The Oyster Thief

by Sonia Faruqi

  Zaurak’s eyes stared straight ahead, his pupils like circles of black ice. “Twenty-seven years ago, when my leg got caught in shark-skinning equipment and Antares paid for my medical care out of pocket, I felt deeply indebted to him and intensely loyal. I thought it was a sense of benevolence that had led him to help me. I did not know that he wanted something from me. Two years later, I finally came to understand.

  “Antares phoned me late one night and ordered me to meet him at midnight. He asked me to bring with me my Worker Directory, a register containing the names and phone numbers of all the fishermen at Ocean Dominion. As director of operations, I alone had access to the Worker Directory. I also prided myself on knowing my fishermen by name. I did not ask Antares any questions but, trusting him, arrived at midnight upon the trawler he indicated. It belonged to a giant of a man named Alshain Ankaa.”

  Izar closed his eyes at the name.

  “Antares, Alshain, and I set out into the night sea. Eventually, Alshain stopped the trawler and gave Antares a pearl-colored potion called moonmumble—made of liquid moonlight, he said—to transform him into a merman. I’d never heard of moonmumble or a human-merperson transformation before, and scoffed at the idea, but I was left with my tongue hanging out of my mouth when Antares dove overboard and disappeared under the waves. As Alshain and I waited for him to return, Alshain told me that Antares had transformed once before, almost four years before that day. His visit had had something to do with legend and lore underwater.”

  Legend and lore . . . Zaurak’s voice mingled with Osmundea’s in Izar’s mind.

  “Anyhow, Antares soon returned to the waves. But he was not alone; he was wrestling with a mermaid over a merboy. In the tussle, Antares tried to slash her throat with some sort of half-shell, but he ended up gashing the merboy’s jaw.”

  Zaurak’s gaze traced the hook-shaped scar on Izar’s face. Izar thought of covering it with a hand, but found that his hands could not move.

  “Antares knocked the mermaid unconscious and dragged the child onto the trawler. Alshain and I urged him to return the child to his mother, but Antares claimed the child was his son. He said the boy’s mother was demented and he was rescuing the boy from her. I trusted Antares and believed every word he said. Alshain gave Antares a golden potion called sunsin—constituted of liquid sunlight—to turn him human again. Antares ordered Alshain to also give sunsin to the boy, as well as another potion—one that would lapse his memory of the water and enable him to have a ‘fresh, happy start on land.’

  “Upon drinking sunsin, Antares started convulsing on the trawler during his transformation from merman back to human. Alshain came to stand over the boy but did not give him sunsin. I held the boy in my arms. He was shaking so severely that the blood from his cut was splattering all over my shirt. When his body stilled, I saw that his tail had separated into legs and his chest was moving up and down, powered by lungs. Alshain strode up to me and said the boy’s transformation proved the truth of Antares’s words, that the boy was his son. The boy had to be half-human and half-merperson—a hummer, Alshain said—otherwise he could not have transformed without a potion. Alshain emptied a vial of a pale-blue potion at the boy’s lips, to lapse his memory of the water.”

  That was why Izar remembered nothing of his life before that day.

  “I hoped we would return to Menkar and the ghastly night would be over, but Antares asked me to phone a fisherman with a son of a similar age and appearance as the boy on deck. Looking at the boy, I thought immediately of an Ocean Dominion fisherman on the island of Mira, Heze Virgo, who’d had a son just about three years ago, a boy with curly brown hair, like the one I was holding in my arms. I found Heze’s phone number in my Worker Directory. I called him and handed the phone to Antares, who ordered Heze to meet us in the waters near Mira with his wife and boy, otherwise his fisherman position with Ocean Dominion would be terminated. Heze hurried over to our trawler in his fishing dinghy, his wife Capella and their boy cowering behind him in the little boat. What Antares did next is something that has haunted me since.”

  Goosebumps crawled up Izar’s arms. He thought of Rigel Nihal, the drunken neighbor of the Virgos, whom he’d encountered when he’d visited the Virgos’ hovel.

