Donnerjack

by Roger Zelazny

  For herself, Ayradyss cleared away the lunch dishes (Dack had the robots busy unloading some crates of electronic equipment John had ordered), enjoying the simple task as a means of extending the mood. When the room was tidy, she went into the parlor and eased another log onto the fire. Even though the winter was giving way to spring, the castle remained chill. Taking up a book, she settled herself into a chair and tried hard not to remember that she was waiting to see if the caoineag would come to call. It had occurred to her that the spirit might bind her to her share of the promise, then fulfill her own part but grudgingly.

  Ayradyss need not have worried, for she had barely read two pages when the flames leapt within the fire, the wind outside battered at the panes, and the slim, pale form of the wailing woman was seated in the chair across the hearth.

  “Is it any good?” the caoineag asked, gesturing at the book Ayradyss had let drop into her lap.

  “Good enough,” Ayradyss said. “Seafaring tales. Strange, having been a mermaid, to see a shipwreck from the sailor’s point of view. Of course, in Virtu most sailors are merely on holiday and their drownings trigger a recall program into Verite.”

  “Still, activities in Virtu can cause death in the Verite. Peculiar, isn’t it, if only one place is reality?”

  “Virtu is reality,” Ayradyss replied, aware that the caoineag must have her reasons for arriving at her point in such a circumlocutory manner.

  “So you say, so many say—especially those of Virtu—but where did that reality come from?”

  “No one knows. It is the great mystery, the mystery of the First Word, the Creation Scramble. Forgive me, caoineag, but I am not a religious person—not even Deep Fields has converted me to such introspection.”

  “But the Lord of Deep Fields has converted you to a creature of Verite, Angel of Virtu. Have you wondered why he did this when all that Donnerjack asked for was your return to being? Wise as John D’Arcy Donnerjack is, he did not even think to ask for you as his bride in Verite.”

  “I have wondered at the Lord of Deep Fields’ odd generosity, and I have concluded that he wanted me to bear this child so that he could claim it as the price for my life, but what use would the Lord of Deep Fields have for a child of Verite?”

  “What if your bairn is not just a child of Verite? What if, despite the changes made in you, he will still inherit something of Virtu from you? What would that make him?”

  “Confused? Wailing woman, I think you are poorly named! Riddling woman would be a better title for you!”

  The caoineag dimmed in her chair, her slender form rippling. Ayradyss thought that she had offended the spirit. Then she realized that the wailing woman was laughing. When the spirit grew opaque once more, there was a touch of color on her high cheekbones and a friendly smile curved her thin lips.

  “I like you, Ayradyss. ‘Tis a pity… Very well. To tell you bluntly. Not all of Virtu is content to have commerce with Verite be in one direction. The Lord of Deep Fields knows this and seeks an edge in the game. Your son may be that edge, may not be, but Death may have trapped John D’Arcy Donnerjack to give himself that edge.”

  “Why John? Why me? We are not the only couple separated by the interface.”

  “No, but he is John D’Arcy Donnerjack and you… you, poor soul, are far more than your husband knows. The dust of the black butterfly yet clings to your hair. Have you told John this?”

  “I have not.”

  “So.”

  There was a long silence, companionable, in an odd way. Ayradyss broke it.

  “There are tunnels beneath the castle.”

  “I know them.”

  “I have wanted to explore them.”

  “I could show them to you.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I shall see you then.”

  “Indeed.”

  The wailing woman faded away. Ayradyss smiled, picked up her novel. How nice it was to have a lady friend again, especially at such a time. Robots were well enough, warrior ghosts as well, but there was something to be said for the company of one of your own gender.

  She turned the page. The wind was rising on the fictional sea. Outside her window, the ocean’s roar and crash provided her with a soundtrack.

  * * *

  Breakfast porridge and cream still warm inside her, Ayradyss changed into heavy ankle-boots—rather uglier than she would have preferred, but both waterproof and possessed of excellent traction. Over her wool trousers and sweater she tossed on a light windbreaker, more for the protection it offered against wet than because she expected there to be wind in the caverns.

  “Going out on the strand again, Ayra?” John said. The stack of disks and reader he held loosely in one hand testified that he must have come over from his office to retrieve the materials he had been reading in bed the night before.

  “No,” she said, surprised to hear a touch of defiance in her voice. “I thought I would explore the tunnels under the castle—the remains of the old place.”

  John frowned slightly, glanced out the window, noticed the steady drizzle, and nodded.

  “The weather outside doesn’t seem very inviting and since you won’t use the Stage…”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then… Are you taking one of the robots with you?”

  “I hadn’t intended to.”

  “I wish you would. I only ventured into the fringes of the tunnels, but there looked to be some rough spots.”

  “John, I don’t need a nursemaid. Save that for the baby when it comes!”

  “Please, Ayra, don’t be unreasonable. I’m not asking you to stay inside; I’m asking you to take a robot so that if you fall or slip or start a rock slide there will be someone to help you.”

  Ayradyss almost commented that she expected to have one or more ghosts with her, but held back the words. John did not realize the amount of time she had been spending with Castle Donnerjack’s spectral inhabitants: the crusader ghost, Shorty, the Weeping Maid, the blindfolded prisoner, the Lady of the Gallery, and now the caoineag. And John was not really being unreasonable.

