“We can’t. We’re locked in,” Sera said.
Fins prickling, she swam to the far side of the pool. These wide, flat steps angled into the pool’s wall led out of the water into the terragogg room. Using her tail, she pushed herself to the top of them, then peered into the room. The air, so rich in oxygen, made her feel momentarily light-headed.
The room’s walls were covered in ornate mosaics. Logs were burning in a huge stone fireplace. Thick wool rugs covered the stone floor. On the mantel, on stands and on tables, were artifacts—amphorae, statuary, tablets with carvings, chunks of terra-cotta. Leather-bound tomes filled the tall shelves on the far wall.
“It’s a terragogg ostrokon,” Neela said. “Look at all the blooks.”
“I think they’re called books,” Serafina said.
Old oil paintings hung on the walls—portraits of long-dead gogg nobility. One captured Serafina’s attention. It was a picture of a young woman, not much older than she was. She was wearing a jeweled crown and dressed in an embroidered silk gown with a stiff lace collar. Around her neck she wore ropes of flawless pearls, a ruby choker, and a magnificent, teardrop-shaped blue diamond.
“Maria Theresa, an infanta of Spain, and an ancestor on my mother’s side,” a voice said.
In a heartbeat, Serafina and Neela were back under the water. When they surfaced—well in the center of the pool—they saw a man sitting at its edge. He was of a slight build, with thick gray hair that he wore swept back from his forehead. His blue eyes were shrewd and penetrating behind his spectacles. A tweed jacket, vest, and silk cravat gave him an old-fashioned elegance. His trousers were rolled, and his feet were in the water.
“Her jewels are exquisite, no?” he said, looking at the painting. “They were handed down through many generations, from Spanish queens to their daughters. Alas, they were lost when the infanta was, in 1582. She was sailing to France in a ship called the Demeter to marry a prince. Pirates attacked the vessel and sank it.”
Serafina, alarmed, began to sing a confuto—a canta prax spell that made the goggs sound insane when they talked about merpeople. It was the first thing any mermaid did upon finding herself face to face with a human—but Sera’s voice sounded tinny as she sang it, and her notes were flat.
“Please do not tax yourself unnecessarily, Your Grace,” the man said, turning back to her. “Confutos don’t work on me.” His Mermish was flawless.
“Who are you?” Serafina demanded. “Why did you buy us?”
“My name is Armando Contorini, duca di Venezia, leader of the Praedatori. This is the Praesidio, my home. And I haven’t bought you. Good gods! What on earth gave you that idea? You are my honored guests and are most welcome to stay or go.”
“You’re the leader of the Praedatori?” Neela said. “But that means you’re Karkharias, the shark.”
The duca chuckled. “I’m afraid so. A very silly nickname, no?”
“You don’t look like an outlaw,” Serafina said.
“Or a shark,” Neela said.
“I’m a lawyer, actually, the worst kind of shark,” the duca said, laughing. “My apologies, dear merls. Courtroom humor. Allow me to explain. The duchy was created by Merrow. For four millennia, the duchi de Venezia have carried out the duty she entrusted to us—to protect the sea, and its creatures, from our fellow terragoggs. I control a cadre of fighters on land and in the water. On land, we call ourselves the Wave Warriors and—”
“Um, Duca Armando? Are you actually saying you have terragoggs fighting other terragoggs on behalf of the seas?” Neela asked, a dubious look on her face.
“Oh, yes. Many humans cherish the seas as much as you do—and fight hard to protect them. The Wave Warriors collect evidence against pillagers and polluters, and then I go to court to stop them. In the water, our fighters are known as the Praedatori, and we are a bit…” He paused. “Well, let’s just say we don’t do things the usual way.”
Neela narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me very much, but in Matali, you’re called āparādhika. Criminals. A few weeks ago—and don’t even think about denying it—the Praedatori stole Foreign Secretary Tajdar’s collection of shipwreck silver. It’s worth nearly three hundred thousand trocii.”
The duca snorted. “Deny it? I’m proud of it! It was a brilliant heist. Tajdar’s collection wasn’t salvaged from shipwrecks. It was given to him over the course of several years by a captain of a super trawler in exchange for information on the movements of yellowfin tuna. My spies saw the goods passing between the two on several occasions. Need I remind you of the yellowfins’ precarious state? Their numbers have been devastated by overfishing. Your foreign secretary is as crooked as a fishhook, my dear. The Praedatori merely robbed a robber.”
