Tosho is Dead

by Opal Edgar

  Elise threw herself at the railing as we plummeted head over heel. The plank clattered on the deck.

  “No!” Elise yelled out.

  No snappy remarks, Merlin? You’re sure?

  Elise reached out her hand and something emerged from it: like a green rope flying at us. It wasn’t fast enough. Tears trailed down her face.

  “I can’t swim!” she cried.

  Now that was funny. We had something in common after all.

  Chapter 6

  Learning to Swim With Gods

  The mask-woman and I splashed into the cold waves. The green rope Elise had sent out remained centimetres away from the surface: unattainable. My woollen clothes turned into a suit of arms, dragging us down – fast. Still, she didn’t let go.

  “What do you want from me?” I tried to say, but only bubbles came out.

  How many times was I going to live through this? She kicked. We somersaulted. Water rushed up my nostrils. I sneezed. Everywhere as far as I could see was water. I didn’t know where was up and where was down. The nose of the mask almost touched mine. I kneed the mask-woman away from me. I wasn’t going to hold on forever. What did she want from me?

  “Stop!” I gurgled.

  It didn’t sound like a word at all. My arms wavered, I was stronger than her, but I didn’t have her endurance. I had to choose fast before all options were taken away from me. Either I didn’t hold back and hurt her enough to overpower her or I let her win.

  Said like that it was so simple.

  I smiled. Panic had gotten me stupid.

  I stopped fighting. She felt the resistance drop and hesitated. Tentatively, she brought her hands up to my face. They were surprisingly soft. For a second we held each other like that. The mask inverted, concaving into her head, inviting me to wear her face. The smooth surface was gone, I was looking at the rough carving usually at the back of masks. There were tiny slits for the eyes, two small nostril holes and a gash for the mouth. When I put my face in, I’d be looking into her, not the outside world. This was so strange.

  Put me on, she whispered in my head.

  Had she replaced Merlin? I guess I was fine with that. The fight was over.

  Put me on, she repeated.

  Before us, a school of fish swam by, pooling round us and circling away as if we were the eye of a cyclone. Only a few millimetres remained between our skins. And— whack! Something huge smacked into my side and sent the mask-woman reeling. It grated my skin like sandpaper. The water turned red with my blood. I braced myself for the new attacker. But, instead, they plunged after the mask and captured it in a small net.

  Our attacker had a shark tail: not the famous white shark kind, but a murky green tiger shark’s. At waist level it turned into a very human upper body with pure golden skin. A mermaid!

  She threw the net over her shoulder with evident disgust and turned towards me. Heavy strings of shells and pearls swung over her bare chest, keeping her decent. Her face looked like it was chiselled out of a precious metal, with strong no-nonsense features. Black linear tattoos ran down her chin and disappeared low on her neckline behind the shells. She looked like an exotic princess.

  “Varhoura my name,” she said, her long dark green hair floating round her face. “I save you. I answer call of Poseidon Master.”

  She drew out her hand towards me, palm up. Her voice echoed in the sea, sounding like nothing I’d ever heard, like music in a drum. She was waiting for something. But I didn’t know what. I opened my mouth to speak, but there was no air left inside of me.

  She nodded and trailed her hand in her hair until it hit one of the pearls weaved into it. She pulled and I winced. The pearl came off and she offered it to me. I frowned, not understanding, so she gestured for me to put it in my mouth. I vigorously shook my head, but she forcefully took my hand and pressed the pearl into it. When I didn’t do anything, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at me as if I was an unattractive sea cucumber.

  “Because you, I touch power thief. I not want touch power thief. You owe.”

  Power thief? I really needed answers. I popped the pearl into my mouth. She gestured to slip it under my tongue. I did. My mouth filled with bubbles. It fizzed and tingled like mint soda.

  “Hi,” I tried.

  My voice rang out in the sea, scaring a bunch of frolicking sea monsters in the distance. Varhoura’s brow arched.

  “I’m Tosho. Thank you for your help. What’s a power thief?”

