“I suppose for you that may be… Oh, there are some lovely ones here… It is good you had so many, because I warn you now I may not be here for a week or two.”
“Why?”
“There was an earthquake in my village. Three houses fell, the church is badly damaged, and also the well. We must do what we can to rebuild quickly. And also, the terrible waves did much damage to the pier. I am lucky my boat was spared.”
“Really… Disaahna, does that happen often? The shaking of the earth?”
“Sometimes. But never so often as this and never nearly so badly.”
“We have had trouble with such things as well. My home has always been coping with such things, but I’d never heard of it reaching the land…”
“There are those who say it is an omen. That we have angered forces beyond us.”
“But how? I cannot imagine anything that those of the surface and the sea would do to bring the wrath of the gods upon us both.”
She raised her hands. “We cannot know the intention of the gods. We can only pray for their mercy and thank them for their bounty. Oh! As I speak of their bounty!”
She shuffled from the edge of the boat into the small bit of shelter beside the till.
“You spoke of your brother and his appetite. If you are so fond of things we have only here on land, I thought perhaps he would like this.”
Disaahna emerged with a strange, leathery coil.
“Oh? It looks like an eel.”
“No, no. Dried sausage. Most dishes call for it to be soaked for three days before using it.” She held it out. “I think, for you, that will not be a problem, eh?”
Mira took the sausage, but the sailor’s words stirred something in her mind.
“Something wrong, Mira?”
“No… No… The tide is ready to turn back, and so should I. Two weeks, you say? Until we meet again?”
“Two weeks, from this day. A friend of mine tells me he can get a good price for more of the shell bracelets you made. And that bone knife fetched a fortune.”
Mira nodded. “I shall see if I can have more of each for you.”
“And as for you?”
“I wonder… Have you heard of this thing… a… Ki-oh-tay?”
“A coyote, yes. Not so rare.”
“Excellent! I had a chat with someone from Deep Swell and they said they had the most beautiful bones. The teeth especially.”
“You have a buyer?”
“No. This one will be for me.”
“I shall do my best to find one with all of the teeth then. But as you say, the tide shall leave soon, and I have more fishing to do.”
“Until next time,” Mira said.
She plunked down into the water, sausage in one hand and heavy bag of bones in the other. The return trip at this time of day would be a simple one, the flow of the sea taking her out with little effort if she let it, but nevertheless she worked quite hard to quicken her pace. All of the talk of the trembling ground had brought terrible thoughts to mind. Every day her brother toiled in the mine, in the same stretch of the sea that had claimed their father when the sea shook. Eddy was skilled, alert, and resourceful. But he was also clumsy and foolhardy. There was no reason to suspect anything had happened. The sea hadn’t shaken since she’d seen him last… but all of this talk of damage and collapse had made her eager to see him again, and soon.
#
Rustle stopped to catch his “breath,” if such a word applied in his curious situation. He’d been chiseling at the coating of ice for longer than he thought possible. Flakes of ice lifted away and melted quickly in the warm water, leaving an oddly smooth little crater in the crust that held his sleeping partner. His efforts thus far had been dedicated to exposing Eddy’s other hand. Rustle wasn’t entirely sure what he thought he would achieve by doing so, but it seemed as good a target as any. He was tantalizingly close.
With a final, mighty charge, he launched himself into the carved divot and drove the tooth home. It shattered through the last of the ice and, to his dismay, nicked the back of Eddy’s hand. He pulled back and bit his lip in concern as a thin ribbon of blood curled forth, but to his relief it was only a tiny nick. After a moment or two the bleeding stopped.
Having achieved his task of the last few hours, Rustle took some time to consider what to do next. At this rate it would take days to chip through enough of the ice to free Eddy, even with the warm water helping melt it away. But what other choice did he have?
If his mind had not been so through twisted up in uncertainty, he might have been struck by the odd motion of Eddy’s blood. Thickened a bit by the cold, it clumped together into a curling, undulating orb rather than spreading and mixing with the water. The dark red blob drifted slowly downward until it finally plopped against the stone of the floor.
Or more specifically, the stone of the dish in the center of the room…
The effect was immediate. Mystic energy, the same focus that had drawn Rustle here, intensified. Rustle flitted back and took shelter behind his sleeping friend’s ear, tossing his tool aside as though it were evidence of some crime.
All around him the gems pulsed and intensified. The water was crackling and alive. The columns of ice that still hung in the water around them fractured and burst. Even the mound of ice that held Eddy cracked, though not sufficiently to free him.
Rustle shut his eyes, but there was no use in doing so. The things he was seeing weren’t the most terrifying. It was the things he was feeling. The strange thing about this place had been the focus without a mind, without a will… But he felt the will now. It was powerful, crystalline in its clarity.
He opened his eyes again. The glow of the room was blinding, and rose, it had been joined by a radiant form in the center of the chamber. This glow was independent of any gem. At first it was simply an indistinct haziness, but before his eyes it became more defined. Arms resolved out of the light. Then a lashing, fish-like tale. Finally, a piercing pair of eyes opened.
