by Liz Braswell
But the brown-haired princess was grinning and laughing throatily.
“Eric,” she purred, “that was positively naughty. And wonderful. Where do you get such imaginative ideas?”
She coquettishly took his hand like they were newlyweds and walked out proudly with him into the crowd, beaming as if she were also the mother of a very talented and precocious boy. Her two manservants trailed behind them, looking back and forth at the crowd with suspicious smiles, seemingly ready to kill at a moment’s notice should it be required.
Nothing was required; everyone was joyous.
Among the hundreds of people and creatures that were audience to this spectacle, only one was flummoxed by it.
Scuttle stood stock-still, an unusual pastime for him. Two very important things had been revealed in the play. And while he was as scatterbrained as a seagull generally is (perhaps more so), the wisdom of his long years made him stop and try to focus on those things in his muzzy mind, to remember them, to pay attention to his quieter thoughts.
“PRINCE ERIC REMEMBERS WHAT HAPPENED!” he suddenly cried out.
That was the first thing, and it was easy.
“Even with the whammy laid on him!”
Scuttle had been there when the land-walking mermaid had failed to win Eric’s heart, the sun had gone down, and he had married Vanessa instead. Scuttle had seen the mighty fight break out between ancient powers, so poorly captured in the paints and papier-mâché below. He had seen the ocean swell and waves rent in twain by the power of Triton. He had watched as the King of the Sea traded his life for his daughter’s and the sea witch, Ursula, destroyed him. The red-haired girl became a mermaid once more and swam sadly away, voiceless forever. Ursula-as-Vanessa remained married to Eric and now ruled the kingdom by the sea with little or no useful input from her hypnotized hubby.
“Yup, check and check,” Scuttle murmured. “And somehow my boy Eric knows this. But how?”
And what was that other thing?
That important thing?
The…almost-as-important thing?
Or was it actually more important?
“Waves rent in twain by the power of Triton,” Scuttle repeated to himself aloud because he enjoyed the sound of his voice and the big, epic words. His great-grandgulls rolled their eyes at each other and flew off. All but one, who sat watching him curiously.
“And the King of the Sea traded his life for his daughter’s, and Ursula destroyed him. THAT’S IT!”
Scuttle squawked, jumping up into the air in excitement. He beat his wings and the few lingering spectators covered themselves with their arms in disgust, fearing what the bird would do next.
“KING TRITON IS STILL ALIVE!”
“I’m sorry?” his remaining great-grandgull asked politely.
“Don’t you get it?” Scuttle turned to her and pointed at the stage. “If everything else in that show was true, then Ursula still has Triton as her prisoner! He’s not dead! C’mon, Jonathan! We got to go do some investor-gating of this possibility!”
“My name is Jona, Great-Grandfather,” the younger gull corrected gently.
He didn’t seem to hear.
With a purpose he hadn’t felt since his time with the mermaid Ariel, Scuttle beat new life into his tired old wings and headed for the castle, his great-grandgull gliding silently behind.
When the king and queen of Tirulia decided that the time had come for each of their children to assume the roles and habits of adulthood—and, more importantly, to move out of the main palace—Prince Eric quite unsurprisingly chose a small castle on the very edge of the sea.
The giant blocks that made its outer walls were sandstone, light in color and far more evocative of the beach than the granite and grey stone with which other ancient fortresses were built. A welcome addition by Eric’s grandfather featured a walkway out to a viewing deck, supported by graceful arches in the manner of a Roman aqueduct. The two highest tiled towers cleverly recalled architecture of more eastern cities; a third was topped by a pergola covered with grapes and fragrant jasmine. The great formal dining room, another modern addition, was finished in the latest fashion with floor-to-ceiling windows.
In fact, all the public and fancy rooms—every single bedroom in the castle, except for the lowliest servants’ quarters—had a view of the sea.
This was of great interest to the humans who lived in the castle, the villagers who bragged about their castle, and the Bretlandian visitors taking the Grand Tour who stopped to sketch the castle.
