by Aaron Crash
“You didn’t try hard enough,” the mermaid snapped. “You foolish, selfish little dwab creature.”
Gatha rose from the table, quietly, ominously. She walked across the kitchen tiles with her shoulders squared, her head held high, right up to the mermaid.
“Well, now, this is about to get interesting,” Jenny whispered and grinned. Lillee looked uncomfortable and slightly scared.
Ymir did think this was going to be interesting.
Tori rushed forward. “Now, Gatha, you shouldn’t take what Ribby says too seriously. She’s difficult, but I think, deep down, she’s an okay gal. She’s been through a lot, I can tell you that.”
The she-orc was already chest to chest with the mermaid. Gatha was big, thick, and muscular. Ribrib, on the other hand, was thin but taller.
The little redhead stood by awkwardly.
Gatha’s voice came out low and dangerous. “Tori is not foolish. Tori is not selfish. I believe you are those things. So I would apologize. I lost a fight tonight. Going to bed with your blood on my fists would make me very happy.”
“You mean you wouldn’t wash first?” Charibda made a face.
Jenny barked laughter.
Ymir winced. The mermaid was going to get hit.
Tori managed to squeeze in-between the two women. “Easy, gals. Ribby, sometimes you don’t have the sense the gods gave a naked mine-rat. Gatha, thanks for standing up for me, but it’s all okay. Let’s not ruin the party with a fight. We’ve all had a big day, what with the wave and everything.”
Gatha wasn’t relenting. And the mermaid was oblivious to how much danger she was in. In the end, it wouldn’t be much of a fight, and it would spoil the party.
Lillee widened her eyes at Ymir. “Do something. Please!”
“Careful, Ymir,” Jennybelle warned. “If you get in-between them girls, you might make things worse.”
Ymir stood, an idea brewing in his head. He walked over to where the tall mermaid stood.
“You’re right, Charibda,” Ymir said. “I know nothing of your kind, but everything I’ve heard has made me pause. And yet, here we are, on the brink of war. I’d like to cast a spell on you, Flow magic, to see your people. To get a sense of how much of a threat you are.”
The mermaid squinted her big, dark green eyes. “You want to cast a spell? You must be joking.”
“You can give that one up,” Jennybelle agreed. “Ain’t no way that’s happening.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, swamp witch!” the mermaid snapped. “I have nothing to hide. I come from a proud race, clever and strong. If you want to see into my life, barbarian, I don’t care.”
“But first you’ll apologize to Tori for those nasty things you said,” Gatha growled.
The mermaid sighed like it was a big deal. “Fine. Sorry, Tori. You’re not as selfish as some other people in the Zoo. And you are foolish, but not that foolish.”
Gatha went for the mermaid, but together Tori and Ymir managed to wrestle her back and sit her down in a chair.
Jenny patted the she-orc’s shoulder. “That was as good an apology as you’re going to get from Ribrib. And you wouldn’t be the first person who wanted to punch her. Nor will you be the last.”
Ymir stood in front of the mermaid. It was rather an odd feeling, craning his neck up at her. Her gaze was as cold as ever.
Tori sounded worried. “You aren’t going to do anything bad to my friend, are you?”
“Not at all,” he said. “I’d like to use my special ring, but I can’t. I have one of Obanathy’s scrying cantrips that might work. I’m just looking, Tori, I assure you.”
Jenny laughed. “This feels like a game of wizard eye I used to play with my friends on festival nights. We’d try to tell each other’s fortune. Supposedly, there are orishas that can help with that. Nothing ever happened.”
“That does sound like fun,” Tori agreed. She stood back, arms crossed.
Ymir put out a palm. “Touch my hand, and I’ll cast the cantrip.”
Ribrib looked nervous as she laid her hand on his. Extra skin, a webbing, lay between each of her long, elegant fingers. Unlike the mermen he’d seen, her fingernails weren’t long, thick chitinous knives, no, only normal nails, slightly pink.
Her hand was soft on his.
Ymir cast the spell. “Jelu jelarum!”
For a second nothing happened. He exhaled. The temperature in the kitchen dropped.
“What deep shit is this?” the mermaid cursed.
