Pillars of the Deep

by Harper Alexander

  Careful not to kick my injured leg too vigorously, my new sidekick and I gimped back into the boundaries of Atlantis. It was slow going, and about halfway there I felt like we’d known each other long enough that it was probably time to give him a name.

  In my sorry state, I could think of nothing more creative than Pastel, and so Pastel he was dubbed.

  I had the sense to remind myself that someone in Atlantis had been the mastermind behind my encounter with the sharks, and it might be wise not to parade myself down the main avenue until I knew who I could trust. And so I slunk down side alleys and slipped through shadowed arches until I reached the royal sector of the city.

  I didn’t know how to just go up and announce myself at the palace–or even how to navigate the complex layout of the interior to find anyone inside–and so I cut across the way to the Clam Shop and went looking for Abraxia.

  By that time I was weak as a lamb, pulling myself along by finding clumsy hand-holds along the walls and other objects. My eyelids fluttered at half-mast, and it sounded so heavenly to just cease and desist, and drift off to sleep in the cold, quiet water. That was the problem with floating around all the time–it was always so inking comfortable, so easy to just loll into a nap at any given moment.

  Abraxia was tinkering away, goggles in place, cube in hand. She looked up when she noticed me, her gaze landing first on the turquoise blob piggy-backing along for the ride. “What the–” she started, then seemed to notice the entirety of my state: the bound hands, the gruesome accessories. She shoved her goggles up onto her forehead then, to make sure she was seeing right. “Inking Abyss,” she swore. “What happened?” Discarding the rune-cube, she rushed to my side, cringing at the nuggets of gore.

  Safety refreshed, I slouched against one of the oyster pedestals. “I was…drugged and staked in the middle of the ocean, for the sharks,” I managed to impart.

  Appalled, Abraxia was reaching to help support me, giving me another once-over. I must be quite a sight indeed. “Inking Abyss. By who?”

  “Didn’t see…”

  “What–what is he doing?”

  I couldn’t blame her for the wary glance she cast toward Pastel, or the pointed distance that she kept. “Wrapping my wound,” I said, like I was suddenly the expert.

  “You were bitten?”

  I grunted in confirmation.

  Abraxia muttered something that included ‘ink’ again, and glanced around as if for something to help me. “Come on. I’m taking you to Codexious. This is a matter for the regent, and we’ll get you to the resident healer in the palace.”

  The next thing I was really aware of was a dome of gold-veined cobalt marble above me, and Coda’s voice somewhere close by in the chamber I occupied.

  “This is an atrocity. Unacceptable. Who would have done such a thing? No, Ellien, leave the octopus be if he doesn’t want to move.”

  “In order to check her–”

  “I realize, but he’s going to ink the lot of us.”

  “He hasn’t inked anyone yet,” Abraxia’s voice pointed out.

  “Vescario, come on, man, get over here with those eel skins.” Coda again.

  “I do not guarantee I will know how to treat her,” Ellien–evidently the resident healer–lamented. He had a timid, weasel-y voice. “Given her, ah…”

  “Legs, Ellien. They’re legs. Treat them like you would an arm. They are just flesh-covered limbs, which we do consist of on half of our bodies, you know.”

  “Yes, yes of course.”

  “I demand to know who did this to her,” Codexious fumed, to no one in particular.

  “Codexious, if I may…” Was that Inaja? “A few jealous mermaids, perhaps.”

  “Jealous over what?”

  “She did seem to garnish a fair amount of your attention at the ball.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous. I treated her to a dance same as countless others.”

  “I am only saying she made an impression, as did a dance that by definition made history, and if I noticed, so did countless others who might not be so keen on more competition.”

  “She’s not…” Codexious continued to protest, but trailed off, seeing Inaja’s point.

  I decided then, in my rousing state, that I should probably make it known I was conscious lest they go on about me like I wasn’t there, moving on to such awkward tidbits as exactly what parts of me had made an impression in that ravishing costume, or similar embarrassing points.

