Fish Out of Water (12 page)

The Magician, Shar, was first.

I wondered, not for the first time, why the Triad were all so darned pompous. And why, in a line of female Queens, they were all men. I hid the thought carefully so no passing Gadula could see the treason in my brain. Being judgemental on The Land was one thing. Here you had to be real careful. Someone might hear you.

Shar was small for an Aegiran man, and had the sliding, stealthy grace of a shark. He slid swiftly over to Mom, running his fingers over eyelids and cheeks before embracing her.

She stood still under Shar’s hands.

“Our beloved sister returns. Thanks be to Ran for your wellbeing, and safe arrival.” The implication was clear to all present: one is never sure when you will be butchered by the violent scum you have chosen to live among. Shar’s distrust of land-dwellers was legendary.

“Why thank you, brother,” Mom smiled sweetly at him. “And thanks be to Ran and Aegir for the kindness and grace of our Queen’s most senior adviser.”

Shar bowed his head. But beside him, Kraken was bristling. “You brought your daughter?”

Wow, Lecanora’s uncle needed to work on his manners. Then I remembered that even though she still used the term
uncle
for Kraken, it had been years now since we’d learned the truth. I watched Kraken, his cool blonde beauty drawing excited chatter from those who had gathered to watch the ritual greeting. Those inky blue eyes flickered handsomely as his pride responded almost of its own volition to Mom’s reference to his status as second to Shar.

Mom’s eyes widened at Kraken’s breach of etiquette. “No greeting for me, sea brother?”

I realized she was playing the little crowd, which had drawn a collective gasp.

Kraken saw his mistake immediately and moved to rectify it.

“I had simply hoped to greet you both as one,” he offered nimbly.

I moved close to Mom’s side.

“I’m here, Kraken,” I tried to smile. I’d quickly donned a beautiful, flowing shift of blue and green one of the serving Gag-ai-lan had offered. Mom was cool with being naked for a while, but I’d gladly grabbed the garb. I had enough Land Lady in me to want to cover up my girly bits. “I see the preparations are well underway. It looks beautiful.”

And it was true. The strange water chamber truly did look beautiful. Huge structures had been erected to float through the Eye, strung with hundreds of thousands of diamonds,
and gleeda bugs had been drawn in to crawl among the revelers, their incandescence reflecting prettily off the stones and refracting a millionfold through the pool. The sandy floor had been settled and was as soft as powder under foot, shining like glass.

In the beginning, the Eye had been feared, and not just for the powerful magic of its conception. Early Aegirans believed that when the end came, the towering walls of water would collapse, crushing anyone inside. But as they had explored, entering and exiting from the top, where the tornado trailed off into the mass of ocean, they realized it was safe: held in place by the perfect symmetry of pressure and temperature in the deepest place on earth.

Today, in preparation for tomorrow’s wedding, hundreds of resting spaces littered the Eye at varying depths so groups of Aegirans and their guests could rest without swimming. Sit if they chose, as they talked, ate and celebrated. Each was draped with sea-silks in the blue-green of the royal line. Some were on the seabed, others floated on sea grass mats, like magic-carpets.

“Thank you, Rania,” Kraken allowed. “And welcome back to your home.”

Mom was considering Kraken quietly, with her habitual half-smile. But I was sure I could feel the twitch of unease in her shoulders as she considered Kraken’s retreating back and the third member of the Triad glided forwarded. Epaste, the Silent.

After The Awakening, Aegirans had taken a millennium to evolve the biology for underwater sound. A mute millennium, observing dolphins and whales, watching how they used vibrations under water. From this careful study, a beautiful and complex language of hums, groans and trills, resonant low notes and soprano-like highs, had evolved. And with it, the songs.

Epaste, however, chose not to use his voice. Neither did he sing.

None of the assembled company trusted him as a result.

Epaste moved effortlessly toward Mom like a whale granted the gift of dolphin grace.

“Epaste,” Mom spoke the Ageirian language aloud. “It is good to see you again.”

Lunia. Greetings. And to your daughter
.

The massive man offered the welcome of his fingertips over our eyes and cheeks.

