Lilophea-2: Consort of the Sea King

“Careful, Princess of the Sea,” an orange-haired woman shouted at her from the waterfall, her skin orange and flame-colored clothing merging with the water. Her skin, too, was as orange as fire. And she seemed to have wings of fire fluttering behind her. She was probably one of the firewomen who lived in the waterfalls.

She mispronounced Lilophea’s new title, but there was no way to correct her. Sparks from the waterfall flew in all directions. Lilophea turned and ran away.

From the orange bridge she turned onto the malachite bridge. This one led her to deserted, cold shores where nothing grew.

There was a herd of white horses galloped by the water’s edge. No, they were not horses, but horses of sea foam. Only after a closer look one could see that their hooves merged with the foam of the waves. Such horses can carry riders only on water. They cannot jump onto dry land. But one unusual horse was galloping on the sand. It had no saddle or bridle and its skin was as white as milk. Not a speck, not a grain of dirt. Only magical horses could be this pure color. Lilophea was not mistaken. In a moment the horse turned into a boy with sharp ears and wild eyes. It was exactly the sort of creature she and Ornella had listened to stories about by the fireplace as children. It is a spirit who seduces girls by pretending to be a submissive horse and takes them into the sea to drown them. One story she heard as a child was of a fisherman’s daughter who was left alone for the night and a spirit came to visit her. At first she took him for an ordinary young man, but when she saw that he had sharp ears and fish eyes, it was too late to save her.

The young man on the shore looked enticingly at Lilophea standing high on the bridge, and his unusual eyes sparkled slyly, as if informing:

“I would love to drag a beauty like you down to the bottom, but I see someone else has already beaten me to it.”

Lilophea groaned as she looked down at her hands on the parapet. Webs sprouted between her fingers. They looked like a lace of sea foam. She might as well become a mermaid herself, or worse, a creature like Urun and his morgen armies.

Lilophea moved her hands. The webbing was tight, but not uncomfortable. Too bad she didn’t have a mirror with her right now to look at her reflection. Had her face changed, resembling the creepy faces of the Morgens?

A bright yellow pair of winged fish, as if hearing her wish, held the mirror up to her. The reflection was pleasant. Nothing had changed in her face. True, the mirror itself resembled water, inserted by a wizard into a coral frame.

And where does the bridge of coral lead to? Lilophea had a long choice between it and the Jasper Bridge. Finally she saw a bridge of amber looming up ahead like a mirage and she turned there. It didn’t go straight ahead, but took sharp turns, spiraling, and was flanked by many circular bridges that led nowhere. There was some secret in them.

One narrow bridge closed in a circle over the whirlpool below. At the railing of the bridge there were countless mermaids. Their slippery bodies twisted against the railing like green bas-reliefs. The mermaids all had a dirty, swampy look, as if they had just come up from the mud. And their eyes were sparkling, wild. Lilophea was afraid to approach them. They did not even greet her, though they noticed that the queen was before them.

“Do you know which way leads to Nereida’s grotto?” Lilophea turned to them first.

“Why would you want to go there?” One of the mermaids answered, and the others began whispering:

“This is the very grotto where Nereida keeps treasures from sunken ships mixed with the skulls of their victims. She does not know which is more precious to her: the treasure or the bones of those she drowned.”

Could this be about Nereida? Lilophea grew wary.

“She is not evil at all.”

“But she will drown you if you come near her,” the mermaid, who had been the first to speak, warned her.

“I can’t be drowned, I’m the queen of the sea, and I can breathe under water,” said Lilophea, faltering as she realized how presumptuous that sounded. She only breathes underwater as long as Seal lets her, and he might get angry if she escaped in his absence. But the mermaids didn’t laugh in unison, only looked more closely at Lilophea. Their eyes glittered.

“She’ll drown you for sure. You’re her rival.”

“No, I’m her friend – or rather, I was her earthly friend before I married the underwater king, which means I broke the promise I made to her. Nereida asked me not to even go out with Seal.” Lilophea bit her lips. Perhaps the green mermaids were right.