  “Abraxia?” I croaked, figuring I wouldn’t add gasoline to the fire by addressing Coda like we were thick as thieves.

  “I’m here, love–just one second. Getting this eel skin in place.”

  I remembered then what Dogga had told me about the eel skin acting as a ‘mask’ against octopus ink. A moment later there was a swish and Abraxia appeared at my side.

  “And call me Brax, for ink’s sake. I think this constitutes as being through enough together that we can be on a short-name basis. Everyone else calls me Brax. How do you feel?”

  “Like I was hit by a tru–er, not the best I’ve ever felt.”

  “We can’t seem to convince your octopus friend to let us take a look at you.”

  “He saved me…” I murmured drowsily.

  “What was that?”

  “From the sharks. Inked them all, and pulled up the stake, and dragged me back to Atlantis.”

  Abraxia stared blankly down at me, as if trying to decide if I was delirious or telling the truth. Coda’s face swam into view next, concern etched across his brow.

  “Sayler? I am so sorry about what you went through. We will do everything we can to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Just…try to do it with enough indifference that you don’t make anyone even more jealous, ay?” I quipped, and after he blinked once to gauge the humor in my tone, Coda’s face softened in amusement and that maddening twitch of a smile quirked the corner of his mouth.

  “There she is.” Glancing over his shoulder, he sidled over to make room for someone else, and a skinny merman I didn’t recognize glided into the picture. He had close-cropped, sandy orange bed-head type hair, a nose that scrunched up as he squinted toward my leg, and a smattering of freckles that were plain brown from one angle, and glittery orange from another. Turning back to me, he rested his hand on a thick cord of fabric that stretched from one of four pillars to–

  Oh. To me?

  Craning my head further to the side, it was only then that I saw I was not actually in some bed like my impression upon awakening, but suspended in the water between four cornerstone pillars, by way of said silken cords tied to my ankles and shoulders.

  I’d gone from being chained down to tied up.

  But my silken tethers were loosely tied, evidently just to keep me from drifting while I was under observation.

  “Sayler, I am Healer Ellien. If we can coax your tentacled friend away for a moment, I’ll take a look at your leg. Abraxia informed us you suffered a shark bite. Is that right?”

  And so the trial of luring Pastel from his vigil began, and after a variety of mollusk treats failed to impress him, Abraxia started offering him a mash-up of leftover desserts from the ball until he perked up and went crazy over something akin to taffy, deciding at last that there was a guilty pleasure more important than preserving my life.

  Gee, thanks.

  A small stream of blood seeped into the water from my wound as he released it, but the flow was much decreased. Ellien inspected, dressed, and wrapped the injury while Inaja sent for the ‘locksmith’–because my bonds had yet to be discharged–and Codexious himself took on the task of removing the unseemly bait, unable to leave me marinating in such filth, and Abraxia kept Pastel occupied in the far corner of the chamber with lots and lots of taffy.

  When Inaja returned with the ‘locksmith’, the specialist that was to free me proved to be another octopus, but this one was burnt-sienna in color and a tad larger than Pastel and kept in a pretty Victorian-esque cage. They l
et him out next to me and he went straight for the lock that kept my hands imprisoned, sticking the tiny ends of his tentacles into the mechanism and feeling about until he tripped the combination. As the lock clicked open, he was instantly turning to seek validation, and Inaja delivered the expected treat. Apparently, the creature had been trained for this, rewarded for each successful lock-picking.

  The chains were unwound from my wrists, and my hands fell free. A sound of relief escaped me as I regained my full range of motion and massaged the welts where my bonds had rubbed. Beyond the welts, there was an ache within the joints, too. I had no doubt I’d strained something–at the very least caused some severe bruising–in all my attempts to pull free. But at least nothing seemed broken.

  The rest of the chains were not secured by lock, and were untangled or otherwise clipped from my body with some vicious-looking, diamond-bladed shears.

  And then it was done, the ordeal past, and I could focus on recovering.

