Ascension

by Kara Dalkey

  Nia, Thalassa, and Pelagia swam through a pillared archway onto a curved outer corridor that went around the entire arena. The three mermyds only followed it a quarter-way around, however, until they came to an ancient rope fence that was hung across a small access tunnel. The rope, though very thick, had rotted away in one place. The three of them could easily slip in, one at a time.

  The access tunnel sloped up for a while, letting out at the second level of stands overlooking the ovoid arena. The original Great Arena had been designed before the Sinking, with land-dweller spectators in mind; thus the flat risers in the style of the ancient mouthbreathers. The only accommodation for mermyds had been the addition of rope loops along the stands. Mermyds could slip these over their laps to keep themselves in place. Experience over the centuries had shown that hundreds of mermyds cheering and waving easily kept the water moving well enough to keep everyone happy.

  But the stands were empty at the moment, and Nia felt very conspicuous, being way up high above the central field. Far below, at the other end of the ovoid, she could see dozens of mermyds were in the midst of exercise of one form or another. She could not make out the one she had come to see, however.

  The others weren’t nervous at all. “This way, Nia! Hurry. Let’s see how close we can get before they kick us out!”

  “If we’re careful enough,” Nia argued, “we might not get kicked out at all. Follow me.” She kicked off from one of the rows of risers and swam as fast as she could down the slope of the stands toward the field. She smiled as she heard the protests from Thalassa and Pelagia behind her.

  There was a curved stone barrier wall that separated the field from the stands. Nia got right beside it, swimming low so she could not be seen from the field. She swam halfway around the arena, then stopped as she heard the voices of some of the contenders. Her heart leaped, as one of them was unmistakably Cephan’s. Nia peeked over the top of the barrier.

  There he was, handsome and muscular as ever, balancing a large square stone on his shoulders. So he’s practicing for the Second Trial, Nia thought. That’s one of the most difficult. Good for him. He glanced her way, and Nia ducked back down behind the barrier.

  “Oh, so that’s what’s been on your mind,” said Thalassa behind her. “Callimar mentioned you had your net out for a handsome catch.”

  “Maybe,” Nia said with a careless shrug. To distract them from her obvious interest, she added, “But not the only thing. My mother wants to put me in Garun’s job. At the Archives.”

  “Oooh,” chorused both Thalassa and Pelagia.

  “Promotional death,” whispered Pelagia.

  Nia nodded. “If I go there, no one will remember I even exist.”

  “Oh, we’ll remember you,” said Thalassa. “What was your name again?”

  “Stop,” Nia said. “I’m serious. I have to figure out some way to get out of it without making my parents furious. My father thinks it’s somehow important that a Bluefin hold that post. I guess they think it should be sufficient compensation for my not being chosen for the Trials.”

  “It sounds like punishment to me,” said Pelagia.

  “It does to me too,” Nia said. “But I don’t know how to convince them.”

  “You won’t,” Thalassa warned. “Once elders get a thought in their heads, it becomes law. If you try to fight it, they’ll just think you’re being stubborn. My advice? Take the job, but do just badly enough in it to make them sorry they put you there.”

  “I don’t think I could do that,” Nia said, frowning. “If I’m put in a post, I want to do it well.”

  “Elders,” Pelagia sighed. “They act so strange—oh, Callimar,” she interrupted herself as Callimar swam up beside them. “You’re finally done? You must have had a fascinating conversation with the Orca at the gate.”

  “Ha,” Callimar replied, swishing her tail back and forth. “The fool just wouldn’t understand that I was trying to say good-bye, so I had to keep explaining it to him. Orcas are so stupid.”

  “But well muscled, no?” asked Pelagia with a grin.

  “Well, you can’t possibly be gossiping about me,” said someone swimming behind and above Nia. “I thought I heard your voice, cousin.”

  Nia winced. “Oh. Hello, Garun,” she said without much enthusiasm.

  “Hello, Garun,” chorused Callimar, Thalassa, and Pelagia.

  “How is your training going?” Nia asked, to be polite.

