He kept that to himself until they sailed—the first time Elliot had ever been on the sea—to the village in the nearby bay. They were welcomed by the villagers, who seemed settled into their new home already and who seemed to be under the impression they had come to slaughter all the mermaids.
The villagers held a mermaid-slaughtering party, of which Elliot approved very much. It gave him the chance to work under the cover of darkness and noise.
He made his way over to Luke, who was explaining to several raptly disappointed young ladies that he did not not dance.
“Hi, loser, I want you,” said Elliot.
“Oh no, what now?” said Luke, and Elliot beamed.
“I’m going to do something very dangerous,” said Elliot. “And I need you to hold the rope.”
The lake by the village was vast, so big Elliot wondered if he should think of it as a lagoon. There were three large named rivers that fed into it: Scimiar, the largest, the one that ran out to sea, was so wide and calm it looked like a road. Elliot could see the shine of tiny rivers running beneath the undergrowth all around, like the faintest threads of silver embroidery running through swathes of dark fabric, all of them feeding it. There were woods all around, trees so thick and tall that harpies could have nested in their boughs, and yet the trees only seemed like a midnight-black fringe on the edge of all that water. The moon was full, shining so bright it seemed to have suffused the whole sky with a faint silver glow.
Under the full moon, between silver and dark, the mermaids’ lagoon waited. The water was shockingly cold as Elliot waded in, so cold that the first touch of lake water around his ankles made his teeth clench. He kept walking, and ripples chased each other before and after him, one ripple silver and one dark.
Silver and dark, silver and dark, moon bright and night black, the rings in the water formed around him. He felt stones and earth and slime beneath his feet, weeds tangling around his legs, as he walked. He was up past his chest and standing in a dark ring when the soft brush of another weed, gently unfurling against his leg, clutched instead and formed a grip cold and hard as steel.
Elliot was only able to get out one shout before he disappeared beneath the surface, and he knew the mermaid did not intend for him to break the surface and give another.
The scream had lost him his air: he felt another gasp escape him and saw it rise, a bright silver bubble among green weeds. Below the surface the water still looked silver, but it was a shadowed silver, almost pewter, and in the dull silver world Elliot glimpsed among the weeds a white face and sharp teeth.
Then she was on him, fast as a shark, terrible and defying all stories like the unicorn. She had him pinned to the stones at the bottom of the lake, her hands stone-cold and twining-strong. Elliot fought the urge to struggle and lash out: he used his last moments of strength and air to gesture to her. He made the gesture so many of the mermaids were making in so many of Maximilian Wavechaser’s sketches.
The mermaid hesitated. He thought, he was almost sure she did, and then the rope around his waist tautened and dragged him inexorably across the stones and out of her reach.
Elliot broke the surface of the water gasping and choking, but he called out in a breaking water-logged voice to both Luke and the mermaid: “Stop. Wait.”
“Are you kidding me?” Luke snapped, his voice traveling across the water from the trees with great clarity and greater annoyance. “I did what you wanted. We came out, you got half drowned. Now you want to stay here and get all the way drowned? The mermaids don’t want to talk! The mermaids want to drown you!”
Elliot waved him off and, disinclined though he felt to do it, ducked his head beneath the water again. The mermaid had not gone. She was under the water, lurking, her pale weed-green eyes watchful. Her eyes widened at being watched back. Elliot made the gesture again, then had to break the surface of the water and breathe.
He was drawing another gulp of air into his smarting throat and burning lungs when he saw something else break the surface of the water. At first it only looked like a nest of debris, a tangle of weeds, but then it rose, and he saw bared to the open air her bone-pale face, her water-cool eyes, her rows of glittering sharp teeth. The mermaid.
Elliot smiled.
In a voice that was soft but sounded jagged, like something broken and made into a new shape it was never meant to form, she spoke. “Human,” she said. “Do you know what you were saying?”
“This?” Elliot made the gesture again. “Mermaids were—doing that, with their hands, in a lot of the sketches with mermaids that I could find. I figured it was something that people say to each other all the time—like hello or good-bye or how are you.”
“It means,” she said, and her voice was almost dry, “‘Do you want to drown him or shall I?’ Except less polite than that.”
“Oh,” said Elliot, and laughed. “Of course. It’s something that you say to each other all the time, when in the presence of humans. Oh my God. A million scholarly works on mermaids are full of pictures of mermaids giving humans the finger. Well. The finger of death.”
“Your friend on the shore is right,” the mermaid whispered, then she was on him again. He was flat on his back in the water, her cold merciless weight on top of him, and her strangling-tight fingers were in his hair, pulling him down under the surface as she murmured in his ear: “Your kind can drown in an inch of water. You think I can’t kill you because of a rope?”
The harpoon landed in the water, inches away from them. The mermaid stiffened: Elliot put a hand on her arm.
“Wait,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I only want to talk.”
“But harm him and I will hurt you,” Serene’s voice called from the trees.
The mermaid’s head turned, the moon picking out silver in the dark drowned green of her hair. “Elf!”
“Yes, elf,” said Serene. “Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle. And that should tell you that I missed you on purpose. Try to harm my friend again, and I will not miss.”
