Thasha watched the ship wheel northward and felt a chill. It was happening. They were doing exactly what they had said they must never do: taking the Nilstone straight to evil hands. Was there any doubt that Masalym was evil? It was a part of Bali Adro, the Empire that was even now destroying the city at their backs, that Nandirag. But was there any other choice? The ship was sinking. Without repairs she could neither run nor fight well enough to keep the Nilstone safe much longer. And there was the small matter of food.
Neeps and Marila had gone to sleep on the floor of the brig, next to Pazel’s cell. Thasha wanted to go to them, ached to do so, could not. She went to Fulbreech and kissed him long and deep, her arms over his shoulders, her back against the doorway of his cabinette. His hands gripping her hips, two fingers grazing her skin beneath the shirt. He tried to coax her into his chamber but she shook her head, breathless and shivering; it was not yet time. She left him, ran blind across the lower gun deck, pounded up the Silver Stair and through the magic wall. She flung open Hercol’s cabin door and flew at him and struck him with both fists in the chest. Hercol kicked the door shut. In the room adjacent Bolutu heard her curses and her sobs, and the warrior’s answering voice, low and intimate and stern.
Sergeant Haddismal tossed and turned in his cabin. When he managed to sleep, the same object rose persistently in his dreams. An arm, pulsating, yellow-gray, somehow both dead and alive, groping through the ship on a mission of its own.
It was the Shaggat’s arm, and his dream was hardly stranger than the reality that had prompted it. He had inspected the Shaggat that very evening: first with his naked eye, then with a tape measure. Impossibly, the cracks that were threatening the statue had stopped growing, and even-very slightly, but unmistakably, for Haddismal was a meticulous record keeper-shortened. The mad king was not just alive inside his stone curse. He was healing.
Many others shared the Turach’s restlessness. All night Lady Oggosk sat awake in the forecastle house, irritating the other prisoners, mumbling Thasha’s name. All night Rose paced the quarterdeck, listening to his ship, pretending not to heed the taunts and whispers of the ghosts who walked at his side. All night the chain-pumps clattered, and the men sang songs from the far side of Alifros, pouring out the sea as it poured in through the ship’s hidden wound.
The cliffs were higher at daybreak, the vegetation atop them more lush and green. Now Rose took the prince’s advice and brought them closer, barely a mile off the rocks. There were grazing animals (not quite goats, not quite sheep) upon a windy hillside, and a dlomic herdsman with two dogs that sprinted in circles around the beasts. When he saw the Chathrand the dlomu goaded his animals into a run. They swept over the hill and disappeared.
The day was bright, the water clear to eight fathoms. Nonetheless it was tricky sailing, for the winds were erratic, and for all Rose’s fury his men were clumsy and slow. They were weakening with hunger, distracted by fear. Rumors passed like foul vapors through the ship: the ixchel were planning executions. Dlomic attackers were still at large in the hold. Arunis was stalking the topdeck by moonlight. Pazel and his friends were fighting because one of them had gone over to the sorcerer’s side.
Late morning they came suddenly upon a tiny cove, high-walled and round as a saucer. The remains of a few stone buildings crouched just above the waves, roofless and forlorn. And there were stairs-long, steep flights of them carved into the rock, beginning at the ruins and snaking back and forth up a cleft in the wall. Five hundred feet overhead they reached the sunny clifftops. There the sailors saw with delight the shapes of fruit trees-three fruit trees, their branches laden with bright yellow globes.
“Apples!” declared someone, starting excited chatter.
“I wonder,” said Hercol.
Thasha glanced briefly at her tutor. He was right to be doubtful, she thought. Hercol was always right; you could almost hate him for the trait. But Thasha quickly rejected the thought, and flushed with shame.
Bolutu appeared on deck and warned aloud that there were many fruits in Bali Adro, some fit only for wild creatures. But the men were not listening. They had found an orchard, and the trees were groaning with apples. Their days of hunger were at an end.
Rose summoned his officers to his day-cabin. Taliktrum, uninvited, joined the conference. The sailors paced, beside themselves, devouring the shore with their eyes. But they did not have long to wait. Ten minutes later the door flew open and the captain strode out among the waiting men. There was a bottle in his hand: fine Quezan rum.
“We will launch the short pinnace,” he said. Then, shouting above their cheers: “Not for apples-they are secondary, and we may even forgo them, should danger arise. What we seek above all is tactical information. We need a glance at this country before we sail into an unknown harbor on the word of a stowaway, and-”
“We must be very fast,” Taliktrum broke in. “Who knows how many eyes are watching us from the clifftops, even now?”
The sailors were gasping: no one interrupted the Red Beast. Rose himself looked tempted to smack Taliktrum into the sea. But breathing hard, he continued:
“I need someone who can take those stairs at a run. The apple-pickers will follow at our signal, if that man finds no danger. His will be the first foot to touch the Southern mainland, and there is great honor in such a deed. Tell me now: who is strong, who is bold? Who wants to make history today?”
Many hands went up, including Thasha’s and Hercol’s, but the captain chose a tall Emledrian sailor named Hastan. Thasha smiled at the choice. She liked Hastan, a quiet topman who was usually too abashed to speak in her presence, but who had danced with her on the topdeck when Mr. Druffle played his fiddle.
Rose passed him the bottle of rum. “Drink deep!” he said. “That’ll give you strength and courage both.”
Hastan took a giddy swallow, smacked his lips. “You’re a gentleman, Captain.”
Rose took the bottle back, glaring at him: “Chew the apples thoroughly. Don’t let me see you gulping food like a hog.”
Minutes later the boat was in the water, with six rowers, two ixchel observers (“I trust our eyes more than theirs,” said Taliktrum) and baskets large as the sailors’ hopes. Every eye followed her progress, her glide into the sheltered cove, Hastan’s leap into the surf and wallow up the shingle, his running assault on the stairs. Rose had chosen welclass="underline" Hastan was as nimble as a mountain goat. He had climbed a hundred feet before the others had the pinnace out of the waves.
The five basket-carriers huddled near the ruins, awaiting Chathrand’s signal that it was safe to climb. The men with telescopes watched Hastan, still running as he neared the top. Only on the last flight did he pause for breath. Then he marched up the last steps and moved in among the trees.
There he stood, leaning against a trunk, gazing at an unknown world. He was motionless for a surprising time. When at last he turned to look at the Chathrand his face was full of wonder. Slowly he waved his raised palm to the sky: the all-clear signal. Then he picked an apple, sniffed it and took a bite.
Breathless anticipation: Hastan chewed, considered, swallowed. Then he tossed the apple in the air, caught it and set about devouring it with a will. The men on the topdeck roared.
“Quiet, you silly apes!” hissed Fiffengurt, though he was as happy as the rest. The signalman waved his flag, and the basket carriers started to climb.
Hastan finished the apple and tossed away the core. “Glutton,” said Rose.
The men reached the summit and set about stripping the trees. They worked quickly, and soon had taken all the fruit in easy reach. But there were eight hundred men awaiting apples, so one by one they moved away from the cliff’s edge, seeking more. Thasha watched them go through her telescope, thinking, Perhaps it is an orchard, at that.