Then Ymir was taken into the ocean, in the cold depths. It was dark, but he could see. There were lights in a beautiful city surrounded by a kelp forest. Yes, mermen swam there, some with the single long fin he’d see in stories, while others had tentacles on their bottom half like octopus men. There were far more women, slender, long, and beautiful, with all manner of pastel-colored hair. They too had different types of legs, some human, some with fins, others with tentacles. Stone pinnacles, lit with Sunfire magic, shone in the wavering depths. Fish were everywhere, and some whales swam above, blocking out the light. There were sea monsters down there as well, he knew from his studies, but none were present.
Ymir found himself attached, not to Charibda’s life, but to her mother’s, Beryl. He could ride the streams of life, the Flow, from one soul to another. He was taken away from that underwater city to another place. He was near an island, sandy and full of scrub. The seas were the color of blood—that must be the Red Tide. The ocean was full of happy merfolk, swimming, talking, leaping out of the sea. The beaches were also full of revelers, under three moons in the sky...the third moon, the Wolf moon was there, so this was ten years prior.
Bonfires burned on the beaches, and farther up, on a ridge, was a temple, a holy place for the merfolk. This was the Red Tide Massacre, and he was seeing the Farewell Islands. To Ymir, it looked like any kind of gathering of people. There were children playing, lovers kissing, and old merfolk sitting around fires, talking of the past.
A second later, he couldn’t see anything, but he could hear the screams as something, someone, fell upon those happy people.
Then Ymir was back with the girl, the daughter, Charibda Delphino. She woke up in her room in her palace in some city under the ocean. She slept under the water, breathing through gills in her neck, her leg a single long fin with tendrils of extra skin at the end, waving in the water. She slept in a kind of silken net, near a single lantern glowing in her room, sculpted marble and beautiful trappings. The mermaid wept because this was after the tragedy, and in her dreams, she was with her sisters and her father and her mother’s sister-wives.
Before he knew it, he was propelled forward in time, ten years. He watched the ocean wave rise up in the distance, growing bigger and bigger, until it threatened to destroy the entire cliffside of Vempor’s Cape. Then, at the last minute, the wave swelled even more. The top came loose, all that water, full of debris, sent like an arrow at the top of the college. Was it trying to hit the Librarium Citadel? Or was it aimed at the Imperial Palace? Ymir didn’t know.
Professor Leel froze the wave.
Ymir was pulled from the scene and flung into the future, where he saw Beryl Delphino with the Honored Princept, up on the sixth floor of the Coruscation Shelves. They were on a couch in alcove, kissing. So Beryl wouldn’t be leaving any time soon.
He then was cast from the Librarium back to the Flow courtyard. He watched the mermen storm up the Sea Stair, like he’d seen before. Two moons were in the night sky, both crescents. The Axman’s moon was increscent, or pointing left. The Shieldmaiden’s moon was decrescent, or pointing right. The two moons appeared to be close enough that the tip of one was scratching the inner curve of the other.
This wasn’t a typical occurrence, but it definitely put the merfolk attack at a certain time in the coming months.
Ymir saw himself, armed with his battle ax, ready to fight the merfolk. The clansman was alive and well, so that meant either the hidden assassin had failed to kill him, or Y
mir had gotten to them first.
Lost in the vision, the clansman smelled something, and he wondered why there was a dog in Tori’s kitchen. He could smell the bestial stink of fire and shit, and he heard the growl. That thing, his old friend the hellhound, was as close as ever. He wasn’t using the Veil Tear Ring, but this spell had similar attributes. Then he knew the truth—it wasn’t the spell, it was the ring, some kind of aftereffect.
“Jelu inanis!” Ymir dispelled the magic, though he hadn’t known he’d been floating. He came slamming back down onto the kitchen tiles. He stumbled backward, and it was the mermaid that caught him so he wouldn’t fall.
“Your eyes are a bright blue, barbarian. And you were floating. Was that all part of the trick?” Charibda wrinkled her nose, obviously unimpressed. “Was that all there was, or did you see something?”
He told her. The Red Tide Festival on the Farewell Islands. The mermaid in her room, weeping. Charibda’s mother would stay at Old Ironbound for a while now. And when the moons were in position, the merfolk would attack.
