“Atlas and his people survived initially, due to various underwater breathing devices their society already employed, as well as by residing in technologically advanced underwater pods, but it could not last. But Amphitrite, mother of Atlas, took pity on her son, and in response to his pleas granted him and his people the gift of underwater survival, rebranding them as half-fish beings. Mermaids.”
And now we were into the part of the story that no one knew. Atlantis was not only a lost utopia sunken into the depths, but the birthing place of mermaids, thanks to the infamous family drama that always seemed to be at the crux of things among the gods. It was a classic case of “Moommmmm, Dad sank my kingdom!”, and the regular species-altering history that ensued.
“So Atlas was granted life beneath the surface, thanks to a mother taking pity on her child, and to let him retain some dignity she allowed him to play king of his city, still, ruling over his coven of mermaids even though her fathomless communion with the ocean trumps all other powers in the sea. And for a time he lived, and loved, and bore children with his harem of mer-wives–I being the firstborn, and first grandson to Amphitrite. I grew up thinking it meant something, but when my father died, the illusion that was allowed him of ruling anything under the sea, anything under Amphitrite’s jurisdiction, went with him. Upon the moment of his death, the symbol of Amphitrite appeared on the throne, leaving no question as to whose power really permeates every inch of the depths.
“Until now. Amphitrite is dead, and while I may seem like the obvious next in line for the throne, the sea will not accept me. She has always been ruled by, and identified as, a female spirit. You’ve heard it, I’m sure. Sailors call the ocean a ‘she’, always have. Amphitrite was not only queen of the sea, she was one with the sea. And the sea will only accept a woman in her stead.
“Which is why, in the wake of Amphitrite’s death, and as her royal next-of-kin who cannot technically inherit her throne meant for a woman’s spirit, I must take a wife. Thus, we have gathered in Atlantis for me to scour my prospects and choose a queen.”
Overwhelmed by the info-dump of lore and politics, I stared. “The ‘bit of a competition’ that you mentioned,” I guessed.
“Precisely.”
I took a breath–really just a mouthful of water–and let it out in a rush. It gurgled through my lips. “That’s quite a responsibility.”
Coda sighed. “You have no idea. I can’t even begin to tell you of the ugly ambition that has possessed every mermaid from here to the farthest reaches of the ocean. They have all become catty, jealous selkies, and I tire of the lot of them. I’m afraid the process of ‘choosing’ has gone on for some time, my opinion of any erstwhile candidate thus far soured.”
I chewed on my lip, imagining his plight. “You said Atlas bore ‘children’ through his harem of mer-wives. Do you not have sisters? Could you not appoint one of them?”
Codexious gave a rueful chuckle. “It was their vicious vying for first-choice that originally spurred me to choose a wife instead of a sister. I assumed a larger selection and my freedom to choose would solve the problem, my prospects far-flung and diverse, but alas. I fear the opportunity for that much power has had a corrupting effect on the entire female population.”
That was a conundrum. “How did Amphitrite die?”
Coda’s gaze grew painfully wistful, his silver irises darkening to a stormy gray. “Though immortal, with no sea creature that could challenge her, Amphitrite has died of a broken heart.”
Whatever I had expected, it wasn’t that. “How does the queen of the sea end up with her heart broken?”
“It is not something that one can adequately communicate. I will have to show you. But, that is for another time.” He picked up the pace again–I hadn’t even realized we’d stopped, but apparently I’d trailed off, engrossed in the tale–and, feeling somber, I drifted back into motion beside him.
“All right, then. How did Atlas die? I mean, forgive me if that is insensitive. It just seems…momentous and unusual, all these immortals dying.” Not to prolong the morbid subject, but…my curiosity was ricocheting a mile-a-minute off the walls of my over-stuffed brain.
“Ah, yes–the inevitable demise of Atlas. Despite what Amphitrite did for him, his greedy disposition was not something that could be survived. Such a disposition eventually catches up with anyone.” Coda cast a sly, sidelong glance in my direction. “You think you have stumbled upon the center of underwater lore, here at the lost locale of Atlantis. You think this is the deep sea.” He shook his head mysteriously. “This is not the deep sea.”
Awe peeled my brain back another layer. How deep did the lore go?
Coda unspooled another branch of his fantastical tale for my rapt consumption: “My father never could quite accept his fall from power. He’d been granted life and still had his throne and his city, merely under the sea, but as I said it meant little as it fell under the blanket jurisdiction of Amphitrite. And, inevitably, his people lost respect for him as the king of a fallen city. There was a reason he was stripped of his power and his kingdom plunged to its supposed demise by Poseidon to begin with, and no one ever held my father in much high regard after that. So, desperate to regain their respect, he went on a conquest. Swam into the deep sea to battle the legendary beasts who lurk there. The kraken. Giant sea serpents. Killer, whale-sized sharks. But it was his end.”
What a depressing outing this had turned out to be. “Wow,” was all I could think to say. “I’m sorry.”
