“I’ll try,” he said seriously. And then: “I could use some help. Perhaps you’d have lunch with me?”
“All right,” Annie said, caught off guard. “I mean—thank you.”
NATHAN HAD gone to Chizzledown to see if Rowena Thorn could give him a job for a couple of weeks. He’d worked for her the previous year—she was always busy in the run-up to Christmas—and although the money was not particularly good he enjoyed learning about cleaning and restoration, and between them he and Eric were strong enough to move everything but a grand piano. Rowena, with whom he was something of a favorite, agreed immediately and said if he liked he could start now. He sent Annie a text, spent the rest of the day happily polishing chairs, and in the evening dropped in to see Hazel on his way home.
“You’re so lucky,” she said enviously. “I don’t have enough vacation to get a job. Anyway, Uncle Barty wants me to spend all of it working on stuff for school. He says we’re going to do some magic, too, only I know what he’s really up to. He’ll tell me I need to sharpen my brain first, like it was a blunt pencil, and then we’ll have to go through French grammar or something for the next two hours. It’s a plot to make me pass my exams, only it’s a complete waste, because I won’t.” She had evidently decided to relapse into self-doubt again.
“Well, if you’re sure …”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Okay,” Nathan said. “Don’t then. It’s up to you.”
“Stop it,” Hazel snapped.
“Stop what?”
“Trying to persuade me to—to make more effort, and be motivated, and all that crap.”
“I never said a word to persuade you. I was just agreeing—”
“It’s the way you agree. I know you’re being devious.”
“If you know, then it isn’t working, is it?” Nathan pointed out. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, you were awfully clever last weekend—the pipe-cleaner trick. I shouldn’t have made fun of it. Only please don’t do it on anyone else.”
“It was pretty good, wasn’t it?” Hazel said, gratified. “Actually, I didn’t think it would come off. It never seemed to have any effect on Franco.”
“How would you know?”
“He and Mum should look unhappy.”
“D’you really want to make your mother miserable? Honestly, Hazel…”
Fortunately for their mutual accord, they left the subject, reverting to the events of the weekend, discussing them thoroughly and at length before Nathan moved on to Widewater and his encounter with the Spotted One. I may not be able to get into other worlds, Hazel thought when he’d gone, but at least I’m involved now, I can do something. And she remembered what Nathan had said about needing a spell so he could survive underwater. There must be such a spell, somewhere in the annals of magic; she could always ask Bartlemy about it. Only it would be so much better if she could find it herself…
She started reading through her great-grandmother’s notebooks.
NATHAN SLEPT on top of his bed, fully clothed, on Sunday night and for the three nights following, but he didn’t return to the Great Ice and eventually, reasoning that he was hoping for warmer waters anyway, he went back to tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. He didn’t really need the T-shirt but the recollection of Denaero’s topless condition made him opt for it, although he couldn’t have analyzed the rationale behind his thought processes. It simply made him feel more secure, imagining himself face-to-face with her, modestly T-shirted. He wasn’t, he thought, exactly prudish; he just didn’t want to put his body on show.
But the next time he found himself on Widewater, he had left his body behind.
He was looking down on the Great Ice, at a vast crowd that seemed to cover the floe in all directions: selkies, trueseals, sea lions, penguins, a score of great albatrosses and flocks of lesser seabirds—gannets, puffins, auks, terns, and others he didn’t recognize. The occasional walrus loomed up, tusked and whiskered; snowbears hung around the northward edge, far larger than our polar bears, shag-haired and saber-toothed. In the middle there was a clear space, and Nathan could see Burgoss, his head moving from side to side as he scrutinized the audience, a couple of selkies with weather-lined faces and an air of age if not wisdom, and Ezroc, biggest of the albatrosses, perched on a pinnacle of ice where he could look down on the scene. But at the very center on a hummock of snow stood Nokosha, the Spotted One— Nokosha the outcast—the ghost-spots mottling his naked legs, haranguing the crowd in a voice that carried effortlessly in the cold clear air. He talked of the coming attack, the greed of the merfolk who wanted the seas all to themselves, the wrath of Nefanu who hated all creatures that walk on legs—and Nathan knew that was why he had changed into his human form, he alone among all the selkies there, as an act of defiance, a gesture, a challenge. He talked to the crowd, and they listened, doubted, rallied; once in a while there was a clamor of approval. As an outcast he had hunted alone, as a leader he stood alone—always alone, whether rejecting his people or stepping forward to call them to battle. Ezroc and Burgoss, the two elders, were behind him but a little way off, as though whatever was driving him—the fire of his heart, the need of a desperate hour—was somehow contagious and might yet destroy them all.
