Fathoms of Forgiveness (Sacred Breath, Book 2) (21 page)

Visola stared at the Yawkyawks, who had resisted King Kyrosed’s pressure for years. They were now willingly heading for the ships en masse, with all of their belongings and children clutched tightly to them. This seemed both absurd and unethical, but she could not help thinking that Vachlan had done her job for her.

“It only took you a few hours,” she murmured, gesturing at the mass exodus of the southern mermaid colony, “to accomplish all this.”

Vachlan glanced out of the porthole to study his handiwork. “They are a very primitive people compared to the kind I am used to dealing with. I would be disappointed in myself if it took me more than a few hours to devise and implement a strategy.”

Visola turned to observe Vachlan closely. “Now, are you going to be the kind of man who makes life easier or harder? It looks like you’ve done my job for me, but looks can be deceiving. Is all of this going to blow up in my face? I am in a barrel of piranha. You’re just a barrel of piranha, aren’t you?”

He seemed to understand that these questions were rhetorical. He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug under her scrutiny.

“Kyrosed Vellamo might be insane, but he is also a genius. You are pure, distilled danger. While it is unsafe to have you among us, we still cannot afford to let someone else have you,” Visola said softly. “You’re a master of manipulating the mind. You’re the greatest weapon we’ve ever had.”

“Thank you, good lady. It is not what I really want to do, but I seem to be skilled at doing it.” Vachlan looked at her curiously. “I have spent my life advising kings, but I never have anyone to advise me. It is better to labor at something one loves without ever achieving results, or is it better to pursue that which one can easily achieve success at?”

“I don’t know,” Visola answered quietly. “I was trained to fight, and it was always what I loved to do. I’ve never loved anything else, and I can’t imagine having to choose. Vachlan—forgive me for asking, but may I see your writing?”

“I burned it all in a heated outburst.”

“Oh. Forgive me. I was just curious.”

“I was kidding,” Vachlan said. “My writing is quite personal, Colonel. I thought you said you wanted to keep this professional?”

“I changed my mind.”

“Visola?” Aazuria asked, as she cracked open her friend’s door. “I snuck away. I’m so sorry about last night. I did not know that Papa would be bombing the beach… are you reading?”

Visola was lying on her stomach and furiously flipping through the pages of a play.  

“He’s brilliant. His writing is… oh, Zuri, you have to read his writing.”

Aazuria frowned. “You—you are actually reading?”

“This is so real. He writes about the things that he actually experienced, and he twists them all up into the perfect shape. When he writes about global domination, I get chills. He could actually do this.”

“Have you been crying?” Aazuria asked in shock.

“It’s very moving. He seems so lonely.”

Aazuria shook her head sadly as she withdrew from the room. “She is lost.”

“To kill him by having his ship sucked into a maelstrom?” Visola was saying with excitement. “It was so poetic, and so fitting. He caused so much turmoil in the world, and he seemed finally at peace when he knew a greater force would finally be doing the same to him.”

“You understand it!” Vachlan exclaimed. “You actually understand it!”

She smiled at him. The two were sitting cross-legged on her bed and facing each other as they discussed his work. “I need to see this performed,” she told him. “We have an underground amphitheater in the caves of Adlivun. Once we get there, we should have this produced.”

“Do you think King Kyrosed will let me have a break in work to do something like that?”

“He is very fond of the arts; he is as tyrannical about forcing culture on Adlivun as he is about anything else.”

“That’s true. When I met him in Russia, he was parading his daughters before the court and showing off their skills. ‘See my daughter dance! See my daughter sing! See my daughters play instruments!’ The poor girls. He treated them like circus animals.”

“He was trying to find them husbands,” Visola said with a grimace. “Vachlan, have you heard the story of Sedna?”

“No, but I’ve heard the word spoken by your people dozens of times. Is she some kind of god?”

“Yes. I can never hear the story without thinking of Aazuria. Would you like to hear it?”

“Certainly,” Vachlan said.

