The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World (14 page)

“What are you doing here?” demanded the queen, in her most imperious voice. “How did you get in?”

“By broomstick,” snarled Sirion Hilversun.

“Oh,” replied the queen, nonplussed.

Damian, meanwhile, was still quivering so hard that his teeth began to chatter. He clamped his jaws shut and tried to control himself.

Rufus Malagig IV threw back the door and entered, apparently ready to lose his temper, but he pulled himself up as soon as he saw the enchanter. He, at least, had no trouble in recognizing the visitor.

“Magister Hilversun!” he exclaimed, with false warmth. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

He stepped forward to shake the enchanter by the hand, but was interrapted by Damian, who called out: “Watch it, dad! He’s gone crazy, or something.”

The king stopped, unsure whether he ought to clip the prince round the ear for outrageous rudeness (not to mention sloppiness of expression) or to try and placate the enchanter (who did, he now noticed, have a faint hint of madness in the gleam of his eyes). He hesitated. In the meantime, Coronado arrived, clutching his forehead melodramatically. In the end, the king could manage nothing more regal than: “Er… to what do we owe… er…er…”

Sirion Hilversun didn’t wait for him to finish. “I have come,” he said, in a voice whose steadiness suggested monumental self-control, “to find out what your son has been playing at, involving my daughter in the most powerful spell the world has ever known.”

“Oh,” said the king, weakly. “Has he really?”

Coronado, realizing that this was no time for headaches, stepped forward briskly. “Do I understand, magister,” he asked, “that you have only just discovered what has been going on?”

“You niggardly nincompoop!” said the enchanter, with feeling. “Do you think for one moment that I would have permitted my daughter to tamper with the legacy of Jeahawn the Judge?”

“Ah!” said the king, expressively (although just what he was expressing, no one was quite sure).

“Don’t stand there braying like a jackass!” shouted the enchanter. “I want an answer. Where’s my daughter?”

“I don’t know!” retorted the red-faced Rufus, who had never been referred to as a jackass within the precincts of his own palace before. (Not, at any rate, to his face.)

“Should we know?” asked Coronado, smoothly.

“She went to Ora Lamae,” snarled the enchanter. “To make sure that he”—here his finger stabbed out at the quailing prince—“was playing the game properly. He’s here. Where’s she?”

“Ah!” said the king, again, too late to stifle the sound.

“Oh,” said Prince Damian, somewhat crestfallen.

The queen, who had caught up by now with the tide of events, gathered the prince to her bosom and extended her protective arms around him, despite his attempts to wriggle free.

“I fear,” said Coronado, in tones of deepest regret, “that Prince Damian hasn’t been anywhere near Ora Lamae. And perhaps, before we lose ourselves once again in a storm of accusations, insults and exclamations, I could be permitted to make one or two pertinent observations. … Thank you.

“Firstly, the choice of the questions forming the last will and testament of your enchanter friend was your daughter’s. We did not understand what was happening and we still do not.

“Secondly, we have no knowledge whatsoever of the circumstances of the young lady’s disappearance. The prince’s… ah… emissary, sent out yesterday to fulfil the second demand, relating to the lamia in the Forbidden City, has not yet returned. As it is now rather late we had begun to fear that he never will return. If anything has happened to him—and, for that matter, to your daughter—then I would respectfully suggest that the fault lies not with us, but entirely with your daughter.”

The enchanter moved his extended index finger so that it now pointed at Coronado. For a second or two, he hesitated between blasting Coronado from the face of the Earth and trying to figure out this whole bewildering affair. A second or two was enough to tip the balance in favour of the latter alternative. Coronado, not fully realizing how close he had come to extinction, swallowed hard.

“Who disenchanted Methwold forest?” asked the enchanter, his voice now level. “Ewan,” said Coronado.

“The prince’s… substitute?”

“Yes,” the prime minister confirmed.

“And he went to Ora Lamae? And hasn’t returned?”

“Quite,” said the prime minister.

“None of this was your idea?”

“None.”

“Why did you take your question from the will?”

Coronado shrugged. “Ewan was looking for the answer to the first question in the library. He found the document. We assumed that we were supposed to follow the whole thing through. What else could we think?”

