CHAPTER 16
On the evening of the thirty ninth day of incarceration a mermaid popped her head above the water at the end of Manserphine’s cell.
Manserphine jumped, thinking for a second that it was a cleric or guard of the Shrine come for her. But she saw a heart-shaped face framed by blonde hair, and below that a body mostly woman, but with fish features; notably the individual fins at the end of long, tapered legs that shone pale green and scaly.
“You’re our Manserphine?” the mermaid asked.
“Yes,” Manserphine replied, approaching the mermaid, then kneeling down at her side.
“I’m your second cousin Gholequie.”
“Oh.”
Gholequie smiled, then said in a rush, “I’m here to rescue you, but you’ll have to be brave as the way is rather long and winding. Can you swim?”
“Of course.”
“Can you hold your breath?”
Manserphine began to feel apprehension about what she knew would shortly be recommended. “You aren’t suggesting I follow you through any underwater tunnels, are you?”
“It’s the only way out. So can you hold your breath?”
“For a minute, maybe.”
“It could take as much as twenty.”
Manserphine laughed. “Then you might as well give up, because I am human, not like you.”
“Actually I
am
human,” Gholequie replied, “though slightly different. And there’s more of us in you than you might imagine. You’ve seen your cousin, Suracunah.”
“Who?”
“The mermaid they caught and forced into the softpetal pool.”
Manserphine felt queasy at this. “You mean I am related to mermaids?”
“Yes. Mermen, too.”
“But how?”
“Why don’t you escape first?”
Manserphine looked around her cell, then down into the water that lapped at her knees. “I am not certain I want to.”
“You
have
to. People need you.”
“Who?”
“Oh, you’re a talkative one. Can we just escape first, please?”
“How exactly?” asked Manserphine.
“There are five mermaids posted at the end of the escape route, all insensitive to the effects of the networks, of course—”
“Wait one moment—”
“There isn’t
time,
Manserphine. You’re amongst friends. Family, to be accurate. We’ll guide you through the tunnels to an outflow, and thence into the sea.”
“But I can’t go underwater for twenty minutes.”
“We know that. It’s why I brought this.” From a ledge under the water Gholequie pulled what seemed to be the remains of a jellyfish, which bubbled in the water as if expelling absorbed gases. “This mask will give you about twenty minutes of oxygenated air. You’ll have to wear it all the time because there’s no air pockets. Once we’re at the outflow, you can discard it. Ready to come?”
“Wait, wait,” Manserphine urged. “Once I am in the water there is no going back. I must think carefully—”
“There isn’t time! The Sea-Clerics are massing for battle. You’ve got to come now.”
“Battle?”
Gholequie gave a little shrug, then amended herself. “Maybe not battle, but something serious. C’mon, it’ll be simple. Put the mask on and take a few deep breaths to activate it. Is there any gear you want to bring?”
Manserphine glanced at the contents of her cell. “Not really.”
“Take your clothes off, then dip into the water.”
“Take my clothes off?”
“Too dangerous in tunnels, this dress might catch. Or it might be spotted by somebody. C’mon, quickly.”
Manserphine, misgiving in her heart, slowly undressed, until she was shivering in the cell. It was not cold: she was afraid.
“Aren’t we thin in our family?” Gholequie said. “You’re just like Suracunah, bless her. She was flat chested.”
Manserphine felt she had been insulted as a woman. “Some men like that,” she retorted.
“Oh, don’t fret. Now lower yourself into the water.”
Manserphine did. It was cool, but not so cool as to give her a shock, and in seconds she was used to the temperature.
Gholequie handed over the mask and showed her how to put it on. Manserphine asked, “How does it work? What is it made of?”
“Just an old jellyfish. Now put it on.”
“But…” Manserphine tried to think of an excuse not to go through with this. She could think of some, but none strong enough to oppose the brisk Gholequie.
“Aren’t you taking off your hat?” Gholequie asked.
Manserphine hesitated. “Could you keep it safe for me until we’re out?”
In reply, Gholequie took the hat and tucked it under a wristband. “Isn’t your hair thin?” she remarked, passing a wet hand through it. “That’s a nice braid.”
“Yes. My lover gave it to me.”
