The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “See! Quick! … Did I do wrong?” Eddy said.

  Rustle’s eyes, fists, and teeth were clenched tight.

  “Eddy, how many times do I have to tell you? Fairies don’t like to be shut away in tight spaces! It is bad enough I’m in the sea, away from the wind and sky, but then you throw me in a bag and drag me into a cave without even waiting to see what I have to say about it?” Rustle raved, buzzing about.

  “Calm! Be calm! Don’t hit,” Eddy said, flinching when Rustle buzzed close. “There is room here. Lots of room. I am sorry about the bag but there is lots of room, and many things for you to see!”

  He tugged at his outfit and slid it free, tucking it into his bag. They were not far from where the billows of hot water gave way to the marginally cooler water of the cave. With the outfit shed, the glow of his spines and eyes, when combined with Rustle’s glow, illuminated the walls adequately to reveal a remarkable amount of detail. And indeed, despite his lingering anger, once Rustle allowed himself to look upon the walls he was rendered speechless by what he saw. Scattered liberally about the walls were strange, organic shapes set into the stone. He recognized the curl of shells like those of the snails, clams, and other odd creatures Eddy had shown off farther up in the rift, but these weren’t quite the same. They were larger and seemed to be made from the stone itself. Veins of glittery stone threaded among them, catching the light and making the walls seem to shimmer as he moved.

  “What are they?” Rustle said.

  “The shiny bit is silver and gold. The stone creatures? I do not know. There are more, other places in the mine. Some are things I have never seen beyond the walls of this place.”

  “Amazing…”

  “You see? I show you things no one else sees. Very nice, yes? Now you!”

  “Now me what?”

  “We have lunch. You see all of this because of me. Now you tell me things I don’t know.”

  He dug out the jar of sweets, then unfurled one of the eels and gingerly held it into the swirling, scalding water for a few moments.

  Rustle took an offered sweet and nibbled at it as Eddy continued.

  “Already I know that a fairy can glow, and that a fairy is afraid of small places even though a fairy is small. And they punch harder than a little thing should be able to punch and have bad tempers. These things I did not know. What are more things?”

  “Um…” Rustle began, rubbing the back of his neck. “It is hard to say. When you’re surrounded by something all your life, it’s hard to know it’s special. And if you don’t know anything about me, then where do I start?”

  Eddy pulled the eel from the hot water and messily crunched into it. Rustle grimaced and looked away.

  “Wherever you want, Rustle. It is all new to me!” Eddy said, munching happily. “Maybe we look at the book, and you teach me better magic? I bet even Mira doesn’t learn fairy-style magic.”

  “I think that may be a good idea. If I am breathing water because of a spell you cast, I would like to know that you could cast it again if you need to.”

  “That one I can cast very much. But I want to know the others.”

  He pulled the book from his bag and spread it out on the flattest bit of cave floor he could find. Rustle looked over the pages briefly, but there wasn’t much reason for it. Though the book had the subtle but undeniable aura of a thing of mystic power, the looping shapes spiraling across the page may as well have been random smudges for all he knew.

  “You know… I can’t read this. Fairies speak. We tell each other things. The marks we leave are simple. Circles of stones and leaves. We don’t have spell books. I cannot read this.”

  Eddy nodded. “This I was afraid of. But still. You say fairies are good with magic, and you are good with it even without spell books. I am bad with magic, but even I can do magic with the spell book. So, a fairy that can use a spell book would be very good with magic, and that would help me to be better!”

  Rustle flitted down and stood atop the page, eying the complex shapes. “I suppose. But that would mean I’d have to learn to read this. That will take time. More time than we have, probably. What if I try to help you in different ways?”

  “Like how?”

  “How do you cast the spell?”

  He slapped a finger down on the page at the beginning of a spiral, nearly bumping Rustle from the book. “I say this word here, and all of the others after it, very much times. Over and over. And then something happens maybe.”

  “You don’t focus?”

  “Focus? No. Only read. I should focus?”