Sirion Hilversun lowered his accusing finger. “None of this is chance,” he murmured. “None of it. It was planned. Long, long ago. Even the loss of my memory was planned, so I couldn’t interfere. I should have realized … I should have thought….” He looked up, suddenly, at the ring of faces staring at him. In a voice that was low and quiet, he said: “Jeahawn Kambalba was my mother’s brother. We’re related by blood. His power… still exists within us. Helen, too.”

“I see,” said Rufus Malagig IV, who didn’t see at all, but felt compelled to say something.

“We thought we were setting up a marriage,” murmured Sirion Hilversun. “I thought to establish a future for Helen, no doubt you had your reasons, too. But we weren’t. We were being manipulated. We were setting up a spell. A powerful spell.”

“Actually,” said Coronado. “It’s more of a chapter of accidents, really.”

“And who do you think governs accidents?” snapped the enchanter, but not very viciously.

Coronado shook his head in mute disbelief.

“Why?” asked the enchanter. “Why did you want the marriage?”

“We wanted to bring you back to Jessamy,” confessed the prime minister. “The kingdom is bankrupt. We needed your magic to save us.”

The enchanter laughed out loud. There wasn’t much humour in the laugh. “My magic! Save a kingdom! I’m all but helpless, you pack of fools. I’m finished. I couldn’t save a kitchen garden.”

“Oh,” said the king, dully.

“It was all for nothing, then?” said the prince, fighting free at last from the maternal clutch.

“Not for nothing,” said Sirion Hilversun. “For Jeahawn the Judge. For his legacy to the magic lands… the last of his spells.” He stopped, and half a minute dragged by while no one could find anything to say. Then the enchanter roused himself again, and said: “Well, what do we do now?”

“What can we do now?” countered Coronado. “Apart from waiting and hoping?”

“I need your help,” said the enchanter, flatly.

“What for?” The answer came not from Coronado but from the king.

“To save Helen. What else?”

“What do you want us to do?” asked the prime minister.

“Come with me.”

“To the magic lands? To Ora Lamae?” Coronado queried. “Yes.”

“If I thought for one moment,” said the prime minister, smoothly, “that there was any help we could offer, then I would offer it. But you must realize that we are only ordinary people, despite our titles. We know nothing of magic or spells or enchantment. We sympathize with your difficulties. But there isn’t really anything we can do to help.”

“What you mean,” said the enchanter, “is that you no longer think you stand to gain anything.”

“I assure you…” Coronado began.

“What about the boy?” interrupted Sirion Hilversun. Turning to the king, he added: “It might be your son. It should be your son.”

“But it isn’t,” Coronado intervened, quickly. “And that demonstrates, I think, how wise we were not to permit the prince to risk his life. Ewan’s a good boy. … I like the lad. But we have to look at this thing realistically. The probability is that he’s dead. He volunteered for this task. No one forced him. In fact, I myself recommended very strongly that he shouldn’t go to Ora Lamae. The king and I both wanted to end the matter, on the grounds that it was too dangerous. The fact that the boy hasn’t returned merely serves to affirm that we were right. I don’t believe that we have any further responsibility in this matter. Your daughter chose to play a very dangerous game, and tried to involve us as well. I see no reason why we should now offer to risk our lives because she may have placed herself in peril. It’s only common sense that we should disengage ourselves from the matter entirely. I see no other reasonable course.”

“Or to put it another way,” said Sirion Hilversun, “you’re a coward.”

“Not at all,” said Coronado, quite unworried by the accusation. “I’m a politician.”

The enchanter turned his steady gaze upon Damian. “What about you?” he said. “This boy’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“Not exactly a friend,” said Damian. “Don’t like him much, to tell you the truth. Too clever by half. Anyhow, I never wanted to marry your daughter.”

The enchanter raised his lightning-spitting finger again, but only used it for a gesture of pure contempt. He looked at the king, then. “Do you really think that your kingdom is worth saving?” he asked. “For him? And for him?” He pointed, in turn, at the prince and at the prime minister.

“I’ll go with you,” said the king, quietly.

Prince Damian went white, and Coronado all but reeled with the shock.

“Sire,” said the prime minister, “I must advise you most strongly–-“

“Shut up!” said the king. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

“But, Rufus!” protested the queen. “Think of….”

