by Tui Allen
‘My Queen you are the loveliest of all things,’ cried Fera ripping the stinging tail from a ray and feeding the rest of its thrashing body to her mistress.
‘But only I know how best to serve you, my Queen,’ hissed Clawdine. ‘My vibrations are most powerful; they attract the biggest prizes for your pleasure’
‘What does size matter?’ howled Vipa. ‘Mine is the most subtle honey and it attracts the tastiest morsels for my lady’s nourishment.’
Erishkigal’s complex brain pulsed with the pleasure she took in ripping her victims. As she gorged, she enjoyed the agony of the fish awaiting their doom as they lay gripped in the suckers of her minions like jewels.
‘Lashette is right,’ she purred. ‘I am beautiful and I am sweet. No one can resist my honey.’
‘Stop! Be still! What is that I see above?’ asked Sadistine.
‘It’s a dolphin,’ said Fera.
‘And she doesn’t know we are here,’ said Erishkigal. ‘And she does not care. Stealth now my deadly daughters and we will eat warm flesh.’
The eight tentacles halted their telltale vibrations and slowed their movements to secretive slithering. Erishkigal ceased ink production. The Nightmare of the Southern Seas was closing in on Ripple.
~~~
In trying to catch up, Pearl was forced to swim as she hadn’t in years. This daughter of hers was too much of an athlete. She streamed her calls far across the surface and through the deep.
‘Ripple!’
Pearl echo-located her daughter in the dark, too deep for any dolphin, not swimming, just sinking. Pearl dived down and down until she was alongside. She placed a gentle flipper on Ripple’s skin.
‘Ripple, stop. Come back to us,’ she commanded.
There was no response. Pearl knew this was too deep for safety and Ripple was unheeding; anything could happen to her here. She scanned the ocean around and below and discovered the monster rising towards them.
Pearl’s thoughtstream arrived in the mind of the monster.
‘Go down Shade!’
Erishkigal stopped rising but she did not go down.
‘I desire dolphin flesh . . . ’
There was a large squid still attached to her suckers. Without allowing her upwards glare to waver from the dolphins she ripped the tentacles from the squid.
‘I will rip you like that!’ she hissed and swallowed them.
‘Not today you won’t,’ said Pearl.
She commanded The Shade by her true names:
‘Erishkigal - Shadow Queen
Vipa, Venga, Malevine,
Lucifina, Sadistine,
Fera, Lashette and Clawdine,
Go down now!
Erishkigal found she couldn’t resist the command. She slithered down and down to places so dark there was no need of ink to hide her. There she continued feeding on the cold flesh of deep-sea creatures but her tentacles writhed in thwarted lust at the thought of the warm flesh they’d missed.
~~~
Ripple and Pearl floated above Erishkigal, but still far too deep for dolphins.
But Ripple’s glissade carried her still deeper.
‘Ripple. Come back!’ It seared into her brain, inescapable. This time she heard.
My mother is here. She’s with me in the darkness, touching me.
Pearl waited, willing Ripple to drag herself back from the abyss, lending her all the support of a mother’s love. But still they drifted deeper.
Pearl had to think of something, anything her daughter might respond to.
‘Aroha is having a baby!’ she announced.
Ripple heard.
Baby? . . . Baby . . . .
A new life called to her. The weight lightened. She stopped drifting.
‘In the spring,’ said Pearl.
An unborn baby drew Ripple back to the place in the deep where her mother waited.
~~~
Sister Sterne’s aura blazed like a supernova and billowed through the Hereafter in clouds of magenta glory. Once again her energy overwhelmed the babbling seraphim.
‘What did I tell you? A mother in a million!’ gloated Sterne.
My respect for the work of Sister Sterne DS was expanding by the moment.
~~~
‘Ripple dear, you must come back with me if you want to meet the baby.’
Would it be a boy or girl? What colour would it be?
Mother and daughter rose, slowly at first, then faster and faster, towards the light.
