Waking Storms (18 page)

“Some of you still care about the timahk! There’s a strange mermaid caught in a net; we have to save her! I need a knife. Now!” Luce heard her voice crack with urgency.

Jenna had fetched a pile of scarves. She was edging closer to Luce, working up the nerve to lunge at her. And Anais was still behind her somewhere, moving, closing in.

“Why are you all such cowards?” Jenna raged. “Aren’t all of you sick of worrying about her? Let’s get this
over
with!” A few more of the girls swam slowly forward, and Luce realized that she was almost surrounded. Mermaids were digging through the random trash heaped up all over the shore, probably gathering pantyhose and ropes that they could use to tie her up.

Suddenly Luce saw Dana’s face. Her brown eyes were wide in warning and her mouth sagged wordlessly. The truth flashed in front of Luce: once they had her gagged and helpless Anais would order them to throw her on shore, just like she’d done to those larvae. Instead of saving the strange mermaid all she’d managed to do was set herself up to be murdered. Something silvery gleamed in the shadows behind Jenna, and Luce felt a flash of primal terror at the thought of metal violating her flesh. A slim hand held a curved, sinister-looking hunting knife up where Luce could see it, and for an instant fear almost overcame her. She was ready to dive blindly into the crowd of mermaids around her when she noticed the hand with the knife wasn’t poised to threaten her. Instead it was held out in a furtive offering, and Violet smiled shy and proud from the dimness behind Jenna’s back. Then Violet’s glossy brown head licked under the surface, so smoothly that no one but Luce saw her go. Deep below the water a soft hand gently tugged Luce’s fins, urging her to follow.

“I can send a wave to throw all of you on shore,” Luce announced. She tried to sound cold and determined. “Let me go now, and I won’t have to hurt you.” A few mermaids stopped where they were, gaping in sudden doubt, but Jenna gave a piercing cry and leaped.

Luce didn’t have a chance to gather her breath or to think about what she should do. Instead the music that burst from her was shrill and spontaneous and uncontrolled, yanking a vertical pillar of water straight up under Jenna. Jenna suddenly flailed at the peak of a steep-sided wave ten feet high, towering in the tightly confined space of the cave, and then Luce realized with dismay that the wave
was
about to throw Jenna far onshore. Luce barely mastered her voice in time to send the wave swinging sideways, slamming Jenna against a rocky outcropping instead. Jenna howled in shock from the impact and then dropped into the water, stunned and keening. Dozens of voices were jabbering, and tails flashed randomly through the cave’s continual dusk.

Luce dove. She might have hurt Jenna seriously, maybe even broken some bones, but there was no time to think about that. Luce whipped her way back out of the cave and angled toward the surface at the sight of wavering fins. Violet was there, a feverish glow in her eyes, her smile somehow sad and eager at the same time. And the distant, windy voice still beckoned them, though now it was so faint Luce’s heart burned with desperation at the hopelessness of reaching it in time.

Violet’s head dipped toward the water. It took Luce a moment to understand that Violet was bowing to her.

“Queen Luce,” Violet whispered, “you saved me before. I know you’ll save her, too!” Luce felt the handle of the knife pressing into her hand and tried to focus. She could just see the fishing trawler, a rusty dot propped in front of the dim blue shelf of Russia far away. In the instant before she dove, it occurred to Luce that the ship was farther from the safety of the coast than she had ever swum before.

The water became an endless gray-green tunnel. Luce drove herself relentlessly, the water whipping out behind her until it no longer seemed to be water but only an unceasing road. The pain in her body streaked like bubbles, like falling light, and more than once she slapped against startled animals, her speed throwing them aside. The baby faces of beluga whales winked at her, and she parted walls of fish with the currents that rushed off her body. She couldn’t hear the silvery voice anymore, only the storm of ripped water striking her cheeks like millions of torn flags. Every now and then she surfaced to catch a quick, panting breath, and also to make sure she was still heading for that distant fishing boat. Was she even getting any closer? And even if the strange mermaid was exceptionally strong, wasn’t it crazy to imagine she could survive so long without air? Luce saw the black and white smears of orcas dash by below her. They seemed to realize she was going too quickly for them to catch her, but sooner or later her exhaustion would become overwhelming and she’d have to slow down.

