by Sonia Faruqi
A shadow shifted behind the mermaid. Izar had noticed it before but had not paid it any heed—he frowned at it now, for he saw that it was not a shadow at all but a thirty-foot-long beast. The mermaid was leaning against it—but then the beast emerged from behind her and started to approach him. It was a gargantuan, yellow-spotted shark the size of a ship, its head wide and flat, its tailfin the size of a curtain. It opened its mouth to reveal a great big cavern lined with hundreds of teeth, a black tunnel ready to swallow him.
After all the sharks Izar’s ships had killed, it was now his fate to be killed by one of them.
He lurched away from the shark, but the waters swirled, and the shark arrived in front of him, blocking his path like a tree. He thought the shark would bite off his arm and chew upon it as a dog chews a bone, but instead, the monster circled him in loop after loop. The waters churned around Izar, pressing him in from all four sides—he wasn’t spinning, but he felt like a whirling dervish, like his head might dislocate at any moment. That must be how it would feel to be trapped in the eye of a hurricane—the shark was torturing him before it would eat him.
“Enough, Pavonis!” called the mermaid.
The shark ceased. It angled its body such that it pushed Izar toward the mermaid, rounding him up as a policeman rounds up a criminal. Izar found himself face-to-face with the mermaid. She was slight, pretty, beautiful even, he observed, but his lip could not help curling with revulsion: She belonged to the ranks of those who had orphaned him.
The shark returned to its position behind the mermaid, and she leaned against it again, as trustingly as though it were a wall. Then, as Izar watched incredulously, she patted its back. It looked the equivalent of a mouse patting a cat with its tail. Could the beast be a pet of some sort? he wondered. It was certainly possible—savages would keep savages as pets.
“Try to escape again, and I’ll crush you against the sediment!”
The mermaid’s lips had not moved, yet the voice was loud and clear. There were no other merpeople nearby, though—just plenty of fish in all kinds of colors. His ears were still likely adjusting, Izar concluded. Earlier, while he’d been drowning, his ears had felt as though they might explode; now, he felt nothing, no more pain or pressure, because there would be no more air in his ear cavities. Even parts of him that were the same were different.
“Who are you?” the mermaid asked. Her voice was soft and sweet and clear, like the glaze of a donut.
“Izar Eridan. I’m a human.” Lower, more bass, his voice was unrecognizable to him in the water. Like his body, it was hardly his own.
“I guess that’s why your skin was hot, because you’re a human.”
He became vaguely aware of a tingling sensation in his veins—it must be because his blood was cooling. In a matter of minutes, he would be fully cold-blooded, like the mermaid, like the fish all around them. He laughed without mirth. The sound was that of a gurgle, like he was rinsing his teeth out with mouthwash.
“How did you transform from a human to a merman?” the mermaid asked, squinting at him suspiciously.
“I was just about to ask you that myself.”
“I’ve never heard of such a transformation before.”
A snail was creeping steadily up her arm, Izar noticed. The size of a little tree ornament, it had a smooth, rounded, red-and-white shell. It ascended to perch upon the mermaid’s right shoulder. She did not flick it away with a hand—perhaps she would eat it, he thought.
“Let’s learn more about him,” said a haughty voice. Again, the mermaid’s lips had not moved.
“The human’s nudity suggests a penchant for indecency.” This was a low, tremulous voice, a voice that seemed to have strong opinions but a fear of voicing them.
“Who’s speaking?” Izar asked sharply.
“Let me introduce you to everyone,” the mermaid said. “I’m Coralline Costaria, and this”—she patted the shark—“is my muse, Pavonis.” Crossing her eyes to look at the snail on her shoulder, she continued, “This is my mother’s muse, Nacre, and in here”—she tapped the satchel gently—“is my father’s muse, Altair.” A tiny orange head, the shade of marigold, peeked out from over the pocket of her bag.
“What’s a muse?” Izar asked, looking from the shark to the snail to the seahorse in confusion.
“An animal best friend.”
Why would she think he cared about her family zoo? “Who’s speaking?” he repeated impatiently.
“We are,” she said gently, with a pitying expression, as though he might be mentally deficient. “All of us.”
But of course they were, Izar thought—merpeople could speak with animals because they were just a bare breed above animals themselves. It was strange, this new world below the waves, but he should focus, he told himself—merpeople-animal friendships were the least of his concerns at present. “Do you know how I can become a human again?” he asked Coralline.
“No.”
“If I knew how you could transform back to your hideous self,” Pavonis snapped, “trust me when I say I’d be the first one to tell you.”
How would he transform? Izar wondered. What if he remained like this for the rest of his life? The thought made him feel as trapped as though a rock lay upon his tail. His glance fell to the satchel at his hip. Its color had deepened from murky-green to bottle-green, and the fabric was flappable rather than stiff. It quite resembled the satchel at Coralline’s hip, except that hers looked ready to burst at the seams. He should show Coralline the gray tin he’d found on his office desk, he thought. Perhaps she could make sense of the half-shell and amber scroll in it. In fact, maybe the scroll would hold some clue about his transformation!
Excited at the thought, he hurriedly unzipped his satchel. He saw the gray tin, but it was accompanied by a large drawstring pouch. Izar opened the pouch to discover that it was full of shells. He collected several in the palm of his hand—they were round and spiraled, pigmented and pointed, of various sizes and shapes. Did Alshain think that Izar, like a little girl, was a collector of shells? Cursing, Izar released the pouch, wishing he could slam it against the giant’s head instead.
“Perhaps you’ve lost your mind in your transformation,” Pavonis said.
Coralline caught the pouch before it could drift away with the currents. “Why are you throwing away your carapace?” she asked.
“My what?”
“Your currency.”
“Oh. How much is it in total?”
She extracted shells from the pouch one at a time and placed them in his hands, which he joined together. “You have four moon snail shells, worth one carapace each,” she said, in the slow, instructive tone of a school teacher. “Three wentletraps, worth two carapace each. Two slipper limpets, worth five carapace apiece. One scallop, worth ten carapace, and one cerith, worth twenty carapace. And you have one conch, worth fifty carapace, as well as one whelk, worth a hundred carapace.”
She did not hand these two large shells to him but examined them with reverence, clutching one in each hand. She must be poor, Izar thought.
“In total, you have two hundred carapace,” she said.
Izar had calculated the same, using the denominations she’d mentioned. He was more comfortable with numbers than most people, but she also appeared to be able to do sums fast. He’d hired dozens of men over the course of his career, but never a woman—there were hardly any at Ocean Dominion, except for a few lethargic, middle-aged creatures in the marketing department. Had Coralline been a woman rather than a mermaid, and had he ever interviewed her at Ocean Dominion, he would likely have hired her.
The carapace pouch provided further evidence that Alshain had known Izar would transform rather than drown. With this currency in hand, Izar would be able to pay for his own food and water in the ocean—just food, rather: There would be no need to drink water, of course, given that it was filtering through his gills.
Coralline returned the whelk and conch rather reluctantly to his pouch. Izar fu
nneled his hands and poured in the remainder of the shells. Putting the pouch away, he then opened the gray tin and showed her the half-shell. “Is this a weapon?” he asked.
She ran her index finger over its ridges, then over its ragged edge. “No,” she said at length. “It’s half of a lion’s paw scallop shell, but I can’t imagine why it’s torn in half.”
Izar showed her the scroll next. It was no longer as starchy as cardboard but was instead as malleable as a banana leaf. It unrolled smoothly in his hands and, in the water, was easily legible.
Find Tang Tarpon. He will guide you to the elixir.
—O
Coralline read the note with him—out loud, seemingly for the benefit of her zoo. The name of the author, scribbled in the bottom-right corner, had gotten washed out by the tap water to which Izar had subjected the note. Only the first letter of the name remained, the letter O. The reason the note had started to bleach under tap water must relate to osmosis, Izar thought now, a process by which molecules pass across a membrane in order to equalize the concentrations on each side of the membrane. The salts within the material of the note must have leached out in the salt-deficient environment of tap water.
“How strange!” Coralline cried, her eyes the size of quarters as they met Izar’s. “We’re searching for the elixir, too. We’re on an Elixir Expedition!”
“This is one bad coincidence,” Pavonis muttered.
“What is the elixir?” Izar asked.
“A legendary life-saving potion made of starlight,” said Coralline, “thought to be prepared by a magician named Mintaka.”
Izar considered himself a man of level-headed rationality, but his possessions at present did not indicate it; rather, they were the belongings of a palm-reading mystic: a pouch of colorful currency, a half-shell, and a note about a magical elixir. He looked down at himself: at his slippery scales, now fully indigo. Was his current state not some inexplicable magic trick itself? And could this inexplicable form of magic, the elixir, revert the horrendous trick?
“Do you think the elixir can transform me back to a human?” Izar asked.
“I’m not sure,” Coralline said. “Its purpose is to save life.”
Well, to transform him back to a human would be to save his life—so he would take that as a yes. He touched his left wrist—the platinum chip embedded beneath his veins bonded him to Ocean Dominion by blood and bone. Even if it killed him, he would find a way back to the company he loved, the company he was to lead with Saiph.
There was an olive-brown paste on the palm of his right hand, he noticed, sticky and adhesive, covering the gash he’d acquired when he’d clutched the half-shell in Ascella’s apartment. He looked at Coralline questioningly.
“The toothed wrack salve will help your cut,” she explained.
“Don’t get me started on your sentimentality again, Coralline,” growled Pavonis.
Izar didn’t care about his cut, he didn’t care whether he had a hand or not, he just wanted to be human again. Pavonis was right—Coralline did seem sentimental despite being smart. “Where can the elixir and the magician be found?” he asked her.
“That’s the big question,” she replied. “No one knows.”
“Well, this note mentions a Tang Tarpon. Where can he be found?”
“Hmm . . . We could find him in the Register of Residents of Meristem, a central directory—”
“Meristem?”
“Yes, you’re in the nation of Meristem. The word meristem refers to the part of an algae where the stem meets the frond. The nation of Meristem, which stretches throughout the Central Atlantic Ocean, consists of various settlements in the form of villages, towns, and cities.”
“Continue.”
“By law, every settlement in Meristem has a Ministry office. We could go to the nearest settlement from here—a village called Purple Claw, I believe—and speak to an administrator in the Under-Ministry of Residential Affairs. We would ask that person to look for the name Tang Tarpon in the Register of Residents of Meristem. . . .”
He would use Coralline, Izar decided, reaching the conclusion as swiftly as he made his business decisions. She could help him get his bearings underwater—he had no more orientation in his new environment than a grain of pollen wandering on the wind. She could be his compass, she could help him find the elixir that would give him his life back. She even carried medicine with her—like the balm she’d applied to his hand—and so he could also view her as a first-aid kit.
He could not have encountered anyone better.
But what if there was just one of these elixirs? In fact, wasn’t that likely? If so, how would he ensure that he kept the elixir instead of her?
He would buy it from her. There was not a man or woman he’d met who was not motivated by money. And given how she’d looked at his conch and whelk, she’d probably be eager for some carapace. Upon finding the elixir, he would give her all the carapace he had left in his drawstring pouch, Izar decided. And if she wanted more still, he would find a way to get it to her after transforming back to a human.
“Why are you searching for the elixir?” he asked.
“My eight-year-old brother is dying of black poison.”
Maybe she and her menagerie should have been watching what the merboy ate, Izar thought. Regardless, if she was motivated more by love than money, things could get tricky. He would deal with the situation when it arose.
“What do you do?” Coralline asked.
“I work at Ocean”—he began, but stalled at the word Dominion and finished with—“Ocean Protection.” The name of the enemy organization tasted bitter on his tongue.
“I’ve heard of Ocean Protection,” Coralline said enthusiastically. “My father told me it’s a small group of humans who care about the ocean. Unlike the people at Ocean Dominion.”
“I think everyone at Ocean Dominion should be beheaded,” Pavonis drawled.
“I think so, too,” Izar said with a gulp. “‘Death to Ocean Dominion! Life to the Ocean!’ is our motto at Ocean Protection. My ocean advocacy has led me to become an enemy of Ocean Dominion.” His face tightening, he added, for extra measure, “In fact, it was someone from Ocean Dominion who threw me overboard.”
“Looks like we share a common enemy,” Coralline said.
“We can also share a common aim,” Izar said, trying to sound nonchalant. “We can work together to find the elixir. It’ll increase our chances of success.”
“Not a chance in hell!” Pavonis boomed, tossing Izar up with his snout.
“Let’s talk, Pavonis,” Coralline said, just as he was about to toss Izar up again.
Pavonis glared at Izar one last time before arriving at Coralline’s side. They turned away from him.
“Izar’s scroll is the first clue on our quest!” Coralline bubbled. She knew from Ecklon’s detective work that any clue on any quest should be cherished, no matter how casually it was stumbled upon. “Do you think we should let Izar join our Elixir Expedition?” Coralline asked the three animals.
“It cannot be a coincidence we met him,” Nacre quipped from Coralline’s shoulder. “I think it’s fate. Let’s work with him.”
“We can work only with someone we trust,” Pavonis said, “and we can never trust a human.”
“Not even a human who works on behalf of the ocean?” Altair said.
“We should not believe a word he says,” Pavonis retorted, “for we have no way to verify it—as he well knows. And no matter where he claims to work, we should not forget that it is humans who sickened Naiadum. It is because of humans that we’re searching for the elixir in the first place. Humans are our enemies, not our allies.”
Coralline thought of the men she’d seen aboard the Ocean Dominion ship during the black poison spill, looking like sticks against the sun. Her hands rose to her neck as she recalled the slime that had encased her gills, almost suffocating her, the same slime that had contaminated Naiadum’s blood. Pavonis was right; they could never tr
ust a human.
“We have the clue now,” Pavonis continued. “We can find Tang Tarpon on our own.”
“But what if Tang demands to see a note?” Coralline said with a sigh, thinking out loud. “To be on the safe side, maybe we should work with Izar until we meet Tang; then, as soon as we meet him, we can go our own way with whatever information he provides us. What do you think?”
“That’s a good idea,” Altair said.
“You’re cleverer than you look, Coralline,” said Nacre.
“Fine,” Pavonis said, his gaze swiveling to Izar. “But I won’t take my eye off him for a moment. One mistake, and I’ll crush him to death.”
13
The Serpent
Salmon, tuna, shrimp, what do you have?” Izar asked.
The voluminous yellow-tailed waitress, who’d introduced herself as Morena, fingered the mole above her lip and said, “Very funny.”
Izar returned to scanning the menu at the restaurant, Taieniata. The words read like hieroglyphics to him: colander kelp, dulse, undaria, velvet horn, pepper dulse, ulva. Moments ago, Coralline had told him which of these algae were red, brown, and green, as though their scientific classifications should make some difference to him. “I’ll have ulva,” he said, for no other reason than that it was the last item on the menu, and so his eye hovered over it last.
“The same for you?” Morena asked Coralline.
“No way!” Izar stared at Coralline, as did Morena. “I’ve been eating it at home to please my mother,” she explained. “Undaria for me, please.”
“Anything to drink?” Morena said.
“What do you have?” Izar asked.
“All four wines.”
Wine, underwater? Who would have thought? “The strongest,” Izar said.
“Parasol, then.” Morena’s thick chin jiggled as she nodded, then turned to Coralline.
“No wine for me,” Coralline said.
