The Stone Light (30 page)

“But where do the sphinx commanders come into it?” asked Dario.

“I no longer doubt that the Pharaoh has been merely a puppet of the sphinxes for a long time,” said Lalapeya thoughtfully. “The commanders are young, in comparison to me and some others of my people, and they have no respect for the old laws and customs anymore. They recognized the power that the god would give them. Had it not been for the Flowing Queen, they would have reached their goal much earlier.”

Serafin nodded slowly. So that was it. The sphinxes had worked in the background all those years to make the old god of their people into their slave. For that, they first
needed the Pharaoh, then the priests of Horus with their power to subjugate the dead. Not much longer and they would rule the Empire with the help of the old god.

Lalapeya continued. “So I began to take precautions. All the millennia, all the waiting … now finally I realized that it hadn’t been for nothing. And so I tried all that was in my power.” She dropped her eyes. “And I have failed. Such a long time, and then a defeat. The son of the Mother is lost.”

Serafin had said not a word. But now he had to accept the responsibility: Her failure wasn’t her fault. He was the one who’d prevented her from stopping the collector; he’d wrecked all that she and her predecessors had been awaiting for eons.

But that also didn’t change the fact that Boro had had to sacrifice his life.

Serafin didn’t feel guilty. He wanted to, but he could not. They had both made mistakes, Lalapeya and he, and now they must both bear the consequences.

“We’re dying of thirst,” said Tiziano, as if Lalapeya’s confession hadn’t taken place at all. Perhaps he hadn’t been listening to her.

Serafin stared at the sphinx and now she returned his look, and for a fleeting moment he thought he’d seen those eyes once before, but not in her.

“Land!” Dario’s voice shattered the silence. “There’s land over there!”

All looked in the direction he was pointing. Even Lalapeya.

Tiziano leaped up, and at once the shell began to rock and tip, and suddenly water splashed over the edge, an entire wave, and then they were sitting up to their ankles in wetness.

“Sit down, damn it!” Dario raged at him.

Tiziano, completely in thrall to his euphoria over the light-colored mound in the distance, stared at him for a moment as if he didn’t understand what Dario wanted of him. But then he sank back into his place without taking his eyes off the gray hump that had broken through the surface of the sea some distance away, like the hump of a whale.

The mound must have been visible for quite a while before Dario had discovered it, but its color was hardly any different from that of the sea or the sky.

“That isn’t land,” said Serafin, and no one contradicted him.

There was tense silence for a while, then Dario said aloud what all were thinking: “A fish?”

And Aristide: “A whale?”

An icy shiver ran down Serafin’s back. He shook his head. “If it is one, then it’s no longer alive. The thing doesn’t move. Eft?”

When she looked at him and he looked into her eyes, he immediately wished that he’d kept back the question. But it was too late for that now.

“You won’t want to hear it,” she said softly.

“I
want to hear it,” said Dario in irritation.

“Me too,” Tiziano added quickly.

Serafin was silent.

Eft didn’t take her eyes off him as she said, “We’re sinking.”

“What?” cried Tiziano in horror. Again he leaped up but was immediately pulled back into his place by Dario.

“That’s only a little water,” said Dario quickly, letting a little of the saltwater on the floor run through his fingers. “Not bad. And I don’t know what that has to do with that thing out there—”

“We’re going under,” said Eft once more. “Have been for quite a while now. Very, very slowly. We can’t stop it. And the only place we can go is that thing over there.” She pointed to the light-colored elevation in the sea without looking toward it herself.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Serafin asked.

“What difference would it have made?”

Aristide looked frantically from one to the other. “We’re sinking? Really?”

Dario closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “That’s what she said, yes.”

“Hairline cracks,” said Serafin, and for the first time he examined the water level inside the sea turtle shell. They’d all been wet through since they’d left Venice, and no one had paid any attention to the dampness on the bottom of
the horn shell. But now it dawned on him that they had in fact been sitting in water before Tiziano had almost caused the shell to capsize.

“Hairline cracks?” Tiziano splashed around in the dark water, as if he could feel them with his bare fingers and stop them.

Dario became very calm. “Good. So we’re going under. But up there ahead is land … or something like it. And you, Eft, know exactly what it is.”

