The Mermaid's Tale

by D. G. Valdron

  “She never spilled blood in her life,” he said quietly. “Vhoroktik is right. We should kill every last one of you.”

  Vhoroktik’s sobs were quieter. Sad, gulping sounds, as if weeping exhausted her.

  “Who did this?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said carefully. It was not the answer they wanted. I continued, “but I hunt him for the Mermaids, and I will find him. I will kill him.”

  He seemed to think about this.

  “What if he kills you?”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. I thought about it for a second and shrugged. One way or the other, the problem would be solved.

  Khanstantin stared at me.

  “We have a grieving to do,” he said finally. “This wasn’t the first of our people to be taken.”

  I wanted to ask about that. How many? When taken? Where? I didn’t dare. My fortunes were perilous enough as it was.

  “This will be the last,” he told me. “You understand?”

  “I understand.”

  If there was another, they’d come for me for failing to find and stop him in time.

  “When you find him,” he said, “you tell us. That’s all. We have our own claim. Now go away.”

  Khanstantin went to Vhoroktik, comforting her. The others stood around watching me.

  “What about the Mermaid?” I asked. “Don’t you care?”

  He laughed.

  “No more than you.”

  I pulled my torn clothes together and recovered my knives. Bowing submissively, I retreated, trying to get my back to the wall and sidle my way out.

  As I did so, I stared around, trying to memorize the alley, trying to remember every detail. Earth road, thick blood smell, straw, bitter urine, excrement. Horses had been here, I realized, a lot of horses.

  I retreated far down the street, until I found a section of wall that offered shadow. I pulled off my torn tunic, examining it. I’d had it since before I came to the city. The delicate goblin stitching was ruined. A black lump settled in my stomach as I fingered the torn seams. I remembered the Goblins who’d done it for me originally.

  They were all dead now. I had killed them. I had torn my way into the nest, but I had been too late. They were all dead when I dug them out. Each of them, lost from all things, the world so much smaller and colder for each of them lost.

  Tears fell from my eyes with the memory, as I set to work with needle and lacing sinew.

  After I was sure the Hobgoblins had gone, I came back. There was little left in the alley to study. Any traces that might have been left had been obscured by the Hobgoblins.

  I asked questions. The alley was used as a pen, usually for cattle, but for geese, sheep, any game that needed to be kept from wandering.

  The Horsemen had used it last. Something to do with the great battle they’d fought.

  And the Horsemen had their own Arukh.

  Interesting.

  After that, the trail cooled again. No one I spoke to had seen anything of particular interest to me.

  I went to Goblin town. I avoided the Hobgoblins and traded with the Wild Girls. I got gossip and not much more. More bodies, times and places, little of use.

  The story of my encounter was already filtering through Goblin town. They all knew that my life had been staked against the next killing.

  I sighed.

  I would have to report these things to the Elders.

  Suddenly, I didn’t want to be alone. I decided to go back to the Lodge and see if I could find the little Arukh. Mad she was, but Madness at my back was better than death at my throat.

  Much later after I reported to the Elders, I made my weary way out to the Mermaid’s dock. I sat and waited.

  The Elders had received my report in silence. They’d nodded wisely as I told them of the cold red trail that lead from the Mermaid to other murders, but not to her killer. I had found nothing, and detailed for them all the places in which I’d found it.

  They did not speak of my visits to the Mermaids, or of my confrontation with the Ublul. Did they know of it? I thought they did.

  After my last visit to the Selk, I was certain that nothing happened here that was not watched and noted. Certainly no stranger could pass without being observed.

  Which perhaps meant that the killer was a Selk? Which I hardly believed; he’d started too far afield. Or perhaps the killer had found a way to catch a Mermaid away from prying eyes? Perhaps the Mermaids could tell me how such a thing might be done?

  So I had gone to the dock and now waited patiently, watching as the moon made its way into the night sky. There were shapes in the moon. I’d never really cared before. What were they? Signs? Reflections of the lands and waters below? I grunted. Little enough good it would do. The moon would not name my killer for me. I dropped my eyes to stare at its reflection in the water.

  There was a sudden splash as a body rose out of the water. For a second a lithe male form hung in the air, surrounded by spray. My heart stopped. It crashed back in. My breath resumed.

  I watched it turn in the water, making lazy splashes and waited for it to speak.

  “You came back!” the Mermaid shouted.

  Gari, I recalled, was the name Cara had used for him. He breached the water again, spinning back down with hands outstretched for a mighty splash.

  Further out I could hear other splashes. Mermaids began to head in.

  “Fierce woman!” they called, “Vampire!” “Blood drinker!” “Show us your breasts!”

  Soon they were dancing in the water all around me.

  “We brought this for you!” the one called Cara shouted as she swam right up and offered me a struggling fish.

  I reached down to take it. I bit its head off and handed it back. It was kind of crunchy. I chewed slowly and showed them my teeth. They hooted with delight.

