The Merman Boxset: Gay Merman Romance

by Aratare, X.

  “They’re mapping the structures we’ve uncovered and trying to estimate where more structures are for further digging,” Johnson said as he vaguely gestured beyond the temple towards the maze of building that rose up behind it.

  “You’d be surprised at how these structures swallow sound. It’s easy to believe you’re the only one here sometimes,” Greta added.

  “Is everyone here your student, Johnson?” Gabriel asked.

  Johnson nodded. “They are.”

  He couldn’t help but think about Johnson’s statement from earlier about how joining Miskatonic was the best way for him to protect humanity. From Johnson’s words, Gabriel had imagined that his students would all be dressed in fatigues with bulging muscles just like him. Greta did not fit the image of a “soldier.” Maybe the other students would.

  They were now just twenty feet from the base of the dozen steps that led up to the temple’s massive doors. One of the doors was cracked open, and the urge to streak ahead of the group and squeeze through that slight space was almost overwhelming. Gabriel nearly crushed the one bottle of water he was carrying. The sound startled everyone and he gave an apologetic smile. He unscrewed the cap and took a swallow of water instead. His mouth was once again as dry as dust, but he thought that it was more from anticipation than anything else.

  “What classes do you teach, Johnson?” Corey asked.

  “I teach many things,” Johnson answered, which wasn’t much of an answer at all.

  Do you tell your students stories about Kane and the music of the deep? Gabriel wondered and his gaze slid to Greta. She looked troubled now. Her earlier excitement at meeting them and showing them around had dimmed considerably since she discovered that Johnson intended to let them see this temple’s inner sanctum.

  “So archeology and history, that sort of stuff?” Corey prodded. “Greta, you have to tell us if Johnson won’t.”

  Greta looked down uncomfortably, and that struck Gabriel as incredibly odd. She said lamely, “Oh, sure, yeah, we have those classes.”

  She can’t even tell us what she’s studying? Gabriel thought with a jolt.

  “You read up on Miskatonic, Corey, you know we can’t really talk about any of that,” Johnson said with a small smile.

  “Even the class subjects are confidential?” Gabriel couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice.

  Another flash of white teeth from Johnson was the only response.

  Yet he’s letting us come here and see this inexplicable place. Why be secretive about the classes, but not about this? Gabriel wondered.

  Because he really wishes you to see something here, Casillus said. The Mer had been quiet, but his presence in Gabriel’s mind had never lessened. For that, Gabriel was impossibly grateful.

  They had reached the first step of the temple’s staircase and the pull was now undeniable. Gabriel’s chest actually hurt from the sensation yet he stopped walking with the rest of the group by the first step. The step was made of the same glowing material as the rest of the temple. The glow slid around inside the stone like the watery center of a semi-frozen icecube. Gabriel nearly lost himself in the luminous swaying. Corey crouched down and put a hand, palm down and fingers spread, on the smooth material.

  “What is this stuff? It feels cold.” Corey withdrew his hand from the stone and shook it as if his skin had been chilled.

  “No one knows. We haven’t even been able to take samples of it,” Greta said. She stared at the stone too for a moment, but then she wrenched her gaze away. Gabriel sensed that she had mixed feelings about the temple. “It resists our hammers, chisels, even Skil saws.”

  It is imbued with the power of the entity it was built for. No human tools can harm it, Casillus explained.

  About this entity. Gabriel paused and then decided he had to ask. He had to know. Does it have tenta—

  Johnson suddenly bounded up the first few steps of the staircase. He grasped Gabriel’s elbow and drew him up onto the steps after him. Gabriel didn’t have a chance to flinch back as Johnson released him just as quickly as he had touched him.

  “Come,” Johnson said. “We have much to show you.”

