Elias found the trip to the reef city took longer than he expected. He couldn’t tell if goblin submarine ships were slower than Sovereign airships, or if the discomfort he felt on the journey only made it seem so much longer than it should. The submarine was scarcely larger than the gondola of the Impeccable, and was filled with instruments and gear enough that Elias knew Minza must have seriously considered if there was actually space enough for two occupants when he asked. He was nonetheless impressed. The material scientists of the United Tribes were clearly leagues ahead of the Sovereign. The shell of the submarine was made of steel and laced on the inside with a myriad of brass piping. The centrepiece though, was the large dome front porthole, made of a glass of great quality and toughness that Elias could not fathom how they got it so thick yet so clear. Minza sat in front of him, piloting the sub, driving it through the world of blue and green that sat a few yards below the waves. He understood now why her suit was the way it was, covered in pipes and made of rubber. Though the sub was made of steel, the threat of a hull breach seemed very plausible, and so it made sense to be appropriately dressed for such an eventuality. The diving helmets too, Minza had yelled to Elias over the noise of locomotion, could be linked to one another through a set of detachable pipes, enabling conversation between occupants. Elias found the idea of speaking to another person essentially through an organ pipe screwed into a copper fishbowl somewhat amusing, though did admit he would have appreciated the opportunity to chat. Instead he had only the scenery, and the loud whirring of the motors to keep him company. It did give him time to think at least. On how the goblins had crystal clear glass that was inches thick, how they had not only internal combustion engines small enough to fit the slim profile of the sub, but that engine worked only to charge the batteries that ran the electric motors which propelled them through the water. They had portable electricity, why even bother with Pink? Perhaps the Sovereign, with its slow moving and slow thinking aristocrats, had fallen behind in the great game, and should have stopped chasing legends of magic and instead built more battleships. He caught himself then, realising he must have spent too long around the nationalists to be thinking in such a way. He was a man of history. Of academia. The machinations of the Sovereign were secondary to his own curiosity. He tapped his bag, double checking the diary was still there. He hadn’t the faintest clue how it could be translated, the Olds language remaining a mystery to all living humanoids. He mulled over his options as the view of blue-green became speckled with gold and pink, sharp rays of sunshine reflecting on a massive wall of coral. They had reached the reef city.
The mermaid city of Atollis was a marvel of engineering and urban planning, despite spending the majority of its time submerged. Built out from a coral reef core, the mermaids had carefully curated coral scaffolds to grow in the forms and shapes they desired for their metropolis. It grew exceptionally quickly, having been selectively bred over generations to do so. As the coral grew, the mermaids cut the excess to use for buildings, filling in the square made from the outer coral wall with streets and homes, with sedimentary rock used here and there as accessory material. Despite being made of almost entirely living material, Atollis was highly organised, with straight pathways laid out on a repeating grid pattern. Mermaids, still needing the air to breathe, needed to make sure there were no blind alleys or dead ends for a hapless swimmer to get turned around in and drown. Though the main avenues were open topped, giving unrestricted access to the surface, most buildings were built to accommodate air pockets, and had ‘dry’ sections, capped with great chimneys that brought air down to the city. These were what made mermaid cities even remotely liveable, if inconveniently so, for other humanoids. In low tide, the top street level of the city would drain out to about knee height, allowing citizens to wade and bask in the sun. For the lower levels of the city, built further down the slanting seabed that was once a sandbank, they had no such luxury, and relied almost entirely on their air pockets and chimneys.
The engine was cut, and the sub glided gently toward an inset of the outermost wall of coral used as a harbour, as much by the mermaids as by anyone else. The submarine had no anchor, but accepted mooring from kelp rope that was commonly used for smaller boats. Stepping up and out the hatch, Minza secured the sub, quietly slipping a bribe to the dockworker as she did. Elias, having only seen the impression of Atollis from above on Impeccable, could finally appreciate the achievement the city was up close. The harbour itself exemplified this the most. A traditional harbour, with seawalls, channels, jetties, and insets for mooring ships of all shapes and sizes, made out of a shining pink that sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight. And the ships were all shapes and sizes, ranging from dinky fishing canoes to large wooden sailing ships. Elias even spied a steel hulled frigate of Sovereign design and flag, hopefully due for homeward waters. The accompanying airship had been stowed in a conspicuous dome in her aft section, behind rows of slender, proud smoke stacks and steam chimneys. Elias thought himself lucky to have found a way home so soon before even getting off the flat top of the sub. Minza also spied the frigate. She stepped off the sub and onto a walkway. Turning to give Elias a hand, she grabbed the human’s wrist, clawlike nails pressed to his skin.
