Prologue Part II
CHAMBERLAIN MARLIN, ADVISOR TO THE HIGH KING
Not for the first time, the sea turtle Chamberlain Marlin was toying with the idea of turning down High King Titus’ summons. A summons often meant that the king had found something wrong with Marlin’s work, or wanted to add to his work, or wanted Marlin to drop his current work in the name of working more. Each year, the shell on Marlin’s back got a little heavier as High King Titus added to his duties. The king’s requests of him in recent years could be described at best as ‘odd,’ and at worst, ‘unforgivably addled.’ Over forty years of peaceful reign, High King Titus had continued to fortify the reefs for war, and had retained a heavy suspicion of magic, going so far as to devise the ‘tests.’
Ever since the introduction of the ‘tests,’ whispers of the king’s search for magic folk chased Marlin through the court in varying tones of malice.
The kingdom needed magic to exist, thriving on its cures, construction, tools, the way the very currents were shaped. Mages and witches were vital to the kingdom’s survival. Despite this, the king insisted on pacing any new-coming practitioners with the ‘tests,’ devised to find those with magical fortitude enough to handle a god-weapon. The king was looking for estranged royal blood. Magical royal blood. It was absurd. It was impossible.
In recent months, the ‘search’ had escalated to such a degree that one rumor now persisted above all: that the old king had gone mad.
The old turtle shook his head. Now was not the time for getting lost in his own head.
The summoners, a pair of bonefish transfers from the Atlantic, had found him only minutes ago with a message from Captain Kael, but claimed they’d been sent sometime around noon.
Noon!
Sparkling glimpses of sunlight in the water overhead told him that it had been at least an hour since the high king had sent for him. It was simply unacceptable.
“Bonefish,” he grumped under the strain of trying to drag his shell along a small back-currant. “More like bone-headed. This is the last time I hire speed over basic sagacity—the very last!”
Despite his reluctance, Marlin made a decision. With great effort, he turned his shell, and abandoned his current hunt. Though there was an inevitable struggle as he fought through the kelp beds that surrounded the palace gardens, he eventually passed the main gates and made for the throne room.
For once, he could only hope that Titus had nothing more to ask of him than advice, or perhaps the odd errand. His young charge, the princess Ayalina, had gone missing. His presence with the king might excuse him from an interrogation of his having lost her—again.
“I’m getting too old for this,” Marlin groaned, casting a last glance for the princess around the palace hallways as he sailed through a bustle of displaced courtiers and servants. The ornate palace was bustling with life as usual, and for the second time that month, the inner facades were being given a fresh oyster wash.
“King carries on like this, and the whole castle will be one big, ugly pearl, itself,” he overheard someone say, and though he agreed with the sentiment, Marlin didn’t appreciate the snide tone. He cast a stern look at the naysayer, and everyone else. Of course, being a turtle, no one paid him any heed as he passed by.
“Did you see?” he heard an extravagantly painted sailfish mutter. “Those tentacles. And the whole place empty. Something’s afoot, and who can say what madness is coming to the palace if someone like that gets a private audience.”
“I heard that he brought an entourage. Just swam in like they owned the place and took the nobles’ rooms and barracks—like they think they belong!” A speech-gifted crab laced in strings of pearls was waving her claws like a kelp bed in monsoon season.
“First the purges and now the Kuroshio are welcome in the palace uninvited? I didn’t believe it before, but now I might. The king really has gone ma—”
“Out of the way!” Marlin grumped, pushing past the gossipers.
A hush descended on the blabbing group, and there was a flurry of fins and claws when they recognized him. The crowd parted to let him through, though not out of courtesy. Rather, no one in the Atlantean court would want to be seen by the king’s advisor and head chamberlain when committing soft treason.
Marlin harrumphed as he swam by, the hall parting for him easily, now. There was no sign of Princess Ayalina, of course. That would have been too easy.
He couldn’t help but wonder, as he easily sailed the last hallways toward the throne room doors, why it was that he could get anyone in the kingdom to listen to his demands—including the king—except for the princesses.
