by Jan Siegel
She never knew when she crossed the boundary into unconsciousness. It was a transition from darkness into darkness, slow or swift, she could not tell. She opened her eyes on sunlight and a green hillside, green as the valleys of the Viroc, furred in patches with the misty purple of heather. There was a house below her, a strange gray house with a steepled roof and tall chimneys, unlike any house she had seen before. The windows were shutterless and seemed to be filled with glass. She started to go down to the house but a wolf rose out of the grass beside her and gazed at her with yellow eyes. I must go, she said. They’re waiting for me. She had no idea who they were but the compulsion was growing, pulling her onward. The wolf did not move. I must go, she repeated, but she seemed to be rooted to the ground. The house was so near she was seized with a fury of frustration and need. She struggled to move her feet . . .
It is not permitted, said a voice beside her, and there was the Hermit, only he didn’t look like the Hermit anymore: he was thinner, or fatter, younger or older, and instead of an assortment of ragged pelts he wore a curious garment like a coat, with a pointed hood shading his face. This is not your time.
But I must go! she pleaded.
You cannot. His tone was stern. History will not be cheated. Go back.
Back . . .
The dream changed as image melted into image in scenes too rapid for the mind to retain. When the pace slowed everything was blue. She was drifting through a blueness lanced with silver; it was vaguely familiar and after a while she realized that she was under the sea, gliding through a shoal of bright fish in the subaqueous light. There was a coral reef below her, a horned forest full of waving shadows, and she was peering into every cranny, brushing aside tresses of weed, touching sea anemones to close them. It came to her that she was searching for something, though she did not know what, and a great dread was on her that she might find it; but she found nothing. And then the reef dropped to a dim plain of sand, and there was a wreck ahead of her half sunken into the sea-bed, a wooden ship which might have been a fishing vessel but for the prow carved in the form of a woman. As she drew nearer she saw it was Uuinarde. Her black hair broke free of the carving and fanned out in the current, and her dead face was turned toward Fern, and her eyes were full of sorrow. But you left, said Fern. You went with the porpoises—
But Uuinarde was gone and the tide turned and the water shrank into pools and puddles of slime, and all around her the sea-floor was drying in the sun. Very small and far away she saw the cove where she had stayed with Rafarl, and the rocks hiding the cave entrance, but in between was a great space of mud, littered with dying things. There were fish flapping helplessly from side to side, and writhing worms, and the feeble snapping of tiny claws. She began to walk toward the beach, picking her way through the carnage, but suddenly she was assailed by an overwhelming sense of wrongness: she should not be there, she had gone long ago, she ought to be in a prison cell, with a cushion against her cheek and the hard floor pressing her body. With a vast effort she tore herself away from the wasteland of the disappearing sea, and then she was back in the dungeon, and her eyes opened on darkness.
She lay there wondering why she had gone to so much trouble to wake up, when waking was so bleak. But her brain recoiled from further slumber, dwelling instead on the meeting with Ixavo, and the terrifying doubts and questions it had raised. She thought of the huge tragedy he had foreseen so indifferently, and the fact that he talked about it as if it were already in the past, ages past, and Atlantis itself was only a fragment of history, and there was nothing to be done, nothing worth doing, except to retrieve the key and complete the Task. Yet she knew the Task was not important to him as it was to her: he wanted the Lodestone, or what was left of it, to control it, to exploit it, maybe through her. She was his key. Somehow, she had to prevent that. He had drawn her into an unholy alliance, shown her how to act, offered her his aid— bound her to his service. But she would not be so bound: she must find a way to use him and cheat him, even as he sought to use and cheat her. He had said: We are the only living people here, relegating Atlantis and all its citizens to a vanished graveyard; but she refused to accept that. She would fight for the people she cared for. She would fight to save them, to salvage the key and close the Door and defeat Ixavo. But the enterprise appeared vast and impossible, and she was alone in the dark, and suddenly she felt horribly young, and hopeless, and afraid.
A long time later, there was a light. She saw it on the ceiling, an unfocused mesh of faint radiance traveling across the cell, shape-shifting as it moved. Yet because it was there she knew there was a ceiling, and floor and walls, and the blackness was no longer amorphous. The light was coming through the grill; she realized someone was passing below with a torch, and she knelt and peered down, and saw the flicker of flame, and an enormous pair of shoulders spread beneath. “Hello?” she called. “Who is it? Can you help me?”