  “Oh, better in some ways, worse in others.”

  Suddenly a figure in a black-and-white tunic loomed over them. “Who are you talking to? No visitors are permitted in the arena during the training, only participants!”

  “Oh,” Garun said, “this is my cousin Nia. She will be a participant—she’s to be my teammate in the Third Trial. As for these others, they are here to give us advice on the course the Trial will take and what things the Council is likely to ask for.”

  “I see,” the officious Orca replied. He frowned. “Well, finish your discussion quickly. Your talking might disturb the other trainees.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Garun with a nod.

  As the Orca left, Nia looked at Garun with unexpected admiration. “That was fast thinking, Garun. Thanks.”

  Garun lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “It was at least half true,” he said. “I have chosen you to be my teammate in the Third Trial.”

  Nia’s jaw dropped open. The Third Trial was a race through Atlantis to find certain objects in the city. It was swum in teams of two. The official contestant got to choose who his or her partner would be. She’d assumed that since Garun disliked her, he would choose someone else to swim with him in the Third Trial. Particularly after she had behaved so badly at his choosing ceremony. “You . . . you have?”

  “Hey, Nia,” Thalassa said. “You get to be in the Trials after all!”

  Nia didn’t know whether she should hug Garun, choke Garun, or sink into the sand floor like a halibut and cover herself over. Part of her wanted to agree right away—at least it would be a chance to participate in the Trials. Given how she expected Garun would do, it meant she could help give him a chance to succeed, help bring some glory to the name of her family.

  But how could she help Cephan’s competition? She knew how much being an Avatar had meant to her, and she’d seen how excited Cephan was to have the opportunity. In fact, the only reason she was happy to not have been chosen was knowing that she wouldn’t be competing against Cephan.

  “Well?” Garun asked when she didn’t say anything. “You could at least say thank you.”

  It’s wrong to deny my family a victory for my own personal reasons, she thought. Besides, even if she helped Garun win this one trial, Cephan would be able to beat him in the rest quite easily, she was sure.

  “Yes, thank you, Garun,” she responded with a sigh. “I’ll be your second.”

  “Good,” Garun said with a satisfied nod. “The teams will be meeting at the Marketplace at midday. Try to get some sleep the night before, won’t you? I don’t want to have to pull you along. Good afternoon, ladies.” Garun turned tail and swam off. Nia was very tempted to stick out her tongue at his back.

  “Well, there you are,” said Thalassa. “They can’t make you work in the Archives if you’re going to be training.”

  “But there’s no training required for the Third Trial,” Nia said.

  “Sure there is,” said Pelagia. “You still have to swim fast and practice figuring out puzzles.”

  “It gives you a chance to delay, at least,” Thalassa put in.

  “Wait, you’re going to work in the Archives?” Callimar asked.

  “If my parents have anything to say about it, yes,” Nia confirmed.

  Callimar’s eyes widened. “I hear they have a dry room in the Archives. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “I’m sure I could manage,” Nia said.

  A dry room was a frightening place to a mermyd. A room with no water at all, only air to breathe. Th
ey had many uses—preserving paper documents; breathing bays for dolphins; places to manufacture materials, such as glass, which were difficult to make underwater. Every mermyd got the chance to go into one at least once in his or her life. In the Early Academy, mermyd children would be forced to spend some minutes in one, to show them what the land-dwelling experience of their ancestors was like. All mermyd children hated it, finding it difficult to breathe with mouth and lungs instead of gills. They hated feeling stuck to the floor, and feeling one’s skin contract and itch as it dried. The experience was unpleasant enough that most mermyds vowed never to set foot or fin in a dry room again.

  But Nia had adjusted the best of her school, quickly figuring out how to breathe and stand and walk. This had only added to her “mouthbreather” reputation, and she did not remember it with pride. Only now did it occur to her that such skills might actually prove useful.

  Horror stories, of course, abounded concerning dry rooms. It was said there were secret rooms throughout Atlantis where savage land-dwellers lived, ready to kill and eat the unwary mermyd who entered. It was said that any mermyd who stayed too long in a dry room would drown in all that air and die. Nia knew these stories for the foolishness they were, but she realized that here was a chance to make some points with her friends.

