by Kirk Zurosky
The Worimi handed over the shells to Hedley, and they all gingerly patted Garlic good-bye before disappearing into the brush as silently as they had arrived. “Well,” Hedley said, “we have an hour before our meeting. Are you sure you don’t want to try some goat sausage?”
Before I could answer, a familiar figure stepped out from behind the midden. “I am sorry, Master of Masters, but there has been a change of plans.”
“Lovely!” I exclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder and noticing he was a little bit taller, a whole lot wider, and if it was possible, even more handsome. I made a mental note to keep Mary Grace away from this Adonis of the sea—like I could. I also noticed the set of his jaw was tight, and that he looked back at the ocean warily.
Hedley Edrick had noticed the same things, and his eyes narrowed. The Scholar of Scholars did not like anything or anybody to change his plans. “Pray tell, young man,” he said, “what events have transpired since we set up this meeting some time ago?”
“The Queen returned to our people after she left Immortal Divorce Court and found the high council was divided and her kingdom in chaos,” Lovely said. “With the help of the royal guard, she took control and reestablished the power she had lost while on land.”
“What was causing all the problems?” I asked, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the ocean breeze blew suddenly cold for a moment.
“Not what,” Lovely said. “Who.”
Hedley Edrick grimaced. “It was that bad scallop advisor to the high council, wasn’t it? That vile sea creature with a strong hatred of all things land—the one known as Orcinus.”
Lovely nodded. “In the Queen’s absence, Orcinus had just about secured the vote of the council to go to war. And though he hates all things land dweller, he does love the mortal custom of hierarchy. He now goes by Baron Orcinus.”
“Against whom?” I asked. “Who does he want war with?”
“The land dwellers,” Hedley answered. “Orcinus studied at my school many, many centuries ago. Even as a young boy, he hated the ways of the land and viewed mortals as bottom-feeders that were polluting the oceans of the world with their ships, farms, and industry. He did not stay at my school for more than a year or two, and now I think his only purpose there was to do research for his one true cause.”
“Which is?”
“Eliminating all mortals from this planet.”
“Begs the question,” I said. “How does a crazy, hateful person like Baron Orcinus get to be an advisor to the high council?”
Lovely sighed. “He comes from a noble family greatly respected among our people. And, Sirius, he is not alone in his views among the merfolk about those that live on land.”
“Lovely.”
“Yes?”
“Never mind, nothing, it was sarcasm,” I said.
“What?” the beautiful man asked.
I shook his question off. “So what was the original plan?” I asked them. “And do I still get to see Maria?”
I saw Lovely defer to Hedley, who shrugged. Did the Master of Masters truly have no answers? I had mistaken the shrug, as the Scholar of Scholars had reached to scratch his educated posterior. “Well, if the Queen were truly in power right now, she could rendezvous at our appointed meeting place with nary a challenge,” he said. “So tell me, Lovely, what has changed in the undersea kingdom to keep our Queen now tethered to her throne?”
“The Queen was fighting to keep the faction for war with the land walkers and those against it from splintering the kingdom in a bloody civil war. Even then, some elements of Baron Orcinus’s band of ruffians had taken to sinking land dwellers’ ships and killing any survivors. But the Queen was slowly taking back control . . . until . . . until . . .”
“Until what?” I pleaded. “Spit it out, man!”
“Until Orcinus realized that the Queen was pregnant,” Hedley Edrick stated triumphantly. “And he knew of the prophecy, and thus that the Queen had committed the ultimate blasphemy in his eyes—commingling the merfolk race with a land dweller!”
“Yes!” Lovely cried out. “Baron Orcinus’s minions kidnapped one of the royal guards and tortured him until he gave up the information.”
“Orcinus would do this to one of his own people?” I said, incredulous. “Who does that if he thinks the merfolk are so blasted sacred? No offense, Lovely.”
“The cause of the many is more precious than the life of one,” Hedley droned.
“By the time the royal guardsman was found, it was too late,” Lovely said. “He was a strong warrior, but no merfolk can survive the Atacama.”
“What’s the Atacama?” I asked.
“Only the driest place in the world,” Hedley stated. “The Atacama is a desert on the western coast of South America, and a place that hasn’t seen rain in centuries.”
“That Baron Orcinus is one royal bastard!” I said. “So where are the Queen and Maria? Are they imprisoned? If he has taken them to the Atacama . . . I will kill him if it is the last thing I do!” I bared my fangs and glared angrily at the ocean.
“No,” Lovely said. “She is not imprisoned. Well, not really. It’s kind of complicated.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
Hedley Edrick had begun pacing and absentmindedly nibbling on a bit of goat sausage. “No, Orcinus had to keep that information to himself. He has made a lot of enemies undersea and could not chance losing the civil war. To a lot of merfolk, war with the land dwellers would be far worse than a pregnant Queen with a half land dweller baby. He needed to make a deal.”
“With the Queen . . .” I said, nodding.
“He is now the Royal Consort,” Lovely said. “The deal was that, in exchange for his silence and a promise to stop pushing his war shark agenda, he would marry the Queen in a ceremony that would unite both sides of the warring factions and bring peace to the kingdom. She would remain Queen, and as her pregnancy became more obvious, she would disappear, and he would run the kingdom.”
