Ishmael rolled his eyes. Let us say ‘a victory nearly assured’ then, high chieftain. We better the odds of our survival with an alliance between us and the Sancul rather than we swim against them and the might of New Pearlaya also, no?
Aye, it might well be, said Cursion. It might also be the Sancul lure us with promises of treaty. In the stories my father told me as a boy, the Deep Dwellers were known to be the great deceivers of old and used our people as pawns in the War of the Ancients. By my understanding, had it not been for the Ancients to put down the Deep Dwellers, we should likely be swimming under Sancul tyranny. Without the Ancient might and magic of old here to save us now, who else then to stop the Sancul from ascending for good and all? Who, if not the Children that the wise ones left behind to rule this world in Their stead?
You name the Ancient Ones as wise, said Ishmael. And yet there has been naught but further fighting and war amongst our people with the Merrows and Orcs since the Ancients left the Salt unto us, their Children.
Cursion nodded. It seems to me more and more of late then that children must mature and wizen for the failures of those who came before them. He looked on Garrett and smiled. All that they might shape a better world than was left to them by their forefathers and mothers both.
Garrett swore a knowing gleam lived in Ishmael’s eyes as he swam around Cursion to better look on the council too. Again, our high chieftain teaches with wisdom beyond my years. And I am not so foolish as to not heed my elders. Ishmael shrugged. Say we were to listen to the Open Shell’s plan and send word to the blow-holes in New Pearlaya. Even if the Merrow king and the Blackfin’s Orcs were to ally with us, what should happen if we lose? Who to look after the children of our people, or those of our enemies also, if the Sancul were to defeat us all?
Who is to say the Sancul should stop with the defeat of New Pearlaya? Cursion replied. Why should the Sancul cease their conquering with the Merrows and Orcs destroyed? Why not then turn upon us also, after our numbers too have been lessened for the shared fight? He shook his head. If the Sancul have legions of their own people still in hiding, then truly we bring nothing to their conquest to come. And if we bring nothing to add, then we are little more than servants and tools for them to use. Aye, and with our losses meaning nothing to their eventual victory.
So, you would ally us to the Open Shell’s plan, then? Ishmael asked. To warn the Orcs and Merrows? Ally ourselves with the supposed might of New Pearlaya?
I said nothing of agreement there either, said Cursion. It were time I requested of the Sancul, as I would request further time from this council now also. All that we may together decide the fate of our people, rather than surrender to impulse and fear-mongering.
We are precious short of time, high chieftain, said Ishmael. It will not be long until our people swim before the pearly gates of the Salt capital. What then awaits us and our people there but enemies on all sides, if you refuse the offer given to us?
I know not what lies in the future, said Cursion. No more than you either, Red Water. I would ask this council only to take this night for thought that we might rejoin on the morrow with our shared decision to lead our people forward.
The way forward is to war, high chieftain, said Ishmael. As it has ever been all this way in our journey unto the pearled city. He cocked an eyebrow, glancing at Garrett. Or perhaps you only seek to delay us with the same request you made of the Sancul?
Cursion flared. If you have something to speak to me, then let you say it outright, boy. Do not mince riddles with me.
Very well. Your lost love, Makeda, awaits in the pearl city, no? The mother of your Orc-son? Ishmael asked. Aye, the same city you murdered her father in, then fled from. All rather than continue the fight and to sack the city in full for the glory of our people.
Atsidi Darksnout sprang forward then, his sword drawn, tail firing him onward to arrive at the side of Cursion in an instant. Watch your tongue, boy. That is the high chieftain you speak with.
