by Brandon Witt
I’d almost grown to like Syleen in the last few weeks before we’d undertaken this quest. After meeting the Scarus and Volitan queens, I no longer had any question. Syleen didn’t even refer to herself as a queen, even though she fulfilled the role. I had no doubt she would do anything for her tribe. I guess the same could be said about the Volitan queen as well, but I wasn’t really willing to give her the same consideration.
Even how difficult Syleen had made life for me was an effort to protect the rest of the Chromis tribe. She should have tried harder, as it turned out.
She turned her plain face toward me, her majestic mass of black hair clouding out around both her and Lelas. “I am most grateful that I was wrong about you and your power, Brett. Your tribe is indebted to you.”
I flinched back at her words. From the expression I noticed on Therin’s face, he seemed to be having a similar sensation. “I don’t think you understood the story correctly then, Syleen. If I—”
She cut me off in her typical fashion. “If you had not been present, our tribe would have lost two more members. You have proven that Moheetla’s will is wiser than my own.”
I had to bite my lip to keep from taking issue with yet another reference to Moheetla.
She continued without needing a response from me.
“I want to ask what you may have learned from the Scarus, but I feel it necessary to show respect to the warrior we lost.” Her gaze lingered on Lelas, her light-blue eyes holding a rare soft warmth. “For both of the warriors we lost. I shall wait in respect for their lives and give Greylin time to regain his composure before we discuss anything further.”
After several more minutes, Syleen moved her hand from where it was folded over Lelas’s. She leaned closer, wrapped her arm around Lelas’s shoulder, and squeezed. At the gesture, Lelas wrapped her arms over her chest and curled her tail up to shelter her body.
With a small flick of her ink-black tail, Syleen rose in the water from her seated position, the small cloud of disturbed sand sparkling around her and Lelas in the light. “I shall return shortly.”
Greylin returned before Syleen. He gave me a nod as his eyes met mine but didn’t offer any words. He swam over and came to rest by Therin. For once, I could tell they weren’t communicating without letting anyone else hear; they were simply sharing in each other’s grief.
It took me a second to realize what was different about Greylin. When it hit me, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been obvious. While he’d been gone, he’d used his blade to hack off his long blond braid. The uneven hair now floated about his boyish face, making him look even younger than he had before. I hadn’t heard of the custom of mers cutting their hair to mourn. I doubted it was a custom, since Therin and Lelas hadn’t completed such a gesture. Not that Lelas was in any state to make the effort.
I was further surprised when Syleen finally came back. Reminding me of Wrell so much that my heart clenched painfully, she held two spears laden with large redfish.
I definitely couldn’t see Queen Akamaii hunting for her subjects.
Syleen gave the first fish she unskewered to Lelas and sat down close to her before she passed one of the spears to me and the other to Therin and Greylin. I was even touched she remembered I always needed to consume more than everyone else—one more fun demon aspect. Either Syleen had truly and completely accepted me into the family or I was just overly emotional. Or both.
Lelas bit into the belly of her fish with a little more vigor than I had seen thus far. The small sign gave me a rush of hope.
We ate in silence for quite some time. I was on my fourth fish when Therin’s words signaled it was time to pause in our grief and face the task at hand. “I must confess, though my heart sings at the sight of your faces, I am confused by your presence with us.” He looked back and forth between Syleen and Greylin, confirming my notion they hadn’t been speaking. “What has happened?”
A part of me expected Syleen to turn the question around, to get all the information from us before sharing anything of her own. She surprised me yet again. “Things have changed since your departure. I thought…” She nodded at Greylin, at the same time gesturing toward the merman. “We thought it would be best if we joined you on the quest.”
Therin’s brow knotted. “What has changed? Has there been another taken?”
Syleen shook her head. “No. Everyone is unharmed.”
“Mostly.” Greylin grunted. Actually grunted. I’d never heard any such undignified sound from any mer. To top it off, I could tell the sound came from his body, not his mind.
Therin turned his attention to his friend. “Everyone is mostly unharmed? What am I to make of that?”
Syleen answered before Greylin could respond. “Zef became nearly out of control when he learned your party had left the tribe in the middle of the night. I had never seen him so angry. In truth, his determination that we not seek those who harm us has left me with unease for many years. Therin, you know this to be true.”
Dad nodded, motioning at Greylin and including him in the acknowledgement. “We all felt such. Wrell too, of course.”
Greylin nodded, as if Syleen hadn’t already been very clear on where Wrell stood on the matter.
Syleen placed the small uneaten portion of her fish on the sand beside her, unconsciously covering its carcass with sand so it didn’t float away as she kept her attention on Dad. “It got worse the longer you were gone. He kept suggesting the entire tribe should search and bring you back. The greater your absence, the more irrational he became. He even started suggesting the four of you be tried for sedition upon your capture.”
“Zef? Really?” I couldn’t picture the merman in such a state and acting that way. He was the first of the mers to show me any kindness. A sharp contrast to the welcome Syleen had offered. When we’d left, there had clearly been some sort of unease between Zef and the others, but I hadn’t realized it was as vast as it seemed to be.