In the days when his shell had been much smaller and lighter, Marlin’s first role in the royal family had been as a carriage master. He pulled them, parked them, and escorted dignitaries to and from them. Later, when he was too slow to be of use, he’d apprenticed to the palace chamberlain. Marlin planned events, greeted dignitaries, and organized travel. Simple things. Dull things. So, no one, including him, questioned his position as a spy in the Cecaelian war. After all, who would suspect a sleepy old turtle of listening in on things. Marlin had overheard more than one state secret spilled accidentally when the foreign palaces he visited forgot to treat him as anything other than a large, green piece of furniture.
At the war’s end, he had won the trust of the king, who shortly kept him on as a nanny-turtle for his nine princesses. Marlin had the ear of the royal family at all hours during those years. Eventually, his position had changed to Head Chamberlain, as his role among the princesses diminished. Of nine grown princesses, some had married into queenships, and others into alliances—gone but for the last three. Of course, Marlin had his flipper in all of those arrangements. The old turtle organized balls, greeted visiting dignitaries, snooped on would-be suitors for King Titus’ offspring, and Poseidon-help-him, occasionally chaperoned their attempts at courting the poor girls.
This year alone, every eligible duke, baron, governor, and may-Poseidon-damn-the-lot-of-them, princes, had subjected Marlin to enough ear-splitting serenades, and woefully composed poetry to make him consider having the palace chefs end his misery and just serve him up as turtle soup—almost.
The truth was, he cared greatly for his little hatchling princesses, though they were hatchlings no longer. And, while the princesses didn’t always listen to him, they certainly sought out his advice more often than their father, a fact which he kept close to his shell.
“Noon,” Marlin repeated aloud before his mind could wander further. Worry threatened to weigh down his shell and plunge him all the way down to the sand—which he decidedly did not have time for. “It’s not as if the bony imbeciles don’t know how to find me!”
Fish occasionally got lost just like everyone else. However, it was exceedingly rare that the sense of direction failed that particular species.
No, Marlin decided. Something was off about the whole affair, as it often was with the Kuroshio visitors.
Around his shelled head, shimmering patterns of light bounced back at him across the pearly walls and polished statues that lined the corridor to the heart of the palace. Shoals of tiny fish darted about like a tiny ballet, to and from the kitchens, entertainment rooms, and many guest rooms that the palace housed. At last, the carved pillars of coral rose majestically into his field of view, marking the framework of the towering throne room doors.
The armored guard snapped to attention the moment they saw Marlin. Two swordfish snapping their noses to the ready.
“Advisor Marlin!” one guard cried,
“We didn’t expect you!” piped the other.
“King’s got a guest…” said the first, though the way he said the word ‘guest’ was dubious. “—And he’s ordered no interruptions. From anyone.”
“I am not ‘anyone.’ I was summoned,” Marlin grumped. “Don’t tell me the king has changed his mind after I’ve come all this way.”
“Summoned, you say?” said one of the swords.
“Well, if he was summoned…” The other looked down his nose at Marlin. With such a long nose, it couldn’t be helped, but Marlin was in a terrible mood as-is.
“Just open the doors,” Marlin ordered, wishing turtles could growl. “And don’t yell out, I can announce my—”
“Advisor Marlin!” bellowed the first guard, before he could finish the order.
“High Chamberlain to the Palace!” chimed the next.
“Quiet down, quiet down! I’m already half-deaf as it is!”
The announcer’s voice was still echoing around the vaulted ceiling of the chamber when Marlin finally made his way through the doors.
Marlin squinted through the dazzling reflections of the throne room, ready to tell off the mutinous announcer, until his eyes adjusted, and he saw the reason why they’d insisted on formal protocol.
Sitting in Marlin’s seat to the right of the plush clam-shell throne, was an entirely unwelcome guest. Suddenly, the crowded hallways and gossip made sense.
“Marlin, join us,” boomed High King Titus from his place at the head of the grand room.
Marlin obeyed the king’s command—slowly. Something in the throne room felt wrong, somehow. He searched the room as he swam, trying to place what it was.
