Backtracking, Shagroth meandered for a hundred yards or so before avidly nosing at a lighter patch dotting the overlaying floes, marking a thinning of the crust. Pushing his snout upwards through the breakable film of ice, his emergence was a blessed relief, outshined only by the welcoming inhalation of night air it allowed.
The glorious Northern Lights shimmered fabulously in a nocturnal sky blazoned with starlight, the heavens outstripping itself nightly in noiseless auroral fireworks. Red and green streamers draped the starred backdrop, ghostly luminosity dancing a celestial ballet. Scientifically explained away as molecules of excited air boogieing along the invisible pathways that grid the planet's magnetic field, the light emissions a colourful by-product of the energised altitude, the atmospheric display retained through the ages its mystique as spectral phenomena without par. Not solely confined to arctic latitudes, the southern aurorae shone no less spectacularly or mysteriously.
The hauntingly ethereal lightshow flickered unnoticed by Shagroth, intent on savouring the sustenance of all animal life everywhere. Undoubtedly the sun stood out in the firmament as the nuclear fusion engine powering the planet, but crucially oxygen was the fuel tanking up the biodiversity of creatures colonising every conceivable terrain, from alps to taiga, desert to floodplain, creek to oceanic trench. Starved of the precious gas and the solar body would fast be reduced in value to a cosmic bauble: pretty to gaze upon, but lifeless and lacking soul.
The Bureal lollygagged in glossy water blanched of colour by the pervading coldness, a fleshy smokestack of steaming breath, until a prompting jerk on his restraint from the shadowing merman handler signalled Shagroth's short spell at the crisp surface was up. With the walrus submerging back into slavery, the frequently used aperture in the sheet ice would rapidly skin over until nudged open again by a breathless patron.
"Time to uphold your end of the deal,” Durgay pressured him.
The moustached seal was untrustingly obliging. “And just a where does me masters care to be guided?"
Najoli jumped in. “You must've heard of Nupterus."
"Can't says I have."
"Omnipotent fellow in the guise of a big ray.” She depicted the Sea God according to accepted merfolk belief.
"Superficially like a flatfish,” Durgay interposed, putting her descriptiveness into local terms for the Bureal's benefit. Rays, like the Cetari, preferred warmer tropical seas, so the nearest shaped fish the merman could happily use for comparison was the halibut.
His consideration was unneeded. While not as abundant in the colder waters, skates and rays were not unknown to Bureals. Clever as it was, that association drew an unhelpful blank with the walrus.
Durgay tried a different tack. “What about a large ice grotto, possibly found under the waves? Anything even remotely like that hereabouts?"
Wracking his brain, Shagroth came up with a prospect. “There be a slab of an ice cliff floating unfixed that maybe fits your bill. Me grandpappy's grandpappy done swum across it while on a hunting spree, and did reckon “twas unnatural like."
"In what way?” Najoli quizzed him.
"It did have this ere cave on its netherside, a skinny and a twisty passage of black ice. Queerer than that, it does never drift south of the Circle like them other bergs."
"You sound like you're familiar with its location,” Durgay presumed.
"Precisely. Tis been a family secret for quite a whiles."
"One you'll gladly divulge,” the Fisher promised to extract from him, snapping the tail rope cruelly.
Requiring no further incentive to honour their covenant, Shagroth headed off under the ice at a shallow depth and pace, Durgay in tow, Najoli riding speargun.
Interested to learn the method the Bureal employed to accurately plot a route through the encumbering floes, she chitchatted like they were old pals. “This place is a maze of ice, Shagroth. Just how do you find your way about without any seamarks to steer by?"
"Easy enough. I keeps a map of them air holes stored in me head and play connect the dots to get from point to point."
Even as the boundaries of the ice field fluctuated seasonally, the positions of the essential breathing holes were deliberately kept in place as a reassuring evenness in the disordered icescape. Ideal navigational aids, they doubled also as distance markers and timekeepers.
