by Liz Braswell
“It’s real?”
“She’s really the sea witch?”
“The opera—it’s all true?”
The opera singers and orchestra members drew back in horror. The crowd closest to the stage pushed and shuffled, some surging forward to see and others trying to get away. But except for confused murmurs, everyone was silent, as silent as a beach before a tsunami.
And yet…Ursula didn’t seem nonplussed. She sort of floated in the water, her forearms resting on the marble rim of the fountain like a child at a pool. Her tentacles danced in a ring around her, splashing in the water as if they had minds of their own and were deliriously happy. She smiled and grimaced and leered at the people as Eric spoke. Vanessa’s jacket hung in rags around her shoulders.
“Kill it!” someone in the crowd shouted in disgust.
“She’s the spawn of the devil!”
“She is the devil!”
“Oh, you humans. So predictable,” Ursula purred loudly. Her voice resonated across the square in a way it never had in her tenure as a princess. “You know, not everything is about you and your Dry World gods.”
Her tentacles grabbed at the sides of the fountain harder, and looking neither fully octopus nor fully human, she pulled herself over the side, flowing like foul black ichor onto the dais.
Flotsam and Jetsam, bloody but uncowed, grinned to see their mistress in her original form. They immediately put themselves between her and Eric, giving him venomous, threatening glares.
The castle guards and soldiers looked unsure of themselves. They kept their muskets trained on the crowd, which was roiling and growing unpredictable. There, at least, was a threat they understood and could stop….Yet some of them separated from their comrades, turning weapons on—well, it was hard to tell whom. Surely it wasn’t the other soldiers? Or the prince himself?
Ursula cleared her throat. “Tell me, is there a…is there a mermaid in the audience? I have something to say to her. Come forward, darling.”
Ariel looked around nervously. Everyone else looked around as well, confused. For a brief moment there was a space between the bodies and her eyes met those of the apple seller. Argent shook her head: don’t do it.
“Well, no matter, I know you’re shy,” Ursula continued, drawling. “Sometimes it seems like you’re so timid you can’t speak at all. Heh-heh. All that is required from you is to watch. And listen. And do nothing as your entire world is destroyed.”
“Silence, Vanessa!” Eric cried. “It’s over. Give up. I’ll try to keep the guards and the people from killing you.”
“Very generous,” she said, laughing throatily. “Here, let me make myself a little more comfortable, before we get around to all that….”
With a sneer that was pure evil, she ripped off what remained of Vanessa’s jacket. On top of her black camisole she wore a heavy golden chain. And hanging from that chain was…
Triton.
Father!
She began to cry the word aloud, but pushed a fist into her mouth at the last second. The people she was standing next to looked at her in confusion, but it hardly mattered.
The large pendant Ursula wore was a glass ampoule with a bronze and wax top. Inside this floated a sad, disgusting little polyp whose tendrils still resembled the beard and mustache of the ancient sea king.
“Oh, come on.” Ursula swore in disgust, looking out over the crowd. Her hands were on her hips. “I’ve got your father, dear! I know you’re out there somewhere! I know you two were planning something big for me today. Although,” she added, looking at Eric, “I rather expected something more than being pushed into a fountain. Disappointing.”
Ariel took a tentative step forward.
Sebastian pinched her hard, on her shoulder.
“Don’t you dare, young lady,” he hissed. “You’re jumping in too early, like you always did with your solos. For once in your life stop being so impulsive and think!”
Ariel winced from the pain of his words. Was he right? But…that was her father! The whole reason she was there! He was maybe a goby’s leap from her!
“Guards, seize the creature who pretended to be Vanessa,” Eric commanded. “She is a dangerous enemy of the state.”
The captain of the guards and his top men jerked into action, finally with a clear path: their prince had given an order.
Yet still—some of them did not.
“Guards, stand down.” Ursula waved at them, almost lazily. “Or my boys will kill your prince.”
In a wink Flotsam and Jetsam had their daggers pressed against Eric’s neck.
