Fire (The Mermaid Legacy - Book 2) (8 page)

He continued to watch me for a while, making no attempt at introduction, his expression growing harder as he did so.

“Stand up,,” he barked eventually, his voice gravelled with age.

I obeyed hesitantly, an edge of irritation making me wonder what right he thought he had to order me around.

His wrinkled face creased into a frown as I straightened up.

“Where are your clothes?”

I glanced down at the strips of matting wound tightly around me before the netting had been tailored to my body.

“Neith took them,” I replied, not knowing if he knew who Neith was but not wanting to explain any of it either.

His frown deepened. “Disgraceful,” he muttered angrily before straightening and picking his way over the rusted bones of the ship to my side of the hull.

My skin prickled as he closed the space between us, all too aware that I didn’t know this man or where his loyalties lay. He could be my enemy and I’d have no way of knowing until it was too late.

I pressed my palms together, allowing the comforting tingle to trickle down my arms and shimmer across my palms.

“You won’t be needing that,” he informed me, his eyes flashing to my hands.

“I don’t know that.”

He continued to gaze at me, the frown still creasing his forehead as he slipped the long robe from his still powerfully built shoulders and handed it to me.

“You are Alexandra, Defender of Men,” he announced.

“My name is Alexandra,” I replied, his knowledge of my name making my hair stand on end. I took the robe gratefully and draped it over my shivering shoulders.

He shook his head.

“You are Alexandra, Defender of Men!”

“OK whatever, what’s your name?”

“I am Pelagius, King of the mountain pod.”

“You can’t possibly be Pelagius.”

Merrick had once shown me the beautiful monument Pelagius had created for his Queen Sabine when she died. An entwined carving of two lovers suspended between two massive boulders and draped in a tumble of lacy vines that tangled around them in a leafy embrace.

I’d asked Merrick how Pelagius had died and he’d brushed the question aside stating that no one knew, and that perhaps Pelagius still lived. I’d laughed at him because Pelagius would have been well over a hundred years old if he still lived.

I pulled away from the memory as Merrick’s smile filled my mind.. Every time I thought about Merrick, worry would fill my stomach with knots of dread.

Pelagius had been watching me for a while having not graced my question with an answer.

“What are you doing here, Alexandra, Defender of Men?”

“I’m escaping and planning,” I replied, deciding this was the simplest answer to a such a complex question.

“To the ocean.” It was a statement.

I shook my head. “No, not yet, I needed to get out of the sea so the trackers can’t find me.”

His frown deepened. “Why?”

It was a question that held far too much explanation, far too much tactical information for someone I’d only just met. For all I knew he could be on Neith’s side.

“What are
you
doing here?” I asked, hoping to garner a bit more information before I gave too much away.

“I’ve been following the unfurling of events through aquatica and recent abominations have pulled me from my Somnus. It seems there is perhaps need of the timeous wisdom I possess.”

“Aquatica?”

“Yes, Alexandra, Defender of Men, I am a Water Sprite I am privy to all that the water communicates.”

“So you know about Neith?”

He nodded grimly.“He has and still is committing a great many atrocities. I am ashamed to say he comes from the mountain pod, for I fear that what he is doing will forever be a blot on our good name.”

I was already feeling a lot more comfortable with him but needed just a little more information on where he’d been for the last fifty years and what it was that had drawn him out now.

“So what were you doing before the er…Som…?”

“What is the word in English now?” He tapped his forehead impatiently with a talon-like fingernail. “Sabine taught me…” His mouth twisted a little in sadness around her name.“Ah…hiberning.”

“Hiberning?”

“Yes, um, sleep…”

“Oh you mean hibernating?”

He beamed at me, transforming the folds in his face and making him look much younger.

“Yes, yes that is the word. I must remember it, she would want me to remember it…” His face fell and his eyes dulled a little as I recognised the grief at the loss of his love Sabine. “You were planning something?” His direct question left me with little choice but to answer.

“Yes, how to save Merrick actually.”

