Reunion (15 page)

“Skreee! Skreee! Skreee!” The high-pitched shrieking echoed through the cistern as a black, living cloud descended from the high, vaulted ceiling.

“The kraken!” Corwin cried, and he ducked underwater, then realized the idiocy of that move and surfaced again. He looked wildly around for escape.

Nia was staring up, fascinated. Corwin dared to look up, too. And felt extremely foolish. It was merely a host of bats that had been disturbed by the sound of the falling rock. The bats fluttered this way and that, zooming between the pillars, until they finally departed or resettled on the ceiling.

“I knew it wasn't the kraken,” Nia said, “because those aren't creatures of the sea. But I can't tell what they are. Are they like your bird, Nag?”

“No,” Corwin grumbled, annoyed with himself. “They're bats. Mice with wings, really. Mostly harmless.”

Nia began to laugh. “And you thought—”

“Yes, yes, I thought it might be the kraken. I'm sorry if I'm a little jumpy. Now can we move along while I'm still wearing my skin?”

Still giggling and grinning, Nia turned and continued to swim. Corwin followed, feeling his face grow red with embarrassment.
How many more times can I make a fool of myself before she decides her prince
didn't
choose wisely? I shouldn't have been caught up in all this, anyway. I don't have any special talents, other than useless visions and picking pockets at county fairs. I'll bet once we get to the prince and heal ourselves, she'll take her little squidling and return to the sea and I'll just be a joke she'll tell to the other mermaids. There was this land-dweller named Corwin. . . .

Something slimy, like a tendril of seaweed or an eel, brushed against his right ankle and began to close around his foot. Corwin shook his leg, and it let go. It grabbed his other leg, wrapping more tightly. Corwin angrily kicked at it hard with his free foot and it let go. He swam as fast as he could after Nia.
It was nothing
, he told himself.
I'm not going to tell her about it. She already thinks I'm cowardly and stupid. She'd just laugh and tell me it was a strand of waterweeds. Which it probably was.
Although that wasn't what it had felt like. Corwin didn't want to think about what it had felt like.

It seemed they swam for a long time through the vast, echoing cistern. Corwin lost his sense of time, and that wasn't something the Farworlder prince could help him with, as he was occupied with guiding Nia and Corwin to him. Nia continued to swim just ahead, glowing eerily green.

But at last they came to a wall in which there was an archway. Beneath the arch were stone stairs leading up from the water. Fortunately, the iron portcullis gate in the arch that might have blocked their way had been raised. Nia nimbly pulled herself out of the water and sat on the step just above the waterline.

As Corwin crawled up onto the stairs, he felt another wave of weakness and nausea strike him. He had to lie on the cold stone for long moments as the world spun around him.

Nia touched his shoulder. “It's the poison. We can only hold off its effects for so long.”

“Then . . . what are we . . . waiting for?” growled Corwin. “Let's hurry.”

Nia put an arm around his shoulders and helped him stand. “We will heal each other. Come on.”

They staggered up the slippery steps, curving around one flight, then two. There was a wooden door at the top, but this wasn't locked. They entered a short hallway whose air was full of the aroma of baking bread and cooking vegetables. “Well,” Corwin gasped. “It seems like we just need to follow our noses to find the kitchens.”

They crept along the hall until they found the doorway leading into a large room. Corwin recognized it as if he had been there before. Which in a sense he had. A fire burned merrily in the enormous hearth, where a huge black kettle hung over the flames. In the center of the room was the trestle table, on which sat the wooden bucket. No one else was in the room, fortunately. A pile of partially cut onions lay, along with a butcher knife, on the side table. The lump of bread dough sat nearby, gathering flies.

“Our prince's forgetting spell must have worked very well,” Corwin said. “Royal kitchens are usually crowded with cooks and servants.”

“Look, there he is!” Nia cried.

A little bulbous head with big eyes poked up over the rim of the bucket and a little tentacle waved tentatively at them.

Both Corwin and Nia rushed to the table.

“He's grown so much!” Nia exclaimed. She scooped him up out of the bucket.

