I Will be Remembered

Between Zarhuy and Hieyoks in the Northern Muhbahr Gyre, a large system of rotating ocean currents, lie the waters the locals call the Sahray Sea. The Sahray Sea is named after the sahray seaweed which floats en masse on the surface of the gyre. There are many stories of ships who have ventured into seaweed so thick the ships get caught in the seaweeds and never get free again, becomin yet another wreck in a floating graveyeard.

There is a core of truth to every wild story. The seaweed itself can capture no ships, but it conceals the many sudden shallows and rocks of the area from sight, causing many shipwrecks among those who don't know the safe paths. Yet many traders will persist, for to circle around the Sahray Sea would prolong to journey for month or more, and some harbours of the Southern Hieyoks would be wholly inaccessible. The clever will hire a local pilot who can lead the ships around the dangerous waters.

And in the deeps of the Sahray Sea hides from landbound sight the Kingdom of Tlann...

***

There is no other city like Ssulot. Built in the Great Grotto and carved into the coral reef that stretches across the sea bed in a riot of bright blue, blood red, delicate purple and warm yellow, our city is the most beautiful in Tlann and I doubt you could find anything as grand on the dry ground either. The common halls where the merchants' shops and great houses, carvers, weapon smiths, turtle slaughterhouses and inkeepers are all housed that runs through the entire city, disappearing withing the embrace of the stone and appearing out in the open again. The lamps that the sorcerers of the Lǃkion fill with magical glow lights the sea as bright as the creation of the world. There is the Terrace of the Dead circles the Palatial district, with snarling stone scar seals along the Sacred Way to the altars. Fish even brighter than the corals swim in the gardens of combgrass that sways gently in the ocean's currents and the bright hunter flowers.

There is the Great Square, my past. There is the Royal Palace, my future. And there is the Temple of the Dreams where I now stand in-between, built of huge blocks of black lava glass and coral, truly a fitting reflection of the Ancient Vision of Oceans, Ancient Dreams and Cycly of Life and Death.

What should a mer think the moment when all her wildests hopes come true? Of course she should praise the Gods Who Dream in the Deeps that their sleeping minds have wrought such a marvellous dream come true. Not the dead of her family, no, for one would be expected to forget everything she has ever been and enjoy the bright future. But I have no intention of ever forgetting from where I have come.

What is it going to be like, to be the Queen of Tlann? The Honourable Queen Mother Mǃrina told me it's dreadfully bothersome, but then she doesn't understand much of the importance of having power. She had always had power so I guess that is it; you don't know the importance of food before you have gone hungry. But I shall be a queen such as these waters have never known before and my name shall be remembered until the day the Dreaming Gods awaken again and a new world will be born from their words. I can do this because I'm intelligent, tenacious, beautiful and pious. Tlann shall only understand my beauty - for all that some may curse it - and piety, but Ahǃinuss knows my intelligence and has seen my strength. That is quite enough when your husband happens to be the ruler of all.

The High Priest stands before me and I bend my head, the last time I shall ever do so before anymer who isn't my husband, one of the Gods or the dead of my family. And truly, I have come far from the scared urchin of a little girl who used to sleep in a shark cage.

My father was a shark trainer. He didn't train the yellow-bellied sharks or the great white death, for those can never be trained, but the smaller dotted sharks and the bigger fleet sharks, and those are difficult enough to train as they are. We train them so that we can ride on them and set the smaller at our enemies when we battle the Wildmer of the South. They have no waters of their own at all, but wander and pillage like some kind of terrible black current that causes destruction wherever it goes. But army plays politics as well and so my father's sharks were the High Tide Party' sharks and their collar had the approppriate number of dusky pearls. I danced in the middle of the sharks as they performed their tricks in the parades, dusky pearls around my neck, and the High Tide Party supporters in the public cheered while the Low Tiders booed.

I remember when my father trained those sharks. Some trainers punished theirs, but I had noticed that unfortunate accidents tended to happen to those trainer more often than not.

"Never punish a shark, Aǂhhrite," he told me and rubbed gently my ear finns as he carefully fed Whiǃiit, Kttǂo, Sǃeefinn, Aniih and Aleǃunǃess, mindful of his fingers. "Think of those humans that don't speak our language teaching you something. How quickly would you learn? Whipping you would not help and the sharks are the same." He was a good man, my father. Tǃiton was his name and my life and my mother's was good as long as he lived. A pity it is that he died young, but now he is one of my Honourable Dead and I give him offerings every night now that I can afford such luxury.

These are dangerous times and they were more dangerous still during the reign of King Ahǃino who couldn't keep the political fighting under control, and his wildmer guard was only interested in protecting the king and his family. The Great Square was like those smokers of the deep that pollute the water far and wide. After every parade there were races and when the Low Tide sharks won, they celebrated all around the city, killing unfortunate night guards, breaking into houses and stealing what they could carry, raping women. When the High Tide sharks won, we avenged ouselves and so the waters were red with blood, calling for sharks from the wild, and the chaos reigned endless.

I slept my nights in the shark cage to protect myself from the rapists and wild sharks alike. Mother never dared to do that, though there was ample room for us both. The cage was big; it must be, for shark are active fish and while those who encounter the bottom of the sea sometimes rest there, many will never stop swimming. They knew me and and they were always well-fed so I knew that as long as I didn't bleed in the cage they wouldn't regard me as prey. I had no siblings and my mother, Aǂhita, was pretty much useless. I know a mer isn't supposed to show such disrespect to her parents, but I call things as I see them. She mostly moaned about how hard her life was and indulged with the jewel cells.

