Wonders of the Invisible World

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  That face drew hard at him, so familiar, all its smiles for him, promising all he wanted.

  “You’re a dream,” he breathed.

  “So? Don’t you take pleasure in dreams?”

  Don’t fall in love, the mage had warned him, with the water-born.... She was there, he remembered, starting again. In his head, watching out of his eyes. He sighed noiselessly, relieved to have the choice made for him.

  “The water-mage sent me,” he said carefully. “She wonders if we have offended the water folk.”

  She flicked water toward him again, not answering, only looking at him out of that face she must have pulled out of his thoughts. Was her true face, he wondered, what he had seen under the water that morning, watching him?

  “If we have, tell us what to do to make amends.”

  She smiled, raising both hands out of the water, fingers stroking the air like wings, beckoning.

  “I’ll show you...” he heard, but how he couldn’t imagine, for she had already vanished.

  He stood a moment longer, waiting for her, feeling a curious emptiness, as though it truly had been Damaris and he had turned away from love.

  Damaris, he reminded himself, or the mage did, urging him along. Reluctantly, he mounted again, rode to the watchtower dock to summon the ferryman.

  A dozen market-boats had ventured down that far; they swarmed around the dock, selling bread, strawberries, cheese, ale and savory pasties to the men in the tower. Garner bought some meat and onions skewered on a stick, and roasted on a little brazier balanced on a shelf on the prow of the boat. It seemed precarious, but fire rode easily over the swell and dip of water. The boatman, his face seamed with an endless labyrinth of wrinkles, lingered at the dock to thread more meat and turn his skewers.

  Garner, watching him as he ate, asked impulsively, “Have you seen anything strange in the water?”

  “Strange? You mean like mermaids, such?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary.”

  The man shook his head. But his mouth widened into a gap-toothed grin at the same time; he chuckled soundlessly, waving a skewer at the bees. “Only what everybody saw this morning.”

  Garner felt himself flush, but pursued the matter anyway. “What?”

  “You didn’t see? It happened near the bridge, where the market-boats are thickest. A man in one of the fancy houses along the river pushed his head out of the vent in his private water-closet, crying that something was in there laughing at him. Then the water-closet slid right down his wall and into the river. For a few moments, we all thought it would float at the head of the king’s procession. But it stuck in the mud and got pulled ashore before the king had to see it. The man came out cursing his leaky pipes that had rotted the wood. But a water pipe wasn’t what terrified him. You could see that in his eyes.”

  “What was it, then?”

  The old man shrugged. “Water sprite, likely,” he said calmly. “They get frisky sometimes just before the ritual. We make our living on the water; we’ve learned to placate them, leave gifts in the river—flowers, beads, floating candles, little carvings—so they don’t toy with our boats. But I’ve never seen them go that far before. Up pipes and into someone’s house.”

  Garner finished his meal hastily, disturbed, and rode to the shallows beside the dock, where the ferryman, a lean man with his head hooded against the wind, sat alone on his raft, watching the currents.

  “Between tides,” he remarked cryptically. “Easy journey.”

  Garner led his horse on; they were the only passengers. The ferryman glanced up and down for traffic, then gave a cry. High-pitched, inarticulate, it sounded across the river like some wild water bird calling to another. At the royal dock a giant spool began to turn. A pair of ropes attached to the front of the raft rose slowly through the water to the surface and tautened. Another spool turned on the watchtower dock, loosing the raft cables. Garner felt it begin to move.

  The ferryman plied his pole, kept the raft from drifting. Garner stood stroking his horse, watching the great stone pile loom above them until it filled the sky. Its shadow slid over them, mid-river.

  “She get the message yet?” the ferryman asked, shifting his pole.

  “She—” His thoughts had strayed; he couldn’t imagine what they were talking about. “The water-mage?”

  The ferryman flashed him a glance. “The mage. The minister. Either.” Garner stared at him. He looked back, long enough this time to give the knight a clear view of his spindrift face, his shell-white eyes. The ferryman smiled then, a quick, tight smile. “Guess not.”

