The Oathbound Wizard

CHAPTER 25 The Castle of Ys

She did, as it turned out, though how she kept her feet on the ground with so much water pressure around her, Matt didn't know. For that matter, he didn't know what was keeping him down, but he chalked it up to magic. He had expected to swim, but he found that, as he stepped into the water in the cave, he sank like a stone. He shivered like an iceberg, too, but forced his way down into the water, took a deep breath, then took the plunge and was in over his head.

And, suddenly, he was surrounded by air. He looked around him, startled, and saw fronds of seaweed drift up past him. That's how he knew he was sinking—but where was the light coming from?

There—the mouth of the sea cave. Daylight filtered in through the murky water. He looked about for the demoiselle, saw her in front of him, beckoning, and followed her down the pathway.

For it was a pathway—very narrow, but very clearly laid out. It was covered with white gravel, and bordered by corals and sea anemones. Matt could see clearly for a foot or so on either side, before the murk of the sea took over—and he moved freely, without the resistance of water. The path, it seemed, was the bottom of a tunnel of air, winding down along the sea floor.

And down, and down, following the sea-maid. She had released his hand as soon as his feet had touched the gravel, and he had to hurry now to keep her in sight. There was no light here, other than what filtered down from above—and less and less of it came through as they went deeper and deeper. Matt was just beginning to wonder if he was going to lose sight of the maid, when a light burst forth from her upraised hand. Looking closely, he saw that the light came from a huge, fantastic seashell, shaped like a cornucopia. He felt a thrill of apprehension as he realized that the mollusk that had made that shell had been dead for millions of years.

At least, in his world.

They were hundreds of feet down, and the path wound its way among the hulks of sunken ships—the rocks surrounding de la Luce's castle must be treacherous. In fact, Matt suddenly realized, that's why de la Luce's keep was a tower, and was so much taller than the curtain wall—it had been a primitive lighthouse!

They rounded the bulk of a rotting trireme galley—just how long had this port been in use, anyway?—and there it was before them, in all its eldritch splendor.

The royal castle of Ys may not have been terribly spectacular in its day, but it was extremely impressive down here. A central keep thrust up from the center of a vast bowl, cylindrical, and surrounded by four more cylinders that grew out of it—but so slender that they seemed to be needles, with long lancing tips, instead of the towers they were. A low wall, perhaps twelve feet high, fenced in a wide courtyard all about the keep, decked with corals and other bright sea life, while the central keep glowed with the phosphorescence of the deep.

Matt caught his breath, then forced it out and reminded himself how unimpressive this stronghold would look on land. It didn't do much good, of course, because he wasn't on land—and within that circular wall, the absence of seaweed and the glow of the stone told him that a dome of air protected the castle and its environs. Whatever the magic, the sea did not enter the royal stronghold of drowned Ys, but formed a circle around the palace and its gardens.

And inside, true to legend, the ancient king still lived, preserved by the magic of the Sea King.

Matt followed the maid through the open gates.

Suddenly, the pressure of the water was gone, and he felt air all about him, saw trees and flowers nodding in the faint breaths of convection currents. He shuddered with the release of tension—he hadn't realized just how much stress he'd been under during that submarine passage. Then he realized that there were people around him, boys with switches loitering near herds of goats and sheep, men and women working in sheds along the insides of the walls, girls stitching embroidery under the trees. He looked again and realized that the men and women were painting, sculpting, fashioning musical instruments, and playing them.

Strains of music murmured all about him. A sudden, piercing longing struck him—to be able to spend his life working at his art!

Then he remembered that he was doing exactly that, more or less—only under greater pressure. His art just wasn't the tranquil sort that could be pursued in solitude. He sighed and followed the maid through the great leaves of the keep's portal.

There was a short passage of glowing, semiprecious stone that ended in two smaller doors of cavern wood with gilded highlights. Two courtiers loitered before them, long rapiers at their belts, exchanging gossip.

"No, good Arien, that is not Plato's meaning!"

"Meaning? Forsooth, Ferlain, 'tis his very words!"

"Nay, for you've translated the Greek very poorly! His true meaning is..."

Just idle gossip.

"Gentlemen," the lady murmured.

They looked up, startled, then drew themselves up. "Milady!" Then they saw Matt and stared, forgetting their poise.

