The Black Throne

by Fred Saberhagen

  The Black Throne

  Fred Saberhagen

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1990 by the Amber Corporation and Fred Saberhagen

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 0-7434-3579-6

  Cover art by Patrick Turner

  First printing, October 1990

  Second printing, November 2002

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

  Printed in the United States of America

  SOME DAYS ARE LIKE THAT . . .

  I walked, and Lord! the sands shifted beneath my feet to the point where I stumbled and fell several times. Through the thickest of fogs the sea roared like Leviathan a-dying, slapping inter-mittently with the force of a hurricane, tearing chunks of the shore line away and swallowing them in its agony.

  Once I learned its direction I scrambled for higher ground, and the beach was eaten behind me as I climbed. Grasping at shrub, root, and rock, sliding back, catching hold again, I pulled myself at length above its reach, achieving, however, as I did so, a region where the winds swelled and howled their answer back to the sea-beast below. And Lord! the tumult of the elements' divorcement! Earth, air, and water strove, then fled one another in heartbeat pulses!

  And then—as I raised myself those final feet—a gout of fire fell the welkin's course to fry a tree before me, last element joined in gasping image cast upon my streaming eyes. I lifted my arm in moment shield and when I let it fall, the tree smoked and flickered in the wind and the figure of a man stood, almost unconcerned, nearby, staring past me toward the raging invisible sea, dark cloak flapping.

  "Allan!" I cried, recognizing him as I drew near; and then I added, "Poe!"

  Baen Books by Fred Saberhagen

  The Dracula Tapes

  Vlad Tapes

  Pilgrim

  Baen Books by Roger Zelazny

  Forever After (editor)

  I

  She sang beyond the genius of the sea, and he heard.

  Walking on that gray, warm morn through fogs which entombed his world in near-viscous whiteness, perfect as snow, quietening as cloak or shroud, the boy moved with a certain deliberation, wordless voice within his head, veiled forms swaying about him, avoiding cobble and branch in passage through the wood behind the school, oddity back of a place once known well, occurring mystery somehow situated to hold his soul chrysalis for a vital season, somehow special, personal, and marking a passage distinctive as scar or tattoo upon his life and forever.

  It was more than the dark voice of the sea that made the world acutest at its vanishing. And the sea, for that matter, the sea ought not to be this close, ought it? Nor in this direction. No.

  Yet sea must there be. Somehow the song told him this, wordless though it ran. Sea must there be, and to it hieing on this day, he, day embedded in cotton, warm, salt tang within it, like the interior of vein or artery, song throbbing through.

  Brittle fingers brushed his shoulder, leaves kissed moistly. He drew back from a dark treeform, stumbled against another, recovered. One grows accustomed to fog in London. Even an American child comes quickly to understand it, to separate caution from fear, to appreciate the distortions of distance, the slippery footing, the dearth of echoes. He moved in half-conscious quest of the singer—a quest which might have commenced before his awakening. Indeed, this seemed, somehow, but a continuation of a peculiar dream.

  He did remember getting up, dressing, departing. But that had almost been an interlude. This had been going on before that. Something down on the strand. . . . Beach? Strand. Same thing. He had to go and find it now. He knew it would be there. The singing had been present on both sides of sleep. It had told him, it led him. . . .

  He walked on, his clothing grown clammy, beginning to cling, a feeling of dampness coming into his shoes. The way sloped downward, and as he followed it the trees retreated, though shadows still formed within the fog; and a bell—somewhere a bell was ringing, just at the edge of awareness, slow, earthy, full-throated counterpoint to the ethereal song.

  The first sea salt smell reached his nostrils as he began the descent, and he increased his pace. Soon, soon. . . .

  The trail steepened abruptly. From somewhere there came the calls of gulls; their dark shapes slid above the overhead whiteness. The faintest of breezes drifted past him then, bearing even stronger sea smells than he had noticed earlier.

  The trail widened, losing its steepness. Suddenly, there was sand underfoot, and smooth pebbles clicked and bounced. The sound of the sea came to him. The gulls continued their calling. The sounds of the bells began to fade.

  The singing, hardly louder than before, seemed nevertheless nearer. Turning left, he followed it, passing about the squat form of a final tree—a palmetto, it would seem. But it shouldn't be growing here.

  The fog became more active, drifting in from the apparent direction of the water. In places the whiteness broke, giving him glimpses of pebbles and sand. In other places it writhed, serpent-like, near to the ground, or was blown into grotesque shapes which faded almost as quickly as they formed. Advancing till he came to the water, he halted, stooped, let the sea run into and out of his hands. He raised a finger to his lips.

  It was real. Warm and salty as blood.

  A wave slopped over his shoetops and he backed away. He turned and began walking again, certain now where he was headed. He increased his pace. Before long, he was running.

  He stumbled, picked himself up and kept going. Perhaps he had somehow crossed over and was back in his dream. The tinny sound of a buoy bell came to him now, marking some channel far to the right. The sea itself seemed of a sudden louder. A vast flock of birds passed overhead, uttering cries unlike those of the gulls or any other birds he had ever heard. The bells—somewhere behind him now—took on a new voice, answering the random notes of the buoy with something patterned, something deeper. And the singing. . . . For the first time the singing grew louder. It seemed very near.

