The Poisoned Crown

by Amanda Hemingway

  Sea … Sea … Sea … The cavern threw back the word in a wash of mingled reverberations.

  Why does this sound familiar? Nathan wondered. Was the call to war always the same?

  They are different—they are dangerous—we fear them—kill—kill— KILL…

  “The Goddess is all-powerful,” Rhadamu said. “Can she not melt the Great Ice so the northfolk perish without their sanctuary?”

  A shiver ran through the priestesses; the rhythm of their exhortation faltered.

  Nathan thought: They don’t like the question. They don’t like any questions …

  Nefanu wants obedience, without awkward objections.

  “The Ice melts!” said the priestesses, but their voices were no longer in unison. Melts … melts … melts …, said the echoes. “The Ice melts—and refreezes! The cold of the utter north cannot be changed. The Goddess could tilt the world on its axis, but she must refrain, lest the balance of life be overthrown.”

  I bet she can’t do it, Nathan said to himself. She doesn’t give a damn about the balance of life.

  “The Poles are the anchors of the globe. To move them would bring death to more than the northfolk. The currents of the world would shift—the seas would boil—the stars would weep blood …”

  Rhadamu’s face remained as expressionless as a shark. Possibly he had heard it all before. “The Goddess is all-powerful,” he responded. “Could she not melt the ice for just a brief time—a day, a night, an hour? Then the northfolk would drown or panic, and fall easily to our spears.”

  “The meltwater would flow south and chill the reefs.” One of the shamans spoke alone, her voice quavering in isolation.

  “Has the merking no stomach for the fight?” asked the others. “He is the regent of the Goddess, foremost of the twelve kings, protector of the Death Crown. Is such a being to show himself craven before the ultimate battle?”

  Battle … tattle … rattle …, said the echoes.

  They mean the Iron Crown, Nathan thought. The Death Crown. It must be.

  “I have no stomach for the slaughter of my people,” said the king. “I hate the northfolk with a deep and bitter hatred, but they are many, and strong, and will fight long and hard for survival. They will be in home waters, familiar with every riptide, every ripple. They can retreat onto the ice where we cannot follow—our legs have been unused for too long—and use their hidden weapons against us. In such a conflict, the outcome is far from certain. The Goddess loves her children; she must share my concern.”

  “The Goddess expects her people to die—” Die … die …“—die bravely, die gladly, in a great cause. The heart is strong, the spear is sharp. Let none cry Hold! until the last of the lungbreathers breathe their last. Trueseal and selkie, pinwing and snowbeast—all must be slain. To war! To war! The northfolk are many—the merfolk are more! Summon the twelve hosts, mount the sharkriders, arm the spearslingers, poison-tip both javelin and lance! Nefanu will send the monsters of the deep for the laggard and the latecomer, the wounded and the weak. Let none cry Hold!—let none hold back. To war!”

  War … war…

  “We are ready!” said the warrior whom Nathan thought might be Uraki. “We will dye the northern seas red with their blood and ours— the cliffs will drip with icicles of scarlet—Nefanu’s pets will make such a feast as has never been seen. If they flee from us over the floes we will raise the Leviathan who crunches whole icebergs in its jaws—”

  “No!” No … no …, sang the echoes, rebounding almost before the priestesses had spoken. “Not the Leviathan! Let him sleep—sleep in the deep—deepest sleep—never to wake—never to rise. Better the last merman die than the Leviathan should stir …”

  “I know the peril,” said Rhadamu, not even glancing at the warrior. “My captains are sometimes foolhardy, but not I. We will prepare. I will call the merkings to a council of war—the twelve hosts will be gathered—we will go north with the moontide when all is ready. The Goddess has my word. I will not fail her.”

  “Be swift!” said the shamans. “Speed is of the essence. The foe must have no warning. There are spies and traitors even among your own people—at the very heart of the kingdom. The tale of their perfidy is a murmur in the ear of a shell, a bubble in the mouth of a small-fish—but we have heard it. We hear everything. Treachery slips like an eel between the cracks of your defenses. It may yet undermine all our plans.”

  With any luck, thought Nathan.

  “Use your magic!” said the king. “Find the traitors. Are you not the elected priestesses of Nefanu? Do you not see as well as hear? Find the traitors, and I will chain them to the Dragon’s Reef, and crabs will nibble their flesh while they still live.”

