by Liz Braswell
No one saw her. Her hands, useless for communicating, gripped the trident tightly.
She swam off, unheard, unseen.
This time she would be prepared. She took a bag, the kind artists used to carry their tools, and packed the few things she thought she would need. Carefully kept clothing, rescued from a trunk sunk when its ship capsized. Waterlogged but not worn. It had been so long since she had been up on land that it took a while before she remembered how to put together a complete outfit. Dress and apron and underskirt…The number of layers of clothing humans wore was insane. Would anyone even notice if she forgot an undershirt or underpants?
Also she had to remember to bring money—every kind of coin, just in case. Last time Eric had paid for everything. This time, should need arise, she would have to provide it for herself.
Then Ariel settled herself into the vanity and shooed away the decorator crabs, a little impatient with their crowding presence and constant need to help. She could remove the crown herself, and would not be taking off the golden conch. She shrugged out of the heavy mantle that hung heavily from her shoulders and gave her an older, more regal appearance. It was immediately whisked away by two mackerel who would clean it and hang it properly on a reef to stay wrinkle-and anemone-free.
She pursed her lips and blew on her golden shell—low, not enough to arouse alarm. Flounder came swimming out of the depths, where he had been waiting, giving her some privacy.
She flowed her hand across her body, like a tide: It’s time.
Flounder nodded and swam next to her. Together they rose.
They moved almost as one unit, his body bending back and forth in the middle, her tail pumping up and down in almost precisely the same rhythm. After a few minutes he ventured:
“It’s just like old times, isn’t it?”
Ariel turned and gave him a smile: so rare, these days. She had been thinking the exact same thing.
When her head broke the surface this time it was less revelatory but still exhilarating. The little gull was almost exactly where they had left her.
Ariel realized she didn’t have a sign for gull.
“Great,” the bird said. “I was really hoping you would come back.”
Ariel blinked. What a weird, banal thing to say.
“Yes, well, and here we are,” Flounder said, a little flippantly. “And by the way—this is a secret mission. No one should know about how the queen is leaving her kingdom to pursue matters on land…especially matters involving her father. Especially with the sea witch Ursula involved.”
Jona stared at him.
“Kingdom? Or queendom?”
“What?” Flounder asked, exasperated.
“The mer are ruled by a queen. Shouldn’t it be queendom?”
“No, that’s—well, I guess so. Maybe. Does it matter?”
“It does if you’re the queen,” the bird pointed out.
Ariel had to hide her smile; she would have laughed, if she had the voice for it.
“I will fly ahead and find Great-Grandfather,” the gull said, correctly guessing that her new friends were losing patience, “so we can prepare a diversion for the few guards left at the shore. We should arrange a signal so I know when you’re ready to emerge onto dry land.”
Flounder watched Ariel’s signs carefully and then translated. “A fleet of no fewer than…thirty-seven flying fish will arc out of the water at the same time, heading west.”
“All right, I will look for thirty-seven of the silver, flying, hard-to-catch, rather bony, but oh! very tasty fish, flying to the sunset.”
“What’s that in gull?” Flounder asked, translating Ariel’s curiosity.
The bird squawked once, loudly.
It sounded like every other squawk.
Then she took off into the high air without another question or sound.
Ariel jerked her head and she and Flounder dove back under the water. They kept fairly close to the surface, skimming just below it.
She could sense the approach of land—taste when the waters changed, feel when currents turned cool or warm—but it didn’t hurt to keep an eye on the shore now and then, and an ear out for boats. The slap of oars could be heard for leagues. Her father had told tales about armored seafarers in days long past, whose trireme ships had three banks of rowers to ply the waters—you could hear them clear down to Atlantica, he’d say. Any louder and they would disrupt the songs of the half-people—the dolphins and whales who used their voices to navigate the waters.
