Fish Out of Water

chapter Seven

Whirling And Silence


Carragheen’s Pool, Aegira

“They’re saying it was a biological event.” Carragheen turned back, throwing off the small shells which had rested at his temples as though they disgusted him. He was shirtless and a killer set of abs almost distracted me from the fact that I was so not buying it.

“All the channels?” Lecanora and Carragheen both frowned at me.

Ah, that’s right. This is Aegira. Only one channel. Eat your heart out, North Korea.

“Let me have a go.” I snatched the shells up, accidentally brushing against the hard calluses of his palms. His hands were warm, like on the surface. So strange, for a merman.

I brought the pads to my temples, where they affixed themselves like blood-seeking barnacles. I focused, deep. Mass telepathy is more personal than TV, because there’s still an element of interpretation, but the risk is small in such a homogenous population. This recording was voiced by a mermaid who looked like Martha Stewart. There was the briefest of visuals of the blood-red Eye, and the screaming, squirming life desperate to escape it. But no sound.

Pictures of chaos are one thing. But sound connects straight with the heart.

Anyway, the visual then switched to images of the rest of Aegira, the circles of golden structures looping gracefully around The Eye. It looked as tranquil and perfect as the first time I saw it, over twenty years ago, although the voice-over was telling me the images were captured just an hour ago, immediately after the incident in The Eye. No hint of crimson chaos, just the dark safety of the ocean floor, lit by the warm glow of Aegira.

I drank it in, even though I’d seen the real thing just moments before, as we swam over.

Aegira the Beautiful.

The city looked like something that should grace the roof of the Sistine Chapel. The buildings were built with rolling grace and flourish, to mimic the waves, in honor of the billow maiden queens. There are few sharp angles. Even those buildings that soar so high they seem to strain towards the surface, like The Palace, are still rounded and feminine.

The voice was bringing home the point made by the footage.

“While the anomaly was significant within The Eye, none of the red substance infiltrated the city. Scientists undertook immediate testing and confirmed the taint was indeed blood, of unknown origin. However, they have categorically concluded that the event was simply an unhappy coincidence. It seems that a flock of dead sea creatures may have become sucked into the walls of The Eye, where they bled out. The blood entered The Eye through the recent tear.”

Martha Mermaid’s voice became a little sterner.

“Aegiran experts are of the view that both the rip and the death of the creatures was the result of ocean warming, attributable to lack of care taken by humans in recent centuries which has resulted in severe mismanagement of the delicate ecosystem of earth and sea.”

She let up a little and I could tell she was about to boss me around.

Mermaids are so predictable.

“Aegiran citizens and friends are asked to stay away from The Eye, which is officially off limits until further notice. The Queen sends her prayers and asks you to be of good cheer.”

My crapometer started to whine at me. How on earth could any scientist know all that with any certainty, so quickly? I glanced over at the Leigon child, who was napping fretfully on the soft weed of Carragheen’s floor. “You know, you guys could really use a little freedom of the press.”

Carragheen laughed darkly, but Rania looked confused again.

“A sectarian press assumes different interests. In Aegira, we are all one mind.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, and pulled her far out of Carragheen’s hearing range. “Really? You sure about that? Even The Triad? Even whoever took Imogen?”

Carragheen looked at me curiously. Surely he couldn’t have heard? He looked watchful. “Did you hear what the people were saying, as we passed over?”

“Yes,” Lecanora conceded. “Manos.”

“It’s probably just people getting spooked,” I assured her. “Don’t forget Aegir threw that veil of secrecy over Aegira, so no-one who wished it harm could find it. Not even Manos.”

“That assumes, of course,” Carragheen drawled. “That no-one shows him the way.”

Interesting idea. “You think he has help?”

“I don’t believe in fairy tales.” Carragheen’s dark eyes were still hooded. “In my experience there are enough bad things in real life.” He pulled up short in front of me, standing too close, making too much eye contact, and picked up my arm, where the plasticy ugliness of my angry red scar was like some crazy bracelet. He ran his fingers over it. “I guess you know that too.”

I snatched my arm away. Normally I don’t like to be touched there but for some reason when he did it, I liked it too much. His touch was like some kind of balm.

He looked into me. “Does it hurt?”

“You know, where I come from, you offer a girl a drink before starting the foreplay.”

