Pillars of the Deep

by Harper Alexander

  “I have no interest in the Atlantean throne,” I said–a tad coldly, but reassuring enough. “I think we can all agree I know far too little of the Abyssal kingdom to harbor any aspirations of ruling it. And I have no wish to distract a volatile man from pursuing an honorable task. I will take your words of warning under advisement.”

  But that was all I would grant him. I appreciated he was watching out for his friend–and the Abyssal kingdom as a whole–but it was not in my nature to take a personal slight in stride, however noble the offender’s intentions, nor to let one person speak for another.

  Pastel’s tentacles were oozing slowly farther out of the turret shadows, as if the exchange happening without had him poised to come to my defense again. I’d probably better close the matter and hurry Inaja on his way before my octopod minion decided he needed to attack the royal bodyguard of Atlantis like any other shark. That would so help my case.

  “That is all I can ask,” Inaja said, but it came an instant too late to be completely genuine, and harbored an unvoiced sentiment to the tune of ‘for now…’. But with that he gave an almost indiscriminate nod and glided off toward the avenue below, leaving me to hover by my turret watching after him, a frown of discontent lingering on my face.

  Pastel chose then to ooze fully out of the tower, enveloping me from behind. I’d grown used to his slimy, squirmy affection by then, hardly noticing as he slithered into place and suctioned onto my shoulder.

  Inaja’s little visit had obviously been to distance me from Codexious, but in the wake of his claims it was precisely a talk with the regent that I felt was in order.

  * * *

  It was Brax who I conversed with next, however. There was another ball coming up, and she’d invited me to help her with the costume orders. I’d already decided not to attend the big event, this time around–before Inaja approached me, because I’d surmised all by myself there seemed to be a direct correlation between the mermaids stirring themselves into a jealous frenzy over my dance with Coda and me waking up the next morning cast to the sharks, and I had no wish to provoke any such thing a second time–but I could use some ‘girl time’. Flitting around with Brax in the Clam Shop immersed in bolts of silken seaweed, sequins and pearls was just the kind of thing I needed.

  “Look for any violet embellishments you can find in the annexes,” Brax directed, sending me off for my second annex-run of the day. “Particularly anything shiny.”

  I flitted off to peruse the stacks and aisles and mountains of supplies in the warehouse area of the shop, my trusty seaweed sack in tow to bring back whatever I could find.

  I returned shortly with the sack brimming with purple odds and ends and overflowing with ribbon and tassels. “Will this get you started?”

  “Started, and then some. Let’s see what we can do here…” She mixed and matched and dumped her selection into a large clam, sliding her goggles into place and calibrating her rune-cube to transmit her ideas, and after a few pumps of pearly steam out came a glitzy and glamorous violet accessory.

  I drifted into day-dream mode as she worked, deep in thought over transpirations as of late. After a while I hazarded broaching the subject with Brax, curious as to her input. “Do you think Codexious will ever choose a bride?”

  “Well, he has to, doesn’t he?” she responded, inspecting a seam on the purple garment. “But…sometimes I’m not so sure.”

  I chewed my cheek in thought. “You know him, sort of, don’t you? Do you think there’s anyone suitable?”

  Brax pushed her goggles up and considered. “I think he doesn’t give some of them enough credit. It is a momentous decision, and I don’t fault him for taking his time, but if he’s looking for a ready-born queen, well… No one was born for this, but I do think there are those who would rise to the occasion. Once his choice is coronated and bonded with the ocean, they will become one and she will inherit the wisdom and power that she needs. She does not have to be a perfect choice up front. I think Codexious has trouble seeing that.”

  I hadn’t planned on mentioning it, but since we were talking about it…a certain incident itched to come out of the woodwork. “Inaja approached me,” I mentioned offhandedly.

  “About?”

  “Keeping my distance from Codexious, so I don’t distract him or ‘confuse the issue’ of him choosing a bride.”

  “You have been spending quite a bit of time with him,” Brax pointed out, matter-of-factly.

