Verse XVIII

  How long she swam, Ardenne could not say. Distance mattered more than time, and by that measure she had swum far indeed this day. Once more her flukes took the initiative, steering her towards waters more welcome and warm. Of course she had planned a visit to Lyrika that day, but now she had a special need for comfort. That final, terrible tirade from her mother continued to echo through the waters of her mind, growing louder with each reverberation until the sea itself screamed at her.

  And then...

  And then...

  Ardenne crested the last ridge before the shelf. She kept her belly low to the reef, scales scraping lightly against the rolls of coral, and her hair flowed freely like the grass. Her eyes searched the open waters, noting who was or was not present on the flat shelf. All of the shouts and the shrill words in her head faded to stillness as she found Lyrika tending the fields south of her. It was still early, and the work was not yet done. She would hate to see the mer in trouble with her grandmother, but she needed... what, she did not know. Comfort. Care. Connection.

  Whatever it was, the sight of Lyrika was enough for now. Ardenne kept to the grass stands at the edge of the field, as far opposite in direction from the reef village as could be, staying unseen even as she watched. Other mers came and went, each to their own task, but Lyrika lingered. Did she know? Did she sense the hunter in the grass? It was all Ardenne could do, not to rush out and take the mottled mer in her embrace. But once the other mer was alone, it was easy to swim low and around the patches of transplanted pod-fruits to deliver a kiss carried on a string of bubbles.

  Lyrika stiffened with surprise. Her eyes darted around, but their mistress remained still. The expression on her face was not one that Ardenne would ever like to see. "What's wrong?" she sent on another string of bubbled whispers. "Has something happened?"

  "They've come. They're watching," Lyrika sent back. The brown mer's attempts to weed her patch nonchalantly all ended in failure as she shook. "Away, quick! Before--"

  "Ardenne min Diana." It was a bold declaration, solid and loud upon the waters. A somewhat familiar head of blonde curls rose from the grass on the verge closer to the settled reef, practically in front of Lyrika. "You have broken the public trust and caused harm to the Crown and her subjects. Come quietly and peacefully or-- oof!"

  Only two mers knew what was in Lyrika's carry-sac: the young mer who packed it and the soldier whose face it had just slammed into. The mottled mer let the momentum take the sac from her hands and stroked hard over to Ardenne. "Quick, away!" she cried.

  The hunter grabbed her by the hands and kicked away with her strongest stroke, sending silt into the waters as more soldiers of Bryndoon rose from the grass. Lyrika kicked with her, adding some speed, but it was not enough. The mers in red and gold were rested and ready, not to mention many. Two of them sped along to Ardenne's left, another two to her right. Shadows above gave away the positions of at least two more. That covered the routes back to the village, around the gathering fields, and up to the heights. The only direction to swim was towards the outer reef, towards the camp.

  Towards Mother.

  No. Not again. The words escaped as grunts. They would not take Mother a second time.

  Lyrika squealed as the hunter rolled in the current, pulling the mottled mer behind her as the spear went up and on guard. The first two soldiers to come near had their metal blades batted away, the edges finding no bite upon the thick kelpen bindings of the spear handle. That unsettling, familiar shade of red hazed her vision but not her sight, and her fist drew a different hue from their faces as she broke their noses with a pair of straight punches.

  "Get back," she told her friend. Out of reach, she meant. Spears beat blades handily, but only if she had the space to swing it. Right then, four soldiers approached, intent on not letting her have that room to move.

  *

  This was getting too damned familiar. If Sera had a fine pearl for every time she had to rush after the green-haired idiot into the middle of something both stupid and dangerous, she would not be a wealthy mer by any means, but she would certainly be rich enough to know better. But as no one else in the camp had the least idea of how to follow a mer through the wild waters, it was her job to tail the hunter. Sera only prayed that the hunter would not have time to get into too much trouble.

  She had nearly reached the shelf near the village, nearly caught up to Ardenne when the soldiers popped out of hiding.

  Yes. Like that. Trouble like that. Sera was not sure why she even bothered with optimism at this point. Her supposed friend was a vortex for trouble.

  At least the soldiers hadn't spotted her yet. Between the lieutenant's puffed-up declarations and Ardenne's evasive maneuvers, all eyes went one way while she went the other. She did appreciate seeing Grett get slammed in the face, though. A few more good whacks would finish the job right.

