Blood, Honey, Salt (Part 5)

Note: This story is part of a series. The previous instalment is here. If you haven't started at the beginning, I recommend going to Part One first.

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After The Funeral: The Witch

His shroud had been strips of the finest and blackest linen. They had wrapped it around his desiccated body in many layers. The coins on his eyes had been solid gold, which the kingdom could ill-afford. It seemed a terrible waste. The priest intoned garbled nonsense (which is what happens when people try to make sense of death). The burning ship carried him away.

Everyone has dispersed now. You are the only one left - standing alone on the black rock as if made of stone yourself, eyes raking the horizon. The mist permeates your robes and segues almost imperceptibly into a determined drizzle. Waves lap inches from your feet.

There is a palpable lull while people absorb the shock. It will not last. They will become restless. No one likes things to be uncertain. Things must continue in a predictable way, and this includes a person appointed ruler. A suitable person - not just anybody. It has to make sense. Children can be ailing, bellies empty, fields blighted... People can tolerate all kinds of hardships if there is some semblance of order. If there is a hand on the tiller. If there is someone to blame.

Already the council are squabbling over which of them or their loved ones should take the King’s place. Vultures, the lot of them, ready to pick the carcass down to its bones.

No - if the milk-nurse is right, if the boy is alive, then you must find him. He was the King’s own ward, and the closest there is to an heir. The council will still have to choose a regent. The boy will have to be trained for his role. But it could be the best path.

Was that what Aerick had intended?

His pride had prevented him from treating the boy as anything other than an insurance policy. A remote one, at that. Always, the King hoped he would re-marry and get a son. But his health had begun failing not long after he adopted Fynn. His mind had started unravelling at a pace to match his failing body.

If the youngster proves himself unfit, what then? You already know - the Order will do as they have done for hundreds of years. They will maneuver a suitable replacement close to the throne, and dispose of the boy when he comes of age.

You will have a hand in molding him before then. If you fail, then one of your sisters will come to fix your mistake. She will wear black robes to your white, unmask herself to him and sheath her knife in his heart.

It is always a knife. The protocol forbids arrow or poison. You will be expected to keep your vow to protect him, just as she keeps to her vow to remove him.

I am done with oaths. Oaths are chains, and duty is heavy.

The ship’s flames leave a broken orange trail on the dark surface. Rain comes down in earnest. The sky darkens further, the water rippling sullenly... And still you wait.

All other avenues have led to a dead end. Aerick was thorough. Paranoid, even. This is the last lead, and it is a faint trail. A week ago, you would have said it was no more than a thread of fancy, but there are echoes in each story that ring of truth.

If nothing else, Aerick’s pyre will attract his attention. As young as he is, he will come to pay his respects in his own childish way, and I can convince him to return with me.

There is nothing but the sting of salt, the rain plastering wisps of your hair to your face. And always, always, the incessant suck and swill of the sea, like an old man’s tongue on a hard-boiled sweet.

A high little voice sounds in the still air behind you,

“They won’t come.”

Damn. Another dead end.

You refuse to look at him this time. The milk-nurse was right, this is a hard child to love. You keep your gaze on the expanse of water.

“They might.”

“No. She doesn’t trust you.”

How can I get him back to the castle? Can I even stop him from slipping away again?

“You found what you were looking for, Your Highness?”

“I found something.”

“Good. I found something, too.”

You hold little hope this will interest him. He would consider it much less interesting than whatever he has discovered.

“Can you hear them?”

You dislike admitting ignorance in any matter, and you had not known there was anything to hear. After a moment's consideration, you steer the conversation into more comfortable waters. It is important you can return him to the castle, but a wrong step, a wrong word, and he could startle away like a wild animal.

“Do not go up to the castle without me. Some may wish you harm.”

He doesn't answer, but you can feel the cogs turning in his mind. He is, after all, a child, and there is one sure way to make the prospect of going up to the castle appealing: forbid it.

The silence spools out long in an unbroken, gossamer-fine thread. At the exact moment you wonder if he has left as quickly as he came, something slimy slithers around your ankle. The grip feels almost tight enough to break the bone.

You cry out in shock and pain, and barely have time to take another breath before it takes you. A split second before your head slips under the water, you hear him telling you, “Oh. She changed her mind.”

Black tentacles wrap around your whole body, gripping you tight. One lands across your face, stopping your mouth and nose with a huge pink sucker. More tentacles pin your arms to your sides, others scull swiftly through the water, pulling you deeper and further from shore. Your lungs scream. The brief wisp of air you managed to capture is painfully insufficient. You lose consciousness.

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Waves splash outside the cave, and the moon is shining on the water.

How long was I unconscious?

You replace your mask, dislodged by your unexpected swim.

Did anyone see? Does a.... a.... a kraken even count?

When you begin getting to your feet, a wry voice comes from the shadows, filled with gravel and sarcasm.

