CHAPTER FOURTEEN
L AURIA
I learned to swim as a child, splashing in the river one spring as the floods ebbed. When I was fourteen, Kyros decided that he wanted me to become a better swimmer. So I practiced. One of his other servants taught me better form. I learned how to hold my breath and swim underwater, how to swim while carrying a burden, how to rescue someone in the water who didn’t know how to swim. When I was ready, Kyros tested me by having me swim across a lake. It was tiring, and the water was very cold, but I made it. After all that, I thought perhaps Kyros would have some special task he wanted me to do that required me to swim. But no; he just wanted me to be able to swim, and swim well, if I needed to. In retrospect, it was probably one of his own crazy-like-a-sorceress cold fevers that told him to do it.
As I fell toward the mountain lake, I sucked in my breath and tucked my knees against my chest. I hit the water butt first, and it stung like a blow. The water was shockingly cold, and I shuddered as I went down. Then I kicked my legs and swam back to the surface, breaking through to yell, “Hey!”
The palanquin looked very high from here. No one looked out at my call. Was Zivar in there, or had Xanthe managed to throw her out, too? Maybe they’d both fallen in while I was underwater.
“Hey,” I yelled again. “I can swim, but I’m getting really cold.” The water felt a little warmer as the shock wore off, but now my boots were weighing me down. I kicked them off.
There was still no response from the palanquin.
Zeus’s hell. Now what? Could I swim to the shore? I splashed in place and looked around; I was nearly at the center of the lake, and the shore was a very long way away. We’d covered the distance quickly in the palanquin, but I thought that even trying to walk the distance would take hours.
I looked up again. The palanquin was moving away. “Stop,” I shouted uselessly. “Come back! Zivar! Xanthe. Don’t leave me here to die, come back!”
Can they even hear me?
I’d gotten a mouthful of water when I fell in, and the taste of it reminded me of the dream I’d had about the spell-chain. Is that spell-chain hidden here in the very lake it binds? Well, if I find it, I’ll have all the djinni I could ever ask for, at my fingertips.
I looked up one last time, searching for the palanquin, then took a deep breath and dived down toward the bottom of the lake.
In my vision, the spell-chain had given off a glow, which I had followed to its source. I’d hoped that when I dived underwater I’d see that glow and be able to follow it. Instead, there was water in my eyes, making it hard to see much of anything other than the greenish light of the sun through the water. I swam straight down, and the light dimmed. It wasn’t a terribly deep lake, as it turned out: I bumped up against the rough gravel after a few moments of kicking. I wanted to kick myself back to the surface to gulp air, but I forced myself to wait for a moment, take a look around—any glow? No?—before I kicked off and shot back to the surface.
My head broke through the water; I gasped for breath. My clothes were weighing me down, soaked with water as they were. I had been reluctant to take them off because they offered at least a little bit of warmth, but if I was going to search for the spell-chain, I’d exhaust myself much faster with the clothes slowing me down. Will I die from cold first, or exhaustion? Either way, I think I’m more likely to find the spell-chain with nothing to slow me down. I kicked off the trousers and pulled off my tunic. Naked, I felt light as an eel. The exercise was warming me a bit.
My first impulse was to swim toward shore before diving down again, but surely, if someone were hiding the spell-chain, they’d have thrown it into the center. Or the deepest part. I wouldn’t think about that now. I turned away from the shore, swam for a few minutes, then took a deep breath and dived down.
Again, I reached the bottom fairly quickly. This time I was able to pick up a good-sized rock off the bottom to weight me down as I took a look around. No glow, though a little bit of faint greenish light filtered down from the surface. If there was a spell-chain down here, I didn’t see it. This is hopeless.
I set down the rock and thrust my legs back toward the surface. I wiped the water from my eyes as well as I could with my wet hand, once I was out, and took a big breath. The hot summer sun felt good on my head. If I could just crawl up on top of the water and rest there for a while, I would be fine. If only the palanquin hadn’t left me…
I don’t have time to think about that now. I swam for a minute or two toward what I thought was the center of the lake, and dived again. What would it be like to die from cold in a lake? I’d heard that dying from cold was normally not too bad—you fell asleep and never woke up. And I’d heard that drowning was awful. If you died from cold in the water, did you drown, or did you fall asleep? I don’t have time to think about this, either.
The lake was deeper here. Down I went until my hands hit something hard. The ground? No—a wall, I realized, a stone wall. This was a city once, before the water came. I felt my way along it, and groping along the ground, my hand touched something smooth. My lungs were burning, so I closed my hand around and pushed off from the wall, shooting back toward the surface.
Out, and I gasped for air, then tried to float on my back to look at what I’d found: a glass teacup. I held it up for a moment, letting it shine in the sun. My great-great-grandmother could have drunk from this. Could have been drinking from this when the water came. I shook off the thought; probably my great-great-grandmother had been elsewhere, and that’s why she had survived. I loosed the teacup and let it fall through the greenish water, to settle back on the ground below, and dived again.
There were buildings here, looming in the green-gray darkness; I had disturbed some fish, which darted through a hollow window and into the darkness. I still saw no spell-chain. I returned to the surface, swam a bit, took another deep breath, and dived again.
