Three Times Chosen Read online

  Ochar herself was ornamented with a classy mother-of-pearl pendant, the iridescent bluish-white nacre sculpted into a flattened nautilioid helix. Said to connote oceanic antiquity, it plunged down her neckline to dangle between an old pair of upright boobs unmoved by the pull of gravity thanks to saltwater buoyancy.

  Returning to Durgay's side with a sealed clam in one hand, Ochar lightly scolded him. “Really, Pellish, you must take better care of yourself. I can't be expected to swim after a grown merman all day patching up your bumps and scrapes, even if I did promise “in sickness and in health"."

  "I'm Durgay,” the recuperating Fisher said in a puzzled click.

  "Of course you are,” Ochar inanely rejoined, opening the bivalve holder to reveal a sickly brown jelly contained inside. “Forgetting your own name? That's a sure sign of old age."

  "Who's Pellish?"

  The forename jogged Ochar's potholed memory. Anguished remembrance inflected her returning whistle. “Where did you hear that name?"

  "You called me it just now."

  Covering her mistake with a forced, toothless smile, the forgetful old girl pensively clicked, “Maybe you remind me of him,” scooping out a fingerful of the icky salve.

  "Who Ochar?"

  "My dead husband."

  "I didn't know you had been married."

  "There are many things I haven't told you about my life, Durgay.” Ochar dimly recalled birthing several children, but their names and numbers eluded her. The uncomfortable look she dispensed subtly warned the Fisher he had overswum the mark. Cetari privacy held greater value than even whalebone.

  Durgay tactfully changed subjects. “Just what is that goop you keep plastering on my belly?"

  "Abyssal sediment ground with sea slug innards to make it bind and give it adhesion,” the elderly nurse informed him, liberally smearing the gel on Durgay's burns. A healthier blueness coloured his previously ashy, poorly skin.

  "Mud mixed with slime.” He shuddered in revulsion.

  "Seafloor ooze dredged from the bottom of the Trench is a marvellous cure-all, if a trifling hard to come by.” Not one to openly pry herself, Ochar's innate curiosity enabled her over the course of her unnaturally long life to amass a treasure trove of useful, and sometimes useless, knowledge. She decided to enlarge that storehouse. After nursing him for three days, Durgay was still not candid concerning the hows and whys of his irregular wounds.

  Finishing up her doctoring, Ochar snapped shut the clam and went to return the holder to its specific nook in the fractured walls. Suddenly unfamiliar with her homely surroundings, she floated agedly to the cave mouth and pretended to inspect the small coral garden struggling to bloom in the low-light depths directly outside. The pair of Seaguardians manning the doorway stared impassively ahead under the subdued halo cast by a tethered light-fish lantern, patently aware of, but not acknowledging, her presence.

  "Your watchdogfishes continue guarding my home. Very nice of Lasbow to provide a security service for the elderly.” The captain had dropped by while Durgay slipped in and out of consciousness, stiffly informing Ochar without explaining why that her patient's recuperation had turned into incarceration. She had seen genuine regret in Lasbow's eyes. Ochar expected him back anytime to officially take Durgay into custody now he was on the seaway to recovery.

  "The Seaguard are not mine to command. I only train them,” refuted the old Fisher. “At least that was my job. I'm likely unemployed now."

  "Castle Rock is bubbling with gossip that even reaches me stuck way down here at the bottom of the sea,” Ochar clicked, manoeuvring away from the archway with rheumaticky slowness. “You've become the talk of the reef, Durgay."

  "Losing a princess does put you in the spotlight,” he grudgingly admitted.

  Lowering her vocalisations to a stream of hushed, barely audible clicks the guards outside could not possibly overhear, Ochar bluntly intuited, “That comes from venturing where you ought not to be swimming. Landhopper central is no place to be gallivanting with a sightseeing royal."

  "She took me there!” Durgay whispered back defensively.

  "A fact I am sure Cerdic will take into account once he deduces where the two of you trespassed."

  Rotating into an upright position with weak swirls of his muscled arms, Durgay rumbled moodily. Sound conveyed emotion more effectively than vision in Cetari culture and the growling audile vibes he was giving off broadcast his disgruntlement to Ochar.

  "Oh pipe down!” she chided him. “The mermale ego is too easily bruised. I wasn't condemning you, merely highlighting the way in which the Merking will view the matter."

