“To cut a long story short, the other party—the young lady, that is—is prevaricating slightly. She says that she will marry the prince if he can answer three questions she will put to him, and has offered him the right to put three questions to her. This way, both young people have a chance to… er… make sure of one another. Win one another’s respect, if you see what I mean. It’s an old custom—perhaps you’ve read about it?”
“I believe I did,” said Ewan, “somewhere…”
“Well,” said Coronado. “Never mind trying to remember. The important thing is this. We need someone to give the prince a little assistance—answering the questions that are put to him and framing the ones which he shall put in his turn. That is where you come in.”
“Ah,” said Ewan, pensively.
“What do you think?” asked Coronado.
“Isn’t it just a bit… a very little bit… dishonest?”
The prime minister drew himself up to his full height, and waved a large, bony hand imperiously. “Not at all,” he said. “Not at all. We’re merely taking advice. Taking advice is an accepted part of court protocol, recognized by every law and moral principle we have.”
“Oh,” said Ewan. He was dubious, but he knew that he was hardly in a position to argue. “What are the questions, then?”
“We don’t know as yet. We’re expecting the first one to arrive by express mail, first thing in the morning. We’ve agreed to take them one at a time, you see.”
“I see,” echoed Ewan, who didn’t like the look of this at all.
“Look upon it as a challenge,” suggested Coronado. Ewan nodded.
“And always remember that it’s for the greater good of Caramorn.”
Ewan nodded again.
“And there is one more thing,” added Coronado, as he began to move away, toward the door.
Ewan looked at him patiently, feeling that it was unnecessary to reply.
“You might care to bear in mind that in the present desperate state of emergency all government funds are frozen. Unless something happens to give Caramorn a considerable boost, it will not be possible for the state to renew any grants and suchlike during the coming year. If this marriage does not take place, I’m afraid there’s a strong possibility that you might not be able to return to Heliopolis to continue your studies. So you do see how important this is, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Ewan, in a low voice. “I do see.”
“I think we understand one another,” said Coronado, making his exit smoothly and quietly.
“We certainly do,” murmured Ewan, to the empty air. “We certainly do.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” recited Helen, “what’s the most difficult question of all?”
“I don’t have to answer that,” retorted the mirror. “And if I did I’d probably point out that the one you just asked me must be a candidate. What’s more, it doesn’t scan properly.”
“Look,” said Helen, with exasperation. “All I ask is a little co-operation. A little assistance. Advice, maybe. For old times’ sake.”
“Ha!” said the mirror.
“All I want,” said Helen, controlling her voice to restore some of the natural sweetness to it, “is a few suggestions relating to unanswerable questions. It has to look reasonable, of course—the kind of question that seems simple enough but when you get right down to it is quite impossible.”
“It’s not my field,” said the mirror. “I’m only here to report on reflections. What you need is a paradox monger.”
“What’s a paradox monger?”
“Someone who sells paradoxes.”
“And where, pray, am I going to find one of those?”
“Search me,” said the mirror. “And stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Trying to turn me off.” “Turn you off?” repeated Helen. “You heard me,” said the mirror. “I’m not trying to turn you off.” “Yes, you are.” “No, I’m not.”
There was a brief pause. Then the mirror said: “Well, somebody is. Look at yourself. Can’t you see the image distorting?”
Helen looked at her face reflected in the glass. Now the mirror came to mention it there was something odd about it. It seemed blurred. She put her hand to touch the surface of the mirror, and the image put out her hand. But the other hand was somehow paler and less distinct. When her fingers touched the glass Helen could feel a faint but rather strange electric sensation.
“You’re not breaking down, are you?” said Helen. “You’re the last halfway reasonable magic mirror we’ve got.”
“I’m in the best of health,” said the mirror. “Someone’s interfering with me, I tell you. I’m being got at. I feel distinctly dizzy, as if my reflection was whirling round and round.
This was perhaps not so surprising, because even as the mirror spoke the image reflected in it did begin to spin around and around. The blurs became streaks and the whole thing dissolved into a whirlpool of colour.
“Oooooh!” moaned the mirror. “Stop it. Please!”
“It isn’t me,” said Helen helplessly. “Honestly.”
She wondered whether it might be her father. But Sirion Hilversun was not the kind of man to start working wayward magic in his daughter’s bedchamber.
Suddenly, Helen felt frightened. She leapt to her feet and would have run to the door to call to her father, except that the whirling image began to slow down again and become distinct.
For a moment, she thought that the mirror was recovering, having suffered a dizzy spell or a mild fit of some kind, but then she realized that the face coalescing out of the blur was not her own. Most definitely not, in fact.
