“Explain yourself, Coyrifan.”
Fanning the water with his tail to remain relatively stationary, Coyrifan looked up at his father from within the trench that cut through the coral reef where the sweetcrabs were found. The other hunters, including the two who’d originally come down to Coy, had gathered ‘round their chief, their faces a mixture of concern and outright uneasiness. No one could ever be certain what Ferrifan might do next when he was riled past a certain degree.
They needn’t have worried. Coyrifan learned long ago to keep a broad mental catalog of reasonings and alibis for occasions just like this one. He grinned at the other hunters, looking forward to the way the expressions on their faces would shift from concern to righteous indignation.
“While these caddish tomfools were caught up in their gambling, I was actually keeping watch.” Ah, yes. There they went. Vasadax was the only one holding back laughter, well accustomed to his friend’s antics. “As it happened, a shoal of young reddies passed by. I thought of my mother and the other wives, and their daughters. The day of cherishing is near, is it not? So I went after them, to save all of you the trouble.”
The chief was not quite convinced. “And Imyra? What terrorized her so?”
“There was a blinder hiding under the rim of the reef, just there.” To substantiate the half-truth, he pointed near the gouge where he’d demolished the coral in his brief but uncontrolled rage. The hunters who were closest to the spot instantly shifted aside, glancing around with sudden caution. “I tried to frighten it off with the sound of my tailstrike. It seems to have worked. Alas, it also scattered the reddies I’d been stalking, as well as startled my precious darling.”
He took up the spiral shell and turned its opening toward his face, meeting the gaze of the fingerling beast inside. Imyra’s entire aura brightened immensely as soon as she saw Coyrifan, beaming with intense joy as if they’d been separated for a long time and were finally reunited. The merling youth was sure he would never become used to such undisguised affection.
As one, the merling men flinched and turned their gazes to the sea-sky above as thunder rumbled and darkness fell over the shallows. The gentle waves of the surface shattered as heavy raindrops began to fall. Within seconds, it was as if a wind blew through the waters of the reef, the soft corals and kelps leaning sideways under its sustained pressure.
“A storm, and so quickly?” Fydiro said, taking a firm grip on one of his razorbeak’s tentacles in case of a sudden current. “We should return home now, in case it worsens.”
“And waste the entire journey for one crab?” another hunter snapped. “I refuse to cross the Howlith field again without at least one for each of our tribe members.”
“As do I,” a third agreed.
Chief Ferrifan grimly looked over his men, most of whom seemed to be in agreement about staying. For some reason, Coyrifan’s eyes were drawn to the moonstone on the chain about his father’s neck, blowing about in the lively waters. The odd spell ended with a snap as the chief crossed his muscular arms over his chest, pinning the gem and hiding it from sight.
“Did you not hear what I said, Coyrifan? If you’ve one of your secret coves or tunnels nearby, this would be an excellent time to share it.”
“None that someone of such impressive girth as your own might enter,” the merling said with fond flippancy, just before a cluster of tiny fish blew by him much more quickly than they could ever have swam on their own. They were followed immediately by the leading brunt of a powerful current which slammed into his back, throwing him forward.
Like an underwater river, the current had formed somewhere in the distance, spilling into the trench and flowing faster and faster as the storm’s winds goaded it on.
Ferrifan gripped the ledge and reached down. Coyrifan had but an instant to flick his tail as hard as he could and reach for his father’s outstretched hand before the current pulsed with another burst of speed, flinging him so that they just missed each other. Something flashed, and Coy snatched for it—and caught it.
He stared into Ferrifan’s terror-wild eyes for a moment before the taut chain about his neck snapped, and the current carried the young merling away, still gripping the chief’s moonstone necklace in his clenched fist.
Just before he was swept out of view over the far edge of the reef, Coy caught a glimpse of his fellows desperately clinging to their chief, the eleven vigorous males barely able to hold Ferrifan back from diving into the current himself.
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Nearly as loud as the thunder above were the animalistic bellows that chased after Coyrifan as he descended into the darkening depths of the ocean.
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When the current finally dissipated enough that he was able to extricate himself, Coyrifan had no notion of where he was. The sky above, and thus the waters below, were still quite dark. All he knew was that he was in the open ocean with nothing but black emptiness everywhere but above him, and not another living creature in sight.
For what must have been the thousandth time since they’d been separated from the others, he checked on Imyra in her shell, making sure she was safe. That done, he took his father’s moonstone necklace and carefully repaired it, molding and clasping the links back together.
