"Miria," sil squeaked. Sil was far too young to have yet decided where on the spectrum of gender sil would be, if sil chose to fix anywhere at all.
"Nice to meet you, Miria." He patted sils curly head then shook his leg until sil released him.
The rest of the family poured into the sea around him, chiefly brittle-looking seniors, warmly wrapped, some of whom leaned on their long fins as they might a walking cane, and more infants. Young and old, they all touched him, some patting or kissing his cheek; though increasingly self-conscious, Lyle smiled and kissed them back, and it made him glow inside.
On reaching the waters' edge, a waifish mermaid with long flyaway amber hair draped a cloak over his shoulders. The garment was spun from a golden-yellow cloth, which glistened even under the blanched light. Lyle faintly recalled it from Welwyn's wardrobe, though Welwyn had liked to go shirtless to show off his impressive torso, so hadn't worn it much.
He also vaguely recognized the amber-haired mermaid, who, besides Cully and Lyle, was the only mer neither particularly old nor young. "Thank you for answering my call," she said, then dropped to her knees and bowed her head.
The rest of the company followed, save a few of the kids, who ogled him curiously, and Cully, who Lyle spotted sitting on a rock with her chin rested on a fist. She'd been lumped with a sign proclaiming, "Hail Clewell's Heir!" When she caught Lyle's eye, she waggled it and pulled a face, amused yet decidedly unimpressed.
Lyle jutted his chin. Yes, this was a bit over-the-top. What was more, he grew suspicious that Cully had known exactly what he'd been in for when she'd dragged him on this trip. He planned to have a serious conversation with her when they were next alone… but no way was big sis going to spoil his moment. Noting the poor little mermaid at his feet peeping up at him, expectant, he clapped then flung his arms wide.
"I thank you all!" he cried. "This is most gracious of you, but please—" He took the mermaid's twiggy fingers, kissed them, and raised her, though at full height her head only levelled at his chest. "No need for too much fuss on my part. Not that I don't appreciate it or anything. The banners are a lovely touch and I'm very impressed by the embroidery. I've recently been learning to sew, and, uh—"
Whoops, he was rambling. If he'd realized he'd needed a speech, he'd have prepared a better one. Ben was already working on his spiel for the wedding.
Lyle attempted to save himself with his most charming grin then opted to end on a sincere and serious note. "I really am not worthy," he said, with a theatrical yet modest intonation that sparked some pride. Cully sniggered and raised her gaze to heaven. He glared at her, but resisted mouthing anything too rude.
"You are worthy, cousin, I am sure," said the amber-haired mermaid. Ah. So she was one of his many cousins, probably several times removed. He faintly recalled her name was Bella. "Please come, we must talk."
"Indeed," said an elderly merman with a bushy white mono-brow, who stood at Bella's shoulder. "All our hopes are pinned on you, for only you have the power to save us, oh great one. Oh, Dragon Rider!"
Dragon Rider? Lyle hadn't a clue what he was wittering on about, but talk of dragons made him nervous. He looked to Cully again, this time with unmasked panic. She shrugged and raised her fins as if she hadn't a clue how to help. Then she tossed aside the sign and tumbled off the rocks to play with the kids.
She was enjoying this now, the bitch.
Chapter Seven
Fortunately for Lyle, the family's hospitality continued to impress and they made no immediate demands of him. Bella led him to the rear of the bay, which seemed a good place to hide. Steep sides made it difficult for humans to access, apart from at low tide, and a jumble of boulders concealed the entrance to the cave from all but the most gannet-eyed.
A scarlet rug lain inside the cave mouth, woven of the same mishmash of rags and seaweed as the banners, added a gratifying touch. Lyle had never been given the red-carpet treatment before. "For me?" he asked.
"Oh dear, no, I'm afraid it's not new." Bella looked mortified. Lyle was simply relieved that Cully was splashing in the shallows with the youngsters rather than witnessing him making even more of an idiot of himself. "It's one of the items we rescued from the old home before we fled. You can have it if you like it?"
"No, no, I wouldn't dream of it," said Lyle.
