Treasures of the Deep Page 7

  They came to a wide landing; Celestine could see that the stairs only climbed two floors higher from here, so they must almost have reached the great golden dome that crowned the palace. But the courtier paused on the landing. ‘Yonder,’ he said, pointing up, ‘lies the residence and audience hall of Ibanez the Third. However, it will not be necessary for you to climb any higher, for it is not to Ibanez himself that you will in fact report. It is another who has summoned you, in the Sea Lord’s own name, as is permitted to this individual, and to this individual alone.’

  He went to a great pair of doors that opened from the landing and swung them wide, revealing darkness within, and releasing a strangely humid breath of warm air. ‘Enter, and await by the well. Your summoner will be with you shortly.’

  Celestine only stared at him in confusion. Not the Sea Lord, but in the Sea Lord’s name? And she was to enter alone, to wait by the well? What could that mean? But the courtier merely bowed once more, and swept his arm, ushering her inwards.

  She had no choice. Her tired legs shaking, she limped through the doors into the dimness; heard them click softly shut behind her.

  Where was she? The air felt thick, as if with steam, and the darkness was diminished only by the dim glow of shaded lamps upon the walls. Water glistened ahead, and she walked towards it. An arc of marble columns rose to the high ceiling, and as she passed between them the shadows drew back, revealing an enormous round pool set within the greater circle of the pillars.

  The well, she thought in amazement.

  It was sunk deep within the tiled floor, its dark surface calm and steaming slightly. Its rim was fashioned as a circle of steps leading down, broken only in one place, where a ramp descended more gently into the water. And all of it, of what immense weight and genius of construction Celestine could not begin to guess, was somehow held atop a palace atop a ship that itself rode upon the ocean!

  Why had she been brought to such a place? She was quite alone there. Ornate couches waited in dim corners, and a table held a neat pile of linen towels, suggesting that at times the Sea Lord and his courtiers must bathe here, but for the moment the great chamber was deserted and silent. An echo seemed to ring in the noiselessness, as if a drop of water had just fallen into the pool, though in fact so calmly did the Twelfth Kingdom ride upon the Millpond, not a ripple showed on the well’s surface.

  But then a sound did come; from above began a subtle grinding of gears, and a soft clanking of machinery. Celestine’s gaze went to the far side of the pool, to where a framework of stout beams rose to the ceiling; to her further astonishment the ceiling-panels there abruptly slid apart and a platform descended through the opening, lowered by cunning runners and cables set in the wooden frame.

  Two people rode upon the platform. One was a male attendant in royal household garb; the second was a figure seated in a wheeled chair, but hidden by black gauze hanging in curtains from a canopy that rose about the seat, leaving visible only the vaguest suggestion of the occupant within; the blunt outline – oddly disturbing – of limbs.

  Celestine’s heart shrank. She had never beheld this wheeled apparition before, but she knew who it must be, for rumour had travelled far and wide across the empire of the mysterious shape that waited always at the Sea Lord’s right hand, seated in a black-draped chair. So this was her summoner.

  The platform came to rest flush against the floor, and the machinery fell silent. With practiced ease, the attendant pushed the wheeled chair around the rim of the pool – the gauze undulating eerily – and positioned it in front of Celestine.

  ‘Be welcome, child,’ came a soft voice from behind the curtains, light as an infant in pitch, neither male nor female, and yet somehow so old that Celestine, for all her sixty years, indeed felt like a child in comparison. ‘I am Axay, scapegoat to the Twelfth Kingdom, and also Seer and Advisor to His Majesty, Ibanez the Third, Sea Lord.’

  Celestine bowed in her quiet terror, though why exactly she was so afraid she could not have said; after all, was she not a scapegoat herself? Ah – but Axay was no ordinary scapegoat, at least by repute. No one, the stories went, other than the Sea Lord himself, had ever seen what lay behind the gauze, but Axay’s deformities were held to be the most hideous ever known, and likewise Axay’s powers of foresight were said to be far beyond all other seers and prophets.

