The Poisoned Crown

by Amanda Hemingway

  “He went in,” Denaero said, plainly struggling to recall things accurately, “he and two of the shamans. Then they closed the door. The other shamans waited for a while, then they followed him. I couldn’t really see into the chamber—I was hiding behind those rocks over there—so …”

  “Did you hear them chant a spell or anything?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “All right,” Nathan said. “Let’s give it a go. In you come … then we shut the door.” The sponges, he assumed, would make it watertight— or airtight. He glanced around and saw, set in a groove, a lever made of bone. The kind of lever that you pulled and something happened. He gave it a jerk—it was stiff from lack of use—and there was the whir of a pump jolting into action somewhere above, and a slot opened at the base of the door through which they had entered.

  “What’s going on?” Denaero demanded, clutching Nathan’s T-shirt. He was getting used to being clutched in this way and managed not to focus on the closeness of her bare breasts.

  “It’s mechanical,” he said, “though I suppose it could be operated by some kind of automatic spell. I don’t know how else the pump would function. The water’s being expelled from the chamber via the gap under the door; you can see the air coming in through that vent up there. When all the water’s gone we’ll be able to open the other door and get into the cave.”

  “How do you know?” Denaero sounded almost petulant. “You’ve never been here. You come from another world—a world of land. You can’t possibly know how it works.”

  “It’s logical,” Nathan explained. “Anyway, in my world we use something similar to get people in and out of ships that can go under the sea.”

  “I’ve heard of ships,” Denaero said. “But I thought they were meant to float.”

  Explanations only make things more complicated, Nathan decided. “You’d better change,” he said. “You’re going to need your legs for walking.”

  “But I can’t walk!” Denaero protested. “How should I? I’m not a legwalker.”

  “You have the option of legs. You must use them sometimes.”

  “When? There’s nothing to walk on.”

  “Why didn’t you think of that before? You knew we were going into the caverns of air …”

  “I just didn’t. I was—I was thinking of other things …”

  “You’ll have to hang on to me then,” Nathan said. “My turn to hold you up.”

  The water was draining fast. Denaero’s tail seemed to dissolve, dividing into two, scales softening into the smoothness of skin. The forked tail fin shrank and paled into feet, placed unsteadily on the rock. As the level dropped Denaero’s knees started to fold; she wound her arms tightly around Nathan’s chest. “How can I balance?” she wailed. “My feet are too small. How can they support my whole body?”

  “Mine do,” Nathan said, half propping her up, half lifting her, trying not to focus on her nakedness. She was so slight, she weighed almost nothing. “Just keep holding on to me and try to walk on them, the way I do. Look, the slot’s closing—the water’s gone. We should be able to—”

  But the second door opened by itself.

  Nathan hobbled through, hampered by the mermaid, who was looking down at his feet to see how they worked. Exposed to air, the sea star no longer glowed, flapping helplessly on the rock where they had let it fall, but light came from somewhere, a pale light from a source a long way off, showing them that what they had entered was less a cave than an enormous void hollowed in the mountain. The roof was so far above them as to be almost irrelevant; great shadows dripped down the walls; here and there a clump of stalactites extruded from the darkness like a gigantic chandelier. The floor was split into huge shelves and steps, crunchy with the shards of splintered shells and the bones of sea creatures trapped there when the water was driven out. And it was dry. Dust-dry, bone-dry, dry as a tomb. Nothing lived there. A black frazzle of what had been weed sprawled close by, crumbling to powder at a touch. Nathan heard Denaero’s breath wheezing in her throat.

  “It’s awful here,” she whispered. It was the kind of place where you wanted to whisper, even though there was nobody around to overhear what you said.

  “Will you be all right?” Nathan asked, wondering if he should send her back outside.

  “Yes. It’s only the walking—it’s like knives cutting into my feet.”

  Nathan glanced down. “If you try treading on the bare rock instead of the shells,” he said, “you’ll be a lot more comfortable.”

  Together, they stumbled forward.

