Verse XI

  It was dark when Martella let sleep claim her, and it was dark when it relinquished its grasp. Her inner sense of time told her that it must be morning, and she believed it. Mother had worked hard so that she would have it, and so it must work. She swung from her hammock into the waters of the room, feeling around until her hands brushed against the boxy shape of a glow-worm lamp. With a twist and a shake, Martella roused its occupants, revealing the larger details of the sleeping chamber.

  She was surrounded by walls of kelpen fabric, loose at the bottom for the lower currents to flow through. Most color was lost in the dim light of the lamp, but she could see the contrast of a dark pattern on a darker backing. Four spars held the upper wall in place, and between them the hammocks were strung. Her sister's was empty.

  "Marilis?" she called. "Where did you go?" A light froth of panic passed over her for a second, a ripple which broke against her resolve. Her sister would be close by. That she knew. Marilis would never leave her alone, ever.

  One section of fabric shivered and then parted. A thick seam of light widened into an opening, with the silhouette of Marilis din Linnea within it. With a squeal of relief, Martella launched herself at her sister, tackling her before the other mer could clear the opening. "Oh! Where have you been? Has there been any news?" She was interrupted by a loud gurgling. "And will there be breakfast soon?"

  "Soon enough," promised her sister. "Come along."

  Following a narrow tunnel of fabric and passing through another seam, Martella found herself in a well-lit chamber with a translucent shell-plate set in the wall. Outside, the forever twilit city beneath the great tent continued on its myriad business as their host watched on. Inside, the table was set with meticulous care, each basket or cage of delicacies given its proper place in the order of consumption. Sweet pods, long pods, pearl roots, a dozen varieties of edible kelp and weed, wriggling shrimp and squirming salp—there was even a small bowl of kyun pods, their mother's favorite, which could only have come from the Linnea estate in the Mere Tessra?. Martella ate sparingly, but she had a bit of everything, nonetheless.

  Except for the first basket. The taste upon the waters turned her off even as it prodded at her brain.

  "You partake so early in the day?" her sister asked their host.

  "Some do," the Lady din Casima replied. With a short clap, a servant was summoned to remove the offending foodstuff. "It can be a difficult place, Mezzegheb, especially to be in charge. A single tuli in the morning does wonders, sometimes."

  Martella could not see a sneer on her sister's face, but she could hear it in the mer's voice: "Thank you for the offer, but no."

  "As you prefer." The viceroy smirked. "Your sister as well?"

  Depths take it, but she almost said yes. "I am happy with your meal, Your Elegance," she said politely. The twitches remained under the table, where the movement of her flukes blended with the currents down below. "I do not require anything else."

  "Ah, so..." Lanita din Casima stared at her with half-lidded interest. "Perhaps I have been reading the currents wrongly. A professional risk, of course, but I do pride myself on my ability in the art. It is how I gained the viceroy's office at the age I did. But if you say otherwise..."

  The mer's words trailed off, but their wake continued to shake the balance of the waters for several more beats. Martella chewed slowly, but when the silence had grown too long in the tail, she felt obliged to swallow and ask, "What do you mean, Your Elegance?"

  "Speaking from my experience, you would appear to be three, maybe four weeks off of a substantial tuli habit," said their host. "It's there in the twitches and the stutter, and quite pronounced."

  "I, I n-never..."

  "So you say, and that is where I float confused, for my same instincts speak to me of your sincerity." Lady din Casima pursed her lips in thought. "Ah, it is your mystery, and not mine. I shall not judge."

  Martella's nose twitched. She rubbed it absent-mindedly, but then the sight of her own hand, the skin of its back all smooth save for a single mole near the thumb... and why didn't she recall having such a mark, in such a place. Her flukes twitched harder.

  "We should move on to the business at hand," said Marilis. "There is much to do, if we are to locate the princess and render her to safety."

