Part of Your World

by Liz Braswell

  “I wanted to see you again to thank you for the extra coins and gems you gave me, but this isn’t the way I’d hoped we would meet.”

  “What goes on here?” Ariel demanded.

  The old woman made a face, the divots and wrinkles in her skin pulling into a rictus of contempt. “The castle is offering a reward for the capture of a ‘magical fish.’ A trunk of gold and an estate and a title to whichever fisherman brings it in.”

  “Magical fish?” Ariel repeated slowly, hoping she had heard it wrong.

  “Princess Vanessa has finally lost her mind—at least, that’s what some people are saying,” the woman said with a snort. “Maybe she never had one to begin with. Maybe she kept that hidden until now. But people don’t care—who would? A trunk of gold and a title for one fish. Whether it’s actually magical or not. But I assume, with you here, of course, there’s a chance it actually is….”

  “What is this magical fish supposed to do? What does it look like?”

  “No idea what it’s supposed to do. I guess that if it grants wishes, it’s probably not going to get turned over to the princess, if you know what I mean. They say it doesn’t look like the normal fish we catch around here. It’s slow-moving, and fat, with yellow and blue stripes.”

  For the second time that day Ariel felt a wave of nausea pass over her.

  Of course. Of course. She should have guessed.

  Flounder.

  Ursula had set a reward out for the capture of her best friend.

  Something changed in Ariel.

  Over the span of a single breath, the nausea subsided, along with the sadness and sickness and helplessness. Something far more solid—and terrible—took its place.

  “I would suggest you and whomever you love stay off the ocean for the next tide,” she said as calmly as she could.

  “What…?”

  Argent searched Ariel’s eyes, huge and aquamarine, clear as the seas in Hyperborea. She must have found something there. Blue anger? Or perhaps it was just Ariel’s confidence: the calm assumption that she could back up insane statements with an even more insane reality.

  The eyes of a queen.

  “Yes, thank you. Of course, I’ll tell them,” the old woman said quickly. “Thank you, my lady.” She practically bowed. Her earrings jingled as she ran away on her long, rangy legs.

  Ariel spun around and regarded the piles of fish, the laughing and angry men and women, the boats out at sea, one last time.

  Not caring who saw, she took off down the dock and dove into the water, her tail beating the water into foam before she was even submerged.

  Ariel surfaced just beyond the bay. She was consumed by fury over so many things: the piles of dead fish, Ursula tricking her with the carriage, her own inability to find her father, the loss of her voice, the loss of who she was when she first had a voice.

  A wave formed, swelling around Ariel’s body. It lifted her up higher and higher—or maybe she herself was growing; it was hard to tell. She held the trident aloft. Storm clouds raced to her from all directions like a lost school of cichlid babies flicking to their father’s mouth for protection. Lightning coursed through the sky and danced between the trident’s tines.

  Ariel sang a song of rage.

  Notes rose and fell discordantly, her voice screeching at times like a banshee from the far north.

  She sang, and the wind sang with her. It whipped her hair out of its braids and pulled tresses into tentacles that billowed around her head. She sang of the unfairness of Eric’s fate and her own, of her father’s torture as a polyp, even of Scuttle’s mortal life, slowly but visibly slipping away.

  Mostly she sang about Ursula.

  She sang about everyone whose lives had been touched and destroyed by evil like coral being killed and bleached, like dead spots in the ocean from algae blooms, like scale rot. She sang about what she would do to anyone who threatened those she loved and protected.

  And then, with her final note, she made a quick thrust as if to throw the trident toward the boats in the bay, pulling it back at the last moment.

  A clap louder than thunder echoed across the ocean. A wave even larger than the one she rode roared up from the depths of the open sea. It smashed through and around her, leaving her hair and body white with foam. She grinned fiercely at the power of the moment. The tsunami continued on, making straight for Tirulia.

  But…despite her rage…underneath it all the queen was still Ariel. Her momentary urge to destroy everything came and went like a single flash of summer lightning.

  She pulled the trident back.

