by Ros Baxter
Double uh oh. This does not sound good. This guy obviously fancies himself as some kind of sexually liberating Larry Flynt. “Okay.” Enough of the speculating and bickering. “How about some hard facts? What is the goddam Pool?”
Carragheen drew himself up, his face an inscrutable mask, and I had no idea what he was going to say. What could this Pool be, to get Lecanora so hot under the collar?
But just as he was about to explain, a rowdy press of bodies entered. I didn’t need my cop sense to tell me that what we had on our hands was a melee. I could smell the fear and anger coming from the group, comprised of twenty men and women, of several species. Aegirans, several of the higher fish species, a giant, menacing squid, and even a Treppalow.
The latter seemed to have been elected head of the lynch mob.
My fingers itched for my Glock.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Carragheen’s drawl was relaxed, but he moved slowly, deliberately, so that he was standing between the mob and the sleeping Leigon child.
“You need to stop what you are doing here. It is angering the Gods. This place is the reason for what happened, back there in The Eye. It is your fault.”
The Treppalow spoke slowly, as if each word was an effort. The creatures are known more for their brawn than their brains, and they only recently mastered speech. But this one was at least nine feet long and spelt trouble, from his block-like head to the end of his black tail.
Oh man. Triple uh oh. Worse than swinging, obviously.
Carragheen’s response was dry. “I didn’t think Treppalows believed in God. Unless you count the God of War.”
Not the right way to settle the horses, Carragheen. We needed that Martha Stewart babe.
In an instant, the Treppalow had slithered up to Carragheen, its speed belying its size. The creature flicked out its long, forked tongue and brought it close to Carragheen’s face. I gasped involuntarily at the proximity of the lethal poison, and Lecanora froze too.
“I do not like you,” the thing hissed.
Carragheen looked up at the lizard-like giant with an amused grimace. “And I do not like bullies.” It was a simple statement but something about the raw edge in his voice told me that he understood what it was to be bullied. I felt his distaste for it in my gut. And the answering echo in my own heart. I started to plan how I could get Lecanora and the child out if the whole things went sour. But Carragheen surprised me. The smirk disappeared, and he started talking softly, soothingly. Like I heard him back at The Eye, as he calmed the Leigon child.
“I am not the cause of this trouble. This place is nothing but diversion.”
Carragheen’s eyes played across the crowd, giving them a piece of whatever manner of hypnotism he was using on the Treppalow. I was amazed by his vocal control. And impressed. As he spoke again, he let in a light trickle of the dark fury that I could feel boiling at his center. “You do not want trouble. And you know that I could give it to you. And I will, if you cause a disturbance here. This is my home.” As quickly as he had set them off balance, he settled them again. “Each of you is Aegiran, or friend of Aegira. This is a place of peace.”
I was suddenly aware that Carragheen was unconsciously flexing his fist behind his back. This was a guy who knew how to fight. And he didn’t believe that place of peace crap. But whatever he was doing, they were buying it. The thick soup of bravado and danger that had floated in with the mob had dissipated and they were staring at Carragheen, listening. This was more than a learned skill. It was a gift. For the second time that day, I thought about Mom’s words. Evolution. Another Awakening, to begin with the most remarkable.
And then they were gone.
“Wow.” I was so hot from Carragheen’s little performance, I needed a fan. “All this fuss about a Pool? I think I need to see this place.”
Carragheen motioned to a large, circular golden door, like a person-sized porthole.
Rania, no. This is not good. His own father has denounced this place. Lecanora’s warning went straight into my brain but I knew her too well. I could feel the curiosity behind it. And she could feel I’d made up my mind.
She shot a swift glare at Carragheen. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
He made a lazy cross over his heart, but telepathed a more serious message to my brain.
You will always be safe with me.
For some inexplicable reason, I believed him. Something about the way he took care of that Leigon. And handled the mob. Ridiculous, I know, with all these conspiracies, bloody visions, and disappearing girls. Three weeks. I need to know what’s going on. Fast.
I went to the door indicated and pressed a tiny green button. The marine glass melted away, allowing me to step into a little ante-room, before forming again, making the room water-tight. Inside the room there was another porthole, and another button.
I pressed it. Eve with the apple.
And then there was no room for any thought. I was sucked like a piece of flotsam into a kaleidoscopic tsunami. I was surrounded by color and sensation, spinning around and around in a synthetic whirlpool. I was inside the warmth and the color; riding the edge of an abyss. Falling but suspended, safe. But this was more than a theme park ride. It was emotion. It was letting go. Like being drunk but with every sense on overdrive. An illicit, spectacular hit delivered courtesy of your own body and brain. Like getting to know yourself in all your frailty and vulnerability. I felt very… human. Maybe for the first time ever.
I felt my fear at my impending demise. Felt it like a cancer, hard and cystic in my chest. And then, for a few seconds, I felt the rough lump of it start to soften, soothed by the songs of the universe. Maybe I would be okay. Maybe I would find a way to save the world entire. And myself. After a few moments, I settled into the pattern of it. This thing, this pool, was a thousand kinds of good for me. I imagined what it must be like for an Aegiran. I’ve lived hard, done all kinds of stuff. I found a thousand different, glorious ways to lose control before I clawed it back again. What must this be like for a mermaid, whose lives are governed by control?