  “Because he’s one of a grand total of two mermaids I feel I can trust. Who else am I supposed to feel comfortable around? It was just common courtesy for him to give me the grand tour of things, and now…we happen to share a hobby of music.”

  “Trust me, I get it. I’m just saying.”

  “I know,” I groaned. “It looks bad.”

  “Well, do you have plans to sweep in and steal the crown?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then, great. Don’t worry about it. Inaja is a stiff, no-nonsense party-pooper. Just ignore him.”

  Easier said than done, but her take did make me feel a little better.

  Far less concerned than Inaja, Brax bent back over her work, and we spent the rest of the aurora lost in ruffles and sparkles and frills.

  * * *

  It didn’t take long for the opportunity to speak with Codexious to present itself. A swordfish poked its spindly beak into my turret, another dangling wax slate in tow. I retrieved the slate and sent the cobalt-blue creature on its way, and skimmed the message that was scrawled in the wax.

  Meet me in the ballroom. Written in the same script Coda had used when sending me an invitation to the circus.

  A scandalous flutter of pleasure went through me, followed by a pinch of dread, Inaja’s warnings swirling around my head.

  “Come on, Pasty.” I extended an arm toward my octopus crony. It was almost second-nature to interact with him at that point; I hardly stole a glance in his direction, and he scurried to take his place on my shoulder. My loyal cotton-candy tumor.

  We made our way through the canal side-streets of the city to the palace, where I rounded the elaborate structure to the dome portal high above and wormed my way in to the towering reaches of the ballroom. It was dark and dormant compared to the last time I’d seen it, save for a single, large white orb swirling above the center of the floor, pearly and luminescent. I glanced around for Codexious but saw no one, and so I sank down toward the miniature moon, seeing that it was actually a school of ivory fish churning around and around in the shape of a globe, as if stuck in an invisible bubble.

  “Globe fish,” Coda’s voice explained from the edge of the ballroom, drawing my attention to him. He glided out from the pillar shadows and joined me at the center of the ballroom, looking up at the live globe. “You set loose a baby Silkworm Jellyfish in the water, and they’ll swarm around it to protect it until they sense its mother nearby. It’s going to be the center-piece for the upcoming ball.”

  A curious grimace touched my face. “And you don’t have to worry about said mother interrupting the festivities? Some giant jellyfish like the one at the pit crashing the party and filling the whole dome?”

  Coda chuckled. “There is no other jellyfish like the one at the pit. ‘Old Jelly’, we call that graceful kraken. The most ancient, mystical veteran of the sea. But fear not, Old Jelly never leaves its pit. It has long been dedicated to a timeless, brooding vigil of isolation, ever soaking up fathomless wisdom from the meditative darkness at the heart of the earth. No, this darling’s mother is a much smaller beastie”–he nodded toward the ivory mass–“kept in one of the temples here, fed a banquet of her favorite larvae any time we wish to keep her happily distracted.”

  I nodded, letting my attention rove over the display. “Enchanting,” I remarked, but this time the wonder didn’t find its way into my voice. “As always.”

  “Will you be at the ball?”

  “Not this time, I’m afraid.”

  Dismay clouded Coda’s eyes, an
d his tail gave a sudden agitated flick as he moved to circle restlessly around the globe. “It distresses me that you have to live in fear.”

  I followed the glimpses of him that I could see until he’d rounded the roiling sphere. “I try not to dwell on it. I’d just as soon not provoke another incident, that’s all.”

  “Really,” Coda mused skeptically, studying me carefully. “You look as though you’re dwelling on something.”

  Well, there was no sense in denying it. I might as well get the curiosity out of the way before it ate away at me. “I thought you said it was folly that killed your father. That he went on a foolish conquest into the deep sea and met his certain doom there.”

  “He did,” Coda confirmed, cocking his head to try to divine where I was going with this.

  “They say you’ve been there. That you fought the great creatures of the Deep.” I watched him as I said it, wondering if he’d display any sense of ‘being caught’ or if he’d just clear up the double-standard, simple as that.

