Fish Out of Water

chapter Fourteen

Searching and Answers

Epaste took over after the initial shock of Meegost’s announcement.

Carefully, methodically, he extracted the information. The Princess had not been seen for hours, and when she had been sent for to attend the meeting, she was nowhere to be seen. And no-one knew where she had gone. She had been seen swimming south, alone, hours before but no-one had seen her since. And no-one had been able to make contact telepathically.

Epaste summoned the seekers, the closest Aegira has to a police force. Good, clever people with experience in solving problems, cleaning up after bad storms, and the like. They also provide support sometimes to the watch-keepers, and shepherd the Lost Ones back to Aegira when they seek refuge. Because of these roles, the seekers travel far and know the oceans well.

Epaste suggested that everyone who was able to do so should join in the search.

I saw Carragheen appear in the corner of my vision, with the seekers.

He heard. He came.

When I saw him, I was surprised at what I felt.

Warm, pleased, while at the same time I wanted to scratch at his face. But I had no time for guy stuff right now. Even for this guy. I had an ache in my chest and an itch in my feet.

The Queen was frantic. I could see she was afraid Lecanora may have simply slipped back into whatever crack in the world she came from. Her beautiful, gifted daughter. The only one she would ever have. For the first time, the Queen looked old, every one of her thousand years. I knew how she felt. From the moment I heard Lecanora was missing, I felt this slick, sticky fear grip my heart. I imagined her alone, and afraid, maybe hurt like I was, or Doug.

So help me Ran, I could not bear the thought of her going slowly (or rapidly) insane, somewhere we could not find her. Or, worse, dead. I had the full repertoire of life as city cop to aid my own grisly imagination. And if Imd and I were afraid, my mother seemed almost faint with fear. Mom, always so controlled and calm, a font of judgment in trying circumstances. All she could do was listen mutely to Epaste’s instructions. I could see, watching her listen to him, how much she trusted him.

And I could see her muttering something to herself, some silent, repeated prayer.

Lecanora, gone.

I realized I needed to tell everyone what I knew about Zorax. He had Imogen’s locket. And he did something to me, back in Williamstown, to wriggle out of my clutches. He was either responsible, or he knew something. But as I strained my vocal chords to call out to the group, Mom was at my side, and she had Carragheen. Her face still had that ashen hue it had been sporting since the news of Lecanora.

“Ransha,” she said quietly. “Zorax needs to talk to you.”

Zorax skittered over in front of us as well, looking like a fish on a mission.

This had better be good.

I took in his uncustomary pale complexion and the complete absence of eye twinkles. He looked nervously at me, and then Carragheen, who was regarding him like an unappealing appetizer that he was nevertheless considering swallowing whole.

“Speak,” Carragheen commanded a very nervous-looking Zorax.

Oh man, I liked it when Carragheen did the Big, Bad Wolf.

“It’s about the thing, with Imogen. The… mind altering. I… I know how they did it.”

“What do you mean?”

I’d known this little sea snake was holding back on me. I was furious that I couldn’t get this out of him before, even with my Glock.

Zorax sighed, and then settled in to tell the story.

“Well, after all these years, with the Choir, I’d noticed things. I’d noticed how sometimes, when we’d been singing some perfect notes, when the whole chamber was full and the entire group was spiraling higher, the mood would change. Noticeably, you see.”

So far, I wasn’t impressed. Big deal. Everyone knows singing can elevate your mood. And anyone who has any amateur experience of the most b-grade choir knows that the effect is especially pronounced when you sing in groups.

“So?” My challenge was obvious. Tell me something I don’t already know.

Zorax was staring off through the water in front of him, thinking, remembering.

“Well, it’s more than that. I started to be able to isolate particular notes. I’m… ashamed to say I started to experiment. Test the effect of certain combinations of notes. Manipulate the choir’s mood. It was wrong, I see now. But at the time it was magical. I was intoxicated by the possibilities. I’d use it to take them places I wanted them to go with their singing. At first.”

My mind was connecting dots. That’s what he did, to me, in Williamstown.

“But then, I also found that certain series of notes could affect memory. After one session, none of the choir could recall coming to the Hall at all. One night, I was telling Kraken about it. I was boasting. He always made me so nervous. And he was really interested. You know, he was a scientist in his youth, before watch-keeper, before the Priesthood?”

Carragheen made a dark noise in the back of his throat and I could see that he was losing his patience with Zorax’s story. Zorax resumed quickly, a twitch in the corner of one eye.

