Field of Pearls

Kaloe floated in his pool, his face held carefully above the water, watching the door for any sign of his captors entering the room. He thought of how he had ended up here, every decision he had made that had cost him his home, his family and his freedom. The sea was harsh, but it was always forgiving. Every migration was chased by death, but the water cradled you and carried song through the waves. The land remembers. The dirt beneath every step is soaked in blood that will never wash away and a fall here would break bone. Kaloe remembered a time when he traveled far and wide with his pod, deep into the seas or along the surf. But those memories were faded now, like a piece of coral left in the summer sun. Kaloe no longer felt the pressure of waves crashing against his fins, or the sound of whales and sea serpents surrounding him, for now he belonged to the kingdom of land. To one man, The new King. Who left him drifting in a stagnant pool whenever he had no need of him. Many seasons ago, before he belonged to the land, the King had been his king for Kaloe was a creature of the realm and the King was the ruler of the realm. Though it had not always been this way.

Three scores ago, there lived many creatures in the realm of both land and sea. The creatures all lived apart from one another without understanding. Conflicts arose often between the creatures, who all wished for different ways of life and to take those ways of life away from others. The conflicts turned bloodier and more frequent, until one day a great man united all the creatures under one empire and gave them common law. This became known as the empire of the realm. All the creatures loved the great man, and so he became their king. But the entirety of the realm was much to rule over and many faults arose. So, the King divided the realm into nations, seven nations of land and seven of sea. In charge of each nation was a Duke, who followed the king’s law and kept his nation under rule.

The empire was saved. Until the King passed his crown to his prince. The new king, the New King, would have been a great king but for one flaw; he was unable to produce a single child. His seed was dead, unable to create life. Without an heir, the empire would collapse, each nation already seated with a ruler who would break apart into separate kingdoms. The common law that kept the peace would be broken. The system that had once saved the empire could so easily tear it apart. The new King, fearful of losing the throne, asked every creature of the realm to gift him one bride.

His request was answered. He received a bride from nearly every nation’s capital. From Fae of faerie, from Himil of cherub, from giant of titan, and a handful of his own maids in the castle of valor. But none could bear his child. Until the seas answered his plea. From the nation of the shallows he was sent a mermaid, a fair and beautiful duchess beloved by her capitol and her people. In the middle of a hot summer, while the empire celebrated Sommer’s fest, a festival held for fourteen days and fourteen nights to celebrate the heat of summer and the birth of the empire, The duchess bore the King a son. He was named Cylo, the crown prince. The empire rejoiced, Sommer’s fest was rejuvenated, and the mermaids of the shallows celebrated in frenzied shoals at the news. But, before the child had yet turned a quarter of a score old, the courts heard whispers of the young prince, something was not right about him. Then the royal physician pronounced the young prince to suffer from an infliction, and the prince was deemed unfit to rule. Enraged, the King killed the duchess and ordered Cylo removed from his sight. The sea wept that day, and on that night, war was declared.

The nations of the seas would no longer support the empire, their people would no longer obey his rule and the seas’ fares would no longer be sent to the people of the land. Any boats found in open waters were to be sunk, fishing villages would go hungry, merchants would be bankrupted and the noble faerie of Naimora would be cut off from the castle upon the mainland of Valoran, separated by a vast stretch of treacherous ocean.

Watching the oil lamps that lit his prison in a beautiful orange glow that bounced across the gold embellishments of the ceiling and dripped onto the floor in reflective puddles, Kaloe remembers the day the Mermaids of the shallows had found him. Back when Kaloe belonged to the nation of the wanderers of the pod of Horsemen, separate from the shallow dwellers. Once the First King had created the realm all the mermaids from every sea declared themselves a nation and built a capital city, the Nation of wanderers was made, the last of all nations, the ones left over. As the sea is enormous and empty, many mermaids didn’t feel the need to build a capital to stay put in but would rather travel the vast seas. Of these wanderers the Horseman’s pod was the largest and national duties often fell to them when the other sea nations were bothered enough to track down the nomads for their council.

The day Kaloe met Sunfish had been a hunting day, as most days were, the Horsemen followed their prey wherever it took them. That day it had taken them up. The horseman had been trailing behind an aging sea serpent, sensing its end. Kaloe’s pod was no match for a sea serpent in its prime, but an aging one was an opportunity the horsemen would follow for leagues not to miss. This one had begun to climb towards the surface. As the horsemen neared the open sea away from the cliffs and gorges, they usually swam in the pod split up, the hunters following the serpent into the dangerous open sea while the homemakers stayed behind to gather kelps and herbs for the hunter’s return. The giant sea serpent breached the surface, its deep red body twisted and bulged with muscle as the beast lifted its head from the sea to gaze into the sky, Kaloe and the other hunters not far behind. Its life was nearly over.