  Durgay quieted his grumbles. “How did you figure out we visited Lunder Atoll?"

  "It doesn't take a genius to work that one out, which makes it all the more puzzling why Cerdic hasn't fathomed the truth. I'd not want to be in your flukes when fish-head does."

  "Aren't you meant to cheer up the sick?” Durgay complained to his pessimistic nurse.

  "No point wasting clicks,” whistled the ancient merwoman. “You're sunk."

  "Don't beat about the coral, Ochar."

  "Your life's too short for that.” Remembering where to place her wayward clam, she set it down upon a pile of unmarked others messing up a corner wall ledge. Her aged-bent back to him, Ochar admitted to Durgay, “I may be losing my cockles with the inevitability of waves scouring sand off a beach, but I have sense enough left in me to recognise what Cerdic's up to. He wants you shipshape so he can mete out punishment for bumping off his plaything."

  Distracted by the previously unnoticed absence of one of the Seaguards, Durgay restated his innocence. “Lorea took charge that day. She decided to swim to Desolation Reef. I was honour bound to escort her."

  "Again I say, will King Cerdic see it that way?"

  Durgay's unresponsiveness added weight to that uncomfortable realisation.

  Captain Lasbow abruptly appeared at the cave mouth, a quartet of Fishers backing their grimly determined officer. Without word or invite they invaded the grotto unopposed, one drifting over to ensure Ochar stayed clear of proceedings, the others smothering Durgay. All the while Lasbow remained guiltily wordless, consciously avoiding eye contact with his mentor.

  Durgay faked a smile, jesting while his wrists were bound with braided seagrass cords. “I guess this isn't a social visit then, Las."

  * * * *

  The dungeon was cold, dark, and wet. Unsurprising for an unlighted, undersea cave perforating the lower reef extremities 300 feet below the veiling waves.

  Floating gloomily against the craggy back wall of his prison, cloaking his despondency with the inky water, Durgay stared with listless eyes at the unbarred cave mouth. Doors and their associated closure were unknown to the sociable Cetari, much like crime. Which is not to say those thankfully few lawless merfolk constituting the uncommon criminal fraternity were free to roam the reef at will. Seaguardians entrusted with policing duties kept the detainees confined to Castle Rock's cave cells by their undeviating presence until the Merking passed sentence and the paroled wrongdoers reintegrated back into society after a suitable period of rehabilitation passed. Currently Durgay was the sole felon in custody. All he had for company was the two jailers dependably guarding the grotto entrance outdoors and they were hardly willing talkers, despising him with their reticence.

  Replaying the scene in his mind, Durgay's interrogation following his formal detention was pithy and, to his great relief, did not involve torture. Throughout his grilling from Cerdic he was the model of cooperation, squarely shouldering blame for indirectly causing Princess Lorea's premature death through guiding her into Harvest Shallows. Not once did he shy away from foundering to adequately protect the royal person. The Merking reacted badly to news that the actual perpetrators of the assassinative deed were dastardly Landhoppers and not simply a villainous shark, storming out of the cell in a flurry of fins without bothering to pronounce judgement on the prisoner. Durgay was grateful for Cerdic's brusque
exit. The king's hastiness spared the shamefaced Fisher inventing a lie to cover Lorea's seditious intent for journeying to Lunder Atoll in the first place. Trident misplacement, trespass, and royal mermanslaughter were serious enough charges without lumping treason on to the catch.

  Arresting his teacher encumbered Lasbow terribly. Electing to stay behind to alleviate his buddy's miserable imprisonment, he broke his guilty silence with hollow clicks of reassurance. For his part Durgay lifted that burden from his protégé's weighted shoulders.

  "Don't ever regret doing your job, Las. Captaining the Seaguard is no swim in the marine park. Doing the distasteful stuff comes with the territory. While not always agreeing with the king's decision making, you'll nevertheless implement his wishes without demur."

  "Even when commonsense tells me otherwise."

  "Cerdic made the right call jailing me."

  "Abaloney! Princess Lorea's pomposity got her killed, not any failing on your part, Durg."

  "Don't blow warm water up my tailpipe, Lasbow. You weren't there. I deserve whatever verdict Cerdic dishes out."

  "Based on the facts presented, I doubt any Fisher could have prevented that snotty mermaid's demise."

  "I wasn't completely honest,” Durgay reluctantly confessed. “Right after Lorea's capture ... I froze."

