Wonders of the Invisible World (28 page)

The king closed his mouth wordlessly, looked again into the Well, where the accumulated coin of countless rituals, tossed lightly out of the water, caught fire as they fell, and were tossed again, as quickly as they hit the water, like a little golden rain of cheers.

“They seem,” he observed cautiously, “to be pleased with that. But why now? Why disturb the entire city of Luminum over this? Why ravage my water-closet?”

“My lord, I do not know.”

“Eada?”

She shook her head. “Nor I. Shall I ask them?”

“Please,” said the king. But it was not his answer she wanted. The water-mage gazed at the Minister of Water, one sparse brow cocked questioningly. Damaris looked down at her silently, her face as expressionless as the moon watching over her shoulder. They were speaking to one another again, Garner realized. And about time.

Damaris came to life again, answered the water-mage with a little, decisive nod. “I’ll go to them,” she said. “I owe them that courtesy.”

Then she was gone, gliding down a shaft of moonlight, it seemed, to fall with scarcely a ripple into the water. The king gave a cry; Garner managed to swallow his. He froze, his eyes on the thin, fading ripples crossing the moon’s reflection. Nothing, he decided, could make him move; he would stand there, watching the dark water, turning himself to stone if need be, until she returned to earth.

“Where did she go?” the king demanded. “She’ll drown!”

Eada patted the air, as though his head were beneath her hand. “Hush, my lord,” she said. “I’m listening.”

“To what?”

“To them talking. She doesn’t understand their words; I must translate what I can.”

“But—”

“Shh.”

The king was silent finally, staring into the Well, as they all were, and then at the mage, then back at the water, trying, as they all were, with his fixed attention to raise a sign of life from it. Garner, unblinking and scarcely breathing, grasped at what he could understand of the mage’s language: her quick nod of comprehension, followed by suddenly raised eyebrows, and then a mew of surprise.
What?
he shouted silently.
What?
But nothing. Yet. The knights waited soundlessly beside him, as though if they listened hard enough they might hear, within the trembling waters of the Well, the language far older than their own.

Finally, a pale, wet head appeared above the water. Damaris drew herself out onto the rocks with such ease and grace she seemed scarcely human. Garner saw the water nymph again, and felt his own powerful urge to walk across water to join her. Shifting around him, unsteady breathing, told him he would not be alone.

Then she shivered slightly and turned human in his eyes.

“Well?” the king asked harshly, unsettled himself, it seemed, by this vision of his capable Minister of Water.

“My lord,” Damaris began, then gave up, gesturing helplessly to Eada. “I understood so little. Except that they were pleased that I had come to meet them in their own world.”

“Yes, they were,” the water-mage answered. “Very pleased.”

“What did they say?” Damaris and the king asked together.

“They told Damaris that her father has found his way back to the great deep from which all things flow and to which all return.”

“I guessed that,” she said softly. “I am sorry. I would like to have known him. I was never brave enough to admit his existence before.”

“Well, it seems that he was the powerful ruler of the realm beneath the river. He has many children, and since such water creatures like their rulers to live a long time, it is the youngest child, not the oldest, who inherits the realm. That would be you.”

“Me,” Damaris said blankly.

“Yes.”

“But I can’t—I could never—”

“Of course not. You’d not last a day under water, which would surely defeat their intentions. But by their own customs, and out of honor to your father’s wish, they were duty-bound to ask you first. To do that, they had to get your attention.”

“Which I never, ever wanted,” she breathed. “I only wanted to be human.”

“Yes.”

“So they tried to speak to me in the only language we have in common. Water.”

“Yes.”

“But the mage understood them,” the king interrupted. “Why could they not just explain all this to Eada, so that she could tell you?”

The mage was silent, letting Damaris answer, which she did, drawing herself to her feet so that she could turn and look up at him.

“Because, my lord, they were angry with me. They wanted to do me this great honor, give me this gift from my father. But I refused to hear them. I made use of their water realm, but I gave them no honor, not even the simplest courtesy of recognition. I rejected them, pretending to everyone that I am only human. I ask your forgiveness for the deception, and for being the cause of all this trouble.”

“You are more than human,” the king amended gruffly, and raised his voice, to make her status very clear to those courtiers who might be forming doubts about the matter. “You do us honor to refuse a kingdom for the sake of Luminum. I would hate to lose our dear friend, and our very gifted Minister of Water.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Is that all, then?” he added with a touch of anxiety. “Can we get on with it?”

“You may continue the ritual,” the water-mage told him. “They are content.”

After the king and his knights had drunk from the Well, and then from the pool, Garner looked for Damaris. She was nowhere in the crush of city folk and courtiers filling their cups around the pool and drinking vociferously to the moon, the Well, to Luminum and to the eagerly awaited water pipes. He found her sitting where the king had stood, well away from the noisy crowd, gazing down at the Well. Someone was with her, Garner realized, just before he walked into the torchlight. He recognized the light hair, the deep, easy, unruffled voice, and stopped, trying, for once, to be courteous, to turn and disappear.

But Lord Felden’s words unraveled his good intentions.

