The Merman's Mark

by Tara Omar

  “I am quite serious, Raphael, and I believe Avinoam has shown me you can help.”

  “You expect me to help? Because you saw a sign in some vapour and stumbled upon some gossip about my history?”

  “It will be good for Aeroth.”

  “And quite convenient for you, I expect. If I am involved, no one on land or sea would ever suspect you.”

  “It’s not like I want to murder him, Raphael, or involve you purposely, but what choice do I have? I’ve waited too long already, trying to figure out how to do it—if I should do it. It is time to return the power to its rightful place, for the protection of humans. Things are not as they should be, and they are getting worse. I want only to restore the balance Avinoam intended.”

  “Intended? Not as they should be?” Raphael paced toward her, his bare feet crunching on the broken glass as if it were sand. “Those are mighty claims, even for the High Priest. It would be wise to exert caution.”

  “I have exerted caution, Raphael, too much caution. Avinoam knows I’ve pored over the Sacred Memories time and again looking for alternatives, yet none come. Meanwhile the Leviathan continues to rise. The humans will not last to the next generation if we do not act soon. He will go after the mers next, if he hasn’t started with them already.”

  “And these assumptive claims matter to a lonely, exiled mer how?” asked Raphael.

  “I do not believe you are as independent as you claim,” said Imaan. “You still have some connection to the sea.”

  “It is unwise to tread where you are unwelcome,” said Raphael sharply.

  Imaan stood up from her stool, putting her face near his. Her eyes glittered like Raphael’s paint as she stared him down, thinking.

  “So you will not help me then,” said Imaan.

  “It is unfortunate that you made such a long journey for little purpose, but I am afraid it ends here. I can ensure your safe passage from Faerkbërde, but as for the rest, I cannot help you.”

  Raphael turned to the man and removed the bandages he had just finished applying, which were now soaked blackish-red with dirt and blood. As he pulled them off, the skin underneath was smooth and completely healed. He lifted several bandages off the man’s arm and then the large bandage on the man’s neck.

  “Ah-he-ha,” said Raphael, dropping the bandage.

  “What?” asked Imaan.

  What little colour was left had drained from Raphael’s face as he stared at the man’s neck. There, just below the man’s right ear, was a small tattoo-like marking in the shape of a lotus entwined with a rose. It was the same symbol Imaan had drawn on her paper.

  “Did you know of this when you brought him here?” asked Raphael, still staring.

  “No, I thought he was good as dead in the forest. Saladin insisted on bringing him.”

  He slammed his fist on the counter.

  “Silence will have you if you’re lying to me!”

  “I swear we knew nothing of this man. Saladin would have slain him straight off if he had seen any Nephil marks on him,” said Imaan. She stared at Raphael, who was now gripping the counter as though someone had bludgeoned his knees. After a long moment, he looked at her, his face taut.

  “I will tell you what I know of the mark.”

  “Why the sudden change in heart?” asked Imaan.

  “Do you want my help or don’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing. Go to the King; I need time to think. You owe me that, after dragging me into this.”

  C H A P T E R 1 1

  David opened his eyes, squinting as a dome of light broke into thousands of glittering rainbows. They caused a dull, throbbing pain to pulse through his eyebrows. He shut his eyes again, burying his head into the thick chenille blankets wrapped loosely around his body. David felt as though he had just awoken from a long, unpleasant sleep. He rolled to his side but quickly fell back as a heavy, crushing pain attacked his chest. The dome of rainbows cracked in half and swung open. A mer stood over him.

  “Ah, glad to see you’re waking,” said the mer, ignoring the look of shock and pain lining David’s face. David tried awkwardly to sit up, but managed only to sink further into the mattress, as pain again seized his chest.

  “Do not move,” ordered the mer. “I have healed your major cuts and bruises but your ribs are still broken. You have had a serious beating.”

