by Aaron Galvin
Still the scratchy noise continued.
Swim! his seal mind commanded.
Kellen fought it off. Waiting, suspended in water. Watching.
He realized too late the seal mind had the right of it.
The rope net swooped in out of the darkness.
The seal mind took over, spinning to swim the opposite direction.
Swim under it! Kellen immediately pivoted and dove. Then he saw his mistake.
The net bottom lay heavy on the pit floor, weighted by stone. Still it came on, water sieving through the open bits.
Up and over! Kellen ascended, his hind flippers swishing rapidly to build speed. His nose broke the surface and he leapt. Mouth open and snarling.
The net loomed before him, stretched high above the surface.
Kellen’s momentum carried him into it. He smacked the net, his flippers wedging through the openings and hanging him there. He bucked and writhed, but the struggle served only to entangle him further.
He heard a hoarse bark and found the smallest of the Sea Lions also caught.
Marrero!
Kellen noticed the ropes, stretched tight and creaking, ran up and out of the pits. They tied off at a winch near the ceiling and descended to a massive wooden spindle manned by six hooded guards that walked it like a merry-go-round to draw the net in.
The weight of his seal body pulled at his joints. Kellen barked in agony.
The net neared the end of the pits where the remaining two Sea Lions, Bryant and Edmund, waited. Ropes from the bottom finally pulled up, scooping the Sea Lions into the same net entrapping Kellen and Marrero.
Kellen watched as a hooded guard guided the rope net over to the main floor with a hook. Those at the spindle reversed their walk and the net lowered, jolting Kellen’s joints with each bumpy increment until the net touched the cavern floor. Kellen hung his head and moaned at the instant relief in his seal appendages.
He didn’t bother to fight back as the guards peeled the net away. One knelt beside him with a knife and sawed at the rope wrapped round Kellen’s hind flippers.
“No, no, no.” Tieran pulled the guard back by his hood and took his knife. “You’ll ruin the net, fool.”
Tieran held the knife in front of Kellen’s face. “Open your mouth.”
Kellen growled.
“I said open your mouth. And if your jaws so much as quiver when ol’ Tieran takes hold of you, I’ll have you thrown back in the pits still wearing this netted mess. Drown you, it will.”
Reluctantly, Kellen obeyed.
Tieran reached forward and took hold of Kellen’s upper lip, then peeled it back.
Kellen thought it should hurt, but instead it felt only like taking a ball cap off his head. The tickle returned and he felt the changes from seal to human sweeping over him in reverse like shower water streaming down his back. The cavern’s natural chill kissed his forehead and cheeks again. In seconds, Kellen lay in human form with the net draped over him.
He easily pulled his feet free and untangled his arms. Gingerly, he used his right hand to ensure the left passed easily out of the net. He sneered at seeing the crayfish emblem freshly scarred on the back of his hand. Brownish blood pooled at the edges, but elsewise it looked bruised, purple and black.
“Ah,” a nearby voice yelled. “Ah, ah!”
Kellen found Marrero human again and guessed his friend screamed while watching the Sea Lion face melt away into Edmund’s human one. Kellen opened his mouth to tell Marrero to shut up and felt a wire noose draw tight round his neck.
Kellen reached to pull it away.
The guard holding the pole end lifted, forcing Kellen to stand, or suffocate. He heard others gasp and watched the same maneuver surprise Marrero and Bryant. Kellen noticed Edmund as the only one not to fight against the noose.
“All righ’, lads,” Tieran crowed. “Step these sorry seadogs in line and get this lot down to the pier. On with you now!” He cracked his whip. “Double time!”
Kellen watched as another group of guards ushered the seals and sea lions out of the cage neighboring the one he had occupied. The beefy man came next, his face red and purple, as two guards escorted him from the end of their long poles.
Kellen felt cold iron nudge his neck.
“Move,” said the guard holding him prisoner.
Kellen walked forward, falling in behind the beefy man. He glanced back and learned Marrero came next, with Edmund and Bryant not far after. He followed the line through the geode tunnel. They angled south, headed the way Kellen had seen the others go after the sorting, bound for what Tieran had called the Block.