“Are you serious?” Neela said.
“Usually.”
“What did you do with the swag?”
“I sold it to fund covert operations. We cut nets and long-line hooks. We set up field hospitals for the turtles, dugongs, sea lions, and dolphins injured by them. We jam propellers, tangle anchors, puncture pontoons—whatever we need to do to preserve aquatic life. It takes a great deal of currensea to fund it all.”
“But Duca Armando, robbery is robbery,” Serafina said, still mistrustful of this man. “It’s a crime no matter who’s doing the stealing. Or why.”
“Tell me, Principessa, if you were poor and had a child, and that child was starving, would you steal a bowl of keel worms to save her life? What is the greater crime—stealing food, or allowing an innocent to die?”
Serafina didn’t answer right away. She couldn’t argue with his reasoning, or the rightness of his cause, but she didn’t want to admit it. Not before she understood exactly why she and Neela were here.
Neela answered for her. “She’d totally steal the worms. Anyone would. What’s your point?”
“That sometimes we must fight a greater evil with a lesser one. The waters of the world are in the greatest peril. We have had some success in the courts of the terragoggs against the worst offenders, but not enough. So we rob robbers to further our cause. I am more than happy to relieve Tajdar, and all like him, of their ill-gotten gains if it saves one species from being fished to extinction, one more garbage lake from materializing in the Pacific Ocean, or one magnificent shark from being murdered for its fins.”
“Who are the Praedatori?” Neela asked.
“That I cannot tell you. Their identities are kept secret to protect them. Faces, bodies, voices—they’re all disguised by powerful songspells. They come from all swims of life and they pledge themselves to the defense of the earth’s waters.” His expression grew solemn. “It is not a pledge to be taken lightly. The risks they face are enormous. Many are killed in the line of duty. In this day and age, friends of the water have many enemies. Just last week, two of my soldiers died sabotaging a seal cull. I grieved for them as I would my own children.” Sorrow filled his eyes and anger filled his voice. “We have not yet recovered from that loss, and now we face this…this butchery in Miromara.”
At the mention of her realm, Serafina’s fins prickled again.
“Duca Armando, why are we here?” she asked, unable to contain her fears any longer. “You say the Praedatori exist to fight the terragoggs, but the attack in Miromara was made by mer, so why are you involving yourself? This is not the Praedatori’s fight.”
“Oh, but it is,” the duca said.
“But it was Ondalina who attacked us. The arrow that wounded my mother was tipped with poison from an Arctic sculpin. The uniforms the attackers wore were black—Admiral Kolfinn’s color. They were mermen, Duca Armando, not humans,” Serafina said.
“You saw what Kolfinn wanted you to see,” the duca said. “He had help.”
“From whom?” Serafina asked, frightened by the thought of another mer realm aligning with Ondalina. “Atlantica? Qin?”
“No, my child. From a terragogg. The very worst of his kind. Rafe Iaoro Mfeme.”
“IT CAN’T BE,” Serafina s
aid, stunned. “The terragoggs have never been able to find us, or our cities. We have spells to keep them away; we have sentries and soldiers.”
She was practically babbling with fear. She wouldn’t accept what the duca was saying. Couldn’t accept it. For millennia, only magic had protected the mer from marauding terragoggs. Humans couldn’t break the protective spells the mer cast, but other mer could. Is that what Kolfinn was doing?
“If the terragoggs can get to us, they’ll destroy us,” she continued. “Duca Armando, there’s no way that Ondalina would be in league with the terragoggs. Even Kolfinn couldn’t commit such a betrayal. No mer leader could.”
“Think, Principessa,” the duca urged her. “Where did the attackers come from?”
Serafina cast her mind back to the Kolisseo. She could see it all so clearly, as if it had happened only minutes ago. She saw her mother wounded. Her father killed. And thousands of troops descending on the city.
The answer hit her like a rogue wave. “From above,” she said. “Mfeme transported them. In the hold of a trawler.”
The duca nodded. “Three, to be exact. The Bedrieër, the Sagi-shi, and the Svikari. They were all sighted in Miromaran waters the day of the attack.”
