Verse X

  It was a long current they were on. Within the folds of Morag Head, sheltered by the kelpen foliage, the passing of the outer waters had not been so obvious, and so it was left to the seascape itself to convey the distance traveled. When Jumella and her friends boarded the great equmara float for their departure from Mezzeret and the Mere Almezzeb, their last vision of the seas had been of pristine sands, sculpted cliffs, and the well-tended masses of sargo which the mer equmara kept. Their arrival showed them a fundament of muddy flats, large expanses of dark muck dotted with stands kelp and grasses.

  Jumella's skin itched at the memory of that one adventure in the Mires near Bryndoon. No amount of sand-scrubbing could clean all that away. She was happy to avoid the experience now.

  "How long till the next caravan, did you say?" Seated on the broad stone platform of the float-stop at the edge of the Mere Tessra? with her friends, she thought it the safer way to start a conversation.

  None of the others rose to the bait. At most, her question received a grunt from Sera and the words "by the nooning hour," which was still half a morning away. Everyone else seemed lost in thought.

  She could not grudge any of them for that, as it had been a week fit for the indigo depths. While they had stayed in Mezzeret, with the friendly equmara and the happy young daughters of the Wayward Drift, it had been easier to ignore, but now that they were out on the great flows again, with only each other for company, and all the worst things on their minds...

  The princess, Rhia as she now insisted everyone call her, had the look of a broken thing in her eyes. The brown-gold mer had yet to fall apart, much like a bound plate might crack and still hold together, but Jumella knew it to be a matter of time before they must pick up the pieces. At the moment, Rhia was fixated on a rune-marked shell, quietly mouthing the syllables of the mystic grammar and twiddling her fingers into esoteric patterns.

  Sera the Red was hardly looking better, in Jumella's opinion. That one had likely been broken for a long time, subtly fractured and holding herself together so well that none of them had suspected until the most recent calamity struck. And in front of the family of the Wayward Drift, the red mer had maintained a strong front. That ended with their departure. Most of their trip away, Sera had spent with her leman, Rohaise of the mer equmara, and none would admit to hearing the weeping sobs from their pocket in the foliage.

  Likewise none spoke of the noises from where Rook had spent the transit, if more for embarrassment. The little orange mer was quite taken with the company of the young equmara pair, Blaer and Elspeth, and they with her, to a degree that had even the other equmara shaking their manes in amusement. Jumella hoped that it all worked out for them. Happy endings were rare beneath the firmament these days. The pair had provided Rook with the rune-marked shells she was now analyzing. What those symbols had to do with anything, Jumella did not know, but they were all sure to hear about it once the apprentice rune-worker had it figured properly.

  As for Ardenne... there was the mystery wrapped within the riddle shell, as Granny Lieza liked to say. The green-haired hunter kept to herself at the far end of the stone platform, as was her wont, with only her new spear for company. The three-tined weapon was a dark line in the morning light, difficult for the gaze to settle upon and impossible to miss. Neither twin could say what it was made of, only that it had been made by a maestra's hand, with runic workings unlike any they had seen in their apprenticeship.

  Which was the entire reason they were sitting on this platform now, their personal float moored to the side and Morag Head long past disappeared into the haze of distance. To answer the mystery of a masterwork, one need consult a maestra, and that meant going to Valden.

  One did not simply swim into Valden.

  She was not sure even how Morag Head, one of the great living vessels of the mer equmara, had made it this far into the Mere Tessra?, a territory that was indisputibly under the flukes of Bryndoon and her regiments, but doubtless it had all to do with the nature of merkind. The common folk of the villages and towns were too scared to leave their familiar fathoms; she had seen as much for herself in the short time they had traveled the seas. Only the caravanners took to the traveling routes, and many of those mers seemed on friendly terms with the equmara. If no one was willing to alert the regiments to the presence of the broad-faced renegade mers, then the soldiers of Bryndoon were not a worry.

  All of which made sense for where they were now, in the Mere Tessra?. But not the Mere Kazahn. Not the City of Valden. There was no real separation between the two, as the city was the only settlement in its sea, and the caravan routes to and from its crater rim were well established. There was but the one approach, with the rocky heights of the cliffs to one side and a drop to the abyss on the other, and it was guarded better than the entirety of the Mere Tessra?. Any attempt to sneak around would find treacherous deep currents and dangerous shallows rising up to the firmament itself. Never had she heard of equmara dealing directly with the mer galda, the native mers of Valden, and when her sister Jumilla had asked the equmara themselves, those mers had only shaken their manes and snorted. For Valden, there was only the one way in, and likewise the same way out. And a mer simply did not swim into the city of crater and spire.

