The Poisoned Crown (22 page)

They are different
—
they are dangerous
—
we fear them
—
kill
—
kill
—
KILL…

“The Goddess is all-powerful,” Rhadamu said. “Can she not melt the Great Ice so the northfolk perish without their sanctuary?”

A shiver ran through the priestesses; the rhythm of their exhortation faltered.

Nathan thought:
They don’t like the question. They don’t like
any
questions …

Nefanu wants obedience, without awkward objections.

“The Ice melts!” said the priestesses, but their voices were no longer in unison.
Melts … melts … melts …
, said the echoes. “The Ice melts—and refreezes! The cold of the utter north cannot be changed. The Goddess could tilt the world on its axis, but she must refrain, lest the balance of life be overthrown.”

I bet she can’t do it
, Nathan said to himself.
She doesn’t give a damn about the balance of life.

“The Poles are the anchors of the globe. To move them would bring death to more than the northfolk. The currents of the world would shift—the seas would boil—the stars would weep blood …”

Rhadamu’s face remained as expressionless as a shark. Possibly he had heard it all before. “The Goddess is all-powerful,” he responded. “Could she not melt the ice for just a brief time—a day, a night, an hour? Then the northfolk would drown or panic, and fall easily to our spears.”

“The meltwater would flow south and chill the reefs.” One of the shamans spoke alone, her voice quavering in isolation.

“Has the merking no stomach for the fight?” asked the others. “He is the regent of the Goddess, foremost of the twelve kings, protector of the Death Crown. Is such a being to show himself craven before the ultimate battle?”

Battle … tattle … rattle …
, said the echoes.

They mean the Iron Crown
, Nathan thought.
The Death Crown. It must be.

“I have no stomach for the slaughter of my people,” said the king. “I hate the northfolk with a deep and bitter hatred, but they are many, and strong, and will fight long and hard for survival. They will be in
home waters, familiar with every riptide, every ripple. They can retreat onto the ice where we cannot follow—our legs have been unused for too long—and use their hidden weapons against us. In such a conflict, the outcome is far from certain. The Goddess loves her children; she must share my concern.”

“The Goddess expects her people to die—”
Die … die …“
—die bravely, die gladly, in a great cause. The heart is strong, the spear is sharp. Let none cry
Hold!
until the last of the lungbreathers breathe their last. Trueseal and selkie, pinwing and snowbeast—all must be slain. To war! To war! The northfolk are many—the merfolk are more! Summon the twelve hosts, mount the sharkriders, arm the spearslingers, poison-tip both javelin and lance! Nefanu will send the monsters of the deep for the laggard and the latecomer, the wounded and the weak. Let none cry
Hold!
—let none hold back. To war!”

War … war…

“We are ready!” said the warrior whom Nathan thought might be Uraki. “We will dye the northern seas red with their blood and ours— the cliffs will drip with icicles of scarlet—Nefanu’s pets will make such a feast as has never been seen. If they flee from us over the floes we will raise the Leviathan who crunches whole icebergs in its jaws—”

“No!” No … no …
, sang the echoes, rebounding almost before the priestesses had spoken. “Not the Leviathan! Let him sleep—sleep in the deep—deepest sleep—never to wake—never to rise. Better the last merman die than the Leviathan should stir …”

“I know the peril,” said Rhadamu, not even glancing at the warrior. “My captains are sometimes foolhardy, but not I. We will prepare. I will call the merkings to a council of war—the twelve hosts will be gathered—we will go north with the moontide when all is ready. The Goddess has my word. I will not fail her.”

“Be swift!” said the shamans. “Speed is of the essence. The foe must have no warning. There are spies and traitors even among your own people—at the very heart of the kingdom. The tale of their perfidy is a murmur in the ear of a shell, a bubble in the mouth of a small-fish—but we have heard it. We hear everything. Treachery slips like an
eel between the cracks of your defenses. It may yet undermine all our plans.”

With any luck
, thought Nathan.

