Verse XIII

  Not a day had passed since they had departed Valden that Jumella had not held thoughts of the old home in her heart. She had not doubted that she and her sister would return one day, but this was not the day as she had imagined. No, not one bit. The Temple float was swifter than its bulk would assume, and once it came to the incoming current it swept faster than any caravaner's vessel. The muddy flats of the Mere Tessra? gave way to the stone bottoms that marked the fundament of the Mere Kazahn. Even though she had known they were near the border of the two seas, still the swift change startled her. On their way out, so many weeks before, she had been more focused on helping with the caravan work than on enjoying the view.

  In the distance, the great dark expanse of Valden's outer rim stretched wide, though it was not until almost the first hour of the evening that the shellwork domes of the manoa would be visible along its ridge as they lit their lamps. But when they did, it was like the little eyes of the scallops lining their shell if they could also glow.

  "Coo-ee," said Rook from mostly inside their float. The orange mer was leaning so far out of her seat that she almost fell—and would have, if Jumella did not provide an arm. "Heh, thanks. So that's where yer home lies?"

  "Sort of," Jumilla told her. "It's, ah..."

  "Complicated," provided Jumella. "What you see up ahead are the homes of the rich and influential mers of Valden."

  "The manoa," added Jumilla. "And the leondra when they're in town, like from now for the festival."

  "Well, who else would there... be... oh..." The orange mer stretched her neck out to stare as a galda in port livery soared overhead, the great fins of her arms stretched wide to catch upwellings of warm water in their long plume-scales. With her glowing rune-work baton, the galda signaled to Captain Jori at the head of the Temple float, and the song shifted to direct the vessel to its mooring spot in the main port.

  Jumilla's eyes were squinted as they followed the official along. "Anyone we know?"

  "Hard to say." Jumella shielded her own eyes and focused on the galda. The port livery hid most of the identifying colors of her sept, but knowing eyes caught the details of the decorations on the wrists and in the crest. "Stone-Working Sept, so we perhaps... No, we certainly do know her." When the galda made another pass, she waved and made the signs of family and homecoming with her fingers.

  This had the expected response. As the manoa officers of the port descended on the Temple float to welcome its august passengers, the lone galda swept around to the rear where the lesser-known travelers remained moored to the larger vessel. "Ahoy," she called to them. "If it isn't the journeysome pair. We did not think to see you till next year's feast of family."

  "And we did not expect to be here till then," Jumella told her. "However, we have come across something of interest and require the eyes of a maestra of the forge to figure out just what it may be."

  The galda cocked her head to the side, the better to peer down the long fusion of nose and lip that was her beak. Atop her head, the plume-scaled crest rose with curiosity. "And an interesting assortment of guests you bring as well," she noted. "Welcome, visitors to Valden. I am Taga min Tara of the Stone-Working Sept. Would you be accompanying the prestra to the guest houses upon the rim?"

  The smile on Sera's face was as wide and bright—and brittle—as a circle of glass. "We would not wish to impose upon the Temple so," the red mer said. "They were kind enough to help us reach your city, and that is enough."

  "We're handling the lodging," said Jumella.

  "You are, eh?" Galda lips were too stiff to smile, except at the corners where they might quirk up in amusement. "And I suppose you would away soon?"

  "If at all possible," Jumella told her. "We would not wish to bother the blessed company."

  "No, no we would not." The galda nodded with her crest pulled in tight. "Alright then, I am trusting the two of you to keep your friends out of trouble."

  "That should not be a problem," he sister said. Jumella wished she could not tell so easily when the mer with her same face was lying.

  -*-

  This was the third city that Ardenne had visited in as many weeks, the fourth she had visited at all, and the hunter was struck by how different each of them had been. Bryndoon was a circle of calm firmament bounded by cliffs, the light of day shining through its delicate shellworks. Mezzegheb hid itself from the light and the outer waters with a thick canopy of kelpen weave, while its sister Mezzeret welcomed every current with its pillars without walls.

  Valden, however... They swam along the approach to the city now, the low ridge along the stony fundament where the rogue currents would not interfere. This avenue led straight to a cleft in the natural wall, the dark mass of mountain cliff crowned with well-lit domiciles of fitted shellwork pieces. It seemed a precarious position to anchor a city, she thought, high almost to the firmament and exposed on one side. But as they passed through the cleft and entered the proper waters of Valden, some things that Jumilla had said to her now made sense. Those pretty homes on high, those were not the city.

  This, the wide bowl of stone beyond the cliffs, filled with stonework buildings beneath a darkened firmament, this was the true City of Valden, domain of the mer galda. Even at this hour of the evening, the waters above thrummed with industry, as the local mers soared through the water on their long-scaled fins. galda with glowing batons directed the flow of swimmers to and from the great central spire, the mountain within a mountain at the center of Valden. Ardenne's eyes stretched to see the far wall of the cliffs surrounding the city, a border which she knew must be there, but which was lost to twilight's murk.

