The worst of the day’s heat lay behind them. This time no rain or wind squalls slowed their progress. When five hours had passed, they climbed a crooked ridge and saw the fortress-city looming ahead.
“We’ll be back in your caves by nightfall, won’t we, Mr. Ott?” asked Saroo.
“Unless you prefer to spend the night on Droth’ulad,” said the spymaster. “It’s all downhill after the fortress: that should help us stay ahead of the savages. And with any luck the eguar will remain sated as before.”
“He
wasn’t
sated,” muttered Pazel, still burning with the unfairness of the doctor’s accusations.
“Hush!” whispered Swift, glancing nervously at Ott. “Pazel, you’re a hazard to your own blary health. And another thing—you ride like a sack of spuds. Why in the Pits did Ott bring you along?”
“Why’d he bring you?” Pazel shot back.
“Because Saroo and I are great riders, obviously. And because we’re small, and that let the horses carry more gemstones. There, now what’s your answer?”
Pazel looked away. His Gift was the answer, of course, but what had he done with it except overhear a few shouts from the Leopard People? Probably Ott was wishing even now that he’d left Pazel behind on the ship.
Maybe
, he thought bitterly,
Ignus will offer to force something
really
strong down my throat, next time …
Perhaps two miles from the city they came to a low saddle in the hill, and Ott called for rest. Pazel could just make out the triple arch they had passed through the day before. He shuddered at the memory of the eguar’s voice.
They dismounted, and the boys watered the horses from a feedbag. Alyash tore chunks from a dark loaf of bread and handed them around. It was a gift from the Nessarim, along with two sausages and a clay flagon of wine: as if the forty-year journey of Erthalon Ness back into the fold had been reduced to a barter for foodstuffs.
“Vicious bastards, those Nessarim!” said Drellarek approvingly. “Scrawny but bloody-minded; I could see it plain in their faces. They’d fight like wildcats even against my Turachs, I daresay.”
“They have only their faith to live for,” said Ott. “And if you still wish to know, Doctor, we made this journey in support of their faith. To bring them a sign, a swallow of magic to carry with them into war.”
“A war they can only lose,” said Chadfallow.
Grinning, the spymaster inclined his head.
“A diversion,” said Saroo. “You built that whole town full of crazies as a
diversion.”
Pazel was aghast to hear a note of admiration in the tarboy’s voice. His brother Swift was more guarded, however: “The Shaggat’s son would be an old man, now,” he said, “if he hadn’t spent half his life asleep. How do they know it’s really him?”
“They knew instantly,” said Alyash. “He’s the son of their god, after all. They knew the birthmark on his elbow, and his tattoos—masterpieces, they were, the artist was blinded when he finished the boys.”
“Will the Secret Fist tell those poor fools when to sail?” asked Drellarek.
Ott shook his head. “They are their own masters. We shall merely be sure it happens before the Shaggat himself reaches Gurishal. And when they do sail, we shall raise the alarm in every corner of Alifros. ‘The Nessarim! The Nessarim reborn, and howling that their Shaggat is coming back as well!’ The world shall hear it loudly. And then we shall help the poor, ineffectual White Fleet to destroy them.”
“Destroy them!” cried Pazel, his voice cracking.
“You’re
going to destroy them?”
“The Mzithrinis will do the bulk of the work,” said Ott, “but we shall sink a ship or two—visibly, of course—and chase them into the line of fire. They’ll have their moment. They’ll take a bite out of the Sizzy fleet. But that will be trivial. The real wound to the Black Rags will be the humiliation. Forty years after the war, men will say, and they
still
can’t eliminate the Shaggat cult! Best of all, the Five Kings will believe it themselves. As our other dogs begin to nip and bite, rumors of the Shaggat’s return will spring up throughout the Crownless Lands. The Sizzies will be looking everywhere for the source of the rumor—and meanwhile they’ll redouble the blockade between Gurishal and the eastern lands. But they will not be able to stamp the rumor out. And each time a dog sinks its teeth into that bear it will respond with greater desperation.”
“A diversion,” said Alyash. “You’re right, Saroo my lad. But what a diversion! The first bay, the first howl from the hunting-pack. The Five Kings will hear it and tremble.”
“And those other dogs?” said Chadfallow, with quiet rage. “Who are they, and where are they hidden? Are they to be sacrificed as coldly as the men in that settlement?”
