Verse VII

  The current had brought them farther and faster than Rook could ever have expected. The old adventure tales had a lot of detail about what the hero did when she got to the monster's lair, but said naught about how she got there. It was near the end of the second hour after the noon, when the shadows began to grow once more and the waters prepared for evening, and apparently they were at the edge of the Mere Sangolia already.

  "You didn't tell us you knew magic," Ardy said to the twins when next they stopped to rest upon a launch promontory. There was no sign of anything moving on or around the great stone. If Red's information was to be trusted, then they were safe from abominations here. The orange mer noted that the hunter's eyes were more often looking beyond them than at them, watching the distance. Orcs plied these waters, they'd said.

  "Didn't ask, now did you?" replied Millie. This earned her a sisterly swat upon the back of her head. "Ow! Hey, sis, what are you..."

  "In truth," Jumie said, ignoring her sister's grumbling, "it isn't a thing we think about often. The work songs are part of life in Valden. There are songs for mining, songs for crafting, songs for the forge, but they are all parts of the process, not a thing unto themselves like rune-craft workings."

  It was a sort of question, and the answer was through Rook's lips before she really thought about it: "Canto-ripples!"

  The word popped like a bubble, snapping attention to where she was settled on the sand. The little orange mer had a hand over her mouth as she felt the flush of embarrassment cover her cheeks. Oh, bubbles. Rook was conscious of everyone's eyes suddenly fixed on her. A part of her was happy to get the attention. The rest was just aghast at how often she managed to chew on her own tail-flukes to get it.

  Still, it wasn't like she'd done anything wrong or stupid this time, right? In fact, as Baba Rill's sort-of-official apprentice, she probably had more experience with practical rune-craft than any of them. So she reasoned. So she hoped.

  Oops. She was taking too long to calm her nerves. The others had the funny-eyes look to them as they looked at her. "Um, yer know, canto-ripples?" she stammered. "The little magics? Everyone knows a few, even if they don't realize it. Spells without runes, bits o' grammar what are good for focusing on what'cher doing, yeah?"

  Ardy was nodding, at least. "Like my grandmother's weaving songs," the big green mer said. "She always told me they were necessary, but I could never see how. They just kept everything on the proper beat, but if you didn't sing them, the cloth turned out poorly."

  "Lots o' times, keeping stuff on beat's all they do. Well, that's what Baba says, anyway. Something 'bout how mers don't always remember 'em right, and after a while the mistakes add up till the spell stops workin' properly. Could'jer sing me a bit?" she asked Jumie.

  The mer obliged, and heavily syncopated syllables filled the space between them like blocks falling into place. Jumilla had a surprisingly light singing voice, high and clear, that was a pleasure to the ears. Rook almost forgot to pay attention to the syllables themselves, but gave herself a mental shake and hoped no one noticed. It wouldn't do her professional appearance any good if she couldn't stay focused even when a handsome mer was serenading her, now would it? Though to be fair, Jumie was singing to the entire group, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying it just as much as little Rook was.

  "Well," she said as the last notes faded. "Without yer saying as much, I think it's got aught to do with the solid force. Yer know, stone, sand, stuff what sticks together well and makes clumps. Baba had a fancy word for it. Tell... tell..." She growled. "Caught in the gills, it is."

  "Telluric." That word came courtesy of the princess, sitting next to her in the group's rough circle.

  "That'd be the one, Yer Highness. So, was it a song for moving rocks? Like, making 'em separate from other rocks?" she asked the twins.

  "Yes, actually." Jumie sounded surprised.

  Rook resisted the urge to flip around happily in the water. "Ya-ha! Got it on the first try!" Her brightest smile lit the faint shadows of the hour. "Know any more? Anyone? Baba said there were probably hundreds of little songs like ‘em out there, doing what all she don't even know. Be a right pearly thing if I could bring her home a few new ones to try out."

  "Just a few to encourage healing," Red admitted. Rook had to wonder at the look that Ardy was giving the sneaky lady now. Wasn't like they didn't know she was keeping stuff to herself all the time.

  "Er, actually, there was something else," said Jumie. "All this talk's reminded me, but the old lady in Bryndoon, Baba Rill, she asked us to hold on to something for you."

  "Yeah, that! Clean floated out of my head!" her twin chimed.

  "Not that there's much to block the flow through there."

  "Spare me, sis."

  "What are you to going on about?" Ardy asked quickly before another sibling argument could get started.

  Instead of answering right away, Jumie stroked over to the nearby float and removed a wrapped bundle from the beneath the padding what Ardy's mom was not exactly sleeping on. The twin laid it down on the sand gently, but there was still the faintest of dinks. "So, yeah," Jumie continued. "Right as we were about to leave Bryndoon to meet up with you all, the old lady showed up with this in her arms. She said her apprentice would know what they were. That's you, right?"

