Part 26 (1/2)

'You prat. How could you make that face at him?'

Pazel managed to look sheepish and angry at once. 'I'm surprised you looked away from Greysan Greysan long enough to notice.' long enough to notice.'

'I'll look where I blary please. And you can dine on dung.'

Pazel's retort was interrupted by Uskins' deafening howl: 'All hands! Bracing stations. Watch captains forward. Topmen aloft. Stand by the fore topgallants. Handsomely, you lard-a.r.s.ed layabouts!'

'Pitfire!' said Pazel, as the lieutenants' shrill pipes began to sound. 'What's he need all hands for? We're laying alongside that s.h.i.+p, not racing her.'

'How do you know what we're doing?'

Pazel looked at her with unconcealed scorn. Then he turned his eyes up to the tip of the mainmast. Thasha followed his gaze: a streaming pennant had been loosed there: two green stripes with a yellow between.

'”Draw Along and Confer,”' Pazel told her. 'Surprised you don't know that, given whose daughter you are.'

She could have slapped him. Wait till our next lesson, you dog. Wait till our next lesson, you dog.

Mr Elkstem put the helm to port, and the Chathrand Chathrand 's bow swung towards the whaler. Just then they heard Neeps shouting their names. A moment later he arrived, entirely winded. 'Looking everywhere for you,' he gasped. 'Hercol's doing the same. Come on, we've got to get to the orlop - 's bow swung towards the whaler. Just then they heard Neeps shouting their names. A moment later he arrived, entirely winded. 'Looking everywhere for you,' he gasped. 'Hercol's doing the same. Come on, we've got to get to the orlop - now.' now.'

'All the way down there? What for?'

'Just come on.'

He took off running again, and they followed, mystified. 'We're going to have to use the gunner's pole,' Neeps shouted. 'Ladderways are blary jammed - everyone's coming up!'

Between the port ladderway and the capstan was a four-foot-square hatch that stood up several feet above the deck. Its cover had not yet been removed since the lifting of the fog, but Neeps knocked out the pins without hesitation and pushed the cover aside. The next moment he was over the lip of the hatch and gone.

Pazel followed, tucking his elbows close to his body and vanis.h.i.+ng down the square black hole. Thasha did not hesitate for an instant. She had wanted to do this since the day she came aboard. Climbing onto the rim of the hatch, she looked down and saw the top of the greased iron pole just a foot beneath her, bolted firmly to the deck beams.

'Upa! Get down from there!'

It was Alyash, the new bosun with the frightening scars. 'You've no right to open that hatch! You could hurt someone! What are you playin' at, missy?'

He darted forward with startling speed. Thasha jumped feet-first through the opening, felt the man's blunt fingers graze her cheek, and then she was gone, flying down the pole with the cool slick grease flowing through her fingers and spattering her face, laughing as the decks flew by - main, upper gun, lower gun-- 'How do I blary stop?'

Even as she cried out, she understood: the grease turned to thick tallow, her hands began to rasp, and beneath her the boys shouted Squeeze! Use your legs! Squeeze! Use your legs! and she did so, and stopped almost elegantly a foot above the berth deck. and she did so, and stopped almost elegantly a foot above the berth deck.

'. . . see those men in the gun compartments?' Pazel was saying. 'What are they up to? What's Uskins doing with them?'

'Not a clue,' said Neeps, cleaning his hands on a rag hung for that purpose beside the gunner's pole. 'And there's no time to find out. Come on, we have to take the ladderway from here.'

There were no crowds at this level, and they descended the ladderway at a run. In the main compartment of the orlop deck, however, they met a troop of some dozen tarboys preparing to ascend. They were carrying cannonb.a.l.l.s, plungers, and buckets of gunpowder.

'Saroo!' Pazel cried as the tarboy struggled past. 'What in Rin's privy are you doing?'

'Gun duty,' Saroo called over his shoulder. 'Just for show, mate. Rose don't like the looks of that whaler, somehow. Wants 'em to see we're armed.'

Thasha watched the tarboys lumber up the stairwell. The explanation did not satisfy her, but Neeps was tugging impatiently at her sleeve. 'I didn't mean tomorrow tomorrow, Thasha.'

They ran diagonally across large and shadowy compartment and into the starboard pa.s.sage. There they met Hercol, pacing nervously in the shadows. 'We are too late,' he said. 'She has gone.'

'Who's gone?' Pazel demanded.