  Varhoura lifted the net. The misty body had resorbed back into the mask and now it just lay in there, motionless.

  “Power thief bad,” she said. “Feeders take flesh, mask take body, ghoul take mind and ghost take soul. All four: power thieves.”

  She had just said ghost, as in the two creatures that had chased me in the shadow corridor. Were they really after me? But why? It made no sense.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I not talk long time.” She misunderstood. “I hide far far. I scared of power thieves. They want me too. But you have Poseidon Master protection. I feel him call. No choice. I help. Give you Poseidon Master protection.”

  I owed her. For lack of a better idea, I turned my pockets over revealing lint, a handkerchief, more lint and finally Lil’Mon’s pouch topped by his blue thread. She plucked that last one from me and I bit my lip.

  “I’m not sure this is mine to give. I was meant to hold it for—”

  Before I could decide whether this was a good idea or not, Varhoura intertwined the thread between her fingers and it melted into her skin. She blazed like a fire had lit the inside of her gills, and I had to look away until my eyes adjusted. In two flicks of her tail she was 20 metres away. I saw myself abandoned in the middle of the ocean: with no idea where was up or down, or which direction led to land. I had a small panic attack. Luckily, she stopped.

  “Follow,” she said.

  I dog-paddled behind her. This was all but efficient, for her every tail swipe I gesticulated like a madman to hardly get anywhere. It was impossible to keep up. Not only the fact that I couldn’t swim, but sleep was pulling at my eyelids. There was no catching up.

  “Varhoura!” I called out. “We’re going to need a break, I’m not a mer-anything and I’m tired—” I started.

  Quicker than a lightning strike, she caught a fish. In two swipes of her tail she was at my side handing it over. I stared as she got it closer. The frantic thing slapped my cheek. I batted at the slimy skin to get it away.

  “Let that go!”

  “You eat,” she said.

  “No!”

  “You tired. You undead. You eat.”

  I ate fish once a year at Christmas, and that was just fine with me. Fish smelt awful, cost a fortune and there was hardly anything left to sink your teeth into when all the tiny bones were gone. I shook my head once again. Her arm lowered as my stomach growled. I’d lost the fight, again.

  I opened my mouth and it filled with salt water. I locked my jaw shut again, but that didn’t do anything for my stomach. It growled louder. It had taken on a life of its own. If I didn’t do something soon it would gain sentience, grow a voice and pester me like Merlin.

  “Can we at least kill it first?” I asked.

  My words were her command. The fin on Varhoura’s wrist came down and the fish was decapitated in that single blow. Nothing to hold me back. I pulled a face and sank my teeth into the silver skin – I bit and swallowed fast, so neither the revolting texture nor the saltiness lingered longer than necessary. The mouthful was a hard lump down my throat. I forced it down ... and looked up horrified. It wasn’t the fish flesh that was hard. I’d swallowed Varhoura’s pearl!

  “Varhoura?” I tried.

  My voice worked fine. She turned inquiring eyes at me. There was plenty of time later to worry about what had just happened, so I shook my head and simply thanked her. She nodded, her eyes on the horizon. I followed her gaze and saw it too: Poseidon’s castle! We were already there. Well, just
a few kilometres away. It sparkled as if all the stars in the sky were concentrated in one painfully small spot. It was impossible to look directly at the giant glass shards planted in the ground like the sea’s crown.

  We swam slower so I could gnaw on the fish Varhoura kept passing my way. I say swim, but she was doing something more like drifting. It was the slowest she could make herself. Any movement and she distanced me better than a pro runner. It also gave her plenty of time to explain to me, in her broken sentences, that the castle was really made out of ice. Poseidon was the God of the sea, he could do all he very well pleased with the water round him. The walls were imbedded with polished shells and pearls lighting it in an opalescent glow.

