Durily examined him with a critical eye. “You seem nicely solid after seventy-six years.”
The ghost smiled. “That’s the Lion’s doing. He lets me take the smells of his cooking as offerings. But I can’t leave where I d-died.”
“Was the King home that day?”
“Lady, I have to say he was. The quake came fast. I don’t doubt that he drowned in his throne room.”
“Drowned,” Durily said thoughtfully. “All right.” She poured a small flask of seawater into the blood, which was now bubbling. Something must have been added to keep it from clotting. She spoke high and fast in the Sorcerer’s Guild tongue.
The ghost of Jarper Sleen sank to its knees. Karskon saw the draperies wavering as if heated air was moving there, and when he realized what that meant, he knelt too.
An unimaginative man would have seen nothing. This ghost was more imagination than substance; in fact the foggy crown had more definition, more reality, than the head beneath. Its voice was very much like a memory surfacing from the past…not even Karskon’s past, but Durily’s.
“You have dared to waken Minterl’s king.”
Seventy-six years after the loss of Atlantis and the almost incidental drowning of the seat of government of Minterl, the ghost of Minterl’s king seemed harmless enough. But Durily’s voice quavered. “You knew me. Durily. Lady Tinylla of Beesh was my mother.”
“Durily. You’ve grown,” said the ghost. “Well, what do you want of me?”
“The barbarians of Torov have invaded Minterl.”
“Have you ever been tired unto death, when the pain in an old wound keeps you awake nonetheless? Well, tell me of these invaders. If you can lure them here, I and my army will pull them under the water.”
Karskon thought that Minterl’s ancient king couldn’t have drowned a bumblebee. Again he kept silent, while Durily said, “They invaded the year after the great quake. They have ruled Minterl for seventy-four years. The palace is drowned but for these top floors.” Durily’s voice became a whip. “They are used as an inn! Rabbits and chickens are kept where the fighting-birds roosted!”
The ghost-king’s voice grew stronger. “Why was I not told?”
This time Karskon spoke. “We can’t lure them here, to a drowned island. We must fight them where they rule, in Beesh.”
“And who are you?”
“I am Karskon Lor, Your Majesty. My mother was of Beesh. My father, a Torovan calling himself a lord, Chamil of Konth. Lord Chamil raised me to be his librarian. His legitimate sons he—” Karskon fell silent.
“You’re a bastard?”
“Yes.”
“But you would strike against the Torovan invaders. How?”
Durily seemed minded to let him speak. Karskon lifted the silver eye patch to show the great green gem. “There were two of these, weren’t there?”
“Yes.”
“Durily tells me they were used for spying.”
The King said, “That was the traveling stone. Usually I had it mounted in a ring. If I thought a lord needed watching, I made him a present of it. If he was innocent, I made him another present and took it back.”
Karskon heaved a shuddering sigh. He had almost believed; always he had almost believed.
Durily asked, “Where was the other stone?”
“Did your mother tell you of my secret suite? For times when I wanted company away from the Queen? It was a very badly kept secret. Many ladies could describe that room. Your mother was one.”
“Yes.”
The ghost smiled. “But it stood empty most of the time, except for the man on watch in the bathing chamber. There is a statue of the one-eyed god in the bathing chamber, and its eye is a cat’s-eye emerald.”
Durily nodded. “Can you guide us there?”
“I can. Can you breathe under water?”
Durily smiled. “Yes.”
“The gem holds manna. If it leaves Minterl Castle, the ghosts will fade.”
Durily lost her smile. “King Nihilil—”
“I will show you. Duty runs two ways between a king and his subjects. Now?”
“A day or two. We’ll have to reach the stairwell, past the innkeeper’s family.”
The ghost went where ghosts go. Karskon and Durily pulled the wool loose from the windows and opened them wide. A brisk sea wind whipped away the smell of scorched blood. “I wish we could have done this on the roof,” she said viciously. “Among Lion’s damned chickens. Used their blood.”
It happened the second day after their arrival. Karskon was expecting it.
