by Jade Kerrion
Air—for land walkers who are brave enough, or stupid enough, to go diving without gear.
I had gear, he protested. They didn’t last, but I had it. This is amazing—my private supply of oxygen, without all those heavy tanks and breathing apparatus.
It doesn’t last forever, but it’s longer than a kiss.
He far preferred the kiss, but coached himself to keep the conversation lighthearted, matching her tone. You don’t like kissing?
She arched her eyebrow. It can be hard to do in the middle of a fight.
Are you expecting a fight?
I’d rather expect one and be pleasantly let down than not expect one and be surprised when it happens. Her shoulders straightened. Whatever you think you know about mermaids, forget it. The Beltiamatu ruled the oceans and the Earth long before your kind even contemplated not walking around naked.
His mind reeled from the casual revelation of world-shattering facts. What happened then?
She scowled. Long story. Another day. The point is the merfolk are not sweet-tempered creatures who wash their hair in the surf and save drowning sailors. The Beltiamatu are warriors. Don’t piss them off.
Chapter 17
It was not quite a homecoming. Ashe did not travel along the familiar currents that would have carried her through the city’s front gates. She was neither expected nor welcomed; not that anyone would know her. She had been away for two hundred and ninety-seven years—almost the full lifetime of a Beltiamatu. Anyone who had known her would be dead.
Instead, she curved around the far edges of the city, toward the deepest part of the sea shelf backed up against the cave wall, where the towers were taller and more tightly clustered. Varun’s voice whispered through her mind. Is that the palace?
Yes.
The window in one of the tallest towers was open. There was, after all, no reason to close it. She had used that window to creep out of the city unobserved. Now, she used it to return.
The room could not collect layers of dust in the way it would have on land, but it had been unused and untouched for a long time, judging by the pale green cast on the platinum furnishings. It had not been scoured clean in a while.
Her heartbeat skittered as her gaze fell upon an algae-covered amber figurine. Ashe picked it up to examine it more closely. Surely it couldn’t be his. The last time she had seen it, he had been hugging it against his chest while lying in his crib. How could it be here? It could not possibly be his toy.
She ran her fingers over its familiar shape. They trembled as they traced the crack she had known would be there. It was his. But what was it doing up here, so far from the nursery?
Varun peered over her shoulder. What is that?
A child’s toy. She did not hold it up for him to see.
Varun glanced around the room. What is it doing up here?
She wondered the same. She had left him safely tucked in his crib. Had he, unknown to her, followed her up here?
Had he seen her swim away, never to return?
Ashe? Varun’s voice took on a concerned note.
She expelled the air in her lungs in a shuddering sigh and refocused on the present. The past, however, surrounded her. What had she done? This way. She swam to the far side of the small room. The door of the room was closed, but she pressed her hand against the lock, and the door slid back silently.
She could sense Varun’s awe.
He ran his hand against the wall. There’s no rust anywhere. This isn’t steel, is it?
Platinum.
The whole city is made of platinum? But there isn’t enough platinum in the world for anything like this—
The city is the reason platinum is scarce on Earth. Who do you think used it all up?
I…it’s amazing. There’s so much I need to know…
She had no simple explanations for him. How could anyone explain the technology that the Beltiamatu had treated as commonplace for millennia, but that had only emerged on Earth in the past few decades? She couldn’t, not without going into a history lesson neither of them had time for. Stay close was her only caution as she crept along the quiet corridors, pausing occasionally to refill his personal air bubble.
Where are we going?
The central archives.
He frowned. Is that like a library?
She glanced over her shoulder and gave him an impish smile. It is the library—where every written record of human history is stored.
Wait. What do you mean by ‘every written record’?
From the beginning of recorded time, including everything that was at the great library of Alexandria when it burned down.
Varun’s eyes widened. I have to see the archives.
Sure, but can you read it?
He hesitated. Can you?
Some of it.
He must have seen her grimace. What are you looking for?
Anything that tells us why this is happening.
Do you think they’ll have recorded it?
The Beltiamatu are compulsive about keeping records. That belief had led her to human libraries, thinking that people would feel the same about leaving their mark on civilization, stamping their progress upon eternity.
But, no, not really.
That fool’s errand had cost her everything.
The corridors skimmed along the periphery of the towers instead of cutting through them. Those quiet paths had been rarely traveled even when she had been princess. She had retreated to them when she needed space away from the chatter of court, when she wanted time to think. The corridors wound down, slopes instead of steps. The path leveled out, and at the base of the tower, she pressed her hand against the control panel embedded on the side of the door. The door slid back.
Ashe and Varun stood at the base of the eastern tower, looking out upon a sprawling courtyard dominated by a blocky building, more large than attractive. That’s the Oceans Court.
The royal palace?
We’re already in the royal palace. She felt him jerk in surprise. She glanced upward to encompass the tower from which they had emerged. The eastern tower is the royal family’s residence. The archives are in the western tower. She pointed to the matching tower on the far side of the courtyard.
What about those two? He indicated the northern and southern towers with a nod of his head.