Even before her father had enacted the ban on going to the surface, it was rare that a boat would encounter a mer. If the captain kept to the old ways, he would either carefully steer away or throw her a tribute: fruit of the land, the apples and grapes merfolk treasured more than treasure. In return the mermaid might present him with fruit of the sea—gems, or a comb from her hair.
But there was always the chance of an unscrupulous crew, and nets, and the potential prize of a mermaid wife or trophy to present the king.
(Considering some of the nets that merfolk had found and freed their underwater brethren from, it was quite understandable that Triton believed humans might eat anything they found in the sea—including merfolk.)
Interested and curious sea creatures passed Ariel and Flounder, bowing when they thought to, staring when they didn’t. Even without her crown, the queen was well known by her red hair and her friend’s constant presence. It was a good thing she had warned Sebastian not to mention her mission; gossip swam faster than tuna.
She stuck her head out of the water and was delighted to discover that she had kept their direction true. They were at the entrance of the Bay of Tirulia, just beyond where spits of land on either side had been extended with boulders by the Dry Worlders to keep their ships safe. Inside these two arms the sea grew flat. On the southern side of the bay, the land was rocky and grey like southern islands where octopuses played and olives occasionally fell and floated on gentle waves. For a very brief stretch, in the middle of the shore near the castle, the rocks gave way to beach. North of that were tidal flats where the sea became land more slowly, gradually invaded by grass and rich brown tuffets of mud where all sorts of baby sea life began: mussels, clams, oysters, crabs, eels, and even some fish. Beyond that were the marshes proper, brackish water that mixed with a river that went, Eric had once claimed, all the way to the mountains.
And between the mermaid and the shore were the ships.
Small fishing boats with bright blue eyes painted on their prows to ward off bad luck. Fast and sleek whalers. Tiny coracles for children and beachcombers, for puttering around the marshes and low tides, for teasing out the eggs, shrimp, shellfish, and tastier seaweed eaten by the poor but prized by the rich.
Towering over all of these were mighty ocean-faring tall ships, giant white sails unfurled, ready to cross the open water and come home again laden with spices and gold, chocolate and perfumes, fine silks and sparkling salts.
Ariel regarded these last vessels with a twinge of jealousy. They carried their human riders farther away than she had ever been, to places she had only heard of in legend. They probably sailed right over the heads of the Hyperboreans, without even realizing it. It seemed unfair somehow.
Then she noticed one tiny boat—no more than a rowboat, really—that floated apart from the rest. It was by itself and farthest out, right at the edge of the bay, closest to her.
A person sat hunched over in the prow of the boat, gazing gloomily out to sea. Ariel frowned, squinting to see better. She was tempted to paint over the blurry details with her imagination: a patch-eyed pirate or stump-legged old sea captain, chewing on a pipe stem, dreaming of his glory days and looking out for a storm that would never come.
But there was something about him…his hair was a little too glossy and black. And though he sat bent over, the curved angles of his back seemed still sleek with the muscle, sinew, and fat of youth. His hand reached up to pull his coat tighter in a strangely familiar gesture—
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Ariel gulped. If she had a voice she might have yelped.
It was Eric.
Without a splash she sank beneath the waves: soundlessly, immediately, eerily—like any sea creature that didn’t want to be seen. No drama, no excited tail thwap.
She hovered just below the surface, blinking slowly, heart pounding.
“Ariel…?” Flounder asked, nervous at her behavior.
She looked at him, chagrined. She made the sign, spelling out the runes:
Eric.
“WHAT?”
She held up a finger, translatable into any language: one moment.
Keeping her motions small and efficient, she swam closer to the boat, around the back, and silently poked her head above the water. There were, of course, sharp-eyed sea widows and captains, girls on the shore hoping to see something great and boys who wanted a prize for spotting a whale or its ambergris. But on the whole, humans were oblivious to the quiet world around them. She counted on that, and the sailor’s eyes on the horizon, to keep her invisible.
It was indeed Eric.
His eyes were still the same dreamy sky blue—or sea blue, right before the sea becomes the sky. But they no longer looked prone to crinkling up in smiles of confused delight. Now they stayed wide, focused on things she couldn’t see, miles and hours and worlds away from the bay.