The dining room was jammed before noon. Lion’s huge pot of stew dwindled almost to nothing. He set his older children to frying thick steaks with black pepper and cream and essence of wine, his younger children to serving. Providentially, Merle showed up, and Lion set him to moving tables and chairs to the roof. The younger children set the extra tables.
Karskon and Durily found themselves squeezing through a host of seamen to reach the roof. Lion laughed as he apologized. “But after all, it’s your own doing! I have red meat! Usually there is nothing but fish and shellfish. What do you prefer? My stew has evaporated—poof—but I can offer—”
Durily asked, “Is there still fish?” Lion nodded happily and vanished.
Cages of rabbits and pigeons and large, bewildered-looking moas had been clustered in the center of the roof, to give the diners a sea view. A salvo of torpedoes shot from the sea: bottle-nosed mammals with a laughing expression. They acted like they were trying to get someone’s attention. Merle, carrying a table and chairs, said, “Merpeople. They must be lost. Where the magic’s been used up they lose their half-human shape, and their sense too. If they’re still around when I put out, I’ll lead them out to sea.”
Lion served them himself but didn’t join them. Today he was too busy. Under a brilliant blue sky they ate island-fish baked with slivered nuts and some kind of liqueur, and vegetables treated with respect. They ate quickly. Butterflies fluttered in Karskon’s belly, but he was jubilant.
The Lion had red meat. Of course the Attic was jammed, of course the Lion and his family were busy as a fallen hive. The third floor would be entirely deserted.
Water, black and stagnant, covered the sixth step down. Durily stopped before she reached it. “Come closer,” she said. “Stay close to me.”
Karskon’s protective urge responded to her fear and her beauty. But, he reminded himself, it wasn’t his nearness she needed; it was the gem…He moved down to join Durily and her ally.
She arrayed her equipment on the steps. No blood this time: King Nihilil was already with them, barely, like an intrusive memory at her side.
She began to chant in the Sorcerer’s Guild tongue.
The water sank step by step. What had been done seventy-odd years ago could be undone, partially, temporarily.
Durily’s voice grew deep and rusty. Karskon watched as her hair faded from golden to white, as the curves of her body drooped. Wrinkles formed on her face, her neck, her arms.
Glamour is a lesser magic, but it takes manna. The magic that was Durily’s youth was being used to move seawater now. Karskon had thought he was ready for this. Now he found himself staring, flinching back, until Durily, without interrupting herself, snarled (teeth brown or missing) and gestured him down.
He descended the wet stone stairs. Durily followed, moving stiffly. King Nihilil floated ahead of them like foxfire on the water.
The sea had left the upper floors, but water still sluiced from the landings. Karskon’s torch illuminated dripping walls, and once a stranded fish. Within his chest his heart was fighting for its freedom.
On the fifth floor down there were side corridors. Karskon, peering into their darkness, shied violently from a glimpse of motion. It was an eel flopping as it drowned in air.
Eighth floor down.
Behind him, Durily moved as if her joints hurt. Her appearance repelled him. The deep lines in her face weren’t smile wrinkles; they
were selfishness, sulks, rage. And her voice ran on, and her hands danced in creaky curves.
She can’t hurry. She’d fall. Can’t leave her behind. Her spells, my jewel: Keep them together, or—But the ghost was drawing ahead of them. Would he leave us? Here? Worse, Nihilil was becoming hard to see. Blurring. The whole corridor seemed filled with the restless fog that was the King’s ghost…
No. The King’s ghost had multiplied. A horde of irritated or curious ghosts had joined the procession. Karskon shivered from the cold, and wondered how much the cold was due to ghosts rubbing up against him.
Tenth floor down…and the procession had become a crowd. Karskon, trailing, could no longer pick out the King. But the ghosts streamed out of the stairwell, flowed away down a corridor, and Karskon followed. A murmuring was in the air, barely audible, a hundred ghosts whispering gibberish in his ear.
The sea had not retreated from the walls and ceiling there. Water surrounded them, ankle-deep as they walked, rounding up the corridor walls and curving over their heads to form a huge, complex bubble. Carpet disintegrated under his boots.
