Seasons of Sorcery Read online

  Brida held up her hands once again to signal she wasn’t a threat. She pursed her lips and tried to echo the four whistles she’d heard years earlier. The merman’s eyes widened, his narrow nostrils flared hard, and his entire body twitched in reaction.

  She had no idea what she just said and prayed it wasn’t some vile insult or promise to visit some violence on the merman or merchild. She eased back a little more, away from the tail and the reach of those muscular arms and webbed hands.

  The merman’s chirp carried a wealth of question and surprise. Brida dared not show her relief that he didn’t react with anger and kept her expression neutral. She patted her chest with her hand. “Brida.” She repeated the gesture. “I’m Brida.” She pointed to the merman. “You?”

  His answering whistle differed from the previous ones he’d uttered. Deeper, drawn out, with a stutter in the middle. His brow knitted in a frown.

  Now we’re getting somewhere, Brida thought. She repeated it as best she could, only to have him shake his head and whistle again, this time without the stutter. The effort left him panting.

  “I understand,” she said. That stutter had been inadvertent, a product of his pain and the weakening state of his body. She tried a second time, and was rewarded by a weak nod.

  When Brida pointed to the merchild, the merman replied with a another higher whistle, one that made the child open her eyes and chirp at him. He chirped back, lifting one hand to cup the small face in comfort.

  Brida’s eyes teared up, and for a moment she could neither whistle nor speak. Somehow she had to find a way to save these two. With a series of hand gestures, spoken word and the whistling of their names, she tried to convey the beginnings of a plan to get them both to the water.

  He passed out in the middle of her oration, and Brida gasped when his body went slack. The merchild echoed her alarm, tiny fluke slapping the seaweed mounded under her. Brida promptly forgot the last consequence to her mistake of getting too close and rushed forward to lift the merman in her arms. He was monstrously heavy, and her arms strained under the weight as his head lolled back.

  “Oh no,” Brida whispered. “No, no, no, no. Don’t you dare die on me.” She bent lower to listen, tears streaming down her face when no sound issued from his nose or mouth. She shook him as much as her strength allowed. He didn’t even flinch, body limp as a sack of grain. The child’s anguished mewing was nonstop now and growing louder.

  “It’s all right, little one,” Brida lied. “He’s just sleeping.” The long sleep. The death sleep. Brida shook him even harder, panic giving her strength. A faint gasp followed by an even fainter exhalation gusting across her cheek sent a surge of relief—no, joy—coursing through her. She whistled his name, and his eyes opened. This time his pupils had changed shape, dilated so they converged to create a black horseshoe that almost eclipsed his pale irises.

  Brida braced his torso on her knees and gently turned his head so that he faced the frightened merchild. His slippery hair spilled through her fingers where she cupped the back of his skull. “Show her you live.”

  Whether or not he understood her words, he comprehended their intentions and issued a series of weak chirps that calmed the merchild. Brida carefully lowered him to his side on the seaweed, noting for the first time the ridge of a small dorsal fin that ran the length of his spine. The change in position exposed more of the grievous bite wound but also eased his breathing.

  The merman reached for the child, and Brida helped him, careful only to touch his arm as he nudged the mergirl onto her side as well. Like the adult, the child’s breathing grew less labored. Brida sat back on her haunches and exhaled. Maybe, just maybe that small position change had bought them time.

  She had an idea, one that held no guarantees of saving the pair, but it was better than nothing, and leaving them here on the beach. They’d be dead by the next day. If she could get both back in the water, they at least had a chance.

  She spent the next hours keeping the two wet and cool with water from the diminishing tidal pools and hauling cut seaweed to the wagons farther down the beach. Brida declined offers to join others for lunch or a quick rest when she emptied her baskets at the wagon. By the time the harvesters called it a day, she was nearly seeing double from exhaustion. Still, her charges clung to life.

