The Poisoned Crown (31 page)

“High King—”

“Go!”

They slunk away with extraordinary speed, melting into a nest of groping limbs and snaking hair that traveled over the rock like a monstrous octopus. When they were gone the king turned to Denaero, though his gaze avoided hers. The guards had released Miyara and now held her sister, but she didn’t struggle. Her small, solemn face was white and unchanging.

“Take her away,” said Rhadamu. “Her punishment is already ordained. Chain her to the rocks on the Dragon’s Bridge; there the eaters of carrion, big and little, will have their way with her. It is the traditional fate of traitors.”

“Father!” Denaero’s voice seemed to burst out of her. “I didn’t betray you! I just wanted to fly—to fly to the stars—”

“Take her!”

The guards took her. The king sat on his throne of jewels and bones, silent as death. All around the hall the visiting dignitaries waited, caught
between schadenfreude and social embarrassment, unsure whether to continue their meal or to depart. Presently, the king said softly: “Uraki?”

The warrior drew nearer. As if picking up a cue, the musicians resumed their play. The guests began to talk again, if not to eat. Under cover of the noise, the king said to his captain: “When this is over, go to her. See to it that the end is swift and painless. I could not bear that my Denaero should suffer. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sire.”

“I shall ask of you nothing more dreadful, nor nearer to my heart, though the forthcoming war should last a dozen seasons. Give me your word you will not fail.”

“You have my word,” Uraki said.

The dream was going dim.
I have to save her
, Nathan thought, but there was no time, no time, and Widewater was slipping away, and he was sucked into the blackness of sleep like someone sinking into a bog.

He woke to the dark of a winter morning, and the fear that Denaero’s time had already run out.

azel sat on the bed in her room to go through her great-grandmother’s things, if only because there was no space on the floor. The carpet was buried beneath the inevitable litter of empty chip packets, discarded shoes, crumpled clothing, CD cases without CDs, CDs without CD cases, uncompleted homework, magazines, half-read books—Hazel started books all the time, but with a low boredom threshold and a short attention span she often failed to finish them. Her desk had disappeared under computer and iPod, files and makeup. Even duvet space was running out beneath the advancing tide of jacket and scarf, notebook, pipe cleaners, the singed remnants of the Nenufar doll, and the contents of Effie Carlow’s bag, emptied out in a heap on top of a stuffed animal dating from Hazel’s infancy that no one was supposed to see. She ran through the various bottles until she found the one she wanted, holding it up to the light to be sure. It was a vial about four inches high, cut into facets, with the dregs of some dark brownish liquid in the bottom that, upon removal of the cork, smelled like rotting vegetables.

“It’s crystal,” Hazel said aloud, wrinkling her nose at the odor.
Bartlemy had taught her that crystal, if pure, passed easily between the dimensions, and she had concluded that was almost the same thing as crossing between worlds. The brownish stuff looked sticky and too old to be important; she would have to clean it out.

She put the bottle down and turned to a sheet of thick yellow paper on her left. It was blank except for the heading—alternative elements: how to survive in fire and water—but she murmured something in Atlantean and words began to write themselves across the page, slanting black words that rippled into being like snake tracks on the surface of the desert. Even as Hazel read the instructions they began to fade—she was scribbling frantically in her notebook, rummaging through the bottles and jars again in search of the more obscure ingredients, copying down Runes of Power.
“Someone
liked to make things difficult,” she muttered to herself. When the writing reached the foot of the page the magic ran out; the last words vanished, leaving only the empty sheet with its tantalizing title. Hazel knew from previous efforts that it would have to be left for a while, as if it needed to cool down, and when she reactivated the spell the writing might tell her something entirely different. It wasn’t Effie’s hand; she was almost sure about that. Besides, her great-grandmother’s powers had been limited: she had been a village witch in the old style, a spinner of little charms for little things, removing warts—or, knowing Effie, inducing them—cursing her petty curses, spying and scrying. Hazel had always sworn she would never be like that.

But this was something else. This was serious magic. She found the calligraphy pen that she had bought specially, nicked her finger with a kitchen knife, and dipped the nib in her own blood. Then, clutching a tissue in her left hand to stanch the bleeding, she carefully wrote out the runes on an adhesive label. It took her awhile to get them right, and there were a couple of red smudges in the background when she had finished, but she decided it would do. She would stick the label onto the crystal bottle only when it was clean and ready for the potion she had to make.

She spoke in Atlantean again, and the words recommenced their
snake-like wriggle across the empty paper. Hazel was concentrating so hard, she didn’t see the slight twitch of the burned pipe-cleaner doll as it turned to watch what she was doing.

D
REAMS DO
not come to order. Although Nathan knew from experience that time in this world and time in Widewater did not run concurrently, nonetheless he lived two days with urgency and fear, hoping each night to return, unable to find a way through. He was desperately grateful for the distraction of his job, talking events over with Eric while cleaning a Georgian silver cruet or daubing centuries of dirt from a painting that might—or might not—prove valueless.

“If you are meant to save her, you will,” Eric said philosophically. “Look how you save me. Is purpose in all things.”

