Story
Greku, a goblin shark of mature years, swam warily through the dark ocean canyons. Little surface light filtered this deep in the ocean, but there were other sources of light to trap the unwary and deadlier senses belonging to the well-adapted hunters of the ocean depths to ensnare the less observant or cautious. Greku, was both observant and cautious, but excitement bubbled within him at the significance of this day, and it stole the razor-sharp edge from his own hunting instincts.
Emerging from the winding canyons, the flat expanse of seabed ahead of him opened a vista that no surface-hugging land seal had ever laid eyes upon, despite the tableau being well-lit with luminescent algae. Greku flicked his tail twice and shot forward, darting from the canyon mouth to the first ring of ruined buildings, little more than crumbled walls of heavy stone after centuries of degradation at the hands of tides, currents, and scavengers. Despite being the ruins of once surface dwellings, the cityscape that spread before him was not long uninhabited. The inhabitants, those that survived, had adapted over the millennia to their new environment, and as their descendants had done on the surface, they had begun to expand, conquer and defile the natural world. Only now, they did it both above and below the surface.
Of course, all that was now in the past. There was good reason that Greku now swam easily amongst the ruins without challenge. The Atlantians were no more. Sure, stragglers had fled the uprising, but they would not last long in the dangerous and dark world of the ocean depths, even with their strengths and abilities. Their reign was over and Greku now swam towards the very seat of their once vaunted power to pay homage to the Queen who now sat upon Neptune's Throne.
The movement was slight, almost imperceptible, but Greku's senses were amongst the most acute of his kind and he reacted with the speed, precision and stealth of a mature Goblin Shark well trained in the assassin class of the ocean predators. Swimming low along a rough stone wall, Greku tilted his fins slightly to baffle the water eddies of his own movements, ensuring he remained not just unseen, but not sensed by other means as well. Slowing almost to a standstill he was soon rewarded with another sensation that confirmed his first instincts. An Atlantian straggler was still trying to flee the ruins of their civilization. They had made it almost to the very outskirts of their city, but unbeknownst to them, their luck had run out. The Atlantian; an elder of their race, slower and less sturdy had managed to remain hidden during the sacking of the city, but now sought his escape. One last expanse of open seabed and he could find refuge in the ocean canyons that spread out like octopus tentacles from this relatively flat expanse of seabed plateau.
The Atlantian looked around furtively for a moment before the set of his shoulders relaxed visibly, seemingly content that he was alone. Gathering about him the faded remnants of his old uniform, from years previously spent in the Atlantian military, he started out from the ruined Atlantian house. He made it exactly 20 feet from the darkened doorway of the ruins before Greku struck. Fast, silent and deadly, the Goblin Shark launched from the seabed floor and bit down hard on the torso of the Atlantian, whose face immediately twisted into a silent scream of pain. Greku's jaw extended and with two swift lunges forward, he swallowed the Atlantian, his sharp teeth cutting through the old, faded uniform easily. One less Atlantian to survive the uprising and further degrade the underwater environment.
A short time later, Greku swam into the vast hall of the Neptune throne room, easily maneuvering between rows upon rows of sharks and mermaids gathered to witness this historic moment, born of an unlikely alliance. Adjusting a faded, and torn Atlantian military uniform he now wore with pride, Greku circled to a stop among the front rows of the sharks gathered before the throne. His was a position of honour and leadership, second only to the Goblin Shark Chief himself. With a brief gesture of greeting, his used a pectoral fin to adjust his new uniform and spoils of war. The Goblin shark chief grinned broadly at him and acknowledged his favourite assassin as they both turned to watch the majestic Mermaid Queen ascend the jeweled and elaborate dais to sit upon the famed throne, claiming if for the new overlords of the deep. A rumble and swirling of ocean current from the ranks of the Sharks was joined by a chorus of angelic song from the ranks of the Mermaids as they all cheered the new Queen of Atlantis. Arrayed around the Mermaid Queen stood her most trusted advisors and before her, bowed the Chiefs from each of the Shark tribes that had led the uprising.
First Atlantis, next, the land seals of the surface world would feel the wrath of the Salty Shark Uprising!
Sylvella swam lazily along the combined lines of Sharks and Mermaids, gathered to strike at an Atlantian outpost. As she passed by each of the assembled forces, she used her shared vision ability to show them the depredations of the Atlantians across their shared ocean environment. Entire kelp forests harvested beyond recovery, reefs bleached white, fish breeding grounds decimated with detritus and refuse polluting the alkalinity such that stocks would no longer replenish. She could sense the growing rage her visions inspired as she passed their ranks and felt the vibrations within the water as they flexed and swam in tight circles, readying their weapons.
As Commander of the Centre Trident Tine, Slyvella was a veteran of many battles over the centuries, against a myriad of enemies to the ocean depths. Indeed, it was Sylvella that led the recovery effort of hundreds of surface made arbalests from sunken war vessels of the middle ages. Large crossbows that required a crank for human arms to ready the far greater draw weight of the weapon, the arbalest was an ideal weapon when modified slightly by the fey transformation magics of the Mermaids and was easily drawn without a crank by the far greater strength possessed by both Mermaids and their Shark allies. Bolts fired by these weapons were unimpeded by water dynamics and carried the frozen touch of Mermaid magic with them to pierce and freeze the hearts of their quarries. Sylvella herself preferred the trident as it served as both a weapon and a focus for her other powers.
Reaching the end of the arrayed forces, Sylvella spun swiftly and sliced a slender arm through the water, signalling the advance upon the outpost. She already knew the location of their sentries and had planned this assault to the smallest detail. Today, many Atlantians would feel the wrath of nature for their misdeeds. Around her, the Trident brigade burst forward with almost dizzying speed. Easily keeping pace with them, she crested a low ridge rising up from the ocean floor and came within visual sight of the Outpost. Waving her trident before her, Sylvella's magic stirred the sediment and silt of the ocean floor around the outpost with increasing currents and eddies. In mere moments, visibility around the outpost plummeted to blizzard like conditions were this battle occurring upon the surface world. Cries of alarm and panic sounded from the Atlantian sentries and billeted warriors as they struggled to ready weapons and identify their quarry.
The delay was telling for them, as the Trident brigade fell upon them, using senses unimpeded by the swirling silt and sediment. Sylvella felt the vibrations of hundreds of arbalest steel cords releasing with stunning force. The silt and sediment was quickly joined by the blood of Atlantians, something that only infused and frenzied her forces. Out of the murkiness a figure came into view, and she saw the fierce countenance of the Atlantian commander who was moving determinedly toward her. She could see the defeat in his eyes, despite the rage there also. He was determined to take her down, even though his own forces had been decimated. She watched as he pulled back an arm to throw his own trident, but he was neither fast enough nor skilled enough against a being who had grown up as a young mermaid before Atlantis had even slid beneath the earth's surface. Her free hand gestured contemptuously toward him and the water surrounding his arms and legs froze instantly, halting his throw in its backswing. Pain etched his handsome features, and she momentarily lamented a lost opportunity to play further with her quarry as she swam lazily closer. Bringing her face close to his own, she felt and heard the expletives of his final words as she plunged her trident through his chest. Her eyes stayed locked on his own as life fled them before she removed her weapon and returned to her forces now engaged in cleaning and breaking down the outpost for the ocean and its denizens to reclaim it.
Sylvella's lips drew a hard line as her heart regretted the slaughter and death this day. Even after centuries of intermittent battle, she still regretted the loss of life, despite her own rage at what the humans, turned Atlantians had done to the world's oceans and waterways. Nature needed to fight back, or they would all perish. Such was the justification she told herself as she wiped away her own tears.
Sunlight bathed the submerged reef with a diffused golden glow, revealing bleached white coral fields barely interspersed with splashes of colour where the remnants of life fought a retreating battle against rising water temperatures and pollution. Some of the aquatic inhabitants remained, stubbornly clinging to their old, decayed home, but most had moved on to the few remaining living reefs. Dark shadows flitted about the reef as sharks and mermaids sought refuge and cover amongst the dead coral formations.
Dormu, a strike leader Hammerhead shark, harpoon in hand, wearing the Shell insignia in gold filigree denoting his class rank waited near the center of the largest coral formation alongside a young mermaid, who reclined back against the coral, her face twisted in pain. Dormu regarded his young charge with grave concern. All Mermaids were powerful, with abilities far beyond most in the ocean depths, but his charge was still quite young and inexperienced. She had exhausted her powers just buying the small strike force time to seek cover after they had stumbled upon an Atlantian ambush and in the chaos of the swimming battle, she had been struck by a gas-powered spear that had torn a nasty wound across her back and side. Dormu could see the stain of her blood across the bleached coral in the filtered sunlight as he also heard her pleas to him in his mind as she projected the thoughts.
“Leave me, Dormu! Take the others and retreat. I can still obscure this area and buy you time, before…” her thoughts trailed off as she saw his expression harden in resolve. She knew, as a certainty, that Dormu would not abandon her to the Atlantians. If they perished, they would all perish and Dormu would ensure that many Atlantians never returned from their ambush as well.
Watching the understanding dawn in her eyes, Dormu turned his attention to the remainder of his forces, already preparing in his mind their last stand. A quick, lithe Mako shark darted over an outcropping of coral, returning from a short patrol of the perimeter of the reef to report to his strike leader. Dormu flinched toward his scout briefly as he saw the displaced water contrail behind him race rapidly forward, covering the distance frighteningly quick. The gas-powered spear causing this contrail in the water found its mark before Dormu could move more than half a yard and a cloud of brown blood engulfed the Mako shark as it nearly bent in two from the force of the spear. The lifeless body continued its motion over the outcropping of coral and Dormu had his answer as to the extent and reach of the Atlantian forces. The Mermaids gentle touch at his side soothed some of the rage and despair building within Dormu as her innate powers calmed his mind, but he would not forget the bravery of that Mako, nor would he rest until the scout shark was avenged.
Dormu’s eyes narrowed, his mind now clear and calculating, thanks to his young charge’s magic, and he quickly relayed orders to his remaining forces, few as they were. Turning back to the young mermaid he told her of their plan, cutting off her protests even as they began. They would engage the Atlantians in a final suicidal charge to distract and baffle them, giving her time to flee the reef and seek help. She looked from face to face of each of the remaining strike force and could see their determination and admiration for what she had done to save them to this point. Reaching out with her mind, she touched each of them, committing their names and faces to memory, so they could be honoured by their brethren for this sacrifice. The Queen herself would hear of their heroics this day. The currents and eddies amongst the reef might steal her tears as they began, but all knew and felt the pain of this farewell.
Withdrawing her mind from theirs, the sharks of the Shell strike force turned as one and readied weapons. It was at that moment that a dark shadow began to grow across the reef, blotting out the filtered sunlight in a way that no clouds in the sky above could accomplish.
An immense shape glided over the top of the reef, coming from behind the gathered forces of the Shell strike force. Looking up in alarm, Dormu’s eyes widened in wonder and his mouth opened in a broad grin of impending triumph. Dormu heard the gasps of awe from his unit but did not reprimand their loss of discipline for what swam inexorably but slowly above them was nothing short of an oceanic legend.
The Whale Shark was one of the oldest of his species, but age did not slow him or lessen his formidable prowess in the slightest. If anything, it made him one of the most frightening creatures of the ocean. Dozens of water-displaced contrails appeared rapidly from the ocean floor just in front of the reef as the Atlantians recognized their peril and launched all their gas-powered spears at once. Dormu’s smile became even more broad and vicious as he watched the spectacle as deadly spears, able to tear a shark in two, struck harmlessly against the steel-plated belly of the behemoth known as “Shark Tank”. From his vantage in the shadow of the Whale Shark’s gigantic underbelly, Dormu marveled at the still legible writing across the steel plates that so easily deflected the best that the Atlantians could launch at him; “Bismarck”.
Dozens of sharks and mermaids riding atop the Shark Tank returned fire with their magically empowered arbalests and Dormu gave the order to his own forces, leading them out in a now deadly charge towards the clearly dismayed and morale sapped Atlantians. Gazing up in wonder herself, the young mermaid had forgotten her own pain at seeing up close such a legend of the deep. Shark Tank banked slowly, affording his passengers a better angle of attack on their hapless quarry and his gaze locked with the young mermaid, her mouth agape in awe. His broad mouth opened in a friendly smile as he swam past her, the one eye locked with hers closing briefly in a wink of acknowledgment.
It was almost an hour after the Shell strike force was saved by the timely arrival of the Shark Tank, a legend of the seven oceans, that two seasoned hammerhead sharks arrived at a secluded grotto cave deep within the Java trench that runs alongside the Indonesian archipelago. Between the two strong sharks, a young mermaid, sorely wounded in the surprise attack on their forces, clung to each of the sharks inside pectoral fins. Her face was paler than moonlight reflected off the ocean surface and blood still seeped from the jagged wounds.
Inside the grotto, the scene was anything but peaceful as mermaids and grey nurse sharks tended a range of wounded sea life. Seeing them enter, an elderly mermaid, her hair a stark white amongst the vibrant colours of her younger kin quickly guided them to a spare section of the cave where an outcropping of rock was layered with freshly cut kelp. The two hammerhead sharks laid their charge down upon the rocks and nudged her affectionately until she assured them, she was settled and at rest. That rest was short-lived as the matronly mermaid, her face weathered by both the years and her concern for the injured within the grotto pushed past the sharks to examine their young charge’s wound.
“You two, please wait outside, there is nothing more you can do to help her,” she waved them off, so she had room to work.
Nodding briskly, they turned to leave, as the matron, checking her own impatience and fatigue, spoke again, this time in more measured tones. “You have both done well getting her here so quickly, forgive my terse tone.” And with that, she turned back to the young mermaid and began cleaning the wound and singing to her in a low voice, a song of renewal and hope, where the words brought nearly as much comfort to the young mermaid as the imbued magic of the matron’s voice.
The two Order of the Shell hammerheads emerged from the Grotto into the darker waters of the Java trench with some relief, having felt intimidated by the bustle, noise and strange scents of unguents and sea flora. Settling back against the rocky walls of the trench, they felt a ripple of laughter in the waters from the other side of the grotto entrance. Peering into the gloom, they soon discerned the source of that mirth as a huge bull shark swam lazily toward them, one eye covered in a black patch with an ugly scar running beneath it while the rest of his body was covered in elaborate, slightly fluorescent tattoos.
“These grottos of the Cross are not so easily gotten used to,” he said in a voice as gravelly as an undersea landslide. “But they sure know how to patch us up, which is worth all the discomfort, I can assure you.”Both hammerheads just nodded in agreement, at ease again, now they recognised the renowned warrior known as Nado. “They patch you up too?” one asked, gesturing back to the Grotto.
Nado nodded once and gestured to the patch with a shrug, “Couldn’t save me eye though,” he replied, suppressing an urge to scratch the still puffy scar.
The hammerheads were about to reply when movement further up the rocky trench caught their attention, stealing the words from their toothy maws. Seeing their clear shift in attention, even with just one eye, Nado turned on a dime and scanned the trench and canyon walls, heavy set muscles bunching under the faint luminescent ink of his tattoos. Moments later, they were all rewarded with another glimpse of what had alerted them. An armoured Atlantian Crawler or mechanical pincer crab was slowly descending into the trench, the shape of its cabin and deadly front claws concealed by some cleverly attached detritus.
All three sharks, veterans of numerous battles knew an Atlantian Crawler, armoured, and equipped with powerful hydraulic pincer claws could tear through regiments of sharks with ease and a relatively unguarded Grotto of the Cross would present little resistance, especially with over half of the occupants within badly injured or infirm.
Nado looked from the advancing Crawler and back to the two Hammerheads, noting their grim, yet determined expressions. A vicious smile spread across his brutish bull shark features and his one remaining eye widened in excitement and bloodlust.
“Speed and stealth, lads” he instructed them in a low voice. “Approach from behind and to either flank and take out those back legs so it can’t turn on you easily.”
Nodding in unison, they started off, quickly and quietly in the darkened depths of the trench, before calling back quietly, “what about you, Nado?”
They could still see the gleam of his bright white teeth as his words rippled through the water towards them, stunning them momentarily in both awe and amazement.
“I’ll bust straight through those front claws and smash the canopy wide open lads. Then… it’s feeding time!”
Inside the grotto, the matronly mermaid raised and cocked her head to one side, before shaking it in fatigue and going back to her work on the young mermaid. Watching her reaction, the young mermaid asked her weakly.
“What is it?”
The Matron smiled and patted her scaled hand reassuringly, “It’s nothing dear, just an old maid slowly losing her mind I suspect,” she answered with a chuckle. “Could have sworn I heard Atlantians screaming in pain. As I said, must be losing my mind.”
The mermaid swam gracefully through the kelp forest of the Angola Basin located in the South Atlantic Ocean, weaving languidly amongst the tall plants as they danced on the ocean currents. Her hand brushed the lush and untouched kelp and her long, lustrous golden hair splayed out from her head creating the illusion that a giant spider’s web stretched between the two rows of kelp with her body caught firmly in its entangling snare. Arching her back, the mermaid reveled in the connection to this untouched natural wonder and closed her eyes in a peaceful surrender to the moment.
The attack was silent, swift and without disruption to the currents around her as a heavy object slammed into the back of her head, causing pain and a burst of sharp points of light to explode in her mind’s eye. Reeling from the assault, she quickly tried to turn, or flee with a burst of speed, or call upon her innate magic to obscure her but all the thoughts came at once and jumbled upon each other, destroying her concentration and clarity. Her eyes searched the waving forest of kelp, desperately searching for her attacker, but what had been a sea of green tranquility moments before, now was full of shadows, darkness, and danger. From behind the kelp to either side of her, rough hands lunged for her, pinning her arms to her near naked body. Normal men would never have succeeded in such rough handling of a mermaid, such was their strength that belied their lithe forms. Atlantians however, had adapted to the environment as well and these two were elite warriors, trained to battle such foes and the element of surprise combined with a blow to the head gave them all the advantage they needed. In moments, the mermaid had been bound, gagged and blindfolded, with her tail cruelly twisted up behind her and secured by a thick cord that wrapped around her throat. Any attempt to flee would choke the life from her.
The Atlantians spared a moment to celebrate their success before dragging her prone body through the kelp forest to a clear patch of seabed, leaving her to lie on her side amongst the fine sand and silt.
“When was the last time anyone captured one of the gilled women?” the first Atlantian asked his more seasoned companion.
The veteran Atlantian regarded the younger trooper with a fierce smile, although his words held a note of caution and were kept low and brief. “It’s rare, but not unheard of. Maybe a half century is my guess. Normally too dangerous to leave alive, but the Commander wants answers.”
Looking around warily, the veteran unslung a gas-powered harpoon launcher from across his back and checked the mechanism. His thumb hesitated for the briefest moment before he slid the safety to ‘off’ and kept it at the ready. Gesturing with a nod to the younger, yet still elite guardsman, he barked a hasty order, “Quickly, go get the Crawler and we’ll take her back to camp. Something, “and he looked out into the murky depths of the deep basin warily. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
The Trooper nodded and swam back towards the kelp forest, moving swiftly and quietly. The two Atlantians were members of the elite forward deployment brigade; experienced, battle-hardened warriors that were trained to operate well behind enemy lines. It was only their skill and experience that had enabled them to close with the Mermaid without her sensing them. A feat few could brag about. Three hundred yards beyond the far side of the kelp forest sat the armoured mechanical crawler, painted a non-reflective dark grey to match the seabed. The trooper paused at the edge of the kelp forest and scanned the surroundings for several heartbeats before breaking cover, confident that no enemies waited beyond.
The veteran Atlantian hunkered down, the gas-powered harpoon cocked and held before him as he scanned the area. As his gaze returned to his left, he noticed the mermaid, still prone upon the seabed floor, had turned on her side. Although still blindfolded, and despite he not having moved at all since the young trooper had left, she was somehow staring directly at him. He was sure that her eyes, were they free of the thick material, would be locked with his own. Momentarily stunned with a spasm of fear that ran the length of his spine, the veteran carefully slid a foot behind him and without making a sound or the slightest ripple of the water around him, he shifted back a few paces. Disconcertingly, the mermaids head tilted up as, impossibly, her blind-folded eyes tracked his movements. It was then, that he noticed something else peculiar. At her waist a small belt pouch wrapped her slender frame. The twine-wrapped catch had come open and a single item had spilled out upon the sandy floor of the seabed.
A golden fleur-de-lis brooch.
The young trooper had reached the armoured Crawler and was in the process of unlocking the canopy when a sixth sense warned him of impending danger. With one hand still on the canopy, his free hand drew a wickedly sharp kris knife from his belt and he spun to his left, inwardly proud of his lightening reflexes honed from years of combat experience. He should, however, have turned right.
An explosion of pain tore up his spine a moment before the dark oceanic plain became darker still around the edges of his vision and a cloud of blood quickly obscured all sight of the trooper or the canopy of the armoured Crawler. The silence and stillness of the next few moments was interrupted only by a slight metallic clink, as a kris knife struck the outside step of the Crawler before landing point first into the sandy seabed floor.
The veteran Atlantian knew something had gone wrong. The trooper should have returned by now in the Crawler and they should be halfway back to their camp. Cursing under his breath, he moved to the other side of the prone mermaid, determined to use her as a living shield. While his eyes and other senses scanned the surroundings, his mind probed the symbol on the brooch. He recognized it but was struggling to grasp the meaning which continued to stubbornly resist his attempts at recall. He could see it in his mind’s eye as it lay upright upon the sand, but how did it fall from a closed pouch when she was bound and prone herself?
It was that slightest distraction that proved his undoing, with his mind too focused on the brooch for mere fractions of a second. He was a solidly built Atlantian, proven by the strength it took to overpower the mermaid, regardless of the surprise of their assault. But the 2200 pounds of great white shark travelling at 50 km per hour tore into him with such ferocity that his expression had not even changed, even as his body was ripped in two. His head and shoulders hit sand, stained with his lifeblood but his mind was not yet done as it finally grasped the meaning of the brooch’s symbol. As his eyes dimmed and he acknowledged the memory, he was again struck by how the mermaid had somehow turned and through the thick material of her blindfold was once again staring straight into his now lifeless eyes.
The fleur-de-lis, a calling card used by the Order of the Skull.
Released from her bonds, Vilaya the Mermaid rubbed at her bruised wrists absently while regarding the dead Atlantian, lying in two halves upon the seabed floor. His eyes were closed, but his face still bore the shocked expression of his sudden death. In the background, on the edges of ocean visibility at this depth, she could make out the dark shadow of the Great White shark from the Order of the Skull that had rescued her, swimming lazily in a perimeter arc to ensure her safety. She sent out a brief telepathic message of thanks and bent to retrieve the fleur-de-lis brooch, depositing it back into her pouch before swimming off at speed in the direction the first trooper had gone.
After a few minutes, Vilaya approached the mechanical Crawler carefully, wary of potential Atlantian forces that may have come to investigate their missing brethren. Seeing only the dark stain of spilled blood upon the sea floor, she reached the open canopy and swam inside, hopeful to gain some intelligence on Atlantian enclaves nearby. Twenty minutes passed and the dark shape of her escort circling in the shadowy depths had become restless at her delay and ever-increasing danger. It was only a matter of time before more Atlantian forces arrived, and there were limits to what he could accomplish against a larger squad of elite Atlantian warriors.
