The World Below: Chapter 6
Eo slept soundly through the night, soothed by the rumble of the storm battering against the villa. His crying had been cathartic, and when he woke he felt somewhat lighter, although it still ached to think of Omari. He stepped out into the garden and inhaled the pure smell of earth dampened by rain. The storm had passed and the sky was once again clear.
Sypia was irrigating. He studied her in silence, watching the way she changed the flow of water with a shovelful of dirt here, the twist of a gate there. Sometimes the water would stop before reaching the intended plant, eddying and whirling against a clod of dirt. Then she would have to scrape and shovel until it continued to flow.
“You can’t control exactly where it goes,” he said.
“Not exactly,” she said. “But close enough to get the job done.”
“Yes.” He looked up at a cloud and daydreamed he was standing on it, digging a shovel in until water spilled out onto the dry island below. But then Sypia asked him to help pull weeds and he came back to earth.
Later, she asked him to go down to the beach and see if they’d caught any fish.
“I hate checking the nets,” he said. “I don’t like the way the fish gasp.”
“But you love the way I cook fish,” she offered.
The thought of fish smothered in herbs and butter was enough motivation to make the mile-long trek to the shore. Down at the beach, he took off his sandals and stepped across the golden pebbles into the sea foam. He felt the coolness of the water washing away the trail dust. He listened to the waves and thought of the agony of yesterday. He had been inconsolable, but crying had made him feel better. Now the agony was more of a dull ache.
The splashing of a tail interrupted his musings. He looked back to the waves, expecting to see one of the merfolk emerge and climb onto the nearby rocks. Instead, he saw the body of a man. At first he thought the man was doing a backstroke, but then Eo realized his arms were not moving. A tail broke the surface again, and Eo realized the man was being carried by one of the merfolk. Of course the man wasn’t swimming—they were too far from land for that. Perhaps he was dead. But then again, the merfolk probably wouldn’t have bothered to bring a corpse ashore.
As they came into the shallows, Eo recognized the merman. His name was Te, and he could often be found on the beach. They’d had many conversations, and Eo might even call it friendship, except he wasn’t sure merfolk thought of friendship the same way. They trusted Eo more than the average person, but in their eyes he was still suspicious. Still a human, and still a stranger.
Te pulled the man out of the water with ease, his strong arms and silver-green tail shimmering in the sun. Even on land, the merfolk were impressively agile. Eo stepped forward to help, but by the time he reached them Te already had the man well onto dry sand. He pressed his fingers to the man’s throat.
Te may have been concerned, but his expression was indecipherable. His face was impossibly symmetrical, as if sculpted from stone, and equally impassive. His eyes were the color of water at midnight, and just as easy to see through. In all of their interactions so far, Eo had been both stunned by Te’s beauty and baffled by his indifference. The only indication of worry was the slight twitching at the very tip of Te’s fins.
“Is he alive?” Eo asked.
Te nodded. He surveyed the man with an edge of tension, as though he should be prepared at any minute to fight.
Most men looked plain in comparison to the otherworldly beauty of the merfolk, but Eo’s first thought was that the man was handsome, too. Underneath the damp layers of the green uniform, his large chest rose and fell ever so slightly. His cupid’s bow lips were parted, and the sun glistened against his dark pearly complexion.
Eo took a second look at the green uniform. It was that of the Imperial Navy. Suddenly the man didn’t seem so handsome.
“You saved him?” Eo asked.
“A happy accident,” said Te. “Yesterday’s storm dashed his ship into an outcrop of rocks. This prince swam into my very hands.”
Prince Calisto. The son of the Empress. He had traveled to Zrendi for a “diplomatic” visit, which was really just a pretense for the empire tightening its chokehold on Chassar. Eo was shocked. He had imagined someone who looked more ruthless. But here on the sand, he was just another man.
“That storm came out of nowhere,” Eo said.
“Perhaps it was Amli, hinting at the retribution that will befall the empire if they don’t leave my people alone.”
When Eo thought of Amli, the word consequences came to mind. The old stories told of a goddess who did not suffer fools. A deity who would drown entire cities if their disregard carried on long enough. Like the sea, she was to be respected.
Eo leaned down to listen to the man’s breathing. He didn’t know what he was doing, but it seemed like the right thing to do. It was shallow and slow, but it was steady.
“I wanted to take him to the merking,” said Te. “But I was not sure he’d survive the journey.”
Eo nodded. The merking lived practically on the opposite side of the sea, a voyage that would’ve taken three weeks by ship. The merfolk could only get there faster if they latched on to their tame sea serpents, but even so, it was not an easy journey for a man to make. A man would grow cold and sick from days of being in the water, and that was assuming he started the journey in good health.
“That journey would have killed him,” Eo agreed.
“Though I am not sure he needs to be alive,” Te said thoughtfully. “I can’t decide whether to drown him, or use him for bargaining.”
“Bargaining?” Eo said.
“The empire is trying to starve us,” said Te. “They’ve started a ruthless campaign of overfishing around all of our hunting grounds”
Eo could not believe it. Well, he should not be surprised, considering what he’d heard from the people of Chassar about their own subjugation. But starving the merfolk? What could they possibly want from a people who stayed underwater and minded their own business?
“Our reefs block the sea passage that would allow them easier access to Corcea,” Te explained.
Corcea was the one place the Locrians had not yet managed to conquer, due to its isolation. Its borders were protected by mountains on one side, desert on the other, and the cultivated reefs of the merfolk on its sea border. But he was not surprised that the Locrians were attempting it. They had been spreading around the sea like a cancer for centuries, and everyone knew they wanted total domination.
