Le-ina sat on a large rock just off the Isle of Apples, enjoying the dim light of dawn. It was bright to her white-irised eyes, so accustomed was she to the dark pools beneath the deep places of the earth. She shook her long, white hair and chewed a bite from the golden apple in her hand, contemplating the different sweetness it held than the meat that comprised most of her diet. Her hand dropped to her extending mid-section, above the scales that led to her double fish tails as an old memory crossed her thoughts. It had been the talk of her kind that she had not eaten her lover.
Now there were few who remembered the human pirate who had come to the island so long ago. There had been signs that great changes were coming to the earth, so Le-ina had invoked the ability of her species to keep her pregnancy in stasis until better conditions provided an adequate environment to bring another of their kind to birth.
She splashed her double tails in the water, playing with the reflections of dappled light where the morning sun shone through the lush trees of the tropical island. The white sand where the water met the beach of the lagoon was shaded still. Le-ina enjoyed the surface of the water most before the sun glared high in the sky.
She turned her face towards the scant clouds and breathed in the fruity-scented mist that wafted gently across the water, testament to the ancient volcanic origins of the island and the sweet fruits that grew in the nutrient-rich soil. She felt the growing warmth on her exotic features and wondered at the effect that her high cheekbones and hypnotic eyes had on human men. They called her kind mermaids, or Melusine if they saw that the tails were split. Her people called themselves Kol’ksu. The double appendages, somewhat useful for shuffling on land, were what marked Le-ina as one of the psychic race of water goblins.
Her white eyes with their dark, reptilian-like slit pupil had enticed many a sailor to his death. It was the way of her people. The song lured the prey, but the mesmerizing effect of Kol’ksu eyes held them in thrall. Occasionally, one might dally long enough to know pleasure before he died.
Le-ina knew that the time had come to return to the deep places where little Talla could be born in seclusion. She had chosen the name for her spawn that morning in the dawn glow. She mentally said her goodbyes to the soft light of day and splashed into the water to find the underground tunnel that would lead to her chosen pool. There her daughter would come into the world.
She knew as a certainty that she carried a female youngling. Her mind touched the innate thoughts of her unborn spawn and felt a strong spirit with a feminine touch. Those among the water-goblins, and even the land dwellers of the caverns who occasionally mated with the Kol’ksu, had been too many generations inbred. Females were rare, and highly treasured. It was the reason she had chosen a human to seed her offspring in the ancient manner. Le-ina already loved the daughter that she would soon know in her arms.
She swam through the tunnel in darkness, relying on her sonar-like spatial awareness to know where the rocks held sharp edges. She had travelled the passage many times and almost knew her way without any external senses at all, but her changing shape in the past month had made her cautious. The time was near the spawn weighed heavy even in the flotation of her watery environment. Le-ina was no salmon to swim blindly from nothing more than instinct. Her youngling had a great destiny before her. It was something of which Le-ina was sure, even though she did not know the details of little Talla’s future.
The Kol’ksu hunted in schools, but they gave birth alone. So was Talla born with none but her mother to witness the horror revealed in the reflected light of the colourful stone caverns as she examined her spawn for the first time.
Though Kol’ksu spawned much more easily than land-dwellers gave birth, Le-ina had been wearied and was languishing in the hormonal euphoria of new motherhood as she cradled her newborn in her arms. The custom of the first inspection had become ingrained over many generations of deformities amongst all species of goblins. It was the mother who must first determine whether the youngling was whole and would live.
Le-ina smiled at the green-tinted, nearly white skin and the shock of white hair that marked her spawn as Kol’ksu. She looked into the white-irised eyes... and the smile fell. Le-ina saw round eye pupils where she had expected the slitted ones that marked her species. She began to wonder if the deformity would affect Talla’s underwater vision as she examined what should have been double fishtails and quickly realised that the double appendages were legs, like those of a land-dweller, ending in curled toes instead of fins. It was something that Le-ina had not anticipated, even with her future sight.
Further examination established that Talla had no gills and therefore would not be able to breathe in the water. Le-ina felt as if something had broken inside her chest. The human pirate who had seeded Talla had given her too much of his heritage.