  The sly look, the secretive smile vanished from din Casima's face. "I have put the word out amongst the performance circles and tuli dens. If any have seen Sera the Red in the city of late, a handful of pearl should encourage them to tell us more. In truth, there may be a few of them waiting for just such a call to be made. Certainly none of them would volunteer if there was pearl to be had for it."

  "That says more for your city than I think you intend," said Marilis.

  The viceroy chuckled. "You would not be the first to make that observation, little shark. But if it means that we shall not have long to wait, well then..."

  It was halfway past the hour then. Before the blowing of the following hour's horn, a mer had joined the three of them in the chamber. She entered without fanfare, her head bared and her eyes downcast in the presence of Her Elegance. An exotic beauty of pale skin, pearly grey hair and scale, she wore a snugly fit weave of kelpen fabric that covered all even as it made the mer's figure abundantly apparent. Martella kept her own eyes down and away.

  "Drazielle. Why am I not surprised."

  "You know this mer?" Marilis' doubtful tones floated on the water like oil.

  "Few are the mers who live their whole lives in Mezzegheb from beginning to end, little shark. I do try to keep track of the ones who do. So, Drazielle, what have you to tell us?"

  The pearly mer's eyes shifted from the viceroy to the sisters in lavender and black. "Rightly unsure if'n it's worth your time..." she began.

  "But it was worth pearl when you mentioned it to the guards." The viceroy sighed. "You and I both know whom we shall discuss right now, and I am willing to double the bounty on information if you start talking within a five-count. One... two..."

  "Saw Sera the other day. Make that two evenings back," Druzielle said. "Wasn't exactly sure at first, cuz it was naught but a glance as she swam by with a couple 'a marks."

  "Her marks or your marks."

  Even the mer's pout was beautiful. Martella had given up on not looking, but she did what she could to avoid staring. "Would 'a been mine. Had a bump-in with 'em, got a guard to swim over, even, but they got away without paying."

  "A common scam," din Casima told her guests. "Cause a scene, call the guards, get a few pearl off the hapless caravanners before they realize what's floating. The ladies in the performance circles are supposed to be above such things, however," she added, with a pointed glare at Drazielle.

  "Hey, business was slow and I was in a mood, alright? Not that I got anything for my troubles. Li'l Orange might 'a paid triple for that bump if'n I caught her."

  Little Orange? Martella's ears perked at that. There was a familiar note to that description. Selecting one of their portrait shells, she presented it to the performer. "Did she look like this?"

  It was one of the better drawn of the sketches the had, the portrait of a petite mer with shorter hair and speckles on her skin and scales. By the notes etched along the side, they knew this mer to be orange in coloration, with a pronounced Arkhalan accent when she spoke.

  "A-yeah, that's the one. She and the bigger weren't looking where they were swimming, and they bumped me hard," Drazielle said again. "Nearly launched my entire top loose into the currents, and that thing's a pain to get back together on you fast-like. Had a show right after, too. So of course I wanted her to pay me for the time."

  "Yes, yes." The viceroy rolled her eyes and placed a few pearl into a dish upon the table.

  "Promised more 'n that," the pale mer said flatly.

  "And once you tell us something of substance, you shall have it. So, you saw this mer with Sera?"

  A nod sent whispy hair swirling. "Right at the start of my set. Sera was leading Li'l Orange and her friend through the back. Got a good look."

  Martella chose another shell from the stack. "Was this the friend?"

  It was the best defined of all the sketches, this one, of a rugged-looking mer, thin in the face but strong in the arms and chest, with a squared jaw and hair that was actually colored green in the etching, somehow. Their little sister had spent more time with this one than the other four combined, and she had to wonder at the artistry even as she wondered about dear Marai's state of mind.

  "No, no... didn't see this one. Would 'a remembered if'n I did. Coo-ee, she's... well, she's something," said Drazielle. "This other mer I saw, she... ah." There was a flick of the eyes towards the dish on the table.

  The Lady din Casima added a few more pearl.

