The Red Wolf Conspiracy (40 page)

What became of Pazel is easily told: he had been marched to the Harbor Master's office and formally struck from the Imperial Boys' Registry. The process took about three minutes, and with that his career at sea was over. No one cared; they did not even bother to frown at him. Tarboys were thrown off ships all the time.

“Sorry about them bruises, mate,” said the guards from the
Chathrand
, hustling away into the rain. “Just doing our job.”

“Don't mention it,” said Pazel.

He lingered in the warmth of the Harbor Office, gazing out the window at Uturphe. It was the wettest city on the Nelu Peren, sailors said. Rain fell all year, except in the dead of winter when it turned to driving sleet. There were canals and open storm drains gushing forever into the sea, and hundreds of little footbridges with loose stones and no railings. The countryside was bleak, a place of wildcats and sulphur dogs, so Uturphe grew its food in rainwater tanks: lakeweed, mud radishes, snails. Would his dinner tonight be snails?

He sighed, and stepped out into the rain. But the door had not yet closed behind him when he saw an unwelcome face: Mr. Swellows was waiting for him beneath the eaves. The bosun's breath, as always, stank of liquor.

“There you are, Pathkendle!” he said. “Time to start a new life, eh?”

“Where's Mr. Fiffengurt?” asked Pazel, ignoring the bosun's smile. He had no idea why Swellows was there, but he doubted the reason could be good.

Swellows jerked a thumb down the avenue. “Still at the hospital, with poor Mr. Hercól and Commander Nagan.”

“I should catch up with them,” said Pazel. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Swellows.”

“Half a moment!” Swellows placed a moist hand on his shoulder. “Listen: I know I ain't treated you too candy-sweet. But I meant no harm. Started off as a tarboy myself, you see.”

“Oh,” said Pazel, leaning away from the bosun's hand.

“You'll need some money to keep afloat, till you find work.”

“My mates took up a collection,” said Pazel. “They gave me eight gold.”

“Eight!” boomed Swellows, and for a moment he seemed almost outraged. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “Why not—even for an Ormali? Well, here's a bit more.”

He took out his purse and counted out eight gold cockles, hesitated a moment, then dropped them into Pazel's hand. Pazel just stared at the coins. Eight gold was a considerable sum—enough for Pazel to live comfortably for a week.

“Why, sir?” he said at last.

The bosun looked at him with no trace of a smile. At last he said, “When I was your age, somebody did for me like I'm doin' for you now. Swore I'd never forget.”

He held out his hand. Still uneasy, Pazel shook it.

“Don't waste money,” Swellows said. “Respect it. Guard it!”

“But I don't even know where I'm going to sleep,” Pazel admitted.

“Ah, that's hard,” said Swellows. “Uturphe's a city of thieves. The only honest place is the inn on Blackwell Street. That's the spot for you.”

“Blackwell Street,” Pazel repeated.

“Tell 'em I sent ye. Now I must get back to the ship. Remember me, will you, Pathkendle?”

“I certainly will, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Swellows stalked off drunkenly into the rain, head high, as if proud of his good deed. Pazel shook his head in wonder.

But there was no time to lose now. He ran up the street Swellows had indicated. He very much wanted to catch Fiffengurt at the hospital: away from the ship, he might get a chance to tell the quartermaster about the war conspiracy—if he could somehow do so without mentioning Ramachni or the ixchel.

He crossed bridges, leaped over drains. He'd find a way. Swellows' gift had raised his spirits: if kindness could come from
him
it could come from anywhere. And with sixteen gold he could buy a third-class passage out of Uturphe.
Maybe even back to Ormael!
After all, he was closer now than ever before.

But Hercól was not at the hospital.

The nurse at the entrance told Pazel briskly that no Mr. Hercól of Tholjassa had been admitted. Indeed, no one from the
Chathrand
had visited the hospital at all.

“Is there another hospital?”

She shook her head. “Not in Uturphe.”

“There's some mistake,” said Pazel. “Mr. Fiffengurt and Commander Nagan were bringing him here—an old fellow with one funny eye, and a short man with scars.”