After putting it around his neck for safekeeping, he glanced toward the surface. His next order of business was to go up there and see if there were any familiar landmarks he could travel by.
As the merling made his way upward, he saw that rain was still pelting the surface, but it was coming almost straight down now. The terrible winds had stopped, so there was thankfully little risk of another surprise current.
He broke the surface, arm raised to shield his eyes from the sharp pricks of the cold tears cried by the heavens. There were lights in the distance: a dozen or so round balls of illumination placed equal distances apart. A manling arrangement, if he ever saw one.
Adjusting for the now relatively gentle movement of the water, Coyrifan waited in place to see if the lights were moving. If they were still, they were most likely marking a small harbor. If they floated across the surface, then the merling was looking at a ship of an unknown size and distance.
Observing for a few minutes proved that it was indeed a moving vessel. If he was still in Mivusa territory, that ship would undoubtedly be heading for Nilvar or one of the other major manling settlements—if they had managed to maintain their own course through the storm, that is.
Deciding it was worth the risk of being seen, Coy ducked under the water and swam after it.
Being much closer to the surface now than he was when the storm had first started, the rumbles of thunder were much louder, and he could actually feel them move through the entirety of his body. The vibrations weren’t dangerous in and of themselves, but it was always unsettling to be touched so closely by something so foreign to those who dwelt in the deeps. He spent much of the time sending comforting thoughts to Imyra until they finally caught up with the manling ship.
It was a very large vessel with lanterns hung from its railings, likely the ship of someone wealthy or otherwise important to the manling culture. A careful scout around it proved that it was guarded by at least one griffin, a medium-sized animal who stood perched at the rear. It looked perfectly miserable, drenched by the pouring rain and unable to see much at all in the dark.
Coy couldn’t help but snicker at the misfortune of its rider, similarly wet and miserable. He or she could have easily stayed on the shore, warm and dry in the ugly square dwellings their kind so loved. Silly soft manlings, always insisting on inserting themselves in places that they weren’t properly built to occupy.
Hours passed, and Coyrifan began to tire. Luckily, the ship passed near some shallows that were littered with moonstone in various sizes, going from a smattering of tiny pebbles at the fringes to larger and larger chunks as one neared the original impact site. The area seemed deserted, so the merling took a few minutes to explore, moving very slowly to regain his strength as he combed through the smaller stones, looking for any pieces that might have an interesting shape or shade.
The place had once been a bare crater, but had since filled in with sand and silt, leaving only a fraction of the existing stones where they could be easily collected. The largest pieces were always in the center, and this one was no different. Parts of it were just breaking the surface, and after sweeping some of the silt aside with his tail to get a better view of its outline, Coyrifan was surprised to find a massive chunk, possibly the largest moonstone he’d ever laid eyes on. As large as a whale, it would have taken an army of sharks to tow. He found himself wishing there were some sort of landmark to remember it by, just for the fun of showing it off to his friends someday.
Suddenly remembering the ship, Coyrifan startled and sprinted for the surface to see where it had gone. Quite ungracefully in his hasty ascent, he leapt out of the water and spun, quickly checking all around. He spotted the ship while he was belly-up, and paused his spin to finish the arc back toward the surface. On its chain, his father’s moonstone followed after him through the air. In the split second before he hit the water, the stone lit up.
Stunned, Coyrifan floated just below the surface on his back, staring at the carved cylindrical moonstone gently bobbing in front of his face. There was no light that it could have caught. It was glowing from within and resisting its usual tendency to sink as a rock. As he gazed at it in wonder, an even brighter light flared up beneath him. He turned to see the immense moonstone and its children aglow, its illumination seemingly the source for his father’s stone as well.
The glow reached its peak just as multiple bolts of lightning split the dark sky above one after the other, their noise violently wrenching Coy from his trance. Wonder turned to primal fear at the sight of the deadly jags of white death, the merling froze with his head and shoulders just above the water.
With Imyra screaming in his head, he watched as the bolts connected not ten tail lengths away, lighting up the sky in a burst of blinding light.
The merling recoiled, shielding himself with his arms.
When he looked again, he saw someone plummeting toward the water, right below the place where the lightning had collided.
Before the impossible being struck the surface with a resounding splash, Coyrifan saw the twinkle of violet light as it was drawn straight down through the air, just inches above the falling body.
Whoever it was, they too possessed a moonstone.