  At the front door, the guards sported tentacles instead of legs. Inside, the furniture was carved coral and mother of pearl. It felt like a fair’s hall of mirrors. The walls were not fully opaque: we couldn’t clearly see what was happening on the other side, but we could guess some shapes and movements. It was unnerving. Schools of colourful fish fluttering everywhere added an oddly distracting quality to the endless layers. We arrived at the reception hall. The room was huge, with transparent columns rising hundreds of metres above our heads. Sunrays beamed down from multi-coloured jewel shaped ice windows in the dome ceiling. Everything beamed bright except for Poseidon’s throne, which was chiselled out of the darkest obsidian. It came with conch shell carvings, tridents and all the finest fishy options. More amazing still, it matched Poseidon’s size. He was easily ten metres tall, and that made for a damn huge throne.

  He looked down his beard at us, and momentarily forgot about me. Varhoura bowed low and lifted the mask up above her head to show it to him. He took her in his hand.

  “We have not seen you in the castle for a long time, child,” he said. “We protect what is ours, but someone is … insistent. The ones who feed on power plunder the sea with impunity. Child, you should not have crossed this creature’s path – we are sorry our call was too strong for you to resist.”

  Poseidon took the mask between his giant thumb and index finger, and I swore I saw it tremble in fear. “We cannot allow your kind to persecute our people. Those who feed on power are not welcome in our home. I henceforth claim you as mine.”

  “You can’t! I didn’t attack any of your people!” the mask-woman said. “I only want the boy.”

  “What would the other gods think of us if we allowed our guests to be consumed by your kind?” he asked.

  The mask was about to talk once more, but Poseidon cupped her in his hand. The water round us shimmered and grew warm. All the fish huddled closer to Poseidon, like hunting dogs waiting for their own shred of meat. For a horrible second I thought he’d turned her into fish food, but he opened his hand again.

  The mask was gone. Instead, curled up, there was a woman with her face made flesh again and a lower body of red and black ringed sea snake.

  “No!” She yelled, looking at the fins on the back of her elbows. “No! My soul! Where is my soul?”

  White froth bubbled round her. She leaped at it, trying to catch it with her hands.

  “No! Give it back!” she screamed in her new echoing mermaid voice.

  Poseidon was done with her. He flicked his hand and a water current took her, dragging her out of the room. The guards didn’t even blink. Through the semi-translucent walls, we saw her soar down the corridors, past the fish, through the entrance, crash into a coral door and zoom out of the castle. She kept going over the seabed, over merpeople’s houses and gardens, and disappeared behind a curtain of seaweed strands.

  Poseidon turned to me. Even with the pearl in my belly I couldn’t quite find my voice again. Where the hell had Lil’Mon sent me?

  “I think I’m meant to ask for your help.” I rushed. “Lil’Mon, a tiny, really cute, tattooed Ancient Egyptian kid, you can’t forget him if you know him. About that high ...” I gestured. “He brought me here … well, really he brought me to an island. Then some pirate, which turned out to be Elise’s dad actually, heard she was famous so maybe you know her too, kind of kidnapped me and the psycho mask-woman, that one you just turned into a giant ringworm, she attacked me, so I fell overboard and—”

  I was babbling, so I wasn’t surprised when Poseidon lifted his hands to shush me. I stiffened. But he didn’t try to pick me up – he simply enjoyed the silence before resting back onto his throne.

  “As much as we respect the forgotten prepubescent monarchs of Egypt, we cannot help you as you are.”

  “The prepub— what? You can’t?” If water hadn’t been pressing down on me from all sides I’m sure sweat would have poured out of my face.

  Did that mean he was going to make a snake monster out of me, too?

  Poseidon chuckled. It sounded like crashing waves over rocks. A whirlwind grew out of his stomach. Fish fluttered out of the room. Varhoura held onto Poseidon’s throne so she wasn’t blown out of the way. I flew a few metres backwards before I found an ice column to hold onto. The octopus guards sank to the floor, holding on with their suckers, which explained why they were the only ones working round him. With a sinking feeling I realised someone somewhere was going to get hit by a tsunami because of me.

  “Do not look so worried. It is simply a matter.” Poseidon smiled. “We only grant audiences to our subjects. You are not one of ours: not sailor, fisherman, merperson or worshiper. But we, God of the sea, can grant you an honorary worshiper status should you make a sacrifice in our name.”