They stopped at what Kellen thought a rickety shed, half the size of his dad’s pole barn. An old man in a hooded Selkie suit awaited them, his face set in grimness.
“All righ’, Boss Fenton?” Tieran addressed him. “What you here for?”
“One of the Lord Master’s guests has asked for some…companionship. I’m told you’ve locked her away for safekeeping. I assume you have a key?”
Kellen watched Tieran produce a key from his Selkie pocket and hand it over.
“Aye, but I’ll warn you. This won’t go over well.”
Fenton frowned. “Your job is to sell slaves, not give unrequested advice.”
“Righ’,” said Tieran. “I’ll keep on then, yeah?”
“That would be wise.”
Tieran cracked his whip. “You heard Boss Fenton, lads. Keep on with you now, keep on!”
Kellen watched as Fenton turned the latch and vanished inside the shed.
The pole nudged him in the neck again. “Move.”
Kellen trod along, his head on a swivel taking in the new surroundings. He didn’t know what he searched for, but thought it important to remember all he could. Any clue that might help him escape.
He found little helpful.
Cavern walls existed to his left, and pond fields to his right. Workers waded waist deep in still ponds, shucking pearls from oysters. Others had thatched bundles on their backs, piled high with wet seaweed as they picked it fresh and tossed it in their packs.
Kellen followed the line westward toward small, whitewashed homes. He heard voices as they continued the march. Small at first, they quickly became a roar upon nearing the homes.
Kellen looked left, out over the open waters, and saw men and women casually bobbing without the aid of any floatation devices. They laughed and drank from silver cups with rubies and sapphires. He saw a few pointed at him and the others in his group. Kellen marveled as those in the water swam inland without the use of their hands, all far faster than he ever imagined a person capable of swimming.
One leapt from the water and Kellen noted the man had a dolphin tail. He gasped as the tail split in two, forming human legs that shone wetly like bluish-grey tights.
Marrero screamed behind him. “What the—”
“Quiet!” the guards silenced him.
This is insane. Kellen thought as they passed through the crowds. At first, he thought them normal people, albeit dressed weirdly. The longer he stared, he knew them anything but human.
Some of the women wore weird swimsuits of various patterns, some swirled white and grey, others with stripes. Others, including the men, wore shirts woven from sea grass, their colors neon bright.
Kellen took note nearly all bedecked themselves with jewelry—pearl necklaces, gold medallions, and the like. An eel shawl draped low over one woman’s shoulders, and Kellen watched a man tease its owner with the eel’s lax jaws.
The noose round his neck hastened Kellen along.
Some of those in the crowd stepped close to him, touched his shoulders and thumped his chest. The guard charged with him stopped to let the people crowd around him.
Kellen made to smack their hands away.
The noose constricted and another guard slapped iron manacles around his wrists, belting them around his waist.
Emboldened by his shackling, the crowd stepped nearer. They muttered in
foreign tongues and Kellen felt their hands touching all over his body. His mind screamed to ward them off.
The noose warned against it.
Kellen closed his eyes as they poked and prodded at him. One pinched his cheeks together, forcing him to open his mouth while they looked inside. Another tugged his head this way and that as if they wanted to judge his resistance.
Kellen endured it all, hate simmering in his heart.
Soon the noose urged him move on again and the hands of those who’d felt him up and down fell away.
Kellen opened his eyes. He saw a row of cages and the faces of those Tieran had previously sorted. Is this the Block?
He had little time to think on the idea. The guards led him and his fellow captives to another cage, opposite the block. A gate clanged open and Kellen found himself ushered inside his newest cell.
The noose went lax the moment he entered and pulled free over his head.
Kellen stepped to the back of the cage as his cellmates crowded in behind him. He found them near the water’s edge, closer to the stage than the Block captives.
“I’m sorry, Ed.”
Kellen spun around, noticed Bryant’s shoulders heave.
