Kingfisher(87)

“No,” Daimon said fairly. “I don’t, either.”

“This led us here.” Ana raised a darkly shod foot, nudged the odd, shifting cloudy bundle of bracken with it. “To Chimera Bay. We heard pleas for help that his evil caused, and finally understood them.”

“What is it?” Daimon asked uneasily.

“Our first and only king,” Morrig said, her voice so cold and thin that Daimon felt it chill his heart. “He and the cauldron vanished at the same time, during that battle with the wyvern king. He keeps telling us he has no idea where it is. But he is here in Chimera Bay, and so are you with your raven’s eyes. If it’s here, you’ll recognize it.”

Daimon gazed with horror and fascination at the bundle. “What will you do with him?”

“We’ll ask him one last time,” Morrig answered. “If he refuses to tell us, we’ll trap him somewhere, I suppose. I don’t know if such power truly can die, but he’s too dangerous to let loose.” Out of the corner of his eye, Daimon saw the wordless Scotia shift half a step closer to him. “Where in your world are we?”

“We’re in the parking lot of the all-you-can-eat diner.”

“Ah. Good. That’s what you came here to find. There are ways we can see without being seen. Can you take us where the inside of it might be?”

Daimon, remembering vaguely, led them through the trees to where, if another world had shifted into view, the old hotel would have stood. Trees thinned into a clearing; forgotten ruins rose around them as they entered it. Within the slumping, crumbled stones, a little circular pool ringed with shells serenely reflected the sky above it.

“Something of Calluna’s?” Vivien guessed. “They put their inn on top of this sacred shrine?”

“Or they built the inn there because they felt the power in this place,” Ana suggested. “Perhaps a place worthy of some great vessel that fell into their possession.”

“It certainly didn’t look worthy,” Daimon commented. “The roof is half–blown away, and most of the walls are held up by scaffolding. The inn itself looked closed.”

“Sounds like the perfect place to keep a secret,” Morrig said with interest. “Water knows everything; it goes everywhere, and it never forgets. There’s an eye; let’s see what it sees.”

She moved toward the little pool. Daimon heard an odd whimpering from the bundle as Ana tugged the raven chain. The whimpering subsided to whispering as it bumped along the ground. Daimon, following behind the three veiled figures, risked a glance at Scotia. Her face was as chalky pale as the shells scattered around the pool; she met his eyes clearly but without expression, recognizing, in that dark company, the dangers of coherent thinking.

They stopped at the edge of the pool. It gazed limpidly back at the cloud, mirroring its grays. The odd clutter at Ana’s side was gabbling breathily in some demented language. She pulled on the feathery links, and it fell abruptly silent.

Morrig bent over the pool, touched the water with one finger as though to wake it. It stirred faintly, forming a ripple, like a thought. Another followed it, and another, ripples growing stronger, faster, spreading in overlapping rings across the pool until its surface ruffled as under a private wind.

It stilled. Colors streaked across it, formed shapes. Figures moved, spoke soundlessly, though Daimon suspected Morrig heard them. A burly bartender wearing glasses poured beer for an invisible customer. A cascade of painted Fools’ heads above his head turned, watching this way and that, all smiling the same knowing smile. The scene shifted: a glass cupboard holding such incongruous items as a fishing gaffe and an elaborate silver bowl appeared. Morrig studied it a moment, then waved it away, as well as the unlit chandelier, the old photos on a wall, the motley clutter of worn furniture. A door swung open; a girl with purple hair came out carrying a hamburger. The eye peered through the door, found a diner engulfed by the looming, shadowy bones of the old hotel. Plastic flowers, vinyl chairs, half-filled jars of condiments, and the diners themselves, working through plates and baskets of food, passed swiftly across the water.

Another door opened to sinks full of dirty dishes, people busily cooking, filling plates, deep-frying, ladling soup from pots, boiling crabs in other pots. Pots of every shape flowed past, hanging on racks, stacked on shelves, one in the hands of an elfin old woman as she lifted it onto a burner, another, oddly battered and grimy, sitting on a chopping block while a dark-haired young woman chopped chives beside it. The lines of that pot paled, grew vague as though it sensed itself being looked at. It was not there, it told Daimon’s eye. It was nothing, not a worth a glance, let alone scrutiny.

He blinked. Or maybe it was the pool blinking, as Morrig loosed it from its visions and her attention.

“Odd,” she murmured. “I would have thought . . .” But she did not say. She stood silently, gazing puzzledly at the waters that had grown still again, reflecting only mist. She stirred at an eerily human noise from the cloudy collection of underbrush. “Well,” she said, distastefully, “let’s get this to the place where it can do no more harm. Say your farewells, Daimon and Vivien. Somewhere, in some world, you might meet again. There’s nothing for us here now.”

She took the raven chain from Ana’s hand; the howl of despair that came out of the churning pile swept through the tree boughs like a breeze and sent a black cloud of birds swirling into the sky.