The Stone Light

by Kai Meyer

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?” Serafin asked.

  “What difference would it have made?”

  Aristide looked frantically from one to the other. “We’re sinking? Really?”

  Dario closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “That’s what she said, yes.”

  “Hairline cracks,” said Serafin, and for the first time he examined the water level inside the sea turtle shell. They’d all been wet through since they’d left Venice, and no one had paid any attention to the dampness on the bottom of the horn shell. But now it dawned on him that they had in fact been sitting in water before Tiziano had almost caused the shell to capsize.

  “Hairline cracks?” Tiziano splashed around in the dark water, as if he could feel them with his bare fingers and stop them.

  Dario became very calm. “Good. So we’re going under. But up there ahead is land … or something like it. And you, Eft, know exactly what it is.”

  She nodded. “If everything doesn’t deceive me, it’s a body. And a very special one, at that. The mermaids sensed it, so they swam away. They were afraid.”

  “A … a body?” stammered Tiziano. “But … that thing is at least … at least seventy, eighty yards long. Isn’t it?” When no one answered, he said once more, louder this time, “Isn’t it?”

  Now they floated nearer to the light gray mound. And gradually, very gradually, Serafin distinguished an outline.

  “The cadaver of a sea witch,” said Eft.

  Serafin’s heart beat faster.

  “Sea witch,” repeated Aristide, and now it was he who was about to stand up. Dario pulled him back with such force that Serafin briefly considered remonstrating with him.

  He let it go and turned to Eft. “How long do we have?”

  She slowly moved her right hand through the water inside the sea turtle shell. “Three hours. Maybe four. Possibly the shell will break apart sooner.”

  “Can we reach land in that time?”

  “I haven’t the least idea where we are.”

  Serafin nodded. Nothing could surprise him anymore. “So we have to leave the shell?”

  “Yes.”

  “And climb up on that thing?”

  “She’s dead,” said Eft. “She can’t do anything more to anyone.”

  “One moment!” Dario rubbed the palm of his hand across his eyes, then massaged his temples with a slow movement. “You’re suggesting in all seriousness that we climb onto a dead sea witch?”

  Eft sniffed the wind. “She hasn’t been dead long. She’ll float for a few days.”

  “Longer than three or four hours,” Serafin heard himself agree, even if he couldn’t grasp that he was accepting this madness.

  “I’m not going up there,” stammered Aristide.

  Tiziano said nothing.

  “I’m certainly not going up on that.” Aristide’s voice sounded higher now, almost panicked.

  “She can’t be dangerous for us anymore,” said Serafin soothingly. “And she’s our only hope.”

  Tiziano came to his aid. “Imagine it’s a dead fish. Then you’d probably even eat it.”

  Aristide stared at Tiziano for a long moment, speechless, then his features contorted, and his voice was a shrill howl. “You’re all completely crazy! Completely mad!”

  Dario ignored him. “The current is driving us straight toward it. Just a few minutes.” When Aristide tried to protest again, Dario silenced him with a look that could have turned him to stone. His eyes narrowed as he again looked over at the floating body of the sea witch. “Is that her face there?”

  All stared at the place he indicated.

  “Yes,” said Eft. All at once she turned pale and said nothing more. No one except Serafin noticed it. But he asked no more questions; there was time for that when they were sitting safely on the corpse.

  The wind turned, and from one breath to the next it stank as terribly as the Venetian fish market on a summer day.

  The witch was floating on her back. As far as Serafin could see from here, she had the body of a gigantic old woman—as far as the hips. From there her body continued into a powerful fish tail, such as the mermaids had, only the witch’s was as long as a ship. Her hair floated like a gray carpet of algae, spread out in a fan on the waves. They’d have to be careful the sea turtle shell didn’t catch in it; if they were forced to leave the shell while it was in the middle of this flood of hair, they’d be hopelessly tangled in the long strands and drown.

