Pillars of the Deep

by Harper Alexander

  “Oh, primping and preening for some…ball or other. Something to do with a regent looking for a bride and the consequential events of mass courtship that are involved.” He swirled elusively through the cathedral heights, playing coy.

  “You have balls?” I asked, finding the idea somehow unexpected for an underwater culture, then my face flamed as my brain played back to me what I had just said. “That is, there’s a ball?” Good grief, you’re as smooth as butter, aren’t you? Though come to think of it, how exactly did merfolk reproductive systems–

  “There will be,” Codexious replied, slamming my focus back to the conversation. “One of many. It is not quite upon us, but the mermaids make sure to prepare plenty in advance. It is a competition, after all. Each must ensure she has the greatest chance of catching my eye.”

  “Have you even considered any yet?”

  “Mm…one or two. Very briefly.”

  “What happens if you don’t pick one?”

  “The sea is at greater unrest the longer I wait. Storms abound, the kraken is stirring, the sharks prowl as if there’s blood in the water–your regular riots in the streets.”

  “There must be someone who loves the sea enough for her motives to be pure,” I reasoned, aghast that every mer-soul from far and wide would be more focused on making themselves pretty to catch Coda’s eye than addressing the concerns of the ocean in order to catch his heart. Heck, just catching his approval would suffice. From what he said, such a soul wouldn’t even have to try very hard to stand head and shoulders above the rest. Just show up, show an interest in preserving the ocean rather than advancing her status, and bam–instant mer-queen.

  Just add water.

  But I supposed many of the candidates probably pretended to care about the ocean to qualify and didn’t actually give a hoot. I did not envy Coda the job of having to discern between noble motives and selfish ambition. I would be gun-shy of settling on someone, too.

  “Amphitrite has been queen of the sea since the dawn of time,” Coda explained, still twirling sly little circles around the cavern. I kept having to turn my head to keep up with him. “No one has ever had to entertain the thought of one day taking her place. No one has prepared for this. So, no, unfortunately I don’t believe anyone truly grasps the responsibility that is before them. Rather the same as a child does not fully understand the extent of his parents’ duty and concerns bringing him up, and would not comprehend all the responsibilities he would need to assume should his parents be taken from him too early. He knows only that he is hungry. That if he throws a fit, surely someone will give him what he craves.”

  I nodded, seeing the resemblance of the analogy. “What is it like, a bunch of mermaids throwing fits?”

  “Come to the next ball and find out.”

  I couldn’t even begin to pretend that a mermaid ball was something I didn’t want to see. “When is it?”

  “At the violet aurora.”

  Aha, measuring time by aurora colors again.

  “Worry not, there is time. We will see you properly outfitted. In the meantime…there is something I wish to show you.”

  That got my attention, drawing my gaze to where he was twining around near my right flank. “Oh?”

  “All this talk of dead queens, of tumultuous oceans and rioting mermaid politics–it is time you understand.”

  Though his eddying little dance was teasing, vaguely like a predator lazily circling his prey, Coda’s face was the essence of serious. I met his offer in dignified silence, sensing the gravity of the situation. He was about to let me in on the intimate confidence of the deep, the fathomless wound that had plagued my own senses until I heeded the Call–perhaps just a cry of pain all along–and responded to the distress signals, the rallying pull of my roots.

  “Will you come into the ocean with me?” Coda asked.

  For the first time, I glanced around for Inaja. “Where’s your trusty bodyguard?”

  “Getting a much-needed wink of sleep. I have no need to be coddled aurora to aurora.”

  I stole a glance at his scarred, muscular frame, and there was no doubt in my mind he was completely capable of looking after himself.

  “Inaja is a trusty sidekick; an extra pair of eyes,” Coda admitted. “And his companionship allows me to relax, eliminating the need to watch my back every moment. But I do not need him, and he allows me my own time.”

  In that case… “Very well then.” A thrill passed over me, agreeing to accompany him into the ocean, just the two of us. I couldn’t deny it had been a little nagging, feeling Inaja’s watchful gaze always in our wake, but now that it wasn’t there the intimacy of the outing tickled my nerves into an anxious buzz.

