The Seafarer's Kiss

by Julia Ember

  Today, I waited at the edge of the belugas’ abandoned surfacing hole. Our weather was finally starting to warm up, though this far north, we would always have ice. When summer began, the whales no longer worried about finding a place to breathe and dispersed throughout the sea to hunt. The warming water kept the hole in the ice open, and it widened each day. I had fashioned a sort of spear from a slender strip of wood that I found in one of the ship’s hulls. The belugas took me with them when they hunted, patiently accepted my ineffective spear thrusts, and kept me fed. Part of me hoped that Ragna would come back and seek me out now that the water was a little less treacherous, while at other times I hoped she was halfway across the world making a new life for herself.

  I shut my eyes against the warming sun. I knew by now that the gods wouldn’t dissolve my pact with Loki, though I prayed to Odin every night to change me back. I wanted the All-Father to rewind time, to make it so Vigdis was never attacked, so that I never met Ragna. If I hadn’t known her, I couldn’t miss her so much now.

  Red sails appeared on the horizon, and a moment later a dark ship began winding its way through the channels in the melting ice shelf. The bow was adorned with the outline of a skinny mermaid holding a shell. I snorted. I’d seen the design on more than one passing titan. It was ironic that most humans didn’t believe in us, yet featured us so proudly on their ships.

  The hull sat low in the water; the ocean crept up the ship’s sides, reaching almost to the deck. Whatever the ship carried, it was heavy. As it drew alongside me, I ducked under the water. Sailors dressed in rich furs leaned over the rail, searching the sea. They clutched long metal spears and shouted to one another over the loud splashing of the oars. I scanned the men one by one, hoping beyond reason that I might catch a flash of sun-blonde hair or a glimpse of a fierce girl in an oversized fur coat. I couldn’t even be sure if I missed her or just having someone—anyone—to talk to.

  Cutting through the water, a black-finned orca sped past me. She had a notch the shape of a half-moon on her dorsal fin, and I recognized her as the matriarch of one of the local pods—a group the merfolk of my clan often hunted alongside. A moment later, the whole sea seemed full of orcas; a legion of black fins streaked above the surface of the water like toy boats with midnight sails.

  Ducking under the waves, I listened to them speak. Although I couldn’t understand their words, everyone knew that the orcas spoke a sophisticated language. I could have studied the whales’ tongues, but master linguists were becoming rarer and rarer in the ice mountain, and I doubted one of them would have agreed to take me as an apprentice. The orcas’ language was considered one of the most difficult whale languages for merfolk to master. The first female gave directions; her voice was high and ethereal. The water carried her words to the rest of the pod.

  The group split in two. The females with calves at their sides went one way, staying deep under the ocean, while the rest of the pod went another. I could see what they were trying to do, and it pulled at my heartstrings. The orcas knew that ship carried men who had come to kill them. They were trying to save their babies.

  On the ship’s deck, the sailors’ shouting turned to curses. But they didn’t fall for the whales’ trick. Clipping the ice and sending glassy shards flying in its wake, the great boat pursued the calves. My heart sank. Against this many humans, I didn’t know how to help the whales. I shuddered. Maybe the reason the ship sat so low in the water was that it was already overburdened with the bodies of whales the men had killed. With a ship that size, the length of a sperm whale at least, they could take a dozen orca calves.

  The whales’ chattering became more frenzied. I could sense their fear in the vibrations that carried through the waves. The pod dodged in and out of the icebergs, leading the ship into the frozen heart of our deathtrap.

  My whole body tensed. The humans on the ship’s deck were whooping and shouting, wild with bloodlust and the thrill of the chase. I sensed disaster pending. If one of the humans pierced a whale with a spear, I could remove it—if the orcas still recognized me as a friend.

  The ship chased the whale pod, trying to herd them away from the treacherous bergs. When it passed less than an arm’s length from me, I pushed off the ice and attached myself to its hull. I still hadn’t mastered the art of swimming without my fins, but I’d come to appreciate some things about the tentacles. The ship towed me like an oversized barnacle. I dangled upside-down and watched the whales maneuver.

