Sirens and Scales

by Kellie McAllen

  He considered the slits on either side of my ribcage then, and I tried not to squirm from the feeling of his gaze on my naked torso. For so long I’d taken pains to hide my midriff, and suddenly I was disrobed for the scrutiny of all who cared to look. Who would have ever thought I’d end up a specimen of eye candy for merman royalty?

  “And how is it you came upon our secret fold of the ocean?” the mer-king wanted to know.

  “I have been haunted by tremors from the deep for as long as I can remember. I simply answered the call of the sea.”

  “The call of the sea,” he noted with interest, the shifting light of the lantern fish above casting his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks into shadow, thanks to an intense brow-line and stunning, high cheekbones. “What does that sound like?”

  “It sounds like pipe organ music,” I replied before I realized I was going to take that route.

  A flicker of intrigue wormed through his gaze. “Anything else?”

  “Whale calls mimicking the song of the sirens. The whispers of the waves trapped in seashells, that always sounded like poetry to me rather than white noise...”

  Somehow, he managed to look like a perfect mix of riveted and distracted, my bare legs as intriguing as my account. “Interesting.”

  “And I have dreams.”

  “Dreams?”

  “Of a giant coral-pillared crown.”

  Intrigue turned to bemusement. Aha. I had struck some significant nerve.

  “They recovered it from the sea, you know. The humans. They think it’s a piece of architecture. But I know otherwise,” I announced haughtily.

  “Do you indeed.” While I may have detected a morsel of surprise, his voice didn’t let on. But I’d seen it, and I latched onto the trickle of being privy to something significant, clutching at the chance to entertain the upper hand.

  “And,” I plowed on while I had him in a considering mood, “I was granted passage through the great Maelstrom Aurora portal, herded by the spirit of the sea itself into the eye of the Atlantean Current, directed by your friends the whales all the way to your gates and granted passage through those gates, so I’ll have you know I was invited fair and square and I demand to be released from imprisonment and allowed to go free in your city.”

  Now it was both eyebrows touching the bottom edge of his circlet, and in place of the surprise I detected a bit of amusement. “Well, Spitfire Splittail.”

  Annnd, the name had already evolved. But–That’s right, I thought. Spitfire Splittail’s the name, and you’d better believe there’s more where that came from.

  The mer-king dropped his hand back to the arm of the throne, his fingers tracing an absent pattern where they dangled over the lip. I found myself oddly entranced by the motion, evocative of a sensual caress. He had the perfect fingers for rubbing genies out of bottles, I caught myself thinking, and had to snap myself out of such misplaced fantasies.

  “After much consideration,” the mer-king went on, and…was that a hint of sarcasm I sensed? Maybe they spoke more of my language than I thought. “I have decided you were unfairly apprehended, and you are released to go free in our city.”

  Oh. Just like that? I was already gearing up for more of a fight. Had the account of my ocean-blessed journey of destiny convinced him, or had it been whatever his wingman had whispered in his ear? Or perhaps his intent aquamarine scrutiny simply liked what it saw? With my luck, I hadn’t even needed to get all dramatic, and had just made a buffoon of myself contending with no one. The way he was looking at me, I realized it might have been overkill trying to win him over.

  “I am?” I asked somewhat lamely.

  “Yes. You are. But I should like to hear more of your journey, and of your experience on land. Please accept my apology for the coarse hospitality you were treated to upon entering our gates. I am Codexious, son of Atlas, Regent of the Atlantean throne, and I should like to invite you to dine with me. You must be starving after your journey.”

  Well, that was a swing from the hostility that had seen me thrown in the dungeon as my first impression of how Atlantis was run. But I shouldn’t question my luck. Maybe it really had just been an uncharacteristic misunderstanding, the sight of my alien legs an alarming intrusion. I couldn’t say what the extent of their interaction with the human realm was, but there was a reason they kept to themselves and stayed hidden down here, surfacing only in vague snatches that were chalked up to myth and legend.