Carragheen found a place deep inside my head to plant a single, illicit thought: If you think that’s foreplay, you’ve been dating the wrong fish.

I had to fight to ensure my face didn’t reveal the deep, hot burn the comment set off somewhere below my stomach. “Okay, so yeah, it hurts. But not as much as the nightmares.”

Oh God, I am so bad at small talk.

“What do your dreams tell you of this?” He swept his arms in a wide arc.

“Fishing for compliments?” I knew he was referring to Aegira, and all that was happening, but I went for flattery because I didn’t know what to say. “Great place.”

The Princess snorted beside me. At least, it would have been a snort if she weren’t so delicate. And beautiful. And a princess.

We stood silently on the sandy floor, and for the first time since fleeing here, I took in Carragheen’s home. It was a low-roofed structure which looked as though it had been a storehouse for food in another life. It was decked out like a beautiful, mysterious reef, with seating made from enormous shells and the tangled fingers of mammoth pieces of driftwood. Huge, electronic, wave-screens cycled through pictures of all the species of the ocean, while hidden technology created an ever-renewing roof of bubbles, like a mesmerizing sky.

Every now and then one of the bubbles made it down, to settle on my nose or hair before exploding softly. The size and speed of the bubbles seemed to vary with the music. Large bubbles overlapped and popped slowly, like child’s playthings in time with the dark background mix. It was leesatra music – a kind of harp that messes with the vibrations of the water to make deep groans and sighs that sound like the love songs of sea mammals. Whale song meets the blues. I knew I needed to get on and ask Carragheen about Dirtwater, and Blondie, now that the immediate danger of the blood in the Eye seemed to have passed.

But I was just too curious. “What is this place? Is this really where you live?” It seemed so grand for someone’s house, even in Aegira, where these things matter.

“Yes, I do. But it’s also where people come to prepare for The Pool.”

Uh oh. Sounded kinda kinky. Knew he was too good to be true. Okay, so what was it? Swinging? Weirder? Darker? I tried to be cool. “Ah, yes, you mentioned that, back at the wedding. What is it?”

He looked right into me.

Oh, Ran help me, don’t look at me like that. I don’t know you, and I sure as hell don’t trust you. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Don’t look at me like we’re accomplices.

Lecanora snorted again and looked put out. She planted words deep into my brain. Rania, listen. Carragheen is Kraken’s shame. He is… intemperate. Some even say… Even telepathing she lowered her voice. …warm-blooded. He should have been a priest. It was expected. But he became a farmer. A farmer! A Gadulan boy whose perfect voice had shaken the very foundations of Aegira. The son of the High Priest. And that is just the beginning-

“Princess.” Carragheen said, slow and endlessly patient. “What are you afraid of?”

A third snort, this time accompanied by words. “It is a place to rouse people,” she hissed. “To make them stirred up, and afraid.”

“No.” His tone was sharp. “It’s neither of those things. It is simply a place to feel.”

Double uh oh. This does not sound good. This guy obviously fancies himself as some kind of sexually liberating Larry Flynt. “Okay.” Enough of the speculating and bickering. “How about some hard facts? What is the goddam Pool?”

Carragheen drew himself up, his face an inscrutable mask, and I had no idea what he was going to say. What could this Pool be, to get Lecanora so hot under the collar?

But just as he was about to explain, a rowdy press of bodies entered. I didn’t need my cop sense to tell me that what we had on our hands was a melee. I could smell the fear and anger coming from the group, comprised of twenty men and women, of several species. Aegirans, several of the higher fish species, a giant, menacing squid, and even a Treppalow.

The latter seemed to have been elected head of the lynch mob.

My fingers itched for my Glock.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Carragheen’s drawl was relaxed, but he moved slowly, deliberately, so that he was standing between the mob and the sleeping Leigon child.

“You need to stop what you are doing here. It is angering the Gods. This place is the reason for what happened, back there in The Eye. It is your fault.”

The Treppalow spoke slowly, as if each word was an effort. The creatures are known more for their brawn than their brains, and they only recently mastered speech. But this one was at least nine feet long and spelt trouble, from his block-like head to the end of his black tail.

Oh man. Triple uh oh. Worse than swinging, obviously.

Carragheen’s response was dry. “I didn’t think Treppalows believed in God. Unless you count the God of War.”

