Heart of the Kraken (Tales from Darjee) (14 page)

She froze, her body going stiff in his arms. She pulled back to meet his gaze, her azure eyes wide with terror. He could imagine what ran through her mind, had they decided to sell her here instead of sailing all the way to Darjee.

"You are safe, he has given his word," he said. "Nancy has never had the pleasure of conversing with a mermaid and so would like to visit with you. I trust him, Ailin and he promises to shield you. There is a magic about this island and I think he might help us."

"I will not fear him as long as you stay with me, please." She sighed and turned her face.

Her lips grazed his neck and his arms tightened around her as they stepped into the bright sunlight. Reis had returned and he approached dangling the silver chain. So delicate it looked as though it should disintegrate in your hands and yet it bound Ailin completely. Even the kraken could not break the links, having to smash a reef when one end became caught.

Reis slipped it around her waist and touched a switch on his gauntlet. Blue light raced down the metal and flashed under his finger as it made a perfect, unbreakable, join. Then, he took the other end and looped it around Fenton's wrist.

"What are you doing?" Fenton said.

"Can't have her slipping away and I doubt Nancy wants the kraken tossing boats out of its way. Let's hope you are enough of an anchor to keep it from fleeing." Another flash and Fenton and Ailin were joined at different ends of the leash. "And this way, if those thieving bastards assembling decide to riot and seize our fish, it's your arm they'll have to take off."

Crew surrounded Fenton as he took Ailin to the side. From the murderous looks on their faces he figured most of them expected him to jump after her and for the two of them to swim off into the sunset. A simple solution, but he suspected they would harpoon him through the back before he swam twenty feet. Only Timmy wore a grin, the lad excited about his first visit to Lusions and all the wonders his enhanced eye spotted in the dense canopy behind the town.

"Ready?" he whispered and balanced her body on the railing.

She nodded and turned in his arms and then dove over the side. The chain sung as it whirred over the railing and then pulled taunt as she hit the limit of her plunge. The tension eased as she bobbed back up and floated next to the ship.

Fenton climbed over and took the rope ladder to the little jollyboat. The captain took his seat at the stern and four ordinary sailors took up the oars. More men piled into the two larger long boats. Hands resting on swords and pistols the only sign they guarded their payday. There was no trust lost between pirates and given they looted the mermaid, they expected others to have the same plan.

They rowed the jollyboat toward the pier while Ailin swum on the surface beside. Every now and then her head disappeared as she dove and their link tugged on Fenton's arm. Then she would resurface and smile at him. Each time his heart constricted a little more. She was so beautiful in the water. Agile. Nimble. Free.

The harbour teemed with boats of all sizes as pirates took to their smaller craft for a closer look at the mermaid. Other crew rowed alongside, their gazes fixed on Ailin and Reis' crew drew pistols to make them keep their distance. The Regulators, with their superior airships, had only tiny four men dinghies to drop in the ocean. The rest fought for space along the beach, many had telescopes to their eyes to watch the spectacle.

"He's turned this into a damn freak show," Reis muttered at the assembled mass of pirates, lawmen and inhabitants of the island.

"While Nancy has a point, I'm no happier about it than you," Fenton said, wrenching his gaze from Ailin's nude form cutting through the water. "Perhaps it is better to satisfy their curiosity in public than having them climbing on board to learn the truth of the rumours."

"Aye," the captain said. "But how many more will climb on board to steal our prize now they know for sure that we have it?" A full lunch and the curvy woman hadn't taken the edge off his suspicious nature.

Let them, he thought. They would find the kraken waiting for any man who dared try take her from him.

Nancy sat on the end of the pier and dangled bare feet over the edge, his long tunic ruched up over his knees. His toes just touched the water as he paddled. The sailors eased the little boat to glide up to the timbers with a gentle kiss of greeting. One leapt over the edge and tied the lead rope to an iron ring sunk into the side of the sturdy timbers. Ailin hung close to the boat, hiding from the people crowded on the shore.

"You lot can go for a walk, I want a private talk with this lovely lady." Nancy jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"You promised some sort of protection for my investment. I don't want any of that rabble getting close to my fish." Reis scowled and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Everything is in hand." Nancy smiled and then waved his arms. He muttered a few words under his breath and a shiver raced over Fenton's skin. A blue light, like that emitted by Reis' gauntlet shot out from under the pier and radiated across the water, like the ripple from a tossed stone. Twenty feet from the jetty, a splash rose into the air and made the shape of a semi-circle surrounding Ailin with Nancy as its central point. "A rudimentary force field with me as its centre. Your lovely mermaid cannot leave nor can any boats cross my line. It will only allow you in or out via this pier."

Reis made a noise deep in his throat and climbed to the jetty. "Very well. Mr Fenton will stay, he is rather attached to the fish."

The other men chuckled as they stepped onto the structure and headed back down to the beach. As they passed through the force field it shimmered and zinged. People crowded the beach, eager for a look at the mythical creature. Some waded out to their knees for a better look. Small boats and dinghies bobbed in the harbour, kept at a distance by the force field. Chatter mingled with the cries of birds and monkeys within the dense green canopy surrounding them.

Ailin reached out to Fenton and their hands touched for a moment before she swam closer to the unusual man.

***

"Hello," he said. "I'm Zephaniah Nancy, but everyone just calls me Nancy."

"Hello Nancy, I am Ailin." She trod water by swishing her tail in languid circles, holding her torso up and out of the water. She revelled in being back in the ocean and its sweet caress. If only she could escape the chain Reis used to tether her. A shudder swept through her as she remembered being trapped as the sharks circled and the kraken saved her. Like her chain, there was a link between man and beast. Not that she minded being attached to Fenton, she could live her life knowing he was at the end of the delicate length of silver. If only he would return her feelings, she was sure the kraken would protect them both.