  “Then come,” Codexious bade, and sent himself toward the opening of the skylight. I propelled myself after him, catching the cold swish of his current in my face. We shimmied up through the portal in the ceiling and emerged to the watery sky above the city, heading for the perimeter and the deeper ocean beyond.

  This time, Coda didn’t speak as we went. We swam in silence over the opulent rooftops, out past the fringes of ruins, into the dark indigo water beyond the reach of the aurora. My merman escort went at my pace, accommodating my slow ‘Splittail’ kick, of which I was grateful. Determined not to look like a complete minnow in a big pond, I pushed myself the entire way, and was more relieved than I cared to admit when Coda drew up and began treading water.

  Had we arrived? I glanced around, searching for some marker that would establish the locale as significant. We were in a barren sector of the ocean, the sea floor a powdery, blank expanse all around us, fading into the murk about fifty feet in every direction. The only thing that appeared significant was the large, dark gap that tunneled into the ground before us, just far enough ahead that I couldn’t see down into the pit.

  Whatever we had come for, it would seem it resided in the pit.

  Chills swept over me, inevitable given the circumstances. Unbidden, I swallowed. There was that dry mouth again, which seemed like it should have been such an impossibility at the bottom of the ocean. Even though it was pointless, I found myself stretching my neck as if to peer into the hole, gaining only a fraction of an inch of a better view of nothing. “So…what’s in the pit?”

  “Approach,” Coda urged. I looked at him like he was crazy, but he nodded in encouragement. “Perfectly safe, I assure you.”

  Yeah, famous last words. But I was still on that not-wanting-to-appear-like-a-lame-little-minnow kick, and so against my better judgment I did as he encouraged.

  Creepy-crawlies flurried all up and down my body as I crept toward the edge of the pit, visions of some nightmarish deep-sea monster lurching out to devour me taunting my resolve. Once again I toyed with the theory that the Abyss had lured me out here just to serve as some sacrifice to the spirits of the deep. And all the time Coda had spent with me, all the attention and doting and explaining the ocean’s plight had just been to butter me up, to win me over so I would go willingly…

  He had been circling me like a predator in the cathedral, and I imagined that I was about to meet my demise as he convinced me to crawl of my own volition right into the jaws of the deep.

  My heart hammered when I neared the edge. The pit yawned wider and darker, and I craned my vision ahead of my progress to track its deepening descent into the earth. It just kept going, a bottomless sink hole.

  Just shy of the lip, I stopped, treading water and waiting for the big revelation.

  Deep, dark silence stared back at me. It sent my nerves into overdrive taking my eyes off the pit to glance quizzically back at Coda, but I didn’t get what I was waiting for, or if there was something I was supposed to understand simply by observing the pit itself. He nodded back toward the sink hole, indicating there was yet something I would find there.

  Giving it another go, I turned back. Waited. Attempted to lather up my cotton mouth, to no avail.

  And then–oh horror of horrors, what was rising from the pit
? Something shifted in the shadows, pushing up through the darkness. I swished backward, my heart jumping into my throat. Slow to shed the shadows–slow to do anything, in fact–the form materialized gradually, the inky silhouette blooming into a smoky-rose bubble.

  And it was just like me to liken it to a bubble, because it was actually a jellyfish–huge and dusty pink and translucent and pulsing with galaxy-like inner workings. An impressive cluster of tentacles revealed themselves as the jellyfish continued to rise from the depths, a mix of long angel-hair-like threads and billowing, lacy ruffles.

  My head tilted back, my gaze tracking the live orb up, up, up until its tentacles were free of the pit and it loomed in delicate terror above me, bathing me in its rosy glow.

  Oh, my.

  It was a graceful giant, charming and daunting at once. I was utterly captivated, and yet…this…this was what Coda wanted me to see? I almost glanced at him again, but couldn’t quite bring myself to tear my riveted gaze from the creature before me.

  The nebula that was harbored in the jellyfish’s body glittered and sparked, little threads of electricity rippling across the membrane bubble that housed it. I got the feeling that the jellyfish was looking at me, considering me, surveying me in some way even though it had nothing that could pass for eyes. I forced myself to hold my ground for its scrutiny, not sure why I was here but hooked by the intrigue so far.

