by Larry Niven
“No telling what we can use. Keep it up.”
“The inside stairs lead down from the kitchen, through the laundry room on this floor and through Thone’s room on the lower floor.”
“Thone.” Karskon’s hand strayed to his belt buckle, which was silver and massive—which was in fact the hilt of a concealed dagger. “He’s not as big as Lion, but I’d hate to have him angry with me. They’re all too big. We’d best not be caught…unless we, or you, can find a legitimate reason for being in Thone’s room?”
Durily scowled. “He’s just not interested. He sees me, he knows I’m a woman, but he doesn’t seem to care…or else he’s very stupid about suggestions. That’s possible.”
“If he’s part of a were-lion family—”
“He wouldn’t mate with human beings?” Durily laughed, and it sounded like silver coins falling. No, he thought, she wouldn’t have had trouble seducing a young man…or anything male. I gave her no trouble. Even now, knowing the truth…
“Our host isn’t a were-lion,” she said. “Lions eat red meat. We’ve brought red meat to his table, but he was eating fish. Lions don’t lust for a varied diet, and they aren’t particular about what they eat. Our host has exquisite taste. If I’d known how fine a cook he is, I’d have come for that alone.”
“He shows some other signs. The whole family’s big, but he’s a lot bigger. Why does he shave his face and clip his hair short? Is it to hide a mane?”
“Does it matter if they’re lions? We don’t want to be caught,” Durily said. “Any one of them is big enough to be a threat. Stop fondling that canape sticker, dear. On this trip we use stealth and magic.”
Oddly reluctant, Karskon said, “Speaking of magic…”
“Yes. It’s time.”
“You’re quite right. They’re hiding something,” Lion said absently. He was carving the meat from a quarter of ox and cutting it into chunks, briskly, apparently risking his fingers at every stroke. “What of it? Don’t we all have something to hide? They are my guests. They appreciate my food.”
“Well,” said his wife, “don’t we all have something worth gossiping about? And for a honeymooning couple—”
At which point Estrayle burst into a peal of laughter.
Arilta asked, “Now what brought that on?” But Estrayle only shook her head and bent over the pale yellow roots she was cutting. Arilta turned back to her husband. “They don’t seem loving enough somehow. And she so beautiful, too.”
“It makes a pattern,” Lion said. “The woman is beautiful, as you noticed. She is the Duchess’s lady-in-waiting. The man serves the Duke. Could Lady Durily be the Duke’s mistress? Might the Duke have married her to one of his men? It would provide for her if she’s pregnant. It might keep the Duchess happy. It happens.”
Arilta said, “Ah.” She began dumping double handfuls of meat into a pot. Estrayle added the chopped root.
“On the other hand,” Lion said, “she is of the old Minterl aristocracy. Karskon may be too—half anyway. Perhaps they’re not welcome near Beesh because of some failed plot. The people around here are of the old Minterl blood. They’d protect them, if it came to that.”
“Well,” his wife said with some irritation, “which is it?”
Lion teased her with a third choice. “They spend money freely. Where does it come from? They could be involved in a theft we will presently hear about.”
Estrayle looked up from cutting onions, tears dripping past a mischievous smile. “Listen for word of a large cat’s-eye emerald.”
“Estrayle, you will explain that!” said her mother.
Estrayle hesitated, but her father’s hands had stopped moving and he was looking up. “It was after supper,” she said. “I was turning down the beds. Karskon found me. We talked a bit, and then he, well, made advances. Poor little man, he weighs less than I do. I slapped him hard enough to knock that lovely patch right off his face. Then I informed him that if he’s interested in marriage he should be talking to my father, and in any case there are problems he should be aware of…” Her eyes were dancing. “I must say he took it well. He asked about my dowry! I hinted at undersea treasures. When I said we’d have to live here, he said at least he’d never have to worry about the cooking, but his religion permitted him only one wife, and I said what a pity—”
“The jewel,” Lion reminded her.
“Oh, it’s beautiful! Deep green, with a blazing vertical line, just like a cat’s eye. He wears it in the socket of his right eye.”
Arilta considered. “If he thinks that’s a safe place to hide it, he should get another patch. Someone might steal that silver thing.”