  Above me, one of the men projected his voice above the deck’s chaos. “Milord, we can’t follow them through there again. The ship’s too wide. The ice hasn’t melted enough. We’ll crash on a berg.”

  The rowers hesitated, and the ship drifted to the left, pulled by the tide toward the shelf. I heard a cracking noise above me. The oars twisted and churned with renewed vigor.

  “One of those calves will feed my family for the whole winter,” another male voice roared. “The ice here is receding. It’ll be soft and break easy.” One of the oars clipped the edge of the shelf and a slab of ice—as long and sharp as a blade—fractured into the sea. “See, the ice is no problem. It’ll crumble if we hit it.”

  The ship jolted, and I almost lost my grip. The momentary hesitation cost the humans. From my underwater vantage point, I could see the whales’ silhouettes fading into the ocean’s blue haze.

  “We’re losing them!” The leader yelled. Feet scuffled across the deck, and I heard the cracking noise again, followed by a shriek of pain. We coasted forward, gliding through the sea like a shadowy kraken.

  Suddenly, the ship lurched much more forcefully, and screams and shouts sounded from the deck: “What was that?”

  “What did we hit?”

  “Captain?”

  “There’s water coming through…”

  “Turn around, go back to the shelf!”

  I could hear them racing around the deck like seabirds. Then metal and wood groaned, and the ship reversed course. The whales’ chatter quietened to a low hum. I remembered Mama telling me once that with orcas, silence meant danger. A long time ago, our glacier community had gone to war against the orcas. Our histories still told the bloody stories, and it had never happened again. Both sides had lost too many to think that victory was worth the deaths.

  I released my grip on the hull and floated to the nearest iceberg. Splintered wood stuck out from the ice where the ship stabbed into the berg like a human spear in the side of a giant beluga. But it was the ship that was dying. Pushing my hair back from my eyes, I watched the men try to row as the ship sank lower in the water. I should have felt relief that my opportunity to obtain a human voice had come, but I felt only sickness spreading from my stomach up to my throat and making me dizzy.

  The humans were screaming and praying to Aegir to save them. But everyone knew the whales were the sea god’s favorite children. The orcas swam nearer, clustering silently around their iceberg savior, waiting for the humans to fall into their domain.

  The men broke off pieces of the sinking ship. A few roped together makeshift rafts and drifted into the water. Others climbed to the top of the mast or dangled from the ropes that suspended the sails. The orcas chattered, ducking their heads together like old mermen hunching over a gaming board. I bit my lip. I didn’t have to understand their language to know what they were planning.

  With a cry, one of the men fell from the mast. He was a large-framed fellow, with shoulder-length golden hair and green boots that looked as if they were woven from fish scales. His gold curls reminded me of Ragna. Before the orcas could close in, I pushed off from the ice and swam to him. Snatching him under the armpits, I dragged him toward the ice shelf. He tried to scream, swallowed cold water, and sent a flurry of bubbles to the surface. One of the orcas trilled at me reproachfully. The man kicked at my sides, trying to free himself, but I held fast. He could be the only opportunity I would get.

  We surfac
ed as the water around us turned pink. Tendrils of red snaked into the sea, and color exploded in the artic grayness. The man in my grasp stilled, and I thought I could hear him moaning over the screams, the splashes, and the crunch of bones.

  Although it was summer, the water was only a few degrees warmer than the ice. I shivered, but forced warmth up through my scales. I needed to keep this man warm enough to survive. Any of the others the orcas didn’t slaughter would freeze to death or drown.

  Using my tentacles, I lifted the sailor onto the edge of the ice. He scooted away from the edge and shook as the frigid air bit into his wet body. Rubbing the salt water from his eyes, he looked over my head at the scene, the one-sided battle between the whales and their victims. I’d already seen enough.

  Bracing himself on his hands, the sailor vomited into the sea. Then he brought a shaking hand up to cover his mouth.