Vilaya emerged from the mechanical Crawler, her face drawn with concern. So worried by her findings, she did not even bother to check the area for enemies before swimming out into the ocean, away from the kelp forest, her mind racing as she began ordering her requirements for an imminent raid of an Atlantian facility hidden nearby.
Hours later, a hastily assembled force of sharks and mermaids from all the Orders gathered at the top of a long undersea trench system. Vilaya crouched on the seabed and drew detailed diagrams in the silt of the ocean floor, while arrayed around her the various strike leaders from the Orders watched both her drawings and the shared images in their minds as she projected both the objective of their raid and the details from her intelligence gathering inside the mechanical Crawler. Vilaya’s plan was both ambitious and dangerous and the expressions on the faces of the gathered forces told her they knew and accepted the risks. Some would not be returning to families this day, but the gains from a successful raid could tilt the outcome of the wider conflict in their favour, even above the morale-boosting victory brought about by the sacking of Atlantis itself. Vilaya held no illusions that although the Atlantians were stung by the sacking of Atlantis, they were far from a spent force among the seven seas.
Vilaya locked eyes with each of their assembled forces, silently acknowledging each of them for what they were about to undertake. Reaching out a hand, she accepted her silver trident from an accompanying handmaiden and wordlessly swam over the edge of the canyon, leading her forces in an undersea wave of retribution that flowed down into the depths of this well-concealed trench system.
The battle that followed was intense and bloody. The Atlantian facility was fortified and heavily guarded although not specifically expecting this assault. The attacking mermaids and sharks were some of the best forces available to the six orders, but their losses were significant this day. Bodies, torn and punctured, from both sides of the conflict floated near the seabed and around the facilities fortifications half frozen from the mermaid magic. In the calm and quiet that followed their capture of the facility, Vilaya surveyed the area in horror at the magnitude of their losses, with barely a third of their initial strike force left alive, and half of those carrying injuries that would require significant time under the care of the Cross before they could return to active duty. Running one hand over her eyes and face in fatigue and doubt, she was unaware of the Atlantian blood she inadvertently smeared across her features. Her silver trident was darkened with both blood and gore and she felt momentarily sick from the carnage.
Soon, she was surrounded by her remaining forces, her own horror reflected in their expressions despite a firm stoicism born of training and experience. Regaining her composure, she led them inside the facility, knowing what she would find, but still curious as to the details or the degree of success these Atlantians might have achieved. The interior of the facility was open and cavernous with long cages, large surgical tables, lab equipment and seemingly out of place, a fully covered and immense corral.
Vilaya and her strike team moved through the now unoccupied laboratory areas with both amazement and disgust. Several failed experiments floated inside cages, broken, twisted and dead. They saw horrors this day that none of them would ever forget or forgive and it would haunt them for years to come.
On the other side of the laboratory, they approached the covered corral with both trepidation and excitement, seeing movement within and hoping they could still save some of these poor creatures that had been subject to cruel genetic experimentation. After cutting aside the covering, there was an explosion of bubbles amongst Vilaya’s forces as shock and amazement swept through the depleted ranks of the strike force. Vilaya herself had tears of wonder and relief run down her face, creating streaks in the dried blood of her enemies from the earlier battle.
Before them, dozens of sea horses swam in lazy circles or congregated in small groups inside the large corral. These survivors of the Atlantian experimentation were not normal sea horses, small and fragile. These were grown to incredible proportions, as large now as a fully grown great white shark. They had also been outfitted for battle. Armoured face plates to protect vulnerable areas not already covered in thick scales and intricate saddles and bridle adorned these magnificent creatures.
Vilaya reached out her mind to them and was met with inquisitive and calm responses. These had not suffered mentally from the experimentations and genetic modification treatments. In fact, they appeared mentally no different from their smaller brethren. Raising a hand, she gestured forward a handful of mermaids bearing a seahorse insignia on their belts. Trained to handle these creatures, although the lesser versions as messengers and scouts, these mermaids approached the magnificent creatures with both reverence and awe.
Before long, they had guided all the seahorse steeds from the facility and Vilaya ordered it destroyed, waiting until it was complete before leaving the facility herself. As she and her surviving strike team swam away, she marvelled at the speed and manoeuvrability of the mermaids now mounted on the seahorse steeds liberated from the Atlantians. The victory and rescue were one of the most important of the battles to date, but it came at a heavy cost. In her mind, Vilaya recalled each of the faces of those that were not swimming away beside her and mourned them silently.
Vilaya was exhausted by the time she arrived back at the fallen city of Atlantis. The last hour of her journey had been alone, after she bade farewell to the hastily assembled strike force who were even now securing their rescued seahorse mounts at a secret refuge so they could better study and understand their new allies. Alone of course, except for her shadowy protector from the Order of the Skull, who even now, so close to the bulk of their forces, kept a careful watch upon her.
Swimming past the broken outer walls of the perimeter, Vilaya greeted some of their forces working carefully around the edges of the captured city. They in turn, stopped their detailed work briefly and waved a return greeting, the Starfish emblem of their Order clearly visible to Vilaya as she respectfully acknowledged the important work of this defensive unit. Moving further into the city, she could see that no effort was being made to restore any of the buildings damaged in the assault. The royal decree had been clear, the sea was to reclaim this symbol of humanity’s encroachment upon nature.
Entering the palace at the heart of the city, Vilaya was greeted by her sister and mentor Sylvella, a decorated Commander of the Order of the Trident. They embraced briefly and looked each other over with serious, caring eyes, ensuring the other was well and hearty. Seemingly both satisfied within a heartbeat of the other, they then burst into laughter and embraced again.
“Good to see you back safely,” Sylvella said with a warm smile of affection. “I feared your mission against the Atlantian facility was too hastily planned.”
Vilaya’s eyes closed in pain at the recent heavy losses and her head bowed as she replied in a soft, trembling voice, “You were right to worry. Despite our success, it was no victory this day. Too many friends did not return.”
Sylvella gently cupped Vilaya’s chin and lifted her face to meet her own gaze. “That may be so, but the prize you recovered may yet be what ensures many more lives are not lost in the battles still to come.” The admonishment against self-doubt was softened by her praise and Vilaya gave a soft smile and nod of thanks. “You best head inside quickly,” Slyvella nodded with her head towards Neptune’s throne room, “The Queen wishes to congratulate you in person.”
Vilaya nodded once and started towards the throne room, only to smile again at her sister’s words as they carried to both herself and the shadowy form still circling outside.
“You as well Gallad,” she called out, “The Queen most certainly wishes to acknowledge your efforts in keeping her daughter safe from the Atlantians.”
The dark shadow ceased it’s languid circling and with a flick of his mighty tail, the great white shark, an elite within the ranks of the Order of the Skull burst forward into the palace proper, a subtle lift to one pectoral fin tilting his body slightly to pay his respects to Sylvella with one, dark, emotionless eye as his incredible bulk glided past her.
Neptune’s throne room was packed with representatives fropm all the Orders with Sharks and Mermaids engaged in banter, trade, planning or just waiting on an audience with the Mermaid Queen herself. Vilaya and Gallad made their way forward towards the throne via a circuitous route, hoping to avoid unnecessary pomp or ceremony that might be afforded to one of the royal family. There were many that spotted Vilaya and made to intercept her for any number of reasons, but the presence and bulk of Gallad provided sufficient discouragement. Just as they were approaching Neptune’s Throne itself, alarms began sounding throughout the city, sending those in the throne room scrambling to prepare defences around the Mermaid Queen.
Along the perimeter of the now ruined city, Mermaids with magically imbued large shells blew blasts of warning, that were replicated by others around the city until all knew that an attack was coming. Out upon the flat abyssal plains surrounding the city, hundreds of Atlantians advanced upon the city, desperate to re-take the seat of their power. Dozens of mechanical crawlers, riders on genetically modified seahorses and infantry carrying the deadly gas-powered harpoons advanced steadily upon the city.
Ahead of them, they could see the sharks and mermaids taking cover amidst the destroyed buildings and ruined low walls and they laughed at the apparent cowardice of Nature’s best forces. Armed, armoured and now prepared, the Atlantians were among the best fighting force on the planet and the lack of any show of force from their adversaries emboldened them as they began to advance on the city with more haste.
Inside the city however, there was no panic or alarm and the warning blasts of the Mermaid horn shells had ceased as they waited patiently. A large spotted Zebra shark, wearing the gold insignia of the Star watched the advancing Atlantians with a calculated eye as his forces waited for his commands. The Atlantians had covered half the distance to the city already and the occasional thud of a gas-powered harpoon slamming into an outer wall was all the incentive required for the defensive forces to keep low and out of sight.
Torgath, the Zebra Shark Commander of the Order of the Star counted down silently with nods of his head before gesturing to a nearby Mermaid who smiled once and closed her eyes in concentration. Out on the abyssal field, underneath the advancing forces of Atlantians, hundreds of starfish flared and triggered the encapsulated spore sacks attached to their central bodies. Clouds of choking spores filled the waters around the charging Atlantians who immediately began to gag and drop to their knees on the seabed floor.
The mermaids within the city then combined their magic to stir up the currents and eddies out on the abyssal plain which soon whipped up the silt from the seabed into an obscuring cloud that further hampered the attacking forces creating confusion in their ranks. Screams of pain echoed from within the clouds of silt as mechanical Crawlers hit their own infantry troops, trampling them under claw.
Another signal from Torgath and out on the plains, more hidden starfish flared up, discharging this time thousands of slender but sharp stonefish spines which speared up forcefully into the bodies of the Atlantians poisoning them further as they choked on the deadly spores.
Protected from the spines and spores by armoured plates and protective canopies, the dozen mechanical Crawlers soon emerged from the obscuring silt clouds at the very edge of the city they so recently lost to the Mermaid Queen and her forces. Pausing, they waited for the hundreds of infantry troops to emerge also, expecting the barrage of gas-powered harpoons to launch ahead, tearing into shark and mermaid flesh. Looking out through the enclosed canopies, they waited expectantly, but no one else came through. Minutes passed and panic began to rise within the Crawlers. The silt finally settled, no longer whipped up by the magic of the mermaids. Looking out the rear of their protective canopies, their faces slowly drained of blood as the horror across the abyssal plain came into focus. Hundreds of dead Atlantians, their bodies twisted in agony from the poison spines and choking spores littered the plain as thousands of star fish slowly crawled up from beneath the silt to patiently feast on the flesh of their brethren.
Turning their attention back to the city they had, only moments before, been confident of re-taking, the Atlantians within the dozen mechanical Crawlers gazed upon the large form of Torgath before them.
“Exit your crabs and surrender,” Torgath instructed them, his gaze moving steadily from one Crawler to another. “You will not get a second invitation,” as he raised his pectoral fin and two full squads of sharks and mermaids, each bearing the Emblem of the Star rose from within the ruined outer buildings and fortifications ready to attack.
By the time Sylvella made it to the outskirts of the city, Torgath’s forces were already disarming and binding the surrendered Atlantians while others were moving the mechanical Crawlers away for later study. With a shrug of her shoulders and a wave, she began lazily swimming back towards Neptune’s Throne while behind her, Torgath bestowed a broad smile of pride upon his gathered forces, the very best defensive unit in the Mermaid Queen’s army.
Part 1
Atlantis was once a shining beacon of humanity. A city of art, culture, and technology, it was a civilization of enlightenment ahead of its time. The earth, however, was a restless world that shifted, flexed, and groaned through an evolution and formation that stretched across eons. Being a coastal city, Atlantis was always at risk of inclement weather events and even more so to events that impacted the tectonic plates. Such was the fate of such a glorious city of learning and wonder that it would be swallowed up by the oceans and be forgotten over the centuries that passed.
Humanity, however, is not so easily thwarted. One of humanities greatest strengths is adaptability and so it was that a new Atlantis grew from the sunken ruins of the old with an aquatic species of humanity taking to the oceans in the same rapacious way their ancestors swarmed the surface lands. The sub-surface Atlantis that rose from the ruins of the old city was a muted and sallow reflection of the former’s glory. Its citizens; angry, broken, and twisted versions of their former artists and scholars blamed their new environment for their predicament and sought instead to conquer and dominate their new oceanic world, unleashing their technology with wanton cruelty and disdain for all.
Six Months Before Uprising
Much of the submerged city of Atlantis still lay in ruins centuries later, with most of the decimated population leaving within proximity of the palace, which had remained remarkably intact. The Atlantian population had eventually swelled as all human based civilizations do, but rather than re-build the collapsed and ruined outer city, they instead expanded to form new settlements out amongst the oceans and seas of the globe.
It was to a dilapidated old farmhouse on the outskirts of Atlantis that Nagano approached, swimming low to the ground and skimming the broken stone fences and outbuildings. A hammerhead shark of middle age, Nagano was different from his kind in several ways. First, he liked to dress to impress, having salvaged a navy admiral’s uniform from a sunken warship, repairing the medals and epaulettes to a pristine condition that was matched by the trim and cut of his classic fedora hat. Nagano was also fond of wealth and all things shiny, and he possessed a vast hoard of coins, ingots, jewelry, and riches, mostly from the Atlantians he was visiting again this day.
Nagano entered the farmhouse cautiously, surprisingly alert for someone decked out in so much bling. Inside, he scanned the main living room and nodded once in satisfaction, seeing the usual suspects of the Atlantian underworld gathered around a neatly established semi-circular table of wet felt and weighted chips.
Taking his seat, he addressed the elderly octopus dealer with a friendly banter. “How’s the family Charles?”
“Quite the handful, thanks for asking,” Charles replied with a rueful expression, while four of his arms independently shuffled and cut two separate decks for imminent play.
Nagano folded the first hand quickly and settled in to study his opponents, ready for a long evening of enjoyment as he sought to best them at this game of their own devising.
Hours later, Nagano sat hunched over two cards that lay face down on the wet felt table before him, the pile of weighted chips before him forming a defensive bulwark against the aggressive play of his remaining opponent. The Atlantian glowered at him from across the table, one eye twitching slightly from the intensity of his stare.
Minutes passed and not even the current dared stir through the cracks in the farmhouse walls. Eventually, the Atlantian twitched and in a sudden flurry of movement, pushed all his remaining stack of chips into the middle of the table. “All in!” was the call.
Neither of Nagano’s eyes even blinked once before he casually announced a call.
Slamming the table in frustration, the Atlantian growled an obscenity and reached behind him, his hand closing around the stock of a gas-powered harpoon. Nagano’s eyes narrowed at the curse and movement, even as he was gathering in the chips of his victory.
A large shadow detached itself from the darkened corners of the farmhouse. Stepping into the light at the table, a huge figure, easily three times the bulk of the Atlantian moved swiftly to intervene. Skin like cooling lava, black with pulsing red veins covered this enormous great white shark’s physique, only partly obscured by the metal-studded leathers of the biker jacket he had acquired from a previous customer.
“No need for that friend,” he said with a smile devoid of friendship.
The Atlantian, realizing he was outmatched, carefully moved his hand away and clear of the weapon.
“Timely arrival Fergal,” Nagano greeted his colleague gratefully.
Sliding the wealth of a small nation into a large pouch, Nagano flicked a single doubloon towards Charles. “About time, if you ask me,” he replied to Fergal.
Charles, curious, turned back to the sharks, only to find the farmhouse eerily empty.
Part 2
3 Months before Uprising
The Indonesian archipelago is dotted with hundreds of small islands and land seal communities and exists at the southern end of one of the busiest shipping lanes on earth, the South China Sea. So, it presented an ideal region for Fergal and Nagano’s team of hand-picked sharks and mermaids to complete the most vital trading mission of their lives to date. The Mermaid Queen had been very clear about the potential costs of failure in this mission and had even sent her own daughter Vilaya with them to help ensure nothing went awry.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Nagano murmured, sitting on the edge of the continental shelf besides a half dozen large clam shells filled with ingots, doubloons, jewelry, and gems.
Looking to each of the dozen sharks and the four mermaids including Vilaya, Fergal noted the grim determination across their features, before replying to his old friend in a lighter tone meant to ease some of the building tension.
“Is that about the trade mission, or the loss of so much of your treasure to the coming war effort?”
Nagano gave Fergal a wry grin and nod, appreciating the jest as much as the tension reliever, but it was short lived and Fergal noted that Nagano’s apprehension was not completely misplaced, given the nature of the land seals they sought to do business with combined with the risks of bringing their mermaid allies so close to human settlements. Despite the repeated sailor stories and folklore, the mermaids had been able to retain their mythic status through the centuries, but proximity to coastal populations of humans and their fishing nets always carried the risk of capture and exposure. Fergal himself swallowed a lump of consternation as his regarded Vilaya. The Mermaid Queen would be most displeased should they allow a mermaid to be caught or captured by the land seals, but if that Mermaid was her own daughter… well, it might be time to find a nice, safe marine park to live out his remaining days.
Nagano was also regarding Vilaya with a slight frown, something she noticed and returned with a raised eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Not wanting to pry or anything, but why does he not actually join us?” Nagano asked, gesturing to the dark shape circling just at the edge of visibility in the deeper waters off the continental shelf.
“Gallad?” she asked with a soft chuckle. At Nagano’s nod, she continued, glancing out into deeper waters as she did so. “He doesn’t really favour company, and he takes his job very seriously. I think he worries that he intimidates others.”
Nagano and Fergal both exchanged a quick, knowing look before they responded in unison, “He does!”
“And I’m no weasel shark, like Nagano here,” Fergal quipped, gesturing to his own impressive bulk.
Nagano gave Fergal a withering glare with one eye while his other continued to monitor the dark shape circling in the deep.
The conversation had done its job and lessened the tension they all felt, even if few admitted it. Privately, Nagano was quite proud of himself for that, having a gift for reading the room.
Whatever tension had been lessened by the banter, it returned twice over as the unmistakable sound of a ship’s propeller reverberated through the peaceful undersea location. Faint at first, the whomp-whomp of the heavy propeller rose in volume as the surface vessel steadily advanced on their position. As the ship reached a point five hundred yards from the edge of the continental shelf, the propeller slowed as the engines were cut, letting the ship coast steadily closer under its own momentum until a metallic rattling sounded a clarion call in the depths as the ships anchor descended under a mechanical motor to drag and eventually find purchase on the seabed floor. The vessel, a mid-sized cargo ship, slowed to a stop, casting an even darker shadow then the angle of the late afternoon sun over the waiting troop of sharks and mermaids. The entire troop stayed motionless, gazing up at the ship in apprehension as the remainder of the afternoon passed slowly by, eventually blanketing them in the inky darkness of the nighttime ocean depths.
Hours passed in silence before Vilaya gave the signal to finally move out. Nagano directed a dozen of the sharks to collect the six large clam shells full of gold, coins, and treasure, hefting then carefully and swimming slowly up toward the waiting ship. Vilaya and six other mermaids, joined by Nagano and Fergal also moved off, quickly overtaking the treasure-burdened sharks as they made their way to the rear of the vessel in silence. Off in the darkness another looming presence paralleled them, keeping an ever-watchful gaze on his charge.
Breaking the surface of the water, Vilaya and her mermaids were relieved to find a rope ladder had been lowered into the water from the rear of the vessel. So far, all was proceeding as negotiated. One by one, led by Vilaya, the mermaids grabbed the ladder, concentrated to activate a transformation magic, and quickly climbed on board the vessel. Crouching low into a defensive position, weapons at the ready, they were relieved to find none of the ship’s occupants on deck, however they easily identified the crates of equipment that had been stacked towards the back of the vessel, ready for the trade. Stepping up to the nearest crate, Vilaya pried the heavy wooden lid open with her dagger, smiling once as she gazed at the contents, beautifully crafted pure titanium tridents and body armour. Immune to rust or corrosion, these were master-crafted items and worth a small fortune. Luckily for Vilaya, that was exactly what they brought with them in trade for these exquisite armaments. Concentrating a moment, she sent out her thoughts to the waiting sharks below and they quickly went about off-loading the many crates of tridents and armour, replacing them with the gold, coins, gems and jewelry recovered from shipwrecks lost since the 1800’s.
An hour later, Vilaya, Fergal and a somewhat sullen Nagano, now much poorer than he had been before this day, were quickly swimming away from the vessel, the troop of sharks now carrying priceless weapons and armour swimming in their wake. On an impulse, Vilaya veered off towards the ship again. Swimming alongside the vessel, she gazed into the portholes of the vessel, seeing only darkness within as the occupants slept through the night. As she approached the last porthole, she noticed a faint light within, and she paused in curiosity, drifting a little closer to the small glass window. Inside, a small young human girl was awake and staring out into the ocean through the window. Their eyes locked and Vilaya saw the girl’s eyes widen in wonder at sight of the mermaid. Holding one finger to her lips, Vilaya waved at the girl and offered a quick smile and wink. The little girl’s face lit with joy as she quickly waved back to Vilaya and began jumping up and down excitedly. Vilaya laughed once and turned to swim away only to see the girls face register alarm and panic. Sensing the looming presence of her guardian Gallad, she quickly intuited the cause of the small girl’s panic before turning and affectionately draping one arm over the pectoral fin of Gallad as he glided by in the darkness. Realising her new mermaid friend was not about to be eaten by a gigantic shark, the small girl relaxed and continued to watch the two depart into the darkness. Her expression remained a mixture of wonder at the mermaid and horror at the size of her shark protector. ******
The Mermaid Queen approached the cave mouth of a secluded box canyon deep in the Atlantic Ocean, two great white shark guardians from the Order of the Skull at her back and her closest aid and chief handmaiden at her side, known as the Blue Siren for the pale blue hue to her skin and her penchant for large sapphire jewelry and precious little else to cover her modesty. The Queen paused close to the entrance and let her flowing golden hair fan out around her head and body, waving slightly with the ocean currents. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her mind and probed the interior of the cave while the sharks and Blue Siren kept an attentive watch on their immediate surroundings. After a few moments, she opened eyes that burned like living fire and sighed once in resignation. Noticing the reaction, Blue Siren gestured to the two sharks and spoke in a low tone.
“You best wait outside and ensure no one else comes to the party.”
Grateful for her chief handmaiden’s intuition and read of her own reaction, the Mermaid Queen nodded once and swam for the cave mouth entrance, Blue Siren only a half tail length behind her. Inside the cave was a brief switch back tunnel, that soon opened to a large underwater cavern, interspersed with columns of calcium formed by the merging of the age’s old stalactites and stalagmites. Within the cavern waited a dozen well-armed Atlantians, led by what appeared a nobleman by his attire and self-important demeanor. Addressing the nobleman and paying scant attention to the Atlantian soldiers, the Mermaid Queen was polite but admonishing.
“Lord Bastale, when I received your invitation for this meeting, it didn’t mention you were bringing a squad of fully armed soldiers with you.”
“One can never be too careful in these waters,” Lord Bastale replied, gesturing wide with both arms while not even bothering to feign contrition.
“A sentiment with both share, I can assure you, though clearly for different reasons,” The Mermaid Queen replied sternly and from the creasing at the corners of his eyes, she could see the barb had hit home.
Lord Bastale looked from the Mermaid Queen to her handmaiden, noting that the only weapon upon them was a golden knife at the hip of the Blue Siren and then he regarded their calm, relaxed manner and his earlier confidence fractured with uncertainty.
