by Liz Braswell
“Lunch? Compose? Walk?” Eric looked at him, aghast. “There’s too much to do to have time to eat or…play around with music! I don’t know where to start! Bring me the decree I signed for the warships, and the original order for dynamite, and any official correspondence with Ibria! At once!”
Grimsby’s face broke out into a warm smile, like a beach that mostly sees cold rain and the pummel of waves but wants to prove it is entirely possible for it to enjoy the sun, if only given a chance. “I…felt there was something different about you today.
“Welcome back, Master Eric.”
After attending to her maquillage, Ursula put her muffler back into place and nodded approvingly at her “public” face in the mirror.
“Everything is arranged with the guards, Mistress,” Flotsam hissed.
“Excellent. Now all I need to do is figure out this mess.” She pointed at her throat, not bothering to whisper. No one was around who mattered. With a wave, she dismissed Vareet. The little maid scampered off, hopefully to make sure the rest of the royal apartments were being cleaned properly. That stupid dog’s hair got everywhere.
“Perhaps a new voice would help? A new…donor?” Jetsam suggested.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Ursula said thoughtfully. “Not a bad idea at all. I’ll get right on that, later. So much to do…throwing the little redheaded twit off the trail of finding her father…cementing our relationship with Ibria so I can proceed with our military plans….But right now I have to deal with a petitioner. Ridiculous, really.”
Her receiving room was little more than a large study with a few bookshelves and a partially hidden door in the back that led to the library proper. Taking up most of the space was a large naval-style desk strewn with the books she was currently reading, sheaves of notes, a log for meetings, and a small burner for the teas and tisanes she told people she enjoyed for their…medicinal properties.
Which was not entirely a lie. While being princess gave her a different kind of power than she was used to—power over people rather than mystical forces—well, call her old-fashioned, but magic was still magic. Its potential for destruction surpassed everything else.
And she had none in the Dry World.
So she set to work researching magic of the land. Among the many occult trinkets she kept hidden were bloodstained crystals; the tongues of several extinct beasts; a curvy, evil-looking knife with a shiny black blade—and several books bound in strange leather that did not smell very good. They explained many things, from the proper sacrifice of small children to the use of certain herbs.
In one of these she ran across a particularly interesting spell known as a circuex that could potentially and permanently imbue her with magic that she could wield in the Dry World. Unfortunately it was a bit messy and bloody, involving lots of sacrificial victims, and it required one very rare component. Fortunately this component was something she just happened to have—because, as said, she was a bit of a hoarder.
She played with the new golden chain around her neck and considered.
No, not yet. Casting the circuex required an awful lot of work and commitment. And an end to her fun with Tirulia! She had such plans for the little nation….Maybe she would pursue the matter later. For now she would work with her rather prodigious non-magical powers: manipulation, deception, and all the gold in the coffers of the kingdom.
And as for the kingdom, right then she had to deal with more pressing princess duties. She settled herself primly into a tiny, very ornate golden chair with delicate curled legs that ended in the sweetest little tentacles.
Flotsam took a polished brass urn from a shelf and carefully tapped out leaves that resembled ashes more than tea. Jetsam decanted water from a crystal jug into a tiny copper kettle and set it on the burner. How he lit it would have been unclear to any human watching the scene.
One never knew when a tea like this would be needed….
“You may let in the first,” Ursula announced grandly—only remembering to whisper at the end.
“Lucio Aron, of the St. George Fishermen’s Cooperative,” Flotsam said snidely. Ursula tried to not roll her eyes. She was a princess. She did not have time for fools such as this.
A small man with clothes noticeably shabbier than the metalworkers’ came in, bowing as he went. He clutched his cap and seemed generally uncomfortable.
“Thank you for seeing me, Your Highness.” One hand went from his cap to his mustache, a plain, albeit thick, salt-and-pepper affair. His brown eyes were almost fully shaded by woolly eyebrows. “I wish my daughter could have come. She loves all the…royal things, you know. Princess things. Gowns, teacups, golden spoons. She’s even mooning over several of the Drefui boys—sons of the duke, you know. I told her, ‘You’ll always be my princess, but don’t set your sights above your station.’”
“What is it you want?” Ursula whispered, barely able to contain her irritability.
“Beg pardon?” he asked, leaning forward.
“What,” she whispered as loudly as she dared. “Do. You. Want.”
“Oh.” He blinked, surprised at what he saw as an odd change in the conversation. He took his cap off and twisted it in his hands, dark skin cracking into white lines around his knuckles and wrists and palms and scars. “It’s just…we need a new fishing trawler, Your Highness. I mean, I would like us to get it, of course, but one of the other companies would be better than nothing. We’ve been short one since the Chanderra sank.”
“We’re in the middle of a number of military campaigns,” Ursula whispered haughtily. “I can’t be throwing money around willy-nilly.”
Lucio leaned forward, nodding as if he understood.
Everyone was silent.
He obviously hadn’t heard a word she said.
“She said she’s not going to buy you a new ship because the funds are being spent on war,” Jetsam hissed impatiently.
Lucio blinked first at him in confusion, then at Vanessa.
