The Black Throne

by Roger Zelazny

  Slowly, I worked my way down from the rigging, those great sails bellied and booming about me like Titanic instruments of music, my course directed toward the swinging lanterns far below.

  The first thing I realized when I set foot upon the deck was that things seemed more stable here below.

  From above, I'd seemed to see a lot of pitching and rolling; but at this level, the sensations were somehow minimized, possibly because of the greater ballast of something on this scale. Also, the sounds of the storm seemed somehow muffled here below.

  I fully expected some crewman to rush up to me momentarily, inquiring after my well-being, and offer succor of any sort needed. But it was as if I were not present. They went about their business of shifting several cases from stern to stem and lashing them into new positions without directing any attention my way. For a moment, I thought it rudeness. But only for a moment. I moved to stand immediately before a man who carried a coiled line over his shoulder. As he came on, weak-kneed and wheezing, his gaze seemed to pass right through me. He veered slightly and passed about me as if I were some fixture. I moved to another, engaged in a bit of caulking about what looked a loose board inside the port gunwale.

  I fluttered my hand before his eyes but he paid it no heed. Puzzled, I regarded a number of the others in turn. They were uniformly age-worn, decrepit, thin of hair, shaky.

  I drew away then from the men and moved nearer the side, as if the demon wind might offer some explanation should I pay them sufficient heed. They screamed, they buffeted, but the ship plowed on. No explanation, however, was forthcoming. What did come forth, some time later (ah, Time!—how twisted and dreamlike it seemed here!—burning in the green fires which clung like fungoid growths), was an ancient man I took immediately to be the vessel's captain. His knees tottered with his load of years, his entire frame quivering with the burden. Yet he bore with him various instruments, and he chose a spot well forward, produced a curious telescope of venerable appearance and put it to his eye while the lightnings danced before him and screens of rain were shaken from out the tormented sky. Nodding then as if satisfied, he recased the instrument and opened another. He proceeded to regard compass and sextant, as if there were actually something for him to fix upon. Then, muttering to himself in some language I could not understand, in a low and broken tone, he recased these instruments, also, after recording some observations in a log he bore, then turned and headed back toward the companionway from which he had come.

  I made haste to follow him, strangely attracted by this weak yet, paradoxically, powerful individual. I entered his cabin behind him, stood near its door and regarded the place as he moved around in it. The floor was thickly strewn with navigation charts, iron-clasped folios and moldering instruments of science. The captain seized one of the charts, spread it upon a table and pored over it. His head bowed down upon his hands then, he stared.

  I cleared my throat. There came no reaction.

  "Uh— Sir?" I said.

  Nothing.

  It could simply be that he was hard of hearing, but I knew somehow that this was not the real reason. I made my way forward carefully, repeating my queried salutation and attempting to place my hand upon his shoulder. A bit of the green fire seemed to bloom between us as I did, and my hand slid off as if I had trailed it in a waterfall. The old man did not even look up. I continued to stare at him, not knowing what to do.

  Abruptly then, he rose to his feet. In stature, he was nearly my own height—that is, about five feet eight inches. He was of a well-knit and compact frame and body. His ancient eyes were gray. I was suddenly stricken with feelings of awe, reverence and wonder as I regarded him, his manner a wild mixture of childlike peevishness and godlike dignity. Following him, I saw him take up a paper which I took to be a commission, and though I peered intently over his shoulder I could not make out the name upon it, though it appeared to be a short one. It did seem to bear the seal and signature of some monarch, however... .

  "Yes," I heard what seemed Annie's voice say. "Yes... ."

  The captain glanced suddenly in the direction from which the words seemed to come, and I did the same. There was no one there. Our gazes swinging away then, they met for a brief electrical moment and we stared into each other. Then he shook his head and turned away.

  "Good riddance," he growled.

  I heard something like a muffled sob from what had seemed the direction of Annie's invisible presence.

  "The banishment is almost complete," I heard or felt her say.

