Reunion (14 page)

“Yes, I heard,” Corwin said. “I get the feeling that something strange is going on at the castle, but of course our little prince can't see much of the world from his bucket.”

“We have to get to him soon.”

“That's easier said than done,” Corwin muttered, staring at the high stone castle walls and thick, iron-banded gate. “If we try to go in through the front way, we'll just be recaptured.”

Nia pulled up a river reed from the bank and chewed on it thoughtfully. She stared at the castle with such determination that Corwin felt she would melt the walls down with her gaze if she could.

“Maybe there's another entrance,” she said at last. “In my city, I had a . . . friend, a former friend, who taught me that there are doors and entries that workers know of that nobles don't. And there can be portals for other purposes that can be used as doors.”

Corwin felt another wash of emotion from her, memories of someone, a dark-haired young merman. Her thoughts were filled with love and fear and hate. Corwin received vague images of this merman swimming through a maze of tunnels . . . and he suddenly remembered what the mages had said about the labyrinths of catacombs and waterways beneath the castle. Prince Vortimer and Faustus had talked about them while in Henwyneb's cottage. “Nia, you could be right,” he said. “The king's son mentioned there were viaducts leading off from the river into the castle. If we can find those, we may be able to swim into the cisterns beneath. And from there maybe we can find an entrance into the castle itself.”

“That's a great idea!” Nia burst out. “I'll be stronger if we can stay in water. And no one will expect us to come that way. If we enter when it's dark, we might get in without being seen.”

Corwin was flattered by her praise. But he noticed that the afternoon was fast fading into evening. Already the stones of the castle were tinged gold with the westering sunlight. “Wait until dark? But if we stay in water, won't the kraken follow us, once the sun has set?”

Alarm passed across Nia's face like a shadow. “I'd forgotten about Ma'el's creature. Since we're still alive, it'll be searching for us. Once darkness falls, he could send it up the river.”

Corwin felt his stomach turn at the thought of seeing the huge scarlet snake again. It would be harder to run away from the narrow confines of the river. And this time he didn't have a heavy bag of shells to bash the monster in the head with. “I'd really rather not be the welcoming party for it when he does. Maybe we should take the chance of being seen and go now, before sunset.”

“I agree,” Nia said. “Sooner is better, if we can succeed.”

Corwin glanced all around. There were still no guards or village sightseers nearby. He was beginning to find such luck unnerving. “Okay, then. This seems like a good time.”

Nia stood and ran gracefully to the river, then slipped into the water as smoothly as a seal. Corwin followed, but not so gracefully. He
really
hoped no one was watching as he blundered, splashed, and stumbled his way through the muck of the riverbank and fell back into the shallows. The water felt more chill this time, and Corwin's teeth began to chatter. Nia's head went underwater and she kicked like the flash of a dolphin's fluke, and then she was gone.

Corwin tried to swim, but they were heading upriver, and the current was too strong. He had to be satisfied with pulling himself along by the rocks, or crawling in the shallow water of the river when he couldn't. He kept a wary eye on the narrow slit windows of the castle, and the crenellated parapets, but he didn't see any watchful faces along the wall.

Corwin started to worry when he hadn't seen Nia for a few minutes. The river sucked at his ankles; the mud pulled at his feet; the bushes on the riverbank tore at his hair, his clothing, and his skin. His hands and knees were nearly numb from the cold water. He wondered if this plan had been the right choice, but realized it would have been far worse if they'd waited for dark.

He wanted to call out Nia's name but didn't dare. Although he couldn't see anyone, that didn't mean there wasn't anyone in hearing distance who could come running.
Why had she just swum off? Why hasn't she waited for me? Where has she gone? Well, she can't have died, because I'm still alive, but that doesn't mean she isn't in trouble. Wouldn't my mind know it if she were in trouble? If she'd been knocked unconscious, would I know it? This is all too strange.

Just as Corwin was about to risk discovery and shout for her, Nia rose out of the water before him. “Where have you been?” he yelled before he could stop himself.