The mermaid’s head swung from side to side. She was poised to run or to attack. Elliot did not think she could see very well, outside the water.
“Don’t go,” Elliot said urgently. “She won’t hurt you unless you drown me.”
“You think I can’t? You’re in my element. You think you’re safe?”
“Not completely,” said Elliot. “But I thought it was worth a little risk. Don’t go and don’t drown me. Aren’t you the least bit curious about what I have to say? I’m curious about you.”
The mermaid shrugged. “We had to do it,” she said. “We had to get those people away from our lake. We have eggs to be raised here, and they have been fouling it for the space of fifteen moons.”
Fifteen moons.
“But . . . then those people who were fouling your lake, they were bandits,” said Elliot rapidly. “Not villagers interested in farming and trade. The bandits weren’t planning to stay, so they could leave as much of a mess as they wanted, but these people won’t. Didn’t you notice they were different?”
“You all look the same to me.”
Elliot smiled and said, “That’s because you’re not looking closely enough.”
They looked, and spoke, all night long. She seemed interested in looking closer, Elliot thought, as she held her hand up against his. Her fingers were cool against his, and webbed at the bases.
“I haven’t seen a human before,” the mermaid confided to him. “Not for long. Once they are drowned, your kind’s skin turns to—I think your word is—soap in the water.”
She laughed and Elliot laughed back, marveling, though he could hear Luke on the bank muttering that he did not think it was funny.
“That’s so true,” he told the mermaid.
He only wanted to look at her, and see her looking at him. Her skin felt different than human skin, looked different: her very eyes looked different, lucent in her skull. Those are pearls that were her eyes, Elliot thought, but her eyes had been pearl
s all along. She was a story made flesh.
“You keep turning up your mouth at the corners.”
“That’s a smile,” said Elliot. “My kind do it before laughing, sometimes. Do your kind not do it?”
“No. My kind just laugh, and sing, and . . .” The mermaid looked at him, wondrous and wondering, and then leaned forward. Elliot experienced a thrilling shock like a cold ripple in the water, as he felt her cool mouth on his, felt the press of her sharp teeth beneath her flesh. She leaned away. “Do your kind do that?”
Elliot could not help laughing. “Yes. My kind do.”
“I don’t believe this!” Luke yelled.
“I can’t believe you’re so annoying! Sorry about him,” Elliot told the mermaid. “So, can I tell the villagers we have a deal?”
“Are you sorry to be parted from the mermaid?” Serene asked sympathetically. “I know you listen to my and Luke’s romantic troubles, and I would be hap—”
“About that, I don’t want to listen to those, please stop.”
Since she returned, Serene had been talking endlessly about Golden not refusing her permission to write to him while she was at the wars. Which meant that Serene had permission. Except that Golden never wrote back, unless you counted the letter of Serene’s Golden had returned with DRIVEL written over it in violet ink.
Elliot had been forced to read one of Serene’s epistles, which were 100% about her valor. He had dictated a letter asking Golden about his hobbies and interests: so far no luck, but it had to be less boring for the poor boy.
Elliot sighed and stared out at the sea. “Not exactly sorry. A bird might love a fish, but where would they live? Not to mention the other anatomical difficulties . . .”
Serene looked sad about having a gentleman discussing intimate details and wandered off to persuade the captain to let her steer.
Luke jumped out of the rigging and landed on the deck near Elliot.
“Nobody should’ve been able to make that jump without breaking a leg,” said a sailor. “That’s absurd.”
“I know!” said Elliot. “I know, right? I’ve been saying it for years. Be my best friend.”
The sailor’s eyes glowed. “He’s amazing.”
“Get away from me, never speak to me again,” said Elliot, and moved to what he thought was starboard.
“I’m sorry about him,” said Luke behind him. “He’s always been like this. It’s terrible.”
Elliot wondered if he felt ill because of this, or the way the boat was lurching in the rising wind. The boat actually seemed to be skipping like an expertly thrown stone from one crest of a wave to the other, and as it lurched again Elliot made a grab for the rail, and missed.
Everything fell away. Someone shouted out his name, and that was the last thing he heard over the roar of waves and wind, like gods having a shouting match.
Then he was in the dark, dark water, choking, flailing, as if he could fight the waves, and in the darkness there were pearls. Mermaids’ faces, Elliot thought, and felt their strong cold hands fasten onto him. Till human voices wake us, Elliot remembered, and we drown . . .
“Elliot?” Luke asked, and Elliot found himself not drowning with two very worried faces hovering over him.
“Speak to us!” Serene commanded.
Elliot coughed and said: “I told you so.”
Luke laughed a little wildly and looked up into the black sky, hands spread palms up, as if asking the stormclouds why they had visited this horror upon him.
Elliot lay on the deck and said: “I told you that mermaid liked me.”
Meeting mermaids was the one thing about a magical land, in three years, that had finally gone right. Elliot had hoped meeting a mermaid would feel like the end of the story, feel like he could close the book.
Instead, he found himself laughing along with Luke, and wishing he could meet harpies.
Almost as soon as they were back from seeing the mermaids, Luke and Serene were sent off to war with the bandits. Only the best war-training students were chosen, which was always going to mean Luke and Serene.
