The Red Wolf Conspiracy Part 54

"Then the spell can can be reversed!" be reversed!"

"It can," said Ramachni, "but Pazel cannot do it. Nor can I, nor anyone aboard. The s.h.a.ggat will become flesh again when one soul aboard Chathrand Chathrand--and I shall never tell you which--dies. It may be Thasha, or this boy before you. Or Rose, or Uskins, anyone at all. The minute that one dies, the Stone-Word shall be reversed."

"Is that the best you could do?" cried Arunis. "Let the s.h.a.ggat be stone, then, until we cross the Ruling Sea and meet his army of wors.h.i.+ppers! He will be far less trouble! Once on Gurishal I shall no longer require these men. And I shall shall kill them: all six hundred, if need be. I shall find your spell-keeper!" kill them: all six hundred, if need be. I shall find your spell-keeper!"

"And when you kill that person," said Thasha, eyes wide with understanding, "the s.h.a.ggat will turn back into flesh, and the Nil-stone will kill him him. Oh, Pazel! How did you know when to speak? You were wonderful!" wonderful!"

"And you are without friends, Arunis," said Hercol.

Rage clouded the sorcerer's eyes. He looked sharply at Thasha and raised his hand. "I do not have to kill kill her to make her suffer," he said. her to make her suffer," he said.

Thasha's necklace gave a savage twist. She could not even scream. Her face turned crimson and tears sprang from her eyes.

Pazel's first thought was to beg the augrongs to stomp Arunis to death once and for all. But only Arunis could make the necklace stop--Ramachni had just said as much. Thasha staggered, her eyes rolling back in her head. Pazel caught her as she fell.

In the face of Eberzam Isiq, something snapped. He drew his old sword and flew at Arunis, shouting a war-cry. Just in time, Hercol leaped into his path and dragged him aside. Arunis laughed in the old man's face.

Then they all heard it: the flat sound of metal striking stone. Arunis whirled. There was Neeps, a lump of iron in his hand, smas.h.i.+ng the toes of the s.h.a.ggat Ness.

"We don't have to kill him to make him a cripple!" he said.

On his last word the s.h.a.ggat's big toe shattered to dust.

"Stop! Stop!" bellowed Arunis. "You sh.e.l.l-island sc.u.m! Very well, I release her--for now."

Thasha gulped air, writhing in Pazel's arms. Her throat was red and raw. Eberzam Isiq dropped heavily to his knees beside Pazel, and together they held her.

Sergeant Drellarek came forward. "Sorcerer," he said, "you speak with contempt of the s.h.a.ggat Ness. You are no believer. Why make use of him? Why did you not take the stone for yourself?"

"Keep to your own affairs, Turach," snarled Arunis.

"That's an easy one," piped up Druffle, from the edge of the crowd. "He was afraid! Didn't know what he was afraid of, exactly, but whatever the risk, he wanted somebody else to take it. The s.h.a.ggat's just your hand-puppet, ain't he, you louse?"

"The s.h.a.ggat is everyone's everyone's hand-puppet!" screamed Arunis. hand-puppet!" screamed Arunis.

"Or no one's," said Ramachni.

"Idiot mage! Why do you meddle in the affairs of my world? Have men not done enough harm in your own? Look at that beast!" He stabbed a finger at the s.h.a.ggat. "Made for slaughter! A curse on any land, a plague-bearer, a despoiler of all he sees! If he ever conquers Alifros he'll find himself the emperor of ashes!"

Pazel looked up at the sorcerer. Then why are you helping him? Then why are you helping him?

"You are wrong about humans," said Ramachni. "There is evil in them, of course. But there is also sublime beauty, and a thirst for good. It is that thirst that makes them change, and grow, and wake each day a bit more fully."

"They can no more change than His Nastiness here," said Arunis. "They are statues. Gargoyles. Souls of stone."

Ramachni shook his head. "They are fluid souls. What they can feel, and imagine, and rise to--not even they yet appreciate."

"Even the s.h.a.ggat is more than just a statue," said Hercol.

Sergeant Drellarek raised his hand. "Enough! This is a stalemate, wizard. You cannot beat them, nor they you. Leave the deck! You have already come close to sinking the Great s.h.i.+p. If it is true that the s.h.a.ggat can be restored to life, then our mission will go on. I know nothing of curse-stones and magic wine, but I have my orders. The girl will marry and fulfill Ott's prophecy. We shall feign our own wreck and vanish into the Ruling Sea, and Captain Rose will see us safely across her. You, sorcerer, will have months to prove that you are smarter than three youths and a mink."