“Well, of course you know Carragheen, I’m sorry. Well, anyway, I had the impression that Kraken was interested in… you know... the physics of it all.” Zorax paused. “So I continued to experiment, to the point where I found I could actually manipulate the memories of the singers. And Kraken kept checking in with me, watching and learning, encouraging me to try new things.”

“What happened?” Carragheen’s face was a dark, furious mask. “What did my father do?”

“When Imogen went missing, he convinced me I should use the power to help people forget. That all the excitement would harm the search. And I believed him. He was so…”

“Compelling?” Carragheen finished the thought for Zorax, who nodded vigorously.

“Yes, exactly, compelling. So I did it. On the lunar evensong, a week ago, the day after Imogen disappeared, when the whole of Aegira was there, in the Hall, or at home, following it with their tele-pads. They were all lit up with Imogen’s disappearance, hatching schemes. It seemed right to do it. I took them to a place where they would all forget. And they did.”

Evensong.

It happened on the night of the annual lunar evensong.

The most holy night of the Aegiran calendar, when the Awakening is celebrated with song and passion plays.

A thought suddenly occurred to me.

“The Throaty Three were in your Pool on evensong, Carragheen? You didn’t attend?”

“That’s right,” Carragheen confirmed, holding my eyes and daring me to be outraged. “I have not gone to the last two events. Since Tila. My father presides over the service and I can’t bear to watch the hypocrisy.”

But surely Zorax had noticed the girls were missing when he ran his little experiment?

“No,” he shook his head sadly. “I was so nervous. Full of self-importance, I see now. I didn’t even notice. They were always disappearing, as you know, Rania. My mind must have simply not noticed. You know, you assume everyone always makes evensong.” He said this last with a pointed look at Carragheen. “Whatever their petty squabbles.”

Carragheen was up and had Zorax around the throat before I could stop him. “Don’t talk to me about petty,” he hissed at him. “You conspired with my father to hypnotize a nation. You disgust me.”

My mother raised an arm towards Carragheen, and used her eyes to emphasize the message she telepathed directly to his brain: Release him!

Carragheen dropped Zorax immediately, and I could smell his regret at the violence.

But it didn’t make me angry. Not any angrier than I already was, at least. I understood it. I saw where he was coming from, with a lifetime of bitterness, and more recently, outrage and shame. Zorax’s complicity was the final straw.

“You have to understand. I really believed I was doing Imogen, and Aegira, a service.”

“So what changed?” I was totally buying Zorax’s story. It all made sense to me so far, with what we knew and what I’d seen.

“Well, the problem was I didn’t see them searching for Imogen, not at all. I kept going to Kraken to find out what they were doing, and he was getting more and more vague. I had thought mind-altering would leave the way clear for them to look, and maybe to ask people without them being on guard, but nothing seemed to be happening. He was hiding something.”

“So you went to the land? To search yourself?” Not such a hard deduction.

“Yes, after I found out that Carragheen had been to see Cleedaline. I wondered if he had been able to learn anything from her. I wanted to see what I could find out myself.”

I was confused. “But how did you know Carragheen went?”

Zorax shot a quick look at Carragheen and then frowned a quick frown of realization, and sadness. “One of your father’s aides told me, Carragheen,” he said quietly. “He was a seeker as well. I don’t know how he knew. He heard me beg The Triad to do more to find her, and he took pity, told me you, Carragheen, had been to see Cleedaline. That maybe you had discovered something. Even told me where she was living.”

Carragheen was silent, and I watched his face as he put the pieces together. His father’s people knew that he had told Cleedaline about Imogen’s disappearance. They knew where she lived. And then she had died. There was no point asking how. How they had known Carragheen had gone to her. Or how they had known where Cleedaline was placed, when no-one was supposed to know. Kraken was the High Priest. Everything was his to know.

“But why, Zorax?” I was still confused. “Why did you keep chasing Imogen? Why not leave it to the Council? What was it to you?”

At this, all of Zorax’s tenuous hold on his composure crumbled.

He was sobbing, great silent sobs, like an infant at the apex of a howl. My mother was standing silently, supporting him, patting his shoulders as though he was a child.

“He loves her,” she supplied for him. “They are lovers.”

“No.” I knew this wasn’t true. I’d been to Cleedaline’s apartment. I knew Cleedaline and Imogen had something special. Anyway, it was horrid. This old man, with the beautiful Imogen. And she was his student. It wasn’t right. Surely there was some code against it.

