Water Witch

by Connie Willis

  —Indeed,—her father said thoughtfully.—And you may need to play that game again. I hear someone.—

  —I don’t,—Deza said, but she hurried through the rest of the maze, cutting a zigzag course that brought her out onto the computer floor where all the auxiliary terminals were.

  The main terminal was up another flight of very steep steps that rose free of everything and ended in a platform scarcely wide enough for the throne-like chair and the complex main terminal, high atop the red rock pinnacle. Deza had called it “the tower” when she was little. Her father had let her run up and down the steep steps when he was working there.

  She could not run now, not with the struggling mbuzi under her arm. Halfway up she stopped and laid him gently on the narrow step.

  —You’d better mean what you say, Father,—she said, clambering to the top. She had put him down just in time. The stairs got not only steeper, but shallower, till at the top there was barely room for her to stand facing the terminal. The dark blue cushioned chair with its high back and curving headrest filled almost all the space.

  She had almost believed her father, almost believed that she would look at the controls and magically understand them, but the board remained as undecipherable as the grids. There was no light behind the controls and no image on the screen. She put her hands on the touch panels, pressing randomly, but she could not get any response at all.

  In exasperation, she looked back at where she had left the mbuzi.—I told you so, Father. Now look at all the time I’ve wasted.—

  —You don’t need to know how to work the computer,—her father said.—Deza, wait.—

  —I don’t want to hear another word. I’m going to go get Radi like I should have done in the first place. —She plummeted down the steps and out across the floor into the forest of grids. She did not even try to obscure her course this time. She went straight for the stairs.

  The hand snaked out with such terrible suddenness from behind a grid that Deza gasped, “Chuma!“, and flung herself out of the hand’s grasp, reeling against the facing grid, choking with an old childhood fear.

  “We meet again, Deza,” Harubiki said. She had a knife. If Deza had not acted from pure reflex, from the remembered childhood nightmare, her throat would be cut by now and her blood spilling across the rock floor between them. She faced Harubiki silently, struggling to even her ragged breathing, to think. To think.

  “Are you surprised to see me?” Harubiki said. She was wet and dirty, her sallow face bruised. “Of course you are. After you arranged my murder. You should have stayed to make sure it had been executed.”

  There were no weapons here, only the meaningless grids, and she had no knife to defend herself with against the knife in Harubiki’s hand, against the dagger she was sure she had, and the laser handgun she had carried when they marched to the compound. No weapon at all, not even anything in her pocket she could make into a weapon. Her pocket.

  “I heard you fall,” she said, turning slightly so that her side would be away from Harubiki. The cloak would shield her movements when she put her hand in her pocket.

  “That was your pack falling. You shouldn’t have abandoned it there. It prevented my fall. And deceived you. What did you plan, with me safely murdered? To rule the Red City?”

  “To save the Red City,” Deza said. She slid her hand up her side to her belt. She has the laser, Deza thought desperately. I don’t have a prayer. “Sheria will drown the City. She’ll drown you with it.”

  She could not see Harubiki properly. She wondered if her fear were somehow blurring her vision. Then she realized what it was—a fine mist obscuring the space between them, dampening the stone floor.

  “It’s begun,” Deza said. Harubiki looked up.

  I must get the snake, Deza thought, and her hand went into her pocket and folded around the wriggling snake. She dropped her hand to her side under cover of her cloak, but then she could not think what to do. Should she throw the snake at Harubiki or would Harubiki blast it in midair? Deza was almost certain she was carrying the laser handgun. The snake, once released, would strike very fast, but would it be fast enough? She could not think clearly. It’s the water, she realized suddenly, piling up in the empty salt domes behind the City, but she was afraid to focus in on the water and control its effect on her, in fear that Harubiki would catch her off guard.

  She concentrated only on Harubiki and the snake. Everything depended on Harubiki not seeing the singing snake, which meant Deza must not look at the snake even though its song would tell her exactly where it was. She opened her hand and let the snake drop with a soft sound onto the stone floor. “It’s begun!” she screamed, jerking her arm toward the ceiling. “We’ll all drown!”