The figure before him was a merperson… or at least the general shape of one. It wasn’t defined enough for him to know if it was a mermaid or a merman. All he knew for certain was it was a figure of terrible power. Power that persisted even in death.
Its eyes swept across the walls, and previously unseen lips curled to reveal the fainter interior of a mouth. It looked to be admiring the carvings that had so enthralled Eddy upon their arrival.
All Rustle wanted to do was escape. It was precisely what he had been taught to do in times like this. It was the wise thing to do, the safe thing to do. But two things stopped him. The lesser of the two was his curiosity. As a creature of magic, this figure was a being of awe and wonder. The most important factor in keeping him from fleeing was Eddy. It was his fault Eddy was trapped here. He didn’t know how he would protect the sleeping, frozen merman, but it was his duty to do so.
If he couldn’t run, and he couldn’t hide. That left just one option, something that went against everything he’d ever learned or felt.
With a hard swallow and a final moment to steady himself, he flitted forward.
“H-hello…” he said.
The radiant figure turned to him. Little more than bright eyes and a dimmer mouth, it was difficult to read its expression upon seeing the fairy. Interest, certainly. But was it the interest of a scholar presented with a fresh curiosity? Or the interest of a predator presented with fresh prey?
“I… I am sorry that we invaded your… home?” he continued.
It did not answer, its eyes now sweeping slowly to the sleeping, frozen figure of Eddy. Rustle felt a sting of concern and darted in front of Eddy, placing himself in the creature’s line of sight again.
“We didn’t mean any harm. We were just… We were having an adventure,” he said.
Its eyes focused on him again. The tail curled and it darted forward, but before it could reach either Rustle or Eddy, the chains carved into the relief pulsed with light and the figure was drawn back to the ce
nter of the room.
Rustle gazed at the smoldering chains in the relief, then thought back to the heavy door with its complex lock. A lock that was fastened from the outside.
“This isn’t your home…” he said, realization and fear flavoring his voice. “This is your prison…”
Chapter 7
Rustle’s mind practically rattled about in his head. He was trained from birth to scrutinize the world around him, moment to moment, to discover anything which might be a threat to him. At home, this meant watching for the twitch of foliage and imagining the hawk that might be swooping above. Confronted with a glowing embodiment of raw magic, locked away in what could only be a mystic prison, his mind was aflame with the possibilities. What had this being done to be locked away here? What would it do now that it had discovered him and his friend?
The sheer weight of the horrific scenarios would have paralyzed a normal creature. Fortunately, the same highly trained instinct for spotting trouble also provided instructions for how to react to said threats. Those instructions were always the same. Run and hide.
He darted toward the still frozen merman who had gotten him into this mess and hid behind his fin-like ear. Logically, he wasn’t any safer there—it wasn’t as though Eddy could defend him—but just being concealed made him feel worlds better than charging out into the tunnels and caves that, as far as he knew, held even greater threats. And he couldn’t leave Eddy behind. Fairies are stronger when they are together.
“Why did I have to be curious? Why did I have to leave the pond? Why didn’t I listen to the others? Why did I come here?” he muttered to himself, eyes wild and voice on the brink of madness.
The golden form before them leaned forward again, testing the limits of the strange spell that kept it in the center of the room. As it drew closer, Rustle could feel his hair stand on end. This being was nothing but power. The piercing glow of the eyes swept along Eddy, then fixed on Rustle where he’d taken shelter.
“How long…”
Rustle didn’t know how he became aware of the words. He didn’t hear them. Not with his ears, at least. He simply… knew that they were intended for him. They slipped into his mind, skipping all of the pesky steps of perceiving them.
“How long have I been imprisoned…”
“I-I don’t know. I don’t come from here. I come from the surface,” Rustle said.
The being thrust a finger toward Eddy, causing a fresh flare of the chains in the ceiling.
“He does not come from the surface… He is from very near this place…”
“B-but he’s sleeping. I used magic, and I didn’t mean to, but it was so strong here, and I froze him and he fell asleep and as soon as he wakes up and we get him free we will leave you be and you’ll never have to worry about us again because—”
Rustle’s rambling picked up speed as he continued, like his assurances were a stone rolling downhill, unable to stop and accelerating out of control.
The being raised a hand to silence the fairy.
“I will wake him…”
The radiant eyes shut and the hands pressed together. Up until now, the general level of magic around him had caused Rustle’s skin to tingle. Now it became more acute, the force of will gaining a focus and edge. The magic clashed and sparked against the mystic barrier that kept the being in place, but a lance of energy pierced through. When it struck the ice encasing Eddy, the thick mound of crystal shattered around him. A galaxy of flakes burst outward and filled the water. Currents of magic pulled the twinkling crystals into complex whorls, tracing out sigils and runes in the water around them before the rising temperature caused them to dwindle and melt.
“Eddy!” Rustle cried, flitting about the face of his sleeping friend.
The merman was floating free of the ice now. His breathing was still quite shallow, but Rustle could see that the icy blue tinge his skin had taken on had begun to return to the healthier teal he’d come to expect from the creature. Gradually the glow restored to the tips of his fins and spines, and finally his eyes fluttered open.
