The Ruling Sea (101 page)
He broke off with a frightened shout. He had spotted the three newcomers in the archway. “Gods unseen!” he shouted. “Look at them, Father, look!”
Bolutu gestured desperately:
Don’t come in here, stay back
. But Hercól marched boldly through the gate and into the village, and Pazel and Thasha followed. The dlömu backed away from them.
“A miracle,” said the old man, trembling. “A miracle. Or a curse.”
“Bolutu,” said Pazel, “for Rin’s sake tell them we’re friends.”
Bolutu looked at his hands.
The father and son glanced behind them, as though tempted to run. The younger man pointed at Pazel. “Did you hear it, Father?” he cried, his voice breaking with excitement.
“Don’t … say ‘it,’” murmured the old man.
“Belesar,” said Hercól to Bolutu, “speak to us this instant! Why are they so afraid? Why are
you
?”
Bolutu turned to face them. He clutched at the amulet around his neck. He was shaking uncontrollably. “No,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “No. Rin. No.”
Pazel felt Thasha grope for his hand. She stepped forward, toward the three motionless figures, and Pazel walked beside her.
The younger dlömu was steadying his father, but his eyes never left the newcomers. He struggled to speak again.
“It’s just that we’ve never—I mean, Father has, as a child, but I’ve never seen—”
“What?” said Pazel, “A human? But we just saw them—we saw
six
of them.”
The young dlömu shook his head. Then he locked eyes with Thasha, who had drawn nearer still. Releasing Pazel, she put out the hand that had touched the Nilstone. Slowly, cautiously. A blind girl groping for his face.
“Say it,” she told him. “You’ve never seen—”
“A woken human,” said the other, softly.
Thasha’s face paled, and her eyes went wide and cold. Pazel reached for her arm, even as he grappled with the horror of what he’d just heard. She was trying to speak but could only gasp. He thought suddenly of Felthrup’s terror on the quarterdeck, and knew that something like it was stirring in his mind.
Hercól gave a warning shout: across the little square, between two crumbling structures, a small human crowd was gathering. Some were dressed, after a fashion—scraps of leggings, torn and filthy shirts—but most wore nothing at all. They stood bunched together, or bent low, staring at the newcomers, obviously afraid. One man was biting his finger. Two or three uttered wordless moans.
Thasha clutched desperately at Pazel’s arm. “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “It was never supposed to happen. You believe me, don’t you?”
He pressed her head against his chest.
I love her
, he thought. And then:
Who is she? What is this thing I love?
The older dlömu stepped toward the crowd of men. He whistled and clapped his hands. At the sound, the whole group shuffled forward, slow and fearful and close together. When they reached the old man they pawed at him, clung to his shirt. One by one their eyes returned to Pazel and Thasha and Hercól, and there was no human light in those eyes, no consciousness but the animal sort, that fearful otherness, that measureless sea.
H
ERE
E
NDS
The Ruling Sea
B
OOK
T
WO OF
T
HE
C
HATHRAND
V
OYAGE
.
T
HE STORY IS CONTINUED IN
The River of Shadows
COMING FROM DEL REY IN
2011.
*
Of the five who disagreed: two thought the date 19 Ilbrin. Another declared with certainty that it was Ilbrin the twenty-third. Mr. Teggatz, charged with keeping a daily statistical log of work in the galley, confessed to having accidentally burned his logbook in the stove. Finally, Old Gangrüne the purser admitted under questioning that he considered the entire Solar Year a mirage. The sun moved faster or slower at the gods’ whims, he declared: any fool who watched the sky knew that, and clocks and hourglasses changed their speeds to match the sun’s. It was pointed out to Gangrüne that this belief called into question his fifty years of shipboard recordkeeping. “You’re got it backward,” he retorted. “My logbook’s our only hope of keeping track of the years. I’m an Imperial asset, if you please.”
Acknowledgments
Kiran Asher, my partner, to whom this book is dedicated, lived with me through the journey of its writing. No one should be subjected to such a fate. I’m profoundly grateful for her patience and her love.
A few close friends effectively kicked the door down in their eagerness to read
The Ruling Sea
. In addition to Kiran, Holly Hanson, Stephen Klink, Katie Pugh, Jan Redick, and Edmund Zavada all shared generous and wise responses to the rough-hewn manuscript.
As
Ruling Sea
left the home laboratory, I benefited from the insights of my wonderful editors, Simon Spanton at Gollancz and Kaitlin Heller at Del Rey, as well as the indispensable guidance of my agent, John Jarrold. Additional help came from Betsy Mitchell, Gillian Redfearn, Lisa Rogers, Charlie Panayiotou, Shawn Speakman, David Moench, Jonathan Weir and teams of others whose names and heroic deeds remain trade secrets.
In addition, for encouragement and counsel, I’d like to thank Hillary Nelson, Tracy Winn, Amber Zavada, Paul Park, Bruce Hemmer, John Crowley, Corinne Demas, Gavin Grant, Nat Herold, Jedediah Berry, Karen Osborn, Julian Olf, Stefan Petrucha, Patrick Donnelly and Jim Lowry.
Many novels could end with a credit-roll surpassing those of Hollywood films, if every person who helped along the way received mention. Certainly this is such a book; and just as certainly, a few names that should not
under any circumstances
have been omitted will rise to haunt me when I see this page in print. My apologies to those deserving souls.
Before the book, there’s the idea; before the idea, the habits of mind in which it gestates. Since plunging into the Chathrand Voyage series I’ve had occasion to reflect, in turn, on the origins of those habits: in this case, my addiction to tales of the wondrous and improbable. I trace part of the answer to certain cherished evenings in Iowa, over three decades ago, listening to my father, John Redick, read science fiction novels to an awestruck audience of one. Years late in all instances have been my expressions of thanks, so here’s one more, Dad.
About the Author
R
OBERT
V. S. R
EDICK
is author of
The Red Wolf Conspiracy
. His unpublished first novel,
Conquistadors
, was a finalist for the AWP/Thomas Dunne Novel Award, and his essay “Uncrossed River” won the New Millennium Writings Award for nonfiction. A former theater critic and international development researcher, he worked most recently for the antipoverty organization Oxfam. He lives in western Massachusetts.
The Ruling Sea
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Robert V. S. Redick
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
D
EL
R
EY
is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover and trade paperback in the United Kingdom by Gollancz, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd., in 2009.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Redick, Robert V. S.
The ruling sea / Robert V. S. Redick.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51912-2
I. Title.
PS3618.E4336R85 2010
813′.6—dc22 2009044450
v3.0
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