“So that's what he looks like,” Corwin murmured. The prince did indeed look like a tiny leviathan. His skin was a pinkish-green, and he was a bit longer than Nia's hand. His yellow-green eyes blinked at them.

Glad to see you. Glad to see you.

Corwin couldn't help smiling. “Glad to see you, too.”

“But for his protection, we'd better put him back in his shell,” Nia said.

Corwin fished the shiny, silvery shell out of the bucket. Nia held the prince over the shell and let the creature slither back in. Corwin was amazed the little leviathan fit.

“Now we must do the Naming,” Nia went on.

“Wait a moment,” Corwin said. He went to each doorway in the kitchen and closed the doors. “We don't want anyone passing by to see us,” he explained. He couldn't find a way to lock the doors, though, so he hoped they could get the spell done quickly.

“So now what do we do?” he asked when he returned to the table.

“It's never been done with three before,” Nia replied, “at least, not that I know of. So I'll have to guess. First, sit.”

They sat on either side of the table, Nia cradling the shell in her hands, Corwin placing his hands over hers.

“Now we must combine our energies,” Nia said, “first to heal the prince, then to heal ourselves. Do you remember the flame-in-hand that you saw me do back at the inn?”

Corwin nodded, still impressed with that particular magic.

“That's how it's done. Send all the energy of your body into your hands. Send it from your hands into the shell, give it to the prince, and he will heal himself.”

Corwin bowed his head and closed his eyes. He wasn't sure how to gather energy at all. It wasn't like gathering seashells, he was certain.
Let me help
, came the princeling's thoughts in his mind. Suddenly Corwin
did
know how. He concentrated first on his feet and legs and felt a surge of warmth flow upward through them. The warmth entered his belly and chest, gathering there, stronger and stronger. Warmth flowed down from his shoulders and arms as well to join it. Finally Corwin could hold it in no longer, and the energy flowed out into his hands as though it were water, pouring into Nia's hands and into the shell.

Nia's hands had grown hot as well, and Corwin could feel the air heat up around them. Corwin feared at first his hands would be burned, but this human fire was not destructive. It felt marvelous, like he could bask in it forever.

“Remember, we must heal the prince,” Nia murmured, “before we heal ourselves.”

Again, Corwin was at a momentary loss about what to do next. But it didn't matter. He could feel the Farworlder taking the energy into himself, transforming himself. Corwin risked opening his eyes for just a peek. The shell was glowing, iridescent. A cloud of sparkling light swirled around it. As Corwin watched, the little squid-prince floated out of the shell as if swimming in the flow of energy. The creature itself glowed from within, and it floated above the shell, drifting in circles, soaking in the healing energy. It was a beautiful sight.

Corwin could feel, secondhand, the effort that the Farworlder was using to heal himself. How the energy burned like sweet fire in his tentacles and head. Finally, with an
ahhhhhhh,
the prince's work was done—he had purified his blood of the poisonous fluid. He flowed back into the shell, taking much of the energy cloud with him.

“Is it done?” Corwin whispered.

“Shhh,” Nia said. “Next it's our turn.”

The shell glowed brighter and brighter until it hurt Corwin's eyes to look at it. Suddenly the light exploded, pouring out over Corwin and Nia, swirling around them as it had the shell. Corwin gasped deeply as the energy entered him, warmed his skin, sang in his blood. He now felt the sweet fire directly, burning in his bones. He wanted to smile and scream, to howl with joy and pain. He felt himself changing, although he didn't know how or in what way. He felt his sickness ebb and the growth of new strength and wholeness within.

At last the healing fires subsided, and Corwin breathed out in a great sigh of relief. He let his head droop a moment and then looked up at Nia. She was smiling, her head drooping, too, but her face was a healthier color. “It's almost done,” she said.

“Almost? What's left?” Corwin asked.

A name
, the Farworlder prince thought back at him.
I need a name.

“It's in the naming of things that our kind acknowledges the spirit in another being,” Nia explained, “and then we are able to more readily join with it.”