“But that makes no sense,” Neela said. “How could he transport them? The attackers were mer. They can’t just walk up a gangplank.”
“We think he filled the holds of his trawlers with salt water, then lifted the troops aboard in enormous nets. Weaponry was loaded the same way. The sea dragons followed the ships.”
“What was his price?” Serafina asked bitterly. “Mfeme gave Kolfinn speed and stealth. What did Kolfinn give him?”
“Information, we believe,” the duca replied. “Most likely the whereabouts of tuna, cod, and swordfish shoals. Shark. Krill. Seal breeding grounds. Mfeme plunders the sea for any creature of value.”
“But Duca Armando,” Neela said, “why would Kolfinn want to attack Miromara?”
“Dissatisfaction with the terms of the peace treaty between the two realms. Ondalina still resents losing the War of Reykjanes Ridge.”
At that moment, a door opened and a small, stout woman walked in carrying a tray. Spooked, the mermaids dove again.
Armando calmed them when they resurfaced. “This is Filomena, my cook,” he explained.
Filomena set her tray down at the top of the steps. She looked at the mermaids, at Serafina in particular, then turned to the duca and spoke rapidly in Italian.
“Sì, sì,” he said sadly.
“Ah, la povera piccina!” she said, dabbing at her eyes with her apron.
Sera understood Italian, but Filomena spoke so fast, the duca had to translate.
“She asked me if you were Isabella’s daughter. She says you have her manner. Isabella is a great favorite of hers,” he explained.
“My mother comes here?” Serafina asked. “That can’t be. It’s forbidden.”
“Good leaders know when to follow rules and when to break them,” the duca said. “She comes to find out about the doings of the terragoggs and how they might affect her realm.”
Serafina couldn’t believe what he was telling her. Her mother broke the rules? That wasn’t possible. He was lying, trying to gain her trust. But then she recalled something she’d overheard when she was outside Isabella’s presence chamber. Conte Orsino had mentioned that the Praedatori had been sighted near a recently raided village, and Isabella had said: The Praedatori take valuables, not people. They’re a small band of robbers. They don’t have the numbers to raid entire villages. At the time, Sera had wondered at her mother’s dimissive tone. Now she understood it: Isabella knew the Praedatori’s leader, and she knew he and his soldiers would never harm the mer.
The duca was telling the truth.
“Do you have any news of my mother?” Serafina asked, fearful of the answer. “My uncle? My brother?”
“Or my family?” Neela asked.
“There are rumors—and I stress they are only rumors—that your uncle escaped, Serafina. And that he’s heading north to Kobold waters.”
“To the goblins? Why?” Sera asked.
“To raise an army. The Kobold are fearsome fighters, and the mer’s only source of weaponry,” the duca said.
His reasoning made sense to Serafina. The mer depended on the goblin tribes to mine and forge metals for them. The goblins made mer weapons and tools, and cast their currency: gold trocus, silver drupe, and copper cowrie coins. Neria had forbidden the ability to shape metal to the merpeople, so as to prevent them from using magic to create wealth.
“We can at least hope these rumors are true,” the duca said. “Eat now. Please. You must both be famished.”
Serafina looked at Neela and saw her own thoughts mirrored in her friend’s eyes. Can we trust him? The food could be poisoned.
“I understand your concern,” the duca said, as if he had read their minds. He rose, crossed the room, and took an ivory conch from a shelf.
“If you listen, you will hear your mother’s voice,” he said, handing the shell to Serafina.
Sera held it to her ear.
Serafina, my darling daughter, if you are listening to this conch, it means you are in the Praesidio, and I am captured or dead. You must put your faith in the duca now. His family’s relationship with our kind goes back for thousands of years. I trust him with my life, Sera, and with yours. Let him help you. He is the only one who can. I love you, my child. Rule wisely and well….
Serafina lowered the conch, blinking back tears. It was hard to hear her mother’s voice, to know that these echoes in a shell might be all she had left of her.
Neela gently took the shell from her and listened to it, too. When she finished, she put it down on the edge of the pool. “Sera, if he wanted to kill us, he would have by now. I doubt the food is poisoned.”
