by A. L. Knorr
I scanned every boat desperately, searching for Jozef, but he was not visible among them.
The woman beside Claudius handed him a small red megaphone, which he took, his eyes lifted to where we stood on the cliffside.
“We, the descendants of the survivors of Atlantis, led by me, Claudius Drakief, do not intend you harm. Should you do as I say, there will be no bloodshed today.”
His amplified voice was lifted and carried on the breeze. Not a one of the sirens around me moved or shifted, save for their eyes, which darted from the scene below to me and back again, waiting for me to give an order, to tell them what to do.
“Where is your Sovereign?” Claudius demanded. “We bid you come forward, for the lives of your people. We have no wish to stain these beaches with your blood.”
At these words, I moved toward the nearest steps leading down to the beach. A hand touched my forearm and gently closed over my wrist. I looked back into the face of one my Foniádes.
“It’s all right,” I said gently. “He just wants to talk.”
“Those guns do not say he just wants to talk, Sovereign.”
I put a hand against her cheek. “And what do you propose to do against guns?”
She had no response for that. Pulling gently from her grasp, I began to descend to the beach. Seagulls screamed and the wind whipped my hair around my face. Sometime between leaving the cliff and stepping onto the beach below, the boat engines were turned off, and only the sound of the waves and seabirds could be heard once again. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend everything was normal, and that there was not a squadron of armed Atlanteans on the shores of Okeanos.
As I picked my way through the rocks to the beach, Claudius was wading through the waves, a group of armed men following him, and still that single female.
I stopped on the sand and waited for them.
As Claudius closed the gap between us, his eyes took in my features and opened wide with recognition. His cheeks paled with shock.
“You,” he said, his tone not unfriendly or even malevolent, only surprised. “You are Sovereign?”
He came to stand on the sand not far away from me, staring at me with disbelief. He opened out his palm and the men behind him stopped, pointing their weapons at the earth.
I glanced back to see with a little jolt that my sirens had followed me down, and were even now emerging from cave entrances as well as descending the steps on the face of Califas. Nike, her blue hair stirring in the breeze, had come to stand just behind and to the right of me.
“She is chosen by the Salt to rule this place, and you are unwelcome here,” spat someone a hostile tone I didn’t recognize at first.
I looked to my left and saw Polly emerging from the crowd to stand just behind me also, shoulder to shoulder with Nike.
I looked her in the eye and gave the slightest shake of my head.
She pinched her lips shut and clenched her hands into fists at her side.
“She might be chosen by the Salt,” Claudius said with some mirth in his tone, “but this bit of geography has nothing to do with that. The world has changed, and you are a nation that has not kept up. Where are your fearsome tritons?”
There was an uncomfortable shifting on the sands around me, but I did not take my eyes from Claudius.
“Ah, I see that you still think they are a creature of myth. Perhaps we should make quick work of what nature intends for your species anyway.”
At this there was the sound of metal clinking as some of the men bearing weapons made to bring the barrels of their guns upon us.
But Claudius put up his hand. “A joke, a joke. We have been planning this for a very long time, taken our time, to be sure that this could be done without violence.” He cocked his head and put his hand down again. “You should be thanking us for our mercy.”
At this, Polly spat on the sand. I could feel Nike’s tension behind me, like a hot energy leaking from her very pores. Nike had magic, that much I knew, but her magic could not come between us and thousands of armed Atlanteans, could not send them away or make them disappear. And if she acted, they’d most certainly retaliate without the so-called mercy Claudius was bragging about.
“If I had known who you were all this time,” Claudius said to me, still a little dazed that I was Sovereign, “I might have planned this differently. No matter. Here we are.”
“Does Jozef know you’re here?”
His heavy brows lifted and his forehead wrinkled. “Jozef? No. Rest assured my son did not betray you. As much as my son is dear to me, he does not possess the constitution needed for this.”
“You mean he disagrees with you, and will be angry with you when he learns what you’ve done.”
“He’ll get over it,” Claudius said, putting a hand over his chest. “Consider it a gift that I am admitting to you that my son really loves you. I can give you that much before you die.”
A murmur of voices rose behind me as his words struck home among my sirens––Claudius meant to let them all go free, all but me, the Sovereign.
“Oh, it’s nothing personal, I assure you,” Claudius said in response to the unhappy muttering of the sirens. “As Sovereign, you hold the memories of your nation, you are the representative of every Sovereign before you and every decision ever made by and for your people.”
A sea bird screamed in the space between his sentences, foreboding and mournful.
Claudius’s expression darkened. “I am sure you know the particular decision to which I refer. We too have ways of remembering what has gone before.”
“That was thousands of years ago,” I said, nearly breathless at the indomitable stubbornness of the prejudice remaining between us. “You mean to tell me that the events of those days actually have bearing on what you are doing here today?”
“That, as well as the millions of tons of mountain copper beneath our feet, a precious metal the world has not seen in a very long time.”
“I warned you of this,” the woman said from among those behind Claudius. “Did I not tell you this would happen?”
Claudius put up his hand again with a disdainful expression. “I’m doing the talking.”