  “That’s the one part of working in the Archives I’d look forward to, actually,” Nia said. “I’d enjoy the challenge. Not everybody is strong enough for a dry room, of course. But I was pretty good at getting around in one in school. I’d probably do better than Garun at that.”

  Sure enough, they were all staring at her with huge eyes. “Nia, you are either the bravest mermyd I have ever met, or insane,” Callimar said.

  “Maybe a little of both,” Nia replied with a smug grin.

  Suddenly the Orca official loomed over them again, with an even bigger scowl on his face and Garun in tow.

  “You really have to leave now,” Garun said. “I don’t want to be thrown out of the Trials just because you decided to stay and gossip.”

  “I was just going,” Nia said.

  “So were we,” Callimar added. “Thank you for being so patient with us.” She blinked her eyes lazily and smiled at the Orca.

  His scowl turned into a sloppy grin. “Happy to help, ladies. Have a good afternoon.”

  Rather than reveal their knowledge of the secret entrance, they all headed blithely toward the front gate. Nia let Callimar, Thalassa, and Pelagia swim ahead, as she wondered whether she was truly as brave as her words. And Garun is braver than I thought, given that he’s had to work sometimes in a dry room all this time. Is that the quality that Dyonis was talking about, the one that Garun has and I do not?

  Something itched within her mind. It was not like the touch of Ar’an, or Joab, or even the infant Farworlder. But . . . something . . .

  Suddenly she was grabbed from behind. Nia shrieked and struggled for a moment, until she saw it was Cephan. “Oh! It’s you!” she blurted out in a mixture of relief and excitement. The trip had been worth it after all. She felt a familiar blue rush rise to her cheeks.

  “Sorry,” he said, letting go of her. “Just had to say hello, since you took all the trouble to come here.”

  “Oh. Well. I had to come to talk to Garun,” she explained. She paused, wincing before continuing. “I’m going to be his teammate in the Third Trial,” she admitted, hoping Cephan wouldn’t be too upset.

  “Congratulations!” he said with a wide smile. Nia grinned in return. How could she have been worried? Cephan was amazing—he could be happy for her, even knowing that she had agreed to compete against him. “Now I’m going to have to pick my second carefully,” he went on, his eyes sparkling. “You’ll be a tough team to beat. Frankly, if they’d let us choose across clans, I’d have picked you myself.” He glanced around. “I’ve gotta run. I’m not supposed to socialize during training time.” He gave her a long, intense look, and Nia felt a chill go through her—but a good kind this time, unlike what she’d felt when she met Ma’el. “I’ll see you soon,” he said softly; then he swam away back toward the field.

  Nia laughed, suddenly giddy. Cephan always had that effect on her. Then she realized the mental itch she’d felt earlier was gone. She’d probably just imagined it, anyway, she told herself as she turned and swam for home.

  Chapter Eight

  The next two days were almost normal for Nia. She informed her parents that she couldn’t possibly alter her schedule now, since she had to use her extra time to privately train for the Third Trial. Her parents were very understanding, of course, since she would be helping Garun win. And it seemed they thought that was the most important thing in the world.

  So she did her early-day duties at the Farworlder nursery, noting that the little ones were still crankier than usual. They wouldn’t even calm down when she sang to them, which had worked in the past, or when she gave them Cephan’s glass ball to play with. She was beginning to wonder whether it was a stage in their development. If so, perhaps escaping to a future, at least temporarily, in the Archives would not be such a bad thing. In the afternoons, she would work on puzzles and practice riddles and swim laps around the Dome. For a time, she tried not to worry too much about meddling Farworlder minds, or what mysterious quality she lacked, or the Archives position, or when she would see Cephan again, or her parents’ strange and secretive obsessions.