  They left me to rest–with the exception of Codexious, who stayed to debrief me about the incident–and I was finally able to relax. Pastel slunk into the corner of the room and hid behind a statue of an angel, staying just enough exposed that he could keep one eye on me, a single tentacle trailing around the base of the statue and lingering in the open.

  As Coda drilled me–gently–about the details, my eyes were drawn to his scars, and I had to wonder if he knew all too well what I had been through. From the looks of it, he had endured far worse. The merfolk were lucky their scar tissue formed in pretty silver streaks.

  I wanted to ask him then about what I’d heard the two mermaids talking about at the ball, but couldn’t find the right moment to broach the subject while he was so intent on gleaning every detail of my ordeal.

  “You are fortunate to be alive,” Codexious concluded when I was done recounting the tale. “Though not so fortunate, it would seem, to have drawn the jealous attention of a few vicious mermaids. What did I tell you–spiteful, venomous creatures.”

  “When you said they were catty, jealous selkies, you failed to mention that meant they might ambush all the new girls in town, slather them in blood, and feed them to the sharks.”

  “This does elevate it to a whole new level.”

  “Hey, no biggie. I got a crash course in treacherous deep-sea living and mermaid politics. It would just be nice if I scarred silver like you.” With his chiseled musculature and jagged silver seams, he was like pewter-veined marble. I wished I could take a picture of him, immortalize a keepsake of his exotic, statuesque beauty forever.

  “Don’t be too sure about that. Then you might find yourself prone to collecting more than you need.”

  What did he mean by that?

  But now that he had sobered, another serious matter called for his attention. “Sayler, I...I cannot express how much this incident has shaken my confidence in how you will be treated by the Atlanteans. You are clearly not safe. I feel it is the only course of action to provide some sort of…protection, henceforward.”

  “What, like a bodyguard?”

  “A bodyguard, an escort–call it what you will.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.” I couldn’t imagine going around all the time with a glorified babysitter–my very own Inaja–shadowing my every move. How stifling and awkward.

  “Have you so quickly dismissed what has happened to you?”

  “I hardly think special treatment is the right tactic to remove the target from my back.”

  Evidently not expecting me to resist, Coda tightened his jaw in the slightest show of frustration. “Do you have a better solution in mind?”

  I shrugged–a difficult maneuver given the silken ties that twined under my arms and around my shoulders. “Waltz back out there like nothing ever happened, like I’m invincible and completely unshaken, and flaunt my scars like a hardcore battleax who welcomes a good deep-sea fist fight?”

  Codexious sighed. “Spitfire Splittail. You may not scar silver, but you have iron under that skin. Please accept an escort?”

  “I refuse an escort.”

  “As the regent I could command you.”

  “I thought you played down the title of regent as a meaningless formality with little actual weight behind it.”

  “I play it down and bolster it up as suits my needs. It does have advantages.”

  “Well, as not one of your sometimes-subjects, I can still refuse.”

  “You may not be a citizen of Atlantis, but you are receiving our hospitality.”

  “Am I? Hospitality seems to go hand-in-hand with animosity.”

  His expression darkened. “A poor choice of words,” he admitted.

  “Very poor,” I chuckled.

  “You may stay here, in the palace, then,” Coda suggested, looking a little too taken with the idea. There was a definite spark in his gaze that hadn’t lit up when he suggested a bodyguard.

  “Another thing not likely to remove the target from my back.”

  “Will you take no precautions?”

  “Of course I’ll take precautions. I’m sure I’ll sleep with one eye open, strapped to the nines with whatever weapons I can find, and I would advise you not to spring any surprise wake-up calls on me for any unexpected field trips again, or I might roundhouse kick you clear to the Surface as a reflex. Then I’ll really go down in history: the landlubber who kicked the regent of Atlantis to the surface of the ocean.”

  “Actually I would be comforted to know that you would do that. I may stage a wake-up call to test these reflexes of yours.”

  “Well, you’ve had fair warning.”

  “But you will stay here whilst recovering, at least. That is not special treatment.”