“Of course we cannot marry,” he was saying. “You understand that, I’m sure.” Damaris’s answer was inaudible, even to Garner’s straining ears. “I can’t risk having an heir with webs between its fingers who might spend all its time in the fish pond.”

“Of course not.”

“My mother will understand completely.”

“Yes.”

There was a short silence, during which Lord Felden refused to take his leave.

“I wish I could,” he admitted unexpectedly. “I’ve grown very fond of you. If only I were not the eldest, with the title and responsibilities—”

“But you are,” the naiad on the rock at his feet said firmly. “You must do your duty. Besides, our marriage might interfere with my work, and you heard what the king said.” She lifted a hand to him. “Let us stay friends.”

“You’re not—ah—offended?”

“No. You will continue to enjoy the benefits of my work, and I the beauties of yours. Which should not be troubled tomorrow by so much as a misplaced drop of water from the fountain.”

Still he paused, for which Garner had to give him credit, much as he wished him gone. “You almost make me fall in love with you all over again,” he said huskily.

“It’s the water nymph in me,” Damaris said evenly. “Don’t take it seriously.”

He went off finally, a little hurriedly, after that. Garner, motionless and awkward in the shadows, wondered if he should as well; he had no reason to suppose she would be grateful for his presence. But he took a step toward her anyway. She turned, and he watched her expression change as he emerged from the night.

“Garner,” she sighed.

“I don’t want to disturb you if you would prefer to be alone.”

She shook her head, gesturing him to join her. She was still wet, he realized, and trembling a little in the midnight air. He took his cloak off, put it over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said, huddling herself into it. “Thank you for noticing that I am cold. I wanted to see you.”

“Really?” he marveled, sitting down beside her.

“To apologize. Did you hear any of my conversation with Lord Felden?”

“Enough,” he admitted. “Are you sorry?”

“Beale offered me everything I thought would make me completely human. The wealthy noble, the title, his children—I could hide safely behind him for the rest of my life.”

“Are you sorry?” he asked again.

She stared down at the reflection of the moon, which was beginning to disappear as it drifted toward the underground stream.

“I would have wronged us both,” she said simply, “if I had married him. I didn’t understand that until tonight. I didn’t understand how little in love I was.” She looked at Garner then, wryly. “You saw how wrong it was, I think. That’s why you were so angry with me.”

“You were angry with me.”

“For seeing far too much.”

He was silent, gazing into the pool. Somewhere in his idle thoughts a child with Damaris’s eyes and fingers webbed with dragonfly-wings dove without a ripple into a sunlit pond.

Damaris tossed a tear of gold into the Well; the image in his head blurred, faded.

“What was that?” he asked.

“One of the king’s coins. I found it in the grass.”

“Did you make a wish?”

She smiled at him, untangling her feet from her wet skirt, shifting to rise. “You can have the wish. All I want now is a drink of water.”

So he took it, tossing his heart into the Well after the coin, and walked with her to join the celebration.

N
aming
D
ay

Averil Ashe stared dreamily into her oatmeal, contemplating herself. In two days it would be Naming Day at the Oglesby School of Thaumaturgy, the midpoint of the three-year course of study. Those students who had gotten through the first year and a half with satisfactory grades in such classes as Prestidigitation, Legendary Creatures, Latin, Magical Alphabets, the Uses and Misuses of Elements, and the History of Sorcery were permitted to choose the secret names they would need to continue their studies. Averil had achieved the highest marks in every class, and she was eager to investigate more widely, more profoundly, the mysterious and wizardly arts of Thaumaturgy. But under what name? She couldn’t decide. What would best express her gifts, her potential, the wellsprings of her magic? More importantly, what would she be happy calling this secret self for the rest of her life?

Think of a favorite tree, Miss Braeburn, her counselor, had suggested. An animal, a bird. You might name yourself after one of those. Or one of the four elements of antiquity. Some aspect of fire, perhaps. Water.

Averil stretched her long, graceful spine, thought of her pale hair and coloring. Swan? she mused. Or something with wind in it? I’m more air than fire. Certainly not earth. Water?

“Mater,” she began; she had to start practicing her Latin, which half the ancient Thaumaturges had written their spells in. “What do you think about when you think about me?”

Her mother, turning bacon at the stove, flung her a haggard, incredulous glance. She was pregnant again, at her age, and prone to throwing up at odd times. An unfortunate situation, Averil thought privately, since they had moved from a house in the suburbs to a much smaller apartment in the city for Averil’s sake, to be as close as possible to Oglesby. Where, she wondered, were her impractical parents planning to put a baby? In the laundry basket? In the walk-in closet with Felix, where it was likely to be shoved under his bed along with his toys and shoes? Her brother chose that moment to draw attention from her compelling question by banging his small fist on the tines of a fork to cause the spoon lying across the handle to go spinning into the air.

“Felix!” their mother cried. “Stop that.”

“Bacon, bacon, I want bacon!” Felix shouted. The spoon bounced on his head, then clattered onto the floor. He squinted his eyes, opened his mouth wide. Averil got up hastily before he began to howl.

“Averil—wait. Stop.”

“Mom, gotta go; I’ll be late.”

“I need you to come home right after your classes today.” A banshee shriek came out of Felix; their mother raised her voice. “I want you to watch Felix.”