“So,” The Mermaid Queen interrupted his thoughts, “your letter said that you needed to meet with me to avert a potential war across the seven seas. So here I am, eager to also avoid a possible conflict but doubtful as to the veracity of your intentions,” she finished with a smile devoid of any humour as her hair suddenly fanned out in the water around her and her handmaiden.
Taken aback by the movement of the Mermaid Queen’s hair in the still waters of the large cave, Lord Bastale frowned in annoyance laced with confusion as to why she would come, if she so clearly suspected betrayal on his part.
“I know your true name, Mermaid,” he barked at her angrily, trying to wrest back the upper hand in the conversation. “Nammu, so named by your Sumerian worshippers over five thousand years ago.
“So what?” Nammu replied indifferently?
“Knowing your true name grants me power over you!” he exclaimed triumphantly, pointing a pale and slimy hand at her from across the cavern. “A power I intend to use to destroy your kind and your shark protectors.”
Nammu, the Mermaid Queen tilted her head to one side as she watched his dramatic pronouncement as a small smile began to turn the corner of her mouth upward ever so slightly.
“You must have done some serious research and study to have discovered the name given to me by your surface ancestors all those years ago,” she began, acknowledging the difficulty of such an undertaking. “But, in all that study, did you not also learn that the power to command beings by virtue of their true names applies only to demons and devils, and even then, only to those with the fortitude to issue such commands?
’She watched as what little blood remained in his sallow-faced features slowly drained away completely. “Ah, I guess not then,” she finished.
Angered by his own rashness and incompetence, Lord Bastale screamed at his dozen elite Atlantian soldiers, each equipped with a loaded and readied gas-powered harpoon. “Kill them! I want them dead!”
Acting in precise unison, each of the Atlantians raised their weapons to fire, fingers slotting onto the triggers and already pulling back as their aim reached the breasts of the two mermaids. However, as quick as their reflexes were from intense training and experience, no harpoons launched across the cavern as ice began forming around all the firing mechanisms, freezing them in place and preventing the triggers from being fully engaged. Each of them instinctively looked to their weapons in consternation at the unexpected development, a lapse of situational awareness that cost them dearly.
Blue Siren burst into action, spiraling towards a half dozen of the Atlantians, her golden knife flashing about her as she neatly nicked arteries or violently poked the hearts of the soldiers, clouds of their blood soon enveloping them and her in a brown haze which increased her advantage as she continued her rapid and surgically precise attacks.
Nammu had also advanced upon the other half dozen Atlantians and a somewhat bewildered Lord Bastale, however, she just continued to hover in the water before them, her fiery eyes ablaze with fury. About her, the golden hair that had floated languidly in the water had now formed into many lengths of entwined golden strands that lashed forward toward the Atlantians. In less than two heartbeats, each soldier had dropped their weapon and was clutching at her hair wrapped around their necks in futility. Lord Bastale equally struggled in vain against the strands around his own neck as he was pulled violently towards Nammu and turned in front of her so he could watch the faces of his soldiers turn a mottled blue as the life was choked from them and their necks broken. As each Atlantian died, floating aimlessly in the still waters of the cavern, the strands of her hair around their necks released and moved back towards Lord Bastale. Unable to move and finding it difficult to even breathe the water his body at adapted to need after the evolution of his species beneath the waves, Lord Bastale watched as the golden strands of Nammu’s hair twisted together into the shape of a golden blade. Mesmerized by how closely the strands had merged with one another into an almost solid appearing substance, his fascination transformed to horror and agony as that golden blade of her hair began to slowly pierce his flesh and rib cage to find purchase in his heart.
Nammu watched the light of life leave his eyes as she withdrew her hair and released him with a gentle push to float amongst his dead soldiers, turning her gaze to Blue Siren as she emerged from the cloud of the fallen soldier’s blood.
“It was as we expected, and we can no longer pretend they have peaceful intent,” Nammu spoke regretfully.
“They have never had peaceful intent,” Blue Siren countered quietly. “They have spread like a virus across the seven seas and taken all without thought of sustainability or custodianship.”
Nammu nodded in agreement, “And the time has come for their depredations to end. Send messages to all the Chiefs and Orders that the time of the Uprising is at hand.”
Late summer, 2890 BC in the coastal city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia was a prosperous time for the Sumer people. Their economy was driven by their expansive coastal and deep-water fishing fleets while their culture was dominated by religion and the Church of Lugal. Lord Alulim was a man of middle years, and while technically a King, his preference for being away from the city-state of Ur, leading his fishing fleet turned opportunistic pirates for months on end meant he had little time or inclination for burdens of statecraft nor the taste for the opulence of the city’s keep and temple. He left mundane administration to his high priest and counsellor, Demizid.
Standing on a rocky promontory overlooking the bay below, he smiled at the sight of his precious fleet lying at anchor in the calm waters of an unusually warm summer’s day. At his back, rose the statue to Lugal, their God of land and sea, whose stern countenance gazed out over his dominion of both from this prime location. Alulim’s smiled faded quickly at thought of the God, his Church and worse still, his high priest Demizid, who wielded far too much power in the city-state and who, even now, was busily organizing a state wedding for Alulim to ensure a healthy heir for Demizid to tutor and no doubt control for his own ends. Across the city, a woman of advancing years, grey already streaking her once fair hair at the temples, stood behind her seated daughter, running a brush lovingly through flaxen hair so lustrous it was like spun gold. The woman sung softly as she brushed, an old song of both the sea’s bounty and it’s capricious and unforgiving nature. The young woman before her listened with rapt attention as she entertained dreams of a new life that would begin that afternoon as she wed the Lord and King of Ur in a lavish ceremony at the foot of their God. The young woman winced slightly as the brush caught in her hair, caused by a sudden startling of her mother as a heavy fist pounded on their door. Without waiting for permission or a response, the door was pushed open forcefully and both mother and daughter squinted at the bright midday sun as it streamed in through the now open portal. Two heavily armoured guards turned and stood either side of the door as a wiry, balding man stepped into the room with an air of self-importance.
“High Priest Demizid,” the mother stated flatly, keeping her tone neutral, “what is the meaning of this?”
“I’ve come to check on our Lord’s fiancée,” Demizid answered brusquely, “why don’t you wait outside with my guards.” He finished, making it clear it was not a question.
With a flash of maternal insight, the older woman looked from Demizid to her daughter, now sitting wide eyed in just a loose-fitting robe at the dressing table, and panic began to swell in her chest. She could not disobey the High Priest without punishment for herself and possibly putting her daughter’s wedding in jeopardy, so she reluctantly moved towards the door, trying with desperate eyes to convey the potential danger to her daughter. As she stepped outside, a guard pulled the door closed behind her, although it would not latch properly with one hinge now busted. The last glimpse back into the room did not allay the old woman’s fears as Demizid stepped up behind her daughter, his face twisted into a lascivious smile.
“Well, don’t you look ravishing my dear,” Demizid began, laying one hand on her cheek and running it down to her shoulder where it pushed aside the robe, baring one of her breasts to full view in the mirror opposite her.
“My Lord, you are a man of the Church, this is unseemly,” she responded quietly, trying in vain to cover herself again.
“Your betrothed spends a lot of time at sea my dear, so I expect I will need to spend a great deal of time assisting you with the many rigors of your new position.” He continued, ignoring her weak protests. “There is no harm in us getting acquainted for an hour or so before the ceremony. Alulim need never know,” he continued, fumbling with a rope belt at his waist with one hand.
There was a flash of movement just as his robe opened at the front and the young woman spun in place and a dagger flashed in her hand as she pressed it against his engorged manhood. Her other hand slapped his face hard and one of her long nails drew a thin line of blood across his cheek.
“Call for your guards and you will bleed out upon the floor before they even get into the room,” she told him calmly, although her eyes were wide with her own terror. Demizid didn’t notice, as his eyes were fixed upon the point of the dagger as it dug slightly into his flesh, evidence of her intent.
Silence hung in the room as Demizid considered his options and his eyes began to narrow dangerously before a commotion outside stole his plans before they had fully formed.
“High Priest Demizid,” he heard one of his guards call out, “is tending to the souls of his flock. He cannot be disturbed during such sensitive religious matters.”
“High Priest Demizid is summoned by his Lord, King Alulim,” another voice rang out with authority. “I expect that supersedes any tending of the… flock.” The guard’s tone made it clear he wasn’t being deterred in his mission.
With slow and very deliberate movements, Demizid stepped gingerly back away from the young girl, and more importantly, her golden dagger. Gold was a soft metal, and the weapon would not stand against an armoured warrior, but a near-naked high priest was a very different matter entirely and the weapon would have easily achieved her earlier stated purpose. Closing his robe, he quickly tied off the rope belt and stepped to the door, but not before casting one last glance back at the girl. What she saw in that gaze terrified her and sent a deep chill through to her bones. Later that afternoon, a score of guardsmen in burnished breastplates and tall pikes escorted the young woman along a paved road toward the coastal promontory. Walking beside her, the elderly mother held a piece of shade cloth on a long pole to keep her daughter out of the still biting heat of the afternoon sun. The young woman wore a simple, yet elegant white dress, adorned with sea green tinted mother of pearl beading and a polished seashell waistband. Around her neck, a deep blue sapphire heart stone hung from a thin gold chain to rest at the top of her bosom. Almost thirty minutes later, the procession reached the top of the promontory and the guards parted to take up a position on either side of the tall statue of Lugal. Standing before the statue waited King Alulim and High Priest Demizid as the guards slowly and formally took up their positions.
“What happened to your face Demizid?” Alulim asked absently while he waited for his betrothed to be escorted that last fifty yards by her mother.
“It’s nothing my Lord,” replied Demizid with a slight shake of his head. “A local harlot lashed out at me during a cleansing of her spirit. I fully intend to deal with her quite thoroughly when opportunity permits.”
Alulim raised one eyebrow at his remarks, knowing full well his High Priest’s predilections as did most of the townsfolks. There was much a man of the Gods could get away with when he was the supposed caretaker of your spirits final path to a peaceful afterlife. He would have inquired further but was interrupted by a rush of wind carrying the strong smell of brine as his betrothed finally stepped up beside him.
Alulim was a tall man, strong and tanned from a life spent mostly at sea, but when he gazed at his betrothed, it was to a woman his equal in height, slender, but possessed of a firm resolve and a fire in her eyes. He was momentarily taken aback by her beauty as he gazed at her before, yet another strong gust of wind grabbed at her dress and his own cloak with a surprising strength to it. Looking back over his shoulder and out to sea, he was surprised to see dark clouds churning at some speed as they moved toward the coast and the harbour below. Already, rare white caps were rolling in and the thirty vessels at anchor were starting to rock and strain against their moorings.
Shouts of alarm carried on the winds from the harbour itself and Alulim stepped away from the wedding party and moved toward the edge of the promontory as his brow creased in concern at the approaching storm. At his side moved Demizid, equally worried, but his face also portrayed a more calculating expression. “An unusual looking storm, My Lord,” Demizid probed, seeking the wisdom of his more weather-wise liege.
After a long pause as he assessed the approaching weather, Alulim let out a long litany of curses, such that even Demizid’s eyes widened in alarm.
“This is a storm the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime,” Alulim spat, his face turning red with anger and frustration. “Damn the Gods, this could destroy our fleet, which will bring ruin to us all and there is no chance to get them out of its path now.”
Demizid was momentarily stunned by both the dire summation and the fierceness in his Lord’s tone, but he quickly gathered himself as his calculating mind took over and sought some advantage.
“My Lord,” he began, grasping Alulim’s arm to capture his attention. “We don’t have a lot of time! If indeed this is a God’s wrought storm, then our only course of action is to try and appease them!”
“Appease them?” Alulim roared at him, pointing down at the ships already beginning to flounder. “How can we do that?”
“A sacrifice is the only way!” Demizid shouted back, the wind tearing his words from his mouth as he uttered them as he pointed back towards Alulim’s betrothed who was huddled at the foot of the God Lugal’s statue with her mother, trying to shelter from the now gale force winds.
Alulim stared at his High Priest in both horror and revulsion at the suggestion, his mouth hanging open, but Demizid pressed on, now determined to use this calamity to his advantage and punish the woman that not only rejected him, but almost killed him in the process.
“Cast her off the promontory Alulim! The sea must claim her, or it will surely claim your fleet instead. Which one can you replace more easily?” He demanded, trying to leverage his liege’s economic and emotional connection to his beloved fleet.
It hung in the air between them for long moments while the storm gathered fury about them, almost knocking them to the ground in the process. Eventually, after another long look down to the fleet in the harbour, where several ships had already succumbed to the relentless wind and waves, Alulim screamed in frustration and stormed back toward the statue and the huddled women. For the older woman, her mother’s instinct again came to the fore at the approach of Alulim and although she could not intuit his intent, she knew it boded ill and she screamed in terror.
Ignoring her, Alulim reached down and grabbed the young girl’s arm, momentarily marveling at her brave demeanor in the face of both the storm and his own dark countenance. Pulling her roughly to her feet, he leant into the fierce wind and started dragging her back towards the promontory cliffside. The young woman, realizing that something terrible was occurring began to fight back and scream, trying to dig her feet into the rocky surface, now slick with rain. Dark clouds were racing overhead, and darkness began to gather quickly about them as the titanic storm began beating down upon the promontory with staggering force.
Out of the looming shadow of the statue cast long upon the promontory stepped Demizid, his face twisted in both glee and vengeance as he grabbed the young girl’s other arm, and between him and Alulim, they quickly moved her to the edge of the promontory’s cliff. Hastily, almost comically so given his true intentions, Demizid exhorted the great God Lugal to accept this virgin offering and spare the city’s fleet from further destruction.
The young woman’s eyes were wild with anger and fear as realization hit her. She struggled but could not break their grip. A primal scream tore through the noise of the wind as her mother slammed into Demizid, desperate to try and free her child. Scratching and clawing at him, as tears merged with the rain on her face, she succeeded in freeing one of her daughter’s arms and the small success lent her renewed hope.
That hope died as the hilt of Demizid’s own dagger plunged into her breast, turning her already wet dress a crimson red from her life’s blood. Releasing the hilt of the dagger and leaving it embedded in the older woman’s chest, Demizid grabbed the young woman’s arm and violently threw her out over the edge of the promontory cliff. Alulim was frozen in shock at the scene and could only look down at the dying woman at his feet, as even amid the raging tempest, he could clearly hear every word she uttered with her dying breath.
“Nammu, no! Not my Nammu!” she paused, while coughing up a bout of dark blood. “The Gods curse you both and I pray my Nammu will haunt you and every human to ever set sail again,” she finished, the light of life finally fading from her piercing gaze that held Demizid to the last. A flash of lightening blinded Alulim and the crack of thunder that instantly followed deafened him for days afterwards, such was its intensity. By the time his vision returned, and he sat up from where he had been thrown down, the promontory cliff face was devoid of both Demizid and the body of the older woman. Crawling on his hands and knees, he slowly moved back towards the statue and relative safety to wait out the storm. The next day dawned clear and sunny and birds took to the skies again, seeking food that had been either washed up by the previous day’s storm or had fled its wrath and not found a new home. Waking from a fitful slumber, still curled up at the base of the statue, Alulim slowly got to his feet, filthy, wet and in shock and made his way carefully to the edge of the promontory. In the harbour below, not a single ship had survived. His entire fleet and the crews that maintained them while in harbour were gone, sunk, and torn to shreds and driftwood. Bowing his head in sorrow and despair, he started the long walk back to the town to check for survivors and begin salvaging what they could from this ruinous event. Out in the harbour, lying on the seabed floor, Nammu stirred and opened eyes that now blazed with actual fire, a manifestation of her rage from the previous night. Looking around her and seeing far further than a normal human’s limited visibility underwater, Nammu regarded the skeletal remains of the sunken fleet, with indifference for the loss of both life and economic livelihood for the humans that had cast her into the ocean as a sacrifice to the Gods. With a powerful flick of her new tail and without even stopping to ponder how she came to have a tail, Nammu burst forward towards deeper waters. Fifty yards further out, she paused yet again as she came upon another body, this one bloated and clothed in fine robes. This time, Nammu did react, with a small smile of satisfaction as she gazed upon the horrified visage of the dead high priest Demizid.
- 3 Months before the Fall of Atlantis -
Fergal scratched absently, chipping away small chunks of cooling magma from his side as he absently paced around the large cave, he had spent decades decorating to perfection. His store and den combined into one luxuriously comfortable home, it was filled with treasures beyond quantifiable measure, bought, traded, or recovered over those decades. Greek antiquities, Egyptian artifacts, lost heirlooms from the 1st Crusades through to the sunken Spanish treasure fleets lost on route back from the West Indies. Fergal was so successful in his field, that he was the only Shark regularly sought out by the Atlantians themselves for trade, valuations, and same day loans when their love of gambling brought them undone. Stepping to the front of his store, he grabbed the edges of a large round stone neatly blocking entry into his home and with muscles bunching tightly under his biker’s jacket, he rolled it to one side with an audible grunt of exertion. To Fergal’s surprise, if only mild surprise, there were already customers waiting, evidenced by the stationery mechanical Crawler, favoured by the Atlantians, parked to one side and three of the aquatic humanoids waiting with barely concealed impatience for the store to open.
“About time Fergal,” the central of the three Atlantians, and the most foppishly dressed of them as well, spoke with clipped tones. The two Atlantians to either side were typical guards or hired muscle, well-armed with gas powered harpoons and well-trained also. These two remained silent, their weapons held low and non-threateningly as they regarded the large form of Fergal, himself more than capable of blocking the doorway to his shop and home.
“Good morning to you as well,” Fergal replied in a neutral tone and a broad smile, stepping backward into the store to allow them entry.
Mis-reading Fergal’s response as submissive, the Atlantian nobleman stepped forward with an authoritative gait and entered the store, quickly followed by his two hired thugs who stayed to either side of him. Looking around the store with greedy eyes, the nobleman’s mouth dropped open in awe at the many recognizable treasures and artifacts and his eyes suddenly narrowed. Fergal noted the changing expressions on the nobleman’s face with a soft sigh of expectation and just a little exasperation as he leant casually against one curved and segmented support beam that rose from floor to ceiling, its upper end lost in the gloom and seaweed dangling from the roof of the cave.
“Well,” the nobleman began, almost salivating with his growing greed. “I had heard of your shop, of course, but this is just something else.”
“Yeah, it’s not too shabby I guess,” Fergal replied with a shrug. “Picked up a few nice pieces over the years.”
Peering into the gloom beyond Fergal with narrowed eyes, the nobleman continued “And, you live here all alone? No family or anything?” he continued speculatively. At this, the two hired thugs cast each other a side eyed glance and shuffled uneasily.
“I’ve always been comfortable with my own company,” Fergal shrugged in response, noting the reactions of the thugs as well.
“Yes, yes, of course,” the nobleman agreed, barely registering the responses from Fergal. “Such a lovely place you have too. Be an awful shame if something…. were to happen to it and all these wonderful treasures.”
Becoming bored with the routine, Fergal stepped away from the curved and segmented support beam and moved to the centre of the cave, coincidentally giving him much more room to move.
“Listen pal, let’s skip all the silliness and just tell me what you came for? Buy, sell, trade or loan?”
“I don’t think you should take that sort of tone with me Fergal,” the nobleman responded haughtily, lifting his nose in the water as he spoke with his eyes flashing dangerously at some perceived slight. “I have a mind to teach you a lesson for such impertinence.” Both guards, blinked slowly in resignation and hefted their weapons into a ready position.
“Ok then,” Fergal signed, “Last chance,” as he slowly stretched his neck to one side. “Get back to the business at hand, or I’m going to rip the arms off these two,” he gestured to the two hired thugs casually.
“And, then I’m going to beat you to death with the soggy end of those arms and leave the scraps for Snippy to enjoy.”“And, just who is Snippy?” the Nobleman asked with a frown, his certainty that Fergal was alone becoming shaken at his casual and very confident statement. It was at that point, that the support beam and five others like it quivered and shook slightly and a gigantic crab’s head descended from the obscured roof of the cave, to peer with beady eyes at the three Atlantians. Pointing causally at the massive Japanese Spider Crab looming above them all, Fergal simply replied with a word, “Snippy”.
Both Atlantian guards slowly and deliberately lowered their weapons as the nobleman paled and raised his empty hands defensively before him.
“Right you are, Fergal. Right you are,” he nodded, carefully bringing a large shoulder bag around from behind his back and opening it with steady movements that he hoped would be deemed non-aggressive by the looming crab. “Here,” he pulled out a curious apparatus and handed it forward to Fergal slowly. “I’m looking to sell this.”
Taking the item from the now somewhat cowered Atlantian nobleman, Fergal stepped back to his work bench to better examine it, keeping his expression neutral as he did so regardless of his early estimation of the items value.
“So, a sextant, reasonably common enough navigational instrument, popular in the 1700’s and the first recorded description of the concept was found in the writings of one Issac Newton around the late 1600’s,” he described the mostly brass object. “Reasonable condition, by the looks of the telescope and,” he paused tilting it to inspect where the index and horizon mirrors would normally be installed. “Well, both mirrors surprisingly intact as well. Not too bad, I guess. Where did you say you found this?”
“I don’t believe I did say, actually,” the nobleman answered shrewdly. “And, yes, it is in very good shape, almost impossibly so given it’s estimated 400 odd years of age,” he continued. “Worth a small fortune, to say the least. It even bears the mark of it’s owner, or maker, or some such,” he offered hopefully. “Just near the bottom.”
Fergal frowned and shook his head at the nobleman’s expectations of value, trying to dismiss any attempts at inflating the price as he turned his attention to the small inscription at the base of the sextant, muttering to himself as he did so. “An ‘N’ is an odd mark for a maker or an owner he mused,” more to himself then the nobleman as something about the mark triggered a vague recollection for Fergal. Picking up a small cloth, he gently cleaned away some accumulated grime around the single letter, before the cloth floated gently through the water, dropped, and forgotten as Fergal stared in wide-eyed wonder at the inscription revealed by his cleaning.
“Mobilis in Mobili,” he read it quietly to himself in awe. “Moving within a moving element,” he translated the Latin phrase, swallowing hard and glad that the item partially obscured his facial reaction from the Nobleman. A few moments of stunned silence passed before Fergal lowered the Sextant and asked, “Right, it’s in good enough condition as I said, and bares some obscure mark, so how much you want for it?”
The nobleman frowned and tried to read Fergal’s face, but the Loan Shark was too experienced and too skilled at this game after all these years, that despite his inner excitement and wonder, nothing was given away externally to his customer.
“Five thousand Spanish doubloons,” The Atlantian nobleman started the negotiation at ten times what a pristine specimen of such an artifact would normally fetch.
“Five hundred,” Fergal countered instantly, without batting an eye.
“Two thousand, and not a doubloon less!” the nobleman growled in frustration.
“Done!” Fergal nodded once and turned back to his work bench to retrieve a strongbox.
“Err... done,” the nobleman muttered in confusion, blinking quickly as he tried to work out what had just happened, too suspicious to be excited about the windfall.