“Nereida doesn’t have any girlfriends, and she never has any,” they confirmed. “Because she never wants to share anything with anyone. Remember that! If you have anything she wants, you are her sworn enemy. And she drowns her enemies, even if they are mermaids. She knows how to do that.”

Are they all afraid of her? Their voices became so sad that Lilophea backed away. It sounds like a mournful chorus.

The bridge itself glistened, and the green bodies of the mermaids curled around it like seaweed. Lilophea turned and walked away from them.

“Keep away from Nereida,” the mermaids’ warnings boomed behind her. “We all stay as far away from her as possible. Once you get too close to her, bad things happen.”

Trouble has already happened. Lilophea realized she was lost forever. Either the spirit of the bridges led her around, or the parapet of bones of dead fish, mermaids and even human skulls stretched so far that she always had to stumble on it. Dead fish came to life and tried to bite as soon as you put your hand on the parapet.

How to get out of the maze? No matter which shore Lilophea approached, it turned out to be either unfamiliar or dangerous. In any case, it is dangerous to go to the shores that you do not know, and where there are no your family and friends. You could easily be enslaved by the same pirates, or taken hostage by the local rulers to demand a ransom from your father. Lilophea was afraid to go ashore in a foreign country. She’d be lucky if she strayed into any familiar lands.

It is better not to think of the bridge to Etar. It must be of white gold, for its ruler is fabulously rich.

As she wandered through the labyrinth of bridges, Lilophea saw sunset, dawn, dusk, and night. Either it was day or evening in different parts of the world, or she had been wandering in the above-water labyrinth for twenty-four hours. All around there was only sky, water, and some kind of ringing, as if a mermaid’s pack was singing out of the water.

She wished she could meet at least one person. Not a spirit, not a monster, but a mere mortal to talk to.

Lilophea’s dream came true some time later. A fairly ordinary-looking guy sat huddled at the intersection of the bridges. His face was certainly not fishy. He wrapped his arms around his head as if it were splitting in unbearable pain.

“Who are you?” Lilophea leaned over him and noticed that his eyes were swollen with tears. He seems to have been lost himself, and has been looking for a way out for a long time. He probably hadn’t eaten anything in weeks. His clothes were hanging off him like hangers. Soon he would be a skeleton himself. Probably that bridge lined with bones is made of the remains of those who became prisoners of the maze of bridges.

“I went after the princess the waterman had dragged away,” the boy confessed, looking at Lilophea with vacant eyes. He didn’t recognize her, but he reminded her of someone.

“And that’s how you ended up on the bridge?”

It was as if the boy didn’t hear her, talking about something of his own. His pocket vibrated strangely, as if a fish were hiding in it.

“I cut off a kraken’s claw with a harpoon,” the fellow drew out and pointed. So that was what was moving in his pocket. The claw was creepy, and it crawled up on its own, trying to claw at Lilophea’s feet.

“And the Morgens didn’t tear you to pieces for it?”

“They have no right to crawl on the bridge. It is the decree of the master of the bridge.”

“Is it Seal?”

“I don’t know.”

A severed claw was biting him, and he didn’t even notice. Lilophea wanted to console him, but all she could think of was false bravado.

“Come on! I will get you out of here. I know the way. Or someone will show me the way.”

“They won’t!”

“They wouldn’t dare. The Water King owes me for my company.”

“I cannot leave here.”

“Why is it not?”

“I’m looking for the princess. She’s definitely here. I saw her on this bridge from the shore, so I jumped on it myself, bypassing the kraken. I’m not leaving until I find her.”

He looked at the compass. The device was as useless here as the kraken’s severed claw.

“I love the princess,” he groaned.

“Which one is it?”

“Lilophea. I am looking for her.”

“But she is in front of you.”

“No, you’re a spirit woven out of thin air by the local jokers.”

So it is true that they do lose their minds on this bridge.

