The Ruling Sea (77 page)

Pazel pressed his lips to Thasha’s ear. “I’m sorry,” he said. He reached down and closed the clock.

Perfect silence gripped the room. The wind had vanished; the watchers uncurled their bodies, listening. No pounding feet, no bellows or cries. The immensity of the ship, or the crew’s exhaustion after weeks of storm, had saved them. The
Chathrand
slept on.

Thasha put her face in her hands.

Pazel touched her shoulder, but Thasha only stiffened and leaned away. Neeps looked at him and nodded. Telling him he’d done what he had to. It didn’t make Pazel feel any better.

Druffle looked at Marila, eyes blazing with accusation. “Why’d you bring me here?” he asked.

33
The World Grows Larger

9 Umbrin 941
179th day from Etherhorde

If opening the clock had proved an ambiguous wonder, the fact that no one fled the room afterward was simply a miracle. Big Skip was still staring at the suitcase, into which Pazel had quickly packed away the clock. Druffle was nipping from a flask. Bolutu, for his part, gazed fixedly at a spot in the air, bending his notebook first one way, then the other.

Thasha sat silent, face in her hands. Ramachni had not come; no help of any kind had come, and now the newcomers were terrified. Their rebellion was sinking into chaos before it had even begun. Pazel sat across from her, wishing that he could take her aside, calm her, beg her not to feel ashamed. But there was no chance of that.

Neeps and Marila, to their credit, were trying to steer the meeting back on course.

“What you’ve got to remember,” Neeps was saying, “is
never
to touch Arunis of your own free will. Pazel found out the hard way: it gives him the power to look into your mind, somehow. That’s why he could kill poor Peytr Bourjon. Once he knows you’re not the spell-keeper, you’re fair game.”

“We’ve been wondering what Arunis could have promised him, to make him shake hands,” Marila added.

“Safe passage off the IMS
Chathrand,”
suggested Big Skip, “that is, if we reach the South. If there
is
a South.”

“That is the other great unknown,” said Khalmet, breaking his wary silence. “I mean the South itself. Drellarek always spoke of resupplying quickly, making west along the southern shores, taking our bearings at some known location, and then returning north to Gurishal, behind the Mzithrini defenses. But he knew nothing of the land or its people. Will we face a wilderness like Bramian, full of beasts and savages? If we fled the ship we might perish in a day, or wither slowly, while Rose and his loyalists sat at anchor, starving us out.

“But we might just as likely find a civilized country, with townships and industries, and force of arms. We must be ready to contact such people. It may be they have ships that could take on the
Chathrand.”

“Like the
Jistrolloq
did?” said Fiffengurt. “Don’t bet on it, mister. Rose fights above his weight.”

“I’ll bet there’s nothing but a wasteland,” said Druffle. “Nothing but toads and spiders, rocks and desolation, and hills all sheathed in ice.”

“Toads
and
ice?” said Marila.

Pazel saw Bolutu shaking his head, as if he had heard nearly all he could stand.

“Just a minute,” said Neeps. “The
Chathrand
and her sister-ships used to cross the Nelluroq all the time. There has to be civilization in the South. Otherwise, why bother?”

“That was centuries ago, mate,” said Dastu.

“Aye,” said Khalmet, “and civilizations come and go.”

Bolutu uncurled his notebook—a warped, water-stained ruin after months of abuse—scrawled two words, and held them up:

N
OT THESE
.

They looked back at him, puzzled. “Whaddya mean?” said Big Skip.

The veterinarian frowned, looking from face to face. He began to write again.

“The wa … waking … phenomenon,”
Druffle read over his shoulder. “As in waking animals? What’s that got to do with the queen’s tea?”

Bolutu stopped writing and sighed. Then he dashed off a sentence and held it up.

N
OTHING WILL GET DONE AT THIS MEETING
.

“Well, you’re a right blary naysayer,” growled Fiffengurt. “Why don’t you help us get somethin’ done, then? Ain’t you an educated man?”

Suddenly Bolutu rose to his feet. Everyone tensed: the black man’s lips were pressed tight together, and his eyes were almost closed. He raised the notebook, squeezing it as though demanding some last service from its tattered pages.

“He wants something hard to write on,” said Big Skip.

Bolutu closed his hand, crushing the notebook in his fist. “No, he doesn’t.” He tossed the notebook down with a smack.
“Jathod!
He doesn’t want to write another word.”

There were gasps. Big Skip made the sign of the Tree. “You can talk!” said Fiffengurt.

“And you can hear,” rasped Bolutu. His voice was dry, and his words distorted, as though he had almost forgotten how to speak. Then he opened his mouth wide, and showed them a pink and perfect tongue.

“Black spellcraft!” hissed Druffle, edging away. “You’re a conjurer! A hoojee hexman from the Griib!”

“That’s ugly, Mr. Druffle,” said Marila. But in fact they were all in shock. Bolutu had grown a new tongue.

Say something, Pazel!
cried Diadrelu.
Khalmet has his hand on his sword!

“Listen to me!” Pazel blurted. “Whoever he is, he risked his life to save me from Arunis.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” babbled Fiffengurt. “And if you are a hexman, Bolutu—well, that’s just fine with us. So long as you’re
our
hexman, he he.”

“I am neither
hoojee
nor
hexman
, whatever those may be,” said Bolutu quietly. “Nor am I a Slevran, as I was forced to claim.”

“Told you!” said Neeps. “I told you he was a Noonfirther! Didn’t I?”

Bolutu shook his head. “I am not.”

