Water Witch

by Connie Willis

  Edvar was holding his arm. He stepped, swaying a little, in front of the soldier. “She’s the princess. The real princess. Only she can save this City from being swept away.” The soldier put out his hand to brush past Edvar, but he never even touched him. Edvar slumped forward onto the wet floor.

  Radi moved convulsively toward Edvar and was stopped by the soldier’s sword. “Get that girl away from the computer,” he said, and the other soldiers ran forward across the floor.

  —There’s no time for anything else,—her father said.—Besides, it will give you the revenge you have been wanting all along.—

  —The Maundifu will destroy half my kingdom. Who will it take revenge on but me?—she said, and was surprised to realize that was true. She had a kingdom to protect, a kingdom that she alone could see and understand, that she alone could save or destroy.

  —It’s the only answer. The soldiers will be here in a moment. The second they pull you out of this chair your chance will be lost. No one can help you. You have to choose.—

  —Father …—

  —Your father is dead.—

  Deza closed her eyes, but she could not shut out any of it. It would be with her always. The mbuzi on the lower steps, Radi arguing frantically with the soldiers to delay them, Edvar in the pool of water on the floor, all the vast honeycombing of rock and water. Her kingdom.

  She unloosed the Maundifu. The mighty gates of the river, shut—how many years?—opened all at once, allowing the Maundifu back into its natural bed from all the countless taming sluices, channels, dams. It lunged forward like a chuma cat set free, plunging through its dry bed, filling the lake’s cavern to the roof and then rushing in a mighty wall through the channels, carrying crystals, rock, and the beautiful work of years with it. Toward the karst. Toward the compound, where Sheria sat at her console, not even understanding yet what was coming.

  “Close sluices,” came a message from Sheria’s console, followed by a long string of coordinates. Deza didn’t try to stop her. The command was meaningless. There were no sluice gates to close. The Maundifu had torn them away.

  “Divert to secondary channels,” Sheria commanded, and Deza could imagine the Tycoon leaning anxiously over her shoulder, saying, “What is it? What’s happening?”

  Would Sheria answer him, would she say, “Take your fat wife and head for higher ground!,” or did she, like Harubiki, not even care for death as long as she could take others with her?

  There was no higher ground. The Maundifu swept through the karst, the last long passage she and her father had climbed together on their journey of flight. It obliterated the warm, sandy hideyhole she had fallen into and swept on through the caverns, filling every channel, gathering strength with every mile it went.

  Closer and closer to the compound, to the sea.

  “Override,” Sheria commanded. “Redirect Maundifu,” as if it were not a raging chuma cat almost upon her. “Open sluice gates,” her fingers told the computer through the touch panel. Deza did not recognize the coordinates for a moment. Then she did. The salt caverns behind the City. Deza slammed them shut again, but two, no, three of them were swept away in the shock of the water.

  Deza darted out of the chair and down the stairs. The soldiers were at the foot of the stairs and starting up. “Run!” she said, thinking frantically that they would not believe her. “Get your people to higher ground. Get them above the second balconies. On the east side, Hurry.”

  She saw their look of disbelief, and then they scattered. She did not understand it at first, and then she heard with her ears what she had been hearing in her head. The sound of water. She ran down the remainder of the stairs and over to Radi, who was dragging Edvar over the wet floor.

  “How high will the water come?” Radi said.

  “We’ll be safe at the top of the tower,” Deza said, pulling on his body because she was afraid of hurting his arm. An alarm started ringing, its echoes pealing like a great bell in the cavern.

  Radi lifted Edvar and slung him over his shoulder, and they started up the steps, Deza behind trying to balance Edvar so they wouldn’t fall. “It’s coming,” she said in anguish, and stopped. “The water’s coming.”

  Radi had put Edvar down. “I can’t carry him any farther. The steps are too shallow. We’ll have to drag him.” Deza came up beside him and they each took an arm. Edvar cried out, but it was the only way to get him above the level of the water. They backed up the narrow steps.

