Tides of Maritinia Read online

  Nearby, a man echoed her words, his voice a sharp holler that triggered the holler of another and another and another, her words traveling on the breath of one crier to the next until they reached every ear around the caldera.

  The Falali Mother lifted her hands to the night sky. “Falal weaves our hearts with the souls of every creature on this world. She threads us through the spirit of the sky and the spirit of the sea. She stitches in the souls of our past and the souls of our future. All of us part of one fabric that spans the centuries.”

  I looked past her to the crowd, patchy lighting from glowgrubs and paper lanterns casting a hazy glow over faceless silhouettes.

  She bowed her head in my direction. “Today we honor a soul of our present.” Touching her heart, she said, “And we honor Mmasa. A soul of our past. Mmasa was a great diver, the greatest diver our world has ever known. And like all the great kelp harvesters of his time, he was invite-­ed by the governor to participate in the games. But these were no ordinary games. These were the games of Governor Greyson the Blacksoul.”

  The name traveled around the crater, and the crowd hissed with displeasure, the earsplitting sibilance making me wince.

  I asked Pol.

 

 

 

  “Mmasa,” she said, “thrill-­ed the spectators who sat where you now sit. He enchant-­ed the governor, who stood where I now stand. He made them cheer by diving deeper than the squiddies dare, and by staying under long past anybody thought possible. His feats were so spectacular that even his fiercest competition could do nothing but watch and applaud with respect.

  “But like so many of the Sire’s governors, Greyson the Blacksoul was a cruel man. A man who enjoyed others’ suffering. He order-­ed Mmasa to dive even longer. Even deeper. And when Mmasa did as he was told, Greyson order-­ed it again. And again. Always deeper. Always longer. He made Mmasa dive until his lungs could take no more, and he curl-­ed up in pain from depth illness.”

  I asked Pol.

 

  Perhaps, I thought. Perhaps.

  The Falali Mother’s voice turned somber. “Governor Greyson’s spirit was black, black like smoking ash. He watched Mmasa writhe in agony, and still, he order-­ed him to dive. And do you know what Mmasa said?”

  She paused to drag out the moment. “He ask-­ed, ‘Is there no limit to your cruelty?’ ”

  Again, she waited for the words to ripple from crier to crier, waited until she was sure every ear had heard. “Mmasa wasn’t just speaking one man to another. He was speaking to the Empire on behalf of us all. He was asking: Is there no limit to what you’ll take from us?

  “Greyson the Blacksoul did not like to be question-­ed, but he was devious enough to react with a polite smile. Then he wave-­ed to the crowd, calling for all who were members of Mmasa’s family. He trick-­ed them by telling them he want-­ed to honor them. Mmasa’s performance was so brilliant, he said, they all deserve-­ed to share in his glory. And the unsuspecting came forward. Twenty-­three of them, including his wife and child. And when they did, Greyson the Blacksoul had them all bound.”

  Slowly, her words spread around the crater, kicking off a barrage of hisses and catcalls. From somewhere offstage, the Falali Mother’s two assistants appeared carrying a small pedestal topped by a large conch shell. They set the pedestal next to the Falali Mother, who beckoned for me to stand, and when I did, one of her assistants passed me a mallet of stone with a handle of mammoth bone.

  “And once his family members were all bound,” she said, “the Governor order-­ed Mmasa to break the shell.”

  She gave me a nod.

  I stepped up to the pedestal and hefted the weighty hammer. With a quick swing, I brought the hammer down and shattered the shell with a loud crunch followed by the scatter of pieces skipping across the bamboo stage. I lifted the hammer off the pedestal and revealed a jagged collection of rough shards and slivers.

  The Falali Mother silently watched as her assistants selected fragments from the pedestal and pinched the shards between their knuckles. I watched, too, my eyes riveted, my confused mind racing through the possibilities of what was to come next.

  Taking the hammer from my hand, the Falali Mother dosed her words with venom. “Then Greyson the Blacksoul cut Mmasa until his body ran red.”

  My skin went cold, and I gritted my teeth as one of the women dragged the shells down my arm, a trail of scraped skin beading with blood. I braced myself against the sharp pain as shells sliced down my back. Across my chest. Down my calves and across the tops of my feet.

  Dugu came forward, camera in hand, coming for a close-­up. I wiped the grimace off my face, my glassed-­over eyes staring straight ahead as shells ran down my thigh and across my stomach. I clenched every muscle against the pain, shells dragging over my chest, nipples oozing blood.

  Dugu circled around me, biting his lower lip, his camera lens soaking up every bloody drop. Sparing my face, the women dragged their conch claws over every inch of exposed skin, scraping side to side, up and down, over and over until my body was slick with seeping blood.

  The Falali Mother put up a hand, and her assistants mercifully dropped the bloody shards.

  My skin burned as if it were on fire, flames licking at every inch. Every pore.

  Reaching into a bucket near my feet, the women retrieved a belt of glowgrubs, lifted it over my head, and draped it across my chest like a sash. I felt the grubs wriggling against my raw flesh, phosphorescent goo dripping down my stomach and mingling with blood.