The custom demanded than a youngling who would not be able to survive independently must be refused by the mother and allowed to die. Though the tradition seemed cruel, it was intended to save both resources and the greater pain of losing a young one who had become known and beloved of many. But Talla was viable to live, and this gave Le-ina hope. She breathed only air and would have to swim near the surface, always. It would be Le-ina’s task to help her daughter to adapt to a life in the water. She projected a mental image of dolphins and whales to her daughter, visualising them swimming to the surface frequently for air.
Le-ina taught Talla to swim. When they joined the others of their kind, the other Kol’ksu indulged the need to keep the spawn close to the surface at all times, but sometimes Le-ina could see one or another of them looking at her sadly. Every birth amongst their kind was cause for celebration, especially a female. Le-ina knew their concern, that Talla would one day drown and bring them all grief beyond imagining.
One day the feared tragedy came too close. The Kol’ksu were going to the feed. Men were swimming in the river and meat would be plentiful. The Kol’ksu sense of the future told them that none of the men would be missed in the history of the world to come. Better yet, the incautious humans had told no one where they were going. There would be no trace of them within minutes. Their memories would be swallowed up by time.
The feed had already begun. Le-ina swam into the fray, holding Talla close as they swam together. Countless silvery bodies darted just under the surface, partially visible in the dappled light of the sun on dark water. The powerful thrusts of doubled tails propelled them through the water as Le-ina and Talla joined into the melee.
The fastest swimmers had shred flesh from bone with an efficiency that brooked no escape. The smell of blood excited Le-ina’s senses. She ripped at pieces of floating meat wantonly, her acute sense of smell and psychic facility determining which creatures in the water were other Kol’ksu and which were the prey. The mental voices of men thrashing in pain and panic as their stripped lower limbs failed them were as muted as the sounds of their screams through the water. The ecstasy of the frenzy filtered their thoughts of agony, and that moment when they resigned themselves to death, pleading only for the pain to stop. The clarity of the thoughts of the other Kol’ksu in frenzy resonated loudly in comparison.
The exhilaration from the scent of human blood took over Le-ina's conscious thoughts. She danced within the narcosis and pure elation in the weightlessness of her watery environment a dance of death. The thrashing of clumsy land dwellers stopped as they were quickly stripped of flesh down to the bone. Le-ina feasted with the others, instinctively passing morsels of flesh to her youngling.
Suddenly she became aware that her spawn was not moving of her own volition. They had been under water too long.
Le-ina ripped her consciousness from the euphoria of the feeding frenzy. She struggled against the passion of the feed and focused her thoughts on pushing her daughter towards the surface where she could breathe the air. There were so many others that they became momentarily entangled in a swarm of fishtails and could not see through water made dark by blood, but Le-ina's instinctive sense of d
irection helped to disentangle them from the still frenzied Kol’ksu rolling euphorically in the river currents. At last they breached the surface, but Talla did not breathe.
Talla had turned bluish from lack of oxygen. Le-ina squeezed her spawn’s lungs and turned her over to slap her powerful webbed fingers across the youngling’s back. Water ejected from her mouth, but still she did not suck in air. Le-ina struggled against a wrenching in her stomach as she feared the loss that no mother could bear. She turned Talla over and breathed air into her daughter’s lungs with her own mouth pressed over that of her spawn as she projected her thoughts into the youngling’s mind, willing her to breathe.
Suddenly Talla sputtered and coughed up more of the river water that was life and breath to her mother and her people. Le-ina closed her eyes and breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she held her daughter above the surface, consciously resisting the urge to hold her close lest her embrace should tighten and smother the spawn that she realised now that she was destined to lose.
Le-ina did not need precognition to see that this would be the only warning she would get. Talla could not live in the water. It was unheard of that a mother would part from her spawn, but Le-ina could not live on land for long. They were creatures of different worlds. As much as it was against nature to part from a spawn before weaning, Talla's life depended on a sacrifice that Le-ina knew would haunt them both throughout their long lives.
Le-ina resigned herself and sent a message to the land dwelling goblins for help. There was only one among them who was permitted to enter the enclosed space of Le-ina’s underground pool cavern without becoming meat the one called Haghuf. Le-ina took Talla to the pool where she had been spawned to spend their last moments together in solitude as they waited.
