The Hidden Land

  Ted was furious. “Randolph wouldn’t do that.” He was acutely aware of Randolph and Benjamin, in the front of the crowd, staring.

  “It wouldn’t have to be Randolph.”

  “I don’t want you swearing fealty to me,” said Ted.

  “I’m swearing fealty to the King,” said Patrick, “and as long as you are King, I might as well swear it to you.”

  “You are not. Weren’t you listening? Edward, that’s me. This isn’t just a king’s oath. It’s personal.”

  “Uh,” said Patrick, noncommittally. “We better do something, they’re getting restless.”

  “Why don’t you kneel down and mumble at me?”

  “No, they have to hear the oath or it isn’t legal. Give me a minute. Okay.” Patrick knelt down again, and Ted took his hands. Patrick looked up at him. “This oath that I am about to swear,” he said in a whisper, “shall bind me only upon the business of the Secret Country, and only so long as thou art king thereof.”

  “It shall bind thee only under these conditions,” said Ted, remembering what this summer had almost made him forget, how satisfactory it could be to play with Patrick.

  CHAPTER 7

  LAURA stood in a corner and wondered irritably how many banquet halls there were in High Castle. They had held the coronation in the same hall they had used for the Banquet of Midsummer’s Eve. This hall was not entirely as it should have been, but was at least in the right part of High Castle—the innermost, oldest building of gray stone that looked from the outside precisely as they had imagined it.

  The coronation feast, however, was being laid out in a rosy twin of the room where they had their everyday meals. As far as Laura could tell, it was in the outermost pink part of the castle, on the same side and with the same orientation as the Dragon Hall. She hated the pink marble far more than it deserved; it was the most obtrusive reminder of their dilemma. The prospect of suffering it all around her for an entire banquet was almost the last straw. If Laura had thought anyone would notice, she would have skipped the coronation feast and sulked. She was not sure whom she was angry at, but she was certainly put out. She had found the ceremony awesome. Even Ellen had made not one snide remark. Laura would have been happier if she had. It was not so bad to be left out of a ceremony that Ellen made snide remarks about.

  Laura pressed herself against the wall to let by two boys carrying a tray of fruit. Not only had she been left out of her own brother’s coronation, but Ellen had not returned after her part in it. People were already beginning to sit down, and no one had come to find Laura. Sitting through a formal feast with strange grown-ups would be worse than having been left out of the ceremony.

  Laura backed tighter against the wall to let by someone with a pile of napkins. A fold of tapestry landed on her head. Laura ducked frantically away from it, narrowly missed upsetting a tray of cheese and its bearer, and looked up. Sure enough, the tapestry hung crooked now, showing a bare space of gray wall. Laura got away from the evidence, taking the easiest route through the crowd. This put her too far from the doors. She began a course calculated to take her to the front of the hall but on the other side, and came face-to-face with someone in a page’s costume who seemed to know her.

  “My lady, the King requests your presence at his table at supper.”

  Laura, after one frozen moment in which “King” still meant the old man buried up on the hill, beamed wildly and followed the page.

  Ted, Ruth, and Benjamin were standing in a tight group beside the head table. Patrick and Ellen lurked around its outskirts, making loud remarks and being ignored.

  “What can he say to her with all these people around?” demanded Ellen.

  “I tell you I’ll not have it,” said Benjamin to Ted. His back was to Laura, but she had no trouble hearing him.

  “If you didn’t mean I could sit with anyone I wanted to, why did you say it?” said Ted.

  “Benjamin,” said Ruth, “I give you my word of honor—”

  “Those who kiss in public,” said Benjamin with deadly calm, “need no speech in private.”

  Laura’s page chose this moment, while both Ted and Ruth were gathering their indignation into speech, to say loudly, “My lord the King, the Lady Laura.”

  Benjamin turned. He, Ted, Ruth, Ellen, Patrick, and a number of random strangers all looked at Laura, who would gladly have been back under the tapestry.

  “Thank you,” said Ted to the page, who bowed and went away. Laura looked longingly after him. “Laurie,” said Ted, “will you sit with us at supper?”