  “Antares bounded out of the trawler into the fishing dinghy and, before anyone could react, bludgeoned the family to death with a club. He hurled their bodies overboard. Soon after, the boy on the platform started to awaken, his memory wiped clean. By this time, I was so sick to my stomach that I had gone belowdecks—that’s why you don’t remember me from that night. . . . The next day, Antares told Menkar Daily that he’d happened to arrive while the fishing family was being drowned by merpeople. He told them that he’d managed to rescue the boy, and, most magnanimously, decided to adopt him.”

  Zaurak shook out his leg angrily on the floor, then, crying out in pain, grabbed his thigh with both hands. “I wish Antares hadn’t saved my leg,” he bellowed, “for it led me to feel indebted to him—which was why he’d saved it to begin with. I thought often of going to the Office of the Police Commissioner, but I was an accomplice to the killings—I had been on the trawler; I had dialed Heze Virgo. Plus, the chief police commissioner, that corrupt buzzard with his handlebar moustache, Canopus Corvus, has always been in Antares’s pocket. Antares practically pays his whole salary, in the form of hefty donations to the Office of the Police Commissioner. As such, Antares can rely on Canopus’s loyalty whenever he requires it.”

  Izar remembered his visit to Canopus that night, when the gash across his jaw had been bleeding a path down his face. Canopus had written everything Antares had said as though it was found in a history textbook. He had not questioned; he had not sought any other witnesses or alternate accounts. And when such an account had arrived—Rigel had discovered all three bodies—Canopus must have spoken to Antares about it directly. In the middle of the night, Antares had made the bodies disappear from the grave.

  “Everything that you know about your past is a lie,” Zaurak continued in a tortured voice, “and I’ve played my part in it. I’m sorry, Izar. I’ll never forgive myself. . . .”

  Zaurak’s voice trailed off, but even if it hadn’t, Izar no longer possessed the capacity to listen.

  Why would Antares have gone to all this trouble to abduct him from the water? he wondered. Because Izar was a hummer, and hummers were inventive, and Antares needed something invented—underwater fire. Antares had tested Izar’s intelligence that first day itself by asking him to construct a replica of his house. Izar had passed the test; had he failed, Antares might have thrown him back into the ocean. Antares had also kindled a fascination of underwater fire in Izar that first day by lighting a match and dropping it in a glass of water.

  But why would Antares have killed the Virgos, Izar wondered, when he could easily have told the world a simpler story? He could have said, for instance, that he’d discovered Izar as a wandering orphan on shore and decided to adopt him. No, Antares had killed the Virgos to ensure that Izar grew up with a lifelong loathing of merpeople, believing they’d murdered his biological parents. Antares had wanted Izar to have no qualms about harming merpeople and their world.

  Izar had thought Maia insane, with her allegations that he was the son of a mistress of Antares’s, but she’d been right: Izar was born of Antares’s liaison, except with a mermaid instead of a woman. But if Izar was Antares’s biological son just as much as Saiph, why had Antares always loved Saiph but viewed Izar as a means to an end? Because Izar was partly merman, and thus, from Antares’s perspective, he was beneath human—beneath Antares and Saiph—except in the realm of inventiveness.

  When Maia’s car had exploded on the way to a divorce lawyer, Izar had been blamed for it because he’d been tinkering with the hood of her car the night before. But nothing Izar had done should have caused an explosion. It must have been Antares who’d rigged Maia’s car to explode, for she would have obtained half of his wealth in a divorce settlement. Pu
rsuant to Maia’s death, Antares had paid Canopus half a million dollars to get the charges against Izar removed. At the time, Izar had thought Antares had saved him from jail because of his love for him; now, he thought it must be because Antares had wanted Izar to be able to invent underwater fire, something impossible from a prison cell.

  Izar touched his wrist where his platinum chip had been. When he had charred his wrist during his fire experimentation, he had gone to see Doctor Navi, and both Antares and Zaurak had visited him in Doctor Navi’s office. In the ocean, Izar had assumed that Zaurak must have told Doctor Navi to plant the tracking device in him—now he knew it was Antares who must have done so. With the chip in him, Izar could be tracked and killed as soon as his purpose was served. And it was now served—Castor was ready—and Izar had transformed from an asset to a liability: Antares and Saiph did not want to share with him the wealth that he had created for them.