But now that the woman had brought my attention to her, I could not look away. She was the woman with the green feather at the ball, and it fell into place suddenly who she was. She’d been the starving, parasite-infested Atlantean I had encountered when I’d left Okeanos for the mating cycle which led me to Mattis.
Atlantis will rise again, she’d said. We will kill your unrighteous Sovereign and scatter your people to the dark places of the oceans.
Somehow, she’d found her way to Claudius’s care. And suddenly I could see it. All of the wandering unfortunates of Atlantean descent had been gathered to him. They’d been nurtured and provided for, made to feel a part of something, a part of Claudius’s ultimate goal to own Okeanos and all its resources.
I closed my eyes against the awful consequence of the continued divide between our people. My efforts to mend the centuries-old rift between us had come far too late.
“So, it has come to this,” I said, opening my eyes in despair. “You’ll let my people go away unharmed, as long as I give myself over to you?”
Claudius nodded and said, “And one more thing. Each of you must leave your gemstone here.”
The woman handed him an empty brown sack, which he took and threw onto the sand in front of us.
“Put them in this bag.” He then barked an order to the armed men behind him and they formed two groups with a channel down the middle leading out into the ocean beyond. “Each of you will deposit your aquamarine, remove any clothing you’re wearing, and drop any weapons you’re carrying. Then, you’re free to go.” He gestured to the narrow passageway through which he intended every siren to walk. “Through there. You have one minute to decide.”
I sucked in a breath and turned around to face my sirens. Polly, Nike, and the Foniádes, as well as several sirens, pressed in close to me.
“You must do as he says.” I pitched my voice low.
“We will not hand our Sovereign over to that scum,” Polly hissed. “I’d rather die.”
All of the Foniádes and several of the sirens were nodding in agreement.
“I will not allow it.” I glared at my mother and sent that same glare into every set of eyes. “I will not have you slaughtered. Go to the Pacific sirens and join them. Okeanos is lost. I command you to go.”
The murmur of my command passed through the sirens and slowly, beginning with a few of the younger ones at the back, together with their mothers, they crossed the sand. Dropping anything they’d been wearing or carrying, and depositing their jewelry into the bag, they walked slowly, cautiously, down the aisle the Atlanteans had made for them.
Everybody was tense and watching, but the Atlanteans kept their guns down, and a stance of ease. They watched the humiliation of my people as one by one they walked this narrow passageway of shame. Of shame, but of life. And that was all I cared about––preserving life. If it had to come at the cost of my own, that was a small price to pay.
Soon all that remained of Okeanos’s population were three Foniádes, myself, my mother, and Nike. Slowly, with a reluctance that was painful to watch, the rest of the Foniádes made their way through the channel, their expressions grim and broken-hearted.
Polly did not move. Neither did Nike.
“Take my life instead,” Polly said, stepping in front of me and closer to Claudius.
“You are not the Sovereign,” Claudius replied, coolly. “Don’t miss your chance to escape.”
“I was Sovereign before Sybellen,” my mother said. “I have all of the memories she has. Take me as the symbol of all the Sovereigns before.”
“No.” I grabbed Polly by the shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Claudius narrowed his eyes, looking from me to my mother. “You have a look I do not like. I do not take kindly to lies and treachery, especially in the face of my mercy.” He spat onto the sand, and eyed Polly again. “What is she to you?”
“She is my daughter.”
My heart had begun to pound in earnest, as Claudius looked as though to be seriously considering her offer. My mind also spun at this unexpected display of care for me and tears sprang to my eyes. I brushed them away angrily, so furious in fact that I did not know what to say. Why wait until now to show her love for me, when she’d had ample opportunity throughout my entire youth?
Claudius made a grunting sound in the back of his throat, like he and Polly had an understanding. “It will be torture for you to watch your daughter executed, but executed she must be.”
“No, take me. Please!” Polly screamed, and went to her knees.
“Mother.” I began to kneel beside her when the world slowed down.
Claudius’s right shoulder lifted up in a shrug. His expression went from thoughtful to bored, if not almost weary of the drama playing out. He reached into his jacket and retrieved a pistol.
“No!” I screamed and made to dive in front of my mother where she knelt there on the sand with her hands out. Some force wrapped tentacles around my wrists, ankles, and waist and jerked me backward.
Claudius pulled the trigger.
Twice.
I was flying backward across the sand like I’d been shot from a cannon. Arching through the air, I went high above and saw my mother’s body jerk twice with the impact of two bullets in the chest fired from only a few feet away. I screamed and clawed at the air, desperate to get to her, desperate to save her.
The Atlanteans behind Claudius lifted their eyes to follow my strange trajectory through the air, the whites of their eyes visible, their mouths open in shock. Guns were being raised, and Claudius’s gaze lifted to find me.
My mother crumpled to the sand and lay still, just as I landed hard on the stones in front of the mouth of one of the many caves leading into the heart of Mount Califas.
The breath was knocked out of my lungs and it felt as though my insides had vacuumed together and I’d never be able to breathe again. There was yelling on the beach and the sound of splashing water and booted feet thumping on the hard-packed sand as the Atlanteans pursued me, running over Polly’s body in the process.
