by Tara Omar
“Yes, yes of course,” said Imaan. She shook her head and heaved the man over her shoulders. “It appears Raphael lives in a eula grove just beyond this copse. You can start ahead. The grove will help your injuries.”
Imaan nodded in the direction of a small eucalyptus sapling at the edge of the clearing. Saladin pulled his machete from his belt and shakily stood up. He limped cautiously in the pointed direction, hanging onto a solid, grainy branch of a sugarbush as he hobbled past the sapling with his machete in hand.
“So about the mer, what do you know about him?” asked Saladin, inching his way along the branch with the awkward tempo of an aged invalid. Imaan followed behind him.
“He grows and makes a lovely rooibos tea which is very soothing, and he writes the kindest of letters,” said Imaan. “Overall he seems a very gentle soul, preferring mostly to be left alone.”
“And if he’s not left alone?”
“I would gather he will be annoyed, but not more than that. He is different from the other mers. He would not harm humans, I don’t think.”
“You don’t think?”
“Why are you so distrusting?” asked Imaan.
“Oh, I don’t know, dropping the Aerothian king so badly injured on the doorstep of the only mer on land doesn’t seem like the smartest thing I’ve ever done. As a race they are bent on killing us after all, and at present I’m an easy target.”
The crunching leaves under Saladin’s feet softened as the air turned cooler and damper. He pushed himself past a silver tree, pressing its shiny, pointed leaves to the side with the flat of his blade as he hung onto the branch with his other arm.
“Biy’avi,” breathed Saladin. All around him the trees glittered with leaves of sage and silver in the powdery grey light of the clouded sky, their saps filling the space with scents of eucalyptus, rosemary and rain. Hanging blue orchids tumbled over outstretched branches like floral waterfalls, disappearing into the thick mist that hung heavy on the forest floor like a cloud. A delicate hibiscus flower floated downward from a nearby vine, its centre glowing gold like the fireflies of the City. It disappeared into the cloud at their feet, sending its light through the mist. They had passed through the entrance of the eula grove.
“Faerkbërde still has a gentle soul in some parts, despite the pain it has endured,” said Imaan, watching the long, sinuous leaves sway softly in the breeze.
“Is this a mer’s trick?” asked Saladin.
“Hmm? No, it’s part of the forest. A wellness centre, if you like.”
“I mean the house,” said Saladin. “The mers are supposed to be master artisans.”
He looked toward a dilapidated, old cottage several yards away, which was squatting on a small island surrounded by a moat that spilled into the river behind it. The tiny, stone building looked more like a pile of rocks than a house, its uneven and crumbling walls seemingly held together by the thick moss growing over it. If it weren’t for the broken wooden roof on top and the roughly-hewn bridge leading to it, Saladin would have barely recognised a structure at all.
“Well at least I shan’t be intimidated in this meeting,” said Saladin, chuckling. “The abode looks far worse than I do.”
He stopped near the bridge that led to the cottage, where a sign was attached to a crooked post. Saladin read the badly-carved letters.
BEWARE OF MOAT
“Have you been here before, Lady?” asked Saladin.
“Never,” said Imaan, adjusting the man on her shoulders. “I only met him once when he first washed up on the shores in exile. He disappeared into the forest shortly after. Raphael is still a bit merish obviously, but I do not think it is cause for worry.”
“Hmm.”
Saladin hung his arm over the bank and pinched a cut on his wrist, letting a drop of blood fall into the moat. A writhing creature launched itself through the surface, snapping aggressively at his upheld arm before it fell back into the water. Saladin staggered backward.
“Moray eels! Who in their right mind would keep moray eels?”
“Someone who does not want company,” said Imaan. “Let’s go.”
“Hold onto my belt until we are past the bridge,” said Saladin, checking the sides of the structure. Imaan rolled her eyes but listened, grabbing the back of his belt. Saladin raised his chin to a regal position and with machete outstretched, walked over the wooden planks, ignoring the pain that screamed through his leg.