They reached the surface and breathed. To Pearl, the air had never tasted sweeter.
‘What on Azure upset you so much?’ Pearl asked.
‘I found what I was searching for.’
‘Was it something awful?’
‘It was music. Music is beautiful.’
‘What is music?’
‘It is the secret that was hidden. I was right. It is sounds. I made a song for Cosmo. It scared him away. Perhaps it is impossible to share music with Cosmo. Or with anyone.’
‘Impossible? You thought it was impossible to find what you sought. But you have succeeded. Nothing is impossible. One day you’ll show us all what music is.’
‘Music is meaningless if I can’t share it. If I die now, music dies with me.’
‘So don’t die Ripple. Make another song. Make it for me or for Echo. Don’t give it to some strange boy dolphin you hardly know. Stay alive and be a lovely auntie for Aroha’s baby.’
‘Oh Mother, I can hardly wait to meet Aroha’s baby. I just hope I can give it a song.’
Without their knowledge, a seraph passed close between them. A shimmer of its prescience clung briefly to their spirits and Pearl said . . .
‘Ripple, I don’t even know what a song is but in my heart I believe that one day you will give one to Aroha’s baby.’
Ripple was comforted.
‘And your music will resonate through my own future.’
Ripple grew suddenly cold.
My mother’s future? Why does that chill me?
~~~
A kilometre below them the nest of anacondas squirmed and lusted for Ripple’s warm blood. Erishkigal was aware of the dolphins recovering far above in the light of the sun. Hundreds of deep-sea fish in all their fantasy shapes swarmed to the bloated monster to be consumed.
We looked down on this horror and marvelled at the diversity of Azure.
Soon Erishkigal was so distended she could eat no more. Her writhing stopped, the vibrations slowed and she drifted motionless, a shadow blacker than the deep except for the blue light radiating softly from the tip of each tentacle.
~~~
‘Nasty creature,’ Sterne said.
‘Nightmare!’ I agreed.
The seraphim surrounding us had continued their frightened whimpering since the first moment of Ripple’s glissade. I wondered why. They were not normally such timid spirits and Erishkigal couldn’t harm them. I comforted them as best I could and shepherded them away behind me out of Sterne’s way the better to let her concentrate. But the seraphim were not easily comforted that day. As I fussed with them, I wondered for the ninetieth time, how Sterne would possibly manage without my guidance and support in this great Azuran mission of hers.
~~~
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Chapter 15: Teachers
Was the problem just with Cosmo, Ripple wondered? Or would all dolphins be as deaf to her music as he was?
I’ll create a song for Mother. If Mother cannot hear my music, no dolphin can.
Ripple became lost in the task of creating the second song. She worked in solitude beyond the edges of the main school. No one saw her except a lone scout who passed close as he patrolled the outer edges of the school. She didn’t notice him but he picked up her working thoughtstreams.
‘She’s deranged,’ he thought.
~~~
Aroha was discussing a work problem with Pearl: a youngster was disturbed after witnessing a blac
kfin take his newborn baby brother. In such cases Aroha used all the skills and resources her training had provided. She also sometimes made use of her mother’s wisdom. They were deep in discussion when Ripple bounced up in a dazzle of spray.
‘Mother! I’ve made a song for you. Perhaps you too will misunderstand it; but please, listen anyway.’
‘Of course dear,’ said Pearl. ‘We’ll give you our honest impressions.’
Aroha focused on Ripple. What on Azure is this about, she wondered?
Ripple played the song right through, thoughtstreaming it to her sister and mother. She streamed each note of the music distinctly, aiming for perfect clarity. She danced gently as it played. The song finished. It took her a few moments to escape the spell cast by the beauty of the new song. Then she turned to face them. Aroha and Pearl looked at her blankly.
‘Darling, are you all right?’ asked Pearl. ‘What is confusing you so terribly?’
Ripple clearly heard Aroha wondering if she should forget her other patients and sort out the madness emerging in her own family.
