The Merman's Children

by Poul Anderson

  hallowed be Thy name-“

  Near morning, when weariness had dazed him, he lifted a timid gaze to the saint’s face. “Andrei,” he mumbled, “they say such terrible things about my little daughter. Could you maybe give me another sign? I know the stories aren’t true. Nada’s where you are. Could be she’s right there at your side looking down on her old dad. If only people would see that. Can’t you show them?”

  The carving never stirred. Tomislav lowered his head. Blood trickled into his beard. When daylight glimmered, he rose, bowed before the altar, and departed.

  Vanimen and Meiiva walked down the wagon track that went through the forest. Snow had fallen of late, an inch or two that soon melted off bare dirt but abided in purity under the trees. Boughs and twigs reached austere across blueness. The air was quiet and nearly warm.

  “His honesty is above challenge,” the merman said. “However, half asleep, he may well have imagined that that happened which he desired so much to happen.”

  Meiiva shivered, not from cold. “Or else the dead man he invoked was playing a trick,” she said.

  “No, I don’t ween the Most High would allow that. He is just.”

  She gave him a startled glance. “Never erenow have you spoken

  thus.”

  “We’ve none of us been wont to talk, or think, about such matters. They were beyond us, as the fashioning and use of a knife are beyond a dolphin. We knew only blind luck, which might be good or might be bad, save that in the end, soon or late, it was always fatal. God did not care about us . . . we supposed. . . and we had naught to do with Him.

  “Today I wonder,” Vanimen said when they had laid several more yards behind them. He grinned as ‘he used to when con-fronting a threat. “I’d better, hadn’t I?”

  “Do you really hold that we should forsake Faerie?” Meiiva plucked at the gown, dun and itchy, which closed her off from a living world. “We had the freedom of the swan’s road.”

  “I fear Pavle Subitj is right,” Vanimen answered heavily. “For the children if not ourselves, we should yield.”

  “Will their lives be worth the cost? Man’s lot is seldom happy.”

  “Our people can do well enough. Their swimming skills are

  in demand; they are liked; already, you must have noticed, mermen and maidens, mermaids and youths, begin to sigh for each other, and heads of households ponder the advantages of marriage alli-ances with persons of such excellent prospects.”

  Meiiva nodded. “Indeed. The offspring of those unions will be more terrestrial than our kind. The next generation after them will be entirely human-drownable. We’ve witnessed this down the centuries, have we not? In one or two hundred years, the blood of Liri will be mingled unto evanishment, the memory of Liri be a myth that no sensible man believes.”

  “Save in Heaven,” he reminded her.

  A raven croaked.

  “I wish-“ he started to say, and stopped.

  “What, dear?” Her fingers caressed his arm.

  “I wish I were doing this because I truly want to be with God,”

  he got out. “I ought not come to Him as a pauper.”

  “You, Vanimeq?” she whispered.

  “Aye,” he said. They halted. She saw him square his shoulders

  inside the peasant’s coat. “Let me go first, so the rest of you may see what happens and thereafter choose for yourselves.

  “I am your king.”

  Father Petar was grossly offended that the ceremony would take place off in the woods, with Father Tomislav officiating. The zhupan must point out that this was at the Ban’s express command, because having many observers who often went to Shibenik or farther would be impolitic.

  Having received religious instruction, Vanimen excused him-self and went alone down to the coast. He spent the day and night of the equinox at sea. What he did or thought then was something whereof he later kept silence.

  His return was on the eve of St. Gabriel. Next morning, after Mass had been sung, he entered the church. The inhabitants of the zadruga stayed there as onlookers. No image denied him. Outside, his people waited under budding leaves, in a hard rain.

  He carne forth with arms widespread and cried in their own tongue: “Oh, hasten, hasten, beloved! Christ bids you welcome to blessedness!”

  VI

  TAUNO and Eyjan reached Greenland months after leaving Den-mark. First they had searched the nearer waters, albeit with scant expectation. Their tribe could only be living in those parts in dispersal, and that might well itself prove impossible. Everywhere from North Cape and the Gulf of Bothnia to the Galway coast and Faeroes, what few hunting grounds remained-not yet overrun by humans or barred by curse of a Christian priest-had long been held by others, who numbered about as many as could support themselves.

