Authors: Licia Troisi
She must have felt herself being observed, for just then she began to fix her pleated skirt in embarrassment.
Sennar turned to his tray. Nothing was left but an apple core. “Thank you. You have no idea what good this has done me,” he said, pushing the tray back through to her.
“It’s nothing. It’s my job. I’ll be back tonight. On time, I promise. I won’t let you starve to death.” She laughed.
She was already walking away when the sorcerer shouted after her: “Wait! I never even got your name. I’m Sennar.”
“My name is Ondine. Well, see you later, Sennar,” she replied, and was on her way again.
Mornings and evenings, Ondine came to his cell.
For Sennar, she was a ray of sunlight in the dark. She was caring, always smiling. She lifted him out of his abysmal loneliness.
As time passed, they became friends. They spoke of their separate worlds, shared their personal histories. She was fascinated by the idea of a sky—she couldn’t believe that in the Overworld so much blue lay above their heads. She told Sennar of her deep love for the sea, of how she wished she were a siren.
“A siren?” he asked, perplexed.
“Yes. They’re descendents of the mermaids.”
“I thought mermaids didn’t exist.”
Ondine laughed. “Of course they exist!” She then told Sennar of Zalenia’s construction, of how the tritons and mermaids had helped them—and then, some time after the foundation of their kingdom, how the mermaids began to give birth to strange creatures: beings descended from both mermaids and land dwellers. They didn’t have a tail fin, but did have small gills that allowed them to live under water. “They’re extraordinary beings. There’s no above or below for them, no inside or outside. How I envy their freedom!”
From her stories, Sennar could see how passionately her people hated the Overworld and everyone in it. “The Ones from Above,” as they were referred to in Zalenia, were considered an exclusively homicidal, warring people, incapable of living at peace with themselves or others. This hatred ran so deep that even the more recent arrivals to the Underworld, like Ondine and her family, suffered its consequences. The telltale sign of “the new arrivals” were their tufts of dark hair. They were regarded with suspicion and had access to only the most demeaning forms of labor. Ondine’s father was among those charged with the duty of maintaining the glass columns connecting the ampoules to the surface above. He was forced to work while suspended in mid air, removing refuse that accumulated along the walls of the tubes and clogged the airflow.
“As a family, we do the best we can. I won’t even have a dowry. But then, who would want to marry me, anyway?”
“Where I come from, you’d have hordes of suitors,” Sennar replied shyly. He wasn’t used to giving compliments.
Ondine shook her head and smiled skeptically. “With hair like this and these red cheeks?”
It all seemed so backward to Sennar. According to Moni, the founders of the Underworld wanted a new and better world, where everyone lived in peace. As far as he could tell, though, it was a kingdom founded on hatred and discrimination.
Sennar asked Ondine to explain Zalenia’s political structure. Each group of ampoules was directed by a count, a sort of absolute sovereign with extreme individual power. The count was also responsible for collecting a tax, part of which was then turned over to the king. Whatever remained, he could distribute as he wished. A lucky few lived in an ampoule run by an enlightened count, who employed the tax to better the lives of his subjects—most, though, were governed by cruel despots. Above all ruled the king, though he hardly concerned himself with the more distant territories.
In the past, things had been different. Rather than a king, the people had governed themselves. At set times of the year, the inhabitants of each village met and together discussed the most important issues. Likewise, for more general concerns, ambassadors from each ampoule met to determine the fate of the kingdom. But that didn’t last very long. A few of the men resorted to violence in an attempt to seize power, and Zalenia found itself on the brink of war. In order to avoid the conflict, one of the more charismatic ambassadors proposed the election of a king.
“All in all, we can’t really complain,” Ondine went on to say. “What’s important is that we remain peaceful. If a rotten count comes along, we keep up hope that the next will be better. A storm can’t last forever, right?”
Justice, too, was in the hands of the count. If captured by the guards, a criminal was held in prison until the count could assess the situation and pronounce his verdict. He alone was charged with meting out punishment.
“And if the count … what happens if the count never shows up?” Sennar asked nervously.