  The Maundifu roared through the dungeons like an enraged animal. It paused at the mbuzi caverns, filling the great hall almost slowly while the helpless animals bawled and were silent, and exploded into the compound, crushing the buildings, the animals, the fleeing natives, and carrying them before it in its last mighty leap into the sea.

  “Deza,” Radi said. “Don’t stop. We’re almost to the top.”

  “I killed Sheria,” she said numbly. “I killed the Tycoon. All of them. And half my kingdom.”

  “But you saved the City,” Radi said. “And now you have to help me save Edvar.”

  “Yes,” Deza said, and the water broke through the western wall of the City.

  “Here it comes,” Radi said, and gave a mighty pull on Edvar’s arm that almost yanked it out of the socket. The water swirled around the base of the tower, rising above the terminals, the grids, climbing the stairs like a relentless enemy. Deza tugged on Edvar’s body, trying to lift him into the chair, going down two steps to push him from behind. The water reached her feet.

  Even though she was ankle deep in the water and struggling to keep her balance, the water seemed to have no more of its terrifying power over her. It was only water. Radi gave her a hand to pull her up, but she rejected it, watching almost fascinatedly as the water came to the top step and then began to subside, flowing steadily toward the river. It doesn’t hurt, she thought wonderingly.

  —Of course not,—her father said.—A little water never hurt anybody.—

  She dived for the mbuzi, which was already floating away from the tower, bawling and struggling to keep its head up in the powerful current, but Radi had her by the back of the neck.

  “Father!” she shouted aloud, and Radi heaved her back out of the water and onto the top step.

  —Deza old girl,—he said faintly, and then was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Radi held Deza for a long time while she cried quietly. “I can’t lose him now, not after all this,” she had said. “I never should have left him.”

  He’d tried to comfort her over the loss of the mbuzi, wondering all the while how she could carry on over a beast when half the City was under water. Then she’d shaken her head bitterly; “It was my father, Radi. His spirit has been in the mbuzi’s gembone ever since the hovercraft crash.” Through her tears she’d told him the rest, how she’d escaped through the caves with her father so long ago but had not remembered the ordeal until she’d gone to the karst with the Tycoon. How the old man had guarded his daughter by keeping her in ignorance with hypnotic blocks; how even after death he’d tried to keep Deza from being discovered by her enemies in the City. But after death, Akida’s control had been indirect, a mind-talking mbuzi at best, and maybe nothing more than suggestions he’d planted in Deza’s mind years before. It wasn’t enough to prevent her from heading straight for the nearest body of water she could sense, the sea. She’d saved Radi from drowning there, and he thought that if he had not been so caught up with concern over his ill-fated mission, he might have paid more attention to her uneasiness at the sea instead of dismissing her peculiar behavior because he thought she planned to rob him. He was certain from the story Deza told that the hypnotic blocks her father had placed hid the truth from Deza better than it did from the rest of the world, for her nature and natural gifts must have given her away a thousand times. Only the brilliant scheme of Deza posing as a water witch could have saved them all these years. When people got close to the truth, Akida no doubt saw to it that close inquiry revealed
a couple of surface natives engaged in a swindle. Since no one liked admitting being duped, their worst punishment probably had been to be sent packing. Even so, Radi wondered how many people had seen Deza’s insets and recognized them as genuine. Deep down Radi remembered now that he’d known a stolen pair could not meld against her cheeks so perfectly, that they’d been fashioned for her by a master craftsman, Akida. She’d lost her father in the flesh days ago on the desert, but in Deza’s mind she’d carried him with her until she saved the City. To Radi’s way of thinking, that was somehow appropriate.

  Someone silenced the alarm. Its disappearance was as much a signal for activity as its onset had been. People began poking their heads out over the rails of the upper balconies to peer at the mess below. Looking down, Radi saw that the water had nearly stopped flowing. Only a final sluggish wash remained in the lowest reaches of the cave floor. Broken furnishings and chunks of red rock clotted gutters and corners, and bits of foliage from the gardens floated where the water had pooled. Mercifully, there were no bodies to be seen, which made Radi hope that the alarm had been sounded in time. Deza sat up, wiping her cheeks with a fist while she looked around.