Great, thought Nathan. We’ve started the war on both sides. Now we have to stop it—and with that thought the crowded floe fell away beneath him, and the ocean wheeled, and he was floating above the turquoise waters of the tropics, with the steams of the Reef Wall far to the south, and the westering sun flashing sparks from every wavelet. And there was Denaero, her dark head rising from the lagoon, watching the empty sky, looking for the albatross, maybe even for him—believing, perhaps, that now that he had learned what he needed, Ezroc had abandoned her. Nathan wanted to materialize, to reassure her that Ezroc would never willingly fail her, to warn her of the shaman-priestesses and their probing spells—but he could not. He was trapped in his nothingness, voiceless and powerless, able only to observe.
Presently, another head emerged beside Denaero, a mermaid with greenish brown hair threaded with yellow pearls and looped around speckled cowries. “Come away,” she said. “Father calls for you at the banquet. The eleven kings are all there; he says he is dishonored by your absence. Why do you linger here?”
“Banquets bore me,” said Denaero. “I came to see the sunset.”
“The sun does not set northward. What are you looking for? Is it the talk of war that troubles you?—are you afraid the selkies will come south from their cold seas to harry us? Don’t worry: I heard Uraki say that he has set guards all along the reef. Not a smallfish passes but he will know of it. There is nothing to fear.”
“I am not afraid,” Denaero said, and her voice was aloof and very cold. “Go back to the feast, Semeele. When the sun sets, I will come.”
“Father will not be pleased,” Semeele said.
“He will forgive me, in the end,” Denaero said hopefully. “He always does.”
Her sister sank out of sight, and Denaero waited while the sun dipped beneath the waves, and the blue dusk arched across the sky, and the stars came out, singly, then in clusters, like flowers opening to welcome the dark. In the east the husk of the old moon floated like the belly of a sail running before the wind. Now Nathan could barely see the mermaid, but he sensed her tension and the ache in her heart. At last she, too, disappeared from view—he saw the white curve of her back as she dived, the ridge of her vertebrae, the dorsal fin unfurling for the plunge. Then they were both descending into the night beneath the sea, and for a long while all he could make out were dim blue shadows that seemed to melt and change as they drew near, and the occasional silver flicker of a fish, caught in an errant ray of moonlight or starlight that found its way down from above.
Then suddenly he heard music, the rippling notes of terpsichords and spindlestrings, the throbbing boom of the gongs, the plaintive chime of dead-men’s-bells. Ahead, the reef was lit up with a million points of light: glitterworms, bubble-globes,
sparklefish, luminous shrimps and sea stars, all glinting and gleaming, illuminating the coral fans that waved in the current, the prowling shoals of nocturnal hunters, the claws of crab or lobster snapping from a crevasse. They came to a cave mouth sculpted into a triple arch; beyond was what seemed to be a great hall, carved with twining eels and sea dragons, decked with mother-of-pearl shells, shimmering with living lights. It was full of merfolk, some eating and talking, others going to and fro carrying clams and abalones piled with strange delicacies, all many-colored and many of them wriggling. The musicians were playing, mermen and other creatures; Nathan saw a large squid plucking at the spindlestrings with its multiple arms, and a lobster clashing its pincers like maracas and tapping the gongs with the tip of its tail.
At the far end Rhadamu sat on a throne surmounted with the skull of some long-dead sea monster and set with uncut gemstones, wave-smoothed into huge clear pebbles as bright as eyes. There were guards on either side of him, merkings and warrior-captains seated nearby, but he paid them no attention, beckoning Denaero as soon as he saw her, indicating a seat to his left.
