The Night of the Swarm

would not remember it — not think of it — not let it live in memory.

‘That’s old Druffle, straight ahead,’ said Saturyk.

DOLLYWILLIAMS DRUFFLE. Felthrup could just read the letters carved in the soft stone of the ballast brick. Felthrup made the sign of the Tree, then shuffled quickly away. The ixchel, he saw, had not entered the burial yard: Talag was directing them to take up position around the perimeter. Death rites mattered enormously to the ixchel. Talag must have assumed that Felthrup would wish to pay his respects without delay. It was an honour, he supposed, that Talag had brought him here in person.

At long last he treats me as a woken soul.

Felthrup moved among the cairns. He could read few of the inscriptions: three decades of exposure to the elements had blurred most of the letters beyond recognition. But some were clear enough. SWIFT DALE, a tarboy — and yes, that was his brother Saroo’s grave beside him. BANAR LEEF, the main-top man. JERVIK LANK, the tarboy who had bullied Pazel cruelly, but in the end proved brave enough to change. Felthrup was not surprised by the words that ran beneath Jervik’s name: A MAN TO TRUST.

Then Saturyk caught his eye and beckoned. He was standing upon the stone wall, along the side of the yard facing the sea. Nervously, Felthrup leaped up upon the wall himself and began to approach. The ruined Chathrand sprawled below them, the single rope still stretched taut between the beach and the topdeck rail. But Saturyk was pointing to the grave at his feet.

‘I’ve swept it clean for you,’ he shouted over the wind.

The cairn was tucked right into the corner of the yard. The brick was disappearing under sand again already: Saturyk’s efforts were being undone. Felthrup bent low and read:

PAZEL UNDRABUST

He looked at Saturyk, then back at the marker. The name was clearly carved. ‘What — who?’ he shouted, frightened and confused.

‘Marila’s child,’ said Saturyk. ‘Born at sea, died on this sand heap. It’s all in that journal, how she and Neeps chose names together, on their wedding night. Pazel, for a boy, and if it had been a girl-’

‘Don’t tell, don’t tell me please! No more!’ Felthrup cast himself down, giving way to his misery. Her child!

Saturyk stood awkwardly above him. ‘Oh, buck up, now,’ he said. ‘That’s no way to honour the fallen — see here, I didn’t mean-’

From across the burial yard, Talag shouted what could only have been a reprimand. Saturyk protested loudly, pointing at the grave, making sweeping motions with his hands. Felthrup could almost feel the little body, so close to him, floating face up beneath him in the sand. Pazel Undrabust. A miracle, snuffed out.

Then Felthrup gasped. He was hearing it, small and imperious: the voice of the dead. Run, was all the child told him. And Felthrup obeyed.

He was twenty feet down the dune-face before he heard Saturyk’s cry of rage. Then a hiss: the blurred shape of a spear bit the sand beside his paw. He ran as he had not done since the maiming of his paw, rolling when he fell, leaping when he recovered. Speed was everything, speed his one chance. He was faster than the little people on sand, on rope. But not on the deck, not ever. And two of the guards carried bows.

The wind brought snatches of their cries. He did not look back. Another spear flew past him, so close he had to swerve around it when it struck. Then he reached the broken anchor and began to scramble up the rope.

The first gust of wind nearly threw him down. He flailed with claws and teeth, and just managed to scramble back atop the twisted cord. The ixchel were close behind him, the archers taking aim. Felthrup scrambled up the rope in a frenzy.

A hand closed on his hind leg. Saturyk had leaped, six times his own height or more. Felthrup was pulled upside down. He whirled and bit, tasting ixchel blood, and Saturyk fell cursing to the sand.

He climbed faster. Beneath him, sand gave way to breakers, seething around the Great Ship. A fall now would be lethal. But the wind that had nearly killed him was now saving his life: the archers’ shots were hopelessly astray.

He was falling! They had cut the rope from below! Screaming, Felthrup plummeted towards the sea. For an instant he seemed to be racing above the surf, like a skimmer about to catch a fish. Then the black shape of the hull blocked out the sky. He struck: red agony. The waves boiled over him, and he cried out defiance of death.

When the wave-surge passed he was against the hull, still gripping the rope, still in command of his limbs. He climbed. Nothing was broken, and even the pain was a distant thing. New shouts from ixchel: they had thought him dead for certain. Arrows fell around him, none too close.

Saturyk was screaming at his archers, abusing them. Felthrup was forty feet above the water, then sixty, then over the rail.

He looked back. The ixchel were milling at the surf’s edge, racing back when the foam advanced, trying for impossible shots. Only Talag remained on the hilltop, motionless on the rock wall, watching.

‘You see, Mr Saturyk, there are always choices,’ shouted Felthrup.

‘Palluskudge! Bastard!’ Saturyk howled. ‘You’re mucking dead!’

‘Not in this world,’ Felthrup shouted back. Then he turned and ran for home.

9

The Editor Confronts Death

I had better let the cat out of the bag and confess that I do not love everyone equally. On certain figures in this narrative it is difficult to lavish warmth. Say what you like about their upbringing, their acquaintance with hunger, the bad company they kept in formative years: they are bad, they are hideous; and the sooner I can wash my hands of them, the better.

This morning a young man tried to kill me. He was a rude fellow and I did not treat him gently; but I did not kill him, either, and have worried since that this was a mistake. He may avoid me, forget me even; or he may return with others who know how the job is done.

It was early, the garden shadows still deep and promising, the fly-catchers lancing above the roofs. Students in the Academy trudged by at the street corner, barely awake. I was feeling vigorous, if a little guilty. I had chosen to set my book aside and go walking, with a little hound for company and my ancient cane to lean on. There was a time when I made such choices easily, thoughtlessly. One plucks the last roses of the season with more attention than the first.

My would-be killer stepped out of a bush — fell out of it, really — and swept the dust and leaves from his jacket. He was well fed and short and perhaps a little cross-eyed. Chewed fingernails. Beginner’s beard. The dog wagged its foolish tail.

‘Professor!’ cried the man, as though delighted by a chance encounter. He smiled a covert little smile to which I naturally took offence.

‘The dog bites,’ I said.

‘Such a distinct pleasure!’ he declared, ignoring my warning. His smile implied that we already shared a secret. He might even have groped for my hand, but one was in my pocket, the other fingering the cane with what I hoped was obvious intent.

I am very old and my face is disfigured. I draw stares but scarcely mind them. Either a person knows me, in which case he is humble and discreet; or he has never heard of me, in which case he is frightened and discreet. There are no catcalls or screaming children — yet. When I begin to move about on all fours it may be another matter.

This man was determined to show no disgust. He had a way of both looking and not looking at me. I gazed past him down the alley.

‘My name is-’ he began. And then, as if a more dramatic possibility had just occurred to him: ‘My name is unimportant.’

‘Quite so,’ I agreed, and hobbled on.

I am occasionally sociable (hail falls occasionally in summer) but my time is too dear to squander on cheap