  The older man set off up the stairs at a brisk pace. The heat seemed to suck Gabriel’s energy away with every step even as his eagerness to be inside the temple pressed him to keep going. He licked his lips again. The saliva in his mouth seemed to have entirely evaporated, but he resisted the urge to drink more water. It felt like a challenge to himself. He wasn’t sure what possible prize he might get if he “won,” but he kept on anyways. The tug in his chest helped him keep going. They reached the top step. The doors rose far above their heads. Gabriel felt dwarfed by them. There was one simple engraving on them. It stretched across both doors. It showed a chieftain with a headdress standing on the beach, arms outstretched towards the sea, and in the sea were people rising from the waves wearing only loincloths around their hips.

  Mers! Gabriel cried.

  “Amazing, isn’t it? Even from the top of the crater you really can’t get a sense of how very large and impressive it is. What we’ve already uncovered here is just a fraction of what there is to find,” Johnson said, his eyes glowing. “I intend to ask for more funds to buy up any adjoining land that the settlement might extend under. Miskatonic has the money to spare, especially for something of this importance.”

  “How many people lived here in the high season?” Corey asked.

  “Twenty thousand,” Greta said. “That’s the estimate, anyways.”

  “That’s the same size as Ocean Side now,” Gabriel murmured through numb lips. His gaze was fixed on the engraving.

  “Yes, and imagine all of Ocean Side being killed overnight,” Johnson said.

  “Killed?” Gabriel gasped. His gaze snapped to Johnson.

  “Yes, this is something that we haven’t been telling the public,” Johnson said. He stood straight and tall. A soldier through and through. “You see, this settlement wasn’t abandoned. The people here were destroyed in a war.”

  “A war with who?” Corey asked.

  Johnson’s expression was grim as his gaze fixed on Gabriel. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  6

  INNER SANCTUM

  Gabriel’s eyes widened at Johnson’s words. The former military man was looking at him soberly, almost sadly, as if what he was saying should hurt Gabriel most of all. But why should it? This was an ancient settlement. It was here well before the Bravens. That left one group of people Gabriel was related to that could be involved.

  Did the Mers go to war with this settlement, Casillus? Gabriel asked.

  I—I am not certain. I have told the Elders about this temple, Casillus said. Their reaction to my news tells me that they know what happened here, but will not speak of it.

  Does that mean something bad happened? Something the Mers want to keep hidden even from their own kind? Gabriel asked. Casillus was the prince of all the Mers. If he didn’t know about what happened here, then Gabriel worried that it must have been something awful.

  There are certain things which are forbidden to speak of. This must be one of them. Casillus sounded ill, which just increased Gabriel’s unease. I have sent word to my parents, asking for anything they might know and for them to advise me. But even with just these vague and uncertain fears about the settlement, I am even more worried about you being there. Gabriel, again, stay the shortest time necessary and get out of there.

  I’ll try. Gabriel met Johnson’s gray gaze and quickly looked away from him towards the sea. I’m just not sure how to do that.

  From the top of the staircase he could see the cool blue of the ocean and the white froth of waves. He actually ached for the sea. He turned back to the group. Corey was asking Johnson and Greta tons of questions about the war and who had killed whom and how they knew. Gabriel had completely lost track of the conversation again when he was speaking with Casillus. Johnson’s eyes were fixed on him. The former military man had definitely
noticed his distraction. Gabriel stared back at him challengingly.

  He doesn’t know I’m talking to Casillus. Maybe I’m just spacing out. Maybe I’m really not interested in the temple. He can’t know what I’m really feeling and doing, Gabriel thought, but part of him felt that Johnson somehow did know. If shutting the bond down with Casillus didn’t hurt them both he would have done it again right then and there. It felt like Johnson could see right through him and he hated it. I have to keep Casillus safe. I have to keep all the Mers safe from him.

  “When destruction came here, it came from the sea,” Johnson said, interrupting Corey’s flood of questions. He pointed out towards the blue depths. “The people here had no defense against such an assault.”

  “How do you know this? How do you know any of this?” Gabriel’s tone was angry and he didn’t try to hide it. He was sick and tired of Johnson’s secrets and half-reveals. He probably could have said the same about Casillus’ evasions, but he knew that the Mer was just trying to protect him. Johnson’s motives were far more murky.