  As the wave traveled through the bay it grew weaker.

  Not so weak, however, that it didn’t smash Vanessa’s anchored fleet with a satisfying, wood-cracking explosion against the wharves.

  The other boats, the fishing vessels that were out in open water, were tossed like toys or bits of flotsam and jetsam.

  The ocean rose and flooded the docks, taking the dead fish back to their home, allowing the few living ones left to escape.

  Eventually the water calmed. The wave Ariel rode slowly diminished, and she returned to the relatively tranquil surface of the sea. Dark clouds lingered but lightened their load by letting out a soft rain. The storm was over.

  Ariel dove into the depths, exhausted. Hopefully Eric would have the sense to realize their meeting would be delayed for at least a tide.

  She would send some dolphins up to rescue the drowning.

  She stood in the hall, one hand on Vareet’s head, a distant look on her face. Someone passing by might have taken the scene for that of a distracted member of royalty lecturing the lesser staff with a patronizing if affectionate air. But she was thinking about her three destroyed warships. She had been close…so close…to absolute victory over Atlantica.

  And now the explosive cannonballs from Druvest lay somewhere on the bottom of the bay, undetonated, useless.

  In a month, if she was lucky, she would have three new ships—and three was not enough. She wanted to make sure she had enough cannons and firepower to defeat whatever the mer tried to throw at her, and enough munitions to obliterate everything down there. Not to mention her failing alliance with Ibria. Once again she would be short three ships….

  As for the cannonballs and explosives themselves—well, it was hard enough wheedling them out of Druvest, and getting Eric to pay for another batch seemed unlikely.

  Ariel had ruined her whole plan.

  Again.

  Vareet squirmed under her touch as Vanessa’s nails dug deep into the roots of her hair and twisted them in anger. But the little maid had sense not to cry out. Or try to escape.

  Ursula wished it was Ariel’s hair she had her tentacles sunk into. Pulling and tearing those stupid red locks, ripping them from her flesh…Oh, how she would love to drag the mermaid through the water as she struggled and screamed, forced to watch as everyone she loved died….

  Unable to hold back any longer, Vareet let out a single whimper.

  Ursula looked at her maid with vague surprise, as if she had forgotten the little girl was even there. Vareet paled, plainly expecting punishment.

  But something else was occurring to the sea witch. A calm detachment settled over her like a warm current from a sea vent. Her rage dissipated as her next, her only action became clear.

  If Ariel would wield the power of the gods in this battle, then so would she.

  All she needed now was a time and place.

  Eric strode by, stuffing his hat on his head and buttoning his cloak.

  “Going off on your…post-prandial constitutional?” she asked hollowly.

  “Oh, yes, yes, walking does wonders for the stomach,” Eric said, patting his and trying to keep moving.

  “Tell me…Are you still planning the big performance? The free one, for everyone in town? That everyone will come to?”

  “Of La Sirenetta? Yes, of course. Why?” He looked unsettled, nervous.

  “I was just wondering. You h
eard the news about the fleet.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “Er, yes. Terrible,” Eric said. “I’m very glad no one was hurt.”

  “I think there’s something you should know,” she said, finally turning and looking at him directly.

  “Yes? What?” the prince asked impatiently.

  “As a result of this…incident…with the fleet, I find I have time now to devote to another project of mine.” She spoke almost lightheartedly. “Something big. Something terrible. Something your puny little human mind could not possibly comprehend. Far beyond my usual mad little witcheries. And when I am done, Ariel will wish she had taken my advice and fled back to the sea, far, far away from me.”

  She enjoyed seeing Eric’s face go pale. It was the only fun she had all day.

  “Pass the info on, if you happen to see the mermaid,” she added, walking away, pulling Vareet with her.

  The girl, resigned to her fate, didn’t even look back at Eric.

  Eric was already at their meeting place, looking nervous and fidgety in the moonlight. He tapped his lips with a piece of paper clutched in his hands. His eyes looked positively ghostly in the moonlight.