  Serafin expressed this thought aloud, and immediately they all tried to propel the shell with their hands and steer it in another direction, toward the scaly tail, where it would be simplest to climb onto the sea witch. Even Lalapeya helped, though Serafin wasn’t certain if she was merely taking the opportunity to dip her hands into the water again to feel for heaven knew what.

  Only two yards.

  Only one.

  The turtle shell bumped against the witch’s fish tail. The scales were as large as wagon wheels, overlaid with seaweed, slime, and algae that had settled into the cracks. The stink took their breath away. The boys swallowed and fought with their nausea until their noses and stomachs gradually got used to it. Only Eft and the sphinx seemed to be immune to it.

  No one wanted to be the first to lay a hand on the scaly tail. Even Eft, deathly pale, stared at the dead witch, although Serafin suspected that she had other reasons for that. Later, he said to himself. Not now. Not one single worry more.

  He took heart, grasped Dario’s shoulder, balanced a long moment in the rocking shell, and then grabbed the edge of a scale with his right hand. The scabby horn plates were arranged like roof tiles, overlapping one another, and offered enough grip for fingers and feet. Had there not been the horrible stench, Serafin would almost have felt at home: In his lifetime, he’d already climbed up and down so many roofs that climbing a fish tail was child’s play.

  Once on top, he turned and looked along the curve to the sea turtle shell. From here it was even more clearly visible how low the shell already lay in the water. Eft’s estimation had been more than generous. Serafin doubted that the shell would have stayed afloat for more than an hour longer.

  He couldn’t help the others, could only watch as, one by one, they climbed over the edge of the shell, grabbed onto the scales with trembling hands, and tried somehow to get a grip on the slippery surface. The tangle of dead water plants was as slippery as soft soap, but somehow they all finally succeeded in reaching the highest point of the bulge of the tail. Eft was the last to leave the shell. Serafin and Dario reached down to pull her up.

  The sea turtle shell rocked for a while longer beside the body, then it was seized by a current and carried away. Aristide and Tiziano watched it go, but Serafin’s attention was now entirely devoted to the gigantic body on which they were stranded.

  He’d overcome the nausea, but the disgust remained. Never in his life had he seen anything so repellent. He stood up carefully and managed several steps over the rounded top of the fish tail in the direction of the upper body.

  A hand was placed on his shoulder from behind.

  “Let me go first,” said Eft, walking ahead of him and taking over the lead. The others, including Lalapeya, stayed back on the tail. As long as the cadaver lay quietly in the water, nothing could happen to them there, and for a moment Serafin enjoyed the quiet at the side of the silent Eft.

  As soon as they’d left the scales, the consistency of the surface under them changed. The belly of the witch was soft and spongy; with every step the indentations around Serafin’s soles filled with fluid. He’d often walked through Venice’s piazzas when markets there had been dismantled; then the pavement was overflowing with an ankle-deep layer of rotten fruit and vegetables—this felt very similar under his feet.

  They meandered through the hollows between the ribs. Water had collected in long puddles, with all kinds of small animals darting about in them.

  From here Serafin could make out the witch’s chin, a p
ointed triangle above several broad swellings. Behind it the nostrils were visible, two cave openings under a sharp ridge of skin and cartilage.

  A wide scar divided the chin, overgrown by proud flesh. Eft saw it and stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Instinctively, Serafin looked all around him. There was no threat of danger, at least nothing he could name.

  Eft’s face, despite the taxing walk, was chalk white.

  “Eft,” he said imploringly, “what’s the matter?”

  “It is she.”

  He frowned and at the same time felt his stomach lurch. “She?”

  Eft didn’t look at him as she spoke, only stared at the ugly scar, which was as long as a team of horses. “The witch who took my kalimar from me.”

  “Your scaled tail?”

  She nodded. “I begged her to do it, and she gave me the legs of a human for it.”

  “Why?”

