The City in the Lake

by Rachel Neumeier

  And then, in this place of silent darkness, Jonas found that the strange dark glow he had seen before him from the first, but very far away, grew suddenly stronger and stronger, as though at last he drew close to its source. He seemed to gain new strength just from the thought. He walked more quickly, even lifting his head and looking ahead as though he cared what he might find before him.

  At last he came out from among the pillars and found himself standing on the shore of a vast frozen plain of black ice. It was from this that the strange dark glow emanated. It stretched off, unbroken, infinitely far to both sides. But in front of him, out in the midst of the plain, Jonas saw that there was something that loomed: a crag of ice or a broken pillar vaster than any behind him. Or a castle. No. A tower. When he thought of this, he knew at once it was indeed a tower, standing vast and solitary in the midst of all that ice. And he knew whom he would find within that tower, and knew that everything he remembered had really happened, and that the Hunter not only existed, but waited there for him to enter that house. He remembered what the widow Raen had said—Do not enter any house or tower or castle you find, but if you do, there will be a price to pay before you get out—something of that sort. He had asked what price, and the widow had not known. Now he knew. Rage and terror tried to rise up within him, fought briefly for life, and died, because in all the cold exhaustion within his heart there was nothing to sustain either.

  Surrounded by cold and silence, Jonas put his foot on the ice.

  It took a long time to cross the ice, but it did not seem so long, because always there was the tower before Jonas, growing slowly larger. Having a clear destination was so new and so welcome that Jonas found himself both more impatient to arrive and yet better able to endure the slow progress he made. He no longer fell, as though the ice itself sustained him as he crossed it, or as though he had gone at last beyond exhaustion to some other state where he might walk forever. Sometimes Jonas watched the tower as he walked, and sometimes he looked down into the black ice.

  There seemed reflections within it, as though the frozen ice caught fleeting glimpses from someplace that was not empty and dark and showed them to Jonas as he walked. Even the strange insubstantial darkness the ice cast forth seemed to him a reflection of light, and he looked for light locked frozen into the ice. He looked and looked for light trapped below, realizing only gradually that he had stopped walking. A moment later he understood that he had somehow come to be on his hands and knees, his face inches from the ice as he stared into it. Shaken, he clambered slowly back onto his feet and looked around again for the tower. He found it unexpectedly rising before him, looming, immense, so near he could have taken one step and touched its black stones, though he had no memory of having come so close. His breath caught, and he staggered, falling again. Caught in the tower’s shadow, he found the shadow alone weighed on him so he could not get his breath, could hardly get to his feet. There was a door before him, three times his height, standing open to show a vast arch out of which darkness, heavy and absolute, fell like a chasm into night.

  Jonas had believed himself beyond fear, but found now that he was paralyzed with it. This did not last. It could not: exhaustion will always defeat terror. You will find nothing here, until you find me again. Jonas had found nothing in all his long walking through the dark, and had come at last to this place, where he knew he would find the Hunter. He shut his eyes for a moment, longing to open them and find himself in the green forest, or in his room in the widow’s house in the village; longing to keep his eyes closed forever against the dark and never open them to see the black walls of the Hunter’s tower or the heavy darkness falling out of its open doorway.

  He opened his eyes. The tower was there, rising harsh and uncompromising out of lesser shadows. The doorway was there. The dark was there, within it, waiting.

  At last he made his way across those last few steps that lay before him and into the great dark that waited. The dark had seemed like a chasm, and Jonas seemed to fall as he stepped into it—his breath stopped and he did not cry out aloud. He might have truly fallen or only seemed to fall, but he caught himself, staggering, within a great hall. Sharp-edged columns came down from a high-vaulted ceiling far above. The darkness within the hall was fine and delicate. He could see in this place, almost as though there were true light. The Hunter was present, on a massive throne at the far end of the hall. Twisting, branching shadows shifted and moved immeasurably far above, confusing the eye; Jonas tried not to look up at them. The Hunter seemed at first enormous, many times the size of a man, and then only mansized; at first very far away, so far Jonas might have walked forever without coming before his throne, and then close by, so close that three steps would bring him to it. He was not a hallucination or a dream, and could never have been mistaken for either.

