“That rotter by the mouth of the Olt, is he one?” Neela asked.
“Yes. He has his right eye and I have his left. What he sees, I see. Very handy when death riders are about.”
She finished pouring the tea and sat on the edge of her desk. She’d poured a cup for herself, but didn’t drink it. Instead she picked up a piece of smooth, flat stone that was lying next to the teapot and turned it over in her hands. Symbols were carved into its surface.
“The songspell to make a cadavru is called a trezi. A Romanian spell. Very old,” she said. “I have many such spells. Passed down from obar?ie to obar?ie. These spells are how we, the Order of the Iele, have endured as long as we have. Merrow created us four thousand years ago, and we have carried out the duties she entrusted to us ever since, in order to protect the merfolk.”
“From what?” Ling asked.
Vr?ja smiled. “Ourselves.”
She held the stone out so that Sera, Neela, Astrid, Becca, and Ling could see it, then handed it to Ava, so she could feel it. Baby, dozing in his mistress’s lap, growled in his sleep.
“Did you know that this writing is nearly forty centuries old?” Vr?ja asked. “It came from a Minoan temple. It’s one of the few surviving records of Atlantis. It—like Plato’s accounts, and those of other ancients—Posidonius, Hellanicus, Philo—tells us that the island sank because of natural causes.” She looked at the mermaids, then said, “It lies.”
“Why?” Ava asked.
“Because that’s what Merrow wanted the world to know about Atlantis—lies. Stories have great power. Stories endure. Merrow knew that, so she had everything that told the true story of Atlantis expunged.”
“But why would she do that?” Neela asked.
“The truth was too dangerous,” Vr?ja said. “Merrow had seen her people—men and women, little children—swallowed by fire and water. You see, it wasn’t an earthquake or a volcano that doomed Atlantis, as you undoubtedly have been taught. Those were only the mechanisms of its ruin. It was one of the island’s own who destroyed it.”
“Baba Vr?ja, how do you know this?” Serafina asked. She was mesmerized by the witch’s words. Ancient Atlantean history was her passion. All her life, she had hungered to know more about the lost island, but there were so few conchs from the period, so little information to be had.
“We know from Merrow herself. She gave the truth to the first obar?ie in a bloodsong. The obar?ie kept it in her heart. On her deathbed, she passed it to her successor, and so on. We are forbidden to speak of it unless the monster rises. For four thousand years, we have been silent.”
“Until now,” Ling said.
“Yes,” Vr?ja said. “Until now. But I have begun at the end, and beginnings are much better places to start. Whatever you do or dream you can do—begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. A terragogg wrote that. Some say it was the poet Goethe. He could have been writing about Atlantis for that was Atlantis—a boldness. A place made of genius and magic. Ah, such magic!” she said, smiling. “Nothing could compare to it. Athens? A backwater. Rome? A dusty hill town. Thebes? A watering hole. Mines of copper, tin, silver, and gold made Atlantis wealthy. Fertile soil made it fruitful. Bountiful waters fed its people. This island paradise was governed by mages—”
“The Six Who Ruled,” Becca said.
“Yes. Orfeo, Merrow, Sycorax, Navi, Pyrrha, and Nyx. Their great magic came from the gods, who had given each of them a powerful talisman. They were very close, the greatest of friends, and their powers were never stronger than when they were together. They ruled Atlantis wisely and well, and were revered for it. No decision involving the welfare of the people was made without the agreement of all six. No judgment or sentence was passed. There was a prison on the island—the Carceron. It was built of huge, interlocking stone blocks and had heavy bronze gates fitted with an ingenious lock. The gates could not be opened to admit a prisoner, or free one, unless the talismans of all six mages had been fitted into the lock’s six keyholes.”
Vr?ja paused to take a sip of her tea. “No society is perfect,” she continued, setting the cup back into its saucer, “but Atlantis was just and peaceful. At the time, it was thought that this island civilization would last forever.”
“What happened? Why didn’t it?” Serafina asked, listening raptly to Vr?ja’s every word.
“We do not know entirely. Merrow would not tell the first obar?ie. All she would say is that Orfeo had been lost to them, that he’d turned his back on his duties and his people to create Abbadon, a monster whose powers rivaled the gods’. How he made it and of what, she would not say. The other five mages tried to stop him and a battle ensued. Orfeo unleashed his monster and Atlantis was destroyed. Abbadon shook the earth until it cracked open. Lava poured forth, the seas churned, and the dying island sank beneath the waves.”