  “The spells are brewing,” said the priestesses. “Soon we will know. But the magic cannot be hurried.”

  “Be swift,” the king adjured. “Speed is of the essence. I will not go to war with treachery at my back.”

  I must warn Denaero, Nathan thought, feeling the dream pulling him away—away from the priestesses with their white eyes, and the talk of war and blood, and the cathedral echoes repeating and repeating it in a murmuring liturgy. Away from the dark of the ocean into the safer darkness of a dreamless sleep.

  Denaero … warn Denaero …

  Then his thought was extinguished, and when he woke he was back in his own world.

  AT BREAKFAST Annie looked pale and tired, but Nathan was too preoccupied to notice. He was desperate to return to Widewater and contact Ezroc and the mermaid, but he knew from previous experience that sleep would not come at will, and any attempt to force the portal would either fail or land him in the wrong universe. The day stretched ahead, a space to be filled—he needed action, diversion, discussion, anything to get him through.

  “I’m going out,” he told Annie.

  “Where?” Even her voice sounded pale, though he didn’t pick up on the tone. The horror of her dream and Kaliban’s story clung to her like a shadow that could not be brushed off.

  “Hazel,” he said, almost at random. “I—I need to talk to her.”

  “But you saw her last night?”

  Last night… A vague recollection of the party came to him, reduced to insignificance by subsequent events. “We didn’t talk. You can’t talk properly at parties. ’Bye, Mum—see you later.”

  She let him go, wondering where he’d been in his sleep to make Hazel’s company so imperative, wishing he would talk to her—but he was a teenager, and teenagers rarely choose their mothers for the role of first confidante. She poured herself more coffee, and let it grow cold. Some time later, she picked up the phone and dialed Bartlemy’s number.

  At the Bagots’ house, Nathan found Lily in the kitchen with Franco experimenting with a new cappuccino machine and Hazel in her room making a figure out of pipe cleaners. It had a curl of black hair glued on top that might have been Franco’s and a snarl of red wool around its neck in imitation of a scarf he favored.

  “What are you doing?” Nathan demanded.

  “Sympathetic magic.” The short end of a pipe cleaner protruded between its legs. Hazel bent it until it was pointing downward, murmuring what might have been a magic word.

  Then again, it might not.

  “That’s not funny,” Nathan said. “I bet Uncle Barty didn’t teach you that.”

  “No, he didn’t. It was in one of great-grandmother’s books.”

  “You know what happens if you use magic to harm people. You tried that once before.”

  “Stop lecturing me.” She looked up at him, pushing her hair back off her face—the tangle of hair she had always used to hide herself. “You don’t think there’s anything of Franco in this? It’s a bunch of pipe cleaners and a piece of wool.” She didn’t go into details about the hair. “Even Great-Grandma wouldn’t have been that stupid. It takes more than that to make a simulacrum. I was just doing—transference.”

  “Transference?”

  “Something Uncle Barty did teach me. You make an i
mage for your hate, and you torture it, or burn it, or just make it look stupid, and the hate transfers into the image, and then it’s gone. Burned up—laughed out of court. Transference.”

  “Unsympathetic magic.” Nathan relaxed a little, letting himself smile at her. “Are you sure you didn’t—do anything more?”

  “Almost sure,” Hazel said airily. “You’re all knotted up: I can feel it. What’s happened?”

  Nathan poured out the whole story—about Widewater, and Denaero, and the priestesses of Nefanu, and the imminent conflict between merfolk and selkies.

  “I thought you were meant to find the Crown,” Hazel said, “not stop a war.”

  “I don’t suppose I can stop it,” Nathan admitted. “I don’t think anyone can. But I can’t let Denaero be hurt.”

  “You said the king was her father,” Hazel recalled. “She’s his youngest daughter, right? She’s bound to be his favorite—it’s like that in all the stories. He wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “I don’t know. The Goddess makes them all mad. She’s like Nenu-far, only worse. I’m afraid Denaero’s in real danger.”

  “You like her, don’t you?” Hazel said gruffly.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “The same as that princess you were so hooked on?”

