“She said that Arukh is Goblin for unwanted,” Cara told me. “They say it means abomination, but really, it means not wanted.”
I nodded.
“Yes,” I agreed, “it is.”
Among other meanings.
“It is a sad story,” Cara said, “about a child alone and unloved. Poor Ara.”
“Yes,” another said, “poor Ara.”
“We have made a song about the Ara,” Cara said. “We made it after we met you.”
“Would you like to hear it?”
I was not sure that I did. But I nodded anyway.
They arranged themselves in the water, in some way that only made sense to each other.
Then a young female began to sing. At first, I listened for words, but I found none. It was no language.
Instead, as I listened, it was the plaintive lonely keening of a small thing, lost and hungry and alone. It went on, shifting here and there, rising and falling, so that I could almost see in my mind, a small creature searching for safety, searching for shelter, for a mother.
The Ara.
The keening went on and on, I almost grew tired of it, but then it seemed to deepen and slowly, almost imperceptibly gather force. I focused on it, another mermaid, a male, had slowly added his voice to the song, following the notes so closely that they were impossible to distinguish. The plaintive call was still there, but now wrapped in a tissue of strength from the other voice.
Other voices, male and female added themselves. It became by turns, ravenous and then sensual, lonely and then angry. It gained strength and depth.
And still, in the centre of it, crying was the sound of a lost child, clearly heard.
The symphony rose, became violent and passionate. Triumph and lustful joy leaped as the song came into its strength, ignorant and reckless, but strong.
Then a cry of pain. The song became confused, angry and fretful, afraid and uncertain. The voices, still full of strength converged around the pain.
The song became dark, the exuberance, the treble of voices seemed to coalesce into something singular and fierce, a mad evil purpose united the voices, until I could hardly believe the sound came from many throats and not one demonic mouth.
The water splashed. I jumped a little. The song broke apart into a cacophony of noise, of angry grunts and howls and shouting. The Mermaids pounded the water, slapping it with their hands and their bodies, making it seem like a storm tossed sea, the elements at war. A battle.
One by one, the voices stopped. Sometimes fading away, sometimes ceasing abruptly. The storm of splashing ebbed, and gave way, and finally went still.
And then there was only one voice left. The lonely, plaintive child voice, that had been there in the beginning. That had been at the heart of the song all the way through. Now lonelier and more pained than ever. The strength of the other voices had left it, and now it limped along, exhausted and alone.
It seemed to cough and stutter, it deepened for a moment, as if gathering its remaining strength together before going on. It began again, managing three sad notes, and stopped. Incomplete. Ended.
“Arrah,” I grunted softly under my breath.
My chest felt full, like there was something inside trying to get out. My eyes were burning. I blinked again and again to clear them, but they still burned. I swung my head from side to side, looking for an enemy. But there was nothing but the Mermaids.
“We call it ‘The Life of Ara,’” one of the Mermaids said. I couldn’t tell which. “It’s a very simple song, compared to others we have made. We made it for you.”
I pulled my legs up from the dock, and scuttled a few feet back. I turned around and around, seeking hostile shadows, needing to see enemy surrounding me. But there were none. Just the moonlight on an empty dock.
“It’s not ready yet,” another voice said, “the harmonies are off, and it’s rough in many places. We want to work on it more before we sing for the Elders. Did you like it?”
“Arrah?” I said, trying to focus. I gulped air and crouched, trying to keep this thing inside me from getting out.
“Did you like it?” came again.
Through blurred vision I saw that a Mermaid had heaved itself up onto the end of the dock.
I took three rushing steps toward it, and stopped. I stepped back.
I swung my body back and forth, ranging it as I gulped air.
“Arrah,” I grunted. “It is a song.”
I took another step forward.
“The story you told...” I said urgently, “from the Goblin. It is a good story, but the Goblin left a part out...”
“The lesson of the story...”
I paused and then blurted it out, the words ringing the way I’d heard it from Goblin tellers.
“This is why whenever you find an Arukh, it must be destroyed!”
I turned and fled.
Behind me, a Mermaid called, “we know.”
“Arrah!” I roared, running into the night.
They had destroyed me.
I stormed out of Selk domains, rage filling my limbs. My cloak flapped in the night as I pounded down the streets. Anything in my way, got out.
They knew. The knowledge was like bile rising in the back of my throat. They knew what I was.
“Arrah!” I roared at the night. A band of startled Goblins jumped and scattered, as I marched past them.
How dare they? I raged. How dare they know what Arukh was and still play with me? Liars, I thought. Damned liars. They’d known and still they’d talked and flirted. They’d pretended not to know, pretended. I was harmless.
“We’re dangerous,” I snarled at a startled Changeling. “We’re very dangerous! Nothing can hurt us!”
I’d left the Selk domain far behind, I was in the heart of the Downriver now. I leaned against the side of a rough building.
Lying Mermaids. I hated them, I realized suddenly. I hated them passionately. They’d made a fool out of me.
