The Night of the Swarm

he? Maybe with the Nilstone’s aid. And Fulbreech overheard. But what if he hadn’t? What if he’d died before we found him? We’d still have no idea where to take the Nilstone. Credek, we’d have no chance at all.’

‘What if Fulbreech lied?’ asked Lunja.

‘Excellent question!’ said Mandric. ‘That boy was more crooked than a back alley in Ulsprit. What if he decided to stick it to us one last time?’

‘I don’t think he lied about Gurishal,’ said Neeps.

The others looked at him. ‘Oh yes,’ said Dastu, ‘your famous hunches. Your nose for lies.’

Neeps glared at Dastu. ‘It’s not a blary hunch,’ he said. ‘Think it through. If you can’t reach the world of the dead from Gurishal, then what did Dri mean about Arunis being tricked?’

‘If, if, if!’ said Dastu. ‘If that was really your crawly friend who spoke to us. If she has any idea what Arunis is really up to. If the sorcerer didn’t tell Fulbreech exactly what to say when we found him.’

‘Mage,’ said Cayer Vispek, turning to Ramachni, ‘now that the sorcerer’s body is burned, how much power remains to him?’

‘In this world?’ said Ramachni. ‘Not much, I hope. But I am troubled by that missing scarf; we must search the ruins again before we leave.’

‘There’s one more thing,’ said Ensyl. ‘Dri said that Arunis spoke the truth about the Swarm.’

Ramachni’s eyes darkened. ‘This much is true: that the Swarm is drawn to death, and grows stronger when deaths are numerous. It belongs in the Border-Kingdom, patrolling that great and final Wall, beyond which stretches the land of the dead. Where the Wall crumbles, the Swarm holds back the dead, lest they flood into living lands and despoil them. That is its purpose: a vital purpose indeed. But it was never meant to be in the living world, or to encounter living beings, and here its work can only bring disaster. It will fall upon death, immobilizing the souls of the fallen. But when it falls upon the living, they too shall die — and feed the Swarm. The cycle can only accellerate, you see: with each death, the Swarm will grow stronger. Unless we rid the world of the Nilstone, the Swarm will come to blanket earth and sky, and smother every living thing beneath its pall.’

‘But Ramachni, this makes no sense!’ said Bolutu. ‘Why should the Swarm have such power here? I have read many treatises on magic, including your own. The Swarm should be weak here in Alifros, if its power comes from elsewhere.’

‘Not while the Nilstone remains in this world,’ said the mage. ‘You see a dark sphere, Belesar, but the Stone is also a puncture wound, and it is through that wound that the Swarm’s power floods into our own.’

‘Where has the Swarm gone, Ramachni?’ asked Hercol.

‘Away in search of death,’ said the mage. ‘Like water flowing downhill, it will go where death is strongest — to some unhappy corner of Alifros beset by plague or famine — or war.’

‘War,’ said Thasha. ‘It all fits, doesn’t it? Arunis did everything he could to start a war between Arqual and the Mzithrin. And we made it easy for him, both sides did, with all our greed and hate and holy nonsense.’

She looked pointedly at the sfvantskors. Silence fell. The North, the humans’ battered homeland, was briefly, painfully present.

‘I think war is getting now,’ said Neda.

‘There you go again,’ said the marine.

Pazel lay on his stomach on a wide, flat stone, and Ramachni jumped up beside him and licked his ankle. A cool painlessness flowed from the mage’s touch into his wounded leg; soon the whole limb felt heavy and remote. Then Bolutu came towards him with a knife, and they made him look away. Pazel could not feel the touch of the blade, but he heard a faint slicing sound as Bolutu cut out the dying flesh. Afraid he might be sick, he forced his thoughts elsewhere.

‘Where is Myett?’

Bolutu frowned and glanced upwards. ‘She has scaled the tower anew. Ensyl plans to go looking for her. Be still now, let me work.’

He bandaged Pazel’s leg with scraps of cloth washed clean in the river, and Ramachni set a paw on the wound and spoke a few soft words. The delightful coolness grew stronger, but Ramachni warned him that the pain would return. ‘I would fear for your leg if it did not,’ added Bolutu.

‘The bite will heal,’ said Ramachni, ‘but the damage may be of more than one kind. The jaws of the flame- trolls are ghastly pits, and just what foulness lurked in the one that gnawed you I cannot tell. Of course you were not the only one bitten — Mandric and Lunja both need tending — but the fang that pierced your leg went especially deep. You must keep your eye on that leg for years.’

‘If I live to have such problems I’ll be glad,’ said Pazel.

But his words touched a deeper fear, resting like a stone in the pit of his stomach. ‘Ramachni,’ he said, very low, ‘Neeps is the one I’m worried about.’

‘He fears for his Marila, and their child,’ said Bolutu.

‘It’s not just that, Bolutu,’ said Pazel, glancing nervously at the rest of the party. ‘It’s the mind-plague.’

Bolutu started. ‘Jathod, I smelled it! The sharp smell of his sweat, like lemon peel. I had forgotten what it was like.’

‘For Rin’s sake, don’t tell anyone,’ said Pazel. ‘Thasha knows, but no one else does. Not even Neeps has guessed.’

‘I know of his condition,’ said Ramachni. ‘We can discuss it further after you sleep.’

‘Can you cure him?’

Ramachni sighed. ‘Pazel, your friend is succumbing to one of the most powerful spells ever cast in Alifros. It has already destroyed the minds of every human south of the Ruling Sea. The spell’s caster herself proved powerless to stop it. Before I try to do what my mistress could not, I must have help. You know where I hope to find that help, I think.’

Pazel glanced at Thasha. He took a deep breath. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but you’ve made a mistake. There isn’t going to be any help from Erithusme.’

‘We shall see,’ said Ramachni gently.

‘I don’t think you understand,’ said Pazel. ‘It didn’t work, she hasn’t come back. Thasha is still just Thasha.’

‘She was never just Thasha, my lad,’ said Ramachni. ‘And now I must insist that you sleep.’

The last word was like a finger snuffing a flame. Pazel barely had time to lay his head on the stone before sleep engulfed him, blissful and profound. In the stillness of the clearing he dreamed of a typhoon, and the Chathrand running north again, racing on madcap winds, chasing or giving chase. The whole crew was reunited, the dead and the living alike, and Captain Rose was on his quarterdeck, raging and gesturing, shouting orders, cursing ghosts. Pazel stood in the lashing rain, and Thasha was near him, her eyes bright as sparks, her pale skin luminous, as on the night when they had made love beneath the cedar. And somewhere in the darkness of the ship Pazel could feel the Nilstone, throbbing, pumping death through the ship and the storm and the world like a malignant spirit, like a great black heart.

Myett had climbed three hundred feet before she realised that she did not wish to die.

She knew the difference between flirting with death and hungering for it, wanting it with her soul. She had known the latter condition, and once, very nearly, succumbed. This was different. The impulse to destroy herself weakened with every yard she ascended.

She’d been in earnest that other time, however. Sealed in the Chathrand’s flooding hold, blind drunk, heartbroken. It was luck that had saved her: luck and the Masalym shipwrights. If the draining of the ship had been delayed another quarter-hour, they’d have found her body clogging the pumps.

Three hundred feet brought her to the level of the bottom-most leaf-layer, where the wind began. She held tight, feeling the still-pleasant burning in her muscles, the strength in arms, fingers, ankles no giant could ever attain. She was wedged in a crack that ran like inverse lightning up the tower wall. The strange birds wheeled around her, crying. Afraid she’d come for what was left of their brood.

The alternative to death had been this expedition, this crossing of battle-lines. She had spent most of the