  The first day of the Trials for Ascension came all too soon. After doing an afternoon lap through the city, swimming as fast as she dared, Nia found herself caught up in the crowd of mermyds heading along the broad main avenue toward the Great Arena. She allowed herself to follow the flow with them, enjoying how the water bubbled and hummed with their excited babble. The enthusiasm around her was contagious—the Trials were events no one in Atlantis wanted to miss. Even though tonight was only the Opening Ceremonies, everyone seemed to be caught up in the festive spirit.

  But Nia, drifting in the slipstream of the mermyds swimming ahead of her, couldn’t help feeling a trace of anxiety as well as excitement. She was going to have to be gracious, and supportive of Garun’s efforts, and pleasant to her family, with whom she was going to be stuck in an observation box for a few hours. It promised to be a very trying evening. Even the chance to get another glimpse of Cephan might not quite make up for it.

  This time she entered the arena through the great arch, along with everyone else, between the legs of Poseidonis. Nia wondered how many mermyds knew about the secret entrances to the arena. Given how many children she saw peeling away from the crowd to scurry around the sides of the building, she gathered there were quite a few.

  The Great Arena was a much more impressive sight this evening than it had been just days before. It was ablaze with glowing puffer-fish lanterns, and the stands were filled with colorfully dressed mermyds. A current of freshened water swept around the outer curve of the arena—apparently one of the cross-city currents had been redirected for the event. Scores of Orca guards had been positioned to keep the spectators from swimming out over the field, and were guiding them to their seats. Now and then a mischievous mermyd child would zip past one of the guards and do somersaults and barrel-rolls over the field. This would lead to a lively chase, providing some preshow entertainment.

  Nia kicked herself away from the crowd at the entrance and swam off in search of the Bluefin observation box. It would be close to the edge of the competition field itself. The Bluefin Clan, with its Council connections, was entitled to such luxury.

  Nia thought she spotted a banner with her family’s colors, blue and silver, at the far end of the arena. She found the side entrance to the Bluefin observation box, and Sala, wearing the frilly pink colors of the Shrimp Clan, opened the door for her. Nia swam in.

  Her parents, Dyonis, and her uncle Skiff and aunt Maru, Garun’s parents, were huddled in close discussion as Nia entered. Dyonis’s white hair drifted around his face, and the wide sleeves of his blue-and-silver ceremonial jacket billowed aroun
d him. He was bending toward the others and saying softly, “Now, during the second hour I will be in deep concentration, so—ah, Nia!” He looked up at her, but his smile seemed forced. “So glad you could join us.”

  “Um, hello,” Nia said, feeling a little awkward. The water in the box had gotten suddenly, distinctly chilly. The relatives had clearly not expected her to come in on their discussion.

  “Nia, dear,” Aunt Maru said in greeting as she swam up to Nia, her yellow-green eyes wide in her small, narrow face. Taking Nia’s hands in hers, Maru said, “I wanted to thank you ever so much for agreeing to be Garun’s teammate in the Third Trial. I know you must have been disappointed not to be chosen, but I hope this in some small way makes up for that.” There was tension in her face—sorrow, desperation, fear flickering in her eyes. Nia wondered what could possibly be going on. Perhaps they were all still guilty over Nia not having been chosen.

  “Um, thank you. I mean, you’re welcome. I just want to do the right thing for the honor of my clan,” Nia said. “I’m sure Garun was chosen for good reasons, and I will do my best to support him.”

  “That’s the spirit!” said Aunt Maru, patting Nia’s hand.

  “So glad you could make it, Nia, dear!” exclaimed Tyra, though something in her tortoise-shell-colored brown eyes showed that her feelings were mixed. Her glossy dark-green hair, the color of kelp, was done up with elaborate combs of mother-of-pearl. Strands of pearls hung down from her waist, and she had had her tail scales polished until they were almost blinding. As always, Nia was struck with how different she looked from her mother; how her light, silvery blond hair contrasted with her mother’s deep-green shade. There was little resemblance between them in any of their features, in fact, and Nia sometimes wondered if this was why her mother never seemed completely comfortable with her. Perhaps she was always disappointed that her only child looked—and acted—nothing like her.