  Cloud cover pillowed a sky the dull color of flint. Brida was grateful for it. Right now, the sun was an enemy, its warm rays punishing splinters on the beached merfolk. She briefly considered covering them both with a blanket of wet seaweed but discarded the idea. Their bodies gave off a feverish heat now, the shimmering sea colors streaking up their skin nearly gone, leaving their bodies and faces ashen. Piling on wet seaweed might camouflage them from passersby, but they’d overheat even more without the cooling breeze from the Gray drifting over them.

  Brida crouched before the merman and whistled his name. His eyelids twitched but didn’t lift. She touched his cheek, unsurprised at how hot it felt beneath her finger. “I’ll be back when night falls. Hold on a little longer. Both of you.”

  It was hard to walk away from them, even harder to pretend with her brother that nothing unusual had happened while she harvested. She glanced up at the dreary sky, silently counting the hours until nightfall when she could return to the shore unobserved.

  Laylam side-eyed her curiously as he drove his wagon back to the village, its box piled high with dripping seaweed. “You’re far away in your head, Brida. Quieter than usual. You feeling peaky?”

  She patted his arm, offering a tired smile and a yawn that was far more sincere than affected. “Sorry. I’m just sleepy. I might even nod off on your shoulder before you drop me home.” She resisted the temptation to look back to the beach slowly disappearing behind the feathery barricade of salt grass.

  “Janen kept you and the others at the castle too long last night. He knew we had harvesting to tend to today.” Laylam flicked the reins, coaxing the horse into a faster clip. “Don’t worry about feeding me supper. Norinn said she’ll have a plate ready for me when I get home. One for you too if you want.”

  “I just want to sleep. Tell Norinn thank you and that I’ll see her tomorrow to help you both with laying out the seaweed to dry.” She didn’t lie. If she didn’t have two merfolk to try and save, she’d fall into her solitary bed without undressing and sleep until one of her nieces or nephews pounded on her front door the next morning. But slumber was a luxury that would have to wait.

  The obscured sun bloodied the western horizon by the time Laylam delivered her to her door. She waved to him from the doorstep until the wagon turned a corner and disappeared behind a row of houses along Ancilar’s market road.

  Hinges squeaked softly as she pushed open the door and paused. A scent of exotic spices mixed with perfume teased her nose. She’d smelled that scent before, though the memory only skated the edges of her mind before flickering away.

  The house she once shared with her husband Talmai was small and sparsely furnished, the line of sight from the door stretching into parlor, kitchen, larder, and bedroom. Silence rested within the empty rooms as if waiting to greet her the moment she crossed the threshold. Dust motes danced in the air, illuminated by the last bits of fading light that speared the front window. The pair of buckets she’d set out to catch the rain from her leaking roof stood undisturbed, nor had the book she’d left in her chair by the fire been moved. Still, she hesitated at the doorway, sensing a difference in the feel of the house from when she’d left it hours earlier.

  She crept across the parlor on quiet feet before easing the poker from its stand by the hearth. Only her heartbeat sounded in her ears, and she gripped the makeshift weapon with both hands, ready to bash or stab anything that leapt out at her. Fear sent a trickle of sweat down her spine despite the house’s chill, but anger at the thought of someone robbing her pushed her deeper into the rooms. She refused to abide a thief. If she caught one, they’d regret ever crossing her doorstep.

  No one. There wa
s no one. Neither in the bedroom nor the larder. Not lurking under the kitchen table or hiding behind the two thorny bushes in her garden. Still she couldn’t shake the sensation that someone had been here, creeping about, touching things. The thought made her skin crawl.

  She closed her door and threw the bolt home. Ancilar was a small village where most everyone knew each other. People didn’t steal from their neighbor, not if they wanted help for some calamity later. That someone might have done so here didn’t bode well for her or anyone in the village.

  Sick dread roiled in her belly. She returned the poker to its spot by the hearth and strode to the bedroom. The floorboard under her bed hadn’t been moved, and she exhaled a hard breath when her hand dipped into the hiding space beneath the floor and felt the pouch of coins.

  Her relief died a swift death as the memory of Lord Frantisek’s aggressive guest blossomed in her mind. The nobleman named Ospodine had stared at her flute with the fixation of a zealot.

  The scent. She knew it now. Ospodine had reeked of it.

