The Sea Hag

by David Drake

  Dennis laughed. "No, it's not because of that, Chester," he said. "What I do to this bush or that lizard doesn't affect how the sea hag treats me—or whether a limb falls down and knocks my brains out. But it makes me feel good, so that's reason enough."

  And in the back of his mind, Dennis prayed (despite his words) that someone was keeping a tally; that someone was saying, Well, this is a good boy. We'll free his wife and make sure that he isn't killed or horribly maimed...

  Something crashed through the woods toward them.

  The canopy was very dense, choking the ferns and bushes of the undergrowth with lack of sunlight. Nothing to hinder a swordstroke.

  Dennis' eyes were wide and his mouth was half open. His left arm held the baton to the side where it wouldn't interfere if he slashed; and his sword, with an edge like whispering death, was poised to let the life out of any opponent at all.

  Dennis' mother burst from behind a screen of ferns.

  Selda's face still wore the remnants of cosmetics, streaked by hard use and the tears of fright she was still shedding. She stumbled over a root and fell, ten feet from Dennis; but she didn't see her son until she tried to get up—and from her scream, she didn't recognize Dennis even then.

  "M... mother?" Dennis said.

  Selda peered through the mat of her disarranged hair. It had grown out several inches since the last time she'd dyed it, leaving the roots of mixture of gray and mousy brown against the fading orange nearer the tips. Dennis recognized the dress as one of her favorites, rose pink with a bright green sash.

  After a week in Rakastava, he also knew that the colors made an ugly combination with each other and with his mother's ruddy complexion.

  "Oh thank goodness, Dennis, you're here to save me!" Selda said. She tried to struggle to her feet, but she seemed to have twisted her ankle in falling. "I fled here to escape Parol. It—it's been terrible since you've been gone!"

  Selda stretched out a hand to her son. Instead of stepping forward to lift her, Dennis stood transfixed. His tongue licked his lips, but his mouth was too dry for that to help.

  It had to be his mother, but—

  Shocked, fearful again at his lack of response, Selda lifted herself and hobbled forward. "Dennis? Darling?" she said. "Why are you—"

  "Don't come closer!" Dennis screamed. His sword lifted of its own volition. He remembered the way it sheared through Mother Grimes' body, the way the blood sprayed him and the walls as she fell...

  "Dennis!" Selda cried in horror, staggering toward her son with both hands out and a look of disbelief on her worn, familiar face.

  Dennis thrust with sudden instinct and practiced skill, his body blending into the motion of his arm.

  His left arm. The baton's white tip touched and flicked away from Selda's fingers as Dennis stepped away.

  It wasn't Selda standing before him. It wasn't even anything alive.

  A thing of sputtering wires, like a sculptor's armature on which to smear clay as the first stage of casting a human statue.

  A statue of Queen Selda, perhaps; but the wires were featureless, fleshless. All they had was the spit and sparkle of lightning coursing through them, clothing them in blue haze and whispering menace.

  "Oh..." Dennis murmured.

  The creature now stood naked and quiescent before him. If he'd used his sword on it, he'd have received a blast like the one Rakastava had used to stun Chester as they battled in the cavern.

  Dennis looked back at his companion.

  "It will not harm you now, Dennis," Chester assured him. "It is a part of the sea hag, but you have drawn its will to injure you."

  "But it's a machine. It isn't alive!"

  "The sea hag is not alive, Dennis," the robot repeated.

  "I think I see the staircase through the trees, Chester," the youth said, trying to get his pulse under control. He moved on, giving the thing of wires a wide berth.

  It followed them; but Chester said nothing, so Dennis said nothing further.

  The staircase was only a glint. Its base was hidden beneath the creepers which used the structure as support to mount toward the sky; but something had broken through the mass of greenery in the past few days, trampling down the vines and leaving foliage to yellow as its torn tips starved.

  Dennis touched his left index finger to a handrail that looked as though it had been spun by two sources which dripped molten glass in opposing circles. He rubbed it, noticing the friction. His fingertip felt hot instead of gliding along the surface as it would on the walls of Emath Palace.