‘Can’t you hear the music?’ Ripple smacked the water with her flukes. ‘Listen harder and you must.’
She played the music again, more slowly this time and even more clearly. But it made no difference.
‘Stop!’ Pearl cried. ‘This chaos must upset you.’
Aroha said, ‘Ripple, can you stop?’
Ripple stopped immediately.
‘That’s a relief,’ said Aroha. ‘If you can control it at will the problem can’t be too serious. We should be able to help you before you get any worse. Mother, has she had any shocks lately? Has something upset her?’
‘I’m not upset!’ Ripple thoughtscreamed. ‘There is no chaos in my mind. There is only music. And you’re too stupid to hear it!’
And having caught an echo of what they had been discussing before her arrival, she added . . .
‘I hope you both get eaten by the biggest blackfin in the sea!’
She swam away in search of solitude.
Pearl called after her, ‘Ripple! Are you alright?’
‘I’m angry. Don’t follow me.’
Once alone, she was surprised to feel her spirits rise.
Now at least I understand why Cosmo swam away. Normal thoughtstreams don’t work with music. But what on Azure can I do about it?
Did I really say that to Mother and Aroha?
She sent them a distance thoughtstream: ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it about the blackfin.’
‘We know dear.’
‘But Aroha, I forbid you to try and heal me. I don’t need to be healed.’
Ripple played the new song again through her mind. It banished the last shreds of anger. Soon she was leaping and dancing like the windblown spray, listening to her music, refining it, utterly alone, but fulfilled. Half an hour later, Pearl accompanied Aroha back to her work-zone. They passed Ripple dancing with her chaos and noticed she was unaware of them.
‘She’s not safe like this, Mother’ said Aroha.
Pearl scanned the ocean and found no danger for the moment but she knew Aroha was right.
~~~
‘Dreaming all alone,’ said Pearl to Ripple’s teachers as they swam with flukes to the setting sun. ‘Dreaming happily but with chaos raging in her brain.’
‘In her first day in my poetry class,’ said Tercet, ‘I observed some confusion in her thought patterns, though I wouldn’t call it chaos.’
‘Her previous confusion only intensified into chaos after her discovery,’ explained Pearl.
‘Discovery?’
‘Yes. She calls it music but it’s intellectual chaos.’
The sky held a spectrum in pastels in a gradient from horizon to zenith. The light was changing as daylight faded and the east awaited the moon. Wavelets slapped and whispered with the passage of the dolphins.
‘Does my Ripple have a handicap or is she a kind of genius? What are your thoughts as her teachers?’
A brilliant star appeared on the eastern horizon. It was the centre point of the uppermost edge of the rising moon.
Axis, the mathematics teacher replied. ‘She shows a complete lack of interest in my subject. We should be concerned about this dreaminess.’
The moon-star had expanded into an arc. The dolphins accepted its invitation by swimming up the pathway of light it cast.
‘I notice no dreaminess in Ripple,’ said Mio, the cultural history teacher. ‘She memorised the entire history of the “Alien Waves” after hearing it just once. She can name every one that’s swept the oceans of Azure including all those existing in our time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she chose a branch of history for her life’s work.’
Mio’s words soothed Pearl until Delph the astronomy teacher spoke.
‘How can Ripple progress far as a historian if she has no ability in mathematics and little interest in astronomy? No historian’s education would be complete without them. And since you mention “Alien Waves,” how could she ever understand these beings without knowledge of the galaxies they came from?’
All the dolphins paused to think with reverence of the Alien Waves. Meanwhile the moon inched upwards to become circular with only the lowest point of its rim in contact with the horizon. It broke loose from the sea and ascended as Delph spoke again.
‘Two nights ago I had a night session with Ripple’s class. They were learning the stars of Orion. I noticed Ripple drifting in both body and mind. I detected traces of the chaos Pearl has described. I called her back. Her only explanation was that she’d tried to think of the stars but had instead thought of the spaces between them. Then she thought she could hear the spaces between the stars and had swum off to listen better. I detected no dishonesty.’