  “Eric?” She spoke softly. Despite being less deft on her feet than anyone naturally born to the Dry World, she moved silently, as all magical creatures did. And from the way he jumped, it was obvious he hadn’t heard her at all.

  “Ariel!”

  He put out his arms, then stopped.

  “What did you do to my ships—to all of our ships?” he cried.

  Her eyes widened. Not what she expected him to say.

  “Sorry, sorry.” Eric ran a hand through his hair. “No one was killed. A couple people were hurt. Weirdly, those at risk of drowning were rescued by a couple of friendly dolphins, and, if I am to believe what the cabin boy said, one particularly old and giant terrapin.”

  “Eric,” Ariel firmly interrupted. “I am the Queen of the Sea. I protect my people. There are rules in place to allow us and you to live side by side. But if something threatens my realm beyond the scope of those rules, I will respond with all the force in my power. We must put up with your fishing to some degree. But if I hear anything else about some sort of reward for the capture of my friend Flounder the ‘magical fish’ and it involves killing hundreds of other perfectly innocent fish for no reason, I will destroy every boat within my demesne—as well as the towns they launched from. Understood?”

  “Oh, the devil,” Eric swore. “I thought I caught wind of some foolishness like that. Now it all makes sense. Fishermen pulling in great piles of fish, looking for something….I heard the stink was unbelievable. Flounder is…a…friend of yours?”

  “Since he was a fry.”

  “I’ll put a stop to it at once,” Eric promised. “For now and forever. Believe it or not, things like this have happened before. There was a rumor once that the Narvani, to the east, believed that the poisonous spine of the chimaera fish would help with…Uh…Let’s just say it would help them have babies. It’s a deepwater fish, ocean floor, but that didn’t stop every idiot from just netting up every fish around and picking through them like an old woman through spoiled lentils.”

  “The greed of Dry Worlders continues to shock me,” Ariel admitted.

  “Yes, well, the greed of some tentacled sea-dwellers continues to shock me, too.”

  “Good point. I don’t know where the mer fall in that. I think their sin is complacency, not greed.”

  Eric sighed. “I wish I could see them. It sounds like a paradise. My kind of paradise. Here, on earth, in the sea. Maybe…someday…you could take me there?”

  He asked so innocently, so plainly, she was taken aback. He sounded like a little boy.

  Or a little mergirl, dreaming of the warm sand.

  “I’d love to,” she whispered.

  He took her hand and squeezed it. She held her breath, waiting for whatever was going to come next. He started to open his mouth….

  “But speaking of tentacled sea-dwellers…” the prince said reluctantly, instead of kissing her. “Vanessa has threatened something…well, large and unspeakable and terrible. Magic, I think. She seemed quite serious. She said you’ll wish you had taken her advice and returned to the sea. And she told me to pass it along to you.”

  Ariel swore and tried to lash her tail. Instead, she made a funny kick-kick move, which was far less satisfying.

  “Everything. Everything she does. Every time I think I have her beat, or at least in a corner, she figures out something to do! I get my voice back; she keeps me from going back to the castle by threatening my father. You help me; she threatens Grimsby. I think she’s sending my father away—and it turns out it’s all a trick, a trap. Now she threatens something vague and terrible. Is it true? Isn’t it? Who knows? She knows my weaknesses and yours. So we all wind up just like we’re children rearranging pieces on the board of a game of koralli.”

  “I guess that’s like chess?” Eric asked.

  “I guess.”

  They fell into a somber silence. The air felt chill and alive against her skin. The sky was almost starless because of the moisture in the air; not quite clouds, and not quite clear, the ether was veiled. The moon had set. Tendrils of breeze picked up the edge of her skirt. She sighed again and hugged herself, something she would never have done while she was underwater, queen. She constantly felt if she did anything that was even a little less than regal, she would be ignored even more than she already was when she was mute.