“Nothing of the kind,” said the nurse.

“But I came ashore with them!”

The nurse looked at him coldly, as she might at a sack of flour. “These things happen. But you're in luck, young man. The morgue is just across the street.”

Pazel had never visited a morgue, and ten minutes inside Uturphe's persuaded him never to do so again. The very bricks stank of death. Men on hands and knees, scrubbing viciously at the floor, made him wonder just what kind of stains they were trying to remove. But the mortician was delighted to have a visitor. Oh yes! he said. The poor fellow from the
Chathrand
. Was Pazel here to mourn?

“Then he's dead!” cried Pazel, grief-struck.

The man blinked at him. “It's how they come, you see. Dead. I meet with few exceptions.”

He led Pazel across the spotless hall and down a long spiral stair. The air grew cold. At the bottom of the steps the man unlocked a door and revealed a room that perhaps you will not wish to imagine in detail. Suffice it to say that the morgue had been built for a smaller city in a more peaceful time, and that the room's thirty or forty occupants might well have complained of overcrowding, had they been in any condition to do so.

“Turn sideways—that's it,” said the mortician, sidling up to a sheeted form on a dark stone table. “Here we are. Shall I give you a moment alone with your friend?”

He pulled back the sheet, and Pazel looked into the open eyes of a corpse. The man had dried blood in his hair and an expression of terrible surprise. But he was not Hercól.

“Something wrong?” asked the mortician. “You don't know this man?”

Pazel hesitated: in fact the man
did
look slightly familiar. But—

“This is not … who I expected,” he managed to say. “You say he came from the
Chathrand?”

“Why, yes, early this morning.”

“But he's not in a sailor's uniform.”

“No indeed. I gather he was some kind of special Imperial soldier. Part of an honor guard, they said. Name of Zirfet.” He read the tag on the man's earlobe. “Zirfet Salubrastin. Delivered by one Commander Nagan, of Etherhorde. Funny chap, that Nagan. After the others left he took a long knife from the belt of the deceased and held it before the lad's face. ‘I gave you this in the tower,’ he says, ‘but we both knew it was a loan, didn't we?’ Those were his final words to the lad.”

One of the Isiq family guards—dead! Pazel felt a sudden acute fear for Thasha. “Can you guess how this man died?” he asked.

“Guess!” said the mortician. “I can do better than that. Look at his head: grave trauma. Listen to him gurgle!” His fist thumped the corpse's chest. “That's
water
in his lungs, not blood. This man was struck from behind, fell into the sea and drowned. A tackle block, swinging loose from the yardarm. Happens constantly. I knew it before Nagan said a word.”

“But I didn't hear about any such accident,” said Pazel.

“Naturally you didn't. It happened just hours ago. Shall I tell you how I know that?”

Pazel politely declined. The mortician looked disappointed.

“Guess!” he repeated. “I'll quit the day I have to guess about such a simple case. Why, there's nothing else wrong with the man, except a broken wrist. And nobody ever died from that.”

By evening Pazel was near despair. He had spent too long at the morgue, and sprinted toward the docks in a panic, hoping to catch someone, anyone, from the
Chathrand
willing to bear a message: Thasha and her father had to be told of Hercól's disappearance. But his wild dash had caught the attention of a city constable, who ran him down and carried him, deaf to all protests, to the door of a windowless stone prison with the words
DEBTORS
&
INDIGENTS
carved above the threshhold.

There Pazel had at last torn one hand free of the man's bear-hug, and in perfect desperation emptied the purse of sixteen gold at his feet. The constable saw his error at once: Pazel was no debtor, he was a thief. But he withdrew this charge as well when Pazel raked half the coins into a little pile beside the man's black boot.

By the time he at last reached the docks no one from the
Chathrand
was left ashore. Even worse, no one recalled seeing a contingent from the Great Ship, bearing a wounded man. It was a horrible, helpless feeling: Hercól was simply
gone
.

Pazel had accomplished one small thing. A pair of horsemen had passed him, trotting swift and grim toward the port. Their bright eyes and lean wolfhound faces reminded him suddenly of Hercól. Sure enough, when he ran after them, he heard them speaking Tholjassan.