  ‘Be calm please, little one,’ said the voice from behind the curtain, its tone very gentle. ‘You will come to absolutely no harm here. I wish only to speak with you, scapegoat to scapegoat.’

  Celestine straightened, reassured somewhat, but still nervous. She waited.

  ‘Are you capable of speech?’ Axay enquired. And when Celestine gave a hesitant nod, added, ‘But not easily? I see. Again, do not fear. I require no lengthy words from you. Although I must confess, it is not easy to describe what it is I do want with you. I am a Seer indeed, but my vision is seldom clear. All I know is that my dreams have been disturbed of late by many dire signs – and just today the thought came to me that I must see the scapegoat of the Bent Wing before the Lord Designate’s fleet sets sail, and that there is something I must share with her.’

  Celestine considered this uneasily. So, she had not been summoned for any fault on her own part. It was a relief in one way, but only deepened the mystery in another. Share what with her?

  The shape behind the curtain shifted subtly, and a sigh was audible. ‘But first; if you’ll forgive me, I must get out of this chair. Alandro,’ this last was addressed to the attendant, ‘the water, please.’

  Smoothly, the attendant spun the chair and rolled it towards the ramp that led down into the pool. Celestine was frozen with astonishment once more. Axay was going to leave the chair?

  ‘You are surprised?’ the voice enquired, raised slightly to be heard, but still unnervingly infantile. ‘You think I live eternally in this device? It is not so. Indeed, I suffer it only while I must; in public, or in council with my Lord. But it is wearying and painful to do so, and I have already been trapped too long in the chair for one day, having sat all this afternoon in final discussion with Ibanez and his son Nadal.’

  The attendant had positioned the chair at the top of the ramp, facing away from Celestine. Now he lifted the curtains, bundling them safely at the top of the canopy. Axay remained hidden, however, for the rear of the canopy was a solid panel, with wings extending forward, so that Celestine still could not see anything of the seat’s occupant.

  ‘To be truly at ease,’ Axay continued, ‘I must come here, to this precious well. Its waters are heated by fires beneath, and in its warming depths I am all but weightless, and hence free.’

  Deftly, without having to look, the attendant reached around to the front of the chair and withdrew a dark robe, bunched up, and a cushion, all of which he placed on a nearby table. With that, he eased the chair down the ramp. It was only then that Celestine noticed the man was barefoot, the better to wade in the pool. The wheels broke the surface, and the chair sank steadily until the water rose to the seat – then, several yards out into the well, the ramp came level and the attendant let the chair rest.

  ‘You may leave us now, Alandro,’ said the voice, ‘and return when I call.’

  The attendant bowed and withdrew up the ramp. He bowed also to Celestine, then disappeared off into the shadows. In a moment more a door could be heard opening and closing. The two scapegoats were alone in the chamber.

  ‘Ah,’ sighed the child voice.

  And with a soft splash, something pale and naked swam out of the chair.

  Celestine hardly dared look, and in any case the light was dim, and steam was drifting; she caught only a glimpse before Axay was no more than a blur in the dark water. But that one glimpse was as profound a shock as she had ever received.

  The voice came again out of the mist, and it was somewhat deeper now, as if a constraint had been removed from the lungs and throat that produced it. ‘You set sail on the morrow; three ships to the Unquiet Ice, under command of the
Lord Designate, to go in search of ancient mysteries.’

  The terrible figure flickered in and out of view in the steam. Celestine searched for arms, or a face; any shape that would be reassuring and familiar. But her eye was granted no such relief.

  ‘A historic voyage, or so at least Nadal hopes,’ Axay continued. ‘As indeed it will be, I feel in my heart. Great consequence will flow from it, perhaps greater than Nadal or even I can know. But there is confusion too. I admit myself perplexed as never I have been perplexed before. You sail to the Ice, and yet why do I feel that Nadal’s fate doesn’t lie in the Ice at all, but somewhere altogether different? Why do I feel that the Lord Designate is full of deceit in regards to this voyage? What is he hiding?’