Zorax had recovered sufficiently to argue with me. “It is true,” he insisted. “We have been lovers for a year. I don’t know why she chose me. I know I’m old, and not beautiful. And I know it was not the right thing, me being The Choirmaster. But she loved me. Loves me. We love each other. There was nothing either of us could do. She does love me, you know. Just before she disappeared, she gave me this.”

He opened his palm and revealed the silver locket.

“After she disappeared, I kept it always with me. I even found a way to take it through the hydroport, using a special song. Don’t you see, I loved her so much…”

I watched him try to convince us, but he didn’t need to.

“Her voice is so beautiful, like an angel. She is the best in the whole choir, you know, the best of all those beautiful voices. The only one who even comes close is Lecanora.”

“Anyway,” I reminded him. “This is hardly the time for a who’s who of the choir. What about Cleedaline? I thought she and Imogen—”

Zorax interrupted me, shaking his head. “That’s what everyone thought. Because of the secrecy between me and Imogen, I guess, and because they were so close. And also…”

He paused, trying to find the right words.

“Because Cleedaline loved Imogen,” I supplied for him. “The way you do.”

My heart broke cleanly for Cleedaline as I said it. I saw her beautiful apartment, a shrine to the love she could not have, her life-long friend.

“Yes,” he breathed gratefully. “Yes, Rania. Imogen felt so guilty, she worried that was why Cleedaline had taken the year on the land. Because of us. And now… now she’s gone.”

Finished with his tale, Zorax broke down, leaning against Mom and sobbing quietly.

I looked over at Carragheen, and tried to imagine how Zorax felt. I could see how he was hurting, afraid for his lost Imogen. I imagined if Carragheen and I were lovers, how frantic, how delirious I would be. Whether it would twist my judgement the way it twisted Zorax’s, when he helped Kraken and deceived a nation. I hoped not, but who could be sure?

Looking at Carragheen, I could tell he did not feel as I did, sad and sorry for Zorax.

His face was hard and closed, those full lips a tight slash in his jaw.

Maybe it was the involvement of his father, another thread in a tangled web.

I was trying to think it all through, wondering whether the thing, the sound weapon that they were using, was some application, some extension of the effect that Zorax had discovered, the effect he used with the choir, and then on me.

“Did anyone else know? About the effect?”

He scratched his chin slowly. “No. Although one night I did see Kraken arguing with Epaste. It was in the beginning, when I was telling him about my experiments. Before Imogen disappeared. Kraken told me later that Epaste had been checking on him. And that he disapproved.”

Epaste the Pious, again.

“Zorax,” I said. “We need to go and find them, the girls. We think they’re alive, but hurting. You need to tell us what you know, what you can do. If there is any way at all, you need to help us.”

Carragheen looked mutinous, but I saw realization dawning slowly across his features. Maybe Zorax had something we could use, as we went out there to face down this thing.

“What do you mean?” Zorax looked eager to help, now his tale was out, but unsure as to how he could.

“I don’t know,” I offered unhelpfully. Then I thought for a moment. “There is something, some kind of weapon, that uses sound to cripple and to kill. They have it, and they will use it against us if we try to find the girls.”

Zorax looked even paler at this news.

“It’s what they used to kill Cleedaline. So you owe it to her, Zorax, to think carefully about what you know that might be able to help us.” I wasn’t above using guilt to achieve my ends. “They’ve used it on me, several times now, but one time, the worst, my Mom did something that helped.”

I encouraged my mother with my eyes, and she tried to tell Zorax, as best she could, about what she did that night with the singing, about how she saved me.

He listened intently.

“I don’t know about any weapon,” Zorax pleaded. “I swear I do not. But what you’re talking about, what your mother did, the protection spell. I think I might understand a little.”

“Teach us then,” I commanded him. “You have exactly ten minutes before I’m leaving here to go and get these girls, whether I have any defenses or not.”

Zorax made full use of his ten minutes.

I could tell he was desperate to help, and not just because of the dark, murderous looks he was being treated to by Carragheen.

He had to make this good. For Imogen. And for his own conscience.

Sweet mother, what would Imogen make of him when she found out what he had done?

A foolish old man, blinded by flattery, playing mind games on the citizens she loved.

