The Mermaid's Tale

by D. G. Valdron

  “You again,” I said. “Come here.”

  Had she lead them to me? No, that didn’t work. She’d been with me.

  She didn’t move, just stared all wide-eyed and longing. I stood there, covered in Shaman’s blood. His life pooled at my feet. I grabbed his head by the hair, wrapping it around my fingers and dangled it out before her.

  “Is this what you came to see?”

  “You have killed a Shaman,” she said. “You have killed a mighty Shaman.”

  “Is that what you sought to know from me?” I asked. “Killing?”

  She didn’t reply.

  I bent down and ran my hand through the pool of Shaman’s blood.

  Standing, I held out my hand.

  “Come here.”

  She whined.

  “Come,” I commanded harshly.

  I stared, holding my arm out stiff, blood dripping from my fingertips.

  Crouching, she came forward a few steps. She stopped and whimpered, hypnotized by the blood on my fingers.

  I held still.

  Whimpering, she backed away a step, then ducked her head submissively and crouched forward, bending lower and lower.

  Half crawling, half cringing, she advanced, whining closer and closer.

  Now she was only a head’s distance from my outstretched hand. She ducked her head until it was below my hand.

  Mouth opened wide, cowering submissively, she began to lick the blood from my fingers. Cold shivers ran down my spine.

  “You want to know about killing?” I whispered, “I will give you the secret knowledge of killing.”

  She stared at me, eyes wide, making little mewing sounds in her throat, licking at my palm. I felt a wetness in my loins and hated it.

  “We kill,” I told her fiercely. Her tongue swept and flickered along my dripping fingertips. “This is what we are. There is no life in us, only death.”

  I felt a pang, like a sharp knife sliding between my ribs. This was what we were, rotting meat making more rotting meat? Why bother?

  “All things die. Him, you, me, everything. Remember it well. This is death.”

  “Remember,” I hissed, knowing that whether I wanted it or not, I owned her now.

  I closed my eyes, thinking of blood and Mermaids.

  “This is the head of Copper Thoughts,” I announced to the Elders, waving it aloft triumphantly.

  “For his magic was the Mermaid killed,” I told them proudly. “By his magic did his Arukh kill. I bring you justice.”

  After, I planned to bring it to show the Mermaids.

  “Mighty was Copper Thoughts,” I crowed. “But mightier still was I.”

  Several of the Elders looked away; some turned their backs to me. Only the speaker faced me directly, looking into my eyes; carefully avoiding looking at Copper Thoughts

  Confused, I held the head before him, so that his eyes were on a level with Copper Thoughts. I shook it a little bit, so he would look at it. His eyes never left mine.

  “Is that all?” he said softly.

  I cocked my head and lowered Copper Thoughts until he dangled from my fingers.

  “Finding death and ruin, we can only make more? Is this the best in you? To parade with the head of your victim?”

  “He’s dead,” I said, my pride deflating. “I killed him.”

  “For what purpose do you take the head?”

  “I killed him,” I said plaintively.

  “Yes.”

  I felt relief then.

  “Mira is revenged,” I whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Something more. I thought for a moment.

  “No more killing,” I said. “No one will ever die like Mira again, not for him, not this way.”

  He nodded.

  “Good.”

  I smiled.

  “Tell it to be gone,” one of the other Elders said suddenly, “it disgusts us.”

  I disgusted them.

  My mouth went sour.

  I disgusted them?

  A slow burning started in my guts.

  They’d called me. They’d brought me to do that which they could not do themselves. And now they wanted me gone. Now I disgusted them.

  I growled low in my throat, my body imperceptibly swaying from side to side.

  I heard shuffling behind me. The guards.

  Another growl rippled out of me.

  The speaker stepped forward, offering his bare hand.

  “Touch me,” he said.

  Startled from my anger, I took his arm in my hand.

  “What do you touch?” he asked.

  “Flesh,” I replied.

  “We are all flesh,” he told me.

  I cocked my head, staring at him.

  “You, me, the Mermaids, Copper Thoughts, we are all flesh.”

  Behind us, I heard the Ublul close in. I tensed.

  “You could tear my flesh,” he said. “You could hurt me, you could kill me, before Slal could stop you. You could hurt others, kill them.”

  “Yes.”

  I was confused. Did he want me to? Was he asking?

  “But after, Slal would hurt you. He might kill you.”

  A challenge? I stared at him, trying to read his expression.

  “Yes?” I said cautiously.

  “Do you fear death?” he asked.

  Threat? No, just a question.

  I shrugged.

  “We do not fear death,” he told me. “Death is merely a necessity. We do not celebrate death. We do not care about dead flesh. We celebrate life.”

  I dropped my eyes from his, to stare at the severed head I held by its hair. Without quite understanding why, I felt shame. I had felt strong and mighty, but now, it was as if all that I had done meant nothing. Less than nothing. I felt suddenly that the killing of Copper Thoughts was like a shadow against substance.

  “Arrah,” I said softly

  “We did not summon you to make death,” he said. “We called you to preserve life.”

  “I don’t understand,” I replied.