She was also obsessed with finding me a good matchmaker who would help me to find an advantageous marriage; she so wanted to swim up towards the surface of the society. Of course I knew no magic and I would bring no connections with me a merchant house might use so I didn't see my chances as high.

"But you'rr a pretty whorr," she slurred one night when my father was feeding the sharks. "S'meimp'tent fool'll take you." I apologized to the dead of my family for how close I came to hitting her that night, but I never apologized to her; I have my pride. I think father regretted marrying her, but of course he never said anything to me. He would never have implied he regretted begetting me after all.

It was a tenday to the longest night, the Night of the Dead, and when the sun went down above-water, my father took me to the Terrace of the Dead. We had a home altar for our offerings of food, but this was a celebration that called for more grandeur than a slab of whitestone with a few bowls carved in it. Father allowed me to carry our death flute and I took great care to not drop it, lest somemer swimming by us might kick and break the precious, delicate instrument.

"We all have two souls, the hhlan and pǃk. The hhlan, light, ethereal and intellectual, ascends to become an ancestor at death. We pray to them for help, not to the Gods Who Dream in the Deeps," my father told me seriously.

"Because Gods Who Dream in the Deeps shall dream as they will and no prayers from us can change this," I said knowingly, the girl that I still was, stuck between childhood and womanhood and eager for praise. "We must respect them and fear them, but the only help in life comes from our ancestors as they can whisper in the ears of the Dreaming Gods, to try and influence their dreams."

"This is true. And the pǃk soul, dark, gravid and sensual, becomes a wandering spirit in the cold waters of the north and if we disrespect our ancestors, they shall return from the north and wreak havoc among the living."

This was why I represented my mother's side of the family while father represented his own. I still remember it like the yesterday, the clattering of the skulls woven from fish bones against each others in the currents, the holy objects preserved by magic, and the eerie, penetrating buzzy timbre of our flutes that cut through the sounds of the people like a lava glass knife. But there weren't many sounds of the living, for all had arrived to respect death and the dead. We gave our offering of tortoise flesh and eggs on one of the great altars and when I closed my eyes, I could see my forefather's and mothers smiling down upon me. But I could also see the shadow of a frown upon many a noble, proud forehead.

"So mother didn't come," I said after a moment of silence. Her words a mere tenday ago still called to the dark waters of my mind like moon calls the tide.

"Don't judge your mother too harshly, Aǂhhrite," father pleaded, sounding a little pained. "Her life has been very hard. I know it doesn't excuse anything, but it is a reason regardless." How was my mother's life difficult? I never had a chance to find out.

The day after the Night of the Dead was yet another parade, yet another chance for the parties to posture; surely no other kingdom has held as many pointless parades! So I danced with the sharks and they played their tricks; hoops and tunnels, weave poles and catch the prey. So came the night of the tooth and blood, the night when the Low Tide became and my father died. My mother did, as well, though I regretted her loss a little. Those men, out of their minds with jewel cells, came for me as well, but they didn't dare to open the door of the cage. They poked with their spears through the bars, but they couldn't reach the center of the cage and my dear sharks snapped those spears in half.

"Father do you hear me! Father!" I could smell the blood on the water and a part of me was scared the sharks might turn on me even if I wasn't the one bleeding. Most of me wholly failed to care. "Mother!" I even screamed for her!

"Your parents are dead, little one," one of the men said, grinning at me. One of his front teeth was missing and there was a very distinctive pattern of pale blue and bone white stripes on his sides and legs. I looked at them carved them into my mind so that I could later recognize and kill him. "Do you want to join them? Come a little closer to the bars, little girl." The rest of them laughed and I snarled at them.

"I will carve out your eyes and make an offering out of them. My sharks shall eat the rest of you and no funeral rites will be performed. Your hhlan will never jon your ancestors!" I screamed and smelled the blood. I felt as though I had become a shark; perhaps this is why they didn't eat me. Then again, perhaps not, for sharks will turn on even their own in a blood frenzy. The men snarled back at me, but they wouldn't open the cage and so they must leave, cursing my name and the name of my family all the way.

Once upon a time this was Aǂhhrite, a poor girl mere fifteen years old who turned her stomach inside-out from the force of the grief she felt for her father. Now I stand beside King Ahǃinuss and the High Priest rubs the consecrated whale fat upon my forehead. The Low Tide Party has hardly done well lately and they shall do even worse now, and they know it. The trash curses my name when I swim past them, surrounded by my guards, for all know whom I blame for my father's death, but none dares to touch me. Yet the High Tide has no love for me either, for I shall be no-one's attack shark. The fight between the parties is what killed my father and I shall see the fangs of the both pulled off.

"Would you like to have something to eat, my love? The ceremony shall be long," Ahǃinuss whispers into my ear. The ceremony shall be long and to interrupt it so is unheard of, but Ahǃinuss knows how I love to eat. This is the last remembrance of the days when I rarely had enough to fill my belly, when I would eat any gutting cast-offs floating by, for I always gave my best for my sharks.

And the ceremony is mostly for my benefit in the first place, for that precise reason. None questions his right to rule, but I am a different story. I wear a threefold belt made from the shells of jewel snails, red and yellow and white, and more are wound around my neck in necklaces. I wear silk, protected from the salt water by clever spells and little, dazzling balls of light dance around me. I'm a commoner and not even from the trade so I need the pomp and circumstance.

"Please do, I am always so hungry," I whisper into his ear. Dear Ahǃinuss, he loves me so much, me and power and nothing more. I don't love him, precisely, but I say I do to keep him happy and I am in truth fond of him. He is intelligent, handsome, he listens to my counsel and he pleases me when I swim belly-up with him. What more could any woman ask for? That their man was the king as well?