But it’s a good way to get to Shalian and Etar. So the winged fish were talking to each other as they hovered over the parapet. Lilophea listened to them. She spotted the jester spirits the boy had been talking about.

They were fighting, hovering over the bridge. There was a whole flock of them. Only one spirit, sat on the parapet of the bridge.

“Look, the queen is coming,” he proclaimed as he spotted Lilophea from afar. “Let us sing to her our hymn to all the kings of water and earth.”

And they sang, so she had to cover her ears. Their voices rumbled in her head.

“She is a queen, not a king.“Sing gently,” the same spirit urged. “Don’t frighten her. She has not come to maneuver us. The wives of rulers are much nicer to talk to than the kings themselves. And through them you can control their husbands. We usually do that. We know a lot of serenades to titillate women.”

He fluttered over and plucked a ribbon from her hair.

“Give it back!”

“And will you kiss me in return, Queen of the Seas?”

He looked like a teenager, but his eyes were wise and old. He looked as if the ancient philosopher had been trapped inside a child’s body, and now it was too small for him.

“Are you sulking? Well, you’re not the only one. There’s the lady of the oceans.”

“What do you mean?”

The spirit laughed back.

Lilophea felt an object drop suddenly against her leg. So that’s what the jokers were fighting about. It looked like the simplest shell, but inside it was like fire.

“Don’t touch it!” warned the spirits together, but Lilophea had already touched and burned her hand.

“What shell can burn the queen of the sea?”

“This is no ordinary seashell. It’s from the ocean,” the spirit explained.

“It is a magic shell,” the other jokers sang along. They grasped hands and twirled in a motley circle over Lilophea.

“It comes from lightning that strikes the ocean,” they chattered.

“Look!” One of the jokers grabbed Lilophea by the arm and led her to the parapet of the bridge. He pointed to a distant shore. It was an island in the middle of the sea, and pirates had just landed there. They were trying to collect glittering seashells from the shore and were falling into a kind of trap. Their hands began to burn when they touched the unusual shells.

“You see how hard it is for the easy bounty hunters.”

“But I am not a hunter of easy profits.”

“You came to the bridge without a guide, not knowing the way. You want to swoop into some rich country and steal all the treasures from the royal palace. A friend of Urun, a pirate, used to do that. He drowned her for that.”

“For once he drowned someone for a cause. He usually does it for nothing.”

“Right,” the spirit smiled at her like an old friend. “You don’t like Urun either. You’re nice. Come, I’ll be your guide.”

He looked like a court jester. Lilophea followed him for a long time before she realized he was deceiving her. The jester spirit hovered over the bridge and led her in circles.

“Do not be angry, I can tell you where to go,” he noticed how she clenched her fists with annoyance.

“I’d better look for it myself,” the joking spirit was of no use anyway.

“Orange Bridge is for Thyoria, platinum for Etar, onyx for Shahilan, pearl for your own Aquilania, quartz for Sultanite, and no bone bridge for the other side. If you want to go back under the water, you’ll have to choose the jade bridge.

“Thank you!” Lilophea didn’t know if the spirit was being honest with her, but she thanked him courteously anyway. The joker gave her a slight bow. He hovered over the bridges and watched her go.

In some ways he was right. The Onyx Bridge did lead to Shalian, and she had already checked the direction of the Orange Bridge.

Her legs were numb with fatigue. How long had she been walking here? Lilophea decided to take a little break. Below is only the sea surface. Above is only the sky. It’s crazy up here. A quiet, melodious song came from somewhere. It sounded like there was an island down there. Lilophea listened to the words of the song. There was something familiar about them.

And then she noticed a cave from the bridge. No, it was not a cave, but it was the open mouth of a whale, and beside it a beautiful girl was fussing as if nothing had happened, picking up shells. The whale was about to swallow her.