“God knows I’m sorry. Needed to tell you that ever since they made me put it on.”
“It’s all right,” Edmund replied. “If it helps get you outta this mess, he would’ve been happy.”
“What are you talking about?” Kellen asked. “Who would’ve been happy?”
“My son,” said Edmund. “Bryant’s wearing my boy Richie’s suit.”
Kellen looked on the tannish coat, remembering the youngest marshal who’d taunted him at the jail. Released him from his cell and was cut down by gunfire when he tried warning Kellen not to run. The same marshal the girl, Marisa Bourgeois, had predicted would die that night.
If Bryant’s wearing Richie’s suit—Kellen touched the hood of his—whose suit was this?
Bryant sighed. “You’d think they would’ve given us the earrings by now.”
“No,” said Edmund. “No need for it yet. They’ll let our new owners buy them.”
“Owners?” Marrero asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Look around you, boy,” said Edmund. “This is a slave post. And if you’re not buying, you’re the one being sold. So unless you’ve got pockets full of anemonies I don’t know about…”
Marrero immediately pulled at the neckline of his suit with both hands.
“What are you doing?” Kellen asked.
“I’m getting out of this thing!”
“You can’t,” said Edmund. “Didn’t you hear the seal’s voice in your head?”
Marrero stopped.
Kellen felt cold. “I heard it.”
Edmund nodded. “Symbiotic. Know what that means?”
Kellen glared at him.
“I thought not,” said Edmund. “Means you and the suit need each other to live. From this day to your last day, the seal is part of you.”
“I don’t believe you.” Marrero resumed his efforts.
“There’s Salt blood weaved in each and every Selkie suit,” said Edmund. “That means only someone with Salt in their veins can remove it. Try any other way, you wind up dead.”
Marrero stopped. “H-how can that be?”
“They made these suits to enslave us,” said Edmund. “What good are shackles if the prisoners can take them off whenever they want?”
Bryant shook his head. “Even if you find a Salt Child willing to risk their neck—”
“Good luck with that,” Edmund cut in.
“It doesn’t matter in the end,” said Bryant, trembling. “The seal stays a part of you and it always wants to go home. It’s enough to drive someone mad…”
“How do you know?” Kellen snarled. “They just put you in one.”
“My wife,” said Bryant quietly. “It’s what happened to her.”
Kellen was about to ask more when he saw Tieran approach the pier with a conch shell in hand. Behind him, hooded guards led a line of people. Whenever anyone tugged away, a whip cracked, and Kellen saw the captive fall back in line.
What’s going on? Kellen wondered as Tieran put the shell to his lips and blew, its echo reverbing throughout the cavern.
The crowd quieted and settled into the makeshift bleachers built from driftwood. Oscar emerged from their midst, alongside one of the fattest men Kellen had ever seen. Both wore pearl-white suits with black hoods.
“The Crayfish,” Edmund muttered as guards carried a regally carved and cushioned couch to the pier for the father and son. “And his little whelp.”
Kellen clenched his fists at the sight of Oscar. He felt the fresh scar on his left hand pull and new skin break. Use it, Kellen thought to himself. Use the hate.
“Righ’ then,” Tieran yelled. “On behalf of his Lord Master August Collins and son, welcome to Crayfish Cavern. Let’s get this auction started, shall we?”
Kellen’s lip curled at the crowd’s applause and cheers. He watched guards lead a mother and daughter onto the pier’s stage.
“First on the docket is this lovely cow,” Tieran began. “Fresh from the mainland, she is, and a fine bet for breeding more fine pups like the one beside her, I’ll warrant. Opening bid for the cow by her lonesome is a hundred anemonies.”
Kellen stepped back as some in the crowd immediately raised white shells, large as dinner plates, with black painted numbers on them. This is insane. Kellen shook as Tieran’s voice spouted at rapid-fire, calling out numbers to drive the price up. He heard guards amongst the crowd yell to call Tieran’s attention whenever a potential buyer raised their shell.
Tieran’s voice slowed and Kellen noted the crowd had ceased raising their shells.