As the senior family members shuffled into the cave, Lyle strove to get his head around the situation. Now his vision adjusted, he saw the living space was little more than a narrow crevice, the walls slimy and damp. Compared to the many tunnels and caverns they'd used to inhabit, it was meagre and cramped, hardly fit for habitation.
Worse, glancing from one time-weathered face to another, he wondered what his company's average age was. A thousand? Perhaps more. The grandparents had been left looking after maybe great, great, great, great, great grandkids. If this was all that remained of their once great tribe, he could understand why they'd found it hard to stand up to Emmet, at least in recent years.
Now Emmet was dead, and there was nobody left to protect them from any external threat.
And I can't… can I? I'm supposed to be getting married to the man I love, several hundred miles along the coast.
Bella gestured toward the only seat, an uneven niche in the wall of the cave. Lyle shook his head. "No, please, you take it, Bella. I insist."
After a brief hesitation, she did so, and the other merfolk gathered threadbare blankets and cushions and squatted nearby. Lyle sank onto his haunches beside Bella. Fancying the role of conquering hero less every moment, he wrapped the yellow cloak tight about himself, forming a barrier against the curious and worryingly wise-looking faces.
"We are truly sorry, Lyle," said Bella, "for how this family has treated you in the past. We were all lied to and wronged by Welwyn and Emmet, in one way or another. You witness now all who are left—the babes of parents driven away by Emmet's misrule, those of us too elderly to start again, and me. We can remain here until we find somewhere better, but the attack on our old home scared us. None of us have great ability to draw and use magic, so we need somebody strong to—"
"I'm going to have to stop you right there." Lyle sliced up his hands and all four fins, and then gestured with everything he had, including his head, to the world outside. "If you need a protector, Cully's your mermaid. For a start, she's got no ties. I'm about to get married. But she's also—" he spat the words from clenched teeth—"a lot better at magic than me. I'm loath to confess it, but she is."
"There's no need for modesty," chipped in the mono-browed merman, who waggled a fin at Lyle. "Emmet told us about the tidal wave. You smashed down the cliff and destroyed a gaol that hadn't been broken in millennia! Of course, Emmet also told us you hadn't the wits to control your magic and were, in fact, loopy as a pickled lobster. But the Wise Mas told us the truth. You're alright, apparently."
"For once, Emmet might have been correct," said Lyle, jumping up. "I can't control my magic half the time, but Cully can. She's in control of bloody everything!" Moreover, it was high time he had that serious conversation with her about what the hell she'd got him into. Lyle was already stalking out of the cave, crunching down the shingle, careless of the sighs and creaks of the elders as they struggled to keep up. The merchildren had scattered in the shallows, some swimming among lapping wavelets, others sitting on the rocks, kicking their legs or tails disconsolately. Cully was nowhere to be seen.
Lyle broke into a run, a nebulous sense of fear that'd troubled him since he'd entered the cavern seizing form as a full-fledged horror. He'd been chained down and landlocked for one-hundred-and-seventy-five years, while Cully had shagged and partied her way around the coasts of Europe. The moment he'd found happiness and freedom… No, surely she wouldn't dump this responsibility on him and flee? Had their bonding trip been a cruel ruse?
"Where is she?" Throwing off the cloak, he splashed into the sea and scanned from headland to headland and beyond.
"Auntie Cully left," sniffed Miria.
Sil clamped herself, limpet-style, to his leg again and he could feel sils soft cheek quiver against his knee. "She's so much fun, but she never stays for long. She said you'd play with us now. She says you're the dragon and you can fight the baddies for us."
He leaned down, hooked his hands under sils shoulders, and swung sil up, supporting the rump of sils tail in the crook of his arm. The trust in sils bright green gaze made him wish to wither away.
"Is that what she said?" he murmured. "Well, I suppose I could…"
Lyle found he didn't even want to promise to do his best. What the hell was he supposed to do? If these folk needed him so desperately, maybe he and Ben could come and live nearby, but it'd be one hell of an upheaval. Even the new slightly-more-laid-back version of Ben would go frantic. Besides, he'd still no idea if he could stand up to a whole gang of these cave-raiding thugs, if they deigned to come back. They'd most likely slaughter him and everyone here, maybe Ben too.