Arunis' hands clenched in rage. "You, Throatcutter--you and your kind sought to kill me forty years ago. My body hung from a noose on Licherog, but my spirit lived. Death is my servant, not my master. I will will free the s.h.a.ggat. And Thasha will marry, or die at my feet. This I promise you." free the s.h.a.ggat. And Thasha will marry, or die at my feet. This I promise you."

"Then the Emperor's will be done," said Drellarek, and his warriors cheered: "His will be done! His will be done!"

"Rin help us, the idiots," Dri whispered to Pazel. Dri whispered to Pazel. "They're cheering for their own deaths." "They're cheering for their own deaths."

Arunis looked from face to face, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with hate. Last of all his gaze fell on Chadfallow.

"What says the good doctor?" he sneered.

Pazel and the others looked as well, hardly more friendly than Arunis. Chadfallow dropped his eyes.

"The Emperor's will be done," he said.

The Wolf-Scar Oath

6 Teala 941

The olive-green mountains of Simja rose in the west. Already the sea was festooned with sails: ten, no, eleven men-of-war, sporting flags of Arqual and Ibithraed and Talturi, racing like the Chathrand Chathrand toward the city between two empires. Thasha's marriage would be well attended, if it happened at all. toward the city between two empires. Thasha's marriage would be well attended, if it happened at all.

The s.h.a.ggat Ness was lowered through the tonnage hatch and chained to a bulkhead. Arunis screamed for the king to be put in his own cabin--but no one wanted the sorcerer left alone with the Nil-stone. Drellarek set a day-and-night guard on the statue, and a more discreet watch on Arunis himself.

Farther aft, Hercol stood guard as well: just inside the closed door of the stateroom.

"You will have to shut that book at some point, Thasha," he said.

Thasha, her neck wrapped in a cotton bandage, looked up at him and smiled. She closed the Polylex Polylex. "I was reading about the Mzithrini diet. It says they eat beetles fried in sesame oil."

"Nonsense!" said Eberzam Isiq. "And what does it matter to you?"

"I have to go through with it, Prahba," she said quietly.

"No you don't!" shouted half a dozen voices at once.

"Shame on you, Thasha," said Neeps. "Haven't we promised to get you out of this?"

"Arunis will kill me," she said. "I'm only alive because because he needs me to marry." he needs me to marry."

"He makes mistakes," said Pazel. "Ramachni's already fooled him once."

All eyes turned to the little mage. He was crouched beneath the dining table, beside a basket where Felthrup lay asleep, looking very frail. Ramachni did not look quite right either. Something was gone from the sheen of his fur, the glitter of those wonderful eyes. He looked up from his patient.

"Felthrup bleeds beneath his skin," he said. "I have put him in the healing-sleep, but that may only be a gentler way for him to die. I cannot tell: either he will wake, and live--or never wake at all. But there is another who needs our attention, Hercol."

He gazed over his shoulder. On the bench under the gallery windows stood Niriviel, Sandor Ott's falcon. A black hood covered his head, and his leg was tied by a leather strap to a hook on the windowsill.

Hercol and Ramachni approached him, and the Tholja.s.san removed the hood. Ramachni leaped to the bench.

"Will you speak to us now?" he asked.

"I will," said the bird in a voice like tearing canvas. "But what are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing whatsoever," said Ramachni. "We are not your judges."

The bird c.o.c.ked an eye at Hercol, suspicious. "You hate my master," he accused.

"Never," said Hercol. "Remember that he was once mine as well. But I have outgrown him, Niriviel. Oh, not in skill at arms--that I hope will never be tested. My heart has outgrown him, outgrown the cage in which Ott prefers all hearts to dwell. The cage he cannot live without: I mean love of Arqual."

"That is no cage!" shrieked the bird suddenly, flapping his wings. "Arqual is the hope of all people! It brings safety, riches, order, peace! It is our mother and father! Arqual is the glory of this world!"

"But Arqual is not the world," said Ramachni. "Alifros is vast, and many of her people love their homelands as deeply as you do yours."

"One day they will all be Arqualis," said the falcon. "And you traitors. You shall go to Licherog and break stones."