  “Radi,” Edvar said. “What’s going on over there?”

  Radi looked up at Edvar, still sitting on Deza’s throne, looking wet, dirty, and terribly pale with pain. With his good arm he was pointing to the other side of the computer floor. When Radi turned, he could see soldiers entering the computer’s archive building. “They’re going to check the monitors, maybe do a playback,” Radi said. “That’s good. There won’t be any doubt in their minds that Deza saved the City. It will save us a lot of explanation.”

  “More soldiers,” Edvar said.

  Many more, swarming toward the tower, surrounding the base of the stairs.

  “What shall we do now?” Deza said, her hand clasping Radi’s. “They will know that I… I killed Sheria.” For just an instant Deza’s frightened eyes met Radi’s, looking frightened as they had when she first realized she couldn’t control the con she was working back at the compound. But the fear was brief, giving way to sorrow when she looked up at Edvar. “Edvar, your father. I… There was no way to…”

  The Tycoon’s whelp reached out and touched Deza’s damp and matted curls. “Don’t,” he said. “You did what had to be done, and it was right for Mahali.”

  “They’re waiting,” Radi said.

  “What?” came Deza’s reply.

  Radi gestured to the landing below the tower stairs. A ring of soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, hands on the hilts of their swords, the officers with their lasers drawn. “They’re waiting to hear from the people checking the monitors. They know you sat at the main control console; but they don’t know what you did… yet.” He grinned at her, but his smile faded involuntarily when he saw that she was holding Edvar’s hand against her face. He just couldn’t help the stab of jealousy.

  “Better help me down,” Edvar said quickly. “When they find out for certain that she saved them and realize who she is, I don’t want them to think they have a usurper to deal with.”

  Radi let go of Deza’s other hand to help Edvar. The young man put his good arm all the way around Radi’s shoulders and slipped off the throne, whispering, “It’s still nice, even knowing she doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Deza said, helping Radi settle Edvar on the steps with them.

  “I was just telling Radi that the people will adore their new princess, and that he’d better get used to sharing your affection.”

  “There’s so much to do. I wish they’d hurry,” Deza said absently. She sat down and stared at the soldiers. Civilians were gathering behind them, looking up at them with open curiosity, whispering among themselves.

  They would love Deza. She was everything Sheria was not and never could be. She was courageous, intelligent, and had her marvelous witching gifts, but of the greatest importance was her genuine ability to love people and be lovable in return. She had not seen these people since she was three years old, yet she had risked her life to save them all. She was the princess the City needed, and the woman Radi wanted.

  “Why don’t they come?” Deza said nervously, her eyes fixed on the doorway of the tall archive building.

  “It takes time, Deza. The water couldn’t have gotten to the top and damaged anything important, but they’ll want to be sure. They may run it through two or three… yes, look,” Radi said, pointing. “Some of the elders are going in. They’ll run it through for them, too.”

  Deza groaned and wiped the palms of her hands on her damp and dirty pants. “I want to get started,” she said, glancing back up at the throne. Then she turned suddenly to Edvar. “You must be my ambassador to the foreigners from Kalmar.”

  Edvar smiled with pleasure. “They’ll be clamoring for ground water rights and buying up mbuzim. Word must have gotten out on Kalmar by now about the gembone circuitry in the water message devices. You’re putting a lot of power in my hands, Deza.”

  “It’s safe in them,” Deza said confidently. She touched his hand again and looked at his injured arm with concern. “Does it hurt terribly?”

  “Not so much,” Edvar said with a wink at Radi. He had to be in agony, but was not quite aware of it for ecstasy of Deza’s touch.