It must blow their freakin’ minds.
As I exited the recovery chamber, I felt like I’d had a screaming orgasm; been to church to be absolved of all my sins; found my inner child. All in the space of about four minutes.
Lecanora and Carragheen were waiting. I went straight up to him. This man, this enigma. “How did you...?” But before he could answer, “No. Not, not how. Why?”
He looked serious. “Because people deserve to know that there’s more.”
“But why does it matter to you for people to… feel? To feel in that way?” My head was still reeling from the experience.
“I just think maybe we lost too much of the human.”
He sounded like Mom. A human lover.
Lecanora was standing very close to me, checking I was intact. Ransha. Are you okay?
I nodded. Oh yeah, baby. And then some.
She nodded back, satisfied. Okay then, I’ve located the Leigon child’s parents. I must take him to them. They are frantic. Something in her voice made me look at her closely. The child’s plight affected her. Hardly surprising, I guess. The child was lost, like she had been lost.
I nodded again. Of course.
I will only be gone five minutes. His parents are close by.
When she was gone, Carragheen and I ditched the pretence and consumed each other with our eyes. “So… you built it? The pool?”
Carragheen nodded and I asked him again. “Why?”
“All I ever wanted, my whole life, was a place to be myself.”
I searched his face and thought about what I had known of Carragheen, before today.
A real disappointment.
How had I known that? Where had I heard it? And a disappointment to whom? I had always figured his parents. But it was hard to imagine the lovely Shighsa disappointed with this man. Her own son. So Kraken?
His face was willing me to understand. “When I was younger,
I wanted to find a place with no judgment, no expectation. I did a lot of wild things trying to find that place.”
Oh, ditto baby. Ditto with a capital D.
“I supposed other people felt the same too. We, Aegirans… we believe that we are so much better than them. The land people, even most of the other tribes of the sea. I wanted to show them, everyone really, that there is far more that links us than separates us. I think…” He looked at me as if wondering whether he should tell me. Something in my face obviously convinced him. “I think we need understanding of each other now, more than ever.”
My hand snaked out of its volition to touch his face, which was impossibly warm. Then his hand was at my face too, and we were moving together with agonizing slowness. I was being sucked into the depths of this man, this beautiful wolf, from another place, another universe.
But just like me.
Ransha. There is no time for this now.
Carragheen shook his head at Lecanora’s interruption into our brains, but I also saw that his eyes clocked the fear and impatience in her gaze and it puzzled him. He removed my hand and his voice was all command. “Rania, Lecanora. It’s time to tell me what’s going on.”
Wasn’t that my line?
After all, he was the one who showed up out of the blue in Dirtwater.
Lecanora widened her eyes artfully, about to deny knowing of any problem.
“I heard you.” He glared hard at the princess. “I heard you before. How do you know about Imogen?”
Lecanora closed her eyes and when she opened them she tried hard to return Carragheen’s stare. But one thing was for sure. She’d be toast in Boss Hadley’s poker room.
Following my general life theory that attack is the best form of defense, I struck.
“Shouldn’t we be asking that? We are royal, after all. Least she is.” I hooked my thumb at Lecanora. “We should know stuff. The better question is: how did you get mixed up in all of this? Why did you come to Dirtwater, chasing Blondie? What do you know?”
Lecanora looked at me, hurt that I hadn’t told her this part of the story, and Carragheen looked at me too. Actually, he did that disconcerting looking-into-me thing again and then laughed darkly. It would sound so good if he was naked and holding a spoon of Ben’n’Jerry’s.
But he wasn’t.
“I know that there are things going on down here that are very dangerous.”
He looked like a wolf poised for ambush. And I could see that he was telling the truth.
“I know that I can take care of myself. But there are others that…”
As if responding to some mental cue, a tiny blonde girl entered the small chamber and swam nimbly into his arms, cuddling up against his chest and tugging on his blonde locks. She could only have been two or three years old, and I realized with a start who she was.
The reason Carragheen owed a debt to Lecanora. The girl from the rip.
“C, C,” she started. “Need stor-ee, need song.”
“Hush, Tila,” he crooned softly to her, touching her so gently I wanted to crawl right up there next to her and get my turn. I didn’t know what I had expected to happen next, but it was definitely, definitely not this.
He looked searchingly into my eyes and I waited for him to clear things up.
But he just opened his mouth and closed it again.
“Carragheen,” I prompted him. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Before he could answer, the little girl looked at me, puzzled. I recognized the look. It was the seen-a-ghost look Carragheen had given me when I’d see him again back at the wedding.
“It’s her, from the story, isn’t it? The one riding with the prince on his horse?”
Horse? My mind replayed the huge orange sunset from my dream. I could almost feel the hard muscles of the back I was pushed against as my eyes skittered over Carragheen’s shirtless form. Swiftly and gently, he sent Tila away, promising songs and stories. “She’s his child,” Lecanora said, when she was gone. “Isn’t that right Carragheen? Well, technically I guess she also belongs to his wife. I’m sorry, Rania.”
