Lyle's Story

by Kay Berrisford

  “And once the wedding is paid for, I’ll take you on a brilliant holiday, I promise,” Ben was saying. “Wherever you like. Hmmm, I bet the waters are warm all year round in the Canary Islands, eh?”

  Lyle clenched the shell so hard its little nodules bit his flesh. He couldn’t blame Ben for being optimistic tonight, and he hated to kill the mood. But he had to speak out. He couldn’t put it off any longer.

  “Ben,” he asked, “when exactly is your job interview? Is it soon?”

  “It’s the day after tomorrow. Mr Bertrand has agreed to give me the time off, and there’s an interview and a written test. Not exactly a lot of notice, and I’m already dead nervous.” Ben flipped one of his eggs over and pointed to the pan. “Do you want any? There’s plenty.”

  Lyle shook his head. “No, thanks. Look, Ben, I’m going to have to leave you for a bit. Just for a while, I hope, but…”

  “What?” Ben switched off the gas and was on the sofa at Lyle’s side in an instant. “No, you can’t mean that? Don’t leave me, Lyle, not now. I need you.”

  Lyle slumped against Ben, sinking his head onto Ben’s shoulder. At least now he didn’t have to look Ben in the eye.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Ben. “Have I upset you? If it’s about the artist thing, I’m sorry. Maybe I’ve been a little negative, but making an actual living out of that sort of thing is—”

  “It’s not your fault, Ben, it’s mine. It’s about… what happened after we broke the curse. During the three months that I was gone.”

  “But I know about that.” Ben’s gentle rubs on Lyle’s belly couldn’t ease the tension that knotted inside it. “When you got back, your brother Welwyn, who’d cursed you when you refused to marry him, had been overthrown by one of your cousins, right? They quarrelled over what to do with you, which can’t have been nice, and in the heat of the quarrel, Welwyn was killed. In the confusion after that, you managed to get away and swim back to me. Isn’t that correct? What’ve I missed?”

  “Nothing,” said Lyle. At least, nothing I’ve told you. “But you see, they’re coming after me. The albatross we saw tonight—she was a scout. A spy working for my family. They know where I am now, and they’ll want to lock me away again.”

  “What?” Ben had gone rigid, and fear forced Lyle to peep up. Anger rolled from Ben in tangible waves and a muscle on the side of his jaw twitched in agitation. Lyle had never before seen Ben so furious, and it took a few fleeting heartbeats for Lyle to register that he wasn’t the one in trouble.

  “How dare they?” seethed Ben. “Can’t they leave you in peace? Look, you’re in the human world now. We’ll do something. Call the police if we must. They can’t detain an innocent—”

  “I’m not innocent!” cried Lyle. “Look, I lied to you. No, that’s not exactly it… I didn’t lie, as such. I just… didn’t tell you about everything that happened.”

  Lyle feared he’d made Ben all the crosser. But Ben was still Lyle’s kind, patient Ben. The wrath iridescent in Ben’s eyes faded to a faint flicker. “You better tell me now then, love,” he said.

  No, I really don’t deserve you, Benjamin Miles.

  “Serve up your eggs first,” said Lyle. “This is going to be a long one.”

  Ben did as Lyle bid. They both sat up on the high stools at their breakfast bar as Lyle began to spill the hardest tale of his life.

  ~~*

  Five months ago in Shanty Wood

  Benjamin dropped to one knee on the pine-needles and fumbled in his pocket for something. Lyle’s knees felt feeble and he reeled from Benjamin’s kiss. He couldn’t believe, after so many long ages had gone by, all his dreams might be coming true.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Benjamin’s expressive brown eyes, which Lyle yearned to drown in, were stretched wide with concern.

  Lyle braced himself with a palm against the tree-trunk and drew a deep, fortifying breath. He still felt weak from his recent storm-raising ordeal, so he prayed he’d made the right decision, and the sea would gift him the power he hoped for. But if he and Benjamin were to have any real life together, he’d have to face this sooner or later. “I’ve never been readier.” He managed to sound certain. “Are you?”

  “When do you think you’ll be able to get to the Wish Tower?” asked Benjamin.