  “Oh no. No, not at all. She’s very pretty, but… sort of cold and fishy.” He wasn’t going to mention the lack of scallop shells.

  “Does she wear one of those seashell bras like in films?” Hazel asked with an unnerving flash of perception.

  “N-no. But she’s awfully flat-chested, so it doesn’t really matter.”

  Hazel said nothing, brooding on her own lack of development in that area.

  “Anyway, she thinks I’m stupid,” Nathan went on. “I know it’s pretty feeble, but I’m still scared of the water after the accident—and even if I wasn’t, it’s not as if I can go under for ages like she does, or cope with the pressures when you get down really deep. If you want to do something useful, instead of fiddling about with pipe cleaners you could find a spell to help me.”

  “Useful?” Her face reddened with anger. “Of course, I never do anything useful, do I? You’re the one who does the useful stuff, popping between worlds and rescuing people all the time. I just get to—to sit around and clap ’cos you’re such a hero. And now I can make myself useful by finding you a spell so you can go swimming with a topless mermaid! That would be really useful, would it? That would help to save the world?”

  “You’re overreacting,” Nathan said, vaguely surprised by her outburst. “I didn’t mean it seriously. I shouldn’t think there is any such spell—and if there was, it would take a very powerful witch to pull it off. I only meant—”

  “Thank you! So I can’t possibly be useful because—because I’m not even much good as a witch?”

  “But you never wanted to be,” Nathan pointed out, reasonably. “You always hated the idea of doing magic—you were afraid you’d end up like Effie Carlow, lonely and sly and sour inside. You only got into the magic thing when you fell for that creep Jonas Tyler, and he wasn’t exactly worth it, was he?”

  “Whereas you’re hanging out with a half-naked mermaid!” Hazel fumed. “At least Jonas kept his trousers on!”

  “Actually,” Nathan said scrupulously, “she isn’t so much half naked, more, sort of, whole naked. Only her bottom bit is usually tail. Except when it turns into legs …”

  “I don’t want to hear this!”

  “Look, I have to warn her about the priestesses. I keep telling you, she’s in danger—”

  “I bet she’s in danger,” Hazel said savagely, “going around with no clothes on! Go and save her, why don’t you? You’re always doing it. First it was that stupid princess, now it’s a mermaid with no knickers. Why don’t you just whiz off and—and do your superman stunt? You don’t need my help for that.”

  “For heaven’s sake, calm down,” Nathan said. “You’re acting really weird lately. Anyway, you’re in no position to criticize the company I keep—you spent the best part of last night talking to Damian Wicks. I mean, Jason’s kid brother—and they say he’s just like Jace only shorter and not so tough. Do you really like hanging around with a failed school bully who wants to be a thug when he grows up?”

  “Damian is nothing like Jason,” Hazel protested. “He’s really sweet and—”

  At that point there was a knock on the door. Hostilities were suspended for a breathless minute. The door opened a few cautious inches, and Lily Bagot peered through the gap, flushed with the triumph of culinary achievement. “Would anyone like a cappuccino?” she offered.

  n that Sunday afternoon, Bartlemy came to tea with Annie, driving into the village in his old Jowett Javelin, a car so retro most people had never heard of it, let alone seen one. It was already dark when they sat down by the fire, with the teapot keeping warm on the hearth and the coffee cake Bartlemy had bought on a plate on the table. Coffee cake was Annie’s favorite, and he sensed she needed a treat. Nathan was with George, in theory helping with his history homework, in practice playing World Domination on the computer. Annie wanted to talk about her visitor of the previous night, but not in front of her son.

  “He sat right where you are now,” Annie said. “It’s funny, you’d think I’d be used to that sort of thing, but I’m not. Even after being attacked by the water spirit, and finding Rianna’s corpse, and the things I’ve seen in the circle, and that time Nathan went missing, or when he was kidnapped, or turned up covered in slime from a giant man-eating slug … anyway, I still found it hard to take. Maybe it was because I felt he wasn’t just a demon, there was a human inside somewhere.”

  “Possibly,” said Bartlemy. “That doesn’t mean it was a good human. Werespirits have their own loyalties but no moral sense, only appetites and needs. Whatever humanity he might have had has long been distorted out of shape. Don’t be tempted to pity him. In such dealings, pity can be terminal.”