  Her eyes tracked the chase as the mers sped past her place amid the sponges. The hunter was in fine form, whirling her spear in tight arcs that drew eddies in the water and threw off the strokes of the soldiers' blades. Ardenne even succeeded in disarming a few of them.

  This was not a fight that could be won, however, and they all knew it. The mers in red and gold held back, tested the flows, and then timed their thrusts. Ardenne could block one, two, three... and a line of red sent color into the current as one blade drew across her arm.

  Oh, for some Ferga's Rest. Sera did not regret the way she'd used the last of the paralytic weed, but she did wish she had more on hand. Without it, she had few options that did not involve rushing in with both blades drawn and a will to die painfully.

  But options there were. She'd gone over some of the rune-shells with Rook in the past week--enough to be sure that the advanced grammars were beyond her ability to properly ken--but they had managed to find one spell that was simple, versatile, and well-fitted to herself. It was just that she had never done it with any sort of speed before.

  Ah, well. Time to muck around and find out. Sera palmed a stone from one of her many little pouches, cupped it between her hands and murmured the short string of syllables that was the grammar. Rook had said that it was composed almost entirely of runes controlling the kinetic force of flow, and Sera could feel the stone shiver and quake even before she came to the trigger word. When that final syllable hit the waters, she could only aim the stone and hope that it traveled straight.

  -fshhussh- was the sound of it leaving her hands. Not so loud for its speed. A beat after it went free into the water, the grammar took full effect, and with a scream the stone broke the waters at unnatural speeds. It did not succeed in hitting a single one of the Bryndoon mers, but it didn't need to. The speed of its passage brought the noise, and the cavitations it left in its wake collapsed with painful pops against the scales of many a mer.

  Unknown noise, unknown threat, unknown origin. It was enough to break up the pod of attackers, enough to cause panic. And then Ardenne and her little friend race off for the distant haze.

  Sera followed swiftly after.

  *

  It had been going so well. Grett was proud of how the soldiers of her pod came together to wear away the outlaw's defenses, only for it to go all muddy without warning. A thin line cut through the waters, dragging behind it a wake of stinging bubbles and a roar of noise that slammed both the ears and the scales along their flanks. It was a combination to make any mer flinch and recoil.

  And thus the two mers made their escape, again.

  "After them!" Grett shouted. She hoped her cohorts heard that, because she was having trouble doing the same over the ringing of her ears. Ahead on the currents, the green mer and brown mer were joined by a red, and the lieutenant didn't need to hear her own curses to feel their force. Of course the outlaw had not come alone, even to what had by all signs been a romantic assignation. Powerful strokes carried the lieutenant forward, ahead of her pod, as her vision focused on those three.

  At her hip was a new thing, one of the ministra's little projects. Grett had spent much of the week training in its use, and if she was not an expert then no mer was. To her fell the honor of its first use in action. The strap of leather was studded with icons of carved stone and etched metal, and it fit against the palm of her hand with a comfortable snugness. She felt its warmth grow as she clenched her fist around it.

  One moved faster than three. Grett could kick, stroke, and scull as necessary to ride the currents in this stretch of the reef, the area she knew best. Even if the outlaw knew it better, that mer was slowed by two friends who were not so experienced. All Grett had to do was get within six tail-lengths, extend her left arm, and release her grip on the ministra's device.

  Ebb and flow. That was all the fat mer had talked about during the explanation, and the lieutenant recalled little else. Instead, she experienced the brief sensation of being the center of the seas, with all things floating before her now drawn relentlessly towards her clutching hand. A vortex swirled into existence, sucking and pulling with more force than a great flowing current. It lasted for all of a three-beat, yet felt like a full verse. Keeping her left arm steady was effort enough, but Grett had her right arm ready for when the three mers ahead of her came rushing backwards. Her blade came up, came around in one large sweep, and slammed against the outlaw's spear. The spar of kelp-wrapped bone shattered, and Grett shouted with glee as the metal continued into the green mer's flank. A glancing hit, but enough to leave a bruise and knock some scales off.