  “You must. That’s all magic is, at least for us. You reach out into the power of the world around you and… ask it to do as you wish. But to do it, you have to be aware of it, to feel it.”

  “You show me how to do this.”

  “You may as well be asking me how to show you to breathe.”

  “Yes! You show me how to breathe! I do not do this to air without magic, so that is a help.”

  “No, that’s not what I… Fine. Close your eyes.”

  Eddy nodded happily and shut his eyes, though their glow was still eerily visible through the thin skin of his eyelids.

  “Now just feel the air… er… the water around you. Feel how it moves, and—”

  Eddy took another noisy bite of his eel and munched happily. Rustle glared at him, a pointless gesture since his eyes were still shut.

  “If you are focusing, then you are only focusing. That’s the point of it!” Rustle said.

  “So, no eating at the same time?”

  “No!”

  “This will be less fun than I hoped.”

  He let the eel float beside him and dedicated himself wholly to the task.

  “Just feel the way it moves around you. When you move your hand or fin, feel how it curls and swirls.”

  “I do this. I know how the water moves.”

  “I don’t want you to know how it moves. I want you to feel it. To sense it with more than your skin. Sense it in your mind.”

  Eddy nodded again and shut his eyes tighter, as though exerting physical effort would somehow bring enlightenment more quickly. Rustle tried to open his mind as well. Water had a different nature to it than air, but they had much in common. The others back home said the truly talented water fairies found a way to use their innate knowledge and affinity for wind to connect to the water as well, and then they became much more powerful. They lived longer; they were able to venture farther from home and take greater risks. They were legends among their people. He himself had never gotten the knack. To him they had always been two different things. When he reached out with his mind, inviting the energy of the water to mix with his, inevitably he found his will and thoughts drawn toward the air, distracting him from the water.

  He paused for a moment… Even now, it was the feeling of air that drew the focus of his mind… Air that was quite near.

  He turned toward the darkened tunnel ahead. There was no mistaking it. Somewhere out there, tantalizingly beyond his fingertips, there was air. No. Not just air. Wind. It had the life and stir of a breeze along the surface, but the surface was so very far away. How could that be?

  Without an explanation, Rustle buzzed through the water toward the source. He had to know. Being cut off from his home wind had been steadily bothering him more and more. The promise of a real breeze felt like he was being offered a cool drink of water after wasting in the desert for days. He needed to feel the air on his skin again.

  He drifted deeper and deeper into the darkness. His own dim, natural glow lit the way. The veins of precious metal twisted away, following other branching paths. The tool marks left by years of mining became sparse and scattered. The tunnel walls had a sharper, rougher texture here. The stone caught his glow with a glassy sheen. Little open voids covered the entire tunnel around him, like a churning foamy sea had been instantly turned to stone, the bursting bubbles now forming razor sharp edges. But as he traveled, the feel of the air drew nearer.
>
  He came to a stone that was unlike the others. It was the same dull gray as the entrance of the mine. The edges were too smooth and precise to have been caused by a break. This was crafted and moved. He could not conceive of the amount of effort it must have taken, as it reached from floor to ceiling, truly massive. From Rustle’s diminutive point of view, moving it would have been like moving a mountain. He investigated all around it and found that it fit quite snuggly against the wall of the tunnel. There wasn’t a crack or crevice large enough for him to squeeze though—not that he would have risked it with the harsh texture of the walls in this section of tunnel. But there was no question in his mind. Somewhere not far behind this stone lay a drifting, vibrant wind.

  “Rustle! Little fairyman!” called Eddy’s voice in the distance, flavored with concern.

  “Here!” Rustle called.

  The distant glow of Eddy’s eyes and fins approached from the darkened tunnel behind him.

  “Rustle! I tried to focus and when I stopped you were not there! You must tell me when you go!” Eddy said.

  “What is this stone, Eddy?”

  Eddy looked the stone up and down. “I do not know. A stone where it does not belong.”

  “That was my thinking. Have you ever seen it before?”