“Saladin, everything is fine. Raphael can be trusted. I do not think we have to worry about—”
The floor of the bridge dropped out from under them, and jets of water blasted them from every direction, making it impossible to grip the sides. They plunged into the dark waters below.
Damn that stinking fish! thought Saladin. He hacked wildly from under the water as the eels swarmed him, cutting through as many as he could before he burst through the surface, gasping for air. Saladin searched for Imaan, but instead of the Lady, he met the yellow-button eyes of a swaying, blue eel staring in front of his face, its mouth opening and closing in rhythm as its head trembled, laughing at him from behind thick panes of jelly-like glass. The King and the Lady had fallen—not into the moat—but into a quiet reflecting pool in the middle of a hall directly under the bridge. The hall ran like a glass tunnel through moat’s centre, offering spectacular views of a coral reef filled with tropic fish and other marine life, many of which had gathered at the glass and were watching him curiously. Saladin gaped at them.
“And so the King stumbles onto my humble threshold like a crazed, defeated soldier cutting through a puddle,” chimed a melodic voice from the edge of the pool, cool as an ocean breeze.
A mer with purple tipped hair stood next to a blushing Imaan, barefoot and smirking. His bright purple eyes flickered with the same condescending enjoyment as the eel behind the glass.
Saladin found a piece of the eel he had cut. It was made of rubber.
“WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?” roared Saladin. “What kind of sick, twisted mind plays a joke on a man like that?” He grabbed a piece of the rubber eel and flung it toward the real one. It bounced off the wobbly glass with a clink, sending the gathered fish scurrying for crooks and crevices in the reef, their eyes glowing in the shadows. Raphael glared at him.
“Are you sure this is the King you brought with you, Imaan? He looks rather like a vagrant that only just escaped hanging.”
“Answer me, you fussy!” bellowed Saladin, punching the water. Raphael jumped back, careful to not let the water touch the silken lilac flares of skin that hung from his knee. He frowned.
“There is no need for foul language, Your Highness. My moat is home to some of the rarest and most intricately woven corals in the whole of the sea. I may protect it as I choose. In fact, I think I’m taking it quite well, given you’re the one that fell unceremoniously into my water feature, dirtying it with your fluids.”
“You’re taking it well? I should remind you that this is Aerothian land which you have dug under,” scoffed Saladin.
“Under which you have dug,” said Raphael.
“What?”
“I believe the more correct version of that sentence is that this is Aerothian land under which I have dug.”
Saladin glared at him. “You know my council will be very interested to hear of the water snake in your moat.”
“Saladin, hush!” said Imaan.
The floating blue and gold eel behind the glass lunged toward Saladin, snapping wildly. Raphael’s lip twitched.
“It is an elver,” answered Raphael. He turned to the angry eel.
“Do not listen to him, Patsy, humans never were known for having any manners,” said Raphael, flexing his fingers. The eel snapped and lunged once more at Saladin before burying itself in the sand below, apparently having had enough of the rude visitor. Raphael turned again to the King, his purple eyes shining
like daggers.
“I trust you will not thrice offend me in my own house, to which you have shown up unannounced and uninvited, and which was granted to me quite specifically as an independent estate in the seventeenth paragraph of the Coastal Treaty. At present I have every right to harm you for trespassing. Do not tempt me.”
He eyed the unconscious man floating next to Saladin.
“Why did you come here?” asked Raphael to Imaan. “Am I a hospital?”
“I needed to ask you something. It could not wait.”
“Do I not always answer your letters promptly?”
“It was too urgent, and of a private nature,” said Imaan.
“And the man?” asked Raphael.
“We found him in the roots of a screeving willow and brought him for healing. I do not know from where he comes; the tracks looked as though he pulled himself from the river,” said Imaan.
Raphael fingered a pearl he wore around his neck, pausing to think.