  Apprentice... It wasn't a word Baba Rill used much at all, at least not to her directly. Hearing it from another mer that old Baba talked about her that way, it made her chest swell with pride. "Yeah, that's, ah, that's me. Lemme see what we got..."

  She picked up the bundle, took a peek, and then nearly dropped it again as she realized what she was looking at. Inside the woven fabric was a stack of thin writing shells, carefully packed with kelp in between. When had Baba got the time to put all this together? Had the old mer been hiding things from her -- hiding more things than usual? Rook picked one up and skimmed her fingers over the etched surface.

  "Oh, bubbles."

  "What is it?" Ardy asked.

  "Shell out of a rune library. I think. Yer know," she said to those curious green eyes. "How the rune-keepers up in the Mere Arkhala store all the stuff they've learned? Each one o' these has a rune defined on it, with all the details on how it works and what it works with... Oh, bubbles," she repeated herself, with more conviction and a short promise to herself to learn some better curses.

  She had to let her fingers go over the lines on the shell again and again as she stared in disbelief. Seriously, there was no way between firmament and abyss that the shell was what it was saying it was in plain letters, but there it was! Wasn't it? Her own touch could be tricking her, she supposed, but... but...

  The princess answered for her. Rhiela had snagged a second shell from the library and was perusing it like someone who knew the basics but never expected them to be useful in real life. "This one seems to describe a spell in great detail," said she. "A spell for combat."

  "Bubbles and froth! D'yer gots any idea what all this means? Ardy? Red? The two of yer o'er there? What we got here? These shells ain't supposed to exist! Baba told me o'er and o'er again that the Arkhala elders threw it all down a big hole in the fundament to make the Temple happy, and now here it is, and... and..." She paused a beat to flush her gills and bring herself closer to being calm. The excitement was getting to her, and the last thing she needed was to have an attack of the old nerves in front of everyone. "Soggy old witch lied to me. Must'a lied to everyone. Don't know all the times she told me, 'Rook, yer gotta forget all the stuff in those stories what ain't 'round no more,' and all the while she had this... this..." Words failed her, so she let out a stream of loud bubbles instead.

  "So what are we gonna do with them?" asked Red. "Can't imagine the Temple would be happy for us to have all this." The mer didn't sound too upset at that thought.

  "Let me have them." The princess's voice was calm and commanding.

  Rook wasn't about to let them go, though. "Hey, now! What'cher be thinking? The only apprentice 'round her is me, and I know my runes at least as well as yer, if not better! Seriously, I don't think there's a better set of hands than mine for this, and not just 'cause Baba told the sisters there to give 'em to me."

  "The Temple won't execute me for having them in my possession, if we're caught."

  "Um, er, yer gots a point there, Yer Highness, but--" She waved a finger in front of the royal snout. "But! What'cher fail to appreciate is all the years of study and practice I already gots in my wake. And... and..."

  Rhiela had the most pitiful look on her face in that moment. If Rook didn't know better, she'd say the princess looked lost. Bubbles, she didn't know better, though! Neither of them had ever been out of the city before, and yet here they were in the middle of nowhere with no real idea of what they were doing. Rook needed these shells, desperately, to give herself a reason to be here. Maybe Her Highness felt the same?

  "Tell yer what, let's look through these together, once Ardy's got us where we're going, and then we can decide who gets what?"

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  Red was nodding to that. "Sounds like a good idea to me. Think we could all use some practice with those healing tricks, too. Now, getting dark soon, so set up here for the night and get a start out on the morrow..."

  Rook and the princess gathered the shells back into their package, sharing a nervous look as they did. Both of them were in strange fathoms now, and about as out of their depth as a mer could get. Knowing she wasn't alone in this was heartening, Rook supposed.

  There was a sort of crime that Baba had told her about once. It was called something like less-uh mah-jest-ay, and it meant a mer was disrespecting the Crown somehow. This little bubble of memory popped through her head as she gave the princess a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. Rhiela didn't treat it like an insult, at least. The golden mer even returned the embrace with extra-squichy interest.

  "Thank you." The words slipped across her ears so lightly that they tickled.

  "Be yer welcome," she whispered back, just as light. "Us city mers gotta school together, right?"

  That got her a smile and a return kiss on the cheek from the golden mer. Woo-hee! What would the snooty-snoots back in Bryndoon have to say 'bout that? Little runty Rook getting kisses from none other than the princess herself? Silly fancies floated through her head like so many jellies as she and Rhiela tidied up. This less-uh mah-jest-ay thing wasn't so bad after all.

  Verse VIII

  It had been the worst evening of her life. Estrella din Hillia could say that without a beat of hesitation. Worst afternoon and night as well, for myriad reasons. And it all came back to... that. She shivered in the early morning waters. The memory of that thing with its teeth and its tentacles and the sergeant caught by them -- her mind had done its best to block the images, to push them into the dark corner of the waters inside her head so they could be safely forgotten outside of nightmares.