A hint of panic entered the room. Neeps, trying gamely to contain the situation, forced out a laugh. “Fine then, I got it wrong. Let’s not get excited. We’re all human beings.”

“I am not,” said Bolutu.

Everyone leaped up; Khalmet’s sword was out in a flash; Druffle bared his cutlass, and even Fiffengurt whipped the blackjack from his pocket. Bolutu wisely raised his hands in surrender. For a moment they heard only their own breath and the slosh of the bilgewater. Then Pazel stepped in front of Bolutu, his heart pounding.
Courage, courage!
said Diadrelu from above.

Trembling, Pazel extended his hand.
“Elaya,”
he said.

“Elaya chol!”
replied a delighted Bolutu, shaking his hand. “And where did you learn Nemmocian, Mr. Pathkendle?”

“On Bramian,” said Pathkendle. “From a scrap of paper in Ott’s hand. I’ve never heard it spoken before this minute. And … it’s not your native tongue, is it?”

Bolutu shook his head. “Indeed, I barely speak Nemmocian, though I read it well. Can you guess why?”

“Not if my life depended on it,” said Pazel.

“What in Rin’s name is happening, here?” demanded Khalmet. “Who is this lunatic, who says he is not human?”

Suddenly Thasha gasped. “It was you!” she said. “It was
you
I was sensing, not Ramachni at all! But you’re with him, aren’t you? You’re his friend!”

“Friend?” Bolutu smiled at her in turn.
“Admirer
might be a better word. I have the honor to know and revere him, but I have seen Ramachni only once in the past twenty years: at the Battle of the Straits of Simja, the day he put out the coal Arunis placed in my mouth.”

He looked at the ring of startled faces. “Don’t fear me, please. I am your ally still, and will hide the truth from you no longer. My name is Belesar Bolutu Malineko Urstorch. I am a dlömu. And I must hasten to inform you that the battle we are engaged in is larger than you have ever suspected.”

No one moved. Khalmet and Druffle kept their weapons raised. Pazel realized suddenly that he and Bolutu were still holding hands. Releasing the man, he stuttered, “A dluh. A dloh—”

“Dlömu,” said Bolutu gently. “Just one of a million, and if you let me live a few more days you will see for yourself what we truly look like, for now I know that my disguise-enchantment is at last starting to break. My new tongue proves it. We dlömu can regrow parts of our bodies, over time. Fingers, hands, even whole limbs if we rest properly. This tongue started growing just days after the sorcerer maimed me.” He probed the tongue with his fingers.
“Gagh
. It is whole at last.”

If Bolutu meant to allay their fears, he did not succeed. Intelligent beings other than humans were not unheard of in Alifros: nearly everyone had seen the squid-eyed nunekkam, cooking on the decks of their houseboats, or playing their flutes at nightfall in some field or garden, their hairless children tumbling at their feet. A smaller number had seen ixchel sprinting for their lives along an alley, or flikkermen haggling in the flesh markets, or augrongs or bristle-backed stoors lumbering over the hills. A rare few had met with murths. But Pazel had never heard of dlömu, and by their faces he saw that none of the others had either. Marila stared at Bolutu like a frightened animal. Thasha’s face glowed with a mix of rapture and fear. Big Skip Sunderling looked as though he had stepped into a madhouse and forgotten where the exit lay. Flinching, he wet his lips and whispered,
“A million
?”

“Perhaps slightly more,” said Bolutu, “spread out across the Empire.”

“The man’s raving,” said Druffle with a shaky laugh. “A million—things, running around the Empire, and no one claps eyes on you? What, do you all live buried in caves?”

“I don’t think he’s talking about the Empire of Arqual,” said Pazel.

“Right again,” said Bolutu. “Arqual is but a little realm compared with Bali Adro, our vast and glorious kingdom in the South. Almost half of us are dlömu, including our Emperor and his court. Slightly less than a third are human, but their numbers are growing quickly. The remainder are a hotchpotch of other races, mostly unknown in the North. Such wonders in Bali Adro! Had we a month of council meetings I could scarcely attempt their description. And great as it is, Bali Adro comprises but a third of the mighty southern lands.”

Khalmet’s look was hard and suspicious. “You’re asking us to believe … that you come from
beyond
the Nelluroq?”

“Exactly, Lieutenant. Now sheathe your sword, I pray you.”

“What do you really look like?” asked Marila.

Bolutu studied his hands, as if they might have changed in the last few minutes. “Nothing terrible,” he said. “We are blacker than the blackest humans. Our eyes have two lids, and shine in a way yours never can, like the eyes of night creatures. Our skin is smooth and tight; it would crack before it wrinkled. Such are the
visible
differences.

“As for this body, I am quite aware that I am too short and thick-chested to be a Noonfirther. That was to be the identity I assumed, and the metamorph-spell our wizards wrapped me in seemed perfect at first: when they finished I looked every bit the well-heeled gentleman from Pól. Scores of us agreed to such changes, trading our dlömic bodies for human ones.

“But twenty years ago, as we came north across the Nelluroq, something happened. I still do not understand it. We passed through a kind of soundless storm, a storm not of wind but of light. It blinded us, and when our eyesight returned days later we found that we had changed again. Some of my comrades had reverted completely to their dlömic bodies, and could play no part in our mission. Others still appeared human, but had reverted in one respect or another to themselves. I had regained my old height and weight. No longer able to pass for a Noonfirther, I chose to be a Slevran—the only other possible explanation for my skin color.”

“But what in Pitfire are you
doing
here?” said Thasha. “If you went to so much trouble to seem human and journey to the North, why are you on a boat heading south? Are you just trying to get home?”