“Brock! I see the crops are doing well,” Rainor returned. “I’m afraid the rumors are true. We encountered two different bands at Turning Rock. One attacked us from dry land and the other rose from the Deep.”
“That is unfortunate.” Brock shook his head in concern. “I will warn the patrols to keep a sharp eye out for them.” The man turned, as if to return to the cluster of farmers waiting for him, but paused and looked back. “There were no survivors of the merging this time?”
Rainor shook his head sadly, “No, not this time.”
The man plodded off to join his comrades. We could hear them muttering between themselves as they returned to their labors.
My friends and I quietly exchanged looks. Our recent experience made it obvious to us that the farmers were the result of previous mergings between the freaks and humanoid ghouls.
“Do these farmers live in your village?” I asked Misty as we resumed our trek. I was curious about the social issue of what appeared to be normal humans living in close proximity to the mutants.
“No. The survivors of the merges aren’t usually interested in living as close to the water as we are.” She cut her eyes towards her brother and back to me. “I’m guessing Rain hasn’t been very forthcoming as to our odd heritage so I think I’d better fill in some of the gaps. You see, most of the humanoids born on Tereus, such as me and the villagers I live with, are amphibious,” she held up one hand and spread the fingers to reveal the fine webbing between them. “But there are others who are much more comfortable living a little further from the water or in the larger settlements. The degree of mutation varies a lot, even within a family.” She half-turned to look back at the farmers working in the fields. “The mergings create creatures that are not always able to live in the water and they are rarely socially acceptable in the villages—at least for a generation or two. We call them dry-landers. They have their own village not far from here.”
Misty’s explanation left me with a whole new set of questions but I managed to keep my questions to myself—for now.
The canal had widened and the low, thatched roofs of a village had just become visible on the horizon when the first of the chariots appeared. Pairs of creatures resembling some blending between seahorse and serpentine were harnessed to large, round sea-shells and guided by the hand of native humanoid males dressed only in sarongs that left their upper bodies, and most of their long legs, bare and unadorned.
“Rainor! Welcome home!” they each called as they streaked past.
He smiled and waved back, sometimes calling one or another by name. As if noticing the hot, sweaty faces of his traveling companions for the first time, he turned to me, “I’m sorry circumstances didn’t allow me to better prepare you for the weather and tropical temperatures you’ll find here on under-world. I’ll get you all some clothing a little more suitable for the climate when we reach the village.”
“Great, I’m about to melt in these heavy clothes.” I wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead before returning my attention to the village we were walking into. It had the look of a Polynesian village I’d once seen in an old book at the library. Well, except that the streets winding through this village were actually part of a floating wooden dock built out over the surface of a large lagoon of sparkling blue water. Each of the huts was a separate unit, floating on the surface of the lagoon and connected to the dock by a wooden ramp.
We were nearing the juncture of the dike and the docks when we encountered a number of large pens lined-up in double rows along the lane on the forested side. The pens appeared to have been woven of a material resembling bamboo. Each was about twenty by forty feet and had been raised up from the ground on piers. Curiosity got the better of Kelly, luring her to the side of one of the pens.
“You’ve got to come see this,” she called.
Exchanging glances and shrugs, we followed her.
“What are they?” asked Jennie as we all leaned over the top of the woven panel to study the pair of giant slugs sleeping within.
“And why are they kept penned up like this?” Kelly asked Rainor when he joined us at the side of the pen.
“These are the glow-worms I told you about,” he said. “Only the medium-sized worms actually breed, but their size doesn’t matter, they all leave deposits of the globes that we use in much of our construction. The size of the globe is relative to the size of the worm.” He nodded at the adjacent pen. “We corral some of the breeders in an effort to acquire as many of the young ones as possible. We’ll keep them confined for the first few months to protect them from predators until they’re large enough to escape.”
The pair of slugs in the first pen were each about the size of a large German shepherd and the color of a pale, blue sky on over-world and seemed to be sleeping. Another, slightly larger pen beside it contained hundreds of six-inch long glow-worms of an assortment of colors. Feeding pans filled with colored sand were scattered throughout the kennels. The woven bottoms of the pens were littered with glass globes of various sizes and colors.
“Why the different colored sand?” Kelly asked as she studied the sparkling crystal globes rolling about in the bottom of both pens. She reached to touch one but it lay just beyond her reach.
“I’m afraid that it is purely for the sake of vanity,” he laughed. “People like the different colored globes—the colored sand they consume results in colored globes.”
Rainor and Misty quickly lost interest in the pens of glow-worms and moved on.
“Kelly, it’s time to go, we’ve spent enough time here,” I called to my sister when she failed to leave the side of the glow cages.
“Coming,” she called back as she spun about and hurried after us. She was smiling and tossing an iridescent globe from one hand to the other.
Rainor mounted the wooden dock that seemed to serve as a main avenue through the village and led the way between the rows of huts. He ignored the many narrow side-docks leading from the main until we reached a large open marketplace. Here were an assortment of fishermen, farmers and vendors, all either unloading goods from small barges towed by the sea-horses or tending their various wares. Many faces turned to the newcomers. Most were curious, some called greetings to Rainor.