"I wouldn't move if I were you."

A moment later (you can almost hear the eye roll), "Oh don't stay there like that on your hands and knees. You look ridiculous. Like a whatsit, a sheep. I meant, don't go anywhere."

Anger and rare embarrassment have you on your feet in a moment. Your cheeks burn hotter when she chuckles raspily, "Oh, don't be like that. Come on. Sit." A tentacle pats a nearby rock, but you fold your arms across your body and glare into the shadows.

"Suit yourself." There is a shrug in her voice, and then it continues, "I was going to tell you a story. You should be sitting comfortably."

Your eyes are adjusting, but depth perception is still difficult. It is hard to tell how deep into the cliff-face this cave goes, or how large this beast-woman might be. The feel of your knife under your fingers is reassuring.

"I know you are playing with it," she says with a snigger. "Go ahead, if it makes you feel good. It won't help you against me."

There is a splashing sound, and some of the rasp leaves her voice.

"The boy will be King. You will see to it. He will give us his protection, and you will assist him. We will have no more nosey men poking about. No more nets and spears. We will fade into faerie-tale, and you will help us - or there will be consequences."

"No one believes you exist. Everyone thought the King delirious. You are safe."

A snarl rips from the depths of the cave.

"Oh, but they do, and we are not! First that grinning curly-headed lout and his tin fool friends. and a steady stream of idiots since! Men are a curious and perverse lot. I told you: nets and spears. We will have no more of it. Find a way."

Then, despite the fact you have barely uttered three sentences, she says,

"Now you shut up and listen."

Gods, she is infuriating!

"We don't concern ourselves with what goes on up there as a general rule. So I don't know how it happened, and I don't care. The idiot was unconscious and sinking deeper. It should have died. Ryelle gave it air and dragged it up to the rocks. She sat close by until it woke. She always was one to tend the little broken things. For thanks, it raped her and knocked her unconscious. If she hadn't been singing to her sisters before it opened its eyes, they never would have known where she was. No one would have been there to help her. If the idiot hadn't shoved her back into the salt, she would have died up there under the sun. That might have been a mercy."

She sounds bitter. Your suspicion is coalescing into certainty.

Aerick was not mad after all.

Or rather, he was, but some of his ravings were not insanity. He was telling the truth, but it sounded too sensational to be real.

Cold, gloopy revulsion settles around your heart.

Aerick! What did you do?!

"Ahhh, poor Ryelle. Do you know of a fierce creature with a mane, and claws? That's what her name means, in an old tongue. For all that red hair, like a mane."

You think of the roaring sandy-coloured beasts from back home, and nod.

"My Ryelle... She did not deserve any of it. It might have been better if she'd died when the monster threw back his catch. If we had known how he had wounded her... But we didn't. We patched her up and thought that was an end to it. Nope! She came to me months later. Aunty, she says, I think I'm in trouble. Damn right she was in trouble - his seed had taken root and her body not built to accommodate it."

You find your voice at last.

"You could not help her."

"I could not. I tried, but it was beyond what I can help with. The little brute had to come out one way or another. Either way it could kill her, even if she spawned it right there in front of me that day. Even then, it was doing damage to her insides. He doomed her to death."

I am not insane. There is a tentacled woman speaking to me. I can hear the splash of the water she is scooping over her gills.

"She always did pity unfortunate and broken things. Always the bravest of us. There was one person who might be able to help her, and none of us were fond of the idea. But it was the last hope, and she faced it with courage. I convinced her to sit on that rock and sing, night after night, until he came down to meet her. He refused at first, but I can be ever so persuasive. We made a plan to smuggle her into the castle under the cover of a storm... Storms are my specialty, you know. I'm ever so good at them. I can do Compulsions as well, but storms are the most fun."

You pronounce the unfamiliar name with care, like tasting foreign soup, "Ryelle. She is like you."

The raucous cackle bounces off the rock walls, "Oh, there is no one like me, honey! The idiot wouldn't have known where to put it if he pulled that trick with me! His little prick would have been even less use than yours!"

Her chuckles subside and she sobers a little. "But a little like, I guess, to your eyes. She's not blessed like I am..." - tentacles slither close, brush over your feet and pull back again - "...but none of them are."

You try a different tack. "The King spoke of you. You cursed him."

"I did. He deserved it for butchering my Ryelle."

"He didn't. Someone else did."

She sounds angry, and then bitter. "Because he allowed it! Or even ordered it! Because he failed! Because he didn't keep his promise! ... It does not matter, anyway."

There is a movement in the shadows, as of a hand waving dismissively, and she spits, "Men are men, always."

Now her voice is laced with deep sadness, and the iron hard certainty of a lesson learned.

"We thought he would feel shame, we thought he would be willing to right his wrong. We under-estimated how evil men can be."

"It was a powerful curse. Your magic is strong. But it did not keep women safe from him. It made him worse."