“Did she marry Orcinus?” I said. “Tell me she did not trust him, come on, Lovely, tell me!”
Lovely nodded. “The Queen had to marry him,” he said. “She felt it was the only thing she could do to preserve her kingdom, buy some time, and protect Maria. Remember, she had no idea if you would ever come back from the Underworld. And correct me if I am wrong, but you are the one who divorced her, right? So what choice did she really have?”
I felt like I had been punched in the face by Hades again. Yes, I had divorced the Queen. I looked down at Garlic who stood ready to support whatever action I took. In Immortal Divorce Court, I had no choice but to go to Hell. Had the Queen forgotten that Hades was about to kill all of us unless I came to Hell willingly, and thus I’d had no choice but to divorce her? I had merely bedded my Healer a few times, but she had actually gone and married a crazed killer who wanted to extinguish all mortals. Why were there so many lunatics in the world? Kunchen and Baron Orcinus should meet and have a collective hate festival, and preferably kill themselves off in the process.
“All right,” I said. “If I am not going to get to see Maria now, I am taking my leave of you. Lovely, have a nice life. Don’t come visit. Hedley, I am putting off school for a little while. Come on, Garlic, get me back to Sa Dragonera. I need to see my girls and then think of a plan for rescuing Maria from her insane excuse for a stepfather.”
I began walking away from Lovely and Hedley, ignoring their calls to wait. Garlic snorted and followed me. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement from the ocean, and I whirled around with a snarl. Was I about to face Baron Orcinus? Instead I dropped my sword and ran to the Queen, who emerged from the waves with a curly blonde bundle of my joy in her arms. Maria!
I did not know whether to hug the Queen or try to take Maria in my arms and ended up hugging both of them. I grimaced slightly as I notic
ed a massive pearl and diamond ring the Queen now wore on her left hand. Was she sharing her bed with Baron Orcinus? Ugh.
Then Maria’s little hand shot out and took hold of the chest hair poking out of the top of my shirt. She was not letting go, and any awkwardness between the Queen and me quickly dissolved with a laugh, and she handed me our baby. I stared down at her in awe, and she stared back quietly and then smiled wide. By that time, Hedley and Lovely had joined us, and Garlic was yelping at my feet, desperate to see Maria. I knelt down, and Garlic promptly placed a well-aimed lick on Maria’s cheek, causing Maria to giggle loudly as I stood back up. She loved Garlic, and the feeling was mutual. “Doggie!” Maria said, to my amazement. “I want to pet the doggie!”
“You talk already?” I said to my daughter, looking into eyes that matched her mother’s. “Okay,” I said, kneeling on the beach again. Garlic sat patiently as Maria half pet, half smacked her on the head.
“And that is why the plan changed,” the Queen said. “Where were you going just now? It looked like you were leaving. Had not Lovely and Hedley told you I was coming?”
“Nowhere,” I said. “Just pouting a bit is all.” I stood again, and Garlic shook the cobwebs from her head.
Lovely cleared his throat, as always giving deference to his Queen. “I was trying to fill in Sirius Sinister on what had happened since our meeting was set up. And, well, I guess I was not talking fast enough.”
“I thought I was not going to get to see you,” I said, seeing her eyes narrow. “You both. So I was going to come find you. Both.”
“It seems you are always running off trying to rescue somebody,” the Queen said, and from the tone in her voice, she was not making that sound like a positive.
“It is what I do,” I said with a smile, ignoring her tone. “That and get married, but I see that is something you beat me to this time.”
Her blue eyes grew dark and stormy, and Lovely unconsciously stepped back and bumped into the already retreating Hedley Edrick. Perhaps I should have stuck a hunk of Hedley’s goat sausage in my mouth instead of saying that.
“You think I wanted to marry the good baron?” she said, poking me hard in the arm with her finger. “I came back to a kingdom in shambles. War was mere fathoms from the surface. And you? You had divorced me and left me pregnant and alone. You could have been dead, and some days, let me tell you—I really wished you were!”
Ouch. I opened my mouth to defend myself and remind her of the certain death we faced at Immortal Divorce Court. All of us, including Maria, would be dead but for the divorce. Still, I said nothing. Nothing that is, but, “I am sorry,” I said. “Truly sorry.” Over her shoulder, Hedley Edrick gave me a look of surprise and raised his thumb. He was the Teacher of Teachers, but some things even I had learned over three centuries.
“You should be,” she said.
“Daddy’s sorry,” Maria announced to the beach.
“Do merfolk always talk this soon and that well?” I asked.
“No,” the Queen said. “Do vampires?”
“I actually don’t know,” I said.
Hedley jumped in. “Maria is a very special child,” he said. “I will keep a spot open in my school for her. And sooner than you think, she must come and study with me.”
“That was the problem,” the Queen said. “Orcinus found out I was pregnant, and I was afraid he would use that to upset the precarious balance I had struck between those who wanted war with the land dwellers, and those who simply wanted peace. But then I found out I had another problem. A big problem. I realized that Maria can send her thoughts to others.”
