Wonders of the Invisible World (27 page)

If the water-mage could only coax it free from the stubborn grip of the waterworld.

She saw, in a vivid flash of lightning, the world out of Garner’s eyes as he rowed.

The sprites have gotten hold of it,
she told him.
That’s what you must pull against.

She gave him a crazed glimpse of the formless swarm inside the gate jamming it open. Eada felt their strength pitted against her power. The power of persuasion would be even stronger, she thought, if only she could think of what to say.

And then she knew.

How they understood something shaped like a battered old tree trunk, she wasn’t sure. Maybe they just picked the impulse and the image out of her head.
Take what you want at the Ritual of the Well,
she told them.
Until then, let the city be.

The gate shifted; the tree trunk slid. They were gone, she realized. Vanished like the last thinning rill of a wave into sand. Water pushed the gate; the men pulled their chains, plied their oars. The trunk, angled sharply now, and underwater, prodded at the gate as it moved a few more feet. The gate closed finally; tide built against it, but could not enter. The tree trunk, finally level, floated to the surface and vanished as well.

Garner, standing at the prow of one of the longboats, struggling with wet, numb hands to unhook all the chains from the ring, nearly fell overboard yet again when the mage appeared beside him. She freed the chains easily, and passed them back into the boats alongside them. Garner stared at her, worse for the wear, she noted, thoroughly soaked again, and just waking as from a nightmare.

“What happened?” he asked hoarsely. “We couldn’t budge that gate.”

“I made a bargain.”

The boat lurched, turning; he tumbled into a seat, took up his oars. Eada sat in the prow on the pile of chain; the knight’s incredulous eyes were telling him there was no room, between him and the pile of chain, and the sea, for anything bigger than a broom straw.

“Or a shadow,” she told him.

“What?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Now?”

“Well, no, not exactly at this moment. When it seems appropriate. You know far better than I how these things go.”

He pulled his oars, blinking rain out of his eyes, as though, if he could see her more clearly, she might make more sense. “Exactly what kind of bargain did you make?”

“We’ve got something they think is theirs. I told them they could have it back at the ritual.”

“And you want me to—”

“Find it.” She put a weightless hand on his shoulder, patted it. “Don’t worry. Just go along as you do. How do humans put it? Follow your heart.” He stared at her, his mouth hanging open to any passing wave, as she nodded. “Oh, and tell the Minister of Water what I’ve just told you. That’s all.”

Above his head, she saw that the winds were busy shredding cloud, uncovering stars, and then the glowing moon, which illumined the tattered roil, turning cloud to silk and smoke before everything blew back into black.

“But I have no idea—”

“Magic,” the mage breathed, enchanted, and vanished.

Garner fell into the sea and woke.

He pulled himself out of the dream of dark, cold, weltering water, and blinked at his squire, who was reverently examining the ceremonial garb.

“For tonight, sir,” he told Garner, who needed no reminding.

He sat up, holding his head together in both hands, while pieces of the extremely early morning’s adventure came back to him. What had the mage said to him? Something he was supposed to find? Something he was supposed to tell Damaris.... He groaned softly.

Inis murmured sympathetically, “A short and noisy night, sir.... At least you didn’t lose your boots this time. My boots.” He brought Garner a cup of watered, spiced wine, and added, “Your ritual tunic has a couple of stains on it, but only in the back, and your cloak will cover them. Everything’s dry, now.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Garner muttered. “See if you can get me a pair of boots made by this evening, and you’ll have yours back.”

“Yes, sir,” Inis answered simply, having grown used to the vicissitudes of knightly endeavor, especially Garner’s.

“Do I have anything decent left to wear? I have to talk to the Minister of Water.” He saw the rare trace of anxiety cross his squire’s face. “Have you been hearing tales?”

Inis nodded. “From everywhere in the city. And even in the palace. Your cousin, Sir Edord, was found climbing into the well near the stables yesterday. He said a woman was calling to him, and he had to rescue her. He fought, but they managed to pull him out before he got far.”

Garner, musing over possibilities, breathed, “Pity...”

“Sir?”

“The mage spoke to the water creatures last night while we were having a tug-of-war over the sea gate. She made some kind of truce with them. Things will be much quieter today.”

“And the ritual?” Inis prodded shrewdly.

Garner shook his head, completely mystified. “All we can do is trust that the mage knows what she’s doing.”

He couldn’t begin to guess what Eada wanted him to find. All he could do was send a page ahead to request an interview with the Minister of Water, and hope that the mage had revealed a few more details to Damaris. The Minister of Water, summoning him immediately to her office, seemed neither surprised nor displeased to see him. She hadn’t slept much, either, he guessed; her braid was becoming unraveled and her eyes seemed huge, luminous.

“Eada told me to give you a message,” Garner said.

“Another one?” she marveled. “Why doesn’t she speak to me?”

“I have no idea.”

“She wants you to speak to me,” Damaris answered herself promptly. “But why?” She gazed at him, as perplexed as he; he restrained himself from taking the braid she was picking apart out of her restless fingers, and folding her hands in his own to calm them.

“I don’t know. She said that we have something the water creatures think belongs to them. She promised that, if they left Luminum in peace until the ritual, they could claim it then.” He paused. She was absolutely still now, her eyes lowered, her fingers motionless. “Oh,” he added, remembering, “and she wants me to find this thing. Whatever it is. Do you have any idea what she’s talking about? Where do I begin to look for this nameless, vital thing?”

She raised her eyes finally. “Why you?” she asked again, her brows crumpled, her tired eyes trying to look so deeply through his that he wondered if she were trying to find the mage in his head.

