Odd's Door

by W.S. Lacey

  “We are.”

  “Anyone else would tell you not to do it; I don’t think it matters.” The Navigator sniffed. “If I know anything about the King, he’s already looking for you.”

  #

  That evening, the Navigator spent the better part of an hour peering through his telescope at a small black speck on the horizon. It had grown a little larger when a bank of fog swept over the ship and immersed them in a thick white gloom. They all gathered on the deck, sitting in the glow of an oil lamp that was in danger of being overwhelmed by the cold damp mist. The old man, who the Captain had never bothered to introduce, began a story.

  “There once was a girl,” he said, “don’t ask me her name because I forget. There was a girl and she was very lovely.”

  “They do tend towards that in stories,” Nameless said knowingly. “You rarely hear about a plain girl.”

  “Don’t interrupt.” The old man gave Nameless his best approximation of a withering look. “There was a girl and she had seven sisters- well, three at least- and they all lived with their mother and father in a house in the country.”

  “Was it a big house?” The Captain asked.

  “A what?”

  “A big house.”

  “Oh yes. As I was saying, she was the eldest and very lovely. When a very rich man who lived nearby announced that he was having a party, the girl was-”

  “What was his name?” Nameless asked.

  “I don’t know. Kindly shut up.”

  “Tinder-follow-the-way,” Mr. Half Past offered.

  “No, it wasn’t that. Anyway, she had gone to the party and- and- oh blast, I’ve forgotten.”

  No amount of prodding could get the old man to recall the story (he had known precious little of it in the first place and what he knew was not particularly concrete) and he maintained, with an air of finality, that Nameless had ruined the story and, by association, “everything”. He would not be cheered until the Captain brought around fish soup (fish being the defining feature of their repast on the ship), at which point he sang a shanty; he remembered less than half of the words but compensated by singing them twice.

  At length it grew quite gloomy and, as the owl had come out and was sitting forlornly by the main mast, they judged that it was nightfall. The ship was still plodding through a kind of dark woolly nothingness when they all, with the exception of the Navigator, turned in for the night.

  #

  Spender and North awoke unpleasantly. It was a condition that had reoccurred with regularity since they had entered through the Door and it seemed unlikely to change. What had woken them was a thunderous crash followed by a pattering noise and plenty of panicked shouting. The Captain ran into their bunk room, his wig missing and his coat misbuttoned, and shouted ‘help, help- the ship is lost’ before thrashing his way back out. As Spender and North tumbled after him, another crash brought a downpour of splintered wood and debris onto their heads. With the ship shivering beneath their feet, they hastened up to the deck.

  The Navigator was waving a cutlass and yelling impotently at a bristling galleon that had come alongside them and was engaged in blowing the ship to smithereens with cannonade. Even as the other ship fired on them, the Captain was forced to admit (and this he shouted) that it was very well turned out and altogether quite impressive. The galleon let loose another volley and the main mast groaned and toppled like a felled tree (the misguided bowsprit had fallen off a short time before). As the attackers blasted the remaining rigging to shreds, the Captain and Navigator dove behind the fallen mast. Spender and North followed suit.

  “Who are they?” Spender, out of necessity, had to raise his voice quite a bit.

  “The King’s men!” The Navigator said.

  “Do you have a cannon to return fire?” North shouted.

  “I was going to get a cannon or two but I bought a harpsichord instead!” The Captain said tearfully. “It was a very nice one though!”

  “What do they want?” Spender cringed as grapeshot minced the wood above them.

  “They want you!” The Navigator said. In the momentary lull that followed, the Captain and the Navigator looked at each other. The unspoken debate as to whether they should surrender Spender and North by heaving them over the side was made moot by a devastating broadside that caught them just at the water line. With more rapidity than any one of them could have guessed, the ship capsized and sank beneath the waves.

