Delving into her Swiss-cheese reservoir of knowledge, Ochar came up trumps. “Follow the coastline down to the southern headland and round the cape, then swing up the eastern seaboard. Be mindful to hug the coast. Ocean currents on that side of the continent are meant to be contrarious. Stay on course and you'll eventually swim across a peninsula. That neck of land ought to be the umbrella for an unoccupied fringing reef. Although not as bountiful as the seas surrounding Castle Rock, it'll adequately meet your needs."
"Did you catch all that, Durgs?"
"Swim south. Follow coast. Hit land. Gotcha."
"As always, a merman of few words,” Ochar fondly remarked.
"She doesn't have to journey into exile with me.” Durgay's supplemental surprised the merladies. “Regardless of her original transgression, Najoli's only crime is aiding and abetting my escape. In her defence, she could say I forced her into becoming my accomplice. That mitigation might grant her some leniency from the Merking."
Najoli thought differently. “You aren't hogging all the infamy from the Rock's very first prison bust. We're partners in crime and I'm sticking with you like a suckerfish glued to the underside of a shark."
And just as galling as a remora. “I don't want female company. Excluding Ochar, I've had about enough merwomanly influence in my life to last me what's left of it."
"Granted, I've no need of a chaperone,” accepted Najoli, “only we're like two pearls in an oyster—inseparable.” Adamant, the mergirl hugged her greatest grandmother goodbye.
Embracing her back, Ochar whistled for Najoli's earholes alone, “When your mother was a nipper and came for her overnight stays, she loved a particular bedtime story she begged me to retell over and over. Do you know it?"
Najoli nodded. “The Ice Merman has remained my personal favourite too."
"You'd do well to remember it. There's an element of truth to every fairytale, my dear. Your belief just might bring deliverance to the Cetari."
Confounded, the mergirl nonetheless took onboard the potentially sea-drying message, resolving to demystify the tip-off en route. Reluctantly pulling away from her grandmother, she grabbed Durgay's arm and coaxed him toward the exit. “We have to go now,” she decided.
"What was with all that whispering?"
"I'll tell you on the seaway, once I figure it out myself. Until then, get swimming!"
Rushing his goodbye, Durgay ran his parting clicks together. “Goodbye, Ochar. Thanks for everything. We shan't see one another again."
A mergirl at heart despite her mature outwardness, Ochar smiled kindly. “You two make an adorable couple. Najoli always was a troublesome sprat, yet she has a tender side. Treat her well, Fisher."
Saluting with the “loaner” trident, Durgay silently pledged to do just that.
"Pellish would've been a fine surrogate name for you, Durgs,” she wryly added. “Make his memory proud."
"Tell mother I'm safe, Grammy,” Najoli hastily called back. “She'll be overjoyed to hear I've found myself an escort, even if he is a wanted merman."
Ochar waved them farewell, and then puzzled, “I will, if only I can remember what my granddaughter's name is."
The fleeing duo intended to pause on the verge of freedom only long enough to make sure the coast was clear. Their bumping smack into Lasbow the instant they swam from the cave made a mockery of such caution.
Chapter Nine
It was a Mexican standoff. That is, if the Cetari were Mexicans and could indeed stand.
"Lower that trident,” ordered Lasbow, levelling the prongs of his own weapon at Durgay's chest, himself aiming high for Lasbow's throat.
"It's rude to point your shaft at another merman,” rejoined the older Fisher.
"Kind of cements your gayness,” the unsmiling chief Seaguard quipped.
"That was a rumour you started, Las."
"I'll be forced to start something else unless you surrender that ill-gotten stabber. Illegal possession of a trident is a capital offence."
Durgay was unrelenting. “I've already had the brook thrown at me. Adding one more charge is superfluous. You can only execute me once."
Stunned by his old mentor's levity, Lasbow repeated, “Drop the weapon, Durg. Or you'll be sorely testing our friendship."
"Give me the word, I'll scoop up a rock and dong him,” Najoli avidly volunteered.
"Captain Lasbow! I'll not have blood clouding my doorway. Put down the fish catcher and stop this nonsense before somebody gets hurt,” Ochar chastised from her grotto.
"I'm only doing my job,” retorted Lasbow, feeling besieged. “Durgay of all merpeople should understand that."
"The Durgay of old certainly, but I'm no longer the merman who trained you."
"You've gone renegade,” Lasbow impugned.
Durgay was just as quick defending himself. “Not by choice. Circumstance forces me to take extreme actions."
"By traitorously spurning the kingdom and its laws."
"Save yours, there has been no truer loyalty to the throne than mine. I'm not the brightest light-fish on the reef, Las, but lately I've learnt the royals are fallible, same as us. Princess Lorea's insistence on venturing into Harvest Shallows was a poor decision. She paid the dearest price for her silliness, as will I. King Cerdic's pronouncement on me is a fair one. I don't feel at all wronged by him."
"I'm glad you don't,” Najoli obliquely muttered.
Taking a fortifying inrush of water over his quivering gills, struggling to put abnormally complex thoughts into ordinary lingo, Durgay forged ahead with his treasonous talk. “The Merking's compulsion to war with the Landhoppers will prove suicidal for Castle Rock. We can't possibly hope to defeat them. If Cerdic persists with his madness, the Cetari will go the way of the whale."
"So you're abandoning us."
"The kingship abandoned me. What loyalty do I owe Cerdic now?"
"The Fisher Durgay who instructed me taught never to swim away from trouble, to tackle any problem head-on."
"I'm practically dead. There's nothing left here for me except a dishonourable death. Why should I stay?"
"For me,” Lasbow said compellingly. His affected grin washing away from his stern face, he resumed his deadly seriousness. “As Seaguard captain, I'm obliged to arrest you all over again."
In a bold show of trust Durgay allowed his lent trident to gently float from his grasp, seesawing downwards and settling provocatively on the rock ledge forming Ochar's front yard. “I'll not fight you, Las, not even to secure my freedom. You won't physically assault me either."
"You seem certain of that.” Lasbow's shoulders abruptly sagged in signposted concession, the points of his multi-headed spear dipping conjunctionally. Durgay knew his pupil that well. Not backtracking without one last formal protest, the persuaded captain threatened, “There's nothing stopping me calling my Seaguards in to detain you both."
"Would the salvation of the Cetari sway your dedication?"
Lasbow glanced sceptically at Ochar, his suspiciousness jousting with her audacious claim. “Is victory over the frogs achievable?"
"Doubtful. But ensuring the liberty of the merfolk might be doable. Isn't that why you came here tonight, Captain? To entreat my counsel."
Inclining his head, Lasbow recognised, “Truly, you're the eldest and wisest merperson on the reef, Ochar. King Cerdic may have scant need for an adviser. I value outside input."
"Here's mine then. Letting Durgay and Najoli swim off will not be a bad thing. Allow them their escape and I'll give you a Plan B and C for preserving our merpeople."
Smiling inappropriately, the defender of merfolkdom chuckled amazedly. “Is there no fidelity anywhere on the reef anymore? My best friend's turned deserter and a merwoman old enough to be my grandmother's grandmother is holding Castle Rock to ransom."
"Let them go, Captain,” Ochar urged him.
"I get the impression you're not revealing all, old mergirl, that you're holding something important back."
Oc
har smiled genially. “I'm an elderly merwoman with a rotten memory. Some things are bound to slip my mind."
Finding himself at a crosscurrents, Captain Lasbow of the Seaguard twisted to stare out into the deepening dark, seeking enlightenment from the inkiness. When nothing constructive emerged, he studied the waiting faces behind and caved in to the coercion. “What the shellfish ... they're free to go."
The severity of the times did not preclude beaming smiles all around.
Putting his free arm around Durgay's relieved shoulders, Lasbow enquired, “What happened to the two guarding you jailbreakers?"
"They're napping,” Najoli supplied with a guiltless smirk.
Ignoring her glee, Lasbow plied Durgay with another question. “Before you take off, can you tell me anything more about the Landhopper boss? Cerdic aims to face him down personally. If we're to survive this, I need an edge."
His contact with the Piawro decidedly one-sided, Durgay could only share, “We weren't formally introduced. Watch out for his offsider, that skinny lunatic by the name of Scah I described to you in my interrogation. That one's deadlier than a riled up stingray.” Durgay's scarred abdomen throbbed in aggrieved remembrance.
Lasbow clapped his mate's shoulder in farewell. “You'd better go, before I come to my senses and change my mind. May your seas stay stocked with fish."
"And the corals forever colour the Deep,” Durgay intoned back, happily granted the opportunity to part on acceptable terms with his longstanding pal.
Reclaiming Pellish's trident, he took Najoli's hand in his and together they voluntarily swam off into exile without so much as a glance backwards. Castle Rock, Bounty Reef, friends and family ... all were as forgotten as yesterday's lunch. Severing the connection with the only life they knew had to be irrevocable, else the pair could not brave the hazards of uncharted waters without reservation.
Lasbow watched the engulfing blackness swallow them from sight, before accepting Ochar's invitation to join her inside for a chat.
"Ever heard the phrase, “In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed merman is Merking"?” she asked the captain.
"Can't say I have, Ochar."
The insightful, if absent-minded, elder patted his hand. “Guess what, my darling Pellish ... you're tagged to become the Cyclops of the Cetari."
* * * *
Durgay and Najoli coasted warily into daylight. Having swum through the night, they drifted fatigued 80 nautical miles due south of Bounty Reef, cruising the surface flow in about 100 fathoms of water. Topside, a millpond sea of waveless green reflected the matte heavens, its unbroken wash of sky blue marred by an innocuous grey smudge lining the western horizon. Delineating a far-off squall storming its blustery way southwards along a paralleling course, the cloudbank did in fact distantly presage fouler weather to come.
But for now the restive Cetari lazed in the clemently sun-rayed shallows fifty leagues off the sandy continental coast, rich concentrations of plankton turning the coastal waters milky. Durgay tensed, his biosonar picking up a probable thirty-foot long contact moving sedately inshore toward the bloom. A more concentrated scan revealed the ambling traveller to be an inoffensive basking shark, though identifying the monster fish only heightened the Fisher's alertness. Strictly a harmless filterer of planktonic food, its gaping mouth daily drawing in thousands of tonnes of seawater while ceaselessly plying the oceans slowly questing for the matchhead-sized copepods and arrow-worms sustaining its six ton bulk, this particular individual was returning to its usual temperate haunts after breeding in the tropics.
Distrusting any and all sharks, Durgay gave the unheeding giant a wide berth while it sifted the seas on the fuzzy edge of their underwater vision, gorging itself on the miniscule animals grazing the surface-dwelling phytoplankton before the advancing day compelled those millions of zooplankton to retreat 300 feet down to lie in wait for the starting flag of dusk to fall, when they would ascend to begin cropping the microscopic plant-life anew. Only when the shark's painfully slow passage took it beyond the range of his monitoring sound-sight did Durgay visibly relax.
"You spook easier than a cuttlefish,” Najoli ribbed him. “That was just a sun fish.” Nicknamed for its habit of lying motionless with its back breaking the surface as it basked in the tropical sunshine, its huge triangular dorsal fin protruding above like a living lateen sail.
"All fish have the potential to be prey or predators,” deemed the seawise merman.
"Oh lighten up, Durgs. We've embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. When a nipper, you must've wanted to be an explorer."
"Never fancied being anything but a Seaguardian,” he refuted. Seeing Najoli properly for the first time without the veil of night darkening her features, Durgay was struck by her plainness. Unremarkable in appearance by any standard, she exuded attitude to make up for her deficit in the looks department. “Najoli, aren't you the least bit saddened at having to quit Bounty Reef?"
She shrugged off the question. “It doesn't pay to dwell on the past. Introspection only impedes the future."
"So you live a life without regrets,” he surmised.
"Hardly. I just don't let my emotional baggage weigh me down. Since we'll be living in exile together, I want to set some seabed rules. Number one: our relationship stays strictly platonic. I don't date older mermen."
"Suits me. Mergirls cause me nothing but trouble."
"Rule two: I'll brook none of this macho chauvinism. This is a partnership and I insist on parity. I want an equal say in the decision making."