Also their manners. "He is a guest," Sinelle reminded them, and they shook themselves out of their amazement. "Why, certes! Be welcome in the castle of Ys, O stranger!"

"We would speak with his Majesty," the demoiselle hinted.

"Certes, milady! He is within, debating the merits of the dulcimer and the lyre with the musical brethren!" His deprecating smile revealed the philosopher's old condescension toward the musician.

Sinelle tactfully forbore to mention it and gestured toward the doors. The courtiers drew them open.

The Great Hall glittered with a hundred candles, its walls damasked and tapestried, its floor gleaming malachite, its lofty ceiling painted with frescoes that Matt wished he had time to study—but the demoiselle was leading him toward a high dais topped by a gilded throne and flanked by two flaring lamps. At the top of the steps sat the king, wrinkled and silver-haired, but with a lively expression on his hawk-nosed face, and eyes that glinted beneath his golden crown. He interrupted the disputants with a polite smile and waved them away. They withdrew to the far side of the chamber, still arguing.

"My lord and ancestor," the maiden said, "this mortal is hight Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence."

Matt bowed. When he straightened up, he saw a trace of humor in the old king's eyes—but the royal face didn't crack a smile, much less start talking.

This was going to get nowhere. Matt needed some kind of a conversational opener. "I am honored by your hospitality, your Majesty."

"It is gladly given," the majestic face proclaimed, in a voice of a grandeur to match its appearance. "I am intrigued by your presence, Lord Wizard."

"Oh?" Matt smiled, but was very wary inside. "Am I so rare a thing as that, your Majesty?"

"For a mortal to enter into Ys? Aye—yet that is explained by the presence of my great-daughter." He smiled fondly at the maid, who bowed her head in a gesture that managed to combine demureness with sauciness; then he turned back to Matt. "Therefore, 'tis not your presence in Ys that is remarkable in itself, but your presence in Castillo Adamanto, so near to the lair of the sorcerer-king."

"Oh, that?" Matt waved away the problem. "I spoke rashly, and in anger, Majesty—but I thereby bound myself to do all I could to unseat the sorcerer."

"Oathbound, though a wizard?" The king looked askance.

"I have this little problem with my temper," Matt confessed.

"More than a little, I should think." But the king's eye twinkled. "Do you always go about losing control of your words thus? Or is there one who can provoke you more easily than others?"

"All right, all right, so I was talking to the woman I love! Can you blame me for tackling a sorcerer?"

"For love's sake? Surely not, milord." The king chuckled. He exchanged a glance with the maid and said, "Yet I am rude in so questioning a guest. Come, examine me in my turn. Is there naught you would know about Ys?"

"Well, now that you mention it..." Matt glanced around at the courtiers, then back to the king. "The demoiselle does seem to be a little young to be your granddaughter..."

"Nay, my great-daughter—my daughter's daughter's daughter's daughter's...She is removed from me by some thirty generations, Lord Wizard."

Matt nodded. "I kinda thought it would be something like that. Was your daughter..." He broke off, chagrined.

"You think to make me grieve, in speaking of my child." The king shook his head with gentle sympathy. "Fear not, Lord Wizard. The years have flowed into centuries, the centuries into millennia, and the pain grows dim. I will not deny that it cannot be raised, but I am well consoled in my old age. Know, then, that the first demoiselle, my daughter, found a man to follow her."

"With her magic, she found many," Sinelle said with scorn—the quick judgment of the young, and quicker intolerance. "Every man that she desired, she enchanted—and felt only the greater contempt for them, in that they succumbed to her spells."

The old king nodded. "Yet at last, she met a nobleman's son, journeying with a merchant crew, who fell in love with her as soon as he saw her—and she with him, for that he loved her without the aid of her own artifice. With him she wedded, and did breed a babe—yet her true nature was ever there, no matter how well she hid it from him; I doubt not that, even as she carried the child, she planned the vile use which she intended."

"There was a spell of great power, which she could not attempt," said the demoiselle, in a hushed voice, "for it required the sacrifice of a babe, of the sorceress' own body—for know, Wizard, that it is the dedication to such wickedness that is the essence of evil magic, to exclusion of all else."

