We go to sea, to sea, small men of soil made.
Pour milk for your lions, lord of wind;
Send them not hungry to the clouds,
Lest they roar for our blood…
Over his shoulder Pazel saw the tow-boats waiting, their men fastening lines from the Chathrand's bow. Slowly the Great Ship turned in the narrow port until the Goose-Girl faced the sea. Then for the first time Pazel heard Captain Rose's thundering shout: "Two jibs and the forecourse, Mr. Elkstem."
"Oppo, Captain, two jibs and the fore! Spurn, Leef, Lapwing! Cast gaskets! Jump to!"
Elkstem, the sailmaster, sounded amazed to be setting sails within a stone's throw of the docks, but the men in the tow-boats grinned: Rose's haste meant their own labors would be short. Indeed, the moment the big square foresail grasped the wind the ship leaped for open water, and it was all the rowers could do to get out of her path as she gathered speed. One man laughed and pointed: "That tarboy's found him a bride!" Pazel threw a barnacle at him, laughing too.
White sail after white sail. Sorrophran vanished behind them. The light too was leaving-in half an hour it would be dark. But away west, the headland still glowed in the evening sun. And there, what a sight! Galloping to its peak was a fine black horse, and a rider in a billowing cloak.
The rider turned his steed sharply, waving. Pazel froze.
"Kozo, who's that nutter?" said the fore watchman, squinting up at the cliffs.
Pazel said nothing. The man was Ignus Chadfallow.
The doctor cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: "… get away, lad! Jump ship in Etherhorde!"
"A madman!" said the sailor. "What's that language he's speaking?"
"Who knows?" said Pazel. But the tongue was Ormali, and he its only speaker aboard. As Chadfallow surely knew.
"… not what I planned… madness… jump ship!"
"Deep devils, but he looks familiar! Someone famous, maybe? You know him, tarry?"
For a moment Pazel couldn't find his voice. At last he shook his head. "No, sir. I've never seen him before in my life."
Chadfallow kept shouting as they rounded the headland. The wind shifted, and his voice began to fade.
Midnight Council
2 Vaqrin 941
12:02 a.m.
"The boy must be killed at once."
Taliktrum spoke from the fifth shelf, the highest, which was where he slept. Five feet below, on the first, Diadrelu looked up at him from the clan circle and shook her head.
"Not yet," she said.
Taliktrum sat cross-legged, sharpening a knife on the sole of his foot. Here in the bow, where the gap between the inner and outer hulls reached nearly three feet wide, they were as safe as anywhere aboard, yet his hands seemed always on his weapons. She did not like this constant fingering of blades, this stabbing at timbers and caressing of hilts. It set a bad example for the younger folk, who were busy hiding their nervousness (call it what it is: fear) behind jokes and horseplay. Survival lay in good sense, not in bravado. Yet it was easier to provoke bravado than thought.
"He must die," repeated Taliktrum. "And the sooner the better. He's a monster, a giant with ixchel ears. Already he knows enough to doom us all. We were lucky tonight that his punishment shamed him into silence. At dawn it will be another matter."
"Taliktrum," said Dri, "come down among the clan."
He obeyed with insolent slowness, climbing down the inner hull with his knife between his teeth. Three feet above the shelf where his aunt and thirty other ixchel stood, he jumped, and landed nimble as a cat at the circle's center.
"Sheathe your knife, and act no more the fool with it," said Dri. "Listen: we do not know why the boy was silent."
"And you would wait to find out, Dri?" asked Ensyl. "What if he rises tomorrow and guesses they were ixchel voices he heard?"
"He will have guessed already," she said. "Ludunte says he looked right at our crawlway. The giants know we ride their ships. And though none can hear our natural voices-none ever, before this boy-still they know we can speak."
"They know, because some of us beg for our lives when the Arqualis catch us," said Taliktrum, looking bored and irritable. "Beg in the name of Rin and his Angel and the Milk of the One Tree. All those things the giants claim to worship. To no avail."
"Most kill us, given the chance," Dri agreed. "Not all, however. If we are to survive this mission we must not overlook those precious few."
"You believe he held his tongue for our sake?" said Taliktrum.
"I believe he is an Ormali as you guessed. That means he may have no love for this Empire."
"Odd crew he's chosen to ship with, in that case."
Now a few snickered openly. Dri waited until they fell silent of their own accord. Then she said, "Foreign-born youths do not serve the Empire at their pleasure. They serve to keep themselves out of gutters, or chains. And do you suppose that any of them has an inkling of the true purpose of this voyage? How could they, when after ten years of spying, we ourselves are still forced to guess?"
"I will tell you what I guess," said Ludunte. "I guess this monster-boy will speak of us to someone."
"Who will speak to someone else," said Taliktrum. "And so on, until we are the talk of the Chathrand. The cargo is still but half loaded. The giants can afford to tear the ship apart searching for us, and they might. No, the moment to strike is now. A fire started in a tuft of grass can be left to spread until the whole plain is burning. Or it can be snuffed out."
"Or," said Dri, "the tuft of grass can be carried to the hearth, and logs lit to keep us from freezing. Think of the ally he could make! We could speak to him in the presence of other giants. We could tell him what to ask, what to look for as he makes his rounds."
"He could get us fresh water," said someone.
"He could leave doors ajar."
"He could throw the witch's cat into the sea."
"Maybe," said Taliktrum coldly, "he will sprout wings and carry us all wrapped together in a blanket to Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. Rin's name! Why do you ply us with fantasies, Dri?"
"The founder of Ixphir House was saved from death by a giant woman," said Dri. "One hundred and sixty years ago, in the gardens of the Accateo Lorgut. That is not fantasy. We would none of us be here without her."
"Legend," said Taliktrum. "Pretty stories for children at bedtime. Will you still take comfort in them when your gentle giants have killed us all?"
It was late when the council adjourned. Dri bid them all go to their rest on the sleeping shelves, and they went uneasily, but without grumbling. In an ixchel clan circle everyone speaks who would speak, but when the conference ends the leader must be obeyed.
She was exhausted: her ribs still ached like fire from her contortions on the rat funnel. The absurd thing was that the cursed devices never worked: the ship was boiling with rats. They slipped up gangways, burrowed into straw bales carried aboard for the manger, or merely leaped past the funnels like the ixchel themselves. And how they multiplied! A ship could set sail with just a few dozen and make landfall a few months later with thousands of starving animals in her hold.
Lying on her shelf, she could hear them in the forward hold, scurrying and chattering and chanting their songs of greed. Her people would have to guard against them as well. Rats could not be trusted. They would promise peace, and sometimes struggle to keep it for a week or two. But when food grew scarce their eyes took on a certain gleam. They would gather around the edges of ixchel bunkers, or trail menacingly behind a scouting party, or lie in wait…