  “Did you pass anything but black stone on the way here?”

  “No.”

  “Then why would I have come this way. There is much good stuff in the mine, closer to the opening. I never needed to come so deep.” He swam a little closer. “Someone made this stone…”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “I felt air behind it. More than just a few bubbles.”

  “No… Air so low? That does not happen. Never that I’ve seen.”

  “I am certain of it. It is a shame the stone is impossible to move. I wonder if we could see where the air is.”

  Eddy ran his fingers over the stone, then clapped away the silt.

  “I will move it.”

  “But it is enormous.”

  He crossed his arms and threw his head back proudly. “I am a merman. We go down deep, and we are strong. It is what we do. Wait here, Rustle. I will get my things.

  #

  After a few moments, Eddy returned. His heart was soaring at all of the new and exciting things that had happened already. For years, his days had been largely the same. Collect some pearls, give them to Mira. Tend to the fronds, tend to the shellfish, tend to the mines, and back with the final tide to sleep and more of the same the next day. Even having someone to talk to, to explain the tedium to, had brightened his day enormously. And now, right here within his own mine, there was something new. It was wonderful. It was a sign that seeking someone from the surface was the right thing to do.

  He found his way to where Rustle was waiting beside the stone.

  “Move aside, Rustle,” Eddy said, setting down the things he had fetched.

  In addition to his bag, his outfit, and his claw, he’d brought some of the tools he usually left here in the mine. Right now, the one that made the most sense was his pick-rod. He pulled on his mittens and took the rod in hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “This is my pick!”

  “It looks a bit crude.”

  Eddy gripped it with both hands and looked rather defensive. It was crude, little more than a slightly crooked length of metal with a blunt, hammered end. More than anything else, it looked like a spear of all metal construction that had been horribly dulled, or perhaps never properly sharpened.

  “It is a fine pick. Things of metal, bigger than bits of jewelry, are very hard to get for merfolk. The merfolk who work metal must be near the Glowing Pools, or else they must trade with those from above. Surface people do not make many tools that are good for the water. This is a fine pick. It belonged to my father. You will see how fine. Move away.”

  Rustle helpfully flitted to the far side of the tunnel. Eddy swam back a fair distance, gripped the rod tightly, then pumped his tail madly. In no time at all he was cutting through the water at an incredible pace. He reached the stone and hurled the pick with all of his considerable might. With his strength and speed combined, it penetrated the rock easily, wedging firmly between the black of the tunnel and the gray of the unexplained blockage.

  Eddy looped back and grasped the pick handle, but it didn’t budge. He smirked and adjusted his mitts, then held firm and started to work his tail. The current of the powerful strokes kicked up bits of stone and silt that hadn’t been disturbed in ages. The water turned murky. Rustle darted farther and farther away to spare himself the rushing water and stinging fragments of sharp stone. Then, with a long, slow grind, the stone started to move. It barely budged before coming to a stop, but that was enough. The merman wedged one mitt through the gap he’d created and held firm to the wall, then grasped the stone and heaved. Thus anchored, and therefore able to depend upon his raw strength rather than the thrust of his tail, he started to make real progress. The gray stone slid, rolled, and finally tipped forward, sending up a final, monumental rush of stone and silt.

  He shielded his eyes as the whoosh of water swept his long hair back. When the dust cleared, he blinked the silky, fine silt from his eyes.

  Rustle darted back to join him. There was a fresh branch of tunnel, nearly as large as the one that had led this far. But unlike the rest of the tunnel, in this portion the walls had been smoothed, the only roughness coming not from viciously sharp, ancient voids but instead more of the crusty green growth. And ahead, just visible at the edge of their glow, the tunnel curved upward. They swam along, following the curve of the tunnel up and down, left and right. The smoothed portion abruptly stopped, with a few very-clear merfolk words etched into the stone.

  Beware. Danger.

  “What does it say?” Rustle asked.

  “Just telling us there is more ahead to watch for,” Eddy replied.

  It wasn’t so far from the truth.

