Mervidia (37 page)

He was wrong.

Zane heard gasps even before he passed through the doors out onto the terrace.

In the dim light cast by the multitude of orihalcyon lanterns hung from the Palace and its su
rrounding buildings, he saw a mammoth shape slowly descending past the balcony. It was enormous and far too close for Zane to discern exactly what it was, until it had completely passed by and he swam to the railing to look down upon it. With some distance now between him and the prodigiously large creature, Zane was able to distinguish what it was.

The uklod was huge, not only in length, but also in
girth. The animal’s dark-grey body was as long as ten merwin from the front of its thick lower jaw to the tip of its wide flat horizontal tail. Zane barely had to look down to see the two breathing holes on top of its massive head. The creature settled to the seafloor, its impact causing the balcony to shudder. Its back, devoid of a dorsal fin as all of its kind were, nearly reached to the bottom of the palace’s balcony, which jutted out from the palace’s third floor.

“Uklod,” Hasad whispered, his tone sounding almost reverent.
Never had Zane seen such a large specimen of the giant animal, alive or dead. Having one sink from the higher water directly into the city was unheard of in the history of Mervidia. Moreover, the huge creature was completely intact. Not a single bite mark marred its skin; it showed none of the telltale signs of being crushed by a giant squid or octopus, an uklod’s only known predators. This uklod was whole and unblemished by injury or disease.

It was also unmistakably dead.

“That could feed the entire Ghet,” Zane said in shock at their good fortune. Enough meat to feed hundreds of merwin had literally fallen on their doorstep. It was a stroke of luck that was unprecedented in Mervidia’s history. When he looked at the dead animal though, he saw something peculiar that gave him pause. Normally, uklods’ eyes were a uniform ebony, however, those of the dead creature before him were oddly discolored. As he looked closer he saw that the dead uklod’s eyes had turned light grey and were shot through with veins of the darkest black.

“
Then we should be able to feed the whole city,” Penn said, interrupting Zane’s contemplation of the dead uklod’s eyes.

Zane turned and saw a solider speaking quietly with the Domo of House Yellowtail.
“What do you mean?” the captain of the Red Tridents asked, as Penn received the rest of the merwin’s report.

“I’ve just received
word that this is not the only uklod to fall from the upper reaches into the city.” Penn nodded to his personal guard, who saluted the neondra commander and then returned to his position by the open doors to the balcony.

“Two uklod have landed in Mervidia?” Thaddeus asked, disbelief in his voice.
The other members of the Coral Assembly looked at the octolaide and Penn, similar expressions of incredulity on their faces.

“Five,” Penn replied.

“What?!” Slone blurted out. The Domo of House Tigin’s milky white eyes first went wide with astonishment and then swiftly narrowed with skepticism. “Impossible.”

“Five dead uklod have fallen from the
upper reaches into various parts of the city.” Penn listed off the locations given to him by his subordinate. “One has set down in the Ghet, one by House Ignis and two lay atop other houses near House Chimaera. Add to that the one here and that makes five; all of them intact and uninjured.”

“Six,
Sir,” the yellowtail by the door interjected. Zane looked to see another neondra whispering into the soldier’s ear. “Sorry to interrupt, Sir, but another was just discovered near House Tigin. Its condition matches that of the others.”

For several long moments
, the merwin that had gathered on the balcony floated in stunned silence, the idea of half a dozen dead uklod sinking into the city running through their heads. Never before, had a
single
corpse of the massive uklod been discovered within Mervidia, much less
six
. Even on the rare occasion when a dead uklod had been found outside the city, it had shown clear signs of injury. Most often, bite wounds from a shiver of sharks or signs of being crushed by a giant squid or octopus were the usual culprits. According to Penn’s Yellowtails, these uklod that had appeared in Mervidia showed no such indications. They were as untouched by tooth or tentacle as the one in front of Zane.

“‘And a king’s feast before him’” Nayan intoned quietly, breaking the silence.

Zane looked at the jellod in confusion. “What did you say?” The captain of the Red Tridents looked at the other members of the Coral Assembly, hoping for some explanation of the machi’s words. What he saw deepened his bewilderment further.

Penn, Domo of House Yellowtail and commander of its army, had descended in the water, his wide golden-scaled flukes brushing the stone surface of the balcony.
Penn, the proud and obstinate neondra Zane had known all his life and never seen bow his head to anyone, was bending at the waist before him, eyes downcast.