  For an entire afternoon, for the hours after she had somehow made it through darkened passageways and abandoned chambers to report the appearance of an abomination and the death of a guard to Her Grace, Strella had refused to say anything more. Let the scene speak for itself and let her speak of it no more. But they had wanted details. Oh, how they had wanted them. The grey mers had poked her and prodded her and pestered her for any last driblets of memory they could provoke from hiding.

  When Strella closed her eyes, the flashes of purple lingered still. She might not ever sleep again. She would certainly never forget the horrors of yesterday, no matter how much she willed.

  No mers floated about the barracks as she finally made her way back to rest. She did not wish to speak to them, anyway. Her duty is may have been to report the death of Shalar min Shandra, sergeant of the guard, but a bittersweet one, like a rotten tuli pod. No other mer of the guard envied her that dubious honor, and she was happy to see none of them afloat near the barracks now.

  In the early morning shadows, the only thing she saw was her own cousin and bond-sister, sitting in the sand outside the barracks. Why, Strella could not say. Tachiana din Hillia hadn't had too good of an afternoon the other day, either, and the spiky-haired mer barely stirred as Strella settled beside her.

  Very little could fix her right then. Perhaps nothing could. Or perhaps a beloved cousin's embrace might. So it flowed.

  *

  A new day for Tachiana din Hillia had started far too early in the perpetually dimmed chambers of the guard barracks. It wasn't her choice to get up, though no one had forced the spiky-haired mer to, either. Her little attack of the tasting sickness at the party had not gone unnoticed the day before, and no mers in her pod wanted to risk her getting sick all over them if they shook too hard.

  Not that she would. Tachi could hold it in better than that. It was just... it had been too long since her last lick, her last taste of tuli pod on the tongue, and it showed in the way her arms trembled and her flukes shook. Gone to bed with a headache and woken up to a shiver so fierce she'd flipped her hammock. After that, Tachi hadn't tried to sleep again, even though the firmament was barely lit. Her cousin and bond-sister, Strella, had found her huddled in the sand outside around the start of the first hour of the day, and they had watched the silvered ripples above in silence.

  Today would be better, she decided. It could hardly be worse. Tuli was strictly forbidden in the barracks, and as a rookie guard she wasn't allowed into the city where most partook of it when they were of a mood. She could rest here and recuperate. Maybe. If her arms didn't fall off during swordwork practice.

  Strella wasn't doing much better, though her cousin and bond-sister would not say why. Something had happened at the party while she was sunk under the weight of her tasting headache, and nothing she'd yet heard made any sense to her pounding skull. So Tachi did not ask, and Strella seemed happy not to answer, as they sat in the sand together. At what point they both fell asleep again, Tachi couldn't say, but she certainly remembered how they woke up.

  A sharp clap sounded by their ears, the sound of two hands meeting with sudden force to break the waters with their noise. The slap of the wave hit her face, and she spasmed to attention. "Yes, messra!" she attempted to shout, though the words came out more like "Y'eh-mer-ss-ra..."

  Lieutenant Grett floated over them with a sour face that in no way matched her yellow-blonde curls. Tachi wished she had hair like that, sometimes. Blue-black and spiky was nice and all, but a mer could do with a change sometimes, and it might suit her...

  Another clap shocked her out of her latest musing and back to attention. "Are we feeling rested?" asked the officer. "Yes? Good? Finally. You two have been passed out like a pair of old cukers all day."

  "M'sorry..." Tachi mumbled. She really was, too. If only she had the right words to express it or explain it or...

  Strella put a stop to that ramble with the touch of a hand upon her shoulder. "We are thankful for the courtesy," said her cousin. "As unmerited as it may be."

  "Straight and deep." The lieutenant's glare remained on Tachi. "But now that you little misses have had your nap, it's time you finned it over to the ministry offices. Her Wisdom is waiting for you."

  "What?" Strella snapped to attention, her face all serious. "I, I told them everything I could recall, and more! There really isn't, um, anything more for them to h-help me remember."

  Tachi did not know what her cousin was going on about, and every reason not to want to know. Strella was always the strong one out of their pairing, the confident one who knew the right currents to ride. Not... not whatever her bond-sister was now, in this moment. Tachi would almost describe it as fright.

  "Not that," said Grett. "The ministra actually seemed happy with all that. Only mer who is..." the officer grumbled. "So much so that she's getting you -- the two of you -- as assigned guards to her office."

  The question slipped out on its own: "Um, why?" Tachi wasn't sure she wanted herself in this state.

  "Depths if I know. Now, git!"

  The two of them slipped into the barracks for a quick change of uniforms, and Tachi was struck by the feel of the waters. No place with so many mers within it should be so quiet. Something was wrong, had gone wrong, and she had somehow missed it completely. She couldn't even ask while they were in there. The hush was too strong, too scary for her to defy.