  "A long way up," Dennis murmured as he started to climb. He'd have to be careful not to slip on the glass treads, but he no longer regretted not having a hand free to grip the rail.

  Chester's tentacles click-clicked along with Dennis, sounding just as they had in childhood in the halls of Emath Palace; and behind both of them, the wire creature paced. Where its feet touched the vegetation, juices sizzled and the green leaves turned black.

  The glass tower was built in slanted bands along the side of the rock. The stairs themselves twisted and rose more sharply than the structure that enclosed them, treads meeting "floor supports" at acute angles and increasing the sense of unease with which Dennis climbed higher.

  Dennis paused frequently, not so much because he was tired but for safety's sake. His eyes drew down instinctively after a few minutes of climbing the steep, quickly turning, stairs; and whatever danger he faced would come from above him.

  He wasn't—he didn't think he needed to be—in a hurry. By stopping for a moment and getting his breath, he was also able to shake away the mesmerizing numbness induced by the helical staircase.

  At first when Dennis looked out, he could see nothing but jungle through the arches of the latticework tower. As he mounted higher, flashes of sea foam and brilliantly blue water became visible through the leaves. Then, when he guessed he was halfway up (though the spiral of light turned blue by the way it wicked down through the glass stairs gave him no certain measure), his eyes caught a glint beyond the sea.

  "That is the palace, Dennis," Chester said in answer to the question his master hadn't asked. "It is Emath that you see."

  "Well, we'll..." the youth muttered. He wasn't sure how he wanted to end the sentence. "When we're done here, we'll... Well, that doesn't matter until we're done here."

  A door creaked open above them.

  The star-metal sword was much lighter than a steel blade of equal size, but it still had considerable weight and leverage. Dennis' arm tired, so that the point dipped slowly as he climbed. Twice already it had ticked against the higher treads, sparking without harm to either metal or the glass.

  At the sound of the door, adrenalin lifted Dennis' arm and blade as though he were perfectly fresh. He thought of waiting for further motion above—but from where he stood, he couldn't see anything except the bottom of stair-treads.

  Dennis rushed the sound, trusting Chester to cover his back.

  A man had come out of a door of wood and strap-iron, set into the rock. The door opened onto a landing, half a turn of the staircase above where Dennis had climbed when he heard the sound; and the landing itself spread into a broad, icy balcony which overlooked the sea. The man stood, squeezing the rail of twisted glass with his broad, powerful hands when Dennis burst onto the landing.

  "Father!" Dennis gasped. His blade wavered.

  "Dennis?" the man said. "Dennis! My prayers were answered!"

  King Hale's face was gray; he looked thinner than Dennis remembered him being, even in the last days before Hale was due to pay his debt to the sea hag. His right hand trembled as he held it out toward Dennis—half in greeting, half to ward off a shocking apparition.

  The sword trembled in Dennis' hand also.

  "Son?" Hale said. "Parol exiled me here—he's made his own bargain with the sea hag. Are you here to free me?"

  He started forward, stepping doubtfully.

  "No!" Dennis shouted. "You're not my father!"

&n
bsp; "Oh, son," Hale whispered. The old man—older than his years, now; older than Dennis had ever dreamed his strong, hot-tempered father could look—fell to his knees.

  For a moment Hale pressed his hands to his face. Then he lowered them and said, "Dennis, I can understand why you'd feel that way. A true father would never have made the bargain I did. But—"

  He started to rise again, his eyes imploring and one of his work-roughened hands reaching out toward Dennis "—can't you find it in your heart to forgive me now, my son?"

  His father had never hugged him. Dennis looked at the open arms and pleading expression, feeling all the years of hurt and fear and anger melt out of his heart. He sheathed his sword and stepped forward.

  Behind Dennis, a spark went tsk! across two wires of the manikin which had followed him.