  She brought up her off-hand once more, unleashing the vortex in the face of the red mer with the flow reversed. She did not care what happened to that one after she was flung across the waters. "I have you now, Ardenne min Diana," she snarled.

  "I guess you do." The outlaw's tones were low and resigned. That head of green nodded to the local mer, the brown-scaled granddaughter of the old flounder in the village. "Just... let her go. I'll come with you then."

  That was worth a snort of contempt. "No. No more mercies, no more special deals. She helped you, she attacked me, and so she shares in your punishment. Now, where are the others?" she demanded.

  "Where are yours?" came the reply.

  "Don't change the subject! My pod is following right behind, as you well know." That should have been evident. Even the slowest of soldiers would be upon them soon. If she held the blade at the outlaw's neck for a few beats more, then her cohorts could bind the mer up quick and easy. "But where are your friends?"

  "Long gone, if they know what's good for them," said the green mer. "There are orcs in these waters, as you'd know."

  What game was the outlaw playing at now? Grett would have raised another blast, just for the spite of it, but the device on her palm had gone cold. It would need time to regain its power, she knew. The sword would have to do, and so she raised it between them. "We wait her until my cohorts arrive," she declared.

  "Suit yourself." The outlaw had her eyes up and looking past Grett's shoulder. The granddaughter shrank and huddled behind green scales and flukes. "It might be a while."

  The play of ripples along her flanks told Grett otherwise. Without looking, she knew that the mers of her pod approached from up-current. She could feel the water as it was pushed towards her by their movement. But the green mer's continued stare at a point past her shoulders, the brown mer's whimpers of fear, those made her doubt her well-trained senses. The feeling of approaching mass grew, and there was more of it than there should have been. Larger than a mer would be at this distance.

  She had to turn. She had to look. She had to see the black and white shape closing in on her with its mouth wide open and so many teeth on display with shreds of blood and scale between them.

  Grett did not see much else after that.

  Verse XIV

  The orc took only the one bite out of Lieutenant Grett, but it was a bite that encompassed most of the poor mer's upper chest. The black and white beast whipped its body, shaking the blood from Grett's body and snapping the neck with a sickening sound. And all through this, it sang a tune of clicks and squeals that were not words, but held meaning nonetheless. They boasted and laughed at the misfortune of the mer caught between the teeth of a master predator.

  Ardenne heard it mostly at a distance. She had Lyrika by the hand, and for the second time that day swam with blind speed to anywhere that was not where she had just been. It wasn't till her tail was stiff and tired, till she could feel the ache in each frill of her flukes, that she paused for them to rest. Then the shells fell from her eyes and she took notice of her surroundings. The length of the reef continued to curve to the south, where it would reach the edge of the abyss soon enough. That much she could tell from the light of the firmament and a faint memory of their heading when the sudden need for escape had appeared.

  Nearby, Lyrika groaned. "Are... are we done swimming?" the mottled mer complained. "Where are we?"

  She wished she could say where and be sure in her answer. She'd rarely traveled this far along the reef, even with her mother's guidance, and as she looked around she saw no familiar landmarks. For the first time in years, she was lost in her home waters.

  Still, she reasoned as she massaged her flukes, everything she knew upon the reef lay to her north. All the two of them needed to do was to rest up and then swim till things became familiar again. Hopefully that would happen before nightfall.

  "Oy! Ardenne!" called a familiar voice across the waters. "Where the depths did you swim off to?"

  If Lyrika were not here... thought Ardenne to herself. If the brown mer weren't here, she would have hidden right now. A dozen good spots were apparent to her experienced eye, and the red-haired rogue could pass on by, none the wiser. She could run away... like she had been doing for the past week. Her flukes weren't the only things getting tired of this.

  Ardenne sighed and remained in place with Lyrika stuck to her side as the red mer approached. "Hello." She did not know what else to say.

  "'Lo, yourself. And 'lo to you, too, miss...?"

  "Lyrika," came the mumble from behind Ardenne's right shoulder.

  "Ah, yes. Thought I recognized you. A couple weeks back, that soldier Emera messed with you and Ardenne here messed her back, right?"

  Green eyes stared spear-points at the other mer. "Are you here to chat, or are you still angry at me?"

  "Wouldn't be much of a friend if I were." Sera settled on a sponge not far off. "But you make it hard sometimes. She like that with you?" the red mer asked Lyrika. "Bit distant, stops talking, stuff like that?"

