by Cat Adams
18
Okay, that got my attention. Dawna grabbed my elbow. “Um, Celia. Maybe she’s right. Let’s go while the getting’s good and find a good place to hide and wait it out.”
I turned my head and gave her a look. “I’m pretty sure waiting it out isn’t an option during a world-ending crisis.”
“Hardly.” Adriana’s tone was as dry as desert sand.
I slathered on a layer of sunscreen. I’d finally figured out about how strong the smell has to be for there to be enough. It’s like sitting in a vat of coconut flakes—close to gag worthy. Still, it works.
Once we were in the car and on our way toward the 5, Adriana started to speak: “How much do you know of the first age of the sirens?”
“Not tons. That was the glory days of Atlantis, right? And when it sunk into the ocean after the battle between the sirens and demons, you all got relegated to a few small islands around the world.”
Dawna spoke up from the backseat: “I always thought the legend of Atlantis was really interesting. I’ll bet it was an awesome place. It’s so deep in the Atlantic trenches that nobody’s ever found it.” She moved forward slightly to catch Adriana’s eye. “Is it true they had electricity on Atlantis, even back then?”
Adriana shook her head. “I can’t speak to the question of electricity, although it is quite possible they harnessed the sea into batteries of a sort. But there’s a very good reason why Atlantis has never been found—it’s not on the ocean floor.”
That made me take my eyes off the road for a moment. “Come again?”
Her face held both embarrassment and fear. “Atlantis was the location of the last dimensional rift. Worse still, it was the sirens who caused the rift.”
Dawna’s jaw dropped and she unhooked her seat belt so she could lean forward. “Wait. I thought it was the sirens who saved the world.”
Adriana let out a sigh. “It was both. We had no choice but to save the world. We’d nearly ended it. Or,” she added with another frown, “more precisely, certain contingents of the sirens had.”
“Like Stefania, you mean?”
Adriana nodded at the corner of my vision. I changed lanes to get into the flow of traffic on the interstate. “Queen Eris had bred badly and her daughters didn’t hold the world’s children—the humans—in very high regard. Princesses Kraystal and Evana were of the opinion that the land would be better off without the human race. But sirens were at that time loathe to step too far inland, giving them no way to exterminate humanity. So they sought … help.”
“The demons.” I was starting to get sick to my stomach. “And now it’s started again, and I’m betting Stefania and Eirene had something to do with this new rift.” Adriana’s nod was answer enough. We drove for a moment in silence while I sorted out what I wanted to say. “So why change the history books? Why not just tell the world the sirens had a traitor, but you fixed it?”
Adriana shrugged. “Ego? Pride? I don’t have an answer. But I do know that even now my mother is going to be furious I’m telling you this.”
Oh! “So that’s why she was so angry when I asked about the Millennium Horns. Because it’s a reminder of the folly of the whole race.”
Now a deep sigh issued from Adriana. “No. Her embarrassment is from the second folly of the sirens—we’re not prepared for today’s crisis because the queens refused to believe the past could repeat.” I waited, and so did Dawna, until Adriana was ready to dish the details. After a long moment, she took a deep breath and continued, “When Queen Eris realized what her daughters had done, she sought the help of the greatest minds of the world. Human minds. To make the point to her daughters that sirens had to learn to coexist, she worked with members of what they considered a lesser race to come up with a plan to close the rift. It was a Greek philosopher and inventor, I believe, who first suggested the use of sound waves.”
I knew there had been some great minds in the past—after all, we still use techniques developed by the Romans and Egyptians. “I didn’t realize they’d experimented with that.”
Adriana nodded. “Of course. The island nations have long used conch shells as horns to signal over long distances. Humans were curious creatures. Where the sirens would choose any shell at hand to signal a boat or a friend across the island, the humans always tried to makes the tool better. This shape or that, the blowing hole larger or smaller to change the pitch. Queen Eris found people who showed promise and put them in the same room to offer ideas about what size and shape would work best. She then sent her best warriors out to find as many conch shells as she could and forced her daughters, as punishment, to find the one that would heal the wound in space.”
Dawna’s comment echoed my thought: “I’ll bet she didn’t give bathroom breaks, either.”
Adriana’s jaw set with either displeasure or concern for her own fate. “The warriors ensured they continued their task while the island was slowly eaten by the rift and the people were tormented by demons. The elder daughter, Kraystal, died of exhaustion after four days. It was Evana who found one that made the darkness waver and sparkle, after half of the island was gone. But it wasn’t enough by itself to seal the breach.”
Dear God. That must have been terrifying. For everyone. “So what happened? How did they seal the breach?”
Adriana raised her hands and frustration edged her voice: “I don’t honestly know and I’ve scoured our libraries. We know there were two horns and that the rift was sealed. We know Atlantis was swallowed into the rift in an implosion of immense proportions. There’s been no trace found because it doesn’t exist in this dimension anymore. I found notes from one scribe that said the method was written down and hidden—as were the horns. After so many sirens were found to be involved in the scandal, the queens decided it was best if the memory was forgotten, so no future generations would ever be tempted.”
My mouth opened and I spoke before I probably should have: “That is the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Are they idiots ?”
