Mervidia, p.32
Mervidia, page 32
“I have much to do to prepare for the morrow. The Coral Assembly is doing a formal machi ritual in hopes of selecting the new king, and I must be ready… for the outcome,” the octolaide replied, quickly covering for the slip up. Her smile still turned up the corners of her mouth, “I will see you again soon, my love.” Marin swam into the neondra’s arms and kissed him deeply. As swiftly as she had approached him, she swam away and out of the cave, leaving Zane in the dark.
Chapter Thirty-Two
As he sat waiting at the long stone table, the tip of one of Uchenna’s tentacles twitched nervously. What in the Deeps is taking Damaris so long? he wondered, looking around the Coral Assembly’s meeting chamber. The octolaide did his best to hide his anxiousness from the rest of the representatives gathered around the table and, given the circumstances, felt as though he was doing an admirable job. Despite his and Odette’s careful planning, there was still the slight chance that things could go awry. If we’re discovered interfering with the Assembly’s seeing…. He put such cynical thoughts aside and forced himself to remain calm. The only indication of his unease was the twitching of one of his tentacles, and that, thankfully, was hidden beneath the table. His apprehension about acting nervous was assuaged somewhat as he looked around the room. Everyone seemed to be experiencing the same feelings of disquiet in one way or another.
Uchenna saw Nayan and Vaschel looking repeatedly at the closed doors to the Assembly chamber with uncertainty and then back at the gathered representatives, as though trying to gauge their moods. Slone and Penn were continuously flexing their webbed hands around the hilts of their blades. It was a nervous tic that Uchenna had seen in the warriors before, though rarely had they displayed it at the same time. Meanwhile, Quag, never one for social graces, was loudly and continuously drumming his long claws on the hard stone table in his impatience. It was a monotonous clicking noise that was beginning to wear on even Thaddeus’ usually stoic demeanor. Several times Uchenna caught the octolaide representative looking out of the corner of his eye at the grogstack, his mouth tight with irritation.
Only Kiva seemed untouched by the nervousness permeating the room. The faera floated serenely above her chair, her face calm. There may have been the hint of a smile on her lips, but given the merwin’s diminutive size and the distance between them, Uchenna couldn’t tell for certain.
“How much longer do we wait?” Hasad asked impatiently. The blue-scaled seifeira had always been a patient and practical merwin, but even his forbearance was wearing thin. “There is a large harvest of kelp that is due to come in soon, and I need to be there to oversee it.”
“If we don’t have a new king soon, your plants will be the least of your worries,” Vaschel replied, the pink and red ethyrie’s long flowing tail flukes fluttering angrily.
“It won’t matter who wears the Fangs if we’ve all starved to death waiting on the Queen Mother,” the seifeira replied. The glowing esca dangling from the tendril sprouting from his forehead bobbed with annoyance as he spoke.
“Hasad brings up an excellent point,” Uchenna interjected, his voice calm, betraying none of his nervousness. “As important as this ritual is, we all have matters that require our attention.”
“Perhaps we should delay the seeing then?” Nayan proposed, her bulbous lower body gently pulsating beneath her to maintain her place in the water.
“No,” Uchenna said, more quickly than he had intended. Odette already has the materials gathered and the sigils inscribed to commandeer this damn seeing. It needs to happen now, he thought to himself. To the others gathered in the room he said, “Vaschel spoke truly. Mervidia needs this. With the Queen’s death, Iago’s arrest, and Cassondra’s banishment for murdering her brother, the city is in upheaval. Our people had barely begun to mourn Beryl’s passing before they were hit with the shock of House Stonegem’s destruction and Flinn’s tragic demise. Mervidia needs to see a ruler on the throne, wearing the Fangs, to restore calm to the city. The Coral Assembly must show the people that things are returning to normal, before the whole city begins to panic.”
“Any more than they already are,” Penn added. “I am receiving reports, more and more frequently, of altercations in the streets. For now, the numbers involved are small, but that’s how things like this start. Given time, I believe they will grow.”