  He smiled gently. There was no malice in it. He touched my face, his fingertips soft and gentle against my cheek.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “It isn’t expected of you. You may go now.”

  He stepped away from me.

  The rest of the Elders had departed while he’d spoken to me. Only he, the guards and myself were left.

  “You may go,” he repeated, backing away.

  It was over?

  Uncertainly, I backed up a step, the head of Copper Thoughts swinging from my fist with new weight.

  I turned and began to walk away, the Ublul surrounding me.

  Slal walked beside me.

  “You did doubly well to kill Copper Thoughts,” he told me. “A powerful Shaman that, difficult to kill, and a terrible one, needing to be killed.”

  I felt lighter with these words, as if he’d given me something I’d craved but not gotten from the Elders.

  Approval? Respect?

  I decided suddenly that I liked him. Suddenly, he was more than just another guard, more than some stolid, featureless, mass to kill or be killed, to fight or flee. I glanced at him.

  “Do not show this to the Mermaids,” Slal advised.

  I cocked my head. How had he known my plans? And why should he challenge them? I felt my sudden affection betrayed. He was just as empty of feeling as the Elders.

  “You can’t stop me,” I snapped at him.

  “I would that they did not see this truth in you. I would not have them hold this knowledge. If you do, they will know you for what you are.”

  What I was?

  A mighty warrior, destroyer of their enemies, avenger of their wrongs?

  No, they
were not made that way, I realized. They would not see this.

  They’d see a grinning monster parading about with grisly relics. An abomination. A killer.

  A killer.

  Abruptly, I turned away from Slal and started walking, my heart pounding, my feet kicking fiercely at the ground.

  “I would that they did not see this truth in you,” rang in my ears.

  My throat tightened. How dare he? Abruptly, I wanted to turn back to Slal. To tear his throat out as I’d torn Copper Thoughts. To make him bleed, to suffer, to feel pain.

  “The truth...”

  I didn’t look back. My eyes stung as if I’d stared at the sun. I blinked again and again to clear water from them. I gasped over and over, trying to catch my breath, feeling my heart pounding in my chest.

  The truth...

  The truth sat heavy on my tongue like a mouthful of cold ashes. I was Arukh. I was despised. I was unwanted. I was abomination.

  The truth...

  Vhoroktik’s words rang in my ears.

  Kill them all...

  “No,” I said out loud, startling passersby with my vehemence. “I don’t care. Let them see the truth in me. Let them see what I am. It doesn’t matter.”

  But I didn’t turn back towards the Mermaids.

  “I’m not finished,” I told myself. “I’ll go to the Mermaids when I’m finished. When I’ve done what I promised. Then I’ll go.”

  Kill the Arukh, I thought.

  And deep down, some part of me wondered that the best I could come up with for the Mermaids was to kill for them again.

  The truth...

  If truth had a neck, I thought bitterly, I’d wring it.

  When I was well away from the Selk Domain, I flung the head of Copper Thoughts as hard as I could and watched it vanish over the rooftops.

  “Arrah,” I bellowed at the world.

  “Ayah ayah,” the bearded Dwarf said and cast his throw.

  We watched the crude dice bounce in the bowl.

  “Nine,” said the Dwarf holding the bowl. “I win.”

  There was a grumbling around the circle. The bowl was overturned as several Dwarves began to refill their pipes, tamping bitter weeds down and painstaking lighting the base.

  Instead of taking smoke from small clay braziers, or common fires, Dwarves made pipes. I had tried them, once in a while, myself. It was a strangely barren and solitary experience, devoid of the sudden flush of heat, the stinging of the eyes, the tickle of smoke in your nose, as you bent your face to the fire, the closeness of companions bending with you. Instead, there was merely a little bowl held away from the face, and smoke sucked as if through a straw.

  Rather than take smoke from a pipe, I stood with the Humans in the circle to go and refill our mugs with beer. We waited patiently, handing over pieces of copper as the one armed bartender dealt with each of us in turn.

  “Somebody’s got to come up with a better way to make a pipe,” a Dwarf complained behind me.

  “Nothing’s wrong with the pipe, we need a better way to light it.”

  “Oh,” asked another, “what way is that?”

  “I’m thinking, perhaps a copper tool, heat it in fire till it’s red hot, and then touch it to the weed.”

  “Burn your hand.”

  “Keep it wrapped in something.”

  “No,” someone said, “here’s a better way.”

  As I sat down again, someone was making an impassioned defence of the old method of lighting pipes.

  I sat down again, my back to the door. This place was at the edge of the Dwarf Kingdom. Horsemen came here frequently, passing in and out as they did their business with the Snow Leopard Totem.

  I’d been here for three days, listening to Dwarves argue about everything under the sun and the moon. That was what Dwarves did, they talked and talked and argued.

  I’d changed my clothes, abandoning my torn jacket and tunic for leggings and windshirts in the style of the Horsemen. Their style of clothing was becoming popular among the toughs. I wore a version of the Horsemen’s wide brimmed hat down low, shading my face.

  Horsemen had been in here twice, since I had come. They hadn’t looked at me, and I hadn’t wanted them. A few Arukh frequented the tavern, as did Hobgoblins and Kobolds. There were enough of them so that I didn’t stand out.