  Which brought her thoughts back to herself, sitting on the platform in the Mere Tessra?, bored in idleness and with none of her companions in the mood for a conversation. Even her sister had stopped telling stories from Granny Lieza's repertoire.

  She was reduced to scraping crude pictures into the stone of the platform, and had made headway on the outline of a cachalot, when Ardenne's quiet call for attention sounded. From the haze of the southern horizon, the rounded outline of a lead-float grew larger, with its string of smaller carriers trailing behind it like salps on a line. Jumella recognized the type if not the particulars. The rune-marked constructs of kelpen fabric would open and close in time with the song of the caravaners, pushing themselves along in the manner of some great jelly of the lesser depths. The little float which they called their own worked on similar principles, if not to the same scale.

  "Everyone ready?" called Sera. "Not likely we're the most welcome of company, but they have to accept us along. And we have to keep up."

  "Ready," said Rhia. The rune-marked shells had disappeared into the bag upon the princess's flank.

  Rook scanned the horizon. "Um, where's our little friend? Haven't seen her since we arrived."

  The little pink delphin was indeed nowhere to be seen. "That is probably for the best," said Ardenne. "Most mers would attack her on sight."

  "Eh, followed us well enough before," said the red mer. "Can again."

  Jumella had her doubts about that. The little pink delphin had trailed them across the sands of the Mere Almezzeb, but the Mere Kazahn was a different matter. As they readied the float with Rook and Rhia on the inside while Sera and Ardenne swam ahead., Jumilla spared one last glance to the firmament and hoped for the best in regards to their oddest of friends.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Verse XI

  Watch-with-Clicks knew what she did best. What she had named herself for. What she did now, from a greater distance than any mer might comprehend. Time spent with the strange creatures had taught her that they were not as sound-blind as her fellows of the grand song might believe, but only just. Certainly, they would not hear her clicks, even as the echoes of those sounds told her everything.

  More mers were come. Their sound-shadows loomed large in the echo. From that direction also came the funny noises of mer-speak. Red-hair-mer was discussing. Red-hair-mer was arguing. Mer-speak seemed made for that, and Watch-with-Clicks was familiar with the tones by now.

  Something was not right. The sounds, they were of argument, only more so. The big floats, the other-mers, raised their strange song once more, driving their floats forward to the north. The mers-her-friends did not wish to go north, she knew. South and east lay the waters of the stink-smell, which she had never tasted and did not look forward to. Silly mers, to put a colony pod in a place like that. Once the other-mers were gone, Watch-with-Clicks dove down from her fathoms in the firmament to squeak at green-hair-mer.

  What-do, what-do?

  "I don't know," replied green-hair-mer. "Attempt the currents on our own?"

  "That's a quick way to die," said mer-look-like-mer-first.

  "It's rough," agreed mer-look-like-mer-second.

  More mer-speak. Faster. Too fast. No elegance. Arguing. Watch-with-Clicks swam in circles around the big rock. Arguing with herself. Guide-to-Mers could not guide mers. Again. Could only watch with clicks, and so watched. Listened. Heard.

  Heard more than mers.

  North-see, north-see, came her song, hoping beyond hope that green-hair-mer would understand. To help simple mers, she swam quick circles, spun in place, and pointed her nose due north while clicking loudly.

  "Um, think she's onto something?" asked small-orange.

  Yes! she squeaked. North-see!

  "There's something out there," said green-hair-mer. "I can barely make it out. Still fuzzy, barely past the haze of distance, but getting closer."

  "Floats?" asked red-hair-mer. "Caravan off schedule?"

  Watch-with-Clicks was already gone, rising high into the firmament where the glare hid her pale belly from the mers below. Again she would do what she did best, but floating happily in the knowledge that for a brief song she could be Guide-to-Mers once more.

  Verse XII

  Just what now floated their way, Sera knew about as well as what floated in the waters of her own mind—which was to say, it was a complete mystery. Nothing much made sense these days, and ever since the time in the green labyrinth, ever since the collapse of the great tent of Mezzegheb, nothing had mattered. It was not the first time a dark mood had muddied her waters, but it was the worst time, as it always was.

  Rohaise had helped as she could on the way in Morag Head, but there were places no equmara could go, and one of those was where they were headed now.

  Or would be heading, if a single caravan beneath the shining firmament would go there. Her earlier argument with the Hetropan traders rankled and worried at her peace of mind. Skipping past a major stop for trade held no sense unless there was something to avoid, and the Hetropans would not say what that thing might be. A Free Flow hand-sign had only made things worse.

  But the traders were long past, and Sera remained here with her friends—even the princess, she amazed herself to realize. They were here, and they needed to get going. They needed whoever it was who now approached in their brightly colored travel floats, with streamers billowing in the currents.