  Next, they tied two small fishnets to the belt around my waist and started filling the nets with round stones.

  said Pol.

  Help me sink. Help me see.

  When I went underwater.

  My mind swam in a black flood that drowned all hope. Sire, help me.

  The Falali Mother called to the crowd. “Satisfy-­ed that Mmasa was sufficiently bloody-­ed, Greyson the Blacksoul beckon-­ed the cuda.”

  I heard a creaking sound above me. Looking up, I spotted the dim outline of a Jebyl man hanging from the ropes over the stage. He was swinging to and fro, and the stage brightened as the movement woke the firefly lanterns overhead. Soon the entire area lit as dozens of other Jebyl shook the broad latticework of ropes spanning the inlet into a slow, flapping motion. Hundreds of dangling lanterns came to life.

  A light breeze breathed across me, and the sensation of drying blood felt like the sting of an icy gust. A foul odor crept into my nostrils, and I turned to my right, where a pair of Jebyl stepped onto the stage, each carrying a large bucket that they promptly dumped into the black water. They left the stage and were immediately replaced by another pair of Jebyl with another pair of buckets ripe with the stench of rotten fish.

  Soon, the water was bobbing with fish guts, making my own innards shrivel with dread. They couldn’t expect me to get in that water, could they?

  The crowd gasped at a silver fin the size of a hand cutting through the water. Moments later, a second fin, a second gasp.

  “And the cuda arrive-­ed,” said the Falali Mother. “Carrying the souls of all those who were wrong-­ed. All those who were deprive-­ed or starve-­ed. Those who were murder-­ed or rape-­ed. They all return as cuda.”

  More fins arrived. Five. Six. Seven.

  “When the angry souls come back,” she said with a stomp of her foot, “they come back with teeth.”

  The water was full of circling fins now, too many to count. Yet the infernal Jebyl kept chumming, bucket after bucket of fetid offal splashing into the water.

  The women finished pil
ing rocks into the nets on my hips, and the Falali Mother led me to the water’s edge, netted rocks bouncing painfully against my tender thighs.

  The water reeked of blood and rot, fins slicing through like razors. A cuda jumped out of the water, its body long and sleek and silver like a sword. It jerked its tail left and right, jaws snapping at the air, teeth like the points of nails.

  More cuda jumped, and the water began to froth as they fed in a frenzy of flip-­flopping fins and tails.

  Shivers rippled up my spine, nerves sparking like live wires. I closed my eyes, wishing it all away. What was Colonel Kell thinking when he agreed to this madness? If I could, I’d kill the bastard again.

  I opened my eyes to the sight of the Falali Mother flipping the lid off a large bucket. She reached her hand inside, and a tentacle wrapped around her wrist. With a large spill of water, she pulled a creature from the bucket, suckered tentacles snaking up her arm.

 

 

  I didn’t. Not at the moment anyway. Panic had such a stranglehold on me, I doubted I could’ve remembered my name.

  Hands grasped me. Jebyl workmen took hold of my wrists and ankles and squeezed painfully down on my blood-­slicked skin.

  She carried the octopus to me, tentacles curling and uncurling, its skin the color of a bruise. She lifted it toward my face, and the tentacles stretched for me.

  I tried to scream, but my voice had run away to hide. A tentacle slithered past my ear. Another twined around my neck as it pulled itself closer. It stared at me with a black, emotionless eye before it transferred itself onto my face.

  My heart pounded, and my knees went weak, so weak I would’ve collapsed if not for the many hands holding me upright.

  A tentacle slid under my armpit and wrapped itself around my shoulder so tight, it would take a saw to cut it loose. The octopus inched toward the top of my head, tentacles uncoiling and recoiling, unsqueezing and resqueezing in a coordinated, eight-­way relocation effort.

  It reached the top of my head, allowing me to see again. It let me watch a tentacle creep down my face, this one different from the others. Pink and fleshy, it probed instead of grasped. Passing my left eye, it snaked its way alongside my nose to arrive at my mouth. It pressed hard against my lips. Worming. Penetrating.

  I tried but failed to turn my head out of the foreign appendage’s reach. I blocked it with my teeth and yanked with futility against the hands that held me firm.

 

  I heard the words, but my ability to reason had run to hide in the same dark hole as my voice. I sucked air through my nose, but my lungs couldn’t keep up with my triple-­timing heart.

  The Falali Mother reached a hand for my face, her eyes soft and brimming with compassion.

  I screamed with my eyes. Get this thing off me!

  She pinched my nose shut. I tried to shake my nose free, but the octopus immobilized my head by tightening its grip. I held my breath, the pressure quickly building in my lungs until my reflexes betrayed me, and my mouth opened to suck in a panicked breath.

  The appendage was in, slithering across my tongue. I bit hard as I could but it was tough like a tree root, and it forced its way to the back of my throat. I choked as it entered my windpipe. My entire body jerked with each gagging cough.

 

  I kept coughing, tears streaming down my cheeks.

 

  I tried to breathe but couldn’t stop choking.

 

  I forced myself to stop fighting. Air blew into my lungs and slowly emptied back out. They filled again, the octopus on my head acting as a respirator.