  #

  It was as Spender was drowning, one hand twisted up in the collar of North’s jacket and one hand clawing desperately at the turbulent water, that he came to a crucial point. Far below, in the depths, it looked for a moment as if there was a sunlit hillside. He squinted, his eyes blurred and stinging and thought that it was an illusion- perhaps light playing along a submerged reef. North sank, insensate, in his grip and he found himself being dragged deeper. If he strove, he could just make it to the surface and catch hold of a floating bit of wreckage, he thought. And what then?

  With North’s life very much in his hands he dove down, kicking strenuously. His breath gave out and a flood of air bubbled up and streamed away. As a thrumming noise filled his ears and blackness crept in at the edges of his vision, Spender fleetingly thought that he had made a bad mistake. His regret was overwhelmed by fierce, unequaled terror. Moments before his imminent and horrid death, the water inexplicably ceased to be.

  Spender and North fell through a heavy smirr, through the flowering branches of a white tree, and to the ground in an ungainly heap. Such was North’s luck that, in addition to giving him very sore ribs, the impact of the fall expelled a good deal of sea water and would have revived him had he not cracked his head upon the ground. Spender breathed with unparalleled gratitude and looked down the hill, whereupon he crawled over to North.

  “North- North, wake up. There are people with spears and they look very intolerant.”

  Chapter Eight

  Spender had brought North around and leaned him against the tree when the soldiers made the top of the hill and began shouting at them. North, who had lost his rag in the sea, squinted up at them and held his side. Suddenly, Spender perked up and listened intently.

  “I think they’re speaking Greek; I might be able to muddle through this.” A squat and officious man had jostled his way to the fore and was making jabbing motions with his finger while nearly frothing at the mouth. The soldiers, who were all very tall and angry and wore tunics made out of a ghastly paisley material, continued shouting at the official as well as at Spender and North. Spender edged back from the more emphatic spears. “What should I say?”

  North laughed shortly before wincing and holding his side.

  “This is good. You should get their attention first.”

  “Empros!” Spender shouted. The soldiers fell silent and looked at him as if he were an unexpected interloper who had suddenly shouted something nonsensical (which was fitting because that is more or less what he was).“Now what?” North pointed at the official.

  “Tell them that he’s a bad egg, that he stole from them.”

  “Ehm… Kakos avgo.” Spender felt that his Greek left something to be desired and, further, that the idiom might not have translated at all well. “Klebo chrysou dikos sas.” North had taken a twig and hastily drawn on the ground a rough sketch of a building with an arcade and a domed roof. The soldiers gathered around and elbowed each other with dawning comprehension.

  “Tell them to think back to the last feast day.”

  “Pera glenti thymoumai.” The official, who had gone very silent, began hurling what was presumably invective at Spender and North. The soldiers looked at one another for the briefest moment before turning and falling on him like a pack of wolves. Spender thought to opt for the better part of valor and, easing North to his feet, began to pick his way downhill. “Did you know that they were going to do that?” he asked.

  “It seemed likely. He was going to cause us no end of trou
ble, most of which ended with our being put to death.”

  “You saw all that?”

  “I’ve been seeing a whole flurry of- frankly- highly dramatic and violent episodes, all of them very hard to block out. It’s given me a ripping good headache.”

  The sky above them, if it could be called that, rippled and swam with eddies and currents, the whole of it shot through with diffused sunlight. Spender thought that it was a very beautiful way for a sky to be and was sorry to have his attention taken away by the reappearance of the soldiers, who were tall as ever and only fractionally less angry. They made it clear that they wished Spender and North to accompany them.

