by Luca Tarenzi
In fact, she'd never seen the Sirens.
The prisoners were thrown from a platform and then they just disappeared, gobbled up by the water. Occasionally, someone would try to swim, but they were tied up, so they soon sank out of sight. At times, that was all one could see. At other times, the water would fill with bubbles and a red tinge.
Nobody ever returned from the water, although stories abounded of victims that were not devoured instantly. It was said that some were taken into the depths and kept, at least for a while, for unfathomable reasons.
Needleye had been told that people used to say these were just idle stories, gossip, but then one winter's morning, in the same year she was born, some Goblins who'd gone down to repair the platform found a baby lying on the frozen shores.
This tiny newborn Goblin with ivory skin cried weakly, balancing precariously on the thin layer of frost left by the preceding cold days on the side of the Lake.
This was the reason that the tribe had called this baby Thaw.
The vegetation thinned suddenly in front of Needleye, almost catching her by surprise and leaving her blinking as she stared at the water.
Just beyond the nettle she was moving across she saw a few inches of sandy shore, a cement color, and then the immense, still Lake. Needleye knelt in the shadow of the bush and then rolled in the sand, until the grey had covered the grime that covered her body - dust, greasy waste, blood. She suddenly felt an urge for some water and a cloth so she could wipe herself clean. But she wanted any water other than what lay before her.
She moved forwards on hands and knees, grey on grey, constantly scanning the shores for any movement. She stopped when she was close enough to reach out and touch the water with her hand. She'd chosen a spot with a fairly large inlet, at least eight inches wide, a point thickly covered in that frothy mold. From close up, it looked like a sickly yellow rug spread across the water, at times seemingly folded over, just like fabric.
Needleye stared at it intently. It was time.
Ever since she'd taken that external Glamour from Two-horns, she'd felt its presence on her and all around, like a constant flicker in the corner of her eye or a stubborn whisper in her ears. She'd tried to ignore it, but it had even penetrated her dreams, tormenting her few hours of snatched rest with confusing images of cold and immense spaces that had never seen daylight.
Now Needleye deliberately sought the sensation inside her, seeking to draw to the surface that bizarre feeling.
The bewitched Glamour responded by filling her nose with an unknown smell, both frozen and alive, an odor that made her think of black silt and strands of algae floating in the water. She sensed a vast vacuum filled with echoing antiquity.
When she opened her eyes, she was overcome by the feeling of déjà vu. The Lake was in front of her, but she saw it from a totally new perspective, although she felt she'd seen it before... but in her future, not her past.
Although she was almost lying down, she lost her balance. She clenched her fists, closed her eyes and shook her head vigorously until she was able to handle this new sensation.
She wondered what effect real Siren Glamour would have if this artificial stuff had such an impact on her.
She tried to calm down by telling herself she knew what she was doing. She recalled the stories that Two-horns had told her as a child, of the origins of all things and how the Three Goddesses - three sisters with no mother - had shared the universe between them so nothing would slip from their rule. The youngest of them, Titania, received the dry land, the last of the worlds to be created. The middle sister, the Queen of the Air and Night, became the ruler of the sky, with its thousands of lights. Water, the oldest part, the part out of which the sky rose up like a giant bubble followed by the land, had gone to the eldest sister, whose name no living being had ever known.
Water was unlike anything else in the universe. Those born in it could not live away from it, and anything born out of it could never survive in it. This was the realm of the eldest Goddess, the world that came before all others and that obeyed no laws that came after it, even those of space and time.
This was the world of the Sirens, creatures that were not Moryans, but that could not have been any larger than them since they lived in the Lake, a pool of water that, to human eyes, could not have seemed much other than a large stagnant pond. Sirens didn't know of old age and death because they did not belong to time. Sirens were said to be able to remember the future and re-imagine the past.
Needleye shook, closing her lips tightly. The time for delays was over.
She focused on the lower part of her throat, drawing all her Glamour to that point. In this familiar action, something she'd done her whole life, she found a small touch of comfort. Then, she breathed it all out in a single, long breath, slowly filling up her cloud until the outer edge seemed to vibrate like a metallic skin. Needleye closed her eyes, stretched out a hand and, with the tip of her finger, touched the greenish surface. At that moment, she also released the Glamour.
The vibrations rippled out across the water. Needleye didn't see this with her eyes, but felt it instinctively with utter certainty.
Absolutely stillness followed. Then the Lake exploded, dragging her down.
It all happened so fast that Needleye didn't even see what was pulling her. It felt like a giant, bumpy water tentacle and, in an instant, she found herself head first amid bubbles.
The cold felt like a whip. A strange, unnatural cold. Too cold to simply be water. Needleye thought about struggling, but her limbs wouldn’t obey her. Then, something grabbed her from below.
She opened her eyes wider and only just managed not to let out a scream.
A hand even colder than the water grabbed her ankle and dragged her towards the depths. More hands soon grabbed her, first just above the other, but then all over, eventually even pulling at her hair. She felt like she was trapped in a cage of living ice, but she was unable to see even her prison through the bubbles and darkness. The fear of impending death filled her body, pushing away all other thoughts.
