“She’s a mermaid,” Nathan explained. “Rhadamu’s daughter. She’s a friend of Ezroc’s, too. Where is he? I really have to find him.”
“You don’t find him,” Burgoss grunted. “He finds you. You should know that, if you know anything. It’s been two full moons since I saw him, and albatrosses fly swift and far. He could be halfway ’round the world by now.”
Nathan was silent, wondering what to do. His dreams were usually more helpful than this.
“So he’s friendly with the coldkin, too, is he?” Burgoss mused. “That figures. Like I said, a two-headed shrimp … All this about the war—is it true?”
“Yes.”
“You better talk to the selkies, young’un. If there’s an attack coming, we need to prepare.”
“Will they listen?” Nathan asked. “You said they were complacent and apathetic.”
“I said? I said, did I? Who—”
“Ezroc told me,” Nathan said desperately, taking shortcuts to avoid awkward explanations. “Nokosha’s the only one who really believes in the threat, and he’s so hostile he wouldn’t be any use.”
“Knock me down with a sea lion’s whisker! You really are telling the truth, aren’t you? All right, cub, I’ll talk to the selkies. You—well, you’d better talk to the Spotted One. He won’t like you at all, but then, he doesn’t like anyone. And he’ll listen—if he believes you.”
“He won’t,” Nathan said gloomily. “He’ll probably kill me, too— just for the hell of it. He’s obviously psychotic.”
“Sy—what?”
“Never mind. Look, I can’t—”
“If you’ve come all the way from another world to help us,” Burgoss said, “it’s pretty stupid to chicken out now. You don’t look like you’d be much good swimming in these seas, so I’ll go find Nokosha. He’ll be curious if nothing else. I’ll see to that. Wait here. And try not to freeze over.”
“I’ll do my best,” Nathan said. In fact, he seemed to be acclimatizing, though he had no desire to go near the sea. The temperature, he reckoned, would kill him in seconds, long before he had time to be afraid of drowning.
Burgoss was gone a long while. The sun traveled a little farther on its low arc across the sky, its rays blinking off ice and snow in a dazzle of almost unbearable whiteness. Nathan wished he’d thought to go to sleep in dark glasses. He got up and walked about, determined to keep warm, slithering once or twice on the treacherous surface. No wonder they don’t use their legs much, he thought after his feet shot out from under him and he sat down hard. Easier to start where you’ll finish—on your bottom or your stomach. He struggled to get up again and resumed his pacing, taking more care this time.
The voice behind him took him by surprise. Nokosha’s voice. “Burgoss was right. You are a legwalker.”
Nathan turned to face him. He was sitting on the edge of the floe, his tail dipping in the water, his spotted features as inscrutable as those of a cat. A leopard, Nathan decided, a sea leopard, ghost-gray and deadly, his feral eyes not white like those of the shamans but silver, glittering as though chipped from ice.
“Yes,” Nathan said, “but legs aren’t much good on this surface. It’s easy to fall over. I wouldn’t want to try running.” He was determined to preserve his coolth, if at all possible. After all, he was in the right place for it. His coolth had rarely been cooler.
Nokosha said: “Running?”
“Moving fast. One foot in front of the other.” He kept his distance from the selkie, an instinctive precaution, realizing that on terra firma he had a slight advantage. Selkies evidently used their legs for walking purposes little more than merfolk. “Where’s Burgoss?”
“Gone to try to rouse the northfolk. It’ll take a season or more— and Burgoss isn’t a rouser by nature. More a grumbler.”
“Maybe he’ll grumble them into action,” Nathan said.
“When penguins fly. He believes your story—merfolk massing for war. I don’t. Not because war isn’t coming—I know it is, soon or late. But I don’t make a habit of believing strangers who pop out of nowhere and try to stir things into a maelstrom for their own ends. What was the idea? Get us all into a group and lure us into a trap? Or wear us out with false alarms, so when the real attack comes We’re exhausted and off guard?”