Coda made a dismissive gesture. “King Atlas had a great many things to concern himself with over his firstborn son. We never shared any great love, my father and I. It did not come as a personal blow, when he passed. In fact, at that point I was off on my own lesser conquests, running amok in the open sea. Seeking thrills I could no longer find in a palace that had awarded me everything my heart could ever desire. I became bored with it all and went on a bit of a…rampage of self-discovery.”
“That’s one I haven’t heard before. A ‘rampage’ of self-discovery.”
“What can I say. I had become indifferent to the gratifications of high society and became a bit of a searching thrill junkie.”
I shot a considering glance in his direction. “The sea is lucky you mellowed out in time to make a responsible decision about the matter of a successor.”
“Who says I’ve mellowed out?” Codexious posed with a wicked grin, then sobered. “I can only hope my singular noble effort in this life counts for something, given my prospects. No one will count themselves lucky if my only options end up being power-hungry mer-sharks. The sea will become a ruthless place indeed.”
We swam in silence for a few moments, and then I had to ask, “Why are you telling me all this, anyway?”
Codexious shrugged. “The sea granted you passage into our midst. It seems you are worthy of the secret that is our very existence, so you might as well have our common knowledge. And given the cryptic omens in your dreams…I assumed you would rest easier, having the pieces put together. I still cannot say why you dreamed of such things, other than the essence of the sea running in your veins, creating echoes… But it did not seem kind to leave you to go mad, wondering over the nature of what you saw. What knowledge I have, it seemed right to give. And with all of it astir in the city right now, you would have gleaned it in any case, in bits and pieces.”
“Then I thank you, for shedding light on what you could.”
Codexious looked at me, his eyes glimmering bright silver once again. “You know, I never thought I would find myself drawn to anything of the upper realm like our dearly estranged Vel-Di’yah. But looking at you, I think I might feel a breath of what she did, playing in the light of the Surface. There is a…warmth…” His gaze searched listlessly back and forth across my face, trying to peg exactly what it was. Not quite able to put his finger on it, he trailed off, but not before the sentiment had sent that very essence–warmth–fluttering all through my limbs.
The cold-b
looded Atlantean royal was drawn to my warmth. And I burned hotter and hotter the more time I spent in his presence.
17
I had the distinct urge to fan myself when Codexious delivered me safely back to my turret and went on his way, but that only accomplished flushing my face with more water and reminded me of how Coda had awakened me that morning, so I left off.
Sayler, my girl, you’re in trouble.
I was wonderstruck out of my mind in a place that catered to every definition of a ‘fantasy’ I could ever have lusted after, being courted–however casually–by a sultry merman who was the definition of an exotic hunk if I’d ever seen one, and everything was new and exciting with the exact flavor of falling in love for the first time. So it was difficult–no, impossible–to separate the regent of Atlantis from those giddy sentiments. He could have been warty and blubbery, and I still would have felt like I was in love with him. But he wasn’t those things. It just so happened he was gorgeous and charming, which did nothing to help matters.
I just wanted to…study him with a fine-tooth comb like an old relic. He was immortal, after all. He pretty much was an old relic. It was the archaeologist in me, that was all. You made a miraculous discovery dating back thousands and thousands of years, you wanted to study it. Pick it apart. Caress–I mean dust–every muscle, er, crack and crevice. Yes, that was it, Codexious son of Atlas regent to the Atlantean throne was a regular old relic in need of studying, my curiosity perfectly justified.
Then I had to snort, likening him to an old relic. That made him sound like someone’s grandfather.
Just as quickly I sobered, wondering if he was someone’s grandfather. He could have…thousands of children of his own, and they could have thousands of their own.
He could be grandfather to millions.
I caught myself in a grimace, imagining. That rather put a cork of perspective in my erstwhile fantasies.
It didn’t bear thinking about, Coda and his possible millions of grandchildren, so I put it from my mind and decided to spend the day hunting down writing utensils so I could make use of my wax slate.
Did they have, I don’t know, stores or something of that nature in Atlantis? What did they use for currency? Was it more of a trading post type civilization?
My best bet would probably just be to ask someone, but how would that even go? Excuse me, hi–yes, I’m the new girl. Yes, the human. Well I have gills, you see. What am I doing here? Oh, you know, I’m just your average deep-sea tourist. Seeing the sights. Meetin’ some ’maids. Speaking of which, do you have a pen? Oh, great! Thanks so much! Be seeing you. Tootles!
No. There would be far more questions and I’d be far more obligated to elaborate on my presence and purpose and the essence of my nature and things, and how could I just casually ask for a pen when there were so many touchy and complicated and all around loaded topics swirling around me in a cloud of bombshell shrapnel at any given moment?
You didn’t just show up as a tourist in Atlantis and ask for a pen.
So, then, what were my other options? Two came to mind. I could find some substitute utensil and syphon my blood into it to use for ink, or…I could merely find something sharp, and write in the wax without any ink at all. It would still be legible, in the right light–or filled in with ink later, when I took my research back to the Surface.
If I returned to the Surface.
I mean, of course I would, right? And yet how would I ever decide it was time to just pack up and leave this place? This spectacular treasure trove? Like, Okay! I’ve seen all there is to see. Time to be on my way.
