The Poisoned Crown (52 page)

“Lugair killed Romandos,” Nathan said, “because of Imagen. That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Still you do not see. A Great Spell is like a story: it must grow over a long period of time, until all the different strands come together at the point of climax. Lugair’s action was woven into the pattern. Romandos’s blood began it, so his blood must end it. In a sense, what happens here tonight was dictated by Lugair. I did what I could, but the pattern cannot be changed.”

He bowed his head; long black hair fell forward over his face.

Nathan thought:
We’re father and son. Sons always argue with their fathers. Only it’s usually about girlfriends, or schoolwork, or borrowing Dad’s car. We’re arguing over the future of a universe …

Then the Grandir’s words came home to him. He said: “Osskva told me—there was always a sacrifice. Must you—does it have to be you?”

“It should have been,” his father said. “That’s how the spell was shaped. I should have had a son with Halmé, a son whose genes were unadulterated, to carry on after me. I would have worn the Crown, died on the Sword, filled the Cup with my lifeblood. My son would have taken up my mantle, borne my burdens. But I am what earthfolk would call an avatar; without me, there is no future. I
am
the future. The spell could not be changed, but it could be twisted. I found a way, though it meant I would be the last of the true line. But I do not need an heir: I will live forever, or at least long enough.”

“Aren’t I—”

“You are my son, but not my heir. Instead of a true-born heir, I had a child of two worlds, who could travel the multiverse through the portal in his mind. You have no other power, but you have been using this ability since your infancy. I was able to conceal the Three in other worlds, but I could not pass the Gate; you went to retrieve them, and so you wove yourself into the pattern. But you were born to be more than a messenger. You have a nobler purpose …”

Suddenly the night was very still. The wind dropped; on the hilltop, it was almost completely dark. There was only the sheen of the Grandir’s clothing and the pale form of Halmé a little way off, motionless as a standing stone. Nathan thought the world stopped. The darkness crept inside him, filling his heart.

“Am I … the sacrifice?”

The Grandir’s voice softened with the gentleness of sorrow. “I did not know I would come to love you,” he repeated. “I did not know the price would be so high. Alas, gods have sacrificed their sons since time immemorial: it is the oldest legend in every world. I have condemned myself to an eternity of regret. But come: take my hand. We have these last moments to share. I would not waste them in pointless dispute.”

Nathan felt the Grandir’s handclasp, strong and sure. His father’s handclasp. Warmth flowed into him, yet he was cold.

Cold as death.

“I don’t… want to … share anything with you.” It was a struggle to get the words out. “I am … my mother’s son. Not yours. My
mother
…”

He couldn’t pull his hand away.

“She served her purpose,” the Grandir said. “As I told you, she had an extraordinary capacity for love, amazing in a creature of such fragile mortality.”

Love … Annie’s love for him—for Daniel… And he remembered the Grandir saying something about the Ozmosees—
engineered an opportunity …

“You killed Daniel,” Nathan said.

“Of course. It was necessary. The spells indicated your mother would have the strength to open the Gate, but she needed motivation. Your race live so briefly and die so easily. Even you, my son, would barely have made it to a hundred. As it is, your life, though short, will be special—your legacy will change two worlds. What more could you wish for?”

Another seventy years?

“I don’t want to die,” Nathan said.

“I know,” said the Grandir. “But this is the pattern Lugair made,
when he slew Romandos with the Traitor’s Sword. It can be modified but not changed—”

“You
modified it,” Nathan said. “You—fathered me, so I could die in your place. Like—
cannon fodder …”

“I thought you understood.” The Grandir’s tone was tinged with disappointment. There was something in his manner Nathan recognized, a sort of lofty compassion. Like when he killed the gnomons …

What had Hazel said?
Compassion’s cheap. It’s what you do that counts.

“This is painful for me,” the Grandir said. “I had hoped you would not make it harder.”

