Blood of a Mermaid (22 page)

The sun melted into the horizon, its golden glow seeping and spreading across the surface of the water, rippling along the waves. A smile pulled at Zan’s lips. It was almost time. As the sky darkened, he could see the drylanders huddling closer to the fire, not straying far from the bright circle of light it cast onto the sand. He started to swim closer, feeling confident the drylanders wouldn’t see him among the shadowy waves.

Not comfortable approaching the beach directly while in his current form, Zan swam to the far side of the small island. In the rocky shallows, he performed the ritual to change his tail into drylander appendages. “Legs,” he said out loud, distaste evident in his voice as he gazed at his transformed lower body. “How awkward they seem when compared to the simple beauty of a tail.” He rubbed his fingers over one knobby knee, deciding it was a necessary evil. Sizing up his own well-muscled legs against those of the drylanders he’d been observing all day, he grinned with satisfaction. Even in this less-than-perfect form, he compared favorably to the blond boy and his dark-haired counterpart.

Zan stood and made his way through the waves to the shore, picking his way through the rocks until he stood on dry ground. He bent to brush the excess water from his bare skin, his mind already planning his next move, when he heard a voice from somewhere behind him.

“You forgot to conjure clothing to cover yourself.”

He froze, suddenly feeling very exposed, and not just because some female was staring at his bare bottom. Slowly he turned just his head to find that same grey-haired woman, the one who’d been standing on the strand line staring into the waves on and off all day long.
What’s she doing on this side of the island? And what does she know of conjuring?

“I’m not holding a conversation with a naked man,” she continued, and Zan suddenly found himself wearing tubes of scratchy blue cloth around his waist and legs. “Those are called blue jeans, and you’re welcome.”

Zan turned his body to face the woman, pinned by the anger in her piercing blue eyes. Steel grey hair hung down her back in a loose braid, her baggy dress hung down past her knees hiding her form, although he could see she had legs and feet. A drylander. But a drylander who conjured clothing from thin air? His mouth felt unbearably dry all of a sudden.
How can that be?

“Who are you?”

The guards swimming by his sides made him nervous. It bothered Shea to his very core to be treated as if he were a criminal. As if he were the sorcerer who’d downed the airplane and created such a stir. Besides, every second wasted with their procedures and protocols meant more time until help reached the crash survivors.

He’d run into the guard patrol soon after leaving the family of loggerheads. In his naiveté, he’d tried to rush them back to the island where he’d left Gramma and the Thompsons, but the guards had other orders. Any merfolk found in the vicinity of the crash were to be taken directly back to Atlantis for questioning. Trying to argue had resulted in a swollen eye and Shea having his hands bound with chains, both of which slowed their progress all the more.

The entire patrol had accompanied the prisoner back to the city, reaching the outskirts well before sunset. Even with one eye swollen shut, Shea recognized the same sort of lined path along the ocean floor as that which led to King Koios’s summer castle at the bottom of Nantucket Sound. Instead of the posts and antique-looking lanterns he’d seen in the Atlantic, the pathway here was lined with white marble columns that gleamed through crystal clear waters even without the help of having phosphorescent creatures attached to them.

The City of Atlantis itself exceeded even his wildest imaginings. The only underwater place he’d been was the castle in Nantucket Sound, which was amazing in and of itself, but small in scale compared to an entire city. And Atlantis was most definitely a city with a capital “C.”

He’d read the myths of how the ancient Greek gods cursed Atlantis and sank it beneath the ocean, and now he could see how those stories might actually be true. Indeed, the buildings and roads looked just like the photographs Hailey had shown him of ancient Greece. Except…these buildings and roads were underwater, with all types of colorful fish swimming everywhere, shimmering in rainbow hues against the bright white of the marble structures, some of which towered several stories over the sea floor reaching up toward the water’s surface.

Instead of people populating the city, of course, there were mermaids and mermen swimming through the busy streets, going in and out of the buildings, stopping to chatter with one another and to stare at the procession of guards escorting Shea. Instead of cars or trucks, he saw wagons harnessed to dolphins carrying goods down the city streets, stopping in front of buildings to unload their barrels and crates, holding up other traffic. Who would have imagined a traffic jam underwater?