“And soon,” Sloane added. The neondra representative was nodding in agreement, his wide orange and black striped fins swaying with the gesture. “Though I doubt my reports are as accurate as Domo Penn’s, they say much the same thing.”
“Then perhaps we should proceed without her,” Thaddeus said, speaking for the first time since the Coral Assembly had gathered that morning.
Uchenna looked at the octolaide representative, working hard to keep a look of curiosity from his face. Where did this change of heart come from, Thaddeus? Uchenna wondered. Usually, you are such a staunch defender of the Divine Family and the status quo. Could it be that you are coming around? Have you finally pulled your head far enough out of House Lumen’s nether regions that you can see the current beginning to shift?
“Who would be the seer then, if not Damaris?” Nayan asked. She looked at no one in particular as she posed the question, instead addressing the Coral Assembly as a whole. Beside her, the seat reserved for the ethyrie representative remained conspicuously empty.
“Ghita,” Vaschel suggested. “Her gift is almost as strong as her brother’s was.” Nods of agreement and assent quickly followed the ethyrie representative’s statement.
King Reth’s power of foresight had been as strong as any merwin who had worn the Fangs before him, but Ghita’s gift was very nearly a match for the late monarch, Uchenna thought to himself. Had he not ascended the Throne of Mervidia, his sister would have been a worthy substitute with regards to the Divine Family’s gift. However, Ghita ultimately had not proven to be emotionally resilient enough to bear the weight of the Fangs, as Reth had. Uchenna wondered if the late king’s sister was up to the task now, but he had little choice other than to agree with Vaschel. The seeing must happen today, he thought.
“Vaschel is right,” Uchenna said, eliciting a minor look of shock from the head of House Paua and several others around the table. The representatives from House Chimaera and the former regent’s father rarely agreed on anything, much less voiced it where others could hear.
Again, Kiva did not respond, verbally or emotionally, to his statement. The faera representative had floated strangely quiet above her chair for the entire meeting. It was quite a change from the last Assembly meeting, where she had been screaming for Iago’s blood. Had he not been so preoccupied with his own schemes, Uchenna would have been most interested as to what had softened her demeanor so. More pressing matters took precedent over his curiosity.
“For Mervidia’s sake, the seeing must happen today,” Uchenna stated. The octolaide looked to Nayan. “Is Ghita up to the task?” he asked. “Can she perform the ritual in her sister-in-law’s stead?” The kalku looked pleadingly at the jellod machi. Please say yes, he begged silently. Otherwise our scheme is going to end up a pile of rancid fish crap on House Chimaera’s floor.
Nayan considered Uchenna’s question for several long, agonizing moments before responding. “Normally, I would say to let her recover from the series of emotional shocks which she has received over the last few days, but I understand that the situation is dire.” The jellod looked significantly at Penn and Slone, acknowledging the information they had presented regarding the state of Mervidia. “I believe that Ghita is still strong enough to be the ritual’s seer.” Sighs of relief sounded around the room. “However,” Nayan interjected, “it is not my opinion that truly matters. It is Ghita’s. If she does not feel she has the wherewithal to take Damaris’ place, then I will have to respect that, as will we all.”
“We have no choice but to ask her,” Kiva said, finally entering into the conversation. “Since, it looks as though Damaris will not be joining us.” The faera’s tiny grin grew faintly, pulling further at the corners of her mouth as she spoke.
Uchenna remained curious as to the faera’s source of mirth, but he had more pressing matters at hand to which to devote his mental energies. “Ask her, Nayan,” the octolaide said, couching the statement somewhere between asking a question and issuing an order. “Please,” he added, when she scowled briefly at him.
“As you wish,” she said, her voice betraying the pity she had for the mourning Ghita.
And be quick about it, Uchenna mentally decreed. Once Odette prepares her own ritual, the components won’t stay viable long.
