The River of Shadows Part 33

"Go to the surgery at once. Pathkendle, take her there, drag her. Chadfallow is already at work on the captain. Have him examine you, too, when he's finished with Thasha. You may have a hard head-"

"A gargoyle would envy it!" said Lady Oggosk.

"-but I saw you strike those ceiling-planks. And there's your fall into the hold as well. Go on."

"Hercol," said Thasha, "was Arunis telling the truth? Did my father know Syrarys...years before?"

"Nonsense!"

"You weren't in Etherhorde when I was born," said Thasha. "You were still in hiding with Empress Maisa. You never saw Clorisuela with child."

"What of it? Go to surgery, I say, before you collapse."

"Is Syrarys my mother, Hercol?"

"Thasha Isiq: as your martial tutor, I command you to seek treatment for that wound."

"Come on," said Pazel, touching her arm.

Thasha pulled her arm viciously away. She looked at Hercol for a long moment, and then moved slowly toward the hatch.

Pazel walked at her side. They did not speak as they descended to the orlop. Thasha marched aft with hands in fists. Ahead in surgery Rose gave a howl of pain. All at once Thasha stopped and turned to face Pazel, her eyes enraged and wet. A lock of her golden hair was pasted to her shoulder with someone's blood.

Pazel stammered: "You know, to me-I mean, I don't care whose daughter you-"

"Shut up."

He waited. Thasha steadied herself against the wall. It would take hours to spit all the curses from that mouth, and she was not speaking, not saying a word. He wondered how much blood she'd already lost.

"I've ruined everything, haven't I?" said Pazel.

Thasha clamped a hand over his mouth. With that gesture they both grew still. Her hand tightened; she swayed closer to him. Then, not weeping but shaking from head to toe, and sighing with all that she had not said to him in weeks and could find no words for now, she was in his arms.

9. What Fulbreech glimpsed was not Felthrup, who by that time slept only in his closet. In all likelihood it was Bolutu's veterinary bag. If he had taken it, the youth would have been startled to find inside a notebook with the very words the dlomu and Hercol had just spoken-"a bright day for Alifros," etc.-written out like a playscript in Bolutu's hand. -EDITOR.

THE EDITOR.

REFLECTS ON THE.

CONDUCT OF HIS.

HEROES.

They are, of course, too young.

You know of what I speak. With the exposure of Greysan Fulbreech there can be no remaining (logical) impediment to a carnal encounter between Lady Thasha and Pazel Pathkendle. In dramatic terms such an encounter is almost obligatory. Neither youth is hormonally defective. Both have considered the possibility for months-and with unseemly specificity, in the case of Mr. Pathkendle. They show no signs of disease or contagion. And they have been supplied with a preposterous array of opportunities: a magic wall, no less, deflects all rival suitors from intruding on their presumably impending bliss.

But I repeat: it cannot happen. Said bliss cannot, and therefore does not, impend. They are too young.

My own status as philosopher and moral paragon is beside the point. Anyone, from the lowliest fishwife to the most venerated saint, can grasp the fundamental wrongness of such a liaison. We need not elaborate. The Great Designer unquestionably decreed that human beings should reach bodily maturity at a certain age precisely that they might refrain from expressing that maturity for another five to ten years. In ancient Senadria the legal age was thirty-three (although we now know that in its declining years the republic collected a third of its income from the sale of special permits to younger citizens); in fair Elynon it was thirty (twice the age at which boys were forced onto the battlefield, and girls into factories to st.i.tch their boots). Truly enlightened cultures, such as the Elari in their frigid fis.h.i.+ng towns.h.i.+ps, aspire to eliminating the behavior completely. A few no doubt succeeded.

Yearn then, Pazel and Thasha, but yearn alone. We do not wish you joy, indeed far from it. The matter is not open to debate.

Except, of course, in the fugitive territories of their minds. However trivial the latter (it is not their their inclination, after all, that concerns us) we should note in pa.s.sing that neither Mr. P. nor Lady T. views the matter with our own precise and perfect clarity. This is where the moral lesson resides. inclination, after all, that concerns us) we should note in pa.s.sing that neither Mr. P. nor Lady T. views the matter with our own precise and perfect clarity. This is where the moral lesson resides.