  “Be there on the next full moon,” said Lyle, voice wavering in tandem with his resolution. “You will be there, Benjamin? If I’m delayed, you’ll wait for me?”

  “I will. I promise. I swear on my life… no, on my love for you. Besides, if I didn’t intend to come for you, I don’t think what we’re about to do will work anyway. Don’t I have to love you with all my heart and mean what I say to break the curse?”

  Oh Gods, Lyle loved Benjamin. He loved Benjamin so much. And Benjamin’s love made it easy to throw bravado in the face of his fears. He shrugged with pretended nonchalance. “Good point. Well, what are you waiting for, hazard man? Don’t tell me you’re making another risk assessment.”

  “Shut up.” Laughing, Benjamin pulled out a little box and drew a confident-sounding breath, which calmed Lyle’s jittering nerves further. Benjamin flicked open the box to reveal the most perfect platinum band nestled on a shimmering ocean of scarlet fabric. Lyle gasped; the ring glittered as radiantly as the Goddess Moon.

  “Lyle,” said Benjamin. “Will you do me the honour of marrying me?”

  “Yes.” Lyle offered out his left hand, lifting the fourth finger in invitation. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Benjamin beamed up at him, and Lyle prayed that nothing drastic would happen yet. He wanted to relish this moment. Benjamin slipped the ring onto his hand then leaned forward to kiss it. Lyle’s chest swelled with the sheer volume of his adoration. Then blackness descended, and Benjamin vanished.

  Lyle’s hoarse scream died in his throat, as dark magic pummelled him with the force of hurricane. He had been here before and understood what was happening; the curse that had brought him here was breaking, wrenching him away from his love. Terror pulverized the last remnants of his greatest bliss. He shattered into a billion shards, the magic ripping his every particle asunder.

  Some essence of him, without shape or form, whirled across an insentient blank universe. Then, in a blistering crack of kinetic energy, Lyle burst back into his body and into space and time. He landed with a smack on an unyielding slab of rock.

  For a while, all Lyle could do was lie there, his bruised cheek pressed to the cold stone floor. Shivering, he found himself unable to feel his extremities or figure out if he’d reformed with fins, tail, or feet. He guessed where he was, of course—in the sealed cave where his family threw those who’d disgraced them.

  He’d been here before too, one-hundred-and-seventy-five years ago.

  His brother, Welwyn, had beaten him to within an inch of his life, then cast him here. Welwyn had then formulated the cruel magic of the curse that’d banished him to the very heart of rural England, many miles from the sea.

  But he wasn’t the frightened, bleeding seventeen-year-old he’d been back then. Hell, no. Welwyn would’ve expected his landlocked little brother to shrivel up and die, but Lyle had survived to show himself hardier than any of his kin. Indeed, Welwyn had unwittingly gifted Lyle many long decades to hone his budding magical skills. And now that Lyle had found his true love to break the curse and returned to within yards of the ocean, the greatest source of his enchantment and power? Well, Lyle intended to give his elder sibling the surprise of his long life, that was for sure, and then he was heading straight back to Benjamin.

  Lyle rolled onto his back, panting heavily. He wiggled his toes, from which the numbness receded. Right, that made sense. He’d reformed with legs, which seemed his natural state when not actually in the water, and fortunately his clothes had come too. His long fins—an essential part of him whether on land or in the sea, proven by the matter they were so tricky to shapeshift from or conceal—draped miserably at his sides. He hugged his ragged cloak about him.
A drop of liquid plopped on the corner of his mouth, and Lyle shot his tongue out and lapped it in hungrily.

  Salt water.

  The sea. He didn’t even need to strain his ears to hear it. He wasn’t quite in it, of course, but this prison lay low down in his family’s ancient shore-side cave network, near the waterline even at the tide’s lowest ebb. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he discerned the surge of its energy on the other side of the cave wall. He lay scarcely yards from it—the rolling waves called to him as he hungered for them. In his magical core, which had been sustained by meagre moonlight for too long, a knot tightened and then formed an iron fist.

  The fist clenched hard.