His face was thinner, his appearance paler than that of a man who liked spending his days on a boat should have been. Still too healthy to be haggard, but not carefree.
His hair was much longer, caught back in a loose ponytail.
Although he had a worn, salt-faded cape over his shoulders, Ariel could see the trappings of rank beneath it: a crisp white shirt, several golden medallions, an unbuttoned but very fine and tight waistcoat. Below a fancy, wide belt of almost military lines he sported an incredibly well-tailored pair of trousers that obviously did not give as much freedom of movement as the old Eric would have liked. His boots were worn and seemed like an afterthought, like the cape, thrown on at the last moment. For disguise, or to protect the better clothes.
He kept staring across the ocean as if waiting for something. The tiny boat was anchored, Ariel realized. As if he had been there, or expected to be there, for a while.
“It’s so nice out here, isn’t it, Max?” he murmured. “It’s so quiet. You can almost hear…Almost hear…”
Ariel’s eyes widened. She saw the tuft of an old furry ear lift up above the side of the boat.
Hesitantly Eric pulled something out of his pocket. At first Ariel thought it would be a pipe—it seemed appropriate for someone of Eric’s current age and station. But as he placed it to his lips she realized that it was a tiny instrument. Smaller than the recorder he used to carry around with him, and fatter. More like an ocarina, the instrument humans used to play in the days they still talked to animals and merfolk.
He took a breath and waited for a moment.
Then he played a few notes. Quietly and slowly.
Ariel’s heart nearly stopped.
It was the song she had sung after she rescued him, the song that had burst unbidden out of her heart as he lay there, unconscious. It described the beauty of the sea and the land and the mortality of humans and the wonder of life. It had poured out of her like life itself.
Hearing it again was the sweetest pain she had ever experienced. Far deeper even than having her tail split in twain for legs. It coursed through her whole body, hurt and recognition and pleasure all at once.
He played only the first dozen notes, then trailed off. Listening.
Waiting.
Ariel opened her mouth, willed the notes to come out. She closed her eyes and tried to squeeze them from her heart, from her lungs. Didn’t love break all spells? What was the good of it otherwise? Please, please, Old Gods. Let me sing…just this once….
But all was silent.
“Mmrl?”
Max’s little questioning noise caused Eric to blink, and Ariel to curse.
“No, I know I didn’t use it in the opera,” Eric said as if he were answering a much more coherent question from the dog. “I know, it would have been perfect. But it didn’t seem right somehow….I needed to save it for…for…”
He blinked suddenly and smiled at himself.
“That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, Max?” He grinned and scruffled the dog’s ears. Ariel dipped lower into the water, melting at his smile. Still! When he smiled it was like the whole world was smiling, his lips pulled the sky like a rainbow, the sun danced in laughter. She felt utterly helpless and stupid. Queen of the Sea! Brought to her fins by one silly smile.
Eric sighed. “Thanks for joining me on these little expeditions, Max. I know they wear you out. But out here, it’s almost like I’m…clearheaded. Or slipping deeper, into another dream. One or the other. They’re the same. Oh, I don’t know.”
He sighed, clenching his hand around the ocarina in frustration. For a moment Ariel thought he was going to hurl it into the sea, as he had his recorder so many years before. But he brought it to his lips and played the dozen notes again, letting them die into the breeze.
Ariel didn’t try to finish the tune this time. Tears leaked out of the sides of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, joining the briny sea.
Finally Eric put his ocarina away. “Come on, let’s head back before the missus decides we’ve been out on our walkies too long.” He pulled the anchor and took up the oars, expertly turning the little boat around with no wake and little effort.
As the prow swung out closer to Ariel, Max began to shuffle to his feet.
“Mmmrrl?”
He tried to look over the side of the boat, sensing that something was off.