  The other mer snuggled against Ardenne's shoulder. "Sometimes. You just have to be patient. That's what Mama told me."

  "Mothers..." Red hair shook slowly against the current. "Never figured 'em out, myself."

  "You don't get along with your mother?" Somehow, Ardenne was not surprised to hear that.

  "Would need to get to know her 'fore I could get along with her, and never could manage that. Long tale, another day," the rogue said. "Talking 'bout you right now. Both of you, I guess. She's why you've been out of camp so much, huh." Sera gave Lyrika an appraising glance. "Got that sweet look to her. Nice."

  She could feel the blush against the skin of her back. "It's... it's complicated."

  "Of course it is."

  "Is she... is she going to be alright? Mother?" was the only question that she could think to ask next.

  "Maybe? Depths, we still don't know what all they did to her. Rhiela and Rook are taking care of her now, trying to talk her around to sense. Another long story," Sera added for Lyrika's benefit. "Several of them, more like. You do not want to know the details. Lots of stuff went muddy."

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  The mottled mer shifted her head around and asked, "Is that why Grett is... um, was here?"

  "Exactly. How'd you get away from her, anyway?"

  That put a pause to the conversation for a three-beat. "You... didn't see?" Ardenne finally asked.

  "Got a face full of flushing vortex, if you didn't see. Knocked me for a frothing loop. Didn't come to for dunno how many beats, then had to track you all the way here. Wasn't easy," she added with a glare.

  "Sorry."

  "No worries. Let's get back, okay? And see Lyrika back home, for that matter. Don't want her washing afoul of the soldiers, right?"

  "Um, about that..." Ardenne hated to be the bearer of bad news, but if Sera hadn't noticed the orc as it ripped a chunk out of Grett, then it could only have been because the orc did not want to be seen just then. And if it hadn't wanted to be seen, just where was it going... "Oh, depths," she concluded, casting her eyes upward.

  The firmament was dimming above as the reef fell away below. The great drop-off to the abyss took in all light and gave nothing back, swallowing the brightness within the gulf of emptiness. But in the clear fathoms between the two, a dozen large bodies swam. The smallest was twice the size of a mer, and the rest much larger. All shared the same coloration: dark above and light below. Large, round patches of white were placed behind beady black eyes, and toothy jaws leered at the three mers.

  The orcs had followed. Suddenly those hiding spots she'd noticed earlier seemed far more welcoming, even with the three of them crammed together, but an entire pod of the sleek, heavy creatures had them surrounded before an attempt to hide could even be made. There was no sound on the water except for the clicks and growls that passed for speech amongst the beasts. More could be seen in the distance.

  "Still think that Sangolian orcs are friendly?" she muttered sideways to Sera.

  "Reconsidering my opinion, yeah." The red-haired rogue pulled in closer to Ardenne, but never took her eyes away from the black and white forms as they closed ranks. "Um, shouldn't they be attacking by now?"

  "Don't give them ideas!" hissed Lyrika, now almost completely hidden behind Ardenne.

  Yes, they should have, and the hunter could not begin to say why they were not. A single orc was a difficult foe even for a pod of mer defenders, as Grett had discovered not long before, and by now Ardenne had lost count of the number of large bodies swimming around them.

  "Think they want us to go that way," said Sera, pointing south. There were fewer orcs in that direction, all arranged in a way that formed passage rather than block it. "Well, only one way to find out for sure, right?" the rogue added before stroking away.

  "Is she serious?" squeaked Lyrika. "Orcs eat mers! We just... we just..."

  Sera shook her head. "Heard that, many a time. Seen it? Never. Okay, so I completely missed it just now, but still haven't. Only met orcs twice in my life 'fore this, and wasn't hurt either time. Neither was Ardenne, for that matter."

  "Me?" Green hair shook in confusion. "Okay, first time was up on the ridge, with the soldiers right on our tails. I figured the orcs went after them."

  "Think you figured wrong. And that was the second time." Sera turned to rap Ardenne playfully on the forehead. "Though you might not remember the first too well. C'mon! Who'd you think fixed up that noggin of yours after the Bryndoons koshed it half in?"

