by A. L. Knorr
Two underwater cities, distant and deep in the shadows, slid by as I followed my mother’s long and powerful tail. How I gawked and begged to be allowed to go deep and explore.
“We’ve no time to lose, Bel,” replied my mother, “even now, Okeanos is at risk.”
“But how?”
Okeanos was a place, I now knew, and it was our home, but that was where my comprehension ended. The urgency I sensed in my mother had not been explained. I was just supposed to trust her.
“When you’re older, you’ll understand.”
I had to be satisfied with telling myself that when I was grown and could go where I pleased, I would return this way and explore for as long as I liked. I wouldn’t forget these cities. One had spindly, towering turrets with soft curves and arches. The other was all square edges, big brutal walls with huge stones fitted together tightly and almost seamlessly. Both were now home to millions of underwater species from microscopic algae, painted across the stones in bright colors, to huge eels poking their heads from crevices, the sizes of their toothy smiles mere hints at how long the attached bodies must be.
We stopped to catch a meal, and Polly paid particular attention to how much I ate, encouraging me to fill up. I should have known something was afoot for she didn’t normally scrutinize my dining habits.
On we swam, and the terrain changed again. Rather than filling me with curiosity, the stark and barren topography here gave me a sense of foreboding. Suddenly, there seemed to be no life anywhere—no fish, no crustaceans, not even seaweed. When there was sand, it was black and gray; when there were rocks, they were as dark as ink and as sharp as razors. Even the texture and content of the water changed. It became a little more difficult to breathe, and tasted mildly acidic. I became conscious of my gills working to pull oxygen from the water.
“What is this place, mama?” I asked, trailing behind her and working harder, as always, my little tail burning and my heart pumping.
“It’s the apotreptikó,” she replied.
“What’s that?”
She sighed audibly. “Just swim, Bel. We are getting close now.”
And so I swam, and swam, and swam. I understood why she’d made me eat so much, because here there was no food. I began to grow hungry again, but knew better than to ask about hunting––there was nothing to hunt, and if there had been, Polly would not likely have allowed me to eat whatever could survive here in this oxygen-depleted and toxic place.
My focus lifted from the gloom and jagged edges below us to an increasing brightness on the horizon. I gladly picked up speed when Polly did, looking forward to leaving this strange and empty place.
Passing out of the apotreptikó was better than passing out of dark rain and shadow and into bright, strong sunlight. The world sprang to life, and the line between the apotreptikó and this abundant and beautiful jungle could not have been more distinct than if it had been drawn in ink.
I couldn’t help but sigh with pleasure as the oxygen-rich water filled my gills and the smells of verdant green and rich minerals filled my senses.
Polly looked back when she heard me, giving me a rare smile. “Welcome to Okeanos.”
My eyes widened. “This is our home?” I looked into the horizon of this rich resource-filled land, but I saw no other sirens, nor any sign of places they might live.
“This is the outer reaches of it,” Polly explained. “We still have far to swim, but we are in our territory now.”
We hunted and fed, then slept for a time before moving on. Looking back over my shoulder at the blackness of the apotreptikó as it grew distant behind us, I let out a sigh of relief.
Sometime after that, more than two days of traveling I believe, though my memory for time is quite fuzzy, I witnessed something which was a foreshadowing of things to come. If I had been a little older and had been told a little more, I would have linked this event to the reason Polly was in such a hurry to get back to Okeanos. It wasn’t until later that I put the two together.
Two creatures became visible as we swam over the top of a mountain of coral. Like everything else, the coral was rife with color, abundant with fish and sea-life, the water sparkling clean and delicious. My mother immediately redirected toward these two creatures, and I realized as she bore down on them that they were more human-like than we were.
One was clearly masculine, with a tapered waist and long limbs. The female was pale and slender. Both had long ropy hair, tangled masses of it, hopelessly matted. Polly would never have allowed my hair to become this way. During our rest breaks, Polly had taught me how to use my fingers to keep my hair relatively unknotted and free from algae-growth and my scalp and skin free from parasites. She told me a siren’s grooming habits were equal to her health and vitality, and it was not a matter of vanity but hygiene. We allowed our nails to grow, but if they began to curve too much, or spiral, we cut them.
I stared at these two unusual beings with a mixture of horror and curiosity. They were too thin—gaunt, even—and were scouring the surface of the coral for sea vegetables with a desperation evident in their movements and frightened faces. There were fat gray parasites clinging to places on both of their skulls, and the whites of their eyes were tinged with yellow. They had the limbs, bodies, and faces of humans, but with webbing between their fingers and toes. Their feet were long and flexible, and reminded me of the fins of some kinds of fish I’d seen…less efficient than ours, but able to get around underwater with speed. Why were they in such poor health, I wondered. My stomach churned with pity for them.
They clung to one another, looking up with wide eyes as Polly thundered at them.
“What are you doing here?” she waved a hand back in the direction we came. “You are not permitted,” she hissed. “Get out, quick, before I send our Foniádes after you.”
