In the Between Time

by Krystyne Price

  The tentacle released him but the tidakam glowed so brightly he couldn’t see where anyone else was! Wait. He could sense. Yes.

  Hoping he was out of range of the tentacles he could hear and feel thwapping about behind him while the creature continued to wail, Jafo closed both sets of eyelids and reached out with his mind. The men were all scrambling to find the front entry. Jafo had half a mind to bring the pintu crumbling down at the front to block them. But no. His goal was not to kill senselessly. Only to protect.

  There…Daria and Ajibo were now in the furthest right corner from the entry. He tracked that Ajibo had the child wedged into that corner behind him, using his own body as a shield. Whether or not he was her biological father obviously mattered little. He was a Protector in his own right, and Jafo suddenly respected him even more than he had before.

  He sprinted in their direction and simultaneously tracked the soton. It was slowly losing its ability to thrash around, but Jafo was afraid if he released it from the tidakam’s power that it would come back to its senses and rip them all to shreds. No-Name and his men were cowering in the front right corner because the soton was too close to the entryway for them to get anywhere near.

  So he still needed find a way out. His mind raced, wondering if his original plan would work. That blank part of the wall was to the left of Daria and Ajibo, which should…wait. If this pintu was the original gateway to Ninoj, back when it’d been the seat of power for Nino and Nina, then where was the back exit? Surely a gateway was something to be passed through, not simply for one to enter and then have to turn around and exit it, and then go all the way around it to get to the inner city. No, the exit had to have been the blank part of the wall. The rest had been etched, both pictorially and with words, but that one area, not.

  His mind recalled the stories again, trying to decipher them to use to his own advantage. The pintu had been where Nino and Nina had seen their subjects until they’d grown tired of their pedantic grievances. They had retreated into Ninoj, never to show themselves to the merans again. This all occurred before the Deluge. Never to show themselves…never to—!

  That was it! In order to keep merans from entering the city upon their decision to remain hidden, Nino and Nina must have walled up the doorway from the pintu into its center! That blank part was the back door! Or at least it had been at one time. Jafo knew from experience that there wasn’t anything on the other side of that wall but ocean, plants and fish. A conundrum for another time.

  He felt the soton slowing. One frightened man from No-Name’s group slid along the front wall toward the entry in a bid to escape. Jafo took his chance, ordering the tidakam to cease its attack upon the soton. He threw all his thoughts into redirecting the column of energy from the creature’s head to the blank part of the wall. He still couldn’t actually see it for the blinding pink light, but he’d been within this structure so many times he knew every inch in his mind. It was only a matter of visualization.

  The first great crack in the blank part of the wall startled him, making him jerk backward. But then he moved ahead, using Daria’s position as a guide to the direction he needed to be facing. He forced more power out from himself, hurling everything he could muster at the large, solid stones blocking their only safe way out.

  Two more large cracks and many escaping bubbles nearly deafened him, but he pressed on. Don’t give up…never give up, he chanted to himself over and over and over even as his limbs became weak and his tail, weary. At last a surge of water told him he’d opened a hole, though he’d no idea how large it was. He needed to keep the tidakam this bright to ensure the soton, if it was alive enough to be able to do so, and the strangers, couldn’t see the three of them getting away.

  To her credit, Daria had not hollered for help. Perhaps Ajibo had advised her to remain silent to keep her presence from becoming known. Or perhaps the little merling was just that brave and intelligent. Jafo supposed being a demidari might account for that kind of smarts.

  He called out to her, mentally channeling it only to her and praying that as her Protector, this would work. “Track me, Daria. Find me now. We must go!”

  Jafo waited what seemed an interminable amount of time but then there she was, swimming right into his body. She held Ajibo’s hand in her left one, and took Jafo’s left hand in her right. Her grip was far stronger than he had expected it to be.

  “What do we do now? Where do we go?” she asked through their one-on-one channel.

  “I have made a hole in the back wall. Come.”

  But in order to accurately locate the hole, he’d have to tone the tidakam down. He supposed at this point the soton and the men were less of a threat and besides, their little trio was very close to the exit he’d created. He ordered the tidakam to rest and just like that its glow ceased, leaving him blinking both sets of eyelids rapidly as he tried to adjust his vision to normal ambient ocean light.

  He seriously needed to practice slowly dimming the damn thing instead.