  They walked, in the midst of a loose-knit, rowdy phalanx, along a sandy and somewhat ill defined road. On either side of the road lay tangles of white and leafless shrubbery that looked like nothing so much as spindly, bleached coral decked with small-petaled blooms. It was North, naturally, who saw the tower first. He politely waited to marvel at it until Spender could see it as well, at which point they were both unstintingly impressed. The tower was also white and it rose, with a kind of grace that is not often seen in architecture, all the way to the sea-sky where its spire pierced the water and continued on. Their escort led them past the tower and past the domed edifice North had drawn to a long low building composed mostly of Doric columns and more martial-looking men in paisley. At that point, the soldiers surrounding them quieted down a bit and tightened their ranks to a semblance of organization. After that, Spender couldn’t see much of anything apart from shoulders and elbows. He knew only that they were now marching on a glossy stone floor. The soldiers turned two corners, parted, and retreated to the edges of the hall, leaving Spender and North in audience with their leader.

  She looked very tired, with dark circles under her eyes, and she sat on a broad stone chair with her chin in her hand. The tallest soldier had gone to her side and spoken to her quietly. She ran her hands through her hair in a harried manner.

  “Hesper tells me that his men have just killed our adviser. He seems to be under the impression that you are all-knowing beings that fell from the skies,” she said, pausing as if waiting for them to provide some confirmation or denial. “Of course, he wouldn’t know the truth of the matter. The Tartessians don’t keep written records and, while you may not be the first castaways to come here, you are certainly the first this generation.” (The Tartessians were also quite unique in that they had next to no oral tradition. They only had one story that was passed down through the ages and it was very sad. Consequently, it was rarely told and only taught in a spirit of grim obligation much akin to that felt when visiting a least favorite relative. This contributed to their being a very forgetful people.)

  “You’re all Tartessians, which makes this-” Spender trailed off encouragingly.

  “Tartessus,” she said perfunctorily, “and I’m not a Tartessian; not really, anyway. My grandfather was shipwrecked and came here half drowned. He had a bad time of it until he figured out a way to lure down several dolphins; the people had a great feast and things got quite out of control. When the commotion died down, my grandfather found that he had been made king. Years later, when my father was born, he taught him the King’s speech and also how to read and write. Our bloodline has been in power ever since and, with luck, will be for generations to come.” She idly traced a spiral shell that was imbedded in the arm of her seat.

  “Not to say that this is a paradise by any means. Do you know how they settle disputes here?” She looked up at them suddenly. “Of course you don’t, you’ve only just arrived. They take each other’s hands as if they’re shaking, tie them together, and both commence to beat the other with their remaining limbs. The first to die loses his point of honor. Absolutely ridiculous- I’ve tried to get them to stop, told them all sorts of things; I said it angers the Gods- but these things die hard. It happens almost every day, just you watch.” The queen became seemingly lost in her thoughts as she looked at her fingernails. Spender made a false start.

  “Your Majesty-”

  “Oh, Drusilla will do- or ma’am.”

  “Ma’am, what’s going to happen to us?”

  “I would say that that is up to you. If you have designs on the throne, I’m afraid I’m going to have you killed.” Spender looked surprised and North continued to look ill. Drusilla continued. “You could instead stay here at court; I’m down an adviser now and I could use someone to talk to. They don’t have much to offer in the way of intelligent conversation.” She looked pointedly at her guards, who had begun to bicker and push at each other. “Your third option,” Drusilla said, “is to leave- or try to, anyway.”

  “How on earth could we do that?” Spender asked.

  “When my grandfather tumbled into Tartessus, he wasn’t alone. The other man took one look at the natives and spent the next year looking for a way to get out. Most days he would go out to the edge of the land where the dome of the sky comes down like a wall and, occasionally, he would make forays out into the water as far as his breath would take him. Around the same time my grandfather was being made ruler, he found a way to escape.”

  “But no one ever heard from him again.” North spoke for the first time, still looking a bit green. “He could have died as he rode up.” The queen looked startled and then rubbed her eyes.

  “That’s true but it’s the only way. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck here for the rest of your life- and I can only imagine that this place is much less enjoyable when you are not the queen.”

