Tides of Maritinia Read online

 

  I had a job to do. Cut the stick figures free. Had to concentrate. Had to conquer the pain.

  I gripped the machete tight and bit down on the tentacle in my mouth. I was ready.

  My lungs went still. Dead still.

  A momentary flash of panic gave way to annoyance when I realized I’d pinched off my air. Sire, must you rob me of every comfort? I relaxed my jaws, and air thankfully flowed back into my lungs.

 

 

  I turned around, searching the dark. The glowgrubs strung across my chest afforded a short, murky range of view. Ignoring the pain, I pushed forward, machete first, my feet kicking against the ocean bottom as I ducked under a leaf as big as a tent flap and took hold of the kelpstalk’s woody trunk.

  I hefted the machete and chopped at the thin stem holding the lowest leaf. The blade didn’t cut all the way through but did enough damage to make the leaf hang like a broken wing. Having marked my starting location, I slogged ahead, feet dragging through silt, my eyes straining at the black fog beyond the light.

  The kelp forest slowly swayed with the soft current. Stalks, thick as my arm, reached for the surface, their broad leaves drooping like mammoth ears. Imagining cuda behind every leaf, I gently brushed the leaves aside with my machete. Slow. Careful.

  I moved from stalk to stalk, counting as I went. Tiny fish swam in and out of view. Crabs dodged my footsteps.

  No sign of the stick figures.

  Reaching kelpstalk number ten, I stopped and turned back, eyes moving on a swivel as I worked my way back to the broken wing.

  When I arrived at my starting point, I took a ninety-­degree turn and set out on another foray into the bleak darkness while the salty ocean scoured my raw skin like a wire brush.

  Ten stalks out.

  Nothing.

  Again, I returned to the broken wing and took another perpendicular turn. Four stalks out, I spotted a light behind a cluster of leaves. A dim yellow moonglow against a midnight background.

  Moving closer, brushing more leaves aside, I could plainly see the stick figure now. The quartet of fishhooked glowgrubs hung from the figure’s bamboo limbs, which stretched for the surface like the family of Mmasa the diver must’ve done so many years ago.

  I grabbed the rope mooring the figure to the stone and raised my machete for a hack. I swung, but the drag of water slowed the blade until it harmlessly bounced off the rope.

 

  I turned the blade over and sawed back and forth, back and forth, until the rope cut free and the figure rocketed for the surface.

  One down. Four to go.

  Moving just a few feet in the same direction, I located the next stick figure and, like Mmasa, I cut it loose.

  I found the next two with ease and cut them free. I imagined the cheers of the crowd above, pictured their mounting suspense as each stick figure popped to the surface.

  The pain wasn’t so bad now. Just a bunch of scratches. Nothing the Hero of Maritinia couldn’t handle.

  I located the fifth nestled between a pair of stalks. I took hold of the rope and waited. Had to wait as long as possible. Had to wait for the cuda to move on.

  I’d done it. I felt a rush of euphoria, felt it tingle up and down my arms and legs. My eyelids felt heavy with contentment. I should lie down for a minute. Lie in this cool mud. Bury myself like a ray.

 

 

 

  Right. Had to cut the stick figure free. Had to get to the surface. I’d get to it in a little bit.

 

  My eyes snapped open. Alarmed heartbeats rammed my ribs. I tried to fill my starving lungs, but all the octopus could provide was a slow stream of weak air.

  Where was my machete? Must’ve dropped it. I swept my fingers through the silt, once, twice, and struck something solid on the third try. Nabbing the machete, I went to work on the rope, the blade cutting rapidly through. The stick figure broke loose and soared for the surface. Exactly what I needed to do.

  I jumped upward, but sank back down.

 

  That sounded like a lot of work. I jumped again.

 

  Another jump. Why wasn’t I rising?

 

  I dropped the machete and reached for my right hip. Fumbling for the net, I dropped my hand inside and grasped a round stone. I lifted, but the stone slipped through numb fingers. Slippery little bugger.

 

  I took hold of the stone, clamping my fingers tight and yanked it free. Dropping the rock, I nabbed another, and another, my feet lifting slowly off the ocean bottom.

  I went to the net on my other hip and shed two, three, four more stones, my upward momentum notching upward with every dumped weight.

  Sapped of every last morsel of energy, I rolled onto my back and let my arms and legs hang limp as I rose. Staring upward, I watched leaves drag over my face while starving lungs wrung foul air for every drop of oxygen.

  The forest thinned, affording me a limited view of the surface. I stared at the hazy, ripple of light, watched it dance as I rose closer and closer.

  Shadows coasted into view, dozens of them moving into the light. Long narrow torpedoes with fanned tails. I watched them glide, the entire school moving as one.

  I was too tired to be scared. Too drained to care. The surface was close, just seconds away.

  The cuda showed no interest in me, the school coasting slowly away. They’d had their fill as the Falali Mother had promised.

  But then they turned.

  All as one.