  Celestine could only listen in fascination and dread. That Axay, Seer to Ibanez the Third himself, should talk thus to a humble commoner about the motivations of the high Lord Designate – it was unthinkable. And all the while the monstrous form flirted in and out of the shadows.

  ‘But enough of Nadal,’ the voice dismissed. ‘I cannot read minds, or learn secrets if they are properly kept. Nadal’s fate lies where it lies, hidden from me. But you, little Celestine, your fate I see more clearly. The Ice awaits you and your ship, and it will be a cruel welcome, I’m afraid. I see much suffering and long captivity in the frozen wastes, and I do not know if any of you will return alive. But nor do I predict certain doom. It is not one of my gifts, thankfully, to foresee death, or at least not often.’

  No, thought Celestine even through her fear and awe, that is my gift.

  A splash came from the pool, and Axay swam a little closer through the steam. ‘But whatever the fate of the Bent Wing, what I have seen is that our entire empire approaches a crisis; a convergence of forces that may well lead to not only our own destruction but to the decline of all civilisation. There is a youth who will stand at the crux of the matter – I will meet him, I think, though he is no Ship King – and there is a girl too, a fellow scapegoat, though a false one. Her too I will meet. And somehow, out of all the ruin that shall come, these two together will hold forth the sole hope to the world of better things.

  ‘In these great doings, even you, Celestine, shall have a part to play – and that is why I have called you here. The girl I mentioned, the false scapegoat – you are linked to her, I feel. I don’t know how it will come to be, but it is a message from you that will set her on the path to becoming a true scapegoat; and it is vital that she discover that truth, if there is to be any chance for the world after ruin falls.’

  Celestine’s frown was hopeless. A message? What in all the oceans could she have to say to a scapegoat girl she didn’t even know?

  Regret sounded in Axay. ‘I cannot say what your message will be. Ice and darkness hide it. All I can hope is that your own powers of foresight will provide the answer, when the time comes.’

  Celestine shook her head, so alarmed that she must finally speak. ‘But … I have no … foresight,’ she protested laboriously, her tongue clumsy in her mouth, the sounds she made – as always – painful even to her own ear. ‘I’m not … like you.’

  ‘I know, little one. But I can help with that. Undress now, and climb into the pool.’

  Horror. Celestine backed away a step, her hands raised protectively to her chest. No one had seen her naked since she was a child!

  Sad laughter came from the pale shape in the steam. ‘There is no need for shame here. After all, even your poor bent body is a thing of beauty compared to mine. And with foresight I say now that though I will be the first to see you so, I will not be the last; one day, three more people will see your naked form, whether you would have it or not, and yet you will not care by then. So come, enter the well. It is warm and not deep, and the waters are reviving.’

  Despite their disturbing tenor the words were strangely soothing, and Celestine’s embarrassment began to abate. They were alone, after all, and the steam drifted thicker than ever. Of course, if Axay had been a man it would have been improper – but Celestine now knew that such classifications were meaningless. For years she had heard the whispered wonderings; was the mysterious Axay male or female? But Celestine had seen, and there could be no talk about man or woman in regards to a creature that was not even recognisably human …

  She moved to the pool’s edge and carefully removed her clothes, setting them on one of the benches there. Then, awkward and covering herself, she descended the steps to the water.

  Ah! Axay spoke truly. The pool was wonderfully warm, as warm as a bath – and in her long life at sea, Celestine had known all too few of those! She took a few luxuriating steps away from the side, the water barely reaching her shoulders – but then she hesitated; she could feel the bottom falling away towards the middle, and she could not swim. Also, Axay was out there somewhere in the steam.

  The voice came, sounding close. ‘One other power I have, of which few know. It was taught to me by my predecessor here as scapegoat on the Twelfth Kingdom. But to exercise this special power, I must touch you, child, flesh to flesh.’

  Celestine’s insides curled up, chilled, for all the warmth of the water. No. She was not ready for that. But regardless, the steam seemed to draw apart like a curtain, and Axay emerged, gliding forward – slowly, inexorably – into clear view at last.