Ott shook his head, smiling. “Would you deprive me of all my surprises, Doctor?”
“I would deprive you of more than that.”
“Ha!” laughed Sandor Ott. “My woman, for example? And my liberty? You have attempted both of these, and failed. And even if you had persuaded that useless Ormali governor to clap me in irons, how long do you think I would have been held?”
“Two days,” said Chadfallow. “After that I would have seen you locked in the brig of a packet boat making for Etherhorde—with an ample guard. I paid them in advance: the guards, and the owners of that boat. I had a letter prepared for His Supremacy, with all I knew of your betrayals. Particularly how you and that—” Chadfallow bit off the word. “—
viper
spent the last year poisoning his good friend Eberzam Isiq.”
Pazel was suddenly afraid for Chadfallow. His fury had hardly vanished—Chadfallow was one to talk of betrayals!—but in spite of everything Pazel somehow felt he would be lost without the man.
Can’t you see what you’re risking, fool?
he wanted to shout.
Ott’s probably killed more people with his bare hands than you’ve saved in surgery
.
For the moment, however, Ott just looked amused. “His Supremacy would have consigned your letter to the fire. He knows quite well the necessities of this campaign to perfect his dominion. You, for starters, are certainly expendable. As for his friendship with Isiq—” He looked at Alyash and Drellarek, and suddenly the three of them began to laugh, low and hard. Pazel watched them, recalling how Niriviel had taunted Thasha.
The Pit-fiends. They
have
done something to the admiral
.
Chadfallow’s face was darkening with rage. “What of future ‘necessities’?” he asked. “How many leeches will you affix to the body of the Empire? Will you have the territorial governors assassinated? The lord admiral, perhaps? Will you decide that Magad’s sons are unworthy to inherit the crown, and kill them as you did Empress Maisa’s?”
The men’s laughter redoubled. “Oh Doctor, stop,” said Alyash, wiping tears from his eyes.
“Yes, Ignus, stop,” said Pazel. “They’re not worth it.”
The doctor turned him a tortured look. And suddenly Pazel recalled something Chadfallow had told him years ago, about the oath Arquali doctors took before their titles were conferred:
Life in all its loveliness shall I defend, even at the cost of my own
. Did Chadfallow think he had broken that oath too many times?
“Ott kill Maisa’s brats!” said Drellarek. “That’s priceless! Why don’t you tell ’im the truth, Master Ott?”
Ott shook his head again. “There are things I won’t discuss with a man who’d try to brand me a traitor.”
“You are a traitor,” said Chadfallow, his control slipping further. “You are a weak, grasping, small-minded man. You have perverted all that I lived for and held most dear. I will name your dog, Sandor Ott: it is Arqual itself. You have trained it with cruelty and fear. You have made it vicious, ready to bite anyone who crosses its path.”
The spymaster’s laughter was abruptly gone. Drellarek and Alyash fell silent. Ott rose to his feet, eyes locked on Chadfallow.
“Not just anyone,” he said.
Pazel leaped up and grabbed Chadfallow by the arm. “Please,” he hissed, “don’t say any more.”
“We’re going to need him, Ott,” said Alyash, still smiling.
“There is a field surgeon here at Bramian Station,” said Sandor Ott. “He can serve the Great Ship, in a pinch. Chadfallow, you have twice defamed me with the one insult I swore never to bear. Call me a traitor again, and you will see if I am weak.”
“You’re a tr—”
Pazel struck Chadfallow as hard as he could. There was a sound like a snapped branch, and blood gushed from the doctor’s nose as he stumbled to the ground. He stared at Pazel, amazed, not even trying to stanch the flow.
“Shut your damned mouth!” screamed Pazel at the doctor. “Wait, Mr. Ott, he’ll take it back, please, please, I’ll make him—”
Sandor Ott drew his long white knife. Pazel stood between them, arms thrown wide, pleading with the assassin. There was a dreamlike quality to his voice; it sounded soft and faraway, like an echo. Behind him, Chadfallow rose and tugged out his sword.
“Put it down, Doctor!” laughed Drellarek. “That’s blary suicide, and you know it. Come to your senses and apologize, if you want to live.”
“Will one of you,” said the spymaster, “kindly take Mr. Pathkendle aside?”
Alyash started to rise, but Drellarek waved him off. “Rest that leg while you can. I’ll get him.”
“Decent of you,” said Alyash.
