Rival Magic

by Deva Fagan

  “See?” said Moppe, in a low whisper. “I told you the Dyers’ Guild was taking too much!”

  She might be right. I was beginning to realize that the situation was more complicated than Mother had led me to believe. But I had to find some common ground—or water, as it were—with the merfolk.

  “The danger I speak of threatens both land and sea,” I said. “An evil wizard seeks to claim the lost Medasian crown, and through it, control of the Black Drake.”

  A dissonant thrum filled the air, as the merfolk hummed their disapproval.

  “The drylander who made the statues move,” one of them whispered. “The one we chased away on the half-moon.”

  “He was here?” I asked. It made sense. That would have been two weeks ago. Around the same time the Furtive came sniffing around Betrys’s study. Whoever had sent the magic ferret after her secrets must have also come here, looking for answers.

  Queen Thalassa lifted her chin proudly. “One of your kind came poking about the old ruins. The fool tried to use the godspeak upon us. He did not realize that we have magic of our own. He will not trouble us again. Nor will you.”

  She jabbed her crescent dagger toward the sky. “Tonight, we go to war! Tonight, we take back our waters from the greedy drylanders who steal our fish and snails.”

  The merfolk hooted and trilled, a chorus of hungry fury that made me want to cower and hide. But there was nowhere to run. The sky had begun to deepen to dark blue in the east. The water in our cage was up to my waist now, and small fish had begun to nibble at my ankles and fingers, possibly mistaking me for a giant glowing worm.

  “Wait,” I protested. “Please, we can find another way.”

  “We cannot wait,” said Thalassa. “Every day you drylanders take more and more of the ocean’s bounty and will not be satisfied.”

  What had that Imperial Envoy Benedict said to my mother, at the gala? Something about new shellfish quotas? “We can stop that!” I said. “My mother is on the council. I’m sure once she understands what’s going on, she’ll find a way to fix it. Just give us a little more time.”

  Thalassa pointed to the great golden moon waxing full in the sky above. “There is no more time. Tonight the moon is with us. The sea is strong and hungry, and ready to strike back against those who would plunder it.”

  “Please!” Moppe shouted. “You have to listen to us. We can help you. If you give me the crown, I’ll make sure they stop taking all the snails. I swear!”

  Queen Thalassa ran one coppery finger along the crown, looking thoughtful. “Our people were entrusted with this crown, to keep it safe until the day it was claimed by one who deserved it. But you drylanders have proven you do not deserve it. You have flaunted the gifts of the sea. You have no claim to this crown. It is mine now. I will unleash the Devastation to cleanse the drylanders from Medasia, and then I will rule both land and sea!”

  The other merfolk trilled and roared, except for the turquoise girl nearest our cage. She glanced at us, then along the shore, in the direction of Port Meda. Distant lamps had begun to spark out along the coastline, glittering in the twilight.

  “My queen, it is a great risk,” she began. “The drylanders are strong. The Devastation will strike a mighty blow, but it will also enrage them. They come with weapons of smoke and iron. The seas will run red, but the blood will not be theirs alone.”

  “Silence, Nerine,” said Thalassa. “You forget your place. You are not queen. You are barely even a daughter of the sea.”

  The turquoise mermaid snapped her lips tight, ducking her head.

  I slid a quick look at Moppe. “Have you ever heard of the Devastation?”

  “No. But with a name like that, I’m guessing we want to avoid it.”

  “We go now, to prepare,” cried Thalassa. “When the tide is high, when the moon rises full, I will invoke the ancient rites!”

  “Wait,” I cried. “What are you going to do? What’s the Devastation?”

  Thalassa considered my question. “You will see soon enough. If you survive that long.” She swept a grand gesture to the waves, which continued to roll inward with the rising tide.

  “Come, Melite, Amara, Ashera, Halia,” the queen called to the other mermaids near her. She glanced at the turquoise mermaid, her dark eyes narrow with scorn. “Nerine can guard the drylanders. She’s no use for anything better.”