The fishing boat
was
closer, suddenly. The water shivered with the roar of its engines. Luce was so tired that her head swayed, and the boat seemed to become a stained metal cloud. But, very softly, she heard a last exhalation of windy song, a final call. Whoever it was in the net was still alive, then, if only barely. Luce dove again, the spiraling of her tail harsh and automatic. She could see the boat through the water now, the swell of the enormous net behind it like some vast, pulsating tumor. Luce raced on, and soon the silver mass of thousands of struggling fish was all she could see, spreading for dozens of yards on both sides. She clenched the knife and threw herself against the net, her free hand digging through its strands and against the cold, squirming bodies of a nation of pollock.

Then she raised the knife and slashed, cutting the clustered fish in her desperation. Blood began to spiral through the water and red gouts striped the gleaming scales, but the net didn’t give. Luce tried to calm herself and began to cut through one strand at a time, still gripping the net like a mountain climber. Bit by bit a gash began to form in the net, the first few wounded fish slithering through it. Luce cut steadily on, and a bulge of fighting silver bodies began to squeeze toward the opening, shoving at her hands and sometimes slapping straight into her face as they burst free. Luce began to hear the moan of straining fibers, the popping sounds of breaking strands.

Suddenly there was a loud ripping noise, and the piece of net Luce was clutching swung far back, almost throwing her. An avalanche of shining fish tumbled out, pummeling Luce’s arms and head. The knife flew from her right hand, and she managed to reach through the beating silver forms and lace her fingers through the net’s holes while her body pitched wildly back and forth among the scrape of scales and round black eyes. All she could see was the constant flash of fish, disgorged so thickly that they became a desperate, living flood. Then came other creatures: a family of drowned porpoises, pulped jellyfish, a small shark, all crushed together. Clinging like this there was the risk that she would be pounded into unconsciousness and drown before she came to. But if she let go, the torrent would sweep her far away. Luce pictured the strange mermaid sinking deeper all alone. Where
was
she?

Then, in the endless repetition of silver shapes, Luce caught a glimpse of something hopeful. It was a single elegant hand, its skin the somber green-gold-brown of a bronze statue left for centuries in the ocean. The hand hung limp, its owner still wedged between fish close-packed into a bowed wall. Luce tried to reach it, but the rushing animals beat her back. Then something gave, and a girl’s form swept toward her in the middle of a tumbling mass of scales and fins and fur. A mermaid, dark-skinned and with a deep emerald tail. Luce barely managed to catch her in one outstretched arm. The fish were thinning out now, and with an involuntary groan Luce lashed her tail, tugging the strange mermaid toward the surface. Her greenish eyelids were closed and she didn’t move, but somehow Luce thought she could feel an almost imperceptible flutter of life deep inside her.

They came up just below the hard, rust-colored wall of the ship. There was an outcry of voices above as angry sailors noticed the ruptured net, the escaping haul of fish. Under normal conditions Luce would have never taken the risk of surfacing where humans might see her, but the situation was too urgent for her to worry about that. She embraced the strange mermaid from behind and leaned steeply so that the unconscious face dangled out over the rocking sea. Then Luce squeezed under her ribs to bring the water up from the girl’s lungs. It spattered out, and Luce squeezed again, then turned the girl and caught her face, blowing air between her still lips. Again, and then again. The girl didn’t move, and Luce thought of Miriam. Once again she’d come too late to save a mermaid from death, and Luce thrashed in fury, ready to fling the dragging body away from her.

Then the dark girl coughed and another stream of salt water gushed down her chin. Luce hurriedly grabbed her head and held it angled down. Then, for what must have been the first time in an hour, the mermaid inhaled freely, with a drawn-out, rasping sound. Luce heard her sigh. She had a crow’s nose and a thick cloud of black, savage, looping hair; she was beautiful, Luce thought, in the way a thunderstorm at midnight is beautiful.