  “Where am I?” asked David, squinting. Through his half-shut eyes he could make out the lining of a giant pearl in which he was lying. It was sitting on an oyster against a wall, which was covered with a swirling mosaic reminiscent of the shore’s marbled, foamy waters. David’s stomach bubbled. He closed his eyes again.

  “You are in a spare bedroom on the first floor of the house of Raphael, in a eula grove of Faerkbërde, on the 22 of July, in the fourth year of decade 1642. I who attend to you am Raphael, a mer of the Larimar kingdom and the owner of this house.”

  “Am I dead?” asked David.

  “Not yet. Unless of course your name is Dead, then the answer would be affirmative. Is that your name?” asked Raphael.

  “What?”

  “I have told you my name, Sir. Custom commonly dictates you return the favour, though historically there have been a few exceptions.”

  David squinted at him.

  “I am asking for your name,” said Raphael.

  “Oh, right,” said David, shaking his head. “David. My name is David.”

  “David?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm, well then, David, as mentioned, you have had a serious beating,” said Raphael, adjusting the blankets on the bed. “I have healed most of your injuries but not without some challenging complications. Your rescuers found you entangled in the roots of a screeving willow; they say you came from the river.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I fell into a river and almost drowned. Then a seal saved me before nearly biting me to pieces. I passed out, and woke up here.”

  Raphael stared at him.

  “Have I said something out of turn?” asked David, looking around.

  “The truth is rarely out of turn,” said Raphael, his eyes narrowing. “Though I must admit it is an unusual tale. You are very far from humans, and seals do not normally swim rivers. What were you doing there in the first place?”

  “I—I don’t know. I can’t recall anything else.”

  “You can’t recall?”

  “No, that’s all I remember of anything. Everything else is blank.”

  “Hmm… The rest may come in time. You are perhaps a bit traumatised, as your injuries were quite severe. Do you have any questions for me, then?”

  “You said you are a mer?” asked David.

  “That is correct. I am a mer.”

  David nodded.

  “What’s a mer?” he asked.

  “A mer is a being that can survive both in water and on land. We live on the other side of the Abyss in Larimar and are members of the Nephil race—known collectively as the Nephilim—just as the humans are Aerothians,” said Raphael, picking through bowls on the table. “The Nephilim are the people of the sea, stewards of the great Abyss.”

  “So are you more like an amphibian or a merman?”

  “Why did you say that?” asked Raphael.

  “What?” asked David.

  “Merman. Why did you use that word?” Raphael’s eyes locked on David.

  “I—I don’t know. Isn’t it common?”

  “No, it is not. Mers and men are sworn enemies. Most would not dare to combine the terms.”

  “Oh. Must be the loss of memory,” said David. He inched his head closer to the mattress, bringing into focus the millions of tiny bubbles floating underneath him. He pressed his finger into the soapy mass, watching the bubbles spring back as he touched them. Raphael frowned.

 
“Do you wear glasses, David?” asked Raphael.

  “Yes,” said David, “though I seem to have lost them somewhere.”

  “We’ll have to fix that as well, then,” said Raphael. “Enough of questions; we need to get you mended.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your bones, boy. We need to mend your bones,” said Raphael. He slipped his arm under David’s back, helping him out of the pearl bed. “This sort of mending is a nasty business. I’d like to get it over with.”

  Raphael escorted David to a bare spot on the mosaic wall behind the bed, in between two golden rings holding pearled conch vases. Raphael removed the vases and picked up a basin from the bedside table. He frowned.

  “I am afraid no amount of anaesthetic will help this situation,” said Raphael, looking down at the basin. “The best I can offer you is Fred.”

  “Fred?”

  “Mhm,” said Raphael. He stuck his hand into the bowl, pulling from the water a squishy sea sponge.

  “Put him between your teeth, toward the back, by your molars,” said Raphael, pointing to his cheek. “He’ll help you through the healing.”

  “Is Fred living?” asked David.

