“I will come,” Aran said. He turned back to Neela. “Tea will have to wait, I’m afraid.”
“Pita-ji, are we…?” Neela couldn’t bear to finish her question.
“At war?” Aran said. “The majority of the cabinet is in favor of attacking Ondalina. Our advisers are convinced that Kolfinn is behind the assassinations of Bilaal and Ahadi. They believe he may be holding Mahdi and Yazeed as prisoners. I fear it is no longer a case of if we go to war, but when. I’ve sent word to the rulers of all realms asking for a Council of the Six Waters.” He shook his head. “But with Isabella presumed dead and Kolfinn on the attack, it will be a Council of Four, if it happens at all. I must go to my own councillors now.” He kissed Neela. “We will talk shortly, my child.”
Neela watched him swim away. His bearing was dignified and composed, but there was a stoop to his shoulders. He was a second son and had not been groomed to be emperor. Neela could see that the loss of his brother, coupled with his newfound responsibilities, weighed heavily on him.
Soon I’ll add to those worries, she thought.
“Khelefu, fetch Suma. Tell her to assist the princess. Have food and drink brought to her room, scrubbing sand readied, and clean clothing laid out,” Sananda ordered.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Khelefu said.
“But, Mata-ji, there are things I need to tell you. Now. They cannot wait. Can’t we go to your private chambers?”
Sananda stared at Neela’s face, then frowned worriedly.
“What? What is it?” asked Neela.
“There are dark shadows under your eyes! Your face is so drawn,” Sananda said. “And—forgive me, but I’m your mother and I must say it—there is a frown line on your forehead that wasn’t there before.”
Distraught, Sananda snapped her fingers and a plate of chillawondas was brought. She reached for one immediately. Her eyes widened when Neela did not.
“My darling, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“I’m fine. I’m just not hungry,” Neela replied.
Neela had lost her taste for sweets during her time with the Iele. Learning convocas and other difficult spells had absorbed her so completely that she’d forgotten all about bing-bangs, zee-zees, and the like.
Suma, Neela’s amah, swam into the room. The old nursemaid took one look at her and paled. “Great Neria, child, your hair!”
Neela sighed impatiently. She’d survived the violent attack on Cerulea, and had escaped both Traho and Mfeme. She’d crossed treacherous seas to get to the Iele, and had been given the task of destroying Abbadon—and now she had to listen to her mother lose it over a frown line and her amah freak out about her hair.
Suma, hands shaking, pulled a handful of zee-zees from her pocket. She offered one to Neela.
“No, thank you, Suma,” Neela said, a note of irritation in her voice.
She didn’t see her mother clutch the rope of pearls she was wearing, but Suma did. “Child, we must get you out of these awful rags,” the amah said soothingly. “You’ve obviously been through a great ordeal. I shall have refreshments brought, and then you can rest.”
“I don’t want to change my clothes and I don’t want to rest! I need to speak with my mother!” Neela insisted.
“The empress!” a voice shrilled.
Neela turned and saw two ladies-in-waiting rush to her mother. They caught Sananda just as she started to swoon. A third lady hurried to her with a sea fan and waved it over her face.
“Mata-ji!” Neela cried, swimming to her.
Sananda waved her away. “It’s nothing, my darling. I’m fine,” she said, smiling weakly. “I just need to sit down.”
“Come, Princess. Let the empress breathe,” Suma said, putting an arm around Neela. “She is quite overcome. You know how sensitive she is. Bad hair upsets her greatly.”
“But, Suma—”
“Shh, now. Let us go and see to your appearance. The sight of you in a clean sari and some pretty jewels will do her a world of good.”
Neela took a deep breath, willing herself to be patient with her mother and her amah. She was not the same mermaid who’d left Matali several weeks ago. It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t know that yet.
“All right, Suma,” she said. “I’ll scrub and I’ll change my clothes. But I’m not resting. In fact, the moment my father is finished with his council, I want to see him.”
Neela started for her chamber. She was looking straight ahead, so she didn’t see her amah look over her shoulder, catch the empress’s eye, and exchange dire glances.