Counting out the coins, Fergal dropped them into a pouch and handed them over, guiding the three Atlantians to the door with the bulk of his impressive body. On the other side of the entrance stone, a dark shape moved slightly as the three Atlantians emerged and slowly began making their way back to the mechanical Crawler.
“That’s the fastest you have ever closed a deal,” came a whispered voice from the shadows of the entrance stone. “That must be one hell of a Sextant.”
Without taking his eyes off the Atlantians, Fergal responded in a low voice to the Goblin Shark lurking in the shadows, unsurprised by his presence. “My dear Spoiler, the single capital letter ‘N’ under the umbrella of that particular Latin phrase is the emblem of the legendary Captain Nemo himself.”
Spoiler Shark’s eyes widened in surprise as he too turned to watch the Atlantians board their craft and close the Perspex canopy firmly. “Could they have found the resting place of the lost Nautilus?” he asked, referencing the fabled submarine of the eccentric inventor and explorer.
“I have no idea, but I hope they don’t try anything with that contraption of theirs,” his voice trailed off as he heard Spoiler Shark’s soft chuckle.
“When I overheard the conversation in your store, I may have taken the liberty of depositing a dozen hagfish inside the cabin of that Crawler,” he admitted gleefully, referencing the mucus-like slime producing sea creature that releases just a spoonful of slime when threatened or agitated that expands with half a second to 10,000 times it’s volume in a mass of weblike stringy mucus.
“Well,” Fergal began, “I hope the vibrations of the mechanical crawler don’t frighten…” his voice trailed away as the transparent canopy of the crawler became instantly opaque as the cabin filled with a mass of stringy, sticky mucus-like slime with a dull, wet, explosion. Fergal and Spoiler Shark just looked at each other in stunned amazement for several heartbeats before bursting out in laughter as they swam casually back into Fergal’s Prawn Shop.
- Origin Series -
The woman lay upon the rocky shore, her body broken, beaten, and abused for days before she was callously tossed upon the shore to die. But there was strength yet within this woman and as she lay in agony, eyes tearing both from the pain of her wounds and the acrid smoke of the fires that spread throughout the city of St Symeon on the Mediterranean coast, her chest rose steadily from a heart that would not quit. The Crusade of the Christian Church was coming to an end, the victors making ready to set sail with their coveted prize, stolen from its home in Antioch. Stopping long enough to raze yet one more city and pillage its treasures, the Knights had postponed their travel a week to indulge their sins.
Her black hair, streaked with silver splayed across the rocks was now matted with blood. The incoming tide lapped at her semi-naked body, but she was powerless to move with both legs broken beyond repair. Eyes that stared up into the late afternoon sun, on a warm autumn’s day still burned with hatred as she uttered a dying curse upon her abuser.
“Fisher King may your wanton lust for power and carnal pleasures bring you an eternity of pain and unrequited longing,” she whispered with such vengeance that a flock of nearby crows waiting to feast upon her remains fled the shoreline in an atavistic terror, never to return to this spot.
Content that gods or powers beyond her understanding had heard her pleas, the woman slowly closed her eyes and accepted what fate had wrought for her. So it was, that she did not see the almost imperceptible ripples at the sea’s edge or the feminine arms that reached out towards her. Although no visible struggle ensured, Nammu felt resistance as she gently lifted the woman’s body from the rocks as death itself challenged her for the broken woman. While the slightest pulse still beat within this woman’s chest, Nammu would not be denied and even death itself retreated briefly, patient that she would not last the night. Inwardly, Nammu acknowledged this same truth as she gently cradled the woman while riding the currents further out to sea.
As night fell, Nammu floated upon the surface of the Mediterranean Sea watching the fires still rage through the city of St Symeon as she cradled the woman, using what powers she could to keep her comfortable and alive, even if just barely. Beside her, another Mermaid waited, also watching the city, but her attention was on the single masted, flat-bottomed ship bearing the royal banner of the Fisher King himself. The mermaids watched the vessel haul anchor and raise a sail, slowly leaving the harbour, under a meagre wind but assisted by two rows of strong oarsmen. Once the ship had cleared the harbour and began its journey back to England, Nammu nodded once to Sylvella who smiled slightly and dove under the water, rapidly gaining on the ship in the gathering darkness of early evening. Deep beneath the waves, two large shapes broke away from the inky darkness of the depths as the massive sharks moved to flank Sylvella.
The attack on the vessel was as fast as it was brutal. Breached in multiple places with the blood of the crew rapidly staining the waters of the Mediterranean, Sylvella moved silently into the luxurious cabin at the rear of the vessel to the sounds of the crew dying about her. Standing in the centre of the cabin, sword in one hand, the other cradling the treasure that so many thousands had died for; the Santo Cáliz or the Holy Chalice as it has come to be known. A powerful warrior, victorious in countless battles against often staggering odds, the Fisher King was no match for the powers and strength of Sylvella, a mermaid of less than a century of age.
“What manner of demon are you?” The Fisher King spat as he was disarmed and left grasping at his near frozen sword arm in agony.
“The only demon in this room is you,” Sylvella replied with a venomous tone. “But you have nothing to fear from me because my Queen requires you alive. You and your blood prize.”
Hauling him from the room, Sylvella casually dumped a canvass sack holding an agate encrusted golden chalice into the footlocker within the well-appointed cabin.
Standing on the edge of the half-submerged vessel, the Fisher King tried desperately to break free once more, only to lose his footing, one leg dropping through a jagged hole in the deck. Sharp edges of the timber sliced up his inner thigh and lodged within his groin region as he let out a hideous and high-pitched squeal of pain. Smiling grimly, Sylvella lifted him off the broken timber spar, catching him easily in one arm as his unconscious body went limp, before she dove into the red-stained waters and followed the two satiated sharks away from the wreckage.
Meeting up again with the Mermaid Queen and the near dead woman, Sylvella handed over a somewhat plain and battered looking silver goblet while still cradling the unconscious form of the Fisher King.
“Thank you my dear Sylvella,” Nammu stated quietly, “You have done very well indeed, as have you all,” and she gestured to the circling forms of the two great sharks. “Let us take these two to a nearby grotto I have already prepared.”
Sylvella nodded once while the Mermaid Queen worked her magic to ensure both the humans would be able to make the journey deep under the Mediterranean without harm. In short order, they all dipped beneath the surface and were gone, swimming at great speed to a cave hidden in darkness at the deepest point of the Mediterranean Sea.
Once inside the cave, Sylvella marveled at the wonders Nammu had casually passed off as preparations. Luminescent algae adorned the walls and formed elaborate scripts in a long-forgotten language. Stone slabs, smooth to the touch and layered with the softest kelp that still grew from the base of the grotto and covered the tables through the guidance of the Mermaid Queen’s magic, waited upon the ill or injured. The softest white sand blanketed most of the cave floor, extending upward on a gentle incline to a small beach. Impossibly, the small group broke the surface of the water again, this time at the very bottom of the sea, as they placed the humans upon stone tables prepared for air breathers only. Just beyond these tables, a small shrine had been fashioned with an ivory plinth at its center. Above the plinth, a crack in the cave wall admitted just the gentlest trickle of cold, pure Mediterranean waters that flowed over the shrine and down onto the white sands. Taking the battered silver goblet, Nammu placed it reverently on the plinth, directly under that flow of water after it passed over the shrine and as she did so, she uttered an abjuration of power in an ancient language not heard or uttered in many centuries. As she spoke, the words of power echoed around the small grotto, imparting a flare of energy and life into the runes adorning the walls of the cave. The magic also slammed into the psyche of the two humans, causing a small groan of discomfort in the woman but snapping the Fisher King from his stupor, causing him to sit bolt upright and spit in anger.
“Blasphemy,” he roared as he gazed at the full majesty and might of Nammu the Mermaid Queen, standing before the alter of an ancient god, the holy grail at its feet and now collecting the waters flowing over the shrine.
Turning her head to gaze contemptuously at the Fisher King, she responded with a sardonic smile, “If you are referring to your own cruel debaucheries being a blasphemy to your faith, then I would concur.”
“Hand me the Grail before the Lord smites you with his holy vengeance,” The Fisher King demanded imperiously, well used to instant obedience. “I am charged by God himself to protect and defend his chalice, even unto death.”
The statement hung in the air between them for several heartbeats before a slow smile spread across the face of the Mermaid Queen.
“And, so you shall fulfill your duty, Fisher King and you shall have all eternity to enjoy it,” as her gaze guided his to the nasty wound in his leg and groin. “But it will not heal you, nor will it sustain you. You will exist to protect it from all that might come to steal it away, but you shall not feel its touch nor its healing properties,” and with that proclamation, she gestured to Sylvella.
Sylvella nodded once and moved to cradle the woman’s near dead body, her skin now a pale blue from the cold as she lay upon the stone table beside the shrine. Nammu turned from the stunned and furious Fisher King and took a small thimble sized cup from a basket next to the shrine. Dipping it into the battered silver goblet now filled to the brim with fresh water, Nammu carried it over to the stone table and carefully poured the fluid into the woman’s mouth.
All in the grotto stood silently on that pristine beach and waited. Even the Fisher King watched on curiously, recognizing the woman with a sneer of contempt.
After several long minutes, the woman’s back suddenly arched up, her eyes flared open and a gasp of exhilaration burst from lips, now flushed and pink again. Both Nammu and Sylvella steadied her as life flared again within her and the body that was broken and torn mended itself before their very eyes. For the briefest of moments, Nammu lifted her gaze from the woman and spoke into the air above her body in a fierce whisper.
“Not today, old friend. Not today.”
Turning her attention back to the woman, Nammu marveled at the now heterochromia of her eyes as they gazed with fierce intensity at the Fisher King standing alone upon the small beach. Placing one hand gently on her arm, Nammu spoke to her in reassuring tones.
“Pay him no heed, for he has already been punished for his sins,” she began in a voice able to be heard by all in the grotto. “His wound will not heal; he will not find relief or release from it nor his duty to protect the grail for eternity. He also cannot harm anyone that does not seek to remove the grail itself,” she intoned formally and all who heard her words felt the magical bindings reverberate throughout the grotto.
Turning back to the woman, she continued, “You my dear, shall join us as my protector and advisor, for it was your strength that brought all of this to bear. Henceforth, you shall be called the Blue Siren and you shall lead a new Order, known as the Cross,” Nammu continued with a wicked smile to the Fisher King.
“Take waters from this chalice and seed the special basins I have installed at Grottos like this one hidden across the seven seas and here we shall heal the injured and wounded from all the marine species and even the worthy few humanoids as well. Sylvella will guide you as you come to your full strength and powers as our newest Mermaid. In time, there will be little that could challenge you within the ocean depths.”
Taking the woman’s head between her hands, while marveling how her skin had retained the blue hue of the cold even since recovering from her mortal wounds, Nammu began the transformation process, stopping only to plant a small kiss on her brow.”
“I feel the rage burning within you towards this maimed King who now guards the Grail, my dear, but do not seek to enact your vengeance upon him. Save this inner fire, harness it, and use it to protect our kind in the battles to come while you deliver unto the sick and injured that great heart of yours that would not quit even when death hovered before you.”
“I shall serve you well my Queen,” The Blue Siren spoke in clear tones once the ritual was complete.
“None shall harm you while a heart still beats within my chest.”
Nammu and Sylvella both embraced her at this proclamation before they all re-entered the water and departed the grotto without another word spoken.
Behind them, the Fisher King stood upon the small beach before the alter, his sword returned to him and blood still oozing from a wound that would never heal.
“And so, begins my purgatory.”
- Origin Series -
Greku the Goblin shark approached the undersea volcano slowly and carefully, a slight shadow amongst the deeper shadows cast by undersea ledges and the naturally rocky terrain common among the shallower sections of the Pacific Islands. While the volcano ahead of him was dormant, the heat from molten rock and lava not far below the surface kept the region far warmer than the surrounding seas and as such, was a haven for numerous aquatic species. Such was the challenge presented by the Order of the Skull using this region as its main sanctuary. One had to approach completely unseen to gain entry, whether it was your first time arriving as a new supplicant hoping to join the fraternity of assassins or your hundredth on a routine visit. You always needed to retain the skills necessary for an unobserved arrival or risk the loss of your credentials. Greku was a veteran of the Order. In some circles, he himself had reached near legend status, but he cared not for such honorifics, indeed, it irritated him given what he knew of the storied past of the Order of the Skull. Adjusting the torn Atlantian uniform he had taken from the straggler fleeing Atlantis shortly after its fall, he approached and entered the sanctuary unobserved, almost without conscious effort, such was his skill and dedication to his calling. The inside of the volcano consisted of numerous caverns that used to hold stores of magma and were now smooth rock amphitheaters for assembly and combat training. Old lava tubes had become worked corridors leading to private rooms, dormitories, armouries, storerooms and an elaborate war room for strategy and planning by the Order Masters. Greku skirted the training grounds, although he did slow to assess the quality and precision of the new recruits being schooled by the Order’s instructors.
Taking a long circular corridor that wound deeper into the bowels of the volcano, Greku swam slower as his gaze followed the intricate and detailed murals that ran floor to ceiling along the corridors. Here were the origins of the Order in pictorial form. Greku had seen them all, dozens of times over the years, but he always paused to re-examine them, his passion for the history of his Order undiminished over his eighty years. The slightest disturbance in the electrical fields along the corridor alerted Greku to the presence of another, but he did not outwardly react, nor did he seek to hide or flee. He simply waited, patiently and unmoving as the newcomer approached.
“Greku?” An elderly shark approached slowly, surprise in his voice at seeing his old friend at the sanctuary. “I don’t know why I am surprised that nobody has reported your arrival, given I suspect I am the first to actually see you,” he finished with a chuckle.
“Master Horvath,” Greku greeted him with a warm smile. “It is good to see you again. It has been far too long.”
“You are always too busy my friend, you have no time for social calls. I heard the assault on Atlantis was a great success?” He asked, although Greku knew full well that Master Horvath was just being polite and already knew every detail of the successful capture of the Atlantian capital.
“It was well planned and exceptionally well-executed,” Greku advised him. “But the war is far from over, as I know you are aware.”
Horvath nodded slowly once and turned to face the detailed murals along the walls that Greku had been admiring.
The mural before them showed a vivid scene. A mermaid with wild hair and seemingly fire in her eyes had been captured in a barbed net, a crude spear piercing her lower abdomen. Humans were trying to pull her onto their vessel, one made for war, not fishing. From the depths, several sharks approached and attacked the vessel, striking it with their bodies and heads until it began to take on water. As the vessel began to flounder, the sharks renewed their attacks, eventually capsizing it and throwing the humans into the water. Freeing the mermaid from her bindings, the mural then depicts the very first meeting of the sharks and their eventual Shark Queen, the progenitor of the Mermaid race, Nammu.
“To think, that was four thousand years ago,” Horvath murmured reverently.
“Such a moment in time,” Greku agreed with open admiration. “To think, that although it would take another hundred years or more, this was the founding moment of our order.”
“And it would define one of our prime directives for all the millennia since,” Horvath agreed. “The protection of our Queen and her family.”
Gazing down the long, gently sloping corridor that would lead to the numerous rooms in the complex below, Greku smiled at the memory of the ongoing mural depictions of their history.
“And just one of so many incredible moments in our history.”
Horvath nodded once and started down the corridor. “Come, let us find the other Masters and consider the news you bring, for I know this is no social call.”
Greku nodded, unsurprised at how well his old Master knew him and continued swimming down the corridor. Swimming past countless pictorial stories of their history, Greku did stop just one more time as he came upon another mural, this one faded so badly with age that it almost appeared as a blank section along the corridor. Nearby, an octopus servant moved along the opposite wall of the corridor, four whale-bristle brooms in its many arms as it slowly swept and cleaned the corridor. Stopping at the mural, Greku paused and studied it again, for possibly the hundredth time. Horvath paused as well, expecting this brief interruption to the journey.
“Here so long before this became our sanctuary,” Greku murmured as he ran a fin along the edges of the mural, tracing the outer line of a shark that would dwarf anything in the oceans of their current time.
“The so-called ancients are a myth Greku,” Horvath explained patiently. “Dreamed up by those seeking sanctuary from the prehistoric monsters of an era before time began.”
“But, if they existed, what an ally we would have,” Greku murmured while also nodding at Master Horvath’s statement.
Horvath scoffed and chided him gently, “Myth my friend. No more real than the Kraken,” as he gently guided his friend further down the corridor. “Come, Master Greku, there is much to discuss and more battles to be planned.”
As the two Masters of the Order of the Skull disappeared around a bend in the corridor, descending further into the volcano, the octopus servant watched them go, it’s arms continuing to sweep the corridor of their own volition. It’s gaze then also returned to the faint and aged mural of the gigantic shark, it’s eyes dark and inscrutable as it muttered low under its breath.
“Megalodon… myth.”
- Origin Series -
Fergal, the Loan Shark watched on with interest as the grizzled Zebra Shark examined the sextant Fergal had purchased from the Atlantian nobleman. Occasionally adjusting some circular dials on his mechanical eye, the veteran shark painstakingly investigated the navigational instrument for many long minutes before carefully, almost reverently placing it on a countertop and turning to regard Fergal.
“Thank you for alerting me to this treasure Fergal,” the grizzled Zebra shark spoke, his words slow and considered. “It is indeed a piece from the Nautilus itself, as you suspected when you saw Captain Nemo’s emblem.
Fergal nodded once and frowned in concern. “Poltech, if that Atlantian found this piece, it’s possible he found the location of the Nautilus’s resting place and may find other treasures still.”
“I thought I had recovered everything of value decades ago,” Poltech murmured, “but clearly I missed this and possibly other things, given the vessel had broken into several pieces on its way to the sea floor.”
“What happened to result in its sinking?” Fergal asked with interest, knowing the old Zebra Shark, renowned as the founder of the Order of the Star knew much of the vessel’s history.
“It was the year 1868 as the surface folk record it,” Poltech began in a low voice, and Fergal leaned in closer to ensure he caught all the story from this living legend of his Order.
Prince Dakkar, son of an Indian Raja and a direct descendant of the Sultan Fateh Ali Khan Tipu of the Kingdom of Mysore sat at an elaborate desk in a large study pouring over scientific texts and treatises while the hum of engines powered by sodium / mercury batteries provided a blanket of white noise that he barely noticed. Above him and running the length of the central compartment and main quarters of the vessel ran an aquarium filled with all manner of interesting sea life, including one large Zebra Shark, a juvenile by age, caught and brought on board during an expedition years earlier. It was never known if he had been an especially gifted shark from birth or if Captain Nemo had enhanced his potential through one of his many experiments, but over the course of dozens of expeditions, explorations and rescue missions, he had shadowed Captain Nemo wherever possible on the Nautilus and observed the majority of his many experiments, all but studying over the shoulder of the famed scientist as he floated in the aquarium above his head.
Captain Nemo was not just a gifted scientist ahead of his time, he was also a passionate marine biologist and conservationist, and he had both rescued endangered marine life and discovered ways of enhancing marine life to better protect and defend itself. Indeed, it was his work with the famed biologist Professor Aronnax that led to many new discoveries and technological advancements that a young Poltech would later recover and adopt as his own.
While Captain Nemo was a renowned anti-imperialist with the British Empire receiving most of his ire, it was not a confrontation with this maritime power that brought about his doom, but indeed it was a chance discovery of the City of Atlantis that led to the loss of his beloved Nautilus. On a journey back to India from the Americas, Nemo had decided to take a slightly different course to avoid some underwater volcanic activity and discovered the city, resting on an underwater plateau hidden within a narrow and treacherous canyon system. Only the Nautilus’ advanced navigational systems had allowed Nemo to safely navigate those canyons, which ironically brought him to danger nonetheless through an encounter with the secretive Atlantians.
For days, they pursued him and harried him. Captain Nemo was not afraid of a fight, and had sunk many marauding vessels in his time, but he was not keen on a conflict without merit and thus sought to evade and escape rather than confront them directly. Sadly, they took that choice from him and in the ensuing battle, now many leagues from the actual city of Atlantis, the Nautilus succumbed to her wounds. The Atlantians fared no better and their assault force were completely wiped out as well. Captain Nemo, Professor Aronnax and the crew escaped aboard small pods that made it to the surface. I escaped a now broken aquarium along with the other aquatic friends I had made aboard the vessel and said my farewells to Nemo at the surface before leading my friends away to safety.
Nemo charged me that day with recovering what I could from the Nautilus and continuing his work, but this time, permanently beneath the waves. I was at a loss as to how to even begin such a task and spent months living near the remains of Nautilus as I recovered what I could from the wreckage spread out over a wide expanse of seabed. Books, devices, experiment notes, treatises, and successfully mutated marine life friends were all gathered and hidden within a cave system, but I was just one shark, and the thought of continuing the work of one of the world’s greatest scientific minds, swamped me and left me with little hope.
It was at that time, that I received a special visitor that changed the course of the rest of my life. A mermaid named Vilaya, daughter of Nammu, the Mermaid Queen herself, sought me out. Vilaya had encountered Captain Nemo years earlier when he had saved her from a fleet of pirates’ intent on hunting her down. The Nautilus had sunk two of their ships before the rest gave up the hunt and fled.
Vilaya respected and felt an obligation towards Captain Nemo, a human I had come to think of as a mentor to my young self. With her magic and connections to the Mermaid Queen, she helped me establish our first base and stronghold; a place where we could carry on Nemo’s work in evolving the defensive capabilities of marine life to better defend against the encroachment of humanity and sub-humanity in the world’s oceans.
Poltech continued the story as he led Fergal on a journey of many days until eventually, they came to what could only be described as a gigantic circular well under the ocean. The seabed floor dropped out of visual range deep beneath the plain they swam over like a surface well would plumb the depths of farming lands to a subterranean water basin.
“We go down here,” Poltech explained slowly as he moved to the edge of the well and cleared away some sand and silt to reveal a long thick line attached to the top of the well. Along the line as it disappeared into the depths of the well were evenly spaced shells attached to the rope. Poltech muttered a few words in a language Fergal did not recognize and each shell along the rope suddenly radiated a strong light, flashing to life: one by one, illuminating the depths of the well beneath them.
“Huh!” Fergal exclaimed with a delighted shake of the head, “don’t suppose I can get me one of those shell ropes?” “Afraid not,” Poltech responded in a deadpan tone… “Get it? A frayed knot…?” He chuckled to himself as Fergal just frowned and slowly shook his head.
Fergal and Poltech swam lazily towards the bottom of the well, using the shell lights on one wall to guide and illuminate their descent. Before long, they could soon see another light source, this one shining from the very bottom of the well.
“Looks like your Atlantian returned sooner than we would have preferred,” Poltech muttered.
“Well, we didn’t exactly rush here,” Fergal answered with a sigh of annoyance, while casually flexing and unflexing muscles in preparation for a fight. Noticing Fergal’s preparations, Poltech asked a quiet if entirely unnecessary question.
“You think there will be a fight?” “I’m assuming both of us would prefer to keep the Nautilus wreckage for ourselves and not share, right?” Fergal asked rhetorically.
“Well, certainly,” Poltech answered. “We can’t have this technology abused by those that brought about its destruction in the first place.”
“I’m clearly not as smart as you Poltech, but that spells ‘fight’ to me,” Fergal concluded with a smile.