  Closing his eyes, Jonas took three steps; then, sinking to his knees, he opened his eyes and lifted his head.

  The Hunter was there. His hands gripped the arms of his throne, like the hands of a man but made of deep shadows. Bending his head so that shadows whirled above, he looked down at Jonas out of pitiless yellow eyes that were definitely not blind. Jonas, he said.

  “Lord.” Jonas looked up into those predatory eyes and shaped the word without sound, from a throat and with a tongue too dry to produce sound.

  The Hunter moved his hand as though he held something, and Jonas saw after a moment that he did: a cup, larger than any two ordinary cups, short-stemmed and with a broad base. The cup held liquid, clear as crystal, glimmering faintly within.

  Drink, said the Hunter.

  Jonas took the cup from the Hunter in both his hands, hands that shook with shock as well as an extremity of weariness, and gazed into it. Then he looked up mutely.

  Drink, the Hunter bade him. Drink.

  Shutting his eyes, Jonas lifted the cup to his lips.

  It was water, but it was not like any water Jonas had ever tasted. It was like drinking rain on a fine summer’s day, or dew from a spring flower, or water drawn from a deep well from within the earth. It tasted like waking from sleep on a clear winter morning when snow has just fallen, or like the moment that comes after the lightning and before the thunder, or like the realization of first love. It tasted like light, or the memory of light. It slaked thirst, but it also healed the heart and restored the soul.

  Jonas gave the cup back to the Hunter with hands that trembled now with a different kind of shock. It seemed to him that, after he had had the extremity of fear ground out of him in the Hunter’s dark Kingdom, this extremity had now been restored to him as well. Terror ran through him, bright and quick as fire.

  The Hunter said, Perilous to drink from any cup you are given in any Kingdom that is not your own.

  Jonas took a moment to gather his nerve, and answered in a voice that shook only a little, “Lord, I have no hope save your mercy, and I have been told that you are merciless.”

  The Hunter turned his head a little, studying his captive. Immeasurably far above, shadows twisted and writhed in answer to that movement. Surrender to me your hopes and your fears, he demanded.

  Jonas shut his eyes, shuddering. “Lord,” he said, “I have nothing that matters of hope, and all my fear is already yours.”

  It seemed to him that the Hunter might have smiled. Jonas, said the Hunter. Surrender your name to me.

  Bowing his head, Jonas yielded his name to the Hunter.

  Yes, said the Hunter. Jonas. Give me your heart.

  “I can’t,” Jonas pleaded. He opened his eyes to meet the passionless unhuman gaze that looked down at him, and said helplessly, hopelessly, “Be merciful, Lord Hunter. You brought me here to your Kingdom. Why? I don’t understand. To torment me? Why should you care about me one way or another? Am I a tool for you to use against Timou? I will not be used that way. But what is it you want?”

  The Hunter moved restlessly. Shadows swung and twisted. He said, I want you.

  “I will give you everything you demand, but
I cannot give you my heart!” cried Jonas. “Ask for something else. For anything else.”

  Your eyes, said the Hunter. Your tongue. Your hands. Your heart.

  Jonas bowed his head, his hands closing into fists, gripping nothing. “Why?” he whispered. “Why?”

  It is what I need.

  “It’s not,” Jonas breathed, “a price I can pay.” He looked up, and up, at the dark Hunter. It seemed to him that the Hunter filled the hall, filled the castle, filled this entire dark Kingdom: it seemed to him that the round yellow eyes were as large as moons, standing infinitely far above; that the Hunter’s twisting crown crossed all the sky. When the Hunter moved, the darkness all around moved with him, shadows sliding and crossing everywhere.

  You must, said the Hunter. Jonas. You will.

  “I can’t.” Jonas could not stop shaking. “Whatever you will do to me, Lord, I cannot pay that price.”

  You will. The Hunter moved, reaching out, and Jonas flinched, stifling a cry of helpless terror. But the Hunter’s hand only took him by the shoulder. His grip was not cruel, but there seemed no limit to his strength. He rose, drawing Jonas also to his feet; he seemed now tall, but no taller than a very tall man.