“A KOOTAGULLA, PRIYĀ?” Aran asked, offering a platter of many-layered pastries to Neela.
“No, thank you, Pita-ji,” Neela said.
Aran cast a worried glance at his wife. He put down the platter and picked up another one.
“A pompasooma, then?”
“No, I’m not hungry. As I was saying…”
Neela and her parents were having tea. Neela had changed her clothes and restored her hair to its natural shade. Her mother had recovered from her fainting fit. Her father had finished his meeting. Neela had been sent for, and then they’d all met in the dining room of their residential quarters.
Finally, Neela had been able to tell her parents all that had happened to her. As she finished her story, she took a sip of her syrup-like tea and put the cup back on its delicate porcelain saucer. Her pet blowfish, Ooda—happy to see her again—swam in circles around her chair. Neela scratched the little fish’s head, so relieved to be home. After days on the currents, eluding capture, she felt safe and secure in the palace. No harm could come to her here. Her parents would know how to keep her safe. They would know how to keep her friends safe, too. Neela waited now for her father to tell her the best way to find the talismans and do away with Abbadon.
But Aran didn’t tell her how. Instead, he sat back in his chair, his dark eyes huge in his careworn face. Then he looked at his wife, who burst into tears.
“Mata-ji, don’t cry! It’s all right!” Neela said. “I’m here now. I’m fine. Everything’s all right.”
“No, it is not,” Sananda said. “I knew something was wrong the moment I saw you in that dreadful outfit. I told your father so as soon as he returned from his meeting. You’re not yourself. Suma told me you actually kept those awful clothes, that you wouldn’t let her throw them away. And you just passed up a platter of pompasoomas. You never say no to a pompasooma!”
Neela gritted her teeth. She took a sweet and put it on her plate. “Forgive me,” she said, humoring her mother. “But I’m a bit distracted, what with everything that’s happened. Actually, no. I’m not distracted. I’m terrified. Here I am, drinking tea, while Abbadon grows stronger. I need to contact Serafina and find out if she made it back to Cerulea.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Sananda said sharply. She motioned a guard over and sent him to fetch Suma.
“But—” Neela started to say.
“You are not well, my poor daughter. You must rest,” Aran said, a pained expression on his face. “These terrible experiences have undone your mind.”
Neela stared at her father, taken aback. “What are you saying, Pita-ji? My mind is totally fine.”
Aran covered Neela’s hand with his own. “Think of what you just told us. That dreams are real. That make-believe witches exist. That there’s an evil monster in the Southern Sea and a kind terragogg in a palazzo. You need help and you will have it. None but the best. You are not to worry. We will keep it all between ourselves, a secret. No one else will know.”
“Wait a minute,” Neela said, not believing what she was hearing. “You think…You think I’m crazy?”
Hearing distress in her mistress’s voice, Ooda started to inflate.
“No, priyā, not crazy. Your mother and I…we think you’ve had a terrible shock, that’s all,” said Aran soothingly. “Gods only know what you’ve seen. The attack on Cerulea, losing your uncle and aunt, the violence you suffered at the invaders’ hands—these thi
ngs would have undone anyone. It’s amazing you were able to escape from this terrible Traho and swim back to us from his camp.”
“But I didn’t swim back to you from his camp. I swam back from the Iele’s cave!” Neela said. Loudly.
Aran looked at Sananda. “Rest and quiet,” he said.
“Everything I said was true! Someone is trying to set the monster free. Don’t you see what danger we’re in?” Neela asked, upset.
“Bland food. Soft colors,” Sananda said.
“I have to contact Serafina! Now!” Neela protested, desperation in her voice.
Suma appeared in the doorway. “You sent for me, Your Grace?”
“The princess is unwell. Take her back to her room and see that she is not disturbed.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Suma said. She swam to Neela and took her arm. “Come, Princess.”
“It will be all right. You’ll see,” Sananda told her daughter. “Kiraat, the medica magus, will examine you. Under his care, you’ll return to your senses.”
