Authors: Licia Troisi
For several days, Sennar was a guest in the home of the pale woman and her husband. Observing them walk about the house, he found their presence almost ghoulish.
The first word he uttered was his name, the second a sincere “thanks” to whomever it was that had saved him.
“Duty,” the man responded blankly.
The sorcerer struggled to speak. “I’m a Council member of the Overworld. I’m here to speak with the king of this Land. If you would be so kind as to help me in reaching him …”
The woman’s eyes widened. “You plan to go traipsing about in Zalenia?”
“Zalenia?” Sennar echoed.
“The kingdom where you happen to be right now,” said the man.
“I’m on a diplomatic mission. A mission of peace,” the sorcerer explained.
The man shook his head. “You’re completely mad.”
It was starting to get old: the whole world was calling him mad.
“The law prohibits all inhabitants of the Overworld from entering Zalenia,” the woman added. “We’ve kept you hidden only because you were half dead—it wasn’t in our nature to just leave you there. But now …”
Sennar was beginning to lose patience. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. I’m an ambassador …”
“Listen,” the man interrupted, “whatever mission you’re on is of no value here. The only thing you can do is turn back. And quickly. We’ll show you the way out ourselves. Otherwise, it will mean only trouble for you.”
“What sort of trouble?” Sennar asked.
The man hesitated and his wife glanced at him imploringly. “Tell him. He needs to know.”
“A case like yours has never been dealt with before, but …”
“But?” Sennar pried.
“The punishment for anyone arriving from the Overworld is death,” the man said, spitting the words out all at once.
Sennar had to hold back his laughter.
I escaped the storm, dodged the jaws of that repulsive monster, survived drowning, and now that I’m one step away from my goal they’re going to execute me.
“Look, I’ll speak with your judge …”
“I don’t think you heard me right,” the man cut in once again. “Here, anyone from Above is considered a criminal. You could be the king, for all it matters. You’re still an intruder.”
When they finally understood that there was no dissuading him, Sennar’s hosts gave him a few, cursory directions and demanded that he leave as soon as possible.
The next morning, the sorcerer pulled on his tunic, donned his Council of Sorcerers medallion, and gathered his few possessions. He checked repeatedly to assure himself that he’d taken everything he needed, the piece of parchment in particular, and stepped through the doorway plagued with fear.
“You don’t know us. You never met us. If they find out we allowed you in our home, that’s the end of us,” they said, slamming the door behind him.
Sennar was dumbstruck at the sight of the Underworld, or Zalenia, as he now knew it was called. An immense ampoule, made of a crystal-like material, surrounded the entire village. It was like a bizarre sea village on dry land. The dome-shaped houses were built of sand and rock and decorated with iridescent shells. The smell of salt filled the air, just as in his own Land, but more distinctly, more intensely. A meticulous order reigned over the village. The roads were straight and wide, and all seemed to be carefully tended.
He touched the wall of the ampoule. It was cold, like glass. As he drew his hand back, however, he was shocked to find his palm glimmering faintly. He examined the strange material more carefully. Only then did he realize that the entire structure was coated in this oily, fluorescent substance. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the ocean below. He could see algae rocking lazily in the current—several types of algae, it seemed, though it was difficult to tell from that height. All of it glimmered, just as his palm had. Sennar could hardly believe the genius of the village’s inhabitants. The ampoule itself doubled as a light source, amplifying the meager rays of sunlight from above via the unctuous substance given off by the algae.
Barreling downward through the beds of algae was a massive, transparent column—the ampoule’s base. A second column spiked upward from the top of the ampoule, probably a means of collecting air from the surface. In the distance, Sennar could just make out the figures of several other ampoules connected to each other by a series of transparent tunnels. He shook his head. It was the most extraordinary thing he’d ever seen. The people of Zalenia had created an underwater network of villages suspended between sky and water, miniature worlds contained in glass. Still dizzy with amazement, Sennar stuffed his hands in the pockets of his tunic and started walking.