Gholequie took Manserphine’s hand and moved it so that the mask attached itself to the lower half of her face. Manserphine breathed in deeply, then exhaled. The mask twitched but stayed put. She breathed again as Gholequie splashed water over it.
“A lover,” Gholequie said. “Is he nice?”
Manserphine nodded.
“Breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. When you’re underwater, don’t breathe in through your nose… block it as if you’ve got a cold—that’s right. Get your head under and breathe a few times until you’re used to the feel. Ready?”
No way of answering, and anyway Gholequie gently pushed Manserphine’s head under the water.
For a few moments she floated motionless, trying to stop her mind from screaming. Darkness lay beneath her, ready to swallow her up, while above her she saw dim evening light refracting through the surface. Panicky, she waved her hands around and tried to swim through the water to Gholequie, who she instinctively wanted to touch. The mask gripped her face, yet she breathed with ease. The water felt like syrup. Gholequie touched something on her wrist and orange light beamed out forwards and back. Manserphine saw three circles of black in the brickwork ahead: tunnels.
Gholequie swam to the middle tunnel and Manserphine followed, trying to mimic the gentle, undulating motion of her guide, at the same time trying to move her lower legs and arms to control her direction. She kept feeling that she would float and hit the tunnel ceiling. Now that the initial shock was over, she felt a little safer, but the claustrophobia was bad, exacerbated by the dull thunking of underwater sounds. Above her an enclosing roof; below, black- ness. Fragments of memory from the Cemetery returned to haunt her. She pushed them down into her subconscious and concentrated on following Gholequie.
Once they swam into the tunnel they entered a zone of twisting brickwork, never less than three yards across, from which pale streams of algae hung like ruined curtains. For Manserphine, shocks and sudden surprises came in other guises, such as the white crabs that without warning dropped from ceiling holes, and the ribbon-like worms that infested the sludge at the bottom.
Gholequie swam on, smiling without cessation, encouraging Manserphine with gestures of her hands and head; never leaving her side. She did not perceptibly breathe, and there was no trail of bubbles such as Manserphine produced. Behind her, these bubbles danced at the tunnel ceilings like so many ball bearings, except where the black became dancing light—the surface of interior Shrine pools.
After five minutes of the larger tunnels they came to a spherical chamber from which six tunnels radiated. These were far smaller. Gholequie chose the smallest, and Manserphine had to force calmness upon herself, for she wanted to pull off the mask and claw her way up to the surface. Gholequie paused and tied Manserphine’s hair back with a fragment of string. With gestures she encouraged Manserphine into the tunnels.
Manserphine convinced herself that so long as they did not slow, she would be all right. The tunnel would not really close in on her. The orange beams showed straight tunnels made of black stone, encrusted with pale organisms. A few flickering fish darted by. Over ten minutes had passed.
Then Manserphine noticed a sweet taste at the back of her mouth that she ascribed to her fear, but which seemed to come from the water. They rounded a corner and then she saw, like static clouds in subaquatic black, swirls of colour emanating from small pipes. Suddenly she realised that this was a softpetal outflow. She heard a change in the irregular thumping noises, amidst them a sharper, more metallic sound, which made her think of delicately functioning machines.
After a further few minutes they began to swim through the clouds into water hazy with outflow. Further nozzles added to the murk. Now Gholequie switched on beams attached to her other wrist. Smiling broadly, she indicated that the end was close. Manserphine’s relief was considerable.
A few more sections passed where the roof showed distant circles of light, and then they entered a tunnel six yards across, full of softpetal streams. A perceptible current swept them along.
Gholequie waved her arms about until five mermaids swam through the clouds ahead. Now Manserphine heard a different tone to the thumping of before, and she knew it was the sea. She swam out of the mouth of the tunnel and saw a glow above her—the evening sky.
They ascended ten feet or so to the ocean surface. Gholequie ripped off the mask and Manserphine found herself breathing as if she had run a mile, gasping almost, as the oxygen levels in her body readjusted to a natural balance. They trod water, splashing and laughing. The shore lay a few hundred yards away. Strange buoys like twisted bushes floated around them, where softpetal had self-organised into symbolic shapes.