  Ardenne scowled. "I'm not an idiot. I figured that out days ago."

  "And how do you think I found you, hm? Not knowing a thing of the reefs, and coming on a stranger in need, just like that?" The red mer jerked a thumb towards the nearest orc. "Was led to you. Wouldn't let me go till I did something. Didn't want you hurt at all."

  And earlier, the orc had gone only for Grett and her soldiers, not for them... This was hurting her head. Ardenne eyed the sleek bodies now flanking their passage through the evening waters. The orcs kept stroke with the slower mers, and maintained an exact distance even as the light stretched thin over the abyss. Between the larger beasts, smaller bodies flitted around--delphins and lesser whales, by the look of them. The hunter felt their presence as much through the vibrations upon scale and skin as through her eyes.

  What was an assortment like this doing out here, on the edge of the abyss itself? She could not even identify half the species surrounding them, but none of the ones she knew could be said to get along well with one another. The orcs were opportunistic hunters who would eat a delphin as readily as anything else. Nothing should be sharing these waters with them, and yet more bodies continued to pass by and over them, visible against the firmament.

  She kept Lyrika's hand in her own. It was hard to say which of them needed the reassurance more. Time stretched on, endless and immeasurable, though the silver light steadfastly refused to fade. Above was a shimmering plane of indigo, with the barest hint of waves lapping across it. Down below--

  Down below was darkness of the purest sort. They had already passed the edge of the world, the cliff where the reef ended and the ocean floor began its headlong descent into nothingness. Her eyes searched the soft, fuzzy boundaries of that darkness, eager to find something, anything, to anchor her spirits before they too were dragged into oblivion.

  There was a reason why all mers took the name of the depths as a curse. These were waters fit to swallow the soul, and try as she might, Ardenne could not avert her gaze from the indefinite vastness. Her imagination stretched and tore as it attempted to fill it.

  And then, something appeared. A vague outline, a dark grey blotch that could barely be seen against the backdrop of nothingness. Her eyes, confused by the darkness and the lack of references, tried to tell Ardenne many things about its length and size as it rose from the depths, and none of it was true. The lines of her body gave a more accurate telling as it felt the grey body approach.

  Beside her, Sera the Red gave a short cry of surprise, and Lyrika crowded her body as close to Ardenne as possible. The green mer did not mind. She only wished she had someone to hide behind as well. It was fast apparent how badly her eyes had been fooled.

  The grey form passed the assembled orcs, delphins, whales, and mers. Though still far distant, it was overpowering in its wake. With astounding speed it rose to the highest fathoms, not stopping even as it breached the firmament itself and sent great crashing waves of foam and light across the top of the world. For one dizzying moment the bulk of the beast actually left the embrace of the seas, cresting above the firmament only to return with a resounding -smack-- that rattled Ardenne's teeth with its force.

  "What..." Sera tried to ask, as the massive cachalot sank to their level.

  Ardenne could have teased her for the reaction and ignorance, but the hunter's eyes were firmly on the great grey whale as it settled itself a fair distance away. There must have been a hundred tail-lengths between it and them, and still it looked impossibly large. One eye, as large as a mer by itself, was turned to observe them. A toothy grin, small only in comparison to the beast's bulk, leered at them. Its blocky head alone was larger than her and Lyrika's home village.

  "Do... do cachalot eat mers, too?" Lyrika whispered in her ear.

  "Not to my knowledge."

  "Good..."

  "They prefer kraken and other monsters from the depths. We wouldn't be much more than a snack." Or at least, so she had heard. There were plenty of stories out there of the greater cetaceans, and her mother could only vouch for so much. It was rare for any mer to approach a cachalot like this.

  Even rarer to survive the experience. She chose not to mention that part aloud to her friends.

  There was a rumbling on the water, a deep base thrumming that vibrated through her bones and teeth. As the delphins, orcs, and lesser whales around them joined in the chorus, she realized that it was the cachalot leading the song. The space between the firmament and the abyss filled with the noise, and she felt it as much through the skin as through the ears.

  Against this thrumming background, a beautiful weave of song spread and flowed. Its alien tones were nothing like what came from the throat of mer, but nevertheless Ardenne had heard its like from the far edges of the reef. Not up close, not in the flesh, but this was a song that carried far upon the waters. And now the singer could be seen swimming up past the great grey whale.