Matt could believe it; from his own experience of the magic "field," its manipulation was a matter of intent and will, expressed through symbols. He felt a chill at the thought of the kind of results the witch might have intended. "She sounds as if she deserved her reputation, all right. Was there anything that could have saved the baby?"

"Her father," the old king said, "for he learned of the wickedness his wife intended."

"His eyes were open at last to her corruption," Sinelle said with a shiver. "Knowledge that she intended such wickedness made the good man see her for what she was. 'Twas for the child's sake that he fled to my great-father, the king, and bore with him the babe—and for her sake that Ys was drowned."

"For in her wrath," the king said, "my daughter did raise up all manner of evil spirits from the sea, and hurled them 'gainst mine Ys—yet I had been ever steadfast in my devotion to the Sea King Poseidon, had ever done my best to govern well and wisely, and regularly made suitable offerings to his Oceanic Majesty. So while the sea pounded Ys elsewhere, the Sea King came to me, and we struck a bargain."

"Bargain?" Matt stared. "Why would a being who could control the whole sea, and everything in it, need to make a bargain with a mere mortal? Sure, being merciful I can understand, maybe even rewarding you for having been a good king..."

"In truth, I think he did even so—yet did wish to allow me to preserve some poor shreds of my pride." The king smiled. "Yet there was some need of it. For the Sea King hated my daughter's magic and wished all memory of it erased—but most especially all her implements of witchcraft destroyed, and all her books of spells. Some of those were warded 'gainst him, and the sea could not approach them. These, he proposed, I should destroy—for my daughter had not thought to ward them 'gainst mere mortal folk, sin that the door to her chambers was guarded by fierce spells and fell. For all that, she had left it unlocked in her anger, the whiles she went out to the tower's brim to summon her spirits—so I came in, and burned her books, and threw her alembics and crucibles upon the fire. Even as I did, I heard her scream in rage—but she could not turn aside from her work to punish me, for the fell spirits she had raised would have torn her asunder. In revenge, she turned them against my land—but the Sea King, for his part, had promised that my castle would remain inviolate, and he came to mine aid in that hour, defending me and mine from the avalanche of the waves. So as the surf pounded Ys to bits, all others of my people died..." His voice became somber, his darkened gaze drifting away from Matt. Sinelle laid her hand on his; he looked up, focused on her face, forced a smile, and turned back to Matt. "But this castle endured, sheltered by the vasty bubble that lends us breath. By some Sea King's magic, this air is ever renewed, and we who dwell here never die—so long as we do dwell here."

"But if you go out, you die?"

"We may die," Sinelle corrected, "if we go outside of the Sea King's realm; and protection cannot extend to us on land. Then will we age; then can we be slain."

"But if you don't, you're immortal?" Matt's brain swam at the thought—and at the magnitude of the cabin fever that could develop among these self-willed captives! No wonder the ones who stayed were the ones who valued tranquility and the life of the mind.

"In such fashion did my granddaughter grow," the king spoke up again, "dwelling beneath the water, and only knowing of the human realm above through my tales—for none of my courtiers chose to stay, of such few as had been near me when my daughter struck. Nay, as soon as Poseidon had turned against her the waves she had summoned, and she had drowned in her own evilness, my courtiers left me, by ones and twos, and finally in a body. But my granddaughter was my delight, and her father my boon companion—though he died at last, worn out with living. His daughter grew into a comely, good-hearted girl and found a husband among the folk on the shore, and brought him down to dwell with us in love. She birthed three children, who went above the waves to seek spouses, as her descendants have ever done. Yet one of my granddaughters chose to return to my palace here beneath the sea, and her children also followed the call of love to the land. One great-granddaughter brought her husband down here to me—and I have been fortunate, most fortunate, in that there has been at least one of each generation who has seen fit to join me here beneath the sea."

Matt marveled at the tale—then frowned at an inconsistency. "But weren't there ever any boys?"

"Aye, but they became restless, as boys will, and went out into the world to seek their fortunes—and their wives. A few wed happily, some never came back—but most lived the lonely life of the alien, for they were silkies and, as such, made rather ugly men, though they were very handsome seals. Some found seal wives, of course, and their daughters were silkie women, and their sons silkies still—but those who sought human women to wive were seldom happy with such matches and left their mates for their own kind."

"Their own kind?" Matt frowned. "You mean humans?"