The Atlantians, dismayed at being disturbed in their looting of this ancient nautical wonder, had seen the rope of shell lights, and quickly prepared themselves for war, confident that their half dozen troops could deal with one Loan Shark and an elderly shark past his prime. That same thought had occurred to Fergal, but then he remembered all the stories of this wizened Zebra Shark he had heard growing up and he suddenly smiled and began to pity the Atlantians.
In two predictable groups of three, the Atlantians split up and tried to gain better angles of fire as they launched their gas-powered harpoons at Fergal and Poltech. Fergal had tensed, ready for the barrage and dove down quickly, rolling to one side as the harpoons sailed harmlessly overhead. Poltech was not as nimble or youthful as Fergal, but he had many more years of cunning and a mind honed by research and discovery. Swimming casually in the same direction, without deviation, he was a sitting duck for the harpoons. Just as they were fired, he pressed a discrete button on a metal bracer clasped to his body. At the touch, a semi-circular field of force and light sprung up in front of Polytech which easily deflected or stopped the harpoons fired at great speed.
Without the harpoons and no time to load replacements, the odds of the battle shifted slightly, although still the Atlantians enjoyed a numerical advantage that should have seen them through. Fergal put on a burst of speed, slamming into the side of one Atlantian as his momentum carried them into the second allowing Fergal to bring his terrible bite into play, closing jaws around an unprotected Atlantian neck. Drawing the stunned Atlantian’s own sword, Fergal finished him, leaving just one of the three to stand against him. The last Atlantian circled Fergal warily, waving a thin bladed sword before him to ward off an attack as he waited for his companions to finish off the old shark and come to his aid. Fergal had a better view of Poltech’s ensuing battle and was as content to see it finish as the Atlantian, a fact that did manage to dent the Atlantian’s confidence.
Poltech approached the three Atlantians slowly, noting how close they were to each other as he drew a small item from his belt and pointed it at them. The Atlantians tensed as he pointed and activated the item and then they all laughed uproariously as only a few thin tendrils emerged from the device. Their delay was costly, as the tendrils, designed from the box jellyfish elongated themselves at speed and quickly wrapped about the arms and upper torso of the Atlantians. The venom from the box jellyfish was painful, but not deadly to the Atlantians and the sticky tendrils wrapped around them just served to enrage them to a murderous fury towards Poltech.
Another activation of the device followed quickly however and suddenly the tendrils took on another feature from marine life Poltech had spent his career studying, the electric eel. The three Atlantians jerked spasmodically several times as their flesh and organs were cooked by the surging electrical currents. Poltech released the tendrils from the device and stayed clear of the dying Atlantians to avoid any of the dissipating electrical field.
The sole Atlantian gaped in horror at his three companions which gave Fergal all the time he needed to close the distance and run his sword through the Atlantians chest, ending the struggle mere moments after it had begun.
“Well, this is a sour turn of events indeed,” Complained the Atlantian Nobleman as he emerged from the broken forward compartment of the Nautilus to confront Fergal and Poltech.
Turning to face him, the two sharks regarded the Atlantian, noting his smug smile despite the chagrined words and paused to better assess the situation.
Looking around cautiously, the Atlantian nobleman continued with rising levels of confidence, “No Snippy around to help you Fergal? Just this decrepit old fossil shark here.”
“Good to see you too,” Fergal shrugged in response. “Found some more treasures to sell for doubloons perhaps?”
“This wreck is claimed for Atlantis, yes,” The nobleman began imperiously, “and, you will pay for the murder of my escort.”
“Your escort attacked first, as well you know,” Fergal fired back.
“An interesting detail, but one which you won’t live to share Fergal,” he finished triumphantly, brandishing an egg-shaped metal cylinder in his right hand.
At sight of the device, Poltech’s fin shot out in a warning to Fergal as he spoke rapidly to try and convey the danger, they were now in.
“Hold Fergal, that is a prototype No 5 Mark 1 Mills grenade, designed by Prince Dakkar and later claimed through a patent by William Mills of London,” he explained, deliberately opting to use the lesser-known identity of Captain Nemo.
“If he pulls that pin, and throws it after seven seconds, we won’t be able to escape the explosion and will be horrible maimed and likely killed.”
“Your fossilized friend speaks the truth Fergal,” crowed the Atlantian Noble as he contemptuously pulled the pin and began a count in his head. “Well, Fergal, it’s been nice knowing…” the final taunt was lost in a horrible explosion that tore the nobleman to pieces as he stood framed in the large broken hatchway of the forward compartment to the Nautilus.
Both Fergal and Poltech were knocked backward by the shockwaves of the blast but were too far away to be hurt from the small pieces of cast iron that erupted from the grenade.
Shaking his head to clear away a ringing sensation, Fergal looked in horror at Poltech, who just shrugged once.
“I could have sworn it was seven seconds, but it must have been five.”
“Huh! Easy mistake to make I’m sure,” Fergal answered with a slight shake to his head. “Well, now we’re here, let’s see what else is left of value and get it back to your base.”
“A sound plan,” Poltech nodded once as they moved carefully back toward the vessel.
“Poltech, is there any chance you could lend me one of those shield devices you used earlier?” Fergal asked politely.
“Hmm, not unless you converted to Order of the Star Fergal, no. Those are special items solely for our Order.”
“Really? We’re on the same side Poltech, after all,” Fergal grumbled, disappointed at the response.
“Same side? Yes. Same Order? No.” Poltech grinned at him as they disappeared into the skeletal remains of the once famed Nautilus.
Whilst much of the old ruins of Atlantis was left to the reclamation of the ocean and the surrounding marine life, the area around the old Atlantian temple and palace remained well cared for and clean. Since the start of the uprising and the stunning victory of the Mermaid Queen’s forces in capturing the city, the sharks and mermaids had adopted a similar strategy, even going so far as to repair and fortify the palace and immediate surrounds against reprisal attacks from the Atlantians, re-grouping out amongst the expanse of the seven seas.
Inside the palace, the Queen had taken up residence inside the royal quarters, once the abode of the Atlantian King himself, the half Human, half Atlantian who spent as much time amongst the surface dwellers as he did his Atlantian kin. He was not in the city at the time of the Mermaid Queen’s assault and had not been seen nor heard from in several years. Within the suite of rooms occupied now by the Mermaid Queen was a large council chamber, richly decorated and able to seat in comfort the Queen, her Council, and their closest advisors.
Standing behind a beautifully crafted and magically preserved timber desk, carved with exquisite craftsmanship from the timbers of the British discovery sloop HMS Intrepid, a sister ship to the famed HMS Resolute in the 1850’s, the Mermaid Queen cast her fiery gaze around the council chamber, acknowledging each of the Shark Chief’s in attendance along with their chosen advisors. “Thank you for responding so quickly to my summons, friends” she spoke in a quiet voice that nonetheless cut through the other chatter amongst the Council members and re-directed all attention to the Queen as the room fell silent.
“Whilst I would rather have called you here for a celebration, we all know that this war against the Atlantians is far from over and this victory here, whilst significant and morale sapping for the enemy, is but a small one in the grand scheme of the work still to be achieved.” Leaning against one wall of the council chamber, just to the right of the Mermaid Queen, Blue Siren spared a glance at her Monarch as she spoke, recognizing a tone of both anger and concern, bordering on fear in her voice. A slight frown of concern crossed her otherwise flawless features as she turned her gaze back to the assembled council members and beyond, always alert for any danger to her liege and lifelong friend, as the Queen continued to address the Council.
“In addition to that ongoing work, we have another problem, that has recently come to my attention,” she leaned forward slightly over the impressive and sturdy desk, her hands grasping the edges of it firmly. “Many of the Atlantians fled the city once they realized it would fall to our assault and this was to be expected, however, we have learned that they captured and took with them a sympathizer to our cause, one who provided us key intelligence to ensure our assault was a success,” she continued, as her hand clenched the desk tightly causing a significant crack to form in the six inch thick surface despite its magical treatments.
A cacophony of noise filled the chamber at the Queen’s statement as many in the room, as highly placed as any in the Queen’s forces, save for the Blue Siren herself, had been unaware that an Atlantian had turned traitor to their own kind to aid their cause. Only Larkus, the Goblin Shark Chief sat unmoved at the news, a slight crease of concern to his features the only outward sign of his reaction. Whilst there was no attendant with him at this meeting, with Pool shark Redfordo still out on assignment, one of his other closest advisors was Master Assassin Greku, of the Order of the Skull, and therefore, such clandestine activities were always known to him. The abduction of their informer, however, was news to him, as he began to work through the potential consequences in his mind.
A few moments passed, before Nammu sent out a soft mental command for order that gently touched each mind in the room. Removing her hands from the sturdy desk, she brushed away small pieces of the heavy oak from her palms as she regathered her own composure as well while the room quietened once more in response to her request.
“Whilst this was unexpected, I feel a great sense of personal responsibility for this Atlantian and I would like to attempt a rescue,” she began earnestly as many in the room nodded fervent agreement. “However, our forces are already stretched, both in retaining what we have taken and in protecting our other bases and secluded grottos from Atlantian retaliation. The Atlantians have been stung, certainly, but they are regrouping, and this war will not be over quickly.” Coming around the table, Nammu moved to float in the midst of the gathered Council, slowly turning to regard each of them with a heartfelt and grateful expression. “I’ve asked a lot of you all, and I am mindful of the cost and sacrifices,” she began, as her golden hair flared about her in response to the strong emotions, she was both feeling and projecting. “I know and feel the risks of what I am about to ask even more keenly, for I am going to ask some of our very best and bravest to risk their lives to save the life of one of our enemies.” Silence met her statement as all in the room watched and listened with rapt attention, with only a small amount of shuffling or fidgeting occurring as the implications of her statement sank in amongst Sharks that had grown increasingly salty at the depredations of the Atlantians over the centuries.
“As I said, this will be something I ask only, regardless of the authority you have each invested in me as your Shark Queen,” she continued, understanding the reluctance for such an undertaking and in some ways, agreeing with it. Turning abruptly, she faced Ziero, the Bull Shark Chief and his most trusted advisor Shark Nado squarely and lifted her chin, expecting resistance or even outright rebellion from the two hot-tempered Bull Sharks. “Nado, I would ‘ask’ you to hand pick a team of five others to accompany you, and one of my most capable warriors, Sylvella on this mission to rescue our Atlantian informer,” she requested, placing emphasis on the word ‘ask’ and not bothering to hide the desperation from her voice. The two Bull Sharks glanced at one another briefly, the moment enough to exchange an unspoken communication between them as Nado answered his Queen while Chief Ziero just watched on with a flat expression. “Sure, I can do that,” Nado responded briefly, using one fin to scratch a red-looking scar that ran under an eye patch over his right eye socket. “I know a few sharks that would be up for that kind of challenge, but I’ll need the leave of their Chiefs for them to come with me.” “Does anyone here object to one of their Sharks accompanying Nado on this mission?” Nammu asked, spinning a tight circle slowly to silently repeat the question with her gaze. When no objection was forthcoming, Nammu turned back to the Bull Sharks. “Thank you Nado and Chief Ziero for your consent as well.” “Who is the informer, and do we know where they were taken?”
Chief Ziero asked with shrewd insight, suspecting there was still elements to this that Nammu had not revealed. “Her name is Kako, and…” whatever else Nammu had been about to say was drowned out in an immediate uproar around the room that caused Blue Siren to tense visibly at the side of the room, her magical golden dagger appearing almost instantly in her hand and riming with an ice blue frost from her innate magic as she readied to lunge forward to her Queen’s defense.
For her part, Queen Nammu appeared unfazed and certainly unsurprised by the uproar while Chief Ziero and Nado just shook their heads and chuckled. Holding her hands up and turning to gesture for quiet from all around her, Nammu eventually regained control of the meeting, but not without great difficulty and not a small amount of emotion dampening magic as well.
“Of course, I know who she is,” Nammu responded to one of the many, and the most forcefully asked question during the uproar. “Her family history is not the point of this. She is in danger as they know she helped us. I fear she will be executed if we fail in rescuing her.” “And, securing her safety would provide a valuable negotiating edge should the King of Atlantis ever return,” came a softly spoken addendum from the Goblin Chief Larkus.
The statement hung in the water for a long moment before Queen Nammu nodded once in agreement. “Yes, that also crossed my mind,” she replied flatly.
“Well, now to the where?” Asked Chief Ziero with a wry grin to his Goblin Shark counterpart across the room. “I assume you have an idea of this Larkus from your spies and informants?”
Looking to Nammu with a raised eyebrow, Larkus responded after she nodded once with a soft sigh.
“The most likely place would be their strongest and most remote prison, hidden deep within a narrow crevice at the bottom of Loch Ness.”
“A land-bound, freshwater lake?’ queried Ziero quietly as Nado nodded beside him.
“Fresh water? Mostly yes,” Larkus replied. “But not as land-bound as most think. There are submerged tunnels that pass under Inverness, the land seal settlement and some of these lead to the Loch, so access can be gained via the North Sea.”
“Sounds risky to say the least,” Ziero replied while Larkus just nodded once in silent agreement.
“Well,” Nado spoke up after a long period of silence within the council chamber. “I’d better go get the team ready,” he stated flatly as he swam to the rooms exit and out of sight down the corridor.
Chief Ziero watched him go and turned back to face Nammu with an inscrutable expression.
“If this doesn’t work…” his voice trailed off, leaving the consequences of failure unspoken.
“It has to work,” Nammu replied in a small voice, feeling the weight of this nigh-impossible mission upon her shoulders and conscience.
To the side of the room, Blue Siren slowly slid the golden dagger back into a sheath at her hip and relaxed taunt muscles that had been ready to spring into action should her Queen had been threatened.
- Part 1 -
Nado emerged from the Atlantian palace, relieved to be out of waters that felt oily from politics and intrigue, swimming into the cool open expanse of the deep-sea plateau upon which rested the remnants of the city of Atlantis. A shadow detached itself from a nearby broken and crumbling column, moving in his direction and he quickly discerned the lithe and assuredly confident form of a mermaid as Sylvella came more fully into view.
“Took your time, what was the hold up?” she asked brusquely as she closed the distance to him.
Squinting at her with his one remaining eye, he resisted the urge to scratch underneath the still-new eye patch and just sighed quietly.
“So much for it being a choice hey?” he grumbled back at her in frustration.
“It was a choice,” Sylvella reassured him, “The Queen just ensured I was prepared should you have accepted. Besides, since when have you balked at impossible odds and the chance to pit yourself against the very best the Atlantians can offer?” she teased, knowing full well his reputation, capability and temperament.
“One on one,” he gave her a lopsided smile, “even two on one, I wouldn’t even change expression. But this is going to take a team of us, each the very best at what they do for us to even get close to this prison, let alone inside it and out again with Kako.”
Slyvella just nodded, losing her teasing smile as she accepted the truth of his words.
“So, who are you thinking?” she asked quietly, mindful that there was still a decent amount of traffic this close to the palace and temple areas. Sharks of every species and a fair number of mermaids were almost always coming or going with tasks or patrols.
“Well, I know what we don’t want, and that’s soldiers,” he frowned in thought as he began working through a mental list of potential candidates.
“We’ll need speed,” Sylvella offered with a nod.
“Smash and grab and get away as fast as possible before they can overwhelm us with numbers and reinforcements block our escape,” Nado agreed, spelling out the scenario. “So, we need innovation, quick thinkers and veterans that won’t freeze or puke when they understand what we face.”
“Hermod,” Sylvella suggested with a raised brow. “I’ve seen him on that newly liberated and armored Sea Horse of his and he’s faster than anything I’ve seen.”
“Yes, good choice. And it’s maneuverable and quiet,” Nado considered with a firm nod. “Let’s go have a chat, I know where they stable those new beasts and its close by.” Less than an hour later, Nado and Sylvella were standing on the outside of a three-dimensional obstacle course on the outskirts of the ruined city. Stretching over a mile in length and rising one hundred feet from the ocean floor, large objects floated in the water, each containing pockets of air to make them float towards the surface but stopped at various points by varying lengths of rope to create a maddening array of obstacles for sharks and mermaids to navigate at speed. At either end, mermaids with sashes from shoulder to hip controlled the flow of entrants into the course and ensured they were timed and graded with penalties applying for any contact with the floating obstacles. A challenge made more difficult in the shifting currents of the ocean depths.
Lining up to start a run through was a bare chested great white shark, his skin across arms and back showing red hot lines of magma amidst the cooling basalt of his muscled body. His eyes shone with a dark red hue, a battered Viking helmet was strapped to his head and his left arm ended in a vicious adamantium hook, crafted by the Order of the Star to replace a limb lost in battle. Rather than hamper him, he made excellent use of it, wrapping the reins of his Sea Horse steed around the hook to leave his right hand free for wielding a weapon. The Sea Horse steed was a magnificent specimen, obviously an alpha female prior to the genetic manipulation at the hands of the Atlantians. Now, she stood nearly half the length of a Whale Shark and bulked almost the same as well, decked out with armored head plates and flank guards.
The mermaid controlling the start of the obstacle course, gave a signal and Hermod bellowed a war cry, and urged his mount to action.
“Sleipnir, now!” he called out as the Sea Horse burst forward with a dazzling display of speed and agility. Hermod leaned and guided with his hooked hand with utmost precision as Sleipnir zigged, zagged, rose and dived instantly upon his directions, almost as if their minds had merged as one as they charged through the course, easily avoiding all the obstacles at a breakneck speed.
Watching from the sidelines, both Nado and Sylvella stared in slack-jawed amazement at the sheer speed and maneuverability being displayed as Hermod completed the mile-long course in just over a minute, averaging around 40 knots.
“He’ll do nicely,” Nado confirmed what they were both thinking as Sylvella just nodded and started off towards the obstacle course.
“I’ll recruit him, on behalf of the Queen,” you go find some others.
“Are you sure he’ll agree to come?” Nado queried.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Sylvella replied assuredly. “Sharks love me.”
Nado smiled briefly at the statement but couldn’t argue its logic. Sharks did indeed love Sylvella, even more than most mermaids, but he never understood why. Moving back towards the heart of Atlantis itself, Nado felt at a loss for other potential candidates, when he spotted a crowd of both Sharks and Mermaids congregating around a mostly intact building near the centre of the city. Moving in for a closer look, he recognized the faded sign of an Atlantian tavern and realized that these were off duty comrades letting off some steam after long days of cleaning, reclamation, or patrols. Carefully weaving through the throng of patrons, he made his way towards the bar area, scanning the crowd for likely recruits while ignoring the odd wide-eyed look of wonder from some of the younger sharks as one of their idols swam past them.
Nado spotted a group of sharks gambling with some weighted dice, weighted against the ocean and currents of course, and not for any nefarious reasons and as he was about to move past them, he stopped and regarded one of them more closely. Black leather jacket, faded in parts with the sleeves torn off, eye patch like his own, but also faded with age and skull and crossbones pirates’ hat, favoured by land seal sailors in the 1700’s that was in remarkably good condition, tugged at Nado’s memory. It wasn’t until the Goblin Shark turned slightly in his direction and Nado could see the broken and missing teeth and the crude but effective pig iron hook on one arm that it clicked into place for Nado.
“Darius ‘Toothless’ Low?” Nado shook his head in amazement.
Turning to face the speaker of his name, Darius regarded Nado with a wry smile of acknowledgement before correcting him with a growl.
“Captain, Darius Low, if you don’t mind Nado,” and he paused for a long moment as he held Nado’s one-eyed gaze with his own before slowly winking at him. “But you can call me Toothless, you old wind bag!”
Nado gave him a broad smile in response before slowly shaking his head and querying.
“How is it possible that you’re still alive?”
“I’ve always been a stubborn one, so likely just too stubborn to die as well,” he answered with a shrug.
“Which unit are you with?” Nado asked, moving alongside the grizzled veteran.
Scooping up his winnings with his hook with surprising deftness, Darius stepped back from the table and answered Nado in a somewhat evasive manner, “Depends on who’s asking, really?”
“I’m just curious,” Nado shook his head, “I could use a seasoned veteran like you for a particular job, but I need speed over cunning and your best days are behind you my old friend.”
“Ok, firstly, don’t insult me you wet-behind-the-ears wobbygong,” Darius fired back, using the slang term for a carpet shark. “I was striking hard and loosing teeth while you were still dodging tougher siblings in ya momma’s womb!”
Nado just laughed at the imaginative insult before clarifying the point.
“All that may be true, if slightly embellished, but that still doesn’t mean you’re as fast as you once might have been, and I need speed my friend, and lots of it.”
“What you need is brains Nado,” Darius countered. “I don’t need to be fast when I got Skitter,” I just need to be smarter, and clearly I’m smarter than you.”
“Ok, ok, and just who or what is Skitter?” Nado asked with a rueful shake of the head.
“Skitter is a Skitter Crab and no, not a wee bitty one like you’re thinking,” Darius added quickly, seeing the dubious expression on Nado’s face. “I found the blighter living in a sunken nuclear submarine.”
Nado’s one eye was wide in surprise at hearing this and then suddenly narrowed in suspicion.
“You’re having a lend of me, Toothless, I know it! A little skitter crab is not much of a threat.”
“Goblin’s honour!” he swore. “And he’s fast too, you’ll see.”
“Ok, ok,” Nado stated, shaking his head in disbelief. “Got any tough lads you still work with? You know when you’re not actually attending your unit like you should.”
“Maybe,” Darius answered evasively. “What’s the job?”
“Search and Rescue,” Nado responded evasively.
“You need tough and expendable I’m guessing?”
“Tough, quick, quiet, experienced and not just order takers,” Nado ticked off a list of qualities slowly.
“Is that all? Not good cooks as well?” Darius replied sarcastically, scoffing at the formidable criteria.
“I didn’t say it was an easy search and rescue,” Nado answered with a shrug.
“No, you didn’t say much at all,” Darius countered. “Look, I know two guys, One-Eye and Shāyu, both fit that criteria and some, but they’re good sorts and I’m not keen to just throw them away on something stupid.”
Nado paused at this and thought carefully about how to respond to the canny Goblin Shark Captain. For his part, Darius just waited patiently, sizing up Nado’s demeanor as well as his hesitation. Eventually Nado answered him in a quiet voice. “I can’t say it’s not stupid, but I can say it’s for the Queen and I wouldn’t take just any job.”
“Hmm… I see,” Darius replied noncommittally. “I can ask them at least. See what they say.”
“Do that, would you?” Nado asked quietly. “If you can get them, meet me outside the poker den on the outskirts of the city in two hours. I need to commandeer some gear for us, so I’ll meet you there, with or without them,” he finished turning to walk back to the bar’s entrance. Pausing near the door, he turned back to Darius who seemed lost in thought. “And bring Skitter too.”