Not the right way to settle the horses, Carragheen. We needed that Martha Stewart babe.

In an instant, the Treppalow had slithered up to Carragheen, its speed belying its size. The creature flicked out its long, forked tongue and brought it close to Carragheen’s face. I gasped involuntarily at the proximity of the lethal poison, and Lecanora froze too.

“I do not like you,” the thing hissed.

Carragheen looked up at the lizard-like giant with an amused grimace. “And I do not like bullies.” It was a simple statement but something about the raw edge in his voice told me that he understood what it was to be bullied. I felt his distaste for it in my gut. And the answering echo in my own heart. I started to plan how I could get Lecanora and the child out if the whole things went sour. But Carragheen surprised me. The smirk disappeared, and he started talking softly, soothingly. Like I heard him back at The Eye, as he calmed the Leigon child.

“I am not the cause of this trouble. This place is nothing but diversion.”

Carragheen’s eyes played across the crowd, giving them a piece of whatever manner of hypnotism he was using on the Treppalow. I was amazed by his vocal control. And impressed. As he spoke again, he let in a light trickle of the dark fury that I could feel boiling at his center. “You do not want trouble. And you know that I could give it to you. And I will, if you cause a disturbance here. This is my home.” As quickly as he had set them off balance, he settled them again. “Each of you is Aegiran, or friend of Aegira. This is a place of peace.”

I was suddenly aware that Carragheen was unconsciously flexing his fist behind his back. This was a guy who knew how to fight. And he didn’t believe that place of peace crap. But whatever he was doing, they were buying it. The thick soup of bravado and danger that had floated in with the mob had dissipated and they were staring at Carragheen, listening. This was more than a learned skill. It was a gift. For the second time that day, I thought about Mom’s words. Evolution. Another Awakening, to begin with the most remarkable.

And then they were gone.

“Wow.” I was so hot from Carragheen’s little performance, I needed a fan. “All this fuss about a Pool? I think I need to see this place.”

Carragheen motioned to a large, circular golden door, like a person-sized porthole.

Rania, no. This is not good. His own father has denounced this place. Lecanora’s warning went straight into my brain but I knew her too well. I could feel the curiosity behind it. And she could feel I’d made up my mind.

She shot a swift glare at Carragheen. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

He made a lazy cross over his heart, but telepathed a more serious message to my brain.

You will always be safe with me.

For some inexplicable reason, I believed him. Something about the way he took care of that Leigon. And handled the mob. Ridiculous, I know, with all these conspiracies, bloody visions, and disappearing girls. Three weeks. I need to know what’s going on. Fast.

I went to the door indicated and pressed a tiny green button. The marine glass melted away, allowing me to step into a little ante-room, before forming again, making the room water-tight. Inside the room there was another porthole, and another button.

I pressed it. Eve with the apple.

And then there was no room for any thought. I was sucked like a piece of flotsam into a kaleidoscopic tsunami. I was surrounded by color and sensation, spinning around and around in a synthetic whirlpool. I was inside the warmth and the color; riding the edge of an abyss. Falling but suspended, safe. But this was more than a theme park ride. It was emotion. It was letting go. Like being drunk but with every sense on overdrive. An illicit, spectacular hit delivered courtesy of your own body and brain. Like getting to know yourself in all your frailty and vulnerability. I felt very… human. Maybe for the first time ever.

I felt my fear at my impending demise. Felt it like a cancer, hard and cystic in my chest. And then, for a few seconds, I felt the rough lump of it start to soften, soothed by the songs of the universe. Maybe I would be okay. Maybe I would find a way to save the world entire. And myself. After a few moments, I settled into the pattern of it. This thing, this pool, was a thousand kinds of good for me. I imagined what it must be like for an Aegiran. I’ve lived hard, done all kinds of stuff. I found a thousand different, glorious ways to lose control before I clawed it back again. What must this be like for a mermaid, whose lives are governed by control?

It must blow their freakin’ minds.

As I exited the recovery chamber, I felt like I’d had a screaming orgasm; been to church to be absolved of all my sins; found my inner child. All in the space of about four minutes.

Lecanora and Carragheen were waiting. I went straight up to him. This man, this enigma. “How did you...?” But before he could answer, “No. Not, not how. Why?”