  ‘And so you see me,’ the thing said, inhuman eyes bright with all-too-human sadness; fleshless non-human lips bent into cruel imitation of a human smile, achieving only self-mockery, ‘as almost no one ever has before, free of all veils and hiding.’

  Celestine felt robbed of even the little ability for speech that she possessed. What was this creature? How did it exist at all? And live?

  ‘And yet live I do,’ said Axay. ‘As for what I am – who knows? My predecessor too suffered this terrible condition, as have all scapegoats who have served this ship and the Sea Lords. Indeed, it is the affliction itself that marks us for the high position, for it is so rare that there has only ever been one of us born to each generation. Precious, hideous children.

  ‘But what are we? Many are the scholars who have asked that question, but none have plumbed the mystery. Certainly it is no ordinary malfunction of birth that shapes us, as your birth shaped you. Instead, it is as if some other entity entirely is trapped within our bodies, trying to break out, and in doing so, has destroyed our human form.’

  In her horror and wonder, Celestine could almost agree. But what other entity?

  Axay seemed to hear her every thought. ‘There is one legend, passed down from royal scapegoat to royal scapegoat, that may give answer. Whether it’s true or not is impossible to say; but it gives me comfort at times to believe it, if only because it suggests I am not merely a hideous mistake.

  ‘Consider. Ours is a watery world, is it not? Land takes up but a tiny fraction of the surface of the globe, and mankind, for all our intelligence and glory, can stake claim only to that tiny fraction. We sail upon the sea, yes, but the sea is alien to us. It is not our native home. The greater part of the world truly belongs to others; it is the domain of the fish and the whales and the deadly monsters of the deeps.

  ‘And yet they are all un-sentient things, even the most giant of the sea monsters. They are unthinking; beasts of instinct, not of intelligence. Does it not seem strange to you, little one, that this greater part of the world has not produced a species that is the equal of us? That in all the widths of the sea, teeming with life, a realm so much vaster than our slivers of land, there are no beings as aware as is mankind?

  ‘At least, so everyone believes. So everyone is told. But is it true? Ah, now – the legend of which I speak begs to differ. It harks back to the earliest days of sail, when our mariners first dared the corners of the earth in their thirst for knowledge. They came across many strange and terrible places, and most terrible of all, the Barrier Doldrums. Many tried to cross those stagnant waters, and failed, and died. But some returned alive, and brought with them fearful reports that haunt mariners to this day.


  ‘Monsters there were, and mires, and clouds of maddening poison. But rarest of all, legend says, and most disturbing, found only in the deepest Doldrums, were other creatures; things with faces and limbs that while not human were somehow like human; things that swam as humans would in the sluggish water, and that even climbed aboard ships and stood upright like men on the decks, though they were loathsome to the eye; things that while they did not speak in voices any could understand, nevertheless did speak, with apparent thought and meaning.

  ‘Things that sound – if the old tales describe them truly – somewhat like me.

  ‘And so I wonder. Is there indeed a species in the wasteland of the Doldrums that can reason as humans can? And are we akin to them in some way? After all, where did life itself first begin? On our tiny scraps of land – or in the endlessly larger oceans? Surely the latter is more likely. Our furthermost heritage, aeons and aeons past, must lie there, and in some arcane way we may even now be more related to creatures of the sea than we think.

  ‘Am I then an echo of that ancient kinship? By an accident of blood does my kind appear once in a million births, delivered of a human mother, but ourselves only half human – and half something else? Ponder me now, little Celestine. Why am I more at ease in water than upon land? Especially such warm water, so like that of the Doldrums?

  ‘And lastly, consider my powers of foresight, so much greater than any other’s. Where does such a rare ability come from? Is it owed perhaps to my inhuman heritage, to the otherness in me? Does all foresight, maybe, in whomever it appears, signal a mixing of human and inhuman blood in that person, to a greater or lesser degree? It would explain why I’m the foremost of Seers, being the least human. And it would mean that even you, child, share—’

  But no, Celestine would not have that, her gaze skittering away in confusion and denial. It was all too fantastic, barbarous even. She was misshapen and ugly, true enough, but she was human, not some half-bred thing of the Doldrums. No.