I’d wondered if she might be Aquiara’s mother, and her protectiveness suggested to me that she probably was.
“Aquiara made a promise she should not have made. Only our people may visit the caves and meet with the shamaness.”
“Oh, I see,” I replied. I was deeply disappointed and it likely showed. I wondered if they could be convinced otherwise with time, even if they wouldn’t agree today. Mutual trust wasn’t built overnight.
“Why is that? I’m not sure what happened to my daughter,” I explained. “I believe she might be alive but I can’t return home to find out for sure.”
“I’m sorry but we can’t help you with that,” the older mermaid replied. “You see, your fate is not part of the Great Sea the same way ours is and cannot be divined. It is best you forget about it and go on with your life.”
I thought before replying, because I was trying to make a good impression and not show the depth of my disappointment. As it was, I wasn’t sure I believed in the mermaids’ ability to read my fate or destiny. It was a long shot, but I thought I might have another way; one they might not like or know about.
“The other reason I’ve come to meet with you is because I live here now and there’s no way for me to return home to my world. I want to form a peaceful friendship with your people, so there are no misunderstandings.”
“That’s a worthy goal,” the older mermaid replied, as she studied me. The strength of her stare was so intense I glanced away.
“The visitors who have come to live in our world have not always behaved well, but their hearts were usually good. It’s written in the records of our people.”
I nodded, wondering what other information the merpeople had about them. Could there have been more innocent people imprisoned or exiled by the Kerathi Empire than I realised? Perhaps they weren’t villains but victims of circumstance?
“What can you tell me about the ones who created the tower and the monoliths?”
I thought that was the right word. I wasn’t sure that they were created by the same people, but it seemed likely.
“You’ve found it then. We began as the same race, and then we split,” she said, drawing her hands apart. “We turned to the ocean and they returned home to their planet. It was called Avas.”
It was a name I’d heard before, though I couldn’t place where. One of the planets of the old Republic, I thought. “They had feet and you have tails? How did that come about?” I asked. I gave her a sheepish smile, wondering if I was intruding on a hidden secret and my question might cause offense.
“You ask bold questions, Cole Zorenn. They changed the pattern and made us on the loom. And from then on, we were.”
It seemed to me that she was describing genetic engineering. It had been outlawed two centuries ago by the Kerathi Empire, but it was rumoured the experiments still went on.
I sensed they were waiting for an answer from me, and I replied, “I see. So you have no way to return to your ancestral home?”
I was living in hope.
“No, but we communicate,” the younger woman replied, and she received a glance from the elder mermaid, as though she’d said too much.
“Not through time though,” I uttered with a sigh.
“Yes, through time,” she added. “Time and stars matter not to a connection of the heart.”
“Could you please send a message for me?” I asked her hopefully, wondering if it could somehow be passed to my own world . . . and more specifically, my daughter.
I wondered what would happen if Jade received it before the heist that condemned me. Could she use it to save herself or change my future? I already knew changes could be made in the timeline; it was just one reason why prisoners were sent so far back in time.
“We cannot but you could. Perhaps in time we’ll show you how,” the older woman replied.
I nodded respectfully. I’d have done almost anything for that ability.
It wasn’t the immediate answer I’d sought, but it gave me more hope for Jade than just knowing her fate. Even if the mermaids refused later, perhaps there was a way to use the technology in the tower to achieve my goal.
“If you have no opposition, I would like to use the buildings on land including the tower.”
It occurred to me as soon as I said it that I gave them too much opportunity to scupper my plans.
The elder mermaid hesitated, before eventually replying. “The realm of land will be accessible to you. It isn’t our domain.”
I smiled at her, and a good part of that smile was relief. “It’s safe for me to fish around the island? I need to catch food.”
“You may fish, so long as you kill none of our people.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” I promised her.
“Then we are in agreement. Our discussion will be relayed to the others.”
Once the elder mermaid had dived beneath the water, she didn’t surface again. Aquiara remained with her mother.
“Can you tell me how things work here?” I asked, meaning on the planet. “Are there many other species? Are there things I must do or know that will affect how I live here?”
“The others are gone,” Aquiara replied, “but there are creatures in the sea.”
“And birds in the sky,” the woman added. “Don’t use magic in the sea. It will offend some and worry others.”
“Magic is real?”
She smiled, as though I’d asked something silly. “Of course.”
I realised just how different our species were and just how much I mightn’t know. After all, if mermaids were real, so much else could be.
“Tell me please, what can I do to learn how to contact my daughter? It’s killing me, not knowing if she’s safe.”
Where before there had only been distrust in the mermaid’s eyes, now there was more sympathy.
“Come back here tomorrow at second sunrise and I will help you learn. It will not be easy for you I think, but your connection is strong and that’s the most important thing.”
