Double Life - Book 1 of the Vaiya Series

by Vaiya Books

  Five feet underwater, Ian heard the garbled voices of the men yelling something, before he heard four loud splashes in the water. Yet for all the noise around him, time seemed to crawl to a halt. As he swam through the water, a sudden metamorphosis came over him. His legs instantly melded together, his bone structure changing, before all of the skin on his lower body instantaneously turned into fish scales.

  A moment later, his lungs and internal organs altered as well, and his clothing--his blue jeans, collared t-shirt, and plain undershirt--were transformed into a close-fitting tunic, which covered his chest, back, and a portion of his upper arms.

  Full of astonishment at the necklace’s power, Ian caught the sound of an arrow whizzing through the air and instinctively tumbled downwards through the surface of the lukewarm water, using his new long tail to propel himself. He wasn’t a second too late--the bolt came within inches of piercing through his back.

  Terrified at such a narrow escape, he plummeted deeper into the water, away from the bolts of the crossbowman and the four angry swimmers, who he was quickly outpacing, before darting away from them at an incredible speed.

  Once he’d gone some distance, he opened up his eyes slightly, and to his surprise, the salt water didn’t sting at all and he could see clearly. Encouraged by this unnatural ability, as well as the ability to breathe underwater, he opened his eyes fully, and gazed down at his dark black tunic, in complete awe over how it had so suddenly appeared on him and how his old clothes had just as quickly vanished. The princess was right. This necklace was magical. Nothing else made any sense.

  Besides his amazement over the tunic’s sudden appearance though, the tunic was also a wonder in itself. Not only was it embroidered with dark purple starfish designs and adorned with shining red pearls, it also shimmered with specks of diamond dust that clung to the tunic as if they were sewn into it and could never be washed away. In all reality, the tunic looked far more magnificent than anything he’d ever seen before, with the few exceptions of all the royal apparel he’d seen in this world, and he felt himself to be wearing a prince’s garment. The princess had definitely outdone herself with this gift.

  Captivated by the tunic, he continued gazing at it with admiration, until a fearful thought struck him that the woodsmen could be upon him at any second.

  Turning around sharply in terror, feeling foolish for have wasted so much time when his life was in danger, Ian scanned around him in suspense for anybody, but saw no one, only scores of yellow-spotted fish swimming calmly past him, as if not afraid of him, and a fiery orange dolphin smoothly gliding through the water about twenty feet below him.

  Though encouraged by this, he still felt that the woodsmen might be in close proximity, and so he darted away rapidly and swam for over two minutes, before having the courage to resurface and glance around him.

  When he did so, to his relief, he spotted the four swimmers on the pier a great distance away from him, shouting angrily at their companions as if they couldn’t believe how he’d escaped from them.

  Overjoyed at their failure to kill him, feeling relatively safe now, Ian turned his back to them, grateful to be alive, and ducked his head under water again, re-analyzing his tunic, when he suddenly noticed his tail for the first time. How he hadn’t seen it before or felt it, he didn’t know, but at the sight of it, his stomach turned upside down and panic set in. His legs were completely gone--he now had a long fish tail instead.

  Horrified, feeling like he was suffocating, he continued staring at his cerulean blue tail, analyzing all its beautiful silvery designs and examining its length and texture, until he felt completely unsettled. Unlike some people in his situation, he wasn’t a bit curious to touch his tail and see what it felt like. The mere thought utterly repulsed him and sent shockwaves of illness through him.

  Entirely shook up and nauseated, Ian rose to the surface and surveyed the panorama around him, desperately trying to take his mind off his fish tail, and observed that his previous hunch that the western part of the lake did connect to an ocean was entirely accurate.

  Suddenly eager to see the ocean, he darted off like a barracuda in that direction, keeping his head above water, his tail swishing back and forth like a pendulum.

  As he swam under a large archway built from slabs of crimson red and obsidian black stone, he reached the ocean and gazed around him; all he could see in front of him was crystal clear water. Behind him, a wide beach covered with bright cream-colored sand, and two tidal pools summoned him. He could lie out all day on a beach like that. It was beautiful.