  They began to see other things scattered among the debris on the ground—things Denaero stared at in fascination and bewilderment. Nathan, bemused by the potion, gazed at them with a disturbing sense of recognition, as if they were objects he remembered from long ago, whose use and style were now alien to him. They were made of wood and ceramic and metal, substances the mermaid had rarely seen—urns of chipped terra-cotta and tarnished bronze, goblets, caskets, candelabra, all gold and silver and studded with precious stones, swords, shields, helmets—sickles and chisels, forks and ladles, something that looked like a plowshare, something else that might have been a churn. Farther on there was part of a chariot with a single spiked wheel— “What’s a wheel?” Denaero asked—and the hulks of broken ships, with curving ribs and fallen mast, one with a prow in the form of a swan; another, a dragon, the gold paint flaking from its scales; a third, a siren with flowing hair and outthrust bosom.

  “Nefanu’s treasures,” Denaero said in an awed voice. “Aren’t they amazing? I recognize the swords and stuff, but some of these things— what were they for?”

  “They are terrible,” Nathan said. He had seated the mermaid on a boulder to rest his arms and was studying something he thought was a barometer. These weren’t the relics of a few island communities; this had been a whole civilization—a human civilization—with mines and palaces and agriculture, with art and technology, with ships and transport and armies, an entire kingdom above the sea. And all that remained were these dead things, preserved forever in a vast hidden crypt, to remind Nefanu of what she had done.

  “The High King and the shamans have to come here every four seasons,” Denaero said. “It’s part of their duty to the Goddess. Do you think—do you think my father could walk, when he came in? I’ve never seen him walk.”

  “No,” Nathan said. “I think he crawled. I think they all crawled. That’s why Nefanu brought them here—so they could crawl to her on their useless legs, and bow down to her power.”

  There were other bones on the ground nearby, neither fish nor reptile. Nathan turned away, squatting down in front of Denaero.

  “Put your arms ’round my neck. I’ll carry you on my back; it’s easier.”

  He picked her up and continued to make his way deeper into the cave, toward where he thought the light source must be. There was no sound but the padding of his bare feet and Denaero’s breathing, close to his ear. She was accustomed to spending time above water, but the dry atmosphere clearly grated on her throat; he was impressed she didn’t complain. The air felt heavy and still, the way air does when it has nowhere to circulate and has been shut up in a confined space for a long, long time. He thought he must have walked for more than a mile. Occasionally he glanced up, searching for where the principal entrance might have been, but the roof was coved, vaulted, shadowed, hung with curtains of frozen stone, too far above for him to make out any details. He speculated that they might be able to wedge the doors to the chamber where they had entered, letting the sea in that way, but he was afraid it would be impossible and his original plan already looked like a failure.

  What had the Grandir said? Something about concentrating on his task, and not getting involved in local problems …

  He must get the Crown. That, at least, would annoy Nefanu, even if he achieved nothing else.

  “You must be getting tired,” Denaero said.

  “No,” Nathan said stoically. Rugger and cricket
had kept him fit, but after such a distance the weight of the mermaid was beginning to drag. And he had trouble picking his way among the items scattered across the cave floor: old cooking pots and broken utensils—a blackened chalice with red jewels peeping out of the grime—something with rusted spikes that might have been an instrument of torture or an agricultural implement. More remnants of a vanished world—a world within a world—which Nefanu had devoured in her insatiable hunger.

  The bits she spat out.

  By the time he saw the light source his arms were aching, but he was determined not to say so. The roof curved down to a point tipped with a crystalline formation that glowed bright as day, a mass of polygonal spines protruding in all directions like a giant cubist sea urchin. Below it on a smooth table of rock was something that didn’t glow at all. A thorny, knotty, misshapen thing without luster or loveliness.

  The Iron Crown.

  Nathan set Denaero down on the edge of the rock and she twisted around, reaching out for it.

  “Ouch! It makes my hand tingle—”

  “You’re werefolk; it’s iron. Iron is inimical to you.”

  “What’s inimical?”

  “It—has a bad effect on you,” Nathan explained. “You’re a magical being, and magical beings don’t like iron. The more magical you are, the worse the effect. Nefanu is a goddess: she couldn’t even touch it.”

  “It’s ugly,” Denaero said. “It’s ugly, and it gives me pins and needles. What’s the point of it?”

  “Power,” said Nathan. “It’s part of a Great Spell—something that could change whole worlds.”

