Reunion (12 page)

Leather Cap spoke up. “Water nixies. I'm telling you, we should have kept to the water-sprite theory.”

Anguis sighed and rolled his eyes. “Then Vortigern would have had us hunting the river for sprites. And if we couldn't produce one, what would have happened to us?” To Corwin he added, “It's too bad you didn't bring that girl to
us
first. She looks a little like a water nixie should look. We might have been able to pass her off as one.”

Corwin narrowed his eyes, realizing just how low these men were. “So instead you thought a boy with no father to defend him wouldn't be missed,” he said, “and could be sacrificed with no problem.”

Anguis bristled. “We didn't think His Majesty would bother to go to the trouble of finding the child. We assumed that the outcry from his other counselors would stop him.”

Leather Cap shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Never underestimate the pigheadedness of His Majesty.”

“Shhh!” Red Robe hissed, glancing around them.

Never underestimate the horrible things men can do in order to save themselves,
Corwin thought. He tried not to consider the fact that he had been in that category himself not too long ago.

“Actually, you wise men should be talking to the girl, Nia,” Corwin said. “She's much cleverer and more skilled in magic and visions than I am. And she really is from the city of Atlantis. Her people have knowledge far beyond what we know, but they need our help. You could learn a lot from Nia.”

The three mages all chuckled. “Dear boy, Atlantis is a
myth
,” Red Robe said. “A fable, invented by the Romans. Oh, maybe once there was a cataclysm that sank an island in the Mediterranean Sea. But I myself have been to that sea, and there are many islands bearing volcanoes, which now and then explode with great force. A myth of an island sunk by divine powers is bound to arise. Myths of ancient wisdom are natural, for were the Greeks not wiser than we?”

Leather Cap spoke then. “Your friend is an albino, lad. I have seen such people with pale hair and striking features. Perhaps she came up with the Atlantis story so that others wouldn't think she was some kind of monster. It adds some glamour to her strangeness.”

Corwin shook his head. “That can't be, magus. She and I can share thoughts, visions. She has shown me what her world is like.” Some instinct kept him from saying more about the prince in the shell.

“You seem ill, lad,” Anguis said. “Could she have fed you anything or drugged you in some way? You know, there are tinctures that make a man susceptible to believing whatever he's told. She could have guided your thoughts with words until you saw precisely what she wanted you to see.”

Corwin blinked, then looked down at the ground.
I was poisoned; she even told me so
, he thought.
And I've never actually seen the creature in the shell. She only told me that the voice I'm hearing is coming from the prince. What if she's the one who brought the kraken . . . no, it was picking up the shell . . . that's when I was poisoned. Could the kraken have been a delusion? But even Henwyneb heard its cry. Unless it really was a horse being butchered on the beach. Nia said she came to find me because of the shell. Was the shell a trap set for me? But why would she want to work a trick like that on me? I don't have anything worth stealing. No, I've become as full of fear as the king.

Corwin put his fists to his forehead, feeling the scar of the sun-shaped mark on his palm pinching his skin. He glanced down at his hand.
She has this same mark, and she's also poisoned. I felt the thoughts of the Farworlder prince before I even met Nia.
There was a tiny sliver in his palm from the block of wood holding the candle that he had summoned to his hand the night before.
Aha. That is no illusion.

Concentrating with all his mind, Corwin tried to find Nia's thoughts. She was frightened and angry. Her skin felt dry and hot, and she wished desperately to immerse herself in water. She was worried about him.
Nia
, he thought,
some men are trying to tell me you're a liar. Show me Atlantis.

He received no words in return, but an image flooded his mind of a beautiful city glimmering with pale green lights in the dark depths of the sea. Tall palaces covered with shells and coral. Dolphins and enormous sea turtles swimming side by side with mermyds. He shared her memories of swimming through tall, carved pillars of stone, of being swept along a current of fast water in a cloud of bubbles. He could taste the seaweed and fish she ate, the kelpwine she drank.
This is a place far more wonderful than I could've ever imagined. If this is an illusion, then so's my entire life
.

