Cuddles bucked and writhed, trying her hardest to dislodge the merman grimly clinging on for dear life. For his part Durgay squeezed tighter, clinching his objection to winding up a lizard snack. Together they careened the length and breadth of Harvest Shallows, rocking and rolling through the blueing water, both refusing to give an inch. The spectators” topside cheered their mascot on, confident of brawn winning out over brain. After glimpsing merman ingenuity, Ryops suddenly had his doubts. Perhaps the Fish-with-Hands were not so dumb as he imagined.
Locked into an impossible situation—by letting go Durgay risked getting eaten; on the other fin, he could not hang on indefinitely—the gutsy Seaguard trainer found that shifting his weight could crudely steer the bridled croc. He leant forward and to starboard, pressurising Cuddles into a steep, right hand dive taking them directly into the turbulent Surge.
Four decades of cruel captivity had not diminished her longing for a return to the wild. Tasting freedom in the salty water, Cuddles gamely took the plunge. Alone, Durgay's chance of making it through the washer of churning currents in his present state was next to none. Hitching a ride on the beefier tylo-croc upped his odds considerably. Buffeted by the warring flows of the turning tide, Durgay would have shut his eyes were he able to close them. Hanging on like a remora fish, he trusted his mount to intuitively nose a safe passage through the invisible underwater maze.
Cuddles managed just that.
Skimming over the reef table in a measly three feet of supporting water, she worked her paddles and tail furiously to muscle her way off the rocky crest of the draining algal ridge before she stranded. Battling to keep her weighted head upright, Cuddles thrashed into the calmer, deepening waters of the fore reef and made for the surface.
Releasing his grip, Durgay floated clear of the she-croc ferociously gulping air. He had cuddled Cuddles and come out of it with all limbs and fins intact! Buoyed by the elation of their escape, his wild piggyback ride, and the weirdly bolstering sensation of unbroken blue water beneath his flukes, the aged Seaguardian drifted complacently a few feet below the surface.
It was a credit to Durgay's reactions then that he narrowly avoided the tylo-croc's unforeseen lunge. Somersaulting out of harm's way, he crash-dived as those seeking chompers nipped at his flukes. Their unspoken truce ended, the fishers resumed their game of catfish and mousefish. Though her strength was not inexhaustible, Cuddles seemed no worse for wear after her harrying run through the Surge. Exercise certainly builds up an appetite!
Plummeting down the barren reef slope with the ravenous crocodile hot on his tail, Durgay led Cuddles deeper. Fragments of tylo-croc lore trickled into his mind, racing with fear. In past times Cetari had scant interaction with the marine lizards other than chasing the occasional stray off Bounty Reef. Despite that limited contact, two potentially exploitable crocodilian weaknesses stood out in merfolk memory. The obvious handicap of an air breather tied to the surface meant little; the seagoing reptile could stay submerged for up to two hours at a time. That precluded drowning as a means of removal.
The hounded Fisher's second choice showed hardly any more promise. A denizen of shallower waters, Durgay hoped the increasing depth might put off the coastal ambusher from following. His ploy backfired drastically; Durgay's own aversion to the Deep came into play. Approaching the 500-foot mark, phobic spasms caused him to break off his desperate descent.
Shooting upwards away from the paralysing vertical drop off, the surprise move granted the shaking merman a critical few extra feet as Cuddles overshot. Correcting fast, the pursuing crocodile banked hard and put on a spurt of speed to make up for the lag. Durgay compensated with express jinking, keeping one stroke ahead of those saw-toothed jaws. Flashes of scaly silver glinting ahead in the near distance of the oceanic vastness gave the tiring old timer a purler of an idea.
Drawing on the last reserve of his ebbing strength, Durgay outpaced the closing croc in the nick of time and zeroed in on the shoal of radcu attracted inshore by the underwater commotion. Zipping unharmed through the silvery, tailed torpedoes speckled with black ink spots, each carrying a jawed warhead filled with razored daggers, the canny merman corkscrewed down and away just as Cuddles blundered into the pack of predatory fishes.