While life was teeming in the waters outside the ampoule, inside all was wrapped in the quiet calm of the early morning. The neighborhood in which he’d spent his first few days was small, but the ampoule itself was enormous. Beyond the inhabited areas stretched a series of orderly fields, irrigated by an impressive network of canals. The plants cultivated there were much like the plants in the Overworld, but their kingdom wasn’t limited to dry vegetation alone. There were still more fields at the bottom of the sea, fields of algae, not quite as numerous or as well kept as those above, but far more vast.
Sennar walked along in a daze, never tiring of the view. High above he could just make out the sun’s reflection on the water—its heat so far off, and yet it didn’t feel cold. On the contrary, the air was pleasantly warm, and the columns gave off a light, steady breeze.
He continued walking, with no particular destination, as the inhabitants began exiting their houses and heading for work in the fields. So taken was he by the landscape, he didn’t notice that he was being watched.
“Halt, stranger!” he heard a booming voice command, and it was as if he’d been shaken rudely from a pleasant dream.
The sorcerer halted. A man carrying a long lance and wearing light armor darted over and raised his weapon to Sennar’s throat. “Who are you?” he asked threateningly.
A small crowd gathered at the edge of the street.
“I am an ambassador from the Overworld,” Sennar replied calmly.
A confused murmur rose up among the crowd and a young woman stepped forward. She was in a tizzy. “I knew it! I didn’t want to believe it, but now …”
“What are you talking about, Ma’am?” asked the guard.
“My son. He told me that a friend of his, Anfitris, had found someone from Above. I assumed it was just their childish imaginations getting the best of them.”
The murmuring increased and the guard’s expression turned grave. “Go and get the child.”
Anfitris was around six years old. Her hair was tied up in long, white pigtails, and she was desperately frightened.
“Have you seen this man before?” the guard asked.
The little girl seemed on the verge of tears. “Yes, but he was dead,” she whimpered. Two tears slid down her cheeks.
“Where was he?” the guard went on.
“Below the whirlpool. I was playing with my brother and we heard a thud. We went to see what it was,” she said between sniffles.
The guard turned and glared at Sennar. “So you really are one of those mongrels. And for all these years we thought we were done with you for good.” Then he pushed his lance into Sennar’s back and began prodding him forward.
“But wait,” said Sennar. “I’m here on a mission of peace. I need to speak right away with …”
“Quiet! Your fate is in the hands of the count now.”
Sennar did everything he could to stop the soldier. He reasoned, he shouted, he displayed his medallion as proof of his role on the Council of Sorcerers, but all his efforts served only to aggravate the guard even further. In the end, Sennar desisted and followed peacefully.
The guard led him into a squat building and shut him in a cell. Shortly after, he returned with an old, austere-looking man.
“This way, venerable Deliah,” he repeated in a respectful tone.
The man was hunched over with age and walked with his wrinkled face fixed on the ground. His long white hair cascaded over his blue robe and down to the floor, where it dragged like a bridal train. In his gnarled hand he held a long, wooden staff topped with a large turquoise sphere. The old man approached slowly, leaning on his staff, until he stood before the prisoner.
Sennar extended his right hand. “The count, I take it.”
Rather than respond, the old man took hold of Sennar’s chin and examined his face, turning it in every direction.
“He’s one of them,” he said with a cavernous voice.
The guard raised his chin pompously. “Of course. I’d assumed so immediately.”
“I’m begging you, Count, please listen to me,” Sennar began. “I am an ambassador from the Overworld and …”
The guard rammed his fist into Sennar’s stomach before Sennar could finish speaking. He curled up, the wind knocked out of him, and fell to the ground. Immediately, the guard jumped on top of him, stuffed a rag in his mouth, and pinned his arms down.
The old man stepped calmly forward and touched the handle of his staff to Sennar’s forehead, reciting an incantation under his breath.
Though he understood what was happening to him, the sorcerer had no time to react. He felt himself suffocating and gradually began to lose consciousness.
The guard swiped the gag back from out of Sennar’s mouth.
“I’m not the count,” said the old man before walking away, a cold smile on his face.