Carragheen broke protocol by responding directly into my head.
This is not what you think. She’s my wife, yes, but…
I was dripping venom as I responded.
“Save it, pal.” I realized in that moment that one of the worst things about being under the sea is that it is utterly, utterly pointless to spit on someone.
I took Lecanora’s arm and turned to go, battling the bitter taste that rose in my mouth and threatened to consume me. I had wanted to trust him. By the Goddess, I was a fool. A dance, some dolphins and some crazy electricity zinging around and I thought I knew him. I felt sick.
He couldn’t even be original. It’s not what you think.
Well you know what, buddy? It’s not hard. You’re married or you’re not.
Especially down here.
In Aegira, people get married for one reason only. Because they’ve decided they want to be together and raise a family. Aegirans are seriously high up the evolutionary ladder. They mate for life. Like I said before, their passions just don’t run hot enough for falling in and out of love. But if a union goes sour, very occasionally, it’s a relatively easy matter to have the union dissolved. And no-one would condemn them for it.
So if it wasn’t what I think, a blissful Aegiran match, what the hell was it?
And why haven’t they just ended it?
But none of that was really the issue.
It was that he didn’t tell me. And he sure as hell didn’t act married, with all that Swan Lake in the ocean crap.
“Wait.” I could tell by Carragheen’s voice that he knew he’d lost me, but he was trying to pull an ace from the pack. “What about Imogen?”
Lecanora was onto him before I could tell him to take a jump.
“What do you know, Carragheen?”
Her tone carried the imperious lilt she’d been trained to use from childhood. She’d be so great playing bad cop to my badder cop. And that felt pretty good. It was about the only thing that did. Oh Ran help me, I was an A-grade fool. Dancing around in front of everyone who’s anyone with a married man.
No wonder people had stared.
Even though my heart, which had no right to be attached to this wild boy it had just met, was acting like it had gone into third degree grief, I was feeling the tiniest bit consoled by the realization that I liked being part of a team, especially this team, with Lecanora.
Roast him, babe.
Carragheen considered his words. “I’m not trying to be evasive.”
Why the hell not? You’re obviously good at it. You had me fooled.
“I know about Imogen. I know she’s gone. I’m working on it.”
“You?” Lecanora looked unimpressed, and I felt a tiny, traitorous shred of defensiveness for him, even knowing he was a two-timing asshole. Something about him touched me, as he stood there with that little bubble stuck to his left eyebrow, looking like a wounded wolf.
Even while I was visualizing myself tasering him, my heart wanted to cut him some slack. But not Lecanora. She was blonde ice as she responded. “What do you mean working on it? What have you been doing?”
“I’m not sure I should say,” he said quietly.
Lecanora switched to mind talk. Talk, Carragheen.
I broke my silence to join in the interrogation. “Why didn’t the forgetting spell, or whatever it was, affect you?”
I could see Carragheen mentally re-arranging information, taking on board my words and fitting them into whatever he already knew. “A spell? That’s how it was done? But who?”
Lecanora paused for the briefest of heartbeats, weighing up. “I’m not sure. Shar, I think. Possibly others. The Triad knows. And so does the Queen.”
I saw the flash and burn in Carragheen eyes an instant before his fury erupted. “Mother of us all, how dare they!” His eyes were bright and I saw him ball his fists.
I wante
d to say: Yeah, horrible when people keep things from you, isn’t it?
“Enough, Carragheen,” Lecanora commanded. “It’s vile, but they’re doing what they think is right. They’re not responsible. At least, I don’t think so. They’re trying to find her.”
Carragheen took a deep breath and looked at me like he was talking only to me. “I have seen a lot in places I’ve been. Here, and on land. And in my limited experience of these things, those who try to cover them up generally have a significant vested interest in doing so. And people who say they are doing things for our own good rarely earn my trust.”
Nice way with words. But then, cheating assholes were always slick talkers. I thought about all that now do you remember crap. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I knew where he was coming from. I was only trusting this self-important Triad as far as I could throw them. And one thing I knew for sure – I wasn’t throwing Kraken far at all. Epaste even less far. As for the Queen, I couldn’t work it out. I couldn’t see why she would agree. But I could feel Lecanora bridling beside me at the treasonous slant of Carragheen’s words.
“That may be right, Carragheen,” I said, not wanting to give him any quarter, but knowing I needed to lull him at least a little to get the information I need. “But ethics aside, there’s still one minor matter. How come you know about Imogen? I thought everyone got brainwashed?”
“Not everyone, obviously,” Carragheen bit out, with a sideways look at Lecanora.
“Carragheen,” Lecanora said, with an effort at self-control. “Do not doubt me.” The way she said it, there was no trace of the nerves that usually plagued her at tough moments. “You have known me forever. We played together as children. I was caught in the spell. I did not know about Imogen. But I heard the Council with my mother. And then Rania…”
“The Throaty Three approached me at the wedding today,” I finished for her. “And they knew. Somehow they knew. And so do you. How?”
“The Throaty Three?” Carragheen’s wicked face looked puzzled. “Who are they?”
“Zida, Nali, Tricoste. That’s what I used to call them back in choir days.”