Eight hours later, the backcurrent they’d taken had weakened to nothing, and she and Ooda were totally lost in the middle of a flat, gray wasteland with scrubby vegetation and no signposts, only warning signs about dragons.
She knew that the Razormouths’ breeding grounds were near Nzuri Bonde, and she was certain she and Ooda had to be close to the village, but high above the water’s surface, the sun’s rays were already lengthening; it would be dark in only a few hours. Dragons hunted at night. If she and Ooda didn’t find the village soon, they’d be sleeping out here—lost, alone, and very visible.
Neela consulted a map she’d bought. As she did, she noticed that her hands were glowing. The soft, pale-blue light she often gave off had brightened.
“That’s weird,” she said.
Neela only lit up brightly when she was emotional or when other bioluminescents were around. Bios could sense each other, and when they did, their photocytes kicked in, causing them to glow.
She turned her attention back to the map. She was sure it showed the way to Nzuri Bonde from where they were, but she didn’t know where they were, and she wasn’t terribly good at reading maps anyway. She’d never had to. There had always been officials for that. She turned the map this way and that, and finally decided to head in the direction she thought was west.
She and Ooda swam for another fifteen minutes without coming across any sign whatsoever of the village. Just as she was getting really worried, Ooda nipped her arm and pointed ahead of them with her fin. As Neela rubbed the bite, she noticed that her skin had darkened to cobalt. “What is going on with me?”
Ooda nipped her again. “Ow! Stop it!” she scolded. “What is with you?” She looked ahead, squinting at the dusky water. And then she saw it—a large silt cloud rising in the distance. “Good girl!” she said. “Let’s go!”
Neela knew a cloud of that size was a sign of life. Many things could be stirring up the silt—caballabong players, a factory, farmers plowing. Maybe it was a sea-cow ranch. At this time of day, the ranchers would be herding their animals into barns to be milked, then bedding them down.
She hurried along, relieved to have found merpeople and hopefully a place where she and Ooda could shelter for the night. But as they drew closer, Neela slowed to a halt.
It was no sea-cow ranch or caballabong game that was raising the silt cloud.
It was an enormous prison.
Full of merfolk.
“MY GODS!” Neela whispered, stunned.
She swam a little closer, crouched down behind a rock, and peered out from behind it. She’d seen prisons before—every realm had them—but she’d never seen a prison like this.
Mermen and mermaids—thousands of them—were inside. They had the darker skin of the West Matalin mer, and they were digging. Neela could see them. She could see everything, because the fence surrounding the prison was made of dozens of sea whips, monstrous bioluminescent jellyfish that were almost entirely translucent. There were hundreds of them, each about twenty-five feet long and eight feet wide. They were floating in a tight circle. Their lethal tentacles formed the bars of the prison.
“That’s why I’m glowing!” she said to herself.
More sea whips, even bigger than the others, floated above, alert for any movement.
“Living guard towers,” Neela whispered.
As she watched the prisoners, one of them—an older mermaid—stopped to lean on her shovel, obviously exhausted. Immediately a death rider was on her. He yelled at her and hit her with a crop. She cried out, then quickly resumed digging. Nearby, a reed-thin merman, his clothing in rags, collapsed. More death riders dragged him away.
And then Neela saw something far worse—children. Hundreds of them. She couldn’t tell what they were doing from where she was, but they weren’t digging. Upset, she opened her bag, took out one of her two remaining transparensea pebbles, and cast it. She wanted to have a closer look.
“Stay here, Ooda,” she said, as soon as she was invisible. Careful to stay out of striking range of any tentacles, she swam to the fence. Sea whips were the most deadly jellyfish in the world. The pain of their sting was so excruciating it could stop a mermaid’s heart in minutes. The sea whips couldn’t see her, but they could still feel her movements in the water and would lash out if she got too close.
From her new vantage point, Neela could see a group of children clearly. They were shaking large rectangular sieves full of mud. Inside the sieves, crabs and lobsters scuttled back and forth, picking through pebbles and shells. The mud was brought to the children’s work area in carts pulled by thin, frightened-looking hippokamps. The children, too, were thin and fearful. Many were crying.