  “Sure,” said Laura, and recovered enough to do him a courtesy.

  “Benjamin,” said Ted, and Laura stared. The change in his voice was frightening.

  “No,” said Benjamin.

  Laura took this to mean that Benjamin would not sit with them at supper, and was relieved.

  “Ted,” said Ruth, in her most ordinary voice. “It was a dumb thing for me to do. Just forget supper, okay?”

  “This one time,” said Ted, looking at Benjamin.

  “My lord Benjamin,” said Ruth. “I crave your pardon for my behavior at the coronation. ’Twas lack of thought, not malice.”

  Benjamin said, “Lack of thought in a sorcerer is like unto lack of weapon in a battle. For thy manners I pardon thee. Look well to thy thoughts.”

  Ruth swept him an impressive courtesy and walked away.

  “May I have the rest of them?” Ted asked Benjamin. Laura could tell from long experience that he was furious but wished not to show it.

  Patrick shook his head at Ted. When Ted frowned, Patrick touched the dagger at his belt and jerked his head upward. Ted’s face cleared, and then he looked irritated.

  “For heaven’s sake,” he said to Benjamin, furiously, “what difference does it make? Get Fence and Randolph and Matthew. I don’t care!”

  “I’ll sit with you, Ted,” said Ellen.

  Patrick turned to leave, and Laura, momentarily abandoned, panicked and trailed after him. She was not sure Ted wanted her, and Benjamin obviously didn’t. Patrick was better than strangers.

  She was so busy following him that she did not realize he was leaving the hall until they were both outside it. Patrick stopped to take off his cloak, and Laura bumped into him.

  “What’re you doing here?” Patrick said. “You’re supposed to be eating with Ted.”

  “Benjamin doesn’t want me.”

  “No, he doesn’t want Ruth.”

  “Well, I’m not going back there now. I bet they didn’t save me a seat. What are you doing?”

  Patrick drew her into the nearest stairwell and whispered, “Stealing our swords while Fence is eating.”

  Laura suddenly found supper with Benjamin more appealing.

  “You can’t get in,” she said after a moment. “Fence keeps it locked.”

  “Yes, I can,” said Patrick, and he held out to her on a grubby palm Fence’s twisted silver key for the lower door, and the plain one for the upper.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Bumped against him in the crowd,” said Patrick loftily. “Well,” he added, when Laura only stared, “I had to watch him for a month before I found out where he kept the key.”

  Laura was irked. “Ellen and I could’ve told you.”

  “And I tried three or four times before and couldn’t get it because there wasn’t enough of a crowd.”

  Laura was further irked. “Did you plan this for a long time?”

  “Ever since the swords were stolen,” said Patrick. “I wanted Ted to help me, but he’s busy now and we’re out of time.”

  Laura’s feelings finally found vent. “Why didn’t you tell us? We’ve been worried to death and you had a plan all along!”

  “I didn’t even tell Ted until today,” said Patrick. “It was my idea, wasn’t it?”

  Laura gave up being angry. Made brave by one of the few feelings of pure admiration she had ever had for Patrick, she said, “I’ll go with you since Ted can’t
.” Ted had been meant to go on this adventure. This was what he got for leaving her out of his coronation.

  Patrick hesitated, and then he grinned. “Sure,” he said. “You can be my lookout, and distract the intruders with your childish blandishments.”

  Laura looked at him. No, he was not making fun of her. His tone of voice was maddeningly familiar but so out-of-place that it took her a moment to recognize it.

  “You’re playing,” she said, half accusingly.

  “D’you want to come, or not?”

  “Yes,” said Laura, wondering what blandishments were. She followed him up the steps.

  In the hall before the stairs to Fence’s tower, the purple torches burned. The yellow torches of High Castle smelled like turpentine; these gave off a damp scent of moss, and well water, and cold rock. How could anything burn that smelled like that? Sorcery, thought Laura grimly, that’s how.