  The jellyfish rotated ever so slightly, though the constellation within did not seem to shift along with it, anchored in place. And then, so slowly that at first I didn’t even notice, one of the long angel-hair tentacles–a jet-black one–drifted up from its resting place and reached toward me. When I noticed it encroaching on my person, I feinted back, unable to just stand still and let it invade my space. But Coda had brought me here for this, and I recalled him mentioning the sacred status of the jellyfish among the mer-folk, and I reasoned with myself that it must be a peaceful creature, gentle and wise and to be revered, not feared. And somewhere off to my right Coda’s voice filtered through: “Black doesn’t sting.” So I tensed and stayed my retreat and flinched as it touched me, its wispy feeler making contact with my face.

  Really, did it have to be my face? We couldn’t just share a handshake and call me ocean-blessed and swim our separate ways? I cringed as its creepy, slithery touch explored my features, shutting my eyes and clamping my jaw tight lest it probe a little too curiously. How long did I have to endure this inspection? I couldn’t wait to take Codexious on a trip to my world, where I could drop a tarantula on his head in the name of the alien culture, and watch him squirm.

  Feeling up the side of my face, the tendril probed at my temple and then settled there, applying pressure with a sense of purpose. A second black tendril eddied up to mirror the first, fusing itself to my opposite temple.

  My skull being pinned in the creature’s silken vise did nothing to calm my nerves. I went rigid, the tentacle anchor-points pulling my head forward and up as if to focus me on the jelly’s body.

  Open your eyes, something whispered in my mind, and my lids flashed open.

  Sparking and sizzling, the creature’s nebula innards churned into a murky substance. Like a crystal ball, the jellyfish’s body became a screen for a series of visions, threads of light pulsing down the extended tentacles and into my skull as if to translate the vision to my brain.

  What unfolded then in the deep-sea crystal ball was difficult to classify in terms that would tell a story to a human’s regular senses, but thanks to my privileged link to the creature’s perspective, I tuned in to the essence of the alien concepts it labored to communicate.

  There was dazzling blue, and a purity so potent that it tingled against your germy existence. The infectious glee of dolphins, a summery nostalgia that punched you in the gut like a vanquishing wave you don’t see coming. Breathless. Plunged into a galaxy of bubbles, a million airy stars rising around you. Kaleidoscopes of fish. Infinite iridescent fins churning like oil in water. Born to a cold, sparkling giant womb, ever-incubated in the lustrous and crisp amniotic fluid of the earth. The atmosphere, far above, a wondrous dome of lace-patterned foam–the marble sky. Gold-pierced shallows. Brown-sugar sand. Crystal-clear waves and gem-colored depths. Currents like ribbons, like veins, like the far-reaching tentacles of giant squid ghosts. Tranquility more absolute than the cottony hush of snowfall. Drifting, soaring, always floating on a cloud. Clouds of blue, of clear, of turquoise gloom and bubble-silver. A kingdom of grace. A glistening, hidden gem, the liquid geode of the world.

  And then–ink, pluming comet-like into the purity. Deformed, freakish seaweed. An invasion of strange jellyfish–clear, tough, warped, lifeless. Collecting in planet-core gutters. Clogging the arteries of the ocean. The marble sky rupturing a gold-burnished vein and bleeding black across the surface, a giant lily pad of oppression. Whales sinking like ships. Graveyards of dolphin bones. The terrified bug-eyes of fish reflecting all the horror in the world. Tethered sea turtles. Tattered, moth-eaten silk fins. The pulse of the tide growing weak. A glacial bone cracking, a northern appendage swelling with fluid. Whale calls keening with grief. Infant creatures separated from their mothers in the ever-thickening murk, lost and alone, metal sharks circling. Baby orcas, baby seals, baby turtles and seahorses and rays–all the pitiful, precious baby creatures, choking on the very atmosphere meant to nourish them, gagging on poison, fading until their little hearts become stagnant.