“Penn?” Zane asked.
“What are you doing?” He looked at Nayan. “What did you
say
?!” he demanded, a feeling of alarm hollowing out a pit in his stomach.

“The last words of Ghita’s vision,” Domo Slone replied, as he bowed alongside Domo Penn.

“I don’t understand,” the Red Trident captain said, his voice sounding suddenly feeble as he watched the strongest warriors in Mervidia abase themselves before him. Zane’s thoughts were a whirlpool of confusion, his mind trying desperately to cling to something in a chaotic tempest of incomprehension. “What is going on? Why are you all doing this?” The pitch of Zane’s voice rose with his feelings of anxiety.

Nayan was the next to lower herself before
Zane, her yellow kelp shawl billowing out slightly as she gracefully descended. “The last words Ghita spoke before she lost consciousness,” the jellod explained. “Words which were not shared with the rest of Mervidia and known only to the Coral Assembly.” She fixed the rest of the merwin, who made up the ruling body of Mervidia, with a pointed stare. One by one, all the members of the Coral Assembly bowed before Zane. Even Quag, the huge grogstack representative, bent his massive form in submission. Kiva was the last to follow suit, despite a begrudged look plain on her tiny face.

Nayan cast her eyes to the stone balcony floor and continued, her tone reverent. “‘Zane shall be seated at the high table, the Fangs upon his brow, and a king’s feast before him.’”

Chapter
Thirty-Six

The door to Marin’s room had started to open smoothly, but it had only done so by Jiva’s hand, as she opened it for her domo. Uchenna was in no mood for etiquette though. He rudely pushed the guard out of the way with three tentacles, placed his hands in the jamb to anchor himself, and used his remaining three appendages to bash the entryway open so hard that it slammed up against the interior stone wall.

Even as exhausted as Marin was, she sat up in her bed, jarred awake by the loud noise.
She rubbed at her eyes, trying to focus on her bedchamber and the merwin within, finally seeing her parents and her ritual still lain out on the floor. Panic roused Marin quickly, knowing she was in dire trouble. Her mother was surprisingly calm, despite the brusque intrusion, waiting with the poised patience of an eel about to strike its prey. Marin spotted her dagger in the grip of one of Odette’s rear tentacles, hidden from Uchenna’s view.

Mother is prepared to defend us
, the younger merwin thought. Marin was glad that her mother was ready to do what was necessary to keep them alive, but she was also terrified that her actions might have brought them to the point where she’d have to watch one of her parents kill the other.
It is a tossup who will be the dead fish at the end of that fight
.

Her father’s face was red with rage, his eyes fixed on his wife
. The younger octolaide smelled sweat on him, as if he had swum the length of Mervidia and back again. Pausing as he spotted his wife, Uchenna remained in the doorway for a moment more before lunging forward. His tentacles straightened behind him, as he glided through the distance between him and Odette, and then he spread them again to grip the flagstones, abruptly stopping himself so as not to collide with her. He was agonizingly close to Odette, his nose almost pressed against his wife’s flat one. The positioning was not meant to be a gesture of intimacy; it was Uchenna displaying his dominance, controlling his hostility as best as he could. How much longer he could restrain himself, Marin knew, depended on Odette’s answers.

“
What
,” Uchenna said, his voice ripe with seething anger, “
happened?
” All the domo’s plans for House Chimaera to ascend to the throne depended on Ebon’s tie to the Divine Family and using his mixed breeding to bridge the gap between the traditionalist and progressives on the Coral Assembly. That strategy had been mutilated and torn apart, no semblance remaining of what it had once been, with an entirely different merwin - a houseless merwin at that – now poised to wear the Fangs. Marin understood why he was mad. It had been her interference that had destroyed her father’s careful planning.

I will not let mother suffer for my actions
, Marin thought, as Odette was selecting her words carefully.
I will find us a way out of this mess.
Using her tentacles to grasp the headboard the younger octolaide slipped cautiously out of bed and waited. Marin wanted to be ready to help if need be, but she also wanted to be at a safe distance should her father reach out for power to fuel a kalku spell. They shared no love for one another; he would not hesitate to sacrifice her life to defeat Odette, where as her mother would do no such thing. That maternal weakness might mean death for both of the female octolaides.
Surely, together we can defeat him
, Marin hoped. Yet, even then, her sapped state was making itself felt as she stifled a yawn.