“Fernani!” The voice was Rafarl’s. “Where are you?”
“Here.”
The shoulders stepped aside; the torch was raised; she felt the sudden draft of heat on her face. Then she made out Rafarl, looking up at her. “I’m locked in a cell,” she said. “There’s a kind of grating in the floor but it won’t budge. Can you get me out?”
“Why don’t you use the Gift?”
She hadn’t thought of that. Somewhat pessimistically, she tried to concentrate on the criss-crossed ironwork, willing it to break; but her will felt ineffectual, her faith half-hearted. “It’s no good,” she said. “I haven’t had enough practice. It only seems to work when I don’t have time to worry about it—mostly when I’m in danger.”
“You are in danger,” Rafarl pointed out.
“Not immediate danger,” said Fern.
Rafarl consulted with his companions—one of them sounded like Ipthor—then turned back to her. “Hold on,” he said. “We’ll come and find you. When the Lodestone broke the aftershock opened up new passageways: Ipo says we can get through from here into the catacombs, and thence to the dungeons. Do you know your cell number?”
“No,” she said, “but it’s right beside a stair, close to the apartments of the Guardian.”
“All right. We may be a while: we’ll have to get the keys from the jailer. Hold on.”
And with that they were gone.
She sat down and waited. The best part of a century went by in a pitiable state of anticipation and suspense. She had given up all hope several times when she finally heard the bolts sliding back. And then there was Rafarl, and she was stumbling through the door and clutching him in something between an embrace and a stranglehold, and behind him Ipthor was looking amused, and the shoulders, last seen manning the entrance to the basement club, lifted the torch for a better light on the situation. “Are you hurt?” demanded Rafarl, alarmed to find her so overtly demonstrative. “What did they do to you?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I’m fine.” To her astonishment she found she was weeping, uncontrollable tears streaming down her face. “I’m so glad you came. So glad . . . ” And, smudging the tears with her hand: “Why did you?”
He grimaced. Scowled. Shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“No.”
“This is Gogoth.”
The shoulders gave a grunt of acknowledgment. Fern looked up into a broad face, olive-dark, with the nose spread widely across its flat surface and eyes compressed into slots between cheekbone and brow. There was a fading slave-brand on his left temple in the shape of an owl. The th sound at the end of the name, rare in Atlantean, gave it an uncouth ring. But Fern, torn between relief at her escape and the renewal of urgency, had no time to be daunted. Even as they ran down the passageway, stepping over the unconscious jailer, she was pouring out the gist of Ixavo’s revelations—the imminence of doom, the tidal wave, the fall of the city. She had expected incredulity and skepticism and was surprised when Ipthor took her side. “There is an uneasiness, a buildup of pressure: you can feel it when you’re underground. I think we should
go. The Norne is waiting. I’ll get the others together. Meet us on the wharf.”
“You don’t really believe this.” Rafarl’s protest lacked conviction.
“The water is low in the harbor; on the east coast the tide has not come in. You don’t have to be a priest to read the omens. It might be nothing more than freak weather conditions but when it comes to my own skin I like to be very, very prudent. If Atlantis falls, I intend to be somewhere else.” His unpleasant grin flashed out for a moment. “Just as well I didn’t take that reward. The phénix may be on the verge of drastic devaluation. It would have been a shame to sell my honor for a handful of scrap metal.”
“What honor?” said Rafarl absentmindedly.
“You’re a better sailor than any of us,” Ipthor persisted. “We’ll need you. You have the ear of the sea-gods: hence, no doubt, your penchant for nymphs. If it starts blowing a tempest you’re the only one who’ll be able to handle the boat.”
“If,” said Rafarl. “This is all ifs. I must see my mother. If— if she’ll come—”
“Women are bad luck on board ship,” said Gogoth.
“Women are bad luck anywhere.” Ipthor made a wry grimace.
“And Fern,” Rafarl concluded, his tone sharpening. “I won’t go without them. If you think women are bad luck, try sailing without a captain. That’s worse.”
Ipthor nodded; it was Fern who demurred. “I can’t leave till after the ceremony,” she said. “There’s something I have to do.”
“Your mission,” said Rafarl. “I wondered when we’d get back to that.”
There was a short silence. “Very well.” Rafarl turned to Gogoth and Ipthor. “Go down to the harbor, get the boat ready. Lay on water and food: we may be some days at sea. I trust you to enlist a suitable crew: the usual gang, I can’t take more. What about your uncle?”