Then, in that utter mental silence, away from the roar of the water and the beating of her heart pounding in her ears, Needleye again felt an echo of the Glamour Two-horns had created for her.
She grabbed at it with the force of desperation, seeking to project it outwards. She was not a prisoner condemned to death, not someone thrown into the Lake. She was not some payment in a death pact. She'd come to speak to the Sirens and they had to listen to her, just as they listened to anyone who came to trade!
Unable to communicate in any other way, she tried to make the Glamour vibrate with her thoughts.
I'm here because of a Siren's son.
The son of one of you.
They want to kill him.
They'll throw him into the Lake.
But you must save him!
He has your blood, he's like you.
Are you going to ravage him anyway?
Answer me, please!
Will you save him?
Tell me you won't hurt him...
A frozen hand grabbed her by the throat and pressed hard.
Needleye fought, stiffening her neck, shaking her head furiously and keeping her mouth shut until it burned. But the grip was too tight and nobody could hold their breath forever.
She opened her mouth and the freezing water gushed in.
The hands immediately let her go and the cold vanished, seemingly never having existed.
Needleye blinked, moved her arms and found herself free. She wasn't drowning. The water was inside her, she could feel it in her stomach, throat and lungs. Yet, she was breathing.
Breathing water.
She looked around. Darkness everywhere, vast and endless like the vault of heaven. A different type of darkness. It wasn't like a starless night or an underground pit. This darkness had depth that sight could penetrate, that wasn't swallowed up by it.
Slowly, Needleye was able to make out long, fine filaments of algae
floating about her and, further away, thin shadows that twisted in strange sinuous movements. The black had somehow become greener, with an unearthly glow.
Then the algae in front of her opened up, revealing a Siren.
It didn't have a body, at least not one Needleye could see. But it did have a face. And hair.
Dark, smooth, thick hair that wrapped around itself in gentle curls, like ink floating in water, and that seemed much bigger than her, perhaps as big as an entire tent. But she couldn't be sure because measuring size was impossible in that absurd environment.
The face framed by the flowing hair was definitely not that of a Moryan. No sharp features or pointed ears like the Goblins. None of the mirror-like eyes of the Boggarts or the antennae of the Sylphs. No, it had none of the distinctive features of the tribes Needleye knew. This face had soft lines, a retracted chin, large eyes with long lashes, and cheeks that glittered with a myriad of tiny scales, each one gleaming like a pearl.
Yet, even in the darkness of that abyss, surrounded by so many differences, this face that was so different than what Needleye was familiar clearly had something similar to a face she knew very well, a face she'd seen almost every day for as long as she could remember.
You are his mother.
Needleye spoke these words with her mouth, but knew immediately that no sound had come from her lips. The Siren, though, blinked and moved her head, as if she'd heard.
They want to kill him. Needleye tried to fill her thoughts with every ounce of urgency she felt. That is why I am here. At sunset today, they will bring your son here. My...the king of the Goblins has sentenced him to death. She waited for a moment. It is my fault that they'll throw him into the Lake.
The Siren continued to look at her, expressionless except for her hair flowing around like a crown of liquid flames.
You must do something. You cannot let him die. You must make sure that you...that the other Sirens don't hurt him. Needleye breathed in deeply, feeling the water race around her lungs. I can do something for you if you want. Just tell me what I must do.
A hand shot out of the mass of hair and grabbed Needleye by the arm.
Needleye glimpsed it for a second - a pearly hand, unnaturally slender with three nail-less fingers and a thumb - and then something else entirely invaded her vision.
The shores of the Lake thronging with Goblins.
The scaffold for the execution was bathed in the reddish light of sunset.
Thaw was standing there, hands tied behind his back, his body wrapped in white plastic from neck to ankles. His eyes were closed.
Albedo was standing too, his face serious and inscrutable, with his skin sparkling green in the dying light...
Needleye opened her eyes and felt the cold water washing against her pupils.
What was the Siren showing her? The future?
The crowd was roaring, moving like a sea of heads shaken by the wind.
Silently, Albedo nodded.
Thaw opened his eyes and watched carefully as a pale hand came closer, carrying a torch...
Needleye tensed. Was this Thaw's fate? He wasn't to be thrown to the Sirens, but burned alive!
No, no, no!
She had to do something, his mother had to save him.....
A spurt of blood cut through the air.
A giant wave rose up out of the Lake as tall as a column and as black as storm cloud.
Someone shouted.
Then the wave crashed to the ground.
Instinctively, Needleye raised her arms to protect her face and seemed, for an instant, to tumble furiously head over heels. Then, she felt the warmth of the sun on her skin.
She lowered her arms. She was on the shores of the Lake, on the grey sand, in the precise spot where she had been a few moments before.
She looked at her body, which was completely dry. Not even her hair or her clothes were damp. And her lungs were completely clear. The only part of her that was wet was the tip of her finger, the one she'd used to touch the Lake.