Once again the captain faltered, as did the men closest to him.
“All right, I was hoping to draw out the little mermaid queen, but I guess the show must go on without her,” Ursula said with a sigh. “In case she is here, somewhere, hiding, let me make this very clear to her. And to all of you. My reign as Princess Vanessa of Tirulia is over.”
“No kidding,” Eric growled.
“It’s been fun, and I have so loved ruling you all,” she said, blowing a kiss to the crowd. “I’m going to miss you terribly. Well, probably not. But it was a nice growth experience. Just understand that what is about to happen is all because of ‘la sirenetta.’
“I was perfectly happy being your princess—and then she showed up. So I told her to go away. Very clearly. To leave us all alone. She ignored me, and came back, infiltrating the castle with her spies and henchmen.”
She paused and added, sotto voce:
“I have that dumb broad Carlotta strung up in the basement, and I am not feeding her. She could stand to lose some…attitude….”
Ariel choked. Carlotta, too? Was no one safe?
“And then—just as a side project, to shut up the dumb mermaid and her idiot people forever—I had planned to destroy her kingdom. Oh, yes, there’s an underwater kingdom of peaceful happy mermaids out there—but the point is, it had nothing to do with you all. Tirulians. I would have wiped the mer off the face of the planet and none of you would have been the wiser.”
The crowd began to mutter, puzzled by this. Ursula really doesn’t understand humans at all if she thinks they wouldn’t care. In one sentence the sea witch had admitted to the existence of a kingdom of mythical creatures—and how she now wanted to exterminate them.
“But she foiled that plan by destroying my fleet…and a number of your own fishing vessels as well. Remember that great storm? Yes, that was her. Every time I’ve tried to take care of her quietly, she comes back, ruining everything. If she had just stayed away none of this would have happened.”
It’s my fault that Ursula has my father? I made her try to bomb Atlantica? Ursula was twisting everything around so much—did she even believe her own rhetoric? Or did she just say whatever made her look good, knowing even while she said it that it was false information?
“Some of you who actually saw the opera might already know a bit of my past,” Ursula continued casually, regarding the tips of some of her tentacles. “I was a…powerful witch under the sea. But really, how much power is enough? So I became a powerful ruler on the land. And that was fun. But then I thought…why choose?”
Time stopped for Ariel. Blood filled her ears as the strangely banal question rang loud and ominous.
What did she mean?
“So,” Ursula sighed, taking the necklace off and holding the glass ampoule in her hands, “I won’t. Thanks to the ancient blood running in this little guy here, and…well, a lot more blood—your blood, in fact—I will soon be what you little folk would refer to as a god of both the Dry World and the World Under the Sea.
“Hold still now, won’t you? This won’t hurt a bit….”
Iä! Iä! Egrsi phtaqn! Bh’n’e vh ssrbykl Y’ryel varrotel phtaqn!
The ancient words flowed like black music through her body. No one had recited them in over three thousand years, and the culture that had spawned that priestess had disappeared into a howling vortex of chaos and agony.
So
on these Elder Gods would come and take the people of Tirulia as her offering and feed upon the soul of Triton. In return they would grant Ursula the unthinkable: power over two demesnes, two worlds that had always been separated under ancient, inviolate law. She would be the mightiest creature Gaia had ever seen—or bowed down to.
Hideous shrieks from beyond the stars rent the atmosphere, preparing the way for their singers to come through.
The crowd went deliciously mad. Like a mermaid’s song turned inside out, the verses ripped into their skulls through their ears. People screamed, trying to block out the sound with their hands. They sank down to the ground, and Ursula saw precious, bright-red drops of blood start to seep between their fingers.
Well, all right, she conceded. It might hurt. A little…
“No!”
She cried out before she had a plan.
Sebastian didn’t even chastise her, too busy staring in horror at the groaning and screaming people around them.