Sucking futilely at the air, I thrashed to get up when that same invisible force yanked me backward into the cave. This time I did not hit the ground, but slipped neatly through the passageway, as though riding a cart set on rails.
“I’m sorry, my Sovereign,” Nike’s voice whispered and echoed through the caverns and passageways as the invisible tentacles pulled me deeper and deeper into Mount Califas.
Still struggling for air, my lungs finally opened and I sucked in an enormous breath. A scream emanated from my body unlike any I had ever loosed before. It came from the very bottom of my broken heart. Broken as I’d seen Polly’s back blossom with red, broken as the choice to take the bullet intended for me had been stolen from me, broken at the sight of the beaches of Okeanos now emptied of sirens, broken at having lost the chance to see Jozef one more time, broken that Okeanos, after untold millennia, the home to our people, was no longer ours. The Atlanteans had won.
I landed in a cold pool of water and immediately and unconsciously transformed into my siren form, my gills now pulling oxygen though my chest was still heaving. The gripping tentacles released me and my head surfaced. Distant echoes of shouting from high above told me the Atlanteans had penetrated Mount Califas and they were coming.
“Let them take me,” I seethed to Nike, though I could not yet see her.
The siren sorceress that everyone underestimated and no one really knew emerged from the pool behind me. She wrapped a forearm around my neck and across my collarbones.
“Don’t let your mother’s sacrifice be in vain,” Nike hissed in my ear. “You stay alive. As long as you are alive, the memories remain. If you are killed, we’ll lose the memories forever. You have a responsibility to survive!”
I could hardly understand what she was saying to me, the pain was so acute.
Nike pulled me back with an unbelievable power, and I could not have resisted her if I’d tried.
“You there,” she called to a siren who had been hiding among the pools and whose head had just emerged, her eyes frightened and darting about. “Trina, isn’t it?”
One of Apollyona’s handmaidens during her reign, the bossy one.
The siren nodded and her jaw cleared the water, her lips parted, seeing who Nike had locked in her iron grasp.
“Sovereign,” she whispered. “What is happening? What happened up there? Polly told me to stay inside.”
Nike practically dragged me, kicking and struggling all the while, and threw me into one of the deeper pools that led to a deep and long underwater river and spat out any traveler far out in the North Atlantic.
“Nike, let go of me at once,” I cried, humiliated that I had no strength against her. She was using her magic to detain me and it set my heart in a rage.
“I’m sorry, my Sovereign. But it is for the best, you’ll see.” She began to mutter an incantation under the water and I felt myself growing warm. One hand held me still while the other moved and flashed around and over my form.
A layer of milky film came over my vision. I tried to ask her what she was doing, but I found I couldn’t move my jaw fast enough to speak. All of my movements had become heavy and sluggish, as though weighed down by rocks tied to my limbs.
“I’m entrusting her to you,” I heard Nike say to Trina. “You’ll find her easier and easier to carry. Don’t stop until you reach the exit. This channel will take you to the far North. I will meet you there. Now listen carefully, for we must protect your identity as much as the Sovereign’s, in case you are discovered before I can come to you…”
My ears felt as though they were closing in with cotton, and now I could barely see, my vision going white instead of black. A strange, viscous liquid seeped around me, growing thicker by the moment. It filled m
y eyes and ears, it coated me completely.
My consciousness faded.
The last thought I recall having was a flicker between Polly’s face as she fell, to Jozef smiling a welcome and opening his arms to me.
After that, there was nothing.
Twenty-Five
Targa was seated cross-legged in front of the fire, staring up at me with those big beautiful eyes. Her lips were parted and she seemed frozen, as though waiting for the story to continue. Emun was perched forward on the couch, his elbows on his knees and his fingers covering his mouth, his intense blue eyes peering at me from over his fingertips.
Antoni stood behind the couch, his arms crossed high over his chest as though he was cold, he pallor a little paler than normal.
“That’s it? You don’t remember any more?” Emun prompted.
“My next memory is of being tucked into a car seat as Trina––who I believed to be my mother––and Hal––who I believed to be my father, were loading the car for a camping vacation. I think I was three for I had not yet had my salt-birth.”
“So, in order to protect you, Nike did to you what she’d done to that turtle…she reversed your age? All the way to infancy?”
I nodded. My stomach rumbled from emptiness, but the last thing I felt like doing was eating. “I don’t think she intended for me to reverse all the way to infancy, or for Trina to have to look after me for very long. Just long enough for Nike to save as many sirens as she could before coming to find me and return me to my former state.”
“But that didn’t happen,” Targa added. “What do you think happened?”
“I think Nike knew there was a chance she might be killed when she defied Claudius and his Atlanteans. In case of that eventuality, she enchanted Trina to believe she was my mother, and to take me to land with her to raise her infant daughter. I believe she must have taken Trina’s gem and promised to return it to her when she found us. But when she didn’t find us…”
My voice went hoarse at the thought of Nike being murdered by those treacherous Atlanteans. I swallowed hard.