  “No, “Harubiki said. “You won’t drown, water witch. I’ll kill you first.” She did have a laser. She leveled it at Deza.

  “The water!” Deza shrieked, and then cut off her scream. In the silence, the snake sang very close to Deza.

  Harubiki went white, her bruises standing out in dark purple against her frightened face. “Where is it?” she said breathlessly.

  “I don’t know,” Deza said. “It’s you it’s after. Not me.” She was careful to keep her eyes on Harubiki and not look down to where she knew the snake had to be, only a few feet from Harubiki. It was hard to concentrate now. The water was pouring into the salt domes unchecked, pressing on the last line of water gates separating it from the City. The water pressed against her cheekbones with a devastating pressure that threatened to break through and destroy her.

  “Tell me where it is or I’ll kill you where you stand,” Harubiki said, her voice shaking. The laser wavered in her hand. Deza should jump for her and knock it out of her hand. The snake sang again, off to the side, and Harubiki swerved to face where the song had come from. I must jump her now, Deza thought. She’ll turn back in an instant. But why is the snake over there? Why doesn’t it strike? It’s behaving as if it doesn’t know where to strike.

  It sang again, from far across the open space. Deza looked down. The tiny snake was at her feet and moving behind her. Why was it doing that? There was no one else here. “What’s wrong?” Deza said dreamily, vaguely aware that the nearness of the water was influencing her more than her immediate danger. She saw a flash, and the snake was suddenly only a charred black mark on the red rock paving. She looked up blankly at Harubiki.

  “You’re apparently no water witch,” Harubiki said. “The snake was coming after you. And I want the pleasure of killing you myself.” She was holding the laser only inches from Deza’s face, but Deza couldn’t focus on her. The water behind the City was pushing against the gates with tremendous pressure. One of the gates, imbedded in artificial limestone, was beginning to give way. And the snake would not have hurt her. He was slithering past her, toward somebody else. There had to be some other human here. She half turned.

  Radi and Edvar skidded into the space between two grids and stopped cold. Harubiki raised the handgun slightly to include them. The gate shuddered on its dissolving limestone base and water began coming through. The base shifted and the gatepost cracked.

  “All my enemies together,” Harubiki said, and Deza collapsed against her.

  The gun went off, startling Deza back to her senses. She grabbed for it, still holding Harubiki down with the weight of her body. She couldn’t quite reach it, but she shook Harubiki’s arm violently and knocked it free. The gun slid across the floor to the charred spot that had been the snake and went off again with a searing flash.

  Harubiki rolled out from under Deza and regained her feet almost instantly, the knife in her hand and going for Radi. Deza grabbed for her foot and got a kick in the chin that set her bones vibrating. It was seconds before she could see clearly enough through the steadily increasing drizzle to see them: Radi and Harubiki, faced off like crouching animals and circling one another cautiously. Radi held a sword he must have gotten off one of the guards, Harubiki her knife. Radi’s forehead was cut and
bleeding, and he was having trouble keeping his footing on the wet floor. Deza began inching on her hands and knees toward the laser.

  “No, Deza,” Radi said sharply. “She’s my enemy. This isn’t your fight,” and Harubiki lunged.

  Deza scrambled for the gun and got it, then backed against one of the grids, waiting for a chance to fire. Radi and Harubiki were locked together for a moment, and Deza could see the glitter of the knife, but then Radi wrenched free of her. He came away without his sword, breathing heavily, supporting himself against the grid as if it alone were holding him up.

  Deza fired the laser, squinting against the shock of light. Nothing happened. Harubiki darted forward again with her knife, going straight for Radi’s throat.

  “No!” Deza said, and lunged for her. She skidded on the damp polished rock floor and slammed into Harubiki with a force that sent the two of them pitching forward. Deza could feel Harubiki curl to roll free as she fell, but Deza was too close atop her. They hit the stone together, Deza’s fall cushioned by Harubiki.