Lilophea wanted to shout at her, but the girl suddenly lifted her head and intercepted her gaze. How sly her eyes gleamed! They were black as agate. And the pastel dress and headdress were something reminiscent of the fashions of the court of Aquilania. She was Catalina, the daughter of the First Minister who had supposedly been sacrificed to the water creatures. And here she is alive. Collecting lovely shells in a simple wicker basket and even humming a song while her father goes gray with grief over the kidnapping of his daughter. Something is not right here! Lilophea squinted suspiciously as she noticed the thin gold chain that slid across the sand behind Catalina. It glittered like a strand of sunlight. But it was a real chain, albeit made of gold. One end of it disappears under the hem of Catalina’s dress, the other reaches for the whale’s mouth. Are they shackled; the whale and Catalina? Or does it only seem that way to her?

There’s a lot of weirdness here. The yellow shells do not burn Catalina’s fingers. Normally mortals are burned to the bone when they touch them, and the magic shells swarm over the unfortunate and laugh. After all, each shell is the house of a neck, not an oyster. Even pirates are unlucky when they stumble upon them. And Catalina doesn’t care! And how sharp she has become, she can see the bridge even over the sea in the fog. Catalina smiled at Lilophea with a wicked grin and said something in an incomprehensible language. At her words the green mud on the shore stirred, as if a monster had awakened beneath it.

Catalina was very different at court. Here she lived as if she were a copy of her. The sea changes everyone terribly. Lilophea would not have been surprised now to see a whole ball of octopus limbs come out from under Catalina’s dress, but nothing like that happened. Only the whale, for some reason, began to worry. Probably noticed, too, that a flotilla of ships was coming from afar.

Catalina suddenly made a sign to Lilophea to be quiet, and she herself stopped singing. There was a silence, like before a storm.

Lilophea did not want to see what would happen next, so she ran across the bridge away from Catalina with her mad black eyes, from the squeaking shells in her basket, and from the whale who suddenly roared.

After running a great distance away, Lilophea did turn around. From the bridge she could see perfectly well the whale swallowing whole ships behind her. Screams could be heard. It sounded like a nightmare dream.

Where do we turn now? It is away from the whale for sure. He can’t get to the bridge, though. And yet! Right now Lilophea would be most frightened if a distraught Catharine, who looked more like the ghost of a drowned woman than the daughter of a respected minister, were to get in her way.

The bridges diverged again in different directions. They led higher and higher, almost to the clouds. Lilophea did not hesitate to choose the middle road. Beyond the bridge of reddish hue that rose higher than all, the spires of the Sultanite were visible. They were the easiest to distinguish from other countries’ architecture. And the coats of arms with eagles spoke for themselves.

“Would you like to see your loved ones?” A harlequin-like spirit, with red eyes, was already standing in the way. It must have been the harlequin who had once drowned here. He pointed her with a fluid movement of his hand toward the bridge that led directly to one of the windows of the Sultan’s palace. Lilophea had not noticed this bridge before. It was quite narrow and slippery. Some mermaid had her hands wrapped around the railing. Lilophea carefully lifted the train as she passed her. The main thing was to make sure she didn’t grab on and drag her to the bottom. The mermaid had her hands in the mud and her green-colored long hair. From a distance it could have been mistaken for seaweed.

“Don’t be afraid!” The spirit urged her on, and Lilophea came very close to the open bay window. Here the bridge ended, and beyond the window stretched the throne room. How easy it was to get from the underwater world directly to the throne of the Sultanite rulers! It is clear why watermen are such good spies and raiders. They have their eyes everywhere on the human world. She wondered if the people in the hall can see her standing by the window. Or is the bridge with everyone on it invisible to them? It is most likely the second.

Lilophea saw her uncle sitting on the throne, her many cousins who hadn’t honored Aquilania with a visit last time because they appeared to be fiercely competing for the right of supremacy.

“Age means nothing to us,” cried Orvel, the middle one of the nine brothers, “we are special, we have no right of seniority, we have the right of the strong. There is a special talent. We must compete in it. Whoever wins will rule.”