  Codexious nodded knowingly, seeing I’d heard the tale. And had he really thought it wouldn’t come out? He was a legend. “Yes. I did.”

  So it was true, and he didn’t deny it. “What for?”

  He shrugged, his muscular shoulders bunching. “To avenge my father, maybe. Or finish what he started. Or…just because I could.”

  While it sounded like a senseless quest of ill-advised testosterone to me, I couldn’t deny an unexpected wave of admiration and awe tingled through me. I imagined him plunging into the dark abyss without flinching, his blood hot, terrors of the deep rearing out of the shadows to challenge him–iron fangs and spiked tentacles and battering-ram giant sharks that charged like trains out of the darkness. But Codexious, fluid and agile, strong as an ox, body twisting and flexing and battle cries raging from his lips, tore them all to shreds with nothing but sheer will and the relentless ferocity of any legendary warrior. He would have been beaten and bloody, attracting more sharks, and still he fought his way out, dragging with him a river-sized serpent as proof of his escapades.

  “It bothers you?” Codexious probed.

  “Just seemed like a double-standard. You called it folly like you disapproved, and yet you’ve done it. You could have died.”

  Coda nodded to himself, becoming ever-so-slightly withdrawn as he reflected on his conquest. He swirled again around the fish-globe, slowly, deep in thought. “There was a certain stigma, being the son of Atlas. The son of a fallen king, the son of a disgrace who grasped at desperate measures to regain his dignity and died a shameful death doing so. I finished what he started to cast off the shame. Fault me for that if you must.” From the opposite side of the globe he cut through the congregation of fish. They parted only as wide as necessary to let him through, creating a fitted portal. The visual of him emerging before me as if born from the full moon was not one I’d soon forget.

  It was hard to fault him for anything, face to face with his smoldering silver gaze. And I couldn’t fault him, not really. All I’d wanted was to hear his side of the story, and now I had. So he’d done something ill-advised to clear the shame from his family name. At least he hadn’t just gone seeking thrills.

  “Will you really not come to the ball?” Codexious implored me.

  Pastel reached toward the churning plethora of fish with one curious tentacle, parting the flow as if inserting a finger into the run-off of a fountain. I absently pulled his mischievous appendage back, twisting it back into the lump that was the rest of his body amassed on my shoulder, rather like winding noodles around chopsticks and wrangling them into some sort of order. “I’m afraid not.”

  “So you’ll just be…sitting in your tower, sulking.”

  “Hardly,” I scoffed, affronted. “I do have plenty to do besides attend parties, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll probably be…in the cathedral…playing the organ by myself.”

  That seemed to please him, painting a grin across his face. “Well, then when I dance with the masses at the ball, I shall imagine that I am dancing to our song, and it will make it tolerable.”

  I thought about my conversation with Brax. “Is there nothing else that might make it tolerable to you? Such as knowing that once you choose a bride, the sea will meet you halfway and bestow the necessary knowledge and power upon your choice for a queen?”

  “If I were so sure it was that simple, maybe. But I am equally afraid the opposite will happen–that when the sea and its new queen become one, her nature will taint–or complement–the ocean in accordance with her temperament.”

  I sighed. “I do not envy you the choice.”

  “And I do not envy you the regret you will feel when you aren’t thoroughly enjoying yourself at the ball like the rest of us.”

  I couldn’t resist a chuckle, then. “I thought it wasn’t even going to be tolerable.”

  “Such is the case with most things, it seems. Hot one instant, cold the next.”

  That could have so many double-meanings. I over-analyzed it for a single charged moment before deciding I wouldn’t even go there. Not today. “Is there something else you brought me down here for?” I inquired, remembering he had sent me a summons and we hadn’t really discussed anything except what I had come to get off my chest.

  “Oh, I was just going to give you a preview of what you had in store for you at the upcoming ball, but I guess now you’ll never know.” He swirled mysteriously away, and my expression grew wry following in his wake.