“Celia—” Adriana was tense, nearing anger. “You’re talking about my mother . For better or worse, she was—they were—trying to protect humanity.”
I let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, but if she was on the throne back then, what she and the others did was beyond foolish. Information is the only thing that keeps people safe. Diseases are cured by people sharing the clues from the dead; inventions are created from the ruins of failed experiments. Can we at least ask her what she knows?”
Adriana shook her head. “She doesn’t know anything. I did ask. I wasn’t joking when I said the memory was forgotten . They wiped their own memories of the event and left it to the scribes to keep the knowledge safe for the future. But either the scribes didn’t do as ordered or the records disappeared. It seems that there are pages missing from some books. But they’re very old texts. It could be that the sheets fell out and were thrown away by accident.”
I pressed my foot down harder on the gas in pure frustration and the speedometer needle shot past 70. “So, we have no horns, no instructions, and a bunch of mages who are going to exhaust themselves soon to contain a rift that will never stop growing?”
Adriana nodded and Dawna let out a groan of near despair. “Close. Very close. But only two of those are completely accurate.” My cousin pulled the black canvas tote onto her lap and extracted … a massive triton conch shell. “We have one of the horns. Our troops found it in Stefania’s palace after she died. There’s an engraving inside in old Atlantean cuneiform— Eris, who mastered the dark. It’s likely that she was the one to blow the horn. She had the most formidable power.”
I noticed the fuel gauge was getting dangerously low. “Let’s stop for gas. I want to look at that horn closer.”
In a few minutes the digital numbers on the pump were spinning upward and Dawna and I were admiring a shell that had survived for over a thousand years. I collect shells, so I can be a little jaded about them. But this was truly magnificent. “Look at the
colors . I’ve never seen a triton conch shell that looked like this.” Unlike king and queen conch shells, which are a creamy apricot and have jagged points and spikes, a triton conch is long and smooth, with dark spots. This one had not only dark dots and spots but also what looked like patterns of gold flakes and burgundy sand. I ran a slow finger along the etched figures that Adriana said were writing. They seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. “It sort of makes sense one of the horns is a triton. They have an amazing sound.”
Dawna was likewise running almost reverent fingers along the curves. “There are all sorts of carvings and paintings of the sea god, whether you call him Triton or Poseidon, using one of these to call his people to battle. And this particular puppy can seal the rift, huh?”
I couldn’t resist. I pulled it gently from Adriana’s grip and put it to my lips. She shrugged. “I already tried that. No noise comes out. Even though they don’t feel magical, there must be some sort of spell to make it work.”
I took a slight breath and blew. A low, mournful sound erupted from the opening. I’ve always loved the sound a conch makes. But Dawna covered her ears like she was in pain and Adriana dropped her head into her hands. God, it wasn’t that bad. But apparently I was wrong, because the car’s windows started to vibrate. There was a loud pop and a crack appeared across the lower half of the windshield.
Oops.
Adriana pulled the horn away from me and stared alternately at me and it with mingled fear and amazement. Dawna was trying to recover her hearing by shaking each earlobe and opening her mouth wide.
“Um…”
The horn went to Adriana’s lips. I saw her cheeks puff out, and then … nothing. No sound. And I mean no sound. “I have to admit that’s a little odd.”
“Let me try.” Dawna held her hand over the seat confidently and Adriana passed the shell to her. I turned in my seat to watch, ready to throw my hands over my ears. But again, no sound issued from the horn. Dawna handed it back to me with an odd look on her face. “What are you, the chosen one or something?”
“God, I hope not. I can think of a thousand things I’d rather do than ever stand in front of that rift again.” Adriana gestured, Do it again . Once more I blew, just a tiny bit—and the horn sounded. The volume didn’t seem to be tied to the amount of air. That spoke of powerful magic. The windows shook again, but at least nothing shattered or cracked.
Fuck a duck. “Let me say for the record that there have got to be other people who can blow this horn, and if it takes the next three weeks, I’m going to find them.”
There was a long pause in the car. It was quiet enough to hear the gas nozzle click off. I handed the shell back to Adriana and opened the door.
“We can do little with only one horn, so rest easy for now.” I knew Adriana was trying, in her own way, to be thoughtful. But she could have left off the “for now” and I wouldn’t have minded.
While I was paying for the gas, I checked on Gran. She told me the bus had come and gone while she was in the church across the street and she hadn’t liked the look of the driver. She decided there was no reason why she couldn’t stay where she was and just ignore the parts of the service she didn’t believe. I couldn’t find any fault with that logic and was happy to learn that the priest there was a former member of a militant sect. He promised to keep his sword behind the pulpit for the whole service … just in case. I didn’t tell her about the horn. She’d only worry.
We spent the next hour driving quietly with the radio playing bubblegum rock. I wish I could say I was thinking lofty thoughts, but all I was really doing was trying to figure out some way out of this.
When we were about an hour from home, something occurred to me. I clicked off the radio and glanced at Adriana. I could feel the furrows in my forehead. “Do you think the other horn is the same way?”
She got a confused look on her face. “I don’t understand. What same way?”
