Three Times Chosen Read online

  Used to having her every whim unhesitatingly indulged, the Fisher speaking out of turn mortified Lorea. Blue blood ran through her veins, not the red of the commoners. “We go wherever we desire,” she brusquely reminded him.

  No stranger himself to bossing others around, Durgay recklessly batted using the leverage, “The Merqueen said not to swim beyond the reef, Princess. It might muss up your gill covers."

  Like red seaweed to a cowfish, Lorea butted aside her constraining parental control by resorting to good old-fashioned blackmail. “We do not need your permission to go in search of fun. We are paddling into deeper water. Do you wish Cerdic is informed we swum out there without you?"

  Durgay conceded defeat. He preferred facing a school of megasharks than be subjected to the unforgiving Merking's wrath. “Just so long as “we” don't stray too far from the reef, Highness,” he requested.

  Smug with her tiny victory, Lorea ignored the Fisher's call for commonsense and swam off. Left with no alternative but to follow, Durgay silently invoked the Sea God to rescue him from this folly.

  Pastures of verdant seagrasses unfolded beneath the exiting Castle Rockers like emerald tiles chequering the shallows. Tended to by diligent farmers, these plantings of eelgrass and silky weed, rooted in the sandy base footing the outer reef crest, formed the core of Cetari aquaculture. Patrolling the plantations, determined Fishers chased away turtle and dugong grazers drawn to the succulent, strap-shaped leaves swaying temptingly in the current. Fishes were generally welcomed, endorsing a burgeoning fish farm industry to supplement the seagrass and seaweed harvests. The armed mermen not only guarded the crops, discouraging nosy six-foot long reef sharks from hassling the industrious cultivators.

  The undersea farms showcased the inviolable division of labour segmenting Cetari society. Fittingly named, Fishers worked the open ocean spearing or trawling for the pelagic fish species making up the meat quota of merfolk diet, leaving unthreatened the seagoing mammals. Inexplicably deemed the Untouchables by venerating ancestors, to this day the conservational Cetari ethos prohibited exploiting sea lions and manatees as rich food sources, bizarrely treating the dullard air-gulpers as kindred spirits. Merwomen traditionally farmed not just the seafloor beds of saltwater grasses and eatable seamosses; they collected also delicacies such as lobsters and horseshoe crabs. Over the past few decades the conventional hunter-gatherer roles blurred due to the expanding sea farms, marking a noticeable shift in the mode of Cetari existence. It was in developmental terms a huge leap for merfolk evolution, more so for a people denied the jumpstart of fire usage.

  Reaching the bottom of the reef slope, Lorea charily slowed to a standstill. Spreading his arms outwards Durgay braked too, pausing nervously on the lip of a near vertical wall plummeting 700 fathoms into the twilight zone and beyond.

  Every merperson harboured an inbred fear of the Deep, of being sucked down into the frigid, pitch-black abyss and squashed into nothingness by the crushing water pressure. Durgay's phobia was worse than most. Prompted by a dare in his reckless youth, he plunged to 800 feet before terror paralysed him into a cataleptic state and he blacked out, fished to shallower water by an accompanying diver. Taking days to recover from his ordeal, Durgay vowed never to descend further than the sunrays penetrated.

  Overcoming her disquiet, Lorea swum daringly off the edge. For all her unruliness, the princess showed spunk. “Are you joining us, Fisher, or must we hold your hand?"

  Spurred on by her taunt, Durgay kicked away from the safety net of the reef. Directly beneath him, the guyot supporting Castle Rock and its coral outlands slid down into the voluminous ocean depths to bottom out in a ragged trench scarring the seafloor a mind-blowing six and half miles below the waves, putting this unnamed submarine-mountain 6,000 feet head and shoulders above Everest.

  Trying his hardest not to think about the terrifying drop, Durgay focused on the princess who was astonishingly forgetting her station. Cavorting in the weightless blue, she danced an elegant watery ballet to the natural musical accompaniment of the sea's rhythm, fleetingly shedding the encumbrance of royal life. Nowhere near to liking the snobbish girl, he understood all too well taking a moment to let your gill filaments down.

  Finishing up on a pirouette, Lorea harpooned Durgay with a commanding stare. “We are heading out farther,” she informed him.

  Knowing better than to argue, the Fisher complied with a muttering click. “I guess we are."