“Painful for you?” Nathan cried, and somehow he wrenched his hand free of his father’s grasp.
“I’m
the one who’s going to die! You’re going to kill me—and it’s
painful
to you? You say you care, but it’s all just words. Caring doesn’t mean anything unless it changes your actions. You use people—creatures—We’re all creatures to you—you use them and kill them, and then say you’re sorry, as if that makes it all right.” The gnomons … the white xaurian … “You and Osskva talked about
lesser
races, but to you everyone’s lesser. I don’t believe you even care about your own people. They’re just an excuse for you to take over my universe. You only care about yourself—yourself—yourself—”

“Enough,” said the Grandir, raising his hand. Nathan’s voice froze in his throat; his tongue felt like a lump of clay. “I don’t need to listen to this. Your spirit is weak, your mind limited. Halmé and I have to prepare, to initiate the magics. It will be best if you sleep until the time comes …”

Sleep—dream …
dream …

Nathan’s thought flew. He had a millisecond in which to do something, come up with something, reach for the portal …

But he knew already where he wished to go.

“Sleep now,” said the Grandir, and the darkness came, and Nathan felt himself pitching forward into oblivion.

P
OBJOY SAT UP
, slowly. The blast had flung him and Annie backward— he’d tried to shield her but there was no time—his head hurt where it
had struck against the furniture. He touched his hair, gingerly, but couldn’t feel any blood. It was pitch black—the explosion must have blown the fire out—but he could hear movement beside him, soft breathing, a murmur of discomfort.

He said: “Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

She stood up, found her way to the light switch. The sudden brightness made him blink. Then he saw the wreck of the room, the toppled furniture and tumbled books, the charring of the floorboards, the burn marks radiating out from where the circle had been. The blast seemed to have been concentrated into a very small area; beyond it, there was more mess than damage. Bartlemy, nearest to the perimeter, lay still, his eyes closed. Hoover was licking his face. Beside him, Hazel staggered to her feet, blood trickling from a cut on her temple. She must have hit the corner of the table, Pobjoy guessed.

He bent over Bartlemy, feeling for a pulse in his neck.

Hazel said: “Is he alive?”

“Yeah.” Bartlemy’s clothes were singed, and there were what looked like second-degree burns on his hands, his chest, his face. They all had skin blotched gray with smoke stains.

“Can you call an ambulance?” Annie said. “I have to go.
Now.”

“You can’t—”

“Take care of him. Please. Hazel—”

“I’m coming.”

“No—you should stay—”
I’m coming.

Pobjoy got out his cell phone and called emergency services. He had seen the look on Annie’s face. Even a policeman hesitates to get between that look and wherever it’s pointing.

He said: “Give me a moment.”

“Take care of him,” Annie repeated. Then she was out the door. Hazel flung a quick glance at Bartlemy and ran after her.

In the Beetle they took off at speed. Annie had always been a sensible driver, conscientious and prudent, staying within the limits, but not that night. Trees lurched through the headlights as she swerved onto
the road—her foot went down on the accelerator. Hazel fancied she heard tires—or brakes—or something—squeaking in protest on every bend. It wasn’t a long drive, but the road was narrow and winding; once, they bumped onto the shoulder to avoid an oncoming car. Halfway along the Chizzledown lane the pavement ran out, and they were bouncing along a cart track toward the church. Annie pulled up, and they both tumbled out.

“We should’ve brought a flashlight,” Hazel said.

“We just have to head uphill,” Annie responded. “Uphill all the way.”

There was a chalky path that showed up in the darkness, the same route Nathan had followed earlier that evening. They stumbled frequently on the uneven ground. Every so often they heard a whistling like a strange bird, sometimes to their left, sometimes the right. Hazel thought she distinguished the green glimmer of a glowworm, but there were no glowworms in March. When she glanced back, she saw a mist gathering behind them, crawling up the slope.

The fairies are coming …

She said: “There’s too much magic in the night.”

Annie said: “Good.”

Hazel had a feeling if she had told her all hell was on the march, Annie would have said:
Good.

