Transformation

by Kara Dalkey

  “Nia!” Corwin cried in what he hoped was a quiet shout.

  “This way,” she called back, ducking in through the nearest narrow window.

  Corwin slipped in too, and Nia immediately grabbed him. She pulled him next to her and they pressed themselves against the wall—which Corwin found harder to do underwater than he’d expected. Gobaith zipped in as well and huddled near their feet.

  Outside the building, someone said, “I told you, I saw them come this way.”

  A heavy sigh. “They could be anywhere by now. We shouldn’t have let them get such a head start.”

  “The Farworlder wouldn’t let me get past him.”

  “We should have captured the Farworlder.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?”

  “We could have been gentle about it! We could have used a net. Now we’ll probably be sent to work for Ma’el in the Lower Depths.”

  “Not if we’re careful. You know what Ma’el would have done to the Farworlder.”

  “That can’t be helped, can it? He’s in charge now. Now what are we going to do?”

  “We can tell them Nia and that boy had help from Farworlder magic. That’s how they got away, most likely.”

  “I hope that works. Come on, let’s keep looking a little while longer before we return with our excuses.”

  The voices began to grow softer, but Corwin made out a few last remarks. “You know, maybe it’s a good thing she got away. Maybe she can overthrow Ma’el. She was supposed to be the next Avatar—”

  “Are you trying to get us both killed? Somebody could be listening! Watch your tongue.”

  “Sorry . . .”

  The voices faded, and Corwin turned to Nia to see her reaction. She smiled. “Someone’s listening, but not who you think,” she said softly, gazing toward the window.

  Corwin was happy to see Nia smile, but he was anxious to move on. They’d taken shelter in an abandoned home, and as he looked around, he saw a small hammock hung from two posts nearby. A brightly colored toy fish, with one fin broken, floated beside it. This room must have been a child-mermyd’s room. A child that might no longer be alive. “Maybe we should get going,” he said.

  “Not yet,” Nia replied. “They’re still looking for us, and they might come back.”

  “One of them sounded like he might be on your side.”

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on his loyalty yet. At least we’ve learned where Ma’el might be found. That’s one thing.”

  “Yes, as soon as we’re ready to face him. But that might be a while.”

  “Not if we find enough allies quickly,” Nia said. “If I can find my family, my . . . mother and—”

  “Why do you always pause when you talk about your relatives?” Corwin asked. He’d held the question back before, but the pauses seemed to be getting more pronounced the longer they were in Atlantis.

  “It’s . . . it’s complicated.”

  “Can’t be any worse than my family history,” Corwin grumbled.

  “My father wasn’t really my father,” Nia blurted out. “My grandfather was my father. And my mother isn’t really my mother. I was adopted by a man who was really my half-brother and raised by a woman who was no blood relation at all.”

  After a pause, Corwin said, “I take it back. Yours is worse than mine.”

  “There’s more,” she said. “I should have told you, I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—it’s all so much to take in. My mother . . . my real mother was a land-dweller.”

  Corwin’s eyebrows shot up. “A land-dweller? Then that means . . .”

  Nia nodded, biting her lower lip. “I didn’t find out until this whole mess began. Ma’el first told me, but Dyonis, who I had thought was my grandfather, confirmed it. My blood mother died shortly after I was born, and I was given to Pontus and Tyra, who I call my parents. They never told me my true heritage. Atlanteans don’t think highly of land-dwellers—”

  “I noticed,” Corwin growled.

  “—so they wanted to spare me the shame. But that was why I could walk in your world for so long without dying. Why I’ve always been good in dry rooms.” Nia fell silent and stared at her feet.

  Corwin felt a swell of purely selfish joy. All this time he’d been so worried that there’d never be a real chance for them to be together, because they came from totally different worlds. But now that he knew he was part mermyd and she was part land-dweller . . . “So, you’re a halfsie, like me,” he teased.

  “I guess you could say that. But Atlanteans and land-dwellers are both human, like I told you. Otherwise you and I couldn’t exist.”