  The cables on one side of the boat snapped, whipped the water with a vicious hiss. Garner ducked, clinging to his horse’s reins. On the other side, the rope dipped underwater, pulling the raft down with it. He felt his boots fill again with water. The raft tilted like a door opening into the riverworld and he went through it for the second time that day.

  Beale would not go away. Damaris, desperate to find her engineer again and inquire about the fountain, kept seeing her betrothed in her doorway, no matter how many times she paced around the table. His pleasant, thoughtful voice went on and on; his eyes, seeming to follow her spiral path, saw nothing disturbing in it; walking around and around a table must be simply what she wanted to do.

  “Chairs,” he said, “for fifteen musicians. The little gilt ones. To be placed, I think, beside the fountain and facing it. The music is, after all, a gift to the fountain. Don’t you agree? The king, I believe, is planning to step out of the royal barge near the square and proceed up one of the streets to the fountain. I’m not sure who else will make up the procession. The musicians, of course, will not come down by water. The Minister of Ceremony has not yet decided exactly when to unveil the fountain: before or after the king’s arrival. In either event, the musicians will already be there. I don’t think I’ve told you this: Master Ainsley plays a very sweet flute and will be joining us to perform his own composition for the first time.”

  Master Ainsley, Damaris thought, chilled. Who must still wonder if he’ll be playing mud-music.

  “Beale,” she said desperately.

  “Not to leap ahead, since there are so many details to consider, but I am so much anticipating our journey after the celebration to my estate, where you will finally meet my mother. As I’ve told you, she’s much too frail to make the journey to Luminum.”

  “Beale.”

  “She is eagerly awaiting our arrival. So is my sister, who used to be one of the king’s musicians until our mother’s health—”

  “Beale!”

  He stopped, seeing her finally, his fair brows raised. “What is it, my love?”

  “If—if there should be—if something should go wrong—”

  “What could possibly go wrong? You’re intelligent, wonderful, young enough to bear twenty grandchildren for my mother, your family and history are impeccable, you look like a water nymph, my mother will adore you.”

  She closed her eyes, tried to keep her voice steady. “I meant with the fountain.”

  “The fountain. What could go wrong with the fountain? You let the water flow; it comes out the holes; we play. Simple as breathing.”

  She opened her eyes, saw, over his shoulder, a bad dream coming toward her down the hall, its bare feet squelching watery footprints on the marble. She gave a hiccup of astonishment, and closed her eyes again, hoping it might go away.

  “Beale. Excuse me, but I must find my engineer.”

  “There is such a charming analogy between the holes in the fountain, and those in our instruments,” he said with sudden enthusiasm. “Don’t you think? One flowing water, the other music; both necessary for life, I would argue, though no amount of music would—Now, I wonder, could an instrument be fashioned that could flow with both water and music at once? What would it look like? Surely—”

  The face of the nightmare was beside him now: the Knight of the Well running water like a leaky pipe. His dark eyes were furious, but that she
understood. It was the fear in them that brought her fingers to her mouth. Be careful, she pleaded silently to him. Be discreet.

  Beale turned; even he must have felt the exudations of emotions and dampness. He stared, amazed, at the knight. “You seem to be dripping.”

  “I fell in the river,” Garner said shortly, and otherwise ignored him, holding Damaris’s eyes with his disquieting gaze.

  “Again?” she said through her fingers.

  “The ferryman tossed me in. This was after I spoke to the nymph—”

  “Stop,” she said sharply, and, to her relief, he veered away from that.

  “I have a message for you from the water-mage.”

  “Nymphs and water-mages and Knights of the Well,” Beale murmured. “Sounds like a tale that should be set to music. Does it not? A small, perfect cycle of compositions—”

  “Beale,” Damaris interrupted explosively, “I must hear Eada’s message in private. Please.”

