Dark Depths

Chapter Ten:

Specific Conditions

1

It wasn’t very deep into the night when Nathan came into Ellister’s study. He liked the enormous map that was painted upon the wall here, but he did not look at it now. He’d just said his goodbye to Treasure, who was likely the most wonderful female of any species that he would ever meet. He wished things could have been different – wished she’d been a human instead of a nymph – but he was sure he’d made the right choice. He would have to live with it.

If Nathan had been present in this room earlier, he would have known that the prince had not moved at all, still slumped over his charts, jotting things here and there. The advisors had left him to himself, going off to enjoy their lives and leave Thaddeus to his own pitiful one. The crown price was completely oblivious to that thought however; he was completely immersed in his work.

Nathan, in dry clothes but still drenched with slick heartache, set himself down in a chair opposite Ellister without being invited to do so. He poured himself a drink and leaned back in the plush chair without words until the crown prince broke the silence, though still giving full attention to the maps.

“Did you cut yourself?”

The man’s words, at times, were strange in starting, as if he expected the person he was speaking to to be on the very same trail of thought. Cuts, yes; Nathan had cuts. That nymph had bitten him. Was that what Ellister spoke of? This time, Nathan elected to feign ignorance.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked politely.

“Fran said that she thought there was blood in the water. You were nowhere around, she said. Thought you’d hurt yourself.”

“Oh yes, that,” Nathan acknowledged. “I did cut my arm while reaching for the buckets. A few drops must have fallen into the pool.”

It was a complete lie; he knew that. His only concern, however, was if Ellister knew that.

“It’s quite fine,” Thaddeus assured him flatly. “Though do try to be more careful with blood. I would hate for them to develop a taste for it.”

Relief came over the pirate.

“I will. I apologize.”

The crown prince never once lifted his eyes, and Nathan wondered if the man meant what he’d said. Could he have been cast out of Ellister’s good graces so suddenly? It wasn’t his fault that those evil creatures that the prince called pets had attacked him, but of course it would do no good for him to say anything of that sort. From now on, at least for a while, the former pirate would have to keep his eyes open.

He swallowed down more of the liquid he’d taken into his glass, hoping to blur the beautiful face he still saw when he closed his eyes.

“Nathan…” the crown prince said suddenly, drawing the young man’s attention.

Ellister was looking down at the chart as if something had just jumped off the page at him and slapped him across the face. Nathan only sat watching the man for a moment. He didn’t have time to inquire before Ellister was talking again.

“Change clothes and tousle your hair; I need you to go to the port. There is a shoddy tavern there, run by a man named Gideon. I need you to go to him and ask if he believes the conditions are right.”

The port? Yes, that was a place Nathan did not need directions to. He wasn’t sure that he knew a man named Gideon, however. And what was all this other talk?

“What conditions?”

“He’ll know what you mean,” Ellister promised. “I suspect he’ll inform you when you arrive. I need this done swiftly. He’ll put you up for the night but I expect you to return promptly in the morning. It’s important.”

Nathan was lingering over his chair when Ellister finally raised his eyes, looking tired and strained. The younger man wondered if he should ask any more questions, but the prince’s eyes were telling him to go. Was this strange, Nathan wondered. Considering Ellister, it was not so odd. The man was known to seem random when actually he worked off a long and intricate pattern of thought. Who was the pirate to question it, especially since very little effort could have him thrown in prison – awaiting a walk to the gallows? With that thought in mind, he rose up fully.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

2

Deep down through the darkest depths of the ocean – through the absence of light and life – the little mermaid swam. Treasure did not know for how long she had been pushing herself through the waters, only that she would stop when she reached her destination and not before. The glow of her eyes allowed her to peer about herself to find her way, but after she had traveled so far down into the darkness, she no longer needed that miniscule shine.

Light shone faintly though the water as she traveled further downward into the abyss. Wrapped in dark, thriving weeds was the remnant of a pirate’s ship that had somehow managed to be swallowed this far down into the belly of the sea. The holes of the ship’s windows were lit with an eerie, supernatural glow. Few was the number of those who had visited this place, but unlike them, Treasure was not afraid. She was firm in her resolve, and if she could not have what she wanted, she would rather be dead.

She moved toward the slimy deck of the ship, where an open hatch led down to the lit layer below. Treasure did not hesitate to slip down through the hazy water dirtied with broken bits of algae. She moved into the lower ship without announcing herself, though pausing just inside.

The water was strange here, shifting back and forth and carrying the snow of algae with it. Every time it shifted, moving her hair and tangling it, she was chilled to her bones. The current, however, seemed nonexistent. Everything else was still and quiet.