  The monarch of Tartessus, being satisfied with the audience, sent them away, flanked by two of the least surly guards (one would give the other a hearty whack on the head and run away, laughing, as the first gave chase). They were given clothes that were, unsurprisingly, paisley, and taken to an emphatically guarded room with couches and beds and small tables. North had just sat down when he was presented with a new eye patch, courtesy of the queen.

  After they had dressed and eaten three, possibly four, different types of fish, Spender and North sat by a large window looking out at the sea-sky.

  “What exactly did you mean ‘died as he rode up’?” Spender asked. North sank a bit deeper into an overstuffed cushion with a pained expression on his face.

  “You’ve been to museums, seen fossils and the like.” Spender nodded. “Do you remember those things called trilobites; plated things wallowing in some chunk of rock?”

  “I think I do.”

  “It’s like one of those on a much larger scale. There were two of them, once, but the other man- swam into one.”

  “I don’t quite follow,” Spender said.

  “Nor do I. I think we’re going tomorrow, though, so we won’t have to puzzle long.”

  “Do you think,” Spender said, “they’ll let us go out?”

  They did. Spender and North walked, followed by their guards, away from the outskirts of Tartessus and through a singular landscape. The pale rock rose and dove in dizzying ravines and delicate natural bridges. There was not a sign of life anywhere and they felt that they were walking through an unnatural and alien place. When they had gotten out of sight of the city, they saw a caped man, a statue, standing in a heroic pose with his foot on a prone man’s head. A plaque at its base was inscribed “In memory of our father, ruler of Tartessus. He took a dim view of carousing outside his window.”

  They walked on for some time and the sea-sky had darkened to a deep murky blue by the time they returned to their gilded cage. North had worn his new patch since he had gotten it and, consequently, felt much better. When Spender asked him what was going to happen to them the next day, he told him that he didn’t know with something approaching jubilance.

  Chapter Nine

  After a breakfast of yet more fish and some cleverly done up seaweed, Spender and North were met by the same man who had apprehended them on their arrival. The Captain of the Guard hurried them along like a regimental mother and soon had them trotting out past the proud profile of D
rusilla’s late father and into the seabed. He seemed very excited and often looked over at them with a kind of reverence, more likely than not because the Tartessians had great respect for acts of suicidal daring. At length, they reached the edge of the land and the sea-sky arced down like an iridescent curtain. The Captain of the Guard turned, faced them rather formally, and handed them two leathery sacks and a piece of paper. The latter was a note from Drusilla.

  “If you look out into the water, you should see a kind of high ridge;” it said, “just beyond that, you’ll find what the natives of Tartessus call Petrastakos. There were two of them once, but the other one left with my grandfather’s fellow traveler. Fill those wine skins with air and keep them with you; you’ll get farther that way- also, you’ll want to put some rocks in your pockets before you start.

  “There were only a few men who actually saw what happened that day, so it’s not exactly clear what he did. I believe you’re to catch hold of its leg or something; that should be enough to startle it. At any rate, those who did see it talked about it for the rest of their lives, which is as close as you get to eternal fame and glory here. It seems foolhardy, but it would be best if you successfully departed or never returned. I’ve decided that you make me very nervous.

  “Good luck to you. Don’t come back. H.E.H. Drusilla, Regina Maritima.” Below this was a confused mess of tridents and scaly fish-like creatures that they took to be her heraldry. A gaggle of awful-looking tunics had gathered behind them and watched with great interest. Spender thought, but was not sure, that he had seen bets being placed among them. The Captain of the Guard clapped them on the back with an air of finality and Spender wondered just what was meant by “never return”. North had fixed his gaze on the ridge- possibly through the ridge- and shuffled about getting stones to put in his pocket.

  “No choice, really,” he said under his breath to no one in particular, “no choice at all.” Spender followed his lead and, several minutes later, they were standing with stone laden pockets in front of the water. The Tartessians were having a charged conversation behind them. North glanced back at them and began breathing rapidly to make the most of the air.