But the windows were of especial interest to the flying and scurrying members of the kingdom.
It was well known to all the local seagulls where the kitchens were, of course. Their windows were the most important. Boiled seashells, some with tidbits still stuck on; avalanches of crumbs that had gone stale; meat that had been left out too long; fruit that had rotted…All of it got dumped unceremoniously out the windows and into a hidden section of the lagoon. Hidden to humans, that is.
It was also well known that Countess Gertrude, a cousin of Eric’s, was much enamored with anything that flew and could be counted on to stand at her window for hours, enticing gulls, doves, sparrows, and even sparrow hawks to land on her hand for a treat.
The Ibrian ambassador, Iase, paranoid and terrified of poison, was constantly tossing whatever he was served out the closest window.
Anything that got dumped out of Princess Vanessa’s window, however, was known to be actually bad for you: sharp, and often really poisoned.
After a moment’s precipitous scrabbling, Scuttle managed to perch himself on the lintel of this last unglazed window, his great-grandgull just beside him.
“Huh. Nice digs,” he said, looking around with interest. Then he settled himself in to wait.
Seagulls might be a little scattered and unable to focus—sometimes greedy, and borderline psychotic if it came to fighting over a real prize—but the one thing they could do was wait. For hours if they had to: for the tide to go out, for the fishing ships to come back in, for the wind to change, for the pesky humans to leave their middens to those who so rightfully deserved to plunder them for treats.
Jona cocked her head once, observing a chambermaid dumping a chamber pot out the side of the castle, into the sea.
“And humans complain about our habits,” she muttered.
“Shhh!” Scuttle said, keeping his beak closed.
Eventually their patience was rewarded. Vanessa came sashaying in, leaving her two manservants outside.
“I’ll see you boys later,” she purred. They bowed in unison, almost identical twins in matching uniforms that had costlier jackets and prettier feathered caps than other castle staff.
The princess began to disrobe, pulling off her gloves, her mantle, and the wide hat that topped her dark hair. This was brown velvet with golden medallions around the crown and the plumes of rare foreign birds in the band…and she still left it carelessly on her bed. She quietly hummed one of the arias from the opera, one of the mermaid’s arias, and then opened her mouth wider and belted it out, knocking the seagulls back a little with the force of her musicality.
It did not sound like when Ariel used to sing.
Oh, it was the mermaid’s voice all right, and the tune was dead-on. But it was too loud, and the words had no soul, and the notes didn’t flow from one to the other harmoniously. It was as if a talented but untrained child with no life experience to speak of had suddenly been commanded to sing a piece about a woman dying of consumption who had lost her only love.
Scuttle tried not to wince. Seagulls of course had no innate musical abilities themselves—as other birds loved to taunt—but the song still sounded blasphemous in Ariel’s voice.
Vanessa laughed, purred, and made other noises with her throat Ariel never would have. “Did you enjoy that, mighty sea king? The little song from a lovesick mermaid?”
“I don’t see a mighty sea king,” the great-grandgull whispered to Scuttle. “Maybe she’s mad.”
>
Scuttle had no response. He frowned and ducked and peered back and forth into every corner of the room that he could glimpse from the window. But there was nothing, not even a small aquarium, that might hold a polyp.
Vanessa paused in front of the overwhelming collection of bottles and trinkets on her vanity: musky perfumes in tiny glass ampoules, exotic oils in jars carved in pink stone, enough boar-bristled brushes to keep an army of princesses looking their best. The one thing she didn’t have—which Scuttle would not have realized—was a maidservant performing these ablutions for her. She made a kissy-face into the mirror and then moved on, disappearing from view into her closet. It looked like she was holding something, but it was hard to be sure.
The two birds strained and leaned forward, trying to follow her movements.
