstone to Gurishal! It’s worse than ludicrous. It’s a deathsmoker’s dream.’

‘The cause is not hopeless yet,’ said Ramachni, ‘and whatever the odds, we must try.’

‘We’ve heard that one before, haven’t we?’ said Dastu. ‘Just before you led us into battle, and Arunis nearly skinned us alive. Only now the odds are even worse. There’s no ship waiting for us at the coast, Ramachni. Only enemies, with Plazic blades that make them itch for murder, and sea-weapons like nothing the North has ever dreamed of. And there’s still worse, by the Blessed Tree. Didn’t you say that the River of Shadows almost always flows deep underground?’

‘In this world, yes,’ said Ramachni.

‘Then what if that’s the case on Gurishal? Master Ott has studied the island for forty years. Alyash lived there. Neither of them ever spoke of any strange river, any doorway to a land of death. What if it’s buried, eh? What if we do get there — miracle of miracles — and find that the River’s under a mile of stone?’

‘Then we dig,’ said Ramachni, ‘but we will not cast either the Stone or the sorcerer’s corpse into the River here.’ The mage spoke quietly, but there was cold steel in his voice. ‘Would you throw poison into a stream, Dastu? That is a crime, even if it be a stream you yourself will never drink from. That, in fact, is how the Nilstone came to enter Alifros to begin with — a selfish and a careless act, by one who wished only to be rid of it quickly. That is how its long history of ruin here began. Impossible, you think our goal? Do not believe it. This night past we killed Arunis, and ended his thirty centuries of power and scheming. Today we work. Tomorrow we will do the impossible again.’

But even today’s task promised to be hard. The trees shed few branches, and the mushrooms, though plentiful, were too wet for burning. Hercol forbade anyone to venture into the forest beyond the nearest trees, and for once not even the sfvantskors were inclined to argue.

Still, the banks of the river yielded logs and sticks, and with persistence they achieved a respectable bonfire. Hercol and Cayer Vispek lifted the headless corpse and tossed it heavily atop the blaze.

‘Stand away!’ said Ramachni. ‘Do not breathe the smoke. Curses may linger anywhere about the corpse.’

The fire quavered; the flames licking the body turned a strange, dark red. Pazel worried for a moment that they had not gathered enough fuel for the task, but it was soon clear that no such danger existed. The flames grew tall and voracious, gobbling the corpse. Pazel glanced at Ramachni and saw that he was very still, facing the fire with his cut eyes tightly closed. You’re helping, aren’t you? Then you’re not entirely drained.

Thasha came up next to Pazel and leaned gently against his side. ‘Burn,’ she whispered, eyes locked on the corpse.

He understood how she felt. Arunis had started everything. All the scheming and most of the deaths traced back to him. Arunis had made the puppets dance, even those who never guessed they were puppets, even those with puppets of their own. Pazel knew that he hated Arunis, but right now he felt nothing but an overpowering desire to see the process through. Let the body become ash, the ash blow away, the world start to heal and forget this monster. .

A look of peace crept over the watching faces. If evil could die, perhaps good might grow. And now a great mage was leading them, not attacking. Why shouldn’t they prevail? For the first time in many days Pazel let himself think of his mother and father, the old life, the far side of the world. It no longer seemed quite so absurd to hope