There was nothing different about the towering columns that lined the room, nor the untouched tables of food heaped to one side. Errant pearls and bits of sand littered the tile floor, glittering innocently. As for the king, himself: Titus’ white beard would have reached his navel if the gentle currents in the room didn’t keep it floating before his face like an anemone. He wore the weight of both the wrought-coral crown of Atlantis, and the responsibility for all its citizens’ lives, with his usual stiff royal dignity. The king was not the fierce ruler he had once been, but that was not exactly new. His scales had grayed rapidly over the last few months alone, and it was no longer the bright shining silver of a warrior. Once quite the majestic thing, it now drooped off the edge of the throne limply enough that his fins brushed the floor some nine feet below.
Next to him, his cecaelian guest was certainly larger than the king if one counted the span of his battle-scarred black tentacles. Large enough, certainly, not to fit easily into Marlin’s seat. King Ezra of the Cecaelians had a cropped, silvery head of hair, his natural white coloring aged nearly to gray over his fluid, sunken features. His chest was clothed in enough chains and pendants to fill a treasure chest. If he had been anything but cecaelian, that much metal would have rendered him unable to move. Even so, carrying that much weight was a warning of his strength as much as a royal fashion statement.
And suddenly, looking at Ezra, it struck Marlin exactly what was wrong with the throne room. The room was warm. Over the past few months, the throne room’s chill had deterred the lazier courtiers from spending much time there, and Marlin could only guess at the reason for the cold. The waters around the king tended to reflect his mood, and High King Titus had been growing anxious about something—something that he’d refused to speak about with even Marlin. Now, however, the room was practically feverish.
Titus’ tail twitched as Marlin approached at a pace that was probably considered ‘dawdling.’
“Good day, My King,” Marlin greeted, flipping his way toward the throne.
Even if his comfortable seat was no longer waiting for him, he could see from the annoyance on his king’s face. Marlin had arrived later than expected. Whether or not that was his fault was entirely irrelevant.
“Your Excellency… King Ezra,” Marlin greeted both the king and the guest in his own seat with a bow, trying to conceal his panting.
“Ah, Marvin,” Ezra greeted with a subtly disguised sneer. “What a surprise. Do come along, the king wouldn’t start without you.”
“If it’s a surprise, then why was the king expecting me?” Marlin retorted as innocently as he could manage under the circumstances.
From the way King Ezra’s black tentacles curled beneath him in displeasure, it was obvious just how much he hated Marlin’s presence. However, as displeased as he was, he did not seem surprised that Marlin was so late. In fact, he looked downright amused.
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Marlin frowned. He didn’t blame Ezra for hating him. Although, even if Ezra was the reason his summons was late, Marlin supposed he should count himself lucky that the slimy king’s actions toward him so far had hovered on ‘ignore-at-all-possible-inconvenience,’ and had not yet tilted toward ‘utterly-murderous.’ Marlin was a very large part of why Ezra had lost so much.
During the war, Ezra had led the initial attacks on the palace as General of the rebellious Cecaelian effort. However, at the first sign of defeat, Ezra’s loyalties had turned over like the bottom-feeder he was. He’d sold out many of his own captains in exchange for rule over the Kuroshio territory…and a little something for himself.
Ezra had demanded Titus’ eldest daughter, Adriatta. Adriatta, the first of Marlin’s little princesses.
Ezra cited many reasons for this alliance: a union with Atlantis, a hand of Atlantean influence forever present among the cecaelia, and an end to the blood disputes. That he claimed to love her, was another, and by far the most absurd.
Marlin had been the very turtle to provide the information that lead to Ezra’s precarious defeat. He’d watched him in his own lair. Had seen him give the attack orders personally. In the name of Adriatta’s future, Marlin staunchly opposed the union. He’d nearly succeeded, too. Titus was persuaded. Adriatta was grateful for his protection…until the princess, in a fit of something he never would have predicted, snuck behind his shell and married Ezra anyway. The whole ceremony was very cloak-and-dagger, and the suspicion surrounding the event prickled the scales on his tail to this day. Marlin suspected that the only reason Titus tolerated so many demands from the Kuroshio region was that occasionally along with those demands, Adriatta would come to visit home.
