Part 62 (2/2)

They whirled: alone in the doorway, bare feet in the pool of blood, stood Steldak. He had never looked more vicious or depraved. His gaunt lips were stretched wide and grinning, and his pale eyes shone with glee. Before Pazel or Thasha could move, he turned and shouted: 'Come, Mugstur ! I told you it was not Arunis! It is but two humans - the last, maybe, to have escaped our vengeance.'

A great screech went up behind him, and rats began to pour through the doorway. With a decisiveness that saved both their lives, Thasha grabbed Pazel by the arm and pulled him to the back of the chamber. They clawed their way up a stack of hay bales, then turned and raised their weapons. 'Strike first!' Thasha whispered to him. 'Every G.o.ds-d.a.m.ned time!'

The rats were on them in seconds. Pazel fought even more desperately than he had on the mainmast, driving Isiq's sword into one set of snapping jaws after another, struggling for balance on the s.h.i.+fting bales. As scores of rats converged on the youths, Mugstur himself waddled into the chamber. He was astonis.h.i.+ngly swollen and ugly. His transformation in the liquor vault seemed to have closed the wound Hercol had given him, leaving only a purple scar on his bone-white chest. But something had changed: Mugstur, and indeed all the rats, had become slick and slimy, as if coated with some viscous substance. Hallucination Hallucination, thought Pazel, as a rat prepared to spring.

He killed that one, and the next, by stabbing downwards with both hands on the sword hilt. There were four scrambling to take their place, however, and eight or ten attacking Thasha. And the creatures were still shoving through the door.

He had stabbed his fifth rat when Steldak let out a piercing cry. At almost the same time a voice shouted, 'Hold! Hold, beasts, or your master dies!'

Mugstur snarled, and his servants froze where they stood. Clinging to Mugstur's shoulder was Taliktrum. The ixchel twisted the rat's loose flesh with one hand, while the other reached around the hairless neck, to the base of his jaw. There he held a long knife, point upwards. One sharp thrust would bury it to the hilt in Mugstur's brain.

Four other ixchel - Dawn Soldiers, all - were racing up Mugstur's hairy sides to stand with their leader, weapons drawn. On the floorboards, Steldak lay with an arrow in his chest.

'Surrender, vermin,' said Taliktrum.

Master Mugstur reared suddenly on his hind legs. He had been thrice an ixchel's size before his transformation; he was thirty times it now. But the five ixchel held fast, and Taliktrum remained poised for the kill.

Mugstur flexed his claws, one by one, a weirdly human gesture. Then he laughed, deep in his throat.

'Talag's son,' he said. 'You should have brought that peppermint oil. Now you see what comes of defying a servant of the Most High. Tell us, crawly: when did you fall in love with giants?'

'I did not come for them them,' snapped Taliktrum. 'If they had been killed months ago my clan would still be safely hidden from the giants. It is you you I am here for.' I am here for.'

'Yes,' said Mugstur, 'for me. But not in the way you imagine. You have come because Rin willed it, and his Angel's power has brought it to pa.s.s. You are here because you are part of my destiny.'

'Mad creature!' said Taliktrum. 'Aren't you ashamed to peddle that pap - that watery stew of giant beliefs? Order your rats back to their warren, or my knife will decide your destiny once and for all!'

'Bring him in, my children,' said Mugstur calmly.

Noises from the granary: then a new clutch of rats entered the chamber. Two of the creatures, walking on their hind legs, carried a wooden staff between them. An ixchel man was bound to that staff, head to toe. He was gagged, and nearly as wasted and filthy as Steldak had been when Pazel first saw him in Rose's cage. All the same his look was regal. His angular face and haughty eyes resembled Diadrelu's, and Taliktrum's own. His grey beard was a wild tangle.

Taliktrum gasped. 'Father !'

'It's Talag!' whispered Thasha. 'Sniraga didn't kill him! Oggosk lied to you, Pazel!'

'Your father has been our guest since Uturphe,' said Mugstur, 'The witch gave him to Steldak, in exchange for information. And Steldak wisely brought him to me.'

'Liar !' spat Taliktrum. 'No ixchel, not even mad Steldak, could betray one of his own in this way!'

'Steldak did not wish to,' Mugstur admitted. 'He was tempted by the wors.h.i.+p of a false prophet: you, Taliktrum. But I had hope for him always. He was a visionary like me. Weaker, of course, but as his fear left him his visions grew clearer. They gave him the strength to kill Talag's sister, when the time was right. Above all he was committed to the death of the arch-heretic Rose. It is a pity you murdered him before he could stand in triumph on Rose's corpse. But my children will not weep for him. True servants of Rin's Angel fear no death.'

'Fear no death!' howled all the rats together, as though the words were a slogan.