  “Inside, there is an inscription.” Johnson touched the doors of the temple. The doors stood over twenty feet tall and were made of that same blue stone that swirled with that same mesmerizing, sickening light as the rest of the temple. “This inscription is a warning, actually. And the person who wrote it is still there.”

  “What do you mean still there?” Gabriel asked tightly. For one moment he had the crazy thought that an ancient warrior stood inside the temple, wearing rotten armor and a frayed headdress, just waiting to reveal the truth of the Mers to anyone who came inside. That was ridiculous, of course. Only the Mers lived forever. Humans did not.

  “His bones,” Greta answered. Her hands twisted together in front of her. She had seemed so bright and cheery when they met her, but now it seemed like she was just as ill at ease about going into the temple as Gabriel was. “It looks like he finished writing the inscription and then … died.”

  “Why would he do that? What’s so important that he would use his remaining strength to write an inscription?” Gabriel asked.

  “To warn whoever found this place,” she said with a faint shiver and then with a strained smile at Johnson, she added, “We, of course, have ignored his warning.”

  “Warn them of what?” Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t try to hide that he was unnerved about the fact that a dead man was still in the temple.

  Greta opened her mouth to answer before Johnson cut her off by saying, “It is complicated and will make more sense in context. I know it seems as if I keep saying ‘wait,’ but you need to experience the full effect of the temple and the inscription.” Johnson’ eyes bored into Gabriel’s. “It’s important.”

  “All right. Let’s go in,” Gabriel said reluctantly. And get this dog and pony show over.

  Even though Gabriel had expressed irritation and a desire to leave quickly, the string attached to his chest vibrated as Johnson put his hands on both of the massive doors and pushed them open. They swung inwards with a grinding sound that increased the vibration even more. Johnson stepped back and then gestured for Gabriel to go in first.

  “Do you want me to go in with you, Gabe?” Corey asked, clearly not trusting Johnson’s motives once again.

  “I’m—I’m good.”

  Suddenly, Gabriel wanted to go inside alone. He wished he was alone to see this, experience this, because then if the “something amazing” was actually “something terrible” he would be the only one affected. But he couldn’t send the others away and there was nothing he could tell them that would convince them to leave on their own.

  “I don’t like this,” Corey said, but he stepped back to stand with Greta.

  Greta didn’t look happy about Gabriel going inside alone either. Her gaze kept going from Gabriel to Johnson. Her eyes seemed to be asking her professor to have a change of heart, but Johnson’s arms remained crossed tightly over his chest. He ignored her pleading expression.

  “Go on, Gabriel,” Johnson urged.

  Be careful, Gabriel, Casillus warned. The Mer’s amorphous unease flowed over their bond.

  Stay with me, Casillus.

  I will never leave you, the Mer promised, and Gabriel believed him.

  With a deep breath, Gabriel stepped forward and stood on the threshold of the temple. The glow of the stones illuminated the interior in a wavering blue light. It made him feel like he was underwater. But the light was unnecessary. There was no decoration in the temple’s interior. No carvings. No statues. No altar. No seats for worshippers. It looked to be simply one big rectangular room. He saw no sign of this inner sanctum that Johnson and Greta had mentioned, either, which surprised him.

  It’s empty, Casillus. Gabriel felt a strange sense of disappointment. There was simply nothing there. Nothing amazing. Nothing terrifying. Nothing at all. Gabriel let out a breath he had been holding. His shoulders relaxed.

  Not completely empty, my love, Casillus said, and Gabriel turned his head to look full on at what the Mer had already glimpsed through the corner of his eye.

  It was the skeleton that Greta had warned him about. Truthfully, it wasn’t much of a skeleton. It was more a pile of bones, some of which had disintegrated into powder. There was a glass box resting over the bones, likely to protect them from further damage. Gabriel was surprised they hadn’t been removed. He was about to turn around and ask Greta why, but then his gaze swept upwards and he forgot everything else. On the wall by the bones was an inscription written in a language he didn’t know, but which held a strange fascination for him nevertheless.

