The Red Wolf Conspiracy (30 page)

“Listen, cousins, friends. I talk this way always. I talk, I reason, I think. I cannot sleep for thinking! That is why I have come looking for you. We can help one another. Trust me, believe me, sons of Ix-phir House, I am more like you than I am a rat!”

The ixchel laughed softly. “Amazing!” said one of the bald spearmen. “Did you hear it, my Lord Talag?”

“I heard,” said the elder. “But do not be fooled. In rats, thought is an emergency function. Many creatures have such tricks. They play dead, change color, drop their tails. This one's already used
that
maneuver!”

Felthrup hid his stubby half tail, and the ixchel laughed uproariously. He wanted to speak of his dash up the gangway, and the teeth of the wharf-rat, but the word
cannibals
still hung in the air. Furious and frightened, he began to cry.

“Please listen … so long … searching for you, for someone—”

“To escape the shark,” said the elder, “certain fish leap into the air, spread fins and glide a little distance. We call them
igri
, flying fish. But we do not call them birds.”

“Drowning, always drowning,” sobbed Felthrup.

Then the old man laughed, and for the first time addressed Felthrup directly. “Never fear, sir! You'll be dry enough.”

In a heartbeat the ixchel were gone. Felthrup hurled himself forward, guessing what was to come. Too late. The brass lid slammed; the latch clicked shut.

Poison

9 Ilqrin 941

27th day from Etherhorde

STRICTLY PRIVATE:

SURRENDER TO THE HAND

OF EBERZAM ISIQ ONLY

His Excellency Ambassador Eberzam Isiq
IMS
Chathrand

Your Excellency

I write in haste. Three days ahead of
Chathrand
have I sailed, with no safe means to send word to you, and I must depart again before the Great Ship reaches this town. In fact I am already at the docks: the mate is calling us aboard
.

My news is awful, my fears and guesses worse. So bad indeed that I should not dare to write them at all were it not for this good and simple man, Rom Rulf, a chemist I trained myself at the Imperial Medical School, to whose keeping I entrust this letter
.

The Lady Syrarys betrays you, Excellency. She loves another, and would kill to hide the fact. How foul the effort to
write these words, how wounding that you should read them! And yet what choice do I have?

After
Chathrand
sailed with Rose at the helm I spent an hour on the headland, despondent. Then I came to my senses and jumped aboard a fast clipper to Etherhorde. We arrived just ahead of the Great Ship. If only I had gone straight to your door! Instead I galloped to Castle Maag. I still hoped to change the Emperor's mind about Rose, who is one of the vilest men ever to sully the name of Arqual
.

The Emperor was not in his castle, but Syrarys was. She lay among courtesans in the boudoir. The room was dim. When I entered she mistook me for another, and called out, laughing: “Again, love? Will you never let me sleep?” Then she saw me and went mad. “Stop him! Shoot him! He cannot leave!”

She hurled a burning lamp in my direction. Had she been dressed I should never have made it from the castle alive, for many obeyed her once they heard her shouting. Someone chased me all down the mountain, and sent a falcon to dive at my face and the horse's. In the end I was thrown from the saddle and thrashed blind through the trees
.

Two days I hid in the only place one may hide from the mighty in Etherhorde: in the hovels of the poor. It was my good fortune to have cured many last year of the wax-eye blindness. They remembered me, bless them, and asked no questions. But strange men-at-arms prowled the streets, and I am sure they were looking for me
.

When the hunters came too near, my friends took a great risk and smuggled me in an apple-crate to the port. I was three days out of Etherhorde, on a ship bound for Tressek Tarn, before the crew dared let me out. And in Tressek I find myself little safer: the governor fears to meet with me, as do my fellow doctors. Only this morning armed men stormed my tavern-room
—
by good luck I was in Rulf's shop down the street. Have I lost the Emperor's favor? I cannot say; I only know that I have not fled far enough
.

I never saw the face of the one who chased me
—
but I saw Syrarys, as plain as I see this pen and ink. She is not yours, Eberzam. Do not trust her. Do not leave Thasha in her care
.

So much for my news
—
more bitter than any drug I ever made you swallow. But my fears! There is no time to explain
them now. Beware the Nilstone! Did your mother never scare you with that word? It exists, and someone wants it, though to use it can only bring ruin on us all. You know the briny graveyard where legend says it fell. Should
Chathrand
near that spot, you must find a way to turn her back
.

Horrors and madness. Who would choose such a moment to unearth that weapon, that malignant hole in the weave of our world? No one but a madman, and yet
—

There is the bell, damnation! I must take to my ship or be left behind. I shall write to you again when I can. Until then I ask a final favor: take care of young Pazel, Capt. Gregory's son. He is a prickly runt of no talent or significance, but I swore to his fair mother that no harm would befall him. Do not fail me in this, I beseech you
.

Rulf has your medicines, sealed by my hand. Drink from no flask you do not open yourself; dispose of what Syrarys has touched. And do not despair of love, Eberzam: it surrounds you yet
.

E
VER
T
HY
S
ERVANT
,

I
GNUS
C
HADFALLOW

Syrarys dropped the letter to the floor. Then she threw back her head and laughed.

“Rom Rulf!
This good and simple man!
What was his price, a new shop window? Some other chemist driven from town?”

Reclined next to her, Sandor Ott shook his head. “Rulf does love Chadfallow. But there are those he loves more. His daughter, for one. We took the precaution of kidnapping her months ago. The good doctor has left messages with Rulf before, you see.”