  They continued forward, where the walls returned to their razor-sharp texture. The crusty green growth tapered off sharply, and the water had an oddly stale feel to it. Eventually, at the peak of a final upward slope in the tunnel, they could just barely make out the silvery, churning refraction of the water’s surface.

  Both fairy and merman wordlessly approached the surface. They blinked at each other, then at the surface again. Eddy was the first to brave it. He stuck his head up, but once he left the water, the glow of his eyes faded, leaving him staring into pitch blackness. He squinted his eyes as a warm, constant wind whistled against him.

  Rustle darted up out of the water, then flopped down upon the smoothed stone near the surface. The gentle lapping of water over untold centuries had smoothed it sufficiently that the fairy didn’t injure himself, but he seemed unable to lift his own weight with his wings. Rustle coughed and gagged. Eddy spat and coughed until his lungs were clear, then croaked the words of the water-for-air spell. The fairy shook his head and staggered to his feet.

  “Until you learn your own water-for-air, you have to tell me when you want to leave,” Eddy said.

  The fairy spat a mouthful of water, then flicked the sea from his wings and buzzed into the air.

  “You could have warned me.”

  “That is what I said to you.”

  Rustle glared at Eddy for a moment, then turned and let himself drift on the wind, barely fluttering his wings.

  “It is so wonderful to have the wind about me again!” He flitted in a loop. “I feel light as a feather again. But this wind… it’s so different. It’s nothing like the wind of home. Like they haven’t touched and mixed in years. Perhaps they’ve never touched at all.”

  They each strained their eyes, but their light didn’t penetrate more than a few feet from the small pool at the mouth of the tunnel. It felt like they were a little island of reality at the edge of an endless void of oblivion.

  “What is this place?” Rustle said.

&nb
sp; Eddy grinned wide. “I will tell you, Rustle the fairyman. This… is adventure.”

  Chapter 4

  “An adventure, Rustle! Finally, an adventure! Wind and air, down in the sea. I’ve never heard such a thing! And I know you haven’t. Adventure!” Eddy crowed.

  “I’m not so sure…” Rustle said.

  “You wanted something new, a new story to tell. This is as new as there is.”

  “But you can’t follow. I would have to go alone.”

  The merman scratched his head. “That is true… If only I knew how to give myself some land swimmers.”

  He dug into his bag and set down the book. A bit of leafing through brought him to the page. Or rather, the pages, with the spell for conjuring legs.

  “There is a lot of these words… This is very much spell…” he muttered. “Maybe there is more water further. I can crawl a little on land. Maybe if there is more water not far, I can crawl from here to there. Go look!”

  “But we don’t know what is out there.”

  “I know,” he said eagerly. “And we will learn! Together! You just have to go first is all.”

  “That’s not how we are taught. Fairies don’t go alone. They don’t venture out to unknown places by themselves.”

  Eddy crossed his arms. “You’ll never learn anything without being brave sometimes, Rustle. This is a time for adventure.”

  Rustle grumbled. “Yes, Eddy. It is an adventure. You’ve said. But having an adventure isn’t everything.”

  “No, but it is something!”

  “Why don’t we head back to the mine. I’m sure you can show me something else, and I can tell you more things about the surface.”

  “Rustle! This! Don’t you understand? The sea is a big place. There are a lot of merfolk. No one out there knows the name of Eddy. And why would they? What has ever Eddy done? Nothing to remember. You know who gets stories told? You know who people sing songs about? The ones who go places and do things that no one else would or could. And for the merfolk, that is the surface. When I was new, and my mother and father still looked after me, do you know what they told me each morning before I would go out into the sea? They would tell me one of the five big stories. They would tell me of Torrent, who was the first mermaid to walk on land. They would tell of Rina, who seduced an elven prince and trapped him in the sea until his people agreed to stop fishing in her people’s shoals. They tell of Krista, who sought the great crystal along the southeastern shores. Even Calypso, who ventured to the churning cliffs and never returned.