“Where have you been?” he demanded. “I told your sister you were to come immediately.”
“I wanted to see the stars,” Denaero said.
“There are more stars in my halls than ever shone in the sky. If you cannot come when I send for you, I will have you shut in your chambers, with guards to see you do not leave.”
“I would escape,” Denaero said, making a face at Semeele, who sat a little way off. “I always do.”
“You are the most wayward and tiresome of all my children,” the king complained. Hazel was right, Nathan thought. She’s his favorite. “I shall be only too glad to see you married to some poor unfortunate, and be rid of you.”
“I’m too young to marry,” Denaero objected.
“You are too young only till I say you are old enough,” the king retorted. “Your sister Miyara is to marry this moon, Seppopo of the Western Reef. It will cement his allegiance to my house.”
“Politics!” Denaero sniffed. Merfolk cannot actually sniff underwater, but her tone was sniffy. “Seppopo is fat, and he has three wives already.”
“I have seven,” Rhadamu reminded her without enthusiasm.
“You’re the High King. He’s only a low king. He isn’t allowed more than three.”
“In time of crisis,” Rhadamu said, “it pays to be flexible. He has a great admiration for Miyara—”
“She’s the prettiest of us,” Denaero said. “Everybody admires her. She shouldn’t have to marry a fat old porpoise like Seppopo. What is the crisis? Is it a new one, or just the same old crisis we always have?”
“Same old,” said Rhadamu, his expression unchanging, but Nathan heard the trace of a smile in his voice. “A little more urgent this time.”
“Are we going to war?” Denaero asked.
The king was silent.
“It’s the Goddess, isn’t it? She wants us to kill the northfolk—the selkies and the seabirds and the monsters on the Great Ice. Why does she hate them, Father? Why do we hate them?”
“They are lungbreathers and fish stealers,” said the king. “Their blood is hot. If we do not destroy them, they will destroy us. This is a war to save our people. We are fighting for our lives and our livelihoods.”
“The seas are wide,” said Denaero, “and there is room for everyone. Why can’t we all just live together?”
“You are such a child.” Rhadamu sighed.
Denaero turned away, her small face very still. When she was offered food she took a sliver of yellow sea urchin but did not eat, flicking it to a crab that lurked under her seat.
Her father said irritably: “Don’t do that. I’ve told you before not to give tidbits to your pets during a formal banquet. Eat your food instead of playing with it. You’re too thin.”
He began to talk to the captain on his right, the javelin-happy warrior whom Nathan had guessed must be Uraki. Denaero let her hand trail beside her so the crab could nip her finger and gazed at nothing in particular with eyes narrowed to slots of emerald.
The shaman-priestesses entered in a group, moving as a single entity, many-armed and multi-tailed, their hair writhing about them, the livid stripes rippling on fin and scale. At the sight of them, the music ceased, and the bubble of conversation slowly deflated. Servers retreated from their path; diners stopped with dainties halfway to their lips, abandoning the feast. Some of it swam away. Those skull faces and undulating ribs were not conducive to appetite. One of the shaman-women reached out with skeletal fingers, snatching at a passing smallfish—not part of the menu—and crammed it into her mouth. The tail tweaked for a moment, then it was sucked in. Nathan thought he could see the lump traveling down her throat into her meager body.
He knew what they were there for, but he could not stop it, could not speak. Could not even whisper a warning.
They approached the throne, gliding over the rock. As ever, they spoke in unison.
“Hail Rhadamu, High King of the Twelve Tribes.”
“Hail,” said the king, mechanically.
“There’s a traitor in your midst. The spells have spoken. We have looked in the All-Seeing Mirror, noted her discontent even as she obeys your word. She has a lover who is not the one you have chosen for her. And at night she goes to the surface and meets with one of our enemies, an albatross, a windbringer from the Great Ice. She changes, not to mate with a merman but to ride the evil bird, letting him carry her up into the high air. She becomes as a lungbreather, a legwalker, alien to her own kind.”
“You say—she,” murmured the king. “You speak as if she is one I know well.”