The gleeful shouts of children playing lured Kelly and me to the dockside, where we were delighted to see a herd of youngsters of various ages bobbing about in the water. Some were climbing on smaller versions of the chariot shells while others romped and dove in and out of the water in the company of young sea-horses and a variety of bottle-nose dolphins.
“Wow! Dolphins!” laughed Kelly.
“Yes, I’ve been told that they’re very similar to those on your world, except that these are a little more acclimatized to working with humans. Like the sea-horses, we utilize them for many things, including transportation. We usually just refer to the two species collectively as steeds,” Misty supplied as she bent to stroke the offered nose of one of the pretty, jewel-colored creatures.
“The water must be really deep here. I can’t even see to the bottom,” Kelly noted as she peered down into the dark blue water.
“Yes, the lagoon is about sixty feet deep,” Misty told her. “The steeds don’t like it if the water is too shallow.”
“Ladies, if you will go with my sister, she’ll get you each something a little cooler and more comfortable to wear for the rest of the journey.” Rainor indicated the narrow plank walkway that Misty was mounting and the hut it led to. “Gentlemen, if you will follow me, I will escort you to my home away from home, so to speak, and get you all something to wear as well.”
The walkway shivered and swayed under the assault of our feet as we followed Misty towards the hut. She had her hand on the wall at the side of the door and was turning to speak to us when a pair of green-haired little girls charged down the dock and threw themselves at her.
“Mama, Mama!” they shrieked excitedly. “Did you find Uncle Rain, did you see any ghouls?” they chimed in unison.
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br /> “Yes and yes,” Misty laughed as she hugged the little girls. “Now, please pretend that I have taught you a few manners and say hello to our guests.”
“Hello, I’m Kara,” said the taller with a smile.
“And I’m Kera,” the smaller child grinned. “Are you going to stay and visit with us for a while? And can I play with your frogg?” she reached her hands for the dog that was wiggling and panting excitedly between the children.
“Well, hello to you both.” I smiled. “Frogg?” I looked at Misty for an explanation.
“It’s not a frogg, girls,” Misty laughed. “On under-world, we keep creatures like Rainor’s Ralph as pets. If I understand what my brother has told me about your world, then that creature following you is probably a dog, right?”
“Oh, yes.” I laughed. “And yes, I’m sure Dusty would be delighted to play with you.”
“Okay, girls, you can play with the dog for a while, but keep it on the docks. It doesn’t swim like a frogg,” Misty instructed the children.
“I don’t mean to be rude or anything,” said Jennie, “but you seem kind of young to have children already.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” she smiled. “Rain told me that the women on over-world do not start having children until they’re older. But you see, here on under-world we must marry and have our children early if we intend to be around long enough to raise them. I’m nineteen already and they are still such babies. Anything could happen.” She saw the look of total confusion on our faces. “Rain didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Tell us what?” I asked nervously.
“Did you see any older adults when you came through the village?” she asked.
“Well, no but, well I guess I just didn’t think about it.”
“Of course you didn’t, no one really notices, at first. No one really cares, not until you need someone with more knowledge or experience, then you remember the parents and grand-parents that are no longer here to share their wisdom.”
“You mean there are no old people living in your world?” Kelly asked.
“No, no one survives the plague much past their thirtieth birthday. That’s why we must choose a mate while we’re so young and begin producing our children, and that is why you must help us find a way to accomplish the merging.” She pulled the door of woven sea-grass open. “So that my daughters will not have to begin raising children at twelve.”
We exchanged concerned glances as we followed Misty through the door of her hut.
“Wow! This is like something out of a fairy tale,” laughed Kelly as we all stopped just inside the doorway to admire the interior of the hut.
I couldn’t help agreeing with Kelly. Misty’s home was as bright and cheerful as a story book cottage, with ropes of iridescent stone and sea-shells and tiny glow-globes hung in chains over the walls and as partitions, separating sleeping quarters from the main room. Even the floors were constructed of thousands of small glow-globes that allowed us to look down into a lagoon filled with colorful fish and swaying hands of sea-plants.
Kelly yelped in surprise when a large pink fish with flowing fins bumped against the floor we were standing on.
“This is truly amazing!” I said as I moved between the furnishings. The comfortable-looking chairs scattered about the room had been formed from bent and weathered pieces of drift wood, and each was covered with small pillows of soft-colored fabric that made you wish you had the time to curl up in one and take a long nap. A pair of bunk beds could be seen through the chains of globes to one side of the main room and a large bed filled another area on the opposite. In the center of the small home was a small pool.
“Oh, Halie, come see,” called Kelly as she leaned against a low wall of twisted wood that surrounded the pool. The water contained within glittered with sparks of gold and silver from the light reflected into it by the circle of sky-lights overhead that had been formed from large glow-globes. A worn and slightly damp carpet of woven sea-grass laying at the edge of the low threshold on one side of the pool wall made it plain that this was the main source of in or out-going traffic.