  Interest sparked, Ian was just about to draw near to the shore so he could check out what kind of marine creatures lived in the tidal pools, when he heard a sorrowful girl’s voice beside him.

  “Ian!” Taeria’s head emerged out of the water next to him, her eyes radiating guilt. “I never should’ve delayed you. They almost--”

  “Forget it,” he murmured, shaking his head around, trying to recover from the shock of her sudden appearance. “It was my fault. I should’ve listened to you.”

  But she barely seemed to hear his words. “Oh, Ian! I thought the ocean had claimed you. I was so worried.”

  Blushing, as he stared into her lovely eyes that had the same light blue hue as Hazel’s, Ian whispered softly in a tone unusual for him, “Thanks for caring.”

  “Thanks for saving me,” she said tenderly. “Those treacherous men have evil hearts. There is no compassion in them.”

  As the silence stretched on, Ian, wanting to remove the tension, asked, “So, how did you end up there in that cage anyway?”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, as her tail swayed nervously. “Please, Ian, I can’t talk about this. Not now.”

  Ashamed of his hurtful question, he stood in silence. “Forgive me, Taeria.”

  “No, Ian, you do not need my forgiveness. I was foolish. That is all.” She dried her tears, and then smiled. “But enough of this, we have much to celebrate.” Striking the water with her palms, spraying Ian’s face with water, she darted away from him as if she were playing tag.

  “Hey!” Amused, Ian remained motionless, waiting for her to resurface, wondering at her sudden swings in emotion. When she popped her head out of the water about twenty feet from him, he just shook his head at her, guessing all too well her intentions. “I’m not even going to try to catch you.”

  “You’re not?” she asked, smiling cutely.

  “I’m not.”

  Swimming back to him, her purple tail like a dazzling amethyst, swishing back and forth, Taeria folded both of her hands behind her back when she stopped four feet in front of him. “You disappoint me, Ian. As a merman, I expected you to be more playful. I thought you’d like water tag.”

  “But I’m still a human at heart,” said Ian, suppressing a smile, avoiding all eye contact with her tail.

  But she just gave him a dry expression, as if not fully catching his meaning. “I’m pretty sure you're wrong,” she said pointedly. Then, before he could reply, she laughed and swam back towards him, slapping her tail against the water and sending myriads of droplets at Ian. As he shielded his eyes with his arms, she just smiled, revealing her dazzling white teeth. “So, how do you like being a merman?”

  “It’s interesting … but it will take some time getting used to,” he said truthfully, hesitance in his tone. Truly, being able to swim so fast as well as breathe underwater, something he’d done subconsciously without even realizing it, was incredibly amazing and almost surreal. But was all that worth it for having a disgusting tail attached to him? He didn’t think so.

  Despite the doubt in his tone though, she seemed to not even notice it and in fact grew even more cheerful. “You’re definitely more handsome this way,” she said candidly, before grinning suspiciously, the sort of smile that Eddy would make before trying to trip Alan.

  Ian gave her a weird look. “What are you so happy about?” he asked, finding that she was sounding more and more like Hazel by the minute. />
  “It worked even better than in my dreams,” she replied delightfully. “Your face is like a pearl shining in pale moonlight. I never imagined it would work so well on a human.”

  Now this was not a typical response from Hazel. Succumbing to embarrassment over her poetic words, and not even wanting to know their meaning, he managed a weak “thanks”.

  Laughing at his bashfulness, she swam in circles around him and then paused once she saw the slightest ripple in the water. Darting her head to the side, she saw her father approaching, and she dove underwater and talked to him briefly, before resurfacing, holding out two open palms to him.

  Ian stopped abruptly, mistaking the meaning of the gesture.

  Sensing his confusion, she only laughed. “Come, Ian. You are invited to our kingdom.” Lightly striking his tail with her tail--perhaps as an invitation gesture--she then added, “Please realize that this is a rare honor for a land dweller to receive.”

  “I do.” He bowed solemnly, hoping that she’d never touch him with her tail again. “I’m extremely grateful.”