  Dennis hadn't dropped the baton because he hadn't remembered it. He'd been a boy again, offered the affection he'd always hoped—and never received—from his father. The white end touched King Hale's forehead—

  And there was no King Hale: only a clear sack, man-shaped and filled with bubbling, yellowish fluid. The sack was featureless, as the wire thing had been; but it rose from its knees, the membrane folding and bulging like human skin, and stood with its lumpish arms at its side.

  Trembling as though he stood in an arctic wind, Dennis stepped back from the creature—the construct—which he'd almost embraced. He drew his sword and, after a moment's consideration, sheathed it again.

  Chester had been right: the sword would be no help to him here.

  "Chester," the youth whispered, "I knew that wasn't really my father. I knew it mustn't be, but..."

  "You did not know, Dennis," the robot said gently. "Your father could be here. Even I can not tell truth from image in this place that is the sea hag's place."

  "Chester, do people do what they want to do, even when they know they mustn't? Do other people...?"

  "People see what they hope to see, Dennis," Chester replied, stroking his master's shoulders. "People know what they wish to know, and they act on that truth which they create for themselves. And it may be..." but here the robot's voice grew so soft that Dennis was not sure of the words he was hearing "...that they are happier to live lies."

  Dennis looked out over the sea, sun-struck and faceted with choppy waves. He was higher than he'd ever been before, even in the tallest of the palace towers. The brilliant openness of everything before—and below—the balcony gave him a touch of vertigo.

  "All right," he said under his breath. "There's a long way yet to go."

  He was not surprised when the thing of fluid shuffled along behind them, following the thing of wire. The foot membranes squelched as they settled on each tread. Bubbles continued to rise through the yellow fluid.

  Dennis knew he must be nearing the dome, because the jungle was very far below when he leaned out and looked. If he turned his head to peer upward, he saw nothing but sky and the sun-dazzling eave molding of the tower's next layer above.

  Dennis was breathing quickly now. Tired from the climb, he was sure, but—nervous also. Very nervous.

  He looked at Chester. "Do you have any wisdom for an old pupil, my friend?" he asked jokingly.

  "Do not undertake any task and then carry it out badly," the robot obediently quoted.

  The youth's wry smile became a real one. "We won't do it badly," he said, squeezing the tentacle Chester offered him. "We'll do it right."

  If it kills me, his mind added.

  Three steps higher, and Dennis saw the stairs meet a floor of rainbow glass. There was no door at the top, only a rectangular slot.

  Through the slot, Dennis could see his own distorted features reflected from the concave inner surface of the dome which covered the spire of rock.

  "There'll be something waiting right there for us," Dennis said musingly. "Ready to get us as soon as our heads come over the edge of the floor."

  "Do you wish me to go before you, Dennis?" Chester asked.

  Dennis thought... Thought of Chester flying through the air, struck by Malduanan's leg as he lunged to save his master's life; Chester wreathed in blue fire, his limbs flailing wildly as he blocked the lightning bolt Rakastava meant for Dennis.

  Chester crumbling into rust, struck by the baton as Dennis dangled helplessly from the ceiling that was part of Mother Grimes.

  "No," he said quietly. "Thank you, Chester. But this one's mine."

  He poised, then rushed up the remaining stairs with the robot behind him.

  CHAPTER 62

  Nothing attacked as they burst out onto the smooth glass floor.

  Aria ran toward them from the large pavilion beneath the center of the dome.

  "Oh, Dennis!" she called as her slippers twinkled over the mirroring floor. "Oh my love, you've won!"

  The glass above Dennis had a pebbled appearance. Its outer surface was beaded with water wrung from low clouds and the wind-lifted spray. The youth glanced up, saw himself shrunken and foreshortened; and looked back with a hard expression at what seemed to be his wife.

  The only structure within the dome was the one from which Aria had come, a flat-roofed circle of ornamented marble columns. The pavilion was reflected from the concave dome to the floor and back again—hundreds of times—in a rosette, like the pattern of reality glimpsed through a bee's eye.

  And in every image, a distorted princess scuttled to meet an equally monstrous youth.

  "Wait!" Dennis shouted. His right hand touched his sword hilt—snatched itself away as intellect overcame instinct—and patted back, though without drawing the weapon.