  The girl made a choked sound. One of her hands curled into a fist. Not that Thalassa even noticed. She was already swimming away with the other four mermaids. Their laughter echoed back across the waves, wild with delight. As one, they dove, flipping graceful tails in a shimmer of blue and green and silver, before plunging down into the deeps.

  I glanced cautiously at our captor. She gripped her spear with fierce determination, but her shoulders bowed slightly. I even thought I saw a tear slip down from one black eye. It might have been only a splash of seawater.

  “She doesn’t look that tough,” Moppe whispered to me. “Those other merfolk don’t think much of her. I bet I can take her.”

  “And then what?” I whispered back. “We’d still be stuck in this cage, getting eaten alive.” I swatted at a few of the fish that continued to nibble at my fingers.

  “Eaten alive?” Moppe looked dubiously at the empty water around her.

  I groaned. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.” The water was up to my chest now. Before long, our cage would be fully submerged. A thrum of panic beat inside me, but I had to fight it. I hadn’t come this far to give up. I had to be cool and collected, like Mother during one of her trade negotiations. The trick is figuring out what other people want, she had once told me. And then convincing them you can give it to them.

  “Let’s try to talk to her first,” I said. “And this time, please don’t try to help.”

  Moppe rolled her eyes but didn’t stop me as I bobbed past her, pressing myself against the cage beside the rock where Nerine sat. The girl stared out over the sea toward where the other mermaids had vanished. I cleared my throat.

  “So,” I said, “what exactly is the Devastation?”

  Nerine gave me a suspicious look, then shrugged. “I suppose there is little you can do to stop it. It is a great wave. Thalassa plans to send it against your city.”

  “Port Meda?” Moppe said, her voice cracking.

  A chill flooded my limbs. “The breakwater will help protect the docks.”

  “It won’t protect the fishing villages,” protested Moppe. “The shore-folk will be helpless! It’ll be worse than the winter storms!”

  I turned to Nerine. “You’re right,” I told her. “A war between our people would spill blood on both sides. Isn’t there some way we can stop it?”

  Nerine twiddled a long strand of her shimmering violet-black hair. “Thalassa has commanded it.”

  “Why do you have to listen to what she says?” Moppe said scornfully. “She treats you like mud.”

  “Because she is the queen.”

  “And how did she become queen? Is she the old queen’s daughter?”

  “No. Our queens are chosen by brave deeds, not bloodline. Thalassa became queen because she endured the Trial.” Nerine snorted. “Or so she claims.”

  There was an answer here somewhere. I just had to find it.

  “Then… you don’t think she deserves to be queen?” I asked.

  “No. She is an arrogant, egotistical blowfish.”

  “And what’s the Trial?”

  Nerine perked up slightly, showing her fangs. “You must face the Ravager, the greatest hunter of the sea, and survive.”

  “Ow!” A sharp pain lanced up my leg, and I kicked instinctively.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Moppe asked.

  “The blasted fish think I’m bait, that’s what,” I grumbled. “Aren’t they bothering you?”

  “No,” she said.

  Of course they weren’t. I must be the tasty one. I tried to focus back on the more important issue of Thalassa. “So the Ravager is so
me sort of monster?”

  “Oh, it is a marvelous creature!” said Nerine excitedly. “With eyes black as the abyss, and skin that bites, and endless teeth. Its fin slices the water like a sword, and it can taste blood a hundred miles away. It is as cold and merciless as death.”

  “Sounds like a duskshark to me,” said Moppe. “My father used to tell me stories about them. He saw one once, when he was shell-diving late one night. He said it ate his lantern and nearly him along with it.”

  “So how exactly does the Trial work?” I pressed on.

  “You have to bring back a token,” said Nerine. “Thalassa wears the Ravager’s tooth around her neck. Did you see it?”

  I shuddered, remembering the fang hanging across her pearly armor. It had been as large as my palm. The creature itself must be enormous.

  But Nerine looked unimpressed. She blew out a huff of air. “It was an adequate attempt. But the legends say the queens of old actually tamed the Ravager and harnessed it to carry them into battle. Thalassa is not so brave.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Could you harness the Ravager? Are you brave enough?”