Two breathing holes on, roughly forty minutes later, and Fultark returned unexpectedly, rushing up out of the deep darkness, a limp thirty-pound haddock clamped securely in his saw-toothed bill. This fish dish was a bottom feeder, irrefutable proof Enguans dove a thousand feet and more for their supper. Fixating on Najoli again, the overtaking seafowl deposited his catch at her flukes and waited. Awkwardly patting the eager-to-please bird's head, she smiled when he returned the show of affection by rubbing his slender neck up against her arm.
Holding up the Enguan's donation, Najoli grinned at her merman, her yellow teeth gleaming like gold fillings in the half-light. “Fultark's brought us fresh fish, Durgs."
"Blessedly meatier than those anchovies which are gone in one unsatisfying bite,” he carped. “Speaking of snacks, are you still against paying our guide in bird food?"
"Most certainly.” She flashed him a cheekier smile. “The Enguan's actually cuter than you are."
Observing the underseabird latching onto her tail, Durgay made the criticism, “Dogfish make better pets, girlie."
"Why is that?"
"They don't need air."
Durgay kept a chary eye on Shagroth, watching him closely in case the Bureal proved tricky and conned them into swimming pointlessly around in circles. The walrus, as far as he could tell, maintained his forward motion in a generally southerly course without doubling back, periodically checking on the nearness of the Enguan with sly sideward glances. Fultark had not gone off the menu.
Seven breathing holes later resulted in the oddball group approaching the mother of all bergs. Gaining the southernmost rim of the ceaselessly groaning pack ice protesting the actions of wind and water, they entered uncluttered seas and turned east into the shadowy bulk of what truly was a block of ice island-like in proportions. Surpassing a million Bureals in weight, supporting dizzyingly vertical cliffs clawing 200 feet skywards into the cosmically lit night, its mountainous base extended even farther into the black polar sea, striving to sink roots to where the extent of the arctic brine bottomed out 2,000 fathoms down.
"Do you think this actually might be it, the winter home of Nupterus?” Durgay put to Najoli after surfacing to allow the bird and Bureal a rewarding breather.
"If size is anything to go by, it's a good bet."
"Why does size count in relation to the Sea God?” he puzzled.
The mergirl stroked his muddled head. “I haven't met a male yet who's not a show-off. There's no reason for Nupterus to be any different in displaying bigness as a status symbol."
Wrapping the rope leash around his wrist, Durgay took back his trident and jabbed Shagroth in the rump. “Show us the entrance to this undersea cave."
"I can't. Never been here."
"Then you can seek it out for us,” the no-nonsense Fisher ordered. “Get diving."
The walrus flatly refused. “I did me part and got youse here. That's the end of me helping youse.” He covetously eyed Fultark nestling beside Najoli. “Turn me loose and I be getting back to me business."
"Only when you locate the entry to the ice cave will I consider returning your freedom to you, Bureal. So, I strongly suggest you get searching. The quicker you find it, the sooner you can maybe go."
Defiant still, Shagroth sized Durgay up with a stare Najoli found broadly reminiscent of the interested sea cow briefly encountered an ocean away. “Just what are youse things, ordering myself “bout like I be a common whelk."
"We are Cetari."
Genuinely unsurprised by Najoli's divulgence, the bullish Bureal merely commented, “Ere's me a thinking them Seamaids were just a fancied memory."
"What did you ca
ll us?"
"Seamaidens, missy,” Shagroth repeated himself. “Whimsical cows said to soothe the stormiest ocean with them siren songs."
Concern rattled Durgay's clicked enquiry. “How can an animal such as you have possibly heard of us? We live in a faraway sea where the water never turns solid."
"From a sea tale originally told by me ole grandpappy's grandpappy."
"The same ancestor who discovered this ice isle,” assumed Najoli.
"Shucks, naw. “He was me great, great grandbull on me sire's side. The storyteller was me great, great grandpappy on me—"
Interrupting for the sake of brevity, Durgay curtly clicked, “Alright, we get the sonar picture. He was finfolk on your mother's side."
"Ain't no need to be rude, nipper. Maybe youse had better soothe your mate with a song, missy. Tis no wonder the legends don't mention nothing “bout Seamen, if them's all alike this thug."
Deciding the fishtory lesson to be over, Durgay motioned with the tips of his trident for Shagroth to submerge. Expelling the lungful of fresh air last gulped, the Bureal started conducting the forced search on behalf of his Cetari kidnappers, scheming ahead to when he would vengefully dine on the stuff of legend. Payback promised to be deliciously sweet.