  Aria paused with a look of amazement on her face. "Darling?" she said. Then, "Ooh! What are those?"

  The manikins had shuffled up the last of the staircase. They hissed and bubbled softly, their faceless visages turned toward Dennis like the eyes of retainers in Emath Palace.

  "What are you?" Dennis said harshly. "Just like them, aren't you? One more trick."

  Aria's face jerked back as though Dennis had slapped her. "What do you mean?" she said. "I—Oh. Did you lose your memory when the sea hag held you? I'm your wife, darling. You've saved me from the sea hag."

  She stepped toward Dennis again with a radiant expression and her arms spread wide.

  "Wait!" Dennis screamed. He thrust the baton out in front of him to ward away the princess. "You're not really Aria!"

  "Dennis?" Aria said in bewilderment. "Of course I'm Aria. You've reached the heart of the sea hag's power, and she's surrendered me to get you to leave. There's a boat on the shore that we can take wherever we please."

  Dennis' mouth was dry. The baton was shaking so badly that he clasped his right hand over his left to control it. "I don't think you're really Aria," he said, enunciating very carefully. "I think you're another, another sending from the sea hag, like, like those."

  He nodded toward the manikins with an awkward twitch of his head, but he couldn't bring himself to take his eyes away from Aria—what looked to them to be Aria.

  "Those things?" Aria said in horror and amazement. "Dennis, are you all—"

  "Now, I'm going to touch you with this," Dennis said firmly. He stared at the end of the baton, so that the princess's figure blurred beyond it. "It won't hurt you if you, if you're Aria..."

  "It will just turn me into something like—them," the woman said with icy unconcern. "Very well, Dennis. I was willing to forfeit my life to save yours. I just didn't realize that you'd be the one to destroy me yourself."

  "No, it's not like that!" the youth said desperately.

  "Dennis," Aria said. He met her eyes.

  In tones as precise as if she were cutting them out of stone, she went on, "If your heart has so little love in it that you can't tell me from those things, then go ahead—strike me with your weapon. But if you do that..."

  The look Aria gave him was by turns pitying and hurt. "But if you do that," she repeated, "you and I are through forever. I can't love a man who trusts me so little." />
  Dennis' heart froze and shrank away from him, until there seemed to be nothing in his chest but a mote as frigid as the dust between the stars.

  "The fiend overcomes the wise man through cunning," Chester murmured.

  "The woman I love wouldn't have offered that choice," Dennis said quietly. "It remains to be seen whether I loved a real woman or a woman my mind imagined."

  The baton darted out. At the last instant, the princess tried to dodge past and embrace him—but Dennis had a warrior's eye and a swordsman's hand. The baton's white tip brushed Aria's cheek; and it wasn't Aria, just a thing of gray-white metal that creaked as its outstretched arms settled back against its sides.

  Even on this manikin there was no hint of a face. The metal was smooth, not molded into features. It wasn't polished enough to reflect the iron certainty of Dennis' stare.

  "Where now do we go, Chester?" Dennis whispered as he watched the thing that was not Aria and felt his heart start to beat again.

  "The life of the sea hag is within the pavilion, Dennis," the robot said.

  "Then we will go into the pavilion," the youth said. His voice still lacked emotion, but the color was beginning to return to his cheeks.

  Holding the baton ready, Dennis and Chester walked deliberately into the pillared structure. The feet of the manikins followed with a muted spat!/squelch/click!

  There were two rows of pillars—the inner circuit offset from the outer one, equal in number but slimmer; so delicate, in fact, that they looked scarcely able to stand, much less support part of the roof's weight.

  The columns were porcelain, not marble; colored and patterned, but glass like the dome and staircase up to it.

  The center of the pavilion was sunken. Dennis took the steps down to a surface three feet below the floor on which the pillars rested. Within that, a shaft thirty feet in diameter that seemed to drop to Hell or the center of the Earth, whichever was farther.

  Machinery was built into the waist-high wall: dials and gauges, buttons and levers; plates that were nothing until someone touched them in the correct way so that they became—anything at all.