You may encounter persons who should not mate. Be ready to explain things. If, as with Pazel, they feel that to do so is no more than the natural expression of a love that is beyond question and well proved, urge them to doubt the very notion of "natural." If, as with Lady Thasha, they feel the desire to give what is most intimately their own to the one of their choosing, remind them that there is nothing sacred in that choice. Magic may surround them (one may say I love you I love you in twenty-five tongues, another be strong enough to hold death's...o...b..in her hand) but magic does not inhabit the sordid act of love. in twenty-five tongues, another be strong enough to hold death's...o...b..in her hand) but magic does not inhabit the sordid act of love.

If they protest that an overwhelming mutual tenderness draws them together, observe that virtually all cases of first love end in separation and tears, and that consequently they should do better to skip the experience. If they reply that some some love has to be one's first, unless one would go through life playing come-not-hither, tell them not to split hairs. love has to be one's first, unless one would go through life playing come-not-hither, tell them not to split hairs.

If, finally, they live in fear that at any day it may be too late: that the death stalking fleets, cities, empires must surely catch up with them; or that some morning soon they will wake up and find themselves asleep-that is, mindless, insensate tol-chenni tol-chenni with no possibility of experiencing love-well, that changes nothing. Virtue is virtue, and no one should face death without its comforts. Tell them this, if ever you have the chance. with no possibility of experiencing love-well, that changes nothing. Virtue is virtue, and no one should face death without its comforts. Tell them this, if ever you have the chance.

A Broken Blade

2 Modobrin 941 231st day from Etherhorde

She swayed, and he steadied them both. When he kissed her, Pazel realized how hard she was laboring simply to breathe. Her embrace began as something hungry and sorrowful, and in seconds was reduced to an effort not to collapse upon the deck.

"Let's go, Thasha," he said.

She shook her head. Tears were crowding out the fury. He told her he understood what she'd been doing, using Fulbreech to get to Arunis, s.h.i.+elding her thoughts to keep everyone safe. He said he loved her for it, that she hadn't done anything to him that she could have avoided. The words just made her weep. So in desperation he lifted her chin and kissed her once more, fiercely.

"You care what I think?"

Thasha nodded through her tears.

"Then don't fight me, for Rin's sake. You're bleeding into your boots."

In the surgery, they found Captain Rose kneeling before one of the heavy slate tables, head tipped back, drinking deeply from a flask. His left arm was strapped down firmly on the table's surface, the hand swaddled tightly in bandages. Chadfallow was laying out instruments behind him.

"The fiend returns," said Rose, looking at Pazel.

"I'm sorry, Captain," said Pazel. "I was trying to help. I didn't know about Oggosk's spell."

"Go rot in the Pits," said Rose, and drank again. Smacking his lips, he added, "I'll find a way to collect on what you owe me, Pathkendle. At a time and place of my choosing. Better keep one eye peeled, lad. The Rose family always settles accounts."

Chadfallow ordered Pazel to wash Thasha's wound, and to hold clean cotton gauze over the incision. Pazel did as he was told, thinking of his dream about her wooden heart. Thasha did not speak or even look at him.

The door opened, and Swift rushed in with a small, smoking cauldron. "Hot coals from the galley, sir," he piped, "just as you wanted."

"Our new surgeon's mate," said Chadfallow, nestling an odd tool like a blunt iron spike into the cauldron. "A waste of my efforts, training Fulbreech. Is he in custody, then?"

"Excellent custody," said Rose, and laughed. Despite himself, Pazel shuddered. He could guess who had taken charge of the Simjan youth.

"I am glad to hear it," said Chadfallow, bustling over to Thasha in turn. "I will have some words for that boy myself. He very nearly cost Ta.r.s.el the use of his thumb."

He moved Pazel aside, began to scissor away part of Thasha's bloodied s.h.i.+rt.

"Was my mother barren?" asked Thasha suddenly.

Chadfallow's hand stopped cutting, but only briefly. "A nonsensical question," he replied. "She could not very well have been your mother if she was was, now could she?"

"Are you going to tell me, Doctor?"

Chadfallow frowned and fixed his eyes on the wound, as though her head were an unwelcome intruder on the scene. Watching him st.i.tch up Thasha's skin with deft, swift draws of his needle, Pazel could almost forgive him the evasiveness. But as he tied off the st.i.tches, Chadfallow said, "This is most inappropriate, Thasha Isiq. I have a difficult operation to perform on the captain. And not even for Magad the Fifth would I disregard the privacy of my patients."

"She was my mother," said Thasha.

"Well, ain't that the question?" put in Rose, and cackled.

Chadfallow looked at him with loathing. He walked to the cauldron, donned a padded glove and lifted the spike. The last inch glowed cherry-red.