  I decided to take the change of heart at face value. I could probe into the core of it later. “I’m…Sayler Deering. Orphan of the Tides.” After Codexious’ flowery intro, I just felt like I needed something cool, too. And only as I coined my own title were the things he’d said starting to register. Son of Atlas. ‘Regent’ to the throne. Not king. Which made sense since Atlas was supposedly the ruler that ‘Atlantis’ was named after. Where was he?

  Really, Sayler? ‘Where’s Atlas?’? Like there aren’t more pertinent questions like HOLY COW, THE MYTH IS REAL? THE GODS ARE FREAKING REAL?!

  I was taking this all in stride rather well. But after all the mysticism of my journey that got me to the gates of Atlantis, I didn’t feel like much would surprise me, anymore.

  To the same tune, my next reaction was to realize Codexious had made an offer, and was waiting for me to accept. I hurried to add, “And I would be honored, to dine with the regent of Atlantis.”

  Codexious clapped his hands, the motion a lacy smear of water. “Excellent. It’s settled, then.” Pushing himself away from the throne, he undulated into a vertical hover. “I will have a banquet laid out. Ackbaroo, please escort Lady Deering to the dining hall. I will join you momentarily.”

  And just like that, I was set to dine with mermaid royalty, in the Atlantean palace, in my underclothes.

  Destiny never bothers to mention the less glamorous quirks you encounter along the way. Ah, but alas. The circlet of abalone shells was the only thing the regent wore that he hadn’t been born with, so by that standard, I was going overdressed.

  12

  Codexious glided down the runner toward the doors. I couldn’t help but run my gaze over every inch of him afresh as he passed, amazed at the fantastical detail that decorated him with luster, the ultra-real texture of his scales, the intensity of his glimmer-lashed eyes and blue-shimmer eyeshadow. As amazed as I’d been when the triton-wielding mermaid materialized from her camouflage in the city, or at the combination of masculinity and grace of my merman captor, Codexious was all the more magnificent.

  And tall. I wouldn’t think that height was something that would come into play underwater, where you could float just as high off the ground as you pleased, but I still tended to hug the ground–old habits, I supposed–and with the tattered end of his tail clearing the runner tiles Codexious loomed over me.

  A squeak bottled up in my throat, which I swallowed before it could betray me. Hello, you glorious specimen of a merman, you. And then, just as swiftly and quite wistfully, Goodbye… Because he was vanishing out the throne room doors, his stocky advisor following him out. I was left alone with my captor–Ackbaroo, what a name–who did as he was bid and swept me off to the dining hall.

  The dining hall was a dusky, stagnant cavern, the chandeliers and table settings all adrip with strands of moss and seaweed that might as well have been cobwebs. Many-paned skylights cross-hatched the long apex ceiling, but the glass was foggy with the residue of great age, the underwater version of layers of dust.

  Clearly, not many actually dined in the dining hall.

  Ushering me to a chair at one end of the mile-long table, Ackbaroo invited me to sit and levitated at my flank while we waited for my host. I maintained a timid silence in the dreary setting, wondering if the whole meal would be this gloomy. No sooner had the regent’s show of hospitality reassured me than my confidence faltered anew at the place’s haunting nature.

  Soon the doors on the opposite side of the room opened, and in swam the regent, seating himself with a flourish
in the chair at the other end of the table.

  “I do apologize for the gloom,” he excused the state of the hall. “It isn’t often we have guests.”

  I shifted awkwardly, not used to sitting underwater, and with a pointed glance about the dank chamber couldn’t help but ask, “Do you ever?”

  “Well… The short answer is yes. The long answer, however, is much closer to no. We’d need at least another course than I’ve ordered to get through that. So, if it’s all the same to you, we’ll save that for another time.”

  “Sure.”

  It was then that the doors behind him opened again, and in streamed a parade of manta rays with–was that our dinner riding in on their backs? Tarnished silver platter-saddles were balanced seemingly by magic between their rubbery wings, equally as stationary food piled atop the platters.

  “Are these the servants?” I asked as a ray sidled up next to me and presented me with a platter.