'Diadrelu,' said Neeps in a furious whisper. 'Oh, hang it all! She warned me she couldn't stay!'

He led them on, past the starboard sail locker and the mids.h.i.+pmen's cabinettes. Stepping through a bulkhead door, they came suddenly into a pa.s.sage strewn with crockery, much of it broken, and a number of dirty spoons.

'Teggatz sent me down here to collect the steerage dishes,' said Neeps. 'I had a perfect stack in my hands and was making for the ladderway when something p.r.i.c.ked my foot.'

'You mean you stepped on a nail,' said Pazel.

'Hardly, mate.' Neeps glanced up and down the hallway, then knelt and began to probe the dusty boards with his fingertips. After a moment he seemed to find what he was looking for, and struck a board with the heel of his hand. There was no click, no creak of a hinge. But where the blow landed a tiny trapdoor sprang open. Within they could see only darkness.

'Pitfire, Neeps,' whispered Thasha. 'You've found an ixchel door.'

'I didn't exactly find find it, to tell you the truth,' said Neeps. 'She caught my attention with the tip of her sword. Oh blast it, if only you hadn't been so hard to find! Dri had something terribly important to tell us.' it, to tell you the truth,' said Neeps. 'She caught my attention with the tip of her sword. Oh blast it, if only you hadn't been so hard to find! Dri had something terribly important to tell us.'

'Close the door, Neeps,' said Hercol.

'Just a minute,' said Thasha, startling them. She knelt and put her hand through the trapdoor. It led onto a narrow rectangular tunnel between the upper and lower floorboards. In one direction the way was blocked by a joist, but in the other the tunnel was open. Twisting, Thasha crammed her arm farther inside.

'Be careful!' said Pazel.

Thasha gave him an exasperated glance. 'How?'

But even as she spoke her fingers met with a tiny sc.r.a.p of paper, wedged into a crack in the floor. With great care she pinched it between two fingers, plucked it free and extracted her arm from the tunnel. Between her fingers lay a sheet of parchment no larger than a postage stamp.

She raised the little sheet before her eyes. 'There's writing,' she said. 'Can you read it, Pazel?'

The writing was finer than the veins on a fern. Pazel brought her hand close to his eye. 'It's in Ix,' he said. ”Destroy this note. Close door. Return at five bells exactly. D.T. ap I.” Those are her initials, all right.'

Hercol peered at the note in amazement. 'Never in my life have I heard of ixchel deliberately leaving proof of their presence for a human to find,' he said.

'She must be in danger,' said Thasha.

'Or in great fear,' said Hercol. 'In any case it will be five bells in some thirty minutes. Let us scatter: the less we are seen together, the less we have to explain. But return to this spot promptly, I beg you. We must not make her wait again.'

'Right,' said Pazel. 'Let's see what's brewing with that whaler.'

He and Neeps set off for the topdeck like a pair of racing hounds, and Hercol departed forward, leaving Thasha quite alone. She swore. It had seemed the perfect moment to catch Pazel alone, drag him to some empty corner and straighten him out about Fulbreech. Blast the fool! Blast the fool! Time was short, life slipped away. Wasn't it obvious that every hour they spent fighting was a gift to their enemies? Time was short, life slipped away. Wasn't it obvious that every hour they spent fighting was a gift to their enemies?

She sighed: if they were really to scatter she would have to walk the length of the orlop deck, to the No. 5 ladderway in the stern.

The pa.s.sage led her back to the main compartment, where to her consternation Dr Chadfallow and Fulbreech himself were the first persons she saw. They were making for the surgery; Chadfallow was describing the proper placement of tourniquets above a severed limb. He barely glanced at Thasha, but Fulbreech gave her another of his das.h.i.+ng smiles. This time Thasha found it unsettling. Did some teasing knowledge reside in that face? Or was it simply the most handsome she had ever seen?

She stormed across the compartment, barely conscious of where her feet were taking her. Men and boys, fibs and violence, games played with s.h.i.+ps, hearts, weapons, worlds. To the Pits with all of them. To the Pits with you, Pazel, if you think I'm some rock for you to lean on one day, and p.i.s.s against the next. To the Pits with all of them. To the Pits with you, Pazel, if you think I'm some rock for you to lean on one day, and p.i.s.s against the next.

'Help me!'

Thasha drew her knife in a flash. The voice seemed that of a young woman's. It had come from the pa.s.sage ahead. 'Who's there?' she shouted, das.h.i.+ng forwards.