“Use your magic!” said the king. “Find the traitors. Are you not the elected priestesses of Nefanu? Do you not see as well as hear? Find the traitors, and I will chain them to the Dragon’s Reef, and crabs will nibble their flesh while they still live.”

“The spells are brewing,” said the priestesses. “Soon we will know. But the magic cannot be hurried.”

“Be swift,” the king adjured. “Speed is of the essence. I will not go to war with treachery at my back.”

I must warn Denaero
, Nathan thought, feeling the dream pulling him away—away from the priestesses with their white eyes, and the talk of war and blood, and the cathedral echoes repeating and repeating it in a murmuring liturgy. Away from the dark of the ocean into the safer darkness of a dreamless sleep.

Denaero … warn Denaero …

Then his thought was extinguished, and when he woke he was back in his own world.

A
T BREAKFAST
Annie looked pale and tired, but Nathan was too preoccupied to notice. He was desperate to return to Widewater and contact Ezroc and the mermaid, but he knew from previous experience that sleep would not come at will, and any attempt to force the portal would either fail or land him in the wrong universe. The day stretched ahead, a space to be filled—he needed action, diversion, discussion, anything to get him through.

“I’m going out,” he told Annie.

“Where?” Even her voice sounded pale, though he didn’t pick up on the tone. The horror of her dream and Kaliban’s story clung to her like a shadow that could not be brushed off.

“Hazel,” he said, almost at random. “I—I need to talk to her.”

“But you saw her last night?”

Last night… A vague recollection of the party came to him, reduced to insignificance by subsequent events. “We didn’t talk. You can’t talk properly at parties. ’Bye, Mum—see you later.”

She let him go, wondering where he’d been in his sleep to make Hazel’s company so imperative, wishing he would talk to her—but he was a teenager, and teenagers rarely choose their mothers for the role of first confidante. She poured herself more coffee, and let it grow cold. Some time later, she picked up the phone and dialed Bartlemy’s number.

At the Bagots’ house, Nathan found Lily in the kitchen with Franco experimenting with a new cappuccino machine and Hazel in her room making a figure out of pipe cleaners. It had a curl of black hair glued on top that might have been Franco’s and a snarl of red wool around its neck in imitation of a scarf he favored.

“What are you doing?” Nathan demanded.

“Sympathetic magic.” The short end of a pipe cleaner protruded between its legs. Hazel bent it until it was pointing downward, murmuring what might have been a magic word.

Then again, it might not.

“That’s not funny,” Nathan said. “I bet Uncle Barty didn’t teach you that.”

“No, he didn’t. It was in one of great-grandmother’s books.”

“You know what happens if you use magic to harm people. You tried that once before.”

“Stop lecturing me.” She looked up at him, pushing her hair back off her face—the tangle of hair she had always used to hide herself. “You don’t think there’s anything of Franco in
this?
It’s a bunch of pipe cleaners and a piece of wool.” She didn’t go into details about the hair. “Even Great-Grandma wouldn’t have been that stupid. It takes more than that to make a simulacrum. I was just doing—transference.”

“Transference?”

“Something Uncle Barty
did
teach me. You make an image for your hate, and you torture it, or burn it, or just make it look stupid, and the hate transfers into the image, and then it’s gone. Burned up—laughed out of court. Transference.”

“Unsympathetic magic.” Nathan relaxed a little, letting himself smile at her. “Are you sure you didn’t—do anything more?”

“Almost sure,” Hazel said airily. “You’re all knotted up: I can feel it. What’s happened?”

Nathan poured out the whole story—about Widewater, and Denaero, and the priestesses of Nefanu, and the imminent conflict between merfolk and selkies.

“I thought you were meant to find the Crown,” Hazel said, “not stop a war.”

“I don’t suppose I
can
stop it,” Nathan admitted. “I don’t think anyone can. But I can’t let Denaero be hurt.”