“I have decided to allow you entrance. But your question better be about more than my red bush tea to which you are so partial. I shall see to the man first. His injury looks quite serious.”
Dramatically, he turned with his back to the pool, taking a few steps forward before pausing and signalling them to follow.
Saladin scrambled to pull himself out of the water. As he stood near its shallow edge, he grew dizzy and collapsed forward, unconscious. Raphael sighed.
“Finally. I must remember to increase the amount of sedatives in those eels,” said Raphael, turning to the glass. “It’s alright, Patsy, you can come out now. The vagrant can insult you no longer.” A thin, yellow head popped itself out of the sand, eyeing the unconscious men. Seemingly pleased with what she saw, Patsy floated out of her hole, swirling and twisting in graceful movements, like a ribbon attached to a baton.
“Imaan, dear, would you please carry the man for me; you will understand why I am hesitant to carry him myself,” said Raphael, tugging on his pants.
Imaan moved to pull the man from the water, pausing as she neared the King slumped over the edge.
“Leave him. The salt water will help his injuries until I can attend to them, though if he drowns it will not be a significant loss,” said Raphael.
Imaan nodded, hanging the unconscious man over her shoulders. Patsy followed alongside Raphael from behind the glass, her body undulating in graceful waves as they led Imaan down the passage. At the end of the hall stood a pair of golden doors, adorned with figures of sea creatures and mers. They marked the entrance to a stunning mansion of glass and crystal, which sat submerged in the moat like a trapped bubble. The mansion’s roof made up the island on which sat the ruined cottage, and its windows faced the coral on either side of the hall, flanked by merish sculptures and tiling. Raphael clutched a jewelled seahorse and pulled open the door, waving his arm as he spoke.
“So, my dear, do tell me more about this urgent question.”
C H A P T E R 1 0
Imaan entered Raphael’s house, carrying the unconscious man across her shoulders. A wave of cold, humid air hit her when she stepped onto the spongy floor, as though she had just entered a damp cave. She was in a library, and the breath caught in her throat as she looked around. The library walls were completely covered from floor to ceiling in sparkling, blue sapphires. Plush chairs and couches were scattered about the floor; some faced the wall of windows toward the coral reef; others were tucked in nooks between the maze of mahogany bookshelves that filled the room. A golden spiral staircase rose from a glassy pool with marble ledges at the room’s centre; it disappeared into a clouded ceiling.
She paused.
“Is something the matter?” asked Raphael, holding the door.
“No, it’s lovely,” said Imaan. She bent her knees and nudged the man further up her shoulders. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it.”
He led her to a polished door near the back of the library. It was carved with the image of two crossed hands, each with a ribbon shooting from the centre of the wrist. Imaan stopped again.
“Do you have a habit of pausing at thresholds?” asked Raphael.
“No, it’s just…” Imaan paused. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Hmm.”
Imaan stepped into a damper and colder chamber. Unlike the shimmering luxury of the library, this room looked more akin to the stony cavern of a diamond mine. Jars of paint glowed like liquid gemstones from inside crevices in the rocky walls, with parchments and notes from experiments stuck in between them. Crystal statues of fish stood anywhere there was space, along with scales, flasks and stacks of Petri dishes. The cave looked fitted for both an artist and a scientist.
“Here, you can set him here,” said Raphael, sweeping a collection of half-sculpted corals off a counter in the middle of the room.
Imaan laid the body on the table, watching as Raphael bustled about the studio, grabbing glass jars and paper sachets from a lacquered cabinet against the wall. She pulled at her soggy skirt, which had begun to stick to her legs like a clammy blanket.
“So this is what you do with your time?” asked Imaan, nodding toward a nearby sculpture of a dolphin. It looked like a hardened soap bubble.
“Some of it, yes,” said Raphael, “when I am not patching up humans with poor enough sense to visit me.” He emptied a sachet of what looked like dried octopus tentacle onto a scale, measuring several grams.