The hunting party was small, only six members deep. While a conservative number to take down a sea serpent, this fact did not give any of the hunters pause, because they were being guided by Leader. Leader was a strong and smart horsemen, so confident in his abilities to keep his hunters safe he traveled with them on every hunt. No matter the danger, even knowing his death would cost the rest of their pod their matriarch. Leader was the closest the nation of wanderers came to a duchess. Now Kaloe looked to his leader for guidance.

Leader gazed at the serpent, its scales glimmering in the sunlight, its large body cast shadows over the reefs below them and stirred the fish, gesturing to the other hunters to stop their pursuit.

“No need to rush such matters,” he declared. “Let the serpent take its last moments. Go, see what you can gather from the reefs around us.”

Kaloe hummed in disappointment and retrieved his spear from where it was tied around his back, the hard bone resting between his shoulder blades. Mermaids were not shy and rarely wore garments. Kaloe was no different, clothed only in a thin strap of braided kelp to hold his spear to his back and a woven bag that held all his belongings. Horsemen traveled lightly. All that was in Kaloe’s bag had been a small bone dagger, a mirror made of sea glass, a few strips of braided kelp and a seashell gifted to him by his closest friend, a fellow hunter called Slipstream. In a flurry to follow their leader’s commands the other horsemen spun and kicked down racing to reach the reefs. They whistled and hummed amongst each other. Kaloe suspected he may have been the only one to be sore about missing the glory of actually hunting the sea serpent. Not eager to be left behind Kaloe quickly spun his body down with a few kicks of his tail, leaving the dying serpent behind, and began to explore the reefs.

Kaloe admitted to himself that the reefs were gorgeous; admiring them as fish swam past in giant clouds of pinks and yellows. Marveling, Kaloe watched red fish dart between purple sponges, and small families of spotted crabs crawl across orange mushroom caps. But Kaloe was looking for something more worth his effort. The pod was about to feast on sea serpent for weeks, nobody would be impressed with a spotted crab or a yellow fin. Kaloe searched for something special. Being sure to keep himself away from coral clusters. The frills that ran down his sides and elongated his tail fin would be sure to snag and bleed if Kaloe did not mind the jutting reef.

An orange fish caught Kaloe’s eye- it was of medium size and its body covered in stripes of white. Along its head was a frill of spikes, its pectoral fins seemed to split into a dozen sharp daggers. Kaloe hummed in excitement and brought his spear forward, its spiral bone tip aimed at the fish, ready to strike. His weapon was long and made of spiraling bone, cut from the skull of a horned whale, its base filled down and wrapped in sargassum. Kaloe gripped the fine instrument; it had served Kaloe well. He had hoped this would not be the day that changed, as at the tip of every spike covering the fish was a small nub of bone covered in venom. The manticore fish prowled the fauna around him also on the hunt for prey. Unfortunately for it, Kaloe was the bigger fish. He positioned himself above the manticore fish, his shadow hidden by the one cast by the dying serpent above him. With a powerful flick of his tail, Kaloe drove downwards and impaled the manticore fish. His spear ripped through the creature which gave one desperate thrash as its organs were ripped apart and pulled aside to make room for Kaloe’s spear. Before the tip landed in a dragon wing coral below with athunk. Kaloe let out a breath through the gills on his neck, stirring the hairs clinging there. The venom would be very useful to the pod’s medicine maker.

A sharp and short call rang out through the reef. Kaloe lifted his head instinctively checking above him, but the serpent still lived, its thick tail swung around holding its body in place.

“Incoming, gather here!” Leader called again.

Kaloe knew this meant danger, and, with a heave, Kaloe ripped the end of his spear from the dragon wing and carefully removed the manticore fish from his spear in a swirl of blood, his fingers dancing around the spikes of bone. Kaloe pulled a piece of braided kelp from his bag slung across his back and tied it around the fish’s tail, pulling the knot tight. He wrapped the other end around the strap of his bag and tied that end as well so the catch would be carried along. Only then did Kaloe leave his spot among the coral reef and search out his leader.

Leader had been easy to find. He was where the horsemen had left him, floating above the reef and below the sea serpent. Keeping a watchful eye on his hunters and their hunt. Kaloe was the last to arrive and received only a minimal glance from his leader in return. Kaloe searched for injury or danger in the horsemen gathered but there was nothing out of the ordinary, every member of the hunting party was accounted for, Leader, Mother Whale, Toothed One, Seagrass, and Slipstream. Kaloe swam closer to be against Slipstream and hummed a greeting, his hand grazing Slipstream’s arm in affection. Mother Whale caught his eye and gave him a nod.