They’d understood her, whether because they spoke our language or because no one could mistake the hostility in her tone and gestures, I didn’t know. But they bolted back the way we’d come, heading for the apotreptikó.
Polly watched them go, a moue of disgust on her face. She muttered to herself. “Odenyalis, you’ve the heart of a traitor. It is worse than I thought.”
“Mama,” I asked, timidly, for her mutinous look was not one I had seen often. “What are they?”
“Atlanteans,” she spat, before putting her back to the now-distant duo.
“Why can’t they eat here? They look hungry and there is plenty of food.” I might have added that they would most likely die before getting entirely past the extensive territory of the apotreptikó, but felt my mother would not appreciate me pointing out the obvious.
She shot a disgusted look at me.
“Isn’t there?” I added, timidly, softening my tone to allow that I didn’t know much, and could be wrong.
“It doesn’t matter how much food––or anything else––we have, it’s ours. It’s not for those diseased scroungers. Now, move. We’ll be at court by daybreak, but not nearly soon enough by the state of things.”
Troubled, I worked to keep up with my mother as we grew ever closer to our final destination.
Two
If I had thought the landscape beautiful once we’d passed out of the wasteland of the apotreptikó, it was nothing to the beauty that appeared below us as we crossed Okeanos. The best way to describe it was as a mountain range. And just as many of the largest mountain ranges of the earth’s above-water surface are far-ranging and visually stunning, Okeanos was no different.
Seemingly endless peaks and valleys stretched out as far as the siren-eye could see. The tallest, most imposing peaks jutted upward to break the water’s surface and stretch into the skies. Some valleys snaked tightly through steep canyon bottoms, while others stretched languidly wide and contained visible streams of fast-moving water––underwater highways fueled by varying temperatures and changing surfaces along the ocean floor. Every surface was busy and full of life. There appeared to be innumerable cracks in the rocks from which
creatures emerged and into which they disappeared.
We were headed straight for the largest of these mountains. Polly said it was called Mount Califas and it was the heart of our territory.
I spotted the first sirens swimming among these valleys. My gaze consumed them hungrily, for the only other siren I’d seen at that point was my own mother. I even noticed a few young sirens, not much older than myself, swimming alongside their elders.
Polly did not greet these sirens, but something was communicated to them all the same. Whatever they were doing, they stopped and looked for her. Some seemed to share looks between them, while others watched as we swam by overhead before following at a distance.
I wanted desperately to ask who they were, why they were following us, and if I could talk to them, but there was something solemn and serious in my mother’s face, and something even more foreboding in the faces of the others. So, I kept my mouth shut and trusted all would be revealed soon.
We swam for a long time and gathered sirens as we went, leading the migration to Mount Califas. We approached the imposing structure but my mother did not slow down. I watched as she swam into an inconspicuous crack in the rocks. I hesitated too long and sirens began to swim past me, following her inside. I realized I would lose my mother if I didn’t join them, because she was not waiting for me.
As I slipped inside, the water temperature dropped and my eyes worked to adjust—the glow of bioluminescence in the tails of those around me being the only illumination. The crack became a tunnel, and the tunnel walls closed in and opened out before breaking off into other tunnels. Inside Mount Califas was a massive network of caves, pools, rivers, hallways, and caverns. I followed where the other sirens went, struggling to pass the ones in front of me in the narrow corridor.
The world began to brighten with shades of green and blue light. The sounds of water splashing and dripping, echoing against stone walls, reached my ears.
My head broke the surface and I found myself climbing out of the water along with the other sirens and into a huge arched cave speckled with light.
No one spoke as we stood on human legs and filtered through the enormous cave, our skin lit by the dim blue glow provided by glowworms and bioluminescent algae covering the walls.
I craned my neck to find my mother and saw her disappear through a large doorway illuminated with a soft white light. Someone had given her clothing, although I’d not seen who or when, for her body was covered with a simple robe tied at the waist with a ribbon. Her long hair lay dripping against her back and a circle of damp spread across her shoulder blades.
Indignation that the other sirens did not recognize that I was her daughter and let me pass rose inside me and I wanted to yell at them to let me through. But no one was speaking, and this moment held a grave silence that I was afraid to break.
One by one the sirens entered the doorway single file, and I took my turn. A stairway led us up and up and up and my young legs, unaccustomed to walking after the long time spent in my siren form, began to burn.
Daylight grew brighter as we ascended, but at no point did I see the sky. The long, silent climb gave me time to observe the strange surroundings. The play of illumination within this cave system was ever-changing and intriguing to watch. Slices of light shone from cracks in the rock, refracting and shooting into other cracks where it rebounded yet again.
The temperature rose, and we passed many rooms filled with color and pools and what looked at a glance like artwork. But there was no stopping because the siren parade moved at a constant pace.
When the soles of my bare feet finally touched the last step, those ahead of me had already spread out to form a semi-circle. Since it was impossible to see over the heads of the crowd, I pushed and elbowed my way indignantly toward the front. Something was happening that concerned my mother, and I was both out of my mind with curiosity and terrified to miss it.