She wiped her face with her sandy hand and closed her eyes. Nothing she'd seen had been real. At least, nothing had actually happened. It had all taken place in her mind.
If she were to believe what she had seen, then that night her brother was going to burn Thaw in plastic and the Sirens knew. But they hadn't let her know if they planned to do anything.
Or had they?
Needleye lay down on the sand, more exhausted than she ever remembered feeling. Now she knew what would happen in a few hours. If her friend's mother didn't act then it would fall to her and her alone to stop the execution.
She wished she had even a vague idea of what to do.
9
For the umpteenth time Verdigris sat up and pushed her back against the wall, quite unable to remain lying down despite being very tired. Her last bit of strength had been used pacing up and down in the cell for what seemed like an eternity, but actually sleeping was quite impossible.
What could the time be? Had the sun already risen in the world outside?
She placed her hand on her damp forehead, feeling a mixture of sweat and mud. She no longer even felt revolted at how she must look. She turned her head, feeling as if her bones were sandpaper. Fever. She probably had a fever, a side effect of her body fighting off Livid's toxic saliva.
In the darkness, the only slither of artificial light came from under the door. She tried to find the bite on her shoulder, feeling carefully. Her skin was badly swollen, aching every time she moved. Even without everything else, this wound would have made sleeping impossible.
She half-wondered if the king had reprimanded his executioner for having poisoned the Sluagh who was so important to him.
The room in the Cells where Livid had placed her wasn't even that small - seven paces on the longest side, with the ceiling high enough that she could stand upright - and the bed of paper towels was actually quite comfortable. But, it was a prison; her nightmare turned real.
She clenched her fists and pushed them against her temples. She'd always known it would end like this. It was inevitable that the king would end up hiding her away in some hole for the rest of her life, just like a precious object one only gets out when it is needed. She'd known as much from the very first time she chose to follow Needleye.
In the end, Needleye always made everything about her.
Her decisions changed everything. Her fits of rage. Her enthusiasm. Her doubts. Her fears. Needleye did something, anything, and she dragged the fate of all the others with her, with the power of inevitability.
Thus it had always been. They'd known each other since childhood because Needleye always spent time with the tribe's orphans. Her mother, the king's second wife, had died when Needleye was but a baby, and her father had found little time and patience for his children. The king had kept Albedo at his side out of necessity. He was his first born and the son of his first wife, meaning one day he would inherit the throne. Needleye was a different story and the king had little idea what to do with her, generally leaving her to go and do whatever she wished.
Verdigris could no longer recall what had made her and the domineering, quarrelsome princess - that little child ignored by her family - first become friends. It had probably just happened as it does when children choose each other.
Little Goblin orphans were plentiful in the Landfill. Their parents might have died in battle, from the cold or in a hunting accident. Perhaps the seagulls had taken them. But the whole tribe looked after and fed the orphans because the collective survival of the tribe depended on the survival of each individual Goblin. Looking after simply meant a bed and food, for everything else the orphans had to make do themselves. The orphans were a large, diverse and turbulent group filled with the most exotic of Goblins. The lonesome Livid had been one, seeking to be separate right from an early age. Thaw was another, a real oddity in the world of the bizarre, expected to do something completely out of the blue at any moment. Verdigris had been nothing unusual as a chil
d, because her gift only become apparent later, as a teenager.
Needleye was one of those children that never had to be alone, with plenty of friends. One of those had been Stylus, the son of an influential family of warriors closely allied to the king. He used to follow the princess around like a devoted puppy. Yet, somehow, the princess had chosen her, Verdigris, the only daughter of an unknown father and a mother who'd died bringing her into the world.
The last to join their quartet had been Thaw, who, with his own uncommon flair for trouble, had figured Needleye out and chosen her as his supreme purveyor of dangerous and insane expeditions. This ill-assorted group of four friends had spent their youth playing where it was forbidden, stealing food when nobody was looking, slipping out at night to climb the mountains, watching the far-off settlements of enemy tribes while imagining raining down on them like a divine thunderbolt to destroy them all in their tents.
In her heart, Verdigris had always known it would not last forever. She had always sensed that one day they would take on some folly that would lead to them paying more dearly than they could imagine.
She bowed her head and pursed her lips as tightly as she could.
Yet, despite knowing this, she always went along. She would object, get cross and try to reason with the others, but in the end, she always did what Needleye asked.
Because it was Needleye. When it came to her, Verdigris didn't ask questions. She didn't want to. Questions might have meant answers.
The gentle sound of footsteps in the corridor broke her train of thought.
She raised her head and listened, petrified. Two pairs of feet, maybe three...
Someone slipped open the hook that kept the door closed and, before she could see anything in the torchlight, she sensed a Glamour that seemed, for a second, like Needleye's.
But she immediately realized the difference. This cloud was colder, giving her goose bumps. Strangely, it smelled like hot water. A smell that she recognized.
The door opened and the light hurt her eyes. She covered them with her hand, causing a sharp pain in her shoulder, but she didn't flinch.
The door closed straight away and when Verdigris moved her hand from her eyes, she saw the king standing before her in the half-light.