Syleen turned her head to include me. “It is so. I must confess I was quite shocked myself. Over our centuries together, I have seen hints of such temper—we all have irritability, of course—but nothing I’d witnessed compared with this.”
Greylin cut in at her pause. “The entire tribe noticed the difference in him. It made them begin to question what the four of you were really up to. They had been disturbed by your disappearance and worried about all of you but had not thought anything questionable about your motives. Until Zef continued to demand that you be brought to justice.”
While I was surprised Zef would be so angry, the astounded tone in Therin’s words told me that I didn’t understand what a big deal this actually was. “Zef was saying such things to the entire tribe?”
“It was getting to the point that there started to be division among us. Some, trusting Zef, were convinced of your treachery. However, many, like the twins, defended your honor, even knowing nothing about our plan.” Syleen turned all her attention to Lelas. “Your mother and father were among those who adamantly argued there must be things the tribe did not know that made the four of you leave. They were only concerned for your safety.”
At Syleen’s words, Lelas gave the most minute of nods. My heart thrilled at the clearest sign I’d seen that she was still in there somewhere.
Lelas had pointed out her parents to me, but I’d never actually met them. By the time I’d decided I was really going to be part of the tribe, the doomed quest was underway. Plus, I’d always gotten the unspoken sense from Lelas that they didn’t approve of her friendship with me—who knew the reason. My human side. Demon blood. Faggoty nature. Spin the wheel. Pick one.
Syleen looked back at Therin and me, including us once more. “It got to the point that Greylin and I believed we had no other option. We told the tribe of our involvement in your disappearance. We confessed you had left in an attempt to find out what was happening to our fellow tribesmen.”
The anger was clear as Greylin cut in. “The fool demanded our blood! He commanded t
hat the tribe slaughter the two of us on the spot.”
Though I understood what Greylin was saying, I couldn’t force it to make sense. It sounded so far from what I’d seen from the Chromis that it didn’t seem possible. “What did they do?”
He sneered, his lips curving in a sort of smile. “Nothing. Zef should have known our people better than to expect them to kill those they loved for no other reason than because he willed it. Just because he has been alive for thousands of years does not mean he commands our people.”
Syleen’s expression was neither jovial nor sarcastic. Instead, a deep sadness seemed to wash over her. “Zef’s demands had the opposite effect of what he hoped. Those who had sided with him against you saw his instability, realizing something was wrong.” Her eyes glazed over, watching the scene replay in her mind. “When he realized no one was going to follow his edict, he attacked on his own.”
At her words, I turned to Greylin. “He tried to hurt you?”
He shook his head, but it was Syleen who responded. “He came at me. He swam at me with a blade, swiping at my head.”
“It was Rulus who speared him, right through his shoulder.” Greylin’s smile broke again, showing pride in the twins. “Of course, Flain was only seconds behind her. Between the two of them, Zef was restrained before the rest of us could take action.”
Silence fell. The story seemed too bizarre to be true. Even hearing Syleen and Greylin tell it, I couldn’t picture Zef acting in such a manner.
Therin, who’d been silent through the telling, spoke up. “What became of him?”
“He will remain in suspension until we have uncovered the truth of the matter, once and for all.”
I looked from Therin to Syleen. “What do you mean that he’ll be in suspension?”
Dad answered. “He is kept weighted down with stones so that he may not swim nor move. He will be kept alive, but just.”
“Until we find out how to stop the mers from being taken? That could take months. Or years!”
Therin nodded. “True.”
I pictured Zef’s sickly, thin form piled down with rocks. “He’ll die.”
Greylin took a large bite of the fish he still held, his appetite seeming to return now that he was more focused on Zef’s fate than on Wrell’s death. “He tried to kill a member of our tribe. He will die anyway, unless something is uncovered that would prove Syleen or myself were being traitorous to the Chromis.”
While I was glad Rulus and Flain had stopped him from harming Syleen, the thought of Zef in such agony was disconcerting. “Without a trial? Without knowing why he is so adamant we not search for the vampires?”
Therin offered a patient smile. “Our ways are not human ways, my son.”
At my words, Syleen refocused, coming back to the present. Ice-blue eyes trained on me. Her upper body leaned forward in anticipation. Even her lacelike fins were rigid at the base of her tail. “What do you mean search for vampires?”
Therin told her and Greylin on all the legends Queen Akamaii had passed down regarding the deal the mers had struck with vampires for immortality.
After a few moments of discussing our time with the Scarus, Lelas swam several hundred yards away and curled into a ball in the shadow of a large cluster of stones. I started to go after her, but Syleen shook her head at me, though not unkindly.
Following her directive, I let Lelas grieve in private.
At the end of Therin relating the tale, both Greylin and Syleen sat in silence, trying to take it all in. Maybe even making connections to things they had heard over their long lives.
After a while I noticed Syleen staring at me, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Every so often she’d look over at Therin but quickly return to me. Finally she spoke to Dad, all the while continuing to inspect me. “Were you truthful when you said that you mated with Brett’s mother only once?”
Therin’s tone was cautious. “Yes, Syleen. I did not lie.”