  “I suppose I can humor you that far.”

  “Oh, it’s humoring me, is it? You’ve nearly had your leg ripped off by a shark.”

  “And if you had legs, you’d understand that’s a minor affliction. Above the Surface, we regularly lose legs to various every-day hazards. They grow back, you know.”

  Coda blinked, authentically taken aback by the information, briefly speechless while he tried to weigh the truth of my claim.

  I couldn’t keep a straight face. “Kidding.”

  He cracked a smile. “It could have been true. You never know. We grow our tails back.”

  It was my turn to show surprise. “Do you really?”

  Mischief pervaded his smile. “Also kidding.”

  I groaned. “Fell for my own con. Classic.” Bobbing gently up and down in my web of suspension, it was difficult to fight the constant, lulling drowsiness. I sighed sleepily. “As eager as you are to kick me out, I must impose upon your hospitality for a nap, at least. So don’t go readying the drawbridge so fast…”

  “I will do my best to tolerate the inconvenience,” Coda assured me, but his voice was muffled and wavering, because I was already fading into the abyss of unconsciousness.

  * * *

  When I next awoke, he was still there. I frowned blearily. “Trying to make sure I wasn’t faking sleep just for the opportunity to make my escape, hmm?”

  “Something like that.”

  Suddenly my attention was drawn down his torso to the eel skin still sealed over his gills. My frown deepened. “Are you still holding your breath?”

  “Mm–yes.”

  A mild splash of horror drew me fully awake. “Aren’t you bursting?”

  Pursing his lips, Coda put off answering as long as possible, but couldn’t avoid the direct question. “Just about.”

  There was a definite strain to his features. What an attentive buffoon. “Well, stop it, you inkblot!” I insisted, sounding more panicky on his behalf than I intended to let on. The thought of his lungs–er, gills–screaming for oxygen as he forced himself not to leave my side made me considerably uncomfortable. Appalled, I found myself suffering instant sympathy-suffocation. When he didn’t move, I grew inconsolable. “I’m serious! Go away! Breathe, for ink’s sake!”

&nbs
p; “Do you suppose he will ink me, if I remove my defenses?” Coda peered toward the corner where the end of Pastel’s turquoise tendril was still visible.

  “Yes,” I affirmed sarcastically. “I think he’s been biding his time just waiting for you to let your guard down, and then he’s going to strike from the dark recesses of the angel statue and ink us all to kingdom come.”

  Coda looked thoughtful.

  “And you pretend to be all concerned for my well-being,” I went on, “driving yourself to suffocation because you refuse to leave my side, insisting I stay here where it’s safe, but I notice you haven’t given me an eel skin to protect against getting inked.”

  “I did not suppose it would be hospitable or very therapeutic to smother you in your sleep, not knowing how long you can hold your breath. Not to mention, have you ever tried to sleep while holding your breath? Not typically a successful combination. And besides, he’s clearly taken a shining to you. It would be counter-productive for him to save you just to ink you.”

  “I think you’re forgetting he already did ink me. Inadvertently, perhaps, because how do you ink an entire feeding frenzy of sharks without inking the bait as well, but who’s to say he would not do it again, if he sensed another threat?”

  “Would you like an eel skin?”

  “If it means handing over yours so you’ll take an inking breath.”

  “I see you have seamlessly adopted the slang of the culture. But it is precisely an ‘inking breath’ I am laboring not to take.” A sly look of curiosity seeped into his gaze. “But, speaking of being inked… I am curious–what were the effects? What outlandish sensations or hallucinations did you experience?”

  It was impossible to recollect the tie-dye sharks and Cheshire-cat shark-tooth grins without also bringing to mind that other hallucination.

  My pulse increased. “Ah…” I tried to make something up to overlay in its place, but all I could think about were his cotton-candy flavored lips, sticky and sweet–so sticky, in fact, that I couldn’t seem to pry myself away.

  I pursed my lips, trying to smother the phantom sensations. I couldn’t have this conversation. Fortunately, I landed on an out: