by Tara Omar
T H E M E R M A N ’ S M A R K
T A R A O M A R
Copyright © 2015 Tara Omar
All rights reserved
Book design by Michelle Kasper
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9965650-1-1
for Nassar
Part One
C H A P T E R 1
C H A P T E R 2
C H A P T E R 3
C H A P T E R 4
C H A P T E R 5
C H A P T E R 6
C H A P T E R 7
C H A P T E R 8
C H A P T E R 9
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Part Two
C H A P T E R 4 3
C H A P T E R 4 4
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A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
A B O U T T H E A U T H O R
T H E M E R M A N ’ S M A R K
T H E M E R M A N ’ S M A R K
P A R T 1
C H A P T E R 1
Norbert sped through the veldt in the chilly hours of a stormy morning, his heart racing. His shiny, yellow V-2 cyclapod was not used to fantastic bouts of speed; he arched forward and cycled harder, nearly barrelling headlong into a flowering protea bush that loomed in front of him.
“Whooh, that was a close one, wasn’t it, Lucy?” asked Norbert, yanking the bony, black steering wheel as the cyclapod clanked and rattled. “It’s a good thing you’re wearing your safety belt. This is right near dangerous riding, this is!”
The potted Venus flytrap known as Lucy bounced in the passenger seat as Norbert sped onward, looking sour with her toothy, clam-like mouths clamped shut. She grabbed the side of her pot with a mouth as Norbert swerved; he jammed the brakes at the edge of the Humphrite camp.
“I’m coming, Charlie. Don’t you worry, Daddy’s coming,” said Norbert.
He threw open the door to his shell-like cycle and tumbled out; the musty smell of standing water rushed toward him as his feet landed on the flooded ground.
“Helloo, Charlie! Are you here? Is anybody here?” shouted Norbert, clutching Lucy to his chest.
The whole camp stood submerged and abandoned like a leftover stew of cloth and metal. Pots and pans from the morning’s breakfast floated in the murky, brown water, along with laundry and half-eaten food. Norbert waded deeper, wincing as the icy water slapped his limbs and sent a shiver up his neck. He stopped in front of a soggy leaf-patterned carpet that marked the entrance to his tent.
“Charlie?” shouted Norbert, but the tent was empty.
“Perhaps they went to the Kasbah?” wondered Norbert, looking down. He jumped back, gasping.
“My tamaties, Lu! They slaughtered my tamaties!” he shrieked, noticing the broken tomato plants in front of his tent. He knelt down and adjusted the mangled vines, which lay bobbing in the water. Norbert growled.
“I must prepare for battle. There is serious trouble afoot, very serious indeed!” said Norbert.
He threw back the carpet and dived inside his tent, searching through drawers and under junk piles. Norbert found an embroidered picture of him, his late wife Mildred and Charlie tucked under a pillow. A bottle filled with extract of powdered cherry pits emerged from under a table, along with his surfing wetsuit, a half-eaten packet of barbecue witchetty chips, a gardening glove and Melinda, his most trusted rake.
“Hmm, not the best weaponry, but it’ll have to do,” said Norbert, flexing his fingers. He squeezed into his wetsuit, slipped the glove onto his hand and picked up the rake as though it were a hot iron, staring at it suspiciously.
“What d’ya say, Lu, do you think Melinda will manage a sword this time?” asked Norbert.
He tapped the metal with the back of his gloved knuckles, his mouth twisting into funny shapes as he concentrated. The rake started to glow molten orange and jiggle, indicating it was ready for forming.
“Ha! You see that, Lu! That’s a start, that is,” said Norbert.
He squished the prongs of the rake together with his fingers, shaping the molten metal with his glove as though it were made from clay. Once the metal stuck together in a single, glowing blob, Norbert pinched it between his fingers and pulled the blob longer and longer, trying to form a sword. The rake sputtered and hardened, forming instead a small, square shovel.
“Aw come on, Melinda, is that really the best you could do?” asked Norbert, tapping again.
Melinda spat and sparked but remained firmly in shape, intent on being a shovel.
“Well at least it will make up for my aim,” said Norbert. “What do you think, Lu?”
Lucy stared at him open-mouthed.
“Oh alright, you miss know-it-allsy, you win, no sword it is,” huffed Norbert, throwing her a witchetty chip. He folded the packet under his arm and tucked the family picture and bottle inside his wetsuit, grabbing the shovel-rake named Melinda as he headed outside. A loud clank echoed behind him as Norbert neared the edge of the flood. He spun on his
heels, Melinda out and ready to attack.
“Marcus Schweme?” asked Norbert.
A round-bellied man in oversized fishing trousers jumped in the distance, dropping a pile of cups and spoons back into the dirty water. Norbert noticed Mildred’s paisley ceramic teapot among the collected items.
“What are you doing?” asked Norbert.
“I’m taking things to the mothers, Norbert,” said Marcus. “Everyone knows I can’t be near the coast with my shellfish allergy and all. Just helpin’ out in whichever way I can.”
He threw the pile of kitchenware into a rusty cyclapod behind him.
“After all, you don’t want those weed-wristed, fin-footed mers stealing our valuables, do you?” asked Marcus, picking up a metal juicer and tossing it into the pod.
The air caught in Norbert’s chest.
“Mers? As in the Nephilim?” asked Norbert. He could feel a bead of perspiration gathering at his temple.
“Yeah, of course the mers. Who else would it be?” asked Marcus.
“Are you sure?” asked Norbert.
“You haven’t seen then, have you?”
“No, I haven’t. I’ve been collecting herbs up in the mountains. What’s happening? Where’s Charlie?”
Schweme’s mouth clamped shut, his eyes zoning in on him like a hunter on prey.
“I have nothing to offer you, Marcus. Just tell me what’s happening and where my son is,” said Norbert.
“Are those witchetty chips under your arm?” asked Marcus, nodding toward the crunched, silver packet.
“Mhm, yeah, it is.”
“And the flavour, if I may ask?”
“Barbecue.”
Schweme’s mouth twitched.
“Would you mind helpin’ a hungry man out, old pal? I’m right near wasted, I am. It’s rather tiring work, this hauling. I don’t think I can tell you any traumatic tale on an empty stomach and do it proper justice,” said Marcus.
Norbert glared at him. He wasn’t sure how a man of Schweme’s stature could be wasted exactly, but he threw him the packet anyway. Marcus opened it.
“Hmm… it’s a bit emp—”
“MARCUS!”
“Oh alright,” said Marcus, munching on a salty chip. “The Nephilim are real, Norbert, real. Can you believe it? They are a very real and deadly reality. They attacked early this morning down by the coast, flinging those pretty fluorescent daggers from out their wrists, just like the legends. All us tribesfolk are defending from scaffolds pinched from the City, but we have to keep retreating; the wave they’re fighting from is too strong for us. They’re tricky things, these mers are. Since Avinoam forbade them to come on land, they flooded the place and are fightin’ from the sea. And there’s such a lot of them, too, all decked out in that sparkly cloth-like armour that would sure fetch a pretty penny here if we could get our hands on it. Made of ballas and diamonds, from the looks of it. Seems unlikely that we’ll manage to grab any, though, with the rate we’re falling back. Quite a bad day for us, it is. Don’t know if we’ll survive it.”
Norbert shook his head.
“Don’t talk lies, man. Why would the Nephilim, if they do exist, attack? The tribes have no kings to kill, and Avinoam’s law states clearly that the death of a king in battle merits automatic surrender. Why would they risk war?”
“They’re not aiming for war! They want massacre!” said Marcus, crinkling the empty packet. “And it looks like they’re going to get it. Their king is protected by some sort of devilish curse, he is. It will take a near miracle to bring him down. Even General Cephas hasn’t managed to do it. We all know how good the Aaronites are at fightin’ and all, and he’s the best of the lot of them.”
“And Charlie? Where’s Charlie? Where is my baby boy-son?”
Marcus paused, looking Norbert up and down.
“I’m in a wetsuit, Marcus, no pockets full of things to give you. Though if you don’t tell me what you know about my son in the next minute, I swear I’ll tell Loam where his antique finger-massaging nail clippers disappeared to.”
Marcus laughed.
“Okay, okay. Calm yourself down, my friend. No need for drastic measures now. Last I saw, Crispin’s wife Shirley had swept him up when the flood came, carried him to the Kasbah with her. Your boy is safe with the mothers and children, I reckon. Far as I know, all the Humphrite mammies and laddies made it to the stronghold safely, while the rest of the fightin’ guys and gals are down by the shore.”
“Got it. Thanks,” said Norbert. He spun around and darted off in the direction of the coast.
“Wouldn’t take the pod, I wouldn’t,” called Marcus after him, his mouth full of crumbs. “Nothing but stiff mud and water from here on out.”
He wiped his face and picked up a steel frying pan as Norbert raced toward the sea.
“Poor guy, I doubt I’ll be seeing him again,” said Marcus, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t have minded helping them out, I wouldn’t, if it weren’t for my allergy.”