He nodded. “You were either very brave or very stupid to go to Ferengren on your own.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.”

He beamed at me. “Come, Alexandra, Defender of Men, you must eat something if you are to regain your strength for what is still to happen. And as you said, we must plan very carefully our next move.”

“Who said you were part of my plan?”

He laughed heartily. “You will need me in the days that come, Alexandra, perhaps more than you know. It is always good to a have a friend on your side, wouldn’t you agree?”

I did agree with him, I just hoped that he was the type of friend I could trust.

The rainstorm had blown inland as we spoke and he led me back to the beach, instructing me to wait for him.

I watched him slip around the sea-facing side of the ship, returning a few minutes later with his arms filled with plump oysters.

Using his talon-like fingernails he touched the hinge side of the oysters lightly, a slight smile playing on his lips as they opened obediently.

He removed them quickly, washing them in the surf before setting them out in their clean shells between us.

I watched as he ate his noisily, slurping the grey mess into his mouth and smacking his lips with each swallow.

“Eat,” he ordered around a mouthful of oyster.

I picked mine up gingerly, closing my eyes, and poured it quickly down my throat. A salty savoury flavour filled my mouth. It was delicious except for the texture.

He placed another six before me and continued to enjoy his meal.

“I haven’t had those in a hundred years.” He sighed, his eyes closed, the wind whipping his long hair around his face. “Good, yes?” His blue eyes were piercing as they waited for my response.

I nodded.

“Now tell me, Alexandra, Defender Of Men, why is it that you are back on land?”

“Before I answer your questions I need you to answer some of mine.”

He scowled at me but waited.

“How do I know you’re not with Neith?” I decided to be as direct as he was, not having the time to mess around with half answers that gave me no clear understanding of which side he was on.

“Did Merrick tell you about my Sabine?”

I nodded.

“Then that should be answer enough for you. I could never destroy the species she came from.”

I gazed at him for a few moments longer, weighing up the risk of trusting him before deciding I didn’t really have a choice. He seemed sincere and if I was to form the army I knew I needed I would have to start trusting Oceanids at some point. I shrugged in answer to his original question.

“I had to leave Merrick because Neith would have persuaded me to join him.”

“How so?”

“You’ve been ‘listening’ to the water, you should know.” My tone was belligerent even to my own ears, but I really didn’t have the confidence in my decision to leave Merrick for anyone to question it.

I eventually looked up when the silence had grown so deep and long that I wondered if he’d perhaps left.

“You are full of much courage, Alexandra, Defender of Men,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

“Would you stop calling me that!” I snapped at him.

“But it’s your name!”

“I am no defender of men, I can’t even defend the only man I have ever loved. I had to run to stay out of Neith’s clutches and Merrick is still there with him. I can’t bear to even think how much he’s been hurt for helping me to escape, and if Neith kills him…” I gulped at the briny air before shaking my head defiantly. “I need to get back to him, I need to stop Neith…”

He curled his long fingers over my shoulder and squeezed it gently.

“I too have suffered great loss, dear child, and with all of my power and influence and strength I was powerless to save the one I loved. You have shown great courage and determination in leaving Merrick with Neith, extraordinary really, given who you were when you first met Merrick. That is the power of true love, it enables us to do great things. You will still prove your name Alexandra but instead of saving just one man, you will save countless.”

I gazed at him as his eyes deepened in colour and pain.

“I find myself quite in awe of you, young Alexandra.”

I shook my head. “There is nothing to admire in me..”

“I too have run in the past, Alexandra, I know the shame of it. The difference between you and me though is that while I ran from my responsibilities, I ran from those who depended on me and I hid away in a half-life, burying myself in my grief. You run towards those things. You run so that you can save Merrick, save humans, save Oceanids from Neith’s tyranny, because as much as pollution threatens us, Neith’s tyranny threatens us much, much more. Prove yourself worthy of the love and hope Merrick has placed in you by trusting yourself to defeat Neith.”

