Poul Anderson - A Midsummer Tempest

“Halt!” Ariel called. “Halt! Suspend the thing exactly there. Nay, ye have overshot. Come back ,.. come back… a grass-blade width—aye, stop. It dangles right. Mine elf-sight and my sense for current flow confirm that it will sink around our goal.” He returned to perch on a thwart. His mien grew troubled. “Yet I’ve no eye to scan the future, friend. I cannot say if thou wilt overstrain those hoops and staves, or thine own lungs and ribs, and well below five fathom lie entombed.”

Kindled by excitement, Rupert responded, “I’m traveling in goodly company: my Lord, my lady’s prayers; what need I fear?”

His frame clad simply in breeches, knife at belt, he swept Jennifer to him for a kiss. “I’ll soon be back, the book beneath mine arm,” he said, “and maybe have a pearl for thee besides.”

“Thyself—I want no more—Fare ever well,” she could barely reply.

Rupert eased himself over the rail. “Lower away.”

“Measter, I beg thee, let me go,” Will said. “Tha King ha’ need o’ thee.”

“He needs commanders who’ll not let men do what they’d not do themselves.” Rupert’s tone came sharp from where he trod water. “Lower away, I ordered.”

Will bit his lip and obeyed. Caliban helping, he brought the barrel down to the surface on its creaky ropes.

Rupert swam thither. For an instant he paused, to wave at Jennifer, then ducked within.

“Let go tha gear,” Will rasped. “Tha zooner’a’s off, tha zooner we’ll know if’a’s comin’ back.”

The boat lurched. Cordage whined through sheaves, slapped loose and went under, where the black cylinder had already plunged from sight.

Jennifer leaned over the gunwale, staring and staring until the last ripple died. “Now I may weep,” she said, and sank to the bottom of the boat.

Ariel flitted to console her. “He should survive the trip,” the sprite said. “Duke Prospero did not really bear away his book to the middle sea, above abysses. He feared there’d be a risk of theft en route. Our friend can stand this depth.”

“Thou’lt swear it?”

“Nay,” he admitted.

Caliban made his own rough attempt at patting her head. Will grabbed his arm and snapped, “Come away, mudbrain. Has she not grief aplenty without smellin’ thee?”

“Aye. I know not how to help the Miranda, do I?” Caliban slouched aft and sat down by the tiller next to the dragoon. “If I did! If I did!”

“If I knew how to help my prince—” Will shook himself. “Ah, well, good mooncalf, we’re in the zaeme boat.

Let’s dull tha edge o’ this waitin’ as best’s we can.”

Caliban brightened. “Brandy?”

“Nay, not yet. We may need our moast, not our fullest strength an’ wits. Tonight, however, after’a’s returned, aye, liake tha heathen we’ll zacrifice a cask! An’ if’a doan’t return—” He stared across unmerciful brightness. “We’ll drink.”

Caliban scratched his mane, dislodging fleas. “I still can’t understand what this is about. Thou callest that thing a diving bell. Not once did I hear it go dingdong.”

Will cuffed him. “From tha shaepe, as I miaght liaken thee to a midden. As for a clapper, Rupert himzelf, crashed back an’ foarth till—Nay!” He drew a ragged breath. “Hark’ee,” he said fast. “My prince learned in Tunis how yon book had been zunk, but tha water’d not damage zo magic a thing. Were’t damageable, thou zeest, Prospero could’a got rid of it in easier ways nor this. Well, my general thereon had a cooper in Tunis maeke him tha bell, which be another new-fangled invention. Gaunt though our hoape zeemed o’ fiadin’ tha spot,’a knew we’d need means o’ goin’ down if zomehow we did get heare. I’ll’splain tha principality. Tha zandbags drag it under, tha tar zeals in air to breathe. Thic air thickens, a zays, squeezed by water; yet a bubble should remain for him. When on tha bottom,’a’ll fiand what’a zeeks by feel, then cut loose them weights whilst hangin’ onto a stanchion inzide. Tha barrel should fair leap tow’rd tha zun.”

“And the Miranda.” Caliban scowled. Hopefully: “He’s taking a long time, right?”

“Who knows? We can’t tell how deep it be, how coald an’ dark down yonder, an’ naught zave tha bell, tha book, an’ his life’s one candle—”

Jennifer cried out. Ariel rocketed aloft. Will scrambled to his feet. Caliban yelped. In a roar and white gush of cloven water, the device had returned.

It nearly flew free before it splashed back down. It and the boat rocked toward quiescence.

“Rupert, Rupert!” Jennifer screamed after part of a minute. “Why comes he not forth? I’ll to him—” She tore at her clothes.

“Nay, hoald. Behoald,” Will said. “There!” (Rupert’s head appeared from underneath the barrel. ) Sudden dismay: “ ’A zeems… death-paele… Be’a movin’?—Measter, canst grip this?” He snatched a boathook and held it over the side.

Rupert caught it feebly with his free hand. The other clasped to his side a huge volume bound in brass and scaly leather. Will drew him close, leaned out, let go the staff, and held him by the hair.

“Get that book ere he loses it,” Jennifer snapped.”’Tis what he was hurt for.” She herself was the one who did. Meanwhile Will and, after profane orders, Caliban hauled Rupert aboard.

The prince lay doubled over in the bilge. “Pain, pain in every limb,” he groaned. “I scarce can stir—”

Ariel darted to land beside him and pass quick fingers across the contorted body. “Aye, too much air within,” the elf said. “He rose too fast. I blame myself that I did not foresee. A miracle of strength that he could move enough to save himself. There’s fate in him.”

At once, flashing a smile to Jennifer, who knelt frantic: “Nay, be at ease. A spirit of the air knows how to charm these humors out of him and mend whatever ruptures they have caused. Thereafter he’ll need but a few days’ rest to raise anew the tempest of his health. Now draw aside and let me sing my spell.”

In awe, she and the others went astern. Will took her right hand, Caliban her left, and the three of them waited.

A gibbous moon hung above its cliff, turning hoar the treetops. Otherwise they stood black against a sky of hurried thin clouds and flickering stars. The earth below was a well of night, save where a fire burned at the cave mouth. Wind rushed cold and noisy. Sometimes an owl hooted.

The flames leaped, streamed, whirled off in red and yellow rags. Whenever a dry stick popped, sparks torrented. That light picked five uneasily out of shadow. Rupert stood sword at hip, holding the book; furrows gouged his mouth and brows. Beside him Jennifer held a staff taller than she was, its broken halves spliced together by withes tied in an intricate knot. Phosphorescence from the capital, which was carved into a lotus, fell across her widened eyes, half-parted lips, the teeth behind and the pallor around. Ariel poised on a boulder, fingers dug into its moss, wings folded but fluttered at the edges by the wind. Caliban hunkered, a lump; Will Fairweather reared above him, a scaffold; neither could down every sign of dread.

Rupert spoke slowly: “Now we have said our prayers, to ask that God bestow His blessing on the deeds we do and keep our usage lawful of these powers that we have gained from reading gramarie.”

“An’ please doan’t let’em run away from us,” Will added. To his chieftain: “Prince, art thou altogether sure’tis wiase? Thou’st oanly had zome days, a week or two, however long’tis been, to zearch them words.

Oald taeles agree that magic’s liake a stallion,’twill throw his riader, be’a ne’er zo pious, unless’a know just what tha hell’a’s doin’.”