Our hiding place is high up, just below the main entrance and looking directly across at it. Ervys’s men are there, clustered around the entrance. They are not blocking the way exactly, but they float in ranks on either side of it. Some of the young Mer pause and shrink back as they enter the chamber and see what’s waiting for them. I am not surprised. These are full-grown Mer, powerful and full of menace. It must take a lot of courage to swim forward if you don’t follow Ervys.
I recognise some of them – Talek – Mortarow … And there, closest of all to the entrance, still and brooding, is Ervys himself. A shiver of dread runs through me. He looks as if nothing could
prevent him from being here, where he wants to be, or doing what he wants to do. Why are so many of the Mer still following him? They know he couldn’t save them from the Kraken.
“The Mer hate the fact that it took humans to save them from the Kraken,” Faro whispers in my ear. “Ervys gives them their pride back.”
“But going to the Deep had nothing to do with pride! We didn’t do it because of Ervys. It was because we didn’t want the children to be … hurt.” I mean “killed” but I don’t want to say it.
“Everything is to do with pride where Ervys is concerned,” says Faro.
I remember what it was like to confront Ervys last time I was in this chamber. When you’re close to him, you see just how strong he is. His arms rippled with muscle; his tail lashed from side to side, like a tiger’s before a kill. One blow from that tail could have killed me. But most frightening of all was the way his eyes measured me so coldly. I was a thing that had got in his way, not a person.
As I watch him, Ervys puts his hand on the shoulder of the man next to him. He turns. Ervys says something and smiles, showing his teeth. A jostling ripple spreads through his followers. There are so many of them now …
“Hagerawl,” murmurs Faro, “Morteweth, Gwandrys …”
“Why are there no Mer women? Doesn’t Ervys want them as followers?” asks Conor.
“Ervys thinks that only men should fight for him. Women can heal and feed and tend the children.”
“So why do any women support him if that’s what he thinks of them?” I ask.
“Those who like being slaves support him,” answers Faro.
I watch the incoming stream of young Mer swimming past Ervys and his threatening supporters. I can’t see any weapons, but perhaps they have them hidden. Spears tipped with razor-sharp coral, or with metal taken from shipwrecks. I shudder, thinking of the gash in Faro’s tail.
But there’s another figure floating between the Speaking Stone and Ervys. He is facing away from us, towards the entrance. His long cloak flows around his body, hiding it, but I would know him anywhere. He is upright, his head flung back commandingly as he faces Ervys’s followers. His right arm is outstretched, his hand held up like a barrier. It’s Saldowr. His eyes are fixed on Ervys’s followers, watching every move they make. They would like to surge forwards from the entrance and block the way to the Speaking Stone, but they don’t.
Saldowr stands alone. Alone, by force of will rather than by weapons, he’s holding back Ervys so that
all
the young Mer can reach the Speaking Stone.
“Only the Call knows who is chosen,”
whispers Faro angrily as if he’s quoting something.
“I thought that the Mer chose, in the Assembly,” says Conor.
“They give the sign of agreement, but the decision is already made, and not by them. It is there in the face of the boy or girl as they swim up from the Speaking Stone.”
Suddenly one of the Mer around Ervys swaggers forward.
Deliberately, he looks across at Saldowr as his broad, squat body blocks the way of a Mer boy. The boy stops swimming. Even from here we can all see his fear and confusion. Angry uproar rises from the Mer benches. Some rise in protest, others jeer and beat the heels of their hands together.
Saldowr’s voice cracks out. “Let him pass to the stone.”
Ervys’s follower holds his ground, glancing around for support. No one else comes forward.
“Let him pass to the stone.” Saldowr’s voice is quieter now, but more penetrating. It makes me afraid, even though I’m not Saldowr’s target. Ervys’s follower turns and we see his face. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. He looks for backing from the ranks around Ervys, but no one stirs. Sullenly, he swims back to his fellows at the entrance.
“Ervys will choose his fight,” comments Faro.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“That boy wasn’t important enough. Ervys is waiting for something more.
For us, maybe. Perhaps he knows by now that we broke out of his Porth Cas. The gulls could have brought word to a follower close to the surface. Ervys will guess that we’ll come straight here.
