“Yes, sire.”
“I shall ask of you nothing more dreadful, nor nearer to my heart, though the forthcoming war should last a dozen seasons. Give me your word you will not fail.”
“You have my word,” Uraki said.
The dream was going dim. I have to save her, Nathan thought, but there was no time, no time, and Widewater was slipping away, and he was sucked into the blackness of sleep like someone sinking into a bog.
He woke to the dark of a winter morning, and the fear that Denaero’s time had already run out.
azel sat on the bed in her room to go through her great-grandmother’s things, if only because there was no space on the floor. The carpet was buried beneath the inevitable litter of empty chip packets, discarded shoes, crumpled clothing, CD cases without CDs, CDs without CD cases, uncompleted homework, magazines, half-read books—Hazel started books all the time, but with a low boredom threshold and a short attention span she often failed to finish them. Her desk had disappeared under computer and iPod, files and makeup. Even duvet space was running out beneath the advancing tide of jacket and scarf, notebook, pipe cleaners, the singed remnants of the Nenufar doll, and the contents of Effie Carlow’s bag, emptied out in a heap on top of a stuffed animal dating from Hazel’s infancy that no one was supposed to see. She ran through the various bottles until she found the one she wanted, holding it up to the light to be sure. It was a vial about four inches high, cut into facets, with the dregs of some dark brownish liquid in the bottom that, upon removal of the cork, smelled like rotting vegetables.
“It’s crystal,” Hazel said aloud, wrinkling her nose at the odor. Bartlemy had taught her that crystal, if pure, passed easily between the dimensions, and she had concluded that was almost the same thing as crossing between worlds. The brownish stuff looked sticky and too old to be important; she would have to clean it out.
She put the bottle down and turned to a sheet of thick yellow paper on her left. It was blank except for the heading—alternative elements: how to survive in fire and water—but she murmured something in Atlantean and words began to write themselves across the page, slanting black words that rippled into being like snake tracks on the surface of the desert. Even as Hazel read the instructions they began to fade—she was scribbling frantically in her notebook, rummaging through the bottles and jars again in search of the more obscure ingredients, copying down Runes of Power. “Someone liked to make things difficult,” she muttered to herself. When the writing reached the foot of the page the magic ran out; the last words vanished, leaving only the empty sheet with its tantalizing title. Hazel knew from previous efforts that it would have to be left for a while, as if it needed to cool down, and when she reactivated the spell the writing might tell her something entirely different. It wasn’t Effie’s hand; she was almost sure about that. Besides, her great-grandmother’s powers had been limited: she had been a village witch in the old style, a spinner of little charms for little things, removing warts—or, knowing Effie, inducing them—cursing her petty curses, spying and scrying. Hazel had always sworn she would never be like that.
But this was something else. This was serious magic. She found the calligraphy pen that she had bought specially, nicked her finger with a kitchen knife, and dipped the nib in her own blood. Then, clutching a tissue in her left hand to stanch the bleeding, she carefully wrote out the runes on an adhesive label. It took her awhile to get them right, and there were a couple of red smudges in the background when she had finished, but she decided it would do. She would stick the label onto the crystal bottle only when it was clean and ready for the potion she had to make.
She spoke in Atlantean again, and the words recommenced their snake-like wriggle across the empty paper. Hazel was concentrating so hard, she didn’t see the slight twitch of the burned pipe-cleaner doll as it turned to watch what she was doing.
DREAMS DO not come to order. Although Nathan knew from experience that time in this world and time in Widewater did not run concurrently, nonetheless he lived two days with urgency and fear, hoping each night to return, unable to find a way through. He was desperately grateful for the distraction of his job, talking events over with Eric while cleaning a Georgian silver cruet or daubing centuries of dirt from a painting that might—or might not—prove valueless.
“If you are meant to save her, you will,” Eric said philosophically. “Look how you save me. Is purpose in all things.”