Le-ina held her youngling, memorising every detail of her. Remember your people, Le-ina impressed on her daughter in the psychic communication of her kind. You will learn to walk like the land-dwellers and to speak in words that any might hear, but you are Kol’ksu. Visit your people in the watery places and share their thoughts, as I share mine with you now.
Le-ina knew that Haghuf would see that Talla had a good foster mother amongst the goblins. So many young ones amongst them were lost at birth. Her imperfect spawn would bring comfort to someone who had lost their own youngling.
Haghuf stepped carefully into the cavern through a passage opening that had stood for aeons. His expression was well controlled, but Le-ina could see that he shook slightly with fear. He looked towards the pool, unaware that Le-ina sat very still behind him in the shadows of the rocks.
“I have a gift for one of those who mourn amongst your kind.”
Le-ina’s deep, dulcet tones echoed within the enclosed cavern. Haghuf turned, startled, to see her sitting casually on a rock. He approached slowly, fearfully. Le-ina was reluctant to lay the child on the ground. Such a gesture was used to indicate a child given over to death. Le-ina intended to give her daughter to life.
“You may take her Haghuf, there is no danger for you today,” Le-ina assured him.
Haghuf visibly fought against his instinct to flee as he approached, taking the youngling that was offered to him by the predator. He looked Le-ina in the eyes as she passed the child into his arms. She saw both fear and sympathy reflected in his expression. Le-ina wondered if he was sensitive enough to feel her heart as it broke into a thousand pieces. Haghuf looked down at the youngling in his arms. Le-ina watched his eyes as confusion stole over his features.
“She is Talla, a child of the Kol’ksu. Look at her.”
Haghuf looked at the naked infant to see two perfectly formed legs kicking into the air.
“You must take my spawn. She cannot live in water,” Le-ina said formally.
Haghuf’s eyes shot back up to lock with Le-ina’s again as he suddenly comprehended the impossible decision that Le-ina had been forced to make.
“Rest assured Le-ina, she will be well cared for. I will watch over her myself.”
With that assurance, Le-ina nodded once and jumped into the water. No land dweller would see her tears. Amongst her own people, Le-ina would not be able to hide the despair that ripped deeper into her heart as she swam further and further away from the spawn that she would never hold again. She felt the deep chasm of sorrow opening indelibly within her heart as she forced herself to swim forwards, deeply into the darkest subterranean cavern that she could find, defying the impulse to turn and reclaim the child of her body and of her soul.
Haghuf stood on the shore alone with the youngling. She was just old enough that she might begin to walk soon. The strong muscles she had begun to develop from swimming would make the task a little easier. Haghuf remembered a female amongst the Betweeners, the goblins who lived near the surface in caverns partly dug by ancient men building tunnels, who had recently been bereaved of her stillborn male child. A female infant to care for would surely bring her some relief from her mourning.
Haghuf turned to climb the carved steps back to his own caverns, far from the ravenous teeth of the Kol’ksu. On impulse, he looked at the child’s newly growing teeth. They were sharp but thick and conical, like his own. The needle-sharp teeth of the Kol’ksu had not been passed to this young one. Haghuf wondered what insanity had driven a land-dweller to couple with a Kol’ksu, and whether the one who seeded little Talla had been eaten as was the custom of the water-goblins. It was a secret that he would never know.
Talla looked up at him with her round pupils and white-irised eyes. He smiled back at her despite his resolve to remain detached from the abnormal spawn. He found himself entranced by some magic of her eyes and felt as if he were being drawn into them, then suddenly wrenched his attention free and back to full awareness. He vowed to himself that he would keep his promise to Le-ina and would watch over Talla as she grew. Perhaps he would even teach her to read and study the books of magic that he kept preserved. If the child retained the psychic gifts of her mother’s people, she might become a powerful magic user or even follow him as Librarian.
“I have much to teach you little Talla,” he said aloud in the silent cavern. “But for now, it is time to meet one who will be mother to you.”
He held the youngling close as he climbed the rest of the steps to the familiar caverns. He knew that Talla’s story would travel fast. He decided that he might as well start it with his own version at the next Storytelling.
Runner
The Glittering Dark: and other stories of the goblin world Page 2