  Through the streaks of pink light that had seared his retinas, Jafo managed to make out what looked to be roughly a mer-sized hole in the place where the blank stones had been, near the floor. That would do. Large lightning-shaped cracks erupted from the hole. Jafo prayed those stones wouldn’t crumble when they went through.

  “There!” he said, and pointed.

  She nodded, let go of his hand and raced ahead, dragging Ajibo behind her. Jafo made the mistake of turning around to guage where the soton and the strangers were. To his horror, the soton was in the process of shoving one of the goons into the enormous fang-filled mouth at the junction of its tentacles to its body and head, and held two others tightly, one of whom appeared to be either unconscious or already dead.

  That was his doing. His. Whether these men intended them harm or not, imos did not kill, save for the most extreme circumstances. Yet this creature was, apparently, No-Name’s pet. Could he not control it? The answer was obvious. What an idiotic pet to have – something so large no mer could control it. Why would anyone keep a ‘pet’ that they couldn’t physically handle?

  Questions for other times, for as much as Jafo’s very nature, new though it may partially be, rebelled against leaving the men to die, he could not abandon Daria beyond the walls where it was entirely possible No-Name had already escaped to.

  No, he had to be her Protector, not swim around worrying about other mers. She was the end all and be all of his existence now.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly to the dead and dying, and then turned to dart through the hole just as Ajibo’s tail disappeared through it. A great surge of water pushed him forward, and he flipped his tail faster toward escape. The tentacle that smashed into his dorsal fin upended him and slammed his right side against the back wall. Dizzy, he flailed, hands feeling along the wall. Where was he in relation to the hole?

  “Here, Protector,” sizzled through the channel. It was like Daria had thrown him a rope. Mentally, he grabbed it and just as another tentacle flung his direction, used it to pull himself through. At the end of the tentacle was a hook-like claw. It sliced right through the bottom of his tail, tearing his long, flowing fin in half.

  Jafo howled in pain, but kept on going.

  * * *

  Her pakan wasn’t loose or flowing enough to leave room for hiding the tidakam, which was now pulsing in addition to glowing. Great, just what she needed: a gift from the daris that refused to keep itself out of sight.

  “What do we have here, gentlemen?”

  Sirena looked up. Vago.

  “I see you remember me.”

  “How can I forget the one who ordered my death?”

  His eyebrows slid up. He wasn’t wearing his mask, leaving his entire face visible. That didn’t bode well for her longevity. “My dear ima, I did not order your death. I simply ordered your imprisonment. If death had come to you, it would not have been by my hand.”

  “No, just the result of your orders,” she retorted, pushing herself to a
sitting position and flattening her back against the wall. “Same difference.” She kept the tidakam on the floor near her hip, but it still radiated its existence like a beacon. Blasted thing.

  Sirena couldn’t see either Omaro or Mateo and in the same moment she was about to thank the daris for assisting their flight she realized that she had no idea how long that passageway was, nor whether it led to anywhere with air to breathe. In urging them to escape via the water, she could very well have sent them off to drown. Between that and facing the Lunan, Sirena couldn’t decide which fate was worse.

  A hand grabbed her throat and raised her to her feet, then beyond so that only the tips of her big toes were touching the stone floor. The tidakam remained in her hand. Sirena recalled what she’d done with it to get it to heal Omaro and thought perhaps it might help her now, at least to distract the Lunan so she could dive in to a possible death as real as the one she was facing now.

  What a choice to have to make.

  Vago’s grip on her throat tightened and Sirena gasped, hands automatically coming up to scratch and claw at his in a bid for air. The tidakam hit the floor with a tinkling thud, notching its glow up a bit, startling the men. Vago’s grip relaxed enough with the distraction that Sirena was able to pry his fingers looser and wriggle out of his grasp.

  He sneered and lunged at her. She tucked and rolled toward the placid pool, plucking the tidakam from the floor as she seamlessly landed upright on her feet. That was new, she thought of the maneuver. Normally I’m not nearly so agile. Sirena held the tidakam out in front of her in what she hoped was a menacing way. It at least stopped the Lunans advancing upon her. Now to actually make the sphere itself appear dangerous rather than…pink, like the tongue of a kuci.

  But how?