  The lower door with its enigmatic carvings was shut. Laura kept an eye out for beasts, but saw none. Patrick put his shoulder to the door, and it swung inward without a sound. Another purple torch glared across the darkness at their feet, where the steps went down, not up. They looked at one another. A cold air came up the stairway and stirred their hair.

  “What the hell?” said Patrick, leaning forward.

  “Wait a minute,” said Laura, trying to remember. The day Fence had come back seemed as long ago as the summers in Pennsylvania, when Patrick played Fence and torches, sorcerous or otherwise, burned only in their imaginations. Fence, covered with dust and looking just as he ought, had come along this hall with her and Ellen, and found that, contrary to his dispositions, the door was unlocked. Laura said, “Close the door and lock it. It makes the stairs go the right way.”

  Patrick frowned. “Well, it can’t hurt.” He pulled the door to and locked it, after a little trouble with the silver key.

  “Now you unlock it again and everything’s all right.”

  Patrick did this, and opened the door. The purple torch hung over a pit of blackness.

  “It worked when Fence did it,” said Laura.

  “Could I have gotten the wrong key?”

  “That one looks right. Anyway, it fit in the door, didn’t it?”

  “Well, Fence is a wizard, and we aren’t. Huh,” said Patrick thoughtfully, and went back into the hall, where he stood on a stone bench and took a purple torch from its holder.

  “What’re you doing?” said Laura, who knew quite well.

  “Maybe this is just to scare us. If we could prop the door open it wouldn’t hurt to go down a little ways.”

  He tilted the torch. It did not give much light, but it showed the first two or three steps. Laura thought with despair that this would keep them from breaking a leg, which would be enough for Patrick. She was very sorry she had been so angry with Ted.

  Patrick was trying to drag a stone bench over to prop open the door. He made so much noise and roused so many echoes from the dark stairwell that she went to help him just to get it over with. They could not lift the bench, but with considerable scraping of hands and floor they inched it along until it would block the door if the door should blow shut.

  “Come on,” said Patrick.

  Laura wondered why he had forgotten about the blandishments, but she was past speech. She stood next to his free hand, and they started down.

  It was cold and very quiet.

  “Pat,” said Laura, remembering how far it was to Fence’s chambers when the stairs went the right way, “do we have to go down two hundred and eight steps to get anywhere?”

  “I hope not,” said Patrick, “though it would make sense. Ted is supposed to keep Fence busy after the feast, but we can’t take too much time. And if too many people have left I can’t sneak the keys back.”

  “Feasts are always long,” said Laura.

  They went down and around and down and around. On the ninth or tenth landing, Patrick’s torch struck dim watery gleams from something spread on the stones. Laura stopped dead. The gleams grew to a great burst of light, then steadied to a long, winged shape of bright red, beating its way over a plain. It stooped upon a house. Laura had one moment to recognize the Secret House, and then it was fire. From its sparks another vision swelled. She saw a black-haired man who looked like Fence and was not, for he also looked like Randolph. He sat robed in red, with a book open on his lap, and the book showed the long scarlet shape of the dragon, smiting the Secret House with flame. From the lettering below the picture one word leapt out at her.

  “Belaparthalion,” said Laura, trying it out letter by letter. The light died, and she stood with Patrick on a cold stair. At their feet was another purple beast.

  “What?” said Patrick.

  The beast made noises like a kettle about to boil. Patrick poked the torch at it, cautiously. It hissed and steamed up around them in a purple mist, and sifted away, smelling like damp stone and, a little, like the Well of the White Witch.

  “Well,” said Patrick, “now we know they don’t like fire.”

  “If that’s fire,” said Laura, looking dubiously at the torch.

  They went on.

  “Two hundred and eight,” said Patrick at last. They looked along the ghostly sphere of the torch and past it into darkness.

  “Pat,” said Laura, without any great hope.

  “Well,” said Patrick, “it would make sense to have it be the same number of steps down, but when did anything about this place make sense?”