An idea instantly came to Corwin's mind. “We have a word,
gobaith
, that means hope. You said that this little one is the last hope of your people, so maybe that's what we should call him.”

Corwin felt a glow of approval from the leviathan in the shell, and Nia smiled. “Yes,” she said. “That's a very good name. Our prince takes the name given by the Avatar of the Land.”

Nia bowed her head, still cupping the shell in her hands. She chanted words in an ancient language that Corwin couldn't understand, but through her mind and the prince's, he caught the sense of it—

 

King and Avatars, we are one

Minds and souls united ever

With this Name, let pain be done

in unity only Death may sever.

Gobaith, Gobaith, Gobaith.

 

Corwin could swear the Farworlder, Gobaith, made a sound like
wheeeee!
upon being given his new name.

Nia looked up again. “
Now
it's finished.”

“Good,” Corwin said, relieved. “Now we can—wait.” He paused, listening closely. He was pretty sure he heard a faint clinking of metal beyond one of the kitchen doors. “Did you hear something?”

I have a bad feeling—
Gobaith began.

Suddenly doors slammed open all around the kitchen, revealing men-at-arms with lances pointed and swords drawn. King Vortigern himself entered from the main door, followed by his three wizards. “So,” the king said with narrowed eyes, “your witchery is complete. But what we want to know is,
what
have you done?”

It had been a trap. Corwin, Nia, and Gobaith had been too caught up in their magic to even see it coming.

“M-majesty,” Corwin said, trying to recover from his shock, “we haven't done anything.”

The wizards rolled their eyes. “Come, fellow, we aren't idiots,” Anguis said. “We have watched here at the doors while you performed a spell of great magnitude. Persons within the castle have been behaving strangely, clearly by your design. Either you undo your treacherous spell, or you tell us how it was done so that we might undo it.”

“If you are forthcoming about your treachery,” King Vortigern said, “I may be moved to forego having you tortured and allow you a painless execution.”

Nia straightened to stand her tallest. “Magi of this land,” she began, “it wasn't a spell to bring harm. We were merely healing one another. If you were truly masters of your art, then you would know this.”

The sorcerers glanced uncertainly at one another for a few moments. Finally, Anguis chuckled. “That's a very clever trick, young lady. But your arts may be subtle and deceptive to our eyes. You may have your work
appear
to be a healing spell, but we know otherwise from the effect it's having on the rest of the castle.”

“Um,
what
effect on the rest of the castle?” Corwin asked, puzzled.

“Oh, I'm sure you'd like us to tell you just how successful your spell has been,” King Vortigern sneered. “But I won't reward your curiosity. Just know that it didn't work as well as you'd hoped. After all,
we
are still awake and moving, and able to capture you.”

Corwin looked at Nia and mouthed the words “Awake? Moving?”

Nia shrugged, clearly as baffled as he was.

“Majesty,” said the wizard in the red robe and floppy hat, “before you . . . er . . . exact sentence, we should take possession of the shell, for clearly that is the focus of their power.”

Corwin saw Anguis staring hungrily at the shell.
So it's not justice you're really after here
, Corwin thought.
You wanted to discover and steal the source of our power
.

King Vortigern wrinkled his nose, as if smelling something distasteful. “Very well. You, give that . . . thing up, and perhaps I will ensure that the blade of the headsman's axe is sharp.”

Corwin looked again at Nia and he knew they shared the same thought.
If we give them Gobaith, all is lost
. He took a quick glance at all the doors. Three soldiers in each, a dozen in all. Plus the three wizards and the king. Well, the king wasn't likely to involve himself in any fracas. But still, the situation was hopeless.

How strange that we named the prince for hope,
Corwin mused.
But as Fenwyck always said, when it's madness to hope, perhaps one's only hope lies in madness
. Corwin jumped up onto the table, holding the shell high. “You will not have our Talisman of Godlike Power!” he declared. “If you come near us, I shall smash it to the ground and its destruction will bring the castle down around our ears!”

Nia stared up at him, wide-eyed, but she didn't contradict him.

There was a long silence in the kitchen as every guard and wizard stared anxiously at the shell.