  “Very well, John. You do have a point. I’ll ask Back who can be spared.”

  John set down his disks and crossed to her. His arms around her, he murmured into her hair:

  “Any of them can be spared, my love. You are more important than any chore that needs to be done around here.”

  Almost any. You won’t leave your work, she thought bitterly, disliking the petulance in herself. She knew John felt that working steadily on Death’s palace was keeping his part of the bargain that had won him Ayradyss’s return, but she suspected a certain element of pride as well in his devotion to the project. The Lord of Entropy regularly sent electronic messages suggesting revisions and requesting additions to his Palace of Bones. John had mentioned that he felt strangely honored to be receiving communications from an entity that even Verite’s greatest scientists had dismissed as legend.

  “Thank you, John,” she said, trying to ignore her internal harangue. “I don’t think I need anything too elaborate. One of the general purpose ‘bots should serve admirably.”

  John smiled, embraced her once again, then picked up his disks and reader. “I’ll look forward to hearing what you find, my dear. See you at lunch?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know how far I’ll walk—and I’m getting a late start.”

  “Very well. Don’t wear yourself out.”

  “I won’t.”

  He left, brushing her cheek with another quick kiss. Ayradyss stood a moment longer, wondering if she had angered him. With an effort, she put the question from her, knowing that she could not run after him and ask without inviting an argument about the very issues she had resolved not to argue. Marriage—at least to a devoted scientist—was a bit more difficult than she had imagined. She had never realized that the art which had shaped the man she loved would also be her rival.

  Pressing her fingers to her ey
es, she put the thoughts from her. When she had been longer in Verite she would have more activities of her own. When the baby came she would have more than enough to occupy her. For now, there were the tunnels to explore and the odd company of the caoineag to savor.

  The heavy iron key that opened the thick iron door could have been a relic of the original castle, but Ayradyss knew that John, in one of those fits of whimsy he usually reserved for his art, had ordered the door specially forged in the village. The hinges creaked when she tugged the door, but it swung open easily enough.

  When she had descended to the “dungeon” levels, she had been accompanied by Voit, an all-purpose servomech that currently resembled nothing so much as a meter-tall robin’s egg hovering about a foot from the ground. Its air cushion stirred up the dust slightly, but otherwise the robot was an unobtrusive companion. The crusader ghost, the caoineag, and the ghost of the blindfolded prisoner had joined her as she was fitting the key to the lock.

  “He wanted to come along,” the crusader ghost said with a shrug toward the blindfolded specter. “Said he knew the place. I dinna think you’d mind.”

  Ayradyss flipped on her headlamp and let it shine into the darkness on the other side. Following her example, Voit switched on a wider beam light. A corridor a meter and a half across extended before them. In the immediate vicinity it was lined with dressed stone, but at the fringes of the light both floor and walls reverted to the native stone.

  “Can your friend see?” she asked, gesturing at the blindfolded prisoner.

  “Aye, that he can,” the crusader assured her. “Or if he canna see, what harm can come to him from a fall, his having shuffled off this mortal coil in ages past?”

  “You have a point,” Ayradyss agreed. “Let’s go, then.”

  “Shall the door be closed behind us, mistress?” Voit asked.

  Ayradyss gave in to impulse. There was no reason for the door to be closed. They were not hiding from anyone, but she craved the sense of adventure that the little gesture would grant.

  “Closed, yes, Voit, but don’t lock it.”

  “Understood.”

  The robot extended a mechanical arm and pulled the door shut with another satisfying squeal and thump. As Ayradyss waited for her eyes to adjust to the light cast by the lamps, she noticed that each of the three ghosts gave off a slight bluish-white glow. She had never noticed this effect before. On the other hand, their previous meetings had not been in nearly so dark a place.

  “It’s so black,” she whispered.

  “Aye,” the crusader ghost agreed.

  The caoineag did not comment, but drifted ahead, leading the way. Ayradyss followed, surprised at the superstitious fear she felt. The darkness, the rough stone, the odors of must, mold, and the salt sea touched memories she had left quiescent for so long that she had not realized that they were there to recall. She concentrated on the immediate moment, the crush of sand and rock beneath her feet, the tug of the stone wall when she caught her sweater against it, the annoyance of a drop of water that fell from the ceiling to run down her nose, and the memory receded and with it the fear.

  Following the caoineag, Ayradyss walked slowly through the tunnels. These twisted, doubling back on themselves, crossing and recrossing with such frequency that she was not at all certain how far from the castle they had come—or if they had left its environs at all. Sometimes the tunnel would widen into a small cavern. Then Ayradyss would have Voit hover near the ceiling so that its light would shine down to illuminate the area.

  She found odds and ends in these little caverns: old bottles, candle stubs, a rusting tin of machine oil, two broken claymores side by side, once a rag doll—the stitches of its face still holding a lopsided smile. Most of her finds she left behind, but she put the doll in her pocket, unable to bear the idea of it remaining in the loneliness and silence.