"Nay—other silkies. There were some few others, and my grandsons heard word of them. They roamed the world, like seeking like—and found their silkie mates. Some came back to rear their families here, near my protection; some stayed with the folk they had found. Yet even of them, as often as not their children would seek me out when they came of age—and wed with my great-grandchildren. This isle above is peopled with several thousand of my descendants living all around the isle, though you will not see them—they hide in caves and rocks, for fear of the sorcerer-king and his hunters, who chase them with powerful spells to ward off mine. Here on the rock, he cannot touch them—but we do not wish to tempt him more than we must."

"They hide very well." Matt frowned. "I didn't see any of them—coming in. Of course, it was kind of dark..."

"And so are they. A few of them come down to visit with me, now and again—so I dwell here, in the midst of thousands of my descendants. I count myself richly rewarded for having led a blameless life."

A prickle kneaded Matt's back. He glanced sidelong at the courtiers. "Then all these lords and ladies..."

"Are my great-daughters and their mortal husbands, become exceeding long-lived here in Ys." The king nodded. "Aye, Lord Wizard, 'tis so. My youngest, though, has not yet found a landsman to her liking."

Matt glanced at her apprehensively, but before he could ask, the current demoiselle laughed like the clear chime of a running brook. "Nay, Lord Wizard, I am not enamored of you. In truth, by the reckoning of mine own people, I am yet too young to seek a husband. Be of peaceful mind; I have not yet met my one true love. I will own that romance does fascinate me, though, and I am intrigued by a man who would risk life itself to win his lady's hand."

Matt's mouth tightened with chagrin; then he forced it to smile. "Well, then, look your fill, lady, for I doubt you'll ever see such a fool again."

"Ah, but I will," she said, "whenever I look on the sons and daughters of men. You are rare, Lord Wizard, in that you will admit to your folly."

Matt frowned. "I have a notion you've just said something very profound, if I could understand it—but the fact of the matter is, I have sworn to oust the king of Ibile or die trying, and I have to figure out a way."

"Why," the king said, "take his castle."

Matt looked up at him, brooding. "Easily said, Majesty—but I've only two hundred fighters, and his castle is stout. We've figured out that the only way to make it is to get a sally party inside his walls and have them open the gate—but we're still trying to figure out how to get a few of our men inside."

"Why," the king of Ys said, "you may go through my domain."

Matt stared.

"I, too, wish this foul king gone," the king explained, "for the detritus of his noisome magics and his tortures fouls my waters, and his hunters slay my descendants. Nay, Lord Wizard, I am with you in this."

"I...I thank your Majesty..."

"Do not. You are the first in centuries to dare to challenge him. I honor you, milord."

"I thank you again." Matt ducked his head. "But how would going through Ys get us into Gordogrosso's castle?"

"I have told you that my people may go up to the land at will," the king explained. "That, too, was a part of my 'bargain' with the Sea King—that he would grant me a way to travel to the surface on the island, and a way to come up to land upon the mainland."

Matt lifted his head, feeling like a hunter when the fox has just come into sight. "And, uh...just where on the mainland did this passage come out?"

"Within an outcrop of rock atop a hill, that its entrance might be easily disguised; yet 'twas hidden too easily, for after a space of some thousand years, a king chose that hill for the building of his fortress, that it might ward the harbor mouth; and some two centuries agone, the sorcerer-king did hale down that king's descendants, to establish his ill rule there."

"You mean...you have a tunnel to the surface that comes out in Gord—uh, the king's cellar?"

"Even so."

Matt caught his breath. "I...don't suppose I could interest you in letting me bring..."

"Your army? Nay." The king smiled sadly. "That would, I think, strain the Sea King's bounty over much. This outlet for my people he did grant me, when he truly had no need to; and I am loathe to overstrain his kindness. He would, I think, be much wroth if you did bring an army through my domain and his cleared ways."

"Well, actually—I was thinking of a sally party. Say—twenty?"

"A score?" The king frowned, thinking it over, then shook his head. "Too many, I fear. Mayhap a dozen."

"Twelve it will be!" Matt fairly shouted. "I thank you, your Majesty! For the rest of my life, I'll thank you! For—"

"The rest of your life will be enough." The king smiled, amused. "I trust it will not be short. Godspeed, Lord Wizard. Gather your men."