  "Don't Landhoppers hunt by tracking movement? Freezing in place was the appropriate reaction."

  Durgay rebutted using that tactic. “I panicked, Las. I was frozen with fear."

  Lasbow could have cared less about his mentor's professed cowardice. “Faced with those odds, even a school of Seaguards would've backed down. You're no yellowbelly, and dying needlessly makes no sense. “Live to guard another day". That was the lesson you taught."

  Whistling glumly, Durgay moaned, “You don't catch on. Why do you think I've stayed a trainer for so long?"

  "That's easy. You excel at teaching."

  "And fail at real life exploits. In almost every adventure undertaken, I've messed up. Diving, spearfishing ... you name the task and I've made a hash of it. When just a plain Fisher all I ever hooked was strife. Every scrape I've gotten into ended up with somebody else rescuing me."

  "You escaped the atoll,” Lasbow correctly pointed out.

  "On the back of an unwilling Tylo-croc,” amended Durgay. “Without her help, I'd have been fish food. That's why I took to instructing like a sea duck to water. I was promoted to tutor to keep me out of harm's way, hiding behind my students like a snail tucked safely away in its shell. Let loose, I'm a menace to myself and others."

  "You are a dark seahorse. I had no inkling,” the captain murmured in baffled clicks, apparently blinded to Durgay's claimed ineptitude by his early idolisation of the merman. “I always thought your profusion of body scars indicated courage."

  "They're a sham, the legacy of careless brushes with death. I'm a perpetual loser, not a victor."

  Disbelief made Lasbow shake his head. “This is maudlin clicking, not the real you. The Durgay I've known my whole life is a brave, honourable merman."

  Caught up in a rare moment of introversion, Durgay philosophised, “How well can we know any one merperson? We all have two faces; one for public show, the other kept private for confronting our own personal demons.” Wallowing in his introspective mood, he modestly compared himself to a rock left exposed by the lowering tide. “Now you've seen the core of me, barnacles and all. I'm all washed up."

  Faced with another prominent mermale in his life revealing uncanvassed shortcomings, Lasbow said, “Your only letdown is not letting me be the true friend I am to you. I can't help someone who doesn't want aid,” leaving Durgay alone afterwards dampened by his own inadequacies.

  That exchange took place a good hour ago and the captain returned now with his king, bringing with him the heartbroken Merqueen. Snapping back to his present dismalness, it surprised Durgay to see the surviving Merprincess coasting into his grotty cell alongside her stern-faced parents. Puzzlingly, Lasbow placed himself between Cerdic and his petite niece cum stepdaughter, holding aloft a light-fish lamp to ward off the deepish dark and, to Durgay's perception, any resident evils. Made fiercely angelic by the nimbus of cold bioluminosity radiating down his raised arm and haloing his hairless pate, the captain's posture came across as protective. But just whom was his attitude directed at?

  The carriage of weapons into the prison caves was taboo, yet the Merking openly flaunted that ban by the whalebone-handled sword filling in his clenched hand. An arrant reminder to all present that he personified Castle Rock authority, Cerdic levelled the dicer judgementally at the jailed Fisher. Primarily used for ceremonial functions, the hilted four-foot long, flattened swordfish bill remained a potent slashing weapon expressly crafted for an earlier sovereign, which wound up handed down to the kings coming in his wake.

  Raising the tip of his symbolic sword to menace Durgay's unhopeful face, Cerdic formally petitioned his queenly wife, “Does the victim's kith have anything to say to the accused before I pass sentence?"

  Cetari common law, while unorthodox, preserved simplicity. Crooks, regardless of the severity of their crime, automatically forfeited the rights and privileges accorded every merman, merwoman, and merchild. Those miscreants found their citizenship suspended until such time their penitence restored them to the society they knowingly abused. Arbitrating stayed the providence of the Merking. There was no court, no trial by your peers. He alone was judge, jury, and executor.

  Minoh glided forward unescorted, Lasbow shielding her chaste daughter while the king maintained his rigid long guard stance. Regular workouts with his regal toy forged Cerdic into a better swordsman than statesman, sustaining his high profile as a monarch who could back up his own commands without necessarily resorting to Seaguard clout.

  Leaning close to Durgay's lughole, Minoh whispered for his ears alone, “All mermen are cock-ups,” drawing back to enfold Princess Ahlegra mutually supportive tenderness.

