Three Times Chosen

by Alan J. Garner

  At least the Piawro will go out in style, he consoled himself. Already the islanders were toiling to help their Subos realise his ambitious plan for refurbishing the ramshackle bamboo compound. Delivering food to their bellies as promised, Eskaa in turn fed their minds with grandiose schemes of splendour he assured them were required to keep the favour of the gods flowing. The projected facelift would upgrade the antiquated buildings to a patently needed palatial standard. Overworked and overtired insurgents would not have the time or energy to spare for plotting against his revamped leadership. Busying the stonecutters with chipping tens of thousands of minute glassy squares out of the obsidian rock bed for the tiled exterior facades was only the first hop of his desired extravagance. Their woodcarving opposites would later have their troublemaking hands occupied with chiselling religious effigies of...

  Me!

  More than deluded by grandeur, Eskaa's aspiration encompassed now a disturbing god complex. Scheming to eventually retire the Elementals altogether, the magician-priest intended to have his flock deify a flesh and blood idol, namely himself. Who better? Replacing the icons revered by all needed to be gradual, subtle; devious and delicate were merely variations on a universal theme. A born salesman, the Subos could no doubt sell his followers the notion the sky was purple if he had a mind to. Glorifying himself to the exalted position of a god, while challenging, was doable.

  In a society where individualism became lost within class distinctions, identities were difficult to establish and harder to maintain. Eskaa scored highly on both counts. In leaps and bounds he had climbed the rope ladder of success, moving up from faceless tadpole to noted Subos. Marketing himself as God was merely the last rung. Residing in the prime piece of real estate on the island helped immensely. Location was everything, granting Eskaa precious bouts of solitude in which to scheme and plot uninterrupted. He almost pitied the lower caste fools forced to live communally in R'bat's’ congested and filthy slums, without room to even change their minds.

  A wind gust brushed his snout, blowing away his introspection for the moment. Open to the elements, puckish zephyrs stirred the precariously thin layer of topsoil crowning the knolls into whirling dust clouds that lifted into the drizzly skies, adding drabness to the lowering overcast. Eskaa blinked easily, taking for granted the translucent nictitating membranes shielding his sensitive eyeballs from the windblown grit.

  Double-glazing for the eyes was not a uniquely amphibian trait. Third eyelids, or “haws", were to be found in a diverse range of creatures from beavers to swans, protecting their damageable organs of sight from dryness and foreign debris. A number of predators possessed haws due to their reliance on eyesight when tracking prey. Such hunters included owls and crocodiles. Polar bears especially benefited from this adaptation for an entirely different reason. For them, the extra eyelids acted like sunglasses, filtering out the glare off the icescape and preventing snow blindness.

  Smelling rain on the flurrying breeze, Eskaa ran his moist, elongated tongue over his face to lick off the dust, anticipating the impending shower. Cloudbursts in the tropics were scarcely noteworthy, but the cyclonic rainstorms that ushered in the hurricane season were front-page news. Thankfully, global wind patterns confined such big blows to the eastern seaboard of the sheltering continent. Typhoons rarely struck the west coast; maybe one or two hits a year if the region was lucky, or unlucky as the case may be.

  Scrutinising the rolling cloudbanks blotting the western horizon, he envied the raw power nature exuded. The unaffected display of the rudimentary energies that scoured the planet served to contrast Eskaa's pretensions. Ever since his froglet days he acted with implied greatness, weaving together a tapestry of suggestibility, layering his image with carefully crafted trickery until he became this conjuring cleric, adulated yet unloved. But his magic stayed illusory. If he could just tap into the fury of a storm, channel that energy directly into himself and unleash it at will, what an unstoppable force he would be!

  Retracting his elastic tongue, he spat out the grit clogging his mouth. Words, not wizardry, remained his area of expertise. On one of those many occasions when Ryops and he were at loggerheads, the Dokran moaned how his Subos could probably talk the hind flipper off a turtle. Such sarcasm made no sense to Eskaa at the time, as a turtle possessed two rear flippers. Removing just the one meant he was merely competent, not exceptional. Only later, after angry reflection, did he better comprehend that simple platitude. The sheer potency of great oration could not be ignored. Talking up a storm rendered the truth as bendable as a coconut tree at the height of a typhoon.