“She is your own kin. Your daughter.” Denaero’s hand was clenched on the shell carving of her chair; the gill slits flexed in her neck. “Your daughter Miyara, whom you betrothed to your brother-king Seppopo— Miyara who rebels against your orders, preferring another, consorting with our enemies in a desperate attempt to evade your commands and have her own will. Let the guards take her! She must be punished. Who knows what secrets she has already betrayed?”
Denaero’s mouth made the shape of a protest, but her voice was very soft. Another mermaid was dragged from her place by the guards— a mermaid whose long dull-bronze hair was only a shade away from Denaero’s—at night, Nathan guessed, in a spell-mirror, it might look the same. Her face was a perfect oval, her eyes the green-gold of shallows in the sun. She cried: “No, Father—please! It’s not true! I don’t love Seppopo—there’s someone else—but I never met the bird, I swear it. I never betrayed you!”
“She lies,” said the shamans. “The All-Seeing Mirror cannot err. It showed her in the twilight, waiting at the rendezvous, until the bird flew down to join her.”
“It wasn’t me!” Miyara protested.
“Then who?” The king’s voice was leaden. “People may lie, but the spells do not. They can only misconstrue. Who met the albatross?”
Miyara shook her head.
He knows, Nathan thought with a sudden flash of insight. They all know. Not the shamans but her sisters, her father, her kin. They knew from the moment the priestesses spoke of the albatross. She had always been the problem child, the one who came late to the feast or not at all, wayward in her worship of the Goddess, doubting, questioning, gating up at the forbidden stars.
“It was me,” Denaero whispered, and then, louder: “It was me.”
Miyara bowed her head. The king looked at his youngest daughter with an expression that was set in stone. It occurred to Nathan that merfolk could not cry; the ocean swallowed their tears.
“Why?” Rhadamu asked. “Why do this terrible thing?”
“It wasn’t terrible,” Denaero said. “I told no secrets.” No, that was me, Nathan thought. “I just wanted to fly. You don’t know what it’s like, being high above the world, riding the air like a wave … Ezroc isn’t evil; he’s my friend. Why do we have to kill people, just because they’re different? Why can’t w
e live in peace? Why can’t we be friends?”
“Traitress!” chorused the priestesses. “Let her tongue be torn out for saying such things! Cut off her tail—she is no longer one of us! Pluck out her eyes and we will plant them in our garden! Her very thoughts blaspheme the Goddess.”
“Good,” said Denaero with a last flare of defiance. “I hate the Goddess!”
A gasp of shock rippled around the hall.
“Sacrilege!” said the shamans, jolted out of unison by their fury. “May she die slowly and in pain! Nefanu demands atonement. Give her to us, and we will—”
“You misread the spells,” said the king, his tone sharpening. “Neither I nor the Goddess tolerate incompetence. Begone! I am the ruler here, and I alone mete out punishment to my subjects. Go back to your caves in the deep. When I have need of you, I know where to find you.”
“High King—”
“Go!”
They slunk away with extraordinary speed, melting into a nest of groping limbs and snaking hair that traveled over the rock like a monstrous octopus. When they were gone the king turned to Denaero, though his gaze avoided hers. The guards had released Miyara and now held her sister, but she didn’t struggle. Her small, solemn face was white and unchanging.
“Take her away,” said Rhadamu. “Her punishment is already ordained. Chain her to the rocks on the Dragon’s Bridge; there the eaters of carrion, big and little, will have their way with her. It is the traditional fate of traitors.”
“Father!” Denaero’s voice seemed to burst out of her. “I didn’t betray you! I just wanted to fly—to fly to the stars—”
“Take her!”
The guards took her. The king sat on his throne of jewels and bones, silent as death. All around the hall the visiting dignitaries waited, caught between schadenfreude and social embarrassment, unsure whether to continue their meal or to depart. Presently, the king said softly: “Uraki?”
The warrior drew nearer. As if picking up a cue, the musicians resumed their play. The guests began to talk again, if not to eat. Under cover of the noise, the king said to his captain: “When this is over, go to her. See to it that the end is swift and painless. I could not bear that my Denaero should suffer. Do you understand?”
The Poisoned Crown Page 23