They lay together on a bed heaped with fine cushions and silks, sharing a little jug of wine. Through a broad window the sun was setting over the Quiet Sea. This was one of the simpler rooms of Tressek Fortress, carved out of the living rock above the city of Tressek Tarn. Centuries ago it had been a great keep; now it was a resort where rich Arqualis soaked in water piped from the boiling tarns beneath the hills. The whole place felt warm and wet.

“As for the tarboy, Pathkendle,” said Ott, “the good doctor is lying. His concern stems from more than a promise to the lad's mother, even though he loved her. No, Chadfallow has some special use in mind for that one.”

“Then you must get rid of him.”

“The beauty of it, darling, is that your dear admiral will do it for us. They are racing toward a collision, haven't you noticed? And when they do collide, and Pathkendle is tossed ashore—well, I have arranged for his reception.”

“You're a monster. Even I fear you at times.”

Noises touched the room like whiffs of smoke: dogs, gulls, blacksmiths hammering steel. A closer sound—that of Eberzam Isiq, moaning strangely—came from the floor below.

“You're certain he can't hear us?” she said.

“That man hears nothing but his own sweet dreams,” said Ott. “Deathsmoke is bliss—until it kills you. In a hot bath such as his, the leaves of the deathsmoke vine make the body numb, the heart beat slower and slower. The steam, meanwhile, keeps the mind in a perfect trance, even to the moment of death. We cannot risk that, of course. Isiq can be left for one hour, no more.”

“An hour isn't long enough with you,” she said.

Ott kissed her, but his voice was stern. “One hour. Remember that he must live through his daughter's marriage.”

“And not a day longer,” growled Syrarys. “How I wish I could tell the world! All those fat and fancy lords would think twice about buying young slave-brides if they knew what we were capable of.”

“Tell the world you've been poisoning an admiral for years and even I won't be able to protect you,” said Ott calmly. “But I must be off soon, too. Niriviel must be sent ahead, to find out what Chad-fallow is up to.”

She snuggled against him. “He's an insufferable pest! You should have killed him months ago.”

Ott stroked her loose black hair. “In Etherhorde the man's death would have drawn too much attention. He was to be
Chathrand's
surgeon, after all. Besides, the Emperor adores him.”

“But he saw me at the castle. In the pillow room!”

“And so signed his own death warrant. Fear not: he will never speak to the admiral again. My men will be waiting for him in Utur-phe. As for our true mission, though—just look at his pitiful guesswork! The Nilstone! By Rin, it is to laugh!”

“I've never heard of the Nilstone. What is it?”

“A myth, or something as old as myth. A relic of the ancient world. Poor fool! He might as well have said we were looking for the rainbow's end.”

“Chadfallow's a pest, Sandor, but he's never a fool. He cured your army of the talking fever.”

“This time he's a fool,” said Ott. “He was the one man I thought might deduce that the Shaggat was still alive, and in our plans. Instead he's frightened of a little sphere that darkens the sun.”

Syrarys raised her head, no longer smiling. “A black sphere? The size of a plum, but heavy as a cannonball?”

“So the stories claim.”

“The
gummukra,”
she said. “You're talking about the
gummukra.”

Ott smiled. “There's a name for it in your tongue as well?”

“Of course. They say it's the eyeball of a murth-lord. It lets the one who holds it command the Black Bees.”

“Black Bees, eh?”

“Don't laugh, you brute! We were terrified of them.”

“The Rinfaithful have a different story. They say the Nilstone is like the cork on that wine jug—give it here, my sweet—plugging a tiny hole through which the Swarm of Night entered this world to lay it waste, and escaped again when the Gods rose in fury. And the Mzithrinis say the Nilstone is pure ash—the ash of all the devils burned in their Black Casket, before the Great Devil broke it asunder. That is why I laugh: each country tells a different tale. And here is Dr. Chadfallow, the scientist, joining the game.”

“I wonder how the idea entered his head.”

“Who knows?” said Ott. “Let us just be glad it did. Now then, about Zirfet.”

Syrarys laughed, and bit his ear playfully. “Zirfet. Your enormous, handsome disciple.”

“A negligent disciple,” said Ott severely. “He was to have killed Hercól by now, without fail.”

“But I told you, love, that was my fault. You know you ordered Zirfet to obey me in your absence.”

“A kill order takes precedence, as Zirfet should have recalled.” He raised his head and looked at her. “I should think you would have welcomed the Tholjassan's death.”

“Eventually, of course. But Hercól is a good valet—he ran errands for me in every port. Besides, you left without a word. I had no idea that Hercól was the reason for your absence—and the dear boy didn't dare speak to me of your plans.”

“Zirfet is not a boy, Syrarys. He's a member of the Secret Fist. An assassin, like me. And until he proves it I shall be forced to move with great caution about the
Chathrand
. You must keep Hercól twice as busy, until Zirfet finishes the job.”

Syrarys caressed the back of Ott's neck, tracing an old knife-scar with the tip of her finger.

“He's never killed, then?” she asked softly.

Ott shook his head. “No, Zirfet has not yet killed, though he came closer than he knew with me.” He rubbed two knuckles along his jaw. “Very well, I'm off.”

“You think so, do you?”

She pounced on him. The wine spilled down his side, soaking the bed as she kissed his neck, eyelids, ear. All at once he was returned to his youth—but not a youth of love and caresses. His memory was of battle. He was thirteen, the army's creature already, fighting Sizzies on a cold plateau thousands of miles from the sea. His sergeant dead, his squadron decimated. He himself about to die. A Sizzy boy on top of him, a knife in his ribs, his life gushing into the sawgrass. One arm broken, the other pinned beneath his foe. Bright blue sky, like today.