  Then the insignia came into focus, and she revised her thoughts. They needed to get away, now.

  "Depths! Rook, hide the shells," she ordered. "Hide them extra well. Rhia, keep your head down and your vest tied up straight. Ardenne, got an extra snood for you. Wear it. Need to hide your hair, quick!"

  "What is it?" asked Jumilla.

  Rhia was the one to reply: "Those are Temple marks on the floats. We've just gotten in the way of the sacramental pilgrimage."

  No curses sufficed. Brownie'd read the marks better, and things were even worse than any mer'd dare imagine. "Millie, Jumie, up to you now," she told the twins. "You two've got the Valden accent and shells, so front for us." Her red hair was fast disappearing beneath her own kelpen snood, and then she helped Ardenne fit her own. They would pray that no errant locks slipped free.

  "What do we tell them?" asked Jumie.

  "Whatever'll get 'em to ignore us," she hissed back. "Just don't give 'em an excuse to look too close."

  "If it helps," Rhia added. "They will be preoccupied with their pilgrimage, so keep them steered in that direction, and not ours."

  "Good one, Rhia." Sera ignored the look of surprise from the princess, for now. Too busy not panicking.

  The song which drove the float along lowered to a quiet thrum upon the waters well before it came near, and the leading mass of fabric and baleen drifted towards a halt in front of the platform. The main float hung deeper, almost to the fundament below the platform, and higher as well, with its pennants furling in the light currents below the firmament. The full length of the combined train of floats drifted many dozen tail-lengths behind, though some of that was streaming ribbons of fabric. The entire thing was slow and decorative, so unlike the compact vessels of the caravans or the living hulks of the equmara.

  "Ahoy!" called Millie as soon as the Temple float had closed the distance. "Ahoy, and fair greetings on this wondrous day!"

  "And to you as well," came the reply from a soldier in the front. The manoa was adorned in Temple livery and carried a ceremonial spear that was still quite sharp. "Far from home, are we?"

  "Indeed not!" said Millie, letting the burr of her accent ripple across. "We were actually on our way back to Valden when we suffered a tear in our float and were forced to stop a day to sew it back proper. The rest of the caravan went on without us."

  "I told you we should have paid the maestra more," Jumie complained. The twin's voice held a whining tone which none who knew the mer might recognize. Sera wondered who she was imitating.

  "Spare me, sis. You know we need the pearl. Anyway!" continued the first twin. "We've been here three days, if you'd believe, and our mothers in Valden are likely wondering where we're at. It's almost time for the big festival and all, you know."

  "Well do I know that," said the soldier. "That's why we are here, as well."

  "No fooling!" In her mind, Sera was taking back every rude thing she'd ever thought of the twins' tendency towards the honest word. No one ever lied so well as this without some practice.

  A voice sounded from deeper in the float, bearing the growly burr of an accent that Sera knew too well. "What is the delay?"

  Young, commanding, and yet oddly familiar. Blue eyes suddenly found the stone platform to be far more interesting, if only as an excuse not to look up and let panic betray her. It was a short list of leondra that she'd met in her travels, and Sera could not trust she'd left a good impression on any of them when the opposite was far more likely.

  "It is only some fellow travelers, prestra," called the soldier. "On their way to Valden for the festival, same as we. Their previous companions seem to have left them to float."

  "Have them tie in at the rear," came the prompt decision. "And hurry, if you'd please. We must to Valden ere nightfall."

  "Of course, prestra." The soldier motioned them along. "Come, come, can't keep the tide waiting and all."

  "Our thanks, Messra..." Millie left it to dangle.

  "Jori min Dagi," the soldier told them. "And technically it's Capeta Jori, but I wouldn't expect you to know."

  "Our apologies to go with our gratitude, then" said Jumie as they pulled the float along.

  Sera faced the open sea so she could roll her eyes properly. Soon they were all settled, the float tied in and those on the outside properly hooked. A big float such as the Temple's produced a lot of pull, and none of them wanted to fall away. Capeta Jori helped as she could with the knots and hooks, and if the soldier saw aught suspicious, nothing was worth raising an alarm over.

  The great song of the pilgrimage resumed, the voices of the leondra within blending with those of the drivers to give the beat of life to rune-marked fabric. Flaps billowed and flattened, drawing the water in only to expel it soon after. The float shuddered into motion, dragging Sera and her friends along behind.

  Never a Temple-goer, yet still did the red-haired mer pray terribly hard for the entire transit to Valden and the Mere Kazahn. She had no qualms with the Mother herself, after all, merely the fools who thought themselves Her servants.