  Turning his back on the greyed heavens, he hopped broodingly down the shingled incline to the water's edge. Curlers of steam rose off the deeply bubbling water, the ceiling of clouds darkening the lake from it usual milky turquoise to a greener shade of emerald. Correspondingly, he smelt, the reek of sulphur intensified, the pungency assaulting his nostrils.

  Dipping a toe into the naturally heated water, Eskaa began to rethink his callous indifference to Lunder's greatest asset; its people. All his adult life he preached the adage, The gods will provide. That was going to apply directly to him once he adopted the mantle of lord and master. It would be completely up to him to furnish his worshippers with the material things in life, as spiritual guidance alone would no longer suffice. The previously unreachable gods would coalesce into a single divine entity made accessible by his very earthbound presence. Bugger Ryops! The murdered Dokran left Eskaa the unwanted legacy of a conscience. How had his nemesis termed it? Sustainable resources.

  Eskaa jumped waist deep into the lake, hoping the soothing waters might wash away his reawakened scruples. Falling slowly forward, he fully immersed himself, floating face down, blotting out all to his senses bar the background gurgling of the crater hot pool. He imagined himself an unborn tadpole again, cocooned in blissful amniotic safeness, one of the anonymous multitude of frogspawn unexposed to the harsh realities of life that hatching brought. Presently, giving in to his repressed morality, he rolled onto his back, freeing up his thoughts for practical considerations.

  Lumber, not obsidian, sprang to mind as the cornerstone of amphib wealth. The problem with that realisation was Corakk Jungle had declined to below the renewable logging stage. Which is why Eskaa entertained the idea of dispatching scouting parties to explore the birthplace of the ancestral Piawro. Go east, young frogmen! The desert coastland of the neighbouring continent held the allure of ancient strangeness harbouring mysteries just waiting to be uncovered. Surely the waterless sands did not extend all the way to the interior? Perhaps the arid dunes hid behind their cresting wave-fronts oases forested with stands of date palms or gum trees ripe for the bite of the lumberjacks” axes. Maybe that desiccated shore cosseted saltwater marshes, the perfect wetland platform from which to colonise the landmass.

  Behind Eskaa's radical change of heart lay a vein of prompting evilness; a frogman shedding his skin stayed the same amphibiman underneath. If suitably timed, initiating a holy quest for timber could jumpstart his elevation to god status, providing trees were found. Wood would amply fuel his ambitions.

  A round of ritual killings might be in order, mused Eskaa. Religious sacrifices could always be counted on to promote good luck and encourage volunteers. Again, his motive was transparently ulterior. He already decided the “sacrificial lambs” were the last batch of tadpoles sired by Ryops. Grown into promising riverine froglets, he would see them cannibalistically served up to the now religiously guided Shurpeha, swollen in number by the inclusion of the magician-priest's brainwashed acolytes. That gross meal promised to put a symbolic end to the obsolete Dokrany—served with the appropriate sauce, of course.

  Kicking out into the middle of Crater Lake, the conspiring Subos failed to hear his own lunacy slam and bolt shut the door to commonsense. His seizure of power on the back of murder and deceit, fertilised by an unquenchable lust for bloodshed, pushed him over the brink of sanity and falling headfirst into the well
of madness, from which escape was impossible. As if he gave a damn. What others snidely ridiculed as crazy behaviour, Eskaa shrugged off as simple eccentricity. Fame and power made one quirky, not always popular.

  For a time he wallowed indolently in the gigantic hot tub. Long had he dreamt of taking a lawful dip in the breeding water and sowing here his own seeds when the time of the month permitted. A brand new generation of islanders would, quite literally, be the Subos’ children. No more celibacy for him! But what should have been a luxuriating afternoon soak in decadence was marred by a concern that refused to quit niggling him.