She nodded. “If everything doesn’t deceive me, it’s a body. And a very special one, at that. The mermaids sensed it, so they swam away. They were afraid.”

“A … a body?” stammered Tiziano. “But … that thing is at least … at least seventy, eighty yards long. Isn’t it?” When no one answered, he said once more, louder this time, “Isn’t it?”

Now they floated nearer to the light gray mound. And gradually, very gradually, Serafin distinguished an outline.

“The cadaver of a sea witch,” said Eft.

Serafin’s heart beat faster.

“Sea witch,” repeated Aristide, and now it was he who was about to stand up. Dario pulled him back with such force that Serafin briefly considered remonstrating with him.

He let it go and turned to Eft. “How long do we have?”

She slowly moved her right hand through the water
inside the sea turtle shell. “Three hours. Maybe four. Possibly the shell will break apart sooner.”

“Can we reach land in that time?”

“I haven’t the least idea where we are.”

Serafin nodded. Nothing could surprise him anymore. “So we have to leave the shell?”

“Yes.”

“And climb up on that thing?”

“She’s dead,” said Eft. “She can’t do anything more to anyone.”

“One moment!” Dario rubbed the palm of his hand across his eyes, then massaged his temples with a slow movement. “You’re suggesting in all seriousness that we climb onto a dead
sea witch?”

Eft sniffed the wind. “She hasn’t been dead long. She’ll float for a few days.”

“Longer than three or four hours,” Serafin heard himself agree, even if he couldn’t grasp that he was accepting this madness.

“I’m not going up there,” stammered Aristide.

Tiziano said nothing.

“I’m certainly not going up on that.” Aristide’s voice sounded higher now, almost panicked.

“She can’t be dangerous for us anymore,” said Serafin soothingly. “And she’s our only hope.”

Tiziano came to his aid. “Imagine it’s a dead fish. Then you’d probably even eat it.”

Aristide stared at Tiziano for a long moment, speechless, then his features contorted, and his voice was a shrill howl. “You’re all completely crazy! Completely mad!”

Dario ignored him. “The current is driving us straight toward it. Just a few minutes.” When Aristide tried to protest again, Dario silenced him with a look that could have turned him to stone. His eyes narrowed as he again looked over at the floating body of the sea witch. “Is that her face there?”

All stared at the place he indicated.

“Yes,” said Eft. All at once she turned pale and said nothing more. No one except Serafin noticed it. But he asked no more questions; there was time for that when they were sitting safely on the corpse.

The wind turned, and from one breath to the next it stank as terribly as the Venetian fish market on a summer day.

The witch was floating on her back. As far as Serafin could see from here, she had the body of a gigantic old woman—as far as the hips. From there her body continued into a powerful fish tail, such as the mermaids had, only the witch’s was as long as a ship. Her hair floated like a gray carpet of algae, spread out in a fan on the waves. They’d have to be careful the sea turtle shell didn’t catch in it; if they were forced to leave the shell while it was in the middle of this flood of hair, they’d be hopelessly tangled in the long strands and drown.

Serafin expressed this thought aloud, and immediately they all tried to propel the shell with their hands and steer it in another direction, toward the scaly tail, where it would be simplest to climb onto the sea witch. Even Lalapeya helped, though Serafin wasn’t certain if she was merely taking the opportunity to dip her hands into the water again to feel for heaven knew what.

Only two yards.

Only one.

The turtle shell bumped against the witch’s fish tail. The scales were as large as wagon wheels, overlaid with seaweed, slime, and algae that had settled into the cracks. The stink took their breath away. The boys swallowed and fought with their nausea until their noses and stomachs gradually got used to it. Only Eft and the sphinx seemed to be immune to it.

No one wanted to be the first to lay a hand on the scaly tail. Even Eft, deathly pale, stared at the dead witch, although Serafin suspected that she had other reasons for that. Later, he said to himself. Not now. Not one single worry more.

He took heart, grasped Dario’s shoulder, balanced a long moment in the rocking shell, and then grabbed the edge of a scale with his right hand. The scabby horn plates were arranged like roof tiles, overlapping one another, and offered enough grip for fingers and feet. Had there not been the horrible stench, Serafin would
almost have felt at home: In his lifetime, he’d already climbed up and down so many roofs that climbing a fish tail was child’s play.