Ahead, the hill crest was a dark curve against a sky dim with cloud. In a ragged gap a ragged moon gleamed briefly, a moon fraying at the edges as if torn in half. As they drew nearer, the rim of the chalk symbol came into view, glowing as though daubed with phosphorescent paint. Hazel thought:
The Grandir doesn’t need to draw a circle. It’s already there.
In the center, at the point where the sword line crossed the arc, stood the figure they had glimpsed at Thornyhill—a giant of a man even from a distance, all white save for the darkness of his hands and face. His arms were outstretched in the stance of a spellcaster; his black hair streamed in a sudden wind. The intrusion of Bartlemy’s summons had been nothing more to him than a minor irritant, an insect buzz to be swatted with barely a thought. Close to his feet, the huddle on the ground obscured part of the sigil. And a little way behind him
was a second figure, also in white. A woman. Halmé, Hazel deduced after a moment’s reflection. Halmé the beautiful, queen of a whole world.

Strange how you could hate someone you’d never even met.

Hazel said: “What do we do now?”

But Annie had already started to run toward the circle …

N
ATHAN DREAMED
. Across time and space, reaching back through the dark, into the light, before the stars began to die. The millennia spun past him like great Catherine wheels of time—hours, days, weeks whirled away into the spirals of history, lost in the flicker and dazzle of passing years, the contrail of flying centuries. He was aiming for one day, one hour—one moment among all the moments—narrowing his vision onto a pinpoint in eternity.

What he needed was to be
totally focused…

The ages peeled away like onion skins, exposing the core. The beginning of it all. A child struggling into the world, daubed in blood and mucus, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open. He heard it cry—the first of all cries—saw tiny fists punching the air. He didn’t think a newborn baby could make a fist, but this one did. Otherwise, it was a baby like any other, round golden arms, scrunched-up face, a tuft of hair, its only power in its lungs and its hold on a mother’s heart. Hands placed the infant in her arms—he saw her profile as she gazed down at it, the faint, magical smile that curved her lips.

Very softly, she spoke its name.

So
that’s
it…

He let go of the moment, and the dream receded, crowded out by the busyness of the past. The world was lost in a maze of other worlds— stars flared and died, galaxies imploded, nebulae did whatever it is nebulae do. And then everything was gone into the dark.

When Nathan woke, he was lying on an altar of stone, looking up into his father’s face.

A
NNIE NEVER
made it past the rim. A ring of pale flame shot skyward with a noise like the hiss of white-hot snakes, enclosing the ritual in a cocoon of fire. For the second time that evening, she was hurled backward—the Grandir, screened by a force field of intensive magic, noticed her no more than a gnat. Hazel reached her as she picked herself up, beating at the barrier as at an invisible wall.

“I can’t get through!” she screamed, the snake-hiss of the flames almost drowning out her voice.

“Look,” Hazel said.
“Look
…”

She had seen it before, in the smoke-pictures, only this time it was far clearer. The Grandir moved his hand, and a hunk of rock shouldered its way out of the ground. It was roughly oval, flat and smooth on top, shaped in the remote past with primitive tools for a purpose long defunct. Another gesture and the huddle at the Grandir’s feet floated upward, coming to rest on the flat of the stone, its limbs uncurling until it lay at full stretch. It was Nathan; she could see him plainly now in the glare of the magic. His eyes were closed but he appeared to be unhurt. The Grandir leaned over him, touching his face very gently, as if it was something fragile and precious. Then he straightened up and resumed the incantation.

They couldn’t hear the words, but they didn’t need to. Above them the clouds thickened, swirled into a bubbling brew like celestial porridge, spiraling inward toward a focal point directly overhead—a hole in the sky where the moon’s husk drifted in a strange watery shimmer. They saw liquid moonlight fall to earth as tears—or maybe it was rain, a few thin shafts, glitter-bright, streaming down from the witch’s brew of cloud. And all around the hill the mist was rising, fraying into wisps that danced away on their own. Shapes formed or half formed, diffusing into other shapes before you could be sure of them—filmy wings and pointy faces, bodies insect-thin, fingers long as claws. And here and there were gyrating fragments of skeletons, spun from air and vapor, things with cloven hooves and goaty horns, goblin feet and gargoyle masks. Spectral lights gleamed and vanished, held in unseen hands. Hazel peered behind her from time to time but never saw anything clearly; Annie seemed oblivious to everything outside the circle.
The phantom horde wound its way around the hilltop, and the not-quite-birdcalls became the skirl of distant pipes, and there was a soft drumming like raindrops or dancing feet.