by Kara Dalkey
“No, Mother. This is Corwin. He’s my . . . friend.”
“You always did have strange taste in friends, Nia.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting your mother back into the water?” Corwin asked.
Nia cast a worried frown at the water. “What if the guards come back?”
“Then it will be better for her to have her strength, won’t it?”
Nia nodded and began to ease her mother toward the hole.
“Why does your friend talk so strangely, dear?”
“Because he’s new to our language, Mother. He understands us, but he doesn’t speak our tongue yet. Though he could if he tried,” Nia added, with a significant glare at Corwin.
“Sorry. I thought I was doing well just by understanding,” Corwin grumped. He took hold of Tyra’s arm and then her scaly tail and helped the woman slide into the water.
Tyra gasped as she sank through the hole. “Madam, are you all right?” Corwin asked, then tried again in Atlantean, searching for the words from Nia’s mind. He wasn’t sure he got it right.
“It’s wonderful,” Tyra said as she drifted down into the water. The first mermyd was waiting below and helped guide her from there.
“Why don’t you go down and heal her, Nia? I’ll help the others.”
Nia nodded, clearly shaken by her mother’s condition. She slid into the hole like a seal and gave Corwin a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
But Nia had already dived down out of earshot.
Corwin shrugged and hauled himself out of the water, amazed at how heavy he suddenly felt. He took a quick glance around. There were several cabinets—one tall, one short, one high on the wall. There was something that resembled a chair, bolted to the floor, next to a desk. In between these furnishings, there were three other mermyds lying on the floor against the walls of the room, one an older male and two female mermyds. They were all in as bad condition as Nia’s foster mother. They stared back at him with empty, hopeless eyes.
Corwin spoke to them gently, showing them the mark on his palm. He didn’t know if he was saying the right words yet, but the action seemed to give the mermyds heart. They were able to summon enough energy to be helped into the water as well.
Corwin slipped down into the water as he eased the last one in. The water felt pleasantly cool on his skin. No wonder they act like they’ve reached paradise once they’re back in the sea. For them, it’s torment to be without the water. For the first time he realized how hard it must have been for Nia to be on land, even as half land-dweller.
Corwin swam over to Nia. She was holding her hands over Tyra’s face and concentrating. “Will she be okay?” Corwin asked when Nia pulled back.
“Yes,” Nia answered. “We heal very quickly in water.”
“I’ve noticed. How long have they been in there?”
“Two weeks at least,” Nia replied.
Corwin would have whistled, but he wasn’t sure he could, underwater. He and Nia went to the other mermyds and did what healing they could for them. As they worked, Corwin asked, “Why are there furnishings up there? What’s that room used for?”
“It was secure storage for special documents of the High and Low Councils. It’s easier to preserve writing in dry air, so important things would be copied and stored there. This is where I learned about the prophecy that made the council choose Garun to compete in the Trials, instead of me.”
Corwin nodded. “When we’re done with these people, I want to go back and have another look around,” he said.
Nia paused. “Corwin, I know you’re excited about learning more, but—”
“No! Not just for my curiosity. I think there might be something up there that could help us.”
“You mean the you-know—”
“No, not that,” Corwin cut her off again. “A map.”
“A . . . map?”
Corwin looked at Nia and realized she’d probably never seen one. Corwin had only seen a few in his lifetime. But Fenwyck had impressed upon him their value. Sea pilot charts were jealously guarded and worth a fortune. Land-ownership maps were excellent for blackmail. And military maps were worth a king’s ransom to the right side, but worth your head if the wrong person discovered you were carrying them. A map could give you godlike knowledge if you understood how to use it.
“It’s a drawing of where everything is located,” he explained. “All the streets and buildings and everything, in relation to one another. You can figure out the best route to where you want to go, or where something is likely to be. Maybe we could learn exactly where Ma’el has put his fortress, and the best way to get into it.”