  "Alright, then. It's a-coming back to me. This other mer was a bigger, and a strong one, too. Sort of a russet, light brown and red, arms thick as my tail. Her and her..."

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  With a grimace, another few pearl was added to the dish.

  "Her and her sister," the performer said. "Saw the two of 'em, like two fishes in a school over at the mooring posts. Had themselves a nice little float, too."

  "And you're sure they were friends with this Sera mer?"

  The pearly mer snickered. "I told 'em to tell Red that I said hello, and they didn't even ask who I meant. Yeah, they know her. She must 'a been helping Li'l Orange hide out in a side tent all night and sent the sisters to fetch their stuff. Two of 'em said they were heading 'round to the back flaps, up northeasterly, cuz their friends weren't feeling up to a long swim, but..."

  "Not with one of Sera's crew."

  "My thought exactly, Your Elegance. Me, I figger they were meeting up with some mer outta town. Maybe even some mers," Drazielle said. "Not that I care why, but you probably do. Am I right?"

  "Just... go," said the viceroy. "Leave. Take your bounty and be gone."

  The performer did not need to be told twice. The pearl plate was emptied and the mer's flukes out of the chamber even before the words ceased to echo in the water.

  "Was that worth even a small pearl?" asked Marilis. "It did not seem as though she knew much of anything."

  "She knew Sera was in town," said din Casima. "And there is little chance that she was mistaken. The two of them grew up together, though rarely have I seen less love lost between two mers. She also recognized one of Sera's co-conspirators and gave us a detail we did not have about our latter two mysteries."

  "Yes..." Martella examined the least detailed of the five sketches, paired portraits so generic in design that they could rightly be taken for any mer. "Sisters. Strong in the arms, a hair color..." There was something strangely familiar about the performer's description, and it annoyed her that she could not say why that was. A tug at the edge of her thoughts, a nagging that was not unlike how she felt about certain tastes on the water, if less nauseating.

  Now Marilis spoke: "But where are they going? You and that mer both seemed to know something, and we should know what that is. So tell us, Your Elegance."

  "Ah, little shark. Always on the move, always quick to the bite. Well, if she... if they have left the city on the northeasterly currents and did not immediately quit the Mere Almezzeb, then their most likely destination is Mezzeret, home of the mer equmara."

  Her sister swore, and not quietly.

  "Precisely. Dangerous to us, dangerous to the princess, and without much recourse for us to even follow them to the far reaches, for the sand currents are fickle and fraught. Unless they decide to return by way of Mezzegheb, we are not likely to see them again."

  "Unless they are lured back, drawn back, forced back," said Martella. Her fingers, palms, hands all itched with a sudden need for action. "T-tell me, Your Elegance, but do you still have problems with the Free Flow?"

  "Perpetually." The viceroy spoke through a grimace. "Yes, we suspect they have communications with the equmara, but there is little I am able to do unless and until we are able to prove that. We cannot even say how many members there are in the city."

  The sneer on Marilis' face truly befit a shark. "But if we needed a message sent, and were not too particular about how?"

  A reddish glint returned to blue eyes. "Yes, there is a thought. Let us discuss this further..."

  Verse XII

  At the heart of Mezzeret, as close to the geometric center of its complicated pattern upon stone, sat the Hall of Keepers. So Sera had called it as she ushered them over, and Rook was left wondering what it was that was kept. The only other keepers she'd ever heard of were the rune keepers of Arkhala, and oh! had Baba plenty of things not to say about those mers of the far north. One of these days she would have to nag the old mer into sharing some of those stories she sometimes hinted at.

  But this place, this hall... Rook kept her mind open as wide as it could stretch as she tried to encompass everything within her memory. The Hall of Keepers was a room without a top wall, an outline of a building in coral pillars with nothing above but the shining firmament. The ladies of the mer equmara came and went as they pleased, though plenty paused at least a few beats to smile and wave to the visiting manoa. Rook was still a beginner at telling the broad-faced mers apart, but she could pick out Blaer and Elspeth immediately by the patterns across their faces. She'd spent enough time studying them in detail the night before. The two sweeties each blew her a kiss on a swift, private flow before kicking off to wherever they needed to be.