The boy swims until he is above the Speaking Stone, then quickly and neatly he dives down in the sheer dive that no human can ever equal, touches the stone, and comes up to face the Mer. Immediately, without looking at one another, the Mer respond. A single word ripples around the chamber.
“Chosen … chosen … chosen … chosen …”
But not all the Mer speak. Many remain silent, arms folded, resisting. Ervys has his supporters on the benches too.
“This breaks our custom,” whispers Faro angrily. “We speak together or keep silent.”
I wonder who will speak for us. Even the Mer who support Saldowr may keep silent when we swim up from the stone.
Half-and-halfs,
Ervys calls us. We pollute Ingo with our human blood. How many of these Mer believe that? My stomach knots with tension. Before long, we’ll find out.
The boy has already gone. A girl approaches the stone, and then another. Each has their moment, but that moment passes so quickly that the line of waiting Mer never stops moving.
But even so,
I think,
it would take weeks for all the young Mer to come to the stone.
Surely every single Mer in our age group can’t make the same journey to the same chamber? How big is Ingo, anyway? Does its power stretch all the way around the world?
“Faro, are there other Assembly chambers?”
Faro looks at me for a long silent moment. At last he asks, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, surely all the Mer in the whole of Ingo can’t come here, into one chamber. The oceans are huge. There must be too many Mer, even in our age group. How big is Ingo?”
“You must speak to Saldowr,” he says haughtily. “Ingo is as it is.”
I almost smile, but stop myself. Conor nudges me.
“I only meant, does Ingo cover the whole world?”
“Of course it does. What else could there be? But perhaps there are other Assembly chambers,” he concedes.
The young Mer are still coming in a stream that appears endless. Saldowr’s cloak billows in the current that they make as they pass him. There is only one of him. I believe in Saldowr, of course I do, but—
“There are many of Ervys’s followers,” says Faro as if he has heard my thoughts.
“What?”
“Among those coming to the stone. Watch carefully as they pass Ervys.”
The next two candidates must be Saldowr’s followers because they make no sign as they pass Ervys. But then a girl in a bodice of dark-red woven weed enters the chamber. She looks to her left, where Ervys stands behind his men. Quickly she raises her left hand to her forehead and touches it with the knuckle of her index finger. Nothing more. Her hand drops and she swims forward. The gesture is so fleeting that I’d have missed it if Faro hadn’t told me to look out for a sign. She dives to touch the Stone, comes up to face the Mer and is greeted with the familiar word:
“Chosen…. chosen …”
“Elvira will come soon,” says Faro.
“How do you know?”
“She is in my thoughts. She wants to be with us but I have told her we are hidden. She will be chosen, and then she will wait for us outside the Assembly chamber.”
He sounds so confident.
“How can you be sure that Elvira will be chosen?” asks Conor. “There seem to be a lot of Ervys’s people. Won’t they stop her? They know she’s with us.”
“The blood of our ancestors runs differently in Elvira’s veins. Saldowr has spoken of it to me. She is pure Mer. Ervys still hopes to win her trust.”
Faro looks so proud, and so lonely. I hate it. I take his hand so that our
deubleks
touch, and for a second his expression lightens. “If Elvira is not chosen,” he continues, “then the Mer are liars and there will be no true Crossing.”
We wait, tense. The next girl is not Elvira, nor the next. Neither of them makes any sign to Ervys, but the two boys who follow both make the brief touch of knuckle to forehead. Faro’s fingers clutch my arm, digging in deep. I stifle a cry.
“Faro, what is it?”
“It is Bannerys. My friend.”
I know so little about Faro’s life. I should have realised that he would have many friends among the Mer of our age who are coming as candidates for the Crossing.
“He came with me to hunt the orca,” says Faro, his face pale as he watches Bannerys dive to the stone. “He was my brother then – when the orca forgot that we Mer are not seals to be taken for his food.” His grip on my arm loosens. Hard anger sets on his face. “Let Bannerys learn what it means to follow Ervys,” he murmurs.
“Perhaps he doesn’t realise what Ervys is like, Faro …”
“Could
you
look at Ervys and not know what he is like?”