I felt a chill. As a child, Epaste, the summoner of the Seekers, had featured in my nightmares. My eyes wandered to the Princess again. She was still covertly watching the children at play around her. I saw that, even engrossed in their swift game of tag, they knew not to go close to The Eye’s rushing walls. One blonde slip of a girl was particularly captivating. No-one could catch her. She wriggled away from all pursuers, who began to stalk her. Lecanora seemed to follow her clever, nimble form closely with her eyes.

Who was that child?

As I watched the Princess watching her, entranced, the tiny blonde waif circled ever closer to those angry walls, and I realized Epaste was done. The High Triad had finished; it was Lecanora’s turn. I gave her a mental nudge.
Stay with the program, Princess
.

My old BFF snapped back into the moment and floated over to us.

She waited a moment in front of us, tracing our eyelids and cheeks. “Welcome back to the home of your mothers. May Ran bless your stay.”

I spoke again to her mind.
Hi, babe. Thirteen years. How’re things in Aegira?

Lecanora tried to smile.
Dark, Rania. Confusing. And you shouldn’t talk like that
. She curled her lip a little, like she was inwardly cursing her stiff response.

An image rose unbidden. Me, at sixteen, shocking Aegira by binding my breasts as I raced (and won) the Sprint of Atla. Atla, the second Billow Maiden Queen, had also been called Fury, and I’d channeled her rage that day, daring my too-big breasts to stand in my way.

Lecanora had swum skittishly on the sidelines. Worried for me. Always worried.

I thought about how we’d once been inseparable. Singing, swimming, talking to the dolphins. Lecanora had totally got me. Despite all my Land stuff. And despite her mysterious past. Or maybe because of all that.

She studied me slowly.
Your hair’s shorter now. Like a pixie of Norse legend
.

I laughed into her brain.
I always forget how you guys talk
.

She frowned quizzically.
Yes, it must be hard. So long without hearing the language
.

I shook my head.
I didn’t mean that. I meant the—

The Princess seemed to be doing a nervous little jig on the spot.

I wanted to settle her.
It doesn’t matter
.

But she was still frowning.
I just meant… It’s lovely. The hair. It sets off those strange brown eyes and full, algae-red lips
.

I tried not to laugh again. How did you even start to explain how weird it was to talk like that to someone like Lecanora? I shrugged.
That’s me. All land-dweller
.

She shook her head, her hair billowing around her like smoke on the wind.
Not all of you
. She cocked her head to the side, sized me up.
You are tall. Broad of shoulder. You have large feet and long fingers. Your neck is long too. The characteristic trait of the regal Gadula
.

This time I did laugh. I tried to imagine any girlfriend on the land telling you that you had large feet and a long neck, like it was a compliment.

Lecanora’s gaze shifted to Mom, and I saw it soften even more. I tried to see Mom as Lecanora did, a classic Aegiran beauty, with a twist of something interesting and spicy. Like Abermonth, the rare delicacy from the south-western ridges, served at royal weddings.

Rich and sweet, but with a searingly hot aftertaste that rocks your palate.

Lecanora touched Mom’s eyes again and Mom smiled as she telepathed.
Everyone is here
. She motioned to the creatures parading around us.
As it should be, for a Gadulan wedding
.

Lecanora smiled too, but with a sad downturn at the edges.
There are many others who are not. Species that are missing now. Since the warming began
.

The Princess sighed and made to move off. My hand itched to grab her arm.
Wait
.

I wanted to wrap my arms around her. But too many would report to Kraken. Her uncle had never liked our friendship.

Can we talk tonight?

The Princess shook her head, stifling a knife edge of disappointment.
No, at the wedding
.

“Thank you for your blessing, child,” Mom offered aloud as the Princess made to leave. “But we are already blessed. To see you, to stand near you.”

With that, Mom opened her arms to embrace the Princess.

But the Princess ducked them, and before anyone could stop her, she hurtled towards one of the mammoth walls of raging water, hurling herself at it.