  Lyle’s eyes flew wide. Power scorched from his innermost nub to the very tips of his toes and fins, setting him kicking and twisting, writhing in near ecstasy. He hadn’t felt so strong in an age. Nay, he’d never felt this strong before. The rush was awesome, though a distant second to rolling naked with the man he loved.

  Benjamin. His fiancé. He ran his thumb lovingly over the beautiful engagement band on his left hand and sent a prayer of thanks to all and any deities who would listen. Thank heavens he still had the ring, because even the prospect of a little light vengeance paled in comparison to the ache in Lyle’s chest at the realization that Benjamin was now hundreds of miles away.

  So he’d best make this quick.

  He jumped to his feet, throwing off the cloak and squinting into the darkness. If memory served, this cave had only two openings. The first was a door at the far end, kept magically sealed from the other side. The other was a tiny crack high up in this prison—impossible to squeeze through without shapeshifting and shrinking magic beyond any known ability—which allowed in water and a thin trickle of light. It seemed this still existed, and moonlight filtered in, allowing his vision to adjust to the gloom. Soon, he detected patches of glittering quartz and the tapering columns of stalactites and stalagmites. He could make out the shape of the cave, save its most shadowy corners.

  He remembered this place well, though he’d not been here for that long the first time. He’d cried and rocked himself, and then he’d mustered his pubescent magic and thrown pathetic little lightning bolts, which hadn’t as much as carved fissures in the rock. He might’ve been able to bring down the flinty ceiling above Welwyn’s throne back then, but this cave had been chosen as a prison because it’d been hewn from the toughest granite on the island. Spells fortified its walls too, preventing any inmate transporting themselves free using magic. It had stood the test of millennia.

  “But that was then,” muttered Lyle to himself, pushing aside any doubts in his current ability. Hell, he’d summoned a ruddy great storm only yesterday. Granted, he was self-tutored and had a few issues with controlling his magic, but he’d none of Benjamin’s co-workers to worry about getting in the way of falling trees here.

  “That was then,” he repeated. “This is now!”

  He didn’t feel the need to raise his arms and jiggle his fingers. Lyle simply tilted his chin up and bent his will toward blasting a hole large enough to climb through. Magic blistered from his core in a torrent of molten lava, and fire cracked against stone. Lyle braced, covering his head, as the aftershock quaked through the cave.

  He straightened slowly, while the dust cleared. No more light seemed to be getting in, but it was still night out and maybe a cloud covered the moon. He rubbed his eyes and rose to examine his work.

  “Damn.” The crack was no bigger. He’d brought down a paltry shower of grit, the results little better than those he’d achieved one-hundred-and-seventy-five years ago. “I’ll try again.”

  He raised his arms and spread his fins, reaching out from his heart-space toward the ocean. Then he sent a quick prayer to the Goddess Moon to hedge his bets and inwardly vowed to throw everything he’d got. He felt the swooping pull of the power leaving his gut, and…

  “It won’t work, young’un.”

  The shock of the unexpected words set Lyle severing the magic without thought, spiralling on one toe. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me.” The sad, sonorous reply hailed from the murkiest depths of the cave. Lyle crept in its direction, trying to place that voice because it both was distantly familiar, yet somehow wasn’t. He knew it, although when he’d last heard it, its timbre had been younger, bolder, and much more arrogant.

  As the realization notched into place, Lyle’s focus picked out a bulky figure chained to the wall. Staggering backward, Lyle clutched his stomach as if a blunt knife had ripped open an old wound.

  “Welwyn,” he gasped. “Is that really you?”

  Chapter Four

  Lyle dropped to his knees beside his brother, his fists balling and his fins twitching. He choked more of the dust from his throat and blinked hard. The bearded merman chained before him was in a sorry state, formerly luxuriant ebony curls hanging in matted braids. His fins trailed flaccidly and his skin sagged from his once impressive musculature.

  There was no doubt about it, though. Lyle gaped at his elder brother, who’d treated him so badly, long ago.

  “Yes, it’s me,” croaked Welwyn, giving Lyle an equally intense once-over. “You’ve changed, Lil—”

  “Lyle. My name is not Lilly—it’s Lyle.” Lyle hissed between gritted teeth, though it proved hard to sustain the scorch of his hatred for long. Welwyn sniffed, drooping forward so all his weight seemed to hang from his chained wrists. His tangled hair covered his face.