I stopped when I reached the front row of sirens.
Many of the sirens in the room had procured clothing from somewhere, but just as many stood naked and dripping, watching with solemn eyes.
My heart was pounding and tiny minnows of anxiety swam circles in my belly.
That was when I saw them.
Not even the sight of my mother standing in a circle of bright sunlight pouring in through a hole in the ceiling could tear my eyes from the sight of them. And I instantly knew who they were: The Foniádes.
There were eight of them, and they were unlike any other siren I’d seen thus far, or could have dreamed up in my imagination.
They were taller than Polly, each of them broad and strong with muscular bodies. Feminine in shape and silhouette, and also positively predatory. Their pupils were large, even with the bright natural light in the room. Their irises were deep indigo blue and the small whites still visible were bright blue-white. When their eyes moved, it was to dart, watchfully, and because the irises were so large, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly where they were looking.
Their skin was not rosy and warm or in any human shade, but a cool, blue-gray color. Long arms ended in strong hands equipped with talons, and the parting of one’s bluish lips revealed stark white teeth, a little too pointed to be friendly. They wore simple, tight sleeveless tunics that ended just below the pubic bone and matched the color of their skin. They all had high cheekbones and hair in shades of grays, blacks, and dark blues. For some it was shorn at the sides, and for others it was twisted into tight rows against the head and let to flow down the back. I noticed each wore a turquoise gem––at the throat of some, in the hair of others, on the wrist of yet another.
My mind was bursting with questions about these sirens––if that’s what they were. That my mother had threatened the Atlanteans with sending the Foniádes after them had had such an instant effect made sense now. These creatures were intimidating merely standing and leaning against the stones the way they were now, I couldn’t imagine what they could do when released against a foe.
Only when I’d looked my fill at these forbidding sirens did I notice that my mother stood in front of a throne made of bright blue stone, on which sat a queen wearing a crown and necklace of that same blue rock. The siren on the blue throne got to her feet. She took the steps down from her perch, slowly, with a soft, unsmiling expression. She was beautiful to look at, Odenyalis––I knew this was her name because my mother had spoken of her, though never with much regard. She wore a robe similar to the one Polly wore––simple, long-sleeved, and tied at the waist.
Odenyalis stood face to face with my mother, holding her hands out. Polly placed her hands on the offered palms. Odenyalis kissed Polly once on each cheek before she lifted slender hands to the crown of blue gems and took it from her own head. Turning the crown around, she placed it on Polly’s head, then she transferred the necklace and the ring on her finger.
Odenyalis kissed her again, but this time at the throat, in the hollow place between the collar bones. Odenyalis then pressed her first two fingers into this hollow place, closed her eyes and dropped her face down. A few moments passed before she lifted her gaze again, dropped her hand, and went to join the circle of sirens. I watched her face, and I thought she seemed happy, even relieved, but like she was working to keep her emotions hidden. A few sirens took Odenyalis by the hand and there were whispers, but I couldn’t make out what was said. I know now that I couldn’t make it out because it was in an ancient language that has now been lost, but the sirens were simply thanking Odenyalis for her service.
Polly turned to face the crowd. “I, Apollyona of Okeanos, humbly take up the coronation of the Salt, and serve you as Sovereign.”
Apollyona? I thought. That is her real name? And somehow, it fell into place. This name suited her far better than Polly ever had. It struck me that she never thought enough of the few humans she’d had in her life to give them her real name. It was only later that I understood that all sirens have two names, the one they were born with, and the one the Salt gives to them som
etime after puberty.
One by one, the sirens approached Apollyona and touched that space between her collarbones. Some kissed her cheeks, some didn’t, but all touched the base of her neck.
I took my turn, hoping for something from my mother, some word that she’d take me aside and explain everything later. But her eyes fell on me the same way they fell on any other. The only signal I got from her that I was any different from every other siren in the room was the smallest of smiles. She received the acknowledgement that I was giving her––she was now my Sovereign. I moved aside to let the next siren take her turn, including the Foniádes. It was then that I noticed that it was not only the Foniádes and the Sovereign who had these bright blue gems, but every siren in the room wore one, save those who––like me––had not yet passed through puberty.
I waited, hoping for something more from my mother, and as I stood back and watched, I noticed another siren dissimilar to the others in the room. But unlike the Foniádes, I noticed this one for her beauty and coloring rather than her height or intimidating features.
She was petite with long blue hair––big and puffy and fine––it moved as though she was standing in a breeze, but I thought it must just be light as silk. Her face was small and pointed, the outer corners of her eyes upturned. Her eyes seemed to change color, at one moment green, at another blue, and then gray. She was also dressed simply, but with more character, I thought. She wore a short blue shift dress with only one strap over her right shoulder. She was much shorter than Apollyona, and reached up to touch the new Sovereign’s throat, but somehow, she seemed just as majestic as the new queen.