"Bring food for the queen," he says and doesn't even raise his voice, but he is heard, of course, heard and obeyed. Unhappy murmur rises through the audience like a distant storm, but none dares to protest even though he has interrupted a holy ceremony. This too is a way to show how important I am, that the pomp should come to a swishing halt at my whim. What could the people do, walk out on me?

I am brought an eel stuffed with shrimp, cinnamon and onions. It is delicious and I eat carefully, showing the best manners and silence reigns. The people say I have bespelled Ahǃinuss . How could I, a simple shark trainer's daughter, have learned any spells? The Coralclave still insisted on Lǃkion sorcerers performing an examination in front of the lawful eight witnesses and all were equally disappointed when no sign of witchcraft was found. Yet they didn't dare to lie, for Ahǃinuss had insisted on his own witnesses: five times eight warriors from his own guard. He is no fool, my Ahǃinuss.

I used to tell him he made no friends with these gestures, back when I understood little of how power works. He used to laugh and tell me that he would have no friends regardless.

"So is the life of a king," he told me and rubbed the webbing between my fingers fondly. "We are always surrounded by people, but imagine that friendship was a beast that needed to be fed attention so that it can grow. For a king, that precious attention is instead swallowed up by acquaintances one can't really trust, like pests that have gotten into the slaughterhouse."

Perhaps this is why he couldn't forget me, for shark isn't a hungry beast easily denied. And as we cannot have friends we could trust, we show these courtier pests their place instead - and that place is not such that they could tell me what I can or cannot do.

"We still fail to please the crowd," I whisper into Ahǃinuss' ear as I finish my refreshment and now I am more smug than worried, as I used to be.

"No ruler can be both loved and good at ruling, for the rabble will always think that all must be governed strictly except for them. And if one can't be loved, one must be strong," he whispers to me. "Strong like you are."

Strong I have been a-plenty since I escaped with my sharks all those years ago. They might have been traind by my father and lived in our house, but in the end they belonged to the army and a new trainer would have been appointed. Who knew, if he was the right sort he might even have gotten them to listen to him. But I loved my sharks, the last I had left of my father and my old life, for I knew I could take little affects with me if I escaped outside the city. And there I must escape if I wanted my vengeance, and I could hardly tread those dangerous waters alone. And who help me wreak my vengeance but them? So I took what food we had in the house for Sǃeefinn, Aniih and Aleǃunǃess to carry on their backs, all the dusky pearls in the house, a knife and the death flute and I opened the cage for the last time. The six of us disappeared into the night.

Living outside a settlement isn't an uncomplicated matter. The first question was light; Whiǃiit and Kttǂo, my dear dotted, needed to remain close to the seafloor. I could still see, somewhat, but I was used to the bright lights of Ssulot. There were wild sharks and other threats from poisonous fish to the Wildmer and I must remain alert. Another was cover and I made a home for us in one of the sunken ships the landbound need to travel over the waters and the light was better in the shallows too, but the food was the biggest problem.

I couldn't afford to pay for any, not for long, so we must hunt, and if we couldn't get enough, I would have been on their menu - or Whiǃiit and Kttǂo on Sǃeefinn, Aniih and Aleǃunǃess's. I don't blame my sharks for it is their nature. Their love is forever a cold passion. They love me more than they would have loved their own out in the wilds, but you can't take the shark out of a shark.

My first attempt had been terrible and my second had been bad and I'd had to catch crabs from the seafloor to eat; I couldn't ride when we hunted, for I never would have gotten a bite. But hunger is a fast teacher and when two bore's had gone by I was as lethal as my dears. And I can't claim it was altogether unpleasant, plunging through the water after the fleeing school of yellowfins. Sǃeefinn was faster than I was, taking point with Aniih and Aleǃunǃess's. Currents dragged at my fins and slapped up against my face and chest. Tall weeds whipped past my legs and elbows. They had no trouble catching the yellowfins, my soldier and his girls, but for Whiǃiit and Kttǂo yellowfins were a bit too fast and big prey. Normally they wouldn't have even tried, but they have been taught to attack creatures bigger than what they eat, and I slashed with my knife wildly as I swam through the school, dropping dying fish closer to the seafloor for them to latch on.

A flash past me, almost too quick to see, and I coiled on a yellowfin that had escaped Aniih's jaws just a moment before, digging my fingers into its gills as I slashed at the side of the thing, tasting the red water on my tongue. Hunger had also taught me to discard all dinner manners and I tore at the flesh with my teeth like a wild thing. If the fish was female, I started with the roe pouch, otherwise the brains. When hunting luck was good I could eat until I was full before I was approached.

That time it was Sǃeefinn who swam casually, almost lazily closer, his shadow drifting against the sand. The teeth in his upper jaw are saw-edged, the lower teeth more pointed and finely serrated. His jaw opens so wide my whole head could fit in. But he knew me and I used to hide in the cage at night, sleeping and helpless. Sǃeefinn made no noise as he circled me; sharks never do. I waited patiently, still chewing on my piece of yellowfin.

He made no noise, but I could feel the water move when he huffed and finally presses his snout to my hand.

"Good soldier, Sǃeefinn," I said, scratching at his nose and below his gills. "That's very good." Kttǂo, never one to miss out on having her neck scratched, darted at my feet and her sister followed her. We were all full and would live for another day.

But I had a promise to keep and vengeance to wreak and so, reluctantly, I edged my way back into the city when the screeching of my conscience grew too loud to bear, leaving my sharks behind. This unnerved me, though I was almost certain they would remain close to the ship that had become our home. It was a parade day again and I was on the lookout for the man with the curling stripes. I had to leave my knife behind, as I couldn't conceal it, and that made me breath no more easier.