  “I know,” Annie said. “Still, he told me—what were his words?— he was growing a soul.”

  “A strange way of putting it,” Bartlemy commented. “I must take more interest in your friend Kaliban—particularly if he is taking an interest in you. What did you say he called himself?—the sword with the twisted blade. A reference to his name. Caliburn is what he was christened, if christening came into it: a variant of Excalibur. His mother wanted a weapon, not a child. The name was changed later, becoming Kaliban, or Chalyban—from Caulborn, I believe, one born in a caul. Shakespeare must have heard it somewhere, heard tales of the name and its owner, when he used it for Sycorax’s son in The Tempest. And so the legend grew. A name to live down to.”

  “What does he really look like?” Annie asked. “I thought, when he was leaving, he had paws, maybe a tail…”

  “What does any of us really look like?” Bartlemy said. “If there was a true mirror to show us the shape of the soul… I have never seen him—either his mortal seeming or his demon self—but I am told he is a patchwork creature like so many werespirits, a bit of this, a bit of that. The horns of a ram, the muscles of a bull, clawed feet, tufted tail. Why do you think so many of the ancient gods had scales or feathers, animal heads, eagle’s wings? Werenature could never resist the chance to experiment, to make something bigger and better, nastier and scarier than anything mere biology could achieve. Most spirits create their own forms, but I fear Kaliban was stuck with his. I didn’t know he could assume a more acceptable shape. That must be a recent development.”

  “His hair hung forward,” Annie volunteered, “but his forehead was sort of scarred, as if it had been burned.”

  “Scars,” Bartlemy mused. “Yes. Those cannot be altered. I don’t know the story of his.”

  “Was I right,” Annie went on, “inviting him in?”

  “Had I been there, I would have advised against it. But I was not there. You behaved with generosity and trust, as I would expect of you, and you have lived to tell the tale. So perhaps my advi
ce would have been wrong. I am more concerned with the story he told you. That is … potentially disturbing.”

  “He said the boy was about sixteen,” Annie reiterated, “and his name was Nei-thun. That must be coincidence—mustn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” Bartlemy admitted. “I feel—we have a glimpse of a pattern, a pattern that must mean something, but only a few details are illuminated, and the outline is still unclear. Which is a fancy way of saying that I have no idea what’s going on, and at this stage I can only guess.”

  Annie managed a smile, but it was a halfhearted effort. “Why did he sing that verse from ‘Scarborough Fair’?” she said. “Only he said Scarbarrow—the place where the woman … did it. D’you suppose that meant something, or was he just playing with rhymes like the other spirits in the circle?”

  “Oh, that means something sure enough,” Bartlemy said. “‘Scarbarrow Fayr’ was the original name of the ballad. It changed over the years the way songs do, as the Scarbarrow was forgotten and the town slipped in instead. There was a story behind it, an old, old story. The Scarbarrow was a hill somewhere around here, supposedly the burial place of a primitive king. Some said he was a mortal man, others the king of Elfland, and inside the hill were the gates to Faerie. Of course, the gates to Faerie have often been equated with the Gate of Death … Anyway, legend had it that on certain nights of the year the hill would open, and the fairyfolk would come out and dance with the souls of the dead, seeking to lure them through the gates beyond the reach of church or god. People would place special herbs on the graves to shield their inmates from the charms of the fae—parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.”

  “Like the song,” Annie said, relaxing sufficiently to take a bite of coffee cake. “I see.”

  “The ballad springs from one particular incident. Myth or truth, we don’t know, and it hardly matters. A beautiful girl—a young man— true love. The usual thing. But she was sought after by a local lordling— the youth challenged him—they fought—he died. The lordling was a skilled swordsman, the youth a peasant with no skills at all. The girl mourned him, spurning her noble admirer, so he decreed in his jealousy and rage that the youth could not be buried, but must lie un-coffined till after Halloween, with neither herb nor prayer to save his soul. The girl kept vigil over him, determined to protect him at any cost. It was the night when the hill would open—the night of Scarbarrow Fayr—and she knelt in the churchyard beside his corpse, watching and waiting, while the moon sailed the cloudwrack and the fairyfolk came dancing down the hillside, carrying their little green candles and whistling, whistling for the souls of the dead.”