“My spell was interfered with,” Odette said calmly.
It was the truth and suddenly Marin was afraid that she had misjudged her mother’s love for her, fearful that Odette desired being a domo’s wife more than preserving her daughter’s life.

“What?” Uchenna snarled, “By whom?”

“By me,” Marin stated boldly, deciding to trust that her mother had her best interests at heart. Marin,
swimming slowly forward as she continued to talk, drew her father’s attention away from her mother and the dagger the older octolaide was passing from her tentacle to her hand. “I interfered with mother’s spell.”

Odette’s eyes were fixed on Uchenna’s back, as if choosing the perfect spot to bury the
blade. Marin breathed a sigh of relief, until her father floated towards her. She feared the murderous look in his eyes. “I refused to be set aside,” Marin continued, buying Odette the time she needed to make sure the blow was fatal. “Zane will be King of Mervidia now, and he shall choose me as his consort. Father, House Chimaera will still rise to the throne, just not in the way you had anticipated.”

Uchenna
cared little for her before, but now he clearly despised her. His face turned from red to purple. The domo stopped before his daughter, once again gripping the flagstones for purchase. He was pondering Marin’s words, as though tasting a new fish and deciding whether or not he liked it.

“Bold, but stupid,” Uchenna fumed.
Marin was surprised he was still talking and didn’t have her magically pinned to the floor, as he usually did when he was angry.

Does he approve?
Marin thought hopefully. Odette hesitated, sensing also that Uchenna might be coming around.

“However, had you consulted me on this matter first,” he said, “I would have told you that for the Coral Assembly to accept Zane as monarch he would need to marry a member of the Divine Family.
The traditionalists would never accept you as consort. The king does not get to choose his consort. The Assembly chooses, and I
did not
choose you.”

With his final words, Uchenna reached out, wrapping his hands around Marin’s white neck and covering her gills.
He began to squeeze, his gaze full of focused rage. Marin’s eyes went wide, as she began to suffocate. Her tentacles wrapped around his forearms, trying to pry them away, but he was stronger than she was, especially in her weakened state after the ritual. Marin tried to scream, but with no way to draw water into her lungs the sound was crushed along with her throat.

Odette plunged the dagger into her husband’s back.
He arched his spine, crying out in pain.  He spun around and raised a hand level with his wife’s throat. Marin gained the briefest of reprieves, sucking water into her gills, before one of Uchenna’s tentacles took the place of his free hand. The thick black appendage circled her neck, the suckers attaching to her skin and tightening with deadly force. Uchenna’s attention was fixed intently on Odette, as he pulled power into himself and targeted his wife with it. Marin felt her life force being drawn upon to fuel the spell, as she had feared he would. She gurgled in a failed attempt to breathe and watched in horror as her energy, radiating from her body in waves of white, was being drawn from her by leeching black tendrils that slithered over her torso and even dipped beneath her skin.

Odette was pushed back against the wall by an unseen force, her hands to her own neck, vai
nly trying to free herself. Uchenna’s hand wrapped back around her neck as his other extended towards Odette to maintain his spell that held her in place. Marin’s vision began to darken, and her father’s furious cursing became muted in her ears. The dark energy sucking her life away added to her light-headed feeling. She was too weak to fight back or raise a protective barrier to shield herself from her father’s spell. Marin feared that her mother was also too weak from her own arcane workings to repel him either. As her vision became further obscured, she managed to see one last thing - her dagger jutting from her father’s back. Odette had missed his heart. Marin’s mother was a talented kalku, but armed combat was not her strong suit.

The younger
octolaide was vaguely aware that her body had subconsciously resorted to its last bastion of defense. Black ink gushed from the vents on the sides of her hips, trying to disorient the predator attacking her and provide cover for her to escape. The next few moments were filled with darkness, both from her ink and her waning consciousness.

She felt a tug at her throat and then the pressure was gone.
Blinding white hot pain, like orihalcyon at its peak, seared through her head. She cried out and was surprised that she was actually able to scream. Marin sucked water into her lungs. Sound bombarded her once more as her hearing returned. There was a suddenly a loud crash. The younger octolaide blinked, trying to clear her vision to see what it had been. She thought the darkness might be a result of the lack of oxygen to her brain, but it was her ink that was obscuring her sight.