  “I’m sorry,” Eric said again. “I wish I had better news to bring you, but I’m still having no luck finding your father. Believe me, I’m trying. But I did find these things. This first drawing was among the military papers she still tries to keep away from me. The places on it make no sense to me at all—they are of nowhere I know. It’s where she was intending to send the fleet before you destroyed it. It’s not of any of our neighboring countries. Maybe somewhere near the western lands? Some uncharted islands off Vespucci? Or hidden in Arawakania? Or nearby, in the Ruskal Sea? Do you recognize them?”

  Ariel took the paper and carefully unrolled it. There were indeed blobs that could have been islands, surrounded by multiple outlines, like mountains that had been cut into slices and redrawn. She turned the map this way and that, trying to make sense of it.

  And then it suddenly clicked into place—like when the water is foggy with plankton and a current comes and sweeps it clear so you can see the reef on the other side, or when the sand stirred up by a blenny finally settles.

  “This isn’t a map of Dry World islands,” she said slowly. “This is a map of my home.

  “Ursula means to destroy Atlantica.”

  “Atlantica?” Eric asked. “You mean…your kingdom?”

  “Yes, look.” Ariel tapped at the parchment. “This is the Canyon of Dendros. This is the Field of Akeyareh, where ancient mer warriors fell in the battles against the Titans. Their bodies drifted to the seafloor and their bones turned the sand white. This is the Cleft of Neptune’s…uh…‘Back,’ a valley with hot geysers and occasional magma flows. This is the Mound of Sartops, where our priests and artisans tend to live; it looks out into the great depths of the ocean—some say to infinity. I know this map like the ribs in my tailfin.”

  If she had her tail right now, it would be tipping and thwapping the water in consternation. Kicking her foot didn’t seem the same somehow.

  “The munitions Ursula ordered…” Eric said, thinking. “They’re not to wage war on our neighbors—or even Ibria, as I thought she might eventually do. It all makes perfect sense now! Tarbish’s reluctance, all the explosives, the dynamite. She’s going to drop depth charges—they’ll detonate gunpowder-filled mines down on your city.”

  Death from above.

  Ariel looked at the map. She had no idea what those extra words meant. She understood explosive and your city. Ursula could direct her ships exactly where she wanted them, and then, thanks to the cursed gravity that made
life so hard for Ariel on land, the witch could simply drop the weapons on Atlantica and obliterate it. Eric talked about gunpowder and die-namite with the same trepidation he did her own powers.

  “By destroying her fleet you might have saved your kingdom,” Eric said softly.

  Ariel was seized by a strange fit of panic. What if she hadn’t? What if she hadn’t lost her temper and impulsively done that?

  “Why?” she finally asked, voice cracking. “She’s got my dad, she’s got your kingdom, she’s got me beat no matter what I do! What more does she want? Why does she need to destroy everything?”

  “She’s not a rational being, Ariel. She’s like…a walking mouth that’s hungry all the time. She sees something and she wants it. So she does everything she can to get it. She wanted revenge on your father and you. She thought she got it, and was content, and moved on to the next thing—ruling Tirulia. But then you showed up again. To stop her. You’re like an annoying gnat she can’t slap away.”

  “I don’t know what a ‘gnat’ is.”

  “Um…kind of like a remora? Tiny thing that bites you and sucks your blood and irritates you?”

  “I’m a parasitic fish that has latched on to her and won’t let go,” Ariel said flatly, trying not to imagine what the words looked like.

  “No, that’s not—look, forget the gnat. And the remora. She hates you, maybe just because you remind her of your dad. Weirdly, I don’t think she’s just jealous of your beauty or youth, which is how it would go in a traditional fairy tale,” he added, looking thoughtful. “That’s sort of how I made it in my opera, and it’s a motive that most people understand. Audiences love that kind of thing; jealousy is simple, it makes sense. But I don’t think that’s all of what’s going on here.”

  Ariel mentally replayed the scene of going to talk to Ursula about giving her legs, but from a different perspective—Ursula’s. There she was, a pretty, talented mermaid princess with a voice people would kill for, not a care in the world, and a future paved in pearls. And she had basically told the sea witch she was utterly discontented with her lot and wanted to be someone—and somewhere—else entirely.