When Sennar came to, his head was spinning. He tried pushing himself back onto his feet, using the cell wall as leverage. His strength returned to him slowly, followed by the memory of what had just occurred.
“Damn,” he muttered between his teeth. He knew that spell. He knew it back and forth.
He tested to see if he could still perform magic. With the palm of his hand open, he pronounced the incantation for fire. Nothing. In vain, he tried producing one harmless, colorful flash after another. Again and again he tried, but always with the same results. The spells flowed uselessly from his lips.
In a fit of anger, he threw himself back to the floor. The old man had locked him in a seal—until it was broken, he was stripped of his powers.
Now he was neither a sorcerer nor a councilor, only a boy trapped in a stinking cell, miles and miles away from home.
To escape was impossible. The only opening in his cell was far above his head, and the door was made of thick, sturdy bars. Sennar felt like an idiot for the way he’d allowed himself to be mocked, a complete fool for disregarding the hostility of the people of the Underworld.
The entire day he saw no one. When night came, he slept little and poorly. Nightmares haunted him: he was put on trial before the imaginary count and condemned to execution, derided by the other councilors, congratulated by the Tyrant for the great job he’d done. He dreamed also of Nihal. Nihal in battle, Nihal in danger, Nihal dead.
When he awoke, a thin, gloomy light had just begun to fill the cell. The first sound he heard came from his own stomach, demanding to be fed. He called out for the guard, but got no response.
The whole thing was absurd. He was at the bottom of the sea, on the floor of a damp cell, and, other than the growling of his stomach, surrounded by complete silence.
It was mid-day already when he finally heard the sound of footsteps approaching the door. “Where the devil have you been? Did you want me to die of starvation?” the sorcerer groaned.
The footsteps ceased. “Please forgive me,” came a girl’s voice. “They didn’t tell me until this morning that there was a prisoner.”
Between the bars, Sennar noticed a girl approaching with a tray in hand. She was delicate looking, not very tall, and she couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Her face was a perfect oval, with two rosy cheeks. Up until then, Sennar had seen only white hair among the inhabitants, but the girl standing before him sported several, thick tufts of brown.
Standing face-to-face, they fell into an awkward silence.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice,” Sennar muttered, out of sorts. “I thought I was speaking to the guard.”
The girl smiled back timidly. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, here’s your food, at last.” She passed the tray through a narrow gap at the bottom of the cell.
Sennar grabbed it immediately and began uncovering the bowls. One was filled with a sort of broth, in which strange, black tendrils floated. In another, there was something that resembled chicken, covered in a lime green sauce. The third was a bowl of unrecognizable mollusks. The only familiar item on the tray was a red apple, but the sorcerer wasn’t one to be picky. He slurped down the soup with such zeal he could hardly tell what it tasted like. The girl looked on in silence, a flash of amusement in her green eyes.
Sennar put down the bowl. “Exquisite,” he said, moving to the next. “Are you the chef?”
“Yes. Practically everyone in my family is a prison keeper. With the color of our hair, and all.” She held forth one of her dark tufts of hair.
“What do you mean?” Sennar asked, curious.
“My ancestors were among the last to descend. Which is why our hair isn’t completely white yet.”
“When did they get here?”
“About fifty years ago. My parents were born here, but my grandparents came from Above and … people like us don’t have very many privileges. This is one of the few jobs we can hold.”
“Taking care of prisoners isn’t exactly the best job for a young girl.”
She blushed. “Usually it’s my brother that carries the food in; I just do the cooking. It’s just that … Well, to be honest, I wanted to see you in person. The whole city’s talking about you. Everyone’s on edge. But me, I’m not scared of you. I have a few relatives that stayed Above.”
Sennar moved on to the mollusks. “Where are your relatives from?”
“The Land of the Sea.”
“That’s the Land I come from, too. Have you ever seen it?”
The girl laughed out loud. “Obviously not! We’re not allowed to go up. Only sorcerers can visit the Overworld.”
At last, Sennar lifted his eyes from the bowl. It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been alone with a woman, but in that moment, with that kindhearted girl standing before him, it knocked him back a bit.
She’s lovely
.