  “They come in various shapes and sizes. Please, help yourself. Ackbaroo, I don’t believe we will be requiring your services any longer.” He dispensed with my warden, and soon it was just the two of us, though when the rays had come through I did see the regent’s wingman loitering just outside the doors. In case I was the type to try anything stupid? I’d surmised he was an advisor figure, but perhaps he was more like a bodyguard. Or both.

  Not that he needed to worry. The sheer length of the table that spanned between myself and the regent was a pretty sure-fire deterrent, more of a barricade than most walls. And not that I was devising any shenanigans.

  I helped myself to the manta ray’s offerings. Naturally, the menu consisted of a long seafood buffet. Nothing, of course, needed to be salted, and even if it didn’t measure up to what my palate was accustomed to, I didn’t think I would much care. I was famished, my swim across the ocean leaving me hungry enough to eat a whale. I dug in without much regard for ceremony, only pausing to realize I was being a slob and putting on quite a show and that I might have violated any number of cultural rules of etiquette regarding eating. I glanced up with my mouth full to find the regent watching me, sucking a delectable morsel much more slowly from his fingers.

  I cleared my throat, sitting up straight again. “It’s very good,” I offered, hoping a compliment would smooth over any social offenses.

  “I am glad you like it.”

  More reservedly, I continued with the meal, twisting a spool of kelp noodles around a trident-shaped fork.

  “Again, you must forgive our aggression upon first receiving you in our midst,” Codexious said, bringing my attention back to him. “As you can well imagine, whenever the possibility of our existence slips out to the human race, the very idea of our kind is most rigorously hunted. So we protect the secret with utmost devotion.”

  I could understand that. “No offense taken,” I assured him, but if I was being completely open about the matter I might also add that being unjustly thrown in prison was a grievance I was only likely to forgive once.

  “We were startled to find someone with human traits perusing our streets. But clearly there is more to you than a shock of legs. Inaja, here”–Codexious waved offhandedly toward the doors where I’d glimpsed his wingman–“has a theory as to who you are.”

  “Oh?” Was there really a chance they knew something of my ambiguous heritage? Was it possible that I, a mere hybrid mortal who’d never set foot more than a few meters below the surface before, who’d spent much of her life in self-imposed desert exile, meant something to those on the bottom of the ocean?

  “The ‘Lost Child of Vel-Di’yah’,” Codexious quoted, like I was some legend.

  “Um…Vel-Di’yah?”

  “It is a tale of forbidden love, and a mother torn apart by doing what was best for her child. Vel-Di’yah was one of our own–I never knew her, but the story has made the rounds. She became infamously ‘the mermaid who loved a sailor’. Vel-Di’yah always had a dangerous love affair with the upper layers, the feeling of the sun on her scales. She was drawn to the way the light played off the surface–‘like a moth to a flame’, I believe you say. It is no great surprise that any man who spotted her would fall in love; the fact that she found she loved one in return was the real crux of the scandal.

  “He was an islander from the East, I know not his name. I know only they fell in love and enjoyed a dalliance in the shallows, and met again whenever he went out to sea with the ships. Obviously enough they could not cohabitate, and the union was expressly forbidden, and after enough compulsion from her fellow mermaids Vel-Di’yah and her human lover went their separate ways. But no sooner did they estrange themselves than she learned she was with child. Not knowing whether the child would be mer or human, she went to the shallows to give birth.

  “The story goes that the child had both legs and gills, and some webbed fingers and toes–and that, knowing one without fins would either be rejected by many in the mer-realm or would simply lack the fish-power to keep up with finned peers or otherwise escape the dangers in the open sea, the best realm for the child would be that of the humans. And so she left the child on a beach and kept watch until someone retrieved it, and left it to the care of the upper realm.

  “Vel-Di’yah was never the same after that, and one day she swam disgraced and heartsick into the deep ocean, disappearing without a trace. She has not been seen since.”

  What a troubled, sad tale. Could the scandal really be the story of my mother? I fit the bill of a wayward hybrid with gills and legs if anyone did. It was just the ‘webbed fingers and toes’ bit that didn’t jive.

