The Red Wolf Conspiracy (31 page)

Syrarys was laughing—so young, so perfectly lovely. Did she really love him? Could he ever allow himself to hope?

Gently, he rolled her aside. He placed a finger on her pouting lips.

“Go and pamper your Admiral,” he said. “Isiq must never suspect you. Not once.”

Minutes later he was on the fortress roof, looking down at the
Chathrand
. A sailor high on the mainmast was lowering the Emperor's flag for the night. Gold fish, gold dagger: they had loomed over his life for six decades, given meaning to his scars and his conquests, to murders and betrayals, to sweet feminine lips.
Arqual
, thought the spymaster.
My love is Arqual, till death do us part
.

He had torn that boy's throat out with his teeth. What choice did he have?

Lessons Learned

11 Ilqrin 941

29th day from Etherhorde

“Blar baffin mud-me,”
said Thasha glumly.

Pazel looked up from the grammar book, exasperated.
“Blar avfam muteti
—'My husband is my trusted guide.℉ There's no
d
in the sentence, m'lady.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Pazel lowered his voice to a whisper. “You know I can't. They'll throw me out. Honestly, Thasha, you're not even trying.”

“I'm
not
getting married,” she whispered, furious. “And how would you know if I was trying? All you have to do is wait for your blary Gift to translate for you.”

“I told you, I learned four languages by
studying
, before Mother cast the spell. I was already good with them. If she'd cast it on you, I suppose it would have helped your fighting. Isn't that what you're best at?”

“Fighting and tactics. That's what Hercól and Prahba say, anyway.”

“The point is, you have to start out good at something for it to make you better at it.”

They were seated in velvet chairs in a corner of the first-class lounge. A few yards to their left, Brother Bolutu sat reading a book from the ship's library:
Venomous Pests of Alifros
. At the far end of the room, Syrarys sipped wine and chattered gaily with a crowd of women, among them Pacu Lapadolma. In the shadows behind the women stood a bucktoothed tarboy known as Sorry Suds, holding a wine jug and pulling the cord that turned the ceiling-mounted fan. Now and then a woman thrust out her cup, and the boy leaped to fill it.

Pazel's hair was so clean it felt like something he'd borrowed. Fiffengurt himself had dunked him in a tub of limewater. “You're going to tutor the Treaty Bride!” he said. “Your appearance will reflect on every boy on this ship. Imagine if a louse were to crawl from your hair onto Lady Thasha.”

Jervik had called him a dandy—under his breath. He had not gotten over his terror at Pazel's unnatural fit of gibberish. But he still wouldn't return Pazel's father's knife or his mother's ivory whale—wouldn't admit to having them, in fact. “They was left on the
Eniel
, with a lot of my things,” he'd told Pazel—but he smirked as he said it, and winked at his hangers-on.

“Your sister wasn't good at languages, I suppose,” said Thasha, “otherwise the spell would have given her the same Gift, right? But she must have been good at something.”

“Lots of things,” said Pazel. “I used to think she was good at
everything
, in fact. Neda was strong, like you. She sang beautifully, and knew a thousand songs. And she understood people: that's what I remember most. I couldn't fool her, and neither could anyone else. Sometimes it made her sad. But if the spell did anything—besides nearly kill her—we didn't notice it before she ran away. I wonder sometimes if she ever forgave our mother, or if she thinks of me.”

“Of course she does. Don't be daft.”

“I don't even know if she's alive.”

Thasha bit her lips. Pazel blinked at the page of Mzithrini script. Across the room, Pacu Lapadolma was chatting gaily about the Emperor's birthday, two weeks off but already the subject of lively anticipation. Pacu's great-aunt had presented the ship with a “party crate” to be opened on the night in question: it was certain to contain
outlandish fun
.

“Sound out the words, m'lady,” said Pazel at last. “‘My husband shall never go hungry while I live.’”

“Blur baffle
—oh, I wish they'd pipe down!” Thasha glared at Pacu. “She has a voice like a tipsy rooster. We should go to my cabin.”

