Verse V

  "What are you not telling me?"

  In the confined space of the cell, deep within a place she knew not where, the question bounded off the walls and around the corners to assail Diana's ears from all directions. The mer of the Mere Sangolia did not reply. She could not. The waters surrounding her were heavy and cold, weighing against her body and pressing it unnaturally. Like the arm of a giant octopus, it squeezed her chest until her air bladders had gone completely empty, and now the constricting force would not give them the chance to replenish.

  The ministra had to have realized this; it was her handiwork. Upon entering the dungeon a little while ago, the fat mer with the violet hair had restrained Diana with a few short syllables and nothing else. The reef hunter had never before seen rune-craft done without the symbols of the divine grammar laid down in some fashion, but there was no doubt in her mind that her interrogator could command the very waters around them.

  She gurgled in an attempt to force bubbles from her gills and through her throat in a vain attempt to respond to the question. To ask what this was all about. The last time the ministra had checked in on her, the mer had been polite, even jovial in her good humor. There was no hint of that humor in those hard, cold eyes. Pupils were dilated to pinpoints in a field of amber, and lips were pulled back tight over gritted teeth. If Diana did not know better, she would have sworn that the fat mer was as frightened as she was angry.

  Marhyd stopped speaking in mid-question. Her gills flared as she had to visibly force herself into a calmness that was temporary at best. A snap of the hand and a brusque word caused the waters to release their hold on Diana min Na?da, but without that unnatural support, her drift to the floor was swift and certain. As the hunter squirmed and clutched at her empty chest, the ministra held out a kelpen cord. From it dangled the black stone ring. Through some trick of the lamplight its outer edges glimmered, making its inner facets all the darker.

  "This," rasped the ministra. "Just this morning, this ring began radiating the force profane at levels unheard of, unseen in generations. Why?"

  The words meant nothing. She could only shake her head with a lack of comprehension showing upon her face.

  "Why now? What is its purpose?"

  Diana could barely form a "No" with the air from her bladders.

  "No, what? This is a profane artifact the likes of which I have never seen, and I have seen more than anyone! What is its purpose?"

  "No... don't... know..."

  "Who! Gave! It! To! You!?" Marhyd screamed each syllable as if it were a curse. The ring danced upon the cord as her hands shook.

  She tried to answer. She tried to find the words. Her gills flapped as they fought to catch up with the pounding of her heart, and her chest ached from the emptiness inside. Even so, she tried to answer, tried to tell the crazed mer whatever would make it all stop. Her mouth formed the shapes of words.

  Nothing came out.

  Her hands sped to her mouth, fingers tracing each line of the offending orifice. What flaw was there, what malformation to explain her sudden inability to speak a simple word, much less a sentence?

  A sharp syllable from the ministra sent a lash of current against her back, so rough and distinct from the surrounding waters that she feared she was cut. A cry of pain burst from her chest. More followed.

  She could cry, then. Soon enough she found she could scream, whimper, and plead as well. But whenever she tried to say even one thing about that night out on the reefs, eighteen years ago -- nothing. The more she pressed her memory for details, the further it receded into the depths of her mind until, dizzy from the pain, she had trouble recalling her own name.

  Even her sense of time, so well-tuned that she could count the days while the light of the firmament was denied to her, that too had abandoned her. Time was for that point before the pain. In the here and the now, there were only the tortures.

  And then there was a third time, a time after the pain. It took her many beats, many verses to realize that this time existed. That the lashes had stopped. Slowly Diana opened her eyes to find the ministra's face a bare handspan from her own. Spent as it was, her body could not even flinch in surprise. The mer's eyes of amber bored into her own, seeking whatever secrets might lie behind them.

  What was it that Marhyd saw? Diana could not say. She could not say anything at all.

  "Pointless." The fat mer shook her head. "Meaningless. A waste of time and energy. All that anger, and thus I failed to see the obvious. You want to tell me, you need to tell me, but there is someone who will not let you. I can see it in your eyes. It's a simple application of the fulgurous force, subtle but quite effective. The good news is, I am an expert in such things. The violet light of the shocking force is mine to command, and as such I have a process that can remove that block and free your mind.

  Diana felt Marhyd pull her close, picking her up and carrying her away in gentle arms like a daughter as the two of them passed into another set of chambers.