The mermaid gave him a foul look. “Perhaps you wormies attack us first. Maybe my people aren’t the problem. Maybe you dirt worms are!”
She slammed her mug down and stormed out of the kitchen and down the steps.
“We have a problem,” Ymir said to his princesses—and to Gatha, who looked like she wanted to chase the mermaid down and beat her senseless.
“What’s the problem?” Jenny asked with a sigh. “Seems like we can’t catch a break.”
“During my Flow vision, the hellhound found me,” Ymir said. “I think my divination days are over. Also, that wave wasn’t natural, and the merfolk will be attacking us when the two moons are crescents. Like so.” He made his hands in to Cs so they faced one another.
“That’s in three months,” Gatha said. “It’s called the Lover Moons...in The Twelve Midnights, Willmur Swordwrite references it.”
Ymir grinned at her. “That will help me with my Second Exam, I think. I hadn’t gotten to that play yet.”
She nodded, as if it was all in a day’s work. They still had a month until the Second Exam and the Solstice holiday break.
Ymir gazed into the worried faces of his friends. “Fear not. We have three months to make the Yellow Scorch Ring, to find my assassin, and to make sure the merfolk don’t destroy our school.”
“And let me guess,” Jenny said. “You have a plan.”
“I have a plan.” Ymir smiled.
Jenny patted Gatha on the back. “Our Ymir always has a plan.”
The she-orc frowned. “I don’t like to be touched. Keep your hands to yourself.”
Jenny nodded and pressed her lips into a line. “I’ll make a note of that, Ms. Gatha. No touching.”
The she-orc crossed her arms. “So is that foul fish girl a part of the coming violence?”
The clansman sat thinking for a long time. “No. Ribrib is many things—difficult, sad, and mean—but she is not a part of this. No, she is heartbroken more than anything. Losing her family...”
He let his voice die.
The kitchen fell quiet. Even Tori stopped moving. Every soul in that room, from Gatha to Lillee to Jenny, knew about losing family.
It was the dwab that finally broke the quiet with a rare curse word. “Well, fuck me rocky, but I’m going to find this assassin. No one threatens my Ymir.” Then her face fell, and she swallowed hard. Her cheery mask had slipped.
“Not my Ymir. I guess it’s our Ymir.” The fire-headed girl grabbed a dirty plate to wash before she thought anyone had seen the look.
Ymir saw it. He lifted his tankard to the redhead and drained his last beer of the evening, which had turned into early morning. “I can drink to that, Tori. I can certainly drink to that.”
Chapter Eighteen
NEARLY THREE WEEKS later, the Honored Princept Della Pennez was at her desk late on a Sunday night. They still had a couple of weeks until the Second Exam.
The December rains had come in earnest, filling the cisterns and the moat around the Librarium Citadel. The chill air was scented with smoke from the busy scholars warming themselves. While the Librarium itself was chilly, Della had a Sunfire heater for her platform. A Forms professor had his scholars make her one decades ago. That had been an old man named Nephets Knig, the Studia Dux of Forms before Brodor took the job.
Ymir wouldn’t have such niceties as a heater up on the second floor. He wore both his storm cloak and his Flow robes as he bowed over his many books. He was up there now, his face lit by a lantern. He and Gatha had struck up an unlikely relationship after their fight. Yes, Della had heard about it. She’d thought to get the Sorrow Coast constables involved. Surprisingly, Gharam advised against it. Not only did they not want any more of the local kingdom involved in their affairs, the old Gruul professor said it was good for the she-orc to have friends. She was igptoor, after all. It seemed even a friend like Ymir was better for the girl than being alone.
Since it was Sunday, Della knew Ymir had lit his candle to say the names of his ancestors. He had too much self-discipline to skip his weekly ritual. There was something heart-warming about such devotion, given that he was saying the names of those who wished him dead.
Della’s thoughts returned to her own life. The amount of work she’d had to do was dizzying. Not only was she still sending sand letters about the earthquake wave, she was also managing the repairs on the buildings that were damaged, mostly Flow apartments, though the Librarium’s annex had been hit. In that case, the owner of the annex, a merchant in StormCry, was very gracious because someone was renting the second floor. Della did a little digging, and it was Tori paying the rent—for the candy business she supposedly ran, though Ymir was behind the Amora Xoca.