"Raar!" said Miria, curling sils fingers into two tiny claws. He blinked at sil. "I'm being a dragon like you," sil explained. "Why are you crying?"
"I'm not. It's the spray." He waded a bit deeper and placed sil in the water, forcing his features into a mask of placidity, as sil swam and splashed around him. He ought to be strong for these kids, if for no other reason, and suggest some sort of plan. He wondered crossly if Cully had ever intended to join the family on Thursday, or if saying so had all been part of her nasty joke.
Probably the latter. Siblings, eh? Seemed they were all as bad as each other.
He started at the sharp brush of a fin. "Are you alright?" asked Bella, who had waded out to stand behind him, her wet skirts pooling around her. "Please don't be sad. We'd love you to stay with us, but understand you can't always be around. But there is something I believe only you can do for us, which might protect us forever."
"Really?" His heady sense of trepidation countered any spark of hope. "What?"
"Do you remember your history lessons and the prophecy of the Dragon Rider?"
Lyle recalled that an elderly merman had called him "Dragon Rider" when he'd arrived and there had been so much going on he'd had no time to ponder on it. That was as far as his knowledge stretched. "Er, no. I never paid much attention to history or prophecy back in the day."
"You'd better come back to the cave then. It will take all night to tell the saga, so we need time. You're not in too much of a rush, I hope?"
Lyle stared toward the misted horizon, rigid from the tension in his fins and shoulders.
Time.
In Shanty Wood, he'd commanded reams of it, empty and hopeless: days, years, and decades of nothingness stretching before him, with nobody caring for him or wanting him. He supposed he shouldn't complain that he'd become somewhat in demand of late, but he wished everything didn't have to happen this of all weeks.
And how much time did he truly have? He'd learned too well how this world from whence he came, his family and his old life, could entrap him for centuries—centuries that Ben couldn't wait for him through without aging and dying. Lyle had been a fool to let Cully ensnare him, reel him back into the realm of magic and merfolk so close to their wedding.
"Lyle?" Bella snatched him from his downward spiral. "Are you coming? If you prefer, I can sing the stories in their original ballad form. Some of the melodies are enchanting, rather haunting in their way."
"Let's try and keep it to the succinct highlights, eh?" He followed her back to the cave.
Chapter Eight
Lyle had forgotten plenty about his family, including how nocturnal their habits were. He discovered the daylight welcome parade had been a rare risk taken on his behalf, and then only because it was a quiet winter's day. As night fell, most of the family headed out into the ocean to swim, with less fear of detection from land dwellers or any hostile force. Lyle, accustomed to the human habit of sleeping at night, stayed in the cave with Bella and a crackling hearth.
Some of Bella's tales proved distantly familiar. Lyle had been told them as a child, nearly two centuries ago. As a rule, he'd given up pretending to look interested after the first hour of lectures back then. Now—as he breathed in another blast from his past, the pungent smoke from dried seaweed—he strove to look keen, if only because Bella was so passionate about everything.
So she revealed, thousands of undines, the fairies of the ocean now more commonly known as merfolk, had once populated the British coasts. There had been many different species, and they'd dwelled in tribes consisting of family members, like Lyle's—the direct progeny of Clewell, the great undine prince and dragon-shifter, about whom Bella sang a ballad. Her tremulous voice belied the violent words, which described Clewell massacring enemies by fire or sword, driven by visions of his own glorious future. Lyle shuddered inwardly, not least because it transpired that Clewell slaughtered many of his own relatives, including his siblings.
"We descendants of Clewell are blessed with his longevity," said Bella, once she'd mercifully finished her performance. "And like other species of merfolk, we're capable of drawing on the powers of the tides and moon to perform feats of magic. Most of us have scant power beyond the ability to shapeshift a little, but a few possess the talents to become great mages. Like you!"
Lyle nearly retorted "Like my sister, you mean." He rallied a strained smile instead.