“I assume you’ll inquire that ship for your passage home.” She said, gesturing to the frigate far across the water. “It would be a shame if our, good relations, were to be ruined by them knowing of us, not least because I would be forced to use torpedo to sink the tub and make my escape.”
Elias had no idea what ‘torpedo’ was but had no intention of selling her out.
“Not a word to them miss Minza, though I have one condition.”
He named his condition, and she accepted, giving the man a curious smile at his request. Their agreement made, the two humanoids went their separate ways, Minza to restock before swiftly setting off, and Elias on the hunt for Shelly. Though it was late in the day, with Elias and Minza travelling all night and for most of the day, it was nonetheless busier than he expected, with a myriad of humanoid sailors and traders scuttling about the surprisingly slippery coral jetties. The fatigue had set in, and Elias saw that the mermaids, with their smooth, grey, featureless bodies, had become utterly impossible to differentiate between. He exhaustedly stumbled toward one, and asked if he might know where to find the building Shelly had mentioned before leaving the island. The blubbery man smiled at the sight of such a dishevelled human, though nonetheless directed him to the district where Shelly lived. Though it was not laterally very far, it did involve a good deal of unavoidable swimming. When Elias asked if there were a dry way to reach his destination, the mermaid laughed and slapped him on the arm. The mermaid left him to ponder how he might reach Shelly and returned to cutting fish on a table of varnished driftwood. Elias checked his bag, eyeing the ancient diary. It was a marvel it survived the humid environment of the island as long as it did, though he figured it would not survive the swim to Shelly’s. Moving further into the harbour, he left the jetty walkways and waded into a market plaza. The tide was coming in, and so he held his bag to his chest as he moved through water that came up to his hips. He trudged through, while all around him the mermaids swiftly cut through the water in an upright swim not dissimilar from a breaststroke. He found a vendor who had what he needed, and after a lengthy bargaining that reduced him to opening a line of credit with the stall, finally had something to keep his possessions dry. Known in the Sovereign as drynet, it was a unique sheet of kelp woven into a mesh. It was treated with some strange oil that made it waterproof, while also flexible and easy to stretch. It would happily wrap around most objects and kept them dry and well protected from moisture. Unfortunately for Elias, and other humanoids, the oil came from a particularly odorous sea creature, making everything stink of fish. The mermaids always claimed it had no smell whatsoever, though Elias could smell the stall from the other end of the plaza. Wrapping the diary in the dark green sheet, he waded deeper into the water, moving to the edge of the half-submerged plaza and to the drop off where streets and homes lay several yards below the water. Making a note to replace his satchel, and everything else on his person, he dove down into the sunken metropolis.
Though he was a strong swimmer, Elias nonetheless had difficulty diving, human anatomy being best suited for keeping to the surface when in the water. He needed the help of large spirals of coral laid out down the undersea street to descend, reserved for the elderly or children. Hand over hand he grasped the pole in a fight against his own buoyancy. The depth too was a challenge, both on his inner ears and lung capacity. He saw the building he was directed to. A slender, boxy tower with few windows and many needle-like chimneys. Though he might have enough air to reach it, he had no choice but to commit now as he lacked air enough to return to the surface. From bottom of the coral pole, he kicked frantically down the street almost a dozen yards below the surface. He swam up to the entrance, less a front door and more a man-sized piece of plumbing that brought him up and into the air pocketed foyer. Round the bend he went, and he heaved himself out of the circular moonpool and flopped on the floor, gasping for air in his ruined linen. He received a disgusted look from the concierge at the other end of the hall, who doubtlessly clicked some exploitive at him that Elias had no hope of understanding. Sodden, the man righted himself, and walked over to the mermaid at the other end of the foyer. Though it could have been the euphoria that comes with narrowly avoiding drowning, but Elias could not help but admire the beauty of the foyer. The mosaic tiled floor was rich with colours of red and blue, coupled with the soft golden hue of the curved sandstone walls and ceiling, kept aglow with bioluminescent shells running in rows above his head. Most citizens of the Sovereign described mermaid architecture as gaudy or as if one were to live in a bathhouse, though in its natural setting it took on a delightful form that Elias had to smile at. Then he vomited, seawater spilling out at the feet of the concierge. Thankfully for Elias, one of the mermaid clicks he had practiced to perfection was the term for ‘sorry’, which he repeated multiple times as the concierge shrieked at him and attempted to push him out and down the entrance pool like a spider down a drain.
“The land man is with me.” Came a voice from up the stairs, behind the front desk of kelp fibre at the other end of the hall.