Captain Darius ‘Toothless’ Low didn’t even bother responding, or looking back to Nado, as he moved to the rear of the bar and slipped out a back entrance, quickly disappearing from sight. Nado also headed out, moving away towards the armory, his mind turning to more mundane problems, like how much food did a skitter crab consume. Two hours later, Nado, Sylvella and Hermod approached the well-known Poker den on the outskirts of Atlantis. Hermod’s sea horse mount, Sleipnir’s eyes were flat with discontent as he laboured under the weight of many packs full to the brim with supplies, gear, and food. Hermod swam alongside, doing his best to placate the mighty and somewhat prideful mount that this was a short-term arrangement. Looking around as they arrived at the agreed rendezvous point, Nado frowned in concern when he didn’t see Toothless waiting for him. He was about to suggest a postponement in the mission to recruit some new blood when Sylvella’s sharp intake of water made him spin around, flexing for a fight. The sight that greeted them was both awe-inspiring and terrifying all at the same time. A huge crab, with pincers each the width of two adult sharks crawled out from the shadows behind the den. Atop its massive hard shell back, rode Darius “Toothless” Low, grinning from gill to gill and beside him, easily accommodated by the crab sat two impressively muscled Bull Sharks, both from the Trident Order and both outfitted for war.
Darius pulled back on the smooth leather reins with his hook as he regarded the stunned expressions on the faces of Nado, Hermod and Sylvella. Even Sleipnir had momentarily forgotten his disgust at becoming a pack beast, although he soon tossed back his head in disdain and turned away, careful to keep one eye on the massive crab, all the same.
“What? You all look like you haven’t seen a radiation mutated crab before?” Darius asked with a laugh.
“No, can’t say I have, but I do like what I see,” Slyvella offered with a charming smile to Darius.
Shaking his head, Nado decided to take a bit of wind from the pirate’s sails as he replied, “Sorry, didn’t see the crab, was too focused on my impressive Brothers here,” indicating the two Bull Sharks.
“Right… of course you were,” Darius laughed. “Alright, I guess some introductions are in order,” he began while the two Bull Sharks climbed down from the back of the crab.
“This, fine specimen,” he began, pointing to the toothless, lava skinned shark with an old black eye patch over one eye, “Is One-Eye Anderson. Older than silt, he’s seen more battles than I’ve had hot breakfasts and I love me some boiled clams in the morning.”
“Good to meet you Anderson,” Nado greeted him warmly.
“Call me One-Eye,” Anderson answered, greeting him with a chest bump in respect. “I’ve heard of you Nado and it’s an honour to join you on this suicide mission.”
“Suicide mission?” Nado asked flatly, looking directly at Darius.
“Hey, I just read between the lines, no point sugar coating it,” Darius answered defensively.
“Um, say, Eye-One,” Sylvella began with a slightly pained expression. “You have a… umm, there’s a… I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but…. Oh look, there’s a damn harpoon through your head!”
“Oh, this old thing?” One-Eye asked, touching the pointy end sticking out of his head. “Yeah, barely notice it anymore, happened nearly a decade ago. Doesn’t bother me unless I’m near the surface as it occasionally picks up surface vessel marine radio which can give me a bit of a headache,” he shrugged.
“Yeah, I can see why that might be annoying,” Sylvella agreed. “Ever thought of getting one of our Cross brethren to remove it?” “Yeah, just haven’t gotten around to it, I guess.”
“Of course not. Silly me,” and she smiled sweetly at him.
“And this quiet lad is Shāyu, which I think just means Shark in some Land Seal language,” Darius introduced the golden skinned, double horned Bull Shark dressed in a roman legionnaire’s uniform. “He’s been trained as a gladiator since he was a pup and there is no better fighter in single combat. Between these two, I pity any Atlantian mob smaller in size than a battalion.”
Turning to face Darius, Shāyu, bowed low at the glowing introduction, “Xièxiè nǐ.”
“Just speak Shark, would ya?” Darius grumbled. “I doubt they speak Chinese as well,” he continued explaining away the language choice. “As I said, trained to fight as a gladiator since a young age, they dressed him in that costume for impact on the crowds, but he likes it now and won’t take it off. It’s where he picked up the language as well.”
“The Atlantians fear the Gladiator Shāyu, for he eats their shields and armor for breakfast, before dining on their soft underbellies,” Shāyu explained, speaking about himself in the third person.
“Which would explain the condition of your teeth,” Sylvella guessed aloud as she explained herself further to Nado and Hermod, “The Atlantians use Tellurium in their ceramic shields as a tinting agent. It is an extremely rare metal so quite wasteful, but if chewed on, can really degrade the calcium in teeth.”
“Well, he’s certainly chewed on a few,” One-Eye Anderson chimed in. “I’m no slouch, but my Atlantian kill count isn’t half what Shāyu has racked up.”
“Impressive,” Nado nodded with a broad grin.
“I think these two round out the team nicely,” Hermod said, as he began offloading the packs from the back of his Sea Horse steed.
“I agree, I think this is exactly what we need,” Sylvella chimed in. “Has everyone gotten permission from their Commanders to be away from active duty?”
The silence and side-eyed glances around the small group was all the answer she needed as she sighed and shook her head.
“I don’t think this is the first time these fellas have taken an extended leave of absence and apologized for it afterwards,” Nado surmised shrewdly.
“So, let’s not break with tradition now, shall we?” Darius replied with a wink to Sylvella from his one good eye as he started securing the team’s packs to the back of Skitter without the crab even blinking one of his eye stalks.
One-Eye and Shāyu both started hefting and assessing the weapons Nado has requisitioned for the mission with nods of approval as they also began stowing them on the sides of the crab.
“Shāyu approves of your selections,” he gave Nado a nod while he worked.
“That’s um… comforting, sure,” Nado answered back with a grin, not entirely comfortable with his speech mannerisms.
In short order, Skitter was loaded and secured and Darius had climbed on his back to guide him away from Atlantis proper. Hermod now rode Sleipnir which clearly pleased the Sea Horse from its wide-eyed expression and casual preening, while Nado and Sylvella led them out in the vanguard. On either outer flank of the two large mounts swam the two Order of the Trident veterans, completing the ‘V-shaped’ formation. The group entered a long undersea trench system, quickly swallowed up by the gloom of the deep-water canyons as they left Atlantis far behind. As they exited the other end of the long trench into the slightly less gloomy but broader canyon system, they pulled up at the sight of a bored, flame-haired mermaid resting against the canyon walls, a single pack at her feet. Her cat eyes glinted coldly in the faint light from her own luminescent skin which only made her hair seem like dancing flames about her head as she regarded them with impatience.
“Could ye have taken a wee bit longer getting started perhaps?” she queried with a distinct brogue accent.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Nado asked curiously, looking from the flame-haired mermaid and back to Sylvella.
“Selkie?” Sylvella clarified, confident that she recognised her accent if nothing else.
“Aye, of course, who else were ye expecting I wonder?”
“Can’t say we were expecting anyone at all,” Sylvella answered her while Nado just nodded once.
“Really, ye that daft then?” she scoffed, although her smile stole some of the sting from the insult. “Who else among ye knows the North Sea as well as Selkie then?”
“North Sea?” One-Eye asked with raised eyebrows.
Watching Nado wince slightly at the question, Selkie let out a roaring laugh and happily continued to burst his bubble.
“Aye laddie, North Sea. Captain fantastic here forget to mention that wee tidbit?”
“I was going to provide full details a little further along on the journey,” Nado defended himself against the accusatory stares of the group, all except Sylvella, who stayed conspicuously quiet.
“Anyway, you’re gonna need me, if ye ever hope to find those tunnels ye lookin for, or the way through ‘em,”
“Darius did not mention to Shāyu anything about tunnels or the North Sea,” Shāyu stated with a slight frown while absently picking a half-broken tooth from his mouth.
“That would be because Darius didn’t know either,” Darius grumbled. “But we’re here now and all packed, and neither the North Sea nor some stinking tunnels are going to frighten off Skitter and me, so let’s just get a wriggle on.”
“Exactly, so don’t go worrying about things that can be worried about tomorrow, or the day after,” Nado answered.
“Looks like we have a new addition to the team then,” Sylvella agreed.
Picking up her pack and slinging it over one shoulder, Selkie looked carefully from shark to shark with an assessing gaze. “Impressive team ye put together Nado. We just might stand a chance on this job, after all.”
Nado just nodded in agreement as he too looked at each member in turn, including both Mermaids. Even one Mermaid was a fierce combatant that wielded strength, skill, and magic into a deadly combination. Two mermaids, along with these veterans of numerous battles over the years and Nado was beginning to think they really did stand half a chance. His musing was cut short by Selkie as she asked a final question while she took her place beside her sister Sylvella.
“So, have ye named this ragtag group yet?”
“No, I had not,” he answered with a thoughtful expression, “but, now I think about it, and considering our common natures as well, I think we’ll go with ‘The Salty Seven’”
There were nods and smiles all around the group at the pronouncement and both Hermod and Darius sat up straighter in their respective saddles with pride.
“The Salty Seven,” Shāyu repeated slowly and with a deep conviction. “Shāyu approves of this name and of the good omens it brings.”
- Part 2 -
Nado looked around the group of sharks and mermaids that had embarked on this dangerous and urgent mission to rescue an Atlantian woman named Kako. The woman was part of the very race that the sharks and mermaids joined forces to defeat, after they had so willfully polluted and desecrated the ocean environment and driven thousands of aquatic flora and fauna to the point of extinction. Yet not everyone can be judged by the masses of their own kind. Kako had helped the Mermaid Queen with vital intelligence and support that had been critical to the capture of their capital city Atlantis. For this, she had been imprisoned in their highest security facility deep within a landbound lake called Loch Ness. Only, it wasn’t completely landbound and secret tunnels connected it to the North Sea, tunnels that would provide this group of elite sharks and mermaids access to attempt the most daring of rescues.
Nado reclined back against a rocky outcrop halfway down an undersea mountain approximately midway between Atlantis and the North Sea. He cast his eye one over this newly formed group that he had proudly named “The Salty Seven” with a mixture of both pride and concern. The five sharks and two mermaids were a formidable group, such that even a pod of marauding orcas had given them a wide birth on their journey so far. But the group was no well-drilled military unit either. By design, they were chosen for their independence, ferocity, and experience but this inevitably led to friction as well amongst such a group of alpha sharks. Nado glanced over to the sleeping forms of the two mermaids, huddled together protectively, despite the incredible strength, speed and magic possessed by each of them. There had been no rivalry, and both had settled comfortably in the group, each seeming to understand instinctively where their specific strengths were best applied.
Moving quietly to avoid waking Sylvella and Selkie, Nado pushed off from the side of the mountain and swam out in a lazy arc to check on the perimeter of their camp for this evening. Hermod was grooming and feeding his Sea Horse steed Sleipnir, loosening the armor plates so he could rest and feed in more comfort, while beside him floated “One Eye” Anderson, the two in quiet conversation about the merits of cavalry over infantry.
“The speed of a cavalry charge is critical to the success of hit and run tactics when you are outnumbered by your enemy,” Hermod explained quietly.
“Yes, but with the additional supplies required to feed and care for these creatures, you are more exposed to having your supply lines cut, which would lessen any advantage if you can’t keep the Sea Horses in top shape,” Eye-One countered thoughtfully.
“The infantry needs supplies too, Anderson,” Hermod responded.
“Yes, but the infantry can make do in the field, by eating the enemy, something the Sea Horses would not enjoy, no?” One Eye surmised. “No, they prefer small crustaceans, fish and plankton,” Hermod answered with a smile, “Not Atlantians.”Nado smiled to himself as he moved out of hearing of the remainder of their conversation, continuing his perimeter patrol, effectively a U-shaped loop out from the undersea mountain cliffside with around fifty yards between either end. At the opposite end to where the two mermaids slept, Nado could see the forms of Captain Darius “Toothless” Low and Shāyu resting undisturbed on a ledge of the mountain, each with a weapon lying within a fin’s length of them. Nado allowed himself a small smile, knowing how quickly they would be awake, and fighting should the situation call for it. He was about to turn and retrace his patrol path back to the mermaids when he stopped and looked around with alarm, having not seen the huge, heavily armoured crab that Darius used as a mount and affectionately called Skitter.
Scanning the rocky ledge with care, as well as up and down the mountainside, to the lengths of his visibility in either direction, with both the surface and the ocean floor both out of sight, Nado failed to spot the massive crab. Muttering to himself at such an impossibility, he began to get frustrated at his own inability to find him.
“How do you lose a crab one and a half times the size of those mechanical crawlers the Atlantians use with armor plating thicker than five shark fins,” he complained to himself, starting to consider waking Darius to locate the creature that had clearly wandered off alone. “It might be huge, but it’s clearly brain dead,” Nado continued quietly to himself, “Obviously a by-product of growing up next to a nuclear reactor. It hung there for a long moment as Nado debated waking Darius, before he eventually thought better of it, and turned to retrace his patrol steps.
Meanwhile, inside an impossibly narrow crevice, thirty feet up the cliff face, two large eyestalks regarded Nado with serious intent. Skitter had done, what crabs do instinctively, regardless of size and that’s find a comfortable cave, or crevice to hide in when resting. Skitter wasn’t yet asleep though and eyes that were flat and emotionless on sagging eyestalks during the day, were now sharply focused, alert and following Nado closely. Slowly and deliberately, Skitter’s main claw clenched shut tightly while he watched Nado move back the other direction and out of sight before he relaxed and closed his eyes once again.The following day began as the previous weeks had done, as the Seven continued their journey to the North Sea. It was nearing late afternoon and the team was being entertained by a gladiatorial story from Shāyu from his time fighting in the arena. As was his way, Shāyu spoke in the third person as he regaled them.
“It was a giant squid Shāyu faced, it’s whip-fast tentacles, barbed and strong lashed out at Shāyu, tearing into his flesh from all angles.” His oratory was engaging, and all were caught up in the telling, perhaps more so, because it was being told in such a way.
“Caught tight in its embrace, the bony beak was snapping dangerously close to Shāyu’s underbelly as he struggled to bring his own harpoon to bear. Each time he tried to re-position himself, the barbs on those fierce tentacles sunk deeper into his sides and he bellowed in pain,” at which point Shāyu himself bellowed in pain to re-enact the terror and agony of the moment in his story. Even though they knew he must have won, to be with them now, both Sylvella and Selkie had hands over their mouths in shock, eyes wide in wonder at the unfolding drama. Shāyu continued.
“Going in for the kill, the giant squid lunged a final time with its beak, to disembowel Shāyu and feast upon his innards, but in its hunger and lust for the kill, it had taken its eyes off Shāyu momentarily, neglecting to baffle the skilled Bull Shark’s own attacks. Shāyu struck hard, his aim true, in the final moment of the giant squid’s victory. The harpoon entered the open beak of the monster, driving deep into its head and finding purchase in the brain. Shāyu felt his own strength waning from the vicious wounds across his body, but he managed to twist the harpoon once and pull it free, sending a gout of blood and brains spurting from the open beak as the giant squid convulsed once and died.”
Even as he finished, Shāyu slumped over in his seat upon the back of the gigantic Skitter, seemingly once again feeling those dreadful wounds. So powerful was his storytelling, that Selkie instinctively reached out to him before checking herself, while Sylvella just raised one eyebrow at her and smiled slightly.
There were nods and cheers from the others at such a wonderful re-telling and Shāyu quickly recovered to accept the bows and accolades graciously.
“To be a gladiator, is to be an actor as much as a warrior, and Shāyu was the best of the gladiators,” Shāyu informed them without any attempt at feigning modesty.
For his part, Skitter was moving along at a steady pace, his eyes, flat, emotionless and perhaps even half-asleep as he easily bore the weight of Darius, One-Eye Anderson and Shāyu along with their supplies and spare weapons. Up ahead, Nado was on point, around sixty yards ahead of the main group and he had stopped at a small ridgeline rising from the seabed. His posture had changed, as he sunk low against the ridgeline and one fin was held back towards the group.
“Hold,” One-Eye Anderson stated softly as Darius pulled Skitter to a halt and the group hushed as their instincts took over and they began scanning their surroundings for threats.
Even Skitter appeared more alert, but his focus was squarely on Nado himself, as one eye stalk seemed to follow Nado with intent as his made his way carefully back to the group. Shāyu watched Skitter with a curious expression, noting the crab’s behaviour while the others were too focused on their surroundings or the returning Nado.“What is it?” Sylvella asked as Nado got close to them.
“A score of Atlantians ahead,” and he paused for a moment, his face twisting into an angry scowl. “They have attacked and killed a family of Grey Nurse sharks, including the children and an accompanying Mermaid.”
The group was stunned by the news, and Sylvella and Selkie’s eyes narrowed dangerously as they listened to the report. “The Grey Nurse mother was a Matron of the Order of the Cross,” Nado continued quietly, his voice low but with a dangerous edge to it. “I know her because she patched me up a number of times. She was heavily pregnant as well. None of them survived.” “Such will be the fate of their cowardly attackers as well,” answered Hermod in a flat tone that left no room for argument. The rest of the group just nodded once and readied weapons.
After a very brief discussion on tactics, given the seven of them were about to attack a force of twenty Altantians, the group moved quietly and carefully to the edge of the ridgeline to look down into the small valley, sparsely littered with low growing aquatic vegetation.
Just as the group was about to crest the ridgeline and charge into the midst of the Atlantian’s Hermod unhooked his trident, wheeled Sleipnir and charged off along the side of the ridge, keeping low and to the upper side as the two quickly disappeared in the gloom.
“Now,” said Nado with cold focus, once Hermod was out of sight, and the group crested the ridge and charged at full speed towards the Atlantians who were intent upon butchering the dead sharks. Nado led the charge, his own speed easily enough to keep him ahead of the group, while Darius steered Skitter directly in his wake, both One-Eye Anderson and Shāyu readying weapons to either side of him on the giant crab’s back. To either side of the crab swam Sylvella and Selkie, their own eyes blazing with both rage and building magical energy.
Thirty yards out, the Atlantians had finally noticed the charging force of sharks and Mermaids and quickly tried to scramble together a defensive line to meet the charge.
As she charged, Selkie was first to act however, as she lifted her face and sung a haunting song of loss and grief that echoed throughout the waters of the small valley bringing the vegetation to life in answer to her Siren’s call. Responding to the pain and sorrow in her voice, the vegetation twisted and wrapped itself around legs and arms of the Atlantians, baffling their attempts to form a cohesive defensive line and fouling their attempts to ready weapons.
On the other side of Skitter, Sylvella herself threw one hand forward, fingers splayed and the waters between her and two of the Atlantians at the edge of the group crystalised with ice in a cone shaped blast of cryokinesis magic. Thick, sharp shards of ice drove into the two Atlantians, piercing chest, stomach, throats, and eyes, killing them instantly as lifeless hands dropped the knives, they had been using to cut the fins from the dead sharks.
Nado slammed into the front rank of Atlantians, knocking aside their weapons contemptuously as his sword thrust into the chest of one and the exposed neck of another as his charge took him right into the midst of the enemy. At any other time, that result would have meant his death, surrounded as he was by so many armed Atlantians, even hampered as they were by Selkie’s entangling song. But such a scenario didn’t account for Skitter as Darius steered him directly into the mass of Atlantians while bellowing a war cry he had learnt from marauding pirates and adapted for his own use.
“Look at me! This is my crab tank now!”
On his back, Shāyu shortened the haft of his harpoon and angled it slightly as Skitter slammed into the mass of Atlantians. The momentum of the huge crab was used masterfully by the skilled gladiator as the set harpoon neatly disemboweled three Atlantians who all dropped weapons and futilely tried to stuff loops of entrails back into their stomach cavities. Looking back at them momentarily, he saw Selkie closing on them with clear intent, so he turned back to the still living foes while the moans of agony stopped one by one with grim finality.
On the other side of Skitter, One-Eye had strapped together three gas-powered harpoons liberated from Atlantians in previous battles and attached them to a swivel platform for a greater arc of fire. With cold precision, he steadied and fired each of them, sending harpoons thundering towards Atlantians that were only just outside the reach of his trident had he chosen to use it. Harpoons that could piece armor breastplates of sharks at distance tore the Atlantians in half creating an obscuring brown haze as the blood pumped from their bodies.
Skitter himself was not left out, his sharp pointed feet trampling the bodies of two Atlantians that fell underneath his heavy body during the charge, while a third was decapitated by a precise claw strike just as the Atlantian was bringing his own weapon to bear at Darius.
The remaining seven Atlantians fought off the entangling vegetation and gathered themselves despite the carnage to their comrades, readying to sell their lives dearly. Their focus fixed on the four sharks, two mermaids and one gigantic crab, it was too late when a flash of movement to their flank alerted them to another threat. Hermod appeared out of the murkiness of the bloodied waters, bent low over the neck of Sleipnir, his trident held before him like a lance as he slammed into the side of two Atlantians, taking one of their heads clean off, before burying the trident into the chest of the second. Letting the trident go, he quickly drew a sword and now blocking any retreat the Atlantians might have sought, he wheeled Sleipnir with a grim expression and completed the encircling maneuver.
In the gloom of the bloodied waters, Selkie’s voice again rose in song, this time causing the remaining Atlantians to shake their heads in confusion as the song broke their concentration and befuddled their minds. The confusion was all the opportunity her friends needed. Sylvella’s hand turned a bright blue as it became encased in ice up to the forearm while her fingers closed over a shard of razor-sharp ice. With Sylvella lunging in from one flank and Nado the other, the remaining Atlantians were slaughtered against the immovable shell of Skitter with Darius, Shāyu and One-Eye Anderson all stabbing down at them from the back of the armored behemoth crab. Hermod ensured that none escaped, turning them back with his flashing sword as they sought any escape. The rest of that evening was spent tending to the corpses of their brethren in grim silence. There was now sadness to temper the earlier rage and a further hardening of already strong resolve that this war must be fought for the sake of all aquatic creatures. Even Skitter helped out, under the direction of Darius, although one eye stalk was always turned toward Nado with a fixation that Nado had begun to notice as had Shāyu, although Darius himself seemed completely unaware.Another week’s travel passed uneventfully for the group as they moved into the fierce waters of the North Sea proper. Closing on the Scottish coast and the city of Inverness, they began to discuss the details of what lay before them. Assuming they could navigate to the Loch with Selkie’s guidance they had begun to review options for how to breach the prison proper and locate Kako, and after discarding several ideas, had settled on what they felt was their best chance.
“Of course,” Selkie added at the end of the discussion, just as they were preparing to make for the tunnels under Inverness. “All this will be for naught should old Nessie be awake, Atlantians or not.”
“Excuse me,” asked Darius pointedly.
“Old what?”
“Don’t be silly, Nessie is a myth,” Sylvella fired back.
“Oh, a myth, is she?” Selkie asked sarcastically.
“Her lair is littered with the bones of megalodons Sylvella and I’ve seen her with me own eyes as well. Although at a good distance. She be real enough alright. But she sleeps a lot, so we stand a chance at least.”
“Great, just great,” Nado muttered as he led them underneath the city of Inverness.
- Part 3 -
Three Scottish lads crept through the darkened streets of Inverness with the preternatural stealth afforded to young teens intent on mischief. They entered the kitchen of a large sized pub while the staff were out in the main tavern cleaning up and made their way down worn stone steps to an old basement. The lead boy turned on a flashlight as they crept to the back wall of the basement, where a large rug covered the floor. Rolling it up from one side, the unsteady beam of light from the nervous, yet excited boy shined upon old floorboards, long since missing the nails that held them down. The two other boys, one to each end of the heavy boards carefully lifted them up and stacked them to one side under the silent instructions of the eldest who supervised and directed with crisp movements of the flashlight beam. After removing several of the floorboards, the eldest boy stepped to the edge and shone the light down into the darkness below the tavern’s basement. They all hesitated a moment at the yawning chasm of darkness beneath them, wild imagination conjuring monsters and worse lurking just beyond the edges of their light. The other two boys pulled out their own flashlights and the three beams of halogen light bathed the area below, dispelling both their fears and the lurking monsters. The light played across smooth limestone walls of an old bath house from the Middle Ages, yet the steel ladder descending to the floor of the bath house indicated much more recent use by the owners of the tavern above.
