Verse XVI

  The first words to come out of Sera's mouth when they arrived back at the base camp were, "What in all depths happened to you?" As greetings went, it was less than polite and more than appropriate.

  "Something did not like us being in the grass," said Ardenne. The hunter did not bother to point out the ripped fabric of her working clothes and the red stripes pressed into her skin. The obvious spoke for itself. "Did you find anything? We got nothing for our troubles."

  "Had our own problems, but better luck." Sera pivoted to show the makeshift package hanging from her shoulders. She and Millie had gathered everything readily portable from the two floats, which had turned out to be most of the cargo. The caravan had been packed light, as she could've expected for smugglers. They let the packages fall to the mud-smeared stone and opened them up to show. Several strips of float fabric pulled apart, revealing smaller bags and sacs. Each had a different mark upon it. She could read most of them.

  "This," she said, picking out the sac with Baba Rill's particular sign on it, "is what we came for. Everything else here is profit." The special sac was full but light, as if the contents did not mass much at all. Whatever could be worth all this trouble, Sera could not say, but it was enough that the old mer in Bryndoon said it was. She wouldn't argue with a deal, not today.

  The twins were already sorting through the bags. Jumella turned one over her hand, letting a few raw stones slip out. She held them high to let the firmament shine through them. "Would you mind if we held on to a few of these? There's some fine quality here."

  "Are you sure your tools are up for it, sis?" That only earned the other sister a look of annoyance. A snort of laughter from Millie completed the unspoken end of the argument.

  Sera shrugged. "Fine by me. Not too many, mind. Gotta have goods to sell."

  "That will not be a problem," said Jumella. "Now, kidding aside. What do you think, sister dear? Pendant, clip, or cuffs?"

  "I suppose it depends on what we can get for the setting," Millie replied. "Metal is out, and I'm not sure how good the local coral is for carving... Depths! Look at this!" She passed a small blue sac to her sister.

  Sera stretched her neck over to see what the fuss was about. Inside were nestled a half-dozen brown, oval objects. They might have been a pod fruit of some sort, but when she reached down to touch one, it felt different. Harder, denser, with none of the give that a pod had when squeezed. The objects had been sanded smooth, revealing banded layers in lighter and darker shades.

  "What is it?" asked Ardenne, squeezing in beside Jumella to peek at the unexpected treasures.

  "Rare," said Millie.

  "It comes down on the currents from time to time," added Jumella. "From above the firmament in the Mere Kazahn and Mere Hetropa. Great long spars of it, like some strange coral, only it tends to float out of reach. But sometimes, it's a heavier type that can be pulled down a few fathoms to where a mer can work on it more easily."

  "Great for carving, but you have to take care of it, else the bore-shells will eat holes right through."

  "How much is it worth?" Sera had to ask.

  There was a quiet beat of contemplation as Jumella hefted an ovoid once, watching carefully as it lifted on the waters and then slowly sank back to her palm. "More than anything else we've seen so far, all together. Even more with a skilled carver to work it."

  "More skilled than us." Millie had a sour look on her face. "Oh, if we were back home, I'd borrow Cousin Aglia's nice metal carving blades and..."

  Sera had heard enough. "Good. Baba Rill's gonna pay well for it."

  "Can we get moving?" said Ardenne. "Only, I'd rather not meet anything else living around here, and we can count our pearls just as well in Bryndoon. Not to mention it's cleaner." The hunter made a face as she wiped the mud from her scales. "It's still early enough that we can make town before nightfall if we keep a strong stroke."

  "Good thinking." Sera tied up her package and hefted it onto her shoulder. The twins nodded and loaded up as well. A moment later and the dark spread of the Mires had disappeared behind the ridges. Well and good riddance, as far as she was concerned. A less useful place, it was hard to imagine.

  Verse XVII

  Many were the duties of the temple, as many as the mers who did Her will beneath the firmament. Some led, some followed. Some performed the greater rites, some gave their support as they could. Until recently, the leondra maiden named as Nehemi min Noemi had wondered what her purpose was to be. As a prestra novita, the rank of learning and practice, she had the chance to witness many of the tasks required of a well-organized temple, with the most menial of them falling upon her and her sisters in rank.

  They had told her, the old grizzled grandmothers had. Those elders of the Mere Kamazon knew well the way things flowed, and so they had warned her to expect hard work and toil once she arrived at the Temple of Bryndoon as a novita. It was the way things were.

  And now, things were different. She had survived the trial by labor, suffered and succeeded while some among her sisters in rank gave up, broke, and took their leave for the familiar and safe waters of home. For a year and a day had she kept going, and now her kilt had her new rank upon it, next to the holy symbol of Cythera and the crest of the Temple of Bryndoon.