  I wasn’t dead. Not suffocating. I was okay.

  The Falali Mother stood close, waiting with concern on her face. “The first time is always the hardest,” she said in a quiet voice that only I would hear.

  I nodded as best I could with the added weight on my head.

  She gave me a wink and stepped a few feet away to pick up a life-­sized stick figure, which she held up for the crowd to see. The figure was constructed with bamboo arms and legs, fishhooked glowgrubs for hands and feet.

  “Greyson the Blacksoul tie-­ed Mmasa’s family to rocks.” She pointed to a large stone at her feet. “And he sank them.” She pushed the stone off the edge, and a short coil of rope spooled out before the stick figure ripped out of her hands and disappeared into the bloodstained water. “All twenty-­three of them. Parents and grandparents. Brothers and sisters. Wife and child.”

  She sank four more stones, and four more stick figures dropped underwater. “He sank them all and told Mmasa he had to dive to save them. Mmasa dive-­ed. He had no choice. Sick and exhaust-­ed, he fell below the waves with machetes in each hand.”

  Her assistants set machetes in my hands.

  “The cuda smell-­ed his blood, but they didn’t feed. Weak as he was, Mmasa’s tide was strong, and the cuda sense-­ed the spirit of Falal flowing out of his veins. They didn’t feed on him. Instead, they kiss-­ed him on the cheek. They nudge-­ed him with their noses, and nipp-­ed him when he close-­ed his eyes. They guide-­ed him until he’d cut every single one of his family free.”

  Her words traveled around the caldera, cheers coming back.

  “Since that day,” she continued, “all divers take these rites. When they come of age, they dive with the cuda, not just to prove their courage and bravery but to prove they are bless-­ed by Falal. And tonight, our honor-­ed guest will take the rites. Tonight, my friends, Colonel Kell becomes one of us.”

  The chant started slow, but quickly built momentum.

  One of us.

  One of us.

  One of us!

  I looked down at the water. Cuda were everywhere, water roiling and frothing, the blood in my veins doing the same.

  The Falali Mother came close and whispered in my ear, her voice soft but steady. “Soon the cuda will have had their fill. Dive deep and stay below until they move on.”

  I nodded and clumsily stepped to the very edge. Stones swung from my hips, and my neck worked to keep my overloaded head upright. My toes hung off the stage. I tried for a deep breath but couldn’t suck air faster than the octopus’s regular offering.

  The crowd’s chanting picked up pace.

  One of us.

  One of us!

  The volume rose until the deafening chorus drowned my ears.

 

  The speed of the chants continued to accelerate until the words rolled into one, the noise building to a crescendo.

  It was time.

  I stepped off.

  CHAPTER 12

  “When you thnk hthe limit o f human suffering has been reached, that’s when the unidverhse reminds you theire is no limit.”

  –JAKOB BRYCE

  My feet plunged into the chummed water, then my legs, hips, torso, and octopus-­topped head. I kept my eyes open but couldn’t see through the thick screen of air bubbles rising through the agitated seawater. Something bumped my foot, and I reflexively kicked at whatever it was. I swung the machetes, left then right, chopping at bubbles and kelp fronds, my heart pumping frantic beats.

  I sank fast, my view clearing as I passed below the churning frenzy of cuda. Relief surged through me, but only for the briefest of seconds before the salt water attacked my wounds. Liquid pain flowed into every scratch. Every slice. Every crevice. Burning. Searing.

  Dazed by shock, I barely noticed when the machete in my left hand fell from my grasp. I concentrated on my breathing. On keeping the second machete firm in my fist.

  I descended through the warm surface water to the cool layer below, the chill helping me focus, he
lping me notice a different pain, this one stabbing at my eardrums, the pressure rapidly building until ice picks stabbed for my brain.

  I squeezed my nose tight, sealed my lips around the octopus’s breathing tube, and blew as hard as I could until my ears equalized. I blew again every few feet as I sank deeper into the kelp forest, shoulders bumping against stalks, my feet plunging through sprawling fronds and leaves the size of kites.

  The salt chewed deeper into my lesions and ate from every scratch and cut before licking the length of each wound with urchin spines.

  I swiped my free hand across my chest and stomach, thighs and shoulders, neck and calves, my hand moving fast, as if I were trying to tamp out a fire. But this was a fire that couldn’t be extinguished, my body engulfed by flames of pain.

  I wanted the cuda. Wished they would rip me apart and end this torture. I looked up, but my view was blocked by dense foliage. As promised, the angry souls must’ve stayed on the surface, sticking to the ample food being dumped into the water.

  My feet touched the bottom and sank into the silt, the soothing chill of mud erasing the pain from my feet and toes. I wanted to bury myself in the silt, coast through it like a carefree ray. But I stayed where I was, suffering from wave after wave of throbbing, pulsating agony.

  A voice came from the rabbit hole.

  I managed to send a response.

 

  I closed my eyes.

 

  They gave the bastard my sight and my sound but spared him my pain. The unfairness of it was too much to take.

 

  I cracked my eyes open, the sting of salt mild compared to the wildfires raging over the rest of my body.