The boys quickly gathered their things and climbed down the ladder, scanning the area once again with their torches to ensure nothing waited to pounce upon them. Satisfied that they were alone, they changed and made their way into the cool waters of the bath, their feet struggling for purchase on the sloping and tiled floor. Soon, the three of them were happily splashing and relaxing in the cold waters, enjoying the salty residue it left on the skin with waters fed from the North Sea itself. At the far back of the bath, about forty feet from where the boys played, the limestone walls and roof descended into the flooded tunnels that crisscrossed underneath the city of Inverness.
Captain Darius “Toothless” Low was hopelessly lost. Ahead of him, in the distance of the dark tunnels they swam through, he could make out the luminescent glow coming from Selkie as she led the way. She seemed to posses the ability to adjust the brightness of her skin’s glow to suit her needs and here, in the pitch black of these tunnels, she let it shine bright, as a beacon for the Salty Seven to ensure no one got lost. Riding on top of Skitter, Darius brought up the rear of the group, the crab so large that navigation at times became a bit tricky and forcing One-Eye Anderson and Shāyu to swim along ahead of him, just behind Sylvella, Nado and Hermod who was swimming alongside his steed, rather than riding it. Over the past hour, they had been swimming upward, getting closer and closer to the surface and now they paused while Selkie assessed the tunnels ahead.
“Surface dwellers ahead,” was the explanation passed back to Darius as he waited quietly on top of Skitter. “This is as close to the surface as we get on our way to the Loch,” Selkie explained quietly. “We could wait until they move on or risk it with a dash through the slightly exposed tunnel and then back into a deeper section where we will be undisturbed?”
There was a hushed debate on the merits of remaining unseen against the urgency of their mission before it was decided to make a dash for it, trusting that they would be long gone before any alarm brought more land seals to investigate.
Reducing her luminescent glow, Selkie set off with the other following quickly. Darius gave Skitter a quick slap on one claw and the crab scurried off after them, his flat, emotionless eyes reacting not at all to the pause, or the resumed travel.
Ahead, in the bath house, the three lads paused at the sound of splashing coming from the rear depths of the dark waters. Swimming as they were in the mid-section of the baths, the boys could only just touch the slick tiles with their feet and certainly with insufficient purchase to allow them to step hastily back to shallower waters. The splashing beyond them, in the deeper waters became louder still and each of the three boys shined their water-resistant torches at the back wall as it descended into the water, fear etched on their faces as several massive shark dorsal fins lifted from the waters surface and crossed the breadth of their bath house with alarming speed. The boys froze in terror, realizing they were in far too deep to swim to safety now as they watched four large-bodied sharks swim by, less than thirty yards away. The water was deep enough to obscure the lithe forms of the two mermaids and Sleipnir as well, but the boy’s fear turned to stark terror as Captain Darius “Toothless” Low’s upper body emerged from the dark waters, riding as he was upon the back of the enormous Skitter crab.
Darius turned to find the source of the light shining upon the surface of the water and now himself as well, as Skitter traversed the tunnel at the edge of the bathhouse. Seeing the three teenage boys frozen in terror a scant thirty yards away, Darius smiled broadly and doffed his pirate hat to them with a wink of one eye as he slowly descended back into the darkened water on the far side of the bathhouse and out of sight.
The boys stood on the slippery tiles in absolute silence for many long moments after Darius had disappeared and the sounds of splashing had faded away. With painful slowness and not a word uttered, they each began edging back towards the shallows, and the benches upon which they had left their clothes. Within five minutes, they had dressed, climbed the ladder, replaced the floorboards and were sneaking back up through the cellar basement and out the kitchen’s back door. Once out on the street, they each looked to one another, faces still showing the shock of such a close encounter with the massive sharks, before the eldest spoke in quiet tones.
“Not a word of this, you hear?” He told them sternly while the other two just nodded in response.
“I’ll not be branded a crazy, like that old fisher lady who lives along the coast,” he continued earnestly.
“Makes you wonder if she really is crazy now though huh?” the youngest lad questioned aloud.
“I won’t be judging her anymore, that’s for damn sure,” the eldest agreed with him.Wondering why the last boy was so quiet, both then turned to the third boy curiously before he answered their questioning stares.
“How cool was the pirate’s hat on that shark though?” He asked with a huge grin, as all three doubled over in laughter brought on by a release of pent-up tension and fear. It was another four hours before the Salty Seven emerged from the dark tunnels under Inverness and the surrounding countryside and into the Loch Ness proper. Sinking to the floor of the Loch, the sharks, mermaids, and mounts all took a moment to rest, only the indomitable Skitter seemingly unaffected by the journey through the tunnels. Shāyu opened some packs on the back of Skitter and pulled out some fish to pass around the group, so they could recover their strength for the most dangerous part of the mission still ahead of them.
“How far to the prison itself?” Hermod asked Selkie, while he looked around the bottom of the Loch.
“About an hour’s swim is all,” she answered, seemingly uncomfortable resting out in the open. “There is a wide crevice, the edge of which is not too far from here and it runs along the length of the Loch, splitting the floor into two parts effectively. The prison is in the centre of that crevice, well-hidden from the surface dwellers and fishermen.”
“You ok Selkie?” One-Eye Anderson asked, astutely noticing her nervous demeanour.
“Aye, I am ok, but we are too close to Nessie’s lair for my liking,” she answered with a forced smile. “We should keep moving.”
“We’ll need a plan first,” Darius chimed in. “I’m all for storming a super secure Atlantian prison and all, but I’d like to think we have a plan for getting in and more importantly out, before we charge off.”
“Selkie and I have been discussing this on the journey here,” Sylvella said quietly, as she laid out the plan for breaching the prison while the Sharks all listened silently. When she finished laying out the audacious plan, she looked around the faces of the sharks with a questioning expression. “No comments?”
“I can only think of a dozen potential flaws,” Darius began, “So, it’s probably the best plan we could hope for.”
“If the facility is heavily fortified, some of us are unlikely to return,” Shāyu added solemnly, chewing on some fish snacks. “Shāyu is not afraid, for it is unlikely to be him,” he finished with a wry grin and a wink.
“Shāyu is right, of course, it will likely be Nado, as the weakest of the group,” One Eye Anderson chimed in, not even bothering to hide a broad smile.
Nado just shook his head and grinned back at them, recognizing the banter for what it was, given the plan laid out by Sylvella and the odds stacked against them. This group was the some of the best in The Mermaid Queen’s forces and if there was a chance of success, he knew it rested on their combined fins and scales.
“No point delaying it any further then,” he said, readying himself and his kit as he addressed Selkie. “Lead us out.”
Two hundred yards out from the tunnels exit as the Loch dipped into far deeper territory, the group could see off in the distance, even through the murky waters, a cave mouth that descended deep into the floor of the Loch. As the group veered off towards the start of the crevice and away from that foreboding cave mouth, Darius would swear he saw the remnants of a massive skeletal frame poking up from the silt and sand of the Loch’s floor, just outside the entrance to the cave. As he rode out of sight of the cave, a cold shiver ran the length of his body and a terrible sense of foreboding washed over him.
- Part 4 -
Under the cover of a silt storm whipped up by the magic of Sylvella, its unnatural origins masked by the raging storm sweeping across the surface of the Loch far above, the Salty Seven approached unseen and stood along a dark stone wall that made up one side of the Atlantian prison structure. Twenty feet to either side of the two Mermaids waited the crouched forms of Shāyu to the South and “One eye” Anderson to the North, outer sentries to the breach team. Sylvella and Selkie stood with their heads close together examining the massive stone blocks of the wall, expertly masoned and held in place by superior water-resistant mortar.
Placing a hand on the thin join between two stones, Sylvella closed her eyes in deep concentration and worked her cryokinesis magic upon the molecules within the mortar, freezing them and causing them to expand and place outward pressure on the stone blocks themselves. Watching her closely, Selkie was ready for the slight nod from Sylvella that would trigger her contribution. Quickly placing a hand beside that of her sister, Selkie called upon her own distinct magic and sent waves of sonic vibrations into the expanded frozen mortar, shattering it into tiny pieces and freeing the bonds that held the stones together.
Breathing heavily, both Mermaids paused for a moment to gather themselves, allowing time for Nado and Hermod to leverage out the stones carefully, needing both massive sharks to lift each of them from the wall and lower them to the sea floor. As Sylvella and Selkie moved to the next pair of blocks over, Nado and Hermod watched in amazement as, under Captain Darius’ instructions, Skitter easily lifted each stone block in one massive claw and pivoted to deposit them well away from where the two sharks and two mermaids were at work enlarging the breach.
“I don’t see any reason to mention this to the others,” Nado offered with a slight nod to the massive crab.
“Mention what?” Hermod replied with a bland expression devoid of even a hint of a smile.
“Another block, shall we?” Nado replied with a nod and a smile of satisfaction as he turned to the next two freed by the mermaid’s magic.
Despite moving the blocks as Darius had instructed him, Skitter was aware of the brief conversation, one eye-stalk firmly fixed on Nado in an ominous, unblinking fashion. Neither of the sharks noticed this fixation as they continued with their work. It took twenty long minutes to open a large enough breach in the thick walls of the Prison to allow the team access to the darkened prison interior. Signaling to Shāyu and “One-Eye” Anderson that they were ready to enter, Nado stepped forward into the breach, harpoon at the ready should Atlantian guards be waiting on the other side. Encountering no resistance, he gestured for the others to join him. Only Hermod stayed at the entrance, indicating with a gesture that he would help the sentries, patting the side of Sleipnir to signal his intention to use the speed and maneuverability of the steed in open waters to their maximum advantage.
Nado nodded once in agreement and moved further into the prison complex, leading Sylvana, Selkie and Captain Darius Low, still riding on the back of Skitter. Having entered the prison into the cavernous and water filled substructure, the smaller group of four now moved cautiously, guided by the faint light of Selkie’s luminescent skin. Large, curved walls of metal loomed out of the darkness to either side of a central passageway and ahead they could see a thick, well-maintained ladder that rose from the substructure into the prison proper. Both mermaids uttered brief words of magic and gently touched Nado, who shuddered and winced under the transmutation magic of his companions.
“Surely it can’t have been that painful, Nado,” Selkie teased softly as she grasped one side of the ladder and swung a shapely human-looking leg onto one of the rungs. Forcing a smile, Nado replied casually, “It’s more the weirdness of the sensation over the pain. I just prefer my tail to these land-seal legs.”
Sylvella looked questioningly at Captain Darius and started to move towards him before he suddenly grasped her intent and swiftly pulled back on Skitter’s reins causing the crab to swiftly move him out of her reach. “I’m good,” Darius answered her unspoken offer. “I’ll stay on Skitter.”
“Sharks!” Sylvella shook her head in a mocking and fake exasperation. Climbing up out of the deep waters of the prison substructure, Nado and the Mermaids were amazed by the open air complex devoid of interior walls. Massive metal vats filled almost to the brim with water stood side by side along each side of the complex and were sealed with a metal latticework grid that allowed visibility into the vat and a small amount of room for the vats occupants to breathe the open air if they required it. Each metal vat had a large number painted on it in white paint to identify the vat and no doubt the occupant within. Above the vats, were a multi-layered web of gantry ways that allowed Atlantian guards to walk the complex and be able to stand directly over each vat as desired while keeping well out of reach of them and their occupants.
“There must be close to fifty vats here,” Nado whispered in consternation. “How are we going to find Kako’s one?”
“I can’t say I was even expecting to make it this far,” Sylvella answered honestly with a shrug.
The sound of approaching boots on the metal gantry ways brought the conversation to an abrupt end as they looked up from the lower sections of the ladder to an approaching guard walking in their direction about thirty feet above them.
Nimbly climbing one side of the ladder past both Nado and Sylvella, Selkie whispered as she passed by “I guess we had better ask directions then, no?”
Before they could react or utter a word to stop her, Selkie had passed them, climbing swiftly and silently to within fifteen feet of the approaching guard. Lifting her head back, her long hair weaving back and forth almost of its own accord, Selkie began a soft crooning song of loss and longing. The guard’s first reaction was one of alarm, but this quickly softened by the magic interwoven with the soft melodic voice from the Siren of the North Sea. The guard’s face relaxed visibly, and he lowered the arm he had begun raising to alert the other guards. Instead, he lowered himself to one knee and cocked his head to the side to better hear this captivating song of the Siren.
Nado and Sylvella watched on in amazement as Selkie carefully approached the guard and began a whispered conversation, her head positioned close to his as a lover might when stealing a moment of privacy. The silence in the cavernous prison stretched for almost two minutes before a shout of alarm came from further along the gantry at the far end of the prison, lost in the gloom. The sudden noise woke the captivated guard from his stupor as Selkie let rip an old sailor’s curse at her ill luck. Showing incredible strength and dexterity, Selkie twisted on the ladder and swung herself up onto the gantry behind the guard who was just getting back to his feet. With strength that belied her lithe form, Selkie wrapped a slender arm around the guard’s neck, pulling his head backward and arching his back painfully as she secured a hold on him, while calling out to her friends below.
“Thirty-eight,” she yelled down to them, “Move!”
Selkie’s move on the guard as much as the urgency of her command snapped the group out of their fascination with her intelligence gathering and they burst into action. Selkie watched them leap forward, springing up the metal ladder and onto the gantry in swift, graceful moves as she delivered further instructions to her companions.
“Look for closed hatches on the top of the vats! That’s how you know they’re occupied,” Selkie watched them, only half aware that the guard she held arched backward painfully was reaching slowly for a weapon at his belt. Without even a change in her expression she casually snapped the large guard’s neck with one smooth move and tossed his dead body over the side to fall with a splash into the submerged substructure.
“You find Kako, I’ll take care of these guards,” Nado told Sylvella with a growl as he began to focus his own unique magic and gather an unnatural speed with a forward charge to three advancing guards, leaving Sylvella alone on the gantry to assess the vats positioned below them. Nado slammed into the three guards, pushing hastily readied weapons easily to the side as he shortened the haft grip on his harpoon, turning the weapon into more of a short spear that he used with devastating effect on the three guards. In mere moment, three dead bodies slowly rolled or was casually kicked off the gantry now slick with their blood. Having caught up to Nado on the gantry, Sylvella swore in frustration as she looked down at an occupied vat beneath her.
“It’s not thirty-eight, damn it!” she cursed, frowning as the dark shape of an occupant within the vat distracted her and tugged at her memory. She also succeeded in distracting Nado for a precious few seconds which proved very costly to them both as an enormous heavy shape landed between them, having jumped down from an overhead, perpendicular gantry.
This Atlantian guard was outfitted in a solid metal mechanized exoskeleton, that provided both protection from mundane weapons as well as conferring immense strength upon the occupant via the powered armour suit. Even distracted, Nado struck first and fast, his harpoon hitting the armoured guard dead center of his chest.
“Ah, shit,” Nado muttered as the harpoon point barely scratched the metal exoskeleton. Anything else Nado might have said was lost as a huge metal arm slammed into his body, easily picking him up and throwing him twenty yards back along the gantry, away from Sylvella.
Sylvella’s eyes narrowed as she began to gather her own formidable magic, but she was not fast enough and the other metal arm slammed into her as well, throwing her off the side of the gantry to land with a sickening thud on the metal grid lid of the closed vat she had been staring at moments earlier.
To Sylvella, the large, cavernous prison building seemed to darken considerably as her vision narrowed and her head rang with the clear clarion call of a dozen trumpeters as she valiantly tried to fight off unconsciousness. A sudden crash of metal on metal snapped her out of the deadly drowsiness threatening to drag her consciousness away as the huge metal exoskeleton landed heavily on the top of the metal latticework covering the vat. The guard landed with such force and weight that one entire side of the metal latticework cover buckled and groaned under the impact and weight of the behemoth.
Sylvella let out a soft, low groan of pain as flashes of bright lights exploded in her vision when she tried to turn her head towards the armoured guard. But, at that moment, she also felt a large presence beneath her in the vat and a voice spoke within the vaults of her mind.
“Sylvella, my dear,” the voice began, “it’s been so long.”
The voice brought a flood of memories back to Sylvella. A shallow reef, swarms of fish and sea life, a kaleidoscope of colours like a rainbow dancing across… rainbow…
“Lyell?” Sylvella whispered in a confused voice, memory and current reality blurring together in a jumbled mess.
“Yes, it’s Lyell,” the voice spoke again, this time, more insistently. “Use your magic Sylvella, freeze the joints of the powered armour suit so it can’t move.”
Sylvella squinted in concentration, trying to call forth her magic against a wave of agony in her head that smashed against her concentration, shattering her hold on the magical energies.
“I…. I can’t,” Sylvella groaned.The voice withdrew from her mind, as she felt the presence sink deeper into the large vat.
The metal latticework groaned and buckled further as the guard in the powered armour suit stepped closer to Sylvella, readying to crush her. “Here now. I don’t think we’ll be having any of that,” Captain Darius Low interrupted the guard as he guided Skitter up the side of the vat to perch on the side in a seemingly precarious position, as Darius kept the crab’s weight off the metal latticework lid. Unperturbed by the arrival of an enormous crab mount and its shark companion seated comfortably on top, the guard closed a large metal fist and swung hard towards the crab’s head, seeking to crush the creature’s brain through its shell in one mighty blow.
Skitter’s small arm moved in response to the attack, pincer open to catch the oncoming assault. The guard smiled, fully expecting the power armour to drive through such feeble defenses with ease. But Skitter was no normal crab and the small claw easy caught and stopped dead the powered metal arm, keeping it several inches from the crab’s head. The pincer closed over the armour and the creak of metal buckling within that grip was more audible than the groaning surface upon which the guard stood. Twisting his upper body, the guard readied another massive arm to attack. This time, Skitter didn’t bother trying to block, instead pushing his large claw straight out, the huge pincer on this claw closing over the metal helmet with a finality punctuated by an explosion of brains and blood that burst out through small openings in the helmet, crushed like a grape in Skitter’s claw.
Releasing the powered armour suit to fall to the surface of the lid with a deafening clang, Darius swung off the top of Skitter and rushed over to Sylvella, carefully helping her to her feet.
“Quick, help me open this lid,” Sylvella pointed to the metal latticework.
“Skitter, come on, snip snip,” Darius instructed, pointing to their feet, watching as Skitter easily tore open the latticework with his large claw.
With a loud splash, the power armoured exoskeleton suit with dead body inside rolled into the vat just as another large shape surfaced once again, it’s rainbow coloured skin sparkling in the uneven light of the prison complex.
“Darius, meet Lyell,” Sylvella offered, introducing the grizzled veteran pirate to the majestic whale shark with skin so vibrant it was almost dazzling to the eye.
“Oy, how did you end up here?” Darius asked curiously to the Whale Shark.
“That’s a long story,” Lyell returned with a sigh, “One I will happily tell, once we are well clear of this place. But, before we go, we must rescue one more creature, just two vats down.”
“Skitter and I got this,” Darius assured him “You get yourself down into the subsystem, we have a breach in the wall that leads outside. We’ll catch up with your friend, but you got to take Sylvella with you. She is in no shape for a fight.”
“Rubbish,” Sylvella answered with a snort, although she also swayed dangerous on her feet.
Lyell steadied her gently and guided her towards the edge of the vat, as he spoke again to Darius. “His name is Kadory, and you’ll need that if he is to trust you.”
“Hold on tight to me,” Lyell instructed Sylvella, as the two dived off the top of the vat and into the dark waters below.
“Whatever,” muttered Darius as he and Skitter jumped from this vat to the next one across, closing the gap to their quarry by half. “As if a shark is gonna not trust me over these Atlantians!”
Outside the prison structure, Hermod and “One Eye” Anderson heard the alarms sound from within and tensed, ready for anything. Long moments passed before eventually Sylvella, Selkie and a wondrous whale shark with the most mesmerizing skin emerged from the breach in the wall, with Selkie protectively assisting Sylvella and helping steady her.
“Not exactly to plan then,” Hermod offered in the most unnecessary of statements ever.
“One Eye” Anderson turned his one good eye on his new friend and just tilted his head slightly in brief amazement. “You think?”
Any response Hermod might have uttered was interrupted by a look of horror on Selkie’s face as she saw something appear at the edges of visibility in the murky waters. Turning quickly, both Hermod and “One Eye” Anderson regarded the steady approach of a score of heavily armed Atlantian soldiers.
“Well,” Hermod offered, climbing swiftly into the saddle of his giant, armoured sea horse steed Sleipnir. “This is now on us.” “Yes, it is,” answered “One Eye”. “We’ll buy you enough time to start making your way back to the tunnels, so long as the others are not far behind you.”
Sylvella just turned in concern back to the breach, with no idea what happened to Nado or Captain Darius Low.
“I guess we’ll find out which is the better after all,” Hermod offered to his friend, “Cavalry or Infantry.”
“Let’s instead show them how powerful they are together,” Anderson responded, laying one hand on the armoured neck of Sleipnir.
Bellowing a battle cry taken partly from each of their orders, the Horse and the Trident, the two heroic sharks charged at the approaching enemy squad.
As the sharks slammed into the front ranks of the Atlantians, the edges of the Atlantian forces continued forward to enclose the two fearless warriors.
“They’ll never be able to defeat that many,” Selkie whispered with a catch in her voice as she watched the two outer edges of the Atlantian line come together behind the Sharks.
“But their heroism will buy us precious moments,” Sylvella answered, her voice also low, but thick with pride and emotion.
Behind her, a cut and bloodied Shāyu approached slowly, holding one side tenderly.
“The way back to the tunnels is no longer blocked by troublesome Atlantians,” Shāyu whispered quietly, clearly fatigued by his recent battle.
“There were more of them?” Selkie asked needlessly.
“Shāyu only faced six of their best troops, so there was never any doubt,” Shāyu answered immodestly, although his statement was less impressive when she regarded his badly wounded side.
“We should go,” Selkie said sadly, glancing back to the battle at the very edges of their vision.
“Just a few more moments,” Sylvella pleaded. “Give them a few more moments.”
- Part 5 -
Back inside the Atlantian prison, built to fill the central region of a deep crevice at the bottom of Loch Ness, Captain Darius Low guided Skitter down the side of the now empty vat that had held Lyell and with a push off the side, Skitter used his massive claws to grip the support structure of the maze of gantry ways to pull himself along in the water of the sub-system region towards the vat Lyell had indicated earlier. Ahead in the gloom of the complex and high above along the gantry ways Darius could hear fighting and he knew Nado was still searching for Kako.
“Just got to release this friend of Lyell’s and we’re getting up there to ‘elp Nado,” he spoke to Skitter who seemingly reacted not at all to the conversation, much as Darius had expected. Unseen by Darius though, one of Skitter’s eye stalks turned up towards the sound of combat for a long moment as he continued pulling himself through the sub-system.