Odette anxiously fingered the latch on the small coral cage holding the vampire squid, waiting for the pulse of energy that would let her know that the Assembly had begun their seeing. The arcane surge would then be her signal to start her own ritual, one that would skew the prophetic ceremony to House Chimaera’s benefit.
Around her slender neck hung a vial of blood coral, its surface lightly scraping her skin with each breath. A small taste of pain to keep the senses sharp, she mused. The flask’s true purpose, however, was much more practical. Within the container was the intermixed blood of Odette and her kalku husband. Both had been gathered that morning, before Uchenna had departed for the Coral Assembly meeting. The thick red fluid was slowly seeping out of the blood coral vial, onto the pale skin above the female kalku’s full breasts, and then into her body through the abrasion caused by the bottle itself. It kept a constant blood connection between the two octolaides, which would alert her to the ritual’s commencement. More importantly, it would act as the conduit between their two bodies through which she would work her own ritual and leave the Coral Assembly none the wiser, as they proceeded with the seeing to choose Mervidia’s new king.
Odette, not usually one to be so self-aggrandizing, couldn’t help but smile at her own cleverness as she checked again on the arcane materials arrayed carefully around her in the ritual circles. The basic shapes had been laid down permanently into the stone floor many cycles ago by Uchenna’s Grandfather. He had carved two concentric circles into the rock and then inlaid them with violet coral, which he had crushed to a fine powder and sealed in place with magic and merwin blood. In between the rings was left an empty space two hand-spans wide. It was in this gap that Odette had inscribed the runes and placed the orihalcyon ore as well as other items needed for the spell of interference. She would slip, unnoticed, into the Coral Assembly’s seeing and substitute her son’s image for whatever merwin the ritual would normally have conjured. Ebon will wear the Fangs, and they will all think it was the Divine Family’s gift that guided my son towards the throne.
Marin scrambled around her room, quickly inscribing the sigils of power she would need for her interceding ritual onto the flagstone floor of her room. She dipped the small piece of sponge attached to the end of a slender bone rod in her left hand into the bottle in her right. The chunk of soft porous material came out covered in a viscid glob of crimson shot through with swirls of black. As she drew the rune for the Fangs, she mumbled dark words of power, infusing the blood and ink of the squid she had killed with kalku magic. The liquid turned purple, seeping deep into the stone beneath it. The result was more stain than it was writing, the sorcerous energy sealing the inscription temporarily into the rock. The desiccated corpse of the squid floated off to the side, a bone dagger still protruding from its lifeless body, forgotten.
Marin, normally meticulous in keeping her rituals and the space around them tidy, ignored the dead sea creature floating around her room. She was focusing all of her energy and concentration into carefully inscribing the runes while, at the same time, making sure she flawlessly recited the words of power that infused them with kalku sorcery. Her father, a harsh and unforgiving teacher, would have been appalled that she had left the squid’s corpse floating about.
A sloppy ritual is the sign of a weak and disordered mind, Uchenna’s voice echoed in Marin’s head. This is not some game, daughter. We are shaping the life force of the sea itself, bending it to our whims with the power of our will. The slightest distraction can bring about disaster.
Marin suppressed a smile, fearing that it would alter the precise enunciation needed for each and every word of the spell used to seal the ink and blood in place. Oh, father, she thought. If you knew what I was doing now, the cleanliness of my ritual space wouldn’t even be on the list of why you’d be angry.
As the young octolaide kalku moved to inscribe the next rune, the Sigil of the Crossed Bones, she allowed herself a tiny, satisfied grin. The irony of using the sparse knowledge, which her father had deigned to impart to her, against him was not lost on her. For one of the first times in her life, she was not afraid of his condemnations. If things worked out the way she planned, she would never have to worry about her father’s disapproval again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Coral Assembly floated off to one side of the long stone table that dominated one half of the room. They had arranged themselves into a ring, circling Nayan and Ghita. Everyone had rested and tried to eat, with varying degrees of success, in preparation for the upcoming ritual. They were floating in the open space left after the chairs had been pushed against the wall, calming themselves for the arduous task to come.
