The Red Wolf Conspiracy (62 page)

The hold of
Chathrand
is like the basement of a castle. It has rooms & shafts, catwalks & tunnels. It takes a solid week just to
count
what's stored down there. Naturally we carry enough wood for any repairs the Great Ship might require. There's spare mastwood, wales, planking, transom knees. A spare bowsprit. Even a lump of oak for carving a new Goose-Girl, should we lose Her Ladyship. But when I crept down to the foot of the mizzenmast I found timbers that had nothing to do with repairs. They were broken, smashed & filthy Twisted bolts & snapped cleats & bits of rigging trailed from 'em. Some of the wood was even burned.

“Gods of fire!” I said. “It's parts of a wreck!”

But what wreck? It hadn't come from the Haunted Coast—these pieces were stowed
under
goods we'd taken on in Ether-horde. We'd carried this trash for months! Huge timbers, too: some of the largest I'd ever seen—except for what the
Chathrand
herself is made of. And what for pity's sake was it good for? Nothing at all, so far as I could see, except tossing over the side …

'Twas then I heard a rustling behind me. “Come out, whoever the blary hell you are!” I growled, spinning round. “Fiffengurt's not afraid of you!”

No one came. But now I was facing a broken beam with a copper faceplate.
IMS CHATHRAND
, it read.
CAPTAIN'S DAY-CABIN. STRICTLY PRIVATE
.

I felt a cold, murthy hand on my heart. I looked further: there was a cabin door with the Chathrand Family coat of arms. Tattered sailcloth with
CHATHRAND
sewn into the hem. A
Chathrand
life preserver, snapped in two.

This is wickedness
, I thought.
This is evil from the Pits
.

It was our own wreck I was looking at. A simulation of it, I mean: about as much as would wash up ashore, if we wrecked nearby. Tossing over the side was
exactly
what this junk would be good for.

I had to sit down. Someone needed the world to think us wrecked. Someone meant
Chathrand
to disappear.

Ratty's voice echoed in my brain:
Everything they told you is true
. And the lad & Mistress Thasha had said we would be crossing the Nelluroq with (Rin help us) the Shaggat Ness aboard. And that his mage was alive & behind it all. And that the Emperor wanted war.

My knees were shaking. Who could I tell? Who could I trust, out of eight hundred souls? Only two tarboys, a rich girl & a rat.

Do something, Fiffengurt, I told myself. Trust someone. Form a gang. Take the ship away from Rose.

I sat down with the lamp between my feet. I let five minutes pass, then five more. And then it was too late.

“MAN ADRIFT! MAN ADRIFT! TWO POINTS
OFF
THE STARBOARD BOW!”

The voices reached me faintly. I thought,
What now, blast it, how can things get any—
^*

*
At this point Mr. Fiffengurt's journal is torn in two: the remaining pages are lost.—
EDITOR
.

The Calm

6 Teala 941

84th day from Etherhorde

“A man it most certainly is,” said Isiq, peering through his telescope. “But how did he get there? He has no sail, no mast, even. There are oarlocks, but no oars. How did that boat get so far from land?”

It was a fair question. The
Chathrand
was six hours south of Ormael now, almost exactly halfway to Simja. Hundreds of men, sweating in the midday sun, gaped at the sight: a forlorn little lifeboat two miles off, with one ragged occupant, seated and barely moving, nagged by shrieking gulls. There was a fighting shield propped in the stern, and some large, lumpy shape beneath a canvas at his feet. They could see no more from this distance.

On the quarterdeck, Captain Rose was speaking to his gunnery officer. Lady Oggosk and Sergeant Drellarek waited at his side.

Isiq and Hercól stood at the mizzen, with Pazel, Thasha and Neeps beside them. Chadfallow stood a little apart, brooding, wrapped in silence. Pazel had not spoken to him since the doctor shoved him to the deck.

“It is a Volpek lifeboat,” said Hercól. “And that is a Volpek war-shield in the bow, I think. But the man is small for a mercenary. I wish I could see his face.”