  Mental control, one of the things her mother had talked of with her so often in the early years. “Don’t let them see what you are, young ima,” she’d admonished after Sirena had streaked through a kampun completely naked at the age of four. “You are special, but it is a special you must conceal. Overcome with your mind. Control your thoughts.”

  This situation was quite a bit different than streaking, and if she tried that she knew in present company it would only lead to a gangbang scenario. And then death. They’d angered Vago enough that no matter what he did or did not do to her, death would definitely follow.

  Control your thoughts, she told herself. Yes, she had to use her mind to tell the tidakam what to do, like before, rather than worrying about the what-ifs. Worrying would not help her get away, nor would it help Mateo. Only action could do those things. I must escape, she told the tidakam with her thoughts. Please help me get away.

  Nothing happened. She opened her eyes, backed up a little more and watched as the men realized the ima and her crystal sphere weren’t any more of a threat than the stalagtite she’d just backed into. That would leave a mark.

  Now why wouldn’t the tidakam do anything? She’d asked nicely. What had she done with Omaro? Think! So she thought. And backed up. Vago moved ahead of the others, his eyes so dark he looked…dare she think it?..soulless. She had…um…what did she need to do? It really, really wasn’t easy to think about things when being backed into a—wait. She was being backed into the pool. The Lunan probably thought she was as terrified of the water as all merans were. Truth be told, she was. But she’d sent Omaro and Mateo down there and would see herself damned by the daris before she’d leave them on their own, even in death.

  Too much time had passed…if the waterway indeed had no outlet within close proximity, those two would already be gone.

  She gulped as the men advanced. They didn’t have to say anything to be terrifying. Her trembling limbs backed up that assessment. Not one word was spoken, but their heavy breathing echoed throughout the cave giving something she’d formerly thought beautiful and tranquil, a creepy factor that sent a chill up and down her spine.

  “I’m warning you, Vago. Leave me alone.”

  “Or what? You’ll pink me to death?” he asked, then dissolved into raucous laughter. His men joined in. Just what she’d always wanted to do: laugh people to an early demise.

  Sirena glared at the tidakam. Why couldn’t it have been something more intimidating like…black?

  Turn black and scare the pakanis off them, she thought.

  To Sirena’s utter shock, the tidakam did just that. The center of the sphere blinked to black and the ‘glow’ was now a thick black curtain that emanated outward, shrouding her and making it impossible to see where the Lunan were.

  She whipped around, knowing that the pool wasn’t that far away but without being able to see in the utter darkness she’d created, she misjudged the distance and her sixth step was into nothing but air. Sirena yelped as she fell and hit the water with a mighty splash.

  She sank into the circular pool back first. She reacted to the shock of flailing in an unfamiliar realm by opening her mouth and taking a deep, gasping breath.

  Of water.

  Her body convulsed, the no-longer-glowing-black tidakam now forcefully held within her grip. Spots covered her field of vision and darkness narrowed it down to pinpoints as she flailed, arms and legs kicking and flying every which way to try to get back to air. She needed air!

  Just when she knew it was her last moment of life, her vision returned.

  The panic receded.

  Sirena looked up and to her left, where the passageway was. There, just beneath the cave wall, were Omaro and Mateo. In the water. Looking like nothing was wrong. Her jaw dropped. It was all she could do to maintain her hold on the tidakam as Mateo and Omaro gestured for her to join them.

  Placing her hand on her chest to verify that it was indeed still moving, meaning she wasn’t dead, Sirena shook her head at the two, wanting to ask so many questions but not even registering the reality of what was going on. It was only when she felt her chest moving steadily out and back, out and back, and felt her heart beating under the left side of it strong and sure, did the truth finally hit home.

  She was breathing, all right. In the water.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Krystyne Price has been writing stories since she was ten years old...and that was a loooooong time ago! She enjoys creating new worlds and new life forms, with a little bit of technology, a lot of magic and more adventure than she sometimes knows what to do with! Krystyne enjoys hiking, reading and of course, flipping her tail with the mers who call the Pacific surrounding her beloved Hawaii, home. Equally aided and hampered by a crazy cat and her loving (non-cat) daughter, Krystyne's goal is to take you away from where you are now, to a place you never knew you were longing to see.

  WEBSITE

  If you’d like to keep up-to-date with the Mer series, or drop Krystyne a line, please head to her website at www.KrystynePrice.com. You can also reach her directly by email: Krystyne@KrystynePrice.com

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