“Do you think so?” Nathan said. “I know the Grandir sort of controls my dreams, sometimes—at least, not exactly controls, but nudges things in certain directions, so I can find the Grail relics, do whatever it is I have to do. He protects me; he’s saved my life more than once. But he isn’t really concerned with the problems of other worlds—he’s got his own world to save, I expect that’s problem enough. If I want to— to try and help, I have to work that out myself. Once or twice, I’ve managed to open the portal without falling asleep, but I never end up where I want to go. It all happens in my head, but I have no control at all.”
“But it work out, in the end,” Eric said. “Last time, you save the princess, cure the sick king. All end well.”
“I couldn’t save Kwanji Ley,” Nathan said somberly.
“She was of my world. She went to do Great Spell not meant for her. Maybe best to die.”
“Was it?” Nathan said without conviction. “I messed up. I left her out in the desert. I’ll never, never forget that.”
“You should not forget. But move on, as you say here. In my world, no one move on for a long, long time. Many thousand years. All things should move—people, time, history. Not good to look back so much you never see forward. But on Eos, we run out of history. We just wait.”
“I know,” Nathan said. “But right now, I just want to get to Denaero. She may not be part of the purpose—part of the Grandir’s purpose— but I can’t bear it if she dies.”
“You get there,” Eric assured him. “You save princess, like last time. Is your purpose.”
“I wish I was sure of that. Funny, I suppose she is a princess. She’s the king’s daughter. I seem to spend a lot of time hanging out with princesses. Only merfolk don’t use the title—or not that I’ve ever heard.”
“Is your fate,” Eric declared, “saving princesses. Hazel is princess, too. Maybe one day you save her.”
Nathan laughed. “I can’t see Hazel as a princess,” he said.
“Why not? She is princess at heart. The heart is what matters.”
“She wouldn’t have any truck with princessness. She’s a natural republican.”
“Perhaps. But you save her, yes?”
“She’s more likely to save me.”
AND NOW at last he was back—back on Widewater, back in the dream, back in the sea. There was a rush of confused images: Denaero struggling as the guards bound her to the rock above a wave-worn arch, barracuda finning silently beneath; Uraki, saddling his great white while it twisted and snapped viciously at his fingers; a long defile of lobsters, marching in pairs across the seabed. And then very briefly a glimpse of the albatross flying southward with someone on his back, chasing his own shadow across the wrinkled surface of the ocean. Nathan thought how visible he was in a world where few birds remained. And then the images fled away and there he was, solid, floundering in water up to his neck, trying to stay afloat, to survive, and all around him in every direction there was nothing but the sea.
Afterward, he didn’t think it lasted very long, but it felt long as he paddled with legs and arms, fighting panic, thinking of the depth of water below him and the things that might be lurking there, picking up the vibration from his threshing limbs. Yet somehow the emptiness above was even more frightening—the arching void of the sky, the unbroken expanse of sea stretching from horizon to horizon. He took a breath and dipped his face beneath the surface, opening his eyes on blue, but there was nothing to be seen, though he knew it was merely a matter of time.
He thought, with the small part of
his brain not occupied by fear: I’m no good to Denaero here.
So much for a rescue …
And then he saw the speck in the sky, a speck that drew swiftly nearer, broadening into wings, great wings that swept the air with scarcely a beat, and a figure leaning on the bird’s stooping neck. A closed, intent face, shadow-dappled hair blown back in the wind.
Nathan waved, but the albatross had evidently seen him already. His flight dipped; he landed on the water a short distance away. Nokosha slid from his back, legs melding into tail even as he dived.
“You’d better hold him up,” Ezroc said. “He doesn’t swim very well.”
“Good,” said the selkie. “Let him drown. I don’t trust someone who disappears when I strangle him.”
“He’s been in my mind,” Ezroc said. “He doesn’t lie. I felt it.”
“You’re going to have to—start trusting people,” Nathan said, rather breathlessly, “if you want to save your world.”
“Save the world?” The selkie caught Nathan underarm, his grip a little too tight, a little too strong. But still, it was support. “Save my people, maybe. The world can take care of itself.”