Unconsciously, her hand came to rest on her lower abdomen, just below where her black scales began her body’s transition into her tail. “Such an effortless conception. And the Scarus are plentiful in number?”
“Yes, Syleen.”
“If what the Scarus say is true, and I believe it to be, then whatever side effect the vampire blood has on our reproduction, it must take place within the female.”
Before I could ask what she was thinking, she sat up straighter, looking more like a queen than ever. “I know where we must go.” She narrowed her eyes in my direction. “Where you must go.”
Greylin looked up at her in surprise. “You do?”
She nodded. “I should have seen it a century ago. If only I’d put together that it was vampires taking our kind.”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was not tracking. Therin too leaned forward, cautious hopefulness filling his words. “How does knowing our persecutors are vampires tell you how to find them, Syleen?”
The smile that broke across Syleen’s face was so full of excitement she almost looked beautiful. “Actually, it is thanks to Zef.” She looked back and forth quickly between Therin and Greylin. “As I am sure you recall, there is that small stretch on our southern migration where we swim away from the shoreline, traveling through the deeper waters before returning to travel once more through the shallows?”
Therin nodded.
Greylin’s “Of course” nearly sounded impatient.
Syleen continued, her expression growing more triumphant with each word. “Zef is the reason we keep such a journey. He told me that, no matter what happens to him, I am to never let our tribe swim anywhere close to shore during that section of our migration. He said that is where the vampires live.”
Twenty-Seven
BRETT WRIGHT
My heart pounded to the point I was afraid I was going to burst into flames. Maybe I should have expected such a reaction, but it took me by surprise. I’d lived with humans, with people, the first twenty-three years of my life. Now, after less than a year with the mers, I was terrified to finish the last quarter of a mile and be among humans once again. Surfers peppered the water, and the beach was packed with people. After the vast openness of the ocean, their motion seemed chaotic. Even though it wasn’t really comparable, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the night with the Volitan little more than a week ago.
I continued toward shore until I was close enough that only the more adventurous swimmers came out to where I was. When one came within a few yards of me, I ducked under the surface, darting down as quickly as I could, until I realized even if the man had seen me, I would just be another person out in the ocean. I wasn’t a merman.
After a stern self-lecture, I made my way to the point where I was nearly among the mass of them before having to head back out to deeper water when I remembered I was naked. While glad I hadn’t been noticed swimming naked out in the open, the idea of having to put on clothes was repugnant and foreign. How quickly life had changed.
It was a relief to have an excuse to swim a while longer. I swam up and down the shoreline. There were beaches at fairly regular intervals. Between each were strips of dense jungle and rock outcroppings. I swam far enough that the jungle gave way to a small beach town, rows of shops and lampposts visible from the distance. I swam back the way I’d come.
I knew they couldn’t, but I wasn’t able to stop myself from taking comfort that Therin could still see me. Ridiculous, of course, but it was a nice sensation. I couldn’t believe how much I’d grown accustomed to being part of our small group—first the tribe, then our smaller number as we embarked on the quest. On my own, I felt completely vulnerable and at a loss.
Therin and Greylin had committed to staying where we’d parted, a few miles out to sea, next to a small protective cluster of kelp. We didn’t know how long it would take me to confirm what we suspected, but they’d both thought they might be needed if I was able to rescue the mers that might be alive, if any.
Syleen had taken Lelas back to the
Chromis in hopes that being with the rest of her family and tribe might aid her recovery. Lelas had embraced me as I left her but hadn’t said any words, as even that act seemed like it took all her force of will. It was more than I’d expected, and I was grateful. More than ever, I was clear on the fact that we had no guarantees we would see each other again.
On my way back toward the other beaches, I noticed a couple who had swum out and crawled up onto a small flat mound of rocks quite a distance from shore. Both were naked, and from the sounds they were making, they weren’t planning on returning anytime soon. They were quite a ways from the beach, so I felt safe in assuming that, unless they’d only worn their swim suits on the hike down from the beach town, their clothes were somewhere near the shore, hidden in the trees.
The mere seconds it took for me to reach land confirmed my swimming speed had increased beyond what I could have imagined ever mastering before.
Trying to stay low, I continued to swim until my stomach scratched along the sand and the small waves crashed over my back. With a glance to make sure the couple was still distracted, I pushed myself up into a standing position.
Instantly, I crashed back down into the water. In a panic, I turned toward the couple. The sound of the surf must have masked any noise my fall had made.
This time, I maneuvered myself into a kneeling position. Even then, it was all I could do to stay upright. The waves didn’t help. With each one, I had to shove myself up again. It didn’t hurt, but it was as if my body had forgotten how to be upright without the buoyancy of the water around me.
I tried to stand a couple more times but wasn’t successful. I could still hear the couple, and from the cries issuing from the woman, I knew time was running short. No way was I going to be able to walk into the jungle and find their clothes before they noticed me.
In frustration I glanced at the beach before I gave up, and there they were. A small bundle of clothes folded neatly beneath a bush where the foliage met the sand. I’d been so focused on the area directly in front of me in my effort to stand, I hadn’t noticed.