The first attempt was no success, for I didn't see a flash of a fin from the man. It wasn't entirely wasted effort either, though. Ssulot was so bright, I had forgotten such light could exist. I blinked my eyes as I entered the city, feeling now less at ease than I was out in the dim, hunting for a living. And there were so many people; swimming below me, above me, by my sides and brushing against me until I felt like I was a yellowfin in a particularly disorganized school. And the way people were talking, laughing, chattering about nothing and cheering, booing, threatening each other in the dark niches just out of easy sight, after the silence of the sharks I thought my ears would burst. My heartbeat hammered against my eardrums and I thought I might either flee or attack somemer any moment.

"Excuse me, little miss," somemer said just at the edge of my vision and touched me. I jumped from the sudden fright and pressed my fingers into a fist to keep from striking towards gills that weren't there. "Are you lost? We could look for your parents together." It was a kindly-looking older woman whose skin had dimmed into pale froth grey, with a bone pouch tied at her waist. My heart kept hammering.

"No need to, I know where they are," I squeaked and dashed away like I was at the tail of a fish. I darted between people until I was certain I was out of the woman's sight.

I didn't find the curly-striped man, but as I rested on a bed of coral, I knew that unless I watched myself I was going to turn wholly unfit for society. I forced myself to have a few short, terse conversations that day, about the victory of the High Tide sharks and a new fashion, whale curlshells. Usually they attach themselves to the whales or big sharks, but now people had begun to attach them on their skin. I wondered how they thought to get rid of the ornaments when the fashion inevitably passed, by skinning themselves? The whole thing did nothing to make me feel more comfortable.

The second time I got lucky, and luck is all that it was. I saw the man swimming down the common halls with a few companions, sucking meat from a crab's shell and licking a jewel cell. I shadowed him for hours, afraid that if I lost the sight of him I would never find him again and afraid that he would see and recognize me. But in the end he led me into his home. It was a nice home; smaller than my family's had been, for he had no need for space for sharks, but nice nontheless. I thought of the slowly rotting ship I had now made my own and churned with fury.

That night I returned to the city with my sharks. I kept them close, kept them from dashing off at any mer who might still swim by at such an hour. Ssulot was as bright as always, but no-one swum at night those days if they could avoid it, not unless they were hunting their own kind. I gripped my knife so hard my fingers begun to numb.

"Aleǃunǃess," I said, standing before the doorway. It had been barred with three rocks pilep atop one another. The lowest of them, a great, flat stone, was clearly never intended to move, but the two atop it could be moved to the side from the inside where they had better grips. Once there was no such thing as a door in a commoner's house, all that was precious was merely put into a safe box, but this is what Tlann had come to. Now I let out a shrill, long whistle, ending with two sharp clicks, and Aleǃunǃess pushed the highest rock down with ease. To manage the second took her more effort, but not that much more.

"Back!" I ordered and Aleǃunǃess tore herself free from the doorway. It was too small to easily let her through, but this is why we train dotted sharks. Whiǃiit and Kttǂo followed me in.

"Who's there?" a man's voice called from a sleeping alcove. I whistled a fleet attack command and Aleǃunǃess crashed into the doorway again, crushng the coral a little bit by little bit. Sǃeefinn and Aniih swum by the windows, too small even for a mer to swim through, but the sight was marvelloysly intimidating.

"I am Aǂhhrite, daughter of Tǃton, of the dead and living of Making a Home by the Shoal. I believe I made you a promise when you killed my family." I gave him our greater name, as befitting the revenge. Shoal I am called when I call for a dinner or swim through the common halls, but blood calls for the greater power of the names.

He had a family, a pretty enough wife whose skin had dapples rather than stripes and two sons at least ten years younger than I was. Herd, I commanded, and Whiǃiit and Kttǂo drove them out into the open.

"Please don't hurt us, you can take whatever you want, just don't hurt us!" the woman begged, clutching her children closer. I felt a moment of pity, I will not lie, but it was fleeting. The song of my dead was as loud as whalesong in my ears.

"What is your name?" I asked the man, ignoring the woman. Aleǃunǃess crashed the doorway down just a little bit more. Whiǃiit and Kttǂo cirled at his feet, and the feet of his family's. "Hold!" I ordered them; hold for now, hold for a little while longer.

"Noohh of Daylight. And you are mistaken! What could you want with us?" he exclaimed and his eyes were wide, the whites of his eyes visible at the corners.

"Would you not give me your greater name, Noohh? Can you not remember the night when you slaughtered my father, when you dragged my mother away? Can you remember a girl safe in a shark cage?" I taunted him. My sharks circled him, and dotted may be relatively small, but easily big enough to kill a man. "Would you not tell the names of your companions that night, tell me where they live? If not, your family will take their place." I don't know if I would have done that, I really don't. But it didn't matter in the end.

"Please, not Nisǃh Not my boys!" He broke like an empty shell and my smile was full of teeth. I had what I had come for out of him, except for his greater name, but his bad manners were his shame and problem. He could have been lying, but seemed much too scared. Oh, how the roles had turned around!

"Please, have mercy on us! Please! Think of the children, they will grow fatherless!" the woman, Nisǃh, cried. She tried to come closer, but Whiǃiit made a dash at her and she flinched away.

"Like your husband had mercy on my family? You married a murderer and a rapist," I accused and she flinched, and so did Noohh. It had been a mere guess, as being a killer doesn't always make man a rapist as well. But he had been slug slime through and through.

"And now you will come out and nothing will happen to your family - unless you have lied to me, of course," I told him. And I hate to credit him for any shred of virtue, but he was brave enough to swim out while his family cried after him, begged. I will carve out your eyes and make an offering out of them, I had promised, and that my sharks would eat the rest of him and no funeral rites would be performed.

