Seven Princes

15

The owl flew beyond the forests of Uduria, across the snow-capped peaks of the Grim Mountains. When walls of dark cloud rolled into its path, spitting lightning and fierce winds, it rose higher into the sky and soared above the churning storm. It winged westward across the sleeping world, seen only by the blinking stars and mute moon. When the sun rose at its back, it sailed downward through the clouds and found a soft place on the grassy plain of the emb hthe chuStormlands. There it became a young girl again and slept in the lee of a mossy boulder, obscured by a sea of waving green stalks.

Sharadza awoke at midday and drank rainwater from a natural depression in the crown of the boulder. She found a wild patch of cloudberries and picked them for breakfast. Before the sun climbed high enough to battle the army of clouds, she took the black owl’s form again and soared westward. After a while the clouds below her beating wings grew thinner, and a cool salty air blew into her shining owl eyes. She left the Stormlands behind and the vast blue ocean lay beneath her, a shimmering blue expanse spangled with shards of sunlight. She flew south and west now, and the coastline dwindled behind her.

By sorcerous instinct she flew toward the place she had seen in her vision. It lay beneath those sparkling waves, in depths where the sun’s rays could not reach. The great waters stretched in every direction, and the owl hovered between white cloud and azure sea. Its feathers flowed like smoke and Sharadza took her true form once again. She fell feet first through the air, inhaling the rush of sea air. She dropped without panic or concern, with arms outstretched, fingers pulling from the fabric of the world those things she would need.

In her right hand she grabbed a bit of wind. Her left hand grabbed a strand of sunlight, and she squeezed its warmth in her palm.

The part is the whole… There can be no separation.

The dancing waters rose to meet her. She pulled the wind about herself in a tight bubble, an ethereal armor, a sheathe of fresh air welded to her skin. She draped the sunlight across herself like a cloak, spreading warmth and light along her limbs. A second before she broke the surface of the sea, she became an oblong slab of granite which kept the semblance of her features.

The ocean swallowed the warm glowing stone and welcomed it with a rush of bubbles. It fell into an aquamarine realm where sunlight refracted across schools of silver fish. The stone Sharadza’s weight carried it into the purple gloom of deeper waters where sharks and rays skirted its sinking form. Then it entered the darkness that cloaked the floor of the sea, where gnarled reefs and forests of seaweed hid multitudes of darting, skimming creatures.

The stone Sharadza’s journey might have ended there, but it plunged into a great fissure like a meteor, shedding the golden radiance of a miniature sun. Inside the great chasm an ultramarine glow replaced the dark, and a wilderness of massive luminescent anemones waved their tentacles in silent dances. Immense squid sailed past the sinking stone, ignoring its advent, and rainbow- scaled fish parted ranks as it found the coral ridges of the chasm floor.

Some distance away, an even greater glow lit the depths in blazing hues of crimson, magenta, a dozen greens and blues, shining amber, and deep turquoise. There stood the immensity of the coral city and its palace, a citadel of spires, vaults, and terraces formed by ancient generations of polyp and shell. Giant anemones waved along its ramparts like the flags of sunken kingdoms. Subaqueous gardens enclosed its grounds for leagues, brimming with marine flora and fauna.

When the bright stone fell to rest among a forest of dancing blue-green weeds, it lay still for a while in its thin shell of air. It still emitted thillere, bute glow of the upper sun, and it had left a brilliant streak across this realm of watery twilight. A group of Sea-Folk swam from the palace in search of the sun-stone, gliding toward its resting place, waving cautious tridents in its direction. Their skins were a mix of silver and turquoise scales rippling in the aquatic light. Webbed fingers and toes propelled them through the depths with great speed, and their eyes were orbs of amber brilliance. Fish-lipped mouths hung open in wonder as they surrounded the Sharadza-stone. They bubbled in their mysterious language, spiny ridges on their backs twitching with excitement.

Making some decision, they hoisted the stone in one of their great nets and pulled it through the pastel city of coral toward the gates of the palace. Hundreds of their curious brethren watched them enter and some followed in their wake, eager to know the mystery of the glowing obelisk. The retrievers gained the accompaniment of a general dressed in plates of azure shell, and he conducted them through a great scalloped hall into the presence of their Queen. They sat the sun-bright rock on the floor before her pearly dais.