Elias looked up, seeing Shelly had come to his rescue yet again. The concierge turned around; frustration now shared between Shelly as much as it was with Elias. They conversed a bit, at a pace he couldn’t keep up with, and finally the concierge went back to his desk in somewhat of a huff, leaving the two to ascend the large sandstone stairs.
“How improper of front of house staff to be that way.” Elias said, attempting to save face. “Really, he must know a man cannot swim to his accommodation and expect to arrive looking his best. What was I to do?”
“That’s what he was shouting about.” Shelly said. “He was asking why you didn’t use the upstairs door.”
“Upstairs door?”
“Yes, for the old or other poor swimmers. You wade in, it’s just off the plaza.”
Elias said nothing, only looking down to consider his ruined clothes, and of the laughing fisherman who directed him from the docks. Shelly showed him upstairs.
The building Shelly made his home was a mix of apartments and guest houses. Over many floors it ran from seabed to surface, lit primarily by bioluminescent sea shells that like the coral that build the city, had also been bred with a mermaid design. Shelly lived near the top with his uncle, who Elias had apparently met on the beach on the island the other day. Their apartment was on the upper floor and mostly kept dry, owing to Shelly’s uncle being prone to fungal infections when kept excessively damp. The apartment was warm, with floors and walls of smooth sandstone. Elias appreciated this, as he had to discard his clothes and walk around nude. His modesty protested, but he agreed after being informed by Shelly that he had a neighbour who spent time in a Sovereign fishing village and had kept some clothes as a souvenir of her time there, and so would not have to bare his shame for very long. The price of her clothes however was more shame, as the mermaid woman would only agree to loan them if she were to see the land man herself, so she could ‘refresh her memory’.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Thank goodness photography has not made it this far south.” Elias said, dressing in cottons that were a decade out of fashion. “This simply wouldn’t do in the Sovereign, peep show for threads.”
“In barbarous lands, be barbarians.” Shelly replied, in the language of the Sovereign, vocal chords straining at such an act.
The phrase reset Elias’ perspective, realising that he had exclusively relied on such barbarian charity the moment he stepped off Impeccable. He continued to receive that charity as he was given invitation to dine with Shelly and his uncle that evening. Assured by them that Sovereign ships don’t leave before midday and so would have all evening and morning to enquire about passage, he agreed.
They came to sit at a large oval shaped table that had been carved out of a great clamshell. Shelly’s uncle reintroduced himself to Elias, asking his nephew to apologise for his comment about the dryness of his skin in the beach.
“You are now a much-moistened colonial!” He said jovially.
Shelly informed Elias that it was indeed a complement, and they set to eat. Mermaid cuisine was unsurprisingly based on fish, though had a variety of ‘sea vegetables’ that Elias came to realise were merely different forms of kelp. Kelp bred to be long and stringy, dense and nutty, as well as sweet and watery. Elias appreciated this latter form, as he had run dry of fresh water before he stepped off the submarine. Mermaids drank no alcohol, but did partake in a strange drink derived from octopode ink. Though they could think like any man, the ocotopdes had no true civilization, and instead travelled the ocean in tight knit nomadic groups, trading their fluids with the equally nomadic Ocean Mermaids, who then trade it with their reef-based kin. The ink was matured and served at the end of evening meals. It aided digestion and produced an energetic euphoria that Elias found quite agreeable. He felt a warmth in his body as he gulped down the surprisingly sweet drink, and felt an immediate need to move. The other two at the table noticed his face was flushed.
“The land man likes it.” Shelly’s uncle said, leaning to his nephew.
“It’s good for a swim after a heavy meal.” Shelly said to Elias, dropping in words of Sovereign speak to aid in communication.
“Well gentlemen, shall we swim? I don’t know when I will next be in such good company for it.”
The mermaids agreed, and taking the upstairs door out the building, waded into a nearby recreational space. There were clear spaces for swimming, decorative kelp plants, and winding underwater paths flaked on both sides with soft beige sponges leading to undersea caves and other hideaways. The trio kept to the open swimming lanes, Elias fighting the water as all humans do in little more than a cotton undergarment, while Shelly and his uncle gracefully cut through the water in the classic ‘mermaid kick’ stroke. The air had cooled, as had the sea somewhat, and Elias greatly appreciated the fresh air and sky above him. Delightful as Shelly’s apartment might be, the stuffy air and lack of windows were too claustrophobic for his tastes. He followed Shelly and his uncle to a mound at the far end of the open swimming area, shyly poking above the water and adorned with stout palms. The euphoria of the ink drink was still in him, so Elias managed to keep up a respectable pace behind them, and arrived at the sandy mound a few scant moments before the mermaids.