  "Hold up," called Jumilla. They had just cleared the cleft, and the avenue now split in twain. One led to the left, to a long series of hand-holds set to guide a mer to the top of the cliffs with ease. The other led straight ahead, into the true city. Every manoa that the hunter could see was going left, save for the twins. Jumella and Jumilla had swum to a small, boxy structure, where another galda in city livery rested her flukes and fins. Much as with the officer of the port, this one greeted the twins warmly and yet with some measure of curiosity to her. Ardenne watched closely, observing how the shoulders of the officer moved, how the long-scaled fins shifted, and how that crest upon her forehead fanned. The mouth, it did not do much beyond letting words pass. She wondered if a galda could even smile.

  "Look right down till you talk to 'em," Sera commented.

  "The faces." Ardenne ran a hand over her own lips. She had never considered the importance of smiling before now.

  Rook had her neck bent this way and that, until the speckled mer flipped over backwards in her attempts to take it all in. "What a place, though," she said. "Can yer feel it? The energy?"

  "It is certainly busy," the hunter agreed.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  'No, no. Well, yeah, but no, not that part. Like, mebbe I been stretching the noggin too hard with all the rune practice, but this place is, well, it's rumblin'! I can feel the telluric pulse from her, and it's way out there!" A speckled hand waved in the direction of the spire. "It's kinda... kinda..." Some sort of realization spread across the mer's face, and she fell silent.

  "Like what?" asked Rhiela. "I'm not doubting that you feel something, but what is it?"

  "Don't'cher feel it?"

  "Not as much?" The princess rubbed at her temples. "There is something, yes, but I can't tell what."

  Rook motioned for a huddle, and the three of them joined her. The orange mer's whisper was so slight on the water that Ardenne almost didn't catch it: "It's a-like the floatin' gardens, just a mite, but fer the telluric 'stead-a the flowin' force."

  The curse from Sera's lips was equally slight, though no less sharp. "Wish we knew if that were good or bad."

  "I know, right?" Rook's mouth had crooked itself into a left-bending smirk, but above the brave grin her speckles stood stark against paling skin. The smile never had a chance to reach the mer's eyes.

  The hunter reached over to rub a thumb against Rook's cheek, startling the orange mer to no end. "We shall find out when we need to," she told her friend. "Until then, let us do what we came here to do. Who knows? One might lead to the other."

  "Given how deep you're sunk in this.. whatever sort of mess it is," said Rhiela, "I do not think 'might' is the right word."

  "What is, then?"

  "Must, will, shall, certainly, inevitably, in... in... ah, what was it Marsa said that one time... inexorably. That's the one."

  "Coo-ee, yer gots all the ten-pearl words, don't'cher Rhia?"

  Overhead, the glow of the firmament dimmed as the twins returned. The russet mers floated a half-fathom above and, reaching down, carefully grabbed one friend by the elbow with each hand. Muscular flukes snapped against the current, and they were all pulled high and to the side. A few beats later, they were at rest atop a nearby stone construction, where a large school of mer galda were clustered.

  "Could'jer warn a mer first!" spluttered Rook.

  "No time," said Jumella.

  "You all were gabbing so much, you didn't notice, but..." Jumilla's tail flicked in the direction of the avenue, towards where they had just been floating.

  A procession now entered the city. At its head was Captain Jori from the Temple float, decked in a better sort of armor than before. The outfit of intricate shellwork glimmered and shone in the light of the lamps carried by Temple acolytes behind her, and the staff she carried high bore the holy emblem set in metal.

  Ardenne heard a hiss from Jumella, followed by a muttered comment: "The best of galda wares..."

  The hunter figured that such went without saying, as only the crafters of Valden knew the ways of metal to begin with, but the twin's was not the only comment to carry upon the waters. Her ears picked up the rough whisper of an echo of a sound as it swam a strong current through the gathered schools of mer galda. The words were less important than the sentiment, which was in no way festive or joyous.

  Rhiela and Rook were glancing around, hearing but not listening. The grim set of Sera's mouth made it clear that the red mer already knew something. Ardenne resolved to ask about it later.

  After the captain came a set of Temple attendants, half a dozen Bryndoon mers by color, dressed in Temple robes, bearing the lamps. No insignia adorned their outfits, in contrast to those who came next.

  Ten leondra swam through the cleft in three rows of three and one to lead. Their robes were simple; the pieces of shell, stone, and metal attached up and down their fronts was not where the robes met in the middle, at the spots where regular outfits might have a bone button or clasp. No, these mers had strange badges and signs, colorful as a reef fish. Thick hair flowed behind them, and set within those tresses was the shine of yet more decoration.