  The old man looked up, his features softening. His pale lips moved soundlessly as he stared in that direction. It looked as if they formed the name "Annie."

  "I must leave you, Perry," I heard her say.

  "No!" I responded.

  "I must, for now," she said sadly. "If I am to keep a doorway open to Poe."

  "Don't leave me. There's never been anyone else who really mattered."

  "I have to. I've no choice. You are a good man, Perry, a strong man. You can deal with this world or any other. Poe can't. But what will our world be like without him in it? I must stay near him if I can. Forgive me."

  And then she was gone.

  Tears blinding my eyes I tore out of that accursed cabin. I wandered. It didn't matter where I went. There was no need for concealment in a place where I was effectively nonexistent.

  Timeless and haggard I went, snatching pieces of moldy bread and draughts of tepid tea from the galleys. I paced the boards of that ancient stranger, its elder crew tottering about the business of its mysterious voyage. They took not the least notice of my presence, and the green fires of St. Elmo flickered at the edges of everything important.

  Again, after what might have been days, did I feel myself addressed.

  "Eddie."

  "Annie? You've come back?"

  "No. You are so far away, Eddie. I can scarce reach you."

  "Ligeia?"

  "Yes. Better. That's better. You must return to us."

  "How? I've no idea where I am or why. I've just lost the most important thing in my life."

  "You must try. Try, Eddie. The decision is more important than the means."

  "I don't even know how to try."

  "Find a way."

  I stalked the decks, I cursed the ship, its captain, the crew, the weather. A chaos of foamless water boiled in the blackness about us, though through it occasionally passed floes and mountains of ice. At one time, to either hand, rose immense ramparts of cold whiteness, towering into the darkness like the walls of the universe. Onward, we rushed always onward.

  Neither prayers nor curses seemed to avail me. I believe that I was mad for a time, from the loss of Annie, trapped in an environment which did little to improve one's state of mind.

  The winds blew cold, out of the blackness, among the icy pillars. I watched the captain come and go, about the business of his observations, but I never approached him again. I noticed by degrees, over what might have been a long span of time, that our speed seemed to be increasing. We still carried a full load of sail and the wind had come to roar with an even greater fury.

  The first time the vessel was lifted bodily out of the sea I was frightened, though it was a long while before it happened again. But there came a time when this was occurring at regular intervals. I saw the old man, knowing him now, somehow, as some version of Poe, once more, in the distance. This time, he was not taking measurements or doing calculations, but merely watching as the ice mounts raced round and round about us, his expression one of pain, loss, and beatitude—whether in succession or simultaneously, I do not know (such the consumption of Time in this place, like a green flame ...)—and even as I apprehended our circumstance—that we must be spinning, plunging into the mouth of a whirlpool—I felt again for him that kinship I had known in days of old, and I wanted to go to him, take him in my arms, rescue him, bear him away from this place. Only I knew that I could not; and even if I could, I knew that he would not desire it.

  And so
I looked inward upon our dizzy whirling about the borders of our gigantic amphitheater of ice, and I saw that our circles were growing smaller, amid a roaring, a bellowing, a thundering. Suddenly, I knew what Poe was feeling, in icy eminence with an eye so close to Death's that he beheld Life with full clarity. I saw as he saw and knew that I could ride as he rode into the final globe of globes, clearminded, pure, to perfect unity—

  Saw, but did not wish it. Once we had almost been the same man. He was an artist, and I almost his creation. I mourned him in that instant of his exaltation. Now I remembered Ligeia's words, "Find a way" and I turned from him.

  The world had been opened, was totally devouring. What could a man do?

  I tried.

  * * *

  A dark unfathom'd tide Of interminable pride—

  A mystery, and a dream, Should my early life seem: I say that dream was fraught With a wild, and waking thought Of beings that have been, Which my spirit hath not seen, Had I let them pass me by, With a dreaming eye!