“Thank you,” I said, almost entirely lost for words.
“No problem at all.” She and Aquiara gave me a smile before they swam away.
I sat on the beach and looked out over the cool water, with its rolling waves, as the gentle breeze stirred my hair. I might not have had all the answers just yet, but it was a start, and that was far more than I’d expected to have. There I truly realised for the first time that my exile could be in paradise if I built a good life. I wasn’t ruling out that I might leave one day if I had the chance, but for a change, time was on my side.
About the Author
Mara Amberly is a fantasy and science fiction author. In the past, she's also written poetry and official roleplaying game content for the 7th Sea RPG.
She's a trained journalist, editor and web developer, and she works as an author and graphic designer.
Mara's Web Site: http://author.maraamberly.com
Queen of the Island
Bokerah Brumley
For Grandma
She always believed I could.
Queen of the Island © 2020 Bokerah Brumley
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Prologue
Eleven years earlier
Traveling through the San Francisco storm drains, a blue shell tumbled. Spots and stripes turned end-over-end in the rush of pulsing water. The current pushed the trinket nearer and nearer the sea. A gush lodged the shell at the edge of a holding tank.
A passing sea gull noticed the oddity and dove. A quirk of its head, a flash of wings, and it scooped up the shell to fly away toward the ocean. Crunching the shell twice in its beak, it squawked in disgust, dropping the inedible morsel to the earth below.
The bauble fell to the sand. The sunlight sparkled in the water on its surface, glittering across the spots. A splash sounded, another splash, and soft, furtive footsteps scurried closer.
There was no one on the beach to see the blue glow surrounding the teenager. At first glance, she emerged from the water naked, but at second glance the orb surrounding her faded to reveal a teal cotton shirt hanging surfer shorts, a pouch tied around her waist. Two thin legs glinted in blues and greens, scalloped half-circle shapes smaller on her feet, larger toward her waist. Then these markings disappeared into the smoothness of a normal fifteen-year-old.
She reached for the blue object. She cradled the shell, bringing it close her mouth. Her lips formed breathy words as a light glimmered to life. A bright blue orb flickered and grew around her.
Wind rushed inland from the sea and swirled about her. Her reddish hair fell over her face and then lifted away. When she opened her hands, the light siphoned the gust inward toward the shell. She placed a kiss on the cobalt surface, her thoughts on the red-haired young man she’d been seeing in her dreams. A golden mark, in the shape of two lips, glowed when she pulled away. A shuddering sigh held her breathy words, “The Fates fashioned you mine.”
The still-swirling wind lifted the small cloud from her palms and upward, carrying it away from the lone figure on the beach. She lifted a joyful face, watching her promise soar. Whirling in the gusts, the words flew over the mansions on the beach, dropping lower as each puff dissipated.
Knowing the kiss would color his dreams, the young woman smiled. She tucked the shell into a knit seaweed pocket at her waist.
“I cannot wait to meet you, Calder Brumen,” she whispered. “I’ll come for you as soon as I am able.”
In another flash of blue magic, two legs fused to one fin, and the slender figure was gone.
Present Day
Dark waters surrounded the translucent octopus, lounging on a circular outcropping adjacent to a dome-shaped membrane. Large enough to cover the world within, the upside-down bowl had been fixed to the stony ocean floor at depths that voided the sunbeams from the surface and the artificial chemical reaction had been lessened to simulate a natural night cycle.
The creature had one limb pressed through the boundary into the dimly lit cupola, suction pads testing the air inside. A tattoo marked the underside of her trespassing appendage: a white-haired mermaid clutched a trident in one hand while the other gripped a crown in a tight fist.
It wouldn’t be difficult to sneak in again but getting back out would be harder. The majority of the mer town would begin its day soon. According to plan, all the guards had been assigned to other parts of the city, so she could shift and sneak in.
The secret, underwater city had no idea what was coming. They were in the lull before the storm, and she wanted another look.
Eight arms curled and writhed at the thought. She wanted a glimpse of the mermaid she had despised since her childhood. Revenge would be sweet. It had been promised, if only she held onto patience a little while longer.
The cautious creature eased into the underwater stronghold by half inches until the sound of approaching footsteps halted her movement. She froze, half-way in, careful to match the rocky surface she rested on. The inhabitants would surely come and go, leaving her to find her enemy and fantasize about the up and coming demise.
From the left, a dark-haired woman strolled into view. Clothes, loose and flowing fabrics, draped about her body in a traditional style. She tucked a long strand of her dark hair behind her ear and came to a halt nearby. She shifted from one bare foot to the other. The familiar face sent a shudder through the trespasser.
The ugly creature came to me. What good fortune to discover the future usurper.
Fate had handed her a joy better than she could have dreamed.
“Hurry, hurry,” Gaire muttered softly, in a voice barely loud enough for the camouflaged octopus to hear.