“You said the king was her father,” Hazel recalled. “She’s his youngest daughter, right? She’s bound to be his favorite—it’s like that in all the stories. He wouldn’t hurt her.”

“I don’t know. The Goddess makes them all mad. She’s like Nenu-far, only worse. I’m afraid Denaero’s in real danger.”

“You like her, don’t you?” Hazel said gruffly.

“Yes, of course.”

“The same as that princess you were so hooked on?”

“Oh no. No, not at all. She’s very pretty, but… sort of cold and fishy.” He wasn’t going to mention the lack of scallop shells.

“Does she wear one of those seashell bras like in films?” Hazel asked with an unnerving flash of perception.

“N-no. But she’s awfully flat-chested, so it doesn’t really matter.”

Hazel said nothing, brooding on her own lack of development in that area.

“Anyway, she thinks I’m stupid,” Nathan went on. “I know it’s pretty feeble, but I’m still scared of the water after the accident—and even if I wasn’t, it’s not as if I can go under for ages like she does, or cope with the pressures when you get down really deep. If you want to do something useful, instead of fiddling about with pipe cleaners you could find a spell to help me.”

“Useful?” Her face reddened with anger. “Of course, I never do anything
useful
, do I? You’re the one who does the
useful
stuff, popping between worlds and rescuing people all the time. I just get to—to
sit around and clap ’cos you’re such a hero. And now I can make myself
useful
by finding you a spell so you can go swimming with a topless mermaid! That would be really
useful
, would it? That would help to save the world?”

“You’re overreacting,” Nathan said, vaguely surprised by her outburst. “I didn’t mean it seriously. I shouldn’t think there
is
any such spell—and if there was, it would take a very powerful witch to pull it off. I only meant—”

“Thank you! So I can’t possibly be
useful
because—because I’m not even much good as a witch?”

“But you never wanted to be,” Nathan pointed out, reasonably. “You always hated the idea of doing magic—you were afraid you’d end up like Effie Carlow, lonely and sly and sour inside. You only got into the magic thing when you fell for that creep Jonas Tyler, and he wasn’t exactly worth it, was he?”

“Whereas you’re hanging out with a half-naked mermaid!” Hazel fumed. “At least Jonas kept his trousers on!”

“Actually,” Nathan said scrupulously, “she isn’t so much half naked, more, sort of, whole naked. Only her bottom bit is usually tail. Except when it turns into legs …”

“I don’t want to hear this!”

“Look, I have to warn her about the priestesses. I keep telling you, she’s in danger—”

“I bet she’s in danger,” Hazel said savagely, “going around with no clothes on! Go and save her, why don’t you? You’re always doing it. First it was that stupid princess, now it’s a mermaid with no knickers. Why don’t you just whiz off and—and do your superman stunt? You don’t need my help for that.”

“For heaven’s sake, calm down,” Nathan said. “You’re acting really weird lately. Anyway, you’re in no position to criticize the company I keep—you spent the best part of last night talking to Damian Wicks. I mean, Jason’s kid brother—and they say he’s just like Jace only shorter and not so tough. Do you really like hanging around with a failed school bully who wants to be a thug when he grows up?”

“Damian is
nothing
like Jason,” Hazel protested. “He’s really sweet and—”

At that point there was a knock on the door. Hostilities were suspended for a breathless minute. The door opened a few cautious inches, and Lily Bagot peered through the gap, flushed with the triumph of culinary achievement. “Would anyone like a cappuccino?” she offered.

n that Sunday afternoon, Bartlemy came to tea with Annie, driving into the village in his old Jowett Javelin, a car so retro most people had never heard of it, let alone seen one. It was already dark when they sat down by the fire, with the teapot keeping warm on the hearth and the coffee cake Bartlemy had bought on a plate on the table. Coffee cake was Annie’s favorite, and he sensed she needed a treat. Nathan was with George, in theory helping with his history homework, in practice playing World Domination on the computer. Annie wanted to talk about her visitor of the previous night, but not in front of her son.