  “Like mine?”

  “Not this time.” Nathan went to pick it up—and dropped it again with a yelp of pain. His hand felt as if it had been stabbed with a hundred pinpoints of fire. “I don’t understand. I’m not magical—I’m just an ordinary human. I touch iron every day … well, I could. If I wanted. It shouldn’t do this.”

  “Maybe … maybe it’s the potion,” Denaero suggested. “The potion made you magical for a little while—like me.”

  Nathan swore. “Nothing’s working out,” he said. “I can’t figure out a way to let the sea into the caves, and now I can’t even lift the Crown. What the hell are we going to do?”

  The question was rhetorical, but Denaero answered it.

  “What if you took off that bottle ’round your neck? It’s part of the charm, isn’t it? So if you remove it…”

  “Once I’m back in the sea, I’m dead.”

  “Just take it off for a minute. Find out if you can touch the Crown, and then … and then … we can decide. Just a minute—what harm can that do?”

  Nathan didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. He could be stuck here, unable to get out—he could die in the deeps of the sea—he could, if he was lucky, wake up, abandoning Denaero and the war he had started and still wanted to stop. leant always help you, the Grandir had said. If there’s a risk, you have to take it, he thought—he’d done it before, but that didn’t make it any easier. Suppose his store of luck ran out at the crucial moment—it had been due to run out, he suspected, for some time. Hazel had discovered the potion, it had worked, Denaero had found the secret door, they’d managed to get into the caves—too much luck for one person. And now it was like that point in the pantomime when they ask the children to clap if they believe in fairies. Do you believe in magic? And he didn’t believe in magic—he didn’t believe in a spell that made him a merman for a day—he didn’t believe in it, even though it had happened. He knew there would be a catch.

  Nathan had read a lot of the right books—he’d read about spells that make heroes invincible and invulnerable—there was always a loophole somewhere. Samson’s hair, Achilles’ heel. The inevitable moment when you take off the Balaclava of Protection to kiss the princess and someone shoots you in the head. If he removed the talisman he knew, somehow, that all bets were off.

  But he had come for the Crown. Without it, everything he had done was meaningless.

  He took hold of the vial, hung around his neck on a piece of knotted thong. It felt suddenly heavy, dragging him down, as if there were a brick at his throat. With an effort, he lifted it up and pulled the thong over his head.

  Nothing happened. There was no thunderclap, no lightning flash, no Nemesis emerging from the shadows. He set it down on the rock and picked up the Crown without adverse effect. He should have brought something to carry it in; then he wouldn’t have to touch it anymore and perhaps he could replace the talisman. He looked around in the vague hope that Nefanu’s collection might include a suitable receptacle.

  Denaero, observing his actions with satisfaction, said: “Told you so.”

  Nearby there were other rock tables of varying sizes supporting items of obvious significance. A trident carved from what Nathan guessed to be whalebone—an enormous oyster holding a black pearl as big as a fist—a ring in the form of a crested serpent biting its own tail— a shell trumpet like the ones mermen blow in marble fountains, when a cascade of water comes out—a knife of bronze with a hilt in the shape of a skull.

  “What are these?” Nathan asked.

  Denaero wriggled off the rock and came toward him on hands and knees, like a child learning to crawl.

  “Nepteron’s trident!” she said. “It belonged to the God of the Sea, Nefanu’s husband, only I think she killed him. And that’s the Black Pearl—the largest and most perfect pearl ever found—there’s never been another like it. There’s a curse on it, though I can’t remember why. I don’t know about the ring—”

  “It’s gold,” Nathan said. “That means it was made by humans.”

  He picked it up, trying it on his finger to see if it would make him invisible or something useful like that, but it didn’t fit. It would only go on his little finger. Absentmindedly, he left it there.

  “We have a few metal things,” Denaero said. “We call them sea trove. They’re very old. Uraki has a metal bit for Raagu. That knife … we used to sacrifice to the Goddess, when there were islands. My grandmother told me. There was a rock that stuck out of the sea, and the shamans used to sacrifice people there—not just humans, but merfolk, our own people. They used a special knife, a holy knife. Maybe that’s it.”