  “Can we go back now?” Laura felt oppressed by the layers of darkness above them. She did not like looking into the dark, and she was afraid to look at the torch lest she see more visions. She hated them more every time she had one. They must mean something, but she could not tell what. She was beginning to feel that they, too, were laughing at her.

  She looked at Patrick instead. He was not a comforting sight. The torchlight dyed his unremarkable brown hair a vivid purple, and his rosy face a pale yellowish violet. He wore what Ruth called his mad-scientist expression.

  “Well,” he said again, “it could be a multiple of the number going up.”

  “It could go down forever,” said Laura.

  “Sounds just like something Fence would do,” said Patrick sourly. He started down the steps again. “Look,” he said, when Laura stayed where she was. “Just two hundred and eight more, okay? Except, hell, in magic things go in threes.”

  “I am not,” said Laura, “going down two times two hundred and eight more steps.” Her legs ached as if she had been bicycling up hills all day.

  “Well, come down one times two hundred and eight, okay? We don’t really have time for any more anyway.”

  Laura strongly suspected that once he had gotten her down the second two hundred and eight he would try to talk her into the third. But he had not suggested leaving her there in the dark, and she was grateful for this. “All right,” she said.

  “Remind me,” she added, as she followed the purple blotch of Patrick’s light, “to tell Ted I saw something else, okay?”

  “You did? When?”

  “When the torchlight shone on that watery beast.”

  “You didn’t see anything else about Ted getting killed, did you?”

  “No. I didn’t see anybody we know.”

  “Did you ever see me?”

  Laura thought. “No. Nobody but Ted, that I knew.”

  They went on.

  “Couldn’t you count out loud?” said Laura after a while.

  “I have to breathe, you know. I’ll tell you every tenth one . . . sixty.”

  “Is that all?”

  “And one hundred,” said Patrick eventually, as they crossed another landing. “Hey,” he said. “Jackpot. One and a half times as many steps.”

  Laura’s hair prickled even before she crowded up beside him and saw what he saw. Down four steps on the last landing, a muted crowd of colored streaks lay across the stones, cast through the open doorway by things she could not see. The purple in this faded
rainbow was the same color as the torch. Laura knew the green and blue at once as the colors of light given off by Shan’s and Melanie’s swords.

  Patrick pounded down the last steps, passed stripedly across the landing, and said, “Laura!”

  Laura followed and stood in the doorway with him. The room was full of weapons: swords, knives, spears, bows and arrows, a myriad of odd and ugly objects that Laura did not recognize. Some were hung neatly on the walls, some scattered across the floor. They all glowed, palely in purple, blue and green; in sickly orange; in pallid gold; in moony white; and with a vigorous red that reminded Laura unhappily of Claudia.

  As her eyes adjusted to the light, like a jigsaw puzzle done in watercolors, she saw that the far wall of the room was lined with trunks. Their lids were open, and out of them spilled dim jewels. They drew her eyes into them; misty shapes began to form within them. Laura took a step forward, and another. Foggy, starlit spaces opened around her. She saw five figures standing by the bank of a stream. She strained to see them more clearly. One of them waved to her. They seemed familiar, but, like almost everything else here, not quite right.

  Her breath was jarred out of her suddenly and pain shot up her right leg from her knee. Patrick called her name from a far distance. She blinked. She had tripped on a bow: her foot was still tangled in it. She had fallen and cut her knee on something. Laura moved the knee, and blood ran down her leg. She picked the sword up. It was small. The hilt was black, and set with blue stones, not like sapphires. A prickling went down her arm, as if a cold breeze had blown on her. The blade glowed blue.

  “Here it is,” she said to Patrick.

  “You think so?” he said.

  Laura looked at him. He held a sword like hers. They laid the hilts together and examined them. They were not alike. The patterns of the stones and the shapes of the hilts were different.

  “Well,” said Patrick, nastily, “which one is it?”

  “How should I know?” said Laura. “Can you find yours?”

  “There’s at least three that color of green,” said Patrick.

  “Maybe they all do the same thing,” said Laura. Her knee twinged, and she decided not to look at it. “Have you got a handkerchief?”