"I am sorry, please let me go, I'll do anything," he begged as well, shoulders slumped in defeat. And I had a little mercy, I struck him through the heart before I went for his eyes.

"Hold!" I ordered as I carved the first one out. "Hold!" as Sǃeefinn came closer, tried to take him for me. And I wrapped the eyes in seaweed before letting out one final whistle.

I visited them all that night. There were screams and there was the scent of blood drifting in the water, but screams and blood were plentiful back then and no-one would get mixed with other people's business at night. Even sharks can only eat so much and the last of the men left enough body to bury, but my dead were silent in my ears again and I knew that my duty had been done and my effort accepted. I left the eyes on the Terrace of the Dead and that night I dreamed of smells and impressions and the dash of water against my skin and no words. I slept well.

My revenge fulfilled, it was time to wonder what to do with my life now that the dead had been given their due and it was my own again. But a woman alone has precious few choices. I could have become a fisherwoman or a tortoise keeper, but neither occupation would go well with keeping sharks as well - and giving them up was no option. I have been called cold woman and that  is true, but I love them. I could have become a musician, but I would have spent too much time among the people, too much time in the city.

When I was a child, our widowed neighbor was a weaver. She would thread supple fish bones to overlap each other and drill little holes into seal and whale bones to make baskets, ornamental knots and other needful things. At one point there was a fashion for women where a woven cone would be clasped around the waist. It was dreadfully difficult to swim in, I imagine, for there couldn't have been much give in a cone of bones, but people are prone to strange things. First thread a fishbone through the joint bone of a seal, my neighbor used to say, and bend it into a ring. The base of the first and the second fishbone on the opposite sides of the curve, it's easy. But despite this nugget of advice I had little idea how to weave and in any case I would need at least a weaving spike and a bash, whatever that was; bashing bones didn't seem like a terribly good idea to me.

Prostitution was no option; the dead of my family would have died a second death out of shame. In my desperation I even considered joining a tribe of the Wildmer, as I had heard that they make no difference between men and women; I don't see how they could afford, in any case, living as they do vulnerable and far from the safety of permanent settlements. All kinds of people, and people who aren't exactly people as well, lurk outside our borders. And not all of them the sort of folks you'd want as visitors; there is no trusting a demon. To become a groundsider was safer, and open to women as well as men, for they must take any willing to leave the sea. But I would have had to leave my sharks behind.

Following the arc of the dream woven for me to live, now I found myself immersed in a passing I didn't at first understand, that didn't even seem to belong in the same story. Passing are important, passings are those moments that change your life either for better or worse, and the wise keep a careful eye for those and prays to their ancestors for advice. As I pondered my life and future, my passing almost left me behind as the shadow of a great ship literally passed over me. This happens sometimes even in the city and mostly people pay no attention as long as there is no danger of the ship coming down on their heads, but I...

I followed the ship for a reason I don't know, perhaps little more than idle curiosity. I saw as the ship slowly - and it wasn't slow, not really, but I felt like it took forever - neared a peak hiding just beneath the surface of the water. Do you know the sound of wood tearing apart against a rock, inch by inch by several tails? Louder than whalesong, the noise was a rough drag, one that drew sharp, mean attention to the breaking hull. I watched in silence as water rushed in and the ship swayed like a mer high on jewel cells, slanting over rock and empty water. Something heavy crashed inside it and I heard screams, muted though they were by the air.

I waited and watched as the tiny boats the groundbound use to save their lives dropped to the water. They bobbed on the waves and I couldn't help but marvel how vulnerable they seemed, how easy it would have been to topple one. Oh, it wasn't something I wanted to do for a moment! I merely wondered why these people insist on travelling overseas when they are so very vulnerable. My sharks circled the boats, but I called them back. I think they could smell blood, for not everyone got out of the ship alive. But as ridiculous contraptions as they were, there was bravery in it, or perhaps just foolhardiness. In either case, there was death.

And as I saw the ship slowly slant more and more until the fabric strung high - sails, I would later learn - touched the water, I thought of what I had learned of the patrols. Sound carries far, but the patrol would be here the next day, around the midnight at closest. I wasn't certain which noble house or merchant held the raiding rights in the area, but I should have enough time to take first picks.

And to be a poacher might be dangerous, but it could be profitable as well. I couldn't see what I had in Tlann, but there were the groundsiders to consider and I had heard they didn't ask too many questions. One good poach and I might be able to make a household for myself.

The waiting felt like hours, though in truth it was probably only one. Finally with one last scraping the ship's descent shuddered to a halt, the stern of it hitting the sand and the prow resting precariously against the rock. A few good kicks took me to the wreck, Whiǃiit and Kttǂo already swimming in through the long, jagged hole in the of the ship. It wasn't quite big enough for me so I took a big rock in my hand and begun to hack at the already broken wood, and a command for my soldier and his girls had them burst against the breach as well as though it had been a narrow door to open. With a few more cracks we were inside.

There was death inside, men draped in such amount of fabric only a noble or the richest of merchants could have allowed it in Tlann; those protective spells weren't cheap. Their eyes were open in the dimdark of the hold and their hair floated around their heads, here was a leg broken where a some kind of container had crushed it against a ship's wall, there an arm caught in ropes. My dears ate their due and I whispered words to the poor men's ancestors that their souls might join their family's; I didn't want any vengeful pǃk to come after me.

"Hail to the Gods and Goddesses who Dream in the Deeps. Your dreams illumine all things," I chanted a fishbone rite, hoping I had understood to take my flute with me. "Hail to all ancestors who might intercede for the relief of these souls. I know not their names, or families, and they have died in a faraway kingdom, alone. Grant them awareness that they might find their way to you."