Rustle buzzed just in front of Eddy’s eyes, watching as they fought to focus on him.
“Good morning, Rustle the Fairyman…” he said thickly. “What has…”
His eyes shifted to the figure dominating the room.
“What has happened…” Eddy finished.
“You will tell me what has happened…”
Again, the words wove their way into Rustle’s mind, and from Eddy’s reaction, they’d found their way into his thoughts as well.
“We explored a cave in my mine and you were in it,” Eddy said.
Though he visibly and audibly shared the same feeling of awe that pushed Rustle nearly past the point of logical thought, he did not show even the most cursory evidence of fear. Did nothing frighten him?
“What of the world? How long since the clash? Since the Thieves and the Great Ancient?”
“Too long, I suppose. I do not know of that tale.”
“You do not… And the names. Stuartia. Merantia.”
He shook his head, dislodging a few stubborn flakes of ice. “I do not know them.”
“Dangerous… terribly dangerous… To allow it all to be forgotten…”
“What has been forgotten?” Eddy asked excitedly. “Tell us the story. We are here for adventure, and to learn. Tell us what has been forgotten, of this place and of you—whatever you are. We shall tell the others! I will tell the people of Barnacle and they shall tell everyone beyond. My good friend Rustle will tell the people of the surface. Everyone will know!”
The figure’s eyes shut. Its glow dimmed ever so slightly, as though it was focusing on something distant. Eddy, showing the foolhardiness that Rustle had come to expect from him, swam through the magic circle keeping the being in place and inspected its form.
“Eddy, be careful!” Rustle called, carefully moving no farther than the edge of the being’s unseen prison.
“If we were careful, we would never have found this place!” Eddy said. “This is a mermaid. Or maybe this was a mermaid? But I do not know where from…”
“How can you be certain it is a female? The features are so indistinct.”
“Do you not know a fairymaid when you see one?” he said.
He leaned forward. His proximity to the radiant figure’s power caused his hair to billow, yellow sparks coruscating along the locks. He either did not know or did not care that it was occurring. Rather than backing away to a safe distance, he leaned closer to the motionless mass of power. Slowly he extended a finger.
“Don’t touch her,” Rustle warned.
Eddy pulled his hand back.
“Why should I not?”
“You don’t know who or what she is! All you know is that this place was built to lock her inside.”
“How do we know this?”
“Because she can’t cross this line. Here on the ceiling and floor. And because the door was locked. Pay attention, Eddy!”
He scratched his head, but looped around her to join Eddy at the perimeter.
“It is not always a dangerous person who is in a prison, Rustle. Mira says they have stories on the surface about princesses in towers. And people like us rescue them. And when I was growing, father would tell me about mermaids who were trapped in shallow pools for the entertainment of bad people. Do you have those stories?”
“We have stories of fairies trapped in jars. Fairies used to power spells. Mostly we have stories of fairies being… collected.”
“So maybe this is one of those stories.”
“Or maybe it is the story of a terrible witch who the heroes couldn’t defeat, so they locked her away.”
Eddy nodded. “It could be many stories…”
He crossed his arms and watched the being as it remained motionless but for the pulse of its glow. He flicked the edge of his tail fin in little circles. Had he toes, he would be tapping them impatiently.
“What are you doing, please?” he called.
The eyes opened and fixed upon him again. Words flowed once more.
“A heartbeat… I feel it… The Great Ancient…”
“What is this, the Great Ancient? And also, the thieves. The tablet my friend found mentioned thieves.”
“What!? You didn’t tell me that!” Rustle said.
“You would have said we should not say the words after that,” Eddy explained.
“And I would have been right!” He darted up to Eddy’s face. “This is even more of your fault than before!”
The words continued. “You come from Barnacle…”
“I do! My sister, my father, my mother, and theirs and theirs and theirs. Always from Barnacle.”
“It would be a fine prison for it… the depths near Barnacle… Has the ground been shaking?”
“Yes!” Eddy said in fascination.
He started to drift forward again, but Rustle buzzed forward and urged him back behind the safety of the line.
“Very much the ground has been shaking. Always some, but now very much! How do you know this?”
“The tale is told…”
The figure turned and raised her hands to the carving. She swam toward the barrier, and up toward the ceiling. The carved chains pulsed with power, but now, the pulsing glow spread outward. Perhaps it was an enchantment of the chamber itself, or some spell cast by the mysterious being, but the carving slowly began to shift and churn. Like a shadow play, the carvings moved and flowed, acting out the tale they’d been carved to represent.
Two brilliant glimmers appeared at either end of the domed roof, so small they at first had escaped notice. One shone yellow, the other blue. They looped and fluttered in place, sending out waves of like-colored light. The light danced and shimmered along the ceiling, until finally two waves of opposing light met in the center with a crack and clash. The two points drifted toward center and met where their light had. First the blue pulse. Then the gold. Then the blue more brightly, then the gold brighter still. Without words, it told the story of two figures testing themselves against one another.
The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy Page 8