  “Of course, but—”

  Our pursuers have given up the chase, Gobaith sent. Corwin’s right, we should move on.

  Corwin sighed with annoyance, wondering if the Farworlder had ulterior reasons for interrupting the conversation. Still, with luck, there’d be time to hint at future plans—when they knew they’d have a future. “All right. Where do we go from here, Nia?”

  “This way.”

  Corwin followed her out the window and again they swam through the city, faster this time. Corwin was beginning to enjoy the freedom of moving in three dimensions, and he wondered if he would ever be satisfied with just walking again.

  Eventually it became clear where Nia was leading them. After a sharp right turn down a broad main thoroughfare, the pale marble of the Farworlder Palace, with its golden spire, glowed before them.

  “Nia, are you sure about this?” Corwin said as softly as he could. “What if Ma’el’s ruling from this very palace?”

  Nia shook her head. “Remember, our pursuers said he was in the Lower Depths. Those are the levels where the fumarole works are, where we first came through. Ma’el wouldn’t dare rule from here. It’s not a good fortress for someone who wants to hold power by force. It’s too open. There are too many ways in and out. Ma’el would want more control than that.”

  “Ah,” Corwin said, impressed with Nia’s reasoning. “You’re right. Even Castle Carmarthen had only one main gate, in order to defend against attack.”

  “Right. So let’s hope that Ma’el’s headquarters in the Lower Depths has a servant’s entrance or two.”

  As they swam between the outer pillars of the Farworlder Palace, Corwin could see what Nia meant. Broad colonnades of tall, slender columns surrounded the huge building, and many high arches stood before hallways and corridors leading into the interior. The walls were hung with glowing green globes that reflected off of gold- and glass-tiled walls. Plazas with sunken kelp gardens were interspersed between the colonnades. It was an astonishingly beautiful building, and Corwin wondered if this was the way heaven was supposed to look. Though the angels here would have fins instead of wings, he thought.

  “We just have to make one small detour,” Nia said. “As long as we’re here.”

  Should we? I’m afraid, Gobaith sent.

  “I have to look,” Nia said, “and we might learn something important.”

  “Look at what?” Corwin asked.

  “A . . . place I used to work.”

  Where I used to live.

  “Well, let’s go then,” Corwin said, feeling like he really didn’t have much choice about where they went. And he didn’t mind staying in the Farworlder Palace a while longer. “So this is where you Farworlders lived?”

  Not here, but in a different area of this structure.

  “Is that what we’re going to see?”

  No. The adult Farworlder chambers are forbidden to humans.

  “Why?”

  You . . . wouldn’t understand.

  Corwin got a sense of a place too delicate and complex for a mermyd to enter without doing damage. “So, where are we going?”

  “Here,” Nia said, and she went in through an archway decorated with carvings of small Farworlders. Corwin could feel her shock, like a blow to the heart, even before he entered the room after her.

  It was a large chamber, bigger than Henwyneb’s hous
e. The room was filled with marble pedestals, but many had fallen over and broken. There had been crystal bowls on the pedestals—some remained in place, but many lay shattered on the floor. Some of them still contained bits of shell . . . shells like the one Gobaith had lived in.

  Nia hovered in the center of the room, gazing at it all, her fists clenched. “Of course. Ma’el destroyed it all.”

  Corwin felt a keen sorrow spilling over from Gobaith that almost brought tears to his own eyes. The Farworlder drifted among the broken bowls, gently touching the shells with his tentacles. My crechemates. They’re gone. All gone.

  “This is where . . . the baby Farworlders lived?” Corwin asked gently.

  “Yes. This was the nursery. I worked here for a while as a guard. I used to play with all the little ones . . . .” Nia stopped and rubbed her eyes, then reached over and put an arm around Gobaith. “I’m sorry. Maybe we shouldn’t have come here. Ma’el didn’t even spare the little ones. Didn’t dare take the chance that some baby Farworlder might survive to interfere.”

  Corwin swam up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “We already knew Ma’el was evil. Why should we be surprised? Maybe we’d better move on. We can’t afford to be slowed down by sorrow.”