  Time lost all meaning in the darkness and quiet. The ghosts drifted along with her, rarely speaking, and then usually to each other. Occasionally, when she passed her own bootprints in the sand, she wondered how long ago had she made those marks. It could have been minutes, but as easily it could have been eons. At long last, she felt a breeze, solid and salt. It woke her from the dream in which she had been wandering.

  “I wonder where that wind comes from?” she said aloud, her own voice sounding strange to her.

  “There is a cave that opens to the sea when the tide is low,” the caoineag answered. “Would you like to see it?”

  “Yes.”

  She walked more briskly now, the fresh wind blowing the cobwebs from her mind. The ghosts’ light dimmed as they turned a corner and entered a cavern larger than any Ayradyss had seen thus far. It was thirty meters from end to end, much of this taken up with an underground pool. This was lozenge-shaped, a gravelly beach running along one long edge, rock walls closing in everything except for a narrow strip of light at the farthest edge of the water.

  “If there was a row boat,” Ayradyss mused aloud, “and the passengers weren’t very tall or ducked down, then they could get into the caverns this way. And if they knew the way through the caverns they could get right into the castle.”

  “Aye,” said the blindfolded ghost. “The way was known in my day, known and used sometimes for a wee bit of smuggling, sometimes for darker purposes.”

  “I wonder if John knows?”

  “Beggin’ th’ lady’s pardon,” the crusader said, “but I’m doubtin’ that he does. The laird has shown nae mind for these reaches and the villagers have long forgotten that the way exists. The castle was naught but a rubble heap this great long while.”

  “I must remember to show him. It may amuse him. I hope I can find my way back again.”

  From above, Volt’s voice wafted down. “Mistress, I have been recording our explorations in case you wished to review your journey later. I could easily print out a map.”

  “Very good. Tell me, have you been making a visual recording, or simply keeping track of our progress?”

  “I have been recording the distance traveled and the direction. Would a visual recording have been more appropriate?”

  “No, Voit, you’ve done fine. I was simply wondering whether a video would have captured the ghosts.”

  “I do not believe so, mistress. I am only marginally aware of their presence and my awareness is based largely on audio indications that cannot be explained in any other fashion. As they do not register on my optical receptors, I must deduce that they would not register on a camera either.”

  “Very interesting.”

  Ayradyss strolled down the water’s edge, the wailing woman drifting beside her. Although the villagers had forgotten the existence of the cavern, the waters had carried traces of their presence: lengths of fishnet, a broken buoy, a candy wrapper (this already nearly degraded). There was older trash mixed in the flotsam and jetsam, hardy trash that predated the stringent recycling regulations of the past century. Some of the beer cans and soda bottles might very well be valuable antiques; Ayradyss had seen their like in antique shops around the globe. Perhaps later she would collect some of them and compare them against a price guide.

  “There is more to these caverns than you’ve shown me,” she said to the caoineag. “I’m certain of that.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “A feeling, nothing more. A feeling and perhaps the presence of the blindfolded one. He would not be here if all these tunnels led to were a series of little caverns and one smuggler’s route.”

  “Clever. What if I told you that you were correct, that there was something more?”

  “I would ask you to guide me to it.”

  “Even if it was dangerous?”

  “It is in my cellar. I should know what my castle holds, shouldn’t I?”

  “Many a laird and lady of this castle has gone to the grave not knowing what these tunnels contained. Such knowledge is hardly a requisite for tenancy.”

  “I am asking politely. Surely that counts for
something.”

  “Perhaps it does, now that you mention it. Already that mechanical creature knows more of these tunnels than many who have tried to chart them. There is a tendency to misestimate their complexity.”

  “Interesting. Does this mean you will show me the secrets?”

  “Lest you attempt to ferret them out with your mechanical allies? Perhaps, though I wonder if they could find what I could show you. Understand, though, my willingness to guide you does not significantly detract from the potential dangers.”

  “I understand… and I am still interested.”

  “The way can only be found when the moon is full.”

  “The full moon is just past!”

  “I am sorry, but this has always been the rule.”

  “Then I must abide by it, I suppose. A month more and I will be a bit more bulky but certainly not confined to my chambers.”

  “Then I shall make arrangements. If it can be done, I will be your guide.”

  “Wait!”

  “Yes?”

  “Will I see you again before the full moon?”

  “Do you wish to? My presence is said to be a thing of ill omen.”

  “I thought that was your wail.”

  “People often confuse one with the other.”

  “Yes, I would like to see you. We could continue exploring the mundane aspects of these caverns. Or… you expressed interest in the book I was reading. I could read to you if you are unable to do so yourself.”

  “Tempting. Handling material artifacts is wearying. Yes, I would rather like that.”

  “And I would like your company. There are certain metaphysical issues that you and the other ghosts are more equipped to discuss than even John—and I find myself rather obsessed with questions of life and death. As hard as I try to forget, something of Deep Fields still clings to me. I would like to put it from me before the baby is born.”

  “Philosophical discussion and books. Yes, that sounds quite interesting. I am certain that a few of the others would join us. The crusader is a direct soul, as are most of those whose company he enjoys, but there are those among the castle’s spectral inhabitants who would enjoy such quiet visits.”