  “I don’t mean to harm you,” I said.

  “Are you from Aegir?” he whispered, coughing seawater into his sleeve. “I’ve always prayed to him. Every day. Maybe I did something in a past life to please him… My brother… please, my brother is back there.”

  I met his eyes, even though the pain in them made me want to drop my gaze to the ice. “Your brother will be gone by now. I’m sorry.”

  “There are a lot of men there,” he protested. “You don’t know… please. He has ginger hair and a scarf—”

  I held up my hand to stop him. My soul ached for him. I knew what it was like to lose family. But I had to be firm. “Even if the whales haven’t gotten him, the water is freezing. By the time I get to him and bring him here, he’ll be too frozen to recover.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not from Aegir,” I said, cutting him off. “I made a deal with Loki. I want to make one with you, too.”

  The sailor bit his lip. “You made a deal with the trickster? But everyone knows… everyone knows how dangerous that is.”

  “I know that now.” My voice was flat. I didn’t want to elaborate. I didn’t want to tell this man just how deeply I regretted dealing with Loki, because just saying the words might rip me in half.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep, ragged breath. Pain frosted his voice when he spoke, “And now, I suppose, in order to live, I have to make a deal with Loki as well.”

  I tried to sound nonchalant and keep the desperation in my voice at bay. I hoped he would ask for something straightforward, something easy that Loki couldn’t manipulate. “I already saved you. I’m hardly going to push you back in the water.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll freeze to death here unless another ship comes by. I want to live to see my family again.”

  “Others have survived,” I snapped.

  The sailor turned his head from side to side, studying the barren landscape. He rubbed the back of his head and gave a hollow laugh. “They either had help or fins.”

  I pursed my lips. I couldn’t sit here and talk about Ragna and life on the ice with him. The longer we spoke, the harder my task would get. Even if I saved him from the ocean and the whales, I still needed to use him. I pulled one of the enchanted vials from the string around my neck. My hand rested on the cork as I pondered how Loki might distort this man’s request.

  The sailor looked at me in hopeful terror. He knew the legends. I imagined Loki transforming him into a seagull or a pelican, able to soar above the waves and fly back to his homeland, but cursed to look at his family from above. He’d be able to watch them from afar, to nest in their roof, but never interact with them.

  “I need your voice.” My own voice almost died as I fought to get the words out. Somehow, I would find a way to get this man home in his human form. He would see his family. He would hold them again.

  His trembling hand went to his throat. “You’ll send me home a mute?”

  “In exchange, I promise I will keep you safe and fed until the next ship comes. Your deal will be with me. Loki will not have to grant you anything. I will keep you alive.”

  “My daughter is blind.”

  Suddenly I couldn’t speak. Grief and guilt threatened to swallow me. How could I do that to him? To his little girl? But if I didn’t, I could be trapped like this forever.

  “She won’t know me,” the man continued, shattering me again and again with every word. “She won’t even know that I came back.”

  “She’ll know you by other things, by the feel of your face, your smell,” I said, even as guilt threatened to strangle me. I hoped that was true. I needed to believe it was true. Human senses were different from ours; perhaps they relied on vision where we did not.

  His eyes scanned the length of my body, from my hair to the tips of my tentacles. “You need this, don’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “What were you, before?”

  I sighed, bracing myself for disbelief. “A mermaid.”

  He smiled although sadness lingered in his dark eyes. “Well, your top still looks the same, and I bet you were beautiful. How many favors did you bestow? Break many sailors’ hearts?”

  I tossed my hair over my shoulder and tried to keep my voice light. “All the time.”

  We sat in silence. His teeth chattered, and he rubbed his hands together and blew into his palms. I wrapped two of my tentacles around his back and forced more heat to the surface of my scales. He sighed as the heat penetrated his wet furs.