“What is going on, Slipstream?” Kaloe asked.

“Look, Bull Whale, Leader sees Mermaids up ahead! He says they are from the shallows.” Slipstream answered.

Kaloe raised an eyebrow and looked where Slipstream had jutted his chin towards. Sure enough, far in the distance above the reef the hunting party had been scavenging through, past the sea serpent still languishing near the surface, was the shadow of a pod of mermaids cutting through the surf.

“Shallow dwellers?” Kaloe asked, “It is pretty far out for them here, is it not?”

“Land-huggers” Toothed One giggled.

“And we are pretty far up,” cut in Mother whale, her yellow eyes caught Kaloe’s once again.

’They are too deep, and we are too high, it is on purpose,” said Leader.

Kaloe and Slipstream looked at each other, exchanging silent confusion.- Meeting with shallow dwellers?

Mother Whale shifted nervously and Toothed One rolled her eyes at Seagrass for tightening his grip on his spear. The horsemen had no business with the mermaids of the shallows, but no bad blood either, not since the empire united the seas into seven nations. The ocean was simply big enough the mermaids of the deep and of the shallows to exist separately, never meeting, ignorant to the ways of the others and glad for it.

By the time the mermaid of the shallows got close enough to speak to the sea serpent had finally breathed its last shuddering breath, and now slowly sunk beneath the waves. With the giant creature floating beside them they began to talk. It was not a language Kaloe understood, their speech was quick and full of high-pitched chatter, each word they spoke seemed like a dry laugh. Much different than the long low notes used by the Horseman.

With a slow flick of his tail Kaloe drifted past Slipstream and hovered behind Leader’s shoulder.

“What do they want, Leader?” Kaloe asked. Leader held his hand up, silencing him. His open palm facing towards the Shallow dwellers. Instead of answering Kaloe he spoke to the shallow dwellers in the same quick, high-pitched chatter they had used. The sounds felt foreign and silly from a Horseman as large and imposing as Leader was. The mermaids of the shallow bowed their heads and one spoke, a small little thing with skin the color of lush coral and hair that floated around her head in a red halo.

“Greetings Horseman. I am Sunfish, fifth daughter of the duchess of the nation of the shallows. I come with a message from the land.” she said, not in her own tongue but in the low long notes used by the horsemen.

“What message finds us here?” Leader asked, “The Horseman have no business with the land, Shallow dweller. If you knew enough to find us here, then you know we Horsemen have no capital to call home and no need for the nations’ politics.”

Sunfish lifted her head; her eyes were ablaze with rage. Kaloe found a grip on his spear, his hand tightening around the spiral of bone.

“The land has killed our duchess.” Sunfish said.

Kaloe shifted, he felt Slipstream shudder beside himself, and Mother Whale caught Leader’s eye in a quick and wide-open shock. The land had killed the duchess. It didn’t make sense; the king had begged all the creatures to send him a bride- why would he kill her?

Kaloe remembered that day as well. It had been a quarter of a score ago, and Kaloe had been much smaller than. At that age before maturity were nothing seemed to matter, but that day had captivated him. Enough so Slipstream had to keep grabbing his arm so he would not float above the other horsemen for a better view.

The day all seven nations in the sea gathered to discuss the king’s demand. The gathering had taken place in an ancient meeting ground that had been built by mermaids from many centuries ago. It was an amphitheater, the stage carved out of the side of a cavern, the sides lined by stone columns erected of sea-withered marble. The site was considered holy ground to many, before the empire had united the seas into nations. Here was the only place two pods could meet without bloodshed. So, they met there when the King had asked something from them.

“The King of the Land asks our nations for a bride!” The Duchess of the nation of the Arctic called out from her seat at the head of the amphitheater.

Kaloe gazed across the large gathering. The seven nations were vast and spread throughout the seas, so Kaloe had not seen many of them before and he was fascinated by the mermaids filling the colosseum around him. The mermaids of the nation of the trench had especially caught Kaloe’s attention; they had freighted him at first, but now he could not help but sneak glances back at their pods. They were smaller and thinner than the members of his pod and their skin was a mottled brown at their limbs and faces. But where their skin stretched over their chest and ribs it was translucent, Kaloe could make out the fleshy pink of organs.

Slipstream nudged him, “Stop staring, calf- they will notice.”

Kaloe just hummed in disagreement, too focused on the trenchers to respond in actual conversation. He doubted the trench dwellers would notice, for every one of them had tied thick braids of fish skin around their eyes.