The Mer-Queen reclined at the base of a great upright oyster shell upon a seat forged of dead coral the shades of bone and sapphire. Jewels torn from a thousand sunken galleons dotted the nooks and crannies of the coral throne. The scales along her shoulders and arms gleamed soft as polished silver. Her great mane of air danced about her shoulders like black eels, alive in the subtle currents. She leaned forward, amber eyes narrowed to slits, and peered at the strange rock.

The mer-warriors slid away from their catch as it melted into the shape of a land-dweller. Sharadza stood at the foot of the Mer-Queen’s throne, gleaming in her golden armor of sun and air. Her dark hair danced like the Queen’s own now, though its thick curls gave her a wild and savage aspect. Some of the mer-folk shouted or whispered in their incomprehensible language, and the mer-general spewed a command, drawing a sword of jeweled bone. But Sharadza stared only at the Queen.

“My people do not speak your dry language,” said the Queen, her words like the notes of an underwater music. “Yet I do. What reason for this trespass?”

“Your warriors brought me here, Sea Queen,” said Sharadza. “How can that be a trespass? Am I not a visitor, having been escorted with all due honor?”

The Mer-Queen smiled, revealing pearly teeth with incisors like tiny fangs. “They thought you a sacred stone sent to us by the Sea God, or his brother the Sky. So they brought you to me. This was your intention, was it not?”

Sharadza swallowed. The brine did not enter her mouth, nose, or lungs. She breathed instead the air carried in the invisible sheathe about her skin. The golden light was of no substance, not really armor, but its glow kept her comfortable in these frigid depths.

“The Queen is wise,” she said. “I am Sharadza, Princess of Udurum, Daughter of Vod the Giant-King. I come for my father.”

The Mer-Queen placed a slim elbow on the arm of her throne, and rested her tiny chin against her palm. “The daughter of Vod, who was once called Ordra? Stealer of the Pearl?”

“Yes,” she said. Her father had admitted the crime, no use in denyno e Ping it. “Where is he? I know he came here to give himself up to your curse.”

The warriors and royal mer-folk weaved about the chamber like irritated fish, trying to understand what passed between the landwalker and their Queen.

“Your father was well warned,” said the Mer-Queen. “When he stole Aiyaia’s Stone, I told him never to enter the sea again or he would perish. Knowing this, he did return, though it was many years later. In truth, I had forgotten my vow… but I know all things that pass in this sea, so I knew when he returned.”

“What did you do? Kill him? Enslave him? I must know.”

Please tell me he lies in some dungeon. Please tell me you did not murder him. Please let me bring my father home. Gods of Sea, Sky, Earth, and Sun, grant me this.

The Mer-Queen blinked. “I did none of these things. It is true I took a legion of warriors to seize him. What we found was only a drowned Giant. His corpse floated among the seaweed, and he bore no crown or weapon.”

Sharadza winced. Her stomach writhed toward her mouth. She nearly fainted. Could the sea-bitch be lying?

“There were no marks upon his body, no wounds,” said the Mer-Queen. “His lungs were full of brine. We found him not far from the northern shore of his own kingdom. You may doubt my words, but I tell you true: Vod walked into the sea and drowned.”

“I don’t believe it!” Sharadza shouted. The mer-general raised his white blade but the Queen waved him away. The salt of the Princess’s tears ran down her cheeks inside the layer of air. The crystal drops could not blend with the greater salty flow of the ocean because of her spell. “You must have killed him! You sent him the nightmares – you drove him mad!”

Again the Queen waved back her guards. She swam upward from her throne, then glided to hover above Sharadza. “I swear by the Sea God’s beard, by the Sacred Pearl which Vod took, I took no vengeance on him. I sent no visions to torment him. I had all but forgotten his name until the day he re-entered my kingdom. We accepted the Great Pearl’s loss long ago, and we know who truly stole it. We do not linger on such loss here. The sea lives on, and so do its people.”

“What do you mean, ‘who truly stole it’?” she asked. “Was it not my father?”