She blinked, startled. “I searched for the place where the river enters the castle,” she said. “I found it, but I wanted to warn you: It could be dangerous for you.”

“Oh.”
I'm an idiot. She was doing something useful, and I just shouted at her
. “Um, I'm sorry. I mean, that's good. Finding the entrance, I mean. Not the danger part. Um, what's the danger part?”

“The river enters the castle through a small . . . tunnel, I think you'd call it,” Nia said, ignoring his awkwardness. “It's completely full of water. You won't be able to breathe on your own. And the water runs so swiftly through it that we may not be able to swim out if we become trapped. At the end there seems to be a . . . a gate with bars, like our cage. I don't know how or if it can be opened.”

“Show me where it is and we'll see what we can do.”

Her brow furrowed in thought. It was the prettiest frown Corwin had ever seen. “It will be best for you,” she said, “to go up the stream farther and then cross. That way the current will carry you to the place where we should enter, but not past it.”

Corwin roughly grasped what she meant. “Okay. But you have to show me where the entrance is so that I can aim for it.”

“Keep your gaze on me, then,” she said, diving back into the river.

“How could I not?” Corwin murmured, watching her silvery hair and dress flash through the water, as though she were a giant fish. In mere moments she appeared at the other bank, the castle wall rising above her. She waved, and Corwin hoped no one saw her.

He staggered farther upriver, choosing a place from which he was certain he could reach Nia in a swift swim. He dove into the deeper water and began to swim as hard as he could. But the strength of the current amazed him, carrying him faster than he had imagined. Corwin was too afraid to stop swimming and look around. But it seemed to take forever, stroke after stroke in the murky, cold water, and still he hadn't reached the other bank, and again he was running out of air.

A hand grasped his arm. And pulled. It was Nia, who had anchored her leg to a huge iron ring underwater. She tugged him close to her, pointed at a circle of brick and mortar, and placed his hand at the edge of the tunnel. The current wasn't so strong here, but still Corwin had to make sure his grip on the side of the circle was secure before he surfaced.

Their heads came out of the water at the same time. There was a loud gurgle from the very top of the tunnel, which curved just above the waterline. “Oh, I'm so glad. I nearly lost you,” Nia said.

“Lucky for me you didn't,” Corwin said. “I don't think the river would've let me go until it reached Carmarthen Bay.”

“Yes,” Nia agreed. “This river reminds me of the bubble-flow tunnels of Atlantis. They also have swift and dangerous currents.” Once more, Corwin sensed the overwhelming sadness Nia felt about what had happened to her before they met, and he glimpsed the vision of the dark-haired merman again. This time, he got a sharp understanding that it wasn't just sorrow, fear, and anger that the memory brought up in her—there was some kind of guilt and shame mixed in as well. He wondered if he would ever know the details of Nia's mystery.

“An underwater city has rivers?” Corwin asked, trying to distract her from her pain.

“Yes,” Nia answered. “Water can move within water. Even the great oceans have currents that are mighty undersea rivers. One of them passes near the shore of your land.”

“I see,” he said with a nod. “So is this the only river culvert you've found?”

“Yes,” Nia said.

“Then we'd better try it.”

“If we hold on to each other,” Nia offered, “then I can still help you breathe even if we're trapped.”

Corwin didn't mind that idea at all. He gladly let Nia wrap her arms around his chest. “You'll stay close if I need to breathe?” he asked.

Nia scowled at him, but also smiled. “For the prince,” she reminded him gently.

Corwin sighed. “Yes, right. For the prince.” He took several deep breaths to take as much air into his lungs as he could. Then he dove into the brick circle, holding Nia tightly to him.

The speed of the water in the tube was amazing. The tunnel angled down, the water flowing ever faster as it went. Corwin felt his back scrape against the brick and wished he'd retrieved his shirt before escaping the cage. His head banged against a curve of the tunnel, and he would have cried out if he'd dared open his mouth. In only moments his shoulder struck something hard, and he grabbed an iron bar.