“Do you think so?” Nathan said. “I know the Grandir sort of controls my dreams, sometimes—at least, not exactly
controls
, but nudges things in certain directions, so I can find the Grail relics, do whatever it is I have to do. He protects
me;
he’s saved my life more than once. But he isn’t really concerned with the problems of other worlds—he’s got his own world to save, I expect that’s problem enough. If I want to— to try and help, I have to work that out myself. Once or twice, I’ve managed to open the portal without falling asleep, but I never end up where I want to go. It all happens in my head, but
I
have no control at all.”

“But it work out, in the end,” Eric said. “Last time, you save the princess, cure the sick king. All end well.”

“I couldn’t save Kwanji Ley,” Nathan said somberly.

“She was of my world. She went to do Great Spell not meant for her. Maybe best to die.”

“Was it?” Nathan said without conviction. “I messed up. I left her out in the desert. I’ll never, never forget that.”

“You should not forget. But move on, as you say here. In my world, no one move on for a long, long time. Many thousand years. All things should move—people, time, history. Not good to look back so much you never see forward. But on Eos, we run out of history. We just wait.”

“I know,” Nathan said. “But right now, I just want to get to Denaero. She may not be part of the purpose—part of the Grandir’s purpose— but I can’t bear it if she dies.”

“You get there,” Eric assured him. “You save princess, like last time. Is
your
purpose.”

“I wish I was sure of that. Funny, I suppose she
is
a princess. She’s the king’s daughter. I seem to spend a lot of time hanging out with princesses. Only merfolk don’t use the title—or not that I’ve ever heard.”

“Is your fate,” Eric declared, “saving princesses. Hazel is princess, too. Maybe one day you save her.”

Nathan laughed. “I can’t see
Hazel
as a princess,” he said.

“Why not? She is princess at heart. The heart is what matters.”

“She wouldn’t have any truck with princessness. She’s a natural republican.”

“Perhaps. But you save her, yes?”

“She’s more likely to save me.”

A
ND NOW
at last he was back—back on Widewater, back in the dream, back in the sea. There was a rush of confused images: Denaero struggling as the guards bound her to the rock above a wave-worn arch, barracuda finning silently beneath; Uraki, saddling his great white while it twisted and snapped viciously at his fingers; a long defile of lobsters, marching in pairs across the seabed. And then very briefly a glimpse of the albatross flying southward with someone on his back, chasing his own shadow across the wrinkled surface of the ocean. Nathan thought how visible he was in a world where few birds remained. And then the images fled away and there he was, solid, floundering in water up to his neck, trying to stay afloat, to survive, and all around him in every direction there was nothing but the sea.

Afterward, he didn’t think it lasted very long, but it
felt
long as he paddled with legs and arms, fighting panic, thinking of the depth of water below him and the things that might be lurking there, picking up the vibration from his threshing limbs. Yet somehow the emptiness
above was even more frightening—the arching void of the sky, the unbroken expanse of sea stretching from horizon to horizon. He took a breath and dipped his face beneath the surface, opening his eyes on blue, but there was nothing to be seen, though he knew it was merely a matter of time.

He thought, with the small part of his brain not occupied by fear:
I’m no good to Denaero here.

So much for a rescue …

And then he saw the speck in the sky, a speck that drew swiftly nearer, broadening into wings, great wings that swept the air with scarcely a beat, and a figure leaning on the bird’s stooping neck. A closed, intent face, shadow-dappled hair blown back in the wind.

Nathan waved, but the albatross had evidently seen him already. His flight dipped; he landed on the water a short distance away. Nokosha slid from his back, legs melding into tail even as he dived.

“You’d better hold him up,” Ezroc said. “He doesn’t swim very well.”

“Good,” said the selkie. “Let him drown. I don’t trust someone who disappears when I strangle him.”

“He’s been in my mind,” Ezroc said. “He doesn’t lie. I felt it.”

“You’re going to have to—start trusting people,” Nathan said, rather breathlessly, “if you want to save your world.”

“Save the world?” The selkie caught Nathan underarm, his grip a little too tight, a little too strong. But still, it was support. “Save my people, maybe. The world can take care of itself.”

Nathan let it go—for the moment. “Does he know about Denaero?” he asked Ezroc. “She’s in danger—her father found out—”

“He knows. I told him we had to contact her, only—”

“I don’t like traitors,” said Nokosha. “But I’ll use them.”

“She’s not a traitor,
stupid!”
Despite the hazards of his position, Nathan felt the familiar surge of anger and frustration. Was it always like this, in every world—closed minds, labels, prejudice, hate? “She just wants your people and hers to get along. She helped Ezroc and Keerye, ages ago. Now you’ve got to help her, whether you like it or not. She’s chained to somewhere called the Dragon’s Bridge, and she’s going to be eaten by crabs and things—”

“Sounds good to me,” said Nokosha, his fingers tensing, digging into Nathan’s flesh. “May all the merfolk end that way.”

“I know the place,” Ezroc interrupted. And to Nokosha: “Lift him onto my back. We’ll get her. You wait here. She was a friend to me, and to Keerye. You should understand that, if nothing else.”

“You told me. I agreed to see her only because of that. I’m coming with you.”

“I can’t carry two—”

“Then leave
him.
He’s no more use than a dead herring.”

Nathan was already scrambling onto the albatross, with little assistance from Nokosha, hoping he wasn’t hurting Ezroc as he grasped a handful of feathers. The selkie seized his wrist to pull him back into the sea, but Ezroc croaked a warning.