  A happy shiver ran all the way down to her flukes. This adventuring stuff had its perks, that was for sure.

  If the Hall was the heart of the city, then the heart of the Hall was a circle of sand bounded by carved stone and coral blocks. Three mers floated above it, each one gone almost completely to grey, so Rook figured they had to be about of an age with Baba Rill. Fenella, Innis, and Islee, Sera had said their names were. She'd leave it to the rogue to remember just who was who.

  Lucky for her, she had little to say, so after all the introductions were made once again, for maybe the fifth time in three days, Rook could float on back and watch Sera do most of the heavy gabbing. The equmara all listened to her, at least, and even nodded along. It wasn't until the red mer began to draw out strange symbols on the sand below them that things got serious.

  "Where did you find these markings?" the first keeper asked.

  "Odd little shrine in the Mere Sangolia," Sera repiled. "So far out that there was naught else but the firmament and the abyss. So, you recognize 'em, then?"

  "Yes," said the first keeper.

  "It is not something which mers should interfere with," said the second.

  "Too late for that," said Sera. "Cuz whatever the something is, it's right interfering with us now. My friend Ardenne here is dumped chin-high into a muddy depth, and these markings are the ladder up. And it's something that the Crown ministry is interested in, so..."

  The third keeper spoke: "And thus, if we do not make it our business, the ministra will make it ours at the worst of all possible moments."

  "Way things are going, yeah," agreed Sera. "Already saw at least one Bryndoon out and about with a runic weapon, what like no one's seen since the last war. So the only question is, how big and how bad?

  "Another question," said Ardenne. "What in all depths does it even say?"

  A good one, that. Rook had bumped her brain on the funny scribbles for a few days and couldn't get even the start of an idea. Where did one part end and another begin? No telling. Where did the words even start? She didn't know.

  "We cannot say," said the first keeper. "Not to those who do not already know. Only to our successors may certain things be said without foreknowledge."

  Ah, so they were that sort of keeper, thought Rook. Keeping secrets.

  "What we may say..." The second keeper choked on her water for a beat, then looked to her fellow sisters. The other two equmara nodded, and so she continued. "What we can say is that there is a fact, a history to these markings which the Temple has declared anathema. Our knowledge of it, in even this smallest part, led to the Fugitives War, to the willing exile of our foremothers. The Temple believes the knowledge now lost, but we keep it safe for the future, and keep it secret for our safety."

  Sera nodded. "We understand."

  "We do?" muttered Ardenne.

  "But..." said the third keeper as she traced one section of markings with a finger. "There is mention here of aught that is not explicitly forbidden. A place—places, rather. Seven in all are described. The cavern of stillness behind the cliff..."

  Rook was pretty sure she wasn't the only one to get a shiver at the reminder of that little adventure. But if ever a place had seemed important, the lair of the hag certainly had. She wondered what these other places were like.

  "The heights of heat," the keeper continued, "and the depths of stone. The heart of ice and the pit of..." Mobile lips curled and twisted as their owner pondered. "I am not sure of the right word here, but it is akin to the snapping shock of the striped eel, which bites without its mouth."

  "The fulgurant force," said Rhia. "All these places are related to the forces under the firmament, are they not? The cavern... you remember it, correct?" the princess asked to her friends. "Stillness, ebb. The others mention heat, stone, chill, shock... and the other two?"

  "The House of Mother's Wisdom," said the third keeper, "and the circling current. Fecundity and flow. You are correct in your surmise, young one."

  Rhia almost smiled at the compliment before apparently remembering she didn't like equmara that much. The frown wasn't as stuck to her face as before, though.

  "Awful vague," said Ardenne. "Not much to go on at all."

  "Not necessarily," said Rhia. "Seven forces, seven seas."