  Antares and Saiph had to have been working together on the numerous murder attempts on his life. The contents of the gray tin that Izar had discovered on his desk, for instance—the amber scroll, the half-shell, and the card with coordinates—must have come from Antares.

  Yer a pawn in a game, Rigel had said. Saiph, yes, but not Antares—Izar could never have imagined that Antares would want him dead—Antares, who had adopted him, cared for him, protected him against the world—Antares, for whom he would have given his life. Izar had been a puppet, Antares, the puppeteer.

  “I’m sorry, Izar,” Zaurak repeated.

  “You’ve suffered plenty on my account,” Izar said, looking at Zaurak’s fly-swarmed leg. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “No matter what happens to me tomorrow,” Zaurak said gruffly, grasping the back of Izar’s neck, “I want you to escape and live.”

  “You wouldn’t leave me behind, and I’m not about to leave you behind. You’re all I have left now.”

  On land, Zaurak was all Izar had left; in the ocean, there was a small chance he also had Coralline. He wondered what she was doing at this moment. She was probably busy with wedding preparations, he imagined, perhaps fussing over the lace of her bridal bodice or deciding how she would fashion her long hair. He did not know anything about weddings underwater, but there would be a bride and a groom, and Coralline would be the bride and Ecklon the groom. Unless, of course, she decided against marrying Ecklon. Unless she loved Izar, as Izar loved her.

  He knew his thinking was wishful, but he could not help indulging in it, not only for his sake but also hers. If she decided against marrying Ecklon tomorrow, she would not be at the wedding venue, Kelp Cove, and Castor would find himself in an empty arena. If she did decide to marry Ecklon tomorrow, things would be very different. Assuming that his escape attempt worked, Izar was planning to reach her wedding in time to disable Castor, but he worried that the robot was practically invincible. With a chest full of bullets, Castor would shoot anyone who approached him or whom he deemed even a remote threat—Izar had programmed him with this self-defense instinct. And Castor’s eyes were long-range, three-dimensional cameras, such that Saiph would be able to view Castor’s underwater environment on a computer screen, and guide and focus his violence toward Coralline.

  If Coralline married tomorrow, she would likely die tomorrow. If she didn’t, she would live. Izar thought again of Mintaka’s words: The celebration will be a funeral.

  He needed to remember Coralline viscerally, the need just as stark as that for oxygen. Leaping to his feet, he rushed to his satchel below the jaundiced light-bulb. Made of treated algae, the sack was different on land than in it had been in the water—fully dry now, its folds were no longer malleable but starched and hard. The zip was also tighter, requiring more tugging. Izar opened it nonetheless and, reaching a hand inside, pulled out Coralline’s notepad. The algae upon its cover looked like a shapeless smear, and many of the pages were stuck together, having lost their shape—but Izar cradled the little notepad as though it was her hand he caressed.

  A glow emanated from within his satchel. Putting the notepad down on the floor, he rummaged inside the bag, shifting aside the stiff layers along its bottom, and gasped: There, in an under-compartment, shining as brightly as a torch, was the elixir intended for her brother.

  Izar and Coralline had planned that Izar would give it to her upon his return to the Telescope Tower. But after his conversation with Osmundea, and then after he’d seen Coralline kissing Ecklon, he’d forgotten all about it.

  “What’s that light?” Zaurak called.

  Izar could not speak, but he turned to look at Zaurak, so Zaurak would know he had heard him. An idea fell into his mind: He had forgotten to give the elixir to Coralline, but he could give it to Zaurak. It would heal Zaurak’s leg, which would help them escape this room tomorrow, which would in turn help Izar get into the water and save Coralline from Castor.

  Izar sprinted to Zaurak and knelt before him. Clasping the elixir between his thumb and forefinger, he held it before Zaurak’s nose, such that its reflection shone as twin moons in Zaurak’s eyes. “This is an elixir that will heal your leg and save your life. Take it.”

  “Save it for yourself,” Zaurak said, “in case you need it tomorrow.”

  “No. Take it. I insist.” Izar deposited the elixir in the palm of Zaurak’s hand.

  27

  The Queen of Poison

  You have a visitor,” Abalone said, opening Coralline’s door a wedge.

  Abalone slipped aside, and Rhodomela slithered in through the crack of the doorway, like an eel through a crevice. She was wearing a black bodice, and her black hair was wound in her signature, severe bun. She slammed the door in Abalone’s face.

  Rhodomela had never visited Coralline at home before. She must be here to collect an apology, Coralline thought. “I’m sorry. I should not have trespassed into The Irregular Remedy to prepare my desmarestia-sea-oak solution, and I should not have spoken to you as I did during my probationary review.”

  Rhodomela did not seem to be listening; instead, she was sniffing, her hooked nose twitching. Had the room started to smell? Coralline wondered. It might well have: When she had worked for Rhodomela, Coralline had once visited an elderly merman on his deathbed, and her nostrils had gotten a whiff of something as indescribable as it was discernible—intuitively, she had recognized it as the smell of death. Coralline’s family had perhaps grown immune to her odor, because it would have grown steadily over the days; like a change in weight, it would be more noticeable to an outsider. Rhodomela knew death better than she knew life, and she’d detected it immediately. Coralline smiled—Rhodomela’s reaction suggested that Coralline’s death truly must be near.

  Rhodomela arrived suddenly at Coralline’s bedside. Coralline thought of inviting the master apothecary to sit on the desk chair next to her bed, but it would be far too close for comfort—yet it was equally intimidating to have Rhodomela hovering over her, forming a bony tower. Rhodomela handed her The Annals of the Association of Apothecaries. Coralline usually devoured the journal as soon as it arrived every month, reading it cover to cover in a single sitting from her perch at the living-room window, but the journal for this month was sitting unopened on her desk, deposited there by her mother earlier this morning.

  Coralline saw a large portrait of herself on the front page of The Annals.

  The Queen of Poison

  From the village of Urchin Grove, twenty-year-old mermaid Coralline Costaria seems to have stumbled upon a shocking medical discovery.

  Coralline worked as an apprentice apothecary for renowned, exacting Master Apothecary Rhodomela Ranularia, at Rhodomela’s clinic, The Irregular Remedy. Coralline, the first person Rhodomela ever hired, was also the first person Rhodomela ever fired. Coralline worked for Rhodomela for six months before Rhodomela told her, “I’d rather die of blood contamination from black poison than see your hideously ugly face again,” according to Rosette Delesse, an associate apothecary at The Conventional Cure next door.

>   Soon after Coralline’s dismissal, a black poison spill lashed Urchin Grove, leaving Coralline’s eight-year-old brother, Naiadum, terminally ill. Coralline decided to reject medicine in favor of magic to save her brother. Abandoning her family, she traveled far and wide through Meristem to find the legendary elixir of starlight. She returned empty-handed, but with a gruesome murder charge against her and an unsettlingly unconventional idea: that the reviled, poisonous acid kelp desmarestia, when combined with the alkaline algae sea oak, could be a healer of tremendous scope.

  With her poison-based remedy, Coralline managed to rescue her brother from the brink of death. But a challenge unfolded: Without a medical badge from the Association of Apothecaries, she was in defiance of the Medical Malpractice Act. The punishment for such defiance? To be barred from practice for the rest of one’s life.

  Rhodomela arrived at Coralline’s rescue. She said that Rosette was woefully mistaken and that she had never terminated Coralline’s employment at The Irregular Remedy. As proof, she showed Coralline’s apprentice apothecary badge to the Constables Department of Urchin Grove. Rhodomela said that Coralline had simply forgotten the sand-dollar shell at The Irregular Remedy, and thus had been unable to produce it when constable Pericarp Plicata had asked to see it at her home. Pericarp has dismissed the medical malpractice charge against Coralline.

  Rhodomela visited next with the Association of Apothecaries, and presented a case to the Decision-Making Panel—consisting of three master apothecaries—that Coralline had invented an unprecedented, life-saving remedy, and should thus be awarded the title of master apothecary. The panel agreed unanimously.

  With their decision, Coralline (whom Rosette has dubbed “Queen of Poison”) becomes the youngest healer in the realm of Meristem to have achieved the title of master apothecary. (Rhodomela is the second-youngest healer to have achieved the title, at twenty-five years of age, when she invented the Black Poison Cleanser solution.)