“That sounds like it would be a big help,” Nia said, “but I don’t know if any maps exist of Atlantis. Everyone knows where they need to go and drawings are hard to make and use underwater.”
“But it’s worth a look, isn’t it?” he pressed. “Just in case? I’ll bet there’s something here if we knew where to find it.”
Nia nodded. “I’ve come to trust your bets, Corwin.” She turned to Tyra and said, “We’re going back into the dry room. Please watch for the guards for us?”
“Yes, of course,” Tyra replied, looking back and forth between Nia and Corwin with awe. “You are so brave, both of you.”
“We do what we must,” Corwin said, holding his head high.
Both Nia and Tyra tilted their heads and regarded him as though he’d just sprouted a new head.
Corwin, you just said “We do brush the fish,” Nia informed him telepathically.
“Oh.” Corwin felt himself turning a little red. “I haven’t quite got the hang of Atlantean yet. Sorry.”
Tyra somehow managed to wince and smile at the same time.
“It’ll come to you,” Nia said. “Let’s go up.”
Corwin swam to the hole and hauled himself out of the water, disliking it even more than the last time. “What’s happening to me?” he muttered after a fit of coughing. “Will I ever be able to return to land?”
“It’s just a matter of adjusting,” Nia assured him. “I was afraid at one point that I wouldn’t be able to return to the sea, but I’ve been fine.”
“That’s good to hear,” Corwin said. He stood and noted each of the cabinets. “If I were a map, where would I be hiding?”
Nia pointed toward the tallest cabinet. “That’s where the finished documents go, the ones that’ve been sealed against dampness. The desk is for work in progress. There’s nothing on it now. I’ve never looked in that lower cabinet. Or that high one.”
“Is there any rhyme or reason for how the documents are kept?” Corwin asked. “We don’t want to spend too long at this.”
“There was a code,” Nia replied, frowning. “Ma’el gave me the code I needed to find that one document. In there.” She pointed to the tall cabinet nearest the exit hole.
“Ma’el gave you the code to find that?”
“It’s . . . a long story. But it wouldn’t help us now anyway.”
“Hmm. Then we’ll have to use the brute force method.” Corwin went to the tall cabinet and opened it. “It wasn’t locked?”
Nia shrugged. “This is a dry room. No sane mermyd wants to come into a dry room. That plus the grate is usually lock enough, I guess.”
The cabinet had trays filled with flat pieces of papyrus or parchment that had been coated with some hard, clear material. Corwin couldn’t read the writing at all. Maybe it’s just as well. I won’t be distracted. He shuffled through the first tray and then the second. Nothing that looked like a map. He went to the bottom-most tray and found no maps there, either.
Nia started to tap her foot with impatience. Her arms were wrapped around herself. “I’m going to go see how my mother and the others are doing,” she said. “Let me know if you find something.” She dove back into the water.
“But I can’t read any of this!” Corwin protested to her departing feet. Well, I guess I can’t blame her, considering how awf
ul this room is for mermyds. And if I’d had a guardian who’d been tortured, I’d want to look after her, too. Then Corwin remembered running away as Fenwyck was caught. He winced with guilt. Frustrated, he slammed the tall cabinet shut and went to the low cabinet beside the desk.
This cabinet held documents that weren’t coated with the hard material. Maybe they aren’t as important, Corwin thought. A quick riffling through showed no maps. Maybe this was a stupid idea, he thought. Maybe Nia was right and Atlanteans just don’t use maps.
Corwin went to the last cabinet, the one high up on the wall. Standing on his toes, he was able to open it. Large papers hung in this cabinet vertically, draped over brass rods. These were also coated, but with a more supple material. Corwin, past caring, began pulling all of them down, letting them float to the floor. A couple of them fell into the entry hole.
Then, at the back of the cabinet, he found what he was looking for. “Aha!”
Nia came up sputtering in the hole behind him. “Corwin, what are you doing?” she cried. “These are valuable! Do you have any idea how old they are? You can’t just throw them around!”