  "Yes," the ministra continued. "It is a wonderful process. A true stroke of genius in action. I am sure it will work for you. The bad news is that you will not enjoy it much at all, I'm afraid."

  Verse VI

  If a plan were like unto the marked notes of a shell, and its realization a song performed through action rather than through words, then the morning of the ceremony was a grand choir in ten-part harmony. Individual songs of purpose played right and left, crossing and twining but never once ending. One merely blended into the next until what they were left with was a metaphorical weave of enduring beauty, all to bring about the festivities.

  At the center of this pattern of society, Mitera Yesca floated apart. It was she who directed the songs, she who matched the threads, and all in accordance to the plan she saw in her mind's waters. The royal coming-of-age was a grand, rare thing, an event for a generation of mers to remember. Yesca herself had fond memories of Anyis' own celebration, twenty-five years before, from the perspective of a friend and participant.

  This day needed to be perfect. Everything gone right, and as little as possible gone wrong. All the city would attend, all would see, and when it came time to remember the Crown, to remember Rhiela, this event would float high in the memory. From her spot in the royal reception hall, the mitera nodded to every report of a job well done and then gave directions for the next to come.

  "Mitera Yesca." A young prestra, her rank of sacrista newly sewn to her kilt, approached with her hands clasped and sloped in the gesture of respect. "The Grand Mitera and your sisters in rank have arrived. They await you in the audience chamber."

  "Thank you, Nehemi." Yesca swept her flukes to get the blood flowing. "Ah, I must away," she said to the staff. "Carry on with your final tasks. I trust you all to do them well. The procession shall begin shortly, so do not dally."

  The surrounding mers made their signs of acknowledgment and respect, murmuring thanks to the mitera before departing.

  The young prestra accompanied her to the audience chamber with her head bowed. "Are you ready?" Yesca asked her. "For the ceremony?"

  "The prestra of the temple are all ready, mitera," Nehemi reported. "Novita and sacrista and schola, all. Though granted," the young leondra continued with a hint of a smile. "Our outfits for the day are not so difficult to manage."

  And well was that the truth. Yesca envied the younger leondra for their lack of fancy event wear. As a mitera, even as the highest of her rank in the temple of Bryndoon, Yesca could not escape the dictates of tradition. Thus she suffered in a robe of woven kelp with voluminous sleeves which caught in the currents and dragged her every stroke. A corded belt kept the hems from interfering too badly with her flukes, but the material pulled against her fur the wrong way. How she wished she could go out with the simple kilt and loose shawl of fibrous weave that the young prestra sacrista now wore.

  At least, she reminded herself as she swam along, it was not as bad as Grand Mitera Yolien's attire. The agèd head of the temple of Bryndoon, herself the second most important member of their folk in all the seas, wore enough fabric and weave to clothe three mers twice her size.

  Yesca did not need to say "All is ready" to her gathered sisters in faith as she entered the audience chamber. Her presence said it enough. The other mers nodded at her arrival but strayed not from the thrum of a prayer already begun. After a three-beat to catch the rhythm, Yesca joined the song. Each of them was a mitera, in name her equal in all things. In practice, they stayed at the temple and let her do whatever was necessary in the palace. Their trust was total, with no need to question.

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  She could only wish more mers afforded her the same confidence.

  Verse VII

  If there were any one thing which all mers could agree on in memory of that day, it was that it was a perfect one for a celebration. The light of the firmament shone bright and strong, with nary a patch of grey or errant ripple to disturb its rays as they flowed down upon the Harbor of Bryndoon. The waters of the city were clear and blue for as far as the eye could see, even unto the fading haze of the far distance. It was the height of the noon hour, and not even the great cliffs surrounding the city could cast a shadow over the procession as it left the palace.

  At the head of the long schooling of mers, Grand Mitera Yolien led the way. Her strokes were strong and quick in spite of her years. The robes of her office stretched behind her loosely. Time had shrunk the old leondra, distilled her flesh until it came close to vanishing within the flaring, belled sleeves and trailing belts. Behind her followed the twelve mitera of the temple, Yesca first among them as was her place as spiritual counselor to the court. They were younger, their robes less billowing, yet still they had trouble following the stroke set by Yolien.