“Song of Ara,” I grunted. My eyes filled with water, I shook my head to clear them, blinking hard. How dare they? How dare they pretend that... noise was about Ara, about Arukh? Bastards. My fingers dug into the corner stone of the building. I held onto it, as if drowning, leaning against it.
A memory came unbidden. Digging into the nest. Desperate, angry, fearful. Howling as I did. Tearing out woven branches, bark and leaves with main strength. Exhausting myself, lying panting, weak. And then catching my breath, digging, tearing into the nest more frantically each time. Digging and digging, finding the chambers and tunnels and tearing down, and through.
“Noise,” I said aloud. I gulped air, my chest heaving. I pulled on the stone, expending my strength against it’s unyielding mass, I swung back and forth against it. “Noise, noise, noise! Get out of my head!”
The stone gave way. I tore it from its foundation and lifted it over my head. Part of the wall collapsed beside me.
“Arrah!” I roared, and hurled it down, where it hit the ground with a satisfying crunch.
“By the totem!” a voice came.
I turned.
A Dwarf, one of the outkingdom, runty downriver Dwarves, scraggly beard, lean shortened frame, stood facing me with a club.
“Arrah,” I snarled.
“Hagrik!” he said. Other Dwarves were piling out of the building behind him, carrying rough clubs and spears.
“It’s mad,” one of them said.
They looked scared.
Good.
Don’t think about the nest. Eat their fear. Eat them.
I took a step towards them, growling.
“Get away, abomination,” the first Dwarf yelled. He swung his club.
I caught it on the swing and jerked it out of his hands. He stumbled forward. I dropped the club to grab him, pulled him up until his face w
as close to mine. He went pale as my hot breath filled his face. I grinned, showing sharp heavy teeth.
I threw him back at his comrades.
“Dwarves,” I snarled. “Think you’re strong? Think you can hurt Arukh?”
I leaped and screamed. “Nothing can hurt Arukh! Nothing!”
They scattered like a flock of quail before me, scrambling and racing for the door to their house. The door slammed, leaving a few outside. I ignored them as they fled.
“Mighty Dwarves,” I roared, pounding on the door, “come out and fight, come out, come out.”
“Go away,” muffled voices called inside. They were trapped inside. Like they’d been in the nest, trapped where they thought they were safe. I staggered back and threw up.
I hammered on the door a few times, cursing them, and then stumbled off, reeling under the weight of rage.
Copper Thoughts occurred to me suddenly. I headed for the Goblin market, and then the street of Joy.
I found myself before the Shaman’s house.
Again, I pounded on the door.
“Copper Thoughts,” I roared, “come out and fight. It’s a good night to die.”
“Go away beast,” a feminine voice said.
I turned. Many Faces stood a few feet away from me. Her tame Giant stood behind her.
“Copper Thoughts...”
“Is not here,” she finished for me.
“I want to fight him,” I roared. “Now!”
“The choice of time and place,” she said, “is the prerogative of shamans. Not beasts. Go now.”
“You cannot tell an Arukh what to do.”
“Take three steps towards me and a dozen arrows will fill you.”
I snarled and rocked on my heels.
“You say that like it would save you,” I growled.
The nest did not save them, the thought came unbidden. I pushed it away.
An expression flickered across her brow for a second. Fear? Good.
Then she frowned.
“What is wrong with you?”
I froze.
The nest...
“Nothing,” I snarled. “Arrah. Nothing. Mermaid’s talk, just talk. Mermaid’s sing. Just noise.”
“The Mermaids sang for you?” she seemed shocked.
Damned liars.
“Nothing wrong, nothing wrong. Arukh can’t be hurt. Arukh can only be killed. That’s all. Everyone fears Arukh.”
She stared at me. I didn’t like the look in her eye. It was too soft.
“The Mermaids never meant to hurt you,” she said.
I froze. She was dead. I would tear her apart, no matter what.
She turned and walked away, stepping behind the Giant.
“Go home,” she said.
I charged but stopped short of the Giant.
“Go home,” the Giant said, not unkindly. “Whatever it is, it will fade. I will not fight you unless you make me. Go home.”
I was not foolish enough to attack a Giant, though I found myself wishing it would come for me. I swore at it, but it only told me to go home again.
I was not angry with it anyway. I turned and stalked off. It was the stinking Mermaids, I hated.
I longed to fight them.
But there’d be no fight. Mermaids were no fighters. They were not made for it. They swam and danced in the water, sure, but pull them out onto land, they couldn’t fight. They couldn’t hurt you, make you feel pain. They’d only die. They’d cut to pieces so easy, screaming and crying all the while...
I thought of Mira’s mutilated, butchered body.
She’d screamed and cried, cut to pieces, bleeding and dying while something laughed on top of her.
My gorge rose.
I didn’t want to fight Mermaids, I decided suddenly. No sport, only butchery. It would not slake my rage. They couldn’t struggle enough. I wanted them to struggle. To fight. To make me feel it as I tore their lives out. To feel pain and make them feel pain. They couldn’t make me feel pain.