  There were more calls for me to show them my breasts. I laughed at them, baring my teeth mirthlessly.

  “We will sing for you,” Cara announced.

  “No songs,” I said quickly.

  “No songs?”

  “No songs. I am here to talk about Mira,” I told them.

  They told me all about Mira’s death rites. Not what I wanted, but they could not be hurried.

  They told me of the massive woven bowery that had been made for her, and sent to float out to sea. The songs and chantings. The burning of grasses. It sounded quite elaborate.

  Eventually, they persuaded me to listen to parts of the song they were making for Mira.

  I sat nervously, listening to symphonies and harmonies, weaving and dancing in and out of each other.

  It was noise. Complicated noise. Very complicated. Parts of it were almost... funny, joyful.

  But it didn’t affect me the way the Song of Ara had.

  They would stop the song frequently, argued about this and that part of it, started over again, adding subtle flavours and notes.

  I didn’t understand any of it.

  Sometimes, Cara would halt and try to explain things to me.

  Little bits of music or explanation would come clear.

  But mostly, I stared at her, uncomprehending.

  “It’s all right,” she said finally, pulling herself up to my knee and then falling back into the water. It was as if she pitied me for not fully understanding Mira’s song. More than that, it was as if they forgave me for not understanding it.

  They’d said the song of Ara was simple. They’d made it so I could understand it.

  Perhaps the song of Mira was just as powerful, but I didn’t understand songs enough to feel it. Perhaps I could only feel the power of very simple songs.

  What were these creatures?

  “What do Arash do with their dead?” one called, quitting the song. I looked up startled.

 
“They rot.” I shrugged.

  “You don’t do anything at all?”

  Another rose out of the water. Incredulous.

  I showed them my teeth.

  “Sometimes....” I said, “we eat them.”

  A nervous giggle ran through them, and they swam closer, horrified, but eager to hear more. This strange news ended their play with the song.

  They’d been playing, I realized.

  Most races in the City did not like to be considered as food. Only the Giants were well known for eating people, though many stories were told about Trolls and Ogres in remote areas. Arukh ate each other, and given an opportunity, our enemies. In the City, it was frowned upon.

  “Sometimes,” I told them, “when an Arukh dies. If it is strong and brave, and if it is known and feared, then we will eat parts of it. To take its power away. To show that we are stronger.”

  Some of them spun in tight circles in the water to express the delicious horror.

  “What happens if no one eats?”

  “Worthless in life, worthless in death. No one cares. The body rots.”

  “Did you ever eat anyone?”

  “When I was twelve. My master. I killed him.”

  He’d taken me, like he always did, and then the blood of the new moon came for the first time. I thought I was dying. Rage and fear gave me strength. As he’d slept, I crushed his head with a rock. I crushed it many times.

  After a while, the bleeding stopped. I was alone for a time. The Goblins and the Troll had come much later.

  They squealed in mock horror and hugged each other. They swam out and then in, jumped and splashed in their excitement.

  “Will anyone eat you when you die?” one asked.

  Others shouted with grotesque glee at the question.

  I shrugged.

  The first male I had met swam up to me. He put his hand on my boot and looked up with an expression of absolute sincerity.

  “Promise us that when you die you will come to see us. We won’t eat you but we’ll care. We’ll treat you like Mira.”

  I promised.

  “That’s better than being eaten?” Gari suggested.

  I agreed that it was. He dipped below the water but suddenly rose up again to grab my boot. Startled, I jerked, but he held it fast. His eyes met mine.

  “Just don’t drink our blood. Okay?”

  In answer I pulled at my ripped leather jacket, exposing one breast. In mock surprise he heaved backwards splashing with his hands.

  Excited, several males arched onto their backs, displaying their prominent organs. A couple of females began to chase them back and forth as they hooted with joy.

  “How would someone take Mira?” I asked finally.

  “Ah,” said Gari, thinking hard, “they must have pulled her from the water.”

  “Could this be done?”

  I did not think it would be easy.

  “No,” said Cara. “We are safe in the water.”

  They told me the story of the Panther and the Beaver, and how the Beaver, helpless on land, drowned the Panther when it came into its element.

  Again, there was a strange cadence to it, as if it was being reproduced exactly as heard from another storyteller, just like the Goblin story.

  A harpoon, I thought, or a big fishing spear. Even a Kra Lance to hold the body. But there’d been no sign of such a wound.

  Perhaps a net? Something to pluck and haul the Mermaid out?

  Would a net show signs on the body? Scratches perhaps? Abrasions? Bruises? I couldn’t recall any.

  “She must have come out of the water on her own,” one of them said.

  “Yes,” I said. That seemed likely. “Would she come out for a stranger?”

  They grinned, bobbing in the water, shaking their heads in the negative.

  This was the middle of Selk territory.

  “Did she have...” I couldn’t remember the word, “friends... who came to visit her? Friends she might have trusted?”

  “Oh yes,” they said, “many Selk.”