  The lesser mers of the temple, the prestra sacrista and novita, were far less encumbered, wearing little more than their kilts of their vocation and a thin wrap for propriety's sake. Their strokes were slowed out of respect for their elders.

  Following the sacred came the mundane, the court of Bryndoon with the Crown at its head. Queen Anyis and her daughter swam together within a perfect sphere of open water. Below them, the duchesses of the seven seas led their cohorts of soldiers, and Aysmin at the front of it all. Above, the noble houses were arranged in a less orderly fashion, as the dictates of seniority and prestige precluded certain schoolings or associations. The mers of the leading edge were all Heads and First Daughters of their House, along with the ambassadors of the outer seas. Marai would be up there in the front, representing the House of Linea and the Mere Tessra?. Rhiela could not see her friend, but the thought of her presence lifted her spirits.

  The procession stretched far behind, as lesser courtiers and mers from the city below joined in the celebration. From the palace cliff the grand school extended, elongated, attenuated as the crowd kept to a single plane at five fathoms below the firmament. Swimming at full stroke, the leading edge reached the temple face in just a few minutes, while the tail end arrived in the middle of Princess Rhiela's speech.

  The temple lay upon and around a promontory in the harbor's eastern cliff -- a bald, rounded hill surrounded by clusters of red shell-work. At its crown was the Bell of the Mother, a set of six columns set in a circle. Each pillar represented one of the lesser forces under the firmament, the powers which supported the sacred power of life itself. They rose from the ground, arching and twisting until all six met in a ring above the center of the circle.

  At the heart of it all was a stone. Shaped but not carved, the spar of basalt arose from the surface of the promontory like a single finger pointing to the firmament. Its surface was smooth and polished, without a trace of barnacle, algae, or other blemish. Small, white shells were strewn upon the floor around it, forming intricate patterns over the rocky face. The stone was large enough for a mer to balance upon, though it would be a precarious place to rest.

  Rhiela would not be able to recall much of the ceremony later on, but one thing she would not forget was how uncomfortable that stone was. Of the speech itself, she could not say; somehow her words failed to register in her own ears. Everyone else would compliment her, however, and not even the Mitera could find fault with her that day. Normally she would take some satisfaction in that, but her mind was a-thrum with other thoughts.

  A green-haired mer. Ever since she had heard, informed by a surreptitious string of bubbles while in her fitting chamber, Rhiela could focus on nothing else. Their statue, made flesh. That her friend might be mistaken never crossed her mind. Marai was not one for strokes of fancy. Such dreams of the day were for the princess to have, imagining the may-be and might-have-been. Until today, it had been a simple pastime to imagine what she would do if she could meet their mysterious mer, but during the procession all of her planned fantasies rushed through her mind, one after the next, with delicate links of if and when that ran the gamut of potentialities.

  And oh, wasn't she thankful for those long evenings spent practicing her speech with Martha till the waves of sound had flowed from her throat of their own accord. No thought had need to be spared once the speech began.

  It was over and done with more quickly than she had expected. The last few stragglers from the procession had barely arrived by the time she had finished her part, and with the placement of a pearl circlet in her hair the Grand Mitera's part was done as well. Yesca and her sister mitera led the court in song. A hundred voices came together, the song blending its individual elements until the waters shivered and sang as well. Across Rhiela's skin it wafted and frissoned until her mind was overcome by the reverberations.

  All thought of the mysterious green-haired mer dissolved into greater thrum, but it never left her mind.

  Verse VIII

  Even up to the start of the grand celebration, the palace was busy. If anything, it was even busier than before, as servants finished the very last of the last-beat tidying and the hired laborer set up the games to be played at the feast. Sera, Rook, and Ardenne had just unloaded the last sac of pommel stones, each small enough to fit snugly in the hand and heavy enough to sink properly when tossed at the targets, when the waters rang out in joy.

  All work ceased. The flow of sound could not be ignored as it pushed in and around and through every surface of the cliffs. It filled the ears with emotion and demanded a response in kind. One by one the servants and workers dropped what they were holding and joined with the music.

  In the waters near her, Ardenne could hear Sera's mezzosoprano merging with the song. Rook chirped along at an even higher pitch. The green-haired mer raised her voice to match them... but nothing would come. She shook her head and then let the music fill her again, yet still she could not quite reach. She heard its notes, felt its joy, but it was like she was listening to rorqual song. Beautiful, entrancing, but not a thing she could emulate, this strange song of Bryndoon.