To his right the wall ended. Karskon looked over a stone railing, down into the water, into a drowned ballroom. There were bones at the bottom, and swamp fires forming on the water’s surface. More ghosts.
The ghosts had paused. Now they were like a swirling, continuous, glowing fog. Here and there the motion suggested features…and Karskon suddenly realized that he was watching a riot, ghost against ghost. They’d realized why he was here. Drowning the intruders would save the jewel, save their fading lives—
Karskon nerved himself and waded into them. Hands tried to clutch him. A broadsword-shape struck his throat and broke into mist…
He was through them, standing before a heavy, ornately carved door. The King’s ghost was waiting. Silently he showed Karskon how to manipulate a complex lock. Presently he mimed turning a brass knob and threw his weight back. Karskon imitated him. The door swung open.
A bedchamber, and a canopied bed like a throne. If this place was a ruse, Nihilil must have acted his part with verve. The sea was here, pushing in against the bubble. Karskon could see a bewildered school of minnows in a corner of the chamber. The leader took a wrong turn and the whole school whipped around to follow him, through the water interface and suddenly into the air. They flopped as they fell, splashed into more water, and scattered.
A bead of sweat ran down Durily’s cheek.
The King’s ghost waited patiently at another door.
Terror was swelling in Karskon’s throat. Fighting fear with self-directed rage, he strode soggily to the door and threw it open before the King’s warning gesture could register.
He was looking at a loaded crossbow aimed throat-high. The string had rotted and snapped. Karskon remembered to breathe, forced himself to breathe…
It was a tiled bathroom, sure enough. There was a considerable array of erotic statuary, some quite good. The Roze-Kattee statue would have been better for less detail, Karskon thought. A skeleton in the pool wore a rotting bath-attendant’s kilt; that would be Nihilil’s spy. The one-eyed god in a corner…yes. The eye not covered by a patch gleamed even in this dim, watery light. Gleamed green, with a bright vertical pupil.
Karskon closed his good eye and found himself looking at himself.
Grinning, eye closed, he moved toward the statue, fumbling in his pouch for the chisel. Odd, to see himself coming toward himself like this. And Durily behind him, the triumph beginning to show through the exhaustion. And behind her—
He drew his sword as he spun. Durily froze in shock as he seemed to leap at her. The bubble of water trembled, the sea began to flow down the walls, before she recovered herself. But by then Karskon was past her and trying to skewer the intruder, who danced back, laughing, through the bedroom and through its ornate door, while Karskon—
Karskon checked himself. The emerald in his eye socket was supplying the manna to run the spell that held back the water. It had to stay near Durily. She’d drilled him on this, over and over, until he could recite it in his sleep.
Lion stood in the doorway, comfortably out of reach. He threw his arms wide, careless of the big, broad-bladed kitchen knife in one hand, and said, “But what a place to spend a honeymoon!”
“Tastes differ,” Karskon said. “Innkeeper, this is none of your business.”
“There is a thing of power down here. I’ve known that for a long time. You’re here for it, aren’t you?”
“The spying stone,” Karskon said. “You don’t even know what it is?”
“Whatever it is, I’m afraid you can’t have it,” Lion said. “Perhaps you haven’t considered the implications—”
“Oh, but I have. We’ll sell the traveling stone to the barbarian king in Beesh. From that moment on the Movement will know everything he does.”
“Can you think of any reason why I should care?”
Karskon made a sound of disgust. “So you support the Torovans!”
“I support nobody. Am I a lord, or a soldier? No, I feed people. If someone should supplant the Torovans, I will feed the new conquerors. I don’t care who is at the top.”
“We care.”
“Who? You, because you haven’t the rank of your half-brothers? The elderly Lady Durily, who wants vengeance on her enemies’ grandchildren? Or the ghosts? It was a ghost who told me you were down here.”
Beyond Lion, Karskon watched faintly luminous fog swirling in the corridor. The war of ghosts continued. And Durily was tiring. He couldn’t stay here, he had to pry out the jewel. “Is it the jewel you want? You couldn’t have reached it without Durily’s magic. If you distract her now you’ll never reach the air, with or without the jewel. We’ll all drown.” Karskon kept his sword’s point at eye level. If Lion was a were-lion…
But he didn’t eat red meat.