“You swim well land man.” Shelly’s uncle said to Shelly, who then said it to Elias. They came to sit on the mound, leaning on the wide bristly trunk of a palm.
“My nephew tells me you make a life out of exploring the land and sea, including cursed lands. I just don’t understand it. Anyone could tell you a land is cursed, why go?”
Elias had time to prepare his answer, as he got most of it before Shelly provided a rendition in simpler clicks and signs.
“I want the freedom to go where I wish. This world is a ball. It wraps around on itself as if it never ends, but it’s surface is finite. I don’t believe any man, or mermaid, should be denied the opportunity to see it by some uncaring Being. I have nothing else left really, but perhaps I can find something in the dark corners of the world.”
“Tell us then, land man, some of what you have seen. A story of the land.” The older mermaid said.
The three sat there, on the sandy islet watching the sun set, as Elias reeled off a story of his time in the Basin desert. He saw the mermaids mesmerized as he told them of the great dry place where no water was to be found, where sand fell from the sky like rain, and how he met the thing that dwelled in the ever-raging sandstorm, and how he lost something irreplaceable to its embrace. As he told the story, he gazed out at the emerging stars and scanned the horizon. He thought of the goblin Minza, and their encounter with the atypical Being. That island wasn’t cursed, not in the way he knew. You couldn’t kill a Being, and even felling an avatar of its will would have taken more effort than it did for the golem, magic or not. The Olds made that golem, and everything else unnatural on that island, and the unreadable words in the diary would explain why.
Morning came quickly to Elias, not that he would know it, waking on the sandstone floor in Shelly’s windowless apartment while he and his uncle still dozed, half submerged in a large bath down the hall of the modest space. His mouth was dry, and his head throbbed from dehydration. He put on the donated cottons and went to wake the young mermaid up. He bid him farewell once again, and thanked him and his uncle for their hospitality.
“Shelly I might be dead without your help. On the island you asked me why I do what I do, as did your uncle last night. I hope I answered that. Now I must ask you, why help me like you have?”
Shelly did not answer with words or clicks or even signs, but instead reached into a large clam shaped trunk and produced a book. It was made of a thicker, sturdier drynet, and written in the mermaid language, though Elias smiled when he saw it. He had come to recognise his name in several languages, both human and humanoid, and there it was, scratched across stinking green kelp. It was his book.
“You tell your time in the dry land different than you wrote it.” Shelly said.
“Oh Shelly, you should have stopped me before I got carried away.” Elias retorted.
“Which one is truer, what you said, or what you wrote?”
Elias paused.
“What I said, One Who Works with Seashells. My publisher thought my true account was too dour.”
“So, what you lost?”
“Indeed, friend.” Elias said, melancholy in his voice. He pushed the feeling back, hating goodbyes in all their forms. “Shelly, let me sign your copy!”
The young mermaid smiled as Elias etched his name into the inside of the front cover. He knew that no letters of correspondence would ever make it this far south, and radiogram had yet to reach the reef cities, mermaids lacking a central government to organise such things, so alongside his name, he etched his address with the offer to host if he were ever in the Sovereign.
He again took the upstairs door out the building, ascending large blocky steps framed by slimy algae that clung to the segments of stairs not harassed by footsteps. He saw the sun poke in as he reached the top of the stairs, where the walls had widened to allow for twin waterfalls to fall down into pits that flanked the open doorway. Stepping down from the sandstone threshold his foot met the ankle deep water of the plaza in low tide. The morning markets were setting up, and Elias made an effort to avoid the drynet seller from yesterday in case he would demand the money he didn’t have. He passed stalls selling everything from fried fish to peal jewels, their clerks yelping a cacophony of clicks and whistles at a pace and form that Elias had no hope of understanding. Across the plaza he trudged, barefoot and holding his maps and diary, all wrapped in the still reeking drynet. Down from the plaza and up the coral seawall, he found himself back at the harbour. To his relief the steel ship was still there, happily anchored exactly where it was when he first saw. Upon closer inspection, Elias saw she was a newer frigate. All big guns, no sails, and a powerful steam powered propeller hidden under the surface of the water. The newspapers told that these frigates were for pirate hunting in the Chain archipelago, though Elias wondered if that was all they were for. Fast, heavily armed, but small, they could reach up and into the great winding rivers of the goblin lands with ease, their guns shelling what of their subterranean cities made it above ground and caving them in.
Elias walked along the bulwark toward the ship, meeting a sailor at post, white uniform yellowing from his tour of the tropics. He looked a young man, barely out of his teenage years. His face still held the occasional blemish as he stood to attention at Elias’ approach.