Nathan let it go—for the moment. “Does he know about Denaero?” he asked Ezroc. “She’s in danger—her father found out—”
“He knows. I told him we had to contact her, only—”
“I don’t like traitors,” said Nokosha. “But I’ll use them.”
“She’s not a traitor, stupid!” Despite the hazards of his position, Nathan felt the familiar surge of anger and frustration. Was it always like this, in every world—closed minds, labels, prejudice, hate? “She just wants your people and hers to get along. She helped Ezroc and Keerye, ages ago. Now you’ve got to help her, whether you like it or not. She’s chained to somewhere called the Dragon’s Bridge, and she’s going to be eaten by crabs and things—”
“Sounds good to me,” said Nokosha, his fingers tensing, digging into Nathan’s flesh. “May all the merfolk end that way.”
“I know the place,” Ezroc interrupted. And to Nokosha: “Lift him onto my back. We’ll get her. You wait here. She was a friend to me, and to Keerye. You should understand that, if nothing else.”
“You told me. I agreed to see her only because of that. I’m coming with you.”
“I can’t carry two—”
“Then leave him. He’s no more use than a dead herring.”
Nathan was already scrambling onto the albatross, with little assistance from Nokosha, hoping he wasn’t hurting Ezroc as he grasped a handful of feathers. The selkie seized his wrist to pull him back into the sea, but Ezroc croaked a warning.
“Let him go! You can follow by water if you want. The bridge is at the eastern end of the reef, close to the bend of the current…”
“There could be guards,” Nathan said, remembering Semeele’s words.
“Hope they are unwary,” Nokosha said, “for their sake.”
The albatross took off in a trail of spray, and when Nathan looked back the selkie was gone.
The sea wheeled and sped beneath them; the sundazzle blinked in his eyes. “How do you know the way?” he asked Ezroc. “Don’t you ever get lost?”
“Lost?” The bird sounded baffled at the concept. “How could I be lost? I see the reefs beneath the waves, the flow of the currents, the tides of the moon. I feel the winds that circle the globe. There are patterns in the air that do not change: the pull of the Poles, the turn of the world through night and day, the great cycles of cold and heat, of storm and calm. I know where hurricanes are born, where all weathers die. I hear the song of the whales and the heartbeat of the sea. I always know where I am. Don’t you?”
“If I know what world I’m in,” Nathan said, “that’s the best I can do.”
He could make out the reef now, a shadow beneath the sea. The water lightened to turquoise and green as the sand floor neared the surface, darkened with the outline of submerged rocks. Far to the south there were the ascending vapors of the wall. If there are guards, Nathan thought, they’ll see us. The albatross was the only thing in the sky.
“Where’s the Dragon’s Bridge?” he asked.
“There.”
Ahead, the rock shadow narrowed to an isthmus joining two sections of the reef; the water on either side was ultramarine with depth.
“We must be quick,” Ezroc said. “The Great South March passes beneath the bridge, and it is the season of their migration. If they scent her, they will climb up the rocks to feast.”
“What’s the Great South March?”
“The march of the lobsters. They live in large numbers along the Midwater Mountains ’round Cape Hook, and every spring they come south to feed in the rich waters near the Reef Wall. They march in a long winding line, two by two; it may go on for miles. No one knows why. They will eat anything in their path.”
“I saw them,” Nathan said, remembering the brief visions in the early stages of his dream. Beyond the image of the marching lobsters, Ezroc’s words—the Midwater Mountains, Cape Hook—opened new vistas in his mind: suddenly he saw that Widewater was more than just a vast flatness of sea. There were valleys and mountain ranges, deserts and forests—a whole world of submarine geography lying just below the waves. And if I could pull the plug out, he told himself, thinking of the huge boulder sealing the caverns of air, then the ocean would sink, if only a few yards, and some of it would become land. Land where seabirds could nest, and seals could bask, and merfolk and selkies could walk together on legs …
Land for people to fight over, because where there is land, there is war.