  Nia’s jaw muscles clenched as she swallowed hard. “Oh, don’t worry. This sight won’t slow me down. I’ll remember it every time I wonder whether we’re doing the right thing. After seeing this, I know. Ma’el must be destroyed.”

  As she and Gobaith swam out of the nursery, Corwin wondered if this greater resolve would make her stronger or more reckless. I guess I’d better prepare myself for either possibility.

  Nia swam on through the Farworlder Palace, feeling herself grow cold inside. Atlanteans were not taught the way of the warrior, and even in her training to be a nursery guard, Nia had only learned how to firmly keep anyone who didn’t belong out. But the land-dwellers knew how to fight. And Nia had learned from watching the land-dwellers in Corwin’s world. Those who carried swords thought about duty, not feelings.

  I don’t like this change in you, Nia, Gobaith sent.

  Talk to me about it after Ma’el and Joab are dead, Nia thought back.

  By then, your heart may be dead as well.

  Then it was a price that had to be paid, she told him.

  Nia swam down a passageway whose floor was a flight of marble steps. The Farworlder Palace had been built when Atlantis floated on the surface of the ocean, and therefore still retained structures that had once been useful to its land-dweller residents and visitors. Useless now, other than a reminder of the grandeur that Atlantis had seen in ancient times.

  A few more turns, down to a lower level of the Farworlder Palace. Nia stopped at the bottom of the stairs and cautiously peered around the wall. Just off to the right was a familiar marble archway. Carved on the lintel and pillars were images of scribes and scrolls, ink brushes and styluses, papyrus reeds and clay tablets. Nia felt an ache of guilt, remembering how Garun had said that working here had been the best job in Atlantis, where he was always able to read and learn. It wasn’t until shortly before his death, when everything had fallen apart, that Nia had realized how right he’d been.

  “What’s this place?” Corwin asked, also peering around, just above her.

  “It’s the Archives I told you about,” Nia replied. “Where scrolls and books of information are kept.”

  There was a flash of white, and Nia ducked back inside the corridor. Two guards with long spears had emerged from the Archive archway. She thought she recognized them as two mermyds of the Orca clan who used to work for her family.

  Do you think they saw us? Nia received the question from Corwin’s mind.

  I’m not sure, she answered.

  They’re coming this way, Gobaith sent. I’ll distract them. He zoomed out of the corridor and did a little dance in front of the guards’ faces. Nia could feel the magic Gobaith was using to cloak himself and trick them. Then he sped away down another passageway, leading the guards away from the Archive.

  “Now’s our chance,” Nia said. An iron gate blocked the entrance under the archway. But Nia had learned enough from Corwin about locks that it was no trouble to use a little energy to spring this one. Closing her eyes, she sent a ghost-copy of her hand, made from her own life-energy, into the lock. She could feel the lock shape with her ghost-fingers and push those parts that needed to move. In a few seconds, it was done. Nia drew the ghost-hand back into her own flesh-hand and pushed the gate open.

  “Well done. I’m impressed,” Corwin said. “Fenwyck would have loved to have had such a power.”

  “How nice,” Nia said, not smiling. “But I intend to use this power only for good.” She swam in, her heart aching a little to see the familiar desks and floor-to-ceiling cabinets that were full of the city’s knowledge. If we succeed, this will all be so important. I’m glad Ma’el hasn’t ruined this, at least. She headed for a glowing circle of light in the ceiling at the end of the room—a hole into a dry room.

  An arm, then two, descended through a grate that covered the hole. Nia could see a mermyd lying on the grate, desperately splashing water onto himself.

  Nia looked to where the key for the grate had usually hung on the wall. It wasn’t there. Nia went to the lock of the grate and again ghost-pulled with energy until the lock clicked and the grate fell open, spilling the hapless mermyd into the water before her.

  The mermyd tilted his head back, mouth open in joy, his gills working furiously, his fish tail languidly waving. Finally he spoke. “Oh, thank you, thank you, whoever you are. I thought I was going to die.”

