Limits Page 3

  “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 offer—”

  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 expression. 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 Rordray 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 Durily’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 landings. 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 murmuring 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 surrounded them, ankle deep as they walked, rounding up the corridor walls and curving over their heads to form a huge, complex bubble. Carpet disintegrated 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 manipulate 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, watery 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—”

  “Oh, but I have. We’ll sell the traveling stone to the barbarian king in Beesh. From that moment on the Movement will know everything he does.”

  “Can you think of any reason why I should care?”

  Karskon made a sound of disgust. “So you support the Torovans!”

  “I support nobody. Am I a lord, or a soldier? No, I feed people. If someone should supplant the Torovans, I will feed the new conquerors. I don’t care who is at the top.”

  “We care.”

  “Who? You, because you haven’t the rank of your half-brothers? The elderly Lady Durily, who wants vengeance on her enemies’ grandchildren? Or the ghosts? It was a ghost who told me you were down here.”

  Beyond Rordray, Karskon watched faintly luminous fog swirling in the corridor. The war of ghosts continued. And Durily was tiring. He couldn’t stay here, he had to pry out the jewel. He asked, “Is it the jewel you want? You couldn’t have reached it without Durily’s magic. If you distract her now you’ll never reach the air, with or without the jewel. We’ll all drown.” Karskon kept his sword’s point at eye level. If Rordray was a were-lion—

  But he didn’t eat red meat.

  “The jewel has to stay,” Rordray said. “Why do you think these walls are still standing?”

  Karskon didn’t answer.

  “The quake that sank Atlantis, the quake that put this entire peninsula under water. Wouldn’t it have shaken down stone walls? But this palace dates from the Sorcerer’s Guild period. Magic spells were failing, but not always. The masons built this palace of good, solid stone. Then they had the structure blessed by a competent magician.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. The walls would have been shaken down without the blessing and some source of mana to power it. You see the problem. Remove the talisman, the castle crumbles.”

  He might be right, Karskon thought. But not until both emeralds were gone, and Karskon too.

  Rordray was still out of reach. He didn’t handle that kitchen knife like a swordsman, and in any case it was too short to be effective. At a dead run Karskon thought he could catch the beefy chef…but what of Durily, and the spell that held back the water?

  Fool! She had the other jewel, the spying-stone!

  He charged.

  Rordray whirled and ran down the hall. The ghost-fog swirled apart as he burst through. He was faster than he looked, but Karskon was faster still. His sword was nearly pricking Rordray’s buttocks when Rordray suddenly leapt over the bannister.

  Karskon leaned over the dark water. The ghosts crowded around him were his only light source now.

  Rordray surfaced, thirty feet above the ballroom floor and well out into the water, laughing. “Well, my guest, can you swim? Many mainlanders can’t.”

  Karskon removed his boots. He might wait, let Rordray tire himself treading water; but Durily must be tiring even faster, and growing panicky as she wondered where he had gone. He couldn’t leave Rordray at their backs.

  He didn’t dive; he lowered himself carefully into the water, then swam toward Rordray. Rordray backstroked, grinning. Karskon followed. He was a fine swimmer.

  Rordray was swimming backward into a corner of the ballroom. Trapping himself. The water surface rose behind him, curving up the wall. Could Rordray swim uphill?

  Rordray didn’t try. He dove. Karskon dove after him, kicking, peering down. There were patches of luminosity, confusing…and a dark shape far below…darting away at a speed Karskon couldn’t hope to match. Appalled, Karskon lunged to the surface, blinked, and saw Rordray clamber over the railing. He threw Karskon’s boots at his head and dashed back toward the King’s “secret” bedroom.

  The old woman was still waiting, with the King’s ghost for her companion. Rordray tapped her shoulder. He said, “Boo.”

  She froze, then tottered creakily around to face him. “Where is Karskon?”

  “In the ballroom.”

  Water was flowing down the walls, knee-high and rising. Rordray was smiling as at a secret joke, as he’d smiled while watching her savor her first bite of his incredible swordfish. It meant something different now.

  Durily said, “Very well, you killed him. Now, if you want to live, get me that jewel and I will resume the spells. If our plans succeed I can offer Karskon’s place in the new nobility to you or your son. Otherwise we both drown.”

  “Karskon could tell you why I refuse. I need the magic in the jewel to maintain my inn. With the traveling jewel Karskon brought me, this structure will remain stable for many years.” Rordray didn’t seem to notice that
the King’s ghost was clawing at his eyes.

  The water was chest high. “Both jewels, or we don’t leave,” the old woman said, and immediately resumed her spell, hands waving wildly, voice raspy with effort. She felt Rordray’s hands on her body and squeaked in outrage, then in terror, as she realized he was tickling her. Then she doubled in helpless laughter.

  The water walls were collapsing, flowing down. The odd, magical bubble was collapsing around him. Clawing at the stone bannister, Karskon heard his air supply roaring back up the stairwell, out through the broken windows, away. A wave threw him over the bannister, and he tried to find his footing, but already it was too deep. Then the air was only a few silver patches on the ceiling, and the seawash was turning him over and over.

  A big dark shape brushed past him, fantastically agile in the roiling currents, gone before his sword-arm could react. Rordray had escaped him. He swam toward one of the smashed ballroom windows, knowing he wouldn’t make it, trying anyway. The faint glow ahead might be King Nihilil, guiding him. Then it all seemed to fade, and he was breathing water, strangling.

  Rordray pulled himself over the top step, his flippers already altering to hands. He was gasping, blowing. It was a long trip, even for a sea lion.

  The returning sea had surged up the steps and sloshed along the halls and into the rooms where Rordray and his family dwelt. Rordray shook his head. For a few days they must needs occupy the next level up: the inn, which was now empty.

  The change to human form was not so great a change, for Rordray. He became aware of one last wisp of fog standing beside him.

  “Well,” it said, “how’s the King?”

  “Furious,” Rordray said. “But after all, what can he do? I thank you for the warning.”

  “I’m glad you could stop them. My curse on their crazy rebellion. We’ll all f-fade away in time, I guess, with the magic dwindling and dwindling. But not just yet, if you please!”

  “War is bad for everyone,” said Rordray.

  SPIRALS

  with Jerry Pournelle

  There are always people who want to revise history. No hero is so great that someone won’t take a shot at him. Not even Jack Halfey.