She nodded. “I will do what I can.” With that, her eyes closed, and she began whispering in her native language.
Taking a guess as to how the submersible rose and sank, Gabrian called into the horn-shaped pipe beside the wheel. “Take us down!”
For a long moment nothing appeared to happen and Gabrian placed his ear to the pipe. He thought he heard voices raised in argument, but reason apparently won, because they soon began to sink below the water. The banging on the top of the submersible didn’t cease until the cockpit was almost fully submersed, and then there came a splash and Gabrian watched with a frown as a mermaid swam up to the cracked glass and began pounding on it with her fists. He gestured with his staff, whispering a command, and she went flying away from the glass and smacked hard into a cluster of luminescent orange coral. Her eyes rolled up and she began floating to the surface. Gabrian grimaced. Dead or not, the sight of a maiden floating belly up would only bring even more ardent pursuit after them.
It wasn’t a minute later and he saw how right he was. Mermaids were diving in and swimming around the submersible in angry circles. Every now and then one of them would rush at the glass, turn, and slap it with her tail. The thundering impacts did nothing to worsen the spider web of cracks already plaguing the cockpit bubble, but Gabrian winced with every tail slap all the same.
“If we make it back alive, it will be a miracle,” Esephalia said.
As they cruised out beneath the city, groaning and hissing sounds began all around them. Water began misting into the cabin. Making matters worse, they were making very slow forward progress. He risked diverting some of his strength from the spell he’d woven to protect the ship from the crushing weight of the water to whisper a second spell that would add strength and speed to Reven and Gral. Almost immediately, there was a noticeable increase in their forward progress, but the ship was groaning even more ominously under the weight of the water. He couldn’t divide his focus without weakening the power of both spells.
Esephalia’s eyes fluttered shut in concentration as she tried to compensate, but the groaning continued. A moment later her eyes opened. “We’re not going to make it.”
All the while the maidens continued their assault, battering the already tortured ship. Gabrian shook his head, but said nothing. Water was sloshing around on the deck. Gabrian threw a lever and the submersible’s nose angled up. “Let’s take some pressure off.” Speaking into the pipe beside the wheel, he said, “Take us up!”
All forward motion ceased and suddenly they were rising quickly through the black water. The city of Meria, encased in a protective shell of glowing coral quickly shrank away beneath them, disappearing in the murky depths. Gabrian felt his ears pop from the rapid change in pressure. Countless dozens of maidens swarmed up after them, and soon they could hardly see the black water for the writhing press of bodies against the glass.
The cracks in the glass began spreading violently, and Gabrian gestured again with his staff and shouted, “
Vetea!
” sending dozens of mermaids tumbling away, but others quickly swam up to take their place. He continued like that in a futile battle until at last the water lightened to a cerulean blue, and a rare glimpse of the sun appeared shimmering through the surface just overhead.
Gabrian told the rotor gang to hold steady and get back to driving them forward. The mermaids kept battering them, and Gabrian continued driving them away. Another maiden rushed at the glass and Gabrian didn’t have time to stop her. She hit the densest knot of cracks and now water began spraying in through the glass. Esephalia whispered a spell to reinforce it there, and the ingress of water slowed.
“We can’t keep this up!” she said.
Gabrian nodded grimly. “I have an idea.” He cast his essence out through the water, quickly searching the immediate area. Not far off, he found what he was looking for, prowling the coral-crusted city of Meria below them—a massive black sabershark.
He added a subtle suggestion to the creature’s brain—a powerful, but illusory smell of blood coming from their direction, which enraged the shark, driving it to a frenzy. He retreated, taking the smell with him and guiding the monster in toward the unsuspecting mermaids.
The first one disappeared in a single bite and a muddy red cloud of blood belched from its jaws. Now the smell of blood was real. The mermaids scattered. Another one was caught by her tail as she fled, and her sisters left her to get eaten.
Gabrian nodded grimly. “We should be okay now.”
After only a short time, Lashyla brought the submarine to a stop and then dropped it down close to the murky bottom of the sea. She flipped a switch and Aurelius heard a muffled
thump
of what he supposed were anchors hitting the sea floor. He watched curiously as Lashyla went on flicking switches. The cockpit lights dimmed and then she stood up from the captain’s chair.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now we swim,” she replied on her way aft.
Aurelius hesitated a moment before following her. There was something he’d been dying to check ever since he’d realized that this submarine was from his time. He stopped in front of the sub’s controls and spent a moment studying them until he found what he thought was the right one. He toggled one of the displays until a series of glowing green numbers appeared.
