by Kai Meyer
“They beat and kicked me,” the girl said, without looking around. She now sounded very depressed again, as if the old time lay not thousands of years back but only a few days. “First it was only scorn, then fear was added to that. And finally they tortured me, again and again. My own family turned me out.”
Jolly nodded, lost in thought. Bannon and his crew had been her family, and they had also betrayed her. Aina must have been just as wounded and despairing as Jolly.
The longer she listened to the girl, the more ironic it seemed to her that they three, of all people, were the ones chosen to save mankind. Of all people, they, whom the inhabitants of Port Royal or Havana met only with dislike, or arrogance at best.
“Nevertheless, you came down here to destroy the Maelstrom,” Jolly said to Aina.
Aina gave her a long look. “Where else was I supposed to go if I didn’t?”
And then she was silent again.
The meeting with Aina had distracted Jolly from her misery at the sight of this wasteland, but now the gray, dark environment seeped into her again.
“Didn’t the Maelstrom have you followed?” she asked at last in Aina’s direction, just to hear a voice again.
“Oh, yes, of course. He’s looking for me.”
“The current?” Munk asked, and Aina nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It hit you, too, did it?”
Jolly frowned. “We thought he was looking for us.”
“No,” said Aina. “I don’t believe he knows you’re here yet.”
Was the girl really more important to the Maelstrom than Jolly and Munk? Perhaps he wasn’t afraid of the two of them at all, perhaps they were completely unimportant to him; he knew that they couldn’t harm him. Jolly surreptitiously clenched one hand into a fist. She’d rather keep on believing that the search current had been aimed at them. At least until now she’d had the feeling that the Maelstrom took them seriously. But now their whole mission looked even more hopeless. Sometimes it was an advantage to be afraid.
On the incline ahead of them now grew something that looked at first glance like the pale plant worms that thrived among the ruins of the coral city. In fact they were a very similar type of plant, only these were much bigger. It wasn’t long before the worms towered over their heads, waving at them like gigantic arms and legs that someone had stuck in the ground by the wrists and ankles. They grew side by side in broad clumps, but between them there were more and more lanes, through which the three could walk without any effort. Munk suggested swimming over the bizarre forest, but Aina declined. They were too close to the Crustal Breach, she said. And she seemed to be about to add something, but then she thought better of it.
“How much farther is it?” Jolly asked.
“Not much. We’ve already covered more than half the distance.”
How long had they been traveling? Jolly didn’t know. The missing sense of time down here worried her more and more.
“Careful!” Aina stopped.
Jolly and Munk also froze. Tensely they stared first at the girl, then into their gloomy surroundings.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s something here.” Aina’s eyes traveled over the wall of plant arms waving soundlessly back and forth. Forth and back again, disturbed by unseen currents.
Jolly looked at Munk, but he gave a barely noticeable shrug. Neither of them had seen anything.
“Down off the path,” whispered Aina, and with one swift stroke she glided from the ground between the bending stems. “Quick!”
“Path?” Munk looked bewilderedly at the ground. The lanes between the plants didn’t look as if they were laid out by design. Jolly signaled to him silently that she hadn’t the slightest idea what the girl was talking about. Nevertheless they quickly followed Aina between the plants. The white, spongy flesh of the plants felt revolting, much more organic than Jolly liked.
“Is that really a path that you’ve been leading us along?” Munk asked in a hushed voice.
Aina nodded. “A path of the claw men,” she whispered, then immediately indicated with a finger on her lips that he should ask no more questions.
They waited, anxious and motionless, while the plants gently stroked their bodies as if they were trying to examine the three invaders in their midst.
In the silence Jolly heard a gentle rushing and rustling—the rubbing of the plant stems against each other. After she first noticed the sound, it came from all directions at once, until it even drowned out the hammering of her heart.
Three kobalins struggled along the path, shoulders bent. Their bodies were low and very broad, and they had shorter, more muscular legs than the kobalins on the shape changer’s island. Their nostrils were deformed to fist-sized. In return, they had no eyes—mere slight depressions above the sharp cheekbones showed where the eye sockets had been in their ancient forebears. Like all animals and plants down here, they were also of a transparent whiteness, like fresh coconut milk.
Jolly’s stomach twisted. She prayed that an especially strong current might close the plant stems in front of her before one of the creatures picked up her scent.
Munk grasped her hand. She nearly cried out in fright. His fingers closed so hard on hers that it almost hurt. But she understood him only too well.
Aina didn’t move. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the creatures that were passing not five yards away from them. The girl’s face showed deep worry.
Jolly stopped breathing. It was a strange feeling when the water stayed in her lungs and gradually warmed. But to breathe it out now appeared too dangerous to her.
One of the kobalins stopped.
He senses us, Jolly thought. He senses that we’re here.
The edges of the giant nostrils widened, drew together again. At the same time the many-toothed mouth opened and closed as if the creature were trying to taste something out of the water.
Us, thought Jolly icily. He’s tasting us!
The two other kobalins halted too. It occurred to Jolly that none of the three possessed webbed feet. Therefore their feet were uncommonly broad and plump, almost as if this species of kobalin were bound to the bottom of the sea.