  “Oh gods,” she muttered. “Not the flute! Not the flute!” She raced from the bedroom into the kitchen, stopping in front of the cupboard where she always stored the instrument. It lay as she’d left it, still within its protective cloth. Brida’s hand closed around it in a death grip, hesitating when more of the perfume and spice combination buffeted her nose.

  She almost tossed the flute from her then, furious at the idea that anyone would dare enter her home and rifle through her things while she was gone. It didn’t matter that nothing was taken, she felt violated. The urge to torch the house warred with her reason that reassured her a hard day’s worth of scrubbing, mopping and washing would take care of the smell.

  Still clutching the flute, Brida double-checked the bolt on her front door and did the same for the back before inspecting the latch at every window.

  She could tell the village council what happened, but who would believe her? Her intruder left no trace except for a distinctive scent. He’d stolen nothing except her peace of mind and sense of safety, intangible things as precious as her flute. What did he want if not the flute? Why had her practice notes drawn him like a shark to blood in the water?

  Any drowsiness she suffered burned away under the heat of her rage. She almost regretted not finding Ospodine still lurking in her house just so she’d have the pleasure of beating an apology out of him with the fireplace poker.

  The image of the beached merman and merchild rose in her mind’s eye, cooling the fire of her anger and replacing it with an urgency of a different kind. She’d somehow deal with Ospodine later. She still had the flute, the key to her half-mad plan in saving her charges. Nightfall couldn’t arrive soon enough.

  Evening brought a clearing of clouds along with colder temperatures as Brida hurried through the village’s deserted streets toward the distant beach. Even if she owned a horse, she’d still go on foot, unnoticed as she flitted between houses and skirted the pools of candle light spilling from windows as people settled in for the night.

  She huddled in her heaviest shawl, teeth chattering as the damp breeze blowing off the Gray cut through layers of clothing to raise gooseflesh on her skin. She glanced over her shoulder every few steps to make sure no one had seen her, or worse, was following. Once past the village’s perimeter, she broke into a sprint, cutting a swath through the salt grass toward the shore. Part of her prayed the two merfolk still lived, another part cautioned her not to put much hope in the notion.

  The tide had come in, black waves capped in white foam creeping farther and farther up the beach with every purl of the surf. Wet sand sucked at her bare feet, and cold water swirled around her ankles as she ran toward the tidal pools concealed by the short ridge of rocks.

  A chorus of whistles, carried on a brine-scented wind, rose above the surf’s thunder, and Brida stumbled to a halt at the eerie sight of small, greenish lights flickering in the troughs and peaks of the waves like fireflies. Swatches of clouds floated past a bright half moon that paved a silver road on the water’s surface.

  “My gods,” Brida breathed.

  Moonlight unveiled the source of the lights. Not fireflies, but eyes, bright with the animal eyeshine that shone at night in many creatures, wild and tame alike. A cluster of the glowing eyes gathered in the water directly across from the tidal pools where the merfolk were beached, and Brida caught glimpses of flukes slapping the water as their calls grew in number and volume. Two of the whistles were repeated over and over. Names. They were the two names the merman had whistled to her on a weak breath. His kinsmen were calling to him and the wee girl trapped with him.

  She resumed her sprint toward the tidal pools, splashing water as she ran. The whistles abruptly stopped, and the waves went dark. The merfolk had seen her. Brida prayed they didn’t swim away. She would need their help.

  The merman and child were black silhouettes under the shadows cast by the rocks that sheltered them. Seaweed floated over their bodies, lifted by the encroaching tide. It wasn’t enough to make them buoyant, but Brida hoped the continued rise might aid her in moving them closer to the deeper surf. If they even still lived.

  She tossed her shawl on one of the nearby rocks and crouched next to the merchild. “Please be alive, little one,” she prayed to any gods who might be listening. The bright moonlight didn’t reach here, and the darkness obscured details, but Brida noted the child’s tail had peeled even more, her small face hollowed out under the cheekbones as if she had withered in the autumn air. Her closed eyes were sunken, her lips cracked and bleeding. The child didn’t move when Brida laid a hand on her shoulder, nor did the merman beside her.