He’d never been in a city this large on dry land, or seen this many beings all living in one place. Oklahoma City seemed tiny – miniscule, even, – in comparison to Atlantis. He imagined Hailey’s New York City might be something like this, but from the photos he’d seen online, that particular city was mostly dull and grey. Everything here in Atlantis looked freshly polished, sparkling in the last of the day’s sunlight.

As he swam through the streets, he watched mermaids hanging lanterns outside each of the buildings, and saw windows light up as the merfolk went home for the evening. Home. It reminded him of the glowing windows of his grandmother’s home back in Windmill Point, or Kae’s family cottage in Nantucket Sound. Only this felt so much different, and those felt so far away from him that the memories made his heart ache.

Shea’s eyes widened as he tried to take in all the unfamiliar sights and sounds of the sunken city. The merfolk he saw along the route reminded him of the gathering at the Solstice celebration, with every combination of colors he could imagine for skin tone and hair, as well as the brilliant scales along their tails. The mermaids all had brightly colored flowing silk wrapped around their chests, some that matched the color of their hair and others that clashed wildly. Most of the mermen wore some sort of vest, or sashes like those worn by the guards. Very few were bare-chested, as Shea was, and he felt slightly self-conscious, as if he’d been invited to a party and forgotten to dress up.

The smells that wafted through the streets were different too, as though to remind Shea that he was no longer in the Atlantic. The water here tasted and smelled much saltier than back home, which he knew already from earlier in the day. The city itself seemed to add even more to the current, the scents of so many merfolk living in such close proximity added a certain grittiness to the water so that even Shea, a neophyte to this sort of thing, could definitely tell he was swimming through a crowded area.

By the time the guards reached their final checkpoint in a large courtyard, Shea felt completely overwhelmed. The city was so large, the citizenry so diverse, it boggled his mind to realize this world really existed. Knowing about mermaids, even falling in love with a mermaid, was one thing.
Or maybe that’s two things
, Shea reflected. But… Being thrust into a city population of merfolk was
quite
another story.

He looked up the wide set of marble stairs before him, seeing that they led up into the largest building in the entire city. A dozen thick-looking columns of marble graced the front of the structure, each carved with straight vertical grooves all the way to the top. An elaborately carved beam lay across them, holding up the structure’s tall, pointed roof. All Shea could think was,
Why would mermen build stairs?

Coming out through the columns swam an elderly merman with long hair and a flowing white beard trailing in his wake. He reminded Shea somewhat of the High Chancellor he’d seen at Summer Solstice, the merman who Demyan had accidentally slain with his sword. Like the Chancellor, and unlike the majority of the mermen in Atlantis, he wore neither a sash nor a vest, but a pure white tunic that hung slightly past his waist. Over his heart, Shea saw an elaborate crest embroidered with golden thread.

“Well, well, who have we here?” The old merman eyed Shea with suspicion as he addressed the head of the guards. His gaze took in both the restraints on Shea’s wrists and the bruising on his face. “Is this the one who caused the weather disturbance?”

“We’re not sure, my Lord,” said the guard, putting his hand squarely in the middle of Shea’s back and bending him forward. “He seems to bear the Mark of the Trident on his back here, but we have no known record of his name and suspect sorcery. He keeps babbling on about storms and a bunch of drylanders who need to be rescued.”

Shea couldn’t hold his tongue. “My Lord,” he said, looking up with his one good eye to address the white-haired merman. He spoke as quickly as he could, knowing the guard would try to muzzle him. “My name is Sheachnadh, the grandson of King Koios of the Atlantic. My mother is Queen Brynneliana, now ruler of the Southern Ocean. I’ve come to Atlantis for help…”

The guard pushed him down again, this time holding onto Shea’s neck, his meaty fingers wrapped in a one-handed chokehold, pressing into his windpipe and cutting off his words. “Silence in the presence of the Lord Magistrate. You’ve come to Atlantis because we’ve brought you here, jelly-brain.”

“Lord Magistrate?” Shea struggled against the guard’s strong grasp to raise his head and speak again. He strained to get his words out, his throat fighting to form each syllable. “My grandfather sent me to…meet you…to testify against…Prince Demyan.”

The merman at his side pushed him roughly down to the ground, with both hands this time, scraping Shea’s nose right against the flat stones lining the floor of the courtyard. Shea tasted the iron in the water, and knew the guard had drawn blood. “At least get your lies straight, sorcerer. Prince Demyan is still at large. How can there be a trial without a guilty party?”