“Whatever their secret, it’s unlikely to disturb us,” Lion said. “And this is their old seat of royalty. Even the ghost…Which reminds me. Jarper?”
He spoke to empty air, and it remained empty. “I haven’t seen Jarper since lunch. Has anyone?”
Nobody answered. Lion continued, “He was behind Karskon at lunch. Karskon must have something magical on him. Maybe the jewel? Oh, never mind, Jarper can take care of himself. I was saying he probably won’t bother our guests; he’s of old Minterl blood himself. If he had blood.”
They stuffed wool around the door and windows. They propped a chair under the doorknob. Karskon and Durily had no intention of being disturbed at this point. An innkeeper who found his guests marking patterns on the floor with powdered bone, and heating almost-fresh blood over a small flame, could rightly be expected to show annoyance.
Durily spoke in a language once common to the Sorcerer’s Guild, now common to nobody. The words seemed to hurt her throat, and no wonder, Karskon thought. He had doffed his silver eye patch. He tended the flame and the pot of blood, and stayed near Durily, as instructed.
He closed his good eye and saw green-tinged darkness. Something darker drifted past, slowly, something huge and rounded that suddenly vanished with a flick of finny tail. Now a drifting current of luminescence…congealing, somehow, to a vaguely human shape…
The night he robbed the jewel merchant’s shop, this sight had almost killed him.
The Movement had wealth to buy the emerald, but Durily swore that the Torovan lords must not learn that the jewel existed. She hadn’t told him why. It wasn’t for the Movement that he had obeyed her. The Movement would destroy the Torovan invaders, would punish his father and his half-brothers for their arrogance, for the way they had treated him…for his eye. But he had obeyed her. He was her slave in those days, the slave of his lust for the lady Durily, his father’s mistress.
He had guessed that it was glamour that held him: magic. It hadn’t seemed to matter. He had invaded the jeweler’s shop expecting to die, and it hadn’t mattered.
The merchant had heard some sound and come to investigate. Karskon had already scooped up everything of value he could find, to distract attention from the single missing stone. Waiting for discovery in the dark cellar, he had pushed the jewel into his empty eye socket.
Greenish darkness, drifting motion, a sudden flicker that might be a fish’s tail. Karskon was seeing with his missing eye.
The jeweler had found him while he was distracted, but Karskon had killed him after all. Afterward, knowing that much, he had forced Durily to tell the rest. She had lost a good deal of her power over him. He had outgrown his terror of that greenish dark place. He had seen it every night while he waited for sleep, these past two years.
Karskon opened his good eye to find that they had company. The color of fading fog, it took the wavering form of a wiry old man garbed for war, with his helmet tucked under his arm.
“I want to speak to King Nihilil,” Durily said. “Fetch him.”
“Your pardon. Lady.” The voice was less than a whisper, clearer than a memory. “I c-can’t leave here.”
“Who were you?”
The fog-wisp straightened to attention. “Sergeant Jarper Sleen, serving Minterl and the King. I was on duty in the watchtower when the land th-th-thrashed like an island-fish submer
ging. The wall broke my arm and some ribs. After things got quiet again there were only these three floors left, and no food anywhere. I s-starved to death.”
Durily examined him with a critical eye. “You seem nicely solid after seventy-six years.”
The ghost smiled. “That’s the Lion’s doing. He lets me take the smells of his cooking as offerings. But I can’t leave where I d-died.”
“Was the King home that day?”
“Lady, I have to say he was. The quake came fast. I don’t doubt that he drowned in his throne room.”
“Drowned,” Durily said thoughtfully. “All right.” She poured a small flask of seawater into the blood, which was now bubbling. Something must have been added to keep it from clotting. She spoke high and fast in the Sorcerer’s Guild tongue.
The ghost of Jarper Sleen sank to its knees. Karskon saw the draperies wavering as if heated air was moving there, and when he realized what that meant, he knelt too.
An unimaginative man would have seen nothing. This ghost was more imagination than substance; in fact the foggy crown had more definition, more reality, than the head beneath. Its voice was very much like a memory surfacing from the past…not even Karskon’s past, but Durily’s.