  Time seemed to slow, milliseconds dragging into seconds, seconds stretching into lifetimes. They stared at me, heads like the tips of silver bullets, eyes black as abandoned mine shafts.

  I glanced at the surface. So, so close.

  Eyes back on the cuda. The slow billow of gills. Watching. Waiting.

  Fishtails flicked, and the cuda charged like darts.

 

  Fear jolted through me, my body going electric with desperate energy.

  Time collapsed. Seconds compressed into each other.

  Instinct propelled my arms and legs. Rapid strokes pushed for the surface. Cuda bore down, hinged jaws spiked with teeth.

  My head and shoulders burst out of the water. I caught a glimpse of the stage, barely ten feet to my right.

  I turned and stroked, knowing it was too far, knowing I wouldn’t make it.

  The cuda struck, needle noses punching my ribs and hips. The impact pushed me under, and I rolled, arms flailing, legs kicking. Fish tumbled over me in a blur of snapping teeth and slapping tails.

  I forced my head out of the water and tried to scream for help, but the breathing tube in my throat snuffed my shouts. I spun around, fists swinging for cuda but failing to land. I spun the other way, and chopped at empty water with my hands.

  Confused, I stopped fighting and bobbed quietly in the water. Where did they go?

  I spotted a fin moving away from me, cutting for open water. It disappeared, replaced by two others heading in the same direction.

  The octopus retracted its breathing tube. I gagged as it slipped out of my throat, then out of my mouth.

  I sucked air. Sweet, sweet air.

  The octopus disengaged and sloughed off my head and into the water. I watched it swim for the stage, tentacles fanning out like rubbery umbrella spines, then squeezing together
in an eight-­way thrust.

  Lungs huffing, I noticed the cheers of the crowd, the sound muffled by the water in my ears. I looked to the stage. Sali knelt on the edge, hands beckoning for me to come. The Falali Mother stood behind her, a smile on her face. Dugu waited off to the side, filming as always.

  I checked my hands. Ten fingers. I ran my hands down my chest. Didn’t feel any bite-­sized divots.

 

  Pol didn’t answer. There was no answer.

  I swam for the stage, exhausted muscles straining with the effort. Reaching the stage, I lifted my arms like a tired toddler and allowed a pair of Jebyl to pull me out of the water. I tried to stand, but wobbly knees betrayed me. The Jebyl looped my arms over their shoulders and lifted me upright.

  Sali’s hands clapped onto my cheeks, her eyes staring into mine. “Are you okay?”

  I tried to speak, but my heaving chest was still making up for lost time. Instead, I held her gaze and gave the slightest of nods.

  “He’s okay,” she shouted, her words carrying from crier to crier around the caldera to a chorus of wild cheers. With a broad smile, she pulled her hands off my cheeks and looked at the palm of her left hand.

  “What is it?” I croaked.

  She held her palm up for me to see. Blood.

  But she’d only touched my cheeks. My face hadn’t been scored by the shells.

  Sali turned to the Falali Mother and pointed at my right cheek. “He’s been bitten.”

  The Falali Mother stepped close for a look. She touched my cheek with her finger, and I winced from a pain I hadn’t felt until now. She studied the blood on her finger, then backing up a step, she dropped to one knee.

  As did Sali.

  As did everybody else on the stage except for the pair of Jebyl who held me.

  And Dugu who kept filming.

  The crowd hushed, silence descending like a burial shroud.

  The Falali Mother bowed her head. “He wasn’t bitten,” she called.

  I waited as her words circled the crater.

  She lifted her face to me, eyes wide with awe. “He was kiss-­ed.”

  CHAPTER 13

  “Comfort isan illusiion. Find yourself a comforttable place andyou’ll eventually discvoer you were really in a waiting room for rhte next disaster.”

  –JAKOB BRYCE

  I hurt.

  Everywhere.

  Especially my cheek.

  I remembered boarding the boat in the middle of the night. Wrapping myself in silk cloths. Climbing into this fishnet hammock.

  Not much after that. Mustn’t have taken long for the bliss of sleep to take hold.

  But I was awake now. And it was daylight. I could feel the sun warming my exposed face, could feel it soaking through my silk cocoon. I kept my eyes closed, preferring to let everybody—­even Pol—­think I was out. I needed to rest. Needed to heal. Needed to let the boat’s gentle sway rock away my pain.

  A voice whispered near my ear. Sali. “You need to eat something, Drake. The Ministry is only an hour away.”

  An hour? I’d been sleeping all day.

  Still, I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t want to eat. Or talk. I didn’t want to crack my little bubble of peace and solitude.

  She put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Drake, you need to wake up.”

  I opened an eye.

  A simple Jebyl-­style body wrap came into focus, her curves hugged by long pink and green stripes. I angled my gaze up to her face, concerned by what I saw. She had bags under her eyes and a pair of black curls poked from unruly hair like springs from a smashed wristwatch.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Just woke up myself. Couldn’t sleep last night, so I took a little nap.” She held out a bowl of boiled kelp shoots.