  Of all the cetaceans to ply the seas, the grandest were the rorqual. Larger than even the cachalot, these gentle giants were more often heard than seen. Their keening was sometimes called Cythera's Lament, though it had never seemed that sad to Ardenne, nor happy. The whalesong was simply too alien to process.

  And then, like the confluence of currents, the eerie notes came together to form recognizable words.

  --Greetings. Mer-red. Mer-green. Mer-brown.-- The words echose through her body. --Greetings, curses, hatred, esteem. Here, future-past-convergence. Here, peace, conversation. Comprehension?--

  "Er, greetings!" Ardenne shouted, pressing her voice to be heard in the busy waters. It was the one word that she could truly say to have understood from all that, and it seemed a good one to repeat.

  The rorqual was still a far ways distant, but its dark blue back and pale belly were distinct against the firmament. With might strokes of its flukes, it passed through the cooling waters, and the pods of lesser whales scattered in its wake. The background of clicks and groans settled back, but never faded completely.

  --Naming, Song-Under-Firmament-- came the words on the waters. --Purpose, voice. Gentleness-of-Tide, Strength-of-Waves, message. Comprehension?--

  "Not one whit," muttered Sera, so low only Ardenne and Lyrika could hear.

  Best to start over again, with names. "Greetings! Er, my name is Ardenne, and this is Sera and Lyrika. Why have we been brought here?"

  --Knowledge-absence-ignorance. Lack-of-time. Lack-of-fortune. Strength-of-Waves, renewal. Gentleness-of-Tide, happiness. Two-one-contentment. One-one-sadness. Renewal, necessity. Green-mer, renewal, facilitator. Red-mer, brown-mer, assistance. Comprehension?--

  "So... it wants you to do something," said Lyrika.

  Sera groaned. "And we have to help you... with something. And it's annoyed that we don't know what."

  "Looks that way. Ahem." Ardenne flushed water across her gills. As fluid as the words felt as they flowed past, it was hard to say if they and the grand cetacean were speaking the same language at all. "Please tell us how to do this thing," she called out. "What do we need to do?"

  --Evidence, testimonial, purpose-- sang the rorqual. --Fragments, relics, origins, results. Beginnings-to-endings. Birthplace. Birthright--

  "What?" Something poked the hunter in the small of her back, pushing aside Lyrika with a squeak. The mottled mer returned the sound in surprise. Behind them was one of the smallest delphins, a tiny pink-skinned beast no larger than Rook. It squeaked at them again, nodding its head.

  --Guide. Helper. Friend-- At that, the little pink delphin flipped over once and then dove straight down. The eyes of the three mers followed.

  There was a prominence, a mount that rose from the depths some distance from the edge of the abyss. While it was higher than anything else around, it was still too deep for most of the plant life of the reef to prosper. Its rounded peak was fringed with dark brown kelp, and in the center was a stone structure. The rest of the area was swept clean of silt and mud.

  --Home-- came the voice of Song-Under-Firmament. --Shelter. Redoubt. Sepulcher. Strength-of-Waves, sanctum--

  The words weren't making any sense, and Ardenne wondered at the whale knowing the names of things that she herself had never heard of. To her eyes, it was simply a structure, a set of stones piled in a certain way. There was a floor, set in tiled shells similar to the cavern behind the cliff of Bryndoon. There were pillars, eight of them, circling around that floor and supporting a thin roof of carved coral. Walls rose up behind them to create an inner room with a single door. Everything was in pristine condition, clean and complete without a single sign of time's passage to mar its surfaces. The place felt ancient, and yet it could have been completed just the day before.

  Peering through the door and into the shadows of the structure, she could make out signs of previous inhabitants: old sleeping hammocks and hunting gear. A spear head lay abandoned on the tile, and as she picked it up to see, Ardenne knew what she would find. A sliver of giant clam shell, carved from the hinge where the nacre was thickest and filed sharp on the edges. Diana's personal mark was still visible on the base.

  "Mother..." She shook her head. What had happened here?

  "Um, Ardenne?" Lyrika was waving to her from the center of the room. "Come look at this." The mottled mer was floating with Sera, and both were gazing up. There was an eight-sided opening in the top wall of the building. In the exact center of the chamber was a slender finger of stone pointing up to the firmament. Three inches down, there was a groove that traveled all the way around.