Once on top, he turned and looked along the curve to the sea turtle shell. From here it was even more clearly visible how low the shell already lay in the water. Eft’s estimation had been more than generous. Serafin doubted that the shell would have stayed afloat for more than an hour longer.

He couldn’t help the others, could only watch as, one by one, they climbed over the edge of the shell, grabbed onto the scales with trembling hands, and tried somehow to get a grip on the slippery surface. The tangle of dead water plants was as slippery as soft soap, but somehow they all finally succeeded in reaching the highest point of the bulge of the tail. Eft was the last to leave the shell. Serafin and Dario reached down to pull her up.

The sea turtle shell rocked for a while longer beside the body, then it was seized by a current and carried away. Aristide and Tiziano watched it go, but Serafin’s attention was now entirely devoted to the gigantic body on which they were stranded.

He’d overcome the nausea, but the disgust remained. Never in his life had he seen anything so repellent. He stood up carefully and managed several steps over the rounded top of the fish tail in the direction of the upper body.

A hand was placed on his shoulder from behind.

“Let me go first,” said Eft, walking ahead of him and taking over the lead. The others, including Lalapeya, stayed back on the tail. As long as the cadaver lay quietly in the water, nothing could happen to them there, and for a moment Serafin enjoyed the quiet at the side of the silent Eft.

As soon as they’d left the scales, the consistency of the surface under them changed. The belly of the witch was soft and spongy; with every step the indentations around Serafin’s soles filled with fluid. He’d often walked through Venice’s piazzas when markets there had been dismantled; then the pavement was overflowing with an ankle-deep layer of rotten fruit and vegetables—this felt very similar under his feet.

They meandered through the hollows between the ribs. Water had collected in long puddles, with all kinds of small animals darting about in them.

From here Serafin could make out the witch’s chin, a pointed triangle above several broad swellings. Behind it the nostrils were visible, two cave openings under a sharp ridge of skin and cartilage.

A wide scar divided the chin, overgrown by proud flesh. Eft saw it and stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Instinctively, Serafin looked all around him. There was no threat of danger, at least nothing he could name.

Eft’s face, despite the taxing walk, was chalk white.

“Eft,” he said imploringly, “what’s the matter?”

“It is she.”

He frowned and at the same time felt his stomach lurch. “She?”

Eft didn’t look at him as she spoke, only stared at the ugly scar, which was as long as a team of horses. “The witch who took my kalimar from me.”

“Your scaled tail?”

She nodded. “I begged her to do it, and she gave me the legs of a human for it.”

“Why?”

Eft took a sharp breath in, then out. Then she told Serafin the story of her first great love; of the merchant’s son who’d sworn everlasting faithfulness but then had shamefully betrayed her; of the witch’s warning that she could of course change Eft’s legs but not her broad mermaid’s mouth with the needle-sharp teeth; of how a few men had beaten her half to death while her lover looked on; and how Arcimboldo, at that time still a boy, had found her, cared for her, and taken her in.

“Merle knows the story,” she said finally. “She was the first after Arcimboldo to whom I told it. You’re the second.” Her tone remained expressionless with these words; they were not meant as a distinction, not as a warning, only as a declaration.

Serafin looked from her over to the gray landscape of the witch’s face. “And now that she’s dead, that means—”

“That I must forever remain what I am today,” she said with a thick voice. “Not human, not mermaid.”

He looked for a solution, a few hopeful words. “Couldn’t another witch—”

“No. The magic of one witch can only be undone by her alone.” Her eyes mirrored the bleak sea. “By her alone.”

He felt helpless and wished he hadn’t come with her, had left her alone with her sorrow.

“It cannot be changed.” She didn’t sound really collected, but she was trying hard. “We’ll go back to the others.”

Dejected, he trotted along beside her and imagined how this gigantic creature once had lurked in the depths of the sea, a hideous giantess who hunted for fishing boats and merchant ships—and, in passing, plunged a mermaid in love into unhappiness. He admired Eft’s courage: She’d left her home, had swum out into the open sea, into unknown regions, which alone must be creepy for mermaids, and had
begged
a sea witch for something. He knew very well he wouldn’t have done it. Not for all the love in the world.