  I had discounted Selk, I thought. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. I shrugged. If need be, I could come back again for the name of every Selk that knew Mira’s name.

  “Anyone else?”

  “Sometimes people come to the dock,” Cara said. “If they seem interesting, we will talk to them.”

  “Ever see Mira talking to anyone dangerous?”

  “Like you?”

  I grinned at them showing fangs. They shivered deliciously in the water, grinning back.

  “Never. There has never been anyone like you here.”

  “No Arukh?”

  “None.”

  “Anyone odd in any way? Anyone who seemed strange? Or secretive? Anyone who was especially interested in Mira?”

  They looked blank.

  I was going about this the wrong way, I decided. Too many Selk were watching who came and went from the Mermaids’ dock. He would have to find a way to capture her somewhere else.

  I grinned to myself. That’s how I would do it.

  “Perhaps...”

  I began to tell them about my researches. About the other body I had found when they’d brought me out. About the Street of Joy, and the Kobolds. That captured their attention.

  They found the encounter with the street shaman perfectly thrilling and romantic. I had gone further and inquired of Dwarf and Vampire and Half-races. I told them about bodies which had been found horribly mutilated, about others who had disappeared and never been found.

  The killer had moved from one race to another. The victims always young, mostly female. There had been no particular selection of the victims. Some had powerful and vengeful families. Others had nothing. I suspected that they were taken by opportunity rather than design.

  Which itself suggested a remarkable ability to travel freely in the city.

  “Flavours,” one of them called out, interrupting my thought. “He is trying different flavours of people.”

  I thought that was rather perceptive.

  How many? They asked. I took a number and cut it in half, then I cut it in half again. A dozen.

  They shivered in the water.

  “Do you know who?” Venn asked.

  I nodded. I paused for a second.

  “An Arukh.”

  I waited for them to look at me and see a monster.

  “It’s funny he didn’t eat Mira,” Gari wondered.

  I burst out laughing.

  They put me in a little boat again, and pushed me up the river, not as far as before, to a series of little, secluded coves.

  I stepped from the boat, examining the first of them.

  The cove consisted of a small, shallow beach. The land rose steeply, thick with densely packed trees and brush.

  “Goblin woods,” I grunted.

  Cara smiled shyly.

  “We like to come here,” she told me. “We like to play and talk. Sometimes Goblins come. They are good at making love.”

  That was what Goblins were famous for. I grinned myself.

  It hadn’t happened here, I decided. No horse could come here.

  The second cove was a little better, larger. There were traces of Goblin spoor, but nothing recent.

  The third cove was where it happened. It was no larger than the first cove, but flatter. The slope was gentler, the sand beach giving way to a narrow meadow and the trees not quite so thick as the other coves. A shallow pool ate into the beach at one end.

  There were drag marks in the sand. I followed them up onto the grassy strip, finding a spot indifferently covered with stained sand. There had been a lot of blood, it had sat on top of the soil in a puddle, too thick to seep away, too thick to dry properly. Even covered with sand, there was still the faint odour of rancid, r
otting blood.

  I stared. There was enough disturbance in the grass. He’d done it here, both the murder and the violation. A small trail of blood, smears and droplets... footsteps in the sand. He’d gone to the water, to cleanse the blood from his body.

  “Have you found something?” Cara called.

  I’d made them stay in the water. It was safer for them there.

  “Nothing,” I called back.

  Sometime afterwards, the body had been pulled further along the meadow. It was no longer bleeding, but it had been laying in its blood, and there’d been smearing. It had been dragged, not lifted. Probably by the hair, I decided, as I examined crushed and bent vegetation.

  She’d been dropped in a patch of wildflowers. I got down on my hands and knees, examining the patterns of crushed flowers. Their smell mixing with the smell of blood.

  He had taken her again in this spot, I was sure of it by the marks he’d left. What he did, excited him beyond all measure.

  I found the remains of a campfire, well hidden. Had he been waiting here in hiding for a Mermaid to come along? If so, there’d have been a danger that she might see the campfire and be warned away. Or perhaps the campfire was the signal, to lure her to the cove? Was this special to the killer? Or did Goblins light small fires to bring Mermaids? Or perhaps the fire came after the killing? I asked, but they didn’t know. Sometimes they came for Goblin fires, sometimes they stayed away. If there’d been an assignation a fire could have been the signal.

  I stirred the ashes with my hand, but they were only cold ashes, no way to tell anything more.

  There was horse spoor. I looked at the cove. You could bring a horse down here with some difficulty. It wouldn’t come on its own. I followed the trail, finding a small flat meadow further in, where it had been pastured. I did not doubt that the meadow lead to the horse trails I’d found earlier.

  When I returned, I splashed out into the water and got back in the boat.

  Goblins, I thought to myself, Goblins might have seen who waited in this place. I would have to speak to Goblins.

  “This is it,” Gari said softly. “This is where she was killed, wasn’t it?”