Bannerys has already risen to face the Mer. They choose him and he swims away. Faro remains rigid, fists clenched, until Bannerys has left the chamber.
“Con, what’s an orca?” I whisper.
“A killer whale.”
I look at Faro with respect. “Elvira is coming now,” he says.
Conor pushes forward. And there is Elvira, slight, poised and lovely as ever. She swims gracefully through the entrance, looking neither to right nor left. I notice a stir among Ervys’s men, but no one tries to stop her. In one fluid movement, she dives for the stone. When she comes up level with the ranks of Mer again, she looks around the chamber slowly, as if to take in how many are there. For a moment we see her face, which is calm and sure.
There is a pause, and then the voices come:
“Chosen … chosen … chosen …”
Faro relaxes. A smile of pride lightens his face. I’m leaning forward to say how good it is that Elvira’s been chosen when everything that has just happened falls away from my mind. The Call sounds for me. I know it is for me because somewhere in its music I hear my name. The Call reverberates through the chamber, filling it just as the water fills it with salt. It must be an echo. No one is blowing the conch now. But it can’t be an echo because it’s much too real and clear. Enchanting images rise in my mind: a vast ocean, so blue that it is almost black; fish like rainbows, blue whales, schools of porpoises; no land within a thousand miles, only water …
I move forward. Conor grabs me back. “Saph! They’ll see you.”
“Wait!” says Faro.
“But I have to go. The conch is calling me.”
Conor lets go of me. Faro says, “They say there is no music like the conch when it calls you down to the Speaking Stone. Go, Sapphire.”
I slip out of our hiding place and swim along the wall until I’m well away from the niche. I don’t want Ervys and his supporters to see where I’ve come from. I draw up my knees and brace my feet against the wall of rock. With all the force in my body I thrust off, diving down and down until I reach the place above the Speaking Stone.
There is uproar even before I reach it. Ervys and his supporters have seen me and recognised me. They are baying for my blood. The Mer are standing up from their seats, some of them shouting, some of them clapping in welcome. I glance over my shoulder. A supporter is talking rapidly into Ervys’s ear. Any moment now they will come over and seize me and everything will dissolve in chaos. Saldowr has turned to me. He is watching me calmly, with a faint smile on his face. In his eyes I read a message:
Go on, my child.
I jackknife into a dive. Water streams past me, voices blare in my ears and then everything fades as I come to the stone. It glows with calm radiance. Its heart flashes crimson as the wave of my dive throws green reflections over it. I take a last stroke, and touch the stone.
Nothing happens. No tingle or sudden feeling of warmth in my fingers. It is stone, smooth and hard and unyielding. I touch it, and that is all. But for the first time I understand the purpose of the stone. It doesn’t speak, or give any secret messages. That would be cheap magic, and what it really does is even more powerful. The Speaking Stone allows us to speak for ourselves. It reveals our own purposes to us, however deep they are locked in our hearts.
I will make the Crossing of Ingo,
I say, but not aloud.
The stone does not answer. I turn and swim up to where the Mer wait. Ervys’s supporters are slamming their fists into their palms. The water churns with anger. I hear Ervys yell above the tumult: “Are we going to let a human creature take part in the most sacred mystery of our race? Are the Mer so degenerate?”
I am not going to say anything. I scull myself into position directly above the Speaking Stone and face the Mer. I look around the whole circle of faces, as Elvira did. To my right, to my left, ahead and behind. Let them dare to call me a half-and-half now. Let them dare deny what the Speaking Stone has recognised. I know what is written on my face. I know that I will make the Crossing.
Ervys knows too. Out of the corner of my eye I see him struggling against the protection with which Saldowr is shielding everyone who comes forward to be chosen. Saldowr has turned back to face Ervys. From the tension of his body and his upraised arm I can see how hard he is fighting to keep Ervys from me.
I push back my hair. Let the Mer answer me now. I look up at the top rank where my father sits, and find him. He is leaning forward, his eyes fixed on me. He gives no sign of recognition. His face is heavy with anguish.
The voices roll through the water towards me as if they are one voice:
“Chosen … chosen … chosen …”
I keep my eyes fixed on Dad’s face. Not a muscle moves. His lips do not open. He says nothing.