Visola smiled. “Long ago, an Inuit king lived with his daughter, Sedna, who refused to marry. Eventually, a hunter came and proposed to take Sedna away and give her a life of luxury in a land over the sea. He offered to pay for her with a great quantity of fish. Sedna did not want to marry this man, but her father was greedy to receive the fish. He sold his daughter, giving her a sleeping potion so that the hunter could easily take her.”

“I see that you do not have a very high opinion of King Kyrosed.”

“It’s even lower than you think,” Visola said seriously. “Anyway, the hunter took Sedna to his home, which was a floating island of ice. There, he threw off his human disguise, revealing himself to be an evil raven! Sedna was devastated, but she could not escape. Her life was unpleasant, and she was always hungry and freezing cold. She sent word for her father, crying for him constantly, not knowing that it was he who had sold her. Her father could hear her sorrowful wails on the howling arctic winds, and he felt guilty for what he had done. He decided to load up his kayak, and he paddled for days to the ice kingdom where his daughter was being held captive. When he arrived, Sedna threw her arms around her father, thanking him for coming to her rescue and telling him how the raven had mistreated her. He took her into his kayak, and they set out to sea.”

“These human-bird liaisons seem to be a common theme with you.”

“Hush, and listen,” Visola said with a laugh. “As Sedna and her father were escaping, they saw a black speck in the distance. The raven had discovered that Sedna was missing, and had grown angry. He gathered up his raven friends, and they pursued the boat. They flapped their wings furiously, and whipped up an enormous storm, causing gigantic waves. The kayak that Sedna and her father were on began to sway and lurch around violently. Sedna’s father—splendid man that he was—decided to sacrifice his daughter in an attempt to save himself. He screamed out, ‘Here is your precious wife! Take her, but do not hurt me!’ He grabbed his daughter and tossed her off the side of the boat, into the freezing ocean.”

Vachlan frowned deeply. “Do you really think King Kyrosed would do that to any of his daughters?”

“The story gets even worse,” Visola said, reaching out and touching Vachlan’s hand. “Sedna’s body began freezing, and she swam to the boat, holding onto the edge for dear life, and begging her father to save her. Instead, guess what he did? He grabbed his paddle, and he began to pound her fingers. Her hands were so cold and frozen that the tips of her fingers broke off. She still held on, so he continued clobbering her hands until her fingers broke off at the knuckles. When she cried for mercy, and begged her father to take pity, all that he could think about was saving himself from the great storm. He pummeled the paddle into her hands one final time, cutting off her fingers completely, leaving not even stumps where they used to be. Sedna could no longer grip the boat, and she sank down to the bottom of the sea.”

“By George! What a nasty bloke.”

“The tips of her fingers became whales, and her knuckles became seals. The stumps of her fingers became walruses.
Incredibly, Sedna did not drown—no, she was kept alive by the sheer power of her rage. She swore vengeance on her father, and her anger transformed her into the omnipotent goddess of the sea. She loves and protects the beasts born from her fingers. She punishes unkindness with storms and famine, and she rewards kindness with food and warmth.”

“You tell an excellent story, even when sober,” Vachlan told her with a smile. “I must say that I’m worried about whether I made the right decision in choosing to be employed in Adlivun if that is the kind of person to which you compare your leader.”

“I think you should go,” Visola told him, handing him the manuscript of his play. She bit her lip. “Go back to England and be a writer, Vachlan. You are so good at it, and surely if you keep trying, people will notice your work. What is there for you in our frigid ice palace?”

“There are endless new things to learn and discover,” he answered. “Not to mention a gorgeous firebird…”

Before Visola could blush, the door to her bedroom flew open.

“I thought I would find you here. I need you both,” Kyrosed said with a frown. “I have a predicament; we have run out of boats to transport the Yawkyawk.”

“Let those ones stay and multiply. Let them grow in numbers again, and when you feel like a second helping, we can always come back for more.”

“Brilliant. It’s like farming human beings. I have to congratulate you on excellent work, Vachlan. This is exceptional; no one knows quite how to control and intimidate people like you do.” King Kyrosed slapped the other man on the back companionably.

