The others experimented excitedly with the talents they could now share, laughing and chatting to each other as they did so.
“OK, now each of you, one by one, release Alexandra but maintain the talent.”
Their faces creased in effort as they tried to hold onto the shared talents without using me as a conduit. Most of them failed but a few of them could carry on using the talents for a few minutes at most.
Sunil, an ebony-skinned giant of a man bent double, his hands on his knees panting with effort as he continued to whisper the thoughts of the Oceanid beside him, while a different Oceanid who had the talent of thought reading, confirmed what he was saying with encouraging murmurs and nods of his head. He was able to hold the talent for only five minutes.
“Now that you know what it feels like, the shape of it, I want you to try again,” Dad instructed them, “but this time,” he turned to me, “I want you to actively share with them.”
The group gathered around me again as I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on sharing my talents. The problem was that they were almost completely intangible. The only way I’d been able to access them in the first place had been to completely relax and flow with Maya – the first person who had taught me anything useful when it came to accessing talents. After that I’d been able to force raw emotions into the action I wanted done and get a similar result. I had no idea how to even find them within myself, let alone actively share them.
Ten minutes later Dad called a stop to the process that was leaving the other Oceanids exhausted and me, immensely frustrated.
He didn’t say a word, but I knew him well enough to know that he was disappointed.
“Is this possible?” I whispered as he came to float beside me, worry twisting my stomach uncomfortably.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Then what am I doing wrong?”
“I think you’re trying too hard. Just imagine all of them doing what you can do.”
“Dad, we don’t have time to fiddle around, we need to get them up to speed with this.”
Dad smiled at me, his eyes tender. “Alexandra, may I ask you something?”
His question dampened my panic a little. “Yeah sure, why not.”
“Three weeks ago, if I had told you that you’d have swum across the ocean leading a huge pod of mythical creatures to war against incredible enemies to save the love of your life and humanity, what would you have said?”
I stared at my feet, scuffing the soft moccasin-like shoes that encased them in the powdery white sand beneath them.
“I would have committed you to a mental institution,” I replied, risking a peak and a cheeky grin at him.
He chuckled.
“Why do you believe I can share these talents, Dad?”
“Because you’ve been doing it subconsciously with me from the time you were a little girl.”
“What?”
He grinned. “I’ve been able to create ice, fire, speak to creatures in the water, run really fast, lift ridiculous weight, read minds…all of it when you were within sight of me.”
“That far?”
He grinned again and nodded. “Yup, that far, and you did it effortlessly. Just be aware of them,” Dad instructed.
I closed my eyes and relaxed, allowing my senses to range out from my body.
Oddly the first person I became acutely aware of was Dad. He was floating farthest from me, but I found my mind automatically slipping into a routine I hadn’t even been fully aware I did before.
I knew his orientation from me, how the environment could impact him and even what threats he was exposed to.
I opened my eyes when he began to chuckle, as he held out his palm to the group surrounding me and we watched in astounded fascination as a blue orb of energy sparkled in his hand.
“OK, let’s try it with just one person at a time instead of the whole group.”
I started with Khazhak, closing my eyes and finding him within my sensory range.
“Oh that is horrible,” Khazhak exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” I asked opening my eyes in time to see Dad tug on his long braided hair, muttering something under his breath at him.
“Oh er…nothing.”
“Try again,” Dad encouraged me as I searched Khazhak’s thoughts quickly, catching only a passing squirmy feeling he’d had a few moments earlier.
Dad instructed him to whirl in the water as if he had a Mizrak to see if that would alter my ability to find him. It didn’t at all but I also didn’t seem to have the same effect on him.
“Why can’t he share my talents?” I asked Dad, bewildered.
“Sharing is a two-way process,” Dad replied,. “He has to accept the talent as much as you have to give it.”
“So which part of the process is going wrong?”
Dad sighed and finned over to me, placing his hand on my shoulder as he addressed the group. “In order for you to take the talent Alexandra is giving you, you have to be vulnerable to her, that is what Khazhak is struggling with. Right now he is battling his survival instincts, battling to relax enough to take what she is offering. It will be like that with most of you, but only you can overcome the natural fear of vulnerability.”
He turned and pointed at another Oceanid. “Let’s see if you can do it.”
We practised for another half an hour with the group as my strength faded with each attempt.
Dad then gave them a series of physical movements to practise, a flurry of jabs and aggressive swirls that left me in no doubt that they were offensive fighting techniques.
“Let’s go on to the next group,” he suggested, “these ones need to rest.”
We neared the next grouping of Oceanids, greeting an exuberant Sabrina and the others I knew by name.
Dad quickly explained the process of sharing talents and we demonstrated how easy it should be.Surprisingly Sabrina mastered it within a few minutes and in doing so I could more accurately verbalise the role she had played in accepting the talent. This helped me talk the other Oceanids through the process and within half an hour they were all using talents they hadn’t been born with.