  Let none of earth inherit That vision of my spirit; Those thoughts I would control, As a spell upon his soul: For that bright hope at last And that light time have past, And my worldly rest hath gone With a sigh as it passed on: I care not tho' it perish With a thought I then did cherish.

  Imitation Edgar Allan Poe

  XII

  The tall, dark-haired woman regarded the shorter gray-eyed one there upon the sand streaked orange and sable. A wall of mist passed landward. The sea was a sheet of reflected flame. A sand castle the size of a Georgian townhouse stood half-in, half-out of the fog, a tiny crack flowing up its face.

  "So this is your kingdom by the sea," the taller woman said.

  The other bit her lip till she tasted blood, nodding.

  "Cleverly assembled, my dear. Like all the best designs there is a classic simplicity to it."

  Thunder rolled somewhere inshore. A dark cloud drifted into view overhead, its shadow falling upon the bright waters.

  "I did not know you could enter here," the younger woman said softly.

  "Believe me, it was not easy."

  "Do not harm this place."

  "Not if you will help me, rather than fight me."

  "What do you want?"

  "We must bring him back."

  Two more clouds came into view, followed by more thunder.

  "Which one?"

  "The only one we can still save. Or they will both be gone."

  The younger woman began to weep, as the rain fell.

  "I want them both."

  "I am sorry, child, but it will not work that way."

  "They call for me again. It is too late."

  She stepped backward and the ground opened. She fell into the crevice, but her descent was abruptly halted.

  The other extended a hand.

  "Now, you must help me now. They've both gone so far away."

  "Very well," the younger replied, lowering her hands from her face and reaching forward. "Very well."

  The sky grew black and the ocean swirled. They walked upon it.

  * * *

  I came to full consciousness atop a piece of floating wreckage. My memories ceased somewhere before reaching that place. I was cold and the waters dark, though for the first time in what seemed an age the sky was clear, blue... .

  I moved, drawing a cold left foot out of the water. I shifted my numb arms about, feeling the circulation come into them again, painfully. I gradually became aware that the back of my neck was sunburned. I scooped a little water with my left hand and splashed it onto it.

  If Annie's powers verged upon supernatural manipulations, Poe's upon unnaturally acute perceptions, where might mine—the third member of our trio—lie? It would seem to follow, if we were somehow the same, that I— Of course. Each of them was, in a different respect, otherworldly. But I was a child of this world, the Earth; mine was the religion of life—survival. I was the necessary component for the grounding of fantasies, ideals. I placed my palms flat upon the shifting wood beneath me and I pushed, raising myself. I had, as Ligeia suggested, found the way, again; and I knew that I must turn my head to the left and open my eyes. As I did so, I felt as if some bright presence were departing my company.

  I saw a sail, and I struggled to remove my shirt, to wave it.

  * * *

  It was the Eidolon which finally drew alongside, lowered a boat, recovered me. Save for Ligeia, they had given up on me along with the other crewmen who had been washed overboard nearly two weeks ago, back in May. They had been forced considerably farther south since that time, and they had only changed course and come in this direction today because Ligeia had convinced Peters that the two of them must persuade Captain Guy to do so.

  As I was taken aboard the boat I saw that the pieces of wreckage upon which I had floated bore the nameplate of a ship, covered until that moment by my body. I reached after, but it drifted away before I could make contact. I was able to read it, however. It said Discovery.

  I was carried to my stateroom, where I was brought water, broth, bread and brandy. I had Peters find me clean garments in one of the sea chests and help me out of mine and into them. Captain Guy was present and insisted I get some sleep, and I told him I had been unconscious long enough, that I wanted to hear what had transpired during my absence. I also told him that I could not sleep until my thirst was slaked.

  He sent for more water and broth.

  Ligeia returned at about that time, also. She had been next door talking with Valdemar. She studied my eyes, checked various pulses and departed.

  "What might that signify?" Captain Guy inquired.