“Goin’ once…twice…” Tieran clapped his hands and pointed to a male buyer dressed in a yellowed shawl of seagrass. “I sold her to buyer number four for two hundred anemonies. Will you have her wee pup, sir, for another twenty-five?”
Kellen watched the buyer shake his head. Heard the little girl scream as guards tore her mother away and dragged her kicking and screaming down the opposite steps.
Marrero clung to the bars beside Kellen. “What is this place?”
“What’d I tell you, Pinocchio,” said Bryant. “Some Pleasure Island, huh?”
Kellen found himself unable to form the words as he watched Tieran sell the little girl next. One by one, he watched the line of people led onto the stage and sold like cattle until the last of them had walked off the opposite end.
“All righ’, enough with the dregs.” Tieran yelled. “Who’s ready for some games, eh? Let’s see how they fare in a match of Selkie polo—”
“Polo?” A voice in the crowd scoffed. Kellen watched as a bare-chested man stood. Scars and tattoos littered his body and he grinned as he looked on those in the cages. “This is an outpost, isn’t it? Give us some real games.”
“M-Master Ishmael,” said Tieran. “You ask the Lord Master to lose perfectly good—”
“I ask nothing,” said Ishmael. “I demand it. You lured me here with the promise of fighters, Tieran. Show me some, and I’ll line your master’s pockets. Show me not, and I’ll find sport enough on my own.”
The crowd roared in approval. “Fight,” they cried. “Fight. Fight!”
Kellen saw Tieran look to Oscar and his father. Watched them hesitate, then nod.
“Righ’ then, a real game it is.” Tieran waved at the guards near Kellen’s cage.
Kellen heard the lock open. He backed away into the corner as a guard entered and took the nearest captive.
“Fight them, Bryant,” Edmund called. “You can do it.”
Kellen watched as the guard walked Bryant into the water. Others raised a net between the piers to keep him from escaping. One dropped a harpoon in front of Bryant.
“Man versus beast, how ‘bout it?” Tieran yelled to another cry of approval.
He has to fight a seal? Kellen wondered as a
taskmaster led the animal into the water.
The trapped Selkie slipped beneath the surface and disappeared.
“Keep to the shallows, Bryant,” Edmund shouted. “Don’t let it pull you in!”
Kellen stared wide-eyed as Bryant stood waist deep in water, both hands clutching the harpoon, its tip poised above the surface.
“Fight. Fight. Fight!” The crowd urged.
“Come on, Bryant.” Edmund whispered beside Kellen. “You can do this.”
Kellen’s heart leapt as Bryant plunged the harpoon and called it back as quick. Then he yelped and disappeared below, the water thrashing white.
Fight! Kellen put his face between the bars. Come on!
The crowd shouted in approval as the water dyed red.
Bryant’s head popped above the surface. Gasping for air, he raised the bloodied harpoon victoriously over his head to a new wave of applause and whistles.
Kellen watched the guards wrench the harpoon away from Bryant and lead him limping up the stony shore onto the stage. Kellen winced at the teeth marks that had torn into Bryant’s calf.
“A fine start to his lordship’s games,” said Tieran. “Who’ll have this fighter, then? Let’s open him at five hundred.”
Kellen watched the raising of shells begin anew with Tieran’s voice in accompaniment. The bidding reached eight hundred before the sold verdict rang out. Kellen noticed the buyer had only one eye, the other covered with a seashell patch.
“Let’s have more then, shall we?” Tieran cried as the guards led Bryant off the stage. “Beast versus beast this time, I think.”
The guards led two seals into the water next. Looking on the few remaining animals in the seal cage and then on the faces of his cellmates, Kellen knew it would be only a matter of time before he, too, would be led out and forced to fight.
Kellen glared at the crayfish emblem on the back of his hand, clenched his fists, and knew one more thing with utter certainty…he would win.
CHIDI
Why did you mention Declan? Chidi scolded herself for the thousandth time. Yet even now, she felt the anger simmering at her abandonment. He left me.