Ursula looked up. It was easy to find Ariel now; she was the only one still standing. The terrible chant in the forbidden language didn’t affect her the same way it did the humans, perhaps because she understood some of its foul purpose and its origin. It wasn’t meant for her, only the poor humans.
Ariel pushed her way to the front. Think like it’s a game of koralli, she told herself. What do I have that Ursula doesn’t expect? What is Ursula’s weakness?
“URSULA!” she cried again. “Stop this! I surrender!”
A slow, ugly smile grew from one side of the sea witch’s mouth to the other. Something like relief and pleasure mixed disgustingly on her face: she really had been afraid Ariel wouldn’t show. That she wouldn’t witness Ursula’s triumph.
The hideous wailing from the blackness beyond the stars wavered and slowly died off.
The groans of the Tirulians could be heard now as they recovered, weeping and bleeding.
“And why do I need you to surrender?” the cecaelia asked languidly. “I have everything I want now. Land, sea, power, a bit of a show, blood…What could I possibly want you for?”
“Please,” Ariel begged. “I know you want revenge on me and my father. But leave the humans out of it. They have never done anything to you.”
“La sirenetta?” someone whispered in wonder.
“Is she a mermaid?” another Tirulian asked, slowly straightening herself out, wiping the blood off her face.
“Wait, is the octopus-woman a mermaid, too?”
“Is that the mermaid from the opera?”
“She’s beautiful….”
“Ursula, I know this isn’t what you really want,” Ariel hazarded. “What you really want is to rule Atlantica, to show all the merfolk what you do to those who treat you badly. You want to to reign over and enslave the people who know who you really are. These humans have no idea!” She waved her arms at the crowd. “They have no concept of what happened to you a hundred years ago. Your triumph over the Dry World is meaningless, because they don’t even know who Ursula is. Everyone under the sea does.”
“Don’t tell me what I want!” Ursula snapped.
But she looked uncertain.
“Don’t tell me you actually like it here,” Ariel pressed. “It’s so dry and everything is so heavy and things fall and people live such short, ugly lives….”
“My feet were killing me,” Ursula admitted.
“Think about what you’re doing. Think about the forces you are calling on. Do you really want to summon the Elder Gods if you don’t have to? You know as well as I do that they don’t always follow mortal rules or deals,” Ariel said.
The sea witch was definitely looking unsure now. Ariel had to reel her in and finish it quickly.
“All right, so maybe just ruling Atlantica isn’t really what you wanted,” she said while she still had the moment. “But here.”
She took the comb out of her hair. It sparkled in the sunlight, far more clear and detailed than something that small should have appeared. It shimmered and melted and transformed into a mighty golden trident, flashing brilliantly.
The crowd gasped; even Eric caught his breath at the magic and beauty.
Ursula’s eyes grew big at the sight, utterly entranced.
“Just…let the people of Tirulia go. You can have Atlantica, and me….”
“And your father?” Ursula demanded.
Ariel swallowed.
The whole reason for her being here…Her one constant desire for the last five years…
Would she trade his ancient life for a town of humans? Some of whom killed her fish…and one of whom loved her?
Ariel nodded. Once.
“Ariel, no!” Sebastian howled.
Ursula cackled with glee.
“All right, then! I can always try the circuex another time. I’ll still have Triton! Come on down, pretty little mermaid! You’ve got yourself a deal!”
The Tirulians stumbled out of Ariel’s way as she approached the dais and climbed up onto it.
“Ariel,” Eric whispered. “Thank you. For my people. I am…so sorry.”
She didn’t say anything.
Flounder leapt up onto the rim of the fountain.
“Goodbye, old friend,” she murmured, going over to give him a kiss.
“Ariel, don’t,” he begged.
“I’m sorry, Flounder.” She stroked his fin. “But one thing you learn as a queen is…to never trust the word of a sea witch!”
And with that she let her hand fall into the salty water of the fountain…
…and with her other hand, she shot a bolt at Ursula’s heart.
It took a moment for him to grasp what happened.