Administrative buildings.
What do you mean—administrative?
Really, Varun. Did you think mermaids sit on rocks and comb their hair all day? The Beltiamatu rule the ocean, large swaths of it. There are territories to protect, wars to fight. All that ridiculous alpha male stuff that happens on land, well, it happens here too. She jerked her chin at the south tower. The Ministry of War is so large it commands an entire tower.
Ministry of War. Not defense?
We call it what it is, Varun. Boys with their toys. Her eyes narrowed. Toys of destruction honed over millennia.
But who do you fight? Other Beltiamatu?
Anyone who tries to keep us from what we think is ours. She shook her head. Starting with the children of Poseidon.
The children of… He glared at her. Poseidon. Really?
Nereids are still working on growing spines, but those Oceanids can be vicious bitches. Then there are others, the ones that dwell in the deep.
Monsters?
Her shoulders slumped on a sigh. Humans use that word to classify anything that isn’t like them. By that definition, the merfolk are monsters too, even though our culture precedes yours, and our history extends further back than human records. She gazed across the courtyard. It’s all there. In that tower.
In tribute to the Beltiamatu’s fixation on symmetry, the western tower looked no different from any of the three other towers that flanked the courtyard. Varun’s attention, however, remained focused on the courtyard and the merfolk swimming across it. He stared, as if transfixed by the fluidity of three-dimensional freedom of movement. How will we get past them?
We wait. Her gaze trac
ed the non-random movement. They’ve been summoned to the Oceans Court. In a few moments, the courtyard will empty.
How do you know?
Can’t you hear it?
Hear what? He frowned. The awareness dawning in his eyes confirmed that he too heard the haunting echoes. That can’t be…humpback whales.
It’s not. It sounds like the songs of the whales because the whales learned them from the Beltiamatu. Sight and smell aren’t as effective in the water, but sound travels four times faster in water than in air. The Beltiamatu communicate across long distances through song.
So you did really give up your voice to become human?
I gave up my voice for legs, but it would take a great deal more than just a pair of legs to turn a Beltiamatu to a Homo sapien.
But you look just like a human.
You, a scientist, should know better than to assume that physical similarities extend beyond skin deep.
So, you can’t speak again? Ever?
Ever is a long time, Varun. I’m not a Beltiamatu anymore. I am a Daughter of Air.
Which is what, exactly?
A gullible air sylph.
You don’t look gullible.
If I weren’t gullible, I wouldn’t even be a Daughter of Air. Ashe sighed. Bad decisions. Not one, but one after another. That’s how I landed up here. She touched his air bubble and refilled it with oxygen.
And is that why you’re here now, to undo them?
Some decisions can’t be undone. The past can’t be rewritten, Varun.
My great-whatever-grandfather—the one who didn’t recognize you for what you were until it was too late—he would have given anything to relive his past, undo his mistake.
He was clueless, but he didn’t make a mistake.
He failed to see—to love—what was in front of him.
Ashe frowned. I didn’t go there to be loved.
Now it was Varun’s turn to frown. Then what did you—?
Look, they’re going in. Ashe leaned forward, watching the passage of the Beltiamatu into the Oceans Court. Most, though not all, of the merfolk appeared stricken with that blood disease. Stay close. Follow me.
The western tower, like the eastern one, wound upward. Small alcoves appeared at various intervals like cozy, private nooks. Varun darted into one of them. What’s this?
She paused for several moments before answering. I guess the closest English translation would be a recliner. You sit on it, read, lie down on it, fall asleep.
Varun ran his hands over it. What is it made of?
Sponge mostly, and layers of kelp.
But where does the color come from? It’s dazzling.
She laughed. Come on, Varun. Surely you recall that shellfish were among the first sources of dyes.
I’m sorry. I must sound like a provincial hick. I just didn’t expect any of this.
What did you expect?
Honestly, I hadn’t thought all that much about it. I was still wrapping my head around mermaids. I wasn’t thinking too hard about an underwater palace. Wait, you said…read—
Yes.
Underwater?
She laughed softly. Indeed.
Halfway up the tower, the ramp opened into a vast, vertical space with glowing panels curving along the walls. Ashe caught a glimpse of several Beltiamatu swimming around the upper reaches of the tower. No one had noticed her or Varun yet. Unfortunately, the central archives did not offer any concealed corners or hidden nooks. She would have to run her search quickly and hope no one noticed her. She approached one of the glowing panels and pressed the palm of her hand against the screen.
The light from the panel cast Varun’s face partly into shadow. Is this a computer? He stared at the shifting lines of text on the screen. Awe infused his voice. How does it work? Surely not electricity— He touched the screen, and her search veered into a different direction.
Ashe huffed out an exasperated sigh. Go find your own archive. She glanced over her shoulder. A librarian was coming closer although that mermaid had not looked down to where Ashe and Varun huddled. Within a few minutes though, the mermaid’s slow but methodical loop of the library would bring her within sight.