  Nia didn’t recognize this particular mermyd, and his torn and ragged tunic didn’t give any clues about his clan. She noticed wounds across his back and chest. “You’re not going to die, not if I can help it.”

  “Thank you, thank—who are you?”

  “I am Niniane of the Bluefin clan.”

  The mermyd’s mouth gaped open. He had clearly heard of her. “You . . . you . . .”

  “Take it easy. It’ll be all right, I hope.” Nia reached out her hand to pat his shoulder. He noticed the mark on her palm.

  “You became an Avatar, after all!”

  “Um, yes, I am.”

  The mermyd backed away from her and looked wildly around. “Where are the guards? There is only one Farworlder left in Atlantis. You must be working for Ma’el.”

  “No, no! There’s another Farworlder, and he’s led the guards away. They won’t be back for a while. I’ve come to help you. Please believe me. Are there others up there?”

  “Yes, there are five of us.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “Not well.”

  “I’ll go up and take care of them.”

  “You’ll go into a dry room?” The mermyd looked amazed. “You have no idea how awful it is up there.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen worse,” Nia said with a slight smile at Corwin. Nia went to the hole and, steeling herself for the ordeal, threw her arms over the lip of the hole and pulled herself up. Then she threw a leg over and pulled herself out of the water into the dry room.

  She knelt on all fours, gasping and coughing for a few moments, as she switched from gill- to mouth-breathing. The air was stale, thick and heavy with the smell of rotting fish and sweat.

  “Nia?” A husky female voice croaked her name.

  Nia looked up. The face before her was instantly recognizable, and yet utterly changed from what she’d known. It was Tyra, the woman who’d raised her.

  “Mo—” Nia’s voice caught in her throat. Tyra looked haggard, her face thin and drawn, her eyes sunken and red. Her dry skin flaked and her fish tail had whole patches of missing scales. Nia hugged her mother gently. “What have they done to you?”

  Tyra only shook her head. “How good to see you,” she rasped. “I had . . . I had thought you were dead.”

  Tears flowed from Nia’s eyes. “I was so scared you were, too. Oh, Mother, I am so sorry,
so sorry.”

  Tyra patted her back. “We know now you aren’t to blame. Ma’el boasted about how easy it was to fool the councils. To make them believe you were the danger.”

  Nia glanced around behind Tyra, then frowned. “Where’s Pontus, Mother? Was he imprisoned somewhere else?”

  Tyra pulled back, gripping Nia’s shoulders. “He’s dead, Nia. He died in the first assault at the Naming.”

  Nia hung her head. She had never been happy with her stepfather, even before she’d known he was her stepfather. Still, she never would have wished that on him.

  Tyra shook Nia’s shoulder. “You’ve got to get out of here. Ma’el will imprison or kill you if he finds you. You’ve got to get away!”

  “No, Mother. I’ve been out in the wide sea, and I’ve come back. I’m going to save Atlantis, if I can.”

  “By yourself? No, Nia, you have no idea how powerful Ma’el has become!”

  “Oh yes I do. Ma’el has already tried to destroy me several times and failed. And I’m not alone. I’ve brought help.”

  At just that moment, Corwin popped his head up through the hole with a splash and said loudly, “Is everyone all right?”

  Nia understood him but, of course, her mother didn’t. “That’s your help?” Tyra rasped. “He’s . . . strange-looking. Where are his fins and scales?”

  “It’s all right, Mother. He’s really very nice and very helpful. Gobaith says he makes an excellent Avatar. For a land-dweller.”

  Corwin held up his hand, the one with the sun-shaped mark, and waved.

  The astonishment on her foster mother’s face was priceless.

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter seven

  Corwin coughed at the foulness of the air in the dry room. He would have liked to have been more formal in greeting the woman who’d raised Nia, but it didn’t seem possible, given the situation. Tyra was still staring at him with round, shocked eyes in a thin face.

  “A drylander has become an Avatar? This can’t be another one of Ma’el’s atrocities, can it?” Tyra demanded.