  The ocean had been a womb, once. Vast and free but a thing meant to harbor and nurture, clean of disease or corruption or sorrow, a breeding ground of elegance and tranquility, beauty and dignity, a dimension untouched and untainted. A safe place. A utopian underworld, all summery elation and carefree, childlike splendor and innocence.

  Until.

  I hadn’t thought you could cry underwater, but tears streamed down my face. Grief wracked my body, seeing such purity defiled, such beauty torn asunder. My lip quivered, eyes glued in melancholy horror to that membrane screen, a thousand volts of sadness and sorrow transferring from the electrical tentacles into my brain. I felt it as surely as if it was a tragedy directly affecting my own circle, my loved ones, things sacred to me.

  No one was meant to withstand such sadness. It was too much. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to tear the connection away, couldn’t bring myself to avert my eyes. Appalled and heartsick though I was, it would be a disservice to turn a blind eye, a slight of respect to hide from the horror. Some things had to be acknowledged.

  But I would never be the same.

  I had just witnessed the downfall and corruption of a staggeringly wondrous part of creation. Like weeds choking out the Garden of Eden, a dimension thriving beyond the utopia of our wildest dreams had been infected. It had been unthinkably stunning in its prime, a perfect fantasy world. It was one thing to know of the injustice. Another thing entirely to bear witness through the ages, to see in intimate detail its fall from glory.

  One thing to hear of how your mother overdosed, dying before you knew her well enough to remember her; another to know her in her prime, to be in love with her loveliness and goodness and revere her like no other, to love her and need her and want always to be with her, and then witness her descent into disease, addiction, and the ugly, violent path of no return.

  That’s what I felt like, watching what this extraordinary creature had charged me with seeing. Like I had watched my own mother’s tragic demise. But it was worse than even that, wasn’t it? Something even deeper tugged at my heartstrings, imploring me to dig further for a more profound understanding.

  And then I realized–it was the opposite, wasn’t it? Like watching a child trip down that path. The apple of your eye, the most beautifully perfect thing your eyes and heart could ever behold, which you would do anything to love and protect–had been charged with loving and protecting, was your soul purpose to love and protect–poisoned, tortured, exploited, defiled…

  A shuddering breath wracked my chest, in spite of my watery surro
undings.

  Old habits. Natural human reflexes of grief.

  ‘Amphitrite has died of a broken heart,’ Codexious had said.

  ‘How does the queen of the sea end up with her heart broken?’

  Now I knew.

  Chapter 18

  The ocean was dying.

  I remembered Sandy taking me to one of those ocean conservation things once, where we spent half the day cleaning trash off the beach and the other half dissecting a dead seagull to see the array of garbage ingested in its gullet and viewing depressing power points about how oil spills affected aquatic life. I’d been sad then, too. Had even been moved to orchestrate some small-scale project aimed to inspire cleaning up the coasts of California.

  But my passion for the cause had been short-lived, fading as many things do when you’re six and in kindergarten, and when said crises are not thrown urgently in your face every day. And of course all efforts ceased entirely when I developed my sudden aversion for that beloved, endangered sea of mine and fled inland, slamming the door in its face. It’s hard to keep caring about something when you want nothing more to do with it. Hard to remember you were ever trying to save it when you become convinced you must save yourself from it.

  But my kindergarten self had the right idea.

  The sacred oceanic creature before me loosened its vise-like tendrils from my skull, the visions fading. The jellyfish crystal ball went dark, not even the erstwhile constellation of inner essence remaining. I felt the serpentine feelers slide out of my brain, even though–at least to my knowledge–there had been no piercing of my skull. I recoiled from the sensation, expediting the separation. The jellyfish drew back and drifted further out over the pit, done with me.

  Shaken, I turned back to Coda.

  He was watching me intently, a wistful gravity haunting his eyes. For a moment neither of us said anything, just shared a heavy silence that acknowledged what there were no words for.

  Could he see the tears on my face, in the water? I would think they would meld with the encompassing liquid, instantly diluted and spread thin into the surrounding territory, but I could still feel them on my face–streaks that were colder than the rest of the water, stinging my cheeks.