“I suppose we ought to take him with us,” Ipthor conceded. “It is, after all, his boat. Honesty is not a priority for me, but when he sobers up he might be useful. I’ll peel him off a tap-room floor and sling him in the hold.”
“All right. I’ll meet you at dawn. I’d rather not risk negotiating the channel in the dark.”
They had re-entered the sewer now and were standing at the junction of two tunnels; water thick as grime sucked at their feet. Gogoth and Ipthor disappeared in one direction; Rafarl and Fern took the other. Presently they came to a shaft, much shorter than the one they had climbed before, which brought them out in a narrow yard between high walls. It was deep night and Fern could see little but a glimpse of the waxing moon above and a glimmer beyond the opening into the neighboring street. She followed Rafarl through the gate back into the shadows of the city.
The villa was in darkness when they arrived. The arch leading onto the porch was secured with a blind of wire mesh; the ground floor windows were similarly protected. Rafarl, undeterred, went to the second from the end, and after some judicious fiddling the blind slid upward. “I have an arrangement with my mother,” he explained in a whisper. “Ludicrous, isn’t it?—all this. My stepfather’s idea. He’s too mean to pay for a private guard and too paranoid to leave anything open. He must be home tonight. My mother never locks up.” They shinned over the low sill and slithered to the floor. With the exclusion of the night breeze the room was airless, muffled in gloom. Rafarl felt for the candle and tinder-box Ezramé always left on hand. In a moment, Fern saw a glancing spark, and then his hand was cupped to shield a tiny cone of flame from the draft of movement. “This way.” He led her through to the vestibule and began to ascend the stairs. A noise from above brought him to a halt. Ezramé emerged at the top, her loose night-robe pulled on in such haste she was still tying the strings down the front.
“Raf?”
“Mié.”
“Downstairs. Don’t wake your stepfather.”
Back in the salon, she lit a lamp and fetched wine herself, not wishing to disturb the servants. Most establishments had household slaves to whom they were less considerate, but Ezramé disapproved so strongly of this practice she had been able to carry her point with her husband. “Why did you come back?” she said, the welcome in her looks, not her words. “The city is too dangerous for you now. Indeed, I fear it is becoming too dangerous for us all. The temple guards go where they like and take whom they will. They went to the House of Mithraïs—the oldest of the ruling houses—” the footnote was for Fern’s benefit “—they took the youngest son, though his mother wept and pleaded. He’s ten years old. Ten. I can’t bear to think of it. What does Zohrâne hope to achieve, apart from the enmity of her subjects?”
“She doesn’t care for that,” said Fern. “She is going to open the Gate.”
“The Gate?” Ezramé looked puzzled.
“The Gate of Death.” Fern turned the goblet between her fingers, looking at the wine, at the wall, at nothing. “I have seen Ixavo. He knows more than she thinks. He knows me. He offered me help—after a fashion.”
“I said he knew you.” Rafarl threw her a suspicious look. And, with an edge in the question: “What kind of help?”
Fern gave a slight shrug. “Help on his terms. He wants to use me—and I need to use him. After the Gate is opened the Sea will come; it will fall on the city in a great wave, destroying everything. Ixavo has the power to protect me. I have to meet him in the temple and get the key. Then we go to the Rose Palace. The mountainside should be above the water, for a while. There’s another model of the Door there—he calls it the Door, not the Gate, I’m not sure why. Zohrâne had a second made because the first wasn’t rich enough. Ixavo says in magical terms it’s the same thing, and I can close it, and lock it, and fulfill my Task. I can’t refuse. It’s the only chance I have.”
“And then?” said Rafarl.
“He’ll get me off the island on a ship he has prepared. He wants the Lodestone. The key is the core. But he can’t touch it himself, for some reason. He thinks to control it through me.”
“You’ll allow that?”
Fern shook her head.
“How will you prevent him? On his ship, in his power, what can you do?”
“Throw myself in the sea, if it comes to that. If I can’t think of anything better.” Unexpectedly, she smiled.
Ezramé watched them in silence, not understanding but saving her questions, too wise to interrupt. Rafarl got up and paced the room, kicking an obstructive footstool from his path. “You’re really set on this idiocy, aren’t you? I suppose there’s no point in telling you to forget the business with the Door and come with me now?”
“No point.” Her voice was very quiet.
No one said anything for several minutes.