  "Fisher Durgay,” resumed Cerdic, “under the Seaguard charter I find you guilty of gross misconduct and negligence. Additionally, as laid out in fathomless Castle Rock law, you've committed the graver, unpardonable crimes of trespass and unlawful regicide. What you plead is irrelevant. The sentence is death."

  At first the shock verdict did not register upon the old timer. Resigned to banishment, the severest penalty expectable, Durgay never once contemplated execution for his multiple offences. Togetherness precluded the merfolk from overtly killing their fellow Cetari. Surviving the dangerous seas was difficult enough without murder depleting the breakable numbers making up the Castle Rock populace.

  Barely comprehending Cerdic's decree himself, Lasbow wisely let the pronouncement go uncontested. He learnt his lesson not to question the Merking's rationale. Intently studying his judged mentor, he saw likewise acceptance in his inexpressive friend's deportment; the disgraced bowing of Durgay's head, the downcast ebony eyes blacked further by guilt, his slumped shoulders holding that resigned hunch.

  The unavoidability of his punishment sinking in, Durgay oddly welcomed his king's harsh resolution. Instant death was preferable to a lingering demise in the lonely deep isolated from all companionship. Cruelly, that quicker fate was not to be straightaway.

  "Gratifying as watching you squirm on the barbs of an executioner's trident is going to be, I'm granting you a temporary stay of execution,” Cerdic surprisingly told Durgay. Resenting her husband's backstroke, Cerdic mollified his infuriated queen. “There is a more demanding issue that warrants my immediate attention than gutting this piece of fish bait. Rest assured, Minoh. Just as soon as that other matter is dealt with, I'll be back to personally oversee his being put to death."

  Reinforcing his point with the tip of his swordbill blade, Cerdic prodded Durgay's barrel chest, leaving bloodless indentations. “Don't think you're off the hook, Fisher. This is no reprieve, only a delay."

  Cerdic, slipping his groping arms around the waists of his merwomenfolk, bundled the royal
family out of the everlastingly dank cell, but not before Minoh clicked pitilessly at Durgay, “You'll wind up deader than my darling firstborn, you horrid beast. And Pah Ocean will be the better for it."

  Stunned by the Merqueen's uncharacteristic malice, the downbeat Seaguardian nearly missed Lasbow hanging back to dispel his teacher's unvoiced perplexity. “Enjoy, if you can, what little time remains to you, old friend. You're but the last in a long line of culprits Cerdic aims to eliminate."

  Reaching out quick as a splash to clutch Lasbow's forearm, Durgay relinquished his grip just as impulsively, realising he no longer had any right for such personal interaction with his superior. That did not stop him asking, “What's kingfish planning?"

  Lasbow fretted. Even in Durgay's darkest hour he genially referred to the Merking using the Seaguards private name for their patron. Loyalty, however laudable, could be grossly misplaced.

  "Using the Fishers to get even. He's scheming a reprisal against the airheads in response to Lorea's murder. You aren't the only one copping blame for silencing our mouthy princess, or who'll forfeit his life because of it."

  Taking that momentous information onboard, Durgay wanted to pump Lasbow for details. Cerdic bossily summoning his loitering guard commander from outside prevented that. “Shake a tail fluke, Captain. Time and tide wait for no merman."

  Sounding distinctly unenthused, Lasbow revealingly griped, “Must dash. I've a frog hunt to launch,” hastening from the prison grotto to perform his king's vagary. Time just kept repeating itself.

  Chapter Seven

  Everybody was contemplating violence. Durgay's ludicrously unforeseen escape from Harvest Shallows with the very nightmare meant to munch him embarrassed the Piawro hierarchy no end. The idea of feeding the sacrificial merman to the slavering tylo-croc completely backfired, leaving the bloodthirsty masses severely disillusioned and dangerously insatiated. Responsible for making the call to release the captured Fish-with-Hands, Ryops naturally found himself the principle target for the crowd's frustration. Shouts of abuse pelted the flinching Dokran Teh. Chulib and his amphibimen hurriedly ringed his chieftain with bamboo shields bearing the leader's copyrighted device of a black orb on a field of blue signifying Dokran breeding privileges. Anticipating the verbal missiles would soon be exchanged for rockier insults, the resolute Shurpeha flaunted their individual macanas, poised to counteract with their own peculiar brand of belligerence.