  Any questions to Strella on the way to the ministry office was shushed before she got past the third word. The silence dragged at her flukes as entire verses of worry passed through her mind. It was not nearly so long a swim over as it felt.

  It was even later in the day than she'd realized. Already the shadows were long and deep below the palace cliff, and the ministry entrance was lit by glow lamps. Tachi let Strella lead the way through.

  "Estrella and Tachiana din Hillia, reporting for duty as requested," her cousin stated once they were inside. The front chamber of the ministry office was spacious, and every tail-length of it was a-thrum with activity as grey-clad mers went about their business. For a five-beat, it seemed as though none had noticed their arrival, but then a nameless mer separated from the throng and motioned for them to follow her to the next room, equally wide and equally busy.

  What these mers were working on, Tachi couldn't begin to describe. She would need to understand it first, and her brain was not working too well while her stomach floated empty in her middle. Her nose caught the taste of various foodstuffs as they passed, so the grey mers must have been eating as they worked, but she didn't see anything out in the open. There was the taste of sweet pods, of cooked shrimps, of some spicy grass or weed, of...

  Tuli. The delicate, sour taste was unmistakable, and just the barest hint of the treat traveled from her nose to her brain in the shortest of beats. One tiny piece, afloat in the waters of her mind, recognized that this was the last thing she needed in that moment. The rest of her seized upon that passing taste and fought greedily for its possession.

  All the troubles and the tremors of the day before came rolling back in like the tide, building in strength as she stroked along. Between one beat and the next, her flukes lost their ability to coordinate, and she lurched into her cousin by accident. Strella caught her, steadied her as they passed to the next chamber.

  "Ah, the din Hillia cousins. What delightful little dolls you are." The voice was thick, sweet in a sickly way, and far too close to Tachi's right ear. Only the subtle early tremors of the tasting sickness kept her from shying back into the first chamber from surprise and fright. How she had missed the mer as they passed into the inner chamber... No, that was the sickness, too. In the painful clarity that came before the headaches, she could at least acknowledge where most of her problems originated. And she wanted none of it, even as she wanted more of it.

  "Ministra Marhyd." Strella saluted. "Your Wisdom, you requested our services?"

  "That I did." The ministra was the largest mer Tachi had ever seen, and she realized that here was a mer who enjoyed food the same way the spiky-haired daughter of Valen enjoyed tuli: frequently and likely too much by volume. "Your cousin Tamur din Hillia recommended the two of you, and Her Grace was willing to authorize the transfer to my service. From this hour, you are officially mine. And so... oh, what is the matter with her?"

  The ministra was gesturing to her. Maybe. Possibly. Tachi wasn't sure because she currently saw four fingers that were definitely the same one in different spots. She tried to follow them all with her eyes, only she was limited to looking in two directions at once as her vision split left and right.

  There was a shiver to the water as Strella swore. "My apologies, Your Wisdom. Tachi... my cousin Tachiana is not well, and I am afraid it will get worse before it gets better."

  It was a cold and clear eye that the ministra was giving her then. "Tuli shakes, hm? Tasting sickness?"

  "Y-yes, m... Your Wisdom," Tachi admitted. "Didn't think it would be so bad..."

  Didn't think at all, one part of her yelled at the rest. The clarity really was the worst part of the experience. She couldn't escape herself.

  "Ah." A thick finger traced along the side of her face. "Poor little doll. It is so difficult, is it not? Trying so hard, and yet not getting anywhere? Our mortal flesh is so weak, and yet its hold over our conscious mind is so difficult to break. But you are in luck, little doll. I have the techniques, the special control of the fulgurous force needed to help the consciousness overcome the terrible frailties of the flesh. If you would let me, I would help you end your dependence on that delicious poison."

  "You can truly do that?" Strella asked. Her cousin had her hand, and squeezed it in support. "It is much to ask..."

  The ministra's smile was broad and gleaming. "It is not a problem. You are mine now, and I take good care of mine. I can remove the toxic needs, the accursed fears, and the weaknesses of character holding the two of you back from your fullest potential. Allow me to help, so that you may help me with my work."

  The next surge of tasting sickness was at its height, and Tachi wished she would faint from the feeling. "P-please..." she stammered. "It hurts..."

  "It is the right thing to do," said the ministra, in calm and even words.

  As closely as Strella held her, Tachi couldn't miss how her cousin's arms went stiff, then relaxed. "Let us do what needs to be done," said Strella, also calmly and evenly.

  "Good, good." The ministra clapped and grey-clad assistants responded. The quiet mers took the din Hillia cousins by the arms and pulled them apart. "I have the fulgurous chambers primed and ready. My apologies in advance, but you will thank me for it, eventually. Until later, my little dolls."