Their reaction was instant and unified. Six foot long and weighing in at 100 lbs, singularly the radcu were shark fodder. Collectively, these aggressively nosy “saltwater piranha” proved the measure of even the hugest marine predator. Attacking as one, their underslung, toothy lower jaw lending them each a maniacal leer, they snapped viciously at the stunned croc's unprotected hide. Cuddles bit back fiercely, but for all her bravura she might as well have been pushing grit upswell. The speedier radcu darted in and out beyond the reach of her clacking chompers, taking mouthfuls of tender tail and flank meat from the reptilian smorgasbord. No matter how swiftly she manoeuvred, the wrathful tylo-croc simply was not quick enough to discourage her flitting tormentors. An expanding bloody cloud sprinkled with scraps of tattered flesh soon enveloped Cuddles and she laboured for energy and air; her get-up-and-go had gotten up and gone. As her tail beat a hasty retreat to the surface the dogged radcu went with her, determined to strip her flesh down to the bone.
Durgay sank unnoticed and unmolested by the wolves of the sea, watching the harried tylo-croc taking the pack away topside. Too bushed to raise his flukes, he steadily spiralled downwards into the cool and dark embrace of the concealing Deep. By the time the shredding radcu finished with Cuddles, the sinking merman would be beyond the preferred range of the wolfish surface swimmers.
Giving himself over to exhaustion, the Fisher missed the irony that in likelihood his own freedom would be marginally more enjoyable and longer than the doomed croc's.
Chapter Six
"Was she with him?"
Lasbow withered under the Merking's probing glower. The unembellished audience chamber, emptied of everyone save the intimidating royal, seemed uncomfortably overcrowded to the Seaguard captain reporting searchers had miraculously found the missing merman. Durgay was extremely fortunate. Drifting unconscious deep in the cooling South Equatorial current on the furthermost western limit of Castle Rock territorial waters, a sharp-eyed looker spotted the old Fisher on the verge of vanishing into the engulfing black depths moments before turning for home after another day of fruitlessly scouring the seas for the absentee Cetari.
Not one to fudge the facts, Lasbow grimly conveyed, “My boys found Durgay alone, Majesty. There's no sign of the princess."
"Minoh will not take this news well,” whistled Cerdic. Ever since her daughter's disappearance the distraught Merqueen had become even more of a nervous shipwreck, refusing food and comfort. Normally vivacious, she moped about the royal grottos like a sick flounder. “That poor, luscious mergirl needs to be salvaged pronto, Lasbow ... for her mother's sake, naturally. I only wish to spare Minoh prolonged distress. Detail more of the Seaguard to join the search. Spare no effort. Find my—ah, her—Lorea at all cost."
"There's no point, Sire."
King Cerdic glided dauntingly out from behind his podium of black coral (what use was a throne to a legless race incapable of sitting) bearing down on his fidgety guard commander. Caged light fish augmented the semi-permanent, blue-black aquatic twilight dimming the cave. Mid-water fishes exhibiting bioluminescence courtesy of light-emitting bacteria living symbiotically on their host's flanks, they winked about in flimsy seagrass baskets like submerged light bulbs. Lancing through the pools of living lamplight, he reared over the consternated guard chief like a giant seahorse charger. “Meaning what, Captain?"
Momentarily cowed by Cerdic's fear-provoking headpiece of six-inch long serrated megashark teeth crowning the Merking's steely bald noggin, Lasbow blurted undiplomatically, “The Merprincess. She's dead."
Cerdic grabbed him harshly by the throat. “What the devilfish are you clicking about?"
Lasbow resisted the impulse to pull away from his manhandling regent. Undeniably fighting
fit, he was not wholly confident of outwrestling Cerdic, even if roughing up the royal person ever became acceptable practice. Built as ruggedly as a boxfish, the fortyish Merking on more than one occasion demonstrated his handiness with his dukes by sparring with members of his Seaguard, winning every bout despite the mermen boxers being instructed not to go easy on the king.
Floating motionless in the other's hurtful grip, Lasbow explained. “Durgay briefly became lucid after being ferried back to Castle Rock. Most of what he clicked was gibberish, but one aspect stood out from his ramblings with the clearness of a waterspout spinning over the wave tops: Princess Lorea died in his company. He kept bewailing his inability to save her, reinforcing the fact she indeed has perished somewhere out in the open ocean."
"There is evidence to support this?"
"Durgay bears wounds that to me are proof of his battling to save Her Highborness ... an ultimately futile effort by the looks and sounds of it."
Cerdic seemed to deflate like a dried out jellyfish as the gravity of his eldest stepdaughter's fate seeped in. Trembling, he loosened his handhold on Lasbow, shoving the guard chief away. “Lorea's really gone? She can't be dead! Who can I turn to now? Who'll give me comfort?"
The change in the Merking's deportment severely rattled Lasbow. Sapped was Cerdic's sang-froid and confidence, shrivelling the monarch into a blubbering husk that scarcely commanded respect. Unsure how to react the perturbed captain remained safely pokerfaced. Although his position made him exclusively privy to court gossip and innuendo, it also inhibited Lasbow; he was guard, not gauger. The longstanding buzz around Castle Rock snidely hinted at the king's incestuous sexual liaison with the princess, a disgusting fraternisation to which everyone in the know turned a blind eye—Lasbow included. Cerdic's private business was his own affair, so to speak. Not that the captain did not care enough to disapprove, his station prevented him from making and acting on personal judgements. Perhaps he might have swum beyond the boundaries of his rank and called the matter to Minoh's attention had Lorea not escaped the shell of alienation in which Cerdic's abuse encased her. But the princess did courageously over her formative years rise above feelings of self-loathing and blameworthiness, motivated by revenge to transform from the pitiable, apathetic lass into the feisty mergirl who caught Lasbow's eye and interest.
Lasbow's gill covers flapped slowly in regret. Not only was his marriage plans on the rocks, his kingly aspirations dashed along with it. Odd he felt no sorrow over Lorea's passing, lamenting solely his bad change in career fortune. Unable to father calves of his own, Cerdic relied on marrying off a niece to an approved suitor to keep the kingship in the family, Lasbow the finest candidate on offer. But it might only prove a minor setback for the ambitious Seaguardian. Minoh calved two daughters to Anwhorl unusually late in life before her widowing. Lorea's plainer, younger, and shyer sister made an acceptable alternative in the advancement stakes. What Lasbow lost in looks, he gained in personality.
"The search can be called off, Your Majesty,” he suggested with care.
Conscious of his deplorable snivelling, Cerdic pulled himself together. Confidentiality may be guaranteed with his guard captain, but it did the Merking's professional standing no good for Lasbow to witness such shameful frailty. A monarch is publicly larger than life, faultless and watertight. That impression had to extend to private life as well. Turning back to face Lasbow, he construed, “Whatever snatched Lorea must have been a fair size to win past her accompanying Fisher. You say Durgay is sporting wounds. Are his injuries consistent with shark attack?"
Refusing to speculate, Lasbow went mute. The burn lesions blackening Durgay's stomach were worryingly of unknown origin. If Durgay sustained them defending the Merprincess their assailant clearly was no fish, leaving a single, unpleasant probability that would surely incriminate his mentor.
Misinterpreting Lasbow's silence, Cerdic decreed, “Have the spotters continue their hunt, but inform them they are no longer looking for a body. The only killer fish capable of tackling two adult Cetari head-on is a megashark. If there's a rogue shifted into the area, I want it located and dispatched before it terrorises Castle Rock further. Where's Durgay now?"
"Convalescing at Ochar's."
"That old sea witch! Who had him put there?"
"I did, Sire. I thought it best."
"She's an unruly hag, Lasbow. Remove Durgay to the dungeon grotto."
"Ochar is the ablest healer in all of Pah Ocean,” Lasbow carefully pointed out to the blustering Merking. “Durgay will need to be made well if the full story of the tragedy is to come out."
"You enforce my will, not dictate it,” Cerdic impolitely reminded his senior bodyguard officer before compromising. “Place him under cave arrest at Ochar's until he is well enough to be transferred to the dungeon pending judgement."
"Durgay will want to know the charge, Majesty."
"Royal mermanslaughter will do for now until the facts surface. Do you have an issue arresting your former trainer, Captain Lasbow, or will that need to be a dungeon for two?"
"No problems here, my liege,” Lasbow clicked obediently, presenting his trident smartly in salute.
"Be sure it stays that way,” warned the Merking. “Durgay got approved as Lorea's escort based on your recommendation. Don't add your dereliction of duty to his failure."
Lasbow dwelt on the mess Durgay had landed them both in as Cerdic swum off to break the sad news to the Merqueen. In his estimation Lorea was no more bitten to death by a mauling shark than had Durgay been fish bait. Reviewing the old Fisher's puzzling blisters, not to mention his being found adrift in the waters due east of Castle Rock—a clear pointer the Merking had not picked up on—hinted at an encroachment which violated Cetari law. Presupposing more than he actually knew helped Lasbow make the choice to withhold his suspicions of a Landhopper clash from Cerdic for the time being. Durgay was in enough hot water already without trespass aggravating his answerability.
Leaving the objectionable hush of the unfilled chamber behind to enact his king's wishes, Lasbow cruised out into troubled waters. Redirecting the searchers to seek out a phantom megashark was pointless considering what his guesswork implied. So too was stationing Seaguards outside Ochar's to confine Durgay to her home cave; the pooped oldster was in no fit state physically to go anywhere except back to sleep. But what the Merking wanted, the Merking at all times got.
Angling up off the reef, the blueing water warming and shallowing, an unpleasant reality shamed Lasbow. With Princess Lorea out of the picture Cerdic's abominable lust was likely to fall on his surviving niece. Predators, sexual ones included, preyed on the weakest family member. Counting himself no better than the molesting Merking for floating by and doing nothing to stop the loathsome behaviour, it was with a heavy heart that the captain of the Seaguard swam to do his monster monarch's bidding.
* * * *
"Eat up, Durgay."
Shaking his head at the proffered morsel, the steadily recovering Fisher thanked his matronly nurse for her hospitality. “I couldn't manage another bite, Ochar. I'm as bloated as a puffed up blowfish."
"As tasty as the marine snail is, you're digesting abalone largely for its medicinal purposes. Though it wouldn't hurt you to pack on a bit of weight. You're skinnier than a fasting eel, my boy."
"Comes from going on an enforced diet,” Durgay dryly recounted.
Stuffing the piece of rubbery meat down his gullet, the mothering merwoman glibly ordered, “Mind you chew thoroughly before swallowing.” She had been force-feeding the Fisher since Lasbow placed him in her expert care. Stricken with guilt and unwilling to indulge in comfort food, Durgay's reluctance to eat was quashed by Ochar's insistence he take nourishment.
Pleasantly surprised medicine could be so flavoursome, Durgay chewed madly in order to free up his overfull mouth for conversation. Entirely natural for the eldest non-royal Cetari to be acquaintances, the busy Seaguard trainer did not visit Ochar nearly often enough and the chance t
o chat with her was most welcome, in spite of the circumstances.
That laxity needed remedying before the finality of elderliness overhauled Ochar. Looking no older than a half centenarian, she was in fact surpassing her one hundred and sixty sixth year. The astoundingly mature merwoman could not expect to live much longer. The buoyancy of their oceanic lifestyle substantially delayed, not prevented, the onset of geriatric related infirmities in those few Cetari blessed with longevity. Afflicted with the big A's resulting from extreme agedness, Ochar swam with arthritic stiffness curtailing her mobility, fighting to retain memories slipping from her forgetful mind into the black hole Alzheimer's created. Ochar accepted her worn out body packing up, but to gradually lose her faculties was an undreamt of nightmare for the philosopher.
Floating on his back in the centre of the grotto, no need for a bed or any other piece of furniture in their weightless underwater world, Durgay absently admired Ochar's décor as she prepared to redress his wounds.
Granted an abnormal amount of seclusion on account of her unjustified reputation for witchery, she furnished her private living quarters with oddments hoarded over the years. A passionate shell collector, rock shelves striping the cave walls lay cluttered with assorted ridged and spiny murexes heaped against glossy shelled, varicoloured cowries. Other carnivorous pieces were unrecognisable to Durgay's sampling eyes; whorled coldwater volutas garnered in the distant past from the polar seas icing up the far north and handed down as family keepsakes. The cave walls were not left undecorated, hung with the spindly reliefs provided by fragilely preserved sunstars, the brightening thirteen-armed starfish stained burnt orange banded in white stripes tipped with sunny yellow.
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