  Swimming out into the seaway, princess and protector hitched a ride in the warming waters of the South Equatorial current. Drifting steadily northwest at a leisurely three knots, Durgay kept a wary eye out for opportunistic sharks. Picking out an incoming expedition of Fishers emerging from the backdrop blue, he watched them cruise by with envy, towing a mixed line of red snapper and yellow jacks snagged on whalebone hooks. Such open-water fish congregated on the reef heads to feed, themselves preyed upon by Cetari anglers and spearmen. Recognising none in the party, since he trained only Fishers selected for induction into the ranks of the elitist Seaguard, Durgay nonetheless acknowledged the salutes from those who distinguished the senior merman from the accompanying princess. Lorea herself merited scarcely a passing nod of recognition from the homeward bound group, and huffed her displeasure at the snub.

  Taking her petulance out on Durgay, she ordered him to find her transportation. Merwomen were built for low mileage, not long distance swimming. Unable to stifle his protest, he expressed concern leaving Her Haughtiness alone and unprotected even for a short while.

  "Do you think us incapable of defending ourselves?” she curtly clicked, snatching the trident out of his hands.

  Aghast, Durgay gulped like a goldfish. He felt vulnerably naked without his weapon; no mean feat for a member of a sentient race where clothes were nonexistent.

  Whalebone was sacrosanct, reserved solely for mermen to handle. Recovered at considerable personal danger to gutsy collectors from whale falls—corpses of the seagoing behemoths which sunk to the ocean floor in 3,000 and more feet of inky, freezing water to decay over a ten year period into scattered boneyards—the five to eight foot long ribs arduously hauled up to lighter waters were an inestimable treasure, more so considering great whale song had not carried hauntingly across the oceanic vastness in the blurring decades following the gentle giants regrettable decline into extinction. Hallowed by the Cetari from before the time they undertook their Grait Migratus, the epic resettlement from icy northern seas to the balmy tropics in the dimly remembered past, whalebone represented the enduring mystery of the sea. Delivered to master bonecarvers once suitable prayers sanctified the pieces for reshaping, adroit hands utilising shell scrapers lovingly sculpted the ribs into the cherished tridents handed out to freshly ordained Fishers in a special ceremony.

  Memorable to this day still, Durgay's induction into mermanhood culminated in the then Merking, Cerdic's beloved brother, presenting the latest batch of achievers with their individual status symbol. Last in line, the over-the-moonfish teen fumbled his acceptance, dropping the blessed weapon during the secret rite held in a spacious cavern away from snooping merwomen. Retaining his trident for life, each recipient took an oath never to let the consecrated whalebone be despoiled by female hands on pain of death.

  An ancient and ambiguous canon, it failed to clarify if the offender or owner got executed as punishment for the violation. Disinclined to nobly fall on a swordfish bill, Durgay pessimistically guessed the infracting princess was exempt from any and all laws.

  Bully for her, he griped, pitying any shark foolish enough to molest her while he went looking for a ride. Wielding a tongue sharper than razor coral and more noxious than sea snake venom, Lorea scarcely needed his trident.

  Durgay returned a half hour later on the back of a gigantic manta ray winging its way down into the cobalt like a malevolent bat. Gripping as you would handlebars the horn-like cephalic fins used to funnel planktonic food into its yawning, toothless mouth, he steered the undersea flier to
a halt directly below Lorea. Relinquishing his docile mount to the princess in return for his three-pronged stabber, he took up station beside the sinisterly black-cloaked, white-bottomed devilfish. Looks can be deceiving, manta rays gentler than pussycatfish.

  Grabbing hold of the steerage “horns,” Lorea slapped the ray's leathery hide with the flat of her tail. Flapping its twenty-two foot wingspan with sluggish grace, the commandeered manta cruised off into the blue. Matching the fish's unhurried pace Durgay had the temerity to ask if Lorea had a specific destination in mind.

  "Thataway,” she returned, nosing the devilfish in an easterly heading.

  Durgay tagged along submissively until he worked out, “There's nothing of interest in this direction except ... Landhopper holdings! That's forbidden water!"

  "We only want to see with our own eyes what the fuss is all about. How dangerous can an island be?"

  The old Fisher was adamant. “Other than those graduating Fishers undertaking the Proving Swim, no Cetari is permitted to dive anywhere near Lunder Atoll."

  Dropping her royal vernacular, Lorea smirked naughtily. “I can do whatever I want. I'm a princess. The seaworld is my oyster."