  “Let’s go then.” She dove under water, followed somewhat distantly by Ian, who wondered how he was going to make it in this merfolk kingdom. Though he really wanted to just make the best of this world and hope that when he teleported back to earth he’d easily be able to clear up any misunderstandings, the longer he stayed here, the more improbable that became, saying nothing of the fact that going to a city with half-fishlike creatures filled him with utter horror. If his queasy stomach didn’t get any stronger, he didn’t know how he was going to make it there.

  Darting quickly after Taeria, who swam with such gracefulness and ease, he sighed inwardly. He really should be enjoying himself more; it wasn’t every day that he got to breathe underwater or swim faster than an Olympian. Nor was it every day that he got to meet a beautiful princess and be a guest at her underwater palace. As strong as his aversion to fish was, he really needed to get over it and move on, if at all possible. Otherwise, he’d be ruining a once-in-a lifetime opportunity.

  With those thoughts somewhat consoling him, he swam for over twenty minutes, now rather deep under the water, gazing curiously at the bright, colorful schools of fishes that darted around him, the dark blue, green, and fuchsia-colored coral reefs that teemed with ocean life, the shiny purple dolphins that followed him, the blue-green seaweed arches that brushed against his face, and the myriads of different seashells that littered the ocean floor. Still, he didn’t see the kingdom.

  About to grow impatient, he scanned around him and caught the faint glimmer of a city in the distance. At once, his irritation evaporated, as a strong urge to check out the city invaded his mind.

  Curiosity pulling him onward, he drew nearer to the specks in the distance and noticed several golden-seaweed arches, perfectly symmetrical, shimmering under the water with a mysterious light. Surprisingly, though he’d expected many sentinels to be around the arches, as each of the three elven gates had multiple guards stationed at them, there wasn’t a guard in sight around any of them. Apparently, the merfolk kingdom was much more trusting and peaceful than the elven kingdom, a fact that set his mind at ease. The last thing he wanted here was to have a repeat of his bad encounter with the elves.

  A smile on his face as he pictured King Kadeth’s utter confusion upon finding him nowhere in the palace, Ian resisted a chuckle; maybe the king would finally believe in teleportation now. Or perhaps, more likely, he would simply think Ian a sorcerer who had turned invisible and had somehow managed to escape the palace.

  No matter what the case though, his respect for Ian had to go up slightly, as it couldn’t get much lower, and that fact somehow made Ian feel better.

  As his thoughts turned to Master Thargon, and he wondered how he would react when the king informed him that his victim had somehow disappeared overnight, Ian grinned and gazed beyond the wide arches to an enormous city, which pervaded the landscape, stretching for miles and miles, as far as the eye could see. It resembled the lost city of Atlantis, only it was much more vivid with bright pastel colors in nearly every building. His eyes widened with intense interest, his thoughts about the elven kingdom put behind him for now.

  Darting and twisting around in the water like a fish, Ian shot forward at humanly impossible speeds, at times reaching fifty miles an hour. The necklace had radically altered his entire body; besides being able to breathe underwater and swim extremely fast, he could also see very far around him with piercingly clear vision. What was more, the water didn’t even look blurry or sting his eyes at all, and it never got up his nose.

  Musing in wonder and slight disgust over his transformed body, he propelled himself forward and they soon reached the first of the five golden arches, which they swam through promptly. The other four arches were no different and once they’d swam through them, they finally arrived at the crystal gate, which led into the Kingdom of Yavara. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  Full of anticipation, waiting for somebody to let them in, Ian watched as Taeria moved closer to the gate. As she whispered a few secret words, the gate began rising.

  Smiling, she held out her open palms to him.

  Now recognizing the gesture, Ian, intrigued that the merfolk used a secret code to secure the gate, quickly followed after her through the gate into the Kingdom of Yavara.

  Chapter 17

  “Where’s the mermaid?” A young man with owlish purple eyes, leaned against a tree, his hands relaxed at his sides. His night-colored hair spiraled into curls that flowed down to his shoulders. His gray cloak rustled in the wind, temporarily revealing a yellow lightning bolt symbol underneath.

