Beached

by Ros Baxter

  ‘You may reveal yourself,’ the Queen commanded the creature. ‘You are safe here.’

  At her command, the space in front of the Queen turned from transparent to deep crimson, the body of a particular kind of deep-sea octopus revealing itself in front of her, huge and silent. Carragheen watched, stunned into silence as the Queen lifted a long tentacle and brought it to her temple. Finding purchase, the thing attached and the Queen lowered her arm.

  The two creatures stayed like that for a full minute, the Queen nodding and smiling as the squid pulsed crimson, turquoise and midnight blue in turn, before gently detaching his suckers from her temple, flattening himself at her feet in a gesture of homage, and moving off.

  ‘What was that little ritual?’ Carragheen knew he shouldn’t ask. It was not his role to question the Queen.

  The Queen laughed gently. ‘A very ancient, hardly-used form of communication between our two species,’ the Queen said. ‘My mother taught me, a very, very long time ago, when I was just a girl. That cephalopod child was so afraid.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ Carragheen said, feeling again the jolt of wonder this woman, his queen, always sparked in him.

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Not anymore.’

  She turned and picked up his hand, smiling at him. ‘So you see? I am well, Carragheen,’ she said. ‘If I can remember a lesson taught to me millennia ago, no? For now, I am well.’

  Carragheen hesitated, and then nodded.

  Her huge blue eyes were eloquent. Sadness bled from her. ‘I know you see it: my weakening. I know your inclination is to stop me, to try to prevent me from being here, doing this. But what else would I do?’

  Carragheen felt a tremor of an unfamiliar emotion surge through him. He wanted to protect this woman, his Queen, and not just because the Princess had charged him with her foster mother’s care, but because as he became closer to her, as he really got to know her and all she was capable of, he would do anything to make good on the promise. He would do anything to protect her. She was remarkable. Aegira made flesh. All the things he had ever felt about this home, his confusion and fears about his father, his disappointments, his years of rebellion, he felt as though now, finally, he was free to love his nation, and take his place to protect the woman who ruled it. But what would all of that mean for his life with Rania?

  ‘You could rest,’ he said gently. ‘Others could—’

  She put a finger to his lips. ‘Stop. I am not going anywhere.’

  Carragheen nodded again. ‘As you wish, Queen,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, then, you will tell me what I can do for you.’

  ‘Ah,’ the Queen said, holding up a hand to a Gag-ai-lan helper who was motioning the next arrival forward. ‘Well,’ she said, smiling fetchingly, ‘I am very glad you asked, Carragheen. There is something. I had been hoping to discuss it with you later tonight, but now that you bring it up…’

  Carragheen inclined his head, feeling her trap close around him but smiling anyway. ‘Anything.’

  ‘I would like you to join my new Triad.’

  Carragheen felt his legs weaken at the words. He clenched his hands, imagining moving into the role that his own father had so recently vacated in disgrace. The thought made his stomach churn. He was not interested in high office. He was not even sure what his future held. ‘Queen, I have no ambition…’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ Imd responded, almost smirking at him. ‘If you had, I would not have asked you, quite honestly.’

  Carragheen watched the Queen carefully, her long blonde hair floating around her like a perfect halo, her blue eyes dark and weary. He closed his eyes and felt conflict rage in his soul, then opened them again as he heard the Queen speak.

  ‘I have lost two of my leaders,’ she said. ‘Your father…well, as you know, it is clear that I cannot continue to have him in my council after it was revealed what he did to Lunia, and my daughter.’ The Queen’s voice broke on the last word. ‘I know he loves Aegira, but I no longer trust him. And for some time we have not shared the same vision.’ The Queen swept her hand towards the queuing refugees. She sighed, a delicate thing that shimmered in the water. ‘Epaste, of course, did share my vision. But—’ She laughed, a short, mirthless thing. ‘Unfortunately I did not share his views about the best way to accomplish it. He showed serious weakness, partnering with Manos. It was through him that Manos was able to get a foothold here.’