  Eft took a sharp breath in, then out. Then she told Serafin the story of her first great love; of the merchant’s son who’d sworn everlasting faithfulness but then had shamefully betrayed her; of the witch’s warning that she could of course change Eft’s legs but not her broad mermaid’s mouth with the needle-sharp teeth; of how a few men had beaten her half to death while her lover looked on; and how Arcimboldo, at that time still a boy, had found her, cared for her, and taken her in.

  “Merle knows the story,” she said finally. “She was the first after Arcimboldo to whom I told it. You’re the second.” Her tone remained expressionless with these words; they were not meant as a distinction, not as a warning, only as a declaration.

  Serafin looked from her over to the gray landscape of the witch’s face. “And now that she’s dead, that means—”

  “That I must forever remain what I am today,” she said with a thick voice. “Not human, not mermaid.”

  He looked for a solution, a few hopeful words. “Couldn’t another witch—”

  “No. The magic of one witch can only be undone by her alone.” Her eyes mirrored the bleak sea. “By her alone.”

  He felt helpless and wished he hadn’t come with her, had left her alone with her sorrow.

  “It cannot be changed.” She didn’t sound really collected, but she was trying hard. “We’ll go back to the others.”

  Dejected, he trotted along beside her and imagined how this gigantic creature once had lurked in the depths of the sea, a hideous giantess who hunted for fishing boats and merchant ships—and, in passing, plunged a mermaid in love into unhappiness. He admired Eft’s courage: She’d left her home, had swum out into the open sea, into unknown regions, which alone must be creepy for mermaids, and had begged a sea witch for something. He knew very well he wouldn’t have done it. Not for all the love in the world.

  Not even for Merle?

  He quickly repressed the thought, but it was hard. He still couldn’t imagine what had happened to her. The uncertainty gnawed at him, even when he really wasn’t thinking of Merle at all—or other things were more pressing. Surviving, for instance.

  The others were sitting where Serafin and Eft had left them. Only Lalapeya had stood up and removed herself from the boys a little, in the direction of the broad tail fin, which floated on the waves like the sail of a sinking ship. She stood alone down there, her arms crossed, and looked out to sea, out into the emptiness.

  Dario got up when he saw Serafin and Eft and came to meet them. He was about to say something, perhaps to ask what they’d done, when suddenly Aristide let out a cry.

  All faces turned in his direction.

  It had not been a call, only an inarticulate sound, born of fear and sheer helplessness.

  “What—” Dario fell silent. He saw it too. Just like all the others.

  The water surface on both sides of the tail was no longer empty. Heads had appeared, narrow women’s faces with long hair that floated, shimmering, on the waves.

  Eft took a step forward, hesitated only a moment, then called out in the language of the mermaids. Immediately all the faces in the water turned in her direction. A remarkable chatter arose, sounds of surprise when the mermaids looked into Eft’s features, recognized the sharp-toothed mouth, and obviously asked why one of their people walked on legs like a human being.

  “I guess those aren’t the ones who brought us here?” Serafin’s statement was expressed as a question, but he expected no answer.

  Eft climbed down over the curve of the tail until the water lapped at her feet. One of the mermaids came closer, and then minutes passed while the two of them spoke with each other in the language of the ocean, entirely without gestures, only with words and tones and strange syllables.

  Finally Eft came back to Serafin, and together they went to Dario, Tiziano, and Aristide. Lalapeya also joined them.

  “To make it short,” said Eft, “there was a fight between two enemy sea witches. The older one lost—we’re standing on her right now. The other, a young witch, although she’s older than we all are—excluding Lalapeya, of course”—Eft gave the sphinx a half-hearted smile—“the younger therefore claims this part of the undersea as hers.”

  Undersea. Serafin was hearing this term for the first time, and it called up pictures of the suboceanic kingdoms, images that no human had ever seen and yet everyone knew in his imagination. Images from legends, from fairy tales, from ancient myths.

  “We’ve intruded on her territory.” Eft looked nervous, although she sounded calm. “And now she wants to speak with us. Not with all of us. But she wants two of us to go with the mermaids to speak with her and give an account of ourselves.”