Thasha took the telescope from her father, and winced a little as she raised it to her eye: Sandor Ott's fist had left a wide purple bruise on her face. The man in the boat had his back to the
Chathrand
. He was gesturing wildly, as if carrying on an excited debate. His feet rested on a black mound of some sort.

“Those hands of his,” she said. “All skin and bones. I've seen them before, I—”

BOOM
.

Smoke rose from a forward gunport: the
Chathrand
had fired a signal-shot. The gulls scattered briefly, but the man did not even look over his shoulder.

“He's deaf, or mad,” declared Eberzam Isiq.

“May we look through your scope, Your Excellency?” Pazel asked.

Isiq nodded and Thasha handed over the instrument, and the boys passed it back and forth. Then they looked at each other and nodded.

“No doubt about it,” said Neeps.

“It's Mr. Druffle,” Pazel said.

And so it was. The freebooter was thinner and more ragged than ever, which Pazel would have thought impossible were he not seeing it with his own eyes. His feet were bare and sun-blistered, and his black hair was snarled in dirty knots.

“How the devil did that lunkhead get out
here?”
Pazel asked.

“Not by chance, I think,” said Hercól.

“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, Hercól looked at Chadfallow. The doctor would not meet his eye.

The
Chathrand
sailed a little nearer. Captain Rose, locked in conversation with Oggosk, stole nervous glances at the lifeboat.

“There is a body beneath his feet,”
said a sudden voice in Pazel's ear.

Pazel reacted as if stung by a bee, making Thasha turn and stare.

“What's wrong?” she asked quietly.

The voice belonged to an ixchel man. Not Taliktrum, and yet Pazel was certain he had heard the voice before. Whoever he was, he was hiding just a few yards away. He used his natural voice: no one but Pazel heard a thing.
“A body,”
he repeated.
“Tell them.”

And Pazel did. Once you knew what to look for it was plainly true: Druffle's feet were resting on someone's chest, draped in a black, enveloping cloak. A heavy body, it was, of a rather portly man or woman.

All at once Pazel realized where he had heard the ixchel's voice. In Rose's cabin. It was the voice of the captain's poison-taster.

“Steldak,” he whispered.

“Yes, lad. Do not look for me, please.”

“What about Dri, and her nephew?”

“Their Lordships never returned, Pazel Pathkendle. The council tried to warn her. It was a mad caprice, to chase a mage into the wilderness. Now the clan has lost all its princes. Their noble brother died to rescue me.”

“I know,” said Pazel. “She told me.”

Motion on the quarterdeck: Rose appeared to have come to a sudden decision. He spoke to Uskins, who was hovering at his elbow. The first mate nodded, then turned and relayed the order:

“Due south! Full sail to Simja!”

A roar of disapproval broke from the crew. Shame, infamy! To abandon a man adrift! Isiq threw down his hat and made for the quarterdeck. Even Pazel, who somehow knew that horrible events would unfold if Druffle boarded, was appalled to think of leaving him here to die.

But there was only one captain of the
Chathrand
, and now he made his power felt. One nod to Drellarek and the sergeant was barking orders to his men. Eberzam Isiq found the quarterdeck stair blocked by crossed swords. Uskins leaned over the rail and bellowed in the face of Elkstem, who was gaping at the captain.

“Due south, Sailmaster, or is this a hangman's holiday? You want some dying, plague-breathed Ormali brought aboard, along with that wormy corpse under his toes? FULL SAIL TO SIMJA, DAMN YOUR EYES!”

With a hundred warriors breathing down their necks the sailors quickly obeyed. Elkstem spun the wheel; the port and starboard watches freed the brace-lines, and in seconds men were heaving and groaning to turn the gigantic sails into the wind.

Everyone felt the tug as the ship leaped forward. But only Pazel heard Steldak say,
“Ahh, he attends us now.”

Pazel looked out at the lifeboat. Druffle was gazing at them over his shoulder.