  Pride might be unbecoming, as the older prestra would say. That did not stop her from enjoying the feeling as she swam along the side of the central thoroughfare of the capitol, the great track of stone in the sand which led out from the Queen's Passage to the palace and back. She had seen it before, had swum its length, but that had been as one of a school of novita, and later on paired with a guard or two as an escort. Now, she was trusted to know her own way. She was by herself.

  She was hardly alone.

  Never had she seen a place so a-thrum, so filled with the turbulence of industry, as the heart and veins of Bryndoon's spirit pulsed in the dim, warm light of a late afternoon hour. Mers arrived on the currents with arms laden, then left on the next flow with bags of pearl or other items of trade. Maestra of crafts bade farewell to their students and assistants, while laborers returned from the plantations upon the heights, to be welcome with the open arms of family and lovers.

  It was so different from the leondra way of life, and yet in the smallest details there was plenty the same. Once she became used to the local manoa, with their thin, high-arched noses and deep-set eyes, the differences were even easier to ignore.

  "A sweet pod for the prestra?" It was with regret that Nehemi turned down the generosity of the grocer and swam on. The little red pods were a favorite of hers, but the temple elders had made their will firm on this: that no prestra should be seen to show favor for one over the other, when all were equally daughters of Cythera, She who made all beneath the firmament. This was of particular importance in the weeks leading up to the feast of the blessed sacrament, and all knew it well.

  And besides that, if she accepted gladly every treat offered to her in the common waters, Nehemi knew she would soon turn globular from the sheer force of quantity. A giggle kept itself pent inside her chest, unspoken but still mirrored in the slightest of smiles to grace her lips.

  Her good mood was nudged aside by the thump of something heavy against her right shoulder blade. Looking down, she could see a rounded pebble tumbling to the sand-lined bottom of the thoroughfare. An ordinary sight, mundane, but for two things. First, the shell-work architecture of Bryndoon had little use for stones of any size, much less pebbles. The little rock settled to the sand with inanimate loneliness, the only one of its ilk for the length of many tail-lengths around.

  Second was that this was not the first time a pebble had somehow found its way her back that week, or even that day. Nehemi cast her eyes around the busy waters, but again found none who might have thrown it. After a beat of consideration, she turned flukes-up, snatching the pebble from its rest below. Another for her collection. Perhaps with a bit of polish it would show colors or patterns, as such things often did.

  The pebble remained in her pouch and in her thoughts as she swam in search of the next thing to do in this city of the familiarly strange.

  Verse XVIII

  "Ah..." The sigh escaped Sera's lips with pleasured ease. She held a red-speckled sweet pod in salute. "To a job well done." Her three companions returned the salute, though clumsily. Of the four of them, the red mer was the only one who did not seem to mind one whit that they were all naked.

  That was not so surprising, as Sera had been the one to suggest the bathhouse, and Ardenne had to admit that it was a good idea. Better than a good idea. An excellent idea, in fact. All the way back from the Mires, she had felt the itch of mud working its way under her scales, and her head had been filled with thoughts of what mites and worms may have latched on. A proper bath of fine, pure sand had the ring of perfection to it.

  The twins had been quick to agree. The two of them had had a chance to speak with Baba Rill once Sera finished her negotiations, and while Ardenne did not know the details of what they wanted, she understood the essentials. One way or another, the four of them were all looking for someone, and the old mer was pleased enough with their efforts to help them in their respective searches.

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  But even Baba Rill needed time to prepare, and this left them unmoored in the waters for an evening. With nothing else to do in town, not a one of them would turn down a relaxing evening in the sand.

  There was only the one problem, and that was the venue. Bathing in the Mere Sangolia was done as and where needed, when the chores of the day left scales muddied or caked, but it was almost always done alone. Ardenne could gather that, in the twin's home of Valden, group bathing was rare because few bathing grottoes were ever large enough to hold more than two mers. So none of them had known what to expect when Sera led them to a public bathing house.

  Like most structures in Bryndoon, it was part of a larger family complex. The messra and her daughters lived in the upper shell-works that floated three fathoms above the sand. The public section was set lower: half-domes large enough to welcome a dozen mers at a time. The floor was covered in a fine, white sand that could not have come from within the city, or perhaps not even from the Mere Le?na. It felt soft and gentle against the flanks, with just the right amount of scratch to it as a mer rubbed and rolled. From the shell-work ceiling hung glow-lamps fitted with nacre discs to filter the light, staining the sand with pinks and greens.

  It was beautiful. Ardenne let the slowly turning lamps play their lights over her skin as she lay in the sand. The floor conformed to the lines of her tail, warmer and softer than any bed back home. This would be a wonderful place to relax, if it were not so exposed, even in its privacy. She nibbled on her sweet pod.

  "Here, turn around," Sera told her. "We need to sand off first."

  The green mer showed her back, though the absence of straps or leather made her feel all the more exposed. She hunched over, keeping her arms over her chest.