“That's a brilliant idea,” said Pazel dryly.

A month had passed since the day of his mind-fit. Ambassador Isiq had not spoken to Pazel again: when they passed on deck he pretended not to see the tarboy. Hercól had suggested Pazel write a letter of apology. But how could he apologize for speaking the truth? In any case, the ambassador had at last given his grudging assent to these lessons. He had even come to some terms with Rose concerning Pazel's bond debt. Isiq had very little choice. Without Dr. Chadfallow, there was no Mzithrini-speaker aboard except Pazel—and at the very least, Thasha had to learn her vows.

The door opened and Hercól stepped into the lounge. He smiled at Thasha but went at once to Syrarys, bowed and handed her a small package wrapped in muslin cloth. Syrarys gave him a brief nod and hid the package away.

Only then did Hercól approach Thasha and Pazel.

“You found your buttons, Pathkendle,” he said. “I'm amazed they were not stolen, after all those hours.”

“I got lucky,” said Pazel, raising a hand to his coat. In fact something far stranger than luck had come his way: the brass buttons had appeared in his pocket the morning after his mind-fit. He had thanked Neeps warmly, but the other tarboy had no idea what he was talking about. Neither did Reyast, in the hammock beneath him.

Pazel had decided they were teasing him, and forgotten all about it. But now, in the first-class lounge, another possibility struck him suddenly:
the ixchel
. Who else could retrieve lost buttons from cracks and crevices about the deck, and slip them unseen into his pocket?

Pazel looked with foreboding at the swordsman above him.
Does he know?
Hercól was giving him another of those raptor-like stares. But he asked no questions, and instead held out a small wooden box and flipped open the lid.

Inside was what looked like clumps of glue and orange yarn. “Spider jellies,” said Hercól. “A specialty of Tressek Tarn.”

Pazel thanked him, and nervously pressed one whole sticky wad into his mouth. But Thasha just sniffed at the candy.

“What did Syrarys want this time?” she asked.

Hercól's eyebrows rose. “Medicine. Drops for your father's tea. Very thoughtful of her: she wrote ahead for them, from Ether-horde.”

“Every time we're in port she sends you running about.”

“As valet, I am her servant as well. Thasha, has Commander Nagan been this way?”

“Who?”

“The captain of your family's honor guard, my dear. He took ill and left us in Ulsprit, but I gather he caught up with the
Chathrand
and boarded today. I wish to make his acquaintance.”

“I've never seen the man. Listen to me, Hercól: you're my teacher. And there's not much time left to learn from you.”

“That is so.” Hercól gave her a slight smile. “One must always keep
an eye on the clock
, don't you think?”

With that he turned and left the room. Thasha looked at Pazel, suddenly breathless. “That's our code,” she whispered. “Ramachni's back. Pazel, you
must
come with me now.”

She rose and half dragged Pazel from the lounge. They slipped through the empty dining room, passed the Money Gate and the officers' cabins. At her door Pazel stopped.

“This is the
last
place I ought to be,” he said.

“Don't worry, it's all arranged. Come in.”

“Arranged?” he said. “By whom? Is your father in there?”

“No, he's not, and neither is Syrarys. Pazel, can't you trust me?”

He looked at her warily. But he followed her into the stateroom.

The red light of sunset poured in through the stern windows, glittering on the brasswork and chandeliers. There was a five-foot samovar made of porcelain and jade, a wisp of steam still rising from its spout. There was a painting of a shipwreck in a great gilded frame, and the pair of crossed swords he had spotted before. But now across the center of the floor lay a huge, tawny bearskin rug, complete with head and claws.

“Another trinket from the Tarn, I guess,” he said, toeing the yellow fangs.

Thasha turned to look at him. “My grandfather killed that bear with a hunting knife, on his farm in the Westfirth. Syrarys uncrated it because her feet were cold.”

Pazel pulled back his toe. Thasha gave him a wry smile as she crossed the stateroom.