The cephalopod pressed herself into the rock face to obscure her eight-armed self even more. If Gaire saw her, Gaire might sense what she was. An alarm might be raised and ruin everything that had been arranged.
Gaire continued, “Because she said I should hurry if I’m going. That’s why. Premonitions are uncommon. It’s unexpected.” She shook her head as though arguing with someone. “I don’t want that job. Are you almost here?” Her furtive whispers quieted, and she tilted her head. “Good. Hurry, I have to save him from her, and I don’t want to go alone.”
Intrigued, the shifter watched as Gaire studied the promenade. Finally, Gaire took a deep breath and stepped through the film separating the air from the water. In the water, but still on the circular outcropping, she crouched and then leapt, pressing her legs together as she hovered in the ocean.
A glow surrounded her as two legs turned to one fin. She flexed the muscular tail, testing it against the currents. Without speaking, Gaire smiled at the shadows. Moments later, two charcoal dolphins appeared and took a position on either side of the mermaid. Gaire grasped their dorsal fins, one in each hand, and, together, they sped away from the underwater city.
Half-inside the dome, still atop the ancient corral flat that had been fashioned into a changing point, the cephalopod watched until she was certain the mermaid had gone. Then she crept out and whooshed away, opening and closing her arms in umbrella-like movements, more determined than ever that Gaire would never meet her fated mate or find her place as queen of the mermaids.
Chapter 1
San Francisco
Beneath a thin sheet, Calder Brumen pretended to sleep, his fingers twisted into his pillowcase to keep from leaping off the bed.
Gaire, the vision, had come back. She always returned. More so lately than she ever had before.
On the whim of hope, he’d left the sliding door open for her that night. When a breeze blew in, moving across him in waves, he knew. Wind preceded her. In the cool of the darkened apartment, Calder bit back a groan. Anticipation set his skin aflame.
He imagined her so often. One day, he might find a real woman to take her place, but it was not this day. Today, he lived for the few minutes that would have to tide him over until her next visit.
Another puff of wind burst over him, ruffling the bed skirt and lifting the sheet. He gripped the bed, careful to be as still as possible. So many nights had been the same: filled with the euphoria she brought when she arrived, trailed by the void she left when she’d gone.
He took a breath. Then she was there, waiting at the end of the bed.
That was all that mattered. He had to live in this moment. Too many questions, too many rational thoughts always drove the fantasy away, and it might be weeks until next time.
She tugged on the corner of the silken sheets and every nerve ending pricked beneath the fabric she dragged across his skin. Breath left his body in a rush as he strained toward the shapely figure standing next to his bedside. He moaned aloud but did not move.
Light fell over them from the streetlamps outside. Her bare belly button demanded his attention, resting slightly above the outward curves of her hips. She shifted and moonlight glinted on the metallic scale markings that covered her skin. Shadows obscured her torso, but her green eyes glowed. The limited light illuminated only her silhouette, highlighting her womanly shape.
“Gaire.” He spoke her name as a wish, enunciating the hard “g” sound and sighing on the “air” sound in her name.
She frowned down at him.
“Gaire,” he sa
id, his voice stronger. He couldn’t wait again.
She leaned forward and into a pool of light cast from the streetlamp outside. She clutched her bottom lip between her white teeth as she studied him. Her gingery hair splashed across Calder’s middle. As each strand fell, Calder’s chest pulled tighter and tighter with anticipation, his eyes fixed on the face he had painted on canvas so many times. He couldn’t be certain she existed anywhere other than his mind.
Her tongue swiped across her mouth in a nervous gesture. “How do you remember who I am, my red warrior?” she whispered.
“You’re unforgettable.” You are more real to me than any other woman in the world. He willed her to hear his thoughts, afraid to speak the words out loud, afraid to frighten her away. “Tell me you’re real. You’re not just a mermaid from my dreams.”
She didn’t answer, only stared at the ground.
“Tell me about the tattoos on your hips,” he said, desperate to draw her into conversation. Conversation could become something else. “I’ve never seen any like those before. I tried to find the artist who does them…” His voice faded. So many things he wanted to say.
“Tattoos?” Her eyebrows lifted. “How do you remember my name? You shouldn’t be able to recall anything about me.”
“I never forget.” Even as figment of his imagination, she was lodged in his brain. He reached for her, but the familiar weakness made his limb useless. “Last night, you said to call you by…”
He didn’t mention the other nights, the other times when he heard her name in his head as she kissed him or the mornings when her name was the first thing he remembered when he woke.
“You told me your name,” he said.
She pushed his hand away. “Hush.”
“Don’t go,” he begged. Sometimes the fantasy disappeared after only a moment and a kiss on the cheek and he woke frustrated and angry. Sometimes she stayed most of the night.
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