He looked serious. “Because people deserve to know that there’s more.”

“But why does it matter to you for people to… feel? To feel in that way?” My head was still reeling from the experience.

“I just think maybe we lost too much of the human.”

He sounded like Mom. A human lover.

Lecanora was standing very close to me, checking I was intact. Ransha. Are you okay?

I nodded. Oh yeah, baby. And then some.

She nodded back, satisfied. Okay then, I’ve located the Leigon child’s parents. I must take him to them. They are frantic. Something in her voice made me look at her closely. The child’s plight affected her. Hardly surprising, I guess. The child was lost, like she had been lost.

I nodded again. Of course.

I will only be gone five minutes. His parents are close by.

When she was gone, Carragheen and I ditched the pretence and consumed each other with our eyes. “So… you built it? The pool?”

Carragheen nodded and I asked him again. “Why?”

“All I ever wanted, my whole life, was a place to be myself.”

I searched his face and thought about what I had known of Carragheen, before today.

A real disappointment.

How had I known that? Where had I heard it? And a disappointment to whom? I had always figured his parents. But it was hard to imagine the lovely Shighsa disappointed with this man. Her own son. So Kraken?

His face was willing me to understand. “When I was younger, I wanted to find a place with no judgment, no expectation. I did a lot of wild things trying to find that place.”

Oh, ditto baby. Ditto with a capital D.

“I supposed other people felt the same too. We, Aegirans… we believe that we are so much better than them. The land people, even most of the other tribes of the sea. I wanted to show them, everyone really, that there is far more that links us than separates us. I think…” He looked at me as if wondering whether he should tell me. Something in my face obviously convinced him. “I think we need understanding of each other now, more than ever.”

My hand snaked out of its volition to touch his face, which was impossibly warm. Then his hand was at my face too, and we were moving together with agonizing slowness. I was being sucked into the depths of this man, this beautiful wolf, from another place, another universe.

But just like me.

Ransha. There is no time for this now.

Carragheen shook his head at Lecanora’s interruption into our brains, but I also saw that his eyes clocked the fear and impatience in her gaze and it puzzled him. He removed my hand and his voice was all command. “Rania, Lecanora. It’s time to tell me what’s going on.”

Wasn’t that my line?

After all, he was the one who showed up out of the blue in Dirtwater.

Lecanora widened her eyes artfully, about to deny knowing of any problem.

“I heard you.” He glared hard at the princess. “I heard you before. How do you know about Imogen?”

Lecanora closed her eyes and when she opened them she tried hard to return Carragheen’s stare. But one thing was for sure. She’d be toast in Boss Hadley’s poker room.

Following my general life theory that attack is the best form of defense, I struck.

“Shouldn’t we be asking that? We are royal, after all. Least she is.” I hooked my thumb at Lecanora. “We should know stuff. The better question is: how did you get mixed up in all of this? Why did you come to Dirtwater, chasing Blondie? What do you know?”

Lecanora looked at me, hurt that I hadn’t told her this part of the story, and Carragheen looked at me too. Actually, he did that disconcerting looking-into-me thing again and then laughed darkly. It would sound so good if he was naked and holding a spoon of Ben’n’Jerry’s.

But he wasn’t.

“I know that there are things going on down here that are very dangerous.”

He looked like a wolf poised for ambush. And I could see that he was telling the truth.

“I know that I can take care of myself. But there are others that…”

As if responding to some mental cue, a tiny blonde girl entered the small chamber and swam nimbly into his arms, cuddling up against his chest and tugging on his blonde locks. She could only have been two or three years old, and I realized with a start who she was.

The reason Carragheen owed a debt to Lecanora. The girl from the rip.

“C, C,” she started. “Need stor-ee, need song.”

“Hush, Tila,” he crooned softly to her, touching her so gently I wanted to crawl right up there next to her and get my turn. I didn’t know what I had expected to happen next, but it was definitely, definitely not this.

He looked searchingly into my eyes and I waited for him to clear things up.

But he just opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Carragheen,” I prompted him. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Before he could answer, the little girl looked at me, puzzled. I recognized the look. It was the seen-a-ghost look Carragheen had given me when I’d see him again back at the wedding.

“It’s her, from the story, isn’t it? The one riding with the prince on his horse?”