“If we don’t save Atlantis, there’s no point to saving the documents, is there? But look at this!” Corwin brought down three papers and spread them out on the floor. Two of them were clearly maps of the city, but at different levels. The third one was a map of a different place.
Nia pushed herself up, dripping, and tried to gather and neatly pile the papers that Corwin had tossed down.
“We don’t have time for tidiness!” Corwin snapped. “Come help me decipher these.”
Nia crawled over to him. “I’m sorry. I just hate to see so much more lost,” she said wistfully before turning her attention to the maps.
“This looks like the part of the city we’ve seen,” Corwin said, pointing to something on one of the maps. “This big circle in the center is the Farworlder Palace, right?”
“Yes, that’s what the writing in the corner says. And we should be about . . . here.” Nia placed her finger near the edge of the circle.
“So what’s this map?” Corwin slid the second one over the first. “This looks like the city, too, but it’s different. Is it older?”
“No.” Nia peered at it for a moment, and then her face lit up. “No, this is the Lower Depths! See, here are the filtration tubes, and here are the oxygenation tunnels. This is the hunters’/fishers’ market we passed. This area is where the works are that keep the city warm and the water moving. And this is where those Sunfish guards said Ma’el was living.”
“Now the trick,” Corwin began, “is to look for a place on this map that would appeal to evil tyrants like Ma’el and Joab.”
“Well,” Nia said. “He would want to be near the controls of the city. And look over here—” She pointed at a large, empty area of the city map. “This isn’t marked as anything. And it only has these two entries.”
“A perfect headquarters,” Corwin murmured. “Could you find this area now, when we need to?”
“Easily,” Nia said. “It’s on the opposite side of the city from the filtration tube we entered. And if we look at these two maps . . .” She held up the first one and then flipped to the second. “The best way down to that area is an access tunnel that leads from over here, the Orca Palace . . . hmmm.”
“Why hmmmm?”
“The Orcas were a clan of powerful palace guardians. If they’ve survived, as the Sunfish have, then we’ll have a tough time getting by them.”
“And it would be in Ma’el’s interest to let them survive.”
“Probably.”
“You’re back to your bad habit of being the mistress of bad news.”
“I’m afraid so. Want to hear worse?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you anyway. Ma’el definitely has the you-know-what. One of the mermyds we’ve just rescued, Theron, has seen it. He heard Ma’el ordering a servant to store it away. Apparently Ma’el was worried it might be a symbol to rally rebellion.”
“Well, that could be good for us, if we can find it,” Corwin said. “We could use all the rallying relics we can get.”
“That was the official story. But Theron thinks Ma’el was angry. Maybe he’d tried to use it but failed.”
“That’s even better,” Corwin said. “If the you-know-what was made for peace, then of course it wouldn’t work for Ma’el. But hopefully it will for us.”
“Yes, but it can’t help us while it’s hidden in his stronghold,” Nia pointed out. “If we’re caught before we can find it, then everything’s lost.”
Corwin had to laugh. “You’re outdoing yourself today, Lady-Prophetess-of-Doom Nia. Is it time to give up and head back to Wales?”
“I’m no less determined to fight Ma’el, Corwin. But we need to know what we’re up against. We can’t afford to be careless.”
“You have no idea how reassured I am to hear you say that.”
“That includes not flinging papers around so that Ma’el knows where we’ve been and what we’ve seen.”
“Oh.” Corwin looked around at the mess in the dry room. He decided he’d better change the subject fast. “What about this?” he asked, pulling out the third map. “What’s this a map of?” Nia peered at it. “Oh—it’s a map of the dry-lander world, Corwin. We’re taught this in Academy. Around this sea was where all the ancient kingdoms lay that Atlantis used to trade with. These islands are Hellenica. Along this river lay Egypt. In the middle of this leglike thing is Roma. Way up here in this corner, this island is Britannia.”
“That’s my home!” Corwin said. “Some people called my land Britannia,” he explained.
“So that’s where we were,” Nia mused. “All the way up there.”