“You’re off guard already,” Nathan said. “And I don’t know when the attack is coming, or where, so I can’t do any luring. You’ll believe me when there’s a spear in your gut, though it won’t do you much good.” He didn’t feel like being diplomatic. Besides, he was sure it wouldn’t work.
“So who are you? What are you? And why are you here?”
“My name is Nathan, I’m human, and I’m here to get the Iron Crown. What Nefanu calls the Crown of Death. It came from another world; it has to go back. Getting mixed up with your lot is just incidental.”
The selkie was silent for a minute. “That sounds almost convincing,” he said at last. “I like it. There are many strange stories about the Crown. Easy to add one more.”
“What stories?”
“Don’t you know?” Nokosha sneered.
“I know Nefanu can’t wear it or touch it,” Nathan said wearily. His patience was growing thin. “She’s a werespirit: iron is anathema to her. And it would rust in water, so she keeps it in a cavern of air under the Dragon’s Reef. Wherever that is. I’d still like to know how she got the water out of the cavern.”
“I heard the story from the whales,” Nokosha said, watching Nathan with cold concentration. “They have long memories. They say she closed every exit save one. Then she made a great whirlpool and drew the air down through the vortex into the hole, forcing the water out, until all the caves were filled with air. She sealed the entrance with a boulder, so no one could go in or out, and the Crown was shut inside. There’s supposed to be a secret door where she gets in sometimes to gloat over it. Apparently, it’s an object of power, though what the power is for remains a mystery. She collects such things, the sunken treasures of civilizations long gone—broken, useless, lifeless artifacts. The caves are said to be full of them.”
“That must have raised the sea level,” Nathan said, diverted by his own speculations. “That’s why the lands drowned. If you could open the caves—move the boulder—it would be like pulling the plug out. The seas would sink again. The islands would reappear.”
“Why should we want that?” Nokosha demanded.
“You wouldn’t,” Nathan said. “You’d prefer to massacre all the merfolk and live on the Great Ice forever. Alone. That’s the way your brain works—or rather, doesn’t work. Burgoss once said you were clever, but I haven’t seen much sign of it. The selkies need a leader. They probably wouldn’t have you, but from what I’ve heard there isn’t anyone else. Yet you don’t even try. You’re too busy not caring.”
“They hate me,” Nokosha said. “Why should I care?”
“Because they’re your people. Because this is your world. Because— because caring is part of being alive. They only hate you because you want them to. When you were a child—a cub—they mocked you for your spots, didn’t they? So now you have to be a pariah by way of revenge. I think that’s so idiotic it’s unreal.” He was getting angrier, knowing there was no way to get through to a closed mind, kicking at the door in frustration. “Everyone you care for—everyone you ought to care for—is going to be killed, but that’s all right as long as you can go on being an outcast and telling yourself it’s all their own fault.”
“They don’t listen to me,” Nokosha said. “Why should I listen to you?”
“No reason. No reason at all. I didn’t come to talk to you. I wanted to find Ezroc. At least he’s trying to save people, even if they don’t want saving.”
“You know Ezroc?”
“Didn’t Burgoss tell you?”
“No, he didn’t. It isn’t a recommendation. The albatross killed my only friend—or left him to die.”
“Oh, grollocks,” Nathan said—a vulgarism u
nique to Widewater. “Ezroc told you what happened. You just want someone to blame. Keerye was taken by the Floater, even though Ezroc told him to be careful. I saw it.”
“The witness …” The selkie drew himself up onto the ice, moving nearer to Nathan, the sweep of his seal body reshaping itself into legs that wormed across the floe.
“I was in his mind. You wouldn’t understand—or believe me. You’re so obsessed with not believing in anything—”
“I certainly don’t believe in you. Otherworlds are fairy tales for chicks and cubs. I believe—” He sprang so fast Nathan had hardly any time to react. He jumped back, but his feet skidded and even as he fell the selkie was on top of him, pinning him down, a hand around his throat. Fingers pressed on his windpipe, squeezed the vein beneath his ear. The bloodbeat grew loud in his head.