  “A sacrifice?” I choked. “No.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and avoided looking in the direction where the mask-turned-sea-snake had disappeared. Whatever he did to me, no one else would get hurt.

  “It does not involve anyone but yourself,” he said.

  “You’re going to take my soul?” I whispered.

  There was something terrifying about that sentence. My immortal soul … and then I remembered I didn’t have one. And that was even scarier.

  “Anyone else we would have taken and made into one of our children.” He threw his arms out, embracing in one movement Varhoura, the octopus people and the other merpeople busying themselves in his gardens outside.

  So that was not to be my future. Tension released in my shoulders, I hadn’t even realised how stiff I was.

  “But we do not want Merlin in our oceans. We would advise instead that you sacrifice your underwater voice.” Poseidon smiled. “You seem to have acquired mer-speak. This might be more of an impediment than an advantage if you intend to go back on land.”

  Had Poseidon found a convoluted way to help me twice without making me pay anything? And seconds ago I’d imagined him as a bloodthirsty fiend. What a thankless wretch I was. I nodded vigorously.

  “Then how can we help you, Theodore Merlin Baumhauer?”

  “I’m Tosho, just Tosho. How do you all know my name, but not know that I hate it?” I exclaimed.

  “We are a god, not a psychologist.” He patted his beard. “Was that all you needed?”

  Talking before thinking was dangerous. Knowledge had a cost here, even dumb rhetorical questions. I struggled to gather my thoughts.

  “Sorry, that’s got nothing to do with why I’m here. I have to find the sword of Bartholomew. I was told it was lost in an ocean. Do you have any idea where it is?”

  “The sword of Bartholomew?” He gave me a long searching look. “We can see it would have its uses in your condition.”

  “My condition? What?”

  “Two such different beings in one body is hardly an ideal situation. You do know what that sword is for, don’t you?” he asked.

  I thought it was pretty obvious. Swords were for stabbing, slicing, cutting, wounding and, basically, killing. But Poseidon had a very different answer to give me.

  “The sword of Bartholomew severs souls away from their bodies,” he said.

  Lil’Mon hadn’t told me a thing about that.

  “If this the path that you have chosen, Just Tosho, we must wa
rn you,” Poseidon said. “We have never known a body and mind surviving complete separation from their soul.”

  “Didn’t you just rip a person’s soul out? And they swam away just fine?”

  “Our people offer their souls for the honour of uniting with ours.” He opened wide his arms, embracing his castle and everything within. “The ocean is our soul. Every breath of our people, should they take a breath; every flick of a tail, should they choose to flick; every swim; every feed and every word is a communion with us. As long as they are within our realm, they bask in our power. Only if they leave our kingdom do they disappear.”

  The ocean here was Poseidon’s soul? Now that was just too weird. And wrong! I tucked my arms and legs closer, suddenly feeling claustrophobic with all this water pressing down on me. I guess it wasn’t surprising then that he could tell what was in his waters. But did that mean he could feel the boats floating on the surface? Did that mean he could feel every single merperson splashing about? Or people falling in? That would be a lot of information to take in every single second. Could he really grasp all of that? I mean that was way too much for one mind, wasn’t it? ... Or perhaps that what made him a god.

  Varhoura tapped my shoulder and I jumped. She was in a worse situation than I thought … chased like me by those power thieves, but trapped here. If she came out of the water she would disappear. It wasn’t me that needed help.

  “Your case is unheard of.” Poseidon’s voice rose again. “Perhaps you might be the only person who could remain in existence after losing your so-called soul. Or you might be like everyone else. You might disappear, and nothing would be left of Tosho but a memory in Merlin’s mind. We hope our meeting brought you wisdom.” Poseidon smiled. “Goodbye, Just Tosho.”

  He brought his hand up and I felt the current push me. Varhoura waved. My feet lifted off the ground, but I grabbed the column and hung onto it. He couldn’t dismiss me yet. He hadn’t answered my question.