  “Lyle,” said Welwyn softly, acknowledging Lyle’s chosen and actual name for the first time. “I wronged you, Lyle. I’m sorry. But I realized you’d break the curse someday. How could I be so stupid to think an undine as beautiful as you would never find anyone to love them? Or that unjust marriage laws would not change? You always were beautiful, Lyle… but now… sweet heavens. Have I finally passed? Are you an angel?”

  “Er, no.” Lyle pulled a face. Part of him wanted to wallow in righteous loathing of his brother, and he certainly found Welwyn’s declarations of ongoing admiration a tad creepy. A simple “sorry” hardly sufficed for the beatings, let alone Welwyn’s attempts to force Lyle into a female form and into marriage. Yet, only glimmers of the arrogant Welwyn he’d once known survived in the stricken creature before him.

  Lyle could scarce credit it, but he felt a little sorry for Welwyn. And besides, the plethora of questions spinning in his mind dizzied him, and only Welwyn could answer them.

  “What happened?” he demanded. “Why are you down here… and why can’t I get out?” Noting one of Welwyn’s fins slithering toward his knee, he jumped to his feet. Lyle loomed over his brother. “I’m powerful, Welwyn. My magic is at least as potent as yours once was. And I want answers.”

  “You shall have them,” said Welwyn. “First, though, I beg of you, bring me a drop of salt water. It is so dry at this end of the cave.”

  “Alright.” Lyle edged away slowly, not quite trusting that Welwyn’s request wasn’t part of a trick.

  At the farthest end of the cave, fringed by a series of pillared stalagmites, trickling water had carved a small pool in the granite. Following Lyle’s attempts to bring the ceiling down, debris muddied the liquid. He splashed it on his face anyway, lapping the delicious saltwater from his lips, relishing it almost as he loved to savour the taste of Benjamin.

  Trying not to dwell too much on how he missed his love, lest it bring tears to his eyes that Welwyn must never see, he formed a cup with his hands. He scooped some water then made his way back across to Welwyn, slopping a good deal as he went.

  He lifted his hands to Welwyn’s lips and let his brother drink. He pondered whether he should’ve tried to conjure a cup, but making one would most likely still be difficult, if not impossible, even with the source of his magic near. He’d hate to disclose any weakness. Being so close to Welwyn set his teeth on edge, not least because Welwyn reeked of decaying seaweed.

  When Welwyn had slurped his fill, he smoothed cracked lips t
ogether. “Thank you,” he said. “It is ironic, sweet Lyle, that he reinforced this prison with his most overwhelming magic so it could contain me at the peak my powers. Now, my will to die has drained my magic so thoroughly I cannot even break or shapeshift from these shackles.”

  “Who has?” demanded Lyle. “Who did all of this?”

  “Oh, Lil—Lyle, I forgot you didn’t know.”

  “Of course I don’t know!” sniped Lyle, beginning to fear Welwyn’s imprisonment had caused him to lose his faculties. Lyle could well empathize with the debilitating effects of isolation and loneliness. “Tell me,” he begged, gentler now.

  “It was our dear cousin, Emmet,” said Welwyn.

  “You’re jesting with me. Seriously?” Lyle fell back on his haunches in surprise. Emmet had been loyal to Welwyn, so unquestioning of Welwyn’s orders that Lyle used to consider him dull as a flounder. “Alright Welwyn, I need to know everything. If I’m going to get myself…” He paused and cringed. “Uh, if I’m going to get us out of here, I need to understand what I’m up against.”

  Welwyn’s account was rambling and sometimes incoherent, forcing Lyle to concentrate hard in order to identify the important parts. “My decline happened slowly, over many years,” explained Welwyn. “After I landlocked you, I threw much of my power into sustaining the curse. Even with all the currents of the ocean surging around me, such meanness, such wanton cruelty… it was beyond even my energies to sustain. It weakened me.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to apologize for that.” Lyle tossed his chin angrily, though he bit back any more scathing interventions. He was keen for Welwyn to carry on.