The Rats and the Ruling sea

'Stop me?' said Thasha, reddening.

He shrugged. 'From, well-'

'You're a prize pig, you know that?' said Thasha. 'Tell me this: why haven't you cut that shell out of your chest?'

Pazel said nothing. He had been dreading the question for months.

'Well?' she demanded. 'Isn't that how you're supposed to tell Klyst she's wasting her time?'

Still Pazel was silent. 'I just can't,' he said at last. 'I don't know why. It isn't that I mind the blood, you know.'

In the stateroom perfect silence had resumed. Thasha gazed at him like one contemplating murder. All at once she appeared to reach a decision. She pointed imperiously at the chair at her desk. 'Sit down,' she said.

Pazel obeyed, and Thasha went to the secret wall cabinet and took out the Polylex. She set it down quickly before him, as though even that brief touch was something she'd rather avoid.

'We're going to find an answer to Marila's question,' she said. 'Or rather you are. One hint, though: don't look up an obvious word like "Arunis" or "Nilstone." Remember that the authors were trying to sneak in information, so that the Emperor would let it be published. You have to use your intuition if you want to find anything.'

Pazel took a deep breath. 'I'll try Licherog.'

Thasha dropped back on her bed. 'That'll do. It's probably too easy, but maybe it will lead us somewhere.'

Pazel opened the book, astonished by the thinness of the dragonfly-wing paper. The print was small and ornate, the entries infinite and strange. Lamb's blood. Lycanthropy. Lorg Academy (Origins). Lead Tomb. Lich of Greymorrow.

And finally, Licherog, Prison Isle of.

The entry ran to nine pages, and was full of horrifying detail, such as the recurrent problem of cannibalism when food shipments were delayed, and the prison guards who were held hostage for sixteen years when a rebellion broke out on an underground floor. There was quite a lot about the Shaggat Ness, his sons, and the palace vacated for him by the Warden of Licherog. Of Arunis, however, there was only a brief mention: how he was held for twenty years with his master, tried to escape, was wounded by a guard's arrow, recaptured, and hanged.

'It says he cursed the guard before he died, and the poor man had a breakdown, quit the army, moved back in with his mother on Opalt, and slowly went mad.' Pazel shook his head. 'There isn't much more. Arunis the sorcerer died upon the gibbet, and dangled there nine days. The birds who pecked his flesh fell stone dead, as from poison; and the sharks, when he was chopped and given over to them, were found later belly-up upon the sea. That's all. Weird, but not much help.'

'Try "Death" then,' said Thasha quietly.

Pazel turned more pages. Death included some macabre speculations about the least and most painful ways of inflicting it, and the posthumous torments of the sinful, and Agaroth, death's shadowy Border-Kingdom in the underworld. But Pazel saw nothing about ways to cheat death, or return from it to this life.

'That's odd,' he said suddenly. 'The entry breaks off in mid-sentence. There's room for more words, but it's unfinished, listen to this-'

'Don't!' said Thasha sharply. 'I don't want to hear it!' Her voice was tight with pain, as though she were walking barefoot on glass. 'Remember what I told you the night before the wedding, about how the book adds entries on its own? That's how it happens: first a blank space, then words that grow like a vine to fill the space. But when I read those new parts I feel horrible. Look up something else. "Sorcery," maybe.'

Pazel tried to move faster. But Sorcery was no help, and neither was Necromancy or Resurrection. By the time he'd moved on to Mage Thasha had backed to the far side of the bed, hugging herself into a ball.

Pazel took in her vacant, frightened eyes, and slammed the book shut. 'Right, I'm putting this thing away. Matter of fact, let's put it further away from you. We can hide it in your father's cabin; that's still inside the magic wall.'

'No!' said Thasha. 'I have to keep it near me. I'm… responsible for it.'

Pazel was about to argue, but at that moment the door creaked, and Neeps looked into the cabin.

'I could hear all that,' he said.

'Sorry to bother you,' said Pazel sarcastically.

'Don't be an oaf, I thought of something. You read about the guard who shot Arunis with the arrow — the one he cursed. Remember where it says he went?'

'Back to Opalt, with his mum,' said Pazel.

'And who else came from Opalt?'

Thasha raised her head slowly. 'Ket,' she said. 'The soap merchant. Arunis' false identity, when he first came aboard. Neeps, you could be onto something.'

She hopped from the bed, as Pazel opened the book and began leafing through it again.

'What do you know, he's in here,' he said after a moment. 'But there's hardly anything, just two lines. Ket, a merchant family of Opalt, specializing in salves and soaps. The m-'

Pazel stopped in amazement, all but choking on the words. ' The most successful member of the family to date, Liripus Ket, joined the family trade after a complete recovery from madness, which befell him during military service in his youth.'

Pazel looked up from the book, first at Thasha, then at Neeps. A chill seemed to have descended on the room.

'Ket was the guard on Licherog,' he said. 'Arunis didn't just curse him — he became him. That's how he escaped the island nobody ever escapes. He can do more than just get inside someone's head. He can take over. He can blary move in.'

At that moment Marila's voice called from the outer stateroom. 'Thasha! Come out here, hurry up.'

Thasha sprang from the cabin, with the boys right behind her. Marila was at the stateroom door, which was open a crack. 'It's Dastu,' she said. 'He's just outside the magic wall, with the guard. He wants to come inside.'

'Oh, I have to blary invite him, don't I?' said Thasha. She opened the door wide and beckoned, and Dastu stepped through the magic wall and hurried towards them. He looked as though he were barely able to keep from breaking into a run. Slipping into the room, he eyed the four of them with a mixture of relief and anxiety.

'You're all here,' he said, shutting the door behind him. 'That's good. Listen to me close, now. I found Bolutu.'

'You found him!' they cried.

Dastu nodded. 'He's down in the liquor vault, and he's in a bad way. That change he was expecting? Well I think it's started, mates. And he says he's got to tell you something before it's done, Pazel. Somethin' about Rose — about "how to get the better of Rose." He won't say more than that to me.'

'Why didn't you bring him here?' said Neeps, looking at Dastu nervously.

'Bring him?' Lord Rin, mate, you'll see! Pazel, you've got to come down there! It's safe, for the time being. There's nobody in the Abandoned House. And I think we can manage without a lamp.'

'We'll all go,' said Neeps.

'Come on, Undrabust!' said Dastu, more high-strung than Pazel had ever seen him. 'This ain't the dead of night. What'll our story be if we're caught? What if that guard decides to tell somebody that we all charged out of here together?'

'I am going,' said Thasha. 'If Bolutu's really got something to do with Ramachni, I have to be there.'

Dastu squirmed with impatience. 'Whoever's going has to come with me now. You don't know what's going on in there!'

Pazel turned to Neeps and Marila. 'It'll be four bells in, what, twenty minutes? Come after us then, if we're not back. Just take the long way around, and for Rin's sake, don't let anyone see you on the scuttle! All right, Dastu, let's go.'

Before Neeps could think of another objection, Pazel, Thasha and Dastu stepped out of the room. Neeps watched them until they passed the guard, then shut the door and whirled around.

'Twenty minutes!' he said to Marila. 'I'll go plum mad, worrying about them! Damn and blast, I still don't trust that Bolutu, even if he does have the scar. And you were a big help! Couldn't you have said something?'