  Above all else, Eskaa the perfectionist hated leaving loose ends untied. Vacating their home with the littlest of protests, the disappearing act the Fish-with-Hands pulled was bizarre. The Subos expected the “Shee-taree” to have a lot more fight in them. No matter. Warriors, marking the change of ownership, diligently frogmanned the freshly established outpost on the merfolks” sandstone chimney, ready to repel any attempt at repossession by the talking fish. Safeguarding the hurriedly erected floating pier devised as anchorage for the fleet of fishing canoes newly based at Castle Rock was of paramount importance. As flimsy as that jigsaw of bamboo sections lashed together with coconut fibre rope was, the jetty staked the Piawro claim over the conquered reef in the most visible manner possible. So too did the flag fluttering atop the spire.

  I'll have to come up with my own device to replace the symbol of the Dokrany, he decided.

  Floating in lazy circles, the muggy vapour misting the lake's surface coiled around Eskaa's lean frame like a mummy's wrappings. He screwed shut his eyes, striving to concoct the nuts and bolts of a plausible back-story he would put into effect to orchestrate the amphib gods” fall from grace. Making a career out of shamelessly flattering the Elementals for his own advancement did not exactly suit him to the onerous task of unravelling the threads of mystique he so masterfully woven. That required the same degree of scrupulous guile he expended to achieve Ryops’ assassination.

  Not to worry. Eskaa exercised the patience of a saint, coupled with the depravity of a devil.

  He reopened his peepers the instant sporadic raindrops started puncturing the cloaking steam to rudely spatter his face and body, plopping noisily into the pleasingly warm waters all around him. Unable to focus his thoughts, Eskaa allowed himself to sink below the peppered surface, ludicrously to get out of the rain. Descending dreamily into the murky greenness, a single query disrupted his buoyant tranquillity, displacing all his scheming with its unrequited persistence.

  Just where had the Fish-with-Hands absconded?

  * * * *

  Running silently and shallowly, the displaced merfolk coasted their steady way on the underside of a warm water surface current, exhausted and miserable. The unseen conveyer belt kept them moving at a regular rate of knots long after their replacement sovereign's exhortations ceased spurring them on.

  A freshly crowned monarch robbed of a kingdom, Lasbow feared to have lost more than his undersea realm. Entrusting their future to the hurriedly promoted Captain of the Seaguard, the dispirited Cetari quietly wondered if such trust was not misplaced. The Fishers, eager to fight to the last merman in defence of the Rock, felt betrayed by their regent, the outlet for that anger manifesting as furtive mutterings of dissent. Putting up a token resistance to ensure the safe escape of the others, while the sensible action to take, was to them fundamentally cowardly. Feeling the murmured air of resentment pressing in on him from all sides caused Lasbow to wonder likewise. His fans were losing confidence in him.

  "Everyone experiences doubts at some time or other in their life, Your Majesty. Royals are no exception."

  Lasbow glanced over at Ahlegra. Leaving her mother smothered by scatterbrained handmaidens, the Merprincess swum comfortingly alongside him, worried by his melancholy.

  "Officially, I'm only Merking by circumstance, not birth. Does that count?"

  "You are royalty in more than name to the merpeople."

  "That's a matter of convenience. They need someone to focus their blame on and I make the prefect target. Right now, I'm about as popular as a starfish in a coral patch."

  She banished his misgivings with a smile. “They're just scared by our predicament. We are adrift in uncertain waters."

  "You don't seem afraid."

  "On the inside, I'm petrified. But members of the royal family don't show adverse emotion.” Ahlegra's cheery disposition gloomed noticeably. “We're very good at putting on a brave face for the sake of appearances. It's what the public expects of us.” Her ebony eyes held Lasbow's with a quiet intensity. “They look to their monarchy for stability and assurance. You mustn't disappoint your subjects, my Merking."

  The shark tooth crown sat uncomfortably on his head. It disheartened Lasbow to find when trying on the circlet for size it was not a better fit. Inheriting the mess created by Cerdic's pomposity made him realise that becoming king was far easier than actually being king.

  "Ruling the Merpeople is a different proposition to bossing around my Seaguard,” he said. “The guardian Fishers do as I tell them, seldom questioning my orders. The general public is a different net of fish, recognising my authority but not fully trusting my judgement. Maybe they have a right to be concerned. I might turn out to be a poor king."

  "You aren't the type of merman to second guess himself."