A pale wash of light from the vanished sun remained in the sky behind them and the sea was dark in all directions but towards the moon. The red super-giant Antares in Scorpius was low in the sky. Higher, Crux hid itself in a veil of cloud while the blazing pointers swinging from its short axis remained visible below.
‘As though she truly believes she’s listening to the spaces between the stars!’ added Tercet. ‘A lyrical concept is it not? She has a rare poetic talent for one so young. Perhaps her interest in history lies in its inspiration for poetry.’
Pearl considered this with a little more hope dawning. Crux, flying high in the sky between south and the zenith, emerged from the cloud. The visible arm of the home galaxy was a river of light across the upper sky. Zuben the gymnastics teacher spoke for the first time.
‘I think there’s a good chance of Ripple choosing gymnastics as her life work,’ he said. ‘Her physical skills are vastly superior to others her own age and older. And no-one who hunts as well as she does could have any kind of handicap. If it’s a choice between that and genius Pearl, I’d be thinking genius.’
‘I worry about her safety,’ said Pearl. ‘She becomes so absent during her times of chaos, like the astronomers. We all know how vulnerable they would be without their minders but Ripple has no-one to guard her.’
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Delph said, ‘I wonder if she could work with an astronomy group. It’s possible she could operate alongside them. I’ll keep in touch with you Pearl and let you know when circumstances permit a trial.’
~~~
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Chapter 16: Beside the Astronomers
Cosmo heard the scuttlebutt as he arrived for history.
‘They say her mind’s in turmoil.’
‘She’s such a loner.’
‘We swam right by her. Her crazy brainwaves deafened us, but she never even knew we were there!’
‘Ssssh. Here she comes . . . and Mio too.’
Ripple bounced into class. Cosmo saw her look around and pick up the sudden hush and half-hidden sniggers of her classmates. She sank below the surface and stayed two body lengths down, mind heavily veiled, surfacing for breaths as ra
rely as possible. Mio arrived and launched into the history lesson.
Cosmo heard no chaos from Ripple that day, though the mind-barriers stayed firmly in place. Just like me, he thought. Can’t blame her for that. At least she can hide it, whatever it is. Maram couldn’t. I hope she doesn’t think it was me who spread the rumours.
Later the same day, Cosmo and the other four members of the junior practical astronomy team, turned up to their meeting with Delph, to find that Ripple was also there. Delph observed their reactions with interest. Ripple kept her distance from the boys.
‘Why’s the oddball here?’ asked Givan.
Delph made an announcement.
‘Today you’ll have Ripple among you. Welcome to class, Ripple’.
‘Is she an astronomer too?’ asked Quin. He didn’t look at Ripple.
She’s sidelined already, thought Delph.
‘She needs your minders while she’s engaged on her own pursuits,’ he said.
‘What would they be, I wonder?’ said Givan.
‘That’s enough thank-you.’
Today your bodies will be in a state of torpor, so you’ll do an hour of physical drills first. Please include at least a hundred high leaps each with plenty of air-spinning, at least two deep dives over ten minutes duration, and some high-speed surface swimming on both straight and curving courses. Ensure that each of you takes their turn at leading. Ripple, you may as well follow – exercise is good for everyone.’
Normally the five young males would have warmed up first, but this time they took off at top speed, straight-lining. Ripple followed but kept well back. Delph observed from a distance.
He messaged her, ‘Try to match them, Ripple!’
She maintained her distance from the boys. Delph watched carefully.
The gap isn’t increasing, he thought.
Because of her distance behind them, the boys didn’t notice that she was easily swimming at their speed. Nor did they notice that when they leapt she leapt higher and when they dived, she dived deeper. But Delph, watching from afar, noticed and he laughed. Fit, skilled, and strong for an oddball, he thought, and he went off to meet the minders.
At the end of the hour, Ripple closed on the boys again as they returned to their work spot.