The money
, Pazel thought. Feelings crashed together as he followed her: he was dirty, she was pampered, he was nothing, he was better than this girl.

We had old things too
, he thought, trying furiously to remember. But the few objects he could recall from his life in Ormael seemed shabby and humdrum beside this splendor. On a table by the samovar lay a piece of coffee cake no one had bothered to finish. Tarboys had fistfights over less.
What am I doing here?
he thought.

Thasha opened the door to her own cabin. With monstrous thumps, Jorl and Suzyt rolled off the bed to greet her. She glanced instantly at the clock on her dresser: as before, its hinged, moon-patterned face stood ajar. She tugged Pazel into the room.

“Ramachni,” she said. “It's me. I've brought Pazel Pathkendle.”

“Have you indeed?”

The voice, high and velvet-soft and utterly inhuman, seemed to emanate from Thasha's pillows. Despite himself Pazel jumped: to his chagrin he saw an amused smile on Thasha's face.

She closed the cabin door. The pillows shifted, and from among them emerged the black mink. For a moment it was almost comical, this tidy creature shaking free of the bedclothes. Then it looked at Pazel and grew still.

Pazel did not move either: the black eyes were wide, and bottomless, and fortunately very kind.
It knows me
, he thought, and trembled a bit at the oddness of the notion. Then the little creature stretched luxuriously and sprang into Thasha's arms.

She laughed as it rubbed, cat-like, against her chin. “I've missed you so much!” she said.

“And I have missed those fingernails in my fur. This ship is infested with fleas of a most bloodthirsty order.”

“Where have you been hiding, Ramachni?” asked Thasha. “Her-cól and I have worried ourselves sick! We only knew you'd come aboard because Pazel told us.”

“I am sorry to have abandoned you,” said Ramachni. “I truly had no choice. There is a murderous power loose aboard the
Chathrand:
I sensed it with my first breath. It probes, and listens, and spies on our thoughts, and it thinks no more of killing than of wiping dust from a tabletop. I was caught off-guard. I could not tell who or what it was, for it keeps its face well hidden. The best I could do was to hide myself from
it
, so that it would not know that a power to match its own had come aboard—and not threaten those who befriend me. So I waited, just inside the clock, listening as best I could, until it seemed you had all left the cabin. But I was wrong—Mr. Pathkendle remained, and saw me, and I had to place a spell of protection on him to keep that Other from reading his thoughts.”

“You used magic on me?” asked Pazel sharply.

“Trust me—I had no wish to do so,” said Ramachni. “This is not my world, and when I come here I must use spells the way a nomad uses the water he carries, knowing it must last him across the desert. But fear not: the spell has long since snapped. And our meeting may yet prove lucky for us both.” He flashed his white fangs at Pazel. It was perhaps as close as he could come to grinning.

Thasha sighed, and dropped him on the bed. “So you've been aboard all this time?”

Ramachni nodded. “Deep in the hold, out of sight. I had to listen to the ship, and try to gain some understanding of your peril.”

“And this ‘Other,’” Thasha went on, “did you learn who it is?”

“Alas, no. But I did learn
what
he is. He is a mage—a magic-weaver like myself.”

“But less powerful, of course,” said Thasha.

“Oh no,” said Ramachni. “He is mightier, for he belongs to this world. I could not, for example, pierce his veil of secrecy—and with secrecy this mage is obsessed. Yes, he is strong indeed, and that troubles me. He could be a disciple of Arunis, the Blood Mage of Gurishal, the foulest sorcerer this world ever spawned. Arunis' greed was infinite. He even plundered other worlds, my own among them, in his search for deeper powers. I fought him there a century ago, in the great Library of Imbrethothe-Under-the-Earth, and cast him from my world. He limped back to Alifros, to the Mzithrin lands, and took refuge in the court of the Shaggat Ness. And the Shaggat was his doom, it seems: Dr. Chadfallow assured me that he died shortly after the Mad King himself.”