  "Aw, it's okay. Ain't gonna stare," the red mer assured her as handfuls of sand rubbed against Ardenne's shoulders. Not far away, the twins were busy sanding each other with grateful eagerness.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Hard to be subtle when you're clutching yourself like that," said Sera, much to the green mer's embarrassment. "No need to go all red, though. That's my color." The trill of laughter did not help the mood any. "Some develop later, right? Had a creche-mate flat as a halibut till she was almost twenty."

  "That's... reassuring, I guess."

  Sera patted more sand on, then brushed it off in strong circles. "Yeah, so don't let it get you down none. Don't want any more outbursts, do we? Speaking 'a which... Oi!" the rogue called to the twins. "What's a mer gotta do to get a bit 'a sand 'round here?"

  It took a short verse to manage, but soon enough Sera had them organized in a rough circle upon the sand. They took turns applying the fine grit, scraping away the mud and grime of a day's work best left forgotten. Ardenne worked hard on Jumella, but the twin's hair gave her some trouble. It was tightly braided, running down the back of her skull, and the individual strands were rooted far lower than she would have thought, extending to a point almost between the muscles of the shoulder blades. It was difficult to sand around, and Ardenne kept losing grains within it.

  A quick word to Jumella was enough to get the braid loosened, and Ardenne ran a comb through it repeatedly to remove every speck of silt, sand, shell, and any other detritus a mer could pick up in a place like the Mires. She did not wish to consider what Sera was teasing out of similar gnarls in her green mess of hair.

  "Right. Enough done here," Sera declared after too many beats spent with the brush. "Time to let others do the work." The red mer raised her hands and clapped three times.

  The portal at the top of the room popped open, and Ardenne hastily crossed her arms once more as a bath attendant swam into the chamber. The young mer, light of hair and scale, carefully loaded four small net cages through the opening. Slim shadows flickered within them.

  The attendant swam to Sera and whispered in the red mer's ear. At the red mer's nod, she passed the cages around the room, brought her hands together, and bowed before making her exit.

  "Been informed that we'll have company in a moment." Sera's face said more than that, none of it happy. "Paid for the whole chamber this evening, but this is someone the owner can't turn away. Best behavior, all of you."

  The portal opened again before any of them could say a word to that. Through it came a lithe, muscled figure quite unlike any of the sisters who ran the bathing house. Her broad shoulders barely cleared the portal, though the rest of her tapered behind. Short, mossy fur clung to her every curve, but could not hide the muscles beneath the skin. Her face was wide and long, dominated by a nose both flattened and snubbed. The mer had a silver shine to her where scores of tiny bubbles had caught in the fur.

  A leondra. It was not polite to stare, but Ardenne couldn't stop herself. She had never seen one so close. None lived in the Mere Sangolia for most of a year; instead, the prestra would come at regular times to visit the villages of the Grandest Reef and perform the blessed sacrament for any couples who had permission from the elders. There were parties afterwards, but she had never been invited.

  The twins had similar looks upon their faces, she could see. Leondra must not be a common sight in Valden. She turned to Sera, to ask her a question--

  And there was something in the red mer's eyes that made the question die on her lips. There was a cold sort of heat in those eyes, though none of it was reflected in her face. It flickered for a moment and was gone, hidden behind gracious words as Sera welcomed the leondra to share their bath. The formal greetings and introductions soon followed, drawing forth a name and a purpose. Nehemi was a prestra of the temple, like most leondra who left the waters of the Mere Kamazon, and she had come to Bryndoon to study under the supervision of the senior prestra and perfect her performance of the blessed sacrament.

  "I must confess that it has taken me a long while," the mer said with a gesture to the badges of her kilt. The last one was newly stitched, Ardenne saw. Not a bad job, but the green mer knew she could have done it better. "But great works require great practice."

  "Is it really so difficult to do?" asked Jumella.

  "The blessed sacrament is a spell like no other." Nehemi ran a short comb over her fur as she explained. "It must be molded, shaped to fit the natures of the two who shall celebrate it. The variations are simply awesome in their number. Still have I much to learn."

  "Takes a special sort 'a person to ken all that, I'm sure." The red mer's voice gave up not the slightest bubble of hidden meaning, though Ardenne was sure that something was there. She had only known Sera for a week or so at this point, and could not begin to decipher all her moods, but the hunter would bet everything that the depths beneath those still waters were a turbid mess. But if she couldn't tell for sure, then the leondra would have no idea at all.

  Nehemi cocked her head to the side, gently rubbing the ruffed area around her gills a beat before speaking. "That is the truth. There are few among those called to be prestra who can even speak the syllables of the sacrament. Ah, but I have been keeping you from your grooming." She gestured to the net cages. "Please, do not mind me."