“Your home is so beautiful. Are all of the village huts designed like this one?” Jennie asked our hostess in awe.
“Yes, pretty much. We rarely go about on the land-paths. We usually use the water lanes.” Misty smiled at the expression on Jennie’s and Kelly’s faces. They hadn’t been close enough to overhear our earlier conversation. She held up one hand and flexed her fingers, exposing the webbing between. “We really are more comfortable traveling around in the water than on the land.”
“Isn’t it kind of tiring to swim so much?” Kelly asked her.
“Oh, not so much,” laughed Misty. Walking to the edge of the pool, she leaned forward and blew into a pipe protruding from the water.
A moment later, the surface of the water erupted and exposed the head of a sea-horse like the ones we’d seen pulling the chariots earlier.
“This is Calliope,” she said as she stroked the spiny head of the mauve-colored creature. “She’s my best friend and takes me pretty much anywhere I can reach by water-lane. Most places on under-world can be accessed by water, and we never go by land if we can help it.” She grinned mischievously at us. “Well, except on special occasions like today, when we had to deal with that rogue band of ghouls. We had a tip that they were preparing a raid on dry land. It was just luck that we encountered Rain on his trek home.”
Leaving her guests to admire the pretty sea-horse, Misty made her way to a wardrobe near the bed and withdrew a stack of sarongs similar to the one she was wearing and three pairs of sandals woven of sea-grass.
“Here, these should be a lot more comfortable than those heavy garments you’re wearing.” She eyed the heavy-weight clothing we had donned against the cold at the beginning of this adventure. “Do you always wear such,” she grimaced in distaste, “well, such confining clothing on over-world?”
“Well, yes, at this time of the year it’s cold where we were.” Jennie laughed. “In the summer months, we wear a lot less, and much prettier clothes,” she answered self-consciously as she began undressing.
Misty watched, her expression one of curiosity, as we stripped down to our panties before wrapping the short cloth around our bodies. With a little instruction, several mishaps and a whole lot of giggling, we finally managed to get the sarongs properly tied.
She was helping Kelly tie her wrap when she touched the tips of the fingers of one hand to the shallow place at the base of the girl’s throat and her other hand to the same on her own—the place where the closed flap of her gills lay. “I wonder if your people will develop gills after the merging.”
“I -I really hadn’t thought about that,” I murmured. It certainly was something to think about. “When Rainor said there were only a few land masses on the under-world I had no idea there was this much water!” And as the words flowed out of my mouth, my brain was trying to process this new fact. What was going to happen to a population that lived most of their lives on dry land when we merged with a world that was mostly water? Where would all this water go if the merging were successful? The people on over-world could not live in the oceans. Would we all just suddenly develop gills and fins? And did we really want to?
Jennie and Kelly must have been thinking the same thing because they were staring at me with wide, very worried eyes.
“What if they do accomplish this merging?” Kelly asked softly. “What will happen when all these phantoms enter our world and are solid?”
“We’re barely functioning now,” gasped Jennie. “The phantoms that have been getting through to our world aren’t able to really hurt us. How will we ever deal with these aggressive, dangerous ghouls we’ve been encountering here if they can actually, physically harm us?”
Misty stared at us with wide eyes. “You’re right to be concerned. I know that this is a situation that has been much debated by the powers that be. All I can tell you, from my own experiences and knowledge, is t
hat our experiments are showing a strong decrease in the aggression exhibited by the ghouls when they are forced to pass through the Curtain before entry into over-world. We also believe that the increase in sunlight, as well as the decrease in radiation, will help calm them.”
“But do you think this will hold true for all of the phantoms and ghouls when the two worlds actually collide?” queried Jennie.
“That is the question that Rainor and his fellow scientists have been working on for so long.” Misty went on, “they believe that, with the help of the psychics he hopes to bring from your world, they will be able to control the rate of the merging so that there are few or no breaches in the Curtain. This type of merging should allow the chemical reaction caused by the dissolution of the fabric to be inhaled by all of the residents of under-world during the merge,” Misty assured us.
My mind was racing as I listened to this woman’s explanation and the more I learned, the more uncomfortable I became, and the stronger my feeling became that it would be a really bad idea to allow the worlds to merge. The problem remaining was could it be stopped, and what were the alternatives?
Despite the heat and humidity, I felt chills running up my back. So many decisions to make and still not enough information to sway me one way or the other. I finished packing my jeans and shirt into my pack along with the shoes I’d been carrying tied to the outside while I tried to digest all this new information. When I threw a glance toward my sister where she was busily re-loading her pack, I noticed a pair of small, golf-ball size globes hidden between her clothes. For a moment I thought about asking her how she had acquired them but then decided that I’d rather not expose Kelly’s little talent just yet. There would be another time.
“Halie! Jennie! Are you girls dressed yet?” called Jake from the other side of the hut door.
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