“No, I won’t!” Neela said. “Because I haven’t left them!”
“Come now, Princess,” Suma soothed. “There’s no need for a fuss.”
“Neela, child, go peacefully. Please,” Sananda said, fresh tears in her eyes. “Don’t make me ask the guards to escort you. No one wants that.”
Neela opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again, seeing that it was futile. The more she disagreed with her parents, the more she confirmed their belief that she’d lost her mind.
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” she said.
Her mother kissed her. Then her father did. Neela did not kiss them back.
Suma led her out of the dining room, clucking over her just as she had when Neela was a child, but Neela barely heard her. Ooda, as round as a full moon now, followed them. As she swam down the long, mirrored hallway to her room, Suma firmly gripping her arm, Neela heard something else.
Something dark. Something low and gurgling.
It sounded like Abbadon laughing.
“DID YOU HEAR THAT?” Neela asked.
“Hear what?” Suma asked.
“Laughter.”
“I’m sure it’s the grooms. The stables are underneath us.”
Neela broke free of Suma’s iron grip and swam to a nearby window. A groom was swimming across the stable yard, leading an unruly hippokamp. He wasn’t laughing.
It was Abbadon, I’m sure of it. But how did I hear him? she wondered uneasily. I didn’t cast an ochi to spy on him and¸ unlike Ava, I don’t have the gift of vision. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am going insane.
Suma took Neela’s arm again and pulled her along.
“Let go of me! You’re treating me like a baby!”
“Because you’re acting like one. Come along now. This uncooperative behavior is yet another symptom of your derangement,” Suma said sagely.
“Derangement?!” Neela sputtered. “I’m not deranged!”
“Ha. There is the proof. Crazy people never think they’re crazy,” Suma said.
“I’m worried and scared, Suma. Because there are things going on in the seas. Bad things. And my parents aren’t dealing with them.”
Suma tsk-tsked. “It is all this worry that has ruined your face and your mind. But of course your face is more important. You must stop fretting, child. Emperor Aran will not let harm come to us. He will speak with his councillors and they will sort everything out. That is the way things are done. That is the way things have always been done.”
Neela, realizing she would get nowhere with her amah, fell silent.
A few minutes later, they reached her rooms. “Here we are,” Suma said. “I sent for a cup of walrus milk before I fetched you. Everything will look better after a nice, hot drink, you’ll see. Ooda, stop that!”
Ooda was so distressed by Neela’s unhappiness that she’d inflated herself to painful proportions. As Suma and Neela watched, she started spinning around in circles and floated up to the ceiling.
“Leave her. She’ll come down when she’s ready,” Neela said. She was used to Ooda’s antics.
Suma bustled about the chamber, drawing the curtains. Then she brushed Neela’s long hair until it gleamed. As she finished, a servant arrived with the walrus milk and a platter of sweets.
“Rest now, Princess,” she said. “Soon the learned Kiraat will come and put you to rights.”
Neela forced a smile. She stretched out on a soft tufted chaise. Suma smoothed a sea-silk throw over her, then left, quietly closing the door.
As soon as it clicked shut, Neela threw off her cover. She swam to her closet and got her messenger bag down from a shelf. The transparensea pebbles Vrăja had given her were still in it. She put some currensea into the bag, along with her black swashbuckler’s outfit and a few more pieces of clothing.
Her anger hadn’t abated any; it had only grown. Drink walrus milk? Eat sweets? Rest? Hardly! She was going to sneak out and head for Cerulea.
She took a transparensea pebble from her bag. She would cast it, then make her way out of the palace. But were there guards outside in the hallway? If so, they would see her door open and close. She would have to check.
Neela grasped the doorknob and turned it, but nothing happened. The door wouldn’t open.
Suma had locked her in.
THE UNDERWATER ENTRANCE to the duca’s palazzo was shrouded in darkness. The lava globes flanking the tall double doors had gone out. The carved stone faces were silent.
Serafina knocked on one of the doors. It swung open at her touch. That’s odd, she thought. Why isn’t it locked?