That idea did not sit well with Durgay, but for the sake of a quieter exile he assented. Merwomen tended to get their way regardless of mermale objections.
"Rule number three: you've gotta start having fun. You're as rigid as a stuffed sea squirt."
Durgay drew the shoreline there. “Have you any idea the dangers facing us out here? Fun ought to be the last thing on your mind, girlie, survival the foremost. Take that basking shark. Ordinarily those fish trouble no creature other than the krill they ingest. But those that hound them do pose a threat."
"What's big enough to worry a fully grown sun fish, but a bigger shark?"
"Orcas. If you possessed one barnacle of sea lore, you'd know that orca packs routinely hunt basking sharks, admittedly confining themselves to harassing the coldwater fishes. But if a plankton-loving shark goes astray into the tropics, who's to say that a molesting orca pod won't be hungry enough to follow."
"It'd be cool to meet an orca face to snout in the open ocean. They're big dolphins after all, and I've never met a bottlenose I couldn't teach simple tricks to. A little flighty maybe, but generally trainable."
"Orcas are different. They're liable to hunt us on sight."
"We're not on the menu list for the small whales."
"Not everything's about food, Najoli."
"What are you implying? Cetaceans and Cetari have always gotten along. They're the smartest swimmers in the sea after us, some say nearly our peers."
"I hate to burst your jellyfish canopy, but an irrational abhorrence of all merfolk is an inbred orca trait. Don't ask me its basis. It just is, some say coming into being after the last of the big whales sank to their seafloor deathbed. They simply cannot tolerate merpeople, and will kill and consume those they happen upon. Lucky for us orcas frequent northernmost waters and are no real bother."
"Are you saying the biggest of the dolphins, intelligent mini-whales that are animals nonetheless, bear some sort of baseless grudge against the Cetari?"
"That's it in a seashell. They always have been killer whales."
"Is there much more open ocean stuff I'm not aware of?"
"Depends. What role was given to you back at Castle Rock?"
Najoli pouted. “What chore you mean. I was a seagrass planter. With a bit of luck and extra hard work, I might've been promoted to seaweed harvester. What a shame you took me away from all that."
Durgay fretted. “Gardening skills won't help you out here. If we
're to avoid going belly up, I'm going to have to impart some of my Fisher ways."
At first thinking it a joke, Najoli rapidly warmed to the prospect of retraining. Consigned by the luck of the birth draw to the job discriminations of merwomanhood, she hankered for the farfetched chance of taking a stab at spearfishing, or at the very least trawling. Providence, in the most unlikely of scenarios, was giving Najoli her shot.
Bubbling with enthusiasm, she entreated Durgay, “When do we begin?"
"Right away. Follow me."
Durgay sounded, diving away from the revealingly backlit surface where a patrolling mako could easily spot them against the sun-dappled backdrop. The blue clarity of the upper layers soon darkened to a hazy aquamarine as he led Najoli in a downward spiral on the lookout for suitable cover. With their familiar fringing reef left far behind in their wake, Durgay became reliant on any shelter offered by the undersea continental shelf extending seawards some forty miles offshore from the immutable landmass east of them.
With visibility dropping to around 100 feet, Durgay took echo soundings to keep track of their descent. His ultrasonic pulses were vital if they were not to overshoot the narrow margin and risk plunging disastrously over the edge of the gentle incline. From there the continental slope plummeted in dizzying steepness 13,000 feet to the sediment-thick ocean basin floor; a terrifyingly black, unheated void where nightmares manifested.
Made nervy by the deepening water, Durgay sought shallower seas and turned landward, propelled by his resurging fear. Immediately fortunate enough to come across a ribbon reef slenderly clinging back from the lip of the shelf, he eventually found an overhang of anemone-quilted stone jutting upwards like a port in a storm and nestled in the cramped cavity beneath the ledge. Rainbow wrasse and clownfish swarmed nosily about the merman, their boldness a poignant reminder of home.
Squirming alongside him, Najoli said, “So what's the first lesson?"
Wedging his trident in a frontal cleft so that the warding prongs faced menacingly outwards, Durgay matter-of-factly answered, “Sleeping rough,” and straightaway dozed.
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