The Poisoned Crown (26 page)

“Well,
I’m
going—”

“No.”
Bartlemy laid a hand on her arm, speaking to her very gently. “What can you do other than be one more person they have to protect? This one is for the children. They are, after all, hardly children anymore. Nathan must go because he is the one Nenufar hopes to trap—to trap, not to injure, if worse comes to worst—and Hazel has a little power, a little skill, a little foreknowledge of the enemy. She will be more use to him than you. A girl’s life is at stake. We have to take risks, but not with that.”

Annie made a tiny whimper of protest, knowing she couldn’t really object. Nathan and Hazel swapped a glance that said:
We’re in this together. What the hell do we do?
—then turned to Bartlemy with an air of mutual resolution that didn’t convince him for a second, though he made no comment.

“We’ll head for the river,” Nathan said. “If Nenufar wants to be found, I expect we’ll find her.”

He was remembering a verse heard once before.

He couldn’t recall much of how it had felt on board, except for the cold. The white empty chill that ate into your bones and your heart…

“Hoover will go with you,” Bartlemy said. “Nenufar knows only the creatures of the sea. She has little understanding of land animals— she will think him of no account. Rukush!”

After a long moment the back door opened at the nudge of a nose and the dog trotted in. Annie ruffled his head, whispering: “Look after them.”

Bartlemy said, to Hoover, perhaps, more than the others: “Bring Romany back.”

He took a flashlight from the shelf and passed it to Nathan.

“You’ll need this. Good luck. There is always luck, if you are bold enough to look for it.”

Nathan didn’t feel at all bold, but he had no intention of saying so. Hazel zipped her jacket and the two of them stepped out into the night with the dog at their heels. Left in the kitchen, Annie said: “Will they be all right?”

“I hope so,” said Bartlemy.

T
HEY WALKED
along the road a short way, back toward Eade, till they came to the edge of the woods, then they turned left, taking a path through the fields down to the river. The flashlight beam danced on the ground before them, a pale irregular oblong that leapt and flickered over root and tussock; it would have been little help if they had not known their way. All around stretched the huge dimness of the night;
clouds hid the stars; a ragged half-moon peered briefly between torn edges of cumulus. Hazel stared ahead to where a pale mist lay along the riverbank, but Nathan kept glancing from side to side, and once or twice Hoover stopped altogether, turning to gaze back along the path where they had come. In the silence while they halted Nathan thought he heard a footstep, the murmur of the grass, but he couldn’t be sure.

“There’s someone following us,” he said. “Look at Hoover.” The dog’s ears were cocked; a faint rumble swelled in his throat, almost a growl.

“Login Nambrok,” Hazel said. “That’s all right. He’s on our side.”

“Would Hoover growl at him? He must be used to him by now.”

“Shouldn’t think he’d get used to the smell.”

“Maybe.” Nathan raised his voice, called: “Nambrok! Hello!”

No answer.

“Hello?”

The grasses were still; the night didn’t stir.

“He’ll show himself when he’s ready,” Hazel said. “You can’t order him. He may have reasons for keeping a low profile.”

“Or it may not be him.”

“The gnomons are gone. Who else would it be? No human could move that quietly. Could be a fox, I suppose.”

Nathan said: “Hoover wouldn’t growl at a fox.”

After a minute, they went on. Nathan heard no sound of a footpad, but there was a prickle in his neck as if he sensed watching eyes, and the dog continued warily. As they drew near to the river the mist enveloped them, making even the darkness pale and shapeless. Without the light they might too easily have missed the path and stumbled into the water.

“Do we have a plan?” Hazel asked in a low voice.

“No,” said Nathan, baldly.

“Well… well, we need one.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“It’s you who does all the rescuing. You’re meant to think of things.”

“Your turn,” Nathan said nastily, feeling he had a score to settle.

Hazel took the point, but felt this was not the moment to make an
issue of it. “You talk to Nenufar,” she said. “Barty says it’s you she wants. Then maybe I could … I could … sneak onto the boat and get Romany.”

“I don’t think it’s the kind of boat you can sneak onto,” Nathan said.

“You have a better idea?”