Just a moment before, the love of his life had surrendered herself, her kingdom, and her father to the evil sea witch to save his people, and was saying a sad goodbye to her fish friend.
Then, suddenly, her eyes were blazing as she hurled bolts of magic at Ursula.
The sea witch reacted surprisingly quickly; her tentacles shot up all around her torso, protecting it. Ariel’s aim might not have been perfect, but it was enough to singe the side of Ursula’s face and char a streak across two of her appendages.
“Ha! Ariel!” Eric shouted in joy. Was there anything she couldn’t do?
Flotsam and Jetsam watched, dumfounded, for only a second before leaping to defend their mistress, throwing themselves in front of her. Eric grabbed one of them by the arm as he passed, yanking him back around and then smashing him in the face with his fist.
It felt really, really good.
“Father!” he heard Ariel cry.
The little mermaid threw herself at Ursula, grabbing at the ampoule.
The other manservant backhanded her away, a terrible, fleshy-sounding blow that sent Ariel reeling.
Eric launched himself at him, with no real plan besides wanting to feel the thug’s neck being squeezed in his hands. Jetsam (or Flotsam) brought his dagger up to stop him and Eric smashed it aside with his forearm.
Shots rang out from somewhere behind him. Were the guards firing at the crowd? Above the crowd? Were they warning shots? Was there another threat he couldn’t see?
Someone was firing back. Who?
Eric delivered a good blow—considering it was his left hand—into his opponent’s side, but the man was strangely slippery, wiggling and twisting despite his apparent pain, away from Eric’s reach. Out of the corner of his eye the prince could see Flotsam slowly pulling himself up, crawling over to help his brother.
Ariel was rushing the sea witch, trying to grab her father.
“I’ll kill you all!” Ursula screamed. “ALL OF YOU. Humans, mer…”
She smashed the mermaid aside with some of her tentacles.
Others snaked themselves around Eric’s throat.
He flailed his arms, trying to grasp at her face, her neck, anything he could reach—but his arms were too short.
He started to get dizzy as the air was cut off, and the world began to go dark.
She fell to her knees, invisible bells ringing and tolling around her. She had never felt such pain, except when her voice was ripped from her body—and when it was returned. No one had ever dealt a physical blow to her before. She could hear nothing outside the beats of her own heart.
But her father needed her.
Staggering back to her feet, she refused to let the world swim away from her. Chaos was on all sides: people with mouths open like they were screaming, Flounder with his mouth open like he was suffocating. Eric was struggling. Ursula was wounded and looking around anxiously, trying to decide what to do or where to flee. She didn’t move very well in the Dry World, on her own tentacles.
One of which waved slowly in the air and still held her father.
With a scream she could only feel, not hear, Ariel threw herself at Ursula. The ampoule slipped surprisingly easily into the mermaid’s hands—suckers didn’t work very well on dry land. Ariel tumbled to the ground, rolling, her father cradled in her arms.
More shots were fired over her head. Max whimpered and growled; her hearing was slowly returning.
People screamed. Some tried to run away, some huddled, some rushed the soldiers, some rushed the dais. In the back of her distracted mind Ariel noticed that there were some soldiers who didn’t side with the palace guards—they were challenging them and trying to get to Ursula’s side.
“The sea witch!” a familiar old woman’s voice roared. “Get her! She’s got Prince Eric!”
A mad scramble ensued as people rushed the dais. Some soldiers seemed to align themselves against the would-be saviors, aiming their muskets at them. Ariel curled up on the ground, protecting the delicate housing her father was in, like a shell wrapped around a nautilus. Spirals and spirals…
Max and Vareet came to her side and tried to defend her against the chaotic stampede.
“I’m fine! Go help Eric!” Ariel begged. “Where is—oh!”
The prince was struggling, Ursula’s tentacles around his neck. Flotsam was sneaking up behind him, dagger raised.
Suddenly, with a final bit of strength, Eric hurled himself to the side, trying to smash Ursula’s head into the base of the fountain.
