Limits (2 page)

Before the quake it had been called Castle Minterl; but few outside Minterl remembered that. Small events drown in large ones. Atlantis itself, an entire continent, had drowned in the tectonic event that sank this small peninsula.

For seventy years the seat of government had been at Beesh, and that place was called Castle Minterl. Outsiders called this drowned place Nihilil’s Castle, for its last lord, if they remembered at all. Three and a fraction stories of what had been the south tower still stood above the waves. They bore a third name now: Rordray’s Attic.

The sea was choppy today. Durily squinted against bright sunlight glinting off waves. Nothing of Nihilil’s Castle showed beneath the froth.

The lovely golden-haired woman ceased peering over the side of the boat. She lifted her eyes to watch the south tower come toward them. She murmured into Karskon’s ear, “And that’s all that’s left.”

Thone was out of earshot, busy lowering the sails; but he might glance back. The boy was not likely to have seen a lovelier woman in his life; and as far as Thone was concerned, his passengers were seeing this place for the first time. Karskon turned to look at Durily, and was relieved. She looked interested, eager, even charmed.

But she
sounded
shaken. “It’s all gone! Tapestries and banquet hall and bedrooms and the big ballroom…the gardens…all down there with the fishes, and not even merpeople to enjoy them…that little knob of rock must have been Crown Hill…Oh, Karskon, I wish you could have seen it.” She shuddered, though her face still wore the mask of eager interest. “Maybe the riding-birds survived. Nihilil kept them on the roof.”

“You couldn’t have been more than…ten? How can you remember so much?”

A shrug.
“After the Torovan invasion, after we had to get out…Mother talked incessantly about palace life. I think she got lost in the past. I don’t blame her much, considering what the present was like. What she told me and what I saw myself, it’s all a little mixed up after so long. I saw the tra
v
elling eye, though.”

“How did that happen?”

“Mother was there when a messenger passed it to the king. She snatched it out of his hand, playfully, you know, and admired it and showed it to me. Maybe she thought he’d give it to her. He got very angry, and he was trying not to show it, and that was even more frightening. We left the palace the next day. Twelve days before the quake.”

Karskon asked, “What about the other—?” But warning pressure from her hand cut him off.

Thone had finished rolling up the sail. As the boat thumped against the stone wall he sprang upward, onto what had been a balcony, and moored the bow line fast. A girl in her teens came from within the tower to fasten the stern line for him. She was big as Thone was big: not yet fat, but hefty, rounded of feature. Thone’s sister, Karskon thought, a year or two older.

Durily, seeing no easier way out of the boat, reached hands up to them. They heaved as she jumped. Karskon passed their luggage up, leaving the cargo for others to move, and joined them.

Thone made introductions. “Sir Karskon, Lady Durily, this is Estrayle, my sister. Estrayle, they’ll be our guests for a month. I’ll have to tell Father. We bring red meat in trade.”

The girl said, “Oh, very good! Father will love that. How was the trip?”

“Well enough. Sometimes the spells for wind just don’t do anything. Then there’s no telling where you wind up.” To Karskon and Durily he said, “We live on this floor. These outside stairs take you right up past us. You’ll be staying on the floor above. The top floor is the restaurant.”

Durily asked, “And the roof?”

“It’s flat.
Very convenient.
We raise rabbits and poultry there.” Thone didn’t see the look that passed across Durily’s face. “Shall I show you to your rooms? And then I’ll have to speak to Father.”

Nihilil’s Castle dated from the last days of real magic. The South Tower was a wide cylindrical structure twelve stories tall, with several rooms on each floor. In this age nobody would have tried to build anything so amb
i
tious.

When Rordray petitioned for the right to occupy these ruins, he had a
l
ready done so. Perhaps the idea amused Minterl’s new rulers. A restaurant in
Nihilil’s Castle! Reached only by boats! At any rate, nobody else wanted the probably haunted tower.

The restaurant was the top floor. The floor below would serve as an inn; but as custom decreed that the main meal was served at noon, it was rare for guests to stay over. Rordray and his wife and eight children lived on the third floor down.

Though “Rordray’s Attic” was gaining some reputation on the mainland, the majority of Rordray’s guests were fishermen. They often paid their score in fish or in smuggled wines. So it was that Thone found Rordray and Merle hauling in lines through the big kitchen window.

Even Rordray looked small next to Merle. Merle was two and a half yards tall, and rounded everywhere, with no corners and no indentations: his chin curved in one graceful sweep down to his wishbone, his torso expanded around him like a tethered balloon. There was just enough
solidity,
enough muscle in the fat, that none of it sagged at all.

And that was considerable muscle. The flat-topped fish they were wre
s
tling through the window was as big as a normal man; but Merle and Rordray handled it easily. They settled the corpse on its side on the center table, and Merle asked, “Don’t you wish you had an oven that size?”

“I do,” said Rordray. “What is it?”

“Dwarf island-fish. See the frilly spines all over the top of the thing?
Meant to be trees.
Moor at an island, go ashore. When you’re all settled the island dives under you, then snaps the crew up one by one while you’re trying to swim. But they’re magical, these fish, and with the magic dying away—”

“I’m wondering how to cook the beast.”

That really wasn’t Merle’s department, but he was willing to
advise
. “Low heat in an oven, for a long time, maybe an eighth of an arc,” meaning an eighth of the sun’s path from horizon to horizon.

Rordray nodded. “Low heat, covered. I’ll fillet it first. I can fiddle up a sauce, but I’ll have to see how fatty the meat is…All right, Merle.
Six meals in trade.
Anyone else could have a dozen, but you—”

Merle nodded placidly. He never argued price. “I’ll start now.” He went through into the restaurant section, scraping the door on both sides, and Rordray turned to greet his son.