Suddenly he was swinging out over open air, the grate having pulled out of one side. Nia slid down him, shoved along by the waterfall pouring out of the tube, until she was hanging by his ankle. She shrieked, and the sound echoed through a large, empty cavern.

Corwin willed his eyes to adjust to the darkness as he held on for dear life. They were in a giant cistern whose vaulted ceiling, held up by slender pillars, was higher than the largest hall in the castle. On distant walls, torches provided the only illumination.

Corwin's hand slipped, and he didn't know how much longer he could hold on, carrying both their weight. “Nia, can you see how deep the water is below you?” If it were deep enough, he could safely let go. If it were shallow, the floor beneath might break their bones.

“I'll find out,” she said, letting her hand slip.

“No! Wait! Nia!”

There came a splash and then a silence filled only with the roar of the falling water behind him. “Nia!”

A pale nimbus of hair broke the water below. “It's three man-heights deep,” Nia called up to him. “You can fall.”

Corwin groaned, grateful that Nia was okay, and then opened his hand. It took two seconds before his feet struck the water below and he plunged deep into the cold water of the cistern. As soon as he could, he kicked and swam to the surface. “I wish you wouldn't do that,” he said as he emerged beside Nia.

“Do what? Oh, look, we're not alone.” Nia reached down, then held up a flapping fish in one hand.

“Go off and try dangerous things. Um. Never mind.”
I keep forgetting how she's from another world.

“This is an ocean fish,” Nia said, “so there must be another entrance into this place that's closer to the sea.” She let the fish go. “The prince is this way,” she said, nodding in one direction.

“How do you know?” Corwin asked. “I'm as tied to the prince as you are, and I have no idea how to get to the kitchens from here.”

Nia tilted her head again. “Don't you feel the earth pulling on your body? Don't you feel the . . .” She struggled for words a moment. “It's like water current, only very faint and gentle. It always flows to what you call north.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Let the prince show you.”

Corwin grabbed hold of a broken piece of pillar sticking out of the water and let his mind join the Farworlder again.
What is this current Nia's talking about?

Suddenly his body tingled, and he felt an ever-so-subtle tugging within him. For a moment, faint lines of light flickered before his eyes, through everything around him, even Nia.

“Almost all large creatures of the sea feel this,” Nia said. “It's how they find their feeding and mating grounds.”

Corwin suddenly understood, and he, too, knew that the prince was up that way and over to the right. But he never would have been able to explain to anyone in words how he knew this. “Is this another one of those magical powers we get from being joined to the prince?”

Nia laughed. “It's not magic. It's one of the most ordinary things in the world, in the sea.”

I'm sure the sea would seem like a very magical place to me
, Corwin thought. This new sense of orientation was a great relief, since he didn't relish the idea of becoming lost in the gloomy, watery, underworld hall. Fenwyck had once told him of the old Roman story about the River Styx, which one had to cross in order to reach the afterlife.
From the looks of this cistern, it could surely be the antechamber to Hades
. “Let's move on. But please stay close this time, so I know where you are.”

“I'll be just ahead,” Nia said, “and I'll make it easy for you to see me.” She shot off like an arrow to their left, a strange, greenish phosphorescence glowing in her wake and along her body. Corwin swam after her, amazed at how she continued to surprise him. The Farworlder-prince-voice said,
This glow is the same power that can raise the kraken, but not as strong
.

You no longer sound like a child, princeling
, Corwin thought.

Being joined to the two of you, I am learning very fast
.

So am I
. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Corwin could see that not all the columns were in perfect repair. Indeed, some of them were cracked and a few were broken, leaving piles of stone to scrape the unwary shin. Vortimer was right, Corwin had to admit. With the Romans long gone, and no one knowing how to repair such structures, it was no wonder that a tower built above it would fall. Corwin wished he could be more certain that the ceiling overhead itself would hold.

As he swam by a broken pillar, accidentally kicking it with his foot, a chunk of stone and masonry fell off and splashed in the water behind him.