  Though friendly enough to the siblings, these dwellers had no knowledge whatsoever of where the exiles might have gone. That was strange, as widely as news traveled with merfolk roving singly or in small bands, and with the dolphins. A few persons had heard of a migration up the Kattegat and across the Skagerrak, but there the trail ended.

  Hence the siblings went on to Iceland, arriving about midwin-ter. They got no help from the three surviving settlements along yonder shores either, save hospitality during a season more stem than Tauno and Eyjan had known in their young lives. Elders who had seen several hundred years go by told them that through the past eight or nine decades cold had been deepening. Pack ice groaned in every fjord which once had been clear, and bergs laired in sea lanes which Eric the Red had freely sailed three centuries ago. .

  But this was of no large moment to merfolk, who, indeed, found more life in chill than in warm waters. The king of Liri might well have led his community to unclaimed banks off Green-land. In spring, Tauno and Eyjan sought thither.

  On the way, they encountered some dolphins who confirmed what they had suspected. Vanimen and his following had tak a ship westward from Norway. Alas, a mighty storm arose and blew the vessel farther off course than any of those animals-whose territories are large but nevertheless territories-Chose to go.

  “If she foundered,” Tauno reasoned, “the sailors would be swimmers again. Where they made for would depend on where they were, but they’d strive toward the. goal they had if it seemed at all reachable. If she did not go under, then they’d beat back toward that same goal. As close as we ourselves are to Greenland, our chances are best if we continue.” Eyjan agreed.

  They spent that summer on the eastern side, fruitlessly for their search. What gatherings of their father’s sort that they met were uncouth barbarians who had never heard the name of Liri-for merfolk had less occasion to make this crossing than the sons of Adam had had. When they came upon a group of Inuit, the half-lings joined those in hope of some tidings.

  At home they had barely gotten rumors of a new human breed moving southward through the great glacier-crowned island. Tauno and Eyjan found them to be hardy, skilled, helpful, open-handed, merrier companions and lustier lovers than most shore-dwellers of Europe, heathens who felt no guilt at welcoming Faerie kind into their midst. But after a few months, their way of life, took on a sameness which chafed. Having learned somewhat of the language, and the fact that nobody had the longed-for infor-mation, brother and sister bade farewell and returned to the sea.

  Southbound among early ice floes, they soon left behind them all trace of Inuit, who had not yet gotten that far down from the” north. Rounding the cape at the bottom of the island, the pair met dolphins who did bear a word to stir hearts-word of magic a-prowl farther up the west coast. The dolphins could scarcely say more; yonder wasn’t their range, and what they got was mere gossip such as they loved to pass onward. Nor did they care to go look; the whisper went that this was a very dangerous sorcery.

  It might simply appear to be so, Tauno and Eyjan decided. For instance, the founding of a New Liri could well frighten creatures who had never seen or dreamed of an underwater town. And, whatever was going on, th
ey had a need to know about it more: nearly. ...

  From humans back home to whom they had been close, they were aware of how matters stood ashore in Greenland. The Norse had three settlements on this side, where climate was less harsh than elsewhere. Oldest, biggest, and southernmost was the East-ern, the Ostri Bygd. Not far from it lay the Mid Bygd. A goodly way north, despite its name, was a later Western settlement, the Vestri Bygd. The tales of menace came out of that last.

  Tauno and Eyjan swam toward it. The season was now well along into fall.

  VII

  AN umiak was traveling with land to starboard, at the center of a school of kayaks. The merman’s children broached half a mile off, cleared their lungs, and poised where they were that they might take stock in safety. Shark, orca, storm, reef, riptide had winnowed faintheartedness out of their bloodline, but had also taught caution.

  “Deeming by what the dolphins said, the... thing. . . here-abouts is a foe to white men,” Tauno reminded. “Thus, if the matter isn’t just that our kith have had to defend themselves against attack, it must be Inuit work. I’d as soon not get a harpoon in me because I’m taken for a white man.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Eyjan answered. “I’d never known folk can be as gentle as those who guested us.”