The screen changed, the archives delivering content based on Ashe’s search patterns. She called up page after page and stared at the screen, locking in the memory. There would be time to process them later—if they were not caught.
Ashe. Varun called a warning.
Just another minute.
We don’t have a minute. He yanked her back into the corridor. A scant second later, the librarian rounded the curve of the wall. A puzzled frown passed over the librarian’s face at the screen, glowing in contrast to the darkened screens on either side.
The mermaid, her luster unfaded despite her apparent age, passed her hand over the screen, turning it black, before swimming away.
Did you get what you wanted? Varun asked quietly.
I don’t know yet.
Beside her, Varun tensed as the librarian glanced back over her shoulder. She still suspects something’s up.
She probably senses the altered current. She’s coming back this way. Let’s go.
But the water vibrated as a voice called out, “Sybil.”
The librarian turned toward the newcomer. “My lord?”
Ashe placed a hand on Varun’s. They hunkered down as a merman swam out from the corridor on the opposite side of the tower. He was young—Ashe estimated him as a decade or two shy of a hundred—and healthy, the glow of his unusually dark scales iridescent, like the sheen of black pearls. His hair was a deep, dark blue, not common among the mer-people.
Her thoughts passed to Varun. She addressed him as my lord. He’s a member of the royal family.
The merman spoke, “The reports you sent me—they can’t possibly be right.”
“They are, my lord. I checked them, multiple times, in person.”
“The infection cannot be that widespread. Not even my grandfather would allow it.”
“Please don’t blind yourself to the facts, Kai, not when everyone else is. Now, more than ever, we need you to speak up for the people.”
“But this is crazy. Do you know what the reports are saying? The ocean is dying. Vast sections of it are already dead.”
“I know what the reports say. I personally verified the data, and I wrote the report. The sickness, the infection that afflicts so many of the Beltiamatu is a scourge on the ocean. They—we—are dying, Kai, and we’re taking the ocean with us.”
“I don’t think my grandfather fully realizes the scale of what’s happening. He couldn’t possibly have condoned it if he’d known.” But with the slow hiss of air escaping from a deflated balloon, doubt leaked out of his voice.
“Will you talk to him?” Sybil asked.
“Of course,” Kai replied immediately. The long silence that followed, however, betrayed his hesitation. “I don’t think anyone else can. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
“You requested the reports, my lord. I think, on some level, you suspected something was wrong—and it is terribly wrong.”
“We’ll fix this, Sybil.” The powerful swish of Kai’s tail rippled the water. “I’ll handle it.”
At least someone else gives a damn, Varun said after Ashe translated the conversation for him.
Let’s go, she said.
Where to?
The Oceans Court.
Varun jerked to a stop. Really?
What? You’re not feeling up to a suicidal charge? What happened to the man who dived overboard even though I told him not to? What about the man who insisted on exploring the Beltiamatu palace when I told him to go back? Where is he and what have you done with him?
Varun’s chuckle was a warm, amused sound. I prefer to sneak around the edges. That approach seems more compatible with a longer life. If you have the information you want, shouldn’t we go back to the ship?
She shook her head. She could not come all this way without
seeing him.
Ashe led Varun to the Oceans Court by way of the eastern tower. Instead of passing through the courtyard, she ducked into a small alcove and ran her fingers over the smooth platinum panels that formed the walls.
What are you looking for?
This. She pressed the panels lightly in a sequence and the floor slid back.
Together, they entered the darkened corridor. Varun asked, Where does it go?
All secret paths in Shulim lead to and from the Oceans Court. These passages were built at a less secure time, when we were still at war with Atlantis.
Varun jerked. You mean…Atlantis. He frowned. Where is it?
Not around anymore.
The corner of his mouth tugged into an unwilling smile at her sharp retort. Will you take me there?
There’s nothing to see there. The destruction was as thorough as was intended.
It didn’t happen recently, did it?
She shook her head. Before humans recorded time.
You’re so casual about this.
What?
Answering the mysteries that have had men racking their heads for centuries.
She rolled her eyes. No one bothered to ask the right question. All you asked was how it was destroyed.
Isn’t that important?
Isn’t the why much more important?
Why…you mean it wasn’t some kind of natural disaster? A volcano blowing up? A tidal wave?
They were at war. Why would you dismiss war as a reason for absolute destruction?
But whatever it was took out an entire island. There is no weapon—not even today—that would sink an island.
Of course there is. Ashe waved her fingers in his face. Just because you humans don’t have one, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Ashe! Varun sounded anguished. What is it? Where is it?
The Oceans Court.
Beneath the court?
She nodded and refilled his air bubble with a simple touch. We’re close.
The corridor opened into a vast space. In its center, raw dark energy—the aether core—writhed, as formless as black smoke. On the edge of its darkness, tendriled wisps coiled and extended like tentacles. The aether core was the heart of Shulim—the energy that powered the city—yet it seemed tiny, surrounded on all sides by tall glass columns. Varun pressed his hand up against one of the cylindrical columns. Small bubbles permeated the viscous green liquid within. What is this?