“We can't just leave!” said Thasha. “Chadfallow said Arunis magicked him. Perhaps Druffle's not a bad man at all!”

“Even if he is, this is wrong,” said Pazel. “We're supposed to be better than Arunis.”

“
We
are,” said Neeps, glaring up at Rose.

“Something's happening,”
said another ixchel's voice.
“Look at the sails!”

“Look at the sails!” Pazel said aloud.

On all five masts the sails were falling limp. The wind was dropping; the pennants barely fluttered. The
Chathrand's
pace began to slow.

“Topgallants!” cried Rose, not bothering with Uskins now. “Starboard, lay aloft!”

Sailors raced up the lines like agile monkeys. High overhead, the topgallant sails were loosed and tightened. But the dying wind barely filled them, and the ship grew slower still.

“Spritsails! Moonrakers!” roared the captain. “Run out the blary studders, Mr. Frix! I want every last inch of canvas stretched!”

Studdingsail yards were hauled up from below and lashed to the tips of the spars. Four sailors crawled out past the Goose-Girl to extend the jib. No whispers about shame and infamy now: the vanishing wind was too strange, and the captain's fear too contagious. In minutes, a whole array of new sails had erupted from the ship, and the
Chathrand
looked like a great white bird spreading its wings in the sun.

For a minute, perhaps two, she gained speed: the sailors drew a nervous breath. Then the weak wind stopped blowing altogether. Thasha saw her father turn in a circle, gaping at the acres of useless sails. Even the waves flattened around them.

Suddenly Pazel noticed Jervik standing just behind them. For an instant their eyes met.

“A dead calm,” whispered Jervik. “But so sudden! This ain't natural, is it?”

Pazel said nothing. It was almost more unnatural to hear Jervik address him without hate.

No one moved or spoke. The only sound was the hiss of foam on the motionless sea. And then, from more than a mile away: a laugh. Pazel and Neeps looked at each other again. The voice did not belong to Druffle.

But the freebooter was still the only figure moving. As they watched, he drew a pair of oars from beneath the black canvas. Fitting them into the oarlocks, he began to row toward the ship.

“They will be here in minutes,”
said Steldak.

“They?” said Pazel.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“Can't you guess, Pazel Pathkendle?”

“Gunner!” Rose bellowed. “Get your men to the lower arsenal! Run out the midship battery!”

“Which guns, sir?”

“ALL THE BLARY GUNS, MAN!”

Another scramble ensued, the men's voices strangely loud on the motionless air. Soon, enough guns to sink a warship were trained on the little rowing boat. It was then that one of the lookouts cried that a little dog had just emerged from under Druffle's seat. Pazel looked again, and saw it: a small white dog with a corkscrew tail.

Oh, fire and fumes
.

He would know that dog anywhere.

Just then Pazel felt Thasha's hand on his arm. He turned: she held a finger to her lips.

“Meet me in the stateroom,” she whispered. “Take the long way around, so nobody suspects. But hurry!” And she turned and made for her cabin.

Pazel knew better than to disobey. Besides, he had an inkling of what she was up to. “Cover for me, mate,” he said to Neeps in Sollochi. “I'll be right back.”

Neeps couldn't believe his eyes. “You're going below? What for?”

“To get help,” said Pazel. With that he ran, ducking behind the crowd of transfixed sailors.

He had almost reached the No. 4 hatch when a cry broke from a hundred mouths. Pazel turned and gasped.

Halfway between the lifeboat and the ship the water was rising. A little vortex was turning, a cone of wind where none had been before. Man-high it rose, and then somewhat higher. Sudden rain dashed down upon it, and waves rose to enter it, and all at once it had arms and a face, and danced ghoulishly on the flattened sea.

“A water-weird!” cried Swellows. “He's called up a water-weird to sink us!”

A sharp command from the lifeboat, and the creature surged toward them. Rose laughed at his bosun's fear.

“Sink us—that little thing? Wash our faces, more likely! Fire!”