“I fear it all leads back to Kraken. I am sorry, Carragheen,” he said, nodding towards him. “But something about your father, it terrifies me. If he was involved in Imogen’s disappearance, then I do not know what will have happened to her.” He beseeched Carragheen with his eyes. “I know most people find Epaste the most menacing of the Triad, but I do not. I just…” This time he entreated me. “I do not trust Kraken. He is like a… beautiful sea snake.”

It was why Zorax had told Kraken about his discovery. The Priest had come to the Eye of the Goddess for their annual planning session, preparing for evensong, and Zorax had filled the empty spaces between Kraken’s cool assessments with chatter. Chatter that had ended in Zorax telling him what he had learned.

So Zorax talked, about the connections between song and action.

He was the Choirmaster. He had spent a lifetime studying sound in pursuit of beauty, and a higher truth, and worship of life. So he could talk about the subject forever if it was required. It was his life’s work, and his sole passion. Or it had been. Until Imogen.

So he talked.

He talked about how some things were already known, the physical possibilities of sound, of song. How it could be used to shatter glass on the land, for example, or transmit messages hundred of miles through water. How it could beach the hugest of whales and enable the tiniest of fish to find each other across the vast expanse of the sea. And he talked about how he had come to realize, through careful study, that sound, properly constructed, carefully arranged, could shape minds. Lead to forgetting, perhaps even bend wills.

His experiments had been basic, until the evensong episode.

As he spoke, trying to explain what he knew, I watched Zorax watching us, Carragheen and me. I could almost smell him becoming more and more distracted as he tried to tell his tale.

Eventually, I’d had enough. “What is it?” I was hissing with frustration.

“Rania,” Zorax whispered, his chubby little face drawn and suddenly very old. “Carragheen. I am so sorry. That I tried to turn you against each other.”

Really? This? Now? Save it, Zorax. You’ve got bigger transgressions than that to apologize for, once all this is over. I waved a hand at him in silent dismissal.

But Zorax was not to be deterred. “I see it, the way you consider each other, the fire that burns for the other. There is much that lies between you. I see that, but it is still there. A light you hold, purely for each other. It is rare, especially down here in the frigid oceans.”

Silver tears streaked from his eyes. “If only Ran will grant a reprieve and save my Imogen, I will dedicate my life to her, and to using what I have learned to help us all.”

Carragheen was unmoved. “Thanks for the pep talk, Zorax. And the resolutions. But back to business. This sound weapon, could it be the culmination of your experimentation?”

Zorax shook his head, but less in denial than disagreement. His rich voice was thin and reedy. “You think my discovery was the reason Imogen was taken? And the Princess? I have known and coached her since childhood. I could not bear it.”

Carragheen lost hold of the thin thread that had anchored him to civility. He reached out and circled one large hand around Zorax’s throat. “I do not care less what you cannot bear,” he spat. I watched Zorax turn red under Carragheen’s hand, and I touched Carragheen lightly on the forearm. He tensed under my touch, but loosened his grip a little. “Just tell us what you know.”

“I believe the moment when Lunia saved you, Rania, she uttered exactly the correct collection of sounds, at precisely the right pitch, to cast a spell of protection over you, to counter the sound that was threatening to destroy you.”

He explained quickly that the word spell was merely shorthand, that it was simple physics really. One sound blocking another, stifling it. But what was not simple was how Mom could have known the correct arrangement to utter. Therein, Zorax insisted, lay the magic. He talked about how he believed that a perfect collection of sounds, a song, could achieve anything. After all, it was the basis of hydroporting.

Zorax believed it was essentially possible that it could move matter, shape new worlds.

It was simply a matter of finding the right patterns.

I needed more. “How can we find them? The right notes? If we find the girls tonight, if we get blasted with that thing, what do we sing?”

Zorax shrugged, and seemed genuinely remorseful that he could not provide the answers we sought. “I do not know, Rania. For me, evensong was the product of a long, careful series of experiments. You do not have the liberty of that time.” He considered Carragheen’s still-furious countenance and rushed on. “There is something, I don’t know if I’m right. The fact that your mother was able to find the right pattern at the right moment, it makes me think…”

“What?” Carragheen’s tone was sharp, insistent.

“It makes me think that if the right person, or perhaps people, sing from their heart at the right moment, with the right emotions, they may produce the correct pattern.”

“That’s a lot of mights.” Carragheen sounded far from impressed. “Too many, to my way of thinking.”

“I’m sorry.” Zorax held up his open hands. “It’s all I have to offer you.”