"Fresh cotton over the wound, Pazel," he said, "then a wide wrap about her torso, to secure it. Come here, Swift, and restrain his other arm."

Pazel did as he was told. He tried to resist the weird temptation to steal a glance at Rose and Chadfallow, but eventually succ.u.mbed: just as the doctor was applying the tip of the red-hot spike to the captain's mutilated hand. Rose's screams were like nothing Pazel had ever heard. He looked away, hoping Thasha would show better sense than he had. The reek of cauterized flesh made him think of a pig roast he'd attended as a boy.

Rose became hysterical. "Dog! Hatchet-man! Mutilator! I'll cut out your stomach, Chadfallow! Do you hear me, you pitch-forker, you barb-wielding devil? I'll have your stomach, your stomach and your license too!"

"Keep him still, Mr. Swift!"

"He's too strong, sir! He's pulled the blary screws from the floor!"

"Pazel," said Thasha, "you look awful. You had better lie down."

"I'm fine," he said.

"Stop looking at Rose. Was it your head head that struck the ceiling?" that struck the ceiling?"

A moment later they had traded places: Thasha was on her feet, making him sit on the table, raising his legs. When he lay flat on his back Pazel felt the chamber start to spin. Rose had begun to rave about his father, and Lady Oggosk, and her cat. Thasha told him to close his eyes, and when he hesitated, bent down to kiss them shut.

"You should have done as Ignus wanted," she said.

"About your bandages?"

"About jumping s.h.i.+p back in Etherhorde. You poor dear fool."

He really had taken some blows. Thasha pressed a cool wet cloth to his forehead, and his eyes. The noises in the chamber began to recede.

When her hand touched him again he caught it, drew it to his lips. There was a grunt of surprise. From under the cloth Pazel saw that the hand was black, and webbed to the first knuckle. He pulled the cloth away and looked into the startled eyes of Counselor Vadu. The pale dlomu's head bobbed up and down.

"Jathod, I thought he was a corpse! What were you doing, boy, trying to kiss my ring?"

The surgery was full of armed dlomu. Thasha, Swift and Chadfallow were surrounded; Captain Rose stood gagged with surgical gauze, spears pointed at his neck. The hand with the missing fingers was in a bucket of water; the other still held his open flask. Pazel tried to spring to his feet, but Vadu's hand clamped roughly on his shoulder.

"Calm yourself. No one is going to do you harm. We heard screaming from this deck, but it was only a veterinary-That is, a medical procedure. Are you Undrabust?"

"Pathkendle," said Pazel. "What's happening, why are you here?"

Vadu turned his perpetually amazed face in Thasha's direction. "And that is the girl called Thas.h.i.+ziq. Very good, very good."

"See here, Counselor," said Chadfallow, "you may have good intentions, though gagging the captain is an outrage. But whatever you're about, this is a surgery, and these are my patients."

"I was hoping you would admit as much," said Vadu, his head bobbing faster. "Do you consider yourself qualified to describe their condition? And would you be willing to do so in the presence of witnesses?"

"Of course I'm qualified," said Chadfallow, "but medical knowledge is private, sir, at least in our culture-"

"His culture culture, did you hear?" laughed one of the dlomic troops.

"-but you must all leave the surgery at once, Counselor. You're disturbing the wounded."

"They are already disturbed," said Vadu. "And so are you...Doctor. That is the verdict of the best minds of Masalym, who have watched you from sh.o.r.e these many days."

Chadfallow was incensed. He pushed forward through the crowd until stopped firmly by Vadu's guards. "Counselor Vadu, I am Imperial Surgeon to His Supremacy Magad the Fifth of Arqual. You have nothing to teach me me about derangement." about derangement."

"No," said Vadu, almost with regret, "it did not occur to me that you could be taught." He made an abrupt little wave. "All of them but the captain. You know what to do with him."

"We're not insane," said Thasha. "Your people have simply made a mistake."

Vadu turned to her, impatience showing in his staring eyes. "When I came into this room, your captain looked up at me and screamed, 'My mother is a cat.'"

Rose snarled.

"d.a.m.n it, man, I just cauterized the stumps of his fingers!" cried Chadfallow. "I dare say you you might rave a bit yourself, if I held a red-hot iron to your open wounds." might rave a bit yourself, if I held a red-hot iron to your open wounds."

"You don't have the right to judge our sanity anyway," said Pazel. "This s.h.i.+p is sovereign territory, and we're all citizens of Arqual." That was not entirely true, but at that moment subtleties hardly seemed called for.