The explorers lucked out. Fultark located the unmarked entrance to the underwater passageway at the tail end of their first hour of scouring the berg's voluminous hull. Well over 80% of the monster iceblock's mass lounged below the waterline, proving to be a lot of frozen ground to cover. Situated inconspicuously in the wall of a canyon-sized fissure, Durgay circumspectly investigated the oval aperture as the deliriously energetic Enguan zoomed in orbit around Najoli, their guiding walrus hanging as far back as his leash allowed. An unlit black dot staining the blue and green veined ice, the Fisher shuddered from the disquieting first impression of staring into the uninviting maw and down the cavernous gullet of some titanic ice beast.
Scanning the tunnel's empty innards, Durgay disputed Shagroth's earlier portrayal. “It's comfortably wide and openly straight ... the exact opposite of your depiction."
Unbothered, the Bureal scathingly analogised, “Some nibbles be tasting different to how they look, Seaboy."
"Try to be grateful,” Najoli chided her merman. “If not for Shagroth's lore and Fultark's beaky nose, we'd have never discovered the Sea God's hidden lair."
"Don't jump to hasty conclusions,” he rebuked in return. “We've no proof yet that this is Nupterus’ residence, or, if indeed it is, that He's home.
Murmuring, “Only one way to find out,” Najoli took the initiative and plunged recklessly into the yawning sea ice. Durgay could hear her hopeful utterance echoing in the cave's tubular confines. “Hallo ... is anybody here?"
Set to dive in after her, he was stopped by the line going dangerously slack as Shagroth made his move, charging with the lumbering inelegance of a juggernaut. Barely responding in time, the rebelling Bureal body-slammed the twisting merman. Knocking the rope and trident out of Durgay's hands, the momentum of the colossal impact tumbled them both into the cave.
Their clumsy and noisy entrance turned Najoli. Saying nobody appeared to be at home, she trailed off mid sentence after perceiving a disastrous shift in the balance of power. Her merman floated woozily in the middle of the cylindrical passageway, bereft of senses and weaponry, even as the bullying Bureal loomed terrifyingly over Durgay, head arching back in readiness to deliver a piercing downstroke with his one good tusk. Fumbling in her woven seagrass bag for the valued, shark-tooth bladed knife, Najoli realised she could not react fast enough to prevent the unthinkable from happening. That did not stop her making the effort, and at least the mermaid did not scream in abject helplessness like most stereotyped merwomen.
Fultark again saved the day. The active little seafowl darted in from out of nowhere to pester Shagroth, bravely facing up to a foe twenty times his mass. Whizzing around the Bureal's thick-headed skull, the daring Enguan pecked the seal hunter brazenly on the nose. The distraction was enough to spare Durgay the goring Shagroth felt he owed him. Goaded to recommence his interrupted chase, the unfilled walrus promptly forgot the wobbly Fisher and chased after his meal, still annoyingly playing hard to get as Fultark zipped out through the cave mouth into the twilight sea.
A jarring alien noise assaulted their collective earholes, a rasp akin to rock grating against rock. Wrenched out of her dismay by the racket, Najoli halted rummaging through her holdall, looking on in fascinated horror as the entrance to the subway began to contract. Shagroth noticed the shrinkage too and put on a tragically late burst of speed. His bellowing head made it past the closing iris of the metalled sea door. A shame the rest of him did not.
Tapping his temple with the heel of his hand, Durgay's blurred world came back into focus in time for him to witness the Bureal's horrifically decapitated corpse prevented from drifting outside by the sealed entrance. Blood pumping from severed arteries and veins misted the water. “There was no need to lose your head over this business, Shagroth,” he heartlessly quipped.
Rushing to her merman's side as he righted himself, Najoli embraced him. “Durgs, are you okay?"
Hugging her back, he said, “Dazed, but ahead of the Bureal."
She forced a titter. Cold, tired, and hungry, their situation was less than desirable. Testing the “black ice” of the door walling them in, identical material to that of the passage's unblemished contours, Najoli jerked back her chilled hands sharply. The unyielding metal, slick and devoid of corrugations, felt colder to the touch than even the pervading ice. “Yep, we're stuck here,” she needlessly pronounced.