The father-king looked at him with condescension. The other brothers murmured.

“Judging by the strength of our gift, I will rule,” Ornella suddenly appeared from behind the brothers, dressed as for a celebration in a purple ceremonial dress.

The King gave her a gracious nod. But she is a maiden! How can a woman rule an entire country? And why is this matter decided between family members and not a council of ministers?

“They say our gift is a curse, but to us it is power!” Ornella continued. “We may have been cursed originally for arrogance. Damn the sea fortune teller, but the curse has turned out far from harmful. A generation has passed, and it has become a boon. Who else but us can stand up to the water army?”

“Be quiet before you bring them here,” Orvel said, “they have windows to our world all around them. Maybe there’s someone spying on us now, too. It is someone with tentacles and fins.”

“So be it!” Ornella threw her self-confidently, trying on the crown of her long-dead mother. “Give me the power, and I will prove that I can overpower the Morgens, and even subdue them to us.”

The king nodded cheerfully.

“It is a good suggestion!”

Isn’t it a little premature for them to boast of their powers! Lilophea would have liked to ask them for help, but her tongue was numb. And how would Ornella react if the sunken cousin now stepped over the window sill into the throne room?

“Ornella!” Lilophea tried to catch her gaze, but her cousin did not see her.

“I am the best, I am the most gifted with our cursed gift, I will rule!” Ornella insisted, her chin high. Her eagle-nosed, hooked nose spoiled the impression of a graceful face. It seemed about to turn into an eagle’s beak.

A hooked nose was the hallmark of the entire Sultanite’s dynasty. Only Condor the youngest of the princes did not have it. He was the prettiest, as if he were an extra in the family. And he was not part of the general argument.

“Prove you’re the best,” the Sultanite’s king pressed his ringed hand into a fist. One of the rings suspiciously resembled an eagle’s claw set in gold. “I am waiting! You forget that a fleet from Shalian is coming for us. Release the claws! Fly to it! Attacking flocks of sheep and merchant ships is innocent fun. I expect more from you! It’s dangerous! You could get shot! But whoever defeats the commander of the fleet will rule.”

“It will be me!” Ornella and her brother Orvel said in one voice.

Lilophea shrank back. The king seemed to notice her. His gaze went straight to her for a second, and it seemed to her that his eyes had become eagle eyes. He definitely said “fly,” not “walk.” Is that some kind of metaphor?

The king’s nose seemed to lengthen a little, and gleamed in the sun like steel. Is it a play on light? Lilophea looked and could hardly believe her eyes. Ornella dropped to the floor, began to scrub the marble slabs with her nails. Her body was shrinking, growing feathers. The same thing was happening to all her brothers. There were no princes or princesses left in a matter of minutes. Gyrfalcons swarmed across the throne room.

They’re going to fly to the window! Lilophea recoiled before she realized there were many windows in the hall.

The eagles flew away, but the king stayed. So he’s normal, unlike them? You mean he’s not a werewolf? But he is the father of monstrous children, which is also not sugar. The other one would have been afraid of them; he had learned to use their inferiority to his advantage.

Lilophea immediately dismissed the idea that the king himself was only human, barely noticing the sharp feathery paws that tapped the armrests of the throne. He was about to become an eagle, too, to fly and control the bloodthirsty flocks of his heirs.

It’s time to run away from here. Here, instead of help, all you’ll get is to be taken hostage and torn apart.

“You’re right! Ornella has always been jealous of you! And now that you’re queen before she is, she’ll be glad to get her bird claws into your tender neck,” the bridge spirit whispered to her.

She could flee from a whole dynasty of werewolf eagles, but she could not flee from the spirit’s advice. He flew after her, muttering something about how eagle flocks couldn’t fly into these magic bridges, or they would tear her to pieces. She is queen of the seas now, and they hate all morgens. And these are her relatives! Her cousins from an ancient royal family actually turned out to be eagles! Well, isn’t that a surprise!