“Because we have known each other most of our lives? Because I can hide nothing from you, so if I know something that will help us, you will know it, too? Because despite all my blunderings and rashness, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for the Minister of Water? I don’t know. Is any of that likely?”

She swallowed, looked down again, quickly. “As likely as it is unlikely.”

“What should I do?” he pleaded. “Where do I begin? It must be something that the water creatures want badly, judging from the ways they have been harassing us.”

“And why now?” she wondered. “What’s different now?”

“You’re betrothed.” She stared at him. “I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “I’m sorry. It was the first thing that leaped into my head. Of course, that has nothing to do with water.”

“Garner—”

“You have every right to please yourself, and I have no right to torment you about your decisions. I promise I will stop. Just tell me where to go, what to look for—”

“I don’t know!” she cried, so fiercely that he started. “I don’t know. Garner, just go away and look for something. Anything. I have to think.” He opened his mouth. She shook her head wildly and he closed it. “If I think of anything useful at all, I will send for you, I promise. I promise. Go.”

So he went, following the paths of water as he had the day before, hoping at every moment for a whisper from the mage, a message from the minister. Both were silent. So were the water people, he realized as the day passed. Water behaved like water in pipes and buckets, stayed mute and did not sing. Fountains splashed with decorum; sluice gates remained as they were set; mill wheels turned placidly. Everyone waited, Garner felt.

But for what?

At dusk, he returned to the palace to dress. Inis gave him new boots, buckled his sword belt and brightly polished spurs, pinned the bright silver disc of the moon that drew all waters onto his cloak. They joined the other knights and squires in the yard where the procession was forming behind the king.

The townspeople lined the streets, carrying torches and drinking vessels. They were subdued, murmuring, laughing only softly, for the ritual was ancient, vital, and, the previous day had warned them, by no means predictable. After the king, his consort, his courtiers, the royal knights and the Knights of the Well with their torch-bearing squires had all passed, the townspeople fell in behind them. The procession grew slowly longer and longer, a river of people flowing down the twining streets of the old city, past the shrouded fountain in the square and across the bridge to the broader streets that changed, beyond Luminum, into the wide, rutted, uncobbled wagon roads between the fields.

Garner rode silently, his eyes on the gentle uprise ahead, already marked by torches thrust into the earth around the opening above the Well. It was growing very dark. The pillars and walkways of the outer pool were lined with fire as well, where the city folk would gather to drop their gifts and wishes, and dip their cups to salute the moon. The full moon, rising in leisurely fashion out of the sea, had been following the procession for some time, arching higher and higher among the stars. By the time the king and the knights gathered around the Well itself and began the ritual, the moon would already be regarding its own perfect reflection in the water beneath the earth.

The king reached the hillock finally and drew aside. Courtiers, warriors and city folk all waited, while the Knights of the Well dismounted and filed underground through the mage’s doorway. Eada drew them one by one to their positions around the Well. No one spoke, not even Edord, who usually had some appropriate exhortation ready for the occasion. Even he looked apprehensive, Garner noted, after his adventure with the nymph in the stable well. Garner himself wanted nothing more than to drown himself in the nearest tavern until dawn. He had found nothing; neither mage nor minister was speaking to him; he foresaw nothing but disaster.

The king’s face appeared in the water beside the moon. He stood above them on the stony crown of the hill, alone between water and moon; torches on either side of him illumined his face. He would address the Well, giving thanks for the generosity of its waters, pay tribute to the moon that drew such pure waters out of the earth. Garner heard a quick intake of breath beside him, from the newest of Eada’s knights. He was seeing for the first time the gathering faces of the underwater creatures, blurred, distorted, many of them paler than the moon, or tinged the colors of water.

Garner looked down at them morosely. They didn’t look happy, either, the way they milled and turned in the water, flicking so close to the surface that they left ripples in the peaceful pool. If they had been human, he would have said they were pacing.

Eada murmured something incomprehensible. Water splashed back at her, an unprecedented occurrence. The king had just begun the traditional phrases, which had lengthened, like the night’s procession, through the centuries. Along with dropping the first words into the Well, he dropped a handful of gold coins, and a carefully faceted jewel. They fell in a rich little shower, lightly pocking the water.

The jewel shot back out of the water, smacked him on the shin.

He stopped mid-word, dumbfounded. His face, above his golden beard, grew bright, somewhere near the color of the jewel. He looked torn between continuing the ritual, and fuming at his water-mage, who was just standing there, as near as Garner could tell, doing nothing. A gold piece ejected next from the water, struck a rock beside the king with a tiny, musical clang. Another, cast higher, was caught in mid-air. It seemed as though the moon itself had reached out long white fingers to claim it.

It was the Minister of Water, moving into the torchlight. The king stared at her, as did the knights; even the moon seemed to take more than a passing interest in the proceedings.

The king found his voice first.

“Lady Ambre,” he said brusquely. “Why are they rejecting our gifts? Can you explain?”

She nodded. Garner, seeing again the green-eyed, foam-haired nymph in the river, felt his heart twist like a fish in his chest.

“My lord,” she said ruefully, “I believe they want your Minister of Water to acknowledge her heritage.” The king’s brows tangled; his mouth dropped. “I don’t,” Damaris continued, “entirely understand the disturbance, but if it will ease the tensions between our worlds, I will claim my connection with both. My mother is human. My father, evidently, is some kind of water creature. Since I have no markings of the waterborn, only a fascination with water-works and an ability to spend an impossible amount of time under water, I was able to conceal that side of me. Until now. Now, before you all, I claim the waterborn as my kin.”