Nancy clasped his hands. "I'm so pleased to meet you. This is my first time conversing with a mermaid and I have so much to ask you. Do your people have literature?"

She laughed. "You mean wyrm scratching on paper?"

Nancy's smile drooped. "Oh blast, I was hoping for new book recommendations."

"Fenton reads to me from his books. I especially like the cadence of poetry and I am committing my favourite ones to memory." She cocked her head to one side. He looked like one of their elders, old and yet spry with intelligence and curiosity sparkling in his brown eyes.

"Poetry you say?" Nancy shot a glance to the sailor sitting in the dinghy. "Not what I'd expect a pirate to read."

"Fenton is not like the others." She wished she had the skill of a poet. Then she would string together the words to tell Fenton of how his quiet strength touched her heart.

"No, he's quite unique." Nancy winked at her and smiled so broad that his eyes crinkled.

Fenton said he trusted this man and there was something about his manner that made you smile just for being in his presence. "I have never met an ore-mancer. I do not understand what you do." She turned to stare at Fenton, his broad shoulders slightly hunched as he leaned his forearms on his knees, the chain ran over the side of the boat and disappeared into the water. "Nor what your kind did to Fenton."

His head jerked up at mention of his past and he shook his head no. How the ore-mancers fused him to the kraken wasn't a subject he wanted to discuss, but Ailin wanted to know. More than that, she needed to understand how the two were linked.

Nancy chuckled. "I am a lucky man, two unusual specimens to talk with, but I do think your situation is the more pressing, is it not? Let us resolve your issue first, then we can discuss Fenton's many limbed friend."

She brushed her hands over the surface of the water and let the drips fall from her skin before looking up. "I am to be sold, slaughtered and eaten. They view me as nothing more than a fish." She tossed a glance to the assembled people on the shore. "I have a mind, I have feelings, I have—"

She dropped her head and sunk lower in the water until only her eyes and the top of her hair showed.

"You have what, my dear?" Nancy asked in a quiet tone.

She rose a fraction so he would hear her words. "Desires," she whispered, trying hard not to sneak a glance at Fenton as she said the word. The landwalker set off a strange reaction in her body. Her heart and form ached for him and only the sound of his voice soothed the pain that speared through her. In the darkness, he dominated her dreams where he swum under the ocean with her and oh, when he caught her, their forms fused in a way known only to merfolk.

Nancy sat in silence for long moments, paddling his feet back and forth. Then he bunched up the silken tunic and the azure folds looked like he scooped the ocean into his lap. He leaned forward and beckoned her closer, as though he wished to share a secret. "Do you know the story of the Curiosity?"

She swished her tail and rose further in the water as she approached. She now swum at Nancy's feet like a child waiting to hear a story. "Fenton told me the story of the man who built a strange boat."

"Ah, but it is more than a tale of Weston's construction, it is a love story," he said. "But many people cannot see that."

She smiled. "The ore-mancer laboured to find a way to be with his love. Her family should not have tried to separate them, keeping them apart caused her to be injured."

An enormous grin broke over Nancy's face. "You understand, good."

Her heart sunk, he talked of love while she waited to be served as dinner. "What good is love when I am to be sold?"

"Ah." He tapped the side of his head and winked. "Love finds a way, but I need to know where your heart lays. Do you love each other?" He spoke the words so low he almost mouthed them silently. Only Ailin and Fenton caught them before they were snatched away on the faint breeze.

Her heart swelled in her chest. She loved Fenton, it was the one true thing she knew. The one truth that kept her sanity during her long incarceration. If there was a way, she would endure until they found it. But was a union of landwalker and mermaid possible? Fenton would drown and she could never move onshore. Impossible her brain whispered but then she thought of the protective kraken and they were moored at the Isle of Illusions. If the impossible were possible anywhere then it was here, where reality bent to an old man's whim.

"My love for Fenton is as large and fierce as the kraken, but can you make the impossible happen in the name of love? Can you give me legs or a landwalker gills?" Their only common ground was this, her in the water while Fenton sat in the little boat. She gazed upon the man who held her heart and a tear trickled down her cheek.

"Here, here, child," Nancy said. "Anything is possible, my lovely Ailin, if you hold to the love in your heart." He swung his head to Fenton, who stared at his hands and the silver chain disappearing into the water. "What do you say, boy, you're rather quiet over there?"

He looked up and she sucked in a breath at the pain simmering in his gaze. "Ailin stole my heart the first moment I laid eyes on her and now, knowing her, I would do anything to set her free. Anything you ask."

The old man let out a whoop of joy. "Excellent. I'm quite the romantic, you know. Just leave it to old Nancy. I expect you to come play chess with me tonight, Fenton. You have the look of a thinker and I have longed for an opponent who plays the game properly and doesn't move my chess pieces like they were involved in checkers."

Ailin stared at Fenton, could the old man make it true and fashion them a place to be together? Hope swelled in her chest. A cough drew her gaze back to Nancy.

"Before Captain Reis locks you away again, I need you to remember one thing, child. Do you see my volcano?" He pointed over the water to the mountain that sheltered the village in its embrace.

Ailin followed the line of his finger to the dark shape that rose up toward the heavens. The top invisible, shrouded in clouds and mist. "Yes."

He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone. "My volcano protects landwalkers and ocean dwellers alike. If you need shelter or my help, you must remember to swim toward the volcano."

She laughed, he really was mad. "What good would that do? I would end up stranded on the beach."

Nancy chuckled and tapped the side of his nose again. "Trust old Nancy. If the time arises, swim for the volcano. Will you remember that for me?"

"Very well." She did like the old man, madder than a clown fish trying to play tag with a sea urchin, but likeable.