Horse? My mind replayed the huge orange sunset from my dream. I could almost feel the hard muscles of the back I was pushed against as my eyes skittered over Carragheen’s shirtless form. Swiftly and gently, he sent Tila away, promising songs and stories. “She’s his child,” Lecanora said, when she was gone. “Isn’t that right Carragheen? Well, technically I guess she also belongs to his wife. I’m sorry, Rania.”

Carragheen broke protocol by responding directly into my head.

This is not what you think. She’s my wife, yes, but…

I was dripping venom as I responded.

“Save it, pal.” I realized in that moment that one of the worst things about being under the sea is that it is utterly, utterly pointless to spit on someone.

I took Lecanora’s arm and turned to go, battling the bitter taste that rose in my mouth and threatened to consume me. I had wanted to trust him. By the Goddess, I was a fool. A dance, some dolphins and some crazy electricity zinging around and I thought I knew him. I felt sick.

He couldn’t even be original. It’s not what you think.

Well you know what, buddy? It’s not hard. You’re married or you’re not.

Especially down here.

In Aegira, people get married for one reason only. Because they’ve decided they want to be together and raise a family. Aegirans are seriously high up the evolutionary ladder. They mate for life. Like I said before, their passions just don’t run hot enough for falling in and out of love. But if a union goes sour, very occasionally, it’s a relatively easy matter to have the union dissolved. And no-one would condemn them for it.

So if it wasn’t what I think, a blissful Aegiran match, what the hell was it?

And why haven’t they just ended it?

But none of that was really the issue.

It was that he didn’t tell me. And he sure as hell didn’t act married, with all that Swan Lake in the ocean crap.

“Wait.” I could tell by Carragheen’s voice that he knew he’d lost me, but he was trying to pull an ace from the pack. “What about Imogen?”

Lecanora was onto him before I could tell him to take a jump.

“What do you know, Carragheen?”

Her tone carried the imperious lilt she’d been trained to use from childhood. She’d be so great playing bad cop to my badder cop. And that felt pretty good. It was about the only thing that did. Oh Ran help me, I was an A-grade fool. Dancing around in front of everyone who’s anyone with a married man.

No wonder people had stared.

Even though my heart, which had no right to be attached to this wild boy it had just met, was acting like it had gone into third degree grief, I was feeling the tiniest bit consoled by the realization that I liked being part of a team, especially this team, with Lecanora.

Roast him, babe.

Carragheen considered his words. “I’m not trying to be evasive.”

Why the hell not? You’re obviously good at it. You had me fooled.

“I know about Imogen. I know she’s gone. I’m working on it.”

“You?” Lecanora looked unimpressed, and I felt a tiny, traitorous shred of defensiveness for him, even knowing he was a two-timing a*shole. Something about him touched me, as he stood there with that little bubble stuck to his left eyebrow, looking like a wounded wolf.

Even while I was visualizing myself tasering him, my heart wanted to cut him some slack. But not Lecanora. She was blonde ice as she responded. “What do you mean working on it? What have you been doing?”

“I’m not sure I should say,” he said quietly.

Lecanora switched to mind talk. Talk, Carragheen.

I broke my silence to join in the interrogation. “Why didn’t the forgetting spell, or whatever it was, affect you?”

I could see Carragheen mentally re-arranging information, taking on board my words and fitting them into whatever he already knew. “A spell? That’s how it was done? But who?”

Lecanora paused for the briefest of heartbeats, weighing up. “I’m not sure. Shar, I think. Possibly others. The Triad knows. And so does the Queen.”

I saw the flash and burn in Carragheen eyes an instant before his fury erupted. “Mother of us all, how dare they!” His eyes were bright and I saw him ball his fists.

I wanted to say: Yeah, horrible when people keep things from you, isn’t it?

“Enough, Carragheen,” Lecanora commanded. “It’s vile, but they’re doing what they think is right. They’re not responsible. At least, I don’t think so. They’re trying to find her.”

Carragheen took a deep breath and looked at me like he was talking only to me. “I have seen a lot in places I’ve been. Here, and on land. And in my limited experience of these things, those who try to cover them up generally have a significant vested interest in doing so. And people who say they are doing things for our own good rarely earn my trust.”