Of course! It was so obvious: white skin, no eyes, the bent posture—everything suggested that these creatures passed their entire lives down here and for countless generations had been exposed to the pressure of the water mass.
Now they were snuffling around the area with nostrils quivering, making smacking noises with their mouths.
They’re going to find us, flashed into Jolly’s mind. They simply have to find us.
The kobalins uttered a few whispering sounds, and then they went on, following the path in the direction from which Jolly and the others had just come.
The polliwogs remained in their hiding place for a long time, until Aina finally gave the all clear with a sigh. “We’re safe now,” she said. “At least for the time being.”
“Whatever were those?” Munk burst out as they pushed their way between the stalks.
“They live down here.” Aina looked once more in all directions, checking, and then stepped out onto the path. “They’re different from the ones that you know, aren’t they? There aren’t many of them anymore, but they’re at least as dangerous as the tribes farther up. Anyway, they can’t swim, at least not very well.”
“Can it be that they were looking for you?” Jolly asked. “Maybe the Maelstrom sent them.”
Aina starting moving ahead and downward. “Either that—or…”
“Or?”
“Probably they’re only hunting because they’re hungry.” After a moment she added, “You decide which you prefer.”
Jolly swallowed and said nothing.
“But they couldn’t eat you,” said Munk, and Jolly was annoyed with herself that she hadn’t thought of that. “You don’t have a solid body.”
Aina’s pretty face twisted slightly in pain, then she shrugged. “That wouldn’t help you, would it? Two polliwogs a
ren’t a bad catch.”
Jolly felt a nausea rising in her that was almost painful.
They went on, even more watchfully than before. Soon there were no more traces of the kobalins to be seen; the dust had covered their tracks.
The forest of deep-sea plants ended at the edge of a high plain. The abyss on the other side of the rock edge billowed in uncertain blackness.
“Listen!” said Aina.
Jolly and Munk started in alarm, but the girl made a calming gesture. “Just listen over there,” she repeated in a whisper.
They did so, if hesitantly, and it took a moment before Jolly realized what Aina meant. Out of the darkness in front of them came a distant roaring and thundering, like the noise of a mighty waterfall or a tidal wave.
“Search currents?” asked Munk.
“No,” returned Aina, shuddering. “That is he.”
“The Maelstrom?” Jolly strained even harder to hear. Yes, it might sound like that if an inconceivably large mass of water rotating in the deep were sucked in and spit out again. The ominous noise in the distance seemed to grab her and shake her. Jolly trembled, as though a powerful voice were speaking to her from the indistinct raging and fuming so as to intimidate her.
To her amazement she saw that Munk had squatted at the edge of the drop-off and unpacked his mussels from his belt pouch. He was deftly laying them out in front of him in the dust. Aina watched him with interest, her head tilted slightly to one side.
“What are you doing?” Jolly asked.
“I’m laying out the mussels.”
“I see that! But why now?” Had she missed something? Had he noticed a danger that she didn’t yet see? At the same time her hand involuntarily slid toward her own mussels in their belt pouch.
Munk didn’t look up. His fingers pushed the mussels around in their circle, sorted out some, replaced them with others, or changed the order, as he sought for the one definite combination. “Forefather said we should try out how the mussels react in the vicinity of the Maelstrom. Whether they behave differently from usual. That would be important, he said.” He stopped for a moment, and then he looked up at Jolly once more. “You can’t know that, you weren’t there.”
She weighed whether to do the same as he did and take out her mussels. But then she let it be; she didn’t begrudge him this triumph.
“What do they say?” asked Aina, turning to Munk.
Say? thought Jolly.
Munk looked up at Aina with a smile, clearly overjoyed that here was someone who obviously understood mussel magic better than Jolly. “They’re speaking, but not clearly. It’s more a…something like a tugging. They want us to go on, as if something were drawing them.”
Jolly stared at him. Her fingers snagged in her belt pouch.
“I brought my own mussels out of the Maelstrom with me,” said Aina. “I thought perhaps I could help others with them, somehow. But I didn’t use them.” She paused. “I was afraid he could find me more easily.”
At once Munk was alert. “Those must be very old mussels if you brought them here in the old time.”
Older was synonymous with power. Jolly had learned that much about mussels. The longer a mussel had lain in the sea, the greater the magic contained in it.
Aina’s eyes focused on the darkness on the other side of the chasm. Her voice sounded almost wistful. “They were imprisoned in the Crustal Breach with me the whole time. Together with my friends—and with the Maelstrom.”
“I could use them,” said Munk with unconcealed enthusiasm. “I could try to use them against the Maelstrom. They must be much more powerful than mine.” As if he wanted to lend his words additional weight, he carelessly shoved his own mussels—so painstakingly arranged a moment ago—into a heap and put them, trickling sea sand, back into his belt pouch.
Aina shook her head sadly. “It’s no good,” she said. “I don’t have them anymore.” She looked at the ground. “I left them behind on the way.”
Munk lifted his hand as if to comfort her, but then he seemed to remember that she didn’t have a solid body.