  “Yes, Fred is living; why would I give you a dead sponge? That would be most untidy.”

  Raphael rolled up his sleeve and plunged his tattooed wrist into the basin of water while David stuffed the sponge into his mouth. Fred tasted like a foul combination of stagnant salt water and seaweed. David grimaced through his bulged cheeks.

  “That’s right,” said Raphael, positioning himself in front of David. “Now hold onto the rings and do not let go until this is over.” David stretched out his arms as Raphael gently pressed on the broken ribs, feeling for the fracture. David winced. “This is going to hurt a bit, David,” said Raphael, stepping back. “You should probably close your eyes. I only have one shot at getting this right.”

  David tensed his arms and stomach and shut his eyes, wondering how exactly mending bones would get on. He waited, but nothing happened. David relaxed his stomach as he held onto the rings, and still nothing happened.

  “Um, Rapha—”

  Raphael punched him square in the chest, right at the breakage point of his ribs. Agonizing pain shot through every nerve in David’s body as knife-like threads pierced through his skin, yanking his bone into place and wrapping itself around the crack. David screamed through the sponge, biting hard on Fred as he twisted his sweaty hands against the rings. The instant David felt no more foreign movement inside his chest, his knees instinctively buckled, trembling uncontrollably from the sharpened nerves. Raphael caught him, easing him down to the ground.

  “There we go, easy does it,” said Raphael. He held David with one arm as he grabbed bowls off the table. “I know, I know, it has the bite of a bitch.”

  David coughed and panted, gasping for breath as he spit Fred out. Fred fell into his hands, slimy with spit and torn in two.

  “I… I think I may have murdered Fred,” said David, wiping the saliva from his face.

  “He’s seen worse,” said Raphael, looking over his nose. He held the basin near David, who dropped the halves of Fred back into the bowl. Raphael helped him to the armchair and handed him a smaller bowl.

  “Drink. It will calm your nerves.”

  David shakily lifted the bowl of liquid to his lips. It was surprisingly warm and soothing. As he finished, David felt his breathing return to normal.

  “There we go. Feeling better?” asked Raphael.

  “Yeah, thank you,” said David, rubbing his chest. There was no pain.

  Raphael again positioned himself in front of David. He pulled David’s eyelids up with his thumbs, looking into his pupils. He plunged his arms into the basin again, swirling them around until the bizarre tattoos on his wrists began to glow and glitter.

  “And now, for the eyes,” said Raphael, smiling.

  David winced, turning his head toward the wing of the armchair.

  “Don’t worry,” said Raphael, smirking. “I’m only fitting you for glasses.”

  “Oh,” said David relaxing into the chair. Raphael put his middle fingers in each of David’s ears and his thumbs on David’s temples, concentrating. Wispy purple threads emerged from the centres of Raphael’s wrists; they floated in between his fingers and gently landed behind David’s ear.

  “What is—”

  Before David could finish, Raphael dug his fingers deeper into David’s ears and twisted his hands around, as though he were digging into David’s skull. Raphael flicked his fingers; the threads cut themselves and tied their ends to each other, hardening into a pair of studious-looking glasses. Raphael released David’s head.

  “There we go,” said Raphael, smiling. “Is that better?”

  David stared past him, looking wide-eyed at the floor-to-ceiling glass wall opposite. It opened to the most stunning coral reef. The fish had gathered near the glass and were watching him, and David could see each of them in sharp detail.

  “David?”

  “Oh yes, thank you,” said David. “Did you just pull glasses out of your wrists?”

  “Filament can turn into many things, not only glasses,” said Raphael, “though the quality and variety of things is determined largely by the skill of the mer or mera.”

  “So all mers have wrists as yours?” asked David, staring at his finger.

  “All mers can spin filament, yes.”

  “What else can you make?”