Elliot thought about that: about being left behind all his life. He knew he should be. He knew he’d be useless in a battle, but he hated sitting here and thinking about it. And he knew that even if this war was won, another war would start between the humans and the elves. Maybe not this year, not with the treaty in place, but in five years, or ten years.
Life was not like this in the other world, he thought. And he had seen mermaids now.
“Hey,” said Dale, passing by. “Want to go for a swim in the lake?”
Elliot had not been to the lake since he was fourteen, with Serene, but Serene wasn’t here any more. “Why not?”
He was right to do it, he thought as he plunged into the clear spring water. He felt it envelop him, a shivering delightful rush over his bare chest and through his hair. He opened his eyes and the world was pale and shining, and he walked out of the water grinning and met a kiss.
Dale’s body was lithe and slippery against his, his kiss cool and sweet, and Elliot cupped Dale’s face in his hands and pressed him up against a tree. Then a flash of memory and horror burned through Elliot and he jumped back as if Dale was the one burning.
“I should not have done that! I am the worst person in the world!”
“Um,” Dale said. “Why?”
“Because of Luke!”
“What?” Dale asked. “Oh my God. You are the worst person in the world! When did you guys get together?”
“What—no. He likes you,” said Elliot, and ran his fingers through his wet hair. “And now I’ve officially told everybody.”
He’d told, and he’d kissed Dale, and he’d let Luke down, and he was letting Luke down again because the sneaking thought crept in: if Dale really did like Elliot better . . .
Elliot lifted his head, but Dale was glowing.
“Wow,” he said. “Luke Sunborn.” He caught himself, politely. “I mean, I think you’re great, and I like all the flirting—”
“I have not—” Elliot began furiously, and stopped to consider all of his own previous actions in light of Dale’s remark. “Actually, I see why you might think that.”
“But wow. Luke Sunborn. You know?”
The question was unexpected as a blow that came when Elliot was absorbed by reading, and hurt in the same way. He remembered Luke with his arms around a little kid, Luke pulling off his shirt on the Trigon pitch, Luke in the corridor after the school play. It was, perhaps, time to admit Elliot did know.
“I guess,” Elliot conceded ungraciously. “I mostly sublimate it.”
He swallowed after this admission and looked away from Dale’s face, so surprised to hear Luke liked him and so happy to hear it.
Elliot might have thought: Wow, Luke Sunborn, occasionally, but most of the time he knew he did not want his heart crushed by his other best friend, and even if Luke had some sort of break with reality and wanted it, Elliot did not want a partner who thought everything Elliot cared about was unimportant.
Dale apparently had no doubts.
“Oh,” said Dale. “But he likes me, so I don’t have to sublinear it.”
Elliot opened his mouth and then shut it, in mercy.
“Just play it cool. He’s going to ask you out eventually. And don’t worry about this. I think water might be my lucky element.” Elliot grinned. “The last person I kissed was a mermaid.”
“Really?” Dale’s face screwed up. “Gross.”
Elliot drew in a deep breath to yell at him, then let it out. Dale and Luke were going to be together, and Elliot wanted to remain on good terms. He put it down to yet another reason why Elliot and Dale would not work together, including “sublinear.”
Then the sound of an elvish horn sang through the trees.
Elliot froze. “Get back to camp, I’ll stall them,” he said, and ran for the road that wound through the trees and into a melee of horses.
Apparently tired warhorses reacted bad
ly to people stumbling into their midst and flailing wildly.
“Nice horsie,” Elliot called, and when the horse reared: “Well, that’s not very nice.”
Luke jumped off the rearing horse with his usual attention to gravity and calmed it with a pat to its straining neck. More equine favoritism.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” said Elliot, giving Serene a quick wave. “I just wanted—um, a word with you?”
“You can speak when we get back to camp,” Commander Woodsinger said from high atop a glossy, sidling beast.
“Can’t we have one now? Please,” said Luke, and the commander shrugged, still looking loftily down.
“Congratulate us, Cadet,” said Commander Woodsinger. “War’s over.”
Elliot frowned. “For now.”
“If it starts again, I know that you will be certain you can talk your way out of it,” the commander told him.
“He will not be the only one confident in his abilities,” said Serene, and Elliot beamed at her, even as the commander motioned the troop forward and home.
“So what did you want to ask me about?” Luke said.
Elliot stared. “Um . . . I forget.”
“You’re impossible,” said Luke, storming off with his horse in tow.
For once, Elliot was glad Luke was angry with him. He deserved it. But Elliot could not help thinking of how many secrets he was keeping from Luke right now, in an attempt to make things easier between them. It was not working. Everything between them had just become more difficult, and more distant, and it was not like anything between them had ever been easy.
They were all in Elliot’s cabin for the ten thousandth time talking about their love lives. Serene and Luke were, that was. Elliot was reading a book.
“I cannot quite describe the lucent quality of his golden hair,” said Serene. “But I did write a poem about it. It’s not very good.”
“I like, uh, his muscles,” said Luke, blushing. “And his tan. He’s getting a lot better at Trigon, too.”
In Other Lands Page 38