  Nerine lifted her chin, looking offended. “I have a heart of ice and bones of iron. But that matters little. The Ravager dwells in the everdark, far below.” She gave her tail a sad swish. “I cannot swim so deep.”

  Now that I was closer, I could see that there was something… different about Nerine’s tail. One of the flukes was withered, barely a ruffle.

  “Were you injured?” asked Moppe.

  “No,” she said. “I was born like this.”

  “What if we helped you?” I said, already running possible enchantments through my mind. “There must be a spell. Maybe I could make you heavy, or—”

  “I have a better idea,” said Moppe. “What if we bring the Ravager up here to the surface, to you?”

  Nerine and I both looked at her. “How?” we asked in unison.

  Moppe gave me an evil and decidedly significant grin. “With bait.”

  15

  I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS,” I said, peering into the dark waters around my feet. We were at least a mile offshore, drifting just above one of the deep crevasses where the Ravager hunted, according to Nerine. I’d swum out in dolphin form carrying Moppe, and then she had transfigured me back.

  Now, I dangled over the water, clasped by the power of Moppe’s rise spell like a great, glowing worm.

  “It will be fine,” Moppe said from where she floated above the water several yards away.

  “Easy for you to say,” I muttered. “You’re not the bait. Can’t we just get a lantern?”

  “There isn’t time,” she told me, glancing toward the great golden disk of the full moon as it ascended the night sky. “It’s going to be high tide in an hour. We need to stop Thalassa before she summons the Devastation. Which means we need a new mermaid queen now.” She looked to Nerine. “Are you ready?”

  The mermaid girl was fiddling with a length of woven seaweed she’d brought with her, tugging and testing it as she swam nearby. “Yes.” She tossed the length over her shoulder. “I am prepared to face the Ravager.”

  “Antonia. Lower,” Moppe said.

  “You didn’t ask me if I was ready!” I cried as her magic lowered me into the dark waters. Icy salt water sloshed against my bare feet, my knees, my waist, my chest, and finally my shoulders.

  A wave crashed into my face, turning my protest into a gargle. I beat my arms against the water, kicking uselessly, caught in the grip of the spell.

  “Oh, excellent idea,” Moppe called out. “Thrashing around like that should get the Ravager’s attention.”

  I finally managed to spit out my mouthful of brine. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  Her grin flashed from where she floated in the shadows. “Not at all.”

  She did, however, lift me a few more inches. I peered up, trying to make out her expression. “You know I’m trusting you to keep me from ending up a Ravager’s midnight snack, right?”

  “I know,” she said, her voice suddenly serious. “I swear I won’t let you get eaten, Antonia. By the First Word.”

  And I believed her. If you’d asked me a week ago if I would be putting my life in the hands of a half-trained prodigy who had humiliated me—and, to be fair, whom I had humiliated in turn—I would have thought it a joke. Yet here we were.

  It was nothing I’d expected.

  And yet, it filled me with a strange fluttering.

  Or maybe that was just my stomach turning over with the knowledge that a giant duskshark might even now be preparing to chomp me in two.

  As we waited, I distracted myself by running through possible incantations to counteract a giant wave, just in case. It had occurred to me that I might be able to use a variation of Therenval’s Technique to replicate a hundred small calming spells across the waters, to defuse the worst of the deluge. Or perhaps—

  “She comes!” cried Nerine, sounding almost gleeful as she held her rope of seaweed ready.

  A swirling current tugged at me. A swell of chilly water spun past, just under my toes. All around me, the water heaved and shifted as something massive circled closer. I shrieked.

  “Antonia. Rise!”

  An invisible hand yanked me skyward, just as an enormous fishlike creature surged from below. I had a terrifying glimpse of bleak black eyes and a gaping maw ridged with teeth. Then it crashed back into the sea.

  Nerine dove after it, trilling a fierce cry, only to pop back up a few moments later. “I was too slow. We need to lure her closer.”

  “Closer?” I sputtered, from above. “Any closer and I’m going to end up shark food!”

  “I nearly had her,” Nerine said, with an angry swish of her tail. “If you wish to challenge Thalassa, we must do this properly.”