Corwin stared at it as if he should be able to see the hills and rocky shores within the bare outline. It seemed very small compared with the rest of the world. Corwin began to understand how little he’d seen in his life. How little about the world he’d known. Henwyneb, for all his sightlessness, had “seen” more, just from the stories he’d gathered from his guests.
“But what are these circles and lines connecting them?”
“Wait, it explains down here.” Nia silently read a block of text in a corner of the parchment. “Ah! These are the locations of the centers of power. Remember Gobaith told us about them? The centers are located in places where the Earth’s energies tap directly into the unis, this says. And look—there’s one here, in your homeland, Corwin. That must be the shrine we found.”
Corwin looked at the symbols beside the circle where Nia was pointing. “Yes, those were carved on the walls of the ruin. If we’d known how to use their power, we might have been able to save ourselves a lot of trouble. We might have been able to destroy or at least weaken Ma’el before coming to Atlantis.”
“But we didn’t,” Nia said. “And this map doesn’t explain how they were to be used. Maybe only a Farworlder would know. Down here, someone has added a notation: ‘The centers of power were ordered destroyed when Atlantis sank, to avoid misuse by the land-dwellers.’ But the one in your country wasn’t completely destroyed, just buried.”
“Maybe your ancestors just didn’t get around to that one,” Corwin said with a shrug. “It’s farthest away from the others. Maybe they felt my people would be too stupid to figure out what it was for.”
“I doubt that,” Nia said.
“Well, this map is interesting, but it doesn’t help us much now,” Corwin said. “I’ll fold up the city maps and bring those along.”
“Let’s pick up the rest of these and hide them somewhere,” Nia suggested.
There was a bubbling and splashing in the hole behind them. The young merman they had first rescued appeared and shook the water off of his face. “Forgive my intrusion, Avatar Nia, Avatar Corwin, but the guards have been seen and they’re returning this way. With them is a Farworlder whom we assume is your joined king, but the guards are ignoring him. We’re going to find plac
es to hide.”
Nia paused a moment. “Very well. Thank you.”
The mermyd dove below again.
“I guess we’d better leave, too,” Nia said. “Oh, but these papers . . . how do we hide them?”
“Why bother?” Corwin asked. “Ma’el’s not going to care. He’ll already know we’ve been here. Let’s just go!”
“Okay,” Nia said, a little reluctantly. “Corwin, did you hear what he called us?”
Corwin looked at her. “Yes—he called us Avatars. I guess it is a little strange, hearing someone say that to me. But isn’t it normal for you? You’ve known all along that’s what you are down here.”
“It was the tone in his voice,” she replied. “No one’s ever spoken to me with that kind of . . . respect? Awe?”
“Well, don’t let it go to your head,” Corwin said, pushing papers out of the way. “That’s what turns kings into tyrants.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Nia said with a slight smile, and she dove back in through the hole.
Corwin folded the city maps and tucked them into his tunic. Instinctively taking a few deep breaths, even though he didn’t need to, he dove in after Nia.
Nia swam to her mother, who was emerging from her hiding spot beneath a desk. Tyra was already looking better. “I’m sorry, Avatar Nia. We can’t stay here.”
“It’s all right,” Nia said. Then she paused. “Mother, you don’t have to call me Avatar,” she said, taking both of Tyra’s hands.
Tyra smiled. “I want to. To show how proud I am of you. And to convince myself that there’s still hope for Atlantis. Now you and your friend must come with me. I know some cellars in the Bluefin Palace we could escape to, where you can plan your rebellion.”
Nia shook her head. “We don’t have time to hide, Mother. Ma’el knows we’re here, and we have to try to stop him before he has a chance to root us out. We have to keep ahead of him.”
“You’re going to just fight him outright, by yourselves?” Tyra asked in horror. “But how can you? You’re . . . you’re so young!”
Nia held up her right hand and showed her mother the sun-shaped mark. “It’s our duty to try. And if we can’t, who else can?”