"May the First Father and First Mother and other helpful ancestors give them the strength to persevere in their ascension in all good resolution, to meet the tests of life lived rightly and well. May these benevolent words mitigate and soothe their anger and fear, and may all know I did not take their lives."

"Holy, holy, most holy! Death who severes us from the living, yet joins us all in the end! Give us to our own and deliver us from fear, for eternity is our fate and our joy. From sea to flesh, from flesh to sea and from sea to spirit, the never-ending sacrifice and the sacrament of the sacrifice!"

No proper rite was it and no proper funeral at the bottom of a shark's gully, but as I didn't know their names, stopping my sharks just wouldn't have been worth the trouble. I hope my prayer had convinced the human ancestors of my sincerity. I counted a hundred heartbeats of silence before I turned to the cargo.

There were huge rolls of something white and soft that wasn't fabric, but wasn't thread either. It was all wet and I didn't know what it would be worth in that condition so I swam past it; an experimental shove proved they were also heavy. I was much more interested in the smaller bundles of deep blue, fluffy strands far longer than wider, tied tightly with many strings, and I thought I might take perhaps ten with me, dry them in the sun and then see what they were worth. I used those same strings to tie the bundles tightly on top of Aniih. But the many barrels and bottles, both water-tight, were what I was mainly interested in. Both Sǃeefinn and Aleǃunǃess got one barrel to carry each and I carried twenty bottles, bundled in the fabric than hung limp from the ship poles.

It was a day and a night's swim to the nearest groundsider settlement, with a short night's rest taken into account. I played my flute that night for the men, the eerie sound drifting through the seaweed like the silvery side of a fish. My dreams were strange that night, the shape of things yet to come. I saw people whose faces I didn't know, I wore pecious pearls and swathes of bright fabrics at one point and then I swum like wilds sharks were nipping at my fins, terribly certain I must be somewhere in time, though I knew not where and why.

The next day I dragged my body to a shore and it was an all-around nasty experience. The first thing was that in order to breath air I must cough my lungs empty from water. I convulsed on the white sands from the force of the coughing, water coming from my eyes, wondering if I was going to die as my midriff ached. And I knew how to walk, in theory, but I hadn't imagined how much water supports her children before the air refused to do the same. She knew me not as her daughter and I could barely stand upright a moment without swaying; to take a step was entirely out of question.

So I dragged myself to the brown and green, hardy plants - shrubs - and spread the blue, fluffy strings to dry on them, for the length of the entire beach. The sun burned my skin and I rolled in wet sand to protect myself, dragging myself back to the sea every time the sand dried and fell off. Eventually, eventually everything was on the beach, the strings and the bottles and barrels, and I begun to wonder how I would now find somemer to buy them off my hands.

"Well, you are a new one. And not of a family with raiding rights, as plain as a day." She had approached me from behind, walking upright with ease and grace. She wore two pieces of white cloth with a coloured strip at the border, the lower one worn below the navel and around the hips and the other one worn diagonally from along the right hip to the left shoulder and across the midriff. She wore a golden ring through her nose and she had pierces her earfins with pearl strings and she looked frankly filthy rich.

"Is that a problem?" I asked tersely, but she only laughed and shook her head.

"You aren't the first who has begun as a poacher and you won't be the last. A little competition is good, it keeps the prices lower. Let's see what you have got, the indigo is good," she said, running her fingers through one fine fistful of strands. "But in the future, you need to worry about birds stealing it away for their nests. You are lucky it isn't spring."

Her name was Awaah of Water's Edge, but everymer just called her by her human name, Arwa. I don't know how old she was, but at some time in her life she had learned a little magic and her house was shrouded in perpetual illusion, as though the light that poured in through the windows had shone through water. Anymer was welcome there and Arwa offered a cup of hot, dark tea, fish or red meat warmed with fire and fruits in exchange for a few dusky pearls.

The bundles of blue strands turned out to be indigo plant fibers, used to make indigo dye, which is fairly expensive. The barrels and bottles were even better, though. The barrels had sticky brown paste that Arwa told me was poppy tears. Humans and elves use it for the same purpose our people use jewel cells, though they usually burn it and breath the smoke instead of eating it. Usually; the bottles were full of herbal wine, which Arwa said is made of poppy tears, something called cloves and white wine. Drinking in and of itself was a strange thought to me, but Arwa assured me it was very necessary on land.

"We don't get all we need from eating fish here, the sun beats on us fiercer. But you have a good first catch and if you play your cards right, you can become a very rich woman indeed," she told me, all the while wrapping the indigo back into bundles as I lay down on the sand and felt myself as helpless as a baby. It occurred to me that if Arwa wished to simply take what was mine, I couldn't stop her, not when I couldn't even walk.

"You see, valuable on land and valuable in the sea are two different things. Take my clothes, for example!" Arwa twirled around and the fabric fluttered around her legs. "In Tlann this would be a queen's dress, but here is no need for expensive preservative magics and cotton is cheap. In Tlann gold is a needful metal because it doesn't rust and doesn't darken, but it is soft as well and pearls are more precious. Here pearls are much cheaper than gold." Her eyes were very dark for a mer, but now they shone like the sun rising above the horizon.

"I could buy cheaply from Tlann and sell here with profit and vice-versa," I breathed as the enormity of it dawned on me. "But why aren't the merchant houses a lot more wealthy then, than they are?"