“We have guests,” said Thone, “and we have red meat, and we have a
bigger boat. I thought it proper to bargain for you.”

“Guests, good.
Red meat, good.
What have you committed me to?”

“Let me tell you the way of it.” Thone was not used to making business judgments in his father’s name. He looked down at his hands and said, “Most of the gold you gave me, I had spent. I had spices and dried meat and veg
e
tables and pickle and the rest. Then a boat pulled in with sides of ox for sale. I was wondering what I could sell, to buy some of that beef, when these two found me at the dock.”

“Was it you they were looking for?”

“I think so. The lady Durily is of the old Minterl nobility, judging by her accent. Karskon speaks Minterl but he might be of the new nobility, the invaders from Torov. Odd to find them together—”

“You didn’t trust them. Why did you deal with them?”

Thone smiled.
“Their offer.
The fame of Rordray’s Attic has spread throughout Minterl, so they say. They want a place to honeymoon; they had married that same day. For two weeks’ stay they offered…well, enough to buy four sides of ox and enough left over to trade
Strandhugger
in on a larger boat, large enough for the beef and two extra passengers.”

“Where are they now? And where’s the beef?”

“I told…eep. It’s still aboard.”

Rordray roared.
“Arilta!”

“I meant to tell Estrayle to do something about that, but it—”

“Never mind, you’ve done well.”

Arilta came hurrying from the restaurant area. Rordray’s wife resembled her husband to some extent: big-boned, heavy,
placid
of disposition, carrying her weight well. “What is it?”

“Set the boys to unloading the new boat. Four sides of beef. Get those into the meatbox fast; they can take their time with the other goods.”

She left, calling loudly for the boys. Rordray said, “The guests?”

“I gave them the two leeward rooms, as a suite.”

“Good. Why don’t you tell them dinner is being served? And then you can have your own meal.”

The dining hall was a roar of voices, but when Rordray’s guests appeared the noise dropped markedly. Both were wearing court dress of a style which had not yet reached the provinces. The man was imposing in black and silver,
with a figured silver patch over his right eye. The lady was eerily beautiful, dressed in flowing sea-green, and a thumblength taller than her escort. They were conversation stoppers, and they knew it.

And here a man came hurrying to greet them, clapping his hands in d
e
light. “Lady Durily, Lord Karskon? I am Rordray. Are your quarters co
m
fortable? Most of the middle floor is
empty,
we can offer a variety of choices—”

“Quite comfortable, thank you,” Karskon said. Rordray had taken him by surprise. Rumor said that Rordray was a were-lion. He was large, and his short reddish-blond hair might be the color of a lion’s mane; but Rordray was balding on top, and smooth-shaven, and well-fed, with a round and happy face. He looked far from ferocious—

“Rordray!
Bring ’em here!”

Rordray looked around, disconcerted. “I have an empty table in the corner, but if you would prefer Merle’s company…?”

The man who had called was tremendous. The huge platter before him bore an entire swordfish fillet. Durily stared in what might have been awe or admiration.
“Merle, by all means!
And can you be persuaded to join us?”

“I would be delighted.” Rordray escorted them to the huge man’s table and seated them. “The swordfish is good—”

“The swordfish is
wonderfu
l
!
” Merle boomed. He’d made amazing progress with the half-swordfish while they were approaching. “It’s baked with apricots and slivered nuts and…something else, I can’t tell.
Rordray?”

“The nuts are soaked in a liqueur called
brosa
, from Rynildissen, and dried in the oven.”

“I’ll try it,” Karskon said, and Durily nodded. Rordray disappeared into the kitchen.

The noise level was rising toward its previous pitch. Durily raised her voice just high enough. “Most of you seem to be fishers. It must have been hard for you after the merpeople went away.”

“It was, Lady. They had to learn to catch their own fish instead of tra
d
ing. All the techniques had to be invented from scratch. They tell me they tried magic at first. To breathe water, you know. Some of them drowned. Then came fishing-spears, and special boats, and nets—”

“You said
they
?”

“I’m a whale,” said Merle. “I came later.”

“Oh. There aren’t many were-folk around these days.
Anywhere.”

“We aren’t all gone,” Merle said, while Karskon smiled at how easily they had broached the subject. “The merpeople went away, all right, but it wasn’t just because they’re magical creatures. Their life
styles
include a lot of magic. Whales don’t practice much magic.”

“Even so,” Karskon wondered, “what are you doing on land? Aren’t you afraid you might, ah, change? Magic isn’t dependable anymore—”

“But Rordray is. Rordray would get me out in time. Anyway, I spend most of my time aboard
Shrimp
. See, if the change comes over me there, it’s no problem. A whale’s weight would swamp my little boat and leave me floating.”

“I still don’t see—”

“Sharks.”

“Ah.”

“Damn brainless toothy wandering weapons! The more you kill the more the blood draws more till—” Merle shifted restlessly. “Anyway, there are no sharks ashore. And there are books, and people to talk to. Out on the sea
there’s only the whale songs
. Now, I like the singing; who wouldn’t? But it’s only family gossip, and weather patterns, and shoreline changes, and where are the fish.”

“That sounds useful.”

“Sure it is. Fisherfolk learn the whale songs to find out where the fish are. But for any kind of intelligent conversation you have to come ashore. Ah, here’s Rordray.”

Rordray set three plates in place, bearing generous slabs of swordfish and vegetables cooked in elaborate fashions. “What’s under discussion?”