Poor Gretchen.

Your attempt to mollify her is transparent, but it worked, at least a little. She sounds pleased.

"Oh! I didn't curse him to stop him touching women. I cursed him to stop him living. I sang the tumours into his body. I fed off the salt in his blood to make the magic strong, and the cancers grow fat and painful... I'm glad it worked. I do hope it was good and slow." There is unctuous vindictiveness dripping from her tongue.

The wasting disease. How he suffered for so long. Even when the physik managed to ease his pain, it never fully left him. How the madness was deep in his bones and his brain... Awake or asleep, tormented constantly. Always doubting what was real... the doubt sending him spiralling deeper into madness... How he died sick, in pain, and insane.

She is chuckling again. "If he couldn't touch women, that was his own doing. He poisoned his own cup.... The git."

There is a business-like slurrrrppp of her many limbs re-arranging themselves. Exactly as if she is sitting up sharply to conclude matters.

"So! The boy does not know what torture and indignity men wreaked on his poor mother. I haven't told him. But these are our terms: You will raise him right, and put him on the throne, or I will tell him."

Realisation dawns.

"He hears you singing."

"Oh, yes! Of course. Lots of creatures sing to each other, to call to their pod, their pack, their flock. So do my girls. Most men can't hear us when we are deep underwater, but he has his mother in him. My song is special. Like I said: they aren't blessed like I am."

And Aerick, the fool, he thought the song was seducing him. Always self-centred, as if all precious things are trinkets for him enjoyment... As if the whole world were his brothel!

Her voice has become a threatening purr.

"He is a sensitive boy. If he finds out what really happened to his mother... He will eat away at the kingdom like a canker, then burn it to ashes for good measure."

You think of the pits of his eyes and admit to yourself that the boy is capable of doing exactly that.

"And don't you think I won't help him, because I will. Remember: I can bring storms. I can wreck harvests. I can drive you to madness. I can pull down boats. I can scare away fish. I can sink imported grain to the seabed. I can sing illness and death into your veins."

You can feel her eyes on you in the darkness. Her voice brightens.

"Her sisters will take you back to the rock where the boy waits. He will take your hand and walk with you back up to the castle, meek as a little.... what do you call them? Lamb. He can come visit, if he likes, when the tide is right. We have no boys down here, so he is a bit of a novelty. My girls are ever so fond of him. Of course, we don't need them - boys I mean - but I hear you sun-baked lot aren't there yet. All the same, they like him. They think he is sweet. He swims ever so gracefully, for a creature with no tail."

You have the sense that you are being ushered out of the cave, thank you for stopping by... Don't hesitate to not-call again... Your feet are carrying you deeper and deeper into the water.

I have not even spoken agreement!

Eerie singing swells and fades behind you, compelling you to keep moving.... To take an enormous breath and hold it..... Before the water closes over your head, you hear her sardonic drawl, "I should let his hair grow out if I was you! And make sure he wears shoes!"

Of course, instinct screws your eyes shut, but your force them open, and peer into the gloom. Oh! Here they come! Undulating through the water, nude bodies the colour of the sea in all her seasons. Lithe and muscled from a lifetime of swimming as constantly as breathing. Absurd dark blue-green nipples. Hair like finest seaweed, one blue black, and the other an inky green. The lower parts of their bodies curve into powerful tails. You see what the tormented King was trying to describe to his baffled bath house artist.

It feels as though Time is suspended here underwater. Movement is difficult, weighted down by your robes. The sisters are not as strong, nor as fast as their aunt, who moved with incredible speed despite her bulk.

Despite your best efforts, the last bubbles escape your lungs. The raven-haired sister unhooks your mask and cups your face with slender fingers. They feel dry, smooth, and hardly webbed at all. She presses her lips to yours and gives you breath. The ethereal shifting and billowing of her hair reveals her gills. Ghastly gashes under her ears flaring open greedily to replace the oxygen she is giving you.

There should have been three. Thanks to Aerick, the world is poorer.

Fynn is waiting for you where you left him. His own half formed gills are fluttering in the torrential rain. You take his collar from the depths of your pocket and fasten it to hide them, as his nurse must have done many times before. It has lost its stiff starchiness, but it will do to help keep his secret. After a moment's hesitation, you lower your mask, for the first time in many years, so you can plant a kiss on his forehead. You make your way back up to the castle with his clammy little hand in yours, and the taste of salt still on your lips.

Missive: Take that bath house apart, stone by stone and tile by tile. Apprentice the scientist's daughter to a skilled midwife. She must use what knowledge she has gleaned. It came at too great a cost. Have her home searched. We feel sure she has made a copy of her father's research. Most important: try to love this motherless child. Send word of his progress. And last: find a storyteller and a scribe, to write these creatures and events out of the world and into the faerie. That will be for the best.

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THE END

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