“Aurelius?” Lashyla called.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the display. He’d checked the date and time, thinking that perhaps, if the submarine’s clocks had somehow been running ever since his time, it would tell him just how many years he’d travelled into the future. The year he’d left had been 4245. The year the submarine displayed was 57,405. It had to be a computer error.
Aurelius felt a hand grab him roughly by the shoulder. “Come on,” Gabrian commanded gruffly. Aurelius followed on wooden legs and they caught up to Lashyla.
“How far into the future did you say I travelled?”
Gabrian turned to him with a frown. “A few thousand years.”
“How many is a few?”
“Two or three thousand.”
Aurelius nodded slowly, hoping that was true. “Okay,” he sighed. It was just a computer error. “How far from the shore are we?”
“Not far,” Lashyla replied.
“How deep is it?”
She turned an amused look over her shoulder. “You sound as though you’re afraid of getting wet.”
Aurelius replied with a frown.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you drown,” Gabrian said.
They reached the airlock, and Lashyla ushered them inside. She shut the door behind them and then went to operate the outer door controls. Aurelius looked around for pressure suits but he didn’t see any, and then he went back to hoping they weren’t far from either the surface or the land. He wasn’t sure about mermaids or wizards, but a human ran the risk of getting the bends at any great depth.
When water began rushing into the airlock, Aurelius eyed it apprehensively and began taking deep breaths. Lashyla must have seen the worried look on his face, because she walked up to him with a smile and stole the precious air from his lungs with a quick kiss. “Don’t worry,” she said, grabbing his hand. “I haven’t brought you this far to lose you now.” The water rose to Aurelius’s neck and he began sucking in deeper breaths. “Trust me,” she said.
As the water reached his lips, he took a deep breath and held it. A moment later the water reached the ceiling and Lashyla swung open the outer airlock door, swimming out into the murky depths and dragging him after her. He watched the scant articles of clothing she’d been wearing float by him, and his brow furrowed. Somehow he’d missed the point where she’d undressed herself. . . . Then he noticed how her legs had transformed into a scintillating tail fin which she now used to kick powerfully to the surface. She dragged him easily and quickly as she swam up through the black water; he didn’t even have to move a muscle to help; he just had to enjoy the ride. He cast a quick look over his shoulder and saw Gabrian swimming to the surface with unusual ease—especially given that he was still fully-clothed and that his staff was clutched tightly in one hand while he held the glowing relic in his other. The wizard had to be using magic.
The pressure on Aurelius’s ears was a crushing, worrisome weight, but the murky water yielded soon enough to a brighter, clearer blue, and Aurelius suspected the depth wasn't so great as he'd feared. Just as his lungs began burning for air, they breached the surface. Their heads bobbed above the waves amidst drifting clouds of mist. The sun was peeking through the mist in places, casting rainbows everywhere. Aurelius looked around for land, but he couldn’t see far enough to tell where it lay. Lashyla spent a moment scanning the horizon, then turned back to him.
“I’ll be back.” With that, she let go of his hand and dived back beneath the surface.
“Where’d she go?” he asked Gabrian.
The old man shrugged.
Lashyla reappeared a moment later. “This way,” she said, nodding to a point about twenty degrees left of dead ahead. “Climb on my back, Aurelius.”
He hesitated, his brow furrowing in a frown. “I can swim.”
“But not as fast as I.”
“She has a point,” Gabrian added.
“And you?” Aurelius asked.
The old man lifted his staff. “I have other means.”
Reluctantly, Aurelius climbed on Lashyla’s back, wrapping his arms around and under her bare breasts and his legs around her waist. As soon as he was on her back, she set off at a stunning speed; the wind and the spray of the waves whipping past his face was exhilarating. He squinted to see through the rolling clouds of mist and spray, but there was still nothing to see, save for the gently rolling blue canvas of the sea. When he looked back to see if Gabrian was keeping up, he noticed Gabrian keeping pace easily beside them.
Only a few minutes later, they saw a distant slice of land begin peeking out above the waves; then a broad, golden slice of beach came into hazy focus through the shifting curtains of mist, and beyond that, rolling green hills rose toward a pale blue sky. The shore was dotted with tall, waving palms, which seemed to be welcoming them in to the shore. There were no obvious signs of life, but then Aurelius noted a solitary, brown adobe hut with a thatched palm roof, and he wondered if there’d be anyone to welcome them to the shore. If so, would those people—or creatures—be friends or foes?
* * *
“Can’t we go any faster?” Esephalia asked.