“Arrah,” I growled.
Mermaids couldn’t hurt me.
Why did I rage? It was a surprising thought. One felt, one didn’t question feelings. It was self-evident. One felt hunger, one felt tired, one felt lust and hate and anger. It didn’t matter why. All that mattered was that you did.
“Arrah! Arrah!” I roared at the night.
I pushed the thought away, and stumbled to the Troll’s Lodge.
Other Arukh were up. I hated the sight of their stupid, ugly, malicious faces. I pushed one or two down, the rest got away from me.
I swung around and around, growling at them.
Then I went back out and climbed to the top of the Lodge’s roof.
“Arrah!” I bellowed into the night. No longer rage, but some strange intense emotion I could not describe swept me in its grip. “Arrah! Arrah!”
Over and over, I’d yell and pause and yell some more.
There was a sound on the roof.
The young female had followed me up, she watched me from the corner of the roof.
“Get away,” I snarled. “Get away or I’ll kill you.”
I meant it.
She backed away, staring at me, but didn’t leave.
“Get away.”
I rushed her.
She scrambled backwards, until she was just clinging to the edge. She could be gone before I came any closer.
“Arrah,” I snarled at her, but she didn’t give any further, just watched with her glittering eyes. “Arrah!”
I stalked back to the top of the roof.
I glanced contemptuously at her.
“Arrah!” I howled at the city, again and again.
I sat on the roof, drained of the strange emotion that had possessed me. I no longer howled my fury at the night. I watched the sky brighten as the sun came up.
The little female was still watching me.
“Stories,” I said to her, “just words. Nothing more.”
She didn’t reply, didn’t respond. Just kept watching me.
“The nest,” I said, “they were all dead, I dug and I dug, but they were already dead.” I felt immensely sad. She would not understand, I was glad for that. “I could not save them.”
That was all, I thought to myself. Just words. Words I’d heard many times before. So what?
The song?
It wasn’t just noise. It was a good song, I decided. But it didn’t mean anything. It was like stories. Just sounds.
Magic?
That had to be it, I decided. Someone had cast a spell on me, had made me feel these things.
The Mermaids?
I didn’t think so. They weren’t smart enough. Maybe they’d heard the story, but they hadn’t understood it, or they wouldn’t have played with me like that. They just weren’t good at lying.
Probably, I thought to myself, they hadn’t heard the story before I came there. Yes. That felt right. Probably the Elders had brought a Goblin to tell them about Arukh, after I visited. To try to scare them. That made sense. I nodded to myself.
The Mermaids simply were not very smart. They couldn’t deceive me.
The thought felt pleasing, I hugged it to myself. It made me feel better.
It was foolish to hate the Mermaids. What could they do?
Magic, I thought. Copper Thoughts? Many Faces?
One of them had sent a spell against me, had tortured me with a song and a story and a memory. Foolish. Arukh were stronger than that.
Whatever it was, I decided, it had failed. The storms had passed through me, had burned out their fires. I felt strangely calm and relaxed. I almost liked the sensation.
I would see the Mermaids again, I decided. Just to show them their magic had failed.
The thought
made me feel funny inside.
I left the Lodge, wandering restlessly. The city was still tense. I could see it in the way people looked at each other. In the way they started to distant noises.
My course took me through the Downriver, as I tried to grasp the song of the Mermaids. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to think of it. But somehow, I couldn’t stop.
I stopped to watch two dogs fighting. Moved on. I took smoke with a mixed group, asked about iron knives. They didn’t know anything. Moved on.
Inspected the wares of knife sellers in the market. Many of them were suspicious and hostile of Arukh, though a few had Arukh bodyguards. I showed silver and they became friendly.
There wasn’t as much flint as there used to be. Copper and particularly bronze, was everywhere. Iron? Not much of it. Generally, iron was provided specially. Sometimes even made to commission. Nobody’d heard of a knife like I described.
I bought stew meats, and retreated to a corner to think about that. It was an unusual knife I’d hunted. Perhaps made to commission?
A group of Horsemen passed riding. I watched them. They wore trousers and wind jackets, with hair tied back in braids. It was a style I’d been seeing more and more in Humans. The Horsemen were strong, I supposed, so other humans imitated them, trying to capture a bit of their strength, a bit of their magic.
I went back and inquired of a few smiths. No commissions such as I’d described. I put down silver for the smiths to inquire of each other.
By the end of the day, my searches had yielded nothing. Whatever history the knife carried, it was still unknown to me. I marked the setting sun. The feeding drums would start soon. Time to return to the Lodge.
There was a sudden rush of feet behind me. I sprinted forward, turning.
A Hobgoblin was almost upon me, stabbing knife out.
I roared and charged him. Hobgoblins were less than two thirds the size of Arukh. He stopped, bracing himself.
Just as I was upon him, a numbing blow glanced off my hip. He moved. Staggering, I brushed his strike against my forearm guard, metal ringing on metal for a second. The air whistled, and I barely stepped back in time to miss being hit again with a club.
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