  “Guess not,” I affirmed, refusing to be baited. I wasn’t that easy. “But the Globe Fish are pretty cool.”

  “Just pretend you didn’t see those. So I can retain the illusion of leverage.”

  “And in the hypothetical case where you convince me to come, do I just waltz in with an octopus on my shoulder, and scare all the guests to the edges of the room?”

  “That would be one way to make a statement and ensure they keep their distance from you.”

  “Also a good way to get your entire party inked. I don’t think Pasty would take kindly to a crowd.”

  Coda eyed my tangled glop of a sidekick. “It’s getting harder and harder to tell where one of you ends and the other begins.”

  “I’m pretty sure this might be how becoming one with the ocean begins,” I remarked cheekily, and then instantly regretted it. Was I trying to present myself as a queenly candidate? Definitely not, and yet these things kept surfacing.

  Whether or not Coda was thinking what I was thinking, he examined me seriously, his eyes like liquid mercury that I could dive into–that I could drown in. “The ocean has clearly blessed you, Stargazer, daughter of Vel-Di’yah, gypsy from the Surface. I hope you find what you’re looking for, down here.”

  Some unwelcome pang went through me at those words, that I couldn’t quite identify. I said nothing in response, and he took it upon himself to flourish away with a sense of forced finality and head for the exit. “Ellien will pay a visit to you later, in your turret. Something about taking your bandages off. Don’t wander far.”

  I watched him go, then lingered alone in the ballroom for a lengthy moment, glancing around at the vast emptiness that would soon brim with glittering mermaids and festive merry-making and paramours fawning all over the merman I couldn’t get out of my head.

  Would they be triumphant that their scare-tactics had chased me away from attending the next ball? I resented the possibility, but couldn’t be bothered to rethink my decision with the other troubled waters aswirl in my head.

  I needed a good brood.

  They could have their ball. Let them all flounce around, thinking they’d efficiently snuffed the competition and were on the cusp of being chosen by Codexious for that shining, unprecedented honor. The joke was on them since I’d never been competition and they were no closer to winning the disillusioned regent’s heart.

  I headed back to my turret, pausing above the city to watch the ripples of the aurora, silently willing that
mystical beacon to give me some clue why it had beckoned me so compellingly that I had no choice but to drown myself to the world I’d always known. It’s time to come home, the ocean had whispered to me, but ‘home’ was a seductive garden of forbidden fruit and kin that wanted to kill me–rather the opposite of finding purpose and belonging.

  Perhaps the forces that powered the aurora heeded my distress, for when Ellien came to remove my bandages, a fresh omen revealed itself. As he peeled away the web of seaweed, I saw that the shark bite had healed into a pattern of puckered crescent moons and jagged lightning bolts down my leg–and they were silver.

  Chapter 23

  While everyone else was dancing away the neon-pink aurora at the ball, I collected Pastel and left the city, finding my way back to the pit where the galaxy jellyfish had infused me with visions of the ocean apocalypse. I sat at the edge staring down into the dark, Pastel oozing snail-slow down my back toward the sea floor.

  I wasn’t quite sure if I was hoping the massive jelly would rise to engage with me or if that bottomless capsule of divine residence was just the ideal window through which to brood. But I sought it out and indulged in the ambiance of its dark mirror, hoping I might at least absorb some mystical wisdom floating around in the shadows.

  Two things vied for a dominant stance within me: on the one hand, I’d been rattled by Inaja’s intervention and was questioning whether I should be more careful around the regent of Atlantis, or even forfeit seeing him altogether. Whatever I’d come to the Depths for, it wasn’t to get involved in mermaid politics or mess up any momentous matters of state. On the other hand, a spark of defiance kindled at some of the things Inaja had said, and as far as him trying to paint Coda like some volatile, easily-derailed thrill junkie that I would do well to steer clear of for both our benefit, Coda’s side of the story had rather put that matter of character to rest.