  “Where do the Horsemen come from?” I asked.

  No danger there. The conversation always came down to the Horsemen.

  “I’ve heard,” a Dwarf said, “they came down by the west.”

  A Human scoffed.

  “That’s the Ytha people who came from the west. They aren’t riders, they go by canoe.”

  “I just heard that, that’s all. I didn’t say they were from there.”

  “Eastern plains.”

  “That’s Vampire territory.”

  “Vampires drove them out.”

  “They came from the scrublands.”

  “Poor lands for a horse folk.”

  “I hear they’ve been riding the southern edges of the Eastern plains, the Vampires weren’t letting them get too far.”

  “No,” a human said, “they’re from Zihgoshk.”

  “Zihgoshk is a Vampire city.”

  “It was, but the Vampires were driven out.”

  “So why aren’t they there now?”

  I’d heard it all before. The Fanir, as the Horsemen called themselves, seemed to have been drifting a long time. According to gossip, they’d taken a city or two, but hadn’t been able to hold them. They’d been pushed out of good lands, forced from one marginal land to another by stronger peoples. Finally, they’d wound up here. Finally, they’d somehow become strong.

  It was a puzzle, I’d concluded. The stories suggested weakness, a scavenger people, hunting their sustenance around the edges of other peoples, driven this way and that. The reality, however, was all ferocity and danger.

  They were ruthless. That much was clear. If the Horsemen had suffered, the lesson they’d taken from that was no quarter and no mercy.

  A group of Horsemen came in. The muscles of my back twitched, but I gave no sign and simply made my cast. Behind me, they took the bar table and began to talk and laugh.

  After a few moments passed, I casually turned, and while drinking, glanced at them.

  My blood froze.

  He was there. I turned back, without letting my eyes linger.

  A skinny Arukh with a dent in his head wasn’t hard to trace. Once I knew him, and knew that he ran with the Horsemen, all I had to do was find a place where he showed up from time to time.

  “Bastards,” the man next to me slurred. He was middle aged, with the heavy build that spoke occasional warrior and regular farmer, he had the stubborn look in his eye that I’ve seen in Humans of those trades.

  “Bastards,” he said quietly again, pronouncing more carefully. A couple of the Dwarves looked nervous.

  “They wiped out the Ghota,” he said, “killed every man from elder to child, left but a handful of women and not many of those. Old Terek, the Human King, he welcomed them in, they set his head on a pike.”

  “That was some time ago,” said a Dwarf. “Best not to speak of it now.”

  The Horsemen hadn’t been gentle. When they’d come, many Humans had fled to the Downriver. I hadn’t realized at the time that it had been because of the Horsemen. I’d just noticed that there were more Humans around. Most of them had drifted away, back to the Human Kingdom.

  “The way of war,” another Dwarf said, trying to sound philosophical. “Lives are lost.”

  “No war,” snapped the Human, his voice rising. “Treachery. They offered the hand of friendship, concealing their knives. They bought some and murdered others, and when they had all the tribes under them...”

  “Shhh,” one
of the other Humans whispered.

  The Farmer went on, completing his sentence, lowering his voice to a falsetto whisper.

  “...then Copper Thoughts called a feast. A hundred feasted that night, and in the morning a hundred throats were slit...”

  “I see you’ve got a game,” a voice said. We looked back. It was one of the Horsemen, a big grinning man. “It looks interesting.”

  He pushed in among us. Squatting opposite the farmer.

  “Now what were we talking about?” he asked.

  The farmer went pale. Fear and defiance mixed on his features. He opened his mouth.

  “Aru-” a Dwarf said quickly, then he glanced from me to the Arukh with the Horsemen. “-Vampires. You can’t trust blood drinkers.”

  The Horseman looked at the Dwarf. He had blue eyes. They glinted under his shaggy brow. He looked back at the farmer.

  “Now is that true?” he asked.

  The farmer glanced right and left, looking for support. No one met his eyes. His lip trembled. The courage of drunkenness had fled.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Ah,” said the Horsemen, “it’s those Vampires is it? Well let me tell you, friends; before we’re done, there won’t be a live Vampire left in this city. Nor any who stand with them. That’s the way of the Fanir: We know how to tell our enemies from our friends, and how to treat them both.”

  He left that hanging there as silence grew uncomfortable.

  “What’s this game? How’s it played?” he asked suddenly, his voice genial.

  One of the Dwarves explained the rules.

  “Sounds like good sport,” he said. “Set me in.”

  “Fine,” said one of the Dwarves, his voice shaky. “It’s the Hagrik and Hitokut, then...”

  “No,” said the Horseman, smiling. “I think I’m next.”

  “You and the Hagrik.”

  “No.” The Horseman pointed at the farmer. “Me and him.”

  “I’m sorry,” the farmer said suddenly. “I was drunk, I talk...”

  “No shame to curse the Vampires,” the Horseman said.

  Next to the Horseman, I saw a couple of Dwarves glance up.

  Someone behind us. I could feel my back twitching, the hairs standing up.

  The Horseman rolled. Two and one, low scores.

  “Go,” he said, no longer friendly.