“You still have not answered my question about your question,” said Raphael, eyeing her from behind the scale.
Imaan closed her eyes, pulling a folded paper from behind her breastplate and handing it to him.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked.
Raphael looked as though she had pressed a needle through his hand.
“Why do you ask?”
“It appeared to me in a vapour last night, while I was at home.”
“And what would the source of the vapour be, in the middle of the Marah Desert?”
“My water pipe.”
“Your hookah pipe? Dear Lady, do you still have such an ugly habit? Smoking is terribly unhealthy, and rather foul-smelling, if you ask me.” He tossed the tentacle into a marble mortar; the room filled with a pungent smell of rotting fish as he ground them. Imaan wrinkled her nose.
“Never mind an old lady’s habits. I want to know what the mark is,” said Imaan.
“I suspect it is the odd shapes imagined in a smoke cloud—nothing more,” said Raphael, engrossed with his mixing. Imaan pursed her lips.
“Really, Raphael? The lotus, the symbol of the Nephilim, and the rose, the symbol of the Aerothians, entwined together? Why would anyone imagine that?”
“You were the one smoking, not me,” said Raphael.
“Do not mock me. I have been waiting for a sign, and Avinoam has sent it.”
“Hmm.”
Raphael set down the pestle and picked through the brushes stuck in the paint pots on the walls. He pulled a crusty paintbrush from a jar of half-dried Cadmium Honey and wiped it on a rag.
“I do not think the Silent One would send a symbol through a vice,” said Raphael, stirring his salve with the paintbrush. “Perhaps you are misled.”
“So you’ve never seen it before?” asked Imaan.
Raphael leaned over the man, painting the cuts and open wounds with the salve.
“Well, have you?” asked Imaan.
“You have all the best Aerothian scholars at your disposal, why not ask them?”
“If I thought they could help, I would not have endangered myself and the King to come here. There was a merish symbol in that smoke, and you are the only mer I know.”
Raphael tapped his brush on the mortar.
“You know something, Raphael—something you are not telling me, or are not willing to tell me.”
“
I have interest in neither the affairs of man nor of mer anymore, and apart from our correspondence, I have little contact with either. I am afraid the only information with which I can currently assist you is the recent pattern of little Patsy’s stomach ailments. Beyond that I cannot help you.”
He set down the brush and mixture and dipped his wrist into a bowl of water. Imaan noticed for the first time the bizarrely-shaped tattoos that he had on each wrist; they started to glitter and glow in the water. Raphael removed his hand and flicked several of his fingers. A fluorescent, purple thread the colour of his eyes emerged from the centre of the glittering mark on his wrist. Raphael twisted his hand in graceful motions, watching as the thread wove itself into a broad strip. He floated it down to the man’s wound and flicked his fingers again. It severed from his wrist, changing into a fluffy bandage as it settled on the wound.
“I’m not looking for current information,” said Imaan, watching as he made another bandage. “What happened before you were exiled?”
“That cannot possibly be relevant.”
“Or can it? Because I’ve managed, with some difficulty, to track down some rumours about a mer who once caused quite a stir…with a princess…”
“Stop.”
“And was later condemned for—”
“I asked you to stop!” shouted Raphael. Strands shot from his wrist, thickening into ropes as they pinned Imaan to the wall. She smiled.
“Temperamental, aren’t we? I think you have spent too many long years in Faerkbërde.”
“Apologies,” said Raphael, shaking his head. He twisted his arm, pulling the ropes toward the opposite wall as he released her. They shattered like glass as they hit the stone. Raphael stared at his wrists.
“If you are so knowledgeable of history why must you hurt me with memories?”
“I do not know enough,” said Imaan. “I think you have information that may be relevant for my plans.”
“What plans?” asked Raphael.
“Murder,” said Imaan. “An assassination.”
“Murder? Imaan, you can’t be serious.”