Limits (4 page)

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 Torovan’s 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, “What you keep in your eye socket 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
mana
. 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 ghosts 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 Rordray’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. Rordray’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 Rordray 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. Rordray 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 o
f
fer—”

Durily asked, “Is there still fish?” Rordray 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: bottlenosed mammals with a laughing e
x
pression. 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.”

Rordray 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.

Rordray had red meat. Of
course
the Attic was jammed, of
course
Ro
r
dray and his family were busy as a fallen beehive. 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
mana
. The magic that was Dur
i
ly’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 lan
d
ings. 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. An eel thrashed 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 we drown.
But the ghost was drawing ahead of them.
Would he leave us? Here?
Worse, King 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 murmu
r
ing was in the air, barely audible, a hundred ghosts whispering gibberish in his ear.

The sea had not retreated from the walls and ceiling here. Water su
r
rounded them, ankle deep as they walked, rounding up the corridor walls and curving over their heads to form a huge, complex bubble. Carpet disint
e
grated under Karskon’s 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. Swamp-fires formed 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.
Not
drowning them would repel Minterl’s enemies.

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 mani
p
ulate 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, w
a
tery 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 magical energy 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.

Rordray 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,” Rordray said. “Perhaps you haven’t considered the implications—”