  “And we’ll have to rebuild the City, of course,” she said to Radi, “but I think it’s time we stopped hiding down here and we simply must dispense with this mumbo-jumbo those bogus priests give the surface natives. A fair price for water, and it will be high for a while because we’re going to have to work very hard after this fiasco to deliver it. But we’re not going to make them think there are ghosts poisoning their wells when they can’t pay the price.”

  “You don’t believe in spirits?” Radi said, faintly amused, then regretted immediately alluding to the mbuzi and Deza’s father, for her resolve seemed to waver and she bit her lip.

  “It seems so unfair,” she said, “for him to be deprived of seeing what must have been his fondest hope for Mahali coming true.”

  “And for you,” Radi added. Deza just nodded, apparently unaware that as sovereign of the Red City she’d control immense personal wealth and be able to have comforts and luxuries she’d probably only thought about in her dreams.

  “I just wish he were here,” Deza said.

  Radi took her in his arms, holding her closely and feeling fiercely protective. “It was fitting, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “I was only seven years old when Akida charged me with protecting the princess, but I didn’t understand what he meant until now. He kept you safe until he could deliver you to me. I love you, Deza.”

  “And I love you, Radi.”

  “They’re coming out,” Edvar said.

  Radi and Deza looked over at the archive building; soldiers and elders were coming out the door, walking steadily across the computer floor, seemingly oblivious to the thick red silt deposited there by the flood. The people on the stairs let them through until they reached the upper landing and the head of the guard. They stood talking quietly for a few minutes, the people nearby crowding close to hear. Before they were finished, a whisper was rising from the crowd, faint and barely discernible at first: “Deshenaza… Deshenaza… Deshenaza,” becoming louder as the rest of the crowd caught up the rhythm: “Deshenaza, Deshenaza, Deshenaza.”

  “Your people are calling you, Deza,” Radi said, giving her a final squeeze.

  She took a deep breath and nodded, then stood up. Her long hair was a tangled mat of damp curls, her clothes wet and dirty. But her shoulders were squared and her back was straight, and perhaps from years of practice at behaving like a princess or just from instinct, she stepped forward with a grace that made the people cheer. To the sounds of their happy voices she started down the steps, ready to begin her royal duties.

  Radi helped Edvar up so they could follow her. Akida, Radi thought, I will do everything within my power to hold her and the City safe for all time
.

  —It’s about time. Where were you fifteen years ago?—

  ”What?” Radi said.

  Edvar looked at him, shook his head with a smile, indicating that he couldn’t hear what Radi had said above the noise from the shouting, cheering crowd.

  —Muscle and sinew. I thought you were going to take care of her,—Radi heard clearly despite the muttering tone.—Get down there and make a path for her before they love her to death, you great lummox!—

  Half carrying Edvar, Radi rushed down the steps. The crowds were gathering close to Deza, threatening to crush her in their enthusiasm. He draped Edvar’s arm over a cheering guard and dived into the crowd. “Make way,” he said authoritatively. “Make way.” He got to Deza and continued making a path for her, as he would have done in any case, he was sure, even if he had not heard the voice of Akida telling him to do it. It was just the tenseness of the moment, the emotional high of talking about the once great man…

  —Once great?—

  Always great, Radi thought. He was getting as bad as Deza, imagining Akida’s spirit talking to him. Where would his soul have leaped to this time when it felt itself being washed to death with the mbuzi? There was no gembone around except for Deza’s insets, which were surely inviolate, or he would have made use of them after the hovercraft crash instead of saddling her with that smelling beast for all those long miles. Radi touched his gembone medallion thoughtfully. Surely he wouldn’t have… It was Deza he wanted to talk to, to give advice to.

  —She may be a little hard to advise now that she’s the princess. She always did think she knew how to handle things better than anyone else. All this cheering will go straight to her head. But with our help she won’t make a total fool of herself.—

  —Our help?—Radi said silently, and then aloud, “Our help?”

  —That’s right, you big lummox. And don’t you start in with any figment of the imagination arguments. I’ve had enough of that from my own daughter.—