Gabrian shook his head with grim concern. They’d lost their pursuers some minutes ago, and the submersible seemed to be holding together with Gabrian’s and Esephalia’s combined power exerted as a shield around the vessel, but now a more mundane concern was pressing on them: at their present rate, it would take them hours to reach land, whereas Gabrian felt sure that Malgore, travelling in the Merians’ sophisticated submarine, would be reaching land any moment now. What magic could do to speed their progress had already been done.
“We’re going to be hours behind them by the time we reach the shore!” Esephalia said. Gabrian shook his head once more, and her delicate brow furrowed curiously. “You know a way to get there sooner?”
“No, I fear it could be worse than you know.”
The elvish woman cocked her head.
“Malgore has Aurelius with him. Aurelius has his flying machine, and using that they could cross all of Mrythdom in just a few hours. They’ll be in the heart of Gremlindom before we even reach the shore.”
She gasped. “Then we’ve already lost!”
“He has not used the relic yet. Perhaps he is afraid, or does not remember how.”
“You’re grasping, old man, and we don’t
know
that he hasn’t used it.”
Gabrian set his jaw. “We must have faith.”
* * *
Lashyla swam straight into the shallows with Aurelius on her back, and then she shrugged him off.
“I trust you can swim the rest of the way?”
“Yeah.” The shore was barely a dozen feet away. Aurelius tried to stand, and his feet easily touched the sandy bottom. The water came only up to the bottom of his chest.
He watched as Lashyla swam up close to the shore and then stood, her legs suddenly forming beneath her once more. As the last vestiges of her scales magically traded for clear white skin, Aurelius was given a full view of her naked backside. His breath caught in his chest. She was definitely the most beautiful woman he’d ever been with.
“Stunning, isn’t she?” Gabrian asked.
Aurelius whirled around, suddenly intensely aware that he was not alone. He found Gabrian standing beside him, watching lecherously as Lashyla walked up onto the beach.
“Hey, look somewhere else!”
“Why?” Gabrian asked, turning reluctantly from the view, a thin smile upon his face. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”
Aurelius’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gabrian’s smile flickered, and he hesitated briefly before continuing, “I’m an old man, Aurelius. I’ve seen many things in my time. And besides, if the princess has no modesty, why should I trouble myself to preserve it?”
Aurelius gritted his teeth. He felt a sudden unreasoning hatred for the man standing beside him. “Whatever,” he said and swam for the shore.
When they joined Lashyla on the beach she turned thoughtlessly toward them, revealing herself in full. Aurelius’s eyes went wide, and he had to resist the impulse to force the old man to look away. She seemed somehow oblivious to her nakedness. “What now?” she asked.
Aurelius frowned. “How about some clothes?”
“Why?” Lashyla sauntered up to him with a smile. She didn’t stop until her body was pressed firmly against his. She looked up at him coyly, and allowed her lips to drift close. “Afraid you might not be able to resist me?” she whispered.
Aurelius felt his head swimming with a by-now familiar muddiness and he had to fight to keep his wits. “No . . . I . . .” He felt her hand trailing down his abdomen, ever lower until it dipped below the waistband of his shorts. His breath caught roughly in his chest.
“Enough!” There was an oddly echoing note of command in Gabrian’s voice, and suddenly Lashyla withdrew her hand. She took a step back and half-turned to the old man, regarding him patiently. “We don’t have time to waste,” Gabrian explained.
Aurelius swayed dizzily on his feet, blinking stupidly. “Release him,” Gabrian commanded.
Lashyla shrugged and walked away. “Fine.”
Aurelius shook his head as his mind slowly became his own once more; then he felt a sudden surge of resentment toward the princess, though she said she couldn’t control it, having his will so quickly and easily subverted made him feel violated. “Put some clothes on,” he said again.
Lashyla turned back to him, now walking backward up the beach. She held her arms out, and threw her head back, embracing the warm sun as it beat down on them. “But this is how nature intended us, Aurelius!” she said as she spun in a giddy circle.
Gabrian watched with a frown, and Aurelius walked up beside him and sighed. “Do me a favor, Gabrian. Send me back to my time, before I decide to stay.”
Gabrian shook his head. “Not yet.”
Aurelius’s brow dropped a shadow across his eyes. “What do you mean not yet?”
Gabrian ignored him. “Put some clothes on, Lashyla! You’re too much of a distraction like that.”
“What?” She called back. “How about,
put some clothes on, please, oh beauteous princess.
Watch how you speak to me, old man.”
“I could say the same to you, little girl.”