Jolly frowned. She felt herself more and more excluded by the two of them. There was something between Munk and Aina that she couldn’t understand. Casual movements seemed almost like secret gestures to her. And weren’t there also stolen glances between them?
Delusions of persecution, she thought, remembering moments in her earlier life, lonely night watches on the deck of the Skinny Maddy when her mind had played similar tricks on her: movements in the dark, sneaking shadows on deck, figures hiding behind the masts—all fantasies, but no less frightening on that account.
She was silent for a moment. Suddenly Munk got to his feet. His eyes blazed. “We’re going to look for Aina’s mussels,” he declared firmly. “We’ll find them and free her friends.” His face was beaming as if the fight against the Maelstrom were already decided.
Aina knit her brows, then looked over at Jolly, as if she were asking for her assent. “Perhaps Munk is right. We could look for them and use them,” she said cautiously.
Munk also seemed to remember Jolly suddenly. Looking almost annoyed, he turned around to her. “What do you think?”
Do you really care? she thought, but instead she said, “Sounds reasonable.” There was no point in discussing her feelings at such a moment. She had to trust to Munk’s greater experience in matters of mussel magic. She hoped he knew what he was doing.
Munk turned on his heel. “Good,” he said, “then let’s look for them.”
“They must be here somewhere,” said Aina, after they’d reached the foot of the rock wall and again found themselves on a gravel slope. “I left them lying down here somewhere.” She looked worriedly in the direction of the Maelstrom. “But we must hurry.”
“Did you bury them?” asked Jolly, with a dubious look at the stones under her feet.
“I put a stone on top of them, about this big.” She made a circular motion with both hands.
Munk’s cheek muscles worked. “I hope they aren’t broken.” His eyes were already roving over the stones, seeking.
Jolly shook her head, sighed slightly, and began to look for a stone of the size that Aina had indicated. There were at least a thousand of them within her range of vision.
Without discussion they separated, lifting stones and looking under them. Munk went about it with special zeal. Finally he opened his belt pouch again, laid several mussels on his hand, and let himself be guided by the suction of the magic. The mussels led him to a part of the gravel slope where Aina was already searching. The girl looked frantic and no longer as convinced as she had a few minutes before.
Jolly had just rolled another stone to one side without success when Aina called, “Here! This is it, I think.”
When Jolly looked over at her, the girl was just sticking her hand into a crack behind a head-sized fragment of rock.
Aina’s face brightened. “I’ve got them!”
Munk put his own mussels back into the pouch and went over to her. Nevertheless, Jolly got to Aina before he did.
In her hand the girl was holding one mussel, larger than any of those Jolly and Munk had, and mottled in a striking play of light and dark. In daylight it would probably have been multicolored, shimmering, and wonderful to look at.
“Only one?” Munk made no secret of his disappointment.
Aina nodded, ashamed. “The others broke under the stone. But this one will be enough. It was the most powerful of them, anyway.”
Jolly noticed that Munk cast a look past Aina into the crack. Was he really so mad about the magic that one mussel wasn’t enough for him? However, Jolly had to admit to herself that she too could feel the powerful tingling that emanated from the shell in the girl’s hand, almost a feeling of warmth, which jumped from Aina to Jolly and probably also to Munk.
“May I hold it for a minute?” Munk asked.
Aina smiled. “It’s yours, if you want it.”
“Of course!” Almost devoutly he
took the shell and carefully weighed it in his hand. His fingers were trembling. “It feels as if it were made for me.” He started and smiled at Aina guiltily. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”
The girl waved him off. “You have greater power over the mussels than I do. I can feel that.”
“Or than I do,” added Jolly. She was about to stretch out her hand to Aina’s present.
Munk recognized her intention, and for a moment it looked as if he were going to pull the mussel out of her reach. But then he held it out to her. “Here, take it for a minute.”
Jolly took the mussel between thumb and forefinger, lifted it close to her eyes, and stared at it. The strange tingling did not become stronger, which was perhaps a sign that the mussel had already decided on a new owner.
The shell was as large as a fist. Jolly had a sudden urge to hold the shell to her ear and listen to it. But for some reason she shuddered at this thought, and the idea that the shell might possibly speak to her made her uncomfortable.
Partly with regret, partly with relief, she handed the shell back to Munk. He received it with a hasty movement, as if he were afraid that Jolly might have second thoughts.
“I hope you can do more with it than I could,” said Aina, jumping up. “It may be our only chance against the Maelstrom.”
Munk was still staring at the mussel in his hand, but Jolly was observing the girl from the bottom of the sea. “If your body has no solidity, then how can you lift stones? And mussels?”
Aina shrugged. “The farther I go from the Maelstrom, the less substance I have. Perhaps it’s the other way around too.” She could see that didn’t satisfy Jolly and added, “I don’t know any better answer. I didn’t make the rules.”
Jolly looked to Munk for help, but he appeared to be still under the mussel’s spell.
“We’ve already stopped too long here,” Aina said, and she started off on the descent over the rubble slope. “Let’s go on.”