  Chapter Two

  The sun dazzled burningly. Shading his unblinking eyes against the sweltering brightness with the flat of his hand, Durgay took his bearings topside. Dead ahead, a dollop of mountainous emerald green blotted the seascape, an unsightly blemish of jungly basaltic rock sticking out like a sore thumb in the noon glare. Away in the distance off to his right stretched a desert coastline, the sandy dunes heaving in landscaped mimicry of the restless ocean. Lorea surfaced nosily beside him, blatantly disregarding his earlier call to wait underwater for her minder to signal it was safe to pop up.

  "It's horribly hot and dry up here,” the princess whinged, screwing up her pretty face against the moisture-sucking sun and wind.

  Durgay ignored her churlish complaint, focusing on the rugged island skyline. Bobbing a mile offshore, his aquatically suited eyes had difficulty making out detail at a distance. Colour range stayed limited to the bluish-greens prevailing the undersea palette while exact shapes degraded into indistinct blobs. Movement remained instantly detectable and the Fisher scanned the razor-backed ridges cresting the sparsely wooded, angular hills for telltale signs of Landhopper activity. Thankfully, his scrutiny turned up nothing untoward. Among the oddments of knowledge generations of circumspect Cetari scraped together on their neighbours from hell, one recurring snippet was how the goings-on of the Lunder Atoll islanders came to a complete standstill in the heat of midday. Today was no different, meaning the spying merfolk could briefly hang about unobserved.

  "We cannot see much from this far away,” Lorea moaned, blasé about the uninspiring smudge of lifeless tropical green.

  Hoping against hope to keep it that way, Durgay ducked his head under the waves, checking for the ever-present danger sharks posed. All clear on that front too, he purposely did not relax his guard. The fifteen-mile wide channel separating the adjoining islets was shark-infested water, notoriously patrolled by hundred-strong groups of scalloped hammerheads. Luckily for the Cetari these twelve-foot long predatory fishes were nighttime feeders that rested during the day, swimming languidly about uninterested in food. That fact notwithstanding, the proximity of killer fish habitually made Durgay uneasy.

  Lorea dived past him to the sixty-foot mark, returning to the cooling wetness where sunburn and heatstroke could not afflict her. Joining the princess in time to hear the expected utterance, “We wish to swim closer, so that we might gain a glimpse of the frogs,” Durgay naturally argued against it a second time. His reiteration fell on deaf earholes.

  Arms held tightly against her sides, Lorea swam with the typical undulating motion of the merfolk, her tail propelling her along at a good rate of knots. Durgay chased after, thrusting his trident ahead of him to lessen the underwater drag of the weapon. Expecting to overtake the princess in no time, he found himself struggling just to keep pace. Showing unbelievable stamina for one living a pampered and sheltered life, Lorea covered the intervening yardage to Lunder Atoll in a surprisingly short space of time, arriving on the outskirts of Desolation Reef as exhausted as the manta ray a pitying Durgay released back into the ocean wilds prior to his spyhopping.

  Sadly living up to its name, the reef was a wasteland of dead, colourless coral. Every thousand years a staggering population explosion of crown-of-thorns starfish infested the reefs. Capable of reproducing at an unbelievable rate and feeding selectively on coral, these swarming two-foot wide, multi-armed creepers shielded by poison-tipped spines reached epidemic proportions, consuming every living thing in their path. Lunder Atoll's spectacular undersea gardens were recently subjected to two consecutive plagues within the space of twenty years, rendering the reef unrecoverable. A million plus starfish, each devouring seven square yards of coral over the course of one year, blanketed the terraces in an unstoppable carpet of death. Stomachs protruded through mouths to envelop the sedentary coral, potent digestive juices dissolving the soft-bodied polyps to a liquid in a matter of hours. Soaked up by the spongy stomach lining, all that remained of the once thriving coral colony was acres of bleached skeletons. With no natural predators other than insufficiently numbered Bearded triggerfish and tritons—a giant, carnivorous sea snail—to curb the outbreak, the starfish rampage was left to subside naturally after a few years of unrestrained carnage when they sucked their food source dry.