  Brida’s eyes teared as she touched cold, dry skin. She drew a shaky breath before tightening her lips to whistle the child’s name. The mergirl didn’t respond, even when Brida’s tears dripped on her throat and chest.

  Despairing, Brida scooped the child into her arms. Similar in size and maturity to a human toddler, the merchild was easily twice as heavy in Brida’s hold. She remained limp as Brida hugged her, pressing her face against her cheek, whistling softly.

  The faintest twitch made her freeze. She pulled back abruptly to stare at the mergirl’s shadowed features. Her gaze traveled the length of the small body, and she swallowed back a triumphant cry when the little fluke jerked upward in an anemic flap.

  She surged to her feet, staggering for a moment under the child’s weight, to face the Gray. Lantern flickers of eyeshine shimmered once more among the waves. The silenced calls started again, this time shrill or mournful. Sharp clicks and chirps accompanied them, reminding Brida of the merman’s vocalizations when she made the mistake of touching the merchild the first time.

  Fairy tales, told by generations of mothers, grandmothers, and old salts land-bound but still sea-ensorceled, teased her memories. Leviathans that lived in the black deep and swallowed ships whole. Ancient obludas that lured their victims with grief and ate them with teeth like daggers. And merfolk who frolicked in the waters and rode the bow waves of ships, waiting for some unfortunate sailor to fall in the water and drown in a mermaid’s seductive embrace.

  Brida had never sailed on a deep water ship or seen a leviathan, but she knew the obludas were real, and held in her arms proof that merfolk were more than myth. And all were dangerous to a land dweller like her. She had to get the merchild into the water, back to the family who watched her from the surf, but she didn’t want to die in a mermaid’s lethal arms.

  She waded calf-deep into the surf before stopping, her unconscious burden heavy against her. Her flute nestled in a satchel slung from her shoulder, so close but completely inaccessible unless Brida put the merchild down. She sank to her knees in the water, submerging the little girl from fluke to belly but careful to keep her shoulders and face clear of the rolling surf. With one hand she fished the flute out of the bag, pulling away the cloth cover with her teeth. She spat the cloth out. It floated away, rolling back with the tide toward the clus
ter of glittering eyes and flashes of silvery flesh.

  Twisted in a position that kept the merchild afloat in her arms, and the flute balanced in both hands, Brida raised the instrument to her mouth and blew into the end stem in a series of bursts. The sounds the flute made were sharper than those she made with just her mouth, but the tone was the same—one for the merman’s name, one for the child. He’d given her nothing else. Just their names, and she repeated them in a second burst of whistles played on the flute.

  Silence greeted her playing, though she didn’t imagine that the eyes drew closer. Fear coiled snakelike up her body. She was tempted to draw back, but the merchild’s increasing movements against her kept Brida in place. She’d brought the flute in the fragile hope she might better communicate with the merman. He was either dead or too far gone into delirium to whistle to her now, but those in the waves might do so if they were as willing to set aside their wariness of her as she was of them.

  She repeated the names twice more before changing tactics. Five years earlier, she had stood on this very beach and wailed her grief over the loss of her husband to a deaf sky. The moon didn’t answer, nor did the stars, but something in the Gray did—the four-note whistle she still played on her flute. A reply from the black waves, so full of sorrow and sympathy that Brida had fallen to her knees and sobbed until she retched.

  A mysterious reply from an unseen source then. Possibly a mystery no longer. Brida braced the merchild against her knees as she swayed with the surf’s infinite purling. She licked her lips before pressing them to the flute’s mouthpiece again, fingertips perched on the playing holes, and played the four-note tune.

  Had she lobbed a live, starving shark into the water, the reaction to the tune couldn’t have been more vehement, much like the wounded merman’s when she whistled it earlier. A frenzy of splashing heralded a cacophony of whistles and clicks that shrieked above the Gray’s dull roar. Multiple wakes of frothing water raced toward the shore. Brida almost dropped flute and merchild as she struggled to her feet, nearly falling face first into the water amidst a tangle of soggy skirts.