“Quite true,” the duca said. “Poison is too slow. They”—he pointed to the back of the pool—“get the job done much faster.”
Neither mermaid had noticed, but half a dozen dorsal fins were sticking out of the water. The mako sharks to whom they were attached circled lazily at the far end of the pool. Sera knew that makos were keen predators.
The duca leaned down, stuck his hand in the water, and rapped three times against the side of the pool. The sharks immediately swam to him and raised their noses. He scratched the head of the largest one.
“The best possible alarm system,” he said. “Smart, quick, and able to sense the tiniest vibrations in the water.” The shark whose nose he was scratching butted his hand impatiently. “Sì, piccolo. Sì, mio caro. Che è un bravo ragazzo?” the duca crooned. He tossed them sardines from a bucket.
The tenderness that the duca, a human, showed the sharks dispelled Serafina’s last doubts. Anyone who pets a mako and calls it “little one” and “my darling” and “good boy” is for real, she thought.
Ravenous, she swam to the steps and hoisted herself up them. Neela followed her. There were all manner of delicacies on the tray Filomena had brought. Pickled limpets. Walrus milk cheese. A salad of chopped sea cucumber and water apple. Sliced sand melon.
Neela ate a piece of sand melon. And then another. She pressed a hand to her chest, closed her eyes and said, “Positively invincible.”
The duca looked puzzled. “Is that a good thing?” he asked.
“A very good thing,” Serafina said, smiling. “Thank you, Duca Armando,” she added, reaching for a limpet. It was all she could do not to bolt down the entire bowl.
“You are most welcome,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s nearly five a.m. You must be very tired. I have rooms prepared for you and I hope you will find them comfortable. Before you retire, I wonder if I might ask you one more question…one that is very much puzzling me. Why did the invaders allow you to live?”
“We were wondering the same thing,” Serafina said, helping herself to a piece of cheese.
“Were?” the duca said. “Did something happen to give you an
swers?”
Serafina and Neela traded uncertain glances.
“Please. You must tell me. Anything and everything. No matter how minor it may seem.”
“It wasn’t minor. Not to Traho,” Serafina said.
The duca sat forward, suddenly alert. “What was it?”
“The Iele,” Serafina said.
The duca blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The Iele,” Neela repeated. “As in: scary river witches.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with them. The stuff of myth,” he said. “Simple stories our ancestors invented to explain what thunderstorms were, or comets. Traho obviously isn’t interested in make-believe witches. The word must be code for something, though it hasn’t come up in any intelligence.”
Serafina hesitated, then said, “It’s not code. We had a dream, Neela and I. A nightmare, actually. It was the same, though neither of us knew the other had had it until we were in Traho’s camp. The Iele were in the dream. They were chanting to us. And Traho knew about it. He knew the exact words to the chant. He wanted more information and thought we had it.”
The duca nodded knowingly.
“You are so not believing us,” Neela said.
“I believe that in times of duress, the brain—human or mer—does what it must to survive. You may think you had the same dream, because your violent and terrifying captor said you did and going along with him saved your lives. His suggestion became your reality. I’ve seen it happen before to Praedatori who’ve been taken.”
“Duca Armando, signorine bisogno di dormire!” Filomena said sharply. She’d bustled back into the room to retrieve her tray.
“Sì, sì,” the duca said to her. He turned to the mermaids. “Filomena is right. Young ladies do need their sleep. You’ve both suffered terribly. You must rest now. We shall talk more tomorrow. I shall call for Anna—she’s the housekeeper for the water quarters of the palazzo—to show you to your rooms.”
“Thank you again, Duca Armando,” Serafina said. “For the meal, for freeing us, and for giving us a place to stay. We’re very grateful to you.”
The duca waved away her thanks. “I shall see you both later in the day. While you’re resting, I’ll send messengers to the leaders of Atlantica, Qin, the Freshwaters—and to your father, Princess Neela, who rules Matali now in the absence of the emperor and crown prince—advising them of Kolfinn’s treachery. I know they’ll come to your aid. Sleep well, my children. Know that you are safe. The doors through which you entered have been locked and barred. The Praedatori are here to guard you. Your ordeal is over. Nothing can harm you here.”
Waterfire Saga, Book One: Deep Blue (A Waterfire Saga Novel) Page 12