  Before Deza could even gather her feet beneath her, Radi pulled her off and straddled Harubiki. His former henchwoman remained still. Cautiously, Radi turned her over. The deadly knife was plunged hilt-deep in Harubiki ‘s breast. She was still breathing, but shallowly, with a gurgling sound. Radi pulled out the knife and stepped back. “Edvar’s hurt,” he said to Deza. “He got hit by a laser blast. Go see to him.”

  Deza looked around, alarmed. She had not even seen Edvar since that first moment. He was slumped against the grid on the far side. He must have been going for Harubiki’s laser, too. She stood up.

  Harubiki grabbed the hem of her cloak almost pitifully. “Please don’t let me die,” she said. Deza bent over her. “I believe you’re the real princess. Help me.” The dagger that Deza had known was there flashed up, and Deza struggled frantically to pull away, but Harubiki held the cloak in a grip like iron, and the dagger lashed up at her.

  Radi plunged Harubiki’s own knife into her throat. Her arm dropped, and the dagger clattered to the floor. “Go see to Edvar,” Radi said grimly, tucking the dagger in his belt. She ran across the slick floor, flinging the horrid cloak from her as she went.

  “Hello, Deza,” Edvar said. “I take it Harubiki’s dead. I couldn’t quite see from here.” He was lying awkwardly against the grid, almost hidden from view. His arm dangled by his side. The sleeve of his shirt was charred and smoking. Deza ripped the sleeve away. The laser had cut cleanly through his arm, missing the bone but not much else.

  “Look,” she said. “You’re going to be fine. Laser wounds cauterize themselves so you can’t bleed to death.” She ripped the sleeve off and tied it around the wound. “Radi and I are going to leave you here while we get the computer to stop the water. We’ll be right back. All right?”

  Edvar nodded, and she stood up. There was a rumble like distant water, but when Deza put her hands up to her insets, she felt nothing more than the pressure she had been experiencing all along. In fact, the gates were holding so long as no more water was brought against them.

  “Soldiers,” Edvar hissed, struggling to his feet. “Hide, Deza.” She pulled him quickly behind the grid, reluctant to leave him.

  “There he is!” she heard a loud voice say, and the open space filled with soldiers.

  “Radi’s caught,” Edvar whispered. “They’ll never listen to him now that he’s killed the princess’s bodyguard.”

  —”I can’t work the computer without him,” she whispered back. “I don’t know how.”

  “You have to try. Radi’s caught. I’ll try to help him get free. You have to go or you’ll be caught, too. Now!”

  She hesitated for a second, and then darted down the long labyrinth of grids, away from the soldiers and toward the tower, crying soundlessly,—Father, you have to help me!—

  —Of course I’ll help you,—he said as she reached the foot of the tower and began to climb.—I would have helped you before if you’d have listened to me. Climb to the top and sit down in the chair.—

  She had reached the top and stood before the console, out of breath.—I don’t have time to sit down. Just tell me how to run this thing.—

  —You don’t need to know how to run it. Sit down.—

  He was still drunk. Radi and Edvar could not help her, nobody could help her, and all her father could say was, “Sit down.”

  —Tell me how to work the controls,—she said as patiently as she could. —Maybe you taught me how, but I don’t remember.—

  —Sit down,—her father said.

  —What good will that do?—Deza said, unable to restrain her frustration any longer. —Radi and Edvar are fighting off half the city so you can lie there giving me useless orders. This is hopeless. I’m going to go help them. At least we can all die together.—

  —SIT DOWN!—her father shouted, so loudly it echoed in her mind. —All your life you have refused to follow the simplest commands. You will not disobey me now. SIT DOWN.—

  Deza sat. She hunched forward on the seat of the high-backed chair, looking at the unfamiliar controls. If her father thought he could jar loose more of her memories by his shouting, he had failed. She was certain she had never sat here before.

  —Lean back,—her father said, more quietly but still with the tone of command that Deza had never, in spite of what he had said, disobeyed.