I felt my heart explode into action in my chest, but before I could even kick off to follow her, she had already emerged, with a small but bloody wound to her head and bearing a small child in her arms. As the assorted watchers drew in a collective gasp, I saw what had happened.

A small hole had opened in one of the walls of water, like a frayed rip in a curtain. Anyone standing close could feel the diabolical pull of the hole and realized the child must have strayed too close and been caught in the rip as it opened. All were silent, shaking their heads.

How could this have happened? The walls of the Eye are as immutable as time itself
.

They shook their heads, astonished that Lecanora had seen the danger before anyone else. And responded immediately, heedless of her own safety. The whole event could only have taken a fraction of a second. The child should have been dead before the Princess reached her.

The Princess herself should be dead.

How could she have survived the fatal suction of the tornado?

How could she have swum back against it, bearing the child? And so fast?

A hundred creatures, every color of the rainbow, spilled words of praise and comfort.

But Lecanora swam awkwardly on the spot, giddy from the assault on her body.

She looked like her habitual discomfort in her skin was magnified a thousand fold by all the attention. I knew that she heard, as I did, what they were all thinking.

Just another thing that makes her different
.

Day Three: The Wedding

I yawned as I took in The Eye through the dense fog of my nicotine withdrawal.

Only a nation that doesn’t drink would hold a wedding in the morning.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what those diamonds must be worth. Lucky no land-dwellers knew about this place, or every woman in the U.S would be wanting one of those babies on her ring finger. God help the peace-loving Aegirans then.

My danger radar was on overdrive. It had been thirteen years and maybe I was paranoid, but I swore it felt warmer than I remembered. Just like back home. I still couldn’t believe they went ahead and had the wedding here in the Eye. After what happened yesterday. After the injury to Lecanora. My eyes, like those of all the seas creatures assembled around me (well, those that had eyes), continuously flickered to the rip, like a jagged black mouth.

If that sucker decided to tear wide open, we’d all be screwed.

My body felt stiff and cranky, the hydroporting hangover I called it. And believe me, it takes skill to use Mom’s Jacuzzi to hydroport. You have to submerge completely with your song-fish and hold each other, singing the required notes at the right pitch and focusing your minds in just the right way. But if you can swing it, your very essence becomes fluid. You melt down to droplets, but you’re still singing. You’re inside the note, dizzy and spinning and moving.

And then you’re there. Beginning in water, ending in water. Traveling through the very droplets of water in the air, to the place you’re singing about.

In this case, home. Aegira.

As you re-form, from droplets to flesh, you’re aware of being alive, real, but it takes a few moments to get back into your own head. It’s scary but it’s also pretty wild.

And let’s face it, when you’ve got this far to travel, it’s the only way to go.

Mermaids don’t always hydroport, of course. Around Aegira we just swim. Hydroporting is for long trips, like from Dirtwater to this hidden kingdom, nestled at the deepest place on Earth. You can also use hydroporting when you need to get somewhere really quickly. But that carries its own challenges. Like sometimes, just sometimes, if your concentration’s distracted, or you try to rush it, you can bring parts of other places with you.

I thought about the aquarium.
Like Blondie did
.

I could see Mom looking at me, and battled to keep my eyes open. It was harder underwater, even with the invisible opaque eyelids that slid down to protect my eyes.

I tried to focus. Kraken was presiding. The High Priest of Ran’s Temple.

He joined the hands of the love-birds, who gazed at the crowd. Not at each other. The vows were being taken on a floating dais, a thousand guests moving around it in a slow circle.
The guests could be broken roughly into three groupings: envoys from the ocean nations; representatives of each of the refugee species; and the Aegiran Gadula.

The Queen sat high on a floating blue-green throne, flanked by her handmaiden, a lovely young mermaid with a face sweeter than sugar. Queen Imd. Dusk. The youngest sister, last of her line. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Aegir and Ran sure perfected the recipe with her. She’s blonde as blonde comes, but without a trace of vanilla. Kindness and wisdom beam out of these lively eyes, and there’s a wicked intelligence in each inch of her smooth face.

A thousand years old and not a wrinkle in sight. Eat your heart out Estee Lauder.