Nice way with words. But then, cheating a*sholes were always slick talkers. I thought about all that now do you remember crap. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I knew where he was coming from. I was only trusting this self-important Triad as far as I could throw them. And one thing I knew for sure – I wasn’t throwing Kraken far at all. Epaste even less far. As for the Queen, I couldn’t work it out. I couldn’t see why she would agree. But I could feel Lecanora bridling beside me at the treasonous slant of Carragheen’s words.

“That may be right, Carragheen,” I said, not wanting to give him any quarter, but knowing I needed to lull him at least a little to get the information I need. “But ethics aside, there’s still one minor matter. How come you know about Imogen? I thought everyone got brainwashed?”

“Not everyone, obviously,” Carragheen bit out, with a sideways look at Lecanora.

“Carragheen,” Lecanora said, with an effort at self-control. “Do not doubt me.” The way she said it, there was no trace of the nerves that usually plagued her at tough moments. “You have known me forever. We played together as children. I was caught in the spell. I did not know about Imogen. But I heard the Council with my mother. And then Rania…”

“The Throaty Three approached me at the wedding today,” I finished for her. “And they knew. Somehow they knew. And so do you. How?”

“The Throaty Three?” Carragheen’s wicked face looked puzzled. “Who are they?”

“Zida, Nali, Tricoste. That’s what I used to call them back in choir days.”

Suddenly the black furrow of hurt and concentration that had been creasing Carragheen’s face cleared, and it was plain that he’d worked some things out. “Ah,” he offered. “Now I see, now it all makes sense. I think maybe they were with me.”

Oh no, please no. Not bad enough that he was a cheating husband, now he was going to tell me he’d been having some kinky action with three choirgirls. I’m just not quite that liberal. “No, no, Rania, not that. But the girls were here one night, perhaps five days ago. They were using The Pool. Together.” He was thinking. “They came to me the next day, told me about Imogen. I didn’t know. But they did.”

My mind was racing. Something about The Pool blocks the effects of the mind thing.

“I told the girls, the… Throaty Three… to do nothing, I would investigate. I told them not to talk to anyone. A warning they clearly ignored. I didn’t know who to tell. There was only one person I knew who might have some answers.”

Carragheen’s dark, beautiful face twisted and puckered, and I knew what he was about to say before it was out, and my gut reeled as the knowledge crystallized in my brain.

“You were the one who told Cleedaline.” I was sure I was squeaking more than talking.

Oh, Ran help us, please say no, please say no.

Because if Carragheen told Cleedaline, then that was what started her on the road to me.

“Yes, I did,” Carragheen confirmed, his voice low and scratchy. “I knew her. We crossed over during watch-keeping. She was smart, and she loved Imogen. I thought she might have some leads.”

“Loved?” Lecanora shook her head and looked at Carragheen, then at me. “Past tense?”

I sighed. “Cleedaline’s dead. Murdered. In Dirtwater. And they tried to get me too.”

Carragheen had his head in his hands. “Even after you told me, in your town, about the dead blonde… I hoped it was somehow a mistake, that you were wrong. But I think somehow I already knew. You see, after I’d left Cleedaline, and come back here, I’d had a… feeling that something was wrong.” He gestured to me with those long fingers. “That’s why I came to your town, Rania. A strong feeling-”

Something about the way he said strong feeling reminded me to ask him some more about that part later. ’Cause my ‘strong feelings’ had been pretty wild lately.

“- a strong feeling that she was in trouble. So I… blind-ported to her.”

Lecanora gasped. Blind hydroporting is the most dangerous thing a mermaid can do. It involves hydroporting to an unknown place, following a mental connection (usually a telepathic link) and hoping your cells will locate the closest body of water. If they don’t, you simply get lost in the cosmos, scattered into the very water droplets in the air. Forever.

“Had she telepathed you that she was in danger?” Lecanora was trying to understand.

“Of course not.” Carragheen shook his head heavily. “You know you can’t link with people so far. I was just following the feeling of her. But, like I said, it was a strong feeling.”

I glanced at Lecanora and saw her shaking her head at the peril of it. “Why?”

He shrugged, an eloquent thing, meant to be casual, instead looking somehow like a man standing at the gallows.. “It was my fault. I went to her. I did not understand the danger when I did. I sealed her fate.” He looked at me, eyes rimmed silver. “Tell me. What happened?”