But Dawna got it and I could see in the mirror the moment she realized what I was asking. “Omagawd. That one in your collection!” At Adriana’s look of puzzlement, she explained, “Celia collects seashells and has a bunch of conch shells. But there’s this one, a king conch—”
I interrupted, “That has never made a sound. Not for anyone. My grandpa gave it to me as my very first shell when I was about five and I’ve always been disappointed it’s silent.”
“Do you mean that it doesn’t blow a good tone or it’s silent—”
“It’s silent like this one, ” Dawna said with significance. “I never could figure out why you couldn’t even hear air come out.”
My voice sounded very small and scared, because I had just remembered why the inscription had seemed familiar: “There are carvings inside it, too. They looked like the kind of scratchings a kid might make. I’ve never had them checked out because I figured my grandpa had done it. He said he’d had the shell all his life.” And we both knew that his father had been Queen Lopaka’s brother—who probably had also been around during the fall of Atlantis.
My cousin’s voice was thoughtful: “In the first age, the Isle of Serenity was the home of only the female sirens. Hearty seafaring men were lured to the island for breeding and then were sent away. Male children either were given to the father or … well, only girls remained.”
Well, the sirens certainly weren’t the first society to favor a particular gender, and even though I didn’t like it, I couldn’t change the past. “So why would a male have one of the Millennium Horns?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. It was a long time before we realized what had happened at Atlantis. The queens knew because Eris sent them word of the crisis, but the general populace didn’t. It wasn’t until the sailors started to arrive with tales of destruction and great floods caused by tsunamis that we knew for certain that the rumors had been fact. Could it be that a sailor found the horn and took it to a male siren?”
“Were you born yet? What stories did you hear?”
Adriana shook her head. “I was born many hundreds of years later.” But that still made her several hundred years old. Yowzer.
“Maybe we need to not worry about how they got where they are and concentrate on why they’re still here at all . If Atlantis disappeared into the rift, shouldn’t the horns have gone with it?”
Adriana’s head was moving up and down like a bobblehead doll created by Tiffany and Max Factor. “I’ve asked that since this one was brought to me. Of course we already knew Stefania was trafficking with demons, so I wondered if perhaps it was a gift from them. I’ve also been concerned that the horns were a double-edged sword of a kind.”
“Ooh,” Dawna said from the backseat. “You mean that maybe the horn can open the rift instead of close it and maybe that’s why the wicked queen of the west had it?”
Oh, that would be bad.
“Indeed.” Adriana’s perfect nails were tapping a staccato on the tote. I flicked on the right turn signal and eased into the exit lane. We were getting nearer to finding the answers to a lot of questions. “There is every chance that the records I’ve found are wrong—changed after the memories of the queens were altered. I fear using the horn unless we have some authority.”
I pulled my cell phone from the dashboard charger and tossed it backward over the seat. “Dawna, check my voice mail and see if Dr. Sloan has called back. I only called him yesterday, so he might not have, but if he has, I want to talk with him while we’re all together and nothing’s trying to kill us.”
There was silence in the car other than the clicking of keys. I could hear my own voice far in the distance, and then Dawna was writing on her hand while nodding absently—just like she did at the office. “Yep,” she said after a few minutes. “He called you back, and left a number. Want me to call him and set something up?”
“It’s illegal, so yeah, I don’t like to, and I hate the way calls sound on those Bluetooths. Or is that Blueteeth?”
She smiled and even Adriana let out a small amus
ed sound. Dawna paused and then her smile turned to a grin. “Two other calls, by the way.” Her voice went singsong. “John and Bruno both wanna see you. Celia’s got two boyfriends.”
I looked over to catch Adriana’s reaction, but it didn’t really mean anything to her. Why would it? She’s probably completely used to men falling over her. Dawna must have noticed Adriana’s lack of reaction, because she leaned over and whispered, “Her first triangle.”
I swatted at Dawna and she ducked. But Adriana let out a real laugh. “My first was amazing, but it’s also the most difficult, Celia—especially if you find them both attractive in return.”
“Oh, she does. Both are mages and both are completely hot .”
That grabbed Adriana’s attention. “Mages. Are they skilled?”
I nodded, fighting off the blush that was probably making my white skin a vivid pink. “Very. Bruno is more powerful, but John has an amazing talent.”
Adriana touched the tote as I came to a stop at the light heading toward the beach. “Would they be able to feel the magic in the horn? Perhaps even know what spell was cast on it?”
That was such a logical question that I kicked myself for not thinking of it. “It’s sure worth asking, but I don’t know if we can reach them. Were they still down at the prison, Dawna?”
She glanced at the time display on the face of my cell. “The messages were both about an hour ago and they were just leaving for the night. Again, want me to call?”
What the hell. “Sure. Call all three. Have the whole bunch meet me at the guesthouse. That’s where the other shell is. But I have got to have something to eat first, so tell them to make it in an hour or so and if they get there before us they should wait.”
I figured if they were early and we were late, we could focus on the shell and not on … well, less comfortable subjects. I glanced in the mirror to see how Dawna took my instructions while I turned away from my house. Her brows were raised and there was a small smile on her face, but she didn’t say a word.