  Carragheen groped for a reason not to take up her offer. ‘You still have Shar,’ he said.

  The Queen turned slightly, facing the incoming refugees, her voice sounding tired and a long way off. ‘No, Carragheen,’ she said. ‘It is time for a new grouping. My daughter will choose her own Council, when the time comes for her. And I know I do not have long left. But Shar, too, must retire. I can no longer heed his advice. I need an interim council,’ She turned back and placed a hand on Carragheen’s arm, ‘to help me through this current crisis. I need particular skills, and new ideas. I need young people, not old men afraid and set in their ways.”‘

  Caragheen nodded, astonished at the clarity of her vision. ‘Who else?’ he asked.

  ‘Lecanora,’ the Queen said. ‘And Rashind.’

  Ah, Rashind the healer. Good choices. Both were young, but they were tested, and smart. ‘My Queen,’ Carragheen said. ‘I need to tell you that I do not know how long—’

  The Queen waved her hand at Carragheen, turning a swift circle on the spot in her impatience to be done with his protestations. ‘I know it, Carragheen,’ she said. ‘I understand that your place is with Rania, and that the two of you must decide what comes for you next. Whether you settle here,”‘ She waved a hand casually at the golden glow from the city, ‘or on The Land.’

  Carragheen closed his eyes and tried to imagine it. It had only been a few days, but already his lover seemed like a dream to him.

  He wished he could will her back to him, but he knew she was on important business. Business commanded by the queen. And here was he, Carragheen, prevaricating when the Queen called upon him. What would Rania make of that? For all her Land girl bluster and bravado, she loved this queen. She loved this nation. She had already risked her life more than once to save it. But if he was down here, advising the queen, how could he keep her safe?

  The Queen swam up very close to Caragheen’s face, pinning him to the spot with the imperial stare she had learned from her goddess mother. ‘But for now, I need you.’ She touched his face and he felt awe rise up in him. ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, closing his eyes and imagining Rania’s face, wishing he could go to her, tell her and hold her. ‘Yes, I will do as you wish. Like the Leigon, my body is yours.’

  The Queen smiled. ‘I promise I will only borrow it for a short while. And, with my goddess mother to guide me, I pray that I will return it to you intact.’

  Carragheen hesitated, then saw the openness in the Queen’s face and decided he could tell her. ‘There is something else,’ he said. The Queen nodded, raising a brow at him. ‘If she is danger, I will go to her,’ he said. ‘In a heartbeat, I will go to her.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course. Remember that my daughter is with her. I would expect nothing less. Once this is over, you can spend a long life with her, the Child of Land and Sea.’

  Carragheen turned away from the Queen. Something roiled and bucked in his stomach, a dark, ominous thing that had hunted the outer reaches of his mind for some time now. He hoped he would have a long life with Rania. He really hoped so.

  But something told him it might not be so.

  * * *

  Long hours later, Carragheen was guiding the Queen back to her quarters. While he dared not touch her, he could feel the weight in the way she moved through the water, her famous and beloved feather-light stroke. He felt an unfamiliar emotion claw at him, as the desire to give her his arm almost overwhelmed him. Just as they slid through the golden arches into her personal quarters, a voice startled him. He had been so focused on the Queen he had not
heard Tatiana’s approach. He kicked himself swiftly, and reminded himself to pay better attention.

  Dangerous times.

  Tatiana was a mess. Her eyes were wide, and this time not from flirtatious design. Her face was streaked in silver, making her look like some sea-statue from another age. The tears were still flowing, making their way through the water to Carragheen and the Queen. He watched one land on the Queen’s nose as the girl came closer, hurling herself towards Imd.

  ‘What is it?’ Carragheen growled, his stomach clenching and his hand curling into an involuntary fist as he arrested the girl’s flight towards the exhausted Queen. ‘What has happened?’

  The girl’s words came out in a rush. ‘It is my brother, Queen,’ she wailed, looking directly at Imd. ‘He is gone, he is gone. We do not know how long, we cannot remember.’