  "Just gotta show us all, don't they?" The grumble came from Sera. "Knowin' they're important. Knowin' that we know it, too. And still gotta do it this-a-way."

  To their right, one of the galda turned her head to eye them better. Her crest was silvered with age, but her voice was low and clear. "It is an important service that they bring, daughters of distant waters, and this show of theirs a tradition of long currents. It is to be respected."

  "Respectin' doesn't mean I gotta like it," noted Sera. The elder galda's crest fluttered, but she did not swim for the bait.

  "Hush," said Jumella. "You're the one who keeps telling everyone not to be so obvious."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "No one wants to be noticed right now, not when they're safe in the school," Jumilla hissed. "So cut it off."

  All around, at every height and depth, the attending galda of Valden had their right arms over their chests in a show of... Ardenne would have said respect, but now she was not so sure. Her eyes saw many things, saw many mers going through the motions of respect, but her ears heard something different.

  Her ears, they heard nothing but the rush of the currents themselves. Not a cheer, not a yell, not a voice raised for or against the appearance of the Temple standard as it was carried below. Merely a strained, polite silence that took the idea of respect and pretended to agree with it.

  There was a word for something like this, she knew: a word to describe the bubble about to pop and end the silence. Ardenne searched the waters of her mind as she watched the procession rise upon the inner cliffs of Valden and to the brightly lit shellwork domiciles above, singing the hymns of the Mother.

  The word she wanted was politics. A discussion with the twins was in order, and soon.

  ≈

  One of the great lessons of life was how to curse yourself for a fool. Sera had never been too good at this important skill, but lately she'd had plenty of practice. Idling through the Temple procession, watching the mers around her as verse after muddy verse of self-righteous twaddle overtook the waters, she found that practice came easily.

  She kept her own mouth pinched shut tighter than a clam until well after the twins led them away down one of Valden's secondary avenues. The open, clear zone between stone structures stretched like an eel from the central spire of the city and all the way to the cliffs, but none swam down the middle lane directly. The waters shook as a sphere of pocked stone rolled along, minded by a squad of galda in orange who sang in careful cadence as they prodded it with long poles.

  "Cantrip," muttered Rook to herself. "Mostly telluric grammar, sounds-a-like, mebbe to keep all that rock together. Someone else must'a done the working what got them all clumped up first-like."

  "Good guess," Millie told her. "Can't say we've done that job ourselves, but that's about how it went when we observed the Builders Sept at work that one time. Remember that, sis?"

  "I recall that you dropped a stone on your flukes."

  "Spare me, sis."

  The conversation sculled through the waters of Sera's mind, and she let her lips unpurse. "So you're familiar with the lower city?"

  When she broke her silence, the red mer made sure it was with good reason. For all the chats she'd had with Millie over the past few weeks—and some with Jumie, as well—there'd always been the feeling that she lacked one key detail to understanding the twins and their actions. It wasn't that the russet mers didn't talk about their family in Valden. Far from it, in fact. But, watching the mers schooling and swimming through the city waters, one detail floated over the rest, and it was something neither twin had brought up on her own.

  The six of them were the only manoa to be seen, up or down the avenue's eeling route. Galda appeared in all their muted array of colors, but there was nothing to match Sera's red, Rook's orange, or Ardenne's green. The deepening burnished brown of the princess fit in better than any of them, in fact.

  Sera would have understood curious stares in their direction, or even hostile ones. That sort of thing was to be expected, she felt, for ones so obviously from the outside. Rather, she saw nods of acknowledgement, welcoming waves, head-crests fanned and hands taken to signs of camaraderie—all aimed at the twins. the rest of them merely followed along like salps on a line.

  So when she asked if the twins were familiar with the city, Sera meant a good deal more, and for their merit, Jumie and Millie answered the unspoken part first.

  "We grew up down here," Jumie told them. "Not up on the ridge."

  "We told you that we were adopted, right?" Milie continued for her sister. "Maybe we were like your orphelines, Sera. Maybe not. Whatever why, the manoa families wouldn't claim us. But Mom didn't care."

  "Your mother... Tefira, was it?" asked Rhia. "You mean to say she is not..."

  "She is." Jumie's tone cut the assertion down to its basic elements. "She is our mother. She is our teacher."

  "And I need to mention," said Millie. "She's waiting at the door to the workshop for us. Um, this is going to be an interesting tale to relate..."

  With her eyes, Sera drew the line between the twins' waves of welcome and one boxy building, some twenty yards up-a-way. An older galda awaited their arrival with stoic patience. Atop her head, the signature crest remained flat, though the heavy eyebrows that met it square in the mer's forehead were cinched with concern. A thickly muscled arm was waving back to the wayward daughters, come home once more.

  "Yes," said the red mer. "Suppose it will be, at that."