Reaching the second vat along, Skitter carefully began climbing the outside, while Darius balanced carefully upon his back and tried not to make it harder on the gigantic crab. Pulling himself up onto the steel latticework of beams that created a secure lid over the vat but still allowed visibility inside, Skitter carefully navigated the lid, carefully placing each leg at the intersection of the steel beams for added balance and support. Looking over the side of the massive crab, Darius peered down into the tank, looking for some sign of its occupant.
A mere heartbeat later, a burst of air erupted from the surface of the tank on the side furthest from where the enormous crab and shark stood. Peering into the darker section of the vat, Darius could just make out the form of a sleek juvenile dolphin resting at the surface of the water in the vat, a mere six inches from the steel latticework lid. The Dolphin watched them both with one wide eye as it stayed almost motionless.
“Ok, I was not expecting that, I’ll admit it,” Darius exclaimed to Skitter or anyone else that might be listening. “Your name Kadory by any chance young fella?”
One of Skitter’s eye stalks turned to consider Darius flatly, before turning back to the young dolphin.
“Hello Darius and Skitter,” a clear, if young-toned voice spoke inside the minds of both shark and crab while the young dolphin remained motionless.
The shock at hearing the dolphin speak to them within their own minds and call them by name stunned them both. Skitter reacted the most, violently rearing up, eye stalks wide with shock and throwing Darius from his back. Darius landed hard, bounced once and went over the side of the vat, but was saved by his fast reflexes and the hook on the end of his harpoon that he managed to catch the edge of the vat with, to stop him falling into the waters of the subsystem below.
“Ooof,” Darius exclaimed as his body slammed into the side of the vat, his grip on the harpoon slipping slightly.
Skitter recovered himself quickly and moved to the edge of the vat, one eyestalk peering down at Darius who hung from the edge precariously while his other eyestalk kept a careful watch over the young dolphin at the far side of the vat. Reaching his small claw down, he carefully wrapped it around Darius, easily lifting him back to the top of the vat.
Darius regarded his friend and mount quizzically. “Did you hear him in your head too?”
Skitter just regarded him flatly, but in a sign that he understood and agreed, both eyestalks now focused on the dolphin warily.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the young dolphin’s voice again sounded within their minds. “I could see in your memories that Lyell had sent you, so I thought it would be ok to greet you by name.”
“Ok, that is just not right at all, no sir,” Darius replied out aloud, before his eyes widened once and he began making strange noises, “La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, hmm, bah, bah bah.”
“That doesn’t actually do anything I don’t think,” Kadory replied, interrupting Darius’ attempt to block Kadory from his mind.
“Stay out of my memories, ok?” Darius instructed warily. “Or we’re leaving you ere, got it?”
“Of course,” Kadory answered quickly, “I mean no offence and will stay well clear of your memories.”
“Good,” Darius again answered out aloud, “Get to work Skitter, snip, snip.”
At the far end of the prison complex, Nado knelt on a narrow gantry, high above the prison vats. Around him lay a dozen Atlantian bodies, torn, and punctured. Blood caked his harpoon and upper torso and long cuts marked his body, evidence that he didn’t escape unscathed from the battle. Scanning the surrounding gantries, Nado was relieved to find them empty and that for a few moments at least, he had some respite from the fighting to catch his breath. After a few moments, he looked over the side of the gantry to the large number “thirty-eight” painted in bright yellow paint on the vat directly beneath him, but any sense of elation at finding the right vat evaporated at the horror that greeted him.
The lid of this vat was not closed and locked, but each half of the latticework lid was open and standing upright on either edge of the vat. Within the vat, through a haze of steam, Nado could make out a metal rack-like device suspended within the water. Strapped to it was an Atlantian woman, arms and legs locked in place, her body submerged with just her head resting above the water line. A blindfold covered her eyes and the water around her boiled from her captive and bound fury. Looking down at her, Nado inwardly questioned the wisdom of her rescue and release and not for the first time since accepting this daring mission either.
The silent battle within resolved itself within a few heartbeats, and he swung over the side of the gantry and slid down one support structure to the vat of boiling water below.
“Kako,” he called out to her, squinting through the hot steam rising from the vat, “Nammu, the Mermaid Queen has sent us to rescue you.”
A long moment passed with no visible sign of change within the vat before a soft feminine voice carried across the churning waters between them.
“What is your name?”
“Nado,” he answered with a shrug.
“Is Sylvella with you,” she asked after another long and nervous pause for Nado.
“Sylvella?” he asked with a frown. “Um, yes, she got injured but our companions got her outside. Can you um, maybe stop boiling the water so I can cut those bindings?”
Without another word between them, the water ceased churning and bubbling, and the steam slowly cleared about the young woman. Nado could make out her curly brown hair, wet and plastered around her face as he used the reach of his harpoon to carefully cut the leather bindings, mindful of the no doubt still super-heated water. With her arms and legs freed, he held the side of the harpoon against her.
“Carefully grab the end of the harpoon and I’ll pull you towards the edge of the vat,” he told her in a quiet voice. “We have to get out of here quickly, before more guards come.”
Removing her blindfold first, Kako then grabbed the end of the harpoon and half swam, was half dragged to the edge of the vat. Reaching down to her, Nado gently picked her up out of vat and gazed into soft brown eyes that carried an unreadable expression.
“I’ve been strapped to that contraption a long time now, and I will need time to regain the strength in my limbs. Can you assist me?”
Nado just nodded slowly once, his own mind in turmoil at being this close to an Atlantian he wasn’t killing.
Dropping to the waters of the substructure below the vats, Nado shook off the Mermaid’s magic to regain his tail and fins and let Kako ride on his back as he swam down to the breach in the prison’s walls.
Outside the prison, just as the Atlantian line closed behind the charging forms of Hermod riding Sleipnir and a bellowing “One-Eye” Anderson, Lyell gently handed a still-groggy Sylvella over to a wounded Shāyu.
“Keep her safe,” He whispered while picking up a spare trident. “We need to buy the others time, yes, but I’m not sacrificing those two in the process,” he spoke to Selkie while gesturing to the raging battle.
Selkie’s mouth turned up at one corner in a smile of vicious joy as she drew a wicked looking dagger from her belt and moved up beside the larger whale shark with the bright rainbow skin tones.
“Oh, I be liking you already, Lyell. Let’s do this,” and the two burst forward towards companions so outnumbered they could not be seen within the ranks of the enemy Atlantians.
Just as they approached the Atlantians, Lyell spun and turned so that his bulky flank slammed into the backs of three Atlantians with such force that they were rocked forward and down beneath him. Using Lyell as a blast shadow, Selkie dipped down as he struck them and as the Atlantians were pushed beneath his bulk, their defenses baffled, she struck out with her wickedly sharp dagger, punching it into exposed throats and eye sockets, leaving them continue their downward momentum to the floor of the Loch, already dead.
The timing of the strike could not have been more perfect, as Hermod was being dragged from the saddle and “One-Eye” had been stabbed repeatedly by Atlantian spears, unable to fend them off from all quarters. Lyell moved alongside “One-Eye” Anderson, flicking out his massive tail to baffle the strikes of the Atlantians looking to block him, while offering a protect fin to cover Anderson and allow him time to regroup. Selkie meanwhile reacted with a ferocity rarely seen in the more subdued Mermaids as she leapt upon the back of one of the Atlantians who had dragged Hermod from the saddle and was readying to finish him. Her dagger plunged into the Atlantian’s neck repeatedly and Hermod managed to tear himself free, spinning to face the other Atlantian as the two clashed weapons together and circled each other warily.
Riderless now, Sleipnir reared up and slammed his armoured head down, connecting solidly with the head of an Atlantian with a sickening crunch while still another Atlantian plunged a long spear deep into Sleipnir’s flank, finding a gap in the armour plating to bury the point deep.
The giant seahorse let out a silent scream of pain and folded over the spear buried deep in his side as he began to sink towards the floor of the Loch. Even with Lyell and Selkie to reinforce them, the sheer numbers of Atlantians they faced were too great and the wounds inflicted were taking a toll, sapping them of strength, speed and vitality that would normally carry them through such a battle.
Lyell lashed out with the trident to keep four Atlantians back from the heavily wounded “One-Eye” Anderson while Selkie and Hermod faced off against six more as well, knowing they couldn’t take that many in their current state.
Hermod was about to lunge forward with his trident at one of the Atlantians when a touch from Selkie on his arm stalled him. Glancing at her quickly, he noticed her squinting into the distance beyond the six Atlantians facing them, a look of stark fear upon her face. Looking out into the darkness of the deep Loch himself, Hermod at first saw nothing, before the darkness seemed to move all by itself. What happened next would live in Hermod’s mind forever as the most horrifying scene he has ever witnessed.
A creature of impossible size and bulk with a maw of razor-filled teeth larger than a surface fishing trawler appeared out of the darkened waters behind the Atlantians, striking with such speed and strength that three of the Atlantians folded over themselves at sickening angles as the open maw struck and engulfed them whole, forcing them into the creature’s long neck. The remaining three facing Hermod and Selkie didn’t fare all that much better as the creature’s tail hit them so hard it broke bones and spun them in place, floating in a daze of pain and concussion.
“Nessie,” Selkie whispered in horror.
“We have to flee,” Hermod muttered needlessly, turning to the badly wounded Sleipnir.
The four Atlantians facing Lyell and a seriously wounded “One-Eye” Anderson spun and fled back toward the Prison complex and safety, leaving the three Sharks, Selkie and Sleipnir badly exposed in the open waters.
Hermod carefully removed the spear from Sleipnir’s side as fresh blood escaped the wound and the group started moving slowly back towards the waiting forms of Shāyu and Sylvella.
“We’re not gonna make it,” Selkie predicted as they swam, already feeling the onrushing waters at their backs as Nessie approached at incredible speed. Lyell pushed the others ahead of him, turning to face the onrushing doom of the charging leviathan.
Nessie’s jaws opened wide as the dinosaur twisted slightly to cut the huge shark in two, before it shook its head violently once and veered off up and over the deep crevice at the bottom of the Loch to disappear into the darker waters again. Eyes wide with terror, Lyell turned back to the others only to notice the slim form of the young dolphin Kadory emerging from the breach in the prison walls.
“She’s hungry, but I asked her to hunt the fleeing Atlantians instead, telling her we would leave these waters immediately,” Kadory projected the thoughts into the minds of all the gathered sharks and mermaids.
Lyell smiled broadly at his young friend and looked over at Sylvella, “Now you know why I was trying to protect young Kadory here.”
“By Nammu’s tail, that’s extraordinary,” Sylvella whispered looking between Kadory and Lyell in amazement.
“Why are you all standing around bleeding?” Nado asked with a smile as he helped Kako out through the breach in the walls, just behind Darius and Skitter.
For almost a full minute, only stunned silence answered him.
It was a somber group that Nado led as they moved slowly back towards the tunnels that connected the Loch to the North Sea. Darius swam beside Skitter, having given up his seat on the back of the gigantic crab to allow “One-Eye” Anderson to lie along one flank of the crab and Sylvella to rest upon the other flank, despite her protests that she was fine. Shāyu held the reins, stoic despite his own grievous injuries and Hermod swam alongside a slowly moving Sleipnir, also heavily wounded. Lyell helped Kako who was slowly regaining her strength, and Kadory no longer needed to visit the surface for air periodically, now that Selkie had used her magic to provide a bubble of constantly replenishing air around his head. She didn’t make a point of it when faced with curious expressions at the magic from her companions, but it went unsaid just how many surface sailors might have benefited from such magic over the years when she was lonely.
“Shāyu needs to know “One-Eye” is going to be, ok?” Shāyu asked Anderson laying beside him on the back of Skitter.
Breathing deeply and wincing from the many wounds, Anderson turned his head to face his friend.
“The name is Bertram,” he told Shāyu quietly, “after my father.”
“Shāyu is honoured, One… Bertram,” he corrected himself, laying a fin on his friend and companion. He was about to say more, but Bertram had drifted off to a restful sleep.
Pausing for a short rest at the entrance to the tunnels proper, Nado circled through the group, checking on the wounded and making sure what healing they had available was being used. When he got around to Sylvella, he carefully checked the back of her head and was surprised to see her wounds greatly improved.
“You’re healing up fast,” he told her with a smile. “You’ll be back on your tail in no time.”
“Thank you, Nado, for everything,” she answered him with a serious expression. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Well, it was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?” Nado replied in an offhand manner, hiding his own earlier misgivings.
“The Mermaid Queen will be pleased,” Sylvella agreed with a slight smile.
“Just the Mermaid Queen?” Kako asked her with a raised eyebrow, coming to stand beside Nado.
Sylvella’s smile vanished at the question as she regarded Kako with a shrewd expression, “I’m not sure I get your meaning dear?”
“Sounds like you two have crossed paths before,” Nado chimed in with a chuckle and a flash of intuition as he looked between the pair of them.
“Of course, as you would expect of family, right Nado?” Kako asked him as Sylvella sighed softly in resignation. When Nado gave her a slightly quizzical look, she finished joining the dots for him.
“We’re sisters, after all.”
- Part 6 -
It took the sorely wounded team of sharks, mermaids, and rescued friends several weeks to slowly navigate the tunnels back into the North Sea and then make the long swim back to the ruined city of Atlantis. Once into the cold, turbulent waters of the North Sea, Selkie made her farewells to the group and returned to her own underwater grotto to rest, promising to stymie any efforts from the Atlantians in the Loch to track their escaped prisoners.
“Old Nessie will take care of that, for the most part,” she reasoned in her Irish brogue, suppressing a shudder from her recent up-close brush with the prehistoric leviathan.
“Don’t be a stranger, Selkie. You spend far too much time alone up here in these cold waters,” Sylvella chided her with a loving smile and brief embrace.
“Oh, I have company from time to time, don’t you be fretting,” Selkie retorted with a sly wink. “But I’ll be sure to come visit again soon.”
On the last evening before they would arrive back at Atlantis, Nado finally decided to broach the subject that had been most on his mind since the daring rescue of Kako, Lyell and Kadory. While the others slept, he moved quietly to Kako’s side and let out a long exhalation of water as he considered exactly how to start the conversation.
“Let me guess,” she offered with a teasing smile. “You’re wondering how Sylvella and I could be sisters, given our obvious differences?”
“It’s a topic that may have crossed my mind from time to time,” Nado answered evasively, chagrined at being so easily read by an Atlantian.
Kako laughed quietly at his poor attempts to hide his curiosity, but her laughter was warm, and of a comradery nature. Given all he had risked rescuing her and now having spent some time with this diverse and skilled group, she had seen how much they all regarded Nado and his leadership.
“I’ve watched you wrestle with your own curiosity for the past two weeks, and I’ll admit to being impressed you held out this long.”
Glancing over at Sylvella, who was curled and asleep just a few meters away, Kako lowered her voice and leaned in close to Nado. “This is a story I’d wager neither of us have shared before, but I owe you more than I can repay for your bravery in rescuing me from my own people,” she began, the final part of the sentence carrying a note of disappointment or bitterness, Nado could not decide which, as he listened intently.
“Sylvella and I grew up together during the 12th century, in a small village on the coast of Greenland, shortly after our Thule ancestors migrated there from what is now known as Canada. Our family was adept at hunting the bowhead whale and from a young age we were taught to fish, hunt, carve, cook, and fashion tools and shelter. We didn’t have any luxuries, but the whales provided most of our needs and our family and small community were happy,” her voice, as she retold the story of her youth was soft and full of love for her childhood and family as she described the challenging environment. It only took moments for Nado to become wrapped up in the re-telling, able to visualize even the smallest details from her well crafted storytelling.
“Kako, wait!” Sylvella called to her older sister as she hastily grabbed a weighted fishing net and crude bucket fashioned from cured animal hides.
Kako looked back towards the village from the shore as she untied the mooring rope of a small fishing boat and prepared to push off. The day was still early, but the sky was clear and the waters calm and Kako had decided to make the most of the opportunity for some early season fishing. Sighing but with a smile, Kako held the mooring rope with one hand, keeping the boat close to the rocky outcropping her family used as a natural pier and waved with her free hand for her sister to hurry up.
Sylvella was just twelve to Kako’s fourteen, but the younger sister was athletic and quick on her feet and closed the distance from the village to her sister’s boat in record time. Kako marveled at her younger sister’s grace and knew well that her hunting instincts would not be wasted on this expedition. Kako was a fair hunter and could catch an adequate haul of fish, but her skills lay in crafting whalebone tools and other items from the carcasses of their kills, and she was also blessed with a natural beauty that lent her family a position of influence now she was at an age for marriage and children of her own.
Sylvella jumped from the icy shore to the naturally formed rocky pier with a graceful leap, tossing the weighted net and bucket to Kako as she swung her legs out over the rocky pier, pivoting on one arm as she landed in the boat without the slightest risk of capsizing it. Kako laughed at her sister’s antics and the two women sat opposite each other in the narrow fishing boat for a few moments, wrapped in their arctic fox furs just grinning at each other as they both considered the opportunity and bounty this day would bring their family.
Kako cast off the mooring line and the two quickly pushed off from the rocky pier with their oars and skillfully paddled out from shore, the waters turning a dark blue as they soon entered the deeper waters of the Labrador Sea.
For the next few hours, the two women cast their nets and hauled in a sizeable bounty of cod, Atlantic herring, and capelin. With full buckets and tired arms, Kako and Sylvella basked in the meagre warmth of the midday sun as their narrow fishing boat rocked gently on the surprisingly calm waters of the sea. Sharing a smoked fish lunch packed by Kako, the two women reclined as much as possible in the now cramped boat filled with their fresh catch and dozed. Beneath the deceptively calm surface, the Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel was running fast delivering the cold waters of the Arctic to the comparatively warmer waters of the Atlantic. Unbeknownst to the two Inuit women, something large and ancient rode those deep-water currents from the North and was rapidly approaching their chosen fishing grounds. In almost any other circumstance, this creature’s supremacy would be unchallenged, but on this day, it was the hunted, and it was using the fast-flowing currents to try and escape.
Nammu, the Mermaid Queen, and a strong, powerful man had joined forces to catch and kill this terror of the deep, having both lost entire communities to its depredations. In the battle that followed, the creature had been sorely wounded but had managed to flee on the currents. When they caught up with it again, it was in the deep waters beneath our fishing ground. In desperation to distract and escape them, the creature sped for the surface, breaching near our small vessel which was quickly swamped and overturned. Sylvella and I were both tossed clear of the vessel to land in the icy cold waters. Our furs became soaked, our boat was destroyed as the creature landed upon it, and as the monster passed me briefly, I looked into an eye filled with pain, hunger, and madness, before it slipped beneath the waters once more.
Sylvella, being more athletic, had managed to swim to the remnants of our small boat, clinging futilely to it while calling out for me. I heard her scream my name, but I was already too cold and unable to respond as the weight of the furs dragged me under. To my surprise, or at the time, I thought to my dying hallucination, as I slowly sank beneath the waves, I came face to face with this powerfully built and handsome man. Outfitted for battle, and clearly looking for his quarry, he was both surprised and I think annoyed to see me, dying before him. He was about to leave me and chase after the beast, but a feminine hand stalled him, lightly resting on his forearm. The battle lust slowly drained from his countenance, and he reached out a strong arm to me, easily lifting me to the surface.
I eagerly gulped in a mouthful of air, but my body was starting to shut down from the cold. The man regarded me with sorrow now as he knew my sister and I would not survive the conditions without our boat, nor would we last the distance back to land were they to take us. I was vaguely aware of the Mermaid Queen guiding my half-dead sister over to us as well. My mind was so numb, I did not even question the impossibility of these two saving us, even if it was only temporarily.
“If we leave them to die, we can still catch it,” I heard the Mermaid Queen speak to the man as he still gently held me in his arms. His eyes never left my face, and I could read in his expression that her words were not actually a call to battle, but a call to compassion.
“They will never survive the journey to shore,” he spoke softly, turning now to face Nammu.
“No, we can only save them… the other way,” she answered, her own gaze assessing Sylvella with what I believed to be a calculating eye.
Suddenly I felt a warmth flow through my body, only it wasn’t a true warmth, more a removal of the bone chilling cold. The man turned back to me, cupping my face in one hand as he spoke to me.
“I can save you, but you will need to live out the remainder of your years beneath the waves with myself and my kin.”
“What of my sister, Sylvella?’ I asked weakly.
He nodded once, “Yes, your sister…,” before the Mermaid Queen’s voice interjected.
“Will join me and my family.”
“Are you sure that is wise?” he asked her curiously.
“It is fitting, given we were both responsible for driving that monster to destroy their vessel, and this girl, Sylvella I think she called her, is well suited to our kind,” The Mermaid Queen explained, before adding, “Besides, perhaps with a sibling joining each of us, it might bring our two communities closer together.”
“You speak as if we are adversaries,” he challenged her.
“We are not, for now,” she replied, “But, I cannot speak for the future, and I have heard… murmurs.”
“As have I,” he admitted soberly, “but, any such conflict would bring ruin upon us all,” he predicted, his gaze scanning the deeper ocean whence the terrifying beast had fled.
In moments, his eyes had returned to my face and again, as our eyes locked, his gaze softened, and the hard lines of his jaw shifted as he smiled softly.
“What is your name child?”
“Kako,” I answered him simply, a little mesmerized by him, if I am being honest.
“Come Kako, let us return to my city of Atlantis,” and as he spoke those words, I felt magic course through my body, altering my physiology in both painful and wonderful ways. The outer layer of soaked furs was discarded and within moments, I was being carried in his arms deep beneath the ocean surface, unbothered by the cold waters and able to easily breathe the water as I had earlier breathed air.
Kako opened her eyes, having become lost in the memories of her story, and gazed at Nado once again.
“It was months before I eventually crossed paths with Sylvella, finding her as you see her now, a mermaid,” she said, and Nado detected a catch in her voice, unsure if it was sadness or bitterness.
“It was a bittersweet re-union given the changes to us both and even all those hundreds of years ago, we both felt the disapproval of our new families whenever we spent time together.”
“Why was their such animosity?” Nado asked her quietly.
“That’s not an easy question to answer Nado, if I am being honest,” Kako replied, “but I suspect both sides shoulder some blame.”
“Now we must worry for what our conflict will unleash, given our focus upon each other.”
“Do you know what that monster was?” Nado asked.
“No,” Kako shook her head once.
“But we have our suspicions, all the same,” Sylvella chimed in, opening her eyes to meet those of her sister. “I thought you were sleeping?” Kako asked with a smile.
“This is the first time I have heard you tell the entire story, Kako,” Sylvella answered, “That was worth waking up for.”
“Did I miss anything out?” Kako asked with a cheeky smile.
“No, but I thought you over-embellished my athleticism,” Sylvella critiqued with a laugh.
“Wait,” Nado chimed in, also smiling at the banter between the two sisters, “the man you described, who saved you and… changed you, was that…?”
Kako nodded once with a wistful smile, “Yes, the old King of Atlantis, passed now for almost a hundred years.”
There was a long pause of respect, as each of them remembered the noble and admired prior King of Atlantis. Impulsively, Nado leaned forward and hugged Kako once for comfort, an act which both surprised and delighted her if her peal of laughter was any guide.
“Get some rest Kako,” Sylvella suggested, “In the morning we return to Atlantis and an audience with The Mermaid Queen.”