  Carragheen turned to Imd, and saw her face collapse into itself. ‘No,’ she mouthed quietly. Carragheen understood her pain, and her fear. They had just been through this. Imogen, the lead soloist of the choir, and Imd’s own foster-daughter, Princess Lecanora, had been taken by the minions of Manos.

  Ten thousand years of peace and harmony, and now they were living a nightmare.

  People did not disappear in Aegira, until now. They all knew each other; they belonged together. They could find each other, always. Fish in a school.

  Carragheen could taste the queen’s desperation as he watched her search for the right question. He understood that this was personal for her. She blamed herself for not stopping what had happened before, even though she had been under the influence of poison, dulling her senses, making her compliant. Well, she was not compliant now.

  Carragheen could taste her rage, red and full, and rising like a giant squid from the deep.

  But the girl was not finished. ‘And he is not the only one. Others have gone, too. It is all over Aegira, people are waking up and realizing their young ones are gone.’

  Something clicked in Carragheen’s brain.

  Of course. The spell was broken. The forgetting spell. Zorax, the choirmaster, had broken it at the Queen’s urgent bidding, and now they were all finding out exactly what had been going under their noses.

  It was the Queen’s place to respond. Carragheen turned to her, his brain whirring and whirling. It was her call. But she looked at him, and in that one look Carragheen saw all her confusion and loss and fear. And he saw something else. She was not well.

  More than he had realized.

  ‘Tatiana,’ Carragheen barked, still holding the girl’s wrists but loosening his grip a little. ‘Look at me.’

  The girl did as she was commanded, more silver falling from her eyes.

  ‘You need to think very carefully, and you need to answer me directly. Do you understand?’

  The girl stopped the wailing that had been beating at his brain, and focused on his eyes. He used his voice the way he had learned from his mother, to still and quiet, as he had done with the angry mob when they had come to his home, the pool, blaming him for all that was going on in Aegira. That was before they had known about Epaste. And Manos.

  ‘How long have the young people been gone?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘Men, Carragheen,’ she corrected him. ‘It has only been young men. And I do not know. No-one knows. A week, perhaps? It must have been done, at the same time as Imogen. Ohhhh…’

  The wailing started again, and Carragheen tightened his grip, biting his nails into her flesh to get her attention. ‘Stop, Tatiana,’ he said again. ‘For the sake of your brother, and the queen. You need to focus now. You need to help me. How many are gone?’

  The girl looked off over Carragheen’s shoulder towards the Queen, who nodded her head gently. ‘We do not know,’ she said. ‘Perhaps hundreds? The city is alight.’

  Carragheen looked to the Queen for permission to continue, and she nodded.

  ‘Listen to me. Fetch Golmei, the deputy summoner of the seekers, the one who replaced Epaste. Bring him to the Queen’s quarters immediately. And Rashind. Ask Golmei to fetch Epaste and have him kept in the ante-chamber. Get the Gag-ai-lan to help you.’ The girl stood silently in front of Carragheen and he issued a command directly into her brain.

  Go, he said. Now.

  * * *

  As Carragheen swam with Golmei over the city, his brain seemed to expand inside his head, trying to make sense of these latest developments. The two men hummed together, speeding their strokes in that distant cousin of song-travelling, the special technique that made them faster. It took much of your brainpower to do it, and between that and troubling over what they had learned, his brain was taxed almost beyond bearing.

  He lined the pieces of the puzzle up in his mind. First, Manos had contacted Epaste, one of the Queen’s most trusted advisers. He had somehow convinced him that he had reformed, and wished to help Aegira, to make amends for his past. Manos had been perfecting a weapon, a weapon of sound, and he had stolen the brightest young soloist of the Aegiran choir to aid its development.

  But they had retrieved her—Carragheen and Rania, with Zorax’s help. And the Princess was well. It was clear that Epaste did not know where Manos was now, but it was also clear that at some point the sorcerer had been here, in Aegira. He had breached the city circle, the magical ring that Aegir had carved out when he had thrown the veil of secrecy over it nine thousand years before. Manos had broken the bonds and violated this scared space.