The young imperfect moved cautiously, pushing her herself with her arms and tail past several transparent anglerfish that moved along the walls, the lights that suspended from their dorsal fins burning brightly. They were terrible looking – with their jutting jaws and razor teeth – but they moved as if in a trance, completely unaware of her presence. In any other instance, she would fear them. On this occasion, she did not.

On dark, crooked shelves lining the walls, there were many other sorts of organisms in water-filled jars. Some were still alive, while others were simply mutilated pieces of creatures – sea and land creatures alike. Treasure tried not to look at them, but her curiosity kept leading her to glance. There were bones and certain portions of guts. There were brains and samples of blood. It was not until she glimpsed a withered hand that she was drawn to the shelf. The fingers were very much like hers, and she wondered if it had been lobbed from the wrist of a human or an imperfect. Either way, it was disturbing to her.

Looking at it in disgust that immersed all her senses, Treasure was startled when a voice reached her ears.

“I knew you were coming. Did you have a nice journey? I must say, it is very sweet of you to pay me a visit. It’s been so very long since you’ve seen me.”

The sound was in the high-pitched language of the sea nymphs, for it carried better through the water. Treasure gasped and jerked her head toward it, the sound chilling her greater than the water itself. The tail of one of the anglers brushed by her own, and she flung herself back from the shelf, being content to hold herself in the center of the ship.

From a deeper layer of the sunken vessel, a great mass of hair emerged, followed by a dark body with a silver tail attached. The face that was nearly hidden in that forest of thick hair, which was bound to resemble a kraken’s tentacles, smiled at Treasure with lips as pretty as her own. Despite her solitude, the dark-skinned one was as lovely as when Treasure had last seen her.

Who was she now? How had she changed? Since she’d left Treasure she’d become quite a name in these waters. They called her the sea witch – as if she was more wicked than they.

“You’re looking well,” the host said. “You always were the prettiest among us. What a shame.”

“I need your help,” Treasure said, wasting no time on pleasantries.

“You do indeed,” said the other, folding her arms and turning to travel back down below. “You’ve become a fool since I left you.”

Treasure followed her down into the belly of the ship, and the smell of thick blood shocked her nose. Down below, her old friend had been busy disemboweling a shark. There were numerous wicked tools, sharp and rusted, hanging from the ceiling. Treasure moved no further than the entrance, while the other mermaid moved back to her work of cutting open the large, dead creature resting deeper into the room.

“I knew you’d be no good to me once you fell in love with that boy,” the dark one said disappointedly. “But I could never kill you. Not one of my own. Not you.”

There was a sickening noise as she ripped back into the shark’s belly.

“Please help me,” the visitor begged again. “I’ll do anything you want, but I must be with him.”

“Mark my words, Treasure. You’re a fool.”

The girl was aware that this dark one had been watching her for many years, but she couldn’t say she felt uncomfortable because of it. She’d become used to it, as if the other belonged there. But this had to stop now. They were both alone and shunned, but Treasure was the one taking the beatings. There was more to life than torture for the hope of revenge. She wanted nothing of that now.

“But you will help me,” she said finally with firm belief.

The sea witch ignored her, carefully sliding out the string of guts from within the shark’s belly. Treasure moved forward insistently, stopping again when a thick haze of blood washed over her.

“I want to be with him more than anything else in life.”

“I know,” the dark nymph said, though unfeelingly.

Treasure’s need swelled inside her then, bursting from her mouth without further hesitation.

“Make me into a human.”

She’d expected her request to have some greater impact, but her host seemed completely unmoved.

“Why would you want that?” the dark mermaid asked finally, distracted.

Treasure was becoming irritated with these inquiries. Was she not paying attention at all?

“I love him,” she said as if she had said it before.

“How do you know he feels the same?”

“He told me so,” she replied indignantly.

“Men will say anything when they are feeling desperate. He said he loved you, yes; I was there. But he also told you to go. He told you to stay away from him. Don’t you think he might have just told you some lie to have you comply with his request? He’d never have to see you again, after all. Lies are easy to live with that way.”

“That’s not true. He meant it,” Treasure insisted without even having to consider. She’d known he wasn’t lying to her. The truth was in his eyes, his hands, his voice!

The dark one sighed then, turning back to the foolish love-struck child in the midst of her lair.

“Do you truly have any idea what you are asking me for?” she asked, the teasing manner dropping from her voice. She was very serious now; it showed in her silver eyes. “I cannot make you a human; I can only make your tail into legs. You will still be a mermaid. You will not possess a soul, and you will still live for three-hundred years. You will be a sea nymph on land. You know the dangers of that.”

Treasure had already thought of this, and while she knew that it was dangerous and it might have dire consequences, she was willing to take the risk. A few moments with her love in the sun was worth a healthy lifetime beneath the water.

“I’m willing to accept it,” she said without a waver in her voice.