“No, no, you misunderstand, Your Highness. We have the funds. It’s just that the shipyard is busy working on your warships full time. We were wondering if maybe…you could take a break…or…maybe establish another shipyard….Yes! Another shipyard. That would be good. For everyone.”
Ursula’s eyebrows shot toward the ceiling.
“You want me to what?” she whispered. “Waste time with another building project for—what? So you can fish?”
“Yes, Your Highness. So we can fish. That is what we do.”
He was obviously terrified…but it was also obvious that he had a cause and a belief he was committed to, and he wouldn’t back down.
Ursula hated people like that.
“I think. As a princess. I know. What is best. For my people,” she whispered, slowly and clearly.
“But…”
“Your audience is over,” Flotsam added swiftly.
Ursula whispered something that none of the three men could understand. All leaned forward in confusion.
“Your daughter,” she said, letting a little of her real voice come through.
The fisherman looked understandably startled.
“Yes?”
“What is her name?” she said.
“Julia,” he said, first seeming confused, then saying her name again with pride. “Julia. A beautiful, but sometimes naïve, girl.”
Good.
Ursula loved people like that.
Flotsam took the fisherman by the elbow and steered him out.
The sea witch wondered for a moment how, with all their fables, stories, and morality plays, humans still fell into the same old traps. It was kind of amazing. With their pathetically short lives they repeated the same mistakes of previous generations, almost as if they were all one endless being. Why tell a stranger the real name of someone you love? Why brag to a person in power about the beauty or skills of your son or daughter? Why offer up any information, or any need, when it could be used against you?
“Send in the next,” U
rsula said with a chuckle. The meeting with the fisherman had put in her a surprisingly good mood after all.
“Iase Pendrahul of Ibria,” Flotsam announced.
With rather more sureness than she liked, the ambassador—spy—sauntered calmly into the room. Now that’s a powerful gait, the sea witch thought. His skin was clear and his cheekbones high, his hazel eyes lit from within like an ember you thought you had put out. Thick, curly brown hair attacked the air around his head, barely contained in a riotous ponytail.
“My dear Iase,” Ursula whispered indicating the only other chair—a stool, really, with no back, set there for the express purpose of making the other person feel lesser. Yet the representative from Ibria took it and sat arrogantly at ease.
“I’ve heard you have a cold. A thousand blessings on your health,” he said, touching his heart.
“Forget about it, it’s nothing,” she whispered. “Let’s talk about our alliance.”
“We can talk—or at least I can,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “but I do not see any advantage to our siding with you. Your fleet is still short three of the warships you swore to provide—six, I believe, was the original promise. Your land skirmishes have been of questionable success at best. Burning down defenseless villages isn’t really much of an accomplishment—I’m fairly certain Gaius Octavius would agree with me on that one. Ibria is wealthy enough. We have no reason to spend resources on a war that doesn’t directly lead to our advantage.”
“Oh, but it will,” Ursula whispered, putting a hand on his arm.
Iase stared at her fingers with distaste.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked.
“It will,” she hissed louder.
“You’ll forgive me, Your Highness, but you have given me no proof of that. I see no reason to make deals with a princess who dresses prettily but lacks any strategic ability.”
“You refuse to deal because I am a woman?” Ursula growled, perhaps a little loudly, in her own voice.
“On the contrary,” Iase said, patting her hand and then removing it from his arm. “I have had many dealings with fine women I respect. Including at least one pirate captain. It is you, personally, Princess Vanessa, whom I am hesitant to entrust the resources or future of my country with.”
The two were silent for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. His were steady and dark; hers glittered strangely.
Ursula wished she were underwater. She wished she had her tentacles. She wished she had her old necklace. She wished she had anything she could smite him with—frankly, a large piece of coral would have done nicely.
First she lost her stolen voice, and with it the charm and forget spells that made dealing with the humans around her easier. Now it looked like she was losing a potential—and very powerful—ally. Not only would this be a severe setback for her war plans, but her failure would be the talk of the court. She would look weak and pathetic and incapable of mustering the help they needed to conquer their neighbors. And the weak were devoured. It was the way of the world.
“Thank you for your honesty,” she finally whispered.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, never mind. I need some tea for my throat. Join me?” She indicated the bubbling teapot: this gesture was perfectly clear, even if what she said was not. Flotsam was suddenly at the desk, laying out a pair of beautiful Bretlandian teacups, golden spoons, a fat little jar of honey, and some lemon slices.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Iase said carelessly. “Feel a tickle in my throat myself.”
She put the pretty gold strainer—not silver, no no, never silver; when prepared properly the metal had the power to negate certain desired effects of a potion—over his cup and poured, and over her cup, and poured. Strangely grey liquid came out, neither opaque nor completely translucent. It was precisely the same color at different depths.
Each person doctored the drink the way he or she liked: lemon, two lumps…Ursula put a candied violet in hers—one that had a silver dragée as its center.
“Good for the throat, eh?” he asked, holding the cup up to toast her. “To life!”
“To friends,” Ursula whispered over the rim of her teacup.