I’ve never been a master of delivering bad news gently, tactfully. I quickly filled them in. The thing, the weapon of sound. The terrible, brutal silence.

Carragheen’s head snapped up as I described the weapon.

What was that on his face?

Lecanora’s angelic face scrunched with the agony of considering such violence. Carragheen’s was awash with guilt. Even though I wanted to stab him in the heart, habit and training kicked in. Okay, so maybe there was something else as well. I could feel the sharp edge of his pain, and maybe my heart wasn’t totally ready to let go of him yet.

“You couldn’t have known,” I assured him gently. “No-one could have. We don’t even know what this is, or who’s behind it. Or why.”

Carragheen spent a few moments with his face in his hands. When he looked up, his face was a mask. His beautiful indigo eyes were dark and determined. “I need some time alone.”

He was hiding something. Something more than being married, I mean, which, let’s face it, was enough for one day. I’d been in enough tight spots to know when a guy’s planning to go kick some ass. I could ask, but I already knew he wouldn’t tell me. I could see that he had decided it was too dangerous. His wolfish smile had disappeared, leaving a deep frown that was somehow almost as appealing. I had to squash the urge to kiss him, remind myself that he was off limits. And an A-grade a*shole for not mentioning it seven miles up.

I forced a smile. “Take some time. We’ll be back, Carragheen.”

Lecanora raised an eyebrow at me. She wasn’t finished with him. But I stopped her.

Let’s go. There are easier ways to skin a cat, babe.

I watched him skimming over the buildings and by-ways of Aegira, and followed a careful distance behind, quieting my mind, just in case he could hear me. Carragheen’s home was in the south, far from the northern Gadulan precinct, and we were heading further south still. We were both swimming fast, lengthening our bodies like we’d been taught to do to speed our stroke. Half human, half fish.

Carragheen started to hum, a signal that he planned to cover some distance, and I did it too, quietly, the note speeding me further, a distant cousin of song-traveling.

The city below made me catch my breath as I passed over. Exquisite proportion, beauty, balance. I couldn’t help but imagine how it would feel to be swimming with him, instead of shadowing him. If things were different.

I shook the thought off. I couldn’t understand the pull of this man.

The homes of Aegirans are low and voluptuous, and although they are made of materials so advanced the land-dwellers would kill to get their hands on them, the roofs are strewn with flotsam collected during sea travels. They’re history lines. Even on this covert mission, the voyeur in me drank in the stories. I caught sight of one roof and learned the family traced its lineage right back to The Awakening. I also saw they were food production experts, responsible for some of the innovations that helped a community so large to feed its people sustainably.

Gleeda bugs and other illuminating creatures offered light throughout the city. Aegirans have the technology to light up their nation like a birthday cake, but they prefer natural light, and the effect was like passing over a fairy kingdom. Among homes decorated with driftwood, stones, corals and seagrasses, there were some strewn with gold, diamonds and other precious jewels. All have equal value, prized only for their appeal to the owner.

In those roofs I saw the paradox of Aegira – innovation and idealism.

And I thought again: God help these innocents if the land-dwellers ever find them.

As I watched the city slip along below me, I registered a warm tingle that was unfamiliar. I tried to dissect it, work out where it was coming from. This was wicked scary stuff I was doing, this tailing. Warm fuzzies sure as hell weren’t the appropriate response right now. But there it was, some kind of safe glow, reaching out from my chest, right down to my toes.

Home. The word echoed into my brain. I rejected it. No, not anymore.

But there was no denying the pleasure I was getting from watching this place from above. As a child, I’d spent whole days just swimming over, watching it, getting to know it, when we’d come here for extended periods of time. I knew this city. Part of me belonged here.

Suddenly, something arrested me on my journey. I almost stopped, almost lost Carragheen’s trail. I strained into the city below with my eyes, watching the twinkling lights and trying to discern what had set off my radar. All looked as before – dark, twinkling, perfect. But it was as though there was something missing – a black spot I couldn’t see.

Something was not right.

Something was not as it had been when I left here, thirteen years before.

I thought about all those break-ins I’d investigated in my first days as a cop, back in NYC. All the people who’d said “I knew, even before I saw the things missing. I knew someone had been in my home.” I’d never got that, till right now. Because that was how I was feeling.