The old turtle resisted a sudden urge to shake bubbles out of his head. The longer he stared at Ezra, the more his mind grew murky with images from the past.
“As I was saying, Majesty,” Ezra said through a smile that, in Marlin’s opinion, showed just a few too many of his pointed teeth. “The unrest in the Depths is growing, and I can no longer ignore its effect on my people. Every kingdom in the oceans and seas has the protection of its armament but my own, and I confess we are feeling the lack acutely.”
“Armament?” Marlin asked, hoping that Ezra would get to the point.
“Yes, Merchant.” Ezra gestured with a tentacle in Marlin’s direction, as though he’d just said something profoundly dull. “I mean the armaments such as his majesty’s bident that controls the currents. The harpoon of the eels, that can pierce the toughest hide. The Shillelagh of the Merrow for the binding of deals—”
“I am aware of my kingdoms and their regalia, Ezra. We’ve been in this throne room long enough. What exactly is your request?” Titus' gaze flicked to Marlin as he said this, and his head retreated a little into his shell in embarrassment.
“Of course, my king,” Ezra said with a lazy half-bow in his seat. “I mean to emphasize that as the Inkthrall Lance of the Cecaelia is still missing, we are without the defense of our kingdom’s most crucial regalia, and must therefore rely on the grace of your bident’s protection in times of threat. As you know, we have no acting military—”
Marlin almost snorted, but didn’t. The ancient Inkthrall Lance was practically a legend. If indeed it really existed, then it might have been proof of the cecaelian’s claim to royal descent; however, there was simply no such thing. Furthermore, its lack hadn’t kept Ezra and his band of cecaelian sea-witches out of any battles. No. It seemed Ezra was here to ask for more mermen to guard his paltry domain—as though cecaelia were not entirely capable of protecting themselves.
“What does a kingdom that hasn’t been heard from in decades have to you with your lack of an armament?” Marlin interrupted.
“Ah, I knew your unfailing questions would bring us round, Merlin,” Ezra smarmed, addressing the king instead of Marlin. “You see, the problem is, that we have been hearing from the depths—in the form of some rather nasty beasties that keep wandering into my territories. If the symbol of the cecaelian kingdom was still with us, I would not have to ask, but without it, we require outside intervention.”
The king’s eyes narrowed.
“What proof do you have that the Depths are responsible? Have you somehow discovered its location, Ezra?”
“Nothing so revolutionary, my king, which is why I felt the need to report in person. You see, creatures known only to exist in the Depths have appeared in the Monoch caves. My caves, you understand. Perhaps we could have dealt with the issue on our own; however, the kingdoms at our borders begin to push the bounds drawn by yourself. Some of those creatures I suspect were herded to my reefs by the eel merfolk. Skirmishes and territorial disputes from the same eels have arisen over dwellings in my lands.”
“The currents would have informed me, had your people suffered an outright attack, Ezra,” said Titus. “Are you suggesting the bident is somehow defective?”
Ezra pretended he didn’t hear the danger in Titus’ tone. Opting at last to rise from his seat, Ezra’s tentacles writhed in frustration as he moved more directly into the king’s line of sight. He was the picture of a put-upon sovereign.
“Only last week, I lost three soldiers to an escaped vampire squid from the trenches. The eels ignore their borders and traipse into my kingdom under all manner of excuses, and you are of course aware that the Arctic king has never been satisfied with the conditions of his territory. It is only a matter of time, I believe, before he begins to encroach as well.”
Marlin’s eyes narrowed to slits until they were no longer distinguishable from his nostrils.
“Vampire squid, King Ezra?” Marlin asked, keeping flippers politely at his sides. “Vampires eat sea-snow. The damage they cause is…well, it’s not exactly a strong species.”
If scowls could kill, Marlin would have been a dead turtle.
“Calling me a liar, Murchin?” Ezra snapped, shaking his head of silvery hair over his face so that the high king wouldn’t see his snarl. One of his more unruly tentacles twitched toward Marlin, and Ezra made an obvious effort to keep it in check. “You think I don’t keep a very close eye on my soldiers as I have so few?”