A pair of greenish black eyes turned sidelong to look into Luce’s, calm and curious. Seeing those eyes was like gazing far into the past, into ancient memories and impossible distance. It took Luce a moment to recover from that glance and remember that they were still far from safety. If only there was a nearby island, even an outcropping of rock, they could rest before they attempted the journey back to shore. Luce scanned from one horizon to the next, seeing only the repeating peaks of tall gray waves. The cliffs of her own coast were strangely shrunken, no more than a zigzagging band of gray and green. Now that her frantic race for the fishing trawler was over, Luce’s muscles seized up with pain. Reaching that distant land seemed impossible, especially with the addition of this strange girl’s weight dragging on her arm.

The mermaid said a few words in a low, singsong language Luce didn’t recognize, and laughed. She was probably in shock, Luce thought. She didn’t understand how awful the situation really was.

Then Luce thought of something. Her tail was gripped by cramps, her body was trembling from weariness, but she still had her voice. It seemed like too much to hope for, but once they were far enough from the ship she could at least try. Slowly Luce began towing her strange companion along the surface, and to her surprise the other mermaid inhaled sharply, then began driving her own tail as well, although from the heaviness of her movements it was obvious that her strength was almost gone. But at least, Luce thought, she wouldn’t have to fight all alone to get them back to shore.

“When they were half a mile from the trawler, Luce released a long, sustained note, lifting a smooth arch of water below them. They hovered together up above the beating of the wild waves, and the strange mermaid turned her head to examine Luce with calm interest. Luce ignored her. Instead she focused on the music that poured from her, expanding her voice to call the wave onward. The stone-colored twilight was rapidly deepening, and the clouds above them sagged like a dim blue tent. Now that she was singing Luce felt a sudden thrill of serenity, and the darkening world became bright and vital with music. The sea sang through her, and the low clouds cast down harmonies like shadows. They weren’t traveling as quickly as Luce had before, but they still sailed along much faster than they could have hoped to swim in their weakened state. Once an orca leaped at them, but the wave swirled them on and the huge jaws snapped on empty air.

The strange mermaid laughed again, then raised her own voice in an undercurrent below Luce’s. That voice, Luce thought, seemed to carry an impossible weight of dreams with it; it was foreign-sounding and mournful and so beautiful that even Luce could barely stand to hear it.

11

Nausicaa

“I thought this would be the time,” the strange mermaid said. She had an unrecognizable accent that seemed to flare up suddenly and then vanish again. They had stopped to rest on the shore of the same craggy island where Dorian’s family had met their deaths, and the night was thick and starless. “What are the Fates to do when there is one like you waiting to snap their thread?” Luce didn’t know what the dark girl was talking about, and the slow, unrelenting curiosity in those greenish eyes made her feel shy and uncertain. “And is it even right, I wonder? This thing you’ve done?”

Luce felt herself flush. But why should she feel ashamed of saving someone?

“I heard you calling. I couldn’t just leave you to die there!” Luce protested. The strange mermaid rolled back against the shore, stretching her back and twisting her emerald green tail. It gave off complicated lights, blue and amber mixed with flashes of deep purple.

“It doesn’t matter at all that I did not die today.” The dark girl’s voice was cold and lazy as she said this, and her words rang like heavy bells.

Luce was appalled. “Of
course
it matters!”

“What matters is that you made the choice to save me as you did. Who are you?”

Luce couldn’t understand why such a simple question had the power to embarrass her so much. “I’m Luce.”

“Queen Luce...”

“I’m not Queen anything!”

“My name is Nausicaa. But if you are not queen, then you must be alone here?”

“Oh, Luce!” Another voice broke in on them. “Oh, I
knew
you’d get her! I tried to follow, but you were going too fast.” Luce turned in the direction of this new voice to see Violet’s sweet, gray-green eyes staring at them. Violet was so excited that she seemed to forget her usual shyness. “I bet Luce would
never
tell you this,” Violet went on breathlessly, beaming at Nausicaa, “but she saved my life, too! My very first day as a mermaid I was so dumb I tried to leave the water, and Luce came after me. She almost died! And she is
so
the greatest singer.”

Nausicaa gave Violet one of her oddly peaceful smiles. “I have heard your queen sing. Though she denies her rule here. But none of what you tell me now surprises me.”