As if I could ever absorb all there was to discover down here.
And then what would I do once I returned to the Surface? Share all my findings with others? Exploit the secret of Atlantis so that others could invade it too? Because that was undoubtedly what would happen if any of my research was accepted as legitimate or proven as such.
The place would end up overrun by scientists.
That would be one thing if it had proven to be just a graveyard of ancient ruins. But it wasn’t. It was the capital of a magical underworld, teeming with fantastical creatures that, if also discovered, would be exploited just like the city itself.
My heart sank as it became increasingly clear my discovery was not one to openly share with the masses. It wasn’t that I cared to go down in the history books, really, just…not being able to share something so paramount, so invigorating with a community that would be just as excited as I was… It was a tragedy.
Just swallow the secret, and pretend you didn’t make the most miraculous discovery the modern world has ever known. Talk about the greatest discovery since landing on the moon.
I’d essentially landed on the moon, and very well might not be able to tell a soul.
In which case…what would my research even matter?
But I couldn’t just not research. It was against everything that had ever been drilled into me, against the uber-conditioned fibers of my nature. An insult to the sacred integrity of my profession.
But there were other things that were sacred, here.
Jellyfish, for one.
A sanctuary–a protected habitat–for unthinkable life, for another. If ever something had been a haven for an exotic, endangered species, this was it.
Well, I could decide later what to do with my research. In the meantime, it didn’t hurt to collect information for my own study, certainly. Eager to get something down in my log, I extracted my single little wax tablet from its slot in the wall and decided to go back to the submarine-like vessel I’d discovered wrecked in the rubble, and take what notes I could. I scratched at the current message scrawled in the wax as I swam toward the outskirts of the city, and once I’d gouged off the written layer, I smoothed out the remaining wax with my thumb, creating a blank slate.
It wasn’t much, but it would get me started.
Buzzing with excitement, I scavenged a shard of rubble from the crumbling mound and used the sharp end like a pencil, crowding around the half-buried sub to start my inspection.
Utensil hovering over the wax, I balked. Come on, Sayler, just describe what you see. Observe some basic features. Make a hypothesis. Collect a sample. Sketch a sketch.
But the enthusiasm went out of me, as I couldn’t shake the feeling that I would be violating something sacred, or at the very least disturbing it, if I were to go probing about committing it all to record.
I couldn’t do it.
Disheartened, I touched the shard to the wax, and what came out was:
Atlantis Expedition, Day 1: Still searching. No sign of the lost city.
Heavy with resignation, I let my arms fall back to my sides and left it at that. The secret intact, the treasure trove undisturbed.
Oh, beautiful minefield of delectable discoveries. How I wish I could turn you inside out.
But alas.
I went back to my turret and lay there, defeated, questioning my place in the world and purpose in life and everything I’d dedicated all my time to in the last decade, ever since the Petroglyph Pathfinders Summer Camp solidified my archaeological obsession when I was eleven. All those years for what? To forfeit my shining moment.
Oh, hey, Atlantis. That’s cool. Moving right along now.
I slung my arms over my face, a dejected mood coming on. I was a disgrace to my field. Was there even any point in living, after passing by the greatest achievement that would ever come my way? After committing the atrocity of covering up the discovery instead of spreading knowledge and wonder to the rest of the world?
Having lost all reason to carry on, I drifted into a despondent, melodramatic sleep.
A chord of brassy, majestic notes filtered into my dreams, rekindling one of the chief taunts that had lured me to Atlantis. It seemed my dreams were the source, at first, but there was a distance about it that set me seeking, chasing, fighting through the unconscious haze until I was blinking awake in conclusion.
The sound warbled
through the city, muffled but unmistakable. I hadn’t gotten around to investigating the existence of that specific hook since arriving at the gates, but the curiosity was as ripe as ever.
Was the pipe organ a real entity, something physical that resided in Atlantis? Who played it?
I twisted slowly out of my sleeping position, meandering to the window to peer out. I saw no sign of the instrument from my tower, and so went in search of the source, fulfilling the prophecy in my dream.
The water was still and cool against my skin, bathing me in tranquil chills. I frog-stroked my way down into the empty streets, wondering where everyone was, following the sound of the music. It grew louder in the direction of the palace, and I tracked it up to an open skylight that looked down into a cavernous cathedral of jade ruins. Cracked pillars and the ruptured, unintended mosaic floor crumbled toward a steep cluster of stairs that rose against the back wall, and atop the landing–which was pitched at a severe slant from whatever upheaval had affected the chamber–was the beast in question.
The pipe organ.
The same mother-of-pearl keys and unicorn-horn shell pipes I’d seen in my dreams and that lifelike mirage stood in ultra-real majesty before my eyes. And who stroked those mottled iridescent keys than the regent of Atlantis himself, rather than the ghost I half expected.
Codexious. He levitated regal and upright before the instrument, no need of a bench when you could just float, the five-tiered keyboard a perfect span for his full drawn-up height.
Sirens and Scales Page 179