“I believe in this,” the selkie said with vicious satisfaction. “Now you’ll tell me the truth. What are you really after?”
“The Crown.” Nathan’s voice was reduced to a croak. “I—told you. Stupid …”
Nokosha’s grip tightened. Nathan saw the spots detach themselves from his face and spread through the air, turning vision into a blur. “The truth!”
“Told you.” The croak had become a whisper. “I come—from— another world …”
And then everything went black.
NATHAN WOKE up in his own room to find his throat bruised and tender and snow melting on his clothes. Even so, he was half smiling. He lay for some time picturing Nokosha’s face when his victim vanished from his chokehold into the empty air.
At tea he said to Annie: “Doesn’t it make you furious when you’re telling the truth and people don’t believe you?”
“Definitely,” Annie said, thinking of Pobjoy. “But there’s no point in losing your temper. You just have to convince them.”
I hope Nokosha found my disappearance convincing, Nathan thought. And then, with a pang of guilt: I still haven’t been able to warn Denaero …
“He thinks I’m potty,” Annie said, more to herself than her audience. “He thinks we’re all potty.”
“Sorry?”
“Nothing. What do you want for supper? After last night, I don’t feel much like proper cooking. And we did have a big breakfast.”
“Toasted cheese?” Nathan suggested.
“Good idea.”
ON MONDAY morning Annie was in the bookshop when she got the letter. The headmaster of Ffylde had picked his moment, giving her the holidays to adjust to Nathan’s changed circumstances and, since he would be away, preventing, or at least postponing, her storming his office in an outburst of maternal rage. He informed her that although Nathan’s academic record was satisfactory—“Satisfactory!” Annie expostulated—the school had decided to terminate his scholarship after GCSEs, feeling such preferential treatment was unfair both to other pupils and their parents. His predecessor, Father Crowley, had been prone to favor those students with family problems—“What family problems?”—or other personal difficulties, sometimes forgetting that boys from a more stable environment were equally deserving. Under the new regime the idea was to create a level playing field where no such favoritism would be allowed. If Ms. Ward was unable or unwilling to pay the fees—perhaps she might consider extending her mortgage— no doubt Nathan would be perfectly happy in state education, where he would have the opportunity to make friends more suited to his outlook and lifestyle. The headmaster might even venture to suggest that such a change would be beneficial to Nathan, since it would demonstrate to him that in the real world there was no such thing as a free pass to the future.
He was hers faithfully, et cetera.
Annie finished reading the letter, set it down on the desk, checked that the shop was empty, and screamed.
It provided her only a modicum of relief. When she had finished screaming she read the letter all over again, fuming at every sentence, every phrase—“Ms. Ward! I’ve always been Mrs., even though I’m not. How dare he call me Ms.? He’s talking like I’m a bimbo who shags around and doesn’t even know who Nathan’s father is. Family problems, indeed! All right, I don’t know who Nathan’s father is, but he doesn’t know I don’t know, and the school doesn’t know I don’t know, and they have no right—Friends more suited to his outlook—No such thing as a free pass—anyone would think Nathan had done something wrong instead of being the best pupil they’ve ever had. His English teacher, his history teacher, they all agree …” She reached for the telephone with a hand trembling with fury and distress, and dialed Bartlemy.
“Would you like me to pay his fees?” Bartlemy said. “I would be happy to do so, if that’s what you want.”
“Oh no—no—I didn’t mean—I wouldn’t ask—”
“You’re my family,” Bartlemy said. “And I can afford it, I assure you.”
“Thank you,” Annie said. “Thank you so much. You’ve been better than family, to both of us. But that wasn’t why I called. I wanted to—”
“To get things off your chest?”
“Absolutely. It’s such a horrible letter, so condescending and—and superior, as if Nathan were the sort of boy who collected Anti-Social Behavior Orders in his spare time and was going to grow up to be a hooligan—and even if he was like that, no headmaster worthy of the name should ever dismiss him in that way. Sorry, our school is only for the rich and the privileged; your son may have brains but he should stay in the gutter where he belongs.”