That particular brand of xocalati had become precious. Della had some in her desk drawer she was saving for a rainy day. Well, that night seemed rainy enough to partake of the aphrodisiac before she went to bed.
Della put her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes. To be working so late on a Sunday meant things were dire. She’d been trying to take the weekends off, but that was just a fantasy. There was simply too much to do. And she was still researching the Akkiric Rings, as well as the Midnight Guild. Could the two be connected? That wouldn’t be surprising. Both were mysterious, and everyone had their own opinions about the nature of each.
One piece of good news, however, had dominated the Princept’s life. The deal Marrib Delphino had made with King Velis IX was holding, and all was well. Merchants wouldn’t have to pay the merfolk families to use the sea, but they had entered into trade deals that gave the merfolk some exclusive rights to fishing, ocean resources, and other oceanic properties. The summit meeting had worked.
The Princept’s Flow magic hadn’t revealed the true nature of the wave, nor had it flushed out Ymir’s would-be assassin. The clansman went about his normal daily activities, which meant two things: he was a man not given to fear, and he probably had protection magic, like those Tree-damned Obanathy cantrips, which had been surprisingly powerful. The poet shouldn’t have mucked around with magic like that.
Della dropped her hands, opened her drawer, and removed the little package of the Amora Xoca, a small square wrapped in velvety black paper tied with red ribbon. She heard footsteps on the stairs. She glanced up, a bit guiltily, to see Beryl Delphino.
Beryl had stayed on as a special consultant to Della. It was an unpaid position, but then, the mermaid didn’t need the money. She was the Former Ocean Mother Divine of the Delphino family. No, Beryl was there to discuss the possibility of another attack. Both the Princept and Ymir had seen merfolk warriors lay siege to Old Ironbound. Beryl’s presence and advice could very well prevent that.
Della, however, found herself torn when it came to the Former Ocean Mother Divine. Could she ever really trust the mermaid? The Princept was having trouble resisting her attraction. That shouldn’t have been the case—not with her recent romantic experience. Yet having someon
e in her bed, even for that one night, had put such an ache in Della.
Beryl wore a thick coat over a warm woolen dress. Warm tights covered her legs. This woman was so slender the bulky clothes didn’t seem bulky. She looked warm and cozy. She carried with her a bottle of wine and two long-stemmed glasses, which Della recognized from the reception hall.
“May I sit, Princept?” the green-haired woman asked.
“You may.”
Beryl sat, placing the bottle and glasses on the desk.
Della felt a sudden desire to smoke kharo. She hoped a little wine and xocalati would help quell her various lusts. The Princept set the candy on the desk.
Beryl’s eyes went to it. “That’s the Amora Xoca. I’ve been curious to taste it.”
Della felt her face warm. “You’ve heard of it, then?”
The woman’s green eyes glittered. “Oh, yes, my daughter says she doesn’t like it, of course. My Charibda hates everything. Is it true that it gives one a certain feeling?” Beryl laughed. “I believe they say it puts a tickle in your glitter box. I had a lover who was very adept in business, and she would’ve come up with such a slogan.”
The Princept smiled tolerantly. “Yes, I’ve heard the same.” She let her gaze linger, and Beryl didn’t look away.
This mermaid hadn’t needed to say any of that. Beryl had purposefully said those inappropriate things. They’d been playing this game for weeks now. Della was tired and lonely, and, dammit, Beryl Delphino was in no way affiliated with her school. The mermaid was there to stop powerful, headstrong men from making war on each other. If the woman found some love there, who would be harmed?
Della felt her old recklessness take hold. “Beryl, you didn’t come up here with business, did you?”
“I have no real business,” Beryl agreed. “I like you, Princept. Or can I call you Della? I think I can.”
The mermaid was probing Della to see if she was interested. The Princept was. “You can call me Della. We have become good friends.” She then risked everything with her next words. “Perhaps, I’ve felt that we might become closer than friends.”