  “She’s escaped.” The woodsmen leader, along with his hunters, surrounded the youth. Supposedly hidden in the woods, a one-eyed man held a loaded crossbow, awaiting an apparent signal, though the young man had already spotted him and indifferently waited to see what would come of it.

  “How does the Forest Scourge let a weak, harmless mermaid slip away while trapped in a cage?” The young man flashed a wicked smile. “Explain.”

  The commander brandished his axe, as the young man noticed curiously that the man’s clothes were rather wet as if he’d been swimming. “A man freed her while we were away.”

  The young man frowned. “And why were you away? Please tell me, Jackal.” Stretching, he took off his leather shoe and shook the dirt out of it, before putting it back on. It appeared he had all the time in the world.

  A slight pause. “Caravan hunting.”

  “And did you get anything?” he asked, enthusiasm bubbling from his smile.

  “Ah, yes,” said the leader, more at ease, as he let his axe fall to his side. “And we only had to kill two people; the rest all ran--”

  “I’m glad you like your stolen goods,” broke in the young man, changing quickly from his happy tone to one of rebuke, “because you’re not getting any of mine.” Pulling out a thick woven bag of coins from his cloak, he held it out for all to see. “It’s too bad, because I really wanted to share. It’s a shame none of you did what I told you to.” He re-pocketed the black leather coin sack.

  Dargo, a lanky, ill-clad man, bridged the distance between him and the speaker. “We ought to get something.” His fingers clasped the handle of a rusty knife. “We’ve been on this stupid fish woman quest for over a month.”

  “Stupid?” asked the young man, placing a hand on his chin, wistfulness drawn about him like a shadow, as if he’d never even considered how this word could be used in that context.

  “Yes!” The ragged man shouted at the wind. “We spent two weeks doing nothing but sitting on the pier trying to earn the fish woman’s trust. Then, once she trusted us, we spent another two weeks of gentle coaxing and handing out food and gifts before she ever set foot in the cage.” He scowled. “Worse yet, we don’t speak fish woman talk. Because of you we even had to learn a little of that disgusting vowel-polluted language.”

  But, as if unconcerned about their hards
hips, the young man merely wrapped his cloak tighter, replying in a sarcastic voice, “First, she doesn’t have feet, but rather a tail.” He paused. “Second, in spite of your wealth, you don’t spend nearly enough on clothes. Be glad she ever trusted you.” He smirked. “Third, language skills are very useful for diplomacy. Even a little knowledge can go a long way.”

  “Not hard to say when you’re the one who just sat on a stump all day,” said Dargo, as he made no efforts to conceal the fact that he was sharpening his knife on a piece of steel. “Try doing actual work for once, then tell us how you feel.”

  The young man only appeared amused, as he located a comfortable looking tree stump and actually sat down on it, putting his hands on his knees. “Are you implying in any way that I’m lazy?”

  “In every sense of the word,” spat out the man. “If you’d actually helped us, we’d have gotten things done much faster.”

  “And what makes you think that?” he asked, his purple eyes shining with an eerie starlight.

  “You’re clearly a linguist,” replied Dargo, nearly tripping over his words. “Only such a man would find the fish woman’s repulsive language of interest.”

  Another smile dawned on the young man’s face, this one as calm as a stormless night.

  “You’re wrong; I am no linguist. Though I’ll admit without persuasion that among my many talents I am exceptionally gifted at languages.”

  “Conceited noble,” burst out Dargo, irked to the point of ridiculousness. “It’s a wonder you ever set your slimy tail in such harsh woodlands as these.”

  But smiling, he simply chuckled. “Last time I checked I didn’t have a fish tail … but I suppose with a little help from my mother it could be arranged.”

  These words set off Dargo. “You’re wasting our time, Kethin; we didn’t come here to chat nonsense with you.” He caught his breath as he launched another onslaught, his patience clearly wearing thin. “Obviously, though, you have nothing better to do. I get the feeling you’d listen to us all day.”