  She mouthed along as best she could, and no one ever noticed. The waters returned to stillness and work resumed, busy as ever. The mers of the court would soon return, and then the real event could begin.

  Verse IX

  The return to the palace was not as orderly. The procession swam along rather piecemeal, with none of the strict order it had earlier possessed. The mers of noble house broke their strict rules of schooling and swam freely between friends, though some others would never get along for any amount of pearl. The grand sphere of open water around the queen and princess collapsed into a wash of well wishes and congratulatory embraces.

  Rhiela handled it with aplomb. She had trained most of her life to deal with other mers, after all, though she could not say that she enjoyed it much. Not that she was going to let on to any of these mers just how much she wished they would all be gone so she could get on to more interesting and important things, oh no.

  Glancing upwards, she saw Marai's silhouette against the firmament. Her friend was in conversation with her mother who, unlike most of the important mers present, did not care to socialize with the court except on her own terms. The ministra had shown up to the procession a few beats before they departed, as Rhiela recalled, and not looking too happy. The mood the mer projected was off-putting to most.

  Ah, well. She needed a respite from attention, herself. Nodding to her current retinue, the cleaners upon the larger fish, Rhiela lifted herself on a strong stroke to the upper fathoms where the din Linnea mother and child floated. To her unvoiced question of how many would follow, the answer proved to be 'none'.

  "Could I have a word, Your Wisdom?" Rhiela asked as she drew up alongside Ministra Marhyd's flank. Marai glanced at her friend, then at her mother, and paddled off a tail-length to allow them some privacy.

  "Why so formal, Your Highness?" the ministra replied with a grin. "Needing a favor?"

  She chewed her lip for a beat. "Yes, actually." She had thought of several ways to get what she wanted here, and the ministra was the best chance -- but only if she phrased it well. "To tell true, I was wondering if you would perhaps cover for me, at the feast? It would just be for a short while, a verse or three, but there was a small matter to which I hoped to attend..."

  "Is she any prettier than my own daughter?" Marhyd waved away the princess's stuttering protests. "I jest, I jest. You are a full-grown mer, Your Highness, as we have just spent the morning filled with rigamarole to acknowledge. And nobody would fault you for pursuing a quiet assignation as long as you did not take too long about it."

  "Um, not an assignation."

  The ministra snorted a bubble. "Of course not. Again, I jest. Whatever you are planning, I have no doubt Marai is in on it. A private party, then? I can understand that. These waters are so busy today, it is exhausting. I would be tempted to do the same." She waved the two of them off. "Go, go. Allow me this service to you, Your Highness."

  *

  As she watched her progeny and the princess steal away, Marhyd wondered idly how best she might profit from this little favor in the future. She had not survived as long as she had by ignoring the importance of secrets, debts, and keeping both well stocked in her favor. And if it were a choice little story of an immoral nature, well... Good on Her Highness, and good on Marai. She could enjoy the details later.

  But for now, she had to uphold her side of this opportunity for future blackmail. Marhyd floated over to where Aysmin was keeping company with the duchesses of the other seas. Snippets of military talk flowed past her ears -- logistics and tactics, reports of orcs in various seas, and a mention or two of encounters with abominations. She would need to inquire about those later. The ministra caught Aysmin's attention and waited a moment.

  "Her Highness is feeling poorly," she said as soon as the Duchess swam over. "There is too much excitement in these waters, most likely. Being at the center of it all, it is small wonder that her nerves might be temporarily overwhelmed. I sent Marai with her to ensure she rests until the start of the next hour. I thought it best you know."

  Rhiela's aunt nodded. "Nothing more serious than that, I would hope."

  "If it should be so, then Marai knows where I keep the nerve tonic."

  "Well, thank you again for letting me know. I shall pass on the word. How went that earlier matter that demanded your attention? The project?"

  Marhyd paused her words for a beat. The waters were a-thrum with the sound of a hundred conversations, but there were occasional lulls during which her imagination filled the hush with the memories of sobs and screams. "As Chiera min Chapa once wrote, there is no progress without first adversity and hardship. It took an odd turn, but I dare say that things are now returned to the proper current to proceed."