Slowly they swam to shore. They had emerged west of the Shrine of the Sea, which lay out of sight behind the rocky side of the estuary, but not so far that Aequalaïs had been left behind. On the shore scores of mermaids and mermen lay, taking in the evening breeze, flapping their variously altered feet and legs and crunching sea vegetables.
Manserphine was welcomed with cheers and hugs. Despite the warmth of her reception she shivered, until a blanket was brought, which she gratefully wrapped herself in. Gholequie and three mermaids led her aside to lie at her ease, on matresses made of kelp fabric stuffed with dead leaves. Gholequie introduced the trio. “These are your second cousins Zeamaysse and Gianflamah, and this is Suracunah’s bereft sister, your other cousin, Abvoloyns.”
Abvoloyns seemed upset as she asked Manserphine, “Do you know anything of the tale of your family?”
“No.”
“You must have heard about your great-grandmother.”
“Yes,” admitted Manserphine, “but only that she was abducted into the Shrine of the Sea.”
“There to partner the great Sea-Cleric Trseq, with whom she had children. You are directly descended from them.”
“And my mother?”
Abvoloyns hesitated, then said, “Your great-grandmother Omossecune was of mermaid stock. She tried to live on land, but failed, and in the end was seduced by the power and vision of the Sea-Clerics. We think your mother had much mermaid blood in her, for the sea lust drove her wild. She is drowned.”
“I knew so.”
Abvoloyns shook her head, then said, “She loved the sea.”
“I had wondered from where my sea longing came.”
“Oh, no,” Gholequie said, “not from your heritage, but from the link with your cousin Suracunah, trapped in the softpetal pool. But recently you left our perceptions.”
“I became greater than I was,” Manserphine replied.
Abvoloyns began to say, “The flower crash—”
“You know of it?” Manserphine wondered if it was now common knowledge.
Abvoloyns indicated the outflow zone from which they had swum. “Mermaids with the gift for sensing future networks usually find themselves hindered by the high concentration of softpetal in the water, but occasionally, if the normal interference has a positive effect, they are helped. Many of us drift out there waiting for good dreams, trying to ignore the nausea of interference. In such a way I myself felt you depart us after the Cemetery incident—”
“You know about that too?”
Abvoloyns replied, “I saw something of it in a vision. But the flower crash is too important to ignore. It is but days away, as you probably know.”
“Well, yes,” Manserphine murmured.
“The Sea-Clerics have made a selfish interpretation of it, and this is why they are preparing for action. A great hardpetal reef has sprung up in the sea, in a bow around the estuary, so that it lies just a few feet below the surface. There are ships and boats everywhere. All this bodes ill for Zaïdmouth.”
Thinking of this reef, Manserphine realised why the Sea-Clerics had stolen hardpetal data from the Shrine of Flower Sculpture. She said, “What is this bad interpretation of the Sea-Clerics?”
“They have been trying to engineer sea plants with flowers, in an attempt to pervert the course of the flower crash to one suited to their oceanic vision.”
Manserphine nodded. “Now I have proof that Baigurgône is not based in the Shrine of the Sea.” She shrugged. “I suppose I should be glad I know that, but I’m not.”
“The Sea-Clerics
have
to be stopped.”
Manserphine gave a single laugh. “Easier said than done. I have seen their philosophy of life in action, and it makes me think they will fight like barbarians.”
“Probably true. So you must be both wily and careful.”
“Me?”
Gholequie interrupted again. “The cause for which you work is a true and good cause. We mermaids have seen a little of it. But you alone have reached the ability necessary for true interpretation of future network possibilities. You must follow the course you believe with your heart to be correct.”
Abvoloyns agreed. “There is nobody like you. You have the vision of Omossecune, the emotional depth of your mother, the virtuosity of a maverick. You are one agent of change in the future.”
Manserphine felt tears well up into her eyes as she heard this. She said, “You are very kind, but I wonder how accurate you are.”
“We don’t know. Perhaps it is for you to find out.”
Manserphine was silent for a moment. The evening glow had departed the sky to leave starry heavens, and to these she stared, lying on her back and listening to the chatter of mermaids and mermen. Eventually she said, “The Sea-Clerics will discover tomorrow morning that I have gone.”