He raised his cup again before bringing it to his mouth—but waited until she sipped before taking a draught himself.
She watched him, the grey liquid pouring over his lips and into his mouth…and he swallowed….
On the fourth tide she was back at her lagoon as promised.
Flounder leapt into the air, flipping himself like he hadn’t since he was small.
“Ariel!! Talk! SAY SOMETHING!” he cried.
She smiled, feeling her cheek tug to one side the way it used to when she was indulging her best friend. She closed her eyes and put her hands in a student-y clasp, reciting:
“There was a young guppy from Thebes, whose fins would often grow—”
“Ha-HA!”
Flounder leapt into the air again.
She laughed, too, and ran into the water to hug him, unconcerned about her clothes. They were uncomfortable and hangy and close anyway, much heavier than what mer chose to wear. Flounder cuddled and leapt and nuzzled her like a puppy before recovering himself.
“Tell me all about it!”
So she did. And it was strange, telling a story with her mouth. She let her hands do some signing. It would have been uncomfortable keeping them still.
“Wow,” Flounder said when she was done. “That’s all…crazy.”
Jona dropped silently from the skies and landed on a nearby rock with the delicacy of something that wasn’t a seagull. “What did you learn in town?”
Ariel sighed and sat down in the shallow water. A warm breeze picked up the tendrils of her hair that were sticking out of the head cloth. She wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling young and exposed.
“I learned it is the wrong season for calçots. I learned about tattoos.
“I learned that Ursula is using Tirulia as the jumping-off point for her private empire, seizing land from neighbors who probably aren’t strong enough for reprisals, and that she is antagonizing other, larger powers. I learned that the town is full of soldiers. I learned that twenty-three of them have died in her crusade and yet dozens more boys go to join up because of the promise of gold for their families and the gold buttons on their uniforms.”
Flounder gulped. Jona let out an avian hiss.
“And all I can think of are these two things. One, I am in some ways responsible for those twenty-three who will swim no more.”
Flounder started to open his mouth; by long habit Ariel just held up a finger to silence him.
“Two, I think about what I would do as ruler of Tirulia. If I were Eric, thrown into this mess now. Human politics and life seem far more dynamic than mer. I’ve never had to deal with anything like it in my time as queen. Nor has my father. Nor my father’s father.”
“Oh, but what about the Great Kelp Wars?” Flounder asked with a shiver.
“That was over an eon ago,” Ariel pointed out gently. “There have been no wars, no battles, no…large disagreements since then. We’ve lost touch with the Hyperboreans and haven’t heard from the Tsangalu in decades. We exchange Great Tide gifts with the Fejhwa but little else. We have had naught but silence and peace for decades.”
“Sounds like a utopia,” Jona said. “Especially if no one is grappling over the last tasty morsel.”
Ariel smiled. “Yes. Nothing but arts and leisure, beauty and philosophy….But it’s all the same, and no one has had a desire to go find out what happened to the Hyperboreans or Tsangalu, or acquire anything from them besides presents. Surely their art and philosophy would be interesting, and might invigorate our own…somewhat static culture? The humans, on the other hand, are still exploring their world, every crevice and cranny.”
“But…” Flounder made a face. “But we were here to get your father back. Not to get involved in human things.”
“Yes, but t
he two are intertwined,” Ariel said, though she was impressed with his desire to stick to the point. The old Flounder would have let her talk indefinitely and hung on her every word. This was better. She needed friends like him right now. “I had to find out what the consequences of my actions were, and unfortunately, I have satisfied that. I have a duty to make things right for the Tirulians, in addition to—after—saving my father. He can help us defeat Ursula once he’s back in his original form and king again.
“Unfortunately, it’s also going to be much harder to find him now, because as I said before, she has been alerted to my presence. I made the first move, I had the element of surprise, and I blew it.”
“Stop beating yourself up, Ariel,” Flounder said sternly. “There’s no guarantee you would have found him the first time you looked, anyway. Ursula isn’t stupid. She’s not going to leave the king around in a vase labeled Ariel’s Father, Don’t Touch. Just because you made the first move doesn’t mean you would have been successful. Games take a long time, and a lot of moves, before someone wins.”
“But I don’t know how much time we have now. I don’t even understand why Ursula kept my father around this long. Yes, she likes an audience and probably loves bragging about her triumphs to him…but even she must get bored of that eventually. What if she’s keeping him around for some other reason? Which I have…interrupted?”
She squeezed her hands in sudden panic, pulled at her braids since she couldn’t run her fingers through her hair.
“Now that you’ve found him, you’re terrified of losing him again,” Jona said quietly.
Ariel nodded, too full of emotion to trust her words. That was exactly it. What if she had set something in motion by trying to find him? What if something happened? It would be her fault, all over again. And she would never get him back.
“I have to go back to the castle,” she said, fighting down the childish surge of panic. She stood up and tried to give her friends a reassuring smile. “Even though it’s a risk. At least I have a better understanding of the situation now. I’d better disguise my voice, huh? Since up until now everyone has only heard Vanessa using it. Mebbe I shood tahhk liiike this.”