When he shouted in their own tongue they wheeled their horses around.

“What ho? By your face you are no Tholjassan, yet you speak like one.”

“I'm an Ormali, sir, but I've lost a Tholjassan friend. He is wounded, and I fear for his life.”

Their faces darkened as he told them of Hercól's disappearance. “I shall alert the Tholjassan Consul,” said one. “Lad, we thank you. But we are in haste for an even more terrible reason. News came with the dawn: our coast is under siege, and children have been taken hostage. We sail this hour for Tholjassa.”

“Is it war?” asked Pazel, horrified. But the rider shook his head.

“Piracy, more likely. Yet war may come of it. We Tholjassans never start a fight, but we have finished many.”

And off they raced without another word. Moments later Pazel realized that any ship bound for Tholjassa would pass close to Ormael, and flew to the port. But when he located the ship her first mate said that they could not squeeze another man aboard, and would in any case be making landfall at Talturi, not Ormael. Worse still, no Ormael-bound ship was expected for at least a week. If he was to have enough money left for his passage, Pazel would have to survive in Uturphe on less than half of what he'd expected.

Over a queasy dinner (cabbage and rice in snail oil) Pazel decided to try the Blackwell Street inn. Mr. Swellows' recommendation seemed almost reason enough to avoid the place—but then again, a cheap, safe bed was what he needed. He couldn't afford any luxury.

A baker pointed the way: past Wriggle Square, around the scrap-yard, left at the knife shop on the corner. The last turn brought him to Blackwell Street—but how narrow and dark it was! Had he made a mistake? No: here was the stone archway, and the green-tinted lamplight the baker had mentioned. The door in the arch stood open. Beyond it Pazel saw a courtyard, with some kind of urn or fountain at the center.

“Hello!”

Immediately a dark form rose to block his path. The figure was slightly shorter than Pazel, but very broad, with long arms and fingers. A red lantern on a hook behind him left his face in shadow but illuminated two enormous flat ears, like wild mushrooms sprouting on either side of his head.

“Stop!” hissed the man in a dry whisper. “I do not know thee! Speak thy business or be gone!”

“Good evening!” said Pazel, quite startled. “I want a room for the night, is all. I have money, truly! Mr. Swellows of the
Chathrand
sent me, with his compliments.”

The ears moved slightly, and Pazel guessed the man was smiling.

“Swellows? Ah, that is a different matter! Pass and be welcome!”

This was more to Pazel's liking. The man turned with a swish of his cloak, at the same time drawing a hood over his face, and led the way across the courtyard. How oddly he walked! Was he a hunchback? Such unfortunates often worked as night watchmen, Pazel knew, to escape the staring eyes of day.

The object in the center of the courtyard was a well, Pazel saw now. When they reached it his guide stopped and set one of his large hands upon the rim.

“Didst thou give money to Mittlebrug Swellows?” he asked sharply.

“Is that his first name?”

“Answer! Didst thou pay him?”

“No, sir. He gave
me
money, in fact.”

At that the figure gave a dry, wheezing laugh. “He would as much.”

The man bent over the well and shouted one word—
“Falurk!”
And Pazel turned and ran for his life.

Swellows had sold him out. The word meant “prisoner”—in what language he could not for the moment recall. But he knew who was to be imprisoned. The man (or thing) behind him gave a croak of surprise: clearly he had never dreamed the boy would understand.

Pazel made it through the stone arch. But even as he glimpsed the brighter streets beyond the alley something grabbed him by the ankle. It was a leather cord like a bullwhip, with a little iron ball at its tip. The ball whipped round his leg, and before Pazel could begin to unwind it he was yanked off his feet and dragged backward into the courtyard.

He drew his knife and slashed at the whip. Dark forms were hopping out of the well in twos and threes. Someone was closing the gate. He screamed, but a moist hand like the underside of a frog slapped over his mouth. A flash lit the hand like burning phosphor, and Pazel felt himself go limp.

The Flikkermen had him at last.

Birth of a Conspiracy