"When I watched you from the gardens of the Lorg," said Thasha, approaching, "I used to think you were the freest soul in Alifros. But I was wrong. I don't think you know what freedom is."

"Remove this strap from my leg and I will show you what freedom is."

"That is what I hope for," said Ramachni.

He put his teeth to the leather strap, and in four bites chewed it through. Hercol, meanwhile, raised a window. Instantly the bird leaped to the windowsill. He leaned forward, wings lifting-- --and drew back. His sharp eyes darted here and there in amazement.

"You release me! Why?"

"Because we do not enslave," said Ramachni. "And you should ponder the form of slavery to which you are accustomed. Those bonds only you can break."

The bird fidgeted on the sill, one eye trained on Ramachni. "You're a mage," he said at last, "but not so very wise."

Thus speaking he dropped from the window, shrieked once and was gone.

"A child," said Ramachni, his voice heavy with sorrow. "I would hazard that he was Ott's creature long before his waking, and took the spymaster's faith and cause as his own from the first hour. A terrifying process, waking: some do not survive it with their minds intact. Others need a G.o.d or cause or enemy to anchor them, for above all they fear choice, that great abyss."

"Ramachni," said Hercol. "There is an abyss before you as well."

"I haven't forgotten that," that," laughed the mage. "Trust me, I feel it in every hair." laughed the mage. "Trust me, I feel it in every hair."

"Feel what?" asked Thasha.

"The need for a healing-sleep of my own," said Ramachni. "My fight with Arunis occurred in more realms than those visible to the eye. The match was close, and it has cost me. My time here is almost spent."

"Spent?" cried Neeps. "What are you talking about? You can't go anywhere! We need you here!"

"If I do not go while I have the strength to walk away, Mr. Undrabust, I shall still depart--by burning out like a candle."

"But this is a disaster!" said Neeps. "Arunis isn't defeated yet, and Ott's still out there somewhere, and Thasha's getting married tomorrow! and Thasha's getting married tomorrow! And what about Pazel? If he says the wrong word at the wrong time, maybe he'll blow Simja to the moon!" And what about Pazel? If he says the wrong word at the wrong time, maybe he'll blow Simja to the moon!"

"When will you come back, Ramachni?" asked Pazel.

"Not for a long time."

The news hung like a raincloud over the room. At last Neeps broke the silence.

"We're sunk."

"Undrabust!" said Eberzam Isiq. "In the navy you'd be flogged for throwing that word around! Here, what's that on your wrist?"

Neeps looked startled. Then he held out his arm. On his wrist was a small red scar. "Look close, it's the strangest thing," he said. "A bit of iron from the Red Wolf struck me, while it was still hot as Pitfire. But it's not just any burn. It's wolf-shaped!"

So it was: a perfect, unmistakable wolf, scarred deep into his wrist.

"And matters are stranger than you know," said Hercol. With that he lifted a corner of his s.h.i.+rt. Burned into the flesh just below his rib cage was the dark outline of a wolf. "They are identical. And see, a forepaw raised, exactly like the Red Wolf."

"Anyone else?" said Neeps. "I say--Pazel!"

He was holding out his left hand; the others crowded round. The burn on his palm was deeper than the other two. It had blistered, and bled a little at the edges. "It's a wolf all right," he said. "And it's as hard as leather. But I have no idea what it means."

"It means you are in the grip of a spell," said Ramachni. "But not an evil one, I think."

"Well that's just blary perfect," said Pazel. He wanted no more to do with spells, evil or benign. Then he looked at Thasha, and saw dejection on her face.

"You weren't burned by the iron, were you?"

Thasha shook her head. "Got lucky, I'm happy to say."

She sounded anything but happy. Pazel didn't know what to say, or what to think. He caught Neeps' eye; his friend looked as troubled as Pazel felt.

"Anyway," Thasha said with a forced smile, "I'll always have this."

She held up the hand she had mutilated years ago, with the rose stem at the Lorg. The others stopped what they were doing and looked at it. Or rather stared. Presently Thasha turned her palm over and looked herself.

The scar was transformed. Nothing had changed on the back of her hand, where she had stabbed herself. But the mark on her palm had become a wolf--the wolf, unmistakably the same. wolf, unmistakably the same.

"What's happening?" whispered Thasha. "Ramachni, did you ...?"

"I have not interfered. Nor would I presume to do so, without great cause, when a spell has been laid down with such care."