“No,” he conceded. “I’ll talk to her, anyway. You stay out of sight with Hoover. The mist will help with that. And Nenufar’s awfully single-minded—with luck it won’t even occur to her to look for you. Perhaps you could put a spell on her.”

“I don’t know any spells,” Hazel said. “Not proper ones, anyway.”

“You should have brought your pipe cleaners.”

“As it happens …” Hazel pulled a couple out of her jacket pocket— possibly the remnants of a Franco figure. “But I need something of hers to make it work. If it works at all. I’m not that certain about my success rate. Besides, she’s werefolk.”

“She’s a magical being,” Nathan said, “so she should be susceptible to magic.”

“Did Uncle Barty say that?”

“No, I did. Just now.”

“Smart-arse.”

“Sssh.”

“What?”

“Sssh!”

“What?”

“There’s something coming …”

They caught the rumor of an engine, an engine so quiet you could barely hear it, blending with the hush-hush of the water against the riverbank. The veil of mist shifted and the white gleaming shape of the boat appeared, its prow as sharp and streamlined as a spaceship in a science-fiction film. The demoness stood in the bows, wrapped in a pale cloak and hood that flared behind her in slow billows, as though lifted on a wind no one else could feel. Hazel shrank back into the bushes, tripping over something in the dark, but Hoover’s body was there to brace her and she made little noise. Nathan moved forward to draw attention away from her, shining the flashlight across the water.

“You don’t need that.”

Nenufar turned toward him, pushing back her hood. Her long hair spilled over her shoulders, mingling with the darkness, making her one with it. Her face was a white oval, shining like the boat, her eyes twin almonds of blackness. The launch drifted closer to the bank, though no one was steering it; the engine cut. It was surely too large for the Glyde, but in the misty night the river seemed to have broadened and the farther shore was lost to view. Now Nathan was only a few yards from her. The aura of her power reached out to him, like a magnet drawing him toward the water. He had forgotten how strong she was, how effortlessly she had once controlled his mind.

She said: “You left me last time. We were going to sail away to my kingdom beneath the sea, but you left me. That was ill done of you. Who was it who stole you away? That fat wizard who thinks he’s protecting you?”

“No,” Nathan said. “It was someone you cannot touch.” He didn’t mention the Grandir, but the thought of him was like a touchstone in his heart, giving him courage and the will to resist. “Someone who has a power far beyond yours.”

“There’s no such person!”

“You think so?”

“I would feel power like that, I would feel its immanence … There’s no power here now. Only the night, and me. And you have come back …”

“I came for the child.”

“I knew you would!” She laughed a soft, triumphant laugh. “Mortals are so sentimental about their children. She’s such a sweet, serious little girl. I will take her away with me and show her the deep places undersea, the fish that light up in the dark, the giant squid, the Kraken—the coral groves where mermaids used to play. I promised her, you see. Werefolk keep our promises.”

“When it suits you,” Nathan said. “Anyway, there are no mermaids anymore. Not in this world.”

Then he had her. He could feel the change in her focus, the sharpening of her attention. Her whole thought veered toward him, oblivious to all else.

He wondered what Hazel was doing.

“Which world then?” Nenufar demanded. “Tell me where the mermaids are.”

Hazel was inching down the bank in the lee of a willow, her bottom in the mud, her best skirt filthy and rucked up around her hips. Hoover’s teeth gripped the back of her jacket to stop her from sliding into the river. She could see the stern of the boat perhaps five yards from the bank, but although the distance was no problem she knew the river was weed-choked and treacherous, and the sides of the launch looked too high for her to climb, and she was quite sure she could never make it in silence.
What do I do, Hoover?
she mouthed, but the dog, his jaws full of jacket, did not make a sound. She took out the pipe cleaners and managed to twist them into a new shape, but she had neither hair nor wisp of cloth to invoke the original.
Even if I had something of hers
, Hazel thought,
its all water, it would probably just run away. She’s
made
of water.

River water …

“Hold on,” she whispered to Hoover. “I just have to get a bit closer.”

Nathan was talking about Rhadamu, and the twelve tribes of merfolk, and the sea where no island dared raise its head.