Dad showed them a series of attacking exercises to practise before we moved on.
I had been thinking about his reasons for not wanting me to be in hand-to-hand combat, an uncomfortable reality squirming through his assurances that I was talented enough to protect myself. This, I had fully realised was very true: any Oceanid, or even group of Oceanids that came at me would have a lot to contend with except in one set of circumstances.
Dad and I stopped farther up the volcano walls to snack on some shellfish.
“Dad,” I approached the topic carefully, “I know why you are worried about me fighting hand-to-hand. It’s dangerous, but there’s a good chance I will be fighting Neith like that.”
“Why?”
“Neith used a net to incapacitate me in Ferengren. My talents were useless to me.”
“A net?” He was surprised.
I nodded, explaining how they had deciphered my weakness and how completely helpless I was within the net.
An angry hiss, so Oceanid in temperament and sound that it caught me by surprise hearing it from him, escaped from his teeth.
“I don’t want to be completely at Neith’s mercy ever again and if he…” I didn’t finish the sentence because the consequences for the rest of the pod if I were caught were too vast to contemplate.
Dad went very quiet, his eyebrows creased in concern.
“Maybe you were too afraid to access your talents properly,” he replied eventually.
I shook my head. “I’ve been thinking about it since it happened and at certain points throughout the experience I was calmer than I’ve been before.”
“What do you think it was then?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think that I lost them…that’s the wrong word…they became powerless or inaccessible to me when I was in the net.”
“Does anyone e
lse in this pod know about this?”
I shrugged, “Only Pelagius.”
A shout from the group waiting for us allowed him the time I knew he needed to think, as he swam in silence over to them.
We trained the next group easily, both of us using the knowledge we’d garnered from the previous two to explain and prepare the Oceanids for the experience of sharing talents with me. While I was working with them I noticed him discussing something with Muirgel, his expression growing more and more worried as they spoke.
We left the group and had been swimming for a few minutes in the lush jungle of kelp at the top of the volcanic ridge when he stopped and pulled me into a quick and slightly awkward hug before placing his hands on my shoulders as we floated high above the other Oceanids on the sea floor.
“Muirgel has confirmed from the legend that you will have certain weaknesses that will negate your power. The legend is frustratingly vague.” He shook his head, his eyes darting angrily as he spoke. “But I guess being over-prepared is not a bad thing.”
“So you’ll teach me to fight?”
He nodded, but ducked his head so that he could look directly into my eyes. “On one condition.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, waiting.
“That you will only go into one-on-one combat if all other avenues of attack have been exhausted.”
I thought through what he was asking, realising that now that he’d agreed to teach me I would have to face the potential horror of killing another sentient creature up close and personal.
24. Stories
I tried to imagine my reactions to the type of situation where I would need to kill – I winced mentally at the image that thought evoked, struggling to replace the fear with the determination to do whatever it took to keep out of Neith’s clutching ambitions.
And then an image of Merrick would flip into my thoughts, and whether it was a happy image or a nightmarish one, a rage so black and deep it scared me, would bubble to the surface and I knew I’d do anything to free him.
The next grouping of Oceanids was comprised of mostly men. I only knew Marinus personally and he stood, his feet buried in the powdery white sand, towering above me, thick with muscle and the scars that laced his half naked torso, a vivid reminder of the pain we could all be exposed to in the coming days.
Once we’d taught them all to share my talents Dad stepped into the middle of the circle and announced that we would be spending the rest of the day with that group.
Without warning, he charged straight at Marinus, taking the big man by surprise and throwing him to the sand in two deft movements. He had him pinned into the soft sand and was discussing what he’d done when Marinus shifted his weight fractionally and hurled Dad away from him.
The initial leap of fear as I watched him tumble through the water was quickly transformed to awe as he twisted with inhuman grace in a crouched and feral position, his face set in a mask of rage. I watched his chest heaving before straightening and grinning at Marinus.
“OK, Alexandra.” He turned to me. “Your turn.”
“My turn?” The word came out in a squeak as Marinus turned to me uncertainly.
“You’re just going to let him swim at me?”
Dad’s face was creased in concern, but he nodded ever so slightly.
I heard Marinus’s approach before I saw it. His whole body undulated, bubbles exploding around him as powerful muscles pulled and pushed the water away in a white froth of movement before it swirled away from him. The colour coming off him was a strange pumpkiny colour, mixed in with a curl or two of bluey-green doubt as he tried to force himself to attack me.
I tensed every muscle, bending my knees and twisting to the left while curling my body and snapping my feet in.
The slow motion movement of it ended with a whumpf as I swirled through the water, not seeing the mound of coral that seemed to appear out of nowhere and which grazed my elbow and hip as I brushed past it.
Marinus stopped where I’d been, looking around bewildered in the unnatural silence that followed the burst of activity.
Dad chuckled as he pulled me back to the centre of the circle.
