Robert V. S. Redick - The Ruling Sea

Robert V S Redick

The Rats and the Ruling sea

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1 - Dawn

Chapter 2 - Manhood

Chapter 3 - Procession

Chapter 4 - A Sacrifice

Chapter 5 - From the Editor: A Word of Explanation

Chapter 6 - Conversation by Candlelight

Chapter 7 - The Incubus

Chapter 8 - Faith and Fire

Chapter 9 - Stand-off in Simja Bay

Chapter 10 - Thasha's Choice

Chapter 11 - Perils of a Perambulator

Chapter 12 - Lady Oggosk's Warning

Chapter 13 - Illusions at Talturi

Chapter 14 - Among the Statues

Chapter 15 - The Voice of a Friend

Chapter 16 - Dhola's Rib

Chapter 17 - A Name and a Cause

Chapter 18 - FROM THE NEW JOURNAL OF G. STARLING FIFFENGURT, QUARTERMASTER

Chapter 19 - On the Bowsprit

Chapter 20 - A Sleepless Night

Chapter 21 - Queen Mirkitj's Revenge

Chapter 22 - Bad Medicine

Chapter 23 - Bramian

Chapter 24 - The Editor, Being of the Opinion that Suspense is a Vulgar ...

Chapter 25 - A Picnic on the Wall

Chapter 26 - The Taste of Treason

Chapter 27 - The Ambush

Chapter 28 - The Hunt

Chapter 29 - The Duel

Chapter 30 - FROM THE NEW JOURNAL OF G. STARLING FIFFENGURT, QUARTERMASTER

Chapter 31 - Metamorphoses

Chapter 32 - The Mutineers

Chapter 33 - The World Grows Larger

Chapter 34 - Alliances Redrawn

Chapter 35 - Unwelcome Discoveries

Chapter 36 - The Cost in Blood

Chapter 37 - Grotesqueries of Change

Chapter 38 - Holy War

Chapter 39 - Cold Comfort

Chapter 40 - In the Mouth of a Demon

Chapter 41 - Thirst

Chapter 42 - The Kindness of the King

Chapter 43 - A Meeting of Empires

Teaser chapter

Acknowledgements

Also by Robert V.S. Redick from Gollancz:

The Red Wolf Conspiracy

The Rats and the Ruling Sea

ROBERT V.S. REDICK

Orion

www.orionbooks.co.uk

A Gollancz ebook

Copyright (c) Robert V. S. Redick 2009

All rights reserved.

The right of Robert V. S. Redick to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin's Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company

This ebook first published in 2009 by Gollancz.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

eISBN : 978 0 5750 8833 7

This ebook produced by Jouve, France

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.orionbooks.co.uk

Para Kiran, de corazon nomada

Editor's Note

The final, disastrous voyage of the IMS Chathrand gave rise to many myths. It is my singular honour to be tasked with setting a more truthful account of the journey before the world.

In Book I of these recollections, The Red Wolf Conspiracy , I limited my personal comments to the odd footnote. The complexity of this second volume, however, persuaded me to be more generous with my remarks: two hundred pages more generous, to be exact.

I regret to say that the worth of my commentaries has eluded the team of younger scholars on whose goodwill (and laundry services) I most tragically depend. Their cheek is frankly astonishing. Some have gone so far as to suggest that my remarks did not so much illuminate the tale as put one in danger of overlooking its existence.

Of course I fought this sabotage, this so-called 'petition for readability.' But the upstarts held firm. Only a few, absolutely essential notes have I guarded from their merciless sheers. The rest has been stripped down to story. An awful deed, of which I hope never to stand accused.

And then the deer and birds were told by the Maker, Modeller, Bearer,
Begetter: 'Talk, speak out, don't moan, don't cry out. Please talk, each to
each, within each kind, within each group,' - they were told, the deer,
birds, puma, jaguar, serpent... But it didn't turn out that they spoke
like people: they just squawked, they just chattered, they just howled...

Popol Vuh , Translated by Dennis Tedlock

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason.
The passionless cannot change history.

Czeslaw Milosz

Prologue: Treaty Day

A cup of milk tainted with blood. Pazel looked down into the steaming chalice and felt trapped, an actor in a part he never wanted, in a play full of violence and rage. They were waiting for him to drink: the priests, the princes, the three hundred guests in the candlelit shrine. His best friends were waiting, and a few men who wished him dead, and one man who wanted everyone dead and just might get his wish. The guests were staring. A red-robed priest gestured firmly: Drink . Thasha herself glanced back from where she knelt on the dais, beside the man who thought he would be married in a moment's time.

Thasha was radiant. Sixteen, golden hair bound up impossibly with orchids and lace, grey gown sheer and liquid as mercury, silver necklace dangling innocent at her throat. The lips he had kissed the night before were painted a dark cherry-red. Powder hid the welts on her neck.

He could still stop this. He could break the chalice on the floor. He knew the words for Lies! and Treason! in twenty languages; he could tell them all how they'd been tricked. But he could not just wish the necklace away. Thasha was still looking over her shoulder, and even though half the blood in the milk was hers, Pazel knew what she was telling him. It has to happen, you know it does. Every other door is locked.

He raised the chalice. The hot milk burned his tongue. He clenched his jaw and swallowed and passed the cup on.

The priests resumed chanting: 'We drink to the Great Peace. We drink and become one family. We drink and our fates are mingled, never more to be unbound...'

Pazel slipped a hand into his pocket. A ribbon lay coiled there, blue silk, with words embroidered in a fine gold thread: YE DEPART FOR A WORLD UNKNOWN, AND LOVE ALONE SHALL KEEP THEE. It was the Blessing-Band, a gift from the crones who ran Thasha's old school back in Etherhorde. He was supposed to tie it to her wrist.

Pazel imagined an old woman - bent, wrinkled, nearly blind - sewing those ornate letters by lamplight. One of thousands who had worked for this day, Treaty Day, the day four centuries of war would end. Outside the shrine, a multitude; beyond the multitude, an island; beyond the island, a world waiting, holding its breath. He looked at the faces around him: great lords and ladies of Alifros, rulers of lands, cities, kingdoms, waifs by candlelight. How had Hercol put it? Possessed by a dream . The dream of peace, of a world that could stop shedding its own blood. It was a good dream, but it would kill them. They were chasing it like sleepwalkers towards a cliff.

There was a man at the back of the shrine who was making it all happen. A well-fed merchant with a soft, boyish face. An innocent face, almost amusing. Until he looked at you with a certain intent, and showed you the sorcerer inside: ancient, malicious, mad.

His name was Arunis. Pazel could feel him watching, even now. But when he raised his eyes he found himself looking instead at Thasha's father. The admiral sat stiff and grim, an old soldier who knew what duty meant, but the eyes that swept Pazel were beseeching. I have trusted you this far. How will you save my child ?