  “Oh.” He glanced with surprise at the doorpost against which he leaned. “Of course.” He moved himself, but only to advance with a touch of deliberation into the room, where he positioned a kiss firmly on the cheek of his betrothed. “Come and tell it to me when you’re finished here.” He left finally, passing Garner with a careless nod and a laugh. “You must tell me your nymph story in more detail later. Don’t forget.”

  “Come in and close the door,” Damaris said tightly. “Don’t drip on my papers. Tell me what the mage said.”

  “Something is wrong in the waterworld. She sent me searching everything from ditchwater to the river to find out what. She told me to tell you this.”

  “She did.”

  “Do you think I wanted to come back here?” he demanded. “To interrupt your intimate conversation with Lord Felden? To make a fool of myself drenched and barefoot in front of you both?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Anyway, it wasn’t very intimate. Anyway,” she said more firmly, “what did you mean about the ferryman? He had an accident, taking you across the river?”

  “It wasn’t an accident, and he wasn’t human.”

  “Oh,” she whispered.

  “He sank the ferry deliberately. I nearly got kicked by my horse flailing in the water before I could grab its mane. We swam across together. I didn’t have a chance to question anything among the waterweeds. I lost my boots. Again. Whatever is going on among the water people is becoming dangerous to humans.”

  “Well, did you find anyone to ask?”

  “I asked the water nymph. She just looked at me out of your face and refused to answer.”

  Damaris felt behind her for the edge of the table, held on. “My face,” she said faintly.

  “You had been on my mind,” Garner sighed. “I think she—whatever it truly was—must have seen it in my thoughts.”

  “I see.” She chose words carefully, as though they were stones across a swirling current. “You didn’t—I’ve heard such nymphs are—are difficult to resist.”

  “Of course she was,” he said bluntly. “But I also had a water-mage looking out of my eyes, and after this morning, I was wary of going anywhere near you. Or anything that looked like you. I didn’t want to come here now. But I’m beginning to be afraid for Luminum.”

  “Yes.” Her fingers tightened on the wood. “So am I. We had what looked like muddy water coming out of the fountain earlier today. Before anyone had uncapped the conduit pipe at the Well.”

  He gazed at her silently, some of the anger in his eyes yielding to bewilderment. “Do you have any idea why?”

  “Because we have run pipes out of the Well itself?” she guessed. “But we began the project years ago, and nothing has bothered us until now.” She paused, eyeing his plastered hair, his sodden clothes, his naked feet. “Garner, be careful. They seem to be using you as a—a conduit for their messages.”

  “Yes,” he said quickly. “The ferryman asked me if you had gotten it.”

  “What?”

  “The message.”

  She felt the blood leave her face. “He said that. If I had—”

  “The mage or the minister,” Garner amended himself. “I assumed he meant the Minister of Water. Maybe not.” He moved restively. “I need to get out of these wet clothes and continue my search. Do you have any suggestions? You know the waterworld as well as any human can.”

  “I’m beginning to feel that I don’t know it at all... I may understand more after I speak to the engineer. But, Garner, what will you do for boots?”

  He shrugged. “Steal a pair from my cousin.”

  “Be careful,” she said again, and he looked at her a moment, silently.

  “You be careful, too,” he warned, and followed his own soggy path back out.

  Soon after that, she received the first message from the engineer. He had checked the conduit line from fountain to Well, and seen nothing amiss. But something, he assured her, was. On that disturbing note, he ended, but she didn’t have long to wait before the next messenger came, and the next. Garner’s was not the only sodden body to appear in her office. Sprites had invaded the water pipes of Luminum, and they showed no respect, not even to the king, whose luxurious water-closet, fitted with cushions, scented linens, and bowls of flower petals, had somehow popped its ornate taps completely off to spew river water all over the carpets. There were similar disasters throughout the city, in those houses and inns fortunate enough to have private systems. The harassments extended beyond pipes, Damaris learned. Fishers found their boats immobile in mid-current, or completely overturned. Sluice gates between canals and irrigation ditches were randomly opened or shut, causing herds of pastured animals to find themselves shank-deep in water. Mill wheels ground to a halt for no reason anyone could see. Damaris, fearing for the dikes, sent riders out to check for breaches. The harbormaster came himself to tell her that a dock had floated out to sea.

