The Glimmering Sea

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ziphra's egg garlands swayed through Armida's dreamstate like the small trees in the breezes of Isolotto di Nuovi. The cave scene was festive, ready for a celebration. But then the images warped and spun as Ziphra hovered among her soon-to-be children, and her tentacles lengthened, slithered from the water, and wrapped around Torquato sitting in his hut. Like murderous snakes, they dragged him underwater, where Torquato shapeshifted into Rinaldo gasping for air.

Armida woke from the nightmare as she sensed her name called over and over. There was no one, no thing. Just the darkness of the stone ridge where she rested. The sea never slept, yet around her was a void. No friends. No enemies.

It had been a week since she left Ziphra; she had swum east until spotting the shoreline. Looking for fragments, clues that would lead her to Paolo. Her path then led south, offshore of a foreign land in unfamiliar waters. She recalled Torquato had described that where the land ended and broke into islands, she would need to travel east again to find Thalassa. She had stopped at the ridge to collect herself, to ponder the uncharted path she had struck out on. Her only option was to continue.

Torquato's voice was in her head, not her mindpath. Or were they the same thing? "The bad may be good; the good may be bad." Whatever that meant.

Abovewater or on land.

Underwater or in the sea.

With only her own perspective, there was no sure way to recognize the difference in words that meant the same thing. With no friends or family to share her observations and help evaluate her choices, Armida feared threats from within and from without.

Her priority remained Paolo. The faster she found him, the quicker she could put her attention to Marea's survival. To ensure the sea survived. Armida's muscles clenched at the idea of Paolo in captivity, not free to play in the ocean with the carefree time of children, spoiled children according to Ziphra.

Armida had shrugged off the ease of her childhood but then had also mistrusted Marean tradition. It left her with guilt tied to her restless mind. If only she had been an obedient mermaid, she would have bonded with Erastus. Delfina would have been safe. Paolo would have witnessed nothing.

Unrelenting thoughts birthed in her solitude propelled Armida down paths that warped her affection for Delfina. She did not want to blame Delfina, yet she did. Delfina was old enough to consider the consequences of her actions. Delfina had practiced her flirting with Rinaldo, if it had in fact been mere practice, oblivious to Armida's distress concerning Rinaldo. A friend would have known.

Then there was the frolicking with Erastus. Had Delfina paused but a moment to reflect on events, especially the crisis unfolding in Marea, Paolo might be at home, safe. Whatever had driven Erastus to his action might not have taken place.

Outrage hardened in Armida. A rock settled inside and could not be shaken off. Armida could not shed herself of the belief Paolo had been dragged into Delfina's misadventure.

The uncertainty gnawing at Armida left her no choice. She roused herself from her turmoil and searched the area with her eyes and her mindpath. The latter found nothing, but she spotted a krill school nearby. Armida was hungry.

✧✧✧

It wasn't her imagination. The krill was better here than in Marea. And the kelp balls she made were sea-scented and delicate, the texture appealing in a way she hadn't expected. Less slimy, if she was honest.

Winter was coming; a new chill coursed over her that was not because she was at a remove from the intemperate waters of Marea. The bite of the water sent her to the surface for the sun's warming rays, and the empty shoreline tempted her; the hot sand would provide warmth.

Land offered an alternative. She could sneak between the rocks protecting the cove, take her Terran form, and put her desperate pursuit and the sea in the past. Without any to observe her cowardice, a new life could be hers. She would reject everything she knew about herself, stuff it all away, and become someone new with no history, no painful memories. But Armida had learned that Terrans needed skills to survive, skills allowing them to barter for food and shelter. She had reflected little on those things in Marea, where sustenance and safety were never in question. On Terra, she had nothing to offer.

Surging upward, Armida dared a breach. She thrilled at the freedom of temporary flight, momentarily unbound from the water. The air did not chafe her face as before the Rites. The land in the distance had mountains and was framed in green. It offered no answers.

The depths of the Ionian Sea called Armida back down into its mystery. Beyond the dim sunlight and into the shadows where strange life resided. Armida ignored the danger. She dove with brutal intensity, trying to escape her demons, trying to find her future. Downward, ever downward. The increasing physical pressure was matched by the growing pressure of her emotions.

Though they wouldn't attack her, she avoided the swarm of steel blue cutlassfish. With long, pointy noses and spiky needle teeth, they appeared cruel. Their movements were jumpy and agitated. Normally untroubled by the marine food chain, Armida cringed with revulsion when some adults ate the juveniles. She judged the act as evil despite allowing it was not a conscious act of brutality but rather the nature of the ocean. She had tried to think of sludgesharks the same way with no success.

The sea brimmed with life. Armida strayed toward the sponges established in a prime spot for water to flush through them. Sponges had become sparse in Marea, and she had not realized she missed their simplicity. The tender spider crabs decorated themselves with sponge bits to hide from predators. Armida hadn't eaten a spider crab in years. They'd been absent in Marea since she was a merpup. She wondered if Paolo had ever eaten one. She wished she could remember.

Oh, how I miss Paolo.

A giant black and yellow moray shot out of its hiding place and snagged two camouflaged crabs with its enormous jaw and jagged teeth. Armida admired the grace and speed. The vitality of the Ionian Sea dazzled her but memories of her youth nagged.

All of us have been complicit in allowing the destruction of the ocean. I am not exempt.

And too soon she forgot Ziphra's lesson: Be aware of the entirety of your surroundings.

✧✧✧

How beautiful the sea was. The turquoise where the water was shallow, golden tones where it touched the sand. The shift to subtle grays and greens when cloud cover blotted out the sun. And how it went deep blue and black at night, the surface occasionally burnished by moonlight or cresting waves able to transfix with a luminescence of sky blue. Rinaldo turning his back on the splendor was an impossible thing.

Marea had once been like this. Teeming with life. Diverse. How young she had been when the slow decline began. The variety of life surrounding Armida now mesmerized her. Starfish sand dollars rested patiently on the ocean floor, and the sea horses wrapped their tails around arms of thriving coral. Striped bream in numbers she had never imagined. Or had long forgotten.

Armida rolled to her back and contemplated the surface while the water around her rippled with calm currents. She imagined a life here, alone but never alone. This was the way the sea was meant to be. The gentle rocking allowed the burden of the future to melt away. She could make a home here once she found Paolo.

It would have been perfect, her dream, if Paolo were free and Rinaldo were here to share it. There was no anger toward Rinaldo; they each had made a choice excluding the other. Rinaldo had accepted the guidance of the Antichi while Armida had refused it. It was not done with malice but the result was the same. She remembered Ziphra's comment about life being unfair. When Armida closed her eyes, the image of Rinaldo with his sparkling gray eyes and the hypnotic black swirls dancing across his silver scales flashed in a memory that felt like a shock from an eel.

So unfair.

The pain bit her shoulders, the burning limitless. She had drifted into the poisonous tentacles and become enmeshed. Struggling made the agony worse. The spiraled ribbons attached and did not release as they seared the skin of her neck and arms. The gelatinous, transparent blue forms above Armida floated aimlessly as they waited for other prey or predators to make the same mistake. Each victim faced the same consequences of lapsed attention.

Death.