  Come, he said.

  CHAPTER 10

  imou stood with Prince Cassiel and watched echoes of color move through the plane of light before them. Sometimes she thought a shifting glimmer of color and form might resolve into the shape of a person, although this resolution never actually happened. Sometimes she thought she heard, faintly, a sound that might have been voices.

  “I think,” she said slowly, “this is a reflection of the real Kingdom. That we glimpse it here, dimly. It is distracting. But I do not think it offers a way out.”

  “Well,” demanded the Prince, “how, then?”

  “There’s a way. Be patient.” Timou saw at once that the Prince was not in a mood for this particular advice, and added hastily, “Prince Cassiel, have you seen your father here?”

  The young man stared at her, completely startled. “My father?”

  “He is missing, too, evidently. For several days, I think. Not nearly so long as you have been missing. But is he here? Or is he somewhere else?”

  The Prince said sharply, “If I am here and my father is missing, then who is ruling the Kingdom?”

  “It seemed to me that it was your elder brother. Lord Neill.”

  “Neill.” Cassiel moved a hand across the wall, vaguely. “All right,” he whispered. “All right, then.”

  “You think he is working with . . . my mother?”

  “I think . . . I think he could be working with his.” Cassiel studied Timou. “You could be his sister. I think you are his sister. I think your mother was also his. She trapped me here. But I have not met my father here. Where is he? If it was not that woman who moved against him, then who was it?”

  “You think it was Lord Neill.”

  “It could have been.” Cassiel seemed to be struggling with the idea. “I don’t want to think so,” he said painfully. Doubts crowded into his eyes, and he looked away.

  Timou said sympathetically, “Surely not. I would not have thought so. Did my mother tell you any such thing?”

  It took Cassiel a moment to answer. When he did, he spoke quietly and not quite steadily, without turning back to meet Timou’s eyes. “She told me very little. Other than to tell me that she would possess my Kingdom and all its power. That she would unravel all its strange and wonderful power, she said, so that she could possess it for herself. She did not care that she would destroy the Kingdom. I said I would stop her.” He did meet Timou’s eyes then, shame and anger and fear struggling in his. “She said I was a source of power, but had no power of my own. She was right. I cannot even break free of her cage!”

  Timou winced at the despair in that cry. She said swiftly, “There is always a way out. We shall find it. Wait.” Then she sent her mind outward, staying clear of the measureless planes of light, looking for an edgeless, ungraspable presence. She found nothing. The serpent was not there. She could not find it anywhere in all the avenues of infinite light that surrounded them. It was gone. “

  And if it is gone,” she said aloud, frowning, “then there is a way out. It is still leading the way.”

  “What is gone?”

  “A serpent,” Timou said absently, barely listening to him. “A creature that sometimes seems to be a serpent. Or serpents, but I think in the end really they are all the same.” She paused as the Prince shifted impatiently and started to speak. The point was—“The point is,” she said, lifting a hand to forestall his words, “it is not here. Whatever it is, it was here, it was here and now it is gone. I wonder how it went?”

  “Yes. . . .”

  “Prince Cassiel. My mother called you a source of power. What power?” Timou gave the Prince a searching look, a look that she sent probing suddenly into his mind, into his heart. When, catching a startled breath, he moved to evade her, she only followed patiently, so that he found her always before him whichever way he turned. “What power?”

  “Stop it,” whispered the Prince.

  “Can you stop me?” Timou touched his mind, riffling through memories of his ash-haired elder brother. These memories were difficult and confused. At one moment Cassiel remembered a man he admired, an older brother he loved; but in the next, a severe, self-contained man with dark secretive eyes—a man he feared he did not know, might never have known. He fled from confusion into other memories, earlier ones: of his father, very tall, shouting with laughter or fury, or both, at some moment important to a younger Cassiel; of his mother, volatile but tender, reaching out toward him. Curious, Timou pursued that memory.

  “Stop it,” said Cassiel again, half plea and half command. He stood with his hands over his eyes, as though that might shield him. It did not. His breath came hard.