I hoped with all my heart that Pelagius was right.

“For now, my young friend, you must rest and learn, if only for a few hours before we set off on this adventure together.”

He stood, patted my shoulder, gathered the shells from the oysters and drifted off down the beach, picking up pieces of driftwood as he went. I watched his slow and graceful movements, mulling over all he’d said, watching as he occasionally walked in the surf, his ageing body glistening pale in the storm-washed streaks of the setting sun.

A few hours later we both huddled around a fire that leapt with blue, green and yellow as the flames consumed the salt-soaked driftwood.

Pelagius had explained how he’d chosen the mountain caves and worked with the Oceanids who had followed him from the sea to build the first rudimentary avens they’d lived in. He’d described his knowledge of the mass of humans that crowded into the beautiful valley and how he’d been monitoring them for several days.

He’d spoken of the first moment he set eyes on Sabine, describing her as the moon to his sun, the music to his song, the water to his earth.

He spoke of the amazing changes and improvements she’d made to the pod, how she’d introduced them to human inventions and shown them how compassionate and smart and wonderful humans really were.

He’d explained the cultural rules they’d broken in finding a way for the Oceanids to thrive on land, a first in Oceanid history as they’d always remained loyal to the sea.

“Often when something is different, when it challenges what everyone has always done, the group will try to break it before they accept it. In our case they eventually succeeded by removing the source of the change. Sabine.”

“They killed her?”

He didn’t need to answer the question, the horror and devastation of it was etched deep into the bitter twist of his mouth and the spark of rage that burned in his eyes.

“So many of them were involved, this people I supposedly loved. Their roles were purposeful in some cases and horribly accidental in others. I would have killed every last one of them if she hadn’t made me promise with her dying breath to look after them, to fight for them.”

He shook his head wryly before gazing up at the star-bejewelled heavens.

“I first found her by listening to the voices in the water. Human voices and motives are somewhat muted in the water, but when she fell into the pool in the cave, I knew, in that instant, that she was everything I needed. After she passed, I avoided the water at all costs, until one day last winter I accidently brushed the surface of a pool. Timing is everything, my dear, and that day, Neith happened to be communicating with his many followers, and what I heard—” He shuddered. “It will be the abomination of an age if it is allowed to take place.

“I have been listening to every skin-crawling motive of Neith and his followers for some time now. I have been monitoring as much as possible.”

“You mean Neith was planning something like this before I came along?”

Pelagius chuckled. “The self-orientation of youth,” he murmured shaking his head. “Yes, my dear, Neith has been planning this for a long time. You posed a frustrating obstacle when you first arrived at the pod and it took all of your young Merrick’s considerable skills to keep you from his clutches. His current plan of action has only been accelerated by your exceptional talents.”

“
Was
accelerated,” I cut in. “I’m not accessible to him any more.”Pelagius’s expression was anything but comforting.

“From what I’ve heard, Neith’s not about to give up because you refused him, I suspect he will continue to hunt you but only as a secondary act to the war he is constructing. He will go ahead with or without you.”

“And if I try to stop him he’ll kill Merrick.”

Pelagius was quiet for a while.“Does that mean you will not fight him?” he asked.

“I want to get Merrick back,” I replied stubbornly.

“Does that mean you are willing to sacrifice human lives?”

I stood and began to pace the beach. “No…I mean I obviously don’t want Neith killing humans.”

“So you are willing to sacrifice Oceanid lives to get Merrick back?”

I scowled at him, turning his question over in my head.

“No,” I replied eventually. “Why does anyone’s life have to be sacrificed? Surely we can work this out…” Even as the words left my lips I knew that that outcome was an impossibility.

I sank into the sand. “Why do I have to choose? No matter which way I turn someone will be getting hurt…I hate this…”

“And it is that hatred for violence that you must cling to and at the same time overcome. Cling to it so that you remain hesitant to send any innocent soul into the ugliness of battle and overcome it with the knowledge that before this adventure is concluded many will die.”