“Let him rise, Erastus,” said the Lord Magistrate. The guard released his hold and Shea straightened up slowly, the chains biting into his wrists as fresh blood trickled from his new wound. As much as he wanted to retaliate against this big bully of a merman, he was still bound and knew he was outnumbered. He contented himself with glaring at the guard.

“Sir? Is it safe to release him? I don’t understand,” said Erastus, still hovering close to his prisoner as if waiting for Shea to try to escape. The magistrate nodded his head, and the guard unbound Shea’s hands. Shea flexed his arm muscles with relief and put a hand to the bridge of his nose to staunch the flow of blood.

“I’ve been expecting this boy,” the Lord Magistrate explained with a note of amusement. “You have just insulted – and assaulted – the heir to the throne of the Atlantic Ocean.”

All color drained from the guard’s face. He glanced at Shea, as if seeing him for the first time. The swollen eye. The bleeding nose. “I…I…I don’t know what to say.” He hung his head, his whole body conveying defeat and despair as he faced his former prisoner. “Forgive me, my Prince. I am yours to command.”

Shea stared, unsure what he was supposed to do or say. From the guard’s sudden docility, he knew the merman expected to be punished harshly, but he couldn’t really blame him for doing his job, even though he acted a little overzealous in the performance of his duty. The old merman seemed to note Shea’s dilemma and chuckled. In a stern voice he asked, “Do you wish to press formal charges, my Prince?”

The guard was a bully, but Shea realized the merman thought he was doing the right thing at the time. Not trusting his voice, Shea looked up at the white-haired merman and shook his head to indicate no. The magistrate dismissed the guards with a curt, “That will be all,” and the entire patrol vanished from sight almost instantly, a vast swirl of bubbles trailing in their wake.

“Sorry about the less than cordial welcome,” the magistrate said, folding his arms across his chest. “The guards are on edge because of some recent unexplained magical disturbances. And I must admit, my Prince, your appearance here and now is something of a puzzle. You were supposed to be on the beach at my daughter’s villa on Santorini two days ago.”

“There was a storm,” Shea started, and saw the Lord Magistrate narrow his eyes. “King Koios sent me by airplane, and a sudden storm crashed us into the sea.”

“A storm, you say,” he said, looking thoughtful.

“Caused by magick,” Shea added. “Of that I have no doubt, because I could feel it in the air.” He left out the part about his grandmother, as he wasn’t sure yet how she fit into this world she had given up so many years ago.

“Perhaps this storm and your aircraft were unfortunate collateral victims of this outburst, this outpouring of magick.”

“No, sir. I think we were definitely the targets. I’m fairly certain the reason for the storm was to crash our plane and keep me from reaching Santorini.” Saying it out loud made the claim sound a little silly, and highly conceited, as if Shea thought the entire world revolved around him. He could see the doubt on the magistrate’s face, but Shea knew there were good reasons for his claim. He pressed his case further. “Sir, Demyan knows of the trial.”

The older merman looked at him sharply. “Demyan had his henchmen crash your plane to prevent you from giving testimony?”

“That might be part of it,” Shea said. “I know he kidnapped a mermaid I care about and is holding her somewhere. There was a ransom note. They want me to give myself up to them in exchange for her release.”

“To what purpose?”

Shea took a deep breath, deciding it best to lay out all of his suspicions before the magistrate. “I think Demyan has bigger schemes in mind than merely escaping justice for past crimes. I suspect he plots again to take over the Atlantic, and wants to take me prisoner. He’ll use me as leverage against my mother and grandfather.”

To Shea’s utter surprise, the Lord Magistrate smiled and began to chuckle, finally opening his mouth to laugh out loud. When he had recovered his countenance, he said, “He’s swimming for his life. You said it yourself, Demyan knows we are trying him for murder here in the High Court. And yet you ascribe to him such audacity as to be plotting an overthrow of more kingdoms?” The merman shook his head in disbelief, his grey eyes twinkling with merriment. “Sheachnadh, I fear you’ve read too many of those drylander fairytales. This story you’ve concocted in your head goes well beyond the boundaries of the possible, swimming into the realm of the fantastical.”