There was something amiss in my home. Something there that shouldn’t be.

What was it? What was down there?

I filed the thought away. For now, I had to do this. I had to follow Carragheen.

My brain was so fired with trying to disentangle the signal from my radar that I barely noticed when the city lights gave way to the dark of the ocean floor.

But then, suddenly, we were flying, skimming like torpedos through the syrupy ink of the deepest place on earth. It was darker than midnight but my half-Aegiran eyes adjusted quickly.

And it was quiet.

I was focused on tailing Carragheen without being detected, but I still clocked the quiet. I could hear the soft noise my body made gliding through the water, like an echo in a cave. Like the sound of your heart in your sleep.

Where were all the creatures whose tiny noises made up the music of the deep sea bed?

Goose pimples broke out on my arms, and my heart knocked painfully in my chest.

Carragheen halted abruptly, and stood up, treading water in one place. He placed a hand to his temple, near his ear, and my eyes strained to see what was ahead.

I could just make out a distant rise on the ocean floor.

My brain kept returning to the night at the morgue, and like a kid waking from a nightmare and calling for their Mommy, I realized I was wishing Doug was here.

Doug, who always had my back. Who mightn’t tell me much but didn’t tell me lies.

I shook my head to dispel the stray thought.

I couldn’t see much, but I could hear even less. It was more than silence, it was a total absence of sound. It reminded me of something I once read about this concentration camp. An account by a survivor who went back years later and found that no animals would go near the site, long after it had been rehabilitated. No birds would fly over. It was a place of death, and agony, and all that drew breath knew it.

My senses were straining so hard, trying to work out what was wrong, that I almost didn’t notice that Carragheen had pushed forward toward the green-grey mound. I struck out, but it was hard to see. I could just make out the soles of his feet.

And then, like a punch to the solar plexus, my sight went black.

This time the vision was very clear. I saw her, Imogen. And I could also feel the warm, live presence of her somewhere deep inside myself. Like she had possessed me.

She was trapped. I could see her perfectly, her eyes light blue and wide. I couldn’t see where she was but it was very dark. And cold. She was trying to cry out but for some reason she couldn’t. Was her mouth bound? She was alive, but why wasn’t she calling out? It was hard, like trying to direct the lens in a dream, but I could feel the jagged bite of her fear.

And then I realized that she was afraid for me. She was trying to warn me. I could feel the message pulsing from her into me, into the very heart of me.

Go, go, go. Swim, Rania, swim away.

Then, quickly as the vision came it was gone, and I was groggy and lolling on the seabed, still a good hundred yards or so from the mound that I now assumed to be some kind of cave. My head felt heavy, lifting it seemed impossible. My arms and legs were fuzzy, like the worst case of pins and needles you ever had.

These things really take it out of you.

I gathered together the loose pieces of my wits and tried to move, but it took long seconds. I still tasted the terror of the vision in my mouth. My limbs felt dead, like I’d been laying on them in the wrong position for too long. My brain was full of cotton wool, seaweed. My eyes, which had been starting to adjust to the deep, were having a hard time focusing in it again after the other blackness of the vision. Panic filled my brain, saturating my responses, making me helpless.

I felt rather than heard the sound, like a song’s first, long note. High, perfect.

It was familiar, and I shook my head and tried to recall where I had heard it.

A crippling swathe of pain exploded in my head, in all my senses. It was like before, the first time, at the morgue. But worse. I was sure I was melting. As soon as it struck, plunging into me with an unseen, vicious fist, I knew I could endure this for a few seconds only before my head shattered under the shocking, electric edge of the pain. My stomach convulsed as nausea flooded me. In the few seconds before it completely annihilated me, left me sick and ruined on the ocean floor, I could see the end of everything.

My life, such as it was.

My dreams, although I wasn’t sure what they are.

The end of any chance at love. The end of brownies with Mom.

The Seer was wrong, the end is now.

And then I looked up and saw Mom’s face, and I knew I really was dying.

She was hovering above me, a golden vision, singing into my face and looking just as she did singing at the wedding. Heavenly and untouchable. Except that she was touching me. Picking me up in her strong arms, and swimming with me.

As I fell into the blackness that I assumed was the end of it all, I registered brief surprise that this was how the end comes, swimming off into oblivion in your mother’s arms.