'Notice the ropes at Talag's wrists and ankles,' said Mugstur. 'Harm me, little lord, and my children will tear him limb from limb before your eyes.'

Pazel put a warning hand on Thasha's arm. This was going to get ugly.

'It is not I who will surrender, it is you!' roared the white rat suddenly. 'Stand aside and let us finish our kill! We are here because Steldak heard the voice of the Angel. And the last humans standing, a dark boy and a fierce pale girl, were here awaiting us - a fitting sacrifice, at the end of ends. The other humans fell before we reached them, struck down by the Angel's wrath--'

'By us us, you fool!' said Taliktrum.

But Mugstur was no longer listening. 'Our wait is over, children! The sky has turned to blood, and a great mouth has opened in the sea! Everything is clear at last! It is the promised hour! The Angel comes!'

'The Angel! The Angel!' shrieked the rats, twitching with ecstasy.

Talag clung helplessly to Mugstur's neck. His eyes swept about the room, as if searching for an exit he might have overlooked. On the wooden staff, his father desperately shook his head. Taliktrum caught his eye, and a look of shame swept over him.

'I can't obey, Father,' he said. 'I can't let you die. Withdraw, soldiers! Your next commands will come from Lord Talag. Release him, Mugstur, and take me instead.'

'No!' shouted Thasha suddenly. 'Do not move, any of you! I forbid it!'

Rats and ixchel alike looked up in shock. Pazel gaped as well: her voice was astonis.h.i.+ngly changed. This was Thasha speaking, and at the same time it was not: just as a fiddle becomes something utterly new when pa.s.sed from a novice to a master.

There was a strange, bright light in her eye. She lowered Ildraquin until it pointed at Mugstur's heart. 'You read the signs correctly,' she said, confident and commanding. 'All but the last one, that is. Your wait is is over. I have come.' over. I have come.'

Such a cacophany of squeals and howls and perplexed roars followed that not even Mugstur could make himself heard. Some of the rats had dropped on their bellies, cowering. Pazel was frightened half to death. What was happening to her? Where could she take this bluff?

'Back!' Thasha shouted with a sweep of Hercol's sword. The rats who had been attacking her and Pazel leaped away. Then in one bound Thasha jumped to the floor, landing just beside the s.h.a.ggat Ness.

Mugstur dropped to all fours and backed away. His eyes shone with doubt and wonder. 'You . . . you you are the Angel? The Blessed One, the spirit who woke me, when I was a common rat?' are the Angel? The Blessed One, the spirit who woke me, when I was a common rat?'

By way of an answer, Thasha spread her arms wide, and in that strange, powerful voice, began to sing: I come as a shadow o'er the sea Swift and certain, my decree: None who would with Rin abide May from his chosen servant hide.

Neither from his justice cower: For in that final earthly hour, Earth and ocean are as gla.s.s; Through them my burning gaze shall pa.s.s And scour all beasts from haunt or lair, Their souls to free upon the air.

It was a liturgy of the Rinfaith - Pazel had heard bits of it before, chanted by devout sailors or travelling monks. But in Thasha's voice the words were frightful. Mugstur crouched low, tucking his tail and holding his head with his paws. Taliktrum and his warriors still clung to him, too shocked to do anything but watch.

'Angel,' whimpered Mugstur. 'How can I know you? How can I be sure?'

'If you do not know me, then you were never my true servant,' said Thasha.

'That girl . . . she was always always aboard!' squeaked one of the rats. 'She's Thasha Isiq, the Treaty Bride!' aboard!' squeaked one of the rats. 'She's Thasha Isiq, the Treaty Bride!'

Thasha looked at the deformed rats. She was in a trance, Pazel thought. Then - before he could do more than scream a despairing No! No! - she reached out and touched the Nilstone, between the dead stone fingers of the s.h.a.ggat Ness. - she reached out and touched the Nilstone, between the dead stone fingers of the s.h.a.ggat Ness.

Pazel thought he was seeing her die. Something like that withering flame that had consumed the s.h.a.ggat's hand raced from the Nilstone down Thasha's arm. But it did not kill her. It swept over her body like a cold flame. All colour went out of the room, but Thasha's skin took on an unearthly glow. The black radiance of the Nilstone flowed through her fingers, brighter and brighter.

'Do you believe?' Thasha demanded.

'We believe, great Angel,' said Mugstur, squirming and grovelling at her feet.

'We believe you! We believe!' squealed the rats.

Thasha frowned. 'I do not trust in words. We shall see if you stand ready to prove your faith in deeds.'

With that she wrenched her hand away from the Nilstone. She cringed, cradling the hand, as a peal of thunder rolled through the s.h.i.+p. Pazel slid from the hay bales and caught her before she could fall. Then the room was still.

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