  She leaned back gingerly into the curve of the headrest, supporting herself on her elbows. If she leaned all the way back she would be almost completely encompassed by the chair, unable to see the controls, let alone reach them.

  —All the way,—her father said.—And sit still.—

  All the way. Her head rested against the cushioned headrest. The curving sides moved slightly inward, shaping themselves to the contours of her face. Deza fought the feeling of smothering as they moved inward to press against her cheeks and sat very still. The sides touched her insets, pressed against them.

  Deza sucked in her breath. No wonder her father had told her she didn’t need to know how to work the computer. She was the computer. She had thought her mind was working at top speed in the caves, reading and sorting the water. It was nothing compared to this. She could see the entire water network of the planet, from the seacoast, across the great Tegati Desert to the far mountains, a vast network of underground sluices and passages no one alive had ever guessed at. All this in less than a second, and more. The way they had just come, already changed, the banks of the lake rising to fill the tunnels, the sluices filling, water streaming through the chimney and flooding the stairway, and at the Tycoon’s compound, the other terminal.

  “Hello, Sheria,” Deza said, and felt the shock of recognition from the other end as the princess’s hand must have hesitated above the touch panel. If Sheria spoke, Deza couldn’t hear it, because Sheria couldn’t speak through the computer as Deza did, but she could imagine what she said. “I’m taking over now,” Deza said, and even before she said it, she had taken control, was already starting the actions that would save the Red City. She punched no buttons, did not even attempt to reach the controls. She could do it all in her head.

  She closed off the sluices nearest the City, diverted the water below and east of the canyon, allowing it to flow down across the paths they had just come. She opened every passage along the Maundifu, letting them fill with the overflow and slow the massive rush of the river that Sheria had unknowingly started when she flooded the caverns where Radi and Edvar were imprisoned. She had come close to unloosing the Maundifu, which must not happen. It would destroy the City, the compound, the vast underground network between. She had no idea of the power she was dealing with, thinking she could fill the Tycoon’s reservoir like one dips a cup into a well, never realizing the force that lay in the water.

  The level of the lake was still rising. Deza opened more sluices between the lake and the City, and saw instantly that that was the wrong thing to do. The overflow pushed back into the salt domes behind the City, where t
he gates were already severely overworked. She slammed those sluices shut as rapidly as possible, but water had still come through and was pooling behind the City like a vast sea. She diverted water below the City, letting the old tributary that flowed next to the City fill to its banks. That was dangerous, but it stopped the rain that was falling on the City.

  Now the water she had shut out of the salt domes had nowhere to go. It could not go back to the lake without threatening to break through to the Maundifu. It could not go anywhere that would not endanger the City, and the thought that had been with her from the beginning, the thought she had suppressed even as the insets linked her to the computer and she flared into complete awareness, spread over her consciousness with the overwhelming wash of despair. She had not been in time.

  She shot an anxious glance at the ceiling. The drizzle had stopped, but water was still dripping from cracks that had not been there before, pooling on the computer center’s floor. The mbuzi lay in a puddle. Deza made a move as if to go rescue him and was instantly disconnected.

  —Sit down,—her father said.—A little water won’t hurt me.—

  —I can’t save the City,—Deza said helplessly.—It’s too late.—

  —How ridiculous! Of course it’s not too late. Unloose the Maundifu.—

  —Edvar,—she said, and sank back against the headrest.

  She could see him and Radi, as if they were there before her, not grainy images on a monitor, but them. They had come out onto the main floor of the computer center, all the way to the terminals, but the soldiers had caught them there. The soldiers had them cornered between the grids and the terminals, but they were not fighting. They were looking up. Radi, Edvar, the soldiers, everyone was looking up. The leaks were worse there, a steady rain, muddy with the rock it was dissolving.

  “Now will you listen to me?” Radi said. “Sheria will drown this City and all of you with it. I must get to the computer.”

  “No one gets near the main terminal but the princess,” one of the soldiers said. He glanced at the tower and registered the shock and surprise that must mean he could see Deza. “No one. Stop that girl.”