  The newest infestation was persisting into its second year of heartbreak, desolating the paltry one eighth of re-growth on the far side of the assailed reef battling futilely to make a comeback. Cruising above the whitened graveyard of decimated coral stretching outwards for mile upon mile, the utter devastation left even the mouthy princess speechless. Utterly devoid of flitting fish, the encroaching Cetari paddled through a ghostly sea empty of sound as well as sights. Fortunate to possess no sense of smell, they were spared the offensive stench of liquefying coral spreading on the ocean current, attracting even more starfish to the beleaguered reef and cementing its doom.

  Shuddering from exposure to the calamity, Durgay thanked the starfish (unfortunately the only Cetari adage applicable in this instance) for those Castle Rock harvesters charged with clearing Bounty Reef of the thorny pests on a daily basis, thereby maintaining the flimsy balance of the marine ecosystem's cornerstone.

  The threat of shark attack lessening, the old Fisher concentrated on the perils endemic to Lunder Atoll. Working as the respected instructor of the vaunted Seaguard required from Durgay a familiarity with the location and habits of those nasty swimmers terrorising Pah Ocean. The Landhoppers were no exception, although the mermen did not actively pursue an ongoing watch of the island anymore. Such vigilance was simply too risky in light of repeated frog aggression.

  Banking on being third time lucky, Durgay regurgitated his protest at swimming beyond the bounds of Castle Rock and commonsense. “Cetari maritime law is explicit, Highness,” his voice echoey in the fluid stillness. “It states the seas encompassing the Landhoppers” atoll is strictly off-limits—with no exemptions. Proceeding further is inadvisable."

  Floating in the hover over a particularly large patch of lifeless white limestone blotting the doomed reef, Lorea pompously countered with, “We enjoy a royal dispensation from every rule."

  Adamant on making his point clear, the Seaguardian put forth, “The ban was stuck in place for good reason. Whenever those landlubbers are encountered, bloodshed results. Which is why a previous king, one of your kith and fin, outlawed fishing the landward side of the strait to cut down on incidents and injuries. Since the prohibition was implemented there hasn't been a Landhopper related merman death for several lifetimes. I don't intend to be the one breaking that drought."

  "Our intent was never to wind up stuffed and mounted on a Landhopper wall, granddaddy Fisher.” The chesty princess stayed abreast of island pursuits too.

  The flame of suspicion fire
d Durgay's jet-black eyes. Forgetting his place he grabbed Lorea's arm, his interrogating clicks degenerating into irate whistles. “You planned this outing all along?"

  Squirming in his steely grasp, she demanded, “Unhand me this instant! Lesser mermen than you are filleted for such audacity."

  "Not until you tell me what you're playing at, Your High-and-Mightiness. I don't like being tricked."

  "This is no game,” refuted the princess, “not when the Cetari throne is at stake.” Confusion loosened Durgay's hold on Lorea, enabling her to wriggle free. “Who do you think whispered in Cerdic's earhole to let you escort me for the day rather than that pearl-digger Lasbow."

  "You meant to bring me here?"

  "But of course,” she confirmed. “You alone possess the smarts to see me in and out of Harvest Shallows safely."

  Durgay's mind spun like a whirlpool. Evidently the princess was far removed from the vapid airhead she seemed.

  Dealing with his bafflement, Lorea dropped her pomposity and made clear her guile. “I am princess in name only. Oh sure, my every whim is catered for, all my needs met, but I lack real authority. Liken me to a toothless megashark; commanding in presence but denied biting power. I am a lobster deprived of its claws, a sea urchin devoid of spines, a—"

  "I get the point,” butted in Durgay, sick of her belabouring what appeared to him a trivial issue.

  Lorea carried on regardless of the interjection. “...stingray without a sting. That is due to us—meaning the Cetari, not myself personally—enduring patriarchal rule for longer than memory recounts. Merkings traditionally preside over Bounty Reef as our secular and spiritual leader, reducing their Merqueens to naught but ornamental coral. When has a merwoman ever ruled the Cetari? Never! What has a merwoman ever done except raise calves and crops? So what chance does a princess have of inheriting her rightful queenship, other than by ruling vicariously through her husband's reign."

  Never had cause to consider the topic before, Durgay was reluctant to examine Cetari inequality now. Merwomen undertook the menial chores, freeing the grandstanding mermales to swan off fishing. Such chauvinism extended to, and was exemplified by, the monarchy. The Merking shone as the glamorous figurehead of Castle Rock, making the important and difficult decisions, his decorative wife the undervalued, supportive sidekick. Mermen had been living their sexist way unchanged for untold years. Why rock the boat with talk of Merwomen's Lib?