  “Why,” she demanded incoherently of him, “can’t they just put it into words? Why must water speak for them?”

  “I don’t know, Minister,” he sighed. “I’m only hoping the sea gates don’t start talking.”

  Beale wandered back in the midst of all this to invite her to the rehearsal, after supper, of Master Ainsley’s music. She stared at him incredulously, then remembered what he was talking about.

  “Music. Yes. For a little while. But Beale—”

  But he was already leaving, trumpeting, in his resonant baritone, what must have been the horn section to Master Ainsley’s piece.

  She saw Garner again finally, taking his place belatedly among the knights in the hall for supper. He was still alive, and he looked dry; other than that she couldn’t draw conclusions. She watched him, hearing Beale only when he stopped speaking. Then she would shift her attention quickly back to him.

  “Beale,” she said carefully, during one of his brief silences. “Are you aware of the water problems in the city?”

  He shook his head. His eyes, she realized suddenly, were on the knights’ table also. “You seem distracted,” he murmured, in a rare moment of discernment she could have done without.

  “I am,” she said quickly. “I have been hearing all day long about disturbances, restlessness in the water.”

  His face cleared; he asked with a sudden chuckle, “You mean the king’s water-closet?”

  “Yes, that, too. And—”

  “I heard they had to bail out the royal bedchamber before the water was stopped. You keep staring at that knight. The morose one with no manners.”

  “He’s a Knight of the Well, on the water-mage’s business. I need to talk to him after supper. I’m beginning to be very worried.”

  “Oh,” he said complacently. “Is that all. I was beginning to think—No matter. It’s probably just a storm.”

  “What?”

  “The weather seems to be changing. I heard the wind rise as I came to supper. An early summer storm, nothing more; it will no doubt blow over by morning.” She opened her mouth just as he pushed back his
chair and stood up. “I beg your pardon, my dear, but we have so little time to practice. You will join us, won’t you, before too long? You must hear Master Ainsley’s composition; it is wonderful. The voice of water itself...”

  She had to wait for Garner until the king and his nobles rose from the dais table; then the knights were permitted to leave. Garner, watching for her, came to meet her as the elegant court swirled around the king to welcome him. He looked exhausted, she thought, as well as a bit wild-eyed, haunted by sprites.

  “Anything?” she demanded.

  He shook his head. “Nothing that makes any sense. Fountains refused to flow, or poured like waterfalls all over the streets. Rain barrels overflowed as though they were fed by secret springs. Public water-closet doors stuck fast; I helped tear several open to free those trapped inside. Pipes leaked; people were chased out of their houses by water.”

  “Did you meet any other water creatures?”

  “I heard them singing out of buckets people dropped on their way back from the river. I searched along the river, and on my way to the Well. But, perversely, they hid from me.”

  “You saw Eada again?”

  “I tried to, but she was nowhere to be found, either. I saw your engineer.”

  “More than I did,” she said grimly. “Did he have any messages for me?”

  “Only that he could find—”

  “Nothing amiss,” she guessed, and he nodded.

  “He told me to tell you that the fountain was clean, completely dry. The scaffolding is down; the debris cleared; the work is ready to be unveiled.”

  “If we dare,” she sighed. “Well. That’s something.”

  “A trick,” he suggested somberly.

  “Maybe. But if anything goes wrong, it will go wrong first tomorrow night at the Ritual of the Well. They won’t wait for the water music the day after.” He was silent, so completely baffled, she saw, that he had forgotten to be angry. She added, “At least you didn’t fall in the river again.”

  “Maybe I should,” he murmured. “Maybe I should go back, find that nymph with your face and listen to what she has to tell me.”