  Brushing a lock of wet hair from his face, he closed his eyes and pried the vial from my locked fingers. “You saved me. I repay my debts. Somehow, I will find a way to convince my girl I’m still there for her. Without you, that’s a promise I couldn’t keep.” He pulled out the vial’s cork with his teeth. Fingers shaking, he raised the little bottle in a mocking toast as liquid silver frothed from his lips.

  When it was over, his great shoulders shook, and tears fell in rivers down his cheeks, but not a sound passed his lips.

  * * *

  I watched the sailor, guarded him and fed him for eight days, until the next ship cruised through. I had no way of knowing whether the men who took him aboard were his countrymen or not, but they wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and forced a bowl of something that steamed into his fingers the moment he climbed aboard. Then a man decorated with gray and blue feathers herded him below deck. I watched the ship until it sailed out of sight. Then I crept back to my den and waited for the trickster to seek me out.

  I didn’t have to wait long. I had no sooner laid back on my spongy pallet, when Loki slipped under the cabin door. They flattened their body like a sandfish and oozed through the tiny crevice. Silver oil rose in the water as they materialized into a solid form.

  Tonight, they chose the body of a human woman, a woman dressed for an occasion. They wore their long hair in curled rivulets that remained dry and springy, though we were more than sixty arm-lengths under the sea. A shimmering green dress clung to their silhouette almost like scales. The dress fanned out delicately at the ankles to reveal shoes made entirely from mother-of-pearl. If they weren’t such a monster, I would have said they were beautiful.

  Loki stumbled to my table and lifted the vial filled with the sailor’s voice. They opened it, and then drank the voice like thick milk. When Loki spoke, the sailor’s voice spilled out, but it was tainted by what was inside them and the low gravel came out like a hiss. “You made your own deal with the human. That wasn’t what we agreed.”

  “We never agreed anything about that,” I said, returning their glare. “The deal we struck was simple. I bring you three voices: one creature, one human, one merperson. In exchange, you give me what I ask before I give you the third voice. We didn’t negotiate any more specifics than that.”

  Loki cursed, slamming their delicate-looking fist on the table. The old, sodden wood caved under the impact, and splinters floated into the space around us. I cringed. “Be careful, little mermaid. Remember that you are de
aling with a god, and I could crush the life from your body with a snap of my fingers.”

  “I don’t forget what I am dealing with,” I said quietly.

  “You’ll never finish this bargain anyway,” they sneered. “This summer looks like it will be a long one. A few years at the least. The merfolk are looking for a new ice mountain, farther to the north. You’ll be all alone here. Who knows if you’ll live to see them return.”

  A dull ache pulsed in my chest. I wanted to taunt them, and remind them that I’d bested them twice now. But if the merfolk had started migrating, then my chances of success were dwindling. I had to risk sneaking into the glacier again. “You’re not the god of fate. You can’t predict the future.”

  Loki’s nostrils flared. They jabbed an elegant finger at me. “I’ll see you rot here. Wouldn’t that be something? A monster’s corpse, buried here amongst the bones of the humans she loved so much?”

  Three

  Loki left me with that final taunt. The hollow ache spread through my whole body. Even my rogue tentacles lay limp by my sides. I had little time to find a merperson to help me. The idea of waiting years, trapped inside this hulk with no one… it made me want to impale myself on the human sword in the corner. I was willing to spend my dying breaths wriggling like a worm on a human fishing hook until the blade pierced my heart.

  I slept fitfully, dozing in and out of consciousness until the water lightened with the morning sun. Even then, I couldn’t motivate myself to leave my bed. So I counted cracks in the weathered wooden ceiling and tried to find some meaning in my situation.

  In many of our legends, Loki was depicted with a sense of humor. When I was young, all the storytellers talked about them as if they were a jovial prankster—not to be trusted, of course—but not exactly evil either, just a being that lived for their own entertainment and didn’t care who got hurt in the process. When I turned thirteen and Mama had allowed me to stay to hear the stories the bards only told the adults, I’d learned about Loki in a different light. The god of lies enjoyed pain and didn’t care if their bargains ruined lives or caused deaths.