This time when I reached the bottom of the lake, I landed inside one of the buildings; the roof had long since fallen away. The walls were coated in a green mossy growth. Looking around, I thought I could identify a fireplace, and the remains of a table. In the corner, I saw a greenish lump; I prodded it tentatively with one finger and realized that it had once been a cask of wine.
I found more greenish walls on my next dive; there was a window to one side of me, and sand swirled around my feet. I found an overturned kettle and a cooking pot, or what was left of them. They were coated in slimy green weeds. If I’d had the palanquin close by, I’d have wanted to bring these bits and pieces up to the top simply as curiosities. Zivar would be fascinated, even if Xanthe wouldn’t care. There was still no sign of the palanquin when I reached the surface, though, so I was glad I hadn’t taken the trouble.
When I went down again, I saw a glimmer of something in the muck of the lake floor. Could it be? I pulled myself down and dug through the mud and weeds; my heart leapt as I saw the sparkle of a faceted gem. I closed my fist over it and pulled it free, already wondering if I could speak to the djinn right here underwater. But instead of a spell-chain, my fist held an ordinary—well, richly made, but worthless to me—necklace, set with gems. Diamonds, I thought—it was hard to be certain of colors underwater, and I didn’t care enough to test to be certain. Worthless. I dropped it and pushed myself back to the surface.
I was growing tired. I floated on my back for a few minutes, trying to rest, and realized that I was also getting cold. I was starting to shiver; this wasn’t good, it would only exhaust me sooner. I wondered how much of the day was left. Even if I managed to stay afloat through the day, night would surely finish me off. Maybe Xanthe and Zivar will come back before then…
I took another deep breath and swam down.
This time I found white marble steps—patches of white were still visible under the weeds and sand—and white columns. Beyond that, a carved statue like the ones the Weavers put in front of their houses. This one showed a bird in flight; I could recognize the shape even now. Was this a temple? Or some other public building? Or merely the home of some very wealthy person? I swam a little farther underwater and came to something that made me pause.
It was an archway built of stones—but unlike everything else down here at the bottom of the lake, it was not crusted over with weed growth. No—these stones were bare and weathered. Stranger still, when I stood before it, I couldn’t see through the doorway. The light disappeared.
The Passage, I thought. Now Drowned.
The spell-chain was near this, in my dream. It must be close by.
I needed air. I shot back to the surface, caught my breath, and dived again.
In my dream, the spell-chain had been close by. It had also let off a glow, and a hum. I strained my ears and heard nothing but my own muffled heartbeat. If I could meditate, perhaps I would hear the singing that would lead me to the spell-chain, but it was difficult to relax and let go when I also had to hold my breath and struggle to keep from bobbing up back toward the surface. A glow. Look for a glow. I saw nothing.
Air. Up to the surface, then down again.
I found nothing. I found nothing. I still found nothing.
I’m going to die here.
No. There’s another option.
I went back to the surface one final time and searched the sky for Zivar’s palanquin. Then I took a deep breath, dived down to the temple, and swam into the darkness of the Passage.
For the space of one heartbeat, I felt absolutely nothing: no water, no light, no cold, no heat. Then I felt a blast of cold air, and realized that I was lying on a smooth stone floor, in complete darkness. I gasped a deep breath—air, there’s air here, I thought with some relief, and staggered to my feet. The chilly darkness reminded me of the bottom of the mine, but I heard no voices—in fact, I heard no sounds at all. I cleared my throat; that echoed very slightly, but there was no other sound.
There was no light. I could see nothing at all, in any direction.
I stretched out my hands and felt around the place where I stood. Each hand touched a wall. I’d expected rough stone, but it was smooth, almost slippery, like glass or polished metal. I felt hesitantly behind me. Could I return to the water? Do I want to? I took a step, another step, and found that the walls curved around and met in a dead end.
Am I trapped? Is this a prison? I turned and took a careful step forward, then another, and another. The hallway appeared to continue. Well. Go forward, or stay here?
Go.
I walked slowly, since I couldn’t see anything. I kept one hand on the wall. In the darkness, I wasn’t sure if I was walking straight or if the tunnel curved. I stopped a few times and listened, but heard only a faint breath of wind. No drips of water; no shrieks from bats. I called out and heard a faint echo, but no voices returned the call. After a while, I began to walk a little faster; I hadn’t stepped on anything but smooth floor yet.
I had no idea how much time was passing, or how far I had walked. At some point, however, I realized that I was not getting tired, and not getting hungry.
Perhaps I’m dead.
This could be the underworld. It’s not exactly what I pictured, but it definitely could be the underworld.
I stopped to sit for a few minutes, even though I wasn’t tired. I thought back over my time in the water, trying to decide when I might have died. The Greeks believed that we crossed over a river after death. Perhaps I’d died when I hit the water, and the time I had thought I was diving and exploring, I was actually in that river, or something like it. I’d found the door, and gone through, and now I was journeying to the city of the dead.
There was that book where I saw the passage—The Passage, Now Drowned—but for all I knew, that was a picture of the passage to the underworld.
That would also explain why I’ve felt cold ever since I’ve arrived, but I’m not shivering…
That would explain why I couldn’t go back, once I came through the door.
After a while, I stood up and started walking again.
Dead or not, I didn’t have anything else to do.