It was the face of an old man. A very old man. Sirion Hilversun was getting on two hundred by now, but compared to this face his was young. Sirion Hilversun’s hair was white and his beard was long, but the hair retained a certain fluffiness, and his complexion was pleasantly pink. The man whose image was in the mirror now had hair the colour of ancient dust, a beard that seemed as insubstantial as morning mist. His skin was dark brown and looked to have the texture of varnished wood. The eyes were large and staring, and coloured a deep, deep purple. They had no whites at all, and the black pupils were very tiny. The expression worn by the face was neither hostile nor ugly, but it was nevertheless a very frightening face.
“Sit down,” it said. Its voice was not the voice of the mirror, but deeper and somehow more remote.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied.
“What do you want?”
“I came in answer to your plea.” There was the ghost of a smile in the thin, dark lips. “What plea?”
“Questions,” he said, simply. “You asked for questions. I bring you six. Six of the most curious questions in the world. No one has answered them in a hundred years and more. No one has dared to try.”
“I don’t need six,” said Helen, uneasily. “Three at the most. If they’re really unanswerable, one will do.”
“You have to take the six,” said the image, gently. “They come as a package, so to speak.”
The image reached into the folds of its black cloak, and produced a scroll of yellow parchment. “I fear that I cannot pass this through the mirror,” said the sonorous voice. “You will appreciate that I am only here, as it were, in spirit. I will hold it up. You must read it carefully—all of it. Its words will be impressed upon your memory. You will not forget.”
“Wait…” said Helen, uneasily.
But the image wouldn’t wait. Two skeletal brown hands unwound the parchment and held its face towards Helen. The vast purple eyes peered over the upper edge, focusing on Helen’s face.
Helen read the words.
The parchment read:
The last will and testament of
Jeahawn Kambalba
I leave to the world my fortune and my fate, these verses:
What words are writ upon the stone
beneath the sign which stands alone in Methwold forest held in thrall?
And what are those engraved by me on Faulhorn’s horn which waits for thee in Mirasol’s haunted banquet hall?
Where the towers of Ora Lamae stood a lamia waits to drink your blood— what secret name is in her bred?
The monster Zemmoul takes his prey where Fiora falls in silver spray— what coloured gem is in his head?
If you take your stand in Hamur’s place at edge of world and gate of space— what feeling creeps within your bone?
Aloof from Sheal the shadowed deep at edge of world and gate of sleep— what do you feel as you stand alone?
While Helen scanned these words, the stare of the purple eyes never wavered. Only when she finished did the intensity of the gaze relent somewhat.
Helen had held her breath for some time. Now she let it out in a short, fearful gasp.
“That’s a spell!” she said.
“It is indeed,” said the image. “A very powerful spell.” “And you’ve printed it in my mind! You’ve made it a part of me.”
“Or you a part of it,” answered the man with purple eyes.
“I’ll tell my father!”
The image shook its head. “No, my dear. You will tell no one. This is a secret spell. Our secret.” “You can’t do this….”
“I can. You prepared my ground. Perhaps I put the idea into your head, but you spoke the words…. It was you who sought to use the plan. Three questions are yours, and three belong to another. That is the game. You asked to play, and now you must.”
“Who are you?” she demanded again. Then she remembered the name at the top of the parchment. Even while he was rolling it up again her eyes picked it out. “Jeahawn Kambalba!” she whispered. “Jeahawn the Judge! But he’s been dead for…” she trailed off.
“As I said,” the image reminded her, “I can be with you only in spirit. I am dead, but a little of me lives on—in the spells I cast and the implements I once owned. You knew, of course, that this mirror was once mine?”
Helen shook her head. “Father bought it at an auction,” she said. “He was always buying things at auctions. After the war, you know–-“
Again, she stopped. Of course he knew. Wasn’t it Jeahawn Kambalba that had put an end to the wars? Hadn’t he imprisoned Elfspin and Ambrael, defeated Jargold?
“What do you want with me?” she whispered. “Your help,” he answered. “I’ve no magic.”
“Nor has the boy. And perhaps you have a little more than you know. The verses will tell you what you must do. I know you’re frightened, but that will pass. I can’t promise you definitely that no harm will come to you, because it might. I know that this is terribly unfair, but it has to be done. The one thing you need to know is that now the pattern is begun it must be completed. You understand that. You know the ways of enchantment. Look at me.”
Unwillingly, she stared straight into the terrible eyes, which grew once again in intensity until they seemed almost luminous.
Helen’s hand took up a pen from the table beside the bed, and a page of parchment, and she began to write. As soon as the letter was complete, the image began to fade, but Helen was still entranced. She put it in envelope and sealed it in, and set it down in front of her. By this time the mirror was absolutely blank.
Then there was a small sound, like a polite cough. Helen woke, and in the mirror before her she saw her own image, clear and beautiful. She stared at it hard, trying to remember something—a dream or a reverie. She couldn’t recall it, although she knew that it was still there, in her memory, waiting to be unlocked by the right key.