"Knowing my luck, this'll soon worsen,” Durgay gloomily predicted. “It always does for me."
His pessimism did not go unanswered. Blinding white light spewed forth from the farthest end of the tunnel, the garish luminosity electrifying the water, gushing with crackling intensity over the trapped Cetari. Subjected to the unpleasant sensation of hundreds of sea lice crawling over their bodies, irritating their hypersensitive skin, the itching driving them crazy, the plagued merfolk succumbed to the uncontrollable seizures that followed scratching themselves silly, before thankfully blacking out.
Chapter Eighteen
Savouring the sweet taste of success, Eskaa scooped out with clumsy fingers the innards of a freshly netted nautilus and gulped down whole the rubbery, uncooked flesh.
Ah, the spoils of war!
Thoughtlessly tossing over his shoulder the flat-spiralled shell, the exquisitely russet and cream patterned mollusc joined the growing pile of eaten shellfish behind him with a clatter; just another of the edible benefits reaped from the systematic, ongoing plunder of Bounty Reef.
Lounging on the empty shores of Crater Lake, he dug his sticky hand into the shingle rimming the volcanic hot pool and swirled the pebbles through his pudgy fingers, letting the gravel clean off the tatters of soft tissue stuck to his moist skin. Living on an overpopulated island where privacy was the hardest luxury of all to come by, there was nothing sweeter for the Piawro kingpin than the seclusion the sacred lake guaranteed.
Except, perhaps, one more titbit.
Groping about for another mollusc morsel, Eskaa came up empty-handed. In the course of a single afternoon he had greedily polished off the entire scoop of delicacies netted that very morning by those eager amphibs trawling the waters around Castle Rock. In far too good a mood to be by bothered by such a minor irritation, the Subos revelled in the sensations of all-powerfulness, basking in his own egoism since the tropical sun lay behind flat, veiling cloud cover.
Aside from the Fish-with-Hands having flown the coop, his plotting wildly exceeded projections. Lunder Atoll belonged entirely to him, as did the spindly sea stack the renewed Amphib Army forcibly annexed. Needless to say, the associated reefs fell under his complete dominion and, opportunely, one out of the two was fishable. Ryops, at long last, was dead and buried at sea. Chulib's complementary loss was especially providential. The boss Shurpeha
's transferral of loyalty meant he could never have been trusted. A frogman who switched allegiances that easily might be tempted into double-crossing his new master just as readily.
That risk prompted Eskaa to deal decisively with the Climbers on his triumphal return to the atoll a month ago. Ryops allowed them far too much leeway, compelling Eskaa to make the vow to take up the slack. Remembering the outcome of that decision, the ends of his mouth curled up in a charmless grin.
Taking care of priestly business first, Ryops’ memorial service played out as a rushed, ineloquent affair some amongst the gathering considered a gross disrespect to the late chieftain's memory. Informed that all were going to tow his leadership line or be lashed with the consequences, Lunder's subversives predictably played into Eskaa's hands by raising an outcry. Watching his acolytes make an example of the nearest unfortunate on hand was for the magician-priest cruelly entertaining. No longer constrained by what he continually criticised as the Dokrany's outmoded moral code, Eskaa's thugs acted with impunity, openly flaunting their brutality. Not only that, the public flogging of the trilling Climber nicely whipped the rest into shape.
Springing to his feet, he hopped upslope and squatted on the caldera's southern rim, a gargoyle gazing hideously out over his domain. Standing out like grave markers beneath the volcano's monolithic cone, Lunder's bald hills visited upon Eskaa an unwelcome moment of recrimination. Stripped of foliage and dignity, roofed by the depressive greyness, the mounds degenerated into inhospitable rock without their jungle overcoat. Ryops had been dead right pronouncing the islet an overcrowded raft poised to flounder. Raped of flora and fauna, the dying atoll could not be expected to support its Piawro malignancy for much longer. When the abused island ultimately folded, as it surely must, so too would fail the amphibs. Eskaa's Empire was going to be as spectacularly short-lived as a lightning bolt.
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