His tone seemed to accuse Marlin personally, hiding a subtextual thanks to you that Ezra couldn’t say outright in front of King Titus.
“To the point, King Ezra,” King Titus ordered. “What exactly are you suggesting I do about these alleged grievances? You want more of my soldiers? Provisions? Out with it.”
Ezra floated one hand to his chain-ridden chest in a gesture of either haughtiness, or innocence, and resumed his over-wide smiling. “I wouldn’t suggest anything but the continued stability of Atlantis. It has been twenty years since the war, Your Majesty—”
At that, the king’s tail twitched in annoyance, and stirred up the sand at the base of the throne’s pedestal enough to make Marlin’s eyes itch
“—I am only wondering when the promises made to my people will be fully upheld.” Ezra’s tentacles stilled around the base of his—Marlin’s—seat, and a tense pause filled the room. Ezra took to fiddling with one of many black pendants slung around his middle that had hidden well among the inky expanse of tentacles.
Marlin fought to keep the smile off his face. Ezra had finally overstepped. It was to Marlin’s amazement, then, when the annoyance simply left King Titus’ face as he answered with a bubbly sigh.
“The alliances I have made with the seven seas came at great cost to me, Ezra. Since then, I have given you soldiers. Dedicated a portion of my forces each year to a search for your ‘armament.’ I gave you a wife. Are these not enough? Are you not satisfied with my eldest and most treasured daughter?” This time, Ezra appeared to catch on to the threat at the edge of Titus’ words, because he furled his tentacles inward and made himself look generally smaller and more respectful.
“But of course. Your daughter is the only light I have in these dreary days, my king,” Ezra replied easily, turning that pendant over in his fingers, which by now seemed to have captured the king’s flickering attention as well. “It is in fact Queen Adriatta who inspires me to ask at all.”
“Adriatta?” King Titus mumbled, briefly wistful as he stared down at Ezra’s twisting fingers. “I suppose…”
Marlin looked up. The change in the king’s demeanor was unnaturally quick. The scales on the back of his shell prickled as Ezra raised himself to eye level with the king.
“Indeed.” Ezra smiled even wider, his teeth catching pricks of the light that shimmered over the columns that loomed at the edge of the throne room’s walls. “If Adriatta can manage in my paltry kingdom so well, I can only imagine how much your other daughters have done to ensure tranquility in their respective seas. I come before you today, My King, to warn you of the threats that I have seen rising up—threats that may well threaten Adriatta and your other children if not addressed—”
“Your point, Ezra,” Titus snapped, though not so fiercely as before, his eyes still somewhat misty.
Ezra swam straighter before the king, his tentacles curling and uncurling as though he’d already won. He was preening.
“End the attacks on my kingdom, and all others, my king,” Ezra said silkily, “by bringing the last three kingdoms into the alliance. If the eels take it into their heads to ally with the Depths, or the Arctic, or Poseidon help us, both, we would have another war on our hands. Marry your other daughters now, and not only will my lands be safe, but your kingdom will be stronger. It will be the first complete unity the oceans have seen since the reign of Poseidon, himself.”
The silence in the throne room was cut only by the sloshing of waves lapping at the palace’s ceiling at low tide. Marry the princesses? Now? The youngest three were hardly of age, and the peace in the oceans had lasted decades. There was no reason to force other alliances. There was no reason to force Marlin’s little ones—though they were little no longer—to leave the reefs before they were ready. The only thing clear to Marlin, was that Ezra had an ulterior motive.
“I have already promised my seventh daughter to the Arctic King Aerus,” King Titus mused quietly. “I had hoped to give my last two daughters more liberty in their selection…”
Yes! Marlin wanted to shout. Yes, the last two have been promised a choice!
Ever since his failure with Adriatta, Marlin had dedicated himself to arranging, if not loving alliances for the other princesses, then at least happy ones. In Adriatta’s case, perhaps she felt that it was her duty. Perhaps Titus had ordered her without his knowledge. Even so, he had vowed not to repeat the failure, and so far, had succeeded.
Unfortunately, Ezra wasn’t done talking.
