THE SEA HAG(14)

Hale closed his eyes. His hands gripped one another so harshly that the blunt nails drew blood.

"Have your bargain then!" he shouted to the creature.

"I have your word, King Hale," said the sea hag. "And when the time comes, I will have our bargain."

The creature began to sink. The boat trembled as a fresh breeze shook its mast and furled sail.

When the cloud curtain rose, it displayed the shore half a mile to leeward. The rocks of the corniche were dulled by the horizon's shadow, but sunlight still lit the jungle canopy and the rare bright flowers there.

Hale muttered a thankful curse. He slipped a loop of rope over the tiller preparatory to shaking out enough sail to tack clear of the cliffs.

It was as if neither storm nor sea hag had ever existed. Dennis was suddenly sure that he was a wraith in a time that had never existed: that his father would sail off into a future of fish and—

Water began to surge at the shoreline.

First a rumble, then a double spout that threw mist high into rainbow diffraction. The breeze that had followed the storm now failed, but the boat began to pitch with the violence of the sea roaring in the near distance.

Ropes of glowing rock lifted high enough above the sea that the steam of creation no longer hid the angry glare. The lava was fiercely orange at the moment it appeared, black the instant it cooled below liquescence. As the double headlands rose into a firm barrier against the might of any storm, their sea-washed roots took on the same dull red as the corniche from which they now extended.

A vagrant puff of air blew from the land. It felt hot and smelled of sulphur. Fish floated belly-up on the surface of the sea. Dennis' father held a shroud reeved through the three-fall block at the masthead, ready to raise the sail; but he hadn't moved since the shore began to boil into a harbor.

For a moment it looked as though steam and mineral-rich vapors were growing thicker over the south headland. Something like a vortex reached out of the clouded land, climbing higher—

And exploding into brilliant crystalline radiance as it rose into the plane of the sunset. Emath Palace was growing while Hale and his unseen son watched and wondered and thought about the bargain which the sea hag had sealed in crystal.

For a moment, the light on the sprouting towers was as dazzling as the heart of a ruby. Then the light faded; the world faded; and Dennis stood in a dim, musty room, looking at Chester and shivering.

Dennis started to speak and found he had to cough to clear his throat of dust from the velvet. "Did it really happen?" he asked quietly.

When Dennis entered the wizard's chamber, he'd thought he was a man whose father treated him like a boy. Now that he'd seen what it might mean to be a man, he was no longer sure what he was.

But he knew what he would try to be.

"The device shows only what has happened, Dennis," Chester said, waggling a tentacle over the machine that was again cold and dark. "It shows that or nothing."

"Then—" Dennis' mind struggled out of the memories that enmeshed it like tendrils of brown and purple hair gaping into red terror.

"Then," he repeated firmly, "did I have an elder brother who was traded for the kingship?"

"I do not know if you had an elder brother."

Dennis grimaced toward the doorway, steeling himself for what he must do next. He had to demand an explanation from his mother, despite the tears and waves of guilt with which she would flood him.

"But," the little robot volunteered unexpectedly, "you became my master at your birth, Dennis; and that was a year to the day from when the sea hag bargained with your father, as we saw."

Dennis found that his hands were stiff because he'd been clenching them since... he wasn't sure how long he'd been doing that, trying to control his emotions by keeping a tight grip on all his muscles. He stretched deliberately, knowing that he couldn't relax but he could keep his tension from hurting him.

"Chester," he said, "you showed me how my father became king. Can you show me what happened wh-wh-when his son grew to a year old?"

"I will show you, Dennis," said the robot, his tentacles waking the pedestal to colored life again. Their motion paused.

"Dennis," he said, "the man who does not resent his fate has a good life."

"I..." said Dennis. "Please show me how Hale met his bargain, friend."

"I will show you, Dennis."

There were rooms beyond this one in the wizard's suite—a bedchamber; surely a library; and whatever else only gods or devils knew, and Dennis had no desire to learn. The youth rubbed his palms together to work off nervousness without clenching them again.

The room faded into a sky as thick as velvet and almost as black.