I’m not speaking with him, fool, I’m speaking to him, said Ishmael. And put your sword away, Silent Hammer, lest I take it from you and steal your tribe from beneath you too. You think the Hammers do not long to join the rest of us in the swim to war and blood-letting? Oh, but they do, old one. Ishmael said in such a way that Garrett’s blood warmed to its stirring call. We are all of us chieftains of our tribes only so long as the people allow, or else until a stronger hand comes to take them from us. We are not Orcs bound by foolish thoughts of honor, or, worse, their loathsome, Merrow cousins holding endlessly on to the dream of a royal and noble line stretching back to the beginning of time. No, he swam away from them, presenting himself to the council once more. We know strength when it swims before us. What it is to honor the old ways and the forms that even time itself has not dared to change from our first shaping. For we are Nomads! The true rulers of the five oceans. He glared at Cursion and Atsidi both. And if the pair of you have forgotten that truth, then perhaps you are not the sort to lead our tribes in the fight to come.
Cursion sneered. And you named the Open Shell a traitor.
Aye, said Ishmael. Just as I would name one who lay with a she-Orc and welcomed their bastard son into our fold.
Garrett could not hold his tongue any longer. He too swam into the mix. Welcoming me? He spat at Ishmael. You were the one who brought me to the Devil’s Triangle! I wouldn’t have even known to go there, or who White Shadow was, if it wasn’t for you!
Ishmael smirked. Aye, I returned you to our people, said he. And yet you scorned that gift too, Garrett Weaver. You abandoned our tribes and swam for the shore the moment such a choice was offered to you, boy. What led you to rethink that decision and rejoin us now, hmm? Did the notion finally settle within you that we were soon to fall upon the pearl city and kill both your kindred Orcs and your mother too?
Garrett grit his teeth. My mom is already dead.
Is she? Ishmael asked. Odd. I had not heard it sung among our people yet that the daughter of Orcin had been slain. How then did she die, boy?
I’m not talking about Makeda and you know it, said Garrett. Makeda killed my real mom. And the Orcs either murdered, or took, everyone else I loved away from me too. You and the Sancul can take them all down for all I care.
Brave words, said Ishmael. But words of themselves mean nothing, boy. It’s actions alone to win the trust of me and my people, Orc.
Garrett was about to speak against him further when a pair of seashell horns sounded in the above, their melody dark and bellowing over and again in signal of those below. For a moment, Garrett thought it were a pod of seawolves to fall upon them. Yet none of the other Nomads among the council seemed to share his concern. All had looked upward as the horns continued to sound, the divers rapidly descending.
Those aren’t Orc horns . . . Garrett realized a moment later when they sounded from the darkness again. So, what are they? Who is blowing the horns?
A few minutes later, the alarmists appeared – a pair of Mako sharks speeding into the depths, both bearing a white conch horn in one hand and a bioluminescent lantern in the other to light their way ahead. One broke off from the other to swim for the Mako chieftain. The other swam directly toward Cursion at the center.
High chieftain! The Mako cried, panting for his effort to reach them after so fast and deep of a dive. High chieftain! I bring . . . word from the above.
Breathe, boy, said Cursion first. What news do you bring?
An attack, sir, the Mako gasped. The Blackfin’s seawolves come again to harry our ranks. We drove most of them off and captured a few, but . . . we found some Selkies among them.
Selkies? Cursion asked. How would their kind survive a swim this far out in the open?
The Mako warrior’s gaze wandered toward Garrett and blinked rapidly as if he were soon to pass out for his efforts. They came with a boat, said the Mako, returning his focus to Cursion. The Selkies crossed the Salt upon a boat. They wait for you in the above, high chieftain.
Not the Selkies alone, high chieftain, said the Mako. There was a Nomad among them . . . a child of Salt and Sand . . . a young brave to fend off the Orc pod and hold them at bay to keep the Selkies safe.
Cursion straightened at that. A young brave to swim alone against a pod of seawolves? He asked, his tone being that of one impressed by the relayed news.
The Mako nodded in reply. There is more also, high chieftain. He hesitated to speak further, his gaze flitting between Cursion and the other chieftains.
What else? Cursion asked. What news?
It’s one of the Silkies, high chieftain . . . said the Mako. She claims her name is known among us . . . and that the Nomad brave . . . The Mako averted his eyes from Cursion and found his target among one of the other chieftains. She claims the Nomad who saved the Selkies from the Orcs is the son of Silent Hammer.