  A dark form appeared suddenly in his path. A small hill or—

  He stumbled again, trying to avoid it. As he fell, the singing ceased. The bells ceased. He looked upon bleak walls and vacant eye-like windows—battlemented, turreted edifice emergent from duneside—drear, dark, partly crumbling, beside a gray, unruffled tarn. He was falling—somehow too fast—toward it. . . .

  Then the fog swirled and the veil fell away. What had seemed a distant prospect was almost within reach, as an instant rearrangement of perspective showed it to be a castle of sand constructed on a slope above a tidal pool.

  His outflung arm struck a wall. A tower toppled. The great gateway was broken.

  "No!" came a cry. "You mean thing! No!"

  And she was upon him, small fists pummeling his shoulder, head, back.

  "I'm—sorry," he said. "I didn't mean—I fell. I'll help. I'll put it back—the way—it was."

  "Oh."

  She stopped striking him. He drew back and regarded her.

  She had very gray eyes, and brown hair lay disheveled upon her brow. Her hands were delicate, fingers long. Her blue skirt and white blouse were sand-streaked, smudged, the hem of the skirt sodden. Her full lips quivered as her gaze darted from him to the castle and back, but her eyes remained dry.

 
"I'm sorry," he repeated.

  She turned her back to him. A moment later her bare foot kicked forward. Another wall fell, another tower toppled.

  "Don't!" he cried, rising, reaching to restrain her. "Stop! Please stop!"

  "No!" she said, moving forward, trampling towers. "No."

  He caught hold of her shoulder and she pulled away from him, continuing to kick and stamp at the castle.

  "Please . . ." he repeated.

  "Say, leave the poor fellow's castle alone, would you?" came a voice from behind them both.

  They turned, to regard the figure which approached through the fog.

  "Who are you?" they asked, in near unison.

  "Edgar," he replied.

  "That's my name," said the first boy, staring, as the other drew nearer.

  The newcomer halted a pace later and they both stared. The boys resembled each other to the point of twindom. Hair, eyes, pigmentation, physiognomy seemed identical. The resemblance extended to posture, gestures, voice, and the school uniforms they wore.

  The girl, halted in her rampage, turned her head slowly from side to side.

  "I'm Annie," she said softly. "You could be brothers, or—something."

  "I guess so," the newcomer acknowledged.

  "So it might seem," said the first boy.

  "Why were you breaking his sand castle?" the second Edgar asked.

  "It's my sand castle, and he broke it," she said.

  Edgar Two smiled at Edgar One, who shook his head and shrugged.

  "Uh, why don't we all put it back together?" the other boy said. "I'd bet we could do an even better one than what was there—Annie."

  She smiled at him.

  "All right," she said. "Let's."

  They dropped to their knees about the disheveled sand heap. Annie took up a stick and began tracing new outlines. "The central keep will be here," she began, "and I want lots of towers. . . ."

  They worked in silence for a long while, both boys soon removing their shoes, also.

  "Edgar . . . ?" she asked after a time.

  "Yes?" the boys answered.

  They all began to laugh.

  "There's got to be more to it than that," she said to the first boy, "if I'm to tell you apart."

  "Allan," he replied. "I'm Edgar Allan."

  "I'm Perry—Edgar Perry," said the second boy.

  The boys stared at each other again.

  "I've never seen you anywhere around here before," Perry said then. "You visiting or something?"

  "I go to school," Allan replied, gesturing with his head in the direction of the small bluff he had descended.

  "What school?" Perry asked.

  "Manor House School. It's just up that way."

  Perry's broad forehead creased and he shook his head slowly.

  "I don't know it," he said. "But I don't really know this area. I go to a school called Manor also—though I don't know you from there. I was just out walking. . . ." He glanced at Annie, who had turned her head as Allan spoke, as if noticing the hill for the first time. "Do you?" he said to her.

  "I don't know either school," she said. "But this area is mine—I mean, it's very familiar."

  "It's interesting you both have American accents," Allan observed.

  At this, both of them stared at him.

  "Why shouldn't we?" Annie said then. "You do, too."

  "Where do you live?" Perry asked suddenly.

  "Charleston," she said.

  He shifted from foot to foot.

  "There's something peculiar about this," he said. "I was having a dream this morning before I came walking here, before I found this place—"

  "Me, too!"

  "Me, too. . . ."

  "—almost as if I were already here with someone: You two."

  "Yes, so was I."

  "I was, too."

  "I hope I'm not still dreaming."

  "I don't think so."

  "It feels a little strange, though," Allan said, "as if it's real in a very special way."

  "What do you mean?" Perry asked.

  "Dip your hands in the water," the other boy told him.

  Perry leaned to the side and obliged.

  "Yes?" he said then.

  "Sea water is never that warm," Allan answered.

  "Well, it's been sitting in this pool for some time, and it had a chance to heat up."