  "Nine seas," said Jumilla, who up to this point had been hanging back and letting others talk.

  "The Mere Tessra? is technically one half of the Mere Kazahn," Rhia countered. "Historically, it was partitioned after the mer galda gave up their claim in preference for the Mount of Valden. And it's right on the other side of the Black Flow from the Mere Le?si, so you could even claim that it's one broad sea from end to end." The princess didn't catch the funny looks on the twins' faces, but Rook sure did. Might be this conversation got continued later.

  "But the Mere Sangolia..." Now, Rhia paused. "Well, that's where this mystery message was found, so it's not likely to be giving directions to itself, is it?"

  "Got a point," Sera admitted. "And if''n there's one thing the Mere Almezzeb has, it's currents and flow. So, Grand Keeper Islee, would you have an idea where a mer might find this circling current?"

  The third keeper, Islee, drew back her lips into what should've been a smile if not for teeth. The mer equmara had a right set of chompers. "This is verging on matters which..."

  "Understood. One last item, then. Ardenne, show 'em the ring."

  Rook had almost forgotten the little band of inky black existed. The green mer kept it out of sight, tied to a sinew thong around her neck, and Rook had the feeling that only its obvious importance to her mother kept the hunter from simply throwing it away. As usual, light did funny things around the ring, and the rays trickling down from the firmament seemed to curve around it, rather than reveal any details.

  "This..." said Ardenne. "This came from the same shrine as those markings. The ministra, she wants it, wants to know what it is, and is willing to do... to do terrible things to any mer who might know more. I'm thinking we should figure it out for ourselves before she does, and our only lead is this list of places you mentioned. Please, Grand Keeper Islee. Point the way, and we shall be gone without another word or question."

  The keepers drifted away for a long set of beats to confer, which was Baba Rill's favorite word for looking busy and hoping the customer went away. It hadn't always worked at the shop, and it wasn't going to work here because Sera and Ardenne were stubborn as crabs, but at this point in a haggle, a short break was expected. She doubted it would last long.

  And it did not, in fact. Rook held back a giggle as she wondered what prize she might've won, if'n it were a contest, only for the giggle to turn to a snort of surprise as a stray current tickled her right ear. Glancing that way, she could see Elspeth and Blaer grinning from behind a column. She quietly swam over.

  "Hey," she said to the pair. "Gonna be a while. Everyone's still in a hagglin' mood."

  "Yeah, we can see that," said Blaer.

  "Never seen Innis so serious," added Elspeth. "It must be important."

  "A-yeah, but dunno how much yet," Rook admitted. "Seems like every time we find somethin', it gets even more important. What'cher gonna do, though?"

  "We can think of a few things." Elspeth giggled.

  "What, in the middle 'a the day? That's a... that's a..." Her words sputtered out as Blaer ran fingers down the side of her tail, right along the most sensitive line of scales on her flank. "That's a swell idea, honest, but I... I gotta... could'jer stop doin' that for a beat so I can tell yer to stop doin' that?"

  "Oh, stop teasing her," said Elspeth.

  "Um, yer be doin' it too."

  "So I am." The equmara lass giggled. "Sorry, but we've never had a manoa leman before, and it is such fun..."

  In the not too distant waters at the center of the hall, Innis was announcing the keepers' decision. Much as she wanted to continue this conversation and all the non-wordy things that went with it, Rook had to shush the lovely pair so she could hear properly.

  "It is the decision of this hall that an allowance be made for Sera, friend of the equmara, and her companions to visit the Flowing Gardens of the Stone of Mezzeret."

  Hardly had the words met the waters when the murmurs of many surprised equmara chased right after. Rook turned back to her new friends and said, "Okay, no idea what that means, but it's a biggie, innit?"

  "The biggie-est," said Elspeth. She and Blaer embraced the orange mer from both sides, blowing a few sweet words into either ear. "See us before you go?"

  "And when I get back," Rook promised.