  And now he was harvesting young men.

  From what they had learned over the last couple of hours, there seemed to be no reason to the pattern, other than that they were all young, and male. There were no links between their families, no common interests. It was a though a brutal tax had been collected, and the nation had been decimated.

  One in ten, gone, vanished right under their noses. But how? And to where?

  Carragheen had brought Golmei out with him into the city, searching for a sign. They skimmed quickly over the low homes of Aegira, noting the history lines strewn across the tops of the low, round homes as they did. Naive and pretty, the lines told of the history of families, histories that collectively told the story of Aegira.

  What are we looking for? Golmei was practical, Carragheen had learned over the last two hours. Unusual for an Aegiran, who were spiritual and magical people. Carragheen was unsure how to say the words to him. He was uncomfortable with the magical parts of himself he had discovered in recent times.

  I am not looking, he said. I am…feeling.

  Golmei inclined his head, turning straight ahead and continuing to hum as he lengthened his strokes longer and faster.

  You doubt me? Carragheen felt his stomach contract, imagining how he would have reacted to this kind of statement even a few weeks ago.

  Golmei did not turn back to him, but made a sound inside Carragheen’s brain that was intended to reassure. The last week has made me doubt everything I ever knew, the older man said. Who am I to doubt this?

  Up ahead, the outer edge of the city approached, the place where Carragheen had left to look for the cave where the soloist had been imprisoned. They had been searching the city in rata, ever widening foraging circles. And Carragheen had felt nothing so far.

  As they came to the last outpost of their nation, Carragheen felt a twinge at last. He had not known what he was looking for until he did. A quickening, somewhere between his chest and his groin. A dark, spreading knowledge settling on his shoulders. They had been here.

  Down, Carragheen said, pointing to the customs house spread at the edge of the city.

  Golmei nodded. You know it has been disused since the reign of Eistla?

  Carragheen nodded. Down, he said.

  * * *

  ‘What did you find?’ The Queen looked sharper, and Carragheen nodded to Rashind. The healer had always been an outcast in Aegira, not unlike the Princess, Lecanora, Carragheen considered. With his sand-dark skin and dark eyes, his appearance had roused suspicion among the homogenous stock.

/>   But not with the queen. She had trusted and promoted the ancient Hartog’s apprentice, and now he was one of her inner circle. Carragheen watched as the Queen drew heavily on a small carap—a soft, fleshy vegetable sometimes infused with healing liquids—and smiled gratefully at Rashind.

  ‘They were there,’ Carragheen confirmed. ‘A large number of people had been held there. But they have been gone at least a day or two.’

  The Queen shuddered. ‘As long as the Princess?’

  ‘At least,’ Carragheen confirmed, feeling his brain hurry to catch up with hers. He breathed a sigh of relief that she was, as Rania would say, back with the program.

  The Queen nodded. ‘What else?’

  Carragheen motioned towards Golmei, who brought forward a small, black box, no larger than a tiny remote control for the televisions that Carragheen had seen during his time watch-keeping on The Land. ‘Several of these,’ the older man said. ‘They were hidden, seemed to have been forgotten, as though whoever was there had left in a hurry, and forgotten these.’

  ‘What are they?’

  Carragheen shrugged. ‘We have several of your engineers examining them now, Queen,’ he said. ‘But they are already perplexed. I think we may need to call the dolphins.’

  ‘Are they the same as the thing… the weapon, that—’ She closed her eyes, and Carragheen jumped in to save her the pain.

  ‘They look different, to me, at least,’ he said. ‘Certainly smaller. Perhaps a version of the sound weapons? With more limited range? We have not been able to activate them. We know the other one was controlled by song. We have Zorax and Imogen working with the engineers. We hope to have some answers soon.’

  The Queen closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temples. ‘Do you have any idea where the young men have been taken?’

  Carragheen and Golmei shook their heads, as Carragheen carefully considered the next steps. ‘I would like to go further, Queen,’ he said. ‘Beyond the cave, where we found—’