Calmly Corwin raised his head. “I'm sorry, good sirs, but I believe Nia,” he stated firmly. “I
have
shared her thoughts. I know she isn't lying. And I can't possibly do what you ask for the king.”
And I can't believe I'm being this high-principled. Fenwyck must be spinning in his cage
.

“You realize what you're saying, boy?” Anguis asked with a solemn frown. “The dire consequences of your words? Your life hangs in the balance, as does that of your lady friend.”

“We're doomed already. If the creature in the shell is killed, then she and I will die, too. If she dies, the creature and I die. Our fates are joined. There's no point in saving only one or two of us.”

The mages stared at him as if he had sprouted a second head.

At that moment, King Vortigern strode in, accompanied only by two guardsmen. “Well, my lords, has your pet prognosticator seen the light of reason?”

“Alas, no,” Anguis said, still staring at Corwin with a glint of pity in his eyes. “It would appear this young man has lost the use of his reason. He believes he will die when the creature in the shell dies, or the girl. I fear he will be of no use to us, Your Majesty.”

“Didn't I predict that he would be useless?” Vortigern asked smugly. “I have become a better seer than you, Anguis. Very well. If he thinks he will die when the girl does, let them die together. Put him in the cage with her.”

Corwin felt surprisingly calm. Perhaps the feeling was left over from the peace of the underwater world he had experienced through Nia's thoughts. Perhaps it was that his strength was spent. He no longer had the energy to be frightened or angry. He did consider leaping on the king and delivering some stiff blows to that smug face. Then they'd have a really
good
reason to execute him. But instead Corwin let the guards lead him away like a chastised puppy.

They guided him roughly out through the courtyard. All the courtiers loitering there pointed and stared at him as he passed. He noticed Lord Faustus, especially, laughing at him with a vulpine grin. Corwin felt as though he were six years old again and being exhibited as “the Wild Boy of Caledonia.”

He was led out to the castle wall. To his shock, they had put Nia in the same cage that Fenwyck . . . still inhabited. The cage was lowered, and the locked gate was opened. Nia sat curled up at the far rim, as far from the musty-smelling pile of bones and flies and tattered cloth as she could make herself. Her pale skin was beginning to redden in patches, and her hair looked brittle as straw.

Corwin was unceremoniously pushed in. He had to scramble to neither crush Fenwyck's bones, nor Nia. As he squeezed himself in tight between the living and the dead, Corwin stared at the remnants of what had once been the only father he had ever known. He was so drained he could only feel a distant sorrow as he stared at the stained and frayed “Hammurabian” robe, and the wrinkled, sun-browned skin that still clung to the skull and arms. Only a few wispy gray strands of hair remained on the top of Fenwyck's head. The eyes were gone, no doubt plucked by some of Nag's cousins. “You never looked better, old man,” Corwin said, but the jest felt hollow.

The cage door was slammed shut with a loud clang. The winch was turned, tightening the thick rope, and the cage was hauled up and up, high on the castle wall.

There was no shelter from the burning late-summer sun, and it beat down upon Corwin and Nia with unrelieved intensity. The stone castle wall beside them reflected more heat into the cage, making it feel as hot as an oven. The cage wasn't tall enough for Corwin to stand and shade Nia. He tried to crouch over her, but the shifting of his weight made the cage tilt, sending Fenwyck's bones sliding into Nia's leg. She made a little shriek and pulled herself tighter against the bars of the cage. Laughter drifted up from the guards and onlookers below. Corwin took off his shirt and tied the sleeves to the bars, but this only provided a small patch of shade, constantly disrupted by the wind.

“Now your skin will be burned,” Nia said, sadly.

“It doesn't really matter,” Corwin said. “Once the prince goes into the stewpot, we'll know what it's like to be boiled alive instead of baked. Nia, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I never should have taken that shell from within the leviathan. Or I should have dropped it once I saw the kraken. You might have retrieved it then.”

But Nia weakly shook her head. “Ma'el would have gotten it then, and we would already be dead. You gave us a chance. And we needed you to complete the Naming.”