  "The sea's the same way," Allan answered. "I felt it earlier."

  Perry rose to his feet, turned away, began running toward the water. Allan glanced at Annie, who laughed. Suddenly the two of them were running after.

  Before long, they were splashing about in the ocean, laughing, dunking each other, waves boiling about their legs.

  "You're right!" Perry called out. "It's never been this way! Why should it be like this?"

  Allan shrugged.

  "Perhaps it's warm because the sun's shining on it hard someplace we can't see. Then the waves are bringing it to us that way—"

  "That doesn't sound right. Maybe it's a current—like a river in the sea—"

  "It's warm because I wanted it to be," Annie interrupted. "That's why."

  The boys looked at her and she laughed.

  "You don't think this is a dream," she said, "because it's not your dream. It's mine. You remember getting up this morning and I don't. I think it's mine, and this is my place."

  "But I'm real! I'm not a dream-thing!"

  "So am I!"

  "I invited you, that's why."

  Both boys laughed suddenly and splashed her. She laughed, too.

  "Well—maybe . . ." she said, and then she splashed them back.

  Their garments grew wet and were dried several times over, as they felt compelled to verify the sea and its moods on several occasions. Slowly, between baths, a new castle grew beneath their hands. This one, larger and more ambitious than that with which Allan had collided, sprouted towers like asparagus branches, its thick walls climbing and descending the rolling sandscape, rippling inward and outward, sprinkled and dampened from the pool where small crabs, bright fish, and hidden molluscs dwelled amid the glitter of stone, shell, and broken coral. Impulsively, Allan reached forth and took Annie's gritty hand within his own. "It's a wonderful castle you thought of," he said. Even as she began to blush Perry had hold of her other hand. "It is," he said, "and if it's a dream, you're the best dreamer yet."

  He could never be sure how their time on the beach ended. There was a great sense of amity with Perry, as if the two were—somehow—brothers, though his feelings for Annie were different and he was sure that Perry loved her, too. The light around them was gray, and sea-green, and pearly with the mist. The sun rarely appeared. The sea and the air were timeless, throbbing warmly beside and about them.

  "Oh, my God!" said Annie.

  "What's the matter?" both boys shouted, turning in the direction of her wide-eyed gaze.

  "In—the—water," she said. "Dead—isn't he?"

  The fog had parted. Something wrapped in tangles of seaweed and a few tatters of cloth lay half in and half out of the water. Here and there a patch of swollen, fishbelly white flesh showed. It might have been human. It was difficult to say, wrack-decked as it was, tossed by the surf, strands of fog drifting past it.

  Perry rose to his feet.

  "Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," he said. Annie had covered her face by then, and was peering between her fingers. Allan stared, fascinated.

  "Do we really want to know?" Perry continued. "It may just be a mess of weeds and trash with a few dead fishes caught in it. If we don't go and look, it can be whatever we want it to be. You know what I mean? You want to tell your friends you saw a body on the beach? Well, maybe you did."

  The fog moved between them, hiding it again.

  "What do you think it is?" Allan asked him.

  "Seaweed and rubbish," Perry replied.

  "It's a body," Annie said.

  Allan laughed. "No, you can't both be right," he stated.

  "Why
not?" Annie said suddenly.

  "The world just doesn't work that way," Allan said.

  Allan rose and began walking through the fog in the direction of the body.

  "I think that sometimes it can," he heard her say, somewhere behind him.

  The fog churned, parted once more. Through a sudden rift Allan caught sight of the heaving mass, now drawn entirely back into the water a few paces offshore. This could be resolved in a matter of moments.

  He strode forward, simultaneous with the shifting of a wall of fog to a position directly before him. But he was not about to let the vision escape. He plunged ahead. Any moment now he should feel the water swirl about his ankles—

  "Allan. . . ." Her voice seemed distant.

  "Where are you . . . ?" Perry called, also, it seemed, from afar.

  "A moment," he answered. "I'm near it."

  It seemed that they called again, but he could not distinguish the words. He pushed on. Suddenly, he seemed to be moving uphill. There were dark shapes about him once again. The ground seemed to have grown harder. From overhead came that strange bird cry.

  "E-tekeli-li!" it seemed to sound. He began to run. He stumbled.

  * * *

  And then. And then. And then.

  * * *

  Bright splash in the pool of my vision, up from the sand, against my brow, falling, fallen, then.

  I was on my way back to the fort when it happened, returning from Legrand's hut. I did not even suspect that my life had been permanently changed. Not that my life before had been devoid of visions. Far from it. But this time I experienced none of the premonitory sensations or perceptions with which the visions were wont to announce themselves.

  When the golden beetle flew up from somewhere and struck me in the face I could not have known that this signaled a change in everything for me, forever. I sought it as it lay on the sand before me, a remarkable and brilliant gold in the lowering October sun. I knew that certain chafers had something of a metallic color, gold or silver, and might be very beautiful. But this. . . . This was an unknown species, unknown at least to me. As I knelt to regard it more closely, I was amazed by its markings. The black spots on its back, I suddenly realized, were so situated as to result in its likeness to a golden skull.