  --Strength-of-Waves-- The voice of the rorqual echoed from above. The thin light from above was occluded, and briefly the eye of the beast filled the eight-sided gap to gaze down upon them. --Betrayal. Diminution. Death. Fault-of-mers. Shame. Disgrace. Desecration!-- The whole structure shook at the cetacean's scream. --Time-of-Redemption. Time-of-Rebirth. Strength-of-Waves, green-mer, black-stone-ring--

  There was a warmth on Ardenne's left hand--had been for some time, she realized. It thrummed in time with the rorqual's song, and when she brought her hand to her face, its outline was visible as a thin line of nameless color. Some strange impulse prompted her to remove that band of stone from her finger, an aura of color trailing behind as she pulled it through the water. It settled upon the finger of stone, sliding down its length and onto the groove.

  The song of the rorqual faltered as an explosion of silence stilled the waters, and the now all-too-familiar spectrum of darkness filled the room with its brightest shades of black. She could see Lyrika, Sera, and the delphin as figures in ultramarine limned in dark lines of purest white. They might have been screaming. Ardenne knew that she herself was, though no sound registered in her ears or upon her skin.

  As suddenly as it had begun, the silence released its hold on the waters, and the rorqual's song slowly filtered back in. The darkness became dark once more, but the colors did not retreat completely. They shone from the walls, top to bottom, in strange signs and runes that were more akin to art than any etched shell. In the faint, strange light, Ardenne could see Sera staring at the nearest wall.

  "Seen something like this," the red mer said quietly. "Not quite the same, but similar."

  "Where?"

  "These old stones, out by Mezzeret. Big 'uns. Ancient. Equmara like to set up tents 'round 'em, for luck."

  --Journey! Investigation! Discovery!-- The words within Song-under-Firmament's music had the sound of a command with the undertones of a plea. --Mers, redemption. Strength-of-Waves, renewal. Ocean, peace-- The great cetacean let forth a wave of notes which shook the walls and raised bits of debris from the tile floors.

  The waters set around Ardenne in that moment. For the past week, she had done little more than float in place, when she was not flirting with Lyrika, and her flukes twitched with the need for action. What she'd needed was a goal, a target at which to aim all her pent-up frustrations, and now she had something. It did not matter that a giant whale was telling her to go to some place she'd never heard of because her sort-of-friend thought she saw something familiar in the magical lights of a building that should not exist. It was not the time for that sort of critical thought.

  She was not the only one to realize. Lyrika had not moved from Ardenne's side, nor had the brown mer's eyes moved from the hunter's face. "You're leaving again," she said in sad tones.

  "I think I have to," Ardenne replied in kind. "And not only because someone will come after Grett eventually. There's something on the waves, and it's caught me. Ah, Sera?" she called. "How soon can we get to this Mezzeret place?"

  The red mer had been staring at the glowing signs, a shell and thick urchin stylus in hand, and the words startled. "What, decided just like that? Gone crazy in the head for real this time?"

  "The abyss could become the firmament tomorrow and it would not make my life any less crazy than it is."

  Sera snorted bubbles. "True enough. What about, ah, your mother?"

  Ardenne turned back to Lyrika. "I know it's a lot to ask, but could you look after Mother? She's... she's still not all right, up in her head. It's hard to explain, but she doesn't wish to see me now, and maybe it would be better if she didn't. I..." Her voice skipped a stroke. "We need some time to figure out what in the indigo depths is going on between us, what went on here," she said with a broad sweep of the flukes. "And that won't happen if we don't move forward. But..."

  A rough-worn hand, a gatherer's hand, reached out to stroke her cheek. "I know what you mean. Mostly. Enough, I guess?" Lyrika's smile was tilted thin. "Just promise you'll come back, right?"

  "Of course. And when I do, there will be so many amazing tales to tell you, I'm sure."

  The smile widened. "I'll look forward to it."

  "Just kiss her already and let's get going!"

  "Sera!"