  A murmur ran through the group. Only Serafin and Lalapeya were silent.

  “To be honest,” said Eft, “I’m really astonished. Sea witches aren’t known for dealing with humans. They eat them or do far worse things with them. But they don’t talk with them. At least not until today.”

  “Eat them,” Tiziano repeated softly, and Aristide turned ashy.

  “What do you suggest?” asked Lalapeya.

  “We obey,” said Eft. “What else?”

  Dario looked out at the good dozen heads dancing on the waves like flotsam. “They couldn’t come up here, could they?”

  “No,” said Eft. “But they could pull the cadaver under. Or ask a hungry whale to eat it out from under our feet.”

  Dario blanched.

  “I’ll go with them.” Eft’s decision was firm. “They have diving helmets with them.”

  Lalapeya sighed. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No,” said Eft. “Not you.”

  And then she looked Serafin firmly in the eye.

  He looked down at the water, then back at the friends—Dario, Tiziano, Aristide—who were staring at him, and finally he again met Eft’s gaze.

  “I?” He wasn’t even certain if he asked the question aloud or if it was merely echoing in his head.

  And again images: a mighty shadow, eighty, a hundred yards long; a white body that gradually separated itself from the night-black darkness; eyes that had seen more than fish in the depths; in them infinite wisdom, infinite guile.

  Slowly Serafin nodded.

  15 FRIENDS

  WINDS SMELLING OF TAR SWEPT AROUND THE SIDES OF the tower and whistled in openings and cracks, singing with the voices of the lost. For the first time, Merle thought that perhaps this was the Hell of the Bible and not merely a hollow space in the interior of the earth: the truth of the myths under a crust of rock and sand and dusky light.

  The tower had three walls, which gradually tapered toward the top, like a mighty lance point that someone had planted in the wilderness. Its edges were correspondingly sharp. When Merle looked inside through one of the windows, she could make out steps of stone in the halfdark. She wondered how angular a staircase with a triangular base would have to be and was glad that Vermithrax was taking them up on the outside.

  The obsidian lion stayed close to the wall, only a few yards away from the dark stone. Merle saw insects zigzagging over
it and other, larger creatures whose skins matched the background like chameleons; they remained motionless, sunbathing reptiles in a land without sun.

  “Merle,” said the Flowing Queen, “do me a favor and look at the falcon. I want to know exactly where he is flying.”

  She dutifully turned her eyes upward. The bird shot up close to the tower wall, much more steeply than Vermithrax could. The lion had to take care not to get too vertical or he ran the danger that Merle and Junipa would fall off his back. Also, Merle’s arms would hurt even more from the burden, because she had to hold Junipa’s additional weight.

  For various reasons, the Lilim at their heels were also not flying up the wall any more steeply than Vermithrax. Most of them had broad wings, which bore them forward with great speed; but when it was a matter of climbing upward, they fluttered like the fully fed doves on Venice’s Zattere quay.

  Earlier, before they’d reached the tower, Burbridge had called something to Merle and Junipa, but they couldn’t understand him because of the screaming winds and the noise of many pairs of wings. His smile confused her and frightened her more than she wanted to admit. It wasn’t a smile confident of victory, or of premature triumph—no, she almost had the impression that he was again showing his friendliness and kindliness.

  Stay with me, I am your friend. Give up, and everything will be fine.

  Never in this life!

  She could only vaguely estimate how high they were by now. The rocky wastes had long ago melted to a uniform orange; details were no longer discernible. At this height, the tower walls measured around a hundred yards from one corner to the other, and at that, they were only half as wide as those down at the bottom. Merle estimated that they had about half the ascent behind them, at least a mile and then some. The idea of falling off Vermithrax’s back at this height was anything but uplifting, and she was aware that her hands instinctively dug deeper into his glowing mane. At her back, Junipa was more silent than ever, but at the moment that was all right with Merle. She wasn’t in the mood to talk. Anyway, her breathing was so fast, it was as if she was carrying the others up, not Vermithrax.