  “A different set from these, sister mine. And I heard stories about murders done once in a while.”

  “If naught else, they’ll see we can’t be of common earth. What we must avoid is not assault, but frightening them off. Let’s go ahead slowly, wearing our cheeriest faces.”

  “And ready to plunge. Aye, then.”

  Air-breathing, they slanted to intercept the convoy. They felt

  the frigidity of the water, but not in the torn and gnawed way that a mortal would; to them, it slid caressingly past every muscle, stoking warmth up within them, tasting not alone of salt but of countless subtler things, life and deeps and distances. Choppy, it rocked them as they went-whitecaps a thousand shades of blue black overlaid by a shimmer of green. It whooshed and gurgled; afar on the coast it roared. A west wind blew sharp-edged under a silver-gray sky where wrack flew like smoke. Gulls filled heaven with wings and cries. To right the land rose steeply, darkling cliffs, glimpses of autumn-yellowed meadows tucked in sheltered nooks, peaks where snow lay hoar, and beyond these a bleak-brightness that told of inland ice.

  Their attention was mainly on thi( boats. Those within must have gone on some such errand as fowling, and be homebound; no Inuit dwelt quite as far south as the Norse. The umiak was a big canoe, leather across a framework of whalebone and drift-wood, paddled by a score of women. As many kayaks accom-panied it, each bearing its man. AIl the gang were merry; their shouts and laughter blew among the guIls’ mewings, the waves’ squelpings. Tauno and Eyjan saw one young feIlow lay alongside the skin boat and speak to a woman who had to be his mother, nursing her newest babe: for she dropped her paddle, hoisted her jacket, and gave him a quick drink at her breast.

  Another spied the swimmers. A yeIl awoke. Sword-blade-thin, the kayaks darted toward them.

  “Keep behind me, Eyjan,” Tauno said. “Hold your spear under the surface ready to use.” He himself trod water, repeatedly lifting his hands to show they were empty. His thews thrummed.

  The first kayak foamed to a stop before him. He inside could weIl-nigh have been a merman too, or rather a sea-centaur, so much did he and his craft belong together. The hide that covered it was laced around his sealskin-clad waist; he could capsize, right himself, and get never a drop on his boots. A double-ended paddle sent him over the waves like a skimming cormorant. A harpoon lay lightly secured before him; the inflated bladder bobbed around.

  For several heartbeats, he and the halflings regarded each other.

  Tauno tried to peer past his astonishment and guage him as a man. He was youthful, even more powerfuIly built than most of his stocky brethren, handsome in a broad-featured, smaIl-eyed, coarsely black-maned fashion. Beneath grease and soot, his com-plexion was of an almost ivory hue, and bore the barest trace of whiskers. He recovered fast, and surprised the siblings by asking in accented Norse, “You castaways? Need help?”

  “No, I thank you, but we belong here,” Tauno replied. The Danish he knew was sufficiently close to the tongue of the col-onists-closer, in fact, than to Hauau’s dialect-that he expected no trouble in understanding. He smiled, and roIled around to let the Inuk see him better.

  In looks he might weIl have been a Norseman, long and thick-muscled, save for beardlessness, amber eyes, and the tinge of green in his shoulder-length hair. But no earth-born man could have rested at ease, naked off Greenland in fall. A headband, a belt to hold a pair of obsidian knives, and a narrow roll of oiled leather strapped to his shoulders beneath a spear whose head was of bone were his whole clothing.

  Eyjan was likewise outfitted. She also smiled, and dazzled the Inuk.

  “You. . . are-“ A protracted native word followed. It seemed to mean “creatures of magic.”

  “We are your friends,” Tauno said in that language; it was his turn to speak haltingly. He gave the names of his sister and himself.

  “This person is called Minik,” the young man responded. He was emboldened, more than his companions, who hovered ner-vously farther off. “Will you not come aboard the umiak and rest?”

  “No---“ protested somebody else.

  “They are not of the Neighbors,” Minik said.

  Reluctant, the rest yielded. Such inhospitality was unheard of

  among their race. It could not be due to fear of wizardry. They

  did live in a world of spirits which must forever be appeased, but

  here were simply two manlike beings who made no threat and

  could surely relate wonders. Something terrible must have hap-

  pened between them and the Vestri Bygd. And yet-

  Eyjan noticed ftrst. “Tauno!” she exclaimed. “They’ve a white woman among them!”