“The jewel has to stay,” Lion said. “Why do you think these walls are still standing?”
Karskon didn’t answer.
“The quake that sank Atlantis, the quake that put this entire peninsula underwater. Wouldn’t it have shaken down stone walls? But this palace dates from the Sorcerer’s Guild period. Magic spells were failing, but not always. The masons built this palace of good, solid stone. Then they had the structure blessed by a competent magician.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. The walls would have been shaken down without the blessing and some source of manna to power it. You see the problem. Remove the talisman, the castle crumbles.”
He might be right, Karskon thought. But not until both emeralds were gone, and Karskon too.
Lion was still out of reach. He didn’t handle that kitchen knife like a swordsman, and in any case it was too short to be effective. At a dead run Karskon thought he could catch the beefy chef…but what of Durily, and the spell that held back the water?
Fool! She had the other jewel!
He charged.
Lion whirled and ran down the hall. The ghost-fog swirled apart as he burst through. He was faster than he looked, but Karskon was faster still. His sword was nearly pricking Lion’s buttocks when Lion suddenly leapt over the banister.
Karskon leaned over the dark water. The ghosts crowded around him were his only light source now.
Lion surfaced, thirty feet above the ballroom floor and well out into the water, laughing. “Well, my guest, can you swim? Many mainlanders can’t.”
Karskon removed his boots. He might wait, let Lion tire himself treading water; but Durily must be tiring even faster and growing panicky as she wondered where he had gone. He couldn’t leave Lion at their backs.
He didn’t dive; he lowered himself carefully into the water, then swam toward Lion, Lion backstroked, grinning. Karskon followed. He was a fine swimmer.
Lion was swimming backward into a corner of the ballroom. Trapping himself. The water surface rose behind him, curving up the wall. Could Lion swim uphill?
Lion didn’t try. He dove. Karskon dove after him, k
icking, peering down. There were patches of luminosity, confusing…and a dark shape far below…darting away at a speed Karskon couldn’t hope to match. Appalled, Karskon lunged to the surface, blinked, and saw Lion clamber over the railing. He threw Karskon’s boots at his head and dashed back toward the King’s “secret” bedroom.
The old woman was still waiting, with the King’s ghost for her companion. Lion tapped her shoulder. He said, “Boo.”
She froze, then tottered creakily around to face him. “Where is Karskon?”
“In the ballroom.”
Water was flowing down the walls, knee-high and rising. Lion was smiling as at a secret joke, as he’d smiled while watching her savor her first bite of his incredible swordfish. It meant something different now.
Durily said, “Very well, you killed him. Now, if you want to live, get me that jewel and I will resume the spells. If our plans succeed, I can offer Karskon’s place in the new nobility, to you or your son. Otherwise we both drown.”
“Karskon could tell you why I refuse. I need the magic in the jewel to maintain my inn. With the jewel Karskon brought me, this structure will remain stable for many years.” Lion didn’t seem to notice that the King’s ghost was clawing at his eyes.
The water was chest-high. “Both jewels, or we don’t leave,” the old woman said, and immediately resumed her spell, hands waving wildly, voice raspy with effort. She felt Lion’s hands on her body and squeaked in outrage, then in terror, as she realized he was tickling her. Then she doubled in helpless laughter.
The water walls were collapsing, flowing down. The odd, magical bubble was collapsing around him. Clawing at the stone banister, Karskon heard his air supply roaring back up the stairwell, out through the broken windows, away. A wave threw him over the banister, and he tried to find his footing, but already it was too deep. Then the air was only a few silver patches on the ceiling, and the seawash was turning him over and over.
A big dark shape brushed past him, fantastically agile in the roiling currents, gone before his sword arm could react. Lion had escaped him. He swam toward one of the smashed ballroom windows, knowing he wouldn’t make it, trying anyway. The faint glow ahead might be King Nihilil, guiding him. Then it all seemed to fade and he was breathing water, strangling.