“Do you think he will protect you, little one?” the laughter was back in the witch’s voice once again. “I’ve had a look at your young man myself, and I promise you that he has no idea what he’s dealing with. Truly, you would be doing him a favor by staying away.”

She turned back to her knife, shutting Treasure from her mind. An entranced angler came closer to better light her work. This golden-haired mermaid was not a stupid one, which was why the dark-skinned nymph had attached herself to her when she’d been a mere slave, banished from the servitude of the mistress because she’d learned to use human sorcery. She’d been out for revenge ever since – revenge for her own kind – and this blonde one had been her tool. How long had she waited, just to have this one quit on her for the love of some ignorant young pirate? The dark one could not contest that the love of a man was worth almost everything – almost – but not yet. She had not sorted everything out yet.

“Bliss,” Treasure addressed, breathing the dark one’s human name into the water. “Please…”

The name stirred something inside the dark one, but how could she allow herself to be swayed, especially over this?

“You didn’t finish helping me like you promised. Why should I help you?”

“I’ll do one last thing,” Treasure promised. “Anything you ask. But I’ve already made my choice. I was warned that if I left the palace waters I would be killed; you know that. I couldn’t stay there, so know that if you refuse me I will kill myself. I’ll certainly be no help to you dead.”

Bliss tossed down her bloody knife, rising up in the water. The blade floated sunk with an echoing clang.

“It is a wonder that I care!”

They stared at each other for several moments, silver eyes cutting through eyes like water that could not be sliced. If Treasure felt fear then, she did not show it – even though knowing in the back of her mind that the dark mermaid could give her a punishment worse than death. But she would not. Eventually, the one named Bliss by a human sighed heatedly in defeat.

“Alright then. What I want is your tongue.”

The words were a surprise, even to the water.

“My…” Treasure began with a start, but then her surprise turned to suspicion. “May I at least ask what good it will do you? Or are you just being cruel?”

A long smile stretched across Bliss’s lips, telling Treasure that both of those things were true.

“Why do you think they banished me?” the dark nymph asked with pleasure. “Why do you think they keep our kind as slaves?”

Treasure shook her head in confusion. Why had she even asked this? The answer was such a simple one.

“Hatred?”

Bliss shook her head in disagreement.

“Fear.”

Fear? That was a concept new to Treasure. Why would those ruthless creatures fear something like her? She understood why they feared Bliss, and certainly the only thing she and Treasure had in common was the fact that they were imperfect.

“We are humanlike, and we have so much more power than they do,” Bliss told her with great pride rising up from within her lungs. “I learned how to use human magic, and they feared me. And our tongues speak the human language when theirs cannot. Their hatred is jealousy.”

The others wanted to be humanlike as well? The mistress did? No, that was not possible, Treasure knew. But she could understand how the mistress might want a human tongue. She could make her intentions of destruction known to them then, and if she could speak to them in a language they understood, they would stop regarding her as an animal.

“I see,” Treasure said thoughtfully.

“Since you are no longer willing to help me, but you are willing to give me what I ask, I will take your tongue and make a trade with your mistress. I can set the tongue into her mouth and allow her to speak as we do – but of course that will only be the tip of the iceberg, as they say. I was not pleased with what she did to the newborns. Still, we will reclaim this sea – even if it is without your help.”

That had been Bliss’s intention since the beginning – even the reason she had learned to use human magic. Though it did not sound pleasant, this was the trade she had offered, and Treasure would be more of a fool not to take it.

Bliss smiled cruelly as she watched the young one think.

“So are you willing to go through with it? I can give you the most beautiful legs that have ever been, only for the exchange of your tongue. I’ll be kind to you though, pretty. I’ll reduce the glands in your mouth so you won’t drool all over your pretty self! But you’ll never be able to speak to that handsome young thing you love. Ever! When he grows old, you will still be young, when he dies, you will still live, and there is nothing for you past death but a return to the sea as foam!”

“Unless I somehow obtain a soul,” Treasure spoke up, cutting out the terrible things. “To become completely human.”

“False hopes.”

Bliss seemed to take great pleasure in telling her this, her teeth gleaming in the light.

Treasure closed her eyes and imagined the one she loved. She imagined the way the wind blew his dark wavy hair past his tan face. She remembered his eyes and the soft smile on his lips when he looked at her. Recalling his body put a gentle smile on her own lips, and she knew it would only be right when that body was wrapped around hers, legs entwined. To not see him again would be torture worse than the hooks – worse even than walking on needles with every step she took across the land.

“There is no other way for me,” she said finally, agreeing to the dark nymph’s terms.

Bliss’s face turned grave, and she reached down to retrieve the knife from where it had fallen. Even though she looked solemn, there was a gleam of anticipation in her silver eyes.

“We’ll have to surface,” she said. “It’s going to be bloody.”