“You have dared to waken Minterl’s king.”
Seventy-six years after the loss of Atlantis and the almost incidental drowning of the seat of government of Minterl, the ghost of Minterl’s king seemed harmless enough. But Durily’s voice quavered. “You knew me. Durily. Lady Tinylla of Beesh was my mother.”
“Durily. You’ve grown,” said the ghost. “Well, what do you want of me?”
“The barbarians of Torov have invaded Minterl.”
“Have you ever been tired unto death, when the pain in an old wound keeps you awake nonetheless? Well, tell me of these invaders. If you can lure them here, I and my army will pull them under the water.”
Karskon thought that Minterl’s ancient king couldn’t have drowned a bumblebee. Again he kept silent, while Durily said, “They invaded the year after the great quake. They have ruled Minterl for seventy-four years. The palace is drowned but for these top floors.” Durily’s voice became a whip. “They are used as an inn! Rabbits and chickens are kept where the fighting-birds roosted!”
The ghost-king’s voice grew stronger. “Why was I not told?”
This time Karskon spoke. “We can’t lure them here, to a drowned island. We must fight them where they rule, in Beesh.”
“And who are you?”
“I am Karskon Lor, Your Majesty. My mother was of Beesh. My father, a Torovan calling himself a lord, Chamil of Konth. Lord Chamil raised me to be his librarian. His legitimate sons he—” Karskon fell silent.
“You’re a bastard?”
“Yes.”
“But you would strike against the Torovan invaders. How?”
Durily seemed minded to let him speak. Karskon lifted the silver eye patch to show the great green gem. “There were two of these, weren’t there?”
“Yes.”
“Durily tells me they were used for spying.”
The King said, “That was the traveling stone. Usually I had it mounted in a ring. If I thought a lord needed watching, I made him a present of it. If he was innocent, I made him another present and took it back.”
Karskon heaved a shuddering sigh. He had almost believed; always he had almost believed.
Durily asked, “Where was the other stone?”
“Did your mother tell you of my secret suite? For times when I wanted company away from the Queen? It was a very badly kept secret. Many ladies could describe that room. Your mother was one.”
“Yes.”
The ghost smiled. “But it stood empty most of the time, except for the man on watch in the bathing chamber. There is a statue of the one-eyed god in the bathing chamber, and its eye is a cat’s-eye emerald.”
Durily nodded. “Can you guide us there?”
“I can. Can you breathe under water?”
Durily smiled. “Yes.”
“The gem holds mana. If it leaves Minterl Castle, the ghosts will fade.”
Durily lost her smile. “King Nihilil—”
“I will show you. Duty runs two ways between a king and his subjects. Now?”
“A day or two. We’ll have to reach the stairwell, past the innkeeper’s family.”
The ghost went where ghosts go. Karskon and Durily pulled the wool loose from the windows and opened them wide. A brisk sea wind whipped away the smell of scorched blood. “I wish we could have done this on the roof,” she said viciously. “Among Lion’s damned chickens. Used their blood.”
It happened the second day after their arrival. Karskon was expecting it.
The dining room was jammed before noon. Lion’s huge pot of stew dwindled almost to nothing. He set his older children to frying thick steaks with black pepper and cream and essence of wine, his younger children to serving. Providentially, Merle showed up, and Lion set him to moving tables and chairs to the roof. The younger children set the extra tables.
Karskon and Durily found themselves squeezing through a host of seamen to reach the roof. Lion laughed as he apologized. “But after all, it’s your own doing! I have red meat! Usually there is nothing but fish and shellfish. What do you prefer? My stew has evaporated—poof—but I can offer—”
Durily asked, “Is there still fish?” Lion nodded happily and vanished.
Cages of rabbits and pigeons and large, bewildered-looking moas had been clustered in the center of the roof, to give the diners a sea view. A salvo of torpedoes shot from the sea: bottle-nosed mammals with a laughing expression. They acted like they were trying to get someone’s attention. Merle, carrying a table and chairs, said, “Mer-people. They must be lost. Where the magic’s been used up they lose their half-human shape, and their sense too. If they’re still around when I put out, I’ll lead them out to sea.”