“So this is the end.” It was Ezramé who spoke at last. “The end of Atlantis. I’ve felt it coming—I’ve felt it for some time—but now it’s here, it’s soon, it’s real . . . Strange, it’s almost a relief. The doom that lies ahead of you, sensed but not known, vague and formless as a shadow—that is perhaps worse than the doom you can see clearly, no matter how terrible or how close. Do you know when—?”
“We leave at dawn.” Rafarl was curt, not looking at Fern.
“Oh no,” Ezramé said gently. “Atlantis is my home. I have been here too long to go now. I have loved it and loathed it, ignored its beauties, done too little to combat its evils. There have been many moments when I felt trapped in this city as in a cage of gold, but I chose that cage, it would be wrong to abandon it. Even now. You are young, your choices are not made. You can sail away, find kingdoms of your own, build anew. I am too weary of my life for all that.”
“Don’t talk that way.” Rafarl sat down beside her, took her hand. “I won’t leave without you.”
Fern moved away, feeling she would be an intruder in their dispute. Low voices reached her: Rafarl passionate, deriding, imploring, Ezramé regretful and very calm. At length Rafarl looked round. His face was bleak and set. “What about you?” he asked Fern.
“I told you, I have to complete the Task. I’ll g
o with Ixavo.”
“I don’t understand what this Task means,” Ezramé said with a revival of anxiety, “or what it is you have to do, but you mustn’t trust Ixavo. The corruption on his face lives but I have often felt that the man inside is dead, an automaton motivated by some external power. Whatever force he uses, it is not the Gift. He comes from Qultuum, the dark city, where natives still worship ancient earth-spirits with pagan rituals. Oh, I know we in Atlantis have no right to superiority now— the House of Goulabey has dragged us down to the level of barbarians—but of one thing I am sure, Zohrâne worships no power but her own. Even the Stone which was its source she has destroyed in her jealousy. Ixavo—”
“I don’t trust him,” said Fern. “I need him.”
“So you said.” Rafarl’s manner was unpleasant. “You need me, idiot. If you go with Ixavo, you’re finished. Why can’t you bring yourself to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“To wait for you.”
“You can’t,” said Fern. “The others would never agree to it.”
“I’ll make them agree. Ask me.”
“If you go now, you’ll be safe. If you wait, the storm will come. The Sea has no mercy.” And she shivered as she said it.
“Ask me.”
But she was silent, troubled by forgotten hauntings, knowing only that she could not ask him to risk his life. Her own seemed of little account now.
Ezramé rose, touching Fern’s arm. “There is an empty bedroom at the back of the house,” she said. “You can sleep there for a while. My husband will not know to bother you. Save your decisions till morning.”
There were two couches, but they only used one, lying together in a fierce embrace, making love without words, for words meant conflict. Rafarl fell asleep immediately after but Fern lay wakeful for a long time. In the dark before dawn she slept at last, a sleep without rest or refreshment, slipping straight into a zone of fractured dreams. She was back in the city, the city of her nightmares, with its hard gray streets and cliff-like buildings, and that background of noise that she had once missed without being able to pinpoint what it was. But in the dream, she knew. In the dream, she knew everything. The city broke up, sections of it peeling away like paint from a frieze, and other images followed, too many to remember, skittering across her sleep like mayflies. She tried to hold on to them, knowing they were telling her something important, something she needed to learn, but her mind would not retain them. And then the rapid scene-changes came to a halt, and she was in a dark room full of tables (Why tables ? she wondered afterward), and there was a candle in front of her, and beyond the flame she saw Ixavo’s face, no longer disfigured, a golden face framed in an aureole of silver. He smiled in a way that made her afraid, and the candleflame grew until it was as tall as a spear, and opened out, and then the room was all fire. She was surrounded, imprisoned, her hand was in the flames, Ixavo held her wrist so she could not draw back, and she saw the flesh charring and flaking off her bones. There was no pain but she knew it was true because she could not feel that hand anymore. She struggled frantically, screaming the silent screams of nightmare—and woke to find herself trembling, the sweat already chilling on her skin. The darkness was a shade paler; the only sounds were a bird calling out in the garden and the gentle rhythm of Rafarl’s breathing. Her hand had become trapped under his body, causing a temporary numbness. She extricated it without disturbing him and waited for the feeling to return, thankful for such a mundane explanation of the dream-horror. She did not dwell on the rest. The night was ebbing, and she curled her limbs around her lover, pressing her breasts against his back, desiring only his warmth and his nearness for whatever time remained to them.