“It was Iardu,” said the Mer-Queen, stroking Sharadza’s dry shoulder with delicate webbed fingers. The scales of her knuckles glimmered in the sheath of sunlight. “The Shaper sent your father. I knew this from the day it happened. Iardu’s hand shapes everyone he touches. He uses Land-Folk and Sea-Folk for his own purposes. I did not truly blame Vod, but had made my vow in anger. If I had found him alive in my realm, I would have killed or imprisoned him. But as I said, we found him dead.”

Sharadza’s head seemed to spin. Iardu had indeed reshaped her, opening her eyes to the heritage of her own power. How had he manipulated Vod into stealing the pearl, and for what reason? Vod had admitted the theft, but would not give the reason. Iardu had known the reason, but never mentioned it. Did Vod steal the Pearl so Iardu warl own poould teach him sorcery? Iardu said Vod had barely learned anything when he left… just like Sharadza. No, there had to be more to the story. Vod must have had a greater reason for doing Iardu’s dirty work.

“What about my father’s nightmares?” she asked the Queen. “Why did your words weigh so heavily on him? Why did he give up his family, his kingdom, and just walk into the sea? Why did he destroy himself?”

The Mer-Queen shook her head. Her serpentine locks twisted. “I did not know him, child,” she said.

Sharadza’s mind raced. What did Mother know of all this? Did she know Iardu was Fellow? That he had used Father to steal the pearl? Iardu must have the answers. Could Iardu be the one who drove Vod to suicide? If so, she would find out, and she would make him suffer. She would find a way.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I came here thinking I must be strong… demand my father’s release… and now I weep like a little girl.”

The Mer-Queen hugged her. “You have suffered a great loss. There is no shame in tears. Did you know that the oceans are the tears of the Gods? If even Gods can cry, why should we mortals be ashamed of it?”

“Thank you, Queen,” she said. “Might I know your name?”

“Indreyah,” said the Mer-Queen. “Perhaps there is something that can ease your pain. We laid Vod’s bones to rest in a cairn not far from here. My warriors will retrieve them, so you may bury him on land, among those he loved. Do you wish this?”

Sharadza nodded. The Mer-Queen spoke with her general, and he set off to put soldiers in charge of the exhumation.

“Swim with me in the coral gardens,” said Indreyah. “We rarely get a visitor from the dry world. Tell me the news of the landwalkers and their kingdoms.”

They skimmed along a great oval passage and out into the glow of rainbow anemones and groves of wafting seaweed. Fish, eels, and stranger creatures swam about the walls of living coral. Sharadza walked on the golden sand while the Mer-Queen hovered along beside her.

“Your kingdom is beautiful,” she told Indreyah. “How long have you ruled the sea?”

“I am old, child,” she said. “Old as selfish Iardu. Yet my memory fades. I sometimes recall being… someone else… something greater. Yet I am content here, with my people. This is the best of all worlds, among the endless bounty of the sea.”

She is of the Old Breed, Sharadza realized, but she does not remember it. She has carved her niche here in the Living World, and carved herself to fit it. Her True Self has taken root in this form in this realm. She has found herself by forgetting herself, creating the world she most desired. Perhaps this is what all living things do, sorcery or no sorcery.

“Iardu… said that he loved you.”

Indreyah halted, the webbed spikes along her spine shifting, the tiny gills on either side of her slim neck pulsingm nm"›

“Long ago, I believe he did,” she said. A wall of pink anemones waved their tentacles along the garden wall. “That is why he stole the Pearl.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jealousy,” she said. “I loved the sea… and Iardu loved me. For a while he was enough, but I could not stay away from my true love… and he would not follow me into its depths. I founded an empire here while he sat brooding on his island. At times he would come to me, always tempting me to leave my people behind and return to the sunlit world. He could never accept my marriage to the sea. My responsibilities here. He was insistent that I be his, so I banished him from the ocean… but he never forgot his obsession.”

“Is that all love is?” asked Sharadza. “Obsession?”

Indreyah caressed the sea-plants as she moved along the coral maze. “Perhaps,” she said. “You ask wise questions, Sharadza.”

“What happened? With the Pearl?”