  “Can you stop me?” Timou asked again, then answered her own question, thoughtfully, “No. A source of power, but no power of your own. . . .” She drew back, behind her own eyes again.

  The Prince dropped his hands to his sides. He took a hard breath. “Don’t . . . do that again.”

  That had been a command, from a young man remembering another kind of power. Timou bent her head. “I am sorry. I was curious. Am curious. What power do you have?”

  “Does it matter, if I can’t use it?”

  “It might. It does. You did not try to stop me.”

  “I tried. I couldn’t.”

  “Couldn’t you?” She studied Cassiel. “Do you know what you are?”

  “What?” he said uneasily.

  “You are the heart of the Kingdom.” Bending, she gathered up his sword—it was much heavier than she expected, and wavered in her grasp—and offered it to him, but when he reached for it, she took his hand in hers with the hilt between their palms. “You are the source of power, and your power is the Kingdom. If you step away, I’ll stop. Don’t step away.”

  Startled, the Prince nevertheless stopped himself from drawing back. He looked into her eyes. Whatever he saw there made him set his teeth and hold still.

  Timou met his eyes and sent her mind forward again, looking this time not for Cassiel, but for the Kingdom itself.

  Power unrolled before her eyes, vast and complicated and far beyond her ability to comprehend: magic rolled through the air like smoke and bubbled up like water. It was dark and formless as the great forest, brilliant and piercing as light. It seemed to Timou that she heard a single perfect harp note, swelling and falling, underlying everything. The sound pierced her heart. She had never heard it before, never imagined it, but somehow it was familiar. She fell away from its unbearable purity and found herself gasping, clinging to Cassiel’s hand as though it were the single point of stability in the world.

  Cassiel caught her by the arm when she swayed. “Are you all right?” he asked with sharp concern.

  “What?” Timou stared at him. She said in amazement, “You may be the heart of the Kingdom
, but I think I just saw its soul. Does she think to possess that? Either she is insane or she must have terrible power.” Timou shut her eyes. “She has terrible power.”

  “Yes,” said Cassiel. “But—”

  “Oh,” said Timou. She drew herself back a step, steadying herself with an effort, shaking her head. “Yes. So do you.”

  The Prince let her go, watching her carefully. “But I can’t use what I have,” he reminded her. “I think she can use her power. I think she can use it delicately as a cat steps or powerfully as the hammer of lightning strikes.”

  “Yes,” said Timou. “But she can’t keep you in this prison. She could not keep you in any prison. You yourself are the way out.” She held out a hand to him.

  After a moment he took it.

  “Close your eyes,” Timou whispered. She closed her own and drew him forward, stepping forward herself out of the maze of light and into the Kingdom, blindly, knowing that where her foot would come down would be . . . would be . . .

  She opened her eyes.

  They stood hand in hand on a broad street embraced by the golden light of a hot summer afternoon. The pavement beneath their feet was dusty gold; the buildings to either side, tall and pale, caught the light and echoed it. Towers with rounded cupolas made of glass and silver shared the street with longer, lower buildings roofed with creamy-pink tile. Trees, some of them as tall as the towers, cast a dancing lacy shade across the cobbles. The street ran upward in a slow lazy curve, inviting the eye to follow; looking along it, it was possible to see in the distance the graceful white walls of the Palace.

  It was the City. But it was entirely empty and completely quiet; it was filled with the heat of a still summer day that owed nothing to the late season of the City Timou remembered. “This isn’t right,” said Timou, shaken.

  “No,” said Prince Cassiel, and smiled suddenly. He still held his sword. It had changed: it had turned to glass, or perhaps to light. Its hilt was made of shadow. It looked now delicate and deadly and somehow more perfectly like a sword. Cassiel seemed to take the sword’s transformation for granted, perhaps because he had no attention to spare for it in the midst of all else that had changed. He turned in a slow circle, head tilted back, eyes wide open. He breathed deeply, seeming to want to take in all the air in the City at once. “Don’t you know it? This is the other City. The first one: the real one. The City Irinore and the first King, Castienes, saw when they built our City. This is the City in the Lake.”