“I am thinking,” said the king. “I’m thinking that I’m sick of politics and all this worthless chicanery. I’m thinking that it’s my fault that the boy’s out there. It may not have been my idea, but I’m the king, damn it, and it’s my responsibility. To hell with advice! I’m going! If there are any horses left in Jessamy, fetch two. If not, fetch donkeys. But move! I mean you!”

Coronado gulped. It was not the prime minister’s job to fetch horses (let alone donkeys) but this did not seem to be the right moment to point that out. Coronado moved.

The king extended a hand to Sirion Hilversun, who accepted it in a firm clasp. “Let’s go, magister,” he said.

“Yes, your majesty,” said the enchanter, his eyes burning as brightly as they had in twenty years and more.

The sun crept nearer to the horizon and was met by a fanlike array of cirrus clouds, which turned pink in its evening glow. The sky up above seemed, by contrast, a much deeper and clearer blue. And somewhere above the western horizon, shining like a beacon, was a single evening star. The air was very still and heavy, and rather warm for the time of year. The sound of the waterfall seemed to Ewan strangely dull and muted—but it was, at least, a real and natural sound. The deadly silence of Ora Lamae was one oppression that he didn’t have to tolerate while he waited.

Helen, meanwhile, was thinking about the lamia and her company of halflings. The snake-woman and her cohort, she realized, had been just as trapped by the enchantments which lay upon the Forbidden City as the people who went in mortal terror of them. The spells that formed the units of Jeahawn Kambalba’s will were not so much destroying them as setting them free. Zemmoul, she believed, would be no exception. He would rise from the murky depths of his own cold prison in response to the ritual offering… and he would meet the edge of the magic sword. Perhaps, she thought, dragons and their kin wait all their lives for heroes to put an end to them. Perhaps, if the truth were known, that’s why they behave so strangely in respect of hoards of gold and pretty girls, neither of which can hold any particular attractions for them.

It was an interesting thought.

The sun retired modestly behind the feathery fan of cloud, which was advancing on a high breeze to cloak the western sky with radiant pink light, as if a great flock of flamingos was flying there.

Ewan, staring at the black water, saw a change in the pattern of the slow ripples, which curved in their paths as if pushed slightly askew by a swell that was rising in the centre of the pool. And, very quickly—or so it seemed—the water ceased to ripple at all but merely shimmered. Then it began to roll and to bubble, as though it were being stirred from within.

A thin black miasma began to rise from the surface and there was suddenly a stench in the air—an odour as if of something salty and slimy, ancient and rubbery. The surface of the pool boiled up like milk left too long on a stove, foaming copiously—but foaming black and not milky white.

These changes in the surface happened so swiftly that Ewan expected Zemmoul to erupt from the foam instantly, but he did not. Seconds dragged by… long seconds … while the black water churned and its black spindrift oozed over the bank of the pond and slithered over the grey mud and green moss around the weathered post.

Ewan stayed perfecdy still, not daring even to shudder as the black stuff poured around his boots and clung to the fabric of his trousers. He wanted to call—or whisper, at least—to Helen, but terror froze his voice and left him quite helpless. He could do nothing but watch.

Then the foamy mass split asunder as Zemmoul’s head burst into the warm air, turning from side to side and shaking off great gobs of viscous black oil. But still the head was covered with a glistening sticky sheen of the stuff, which clung to the flesh like an outer skin. At first, Ewan could see nothing of the monster’s features but the shape of the vast bulbous skull which bobbed on the end of a thick rubbery neck which rose from the pool… and kept rising.

The head was the size of a haycart and the neck was as thick as a country road is wide. How long it might be he could not guess, and never would, for more and more of it emerged from the foam, and there was no end to it. Ewan thought briefly that Zemmoul might be a mighty serpent, but quickly realized that a serpent could not support itself thus, and that the monster’s body must in actuality be so vast and cumbersome that it could never escape from the cavernous depths beneath the black pool.

Only the head and neck could ever reach out into the upper world.

Ewan watched the head go up and up into the sky, until it loomed above him like a tall tower. The neck could not hold rigid, and slow spiral waves passed up it, while the head, held aloft, moved in slow circles. Even as it attained the limits of its reach the head remained a half-shaped lump dressed in thick black slime … but as it circled the sheath of slime opened— and there appeared an eye.