They came to a halt again out in the open water. The witch steadied herself by wrapping tentacles around a disembodied rib buried in the glowing sand beneath them and drew herself upward to a full and regal height. She stared forward at the eerie black sea and breathed so deeply, Yemi noted that the bend of the kelp and drifting sand had stopped their listless flutter and were now drawn to her like a current. Then Ursla pulled her shoulders back, chest ever expanding, nostrils flared as if she intended to inhale the entire ocean. Yemi shielded her eyes as sand streamed toward them. Ursla pushed her hands forward as she exhaled and Yemi watched as the sands reversed direction. She braced herself against a rock to keep from being pulled out into the black where the rest of the sands were going.
In the flash before the sand’s light died away completely, Yemi made out mammoth shapes that looked like…More ships?She squinted into the fading light.
Ursla flicked three fingers upward, and three columns of sand took the forms of giant glowing rays that took off into the darkness, illuminating what was confirmed to be a ship graveyard stretching as far as Yemi could see. Unlike the vessels beneath Abyssa, many of these were decayed, some still flying the tattered colors of nations around the world. Drifting around and above them, though, were little blue lights. Hundreds—or was it thousands?—bobbed there like fireflies, neither feeding on the carcasses of vessels nor seeking shelter in them.
“What are they?” Yemi asked breathlessly.
“The least fortunate souls,” Ursla replied. “Lives lost, traded, squandered. Most were given the choice between me and oblivion; they chose elsewhere and still ended up here.” Ursla turned to her with a sinister smile. “You see, my pet,I am inevitable. My armies are the world’s dead, which means your armies are the world’s dead. And there are more dead than in any one nation’s military. What these creatures wouldn’t give to walk in the sun again. You can give them that chance. They will fight for you with that stone.”
She released the vial and let it drift between them, and Yemi, knowing she was being taunted, let it float there.
“Retrieve the stone and steep it in this tea infused with my blood. The stone will melt, and you will drink it for a single day’s command of these armies.”
Yemi grimaced. Of course the magic involved blood. “How will you get it back if I drink it?”
“The last time we need bother one another will be when I come to retrieve it. That will be unpleasant for you, but… well, small sacrifices.” She shrugged.
Ursla watched Yemi carefully as her exhausted mind ran through the risks and rewards of their partnership. Was there such a thing as winning the sea witch’s games?
“Selah will not let the stone go easily. She can sense when it’s compromised. I don’t know how to combat that magic.”
“My, but you do think of everything.” Ursla wrapped herself around Yemi, spindly fingers gripping her shoulders in what would have felt like the world’s most suspicious hug even if Yemi were used to being touched.
“Once you have the stone in hand, look her in the eye and speak these words. Feel them. Put intention behind them, and she will see the last hex she placed elsewhere returned on her own head:Enim si witch ahth emot nured ner.”
Ursla spoke the words quietly, her lips brushing Yemi’s ear, and there was an itching sensation as if the words were physical things stitching themselves to the surface of her brain so she wouldn’t forgetthem. Yemi squirmed out of Ursla’s grasp and finally snatched the vial out of its menacing hover, concluding that there would be time to choose whether or not to use it.
Ursla sighed, satisfied, if bored. “For what it’s worth, I don’t like you,” she said in a voice that told Yemi she’d worn out her welcome yet again. “But my daughter wasn’t my first betrayer. I see the honor in what you’re doing to protect your mother’s legacy.”
Yemi said nothing. But this was the first time she’d felt her motives were truly understood. Nova had never even said as much.
“Your legs will return when you touch the beach. You won’t enjoy it. Sunrise on the third day after you’ve returned to land, I rescind my offer. You have until then to make your choice.”
PROLOGUE III
It would come to be the regret of each of Ursla’s lives that she’d earned her loyalty by teaching Men just how inessential a god could be. Despite the Kept’s best efforts, Men now worshipped progress. She was rendered little more than a muse. The slide in active faith, in the worship of Ursla into holidays’ worth of pageantry and tradition, was slow but inevitable.
Merrine was delighted. There were yet still things to take from the witch.
The Obéid interpretation of history goes thusly:
Merrine went to Peris, aglow with possibility in the form of a woman: all skin and no scales; warm, soft, naked curves; no jagged claws or mincing fangs. An eternity of loathing dripped from her like diamonds. And it would soon be satisfied. No man was as delicious as the prospect of poisoning the witch’s existence. He was easily seduced. The pair had other clandestine meetings throughout time, and these stories littered the oral traditions with some distaste. Peris was smart, handsome—going places, as they say—but in every tale, his suggestibility was often found to be proportionate to the amount and degree of vigor of physical contact Merrine had with him.
He was loath to speak ill of the Obé, his Drowned Mother, even as Merrine cooed and licked his earlobes. She allowed him to kiss her, whispering kind interpretations of her venomous thoughts as sweet moans until he became ravenous.
“I have been a part of forever longer than you can imagine,” shepromised. “I have seen beginnings and ends, and I can promise you her future. As her power grows, so, too, will her appetite. You’ve seen she’s come for them. Your bones will join theirs soon enough. We can stop her together, King Peris. At least free your people’s existence from a reliance on her whims. Say yes—you and I can be joined. We can make a king to sit a throne whose power she will be blocked from forever. All you have to do is say yes, and we will rewrite history with you and I at the beginning.”
Some versions of this story have the sea goddess begging for years across meetings, gradually wearing him down. Other versions suggest the good King Peris could not say yes fast enough beneath her. What is known is that a yes was uttered and that Merrine’s ecstasy produced a wave so powerful that it reached above the great western mountains and created our swamplands from the desert on the other side.
In the end, it was done. Only the blood of the gods could sit on the throne of the sea kingdom. Ursla could produce legions of merfolk but she would never rule over anything more than her undead in their afterlife.
The witch, having lost the adoration of men, the throne of the sea, and control of her own creations, had generations to stew in the betrayal of the creatures she had given everything. Had she not given them all life? Was she to leave and start over? Suffer again? For what?
The grief made her ravenous. The loneliness made her something else. She was owed their devouring. They should be grateful that was all she wanted.
Until the daughter of the sea king fell in love and needed legs.
3Animus