“My people have patiently complied with all of the requirements placed on them by Atlantis, and have lived peacefully, and for all our sakes, I wish it to remain that way,” Ezra plodded on, rather forcefully, now gripping the black stone around his neck with the same fervor that King Titus held the bident. He faced the throne, wearing a hard, cold expression in his address. “The attacks on the remaining Cecaelia of Atlantis are aimed at the innocent, founded on grudges of the past. They cannot continue. For Poseidon’s sake! How long will Adriatta delay her plans for heirs because she lives in a kingdom that she feels is constantly under threat?”
Titus moved a hand through his beard thoughtfully, his bushy brow coming together in wrinkled confusion.
“Adriatta plans…” Titus hemmed. As of yet, there were no royal descendants besides Titus’ daughters, and Titus was no longer young.
Marlin glanced at the king, alarmed. It wasn’t at all like Titus to drone or trail off like this. In fact, it wasn’t like Titus to do anything but bark decisions and orders. Ezra’s rant had gotten Titis’ attention where it counted. Stability. And if it came with the promise of extending his line…For Grandchildren!
The high king…the high king was going to force the marriages.
Years of persuasion, of subtle manipulation regarding his charges’ future was threatening to wash away from Marlin like so much foam on the tide. The youngest princesses weren’t ready. They simply weren’t. As a point of fact, he was not ready. Marlin could be offered the contents of the palace treasuries and it would still be above his pay-grade to be the one to tell the princesses their fates had changed to this.
Marlin cleared his throat, and from his perch at the base of the throne, subtly nudged Titus’ tail with one flipper.
“My king? Perhaps this decision merits some…deliberation?”
The king, to Marlin’s relief, seemed to snap back into himself, but not in the way that he’d hoped.
“Deliberation costs lives, Marlin!” King Titus barked the familiar phrase, and Marlin’s head shrunk a few inches into his shell, suddenly wishing he’d chosen any other word. Deliberation had caused the king to dissolve the counsel of advisors appointed to the war. Because deliberation had cost him lives.
However, that didn’t change that Marlin needed more time, and he needed it right now.
“Yes, my king,” Marlin floundered, casting around for any reason that might delay the king long enough for Marlin to have a chance to speak to him alone. “It is only that Sephina and Seline have not yet returned from the red sea. Ayalina is hardly of age, and she has… she has gone to study the city infrastructure. She is so early in her education, and surely the Arctic can wai—”
“Summon Seline, Sephina, and Ayalina!” Titus ordered, before another word could be said. Titus, who had been unusually willing to tolerate Ezra’s lengthy speech, was no longer so forbearing.
Ezra’s smirk deepened, and, still gripping one of his many pendants, he sailed back into Marlin’s seat. It was the gesture of a cecaelian who knew he’d won.
“I…” Marlin flapped his flippers helplessly in the agitated current that was building around King Titus as his grip resumed on the bident. The currents were already opening the great doors, and pushing Marlin away from the throne.
For decades of his life, Marlin had risked life and flipper for the royal family. The king had trusted him through wars. Through upheaval. And then, through births. However, as the king’s current gathered strength, marlin was beginning to see what those years had amounted to. His shell felt as though it had a sack of stones placed on it as he met Titus’ steely gaze, and knew there was no way out. Marlin would summon the princesses. He would deliver the news of their fate, and then he would deliver them to it. Friend to the king, or no, he was still a sea creature who served the call of Atlantis’ Bident. Despite all of his efforts, the risks of the years, and the careful guidance he’d given, it seemed that when the silt settled and the truth was clear, Marlin was just a turtle.
“Yes, my king.” Marlin submitted to the current.
Doing his best to ignore the Cecalian king’s victorious smirk, he now had bigger things to worry about than a slippery king who wanted money. Seline and Sephina, despite his protests, would be dismayed by the news, but would come around. Seline was already satisfied with her engagement to the Arctic. Sephina had always kept her feelings close, a quality that would serve her well in the coming weeks. But Princess Ayalina….
“Poseidon spare me. This is not going to go over well,” he muttered under his breath as he was whisked from the room.