Ondine hesitated. “I’m not so sure you want to know.”
“Just tell me.”
She bit into her bottom lip. “If the count never shows, the guards decide the prisoner’s fate,” she said in a rush, and immediately flashed him a reassuring smile. “But you don’t have to worry about that. I’m positive the count will hear you out and allow you to speak with the king. I mean it.”
Sennar hoped she was right. Nevertheless, the days passed without a trace of the count.
They moved along safely through the forest, keeping their distance from the border. Nihal felt nothing of the joy and excitement of her first travels. It had all become habit—the hours on horseback; the short passages on foot when the path narrowed and she was forced to lead her horse by the reins; the silent, hastily consumed meals. If she’d been traveling alone with Laio, they might at least have passed the time in conversation, but with another soldier in tow, it wasn’t the most friendly of atmospheres.
Mathon must have been only six or seven years older than her, but he was as grim and laconic as a grouchy old man. He hardly uttered a word, and never smiled.
“He’s had a difficult life,” Laio explained to her one evening. “He’s the bastard child of noble parents, abandoned as a young boy outside a barracks. The army took him in and raised him, and he grew up as wild as a wolf. He’s seen his share of troubles, the poor guy.”
Knowing his history, Nihal felt more sympathetic toward Mathon, but he persisted in his silence, and she herself made no effort to rouse him.
Laio, too, proved rather untalkative. He seemed to be focused on his mission, more pensive than usual. Studying his face, Nihal thought she noticed a certain poise, an extra character line or two, a decisiveness she’d never seen in him before. For Laio, the battle was already on—she knew he’d need to stand up to himself before standing up to Pewar.
After only a few days’ travel, Nihal began to feel oppressed with boredom. The days crawled by. Only when night came did she let out a sigh of relief—at least the hours spent sleeping would go by quickly.
Ten days passed before they reached the Land of Water. The mission, if it could be called that, was far from urgent, and Laio was less than eager to reach his destination. As soon as they crossed the border, his mood darkened. If she’d come along to provide her friend with moral support, Nihal decided, now was the time to do it.
“There’s no reason to be afraid now,” she said to him one evening. Mathon was asleep, the fired crackling peacefully.
“It’s just that I can already feel my father breathing down my neck.”
“You’ve already made it this far, which is no small feat. You chickened out from much farther away last time, didn’t you?”
Laio smiled shyly.
“You believe in what you’re doing, Laio. That’s what’s important. Everything’s going to be all right.”
That very night, however—a moonless, starless night—Nihal discovered she’d been mistaken. In the past ten days she’d noted nothing out of the ordinary, not a single sign of danger. She’d been certain of their safety, and it was certainty that led her into the trap.
There were ten of them. They crept more rapidly than the average soldier, their footsteps quick and hushed. Carefully, they approached the camp where the three travelers slept, weapons in hand, silent but ready to pounce. Men accustomed to living and moving in shadow, lithe as cats. A band of thieves.
Even Nihal, her senses so well honed, noticed nothing at first. It was the snapping of a tree branch that roused her from her sleep, followed by a soft rustling, as if someone’s clothing had snagged a bush. Nihal’s eyes shot open and she saw them. A group of men were gathered around their camp. They were armed and approaching quietly, checking their surroundings, assigning tasks with rapid hand gestures. Two of them made for the saddlebags, an easy prize, while a third crept toward Laio, who was asleep with a dagger clenched in his fist.
Just then, Nihal jumped to her feet, howling, her sword in hand and ready for battle. Laio and the soldier woke with a start and grabbed their weapons while Nihal leaped at the nearest intruder and felled him with one stroke of her blade.
Laio tried pushing himself forward, but one of the thieves pounced, striking him on the wrist with a bow and disarming him easily. In one swift motion, he kicked Laio in the chest and straddled him.
“Good. You behave, and nothing will happen to you,” he said, holding a sharp knife to Laio’s throat. “For now, at least.”