“Iardu’s last desperate attempt,” said the Mer-Queen. “He sent Vod to steal it, knowing it was an object of worship that my people cherished above all else. Aiyaia was the Sea God’s daughter, and she made the Pearl in an age now forgotten. Iardu took the Pearl, using Vod as his hands, thinking I would come to his island and beg – or bargain – for its return.”

“And did you?”

“No,” said Indreyah. “I would not play his game. He might capture me forever with his magic if I left my own realm. So I let him keep the Sacred Pearl, for all the good it did him.”

“He told me he betrayed you…”

“So he did. Wicked, selfish Iardu. He could not shape me as he shaped the rest of the world. This he could not stand.”

“Perhaps he truly loved you,” said Sharadza.

The Mer-Queen shook her head. “True love seeks not to possess, but only to share itself.”

“What about my father? Why did he steal your Sacred Pearl for Iardu?”

“Who can say but Iardu himself? You might visit his island and ask him yourself.”

Or find him in the streets of Udurum telling stories to drunken laborers.

“I will ask him,” Sharadza told the Mer-Queen. “By the Gods of Earth and Sky, I will.”

The mer-folk brought her a great chest of stone banded with rusted iron, some relic of a sunken ship. Salt-crusted emeralds decorated the lid, and inside (said the Queen) lay the giant bones of her father. She did not have the heart or stomach to look at them. She trusted the word of the Sea-Folk on the matter. The Queen granted her a cadre of warriors to carry the chest to the shore, then it would be up to Sharadza to bring it a tthethe rest of the way home.

Indreyah offered her the hospitality of the palace for as long as she wished, but already Sharadza was growing cold in the marine depths, and she craved the fresh air and open spaces of the surface world. The Queen gave her a necklace of tourmalines and opals, dazzling in all the colors of the sea. At its center hung a fish-shaped talisman of dark jade, carved with the intricate skill of the Sea-Folk.

“This amulet will keep you safe beneath the waters,” said the Mer-Queen, “and grant you passage among the People of the Sea. And if you wear it while you sleep, we may speak together in dreams. Do you wish this?”

Sharadza nodded her assent and embraced the Queen.

“I can give you only my thanks,” she said, “and the friendship of Udurum.”

Indreyah smiled at her. “That is more than enough.”

The Sea-Folk watched, astonished, as she took the form of a golden eel, and the chest-bearers swam after her toward the upper waters. For some while they glided just beneath the surface, coming at last upon the white sands of a Stormlands beach. She was not sure exactly where, but somewhere on this same coast lay the port town of Murala.

She walked from the sea in her true form, shedding seawater like liquid sorcery. The mer-folk, eight of them in all, carried the chest onto the beach and set it gently on the sand, where its great weight sank a few fingerspans deep. The lid-stones gleamed in the sunlight, reminding Sharadza of her mother’s green eyes. The Sea-Folk said farewell in their bubbly language and dove beneath the waves.

She sat down on the wet sand, one hand on the lid of the chest-coffin, and wept. It was a clear day on the shore, and no boats or wandering villagers were around to witness her sorrow. It would not have mattered. She cried until she was done with crying. Then she stood, breathed in the crisp, salty air, and stared past the dunes toward the green plains.

At least there could be a funeral now. At least there could be a final acceptance of her lo ss. Her brothers would bear their sadness with grace. Fangodrel might not even care, or would hide his feelings in scrawled verse. Her mother had already wept enough. For her, too, this would bring a welcome closure. One final bout of grief and their lives could find a new pattern.

Why, Father? she asked the trapped bones. Why did you march off to death, believing it was the Sea Queen who tormented you? I must know the answer.

She laid her forehead upon the chest and reminded herself that Vod was an Uduru, a Giant. She was the daughter of an Uduru. Her heart pumped Uduru blood throughout her limbs.

The part is the whole…

Now she stood three times the size of a man, a full-grown Uduri Giantess. The sea wind caught up her black hair like a tangled mass of ravens’ wings. Her face was hardly changed, but her Giantess feet sank to the ankles in the sand. She lifted the massive chest onto her shoulder like a sack of flour and marched northward.

A flock of white gulls flew above, an aerial procession for the dead King’s homecoming.