“Is that what he said?” Bartlemy remarked. “Dear me.”
“It’s what he meant. And since it’s an abbey school, I assume he’s supposed to be a Christian. I don’t want Nathan to go there anymore if that’s how they feel about him, but… but…”
“He may want to stay,” Bartlemy supplied. “His friends are there, after all. Apart from Hazel and George he’s not close to the children in the village, not anymore. You’ll have to discuss this with him. But don’t rush at it. Calm down first. You’ve got the whole of the Christmas vacation.”
“Of course,” Annie said gratefully. “I’ll do that. It’s just—I got so angry …”
“Naturally,” Bartlemy said. “I suspect the new headmaster has his own agenda. He sees the school as a business that is intended to make money—he’s probably going to increase the fees as soon as he can, and put all sorts of expensive extras into the curriculum. His motto is presumably that you get what you pay for, and the more people pay, the more they will think they get. Much of modern society subscribes to that sort of logic. And as the school revenues expand, so the headmaster’s reputation will expand with them, carrying him on to other, more highly paid headmasterships at still more expensive and expansive schools, with a possible knighthood somewhere at the end of it. Not to mention seats on various prestigious committees and a life of general prestigiousness. I’m sure he has convinced himself that although Nathan is a bright pupil, he’s a disruptive element whose departure would benefit his classmates—and there are always other bright pupils, preferably with wealthier parents. Can I make a suggestion?”
“Go on.”
“Write back in the next week or so. There’s no hurry, but it will do you good to be taking action. Say you have consulted with Nathan’s uncle, who is happy to pay the school fees for a nephew so talented and promising. Mention me by name, and give this address. However, explain that the aforesaid uncle feels Nathan might perhaps be better off at another private school with rather higher academic standards, and in view of that you would like some time to consider the position. Conclude that you trust this will not be inconvenient, and so on and so on. Be very dignified and polite: that should put him in his place.”
Annie laughed aloud.
“That ought to make you feel a bit better.”
“Oh yes, it will. Thank you. You’re a genius.”
She hung up with a final thank you and was in the process of composing her dignified and polite reply when Pobjoy came in. The shop door, which seemed to have a peculiar affinity with
her more questionable or unwelcome visitors, failed to clang, but she had already been distracted from her task by the entry of another customer—“Just browsing”—and she mouthed a greeting. In view of his attitude the previous weekend, she didn’t feel a smile was appropriate.
He didn’t even pretend to look at the books, approaching her desk with a brusque “Hello” and eyeing the intrusive customer resentfully.
In due course the customer selected a book, paid for it, and left.
“Who was that?” Pobjoy demanded unreasonably.
“Someone who wanted to buy a book,” Annie said. “This is a bookshop, remember? Although far too many of my visitors don’t, especially lately.” She added, setting him at a distance: “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m the one who—look, I wanted to apologize. Things were very strained the other night, and some of us weren’t completely sober.”
“Are you suggesting I was drunk?” Annie said, mustering all her native hauteur, which wasn’t very much.
“Of course not. Not drunk, perhaps, but—”
“Not exactly sober?”
“You were at a party …”
“I was sober,” Annie perjured herself, “and before you ask, the children were sober, and Bartlemy was sober. We were all incredibly sober. I thought you said you came to apologize.”
“I did, but you’re not giving me a chance. I can’t believe that story the kids told—not the way they told it—in a court of law they’d be charged with contempt, but I shouldn’t have expressed myself quite so … I know you’re not nuts, and you can’t possibly be a criminal, though there’s obviously something criminal going on. I’m sorry if I gave offense. Perhaps we could just agree to look at things differently. What you call a demon, I call a psychopath—”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Annie said. “He might just tear your head off.”
“See what I mean?”
To his surprise, she laughed. “If Kal’s growing a soul,” she said, “you seem to be growing a sense of humor. Maybe you should put it in a pot and water it regularly.”
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