  "That I'm about to be brought some swamp-water with peculiar things floating in it," I answered.

  A little later this prophecy on my part proved correct. As I sipped it, the captain nodded.

  "I'm grateful you've sufficient wits about you to talk now rather than later," he said. "I've seen men pulled from the sea after only a day or two in much worse shape than you seem to be in."

  "I guess I was lucky all the way around." I said, taking another sip. The stuff was actually beginning to taste good. Maybe my taste buds had been damaged.

  "We are reduced to a crew of six men," he continued, "not counting Peters here, who is acting as First Mate. I have all the weapons, of course, and the men are afraid of Peters. But they have been more than a little unhappy over our run of bad luck since we left Spain."

  "Can't say as I blame them," I said.

  "During your absence," he went on, "a number of the rooms were burst open and inundated during one of the storms we encountered."

  "I think I know what you're going to say," I told him.

  He nodded.

  "Monsieur Valdemar's coffin was washed out into the corridor and its lid torn open. The men know we have this strange dead man with us, and they think he's the Jonah."

  It was my turn to nod.

  "They'd have cast him overboard had not Peters intervened," the captain said. "So there is this matter between us."

  "Will they calm down, d'you think?" I asked.

  He shrugged.

  "If nothing else happens," he said. "Unfortunately, it well may."

  I sighed.

  "Please explain."

  "We are farther south now than even explorers' vessels have previously penetrated. These are unknown waters. God knows what we might encounter."

  "And if it's bad, they'll mutiny?"

  "There's a good chance of it," he said. "Your saber's beneath the bed. It was somewhat nicked. Peters put a new edge on it for you."

  I nodded to the smaller man.

  "Thanks, mate."

  He winked at me, and his eye had all the seeming of a demon's that was dreaming.

  "'Snuthin', mate."

  "Well, I guess we just have to wait and see," I told the captain. "What is our heading now?"

  "Due south," he replied.

  "Why haven't we turned around and tried to get out of here?" I asked.

/>   He chuckled.

  "We're caught in a current," he said. "We can bear to the southwest or bear to the southeast, but that is about it. We're crippled, too, remember, in the sail we can lift. We've no choice at this time but to go south."

  "I've a question then," I said. "Why isn't it colder? I caught sight of a few floes while I was being fetched aboard, but the air lacks the frigidity I associate with the notion of the polar climes. This seems almost like a mild winter back home."

  "I can find no reference in any of my navigational volumes on this paradoxical warming effect," he replied. "If we make it through this I've a hunch we'll be the authorities on the matter."

  "Tell 'im 'bout them black bears, cap'n," Peters remarked.

  "Oh, yes," Captain Guy acknowledged. "Recently we've spotted a number of them—great black fellows with red eyes and teeth."

  "Red teeth?"

  "Aye, them, too. You ever hear of such a creature?"

  "I have not," I replied. "Have we encountered any land masses hereabout?"

  "A few islands," he said. "Nothing striking about them."

  "Is that everything?" I inquired.

  Peters and the captain glanced at each other, which meant, of course, that there was more. Captain Guy nodded.

  "Seems as we're movin' faster and faster," Peters said then. "Pickin' up speed ever' day."

  I had a sudden vision from my now faded dream-like excursion aboard the Discovery.

  "Meaning that the current is moving faster, and faster," I stated.

  "Exactly," the captain acknowledged. "Which means we must seriously consider a theory propounded by a Colonel Symmes of Ohio, to the effect that the Earth is hollow, and that the currents of the seas pour through a vortex at the South Pole to emerge from an opening at the North Pole, thence to recirculate... ."

  And my vision continued. Round and round like a colossal drain from which the plug had been pulled... . Was this in some fashion premonitory of our present plight as well as indicative of whatever it revealed on its own.

  I raised my hands, massaged my eyeballs with their heels.

  "I seem to recall reading a magazine piece on this notion, some time ago," I told him. "By a fellow named Reynolds, I believe."