“This is His Lord Protector’s Navy vessel, turn around civilian.” He croaked, voice breaking.
Elias saluted him, knowing lavishing respect on the junior of office often got him far.
“Good morning to you sailor. I am Dr Elias Oliphant of the Royal Society. I was commissioned by his Lord Protector’s government to charter the islands south of here. My airship was sunk, and I have no way back to the Sovereign. Might I speak to the captain to seek passage. I have experience at sea, I will be no burden.”
The boy thought a moment. He recognised Elias both in name and appearance, though knew nothing of a mapmaking mission. Nonetheless he escorted him aboard and to the captain’s chambers. Though the ship was weathered somewhat by her voyage, she was spotless. The boy led Elias across the deeply varnished wooden deck and through a narrow metal door to the bowels of the ship. The lower decks were mainly steel, painted a cool white, including all piping. There were electric lights, spewing out a glow of yellow white that Elias had not yet become used to, having grown up in the light of the gas lamp. The young sailor explained that a steam turbine is always on the spin, even when not underway. Coming down a lattice staircase and through narrow corridors, they reached the captain’s chamber. The sailor announced himself at the door, and was summoned in. Opposite a sturdy looking oak table sat Captain Kholler. He was a man of squares and rectangles, from his face to his body to his very soul. He looked up from his desk, placing the pen back in its inkwell. The sailor saluted, as did Elias.
“Yes, ensign.” He said.
“Captain, I have Elias Oliphant with me. He’s asking for passage aboard back to the Sovereign. He says he lost his airship.”
Kholler leaned forward in his chair, inspecting the man brought to him.
“An airship isn’t an easy thing to lose. How did that happen, Oliphant?”
“Burnt to a crisp by... Well I guess some sort of Being. I wouldn’t have survived if I wasn’t saved by a mermaid.” Elias said.
Kholler leaned back, hand resting on his angular jaw.
“A being, I see. Where were you when you came upon it, Oliphant?
Elias winced. That information was for the Sovereign itself, not a navy captain.
“I’m not sure, sir, that I am able to give you that information.”
Kholler leaned forward, spreading his hands and shifting the weight of his broad upper body into the desk.
“Oliphant, I assumed you of all people would know it is no way to act keeping that information to yourself. It is the responsibility of every man of the Sovereign to share a Being sighting. I shouldn’t expect you’re hiding something, should I? Perhaps it was some brine rat pirate gang that picked you up?” Kholler said.
Offended at describing Shelly in such a way, Elias nonetheless kept his composure. Another uncouth nationalist.
“Captain, I apologise. What I meant is that I had not fully mapped my location before I was set upon. I am unsure if my map is in a usable state in any instance.” He said, gesturing to the drynet bundle he held which everyone in the room was acutely aware of. “I can tell you it was in an unremarkable part of the ocean about a day’s fly southwest from here. I might add, that I was saved not by pirates, but a shell worker’s nephew.”
“A single mermaid dragged you across a day’s worth of ocean?”
“My airship’s gondola remained enough to float on. It… also sank before reaching Atollis.”
“I see. Well jolly good, once you are certain you can share your map with me, I will have your coordinates. You may have passage on my ship Elias, but you are no passenger. You’ll work her as any other sailor. Ensign, see to it that Mr Oliphant is washed, dressed, and orientated to the ship.”
“I beg your pardon captain, but it’s ‘doctor’”.
“That so? I wasn’t aware you were a physician.”
“A doctor of historical anthropology.”
“I see. Oliphant, you will be ‘mister’ on this ship. That is all, ensign, Mr. Oliphant, you are dismissed.”
With that, Elias was ushered out Kholler’s chambers and down another narrow corridor.
“Never mind the captain, he can be a bit rigid.” The ensign said. “I’m Mr. Thompson. Jonathan Thompson.” The young man said, offering a hand for Elias to shake.
“A pleasure. Your captain’s temperament aside, I am thankful you gave me an audience, and thus a way home.”
Thompson smiled and showed Elias to the crew quarters. He appropriated him some clothes and pointed him toward the washroom. Elias was happy to clean days old sand from under his nails and other places, though was less enamoured with Thompson’s insistence he must shave all facial hair.
“I have always kept a beard.” Elias protested.
“Captain’s orders. Everyone aboard is clean shaven.” Thompson replied. “There’s a razor there, and leather too. The blade often dulls.”
Elias was left alone in front of the porcelain sink in the empty washroom, with only his reflection to keep him company. He looked at himself in the mirror, seeing the change in his face unfold before him. He donned the white sailor’s fatigues, the cost of his voyage being his identity, his autonomy, for its duration.