* * *
Part III
The Mermaid Trials
14
SYDNEY
Sydney shivered as Malik Blackfin led her through one of the Nautilus’s main tunnels. There were cracks in the ceiling and walls, the cooler air whispering against her skin, the feel of the structure itself seeming to her as old as time itself.
Sydney’s face pained at the memory of her introduction into the ancient theatre. Then, she had been escorted by Rupert, curious to hear more of his stories about the Nautilus. How it was built in a time before time, to hear the Nomads tell it, when all was dark and cold and the Unspeakables swam its Salt-filled halls, performing their pagan rituals and weaving dark magic. Likewise, she had wondered what the night might hold. What new surprise her supposed father, the king, had in store for the audience and her mother.
Sydney held no such curiosity now. Not for what lay ahead, nor of the ghosts that Rupert Bowrider had once told her haunted the ancient halls, tunnels, and waters beneath them. Still, she recognized the tunnel that her Orc escort led down for the same as when she and Rupert had walked together on the same night her mother was taken captive after the play that Yvla had starred in.
At the tunnel’s end, Sydney glimpsed the beginnings of a stretching pool at the center of all. The pool seemed to elongate with every step, revealing more of the arena-like Nautilus and the awaiting crowds beyond. Like the dolphinarium Sydney had trained in at the Indianapolis Zoo, glass panes surrounded the entirety of the Nautilus’s vast pool. Her heart raced at the notion the glass panes were not constructed there without reason. Despite the torches surrounding it, the dark of the undisturbed water spoke to endless depth. Sydney thought of it as a black mirror, reflecting the glimmer of stalactites like starlight.
At the pool’s center was a floating stage - a royal barge, glimmering as if it were a magnificent, giant pearl. Sydney thought the stage beautiful and haunting at once, unlike any she had ever seen before. Then, she noticed what she assumed to be several freestanding boxes, each covered with violet curtains. Sydney trembled in wonder of what was kept hidden beneath them.
Malik stopped short of the tunnel’s end, his thumb digging in Sydney’s bicep. “Be sure to smile and wave, savage,” he grunted. “You would do well to continue this princess façade and do all in your power to distance yourself from your traitor mother during these trials. In the eyes of the people, I assure you that she is already lost. Wouldn’t want them to lose their precious princess too, now would we? Especially seeing as how you’re no real princess at all, eh?”
A number of retorts flew to Sydney’s mind, then. She held them all back rather than play to his mind-games.
Malik Blackfin smiled at her silence too. “There, there now, girl. Don’t be cross with me for giving you sage advice. Should you prove willing to play your part, it might well be that we find a way for you to survive these traitor trials.”
Sydney could not hold her tongue. “Whatever role you have in mind for me, I won’t do it.”
Malik’s grin widened further still. “We’ll see.” He ushered her forward then, continuing their shared march beyond the tunnel and revealing themselves to the crowd.
A smattering of applause took Sydney aback as she exited the tunnel and entered into plain sight. The whispers came next, but it was the silence thereafter to deaden all to a standstill that struck her more.
Is the silence for me, she wondered. Or the Blackfin?
Sydney fended off her tears as the Blackfin led her onward. She remembered the roar of the crowd the first time she had been introduced to the people of New Pearlaya. Countless strangers had filled the stands on the opposite side then, all dressed in an array of finery as if each were in a competition to garner the most intrigue. She recalled her gaze sweeping over the royals, their makeup and dyed hair in every shade of color imaginable – brilliant oranges and greens, sky-blues with streaks of neon pink, and furious reds. Some among them had spackled themselves with glitter, their faces and arms glimmering in the torchlight, entrancing Sydney with their every wave, all vying to gain her notice.
Now, there were more commoners than not, more grime and worse upon their faces and the tattered clothes they wore. In the scorn living upon many of their faces, Sydney estimated the Blackfin had spoken some truth to her, at least; her mother was doomed to the crowd’s pre-supposed judgement before even being brought on trial. Still, Sydney found some sympathy among the lot when she and the Blackfin neared the arena bottom and approached an ivory bridge.