  “Antonia?” asked Moppe. “We don’t need—”

  “Yes,” I said. “We do. Go on. Cut it as close as you can.” I grimaced. Maybe cut wasn’t the best choice of words.

  “All right,” said Moppe, lowering me back into the water.

  This would be the perfect time for a protection spell. Why had I spent so long memorizing plumbing enchantments instead of charms to prevent myself from being chomped by a giant shark? Assuming I survived, I definitely had some studying to do.

  But for now, I could only kick my glowing feet temptingly and try not to imagine how it would feel to have them snapped off by those terrible jaws. Small fish clustered around me, drawn to the light. I held my breath, wincing and trembling at every eddy, every brush of small bodies against my legs. The fear pressed my chest tight, making it hard to breathe. I forced myself to look up instead, to Moppe, who gave me a reassuring grin.

  “At least the fish don’t have scissors for mouths, right?”

  I gave a hollow laugh. She was trying to distract me.

  “There!” cried Nerine. I curled myself into a ball, tensed for the rip of teeth, the taste of my own blood. The water surged around me. Something huge pressed close, bumped against me. Nerine tossed a loop of seaweed at the creature.

  The harness snapped tight. Nerine gripped the rope, trilling in triumph, heaving back against the Ravager’s weight as it snapped and gnashed barely inches from my toes. Moppe had raised me just in time.

  The giant shark twisted and heaved like a bucking horse trying to throw its rider. But Nerine clung tight, one hand wrapped around the harness, the other gripping the shark’s dorsal fin. The water boiled, foam and spray whipping into the air as the Ravager fought to free itself.

  Dread filled me as I watched from above. The shark was enormous! Nerine was a tiny blue speck against its rough gray skin. How could she possibly subdue it?

  “Hold on, Nerine!” I called. “Maybe we can cast—”

  “No!” she snarled, as bleak and black-eyed as the shark. “I can do this! I just need to convince her to listen!”

  “Listen to what?” Moppe asked.

  Nerine began to sing. Or
at least, that was the closest word I had for the sounds that came from her lips. It was certainly nothing like any singing I’d heard before. It sounded like several voices speaking at once, layered together in a shivering tapestry of sound. The words were strange too, though some of them sounded bewitchingly like magespeak.

  Whatever they were, the Ravager seemed to understand them. As the mournful, haunting song spiraled over us, the boiling waters calmed. The great shark slowed, no longer thrashing or trying to throw Nerine from its back. As the mermaid finished her song, the creature bobbed its great head from the waves.

  Nerine held herself very still. She gave a faint questioning hum. The shark beat its tail, sending them slicing through the water, together. The mermaid stroked a hand across the Ravager’s gray flank, her intense concentration melting into confusion and wonder. She looked like a girl who had just discovered the sun after a lifetime in the shadows. Like I had felt the first time I spoke magespeak. As if a new world had just cracked open out of the old.

  “Aha!” Nerine’s smile blazed. “Isn’t she gorgeous!”

  “Gorgeous isn’t the word I’d use,” said Moppe, peering down at the rows of teeth edging the creature’s mouth. I agreed. The shark circled lazily below, but I could still feel her black eyes tracking me with a distressing intensity.

  “Look at these marks,” said Nerine, patting the Ravager’s head, where the dark gray skin was marred by calluses. “She’s worn a harness before. She must be very old. Perhaps she is even the Ravager first tamed by Queen Meris!”

  “Tamed?” I repeated uneasily.

  I could have sworn the Ravager leered at me.

  “Come,” said Nerine, gesturing to the great dark fin along the shark’s back. “I have explained everything. She will take us to face Thalassa. We must hurry,” she added, glancing up at the great pale moon. “It is nearly time.”

  * * *

  I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon. The full moon turned the rolling waters into fields of rippling black and silver. Thin clouds striped the stars. It might have been peaceful if I weren’t riding a giant shark toward a vicious mermaid queen who was about to unleash a murderous wave against my people. You’d think venturing into the Cave of Echoes, narrowly avoiding petrification, and traipsing into the Forest of Silent Fears was enough danger for one lifetime, let alone one week. But apparently Moppe and I were overachievers when it came to embroiling ourselves in deadly peril.