  “I should take it,” Nathan said reluctantly. “I could do with a weapon.” But the knife looked ancient, evil, and rather blunt—and he was already burdened with the Crown. “What about the trumpet?”

  “The triton? That must be the Horn of Doom.”

  “The Horn of Doom?”

  “You know. The one you blow for the end of the world, or when things get so desperate the end of the world seems like a good idea. That used to belong to the High King, but the Goddess took it. She takes everything.”

  “Has anyone ever blown it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Denaero said. “After all, the world’s still here.”

  “Perhaps it would crack the cavern roof,” Nathan said thoughtfully, “and bring the sea rushing in …”

  “And then what would happen to us? I might make it, but you never would.”

  Nathan sat down on the rock beside the horn, turning the Crown in his hands. “I don’t know how to do this,” he said. “I suppose I thought, when we got here, there would be a switch to throw to unblock the entrance, or a spell engraved on the rock, or something. I thought inspiration would come, but it hasn’t. We may have the Crown, but I can’t carry it and wear the talisman …”

  Denaero tried to curl up at his feet, forgetting that legs don’t curl as easily as a tail. “I’ll take that,” she said, indicating the vial. “At least till we get to the exit. Maybe … maybe we’ll find something, think of something …”

  “Thanks,” Nathan said. “But I’m afraid the only option is for me to wake up—in my own world. Otherwise I’m trapped here.”

  “You can’t!” Denaero’s voice shrilled into panic. “You can’t leave me! I’d never get to the exit. I’m drying out already—my skin—look—”
>
  “I’m sorry.” Suddenly Nathan remembered Kwanji Ley, dying of the sundeath because he had left her in the desert. Would he never learn? “I’ll carry you to the door, I promise. You take the vial—I’ll take the Crown—just try not to brush against it…”

  He jumped to his feet, hoping his strength would last. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten for an awfully long time, and although he had felt no thirst while he was swimming, here in the cave he was beginning to dehydrate. When Denaero reached toward him he noticed there were blotches on her arms where her skin was growing red and flaky—her lips looked cracked—her hair dry and brittle, like shriveled weed. He had ceased to bother about her nakedness long before and felt only concern. He bent to lift her up—

  That was when they heard the thunderclap. It echoed through the network of caves like a vast drumroll—the floor vibrated—dust rose— splinters of stone came pattering down from the roof. The light was extinguished, leaving them in utter darkness—then it blazed back in a dazzle of ultraviolet. He released Denaero, pivoting on his heel.

  There was a figure standing there—a figure ten feet tall and spun from water vapor, translucent as a wraith, with night-dark eyes and hair that roiled like clouds in a hurricane. In the livid light its phantom form had the unnatural luminosity of chemical pollution. Power streamed off it like radioactive waves.

  Nefanu.

  Nathan groped for a course of action—the spark of an idea—but his mind blanked.

  He knew in his gut he wasn’t going to wake up. He feared he might never wake up at all.

  IT WAS midnight, the witching hour, but Hazel didn’t feel like much of a witch. She’d lit a couple of beeswax candles in front of her bedroom mirror—a fairly new mirror, the old one had been broken—and put on a CD of someone playing the electric cello, but it hadn’t helped much. Beside her the piece of yellow paper remained obstinately blank, no matter what conjurations she used; even the title was beginning to fade. Something about the spell still niggled at her, and now that there was nothing to get in the way the niggle had grown to an itch, and she needed to scratch. She flipped through her great-grandmother’s notebooks— pages and pages of how to cure headaches, or induce them, how to scry and spy, the odd love potion—For love, read lust, Hazel thought cynically—instructions for interpreting the Tarot, chatting with the spirits, sending curses, propitiating fate. No wonder witches are going out of business, she reflected. Who needs magic when we have ibuprofen, electronic bugging, Viagra? KM of them, frankly, far more reliable than the dubious practices of witchcraft. As for fate, you make your own luck, Bartlemy had said, often and often. She had made her own luck once— out of pipe cleaners. Suddenly, she found herself looking for the Nenufar doll—recalling that because it had been soaked in river water it hadn’t burned properly, just been a bit scorched. Perhaps she shouldn’t have left it lying around. It should be here somewhere …