"Truth is, though, in recent years, populations of all merfolk species have dwindled to mere hundreds, maybe even dozens. The fault lies partially with the greedy expansion of humans, who've left few stretches of coast untouched. But we also have ourselves to blame. We've remained in our tribes, rarely welcomed outsiders, and left unwise rulers unchallenged for too long. We should've reached out to each other. Instead, we have scattered to become loners or sorry remnants… some of us bent on tearing what remains of us apart."
"You're talking about this gang that killed Emmet, right?" asked Lyle.
"Yes," said Bella. "What their true purpose is, I don't know, but they've abducted and killed over a dozen leaders from different tribes, among others of late. My hunch is they target merfolk with great power—those like Emmet." Lyle squirmed, uneasy. The hermit mage who Cully discovered missing fit this pattern too. That also made Cully a target… and, by reputation at least, Lyle.
"But I fear none of us can be safe anywhere for long," said Bella, "not even here. And that is where you come in."
"Oh, super," said Lyle.
Bella pottered off to rummage in a wooden chest. He pulled a face while her back was turned. As weariness weighted his eyelids, he wished more than ever that he'd never come on this mad voyage. She soon returned, bearing a tottering pile of slates in her arms.
"Behold, the archives of our family!" gushed Bella. "This is the chief reason I stayed behind when I could've struck out on my own. I've been studying this lore all my life and I would hate to desert my studies."
She handed him a slate, which he squinted at in the flickering firelight. They were inscribed with rune-like symbols, lines with random curves and angles, which Lyle found stylistically beautiful. "What's it all about?" he asked.
"You, Lyle. The script says that in our hour of greatest need, a hero known as the Dragon Rider shall retrieve a long-lost golden sword that belonged to our great ancestor, Clewell, and wield it to vanquish our foes."
"You what?" Lyle handed back the slate without trying to make sense of it. He wondered if pretending to be stupid might get her off his back.
"Don't you see? None among our family have possessed the power to shift into a dragon in generations. So when I heard you'd discovered a dragon inside your mind, my hopes shone bright. You are Clewell's heir and the Dragon Rider! I feel it right here." She clasped her hands and all four fins to her chest.
Lyle pinched bridge of his nose. So far, the only tangible thing he'd received from the dragon inside him was a splitting headache, much like the one he felt worsening now. It was a pity these ridiculous rumours ever got around. The Wise Ma had said it might simply b
e the sign of a bold nature. Why couldn't they all settle for that?
"Let's say I do have some kind of dragon connection," he said. "The legend asks for a rider. Even if I could shift into a dragon, I can't, uh, ride myself."
"The translation of the term "rider" is a little inexact," admitted Bella. "The original word in the ancient lingo of the ocean peoples has no direct equivalent—it's more of a cross between "symbiotic" and something along the lines of a "driver" or "pilot." If you've a dragon inside you—or, even better, you can become one—it makes sense. But "rider" sounds more gracious, don't you think?"
"If you say so," said Lyle, still sceptical. "Okay, next problem. Where do I find this golden sword?"
"Easy! My research has revealed it's hidden in Clewell's ancient palace, a network of caves about ten leagues west of here. You can't miss the place—the rocks are jet black, and humans have built a mine on the clifftop above. The mine has been deserted for centuries, but the caves are still frequented by merfolk as a place of shelter. In fact, that rogue gang use it as a hideout, so I've heard."
"What a shame. Can't go there then, eh?"
"It's an enormous complex, Lyle. There's no reason you can't sneak through unnoticed if you take care, and all the Gods and Goddesses will be on your side. The orders for the Dragon Rider to follow are written here." Bella drew a silver chain from the V-neck of her robe. A highly polished pendant hung on the end, with more scratchy text on it. "This was bequeathed to me by my grandmother," she said, swinging the pendant. "She was a great scholar. Many females of our line have been expert archivists, right back to the era of Clewell's great chronicler, Heliotrobe."
"Uh, very interesting. But what does it actually say?"
"It's a riddle, and it goes like this:
I can start a war,
I can steal a heart,
I can lead you to heaven,
Or into the dark.
Only the true Dragon Rider should follow me,
Dragon Rider Page 5