“It’s what I do. Besides—when people are innocent it is easier to take advantage of them. They will be obedient subjects; and grateful too, I imagine.”

“Yes, they actually think that we’re saving them. They think that we are heroes. The only person displeased about this is my daughter. I’m going to give the command for the ships to sail, and go and try to appease her.”

When Kyrosed left Vachlan’s side to signal the ships, the people left on land, and those in the small boats around the ship began to scream to be taken on board. Their voices could not be understood, but their sign language was desperate. Visola approached Vachlan and stood beside him, as they looked out at the people they were leaving behind.

“Does it feel like a victory to you?” she asked him.

“It doesn’t matter much to me.” He shrugged. “I’m heartless. I just do what needs to be done.”

Visola frowned at him, and was about to respond when they were both distracted by a woman’s scream. They could not understand her, but there was a particularly desperate tone in her voice. She was standing in a small boat, and holding up a young child. 

“Please,”
signed the man beside her, who was probably her husband,
“please take our daughter! She is too young to be eaten by the bunyip. Please save our little girl.”

“Christ,” Vachlan muttered. He began leaning over to take the child, but Visola grabbed his arm.

“No! What are you doing?” she asked him. “Leave the girl with her family.”

“Reality doesn’t matter, Colonel Ramaris. What matters is what people believe. They believe that her life will be better with us, so let us give them that happiness.” Saying this, Vachlan reached down and took the small child from her mother.

“So who will take care of her now?” Visola asked angrily as she stared at the scared toddler in Vachlan’s arms.

“I’m sure there are plenty of women in Adlivun who have lots of motherly instinct to spare. We’ll just give her to a good family.”

“She had a good family!” Visola said, gesturing to the couple in the boat who were crying, and obviously very distressed. “What about her father?”

“Children don’t really need fathers,” Vachlan said with a shrug. “I never had one. Trust me, everything will be fine.”  

“My father is everything to me,” Visola said in heated protest. “He taught me how to fight; he spent hundreds of years training me privately. He taught me everything he could. I wouldn’t be worth anything if I didn’t have that support. You’re denying that little girl something more valuable than gold, Vachlan. Something priceless that can never be replaced.”

“I’m sorry, Visola. I don’t want you to be upset. Forgive me.” It was the first time he had called her by her first name. He gently rocked the toddler in his arms. “I will make it up to you. I will make sure the girl has an amazing life in Adlivun. She’ll learn and do more than she ever could here in New Holland.”

Visola turned away from him, and placed her hands on the railing of the ship. She stared out at the people who had just lost their child, and the dozens of other people who were being left behind while hundreds of their family members and friends had embarked on Adlivun’s fleet. Vachlan had brought two ships with him as well, and these were also filled. As the ships pulled away from the harbor, she stared back at the people sadly, realizing that Kyrosed had ripped this realm apart. Could he have done it without Vachlan, the Destroyer of Kingdoms? Now that he had them, what would he do with the people? Would he use them as slaves? Would he treat them as regular citizens? Would they improve life in Adlivun? Life had been comfortable to begin with.

The people were smaller now, and she could just barely make out that they were still waving their arms to the family members they would never see again. She felt sick. The wind tossed her red tresses against her face, and she brushed them away with annoyance. Behind her, she heard Vachlan talking to the little girl, and trying to soothe her tears.

“Don’t cry, child. I promise that things will be alright. What’s your name?” Vachlan had placed the toddler on the floor, and was speaking in sign language as he also spoke in English. The little girl did not respond, and continued to bawl. Vachlan sighed, asking her again in sign language.
“What is your name?”

When her tears finally calmed, she answered between her sniffles. “Namaka.”

“That’s a beautiful name,” Vachlan responded.

Visola’s head snapped around. “Namaka?” she asked, feeling a chill run through her. She suddenly remembered an ache in her head, and the sight of prison bars. It was so vivid that it replaced the bright sunlight on the ship for a moment. She approached the little girl, and stared at her features. Dark skin, and dark eyes. Chubby little arms, and thick black hair.