The Night of the Swarm

Pazel looked off into the night, and thought of Felthrup. That choice, at least, was something he could understand.

Erithusme sighed. ‘The Red Storm, incidentally, has stopped the mind-plague from spreading north. That is the Storm’s whole purpose, as perhaps you’ve surmised. If your ship should eventually pass through it, you will all be cleansed.’

‘And propelled into the future. Another unfortunate side effect.’

She nodded.

‘Better to lose all our friends and loved ones than to lose everything. That’s how you see it.’

The mage appeared puzzled. ‘Is there another way to see it?’

Pazel looked at her with immense dislike. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘the Red Storm is dying. Or so Prince Olik told us.’

‘Your prince is quite right. Not all spells are for ever. Within a decade or two it will give no protection at all. But it doesn’t matter. The Swarm of Night will kill us all long before the mind-plague reaches any Northern land. And listen to me, boy: we cannot fight the Swarm.’

She seized his hand with her cold, thin fingers. ‘All our effort must be to rid the world of the Stone. Nothing else. Take the Nilstone from this world, and all the forces it compels — the Red Storm, the mind-plague, above all the Swarm of Night — will falter and die. The Nilstone is the air that feeds those fires. To snuff the fires we must cut off the air. Nothing else we do will long matter if we fail in that.’

He nodded, leaning back heavily against the bench. He had understood the power of the Nilstone for a long time, but getting rid of it felt more impossible than ever.

‘Tomorrow we’ll do the impossible again,’ he murmured.

‘What’s that?’

‘Something Ramachni said. Just before we burned Arunis.’ He turned to face her, nose to nose. ‘If we win,’ he said, ‘Thasha gets to go on living — just like that? No tricks, no complications? You’ll depart and leave her in peace?’

‘I stand amazed,’ she said, ‘at the ill luck of your desire for that girl. You bear my mark. You were chosen. And here you sit brooding, like a child who doesn’t want to share his candy.’

Another silence. Her avoidance of his question dangled between them like a corpse. Erithusme glanced up at the moons. ‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘I’m going to tell you. And Rin save Alifros if I err in doing so.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘How to use the Nilstone.’

Pazel’s breath caught in his throat. The mage nodded at him solemnly. ‘Any of you can do it. Any who bear my mark. You need only be touching one another — six of you at least — and concentrate on fearlessness. Then one of you may set his hand on the Stone, and whatever fear is in that one will flow out into the others. The one emptied of fear can command the Stone as I did — very briefly, perhaps only for a matter of seconds, but it might be long enough to kill Macadra, say, or blast a hole in a pursuing ship. You should try it here in Ularamyth, first, with the guidance of the selk.’

Pazel’s mind was reeling. ‘Six of us?’ he said.

‘Yes, six. The Red Wolf marked seven, in case one of you should be killed. Whatever’s the matter now, boy? I know that the ixchel woman died — but six of you still breathe, I think?’

He nodded, wondering if he’d be ill.

‘Out with it!’

‘Five of us are here,’ he said. ‘The sixth is Captain Rose.’

‘Rose?’

‘He talked about coming with us.’

‘Nilus Rose?’

‘I almost believed him, but when it came time to leave the Chathrand he went into his cabin and didn’t come out.’

‘Get up. Move away from me.’

‘What?’

She shot to her feet. The light around her changed. She clenched her fists, muscles straining, face contorting, and then she screamed with a fury that grew and grew and the sound was like the breaking of a mountain. Pazel crouched behind the stone bench. Light was pouring from her; the air convulsed with shock waves like the recoil of a cannon; his chest was imploding; the stone of the bench began to crack.

Illusion?

Then it was gone. Erithusme stood there, breathless. The fury still throbbed in her, but it had changed, transmuted into something soundless and cold.

‘With six of you, and the Nilstone’s aid,’ she said, ‘you could have removed that wall in Thasha Isiq, no matter what its origin. You could have let me return.’

Pazel stared at her. That’s why she gave us the power to use the Stone.

Erithusme looked at the motionless trees, bending in an arrested gust of wind. ‘The Chathrand has sailed without you, hasn’t she?’

‘They had no choice,’ said Pazel, ‘Macadra was bearing down on them. But we can still catch up. They haven’t crossed the Ruling Sea.’

Erithusme nodded distantly. Then she said, ‘The fire is nearly out. Goodbye, Mr Pathkendle. In spite of everything, we will meet again. On that you may bet your precious little life.’

Pazel jumped. He had been holding in his own questions, overwhelmed by her non-stop talk. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘Ramachni told me something else I’ll never forget: “The world is not a music box, built to grind out the same song for ever. Any song may come from this world — and any future.”’

The mage turned him a faint, ironic smile. ‘Ramachni was ever the romantic.’

She moved towards the fire cauldron. Pazel ran to her and seized her arm. He was more afraid of her departure now than anything she might do to him.

‘Diadrelu wasn’t supposed to die,’ he said, ‘Rose wasn’t meant to stay with the ship. And Thasha wasn’t supposed to have a wall inside her to stop you from trading places. But those things happened. Nothing’s guaranteed. And if nothing’s guaranteed, maybe you won’t be able to return after all. What then?’

‘What if the sun explodes?’

‘Oh, stop that. You must have thought about it at least. What if this is the end? What if it’s your last chance to do anything to help us win the fight?’

‘Then we are doomed.’

‘That’s not blary good enough!’

‘It’s how things stand. Now take your hand off my arm, tarboy, or I will set it afire.’

Pazel tightened his grip. ‘You want it to be true,’ he said. ‘You want to believe that you’re the only one who matters. That there’s no point even trying, unless we bring you back to save us all. But be honest, for Rin’s sake! You’re twelve hundred years old. Isn’t there anything else in that mind of yours that we should know about, that could help us do this thing without you, if we must?’

Erithusme flung her arm, and there was a Turach’s strength behind the gesture. Pazel reeled and fell. When he looked up the mage was bending over the cauldron.

‘Arrogant brat!’ she said. ‘I did not stumble unprepared into this Court! Seventeen years I have been preparing for nothing else but this battle, this last task of my life. You could sit here thinking for a decade and not come up with a question I have failed to consider. I am on top of things, boy. I have determined how to rid Alifros of the Stone! I set thousands labouring at the task, though none of them ever knew the cause they truly served. The drug-addled Emperor of Arqual reunited me with my ship. Sandor Ott devised a scheme to take that ship to Gurishal, to the very door of the kingdom of death. And you and Arunis, together: you raised the Stone from the seabed and brought it onto the Chathrand, where I waited in disguise. I left out nothing. It is a master plan.’

‘It’s failing,’ said Pazel.

For a moment her look was so deadly that he feared she would attack him. But Erithusme was gripping the cauldron, now, and did not appear to want to release it. ‘Destroy that wall!’ she snarled. You can’t beat them without me. You’ll die under Plazic cannon, or the knives of Macadra’s torturers. You’ll die the first time the Swarm