A voice, strong and defiant, cut through the room like a blade.

“Get your tentacles off my daughter you egocentric piece of fish crap,” the male voice commanded. Marin was vaguely aware of shouts in the passageway beyond her room and was confused at the pounding noise she also heard.

Father opened my door
,
Marin’s disoriented mind tried to put together,
why should anyone be beating on the door?
Her skin tingled, as the room ignited with kalku magic, the spells radiating sickening energies in their wake. Searing cold shot back and forth across the area. Marin instinctively sank to the floor, desperately trying to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Using her tentacles to grip the foot of her bed, she anchored herself low and continued trying to regain her wits… to recover from
her father’s
attempt to
murder
her.

That strange voice said daughter…
Maybe it is mother’s father? I have a living grandfather? I thought all my grandparents were dead,
Marin pondered.

The young
octolaide was too scared, too confused, and too weak to move. She felt dizzy again, feeling like her head was full of sand fleas wriggling around in her skull. When hands wrapped around her waist, there wasn’t anything left in her to resist. She was exhausted from her ritual, had been nearly strangled, and had her life force used to power the spells of two enraged kalku sorcerers. She allowed the merwin to pull her wilted body away from the bed.

Warmer water replaced the frigidity of her bedchamber.
Marin sucked clean water into her gills and out her rib vents three times, drinking in the blessedly salty liquid, free of fouling ink and draining kalku magic. Her head spinning less, she braved opening her eyes. Ebon, of all merwin, held her to his chest. When she roused, he looked down at her. His fine black hair was disheveled. His costly green kelp coat was splotchy with ink and torn at the shoulder, where there was a cut on his skin. Ebon didn’t seem to care though. The ethyrie-octolaide hybrid’s eyes were full of worry as he looked at his sister.

Even after
the seeing had shown another as Mervidia’s King, he had set aside his pride and had bravely entered an eel’s den and pulled her from the darkness.

“I am so sorry, Ebon,” Marin said, feeling
guilty that she had so betrayed her own kin. Uchenna she could care less about, but her brother was different. She had thought she didn’t care about Ebon, but she certainly had not expected his loyalty. Marin’s heart softened towards the black-finned ethyrie.
I will never betray you again, brother
, she thought, for whatever the sentiment was worth; they might both end up dead when whomever had attacked her father emerged from her room.

“I didn’t really want to be king anyway,” Ebon grinned, glad to see her conscious.
“I was just trying to please father. I’d have been perfectly happy simply continuing my martial training with Ring.” Marin smiled weakly and laid her head on her brother’s chest. Her gaze followed Ebon’s though, over to the merwin of whom he spoke.

Ring held Odette in his arms nearby, their tentacles having become entangled in their escape from Marin’s bedchamber.
Marin sighed in relief to see her mother move her head weakly to regard her rescuer. Looking around further, the young female was shocked at the devastation.

The atrium was not only filled with dead fish
. In addition, seven dead guards floated along with them. Kwar and Jiva were amongst the dead, their faces and skin untouched, yet their lives had clearly been drained from their bodies by kalku magic. Marin had seen her father kill a member of House Chimaera once with kalku magic. The merwin had leaked the front door password to another family for a bag of black pearls. After Uchenna was done absorbing his spirit with only a hand planted on the merwin’s chest, the octolaide had been left an empty body,
a soft shell devoid of life’s spark.

Three of the
octolaide guards did bear wounds, having died violently at the large hands of the two enormous grogstack that also drifted with the dead in the atrium. Blood flowed freely from their many wounds, slowly staining the water pink. Marin assumed that Ring, Ebon, and the surviving house guards had finally managed to overpower the intruders.

The
pieces of orihalcyon ore fixed into the atrium’s stone ceiling were strangely extinguished, the hundreds of little lights no longer illuminating the room with their orange brilliance. The only light shone from lanterns held by the half dozen guards that had arrived after the stranger had entered Marin’s bedchamber. Even now, one of them was closing House Chimaera’s entrance, the stone door emerging from its pocket in the wall and rumbling closed after Uchenna had left it open in his angered haste to reach his wife. That mistake had allowed the stranger and his grogstack to enter their house with ease and then slaughter the guards who sought to stop him. Looking back at the wisping black ink leaking from her doorframe, Marin wondered if that error had cost the domo his life. Uchenna was not amongst those who had been pulled from her room.