Near to the coast, the sea soared into the air like a colossal glass wall, its angry waves reaching forward like giant claws as it tried to grab more of the shrunken shoreline. Norbert stopped a short distance away, watching the ghostlike warriors who rode the waves from the top, their glittering pearl and pale blue armour camouflaged against the frothy, foamy sea as they inched the waves forward as though on horses, trying to push past the humans’ defensive line of scaffolds.
“Oh Avi, what do you bring us now?” asked Norbert, running awkwardly ahead. His legs felt like jelly after the hard run and cycle, and the blazing battle scene wasn’t giving them any confidence. Bursts of colours exploded all around him as the veiled Nephil warriors shot glittering blades from strange markings on their wrists, while the humans spun their swords in all directions, working desperately to deflect them. Norbert pulled out Melinda and held her over his head; Melinda’s scoop bent at a right angle like a makeshift, metal umbrella, deflecting the falling blades as he inched toward the front line.
“Hey, Loam! Crispin!” called Norbert. His two sandy-haired friends stood in a long line of Humphrites, knee-deep in mud. They were passing heavy sandbags from one man to the next, loading the sand around the scaffolds and at the edge of the towering sea.
“Why, Norbert Bransby! Where have you been this fine mornin’? We thought you went AWOL on us, we did!” said Crispin, tossing the next sandbag to Loam. “Shirley had to right nab your boy when the flood came, but he’s safe now, with her.”
“Thanks, Crispin, your wife’s a near angel, she is. I came as soon as I heard,” said Norbert. He wiggled his way into the line of Humphrites, catching the next sack and tossing it to Loam.
“No worries, no worries. You know how fond Shirley is of your boy; she was glad to help,” said Crispin, dodging a fallen blade as he threw another sack. “If we survive this, I should get to making my own lad with her, though it might be right near too late for that. Looks like we’re gonna die with about ninety percent certainty now, with the way it’s going. Lady Imaan is tearin’ her hair out up on that there tree.”
Norbert glanced toward the woman shouting orders from atop a towering baobab, watching her pace its bare branches with a fury as though she stood on dry land. Even from a distance Norbert could see the glint of her spider’s silk breastplate and ivory horn, the symbols of the high priest. The horn banged against her skirt as she moved; she reached for it and blew it again, repeating all six tribes’ danger signals. Crispin threw Norbert another sack of sand.
“On the bright side, if there hadn’t been construction in Aeroth to lend us these scaffolds, we’d have been dead a long time ago. Avinoam was merciful in that,” said Crispin, wiping his eyes with his arm. “Seen Marcus?”
“He’s raiding the camp. I had to trade him a packet of chips to find out what happened,” said Norbert.
Crispin huffed.
“Biy’avi, that scum! The whole of Aeroth is going to pieces and he still wants to make a quick buck. It might be worth desertin’ just so I can go murder that louse. I’ll be damned if smarmy Schweme is the only Humphrite left livin’ at the end of today! Such a scar on our record, he is.”
“Where’s General Cephas?” asked Norbert.
“Oi, up in the scaffolds with the Aaronites and the rest of the tribes,” said Crispin. “Lady Imaan put us Humphrites down here with the sandbags on account of our, er, lack of military prowess. Did you manage to get a sword?”
“Nope, just a shovel,” said Norbert.
“He-he. I got a dagger at least,” said Crispin, thrusting out his hip where a dagger the size of a potato peeler hung. “Quite proud of this, I am, though it still ain’t big enough to slash no Nephilim with.”
Norbert thought of Charlie, waking up alone to find his father gone and the camp in turmoil.
Oh Avinoam, forgive me. Please protect them, please protect Charlie, he prayed. Crispin frowned.
“Cheer up, man. Least you did better than ol’ Loam here. Loam got a spatula.”
Loam grunted, nodding.
“Any rate,” said Crispin, slapping his hip. “Keep passin’, keep passin’.”
Norbert looked to the scaffolds as he passed the sandbags, following the General’s movements with admiration. A strong, burly man jumped from scaffold to scaffold with the grace of a dancer, twirling his weapon as he knocked the mers from their waves. His blade transformed seamlessly from one sword to another as he cut through the Nephil blades; they burst into shimmering powder as he hit them.
“RETREAT! RETREAT! Retreat to the next scaffold!” shouted General Cephas, waving his arm to the tribesmen. A surge of arms flew into the air as the tribesmen jumped to the row of scaffolds behind them.
“Come on, that’s our cue,” said Crispin. They dumped the bags and ploughed through the sloshing sand, heading toward the next row while the Nephilim fired blades at their backs.
“Cephas, there are only three rows left!” shouted Imaan from the baobab. “We need arrows!”
“Aaronites change to arrows!” shouted Cephas, waving his arm in symbolic gestures as he climbed the scaffold. “Aim for the cut diamonds on their armour!”