  *

  It was permission given where none was needed, as far as Sera was concerned. She'd kept the cages shut out of respect for this uninvited guest, and she'd gladly have waited till the leondra was long gone before continuing. Now that attention had been called to it, she had no choice. Sera lifted the cage, then nodded as the others followed her example.

  A fish emerged: a long, skinny thing the size of finger. Bright blue along its back and belly it was, while the sides were marked with wide streaks of black. Six more followed it out, smaller than the first but no less bright of color. Each cage held its own school, which was quick to spread out and surround the nearest mer. The waters were soon filled with small billows of giggly bubbles as the fish nibbled at skin and scale.

  "Consider the noble wrasse," said Nehemi, assuming what Sera could only see as the poise of a theosophy instructor in a creche. "Beautiful, useful, and good caretakers of themselves and others. In any school of wrasse, one will take the role of life-mother exclusively, sacrificing her ability to create eggs in order for the rest to have daughters. Thus does Cythera provide." The prestra bowed her head and made a sign with her left hand.

  Sera shut her eyes and leaned back, concentrating on the tickling sensation of the wrasse at work. If the fuzz-faced mer wished to play teacher, then she would just have to play the bored crecheling in turn. If they all remained politely quiet and absorbed in their grooming, then perhaps Nehemi would stop talking.

  "So the prestra are like the wrasse?" one of the twins asked.

  Depths take it. There'd be no shutting her up now.

  "But of course! Those among the leondra who are called to perform the blessed sacrament must give up all thoughts of bearing daughters of their own, so that they may better help their sister mers."

  "But only the leondra?" The question was innocent enough, coming from Ardenne, but it put Sera on edge. She knew the answer to that one, right enough, or at least several truths that could lead a mer to an answer. There were some mers back in her home waters who might have used such a question to start a fight. She could hope the prestra wouldn't take offense, though.

  Ardenne wasn't that sort of mer, and her interest was sincere. She would never have heard of a prestra who was not also leondra, and she'd never hear why.

  Much to Sera's relief, Nehemi didn't mind the question of all. In fact, the leondra seemed to enjoy lecturing about the subject. There was lots to say about tradition and history, but in the end it all came down to words.

  "The syllables of the blessed sacrament are difficult to enunciate, and only the leondra are able to pronounce them with the fluency required to make them work. For example, we have the word shusshishthrah'ka. It does not mean anything, in fact, but the prestra novita must practice it for hours to prepare their tongues for the true words of the sacrament. Go ahead, try it for yourselves."

  "Shush... shish..." Sera rolled her eyes as Jumilla and Ardenne stuttered for the teacher. The word was meant to tie the tongue in knots, if it didn't make a mer choke on her own water first. Mother of Pearl knew how often that point had been driven home in creche. Only leondra could speak the holy words because only leondra spoke them. And depths take any lass who managed to even come close to doing it right, under the watchful eyes of Skola Myral.

  Obviously, the Mere Kazahn had different standards for education. As for Ardenne, Sera doubted anyone in the Mere Sangolia schooled for learning. She entertained a brief pang of envy for a three-beat before shrugging it off. The past was the past.

  "Shusshisthra'ka." The word hit the water as a broad ribbon, stretching and spreading to absorb the remaining stutters of sound. In its wake were still waters as everyone turned to stare at Jumella. The twin had remained quiet all this time, busy with her grooming. Even now she seemed more focused on her scales than on the word that had just emerged from her throat. The sudden silence that followed made her look up, only then to notice the four sets of eyes staring her way. "Ah... did I do it well?" she asked.

  "Quite... yes, quite well," said Nehemi, hesitantly. "Impressive, for a manoa. You, ah, lacked sufficient stress on the second syllable, and you forgot the aspiration before the ka. Well done, though..." The leondra trailed off, and silence flowed back into the bathing chamber. Soon the waters were still enough that the soft ch-ch-ch of the wrasse could be heard as they continued their chore, oblivious to the flow of the moment.

  The prestra fidgeted with her grooming comb, teasing at the fur of her upper arms for a while longer before bowing her head to Sera and her companions. With a hurried farewell, she pushed away from the sand and quit the bath.

  "Um, what just happened?" asked Jumilla.

  Jumella had a perturbed look to her. "Did I do something wrong?"

  "Nah, nah, just hit her right where it hurts," replied Sera. "In the pride. Not like they let on, but other mers 'sides them can teach themselves to say their holy words. Mite more practice, but doable. She was pretty surprised there, so may be that no one's told her that before. No need to worry," she added. "But if I was you two, I'd ask Berenice 'bout the next caravan heading out. If'n she mentions it to someone, that mer might take it serious."

  "What about you and Ardenne?" asked Jumella.

  "Don't worry 'bout us none. At least, not about today. The big over-morrow, on the other hand..."