  Casillus, do you know what that says?

  No, the language is unfamiliar to me, but I can tell that it is old. An ancient script, and it has a dark cast.

  What do you mean?

  I think it has been used to pen many bad things.

  Is this one of those bad things, Casillus?

  I fear it is, the Mer answered somberly.

  Gabriel ran his gaze along the twenty lines of text that stretched from one corner of the room to the other. He found himself squinting as the letters seemed to fade in and out. Maybe it was the interior light from the stones that was causing this effect. The words weren’t etched into the stones. He tilted his head to the side. Perhaps they were painted on. But if they had been painted, what substance could have withstood all these years and not flaked away? The letters were as dark and clear as if they had just been written.

  Gabriel’s vision blurred like it had when he had stepped into the temple’s shadow as he continued to study the individual letters of the inscription. He was forced to shut his eyes. The darkness spun behind his eyelids. Nauseated, he shook his head to clear it. When he opened them again and looked back at the words, the squiggly letters appeared to be hovering above the wall’s surface. Gabriel jerked back in surprise. What was happening here?

  Do you see that, Casillus?

  See what? The Mer had stilled in the water. Casillus had evidently come to know that when Gabriel asked him something like that it was a bad thing.

  The words … they’re floating …

  No, I do not see that at all, the Mer said, his uneasiness growing with every thought Gabriel sent.

  “You okay, Gabe?” Corey put a hand on Gabriel’s right shoulder.

  Gabriel jumped slightly at his touch. He had forgotten he wasn’t alone. Corey’s round face was full of concern.

  “I’m sorry. I’m keeping everyone waiting.” Gabriel suddenly realized that Greta, Corey and Johnson were all standing on the temple’s landing, not advancing inside, evidently waiting until he cleared the threshold.

  “Take your time. This place is …” Corey peered inside and then added, “Weird.”

  “Weird doesn’t begin to describe it,” Gabriel agreed.

  Casillus, is this normal for a temple to this, ah, entity? For it to be empty like this? Gabriel asked.

  I do not know. I have never been inside one of its temples. Few have
, Casillus answered. His voice was hushed and there was a sense of awe and dread rolling off of him.

  Gabriel finally drifted into the temple. Everyone followed after him. Greta immediately went over to the wall with the inscription as if she wanted to get the tour over with. Corey toddled after her. His best friend’s eyes were wide, but he did not seem afraid, merely cautious.

  Gabriel didn’t join them yet. Instead, he stood in the center of the temple, feeling the vastness of the empty space. He found himself looking at the temple’s back wall. He frowned. Something was off. The wall seemed too close. From what he had seen of the temple’s dimensions from the outside there should have been a lot more space inside, but there wasn’t.

  “So you noticed it too?” Johnson asked.

  Gabriel jumped again. Johnson had snuck up behind him. For a big man, he moved quietly. Gabriel smoothed a hand over the front of his T-shirt to hide his surprise, but the former military man’s narrowed gaze showed that he had seen it.

  Gabriel cleared his voice and asked firmly, “Noticed what?”

  “That the temple is much smaller on the inside than the outside.” Johnson crossed his hands at the wrists behind his lower back as he looked at the blank back wall as well. “We measured the width of the blocks to confirm what our eyes were already telling us. There is over twenty square feet of floorspace missing. Except, of course, it’s not missing. It’s just hidden.”

  “So the inner sanctum is hidden by the back wall?” Gabriel asked. The throb in his chest, the feeling that something amazing was waiting, returned. His fingers curled against the palm of his free hand as he fought the urge to start pressing on the glowing blocks of stone to see if any of them moved and revealed the inner sanctum.

  “Yes, it is, but before I show it to you, I think that you need to hear the translation of the inscription. Remember, context is everything.” Johnson lightly touched Gabriel’s back in an attempt to steer him towards the right wall. Gabriel twitched away from him. Johnson dropped his hand. He lowered his voice and said, “You don’t need to be afraid of me, Gabriel.”