The Turach stood and lumbered toward Pazel. He did not bother to draw a blade. When he saw Pazel’s fighting stance, he pointed and grinned. “Look at this one, Master Ott. I’m done for!”
Pazel blocked his first blow with an upraised arm, but the strength behind the Turach’s fist was crushing. The second blow found his stomach; the third, to the back of his head, came close to knocking him out. As Ott sidled toward the doctor, turning the knife casually in his hand, Drellarek grabbed Pazel by the shirt and lifted him clear of the ground. Pazel lashed out with his legs and caught the man in the stomach. Drellarek winced and struck him again.
Chadfallow was backing away from Ott, sword up, body rigid, boots shuffling awkward on the stones. His face was frozen, like an actor’s mask: the kind depicting some elemental sin, like folly or despair. Ott, however, looked like a man who had shed every worry. He was by far the older, but as he drove Chadfallow before him he was returned astonishingly to his youth. Relaxed and graceful, he took a dancing side-step, and lunged.
Something terrible and bloody occurred, but it was not what anyone foresaw. Drellarek, Ott and Chadfallow simply disappeared. Where the party had stood an instant before there was only darkness and a blast of heat. Pazel felt himself thrown backward with terrible force. When he landed his upper body was dangling over the rimless edge of the wall, and a screaming horse lay sprawled across his legs. The animal surged to its feet, and Pazel, blind with pain and sliding toward death, flailed out with his hands and caught a stirrup. The horse spun on its hindquarters, eyes mad with terror, wrenching him back from the precipice even as the animal’s own forefeet slipped over the edge. Pazel could only let go the stirrup as the horse crashed into the trees below. Then he felt heat on the back of his neck, and turned.
The eguar stood over him. Its white-hot eyes blazed in the dark crocodilian head. Pazel clawed at his throat, choking, and his eyes streamed with tears. He was inside its cocoon of vapors, and the smell was like acid thrown on hot coals; he was amazed not to have died already.
But Drellarek was dead. The Turach’s body dangled from the creature’s mouth, and it was shriveling like an old squash roasted over a flame. The saliva of the eguar sizzled on Drellarek’s skin, and around its teeth the man’s very armor was in flames. Then the creature raised its head skyward and swallowed the Turach with three snaps of its jaws.
Pazel felt his gorge rise. He could not turn his back on the eguar, so he dragged himself away with his arms, expecting death, that death, with every scraping inch. He saw Swift and Saroo on the wall beyond the creature, running for the fortress roof. Then he looked down. Ott and Chadfallow lay motionless beneath the eguar’s feet.
Oh no. Ignus
.
Pazel had crawled free of the vapors and lay retching on his side. The eguar’s eyes were still fixed on him, burning his mind even as the vapors had burned his lungs. And then the creature spoke.
This time Pazel was expecting the hurricane—and the eguar, perhaps, was aware of Pazel’s limits. He was not faced with the same flood of meaning as before, and yet it still seemed that the eguar put whole speeches into single words, and to hear them gave Pazel the grotesque sensation of gulping a meal in large, unmasticated chunks.
I, Ma’tathgryl-eguar-child-of-the-South nameless-desireless-pitiless-all-these-are-prisons forward-and-backward perceive their plan, their venom, their cleverness-madness-debauchery-faith, perceive you, lidless-unarmored-unskinned child-man, mindthrown open, with them, apart
.
That was one word, one maddeningly complicated growl. Reeling from it, Pazel managed to climb to his feet and back a few more steps away. He knew his Gift would tell him how to answer, and struggled desperately against the urge to try. Hearing the eguar’s language with human ears was bad enough; thinking in it might drive him mad.
He tried something far simpler: he used the language of the Leopard People. “Why did you help me?” he said.
Shackles of certainty in cage of desire in dead spindrift isle of self
.
Pazel understood. He must not assume the eguar meant him well. And as if to underscore the point the creature opened its mouth wide and breathed in his direction, and Pazel felt the vapor cloud billow over him again, but now mixed with some new bile or potion from the gullet of the beast. The vapor weakened him, and his knees gave out. He fell forward, staring up at the creature, trapped by those white-hot eyes. Then the eguar spoke again, and Pazel began to scream as never before in his life.
He was not in pain, but he was horribly violated. The eguar had peeled open his mind like an orange, and was examining all it contained. Pazel did not just feel naked; he felt as though someone had cut away his skin, and shone a bright light on his muscles and veins, and told him to dance.