Ariel dipped low into the water. She doubted the dog could see very well now, much less through the matted locks over his eyes. He put his nose to the air, sniffing…but Eric was rowing away, back toward shore.
Ariel watched them go, the old dog and his master on the tiny, tiny boat—the man who once commanded a ship as large as a castle and the heart of the sea king’s daughter.
Flounder stuck his head up out of the water next to her.
“That sure was Eric,” the fish said. “Wow, he looked so different.”
Ariel signed absently: I’m sure he’d say the same about you.
“Hey,” Flounder said a little shyly, a little proudly, swaying back and forth in the water to admire his own belly. “I have an official position in the castle now. I have to keep up my weight!”
Ariel smiled.
But these were all just words meant to diffuse the tension and emotional weight of the moment. They didn’t mean anything. Flounder was really asking if she was all right, and saying that he was there for her.
So little actual communication was represented by words that were said aloud, she had realized upon losing her voice. Often the real meaning lay underneath and unspoken.
Sometimes people forgot that she wasn’t deaf as well as mute, and then the conversations got really interesting.
They scooted together just below the surface. The water turned and began to stink of organic matter, tar, things alien to the ocean. While the overall smell was a little much for a mer, human activity and refuse often meant extra food for the fish who dared to live so close to the shore. Covering every stony and wooden surface underwater were razor-sharp barnacles; ebon black bouquets of mussels; clusters of soft purple velvety tube worms, all mouth and utterly harmless. Crabs braver and less artistically inclined than Sebastian endlessly clambered up and down piers and shipwrecks. Sometimes one would wave to her and then drop to the ocean floor, unable to hang on with one claw, and tirelessly begin the climb again.
The way to the castle was a bit of an obstacle course between the trawling nets that scooped up everything on the floor of the bay, regardless of its edibility, and the raw sewage that leaked out of giant pipes hanging over the water. They had to swim a broad way around the marsh: water billowing out from a drainage creek was a
n unhealthy bright yellow. The seepage blossomed and flowed into the sea as pretty as an octopus’s ink, but it burned Ariel’s scales. What were the humans doing up there?
When they made it to the blessedly cleaner waters near the castle (built a bit removed from the commercial center of town, specifically to avoid the bad airs and plagues), Ariel spun through the currents like an otter, shaking out her hair and ruffling her scales free of filth. Then she and Flounder popped to the surface and looked around.
There were exactly eight guards posted along the beach and at the entrance of the lagoon where she had once saved Eric. Easily a third as many as the last time she had tried to approach the castle. One was trimming his nails with a small knife; another had his boots off so he could rest his feet in the sand. Not a single man was taking his job seriously.
And why should they? The foreign princess of the castle had ordered soldiers to guard the beach against the incursion of…an unspecified pelagic threat. Possibly a mermaid. Who on earth would take that seriously?
Maybe…maybe this really will work this time.
A squawk drew Ariel’s attention skyward. Seemingly innocent, a half dozen shining white seagulls soared picturesquely above the beach. Well, one had greyish underwings and a grey tuft of unlikely feathers sprouting on his head. Another, smaller than the others, trailed the grey one—Scuttle and Jona.
They were ready, waiting for the signal.
“On it,” Flounder said, gliding off.
Ariel waited in the water while he sought out a flying fish and conveyed her orders. Just a few moments later she felt the shimmering vibration of the school swimming in unison, above and below the water, where worlds collided.
They were beautiful. Silver and winged, they took to the air as easily as they sped through the water, like the material world meant nothing to them: space, objects, water, air, time, light—they were all the same. They made the noise of a thousand large locusts or of the strange crackles before lightning strikes.
A couple of the guards looked up curiously.
And then the gulls attacked.
Ariel had to turn away, remembering that what they did was for her and that she should be grateful. She hadn’t been quite sure what to expect when Jona had suggested a distraction; she figured it would involve eyes and soft human parts and clawing and maybe the dropping of sharp shells on their scalps. What they chose to do was far less violent but devastatingly more effective.