“I don’t really know how you did that but it was pretty spectacular.”
“That’s not going to be available in other circumstances,” I whispered as I clutched at my bleeding elbow where I’d nicked it on the coral.
He was instantly serious and changed tactics by pairing us off to practise a series of defensive and offensively swirling movements, coaching me critically as I went.
The movements weren’t difficult but it was irritatingly obvious that my body was reacting by accessing various talents of speed and flexibility that obviously ran through my system. It was also obvious that my instincts were mostly defensive, and every time I swirled or leapt out of the reach of an opponent an uncomfortable squirm of doubt would worm deeper into my already cracking confidence, because I was very sure that I would need to attack in order to stop Neith, not just avoid being attacked.
“Let’s try Mizrak practice,” Dad suggested.
Having retrieved my Mizrak from where it was buried in the rock near my capsule I returned to the centre of the arena where one of the Oceanids who Takimu had been training was putting another group of Oceanids in a circle around him through their paces.
They stopped when I approached.
“I can’t find Takimu,” he told me, worry clear in his eyes.
“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” I replied, not wanting to discuss his whereabouts with the other Oceanids.
“We’ve looked for him and…” He listed the other six Oceanids that had gone with him, “everywhere, they’re gone.”
“Are they not out choosing more Mizraks?” Dad asked.
This seemed to placate the Oceanid although he still seemed worried.
“Could you teach me to fight like that?” I asked.
“Takimu is a better teacher, and better with the Mizrak too.”
“I kind of need to learn now, could I join in here?”
He nodded uncertainly and then continued with the sparring he’d been doing with the others.
I took my place on his left, holding the Mizrak awkwardly in its pearlescent sheath.
“That’s quite a monster you’ve got there.” The Oceanid grinned as he approached me, showing me how to attach the Mizrak to my back using strong thin cords of seaweed.
It was so long it extended way above my head and I found its weight made swimming harder – not exactly difficult, but it took more effort to balance, to move.
He showed me how to draw the Mizrak from its sheath and hold it ready for battle.
It was heavy and unhappy at being ‘woken’ and it spun in my hands, pulling constantly as it did so.
He approached me and I struggled to wield my Mizrak to block his blow. I’d just managed to get my Mizrak up when the strike from his Mizrak sent mine into a flurry of swirling as it tried to get away.
I hauled back on it, just in time to block a second blow, my arms aching from the effort.
It tried again to spin free but I hauled on it viciously, angry with it, angry and panicky as the thought of going into battle with Neith without a manageable Mizrak made my palms prickle.
My teacher started increasing the tempo of the training, coming at me faster and harder, and each time I only just managed to get my Mizrak up to block him.
He paused after a couple of minutes, obviously enjoying himself.
“OK, it’s your turn to attack me.”
I held the Mizrak with both hands, trying to pull it up and extend it from my body.
It was just too heavy and unwieldy and I allowed it to drift to the sea floor before sheathing it and asking for some rest.
I was floating near the council room when Pelagius swam over to me.
“I see you have made great strides in readying for the attack on Neith.”
I shrugged, every muscle in my body aching. “None of it will be worth anything if
I can’t fight with this Mizrak, and I would have chosen the biggest one in the whole trench.”
“You need to relax more and allow those assigned to you to work on their own a little better.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it is alive is it not? Let it guide you instead of you trying to control it the whole time.”
On my return to the arena instead of holding the Mizrak in a strangle hold I relaxed my grip very slightly and as I did so it began to spin with greater determination. My arms were so tired that I didn’t have the strength to resist it and it took advantage of my weakness by spinning faster and faster.
The Oceanids watching us laughed, some of them commenting that this was why so few Oceanids chose the longest Mizraks.
Still spinning I threw myself at my teacher, allowing the momentum of the Mizrak to swirl me in a huge arch over him and as I did so I flicked my wrist an infinitesimal amount right and left. The effect on the Mizrak was phenomenal. It zipped through the water, forcing him to falter backwards as he parried the blows ineffectually. More by mistake than anything else I released the Mizrak as he backed into an outcrop of rocks.
The weapon whirred through the water and buried itself into the rock precisely where his head had been a few seconds earlier.
The crowd around us was silent as he straightened, staring at me.
“Are youOK?” I whispered, sure my face reflected the same shock that was imprinted on his.
He nodded. “Can you do that again?”
I tried again and discovered that as long as I held just the tiniest amount of control I could wield the Mizrak relatively accurately. None of the other Oceanids were willing to practise with me though and even my teacher was very nervous.
That evening after dinner, Dad and I were asked about our experiences in the human world.
Dad explained how he’d been chased from the ocean and found his way to the mountain pod. He explained falling in love with Talita and then leaving that world to try to make a difference in the human world.
“Like many of you I hated humans until I met Gillian. I fell in love with her and her son Brent and we married and had Alexandra.”
Fire (The Mermaid Legacy - Book 2) Page 17