"Because they don't understand what things are worth here, and don't care to live on land; it wouldn't be respectable. Because they look down on us, call us a lot of vagabonds and tramps who don't know their place. Because they have no interest to learn to live with other races and look down on us, yet would use us for their own ends. Many of us were poor once, many of us took a risk and poached to have a way out. We look after our own, Aǂhhrite of Shoal, and if you betray this bond we will string you to dry in the sun and eat your flesh. No funeral rites will be performed and your hhlan will never join your ancestors." And there was no laughter in Arwa'a eyes now.

"I have no reason to give them as much as a greeting, and good terms with you can only help me," I told her entirely honestly. She hadn't taken from me when she could have and I pay my debts.

I haven't betrayed their trust, not even now that I am to wed my sweet king, and I don't intend to. Sometimes people need a way out, a chance for better life if they are brave and clever and can make good of their chances. Now those merchants scorn me for having what they might have ambitiously dreamed should be their daughters' and I scorn them back. I will not betray my brothers and sisters on ground.

My catch was carried to the warehouses and I was carried to Arwa's house, where she had a ridiculous amount of furniture. Chairs, tables, chests, stands and soft, soft beds, some things are easier to have on ground.

"Couldn't I tempt you into staying for good? This would be a life of luxury for you," she asked me, but I shook my head, though with some regret.

"Maybe I would learn to walk, but I can't leave my sharks behind," I told her and she jumped at my words. "Please don't tell anymer, I may or may not have stolen them from the army," I continued and then she laughed, convinced I was jesting with her.

She was convinced otherwise when I slipped into the water the next day and she saw the fins cutting the water. I carried with me a huge pouch made of enchanted leather, filled to bursting with pearls, a smaller one with dusky pearls for the purposes of making smaller purcases, several enchanted clothes, five glass mirrors and a carefully wrapped porcelain dish set. I was ready to set myself up as a wealthy woman of mystery.

Of course the wealthy woman of mystery had to live outside Ssulot because I still must hide my sharks, but at least my ship home wasn't a hovel anymore and I didn't have to hunt so often - though I still hunted, out of honest enjoyment. I bought gold with pearls in Tlann and pearls with gold on ground and I was frankly baffled how easy it all was. I even considered buying a necklace of jewel snails, but that would have attracted more attention than I knew how to deal with. I was content, if not quite happy.

To be content means that I have enough rest and food so as to be not in any kind of discomfort. To be content means that there is nomer or nothing to outright make me unhappy, but it still isn't the same as happy. I lacked a goal, something to do other than idle my life away. Maybe most people would have been happy, but I found I needed something more.

The year I became seventeen years old King Ahǃino died and his son Ahǃinuss succeeded him. All common people considered this to be a very good thing, for where Ahǃino had been helpless to pacify the kingdom, his son's hand was firmer and struck fiercer. For the first week of his reign, a week he should have dedicated to silent contemplation and mourning, there were fourty-seven executions in Ssulot alone, a hundred and two in the whole kingdom total, for the crimes of murder, rape, kidnapping, assault, looting, rioting, vandalism of the crown's property and obstruction of the crown's agents in their duty. Basically whatever could be pinned on the person accused was, every single crime a judge could think of, and the harshest sentence possible was doled out regardless of their birth. The shockwave of it left Low and High Tide both reeling and people cheered.

That something else I had yearned came one night near the northern edges of Ssulot. I had hunted with my sharks every day for a tenday and I was comfortable leaving them at the outskirts, now certain they wouldn't abandon me. I carried a knife beneath my clothes and I was assured of my safety regardless of the night already falling. That something else came when I saw a small party of mer, five soldiers and a noble accosted by a group of at least twenty men.

I didn't much care which party they were. I remembered the night my parents had died and I smelled the blood in the water and before I knew it I had already dived into the fray. I was startled, in a distant, muffled kind of a way, by how easy killing those men was. They were so slow and disoriented, nothing like the smooth, sleek efficiency of a fleeing school of fish, and they may have had swords made of steel that would never rust, but no shark that slow to strike would ever have caught their prey. I slashed a long cut at one ribcage, cutting right into the bone, twisted my body and struck my fingers into eyes for the lack of gills.

It was so noisy. They screamed as they attacked and they screamed as they died, and so did the noble's guards and the noble himself - screamed, that is, he didn't die. I alone was as silent as a shark, but the noble wasn't a horrible fighter either, merely a bit... slow. I pulled back a man's head from the fin and when he cut the man's throat, our eyes met for the shortest of moment, a rapid heartbeat. Then the moment was over and I struck my knife between two ribs of a mer almost twice my size and right into his heart.

And then it was over. The noble and one guard yet lived, both reasonably unharmed. I had seven kills to my name and two men were injured too badly to swim away. Easy to question them, I thought and wondered that I once would have been so scared of them.

"To slay an old nightmare," I muttered and thought that perhaps I was now a nightmare. It amused me. I fear father wouldn't have been as amused.

"You have my deepest gratitude, your ladyship, for your valiance and the strength of your arm. Now tell me who is the mystery woman who has so risked her life to save her king's, for I haven't seen you at the court."

How could I have guessed he was the king? I had never seen his face before, and his red and golden robes were fine, but he wore no crown, not even a necklace of jewel snails.

"I am no ladyship, your majesty." I immediately leaned back so that the the long arc of my undefended belly was bared, feeling almost obscene though I knew in this context it was the position of deep respect and submission, not a proposition. "I am Aǂhhrite, daughter of Tǃton, of the dead and living of Making a Home by the Shoal. My father faithfully served your father in the army before he was murdered in one of the raids you have brought an end to." The position is surprisingly difficult to maintain for any length of time without drifting away, but I did my best.