  "There's more at stake if I make the wrong decisions.” Rolling onto his back, Lasbow stared uneasily at the Cetari refugees swimming dejectedly in the wake of the royal couple. Travelling light out of necessity, personal possessions left behind squabbled over by amphib looters, the only belongings carried were emotional baggage. And the Merking unhappily added to that luggage. “They weren't terribly pleased when I ordered the corpses of their loved ones weighted down and cut loose.” Lasbow made that unpopular decision soon after he and his surviving defenders caught up to the watchful refugees.

  "We can't be expected to lug the bodies of dead Fishers behind us forever. Sadly, they were slowing us down. As hard as that command was to cut the tow lines, it had to be given.” Ahlegra flattered him further. “Even though the funeral service was off the cuff and your first, it came from the heart. They might not have liked your actions, but they appreciated your sincerity."

  Reaching out to the Merprincess, they openly held hands. “I could not have done it without your help."

  "Behind every merman is an even greater merwoman.” She looked away into the formless, blue-green distance. “I must confess to having my own selfish reason for wanting you to conduct that memorial. It did not pain me to see Cerdic sink away into the depths, to be swallowed up by the blue-back. He's gone for good now, relegated to a nasty memory best forgotten. My sister can now rest in peace, as can I."

  Feeling her tremble, Lasbow placed his other hand over the top of hers and squeezed reassuringly.

  "The moral strength you share with others is a fine asset,” she complimented him. “The merfolk need to see more of that from you, especially in these grim times. Whether a king or a Fisher, the noblest attribute a merman can possess is to be stout of heart. Be true to yourself, Lasbow. Your subjects will come to respect that."

  "I don't feel particularly strong,” he said, even with the Merking sword strapped securely about his waist. His inexperience with the unfamiliar weapon mirrored his kingship. Untested and untrained in its use, he was nonetheless expected to wield the tools of power decisively and flawlessly.

  Gleaning from her sly observations of him that Lasbow functioned best when immersed in the practicalities of rule, Ahlegra reminded him, “You still haven't appointed a new captain of the Seaguard. Hadn't you better stop procrastinating and pick someone?"

  Her ploy worked a treat as he turned his troubled thoughts on to more mundane matters. “There isn't a suitable candidate who jumps out at me."

  "Don't you mean there's nobody who measures up to the impossibly high standards you have set?"

  "It's a crucial posi
tion to fill, Ahlegra. I'm obligated to select somebody with the appropriate qualities that the job calls for, somebody not afraid to lead, somebody who has a rapport with the mermen, somebody—"

  "A lot like you?” The interjecting mermaid was no fool.

  "I wouldn't object to hiring a look-alike,” he admitted.

  Her insight relaxed and delighted Lasbow. Only now beginning to truly appreciate that intuitive nature of hers, he swore she could practically read his mind. In no way telepathic, the uncannily perceptive mermaid displayed empathy rather than extrasensory talent. In all likelihood a product of her abiding shyness, Ahlegra's sensitivity permitted her to feel another's mood or thoughts with frightening ease and correctness. In a romantic partner her ability could forestall the arguments, both silly and consequential, which cheapened a relationship. When employed by a king's consort, managing the emotional welfare of the realm's subjects became wonderfully simpler.

  But assigning Seaguard positions fell only to their captain, who in the past took into account the considered opinion of an equally qualified merman, and Lasbow had yet to quit the post.

  "Durgay possessed the knack for making sensible staff recommendations. If only he were...” Lasbow faltered as Ahlegra snatched back her hand, seeing how mere mention of her sister's bungling protector made raw her anguish again. Broaching a pleasanter subject to alleviate the Merprincess's resurfacing grief, he gamely said, “I've been thinking things over. It might not be a bad idea for us to marry sooner rather than later. Our union ought to raise the spirits of the merpeople."

  "We must be on the same wavelength,” she rejoined. “I've been considering our relationship too, though from a different perspective. I feel we ought to wait until we're resettled before announcing the engagement and starting up our romance proper.” She quelled the beginnings of his protest with a raised hand. “Tempted as I am by the offer, a wedding will only distract you from your kingly duties. The Cetari, through no fault of their own or yours, are now wanderers. It is imperative you find us a home. We cannot be seen to be selfishly building our own life together when the emigrant merfolk live rough without benefit of even a sea cave roof over their heads."