  “Gold, silver, platinum, bronze, copper, most inorganic things,” said Raphael. “Most mers also learn to imitate the properties of organic things like the soft hairs of cotton or linen, various fibres and wood. Nothing edible or living, though. That would be against the rules.”

  “Rules?”

  “Yes, only the Silent One can breathe life into filament.”

  “Who is the Silent One?” asked David.

  “The Silent One… also called Avi or Avinoam by humans.”

  David shook his head.

  “You remember your name but not that of your Creator?” asked Raphael. He turned toward the glass and made a gesture with his hand. The fish giggled.

  “Why did you just call me a monkey?” asked David.

  “What?”

  “You made a sign with your hand. You called me a monkey.”

  “How in Aeroth do you know that?”

  “I don’t know,” said David, shrinking back. “Why?”

  “Humans are not familiar with the merish signs. We use them to communicate when we are in the water. There is no way you should have known that.”

  “Oh,” said David, looking to his feet. Raphael stared at him.

  “In answer to your question, I called you an ape because you come from apes. Humans think they are born from the dirt they rule, but mers know better; I see more evidence of it every day.”

  David squinted.

  “Are we under the sea?” asked David, nodding toward the windows.

  “No, that is the moat around my house. The fish are my private collection.”

  “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  David walked toward the glass, transfixed by the variety of fish swimming among the anemones and corals. He stood on his toes and craned his neck, looking toward the corals near the back. “Is that a blue ribbon eel? She’s lovely. Reminds me of a bit of that filament you spun.”

  David followed a yellow damselfish with his finger as it swam near the glass.

  “From where did you say you come, David?” asked Raphael.

  “I don’t remember,” he said.

  “Right, of course,” said Raphael, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Patsy is quite lovely. She has a bit of an upset stomach when she gets stressed, as at present. The arrival of humans has all but left her little digestive tract filled with
horrid—”

  David accidentally pushed his finger through the jelly-like window, sending a zap like an electric current pulsing through his body. The damselfish darted away.

  “Ow,” said David, shaking his finger.

  “Do not touch the water,” said Raphael.

  “Why mustn’t I—“

  “Just don’t,” said Raphael.

  “Right. And the mers?” asked David, watching the fish. “From where do mers come?”

  “From filament. We were spun by the Silent One; our legends say our hands are of the same.”

  “Interesting,” said David. He raised his eyebrows and nodded.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Raphael.

  “No, it’s just…” David rubbed his tongue back and forth across his gums, “it’s just my tongue is tingling now.”

  “Oh right. It’s because of Fred, though never mind that for now. He didn’t harm you or anything, though you should get more rest. You must still be quite tired.”

  Raphael grabbed a ceramic bowl off the table and sprinkled its contents over the bare parts of the bubbling mattress, which quickly turned a deep purple. The room filled with soothing scents of vanilla, chamomile and lavender. David’s eyelids drooped with weight.

  “When you awake, you are welcome to explore the house at your leisure,” said Raphael, fluffing the pillows on the bed. “There are two other guests wandering about. They brought you here. At present they are also resting, though you may want to speak to them later, or avoid them, as you choose.”

  David nodded as he slipped into the opened pearl, sinking slightly as he floated onto the lavender bubbles. Raphael paused at the door.

  “Oh, and don’t—don’t step or fall into any of the pools,” said Raphael, “or it shall end badly for you.”

  David nodded, already halfway to sleep as the pearl folded closed, sealing him and his dreams inside.

  C H A P T E R 1 2

  David sat up in bed, the lavender bubbles following up his back like a reclining chair. He was again surrounded by walls of rainbow light, but this time they caused no headache. David tapped the side of the pearl and it flipped open to the same shore-like room; he swung his feet over the side of the pearl and patted the nearby table with his hand, searching for his glasses. His hand brushed against something smooth and light; he found his spectacles and looked at the note which had been placed on top of them. The cotton paper was embossed with a metallic purple insignia, under which was written a brief instruction in perfectly-angled writing.