After this meeting, when the matter would be settled, all the nations held a festival. The Amphitheater was turned into a fairground. Food was brought and drink was had, Kaloe would spend his week speaking with other pods. He would learn from a trench dweller his own age that the braided fish skin was meant to protect their eyes from the sunlight. Their eyelids were translucent, and their eyes, meant for the darkness where light did not exist, would burn.

“Who should go?” The Duchess of the tropics asked.

The question was translated for Kaloe by a wanderer, not a horsemen, but of their nation. A wanderer swam in front of every pod to translate the words said by the Duchesses. Wanderers were Knowledgeable like that. They picked up many languages on their travels. While every mermaid has the ability to mimic the speech or song of any creature they hear, it doesn’t give them the ability to understand it. Wanderers had to discover the meaning behind the songs they took.

“It cannot be us,” said the Duchess of the nation of the trench. She spoke in clicks, Kaloe would later associate the sound with the squeak of a shoe or a creek of a door. But for then he had heard nothing like it before. It thrummed through the amphitheater only muffled by the wanderers speaking over it to relay the message to the other pods.

“Why should we send a bride?” Called the duchess of the abyss.

Her pod stirred by her words smacked their spears to their chests. Slipstream had warned Kaloe of angering the trench dwellers, but Kaloe thought the pods of the abyss would be worse in a fight. Each member was large, their thick gray torsos rippled with muscle, and they stirred a swirl of silt with each powerful thrust of their blue tails. Their skin was married by scars and barnacles. The nation of the abyss lived in the emptiest part of the seas, where nothing lived, each meal had to be hunted for miles. While the other wanderers follow their prey and eat it near where it falls. The abyss dwellers carried the bodies back to their capital city nestled at the bottom of the waste land.

“Why should we birth the next king of the land?” The duchess of the Abyss clicked. “Why should we not birth the new Queen of the sea and land here!”

The amphitheater gasped. The suggestion was treason, and it was dangerous. It called for war and revolution.

This meeting of the nations was supposed to be a peace talk but each Abyss dweller had come carrying spears and daggers. Which they began to bang against their bodies and the carved stone beneath their fins, they chanted, filling the amphitheater with deep clicking. As they got more riled up the other pods began to shift in nervousness.

The wanderer swimming in front of Kaloe’s pod shifted around nervously, her large doe eyes found the other translators. Kaloe followed her gaze and saw some of them translating the chants for their pods and some silently hovering in place.

“They call for war and a fight,” she decided to say, but after a shake from Leader’s head she did not speak the chants again.

“Now, Hollow, you know we cannot replace the king. Come sisters, you remember life before the empire. The human’s poisoned our seas, the beasts ate all our fish, the cherubs plucked our babies from the surf as a jest. Life is better this way and if this means one of our people has to go to the land, then so be it.” Declared the Duchess of the Arctic.

Hollow the Duchess of the abyss snorted and slumped in her seat. The rest of her pod quieted down.

“But who?” squeaked the Duchess of the tropics again.

The Duchesses looked around the giant stage at one another, Corral of the tropics too soft for politics, Hollow of the abyss set on war, Void of the Trench unable to live above the surf, Cove of the Shallows too old to bear the infertile king children, Glacier of the Arctic too cold blooded to avoid insulting land sensibilities.

Kaloe shifted nervously as he could feel the gazes of the nation’s falling on himself and the horsemen, The nation of wanderers did not have a duchess or capital but if one was needed, Leader of the Horsemen would act as one. While Leader was aging it was possible he would be chosen as the bride. The Horsemen were different from other pods, who had two sexes. The horsemen only had one, before entanglement with other pods was common the horsemen had considered themself genderless each member had the ability to produce and bear children. The sole reason for the pods survival even though they were made of sparse numbers. Kaloe kicked up his tail distressed, if Leader was sent away the horsemen would crumble. With no capital to call home and no clear heir, they would drift. The whole pod would become lost.

“I will go,”

Kaloe did not see her that day, as she swam alongside her pod, her mother was the one on stage. But he had heard her voice, it was clear and strong it had not waivered. Kaloe could not help but feel the translator was not doing her justice.

“Send me Mother, I will bear the next king and save our empire.”

Cove of the shallows turned her head, her eyes cast down towards her pod, they were filled with love.

“Are you sure this is what you wish for, daughter of mine?” Cove asked.

“Yes,” said Baleen, the fourth daughter of the nation of shallows, “nothing could make me happier.”

“They killed her, for the crime of giving him a defective heir” Sunfish snorted, “He called it treason, we will show him treason, the shallows are declaring war. Are you with us wanderers?”

Leader thought for a moment his eyes drifted towards the carcass, ever floating downwards.

“If you have no other duties tonight, would you care to join us? This may be the last feast the seas have for some time.”