"To bow your head would have been enough, your ladyship, for I owe you a great debt. You fight as fiercely as do the Wildmer - and please don't take my words as an insult! They are the best warriors this ocean has ever seen." And he reached for my hand, pulled me into an easier position. Our eyes met again. He had bright, cuttingly clever eyes and the features of a man of strong character, with a thin-lipped mouth and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution.

This is the story my ancestors whispered into the ears of the Gods Who Dream in the Deeps. A beautiful maiden saved a handsome king and received his hand in marriage and a considerable amount of power. Now my sharks live in the palace with me and people fear me all the more for them. That is good, for Ahǃinuss has many enemies. There isn't a law that states a king cannot marry a commoner, of course; who could tell a king what he can or cannot do? But certainly people try, and as they tried and were disappointed with me, they resent that unlike his father, Ahǃinuss doesn't let them grab for power that isn't their to take. The assassination attempt I intercepted was the first, but it wasn't the last.

Of course it wasn't as easy as simply plucking me from the wilds and putting me on a throne; I needed to learn first. The first lesson I learned was to fake it and delegate a lot to capable people, and keep faking until I was capable. One of the first things trusted to me was to manage the Coralclave meetings, at that point very uncomfortable affair for everyone involved. Every available surface of the chamber, ceiling and floor included, is plastered with carvings depicting mer engaged in various heroic acts wearing expressions of steadfast noble purpose. A cynic might say that none of the mer gathered there have ever performed a valiant act in their life so the craving for vicarious pride was understandable.

My valiant act has already been carved near the entrance. This has made none of the nobles very happy.

"He doesn't need the magical light because his town is close to surface? Are you kidding me? Do they not also need to preserve their food? Or would he perhaps like to establish a ground colony and store his food there?"

I let the words wash over me, arguments and counter-arguments over tax relief petitions blending together into a wall of noise. It was rather relaxing once I ignored the words. A bit like listening to children at play, really. He should have been thinking about economics and parliamentary procedure, but frankly I was counting the little magical clock's slow ascence towards the end of the meeting.

"Where precisely does he think that the funding for magic for his slaughter houses comes from? His own coffers?"

"Well you can tell that pompous old crabgrubber that the 'Historic Independence of the Shore People" is a load of turtle shit!"

Nothing quite teaches you respect of the political process like sitting through sessions like those. Perhaps that is why Ahǃinuss made me do it. He used to worry about my self-esteem quite a lot. And wasn't it a surprise to learn that his own great-grandfather used to be a Wildmer from the south, and that his grandfather had married a wildmer as well? I had always thought that their bloodline was as old as the Kingdon of Tlann itself. Nomer ever even whispered differently, and I know how people love to talk.

"People like to conveniently forget things they don't like. Nomer likes to think how weak Tlann was, those days, that the Captain of the Royal Guard might become a king himself," he told me when I asked. And Tlann had been weak after his father, but now Tlann will be strong again. My sharks circle the assembly and the people watch them with fear - they will learn to live as sharks as I did, or their children will, but listless, blind starvation of virtues will not be tolerated among those who are responsible for protecting the people. Nomer is irrepleaceble.

Now Ahǃinuss takes my crown from the High Priest and sets it upon my brow. It is a heavy golden ring adorned with pearls and jewels snails that hang in long chains and settle around my head. I would have liked diamonds better - my tastes have become a little grounsider - but pearls and jewel snails are what my people will understand. His lovely, strong mouth is curved into a smile as I straighten myself. There are statues of kings and queens all around the city, the queens much, much fewer than the kings. Something I have noticed is that the kings who the old songs call good or just rulers tend to have the smallest statues, and the queens most loved dring their lifetime don't have any at all. They were so concentrated on their obligations to the people, I guess, that they didn't have any made themselves. And if you don't make certain your remembrance will be celebrated, nomer will do it for you.

I will remember my obligations, but I also know how the game is played. I will make sure I will be remembered.

Regarding the ancestor worship, people generally worship the ancestors of their father, though their mother continues to worship hers. Sometimes exceptions will be made, of course, if there is nomer left in the mother's family to honor the dead and see to the rites - or if the mother temporarily needs a representative to worship them in her stead. Bodies are needed for the proper funeral so that the dead can be honored. They are put to shallow indents in the coral or rock outside the cities or towns and rocks are piled on top of them into a mound. Names are also needed to properly observe the rites, but sometimes, if the names are not known or the bodies are missing, the mer may give so-called "fishbone rite" to the dead in hopes of placating them and showing them respect as best as they are able.

Regarding the lesser and greater names: "I am Aǂhhrite, daughter of Tǃton, of the dead and living of Making a Home by the Shoal," is the formal introduction, Aǂhhrite of Shoal informal. The lesser names are used for everyday life and business, the greater names for religious rites, court functions, blood feuds and judical processes.

Yellow-bellied shark - tiger shark.

Great white death - great white shark.

Dotted shark - greater spotted dogfish.

Fleet shark - dusky shark, named so for being so fast, fleet.

Scar seal - sea lion, named so because the battling bulls are often scarred.

Dusky pearl - a molluskan pearl that has no luster or iridescence, can be polished, but still a lesser pearl.

Jewel snail - a snail that makes its own shell from sand and pieces of coral, they are farmed so that the snails have the most colourful buildding materials and used for jewelry. Since the snails only shed their old shells once every two years, the shells are the most expensive jewelry in Tlann.

Whale curlshells - barnacles.

Whitestone - limestone.

Death flute - a flute carved from the bone of a dead relative, only played in rituals held in honor of the dead. Played for a living person, it is a death threat.

Hunter flower - a name for different species of sea anemone.

Yellowfin - a species of tuna, actually named that in English too.

Jewel cell - a blue, red and yellow ctenophore with hallucinogenic neurotoxin, which is sort of deep-sea LSD.