“I need to speak with my clan,” Te said. “Can you keep him alive? If you cannot, it’s no great loss. But it would be preferable.”
Eo didn’t know anything about how to keep someone alive, but he nodded. He could carry the prince up to Sypia, and see what she could do. He thought how impressed Omari would be if he knew Eo was keeping Prince Calisto as a hostage. Eo took the man into his arms.
Te’s eyes widened, and for the first time Eo noted surprise.
“What?”
“He is not heavy to you?”
The man was well-built from years of military service, but to Eo he was light as a bouquet of desert wildflowers. He’d never carried anything heavier than Sypia’s crates, but those were light to him as well. Truth be told, he had never thought much of the weight of anything.
“Should he be heavy?”
Te considered it for a moment, but gave no indication of an answer.
“Give Sypia my thanks.”
“Fair currents,” said Eo, in the customary goodbye. Te slipped back into the waves and was gone.
Eo surveyed the prince again. How long until the man’s condition worsened, or until he woke and became violent? He had never fought anyone before, or at least he could not remember fighting anyone. But for now he looked helpless. Eo reminded himself that this man was probably pure evil. He imagined him sitting at a grand table in a palace built by enslaved people, drinking wine pressed from grapes grown on conquered land, sifting through a pile of stolen jewels.
He had never cared for someone who was unwell before. Sypia never got sick, or if she did she nursed herself without complaint. He had cared for her baby goats, but this wasn’t the same. He looked down at the man’s face, and tried to think what he would need. Food? Water?
Sypia was in the kitchen winding twine around a bundle of lavender. Her eyebrows rose in shock, and for a moment she didn’t know where to begin.
“I told you to check the nets for fish,” she said, flustered. She immediately cleared the sturdy wooden table.
“Te asked me to keep him alive,” Eo said.
“Put him on the table.”
“Is he alright?”
“We’ll see. Help me get him out of these wet clothes.”
As they removed his wet clothes, Eo felt himself flushing at the man’s bare body. He pretended to be interested in what was outside the window while Sypia inspected him.
“Oh don’t be silly,” Sypia said, and threw a blanket over the man. “This is how you check a pulse.”
She showed Eo the soft spot on his neck, just below the strong jaw. His flushing was replaced by the fear that the man may yet die.
Sypia wiped him down with a damp cloth, then dabbed at his temples and neck with mint oil. She put a few droplets of something in his open mouth, which immediately caused the man to groan and stir. She cradled his head and instructed Eo to feed him water by the spoonful, which the man managed to gulp down.
“It’s Prince Calisto,” Eo said.
Her frown deepened.
“Te found him.” Eo said. “He says the merfolk may want to use him for bargaining.”
“I have a great deal of respect for the merking, but I do not want to harbor his prisoners,” said Sypia. “Did Te say when he’d return?”
“No.”
“Goddess knows when he will. They always take their damn time.”
This was the first time Eo had seen her angry. She glared, pacing back and forth in thought. She slammed the kitchen door on her way out to the garden, and Eo felt himself flinch in a way that didn’t seem proportionate to the moment at hand. He knew she was not angry at him, but he felt small and afraid anyway. For a moment he thought about running back down the cliff trail and staying on the beach until her anger dissipated.
“Eo,” she called.
He stepped tentatively into the garden.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said. Eo shook his head. He couldn’t explain what was going on in his mind, so he said nothing.
“I’m going to put him in some dry clothes. Then we’ll take him to the old tower. Yoke the goats to the wagon.”
“I can carry him.”
“Oh. Right. You did carry him. I was so surprised to see him, it didn’t register. You’re not tired?”
Eo shook his head. Sypia’s eyes narrowed as she added this to her long list of Eo’s curiosities. Then she stepped back into the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. The old tower was an ancient structure that overlooked the whole island. It was square and short, but tall enough to keep someone from climbing down. Perhaps in days past it had been used to defend the isle, but Sypia hadn’t used it in decades. She led the way up the winding stairs, a bundle of food and water skins slung over her shoulder.
The door to the highest room could only be locked and unlocked with a simple cantrip. It was cool and airy with large windows and a commanding view of the sea. Sypia insisted that he be comfortable, and fussed with the bedding.
“In Locrium they treat prisoners like vermin,” she explained. “Assuming they don’t execute them first. But we will not be using their barbaric methods. I will check on the man in the morning. You will check on him in the evenings. We will read to him, so he doesn’t get too lonely.”
“I don’t care if he gets lonely,” Eo said. He thought of the imperial fleet scooping up tons of fish that they never planned to eat, all for the sake of starving Te and his people.
“People can go mad from loneliness, Eo,” she said.
For a split second he recalled himself in a tower: cold and lonely. There were swirling shadows outside the window, and an eerie silence punctured only by screams below. Sypia’s voice shook him from the vision.
“You may go, Eo. You’ll bring him dinner at sundown.”
“What if he tries to attack you?”
“Even if he had the strength to stand, I am quite capable of defending myself. Now, do you want fish for dinner or not?”
“Oh! The nets!”
As he ran back to the beach, Eo wondered if the man was as cruel as the Empress, as evil as the empire he served. Perhaps he would fight back once he woke up, and threaten them with vengeance. And what of Amli? He looked to the horizon, half expecting to see a wall of storm clouds, but the sky was clear. All he could feel was a gentle breeze.