Nihal, meanwhile, was after yet another of the thieves. She tried taking him by surprise with a fierce, lightning-quick attack, but he managed to react in time. He was a bear of a man, his gargantuan muscles clearly visible under his tunic. He parried Nihal’s strike with ease, and countered with such brute force that she had no choice but to retreat deep into the brush.
In the fury of her escape, she scraped against every branch imaginable. The forest resounded with a barrage of rustling and snapping, as if filled with infinite enemies. Then she heard shouting.
She was overcome with anger. “No! Laio! Mathon!” she cried. In a fit of rage, she hacked her enemy’s arm clean off and left him there to bleed to death on the forest floor.
She tried to return to camp, but couldn’t find her way. She spied two shadows approaching through the trees, heard the shuffling of footsteps at her back. Her sword stretched out in front of her, her right leg flexed behind, she raised her arm and braced for the attack.
Suddenly, a heavy blow to her head.
A shock of heat, coursing down her spine.
A dense and hopeless blackness.
Nihal half-opened her eyes. She had a pounding headache. The slightest sound rebounded from side to side in her skull until the racket was unbearable. Her vision was blurry and she could hardly make out where she was. It appeared to be a cave, but that was all she could tell. In the background, she heard the crackling of a fire. She stretched her arms and felt around to get her bearings. She was lying on a straw sack, draped in a light sheet.
She heard an excruciating metallic sound, and a hazy figure entered her field of vision.
“Well then,” a man’s voice exclaimed. “Welcome back.”
Nihal brought a hand to her head. “Please, speak more softly.”
“My apologies,” the man said in a hushed tone. “With the blow you suffered …”
Nihal ran her fingers over a large bandage. She tried to remember what had happened and it all came rushing back. A blow to the head. She’d been played like an amateur. She felt a surge of anger.
Damn. Sennar was right. You risk your life every other day, and then the days in between.
“I can’t see,” she lamented.
“That’s normal,” the man said, as he busied himself about the fire. “Don’t worry, it passes. Tomorrow you’ll be just like new.”
“Who are you?”
“An old man.”
Somewhat of a vague response, she thought. “Don’t you have a name?”
“I had one, a long time ago, but I left it behind. There’s no need for one anymore. I’m an old man, that’s all.”
Old Man. It made her think of Livon, her father. It was precisely what she used to call him, Old Man. She’d never be able to call anyone else by that name.
“And if I need to get your attention?”
“I saved your life. Why don’t you just call me ‘My Savior’?” The old man laughed, a wise and ancient laugh. He approached her holding a bowl. “Enough with the questions. It’s time you regained your strength.”
Nihal hesitated for a moment. Then she took the bowl and dug in.
The time for questions came later on, toward evening, after Nihal had rested. Upon waking, she found her vision had improved, even if her eyes still seemed clouded over. Her head was still pounding, but she was able to sit up without any problem. Beneath her, her pillow was stained with blood.
She sat cross-legged on the straw mattress and observed the man who’d saved her. Still, she struggled to distinguish his facial features with any kind of clarity, but even so, he seemed to be very old. He wore a long, ratty tunic that covered him to his ankles. On his head were only a few hairs, but his thick, flowing beard reached the floor. He was barefoot. Looking him up and down, Nihal finally understood where that metallic sound had come from. Heavy chains bound the man’s hands and feet, spiraling up his arms like a reptile’s coils.
“Why are you in chains?” she asked impulsively.
The old man turned toward her with a sort of smile. “To atone for my manifold sins.”
“Are you a fugitive?”
The old man laughed, “No, Nihal, no. I put myself in these chains. This filthy burden reminds me of my soul’s own heaviness.”
“But, how did you know my name?” she marveled.
“Age and solitude have given me much. Patience, above all, and a certain degree of prescience. Which is the very reason I found you.”
Nihal sat up straight. “I want to know everything that happened.”
The old man sat cross-legged at Nihal’s bedside. “Last night, I heard a loud racket outside my home. I came out, hid myself, and saw you and your company surrounded by thieves. You were on the ground, not far from a young man covered in blood. Another, they’d taken as a prisoner.”
Nihal’s heart skipped a beat. “What did the prisoner look like?”