  Although, now that he mentioned it I remembered Sandy telling me something about having Scarlet Fever when they found me as a baby, and cutting off the excess skin that had been shedding from my feet. Had it actually been webbing, which no one recognized just as no one had ever seen anything ‘off’ about the marks flanking my ribcage?

  I frowned in thought. “I don’t suppose this scandal took place, oh, twenty-two years ago?”

  “The merfolk do not measure time in the same way as the human realm. There is no day and night, down here. Just the enduring aurora that lights our city and the ever-dark shadows that haunt the depths. Ripples of light and dark in between. But, in relation to the long lives we entertain as immortals, the scandal took place in recent times.”

  “You’re immortal?”

  “That surprises you?”

  “No, I just…wondered why you sit on the throne in place of Atlas, and thought maybe it was simply because he…died.”

  “He did. Die. But it was by his own folly, not old age.” Codexious picked up a shell of what looked like butter and knifed out a creamy dollop to spread on something scallop-like.

  “So are you…I don’t know, his heir? I couldn’t help but notice you called yourself ‘regent’. Not king.”

  “The heir to the Atlantean throne is a complicated matter. Suffice it to say the throne no longer represents only the city, and the matter of an heir is no longer simply a family matter.”

  Whatever that meant. But we were talking about my heritage, and I wasn’t ready to abandon that subject to dive into mermaid politics.

  “Do you know what she was like?”

  “Vel-Di’yah?”

  I gave an indiscriminate nod.

  “I’m afraid not. Like I said, I never knew her myself.” At my disappointment, he grew discerning. “Wondering if there’s any resemblance?”

  I felt a little sheepish, not sure why.

  “You’ve got the gills,” he pointed out. “Who, if not Vel-Di’yah’s lost child?”

  I frowned, that nagging curiosity swimming back through my mind. “All my life, no one has noticed my gills,” I mused aloud.

  Codexious pushed his kelp noodles around his plate, not looking surprised. “Mermaids are chameleons. As that’s the part of you that is mer, I would presume it camouflaged itself as a defense mechanism.”

  Hm. Yes, given the extensive chameleon effect I’d witnessed th
e mermaids practice when I first breached the city, that would explain the phenomenon.

  “How else do you think we’ve remained largely undetected all these centuries?”

  “I don’t know,” I pondered. “Maybe by keeping to the deepest, darkest corners of the ocean down here, where no one would ever find you?”

  Codexious shook his head. “We swim the ocean large. This is merely our capital. Some choose to loiter here, but mostly we gather for matters of council, special occasions or other pertinent functions.”

  “I see.”

  “Speaking of which,” Codexious noted, seeing my ravenous hunger had tapered off, “I should like to extend the offer to personally escort you through a tour of our city, and to see you properly accommodated, if you will allow it.”

  “That would be…lovely,” I responded, feeling like I needed to work on my eloquence.

  “Splendid. Then, if you are finished, we shall commence with the tour at once!”

  I nodded, looking for a napkin to dab at my mouth as a gesture of finality, only to realize how ridiculous a notion it was underwater. The ocean was my napkin, constantly washing away the dribbles and crumbs.

  Codexious rose from his chair, and the doors behind him opened, his wingman keen to the signals within the room and ready to present himself as chaperone.

  “Shall we?” Codexious asked, gesturing toward the double-doors.

  Rising likewise, I twisted and kicked into motion down the length of the table, joining him at the other end. I followed him out of the dining hall, and his wingman took up station behind us.

  It didn’t take long for me to envy the regent the fin that made gliding through the water look so effortless. But he humored my snail’s pace, restraining the undulations of his tail to the barest of flutters, and together we drifted back through the garish halls of the underwater palace, and out into the aqua-lit city streets.

  Scads of mermaids no longer bothering with camouflage glanced at our processional as we started down the main avenue of Atlantis, and as usual I could hear the ss’s of their whispers. What rumors were flying through their ranks regarding my arrival, or pertaining to the regent of Atlantis himself escorting me through the city?