“Leave the child,” he said, “and I will go with you in her place. We’ll sail to that otherworld, a world where the Sea is all-powerful, and your sister-goddess, your other self, reigns alone. Together you can create a—a duality, twin rulers with a single mind, a single purpose. She is your destiny.” He was groping for words, sounding—he thought—like the script from
Star Wars
, but Nenufar in her eagerness was beyond noticing, even had she been able to recognize the source.

“I knew it!” she cried. “I knew she was out there somewhere— somewhere in all the worlds—spirit of my spirit, heart of my heart. I will join her and become her, and together we will raise such a wave as to wash away the Gate itself, and sweep back across the lands of this world until all—
all
are drowned forever. Come with me—come with me
now
—”

The darkness by the willow moved very cautiously as Hazel dipped the pipe-cleaner figure in the water. Then she wedged herself securely
against the tree and began murmuring the spell.
“Fia simulé, fia imlauré, fiassé Nenufar, esti verular…”
She repeated it over and over, stroking the figurine, willing it to become the werewoman, to borrow a little of her substance, a little of her self. She was concentrating so hard she scarcely noticed a slight noise behind her. Hoover stirred and stiffened; she laid a hand on his neck and felt the bristling of his fur. Something slid into the river a little way away, quieter than an otter; a ripple moved in the darkness. Hazel ceased her charm, staring across the water. An arm stretched up, black against the white hulk of the boat, grasping the gunwale; then another. Very slowly, so the tilt of the deck might seem hardly more than the natural motion of the river, something pulled itself up onto the rail in a single fluid movement—something human-shaped but unhuman, a shadow made of muscle, a darkness all strength and control. It balanced on the rail, crouching, its massive head swaying from side to side. Hazel could distinguish little in the murk but she thought it looked more ape than man, a monster half seen, half imagined, its prehensile tail anchoring it to the stern, its head bulky with horns, or helmet, or mane. Finding what it sought, it slipped down onto the deck, reappearing almost immediately with a bundle in its arms.

“Romany!” Hazel muttered, her grip tightening unconsciously on Hoover’s neck, pinching a fold of his coat.

Tucking the bundle under one arm, the shadow slid back into the river.

Hazel glanced toward Nathan—Nathan on the very edge of the bank, with Nenufar reaching toward him—then down at her crude pipe-cleaner doll. She fumbled hastily in her pockets, but she had no pin, no knife—only the cigarettes she had been smoking on the quiet, and a cheap throwaway lighter that might have run out of fuel. “Pray it works,” she said to Hoover, meaning the lighter, or the spell, or both. The shadow was out of the water and up the bank; a dark voice close to her ear said:
“Run.”

“Nathan!” Hazel cried. “We’ve got Romany! Get away from her! Get away!
Now!”

Nenufar seized his hand in a grip as strong as the ocean currents,
somehow managing to pull him toward her, onto the launch. Hazel clicked the lighter—once—twice—a tiny flame sprang up, and she held it against the doll. There was a smell of singed pipe cleaner.

Nenufar screamed.

It was a scream that tore the night like the screech of a hundred seabirds, sudden and shocking. She doubled up, releasing Nathan, who fell forward toward the river. But Hoover was behind him, tugging at his clothes, and he was back on his feet, clutching the flashlight, following Hazel’s voice, and they were stumbling along the path toward the meadows.

“Romany!” he panted. “You said—Romany?”

“Ahead, I think—”

“You
think>”

“We had help.”

A little farther on, Nathan demanded: “Whose?”

“I don’t know …”

“Here,” said the dark voice somewhere in front of them. They stopped short. The soft not-quite-growl grumbled around in Hoover’s throat.

“Who are you?” Nathan asked, pointing the flashlight.

The beam showed a man—a man in a leather jacket stiff with water, shaggy hair dripping down his face. His forehead was creased with old scars, his cheekbones were crooked, his eyes shone red in the torchlight. This was not the shape Hazel had seen climbing over the stern of the boat, but she knew somehow it was the same. In his arms he held Romany, also wet, one hand over her mouth.

“Take her,” he told Nathan. “She’s frightened of me.”

Nathan thrust the flashlight at Hazel and took Romany, who gave a little gasp when her mouth was freed and clung to him, shuddering with cold. But she did not cry.