“I'm afraid I wasted our last chance,” Corwin said, the shame rising in him. “The king's wizards might have spared us if I'd been willing to use my visions to find rebels Vortigern could execute. But I couldn't do it.” Corwin looked down at the remains of Fenwyck, almost expecting the skull to laugh at him.

Nia gave him a small smile. “You are brave and kind. I told you our prince chose wisely.”

Corwin blushed and looked away. “To choose an idiot like me? If I had even pretended to believe that you had lied to me about Atlantis, the mages might not have let me go so easily. They still think that your city never existed, except as a myth or an island destroyed by cataclysm.”

Nia let out a bitter laugh. “How strange that Atlantis has written its own fate. We are taught in our history that land-dwellers threatened our peace and so we sank beneath the waves to avoid them. We let stories be spread around the world that Atlantis was destroyed by angry gods, so that no one would come searching for us. And now, when Atlantis needs the help of land-dwellers, no one believes we exist.”

“Why is it that when we try hardest to help ourselves, we somehow end up dooming ourselves instead?” Corwin muttered. He looked again at what was left of Fenwyck. This time the skull appeared to be grinning mockingly back.

Chapter Eight

The minutes crawled slowly by as the sun reached its zenith in the sky. Corwin's threadbare shirt wasn't doing much to hold the merciless rays at bay. Nia's skin was visibly drying—patches of bare skin on her arms were beginning to look as lifeless as Fenwyck's. Corwin's mouth felt parched. The River Twy gurgled not far away, flowing beside the castle to form part of its moat. Its liquid laughter was tantalizing, and Corwin dearly wished he could taste its brackish water on his tongue.
It must be torment for Nia
, he thought,
who probably wishes she could be swimming in it.

“Why aren't we dead yet?” Corwin asked no one in particular. “They must have put the shell in the soup pot by now.”

“I don't know,” Nia whispered. “The prince . . . has found bits of seaweed on which he can feed. He has a little strength now, and he is using his powers to make people nearby forget he is there. It's all he can do.”

“I'm not sure that's better, if it just prolongs our agony. Can his powers help us escape from this cage?”

“I . . . don't know the mechanism of this lock. If you do, perhaps we . . . ,” she drifted off weakly while staring at the cage door.

“No,” Corwin said. “You're too sapped of strength already. An open door won't help if we're unconscious. Besides, the fall to the ground might kill us, and if it didn't, the guards below would just hoist us up again.”

Corwin leaned back against the hot iron bars and closed his eyes.
If only I could have a vision of what to do here.

Touch the prince's mind
, Nia said or thought to him; Corwin wasn't sure which.
Let him aid you
.

Corwin calmed his mind and tried to allow in the thoughts of the alien Farworlder-mind. As before, he sensed the prince was floating in tepid water, free of the shell and swimming around a little. It was actually pleasant, this time, to visit the prince's thoughts for a while. The little leviathan was in a more comfortable place, at least at the moment.
Can you tell me where you are?

To Corwin's amazement, he could now see out of the Farworlder's eyes. He saw the surface of the water breaking above him, saw slender little pink tentacles reach up the side of the . . . bucket, Corwin guessed, felt himself/the prince crawling out to perch on the rim. The prince's eyes looked around. Almost everything was unfamiliar to the Farworlder, but Corwin could tell him what he was seeing.
Yes, this bucket seems to be sitting on a table. That smoky cave with a fire in it is a hearth where meals are cooked. That's a sideboard on which meals are prepared, vegetables cut, that sort of thing. That looks like a lump of bread dough. No, it's not alive. That's a woman, she's dressed like a servant . . . probably a cook. She's yawning, wiping her hands on her apron, and leaving. That's good, maybe she won't come back. And at least she won't see us . . . you.

The eyes of the prince gazed down. The kitchen floor looked a long way off to the tiny Farworlder, even if he were to leap to the tabletop first.
Probably not a good idea for you to make a break for it
, Corwin advised
. Not if you can't stay out of water long. Castles are big and easy to get lost in, even for a land-dweller.

With an inward, squidlike equivalent of a sigh, the Farworlder prince let go of the side of the bucket and slid back into the water. He found his shell and slipped back inside.