Crossing over, Sydney glanced over the side at the pitch-black water beneath her and surrounding the whole of the barge. How deep does it go? She wondered, the darkness affording no clues as to whether the water were twenty feet deep, or else led all the way down into the Abyss.
Sydney winced at another pinch in her bicep – the Blackfin urging her to look ahead rather than off of his directed path. She relented to the pain he caused her, refocusing on what lay ahead.
A private, tented viewing box stood as the stage’s centerpiece and focal point of the Nautilus arena. Therein, the Merrow king, Darius, sat upon a plush and polished, high-backed chair of old oak.
The look Darius gave Sydney offered no hint of delight at her arrival. The king was slow to rise in greeting her too. When he did eventually stand to welcome her, it was to take Sydney by the hand and guide her to sit in the smaller, wood-carved throne beside his taller one.
Only when the crowd cheered and applauded at the reunited display between the supposed father and his princess did Darius brighten and wave, playing the role of a happy, charming king as Sydney now understood he had done for her also in private.
“Smile and wave, Sydney,” Darius said under his breath, even as he continued playing to the crowd. “Let them see you happy to be rescued and returned to my side.”
Sydney obeyed, her hand shaking as it rose. Obeying the king’s command, the mere gesture of Sydney waving sent the crowd into a fervor, her name and title shouted by many. Others whistled and cheered. But are their reactions real? Sydney wondered of the crowd. Or are they like me? All playing their part because of what will happen if they don’t?
Darius gave her no time to ponder such thoughts. At the crowd’s first sign of approval in Sydney, he made an even grander show at ushering her in front of him and then sweeping behind her like a gentleman bowing before his lady. The performance brought forth more applause. Whether genuine or forced, the audience did not cease in their appreciation as the king waved a final time. Then, he took Sydney by the hand and led her back toward the royal tent to still more cheers.
“What is this?” Sydney dared to ask Darius as they entered in and the king guided her to sit in the chair to his left. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Whatever this is,” said Sydney, sitting in the chair offered to her. “You throw me into a watery cell, then leave me in the oubliette. Now, you’re presenting me to the crowd like I’m still a princess. Like I’m your daughter and nothing has changed.”
&n
bsp; “Nothing has,” said Darius. “Not in the eyes of the people, at least.” His lip curled. “Or not yet anyway, though I hope the reminders of the oubliette will serve you now. Let you think on all that has occurred thus far. Aye, and on the lives of your friends and mother too, Sydney, lest you think to disobey me now or anything that comes next.”
Sydney shivered as the king turned from her, motioning to another in their company instead.
“Blackfin,” said the king. “Let these traitor trials begin . . .”
Trials? Sydney wondered, again cuing on the word. Who else is being tried today, except Mom?
Malik wasted no time in obeying the order. “Painted Guard!” He barked at Solomon and the others in his company before leading them toward the covered cages.
Of those who had still been cheering in the crowd, Sydney saw them all silenced at the sight of Malik Blackfin and his Orcs. Where she hoped to hear some disagreement or disapproval from any in the audience, no other voice but his cut through the silent crowd as Malik Blackfin took center stage.
“People of New Pearlaya!” He bellowed for all to hear, as if he were born to such an act. “Today, you witness history unfolding! Aye, today, my people, you understand that no one is above the laws of our great city, nor the five oceans either. For today, my friends . . . today, you see justice weighed even upon a queen and her subjects in equal measure.”
Where Sydney had thought the crowd loud before, nothing from them compared to the sounds that echoed throughout the Nautilus when the Blackfin finished his speech.
They want this . . . Sydney understood then, her face warming when Malik nodded for Solomon and the other Orcs to approach one of the covered cages. Her eyes welled at the crowd’s hunger for the show to continue as Solomon ripped off the violet covering of the centermost cage.
Sydney gasped at the sight of the prisoner within. Oh, Mom. She thought, tears staining her cheeks. What have they done to you?
Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Page 21