Lion served them himself but didn’t join them. Today he was too busy. Under a brilliant blue sky they ate island-fish baked with slivered nuts and some kind of liqueur, and vegetables treated with respect. They ate quickly. Butterflies fluttered in Karskon’s belly, but he was jubilant.
The Lion had red meat. Of course the Attic was jammed, of course the Lion and his family were busy as a fallen hive. The third floor would be entirely deserted.
Water, black and stagnant, covered the sixth step down. Durily stopped before she reached it. “Come closer,” she said. “Stay close to me.”
Karskon’s protective urge responded to her fear and her beauty. But, he reminded himself, it wasn’t his nearness she needed; it was the gem…He moved down to join Durily and her ally.
She arrayed her equipment on the steps. No blood this time: King Nihilil was already with them, barely, like an intrusive memory at her side.
She began to chant in the Sorcerer’s Guild tongue.
The water sank step by step. What had been done seventy-odd years ago could be undone, partially, temporarily.
Durily’s voice grew deep and rusty. Karskon watched as her hair faded from golden to white, as the curves of her body drooped. Wrinkles formed on her face, her neck, her arms.
Glamour is a lesser magic, but it takes mana. The magic that was Durily’s youth was being used to move seawater now. Karskon had thought he was ready for this. Now he found himself staring, flinching back, until Durily, without interrupting herself, snarled (teeth brown or missing) and gestured him down.
He descended the wet stone stairs. Durily followed, moving stiffly. King Nihilil floated ahead of them like foxfire on the water.
The sea had left the upper floors, but water still sluiced from the landings. Karskon’s torch illuminated dripping walls, and once a stranded fish. Within his chest his heart was fighting for its freedom.
On the fifth floor down there were side corridors. Karskon, peering into their darkness, shied violently from a glimpse of motion. It was an eel flopping as it drowned in air.
Eighth floor d
own.
Behind him, Durily moved as if her joints hurt. Her appearance repelled him. The deep lines in her face weren’t smile wrinkles; they were selfishness, sulks, rage. And her voice ran on, and her hands danced in creaky curves.
She can’t hurry. She’d fall. Can’t leave her behind. Her spells, my jewel: Keep them together, or—But the ghost was drawing ahead of them. Would he leave us? Here? Worse, Nihilil was becoming hard to see. Blurring. The whole corridor seemed filled with the restless fog that was the King’s ghost…
No. The King’s ghost had multiplied. A horde of irritated or curious ghosts had joined the procession. Karskon shivered from the cold, and wondered how much the cold was due to ghosts rubbing up against him.
Tenth floor down…and the procession had become a crowd. Karskon, trailing, could no longer pick out the King. But the ghosts streamed out of the stairwell, flowed away down a corridor, and Karskon followed. A murmuring was in the air, barely audible, a hundred ghosts whispering gibberish in his ear.
The sea had not retreated from the walls and ceiling there. Water surrounded them, ankle-deep as they walked, rounding up the corridor walls and curving over their heads to form a huge, complex bubble. Carpet disintegrated under his boots.
To his right the wall ended. Karskon looked over a stone railing, down into the water, into a drowned ballroom. There were bones at the bottom, and swamp fires forming on the water’s surface. More ghosts.
The ghosts had paused. Now they were like a swirling, continuous, glowing fog. Here and there the motion suggested features…and Karskon suddenly realized that he was watching a riot, ghost against ghost. They’d realized why he was here. Drowning the intruders would save the jewel, save their fading lives—
Karskon nerved himself and waded into them. Hands tried to clutch him. A broadsword-shape struck his throat and broke into mist…
He was through them, standing before a heavy, ornately carved door. The King’s ghost was waiting. Silently he showed Karskon how to manipulate a complex lock. Presently he mimed turning a brass knob and threw his weight back. Karskon imitated him. The door swung open.
A bedchamber, and a canopied bed like a throne. If this place was a ruse, Nihilil must have acted his part with verve. The sea was here, pushing in against the bubble. Karskon could see a bewildered school of minnows in a corner of the chamber. The leader took a wrong turn and the whole school whipped around to follow him, through the water interface and suddenly into the air. They flopped as they fell, splashed into more water, and scattered.