  I fought stiff muscles to sit up. Silk cloths slid off my bared shoulders, which were crisscrossed with long scratch marks. I poked my feet out of the silks and dangled them over the side of the hammock.

  Taking the bowl, I dropped my fingers in to pick up a kelp shoot, a pale yellow stalk with a curlicue of new growth on one end. Gingerly, I opened my mouth and bit off the end. To avoid my wounded cheek, I chewed on the left side of my mouth, tangy and salty.

  “You’re bleeding,” said Sali.

  I touched my cheek. Fingertips came away bloody. “Must’ve opened back up.” I touched again. My cheek was puffed, like I’d stuffed my mouth with cotton. I ran a careful finger over the bite, a trail of puncture wounds, from chin to ear. I swallowed the kelp shoot and explored the inside of my cheek with my tongue, tasting blood where a few of the holes had punched all the way through.

  Damn cuda kissed me good.

  “You frighten-­ed me,” said Sali.

  “Is that why you couldn’t sleep?”

  “Yes. Plus you know how I get before I go to see Father.”

  I didn’t, but I could imagine. “I do.”

  Using one of my already bloodstained silks, I wiped my face and fingers, then put the thick end of the kelp shoot in my mouth.

  She climbed onto the hammock and sat next to me, gravity mashing our hips together. “I’ve attended many of those ceremonies. The cuda don’t normally stay after the chumming. They could’ve kill-­ed you.”

  I took another kelp shoot, beginning to realize how hungry I was.

  “The kiss was a powerful symbol,” she said.

  I stopped chewing. I wished I knew how Kell would have responded. Chide her as superstitious? Or was he a believer himself? “Felt like a bite to me.”

  “But only one. And it was on the right cheek. Just like Mmasa.”

  “Maybe the cuda didn’t like how I tasted.” I touched her knee. “Tell me the rest of Mmasa’s story.”

  “You’ve heard it before.”

  “I want to hear it again.”

  She sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. “Mmasa cut them all free. Every last one of his sunken family. Some survive-­ed. Others had already drown-­ed. But he still free-­ed them all. Nobody will ever know how he manage-­ed to stay underwater so long. They say it was the kiss of the cuda that kept him going.”

 

  I snapped.

 

  My pulse beat inside my temples. Sali was still talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. My entire focus was on the rabbit hole in my head. I sent the words through. One at a time.

 

  I kept my inner voice level. Professional.

 

 

  Sali bumped my ribs with an elbow. “Did you hear me?”

  “Of course I did,” I said. “Go on.”

  “I asked you if wanted some water.”

  “Um, sure.” She started to rise, but I held her back. I didn’t care how much Pol griped. I knew what I was doing. I was in control. “Finish the story first.”

  Sali gave me a quizzical quirk of her brows. “You’ve been acting strange lately. You know that?”

  I tensed. “Strange how?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like you’re a different person.”

  I swallowed and shook my head at another conversation taking a bad turn.

  “Relax.” She put her hand on my thigh. “I didn’t say that was a bad thing. Since I’v
e known you, you’ve always been so driven, you know what I mean? Always so sure of yourself. You seem so much more uncertain now.”

  “Like I’m lost?”

  “I prefer to think you finally found some humility.”

  I picked out another kelp shoot. “I’m just trying to understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “Everything.”

  “See. That’s exactly what I mean. When did you get so deep?”

  “About the time I met you.”

  She gave my leg a slap.

  “Ow!”

  With a chuckle, she said, “That’s what you get for saying stupid things that aren’t true.”

  I laughed and rubbed my thigh. “Tell me the rest of Mmasa’s story.”

  “Where did I leave off?”

  “Start where he gets out of the water.”

  “Well, he couldn’t stand when he pull-­ed himself onto the stage. His eardrums had burst, and he was suffering from the blinding pain of depth sickness.” She pointed at my face. “And his right cheek was bleeding.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Mmasa had dropped his machete, but he had a smaller blade strapp-­ed to his hip, and when Governor Greyson came to him, Mmasa beckon-­ed like he want-­ed to say something. The Governor leaned down, and from somewhere deep inside, Mmasa summon-­ed the strength to make one last harvesting stroke.”

  “He killed Greyson.”

  “He sliced his throat open. The monster die-­ed within a minute.”

  I put the last kelp shoot in my mouth, this one bigger than the rest.

  Sali let out a sigh. “Mmasa and his surviving family were execute-­ed that same night. But he inspire-­ed all of Maritinia. He struck the first blow in a revolution that took centuries to complete.”

  She put her hand on my chin, turned my face to hers. “You finish-­ed the revolution, Drake. You and my father. I’ve been thinking about it all night. That’s the link between you and Mmasa. He start-­ed it, and you end-­ed it.”

  I chewed on a stringy knot of kelp, my mind chewing on a stringy knot of its own.

  The symmetry of her interpretation was beautiful.

  Except I hadn’t ended their revolution.

  Yet.