She looked up and down the current, feeling uneasy. Here and there, a shadowy figure came or went, but most of the palazzos were locked up tight, their windows shuttered. The Lagoon looked very different from the last time she’d been here.
Serafina looked different, too. Swimming for weeks on end had made her body lean and taut. Her cheekbones were sharper under her skin. Her clothing was frayed and silt-stained. She was getting the hard, rangy look of a merl who’d been on the currents too long.
She’d left Ling a week ago and swum west to the Mediterranean, then north to the Adriatic, sticking to lonely back currents the whole way. She knew that returning to Cerulea would be extremely dangerous. Before she attempted it, she wanted to get as much information as she could from the duca on the number of troops still in the city and the locations of any safe houses. She hoped he might have news of her family, too. Of the Matalis. And of Blu.
“Hello?” she called out, swimming through the doorway. “Is anyone here? Blu? Grigio?”
No one answered. She moved down the hallway warily. Her fins started to prickle. As soon as she broke the surface of the duca’s pool, she knew something was seriously wrong. It was dark inside the library. There were no lamps lit, no fire blazing. She hoisted herself up on the edge of the pool, and cut her palm on a shard of broken glass.
“Ouch!” she yelped, shaking her hand. “Duca Armando?” she called out. “Are you here?”
There was no answer. A dozen or so bioluminescent jellyfish were floating in the pool. She cast an illuminata over them and they lit up brightly. In their blue glow, she could see the library properly. She gasped as her eyes traveled over the broken statues and slashed paintings. Bookshelves had been pulled over and their contents trampled. Furniture had been smashed.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps. They were coming fast. Something swished through the air over her head. She flipped backward into the pool. When she surfaced, she saw a pan floating on the water and a terrified woman standing at its edge.
“Filomena? It’s me, Serafina!”
“Oh, mio Dio! Che cosa ho fatto? Mi dispiace tanto!” Filomena said tearfully.
“You’re talking too fast. I can’t understand you. Do you speak Mermish?”
Filomena nodded. “Forgive me, Principessa,” she said, her voice halting and uncertain. “I no see it was you. I think Traho and his soldiers come a
gain.” She began to cry. “The duca, he is dead. Oh, Principessa, he is dead.” She sat down heavily.
“No!” Serafina cried. With shaking arms she pushed herself out of the water and sat on the pool’s edge, next to Filomena.
“It happen the night you and the Princess Neela are here,” Filomena said. “The men who came…the humans…they torture him. Then they kill him.”
Sera was stricken by guilt. “It was because of us, wasn’t it?” she said. “Neela and me. The duca died because of us.”
Filomena shook her head. “No, child. They know you escape and still they kill him. They want information. They think the duca have it.”
The talismans, Serafina thought.
“Please, Filomena, it’s very important,” Serafina said as gently as she could. “The men who came here, did you hear what they said?”
Filomena pressed the heels of her hands against her brow, as if she’d like to pound the memories out of her brain. “The one man…he have sunglasses,” she said.
“Rafe Mfeme,” Serafina said.
“Yes. He shout at the duca. Same thing, over and over. He beat him…an old man, a gentle man…” She dissolved into tears again.
Serafina took her hand. “What did he say?”
“He say, ‘Where is it? Where is Neria’s Stone?’ And the duca, he tell him he do not know. But Mfeme, he no believe it.”
Serafina swore silently. Now she was certain that Traho knew what the talismans were. He’d told Mfeme and sent him after them. But how did he know? Not even the Iele knew. Had he gone to Atlantis and found Lady Thalia? No, he couldn’t have. Thalia had said she’d been alone ever since the island was destroyed.
“Did Mfeme say anything else?” Serafina asked.
“No, but he take something—a painting. Of Maria Theresa.”
Serafina remembered the portrait of the beautiful, sad-eyed infanta of Spain in her sumptuous clothing and magnificent jewels. She’d drowned centuries ago, when her ship was attacked by pirates.
Rogue Wave Page 5