One problem at a time, Nathan thought. He had problems enough.
“Everyone knows of the Great South March,” Ezroc was saying. “That’s the trouble. Bigger predators follow them—predators who eat lobster. And anything else they can find.”
“Sharks?” Nathan said.
“No. There are worse things in the sea than sharks.”
The albatross was descending in a wide spiral, scanning the surrounding waters. Peering past his shoulder, Nathan found he could see far down into the glass-clear depths. There was the rock bridge, a natural arch six yards wide and perhaps fifty long, spanning the chasm that split the reef in two. Halfway along he made out the mermaid—the pale gleam of her body, the smoke of her hair. She seemed to be seated, plainly bound, on the very edge of the reef; her tail twisted from side to side as if she was struggling to be free. Far below he glimpsed a long line of movement on the seabed. The march of the lobsters.
He could not see the guards or any other merfolk in the vicinity.
Ezroc settled on the water, dipping his head to look down. Denearo’s face was upturned, marked with desperation and fear.
“You came!” Nathan heard her cry. “You came for me!”
Ezroc said to him: “I can’t release her. I could dive down there, but I have no hands to loose her bonds. You must do it.”
“But—”
“You must.”
Nathan slid off the albatross’s back and hesitated, treading water, one hand on the feathered neck. He couldn’t say I’m afraid, but the terror that filled him seemed to drain him of both breath and nerve. His stomach churned, his heart thudded. All the clichés of fear, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier. In other dreams, other worlds, he had had to make choices—choices forced upon him by circumstance and danger, hopeless, last-minute choices whose outcome might be uncertain or fatal. To leave the safety of the cave in the Eosian desert, eluding its dreadful guardian—to confront the Urdemon in the marshes of Wilderslee, which picked him up in its toothless jaws and tried to swallow him—to lift the Traitor’s Sword, which would maim or slay anyone who dared lay a hand on it. He had chosen, not in courage or bravado but desperation and despair, opting for the last resort, the forlorn hope. Now he had to choose again. But the desperation and despair were Denaero’s, not his. All he could think of was crushing pressure and blackness engulfing his mind …
Then he filled his lungs, and dived.
The first few strokes were the worst. The water dragged as he fought his way down; fortunately, the bridge was close to the surface. Then he reached Denaero, clutching at a hunk of coral to keep himself from floating back up again, almost cutting his palm on the hardened polyps. He saw there were stone manacles around her wrists—merfolk have no way to work metal—connected with bindings of what looked like thongs that were lashed through holes bored in the rock of the bridge itself. After a minute’s thought, he picked up a piece of broken coral and began to saw at them.
“No!” said Denaero. “You can’t cut through leatherwrack. You have to untie the knots. Hurry—please hurry—”
The knots had been pulled tight. As he strove to unhitch them he noticed for the first time that there was webbing between the mermaid’s fingers. He thought: My hands are more efficient than a merman’s. I should be able to do this—but he could not get even a fingertip through the loop. His chest felt squeezed, and he realized belatedly that he needed to breathe. With a vague gesture to Denaero he pushed himself up to the surface for air.
Going down was easier the second time. And the third. Eventually, he managed to thrust a coral chip under the thong, wriggling it to and fro to loosen the knot. He had forgotten about the approaching lobsters until Denaero screamed.
“Behind you! Behind you!”
He turned just in time. Huge pincers snapped within inches of his face. He kicked out, dislodging the creature from the bridge—it pitched backward and floated off into the deep. But there were many more mounting the cliff from below, giant crustaceans three or four feet long, armor-plated, with stalk-eyes and groping antennae, half crawling, half swimming up the rock face. Flailing his legs to keep himself submerged, he looked for a boulder to roll down on top of them, but all the available boulders appeared to be fixed in place. He returned to wrestling with the leatherwrack, winkling a strand free at last, glancing around every other instant until Denaero said: “I’ll keep watch. Hurry …”
The Poisoned Crown Page 24