  He had been too alert to the harpoons to pay much heed to the boat he was approaching. Now he saw that about at its middle, staring dumfounded as the rest, knelt one who overtopped them; and above a thrown-back parka hood, her braids shone gold.

  The merman’s children climbed over the side, careful not to upset the craft, more careful to squat in the bows prepared for a leap. The hull was ladend and bloody with a catch of auks. Tauno and Eyjan aimed their awareness at the single man there, a pas-senger in the stem, grizzled, wrinkled, and snag-toothed. He made signs at them, gasped, yelped, then grew abruptly calm and called out: “These bear no ills for us that I can smell.” And to them:

  “This person is called Panigpak and said by some to be.an an-gakok”-a shaman, sorcerer, familiar of ghosts and demons, healer, foreseer, and, at need, wreaker of harm upon foes. For all his modesty, customary among his people, and for all the hriveling that age had brought upon him, he had an air of wild-nimal pride; Tauno thought of wolf and white bear.

  The women squealed and chattered; a few cackled half terrified aughter; their eyes darted like black beetles above the high, wide heekbones. There drifted from them a secnt of fleshly heat and, lot unpleasantly, of smoke and oil and the urine wherein they vashed their hair. The men crowded their own craft around. They leld themselves a bit more reserved-just a bit.

  The Norsewoman alone kept still. She wore the same skin coat md trousers and footgear as the rest, she was as greasy as they, but her gaze burned blue. That, her fair and cleanly molded face, ler stature and slenderness, roused longings in Tauno which no nuk woman could altogether quell. He draped a hand between lis thighs to hide those thoughts, and took the word:

  “Forgive how lamely somebody talks. We learned among a listant band of the People. With them we hunted, fished, feasted, swapped gifts, and became friends. Here we will not linger. We search for our family, and ask no more from you than whatever knowledge you may have of it.”

  Wind blew, waves trundled, the boat swayed in shrill cold. I Jut it was as if the blond girl spoke through
silence, in her birth- ongue: “Who are you? What are you? Not true merfolk. . .I think. Your feet are not webbed.”

  “Then you know of our kind?” Eyjan cried gladly.

  “Through tales I heard at the fIreside, most from the old coun-

  try. Naught else.”

  Eyjan sighed. “Well, you are right about our nature. But see how you bewilder us, even as we bewilder you.”

  The woman hugged to her an infant that, like most of her ellow paddlers, she had along. Hers was towheaded. “Can we ndeed talk freely?” she breathed.

  A couple of men objected to this lingo they did not understand. “Here things not uncanny enough already? She answered them Dore handily than the halflings could have done. These swimmers could best use Danish. Was it not wisest to let them, so that they night explain swiftly and rightly? Afterward she would make clear what they had told. She appealed to Minik and Panigipak. The mgakok’s jet eyes probed at the strangers. After a while he agreed.

  Minik was her man, Tauno realized. How had that happened?

  “I, I bight Bengta Haakonsdatter,” she stammered. A pause,

  a clouding over. “I was Bengta Haakonsdatter. I am Atitak. And my daughter”-she held the one-year-old very close-“she was Hallfrid, but we call he! Aloqisaq for Minik’s grandmother, who died on a floe soon before we came to him.”

  “Were you stolen away?” Eyjan asked low-voiced.

  “No!” Bengta’s free hand snatched over the side, caught

  Minik’s shoulder, and clung fast. He flushed, embarrassed at a show the Inuit did not put on; but he let her hand upon him remain. “Tell me of yourselves,” she begged.

  Eyjan shrugged. “My brother and I are half human,” she said, and went on to relate briefly what had happened. She finished in a tone not quite steady: “Have you heard aught of merfolk ar-riving?”

  “No,” Bengta mumbled. “Though I may well not have, the way my life has gone of late.”

  “Speak to your comrades, dear. Tell them merfolk are not their enemies. Rather, sea dwellers and air breathers together could do what neither alone is able to.”