“I’m so sorry you missed such a wonderful opera, Kingy,” she called from the darkness. After a moment she came back out wearing a bright pink silk robe. Now they could see that she carried a bottle half hidden in her voluminous sleeve. “But I think Eric may put it on again, one more time. Not that you’ll get to see it then, either. Such a shame! It was so imaginative. It was all about a little mermaid, and how she loses her prince to a nasty old sea witch. The hussy.”
She paused…and then cracked up, her delicate mouth opening wider and wider and wider, billows of distinctly non-Ariel laughter coming out.
She turned to hold the glass bottle up to regard it in the light coming from the gull-decorated window…and the gulls gasped.
It was a narrow glass cylinder, like that which a scientist or a physic might use when doing experiments. On top was a piece of muslin held on with gobs of wax. Inside was filled with water…and one of the most horrible things Scuttle and Jona had ever seen.
A dark green mass, gelatinous, with a vaguely plantlike shape filled most of the bottle. One knobby end kept it rooted on the bottom of the glass. Toward its “head” were things that looked like tentacles but floated uselessly in the tiny space; these were topped with a pair of yellow eyes. A hideous cartoon of a mouth hung slackly beneath. In a final bit of terrible mockery two slimy appendages flowed down the sides of its mouth, aping the sea king’s once foam-white mustache and beard.
The great-grandgull turned her head to avoid gagging.
“It’s him!” Scuttle cried—at the last second covering his words with a squawk, remembering that the sea witch could understand the languages of all beasts, same as Ariel.
Vanessa spun quickly and suspiciously.
Jona thought fast. She pecked at her grandfather—realistically, as if she were trying to steal a morsel from him.
Scuttle squawked.
“What the…”
“NO IT’S MY FISHY!” Jona screamed. She widened her eyes at him, willing him to understand.
Her great-grandfather just stared at her for a moment.
Then he relaxed.
“What? Oh yeah, right,” he said, giving her a big wink. “No—my—great-grandgull—that—is—my—fish!”
They both fell off the ledge, away into the air, wheeling and squawking like perfectly normal seagulls.
Vanessa ran to the window but relaxed when she saw just a pair of birds, fighting in midair over some nasty piece of something-or-other. With a snarl and a flounce she turned back inside.
“That was some pretty smart thinking back there,” Scuttle said, giving his great-grandgull a salute.
“What now?” she asked.
“Now? We go find Ariel.”
Far, far below the wine-dark waves upon which wooden boats floated like toys lay a different sort of kingdom.
Coral reefs were scattered like forests across the landscape, lit in dappled sunlight that had to travel a long and slow liquid passage to reach them. Long ribbons of kelp filled in for their Dry World tree equivalents. These bent and dipped gracefully in the slightest aquatic breezes, and were soft to the touch—yet tough as leather, sometimes with sharp edges. Fingerlike tips reached for the sun, photosynthesizing just like their landlocked brethren.
There were mountains in this deep land, too, and canyons. Just as rivers drained the surrounding countryside and flowed downhill in the Dry World, so too different temperatures of water flowed together, creating drifts and eddies. Fissures in the earth erupted with boiling water that blasted out of the hellish depths below—too hot for everyone except the tiny creatures whose entire existence depended on the energy from those vents, instead of on the vague yellow thing so far above.
And everywhere, just as there were animals on land, were the animals of the sea.
The tiniest fish made the largest schools—herring, anchovies, and baby mackerel sparkling and cavorting in the light like a million diamonds. They twirled into whirlpools and flowed over the sandy floor like one large, unlikely animal.
Slightly larger fish came in a rainbow, red and yellow and blue and orange and purple and green and particolored like clowns: dragonets and blennies and gobies and combers.
Hake, shad, char, whiting, cod, flounder, and mullet made the solid middle class.
The biggest loners, groupers and oarfish and dogfish and the major sharks and tuna that all grew to a large, ripe old age did so because they had figured out how to avoid human boats, nets, lines, and bait. The black-eyed predators were well aware they were top of the food chain only down deep, and somewhere beyond the surface there were things even more hungry and frightening than they.