“That she does,” I said, excited and happy to know what I had felt in the mountains was real. “She reached out to me and saved me from some snow demons in the mountains of Nepal.”
“I help Daddy,” Maria said. “Daddy need help.”
I saw Lovely and the Queen looking for me to continue. “But that is not a very interesting story,” I said. “Nothing really exciting happened there. Some other time perhaps. Do go on.”
“Well,” the Queen said. “I think Orcinus knows this. Maybe he thinks it is witchcraft.”
“No, it is called telepathy,” said Hedley. “At my school, Orcinus was anything but a superstitious ignoramus. He must be thinking her skill, or heavens forbid his own, could be useful to his ultimate goal.”
The Queen cocked her head for a moment, thinking, and looking a bit like her old self—gorgeous. “I don’t know about Orcinus being able to send his thoughts to anybody,” she said. “He loves himself so very much, I don’t think there is a brain on the planet that could stand having an internal dialogue with him, since the external ones with him are so blasted painful.”
“Now that sounds like the Orcinus I remember,” said Hedley. “But I have a feeling there is more to this. I don’t think it is a human brain that he is trying to communicate with.” He took out a leather pad from his pocket and burned in a few notes with his finger.
I opened my mouth to ask him what exactly he meant. Who was Orcinus trying to control? Or maybe the real question was what. But before I could speak, the Queen had my full attention, and once again my emotions got the best of me.
“The moment I married Orcinus,” the Queen continued, “I left our capital city and came here to far-off Australia to have Maria, leaving him to run the kingdom.”
“So no honeymoon?”
Hedley glared at me. “What?” I said. “Just asking . . .”
The Queen ignored me. “I did not tell him where I was going, but I knew his spies were everywhere. Only Lovely and the royal guard accompanied me. But one week ago, Orcinus found us and demanded we return to our capital.”
“He dictates to the Queen?” I said.
“I chose not to respond to him, of course,” said the Queen. “I answer to no man.” She stopped talking for the barest of moments and looked straight at me. “The royal guard is right now disposing of Orcinus’s spies. So here I came. It was too dangerous for you to come to me. If the spies saw you enter our camp, it would have been too much ammunition for Orcinus to use against me. I would lose the narrow grip that I have on the kingdom. But I promised you that you would see Maria, and even though I am married to another, Maria is yours.”
“Daddy mine,” Maria said. “I help Daddy.”
“So what is your plan?” I asked as we all smiled at Maria. She was the cutest creature ever created, and I was honored to have a part in it.
“Return to the capital city and take back my kingdom. I will hide Maria until she is done nursing, because she now seems to know when to use her talents and when not to. She knows Mommy needs her to be a good little girl for a while.”
“Good girl!” Maria stated, and she thrust out one pudgy fist. “Doggie good for Daddy to go.”
“Yes.” The Queen nodded. “You are a good girl, and doggie goes with Daddy.”
Hedley looked to Maria and then to the ocean. “Um, if I may—”
“Then,” the Queen continued, “my plan is to train her in the ways of my people. At the rate she is growing, she will be in school with you at Hedley Edrick’s in no time.”
“And what of you?” I asked. “What will you do?”
She held up her hand. “I am married,” she said. “What can I do?”
“Go. Mommy must go!” Maria stated, struggling in the Queen’s arms.
“I agree,” I said. “Divorce the baron. Go to Immortal Divorce Court. I will come with you. They love me there.”
“Go, Daddy must go,” Maria said, looking at the ocean. “Daddy must go now. Go with doggie!”
“See,” I said. “Maria thinks it is a good idea too. What do you say?”
“I say we have a problem,” Hedley screamed, looking at the ocean. “Run, run now!”
Wave after wave of trident-bearing mermen crashed onto the beach, flashin
g golden as they got their land legs and sprinted toward us. I reached to take Maria from the Queen, but then saw Hedley trip in the heavy sand and fall on his face. “Go,” I yelled to the Queen. “I got the Teacher of Teachers!”
Lovely stopped to help me yank Hedley up, and in one quick, effortless motion thrust the Master of Masters over one shoulder and ran. Lovely’s impossibly large muscles glistened in the sun, rippling as he moved like a great blond panther. He fairly glided through the sand, catching up to the Queen in seconds since his long legs covered the ground so easily. Lovely was quite the capable soldier. Even with the bulk of Hedley on his shoulder, he was scanning up ahead for any threats to his liege. She would be safe with him. Any woman would be safe with him in her life.
Garlic and I turned back to assess our pursuers and realized every bit of beach between us and the ocean was now occupied by hostile soldiers. But they were not pursuing us, rather they were spreading out along the water’s edge. They were setting up a perimeter and quickly assembling strange devices that looked like children’s slingshots on a much larger scale with netting where the leather straps should be. Were they going to try to pick us off with some choice sturgeon lobbed high in the air? Odd, very odd. We had no choice but to head back into the land of the Worimi and have Garlic bark us a wormhole to safety. We doubled our efforts to catch up to Lovely, Hedley, and the Queen. Garlic was a blur next to me, and it felt exhilarating to have my wind back as I easily kept pace with her. If the merfolk were not going to come after us, then how did they expect to catch us?