Nayan floated calmly next to Ghita, her webbed hand placed gently on the ethyrie’s shoulder. The late king’s sister was draped in an embroidered yellow cape. The tightly woven kelp of the garment was flowing softly in the water, which was circulated around the room by the tiny vents in the floor.
Inwardly, Uchenna shook his head, amused. The color of the ceremonial garb was not a naturally occurring one. Someone had applied their sorcerous talents to the cloak, altering the hue. Such a waste of magic, the octolaide admonished silently. He looked to Nayan, also wearing a much simpler and shorter version of Ghita’s cape, and guessed it was the jellod, or one of her machi underlings, who had changed the fabric’s hue. Yet I am the one called vain for wearing my coat, he thought. The octolaide kalku adjusted his garment, using two of his tentacles to double check its front clasps, ensuring that the longer of his two necklaces was still hidden. The first was his usual bone choker, but the second was the blood coral vial Odette had given him. It scraped against his skin, reminding him of its presence. As if I could forget, he griped mentally. I can’t breathe without this blasted thing digging into me. He knew why Odette had chosen the containers she had for their intermingled blood, but the constant stinging of his flesh was becoming tiresome.
That’s enough of that, he silently disciplined himself for complaining. If their plan was going to work, his concentration needed to be absolute. The slightest slip, as he balanced between aiding the Assembly’s seeing and still keeping himself open as a conduit for his wife’s subtle manipulation of the ritual, and all their plans would be for naught. If we’re discovered, he thought, the seeing not going the way we planned will be the least of my concerns. There were still plenty of empty cells in the palace’s dungeons. If I’m that lucky. He remembered Cassondra’s fate, and a tiny tendril of fear slithered its way past his usually iron-like will. Should he and Odette get caught manipulating the Assembly’s ritual, the punishments that could befall them were both numerous and painful.
“The preparations are in place,” Nayan said quietly. “If we are all ready, please join hands in a circle around Ghita.”
Uchenna suppressed his irritation at the jellod’s condescending tone. They all knew their parts. Those without magical gifts would lend their support by augmenting the circle and buffering Ghita from the influx of arcane power, while those with arcane talent would draw energy and help fuel the ritual. They didn’t need the obsequious machi explaining it to them. The octolaide took Quag’s massive hand in his left and Kiva’s tiny hand in his right and filled his lungs with water. Slowly letting the breath out, he closed his eyes, quickly tensed and relaxed every muscle in his body from the tips of his tentacles to the thin layer of muscle beneath his scalp. Years of disciplined kalku training allowed him to accomplish the task in the space of a few heartbeats.
As he opened his eyes again, he looked at Ghita floating in the middle of the circle of merwin. Her attendants had done an excellent job preparing the emotionally devastated ethyrie and making her look presentable. Despite the work of the Divine Family’s servants though, the machi seer’s eyes still looked swollen and puffy. I guess there’s only so much you can do to dress up a swimming corpse, he thought. This would be Ghita’s and the Divine Family’s last moments of relevance. After this, the best thing they can do is die quietly and with dignity, somewhere out of view of those of us who will still matter.
Uchenna felt a surge of power travel into his left arm, through his body, and then out through his right hand. The circle had been established. Another wave of magic passed through him, again following the same path from left to right, as the ritual began.
Now is the time, he said silently to Odette, though he knew she could not hear him. Strike now, my beloved, so that Mervidia can be free of the remora of the Divine Family, and House Chimaera can assume its rightful place under the Fangs. Another surge, this time travelling more quickly passed through him. As the ritual ramped up, the pulses started to come more rapidly, until his body hummed with arcane energy.
Soon, Uchenna of House Chimaera would know if their gambit worked, and his son would assume the throne. If it failed, he and Odette would be chewed up by the Fangs on their quest for power, as many others had been before them.
Odette was irritated. Something was wrong. She had been waiting for too long. The octolaide knew better though than to move a tentacle from the ritual room, until the seeing ended or Uchenna returned.