There was a knock on the door, and Sirion Hilversun came in.
“I really must have that letter now,” he said. “They asked for a reply by return of post, and it’s nearly bed time.”
Without a word, Helen handed him the envelope.
“You’ve sealed it!” exclaimed the enchanter. “Don’t you want me to read it?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, softly. “I must have done it absent-mindedly. But it doesn’t matter. It’s only a silly question. Quite trivial, really.”
Sirion Hilversun frowned. He had harboured dark suspicions about what kind of questions his daughter might ask of Prince Damian. Now, it seemed, he wasn’t to know.
“You are giving him a chance, aren’t you?” he asked. Helen turned to him, and smiled. She took his old, gnarled hand into her own, and squeezed it reassuringly.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Every chance. All that it needs is a little initiative and…”
She stopped, frowning slightly as if trying to remember something that was scurrying away into the corridors
of her mind.
“What, dear?” he prompted. “What were you going to say?”
“Judgement,” she finished. “I was going to say… judgement.”
At noon the next day Coronado went to see Ewan, who was delving deep in the dustiest corners of the palace library, inspecting the titles and indices of books by the score and then stacking them neatly out of the way. His search was hurried, but marked by a systematic efficiency.
“Well?” inquired the prime minister.
“I’m tracking it down,” said Ewan, without even turning his head. “Just give me time. I’m on the track.”
Coronado nodded and left him to it.
At six in the evening the scene was repeated, just about word for word. The only difference was that by now Ewan was considerably dustier and the prime minister was a little worried.
At eleven, before the royal family retired for the night, Coronado tried again, hoping to discover some pleasant news for the king and the prince to sleep on. By this time Ewan was positively filthy, and every book in the library seemed to have been shifted and sorted.
“Don’t worry,” said the boy. “I’ve found a hundred books with references to Methwold forest. I’m going through the lot, word by word, if necessary. If the words on that stone were ever seen by human eyes I’ll know what they were by morning.”
The prime minister noted, however, that there was a definite note of optimistic strain in Ewan’s voice. Though he said nothing he did not go to his bed filled with confidence. In point of fact, the only person in the palace who slept soundly was the queen, who secretly didn’t want Damian to marry the girl at all. Damian himself slept badly because he still feared that Ewan might find the answer.
At nine the next morning, after breakfast, Coronado went back to the library, determined that this time there must be an answer… or else. Or else what he hadn’t quite decided.
Ewan was black from head to toe and looked very sleepy. He was also more than a little annoyed.
“It’s not here,” he said. “It’s just not here. I’ve been through it all for nothing.”
“Nothing?” repeated the prime minister, ominously.
Ewan looked up, and perceived that the other was not in the best of moods.
“Almost nothing,” he said.
“What do you mean almost?” purred Coronado.
“Well,” said Ewan. “I don’t have the answer. But I have found something extremely curious.” He took up an extremely ancient piece of parchment and passed it to Coronado.
The prime minister blew away a little spare dust and tried to read the words inscribed on the paper. He failed. The scribble looked like words, but there was something wrong with it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Actually,” said Ewan, “it’s the question. Or, rather a set of six questions, of which the one sent to us is the first.”
“Are you telling me,” said Coronado, his temper rising slightly, “that you’ve been in here twenty-four hours an all you have to show for it is another copy of the question?”
“Well,” said Ewan, “if you want to put it like that, suppose the answer is yes. But it’s a very curious piece of paper, I think you’ll agree.”
“I can’t even read it,” said Coronado.
“That’s bec
ause it’s been turned round,” said Ewan. “It’s written backwards—as though it were a mirror-image of itself, if you see what I mean.” Coronado did see what he meant. But he didn’t see what help it was.
“Does this help us to solve the problem?” he asked, trying to keep his voice very level. “Not exactly,” said Ewan. “But it is interesting. You see, these verses are the words of one Jeahawn Kambalba, who was a famous enchanter of long ago. This is his so-called last will and testament—it’s a notorious enigma. No answer has ever been recorded because no one ever dared to tamper with the work of such a powerful man. Superstition, you see, kept people clear of it.”
“What you’re trying to say…” began Coronado.
“… is that no one knows the answer,” Ewan finished for him. “It seems to me that the young lady has deliberately sent Prince Damian a question which she believes to be unanswerable.”
Coronado felt a terrible sense of impending disaster. This was exactly what he had feared. He gritted his teeth.
“In that case,” he said, “we shall have to adopt what we in political circles call a contingency plan.”
“You mean,” said Ewan, “that you’re going to make up an answer and send it back hoping that she doesn’t know the right answer any more than we do?”
Coronado’s eyebrows slowly elevated themselves to the region of his hairline.
“They did say you were a very clever boy,” he murmured.
“It’s not necessary,” said Ewan.
The eyebrows descended like falling logs. “What do you mean?”
The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World Page 4