Rounding out the population were the famous un-fish of the ocean: the octopus, flexing and swirling the ends of her tentacles; delicate jellyfish like fairies; lobsters and sea stars; urchins and nudibranchs…the funny, caterpillar-like creatures that flowed over the ocean floor wearing all kinds of colors and appendages.
All of these creatures woke, slept, played, swam about, and lived their whole lives under the sea, unconcerned with what went on above them.
But there were other animals in this land, strange ones, who spoke both sky and sea. Seals and dolphins and turtles and the rare fin whale would come down to hunt or talk for a bit and then vanish to that strange membrane that separated the ocean from everything else. Of course they were loved—but perhaps not quite entirely trusted.
The strangest creatures of all lived in a city they built themselves, a kingdom in the depths.
Here no roofs separated the inhabitants from the water above or around them; creatures who could move in any direction had no love of constraint. All was open, airy—or perhaps oceany—and built for pleasure and the whimsy of the architect. Delicate fences led visitors into the idea of another place. Archways, not doors, opened into other rooms, some of which were above one another. Stairs were unnecessary. Columns, thin and delicate as stalactites in an undiscovered cave, supported “roads” that soared around halls and were decorated with graceful spires. Everything glowed white from marble or pale pink and orange from coral, or glimmered iridescently like the inside of a shell.
All this beauty was the result of many thousands of years of art, peace, and patience—and little to no contact with the rest of the world. If Atlantica was an unimaginable, dreamy splendor to the few humans who had gazed upon it before drowning, it was also unchanged by the centuries; magnificently, eternally the same.
The creatures who built and ruled this underwater world were long-lived and content, with nothing but time and aesthetics on their minds, governed by kings and queens of the same bent.
Or so it had once been.
Now Atlantica was ruled by a queen who had seen another world, and been betrayed by it, and who would live with the consequences—forever.
The usual crowd gathered on the throne dais: merfolk of every hue, several dolphins who occasionally flipped up to the surface for a breath, a solitary oarfish, a thin group of sculpin. Primarily the occupants were mer, for the queen was holding court on the Ritual of the June Tide, one of the most important and solemn ordinances of the Sevarene Rites.
And she sorely wished she were anywhere else.
Kings and queens had to address crowds—that was part of the job. Most of the ceremonial aspects could be dealt with by just swimming someplace, looking regal, nodding seriously, and smiling at babies. But when the occasion called for a speech…
…and you couldn’t speak…
…
Annio was chosen to be the acting priest of the Ritual, so it will be he, and not Laiae, who draws from the Well of Hades.
She said this with her hands, carefully spelling out the priests’ names alphabetically in the old runes.
Sebastian and Flounder and Threll, the little seahorse messenger, were placed around the outside edges of the crowd, interpreting what she said aloud. They and Ariel’s sisters were the only ones who had bothered to learn the ancient, signed version of the mer language—but only the fish and crab and seahorse volunteered to translate.
None of them shouted loud enough—not the way her father had—so not everyone could hear if only one of them spoke for her.
(The one time they had tried to use a conch to amplify Flounder’s voice had just been a disaster. He had sounded ridiculous.)
In a perfect world, her sisters would be the ones doing it. Those who grew up with her and had similar voices could speak more easily for her—and since they were princesses themselves, everyone was more likely to listen.
But it was too much like work.
And the one thing her sisters tended to avoid—more than the advances of unwanted suitors—was work.
And so Ariel signed, and the interpreters interpreted, and various parts of the crowds listened to different voices trying to speak for her, and their attention was on the interpreters, and their questions were directed to them, and it was all a mess.
“Which Annio? The elder?”
“Was my child in the running, my darling Ferestia?”
“But at what hour?”
Her only recourse when everyone started talking at once was to blow loudly on the golden conch she wore around her neck as a symbol of office. She felt more like a silly ship’s captain than a queen.