  The red mer's laughter echoed across the chamber. "Can feel your blush from here. That's how red you are." She stroked over to pat the hunter's shoulder. "No worries. Miss Lyrika, you seem a good 'un. Messra Diana will be in safe hands. Now, if the two of you need any pointers, I've learned from some of the best in the Mere Almezzeb. Oh, the stories I could tell..."

  It was well into the first hour of evening by the time they made their way back to the camp, and the only reason they might dare at all was because of the shadowy shapes of the orcs escorting them. Ardenne stammered and stuttered all the way while Lyrika just listened mutely as Sera added more and more details of the caravansaries of Mezzegheb, tent city of the sands, and the hosting mers who welcomed weary travelers. It was hard to tell what was true and what was said simply to make the hunter blush.

  And in their wake, the little pink delphin continued its mission.

  Verse XV

  Two days later and the float was properly packaged with everything ready to go. Putting all those packages back in place was a more difficult task than pulling them out, even without Messra Diana's presence to account for. Wasn't that always the way of things? Rhiela wondered. Order was ever so much more complicated than chaos.

  She snorted bubbles at that. Merciful Mother of All, but she had spent too much time in conversation with Marai. Ever evening there had been whisperings through the magic conches, often with Sera or Rook at her side to suggest questions. Even the smallest scraps of information proved useful, giving them an idea of how things flowed in the capital. The lavender mer was never sure of much, but all the little details, gleaned from kitchen chatter or guard banter, could be pieced together over time.

  Tonight was the last chat for a while. They couldn't risk the conch en route, so it had gone in the packs as soon as she and Marai had said their short farewells. Rhiela hoped that her best friend could handle the solitude for a few days.

  The princess hoped she herself could, too.

  *

  In the distant waters of Bryndoon, safely harbored within the shell-work walls of the chambers she had shared with Rhiela, Marai gave a sigh of relief. The princess, Rhiela--her Rhiela--was safe for another day, as were the others. She did not know much about most of them, but over the past week she had heard their occasional words through the rune-marked conch, learned the little details of their lives, and perhaps she felt that they knew her a bit better as well.

  Sera, who was always so angry--at Rhiela, at the others, at the ocean itself; but sometimes it would slip, that mask of anger, and Marai could hear the sadness underneath.

  Rook, always excited over the next adventure, because otherwise she'd be too scared to swish a fluke. Marai could understand the feeling all too well.

  The twins, whose names she could never keep straight, though their voices came out separate and distinct through the conch shell. How she wanted to see them at work sometime.

  And Ardenne. Ardenne... her heart still skipped a stroke when she heard the hunter's voice, much the same way it did for the princess. Ardenne was the toughest of riddles, because not even the green-haired mer knew the answers. Still, the thought of the hunter brought a smile to her lips as she replaced the conch in its hidey-hole. She hoped they could return soon--all of them.

  The strings of cowrie shells rattled at the entrance, and Marai shoved a kelpen mat over the hole before her mother could barge through the door. It was just wide enough to allow Marhyd entry, though it took her a moment.

  "Hello, Mother," Marai said as brightly as she could manage. Ministra Marhyd rarely visited, even before the troubles began. Normally she would simply send one of the grey-clad assistants to check on her daughter's well-being. "To what do I owe the honor of your presence?"

  "Now, now, Marai. No need for such formality. Can't a mother wonder how her daughter is doing?"

  "Yes, Mother; I suppose you can." But had not, not in person and not for a long time.

  Marhyd floated over to the wide, baleen-bound hammock that her daughter and Rhiela had shared, and eased her bulk into it. The whale bone creaked in protest, but held. She waved her daughter to settle at her side.

  "Come, com. Tell me how you've been spending your days. Helping with the kitchens, I heard?"

  "Yes, Mother." The ministra was playing some game, and she did not know what. She and her mother had not been this close, physically, in years. Marai squirmed as the ministra crowded the hammock. There had to be some trick, she knew. That was how Mother worked.

  "Oh, Marai. Can't you assuage an old mer's curiosity? Talk with me some. Chat, gossip. Be a good daughter."

  Only the sharpest of ears could have caught the subtle tones swimming in those last four words, but their effect on the ministra's daughter was unmistakable. Martha's body went slack, and her eyes became dull and flat. Her head bobbed along as her flukes clung to the ministra's side.

  "Now, Marai dearest. Tell your mother everything..."