Beached Read online

  * * *

  ‘I cannot countenance this, daughter,’ Lunia said, her soft face tight and immobile. ‘This is not what we do. This is not what you do.’

  Lecanora nodded at the truth in her mother’s words, and looked out the window of the car at the coastline rushing by. ‘You are right, of course. It is not what I would ever want to do.’

  Lunia tried again. ‘You think you can do this because the end matters so much. But you cannot build a happy ending through means that are wrong,’ she said. ‘The universe does not work that way. You are Aegiran, my darling. Aegiran, to your very cells. You know that. Compromise is a Land trait. We must be higher. Better. Purer. Larry?’ Lunia turned to the man sitting beside her in the seat. ‘What do you say of this?’

  ‘I’m not the right person to ask, Lunia,’ he growled, running his hands through his close grey crop. ‘I’m an old soldier. I’ve done more shitty things than any man I know.’

  Doug coughed. ‘Almost any man,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Larry went on. ‘Maybe, maybe not Doug. But I say this: only the impotent are pure.’

  ‘I tried to speak to her,’ Lecanora said. ‘You know I did.’

  ‘She just needs time,’ Lunia said, pleading in her voice. ‘You know that.’

  ‘I do know it,’ Lecanora agreed. ‘I simply do not have it to give.’

  Lunia reached for Lecanora’s hand. ‘You have been taken,’ she said. ‘More than once. You know what it is like to be removed against your will.’

  ‘This is not the same,’ Lecanora said.

  Lunia nodded. ‘I know that, darling. I do. But in a situation, any situation, where you place your needs and wishes against those of another, there is the potential for harm. For things to go not as you plan. You do understand that?’

  Lecanora swallowed and said nothing for several moments. The big car ate up the miles, and Lecanora watched the coastline twist beside them. The ocean had never looked so inviting. She could almost taste the salt, and feel the slick comfort of the sea on her skin. ‘Nevertheless,’ she said. ‘This is what we are doing.’

  Lunia sat back in her chair, and sighed.

  Lecanora squeezed her eyes against the pain of putting that look on Lunia’s face. ‘I am sorry, mother,’ she said. ‘I would never choose to disappoint you like this.’

  Lunia smiled at her, silver lacing her eyes. ‘You could never disappoint me,’ she said. ‘I only do not want you to do things that might make you look at yourself differently.’

  Lecanora dragged in a breath and addressed Doug. ‘Remember, I will approach her first. I will ask her to come with me. Only if she refuses need you step in. How long do we have?’

  Doug checked his watch. ‘My contact says the party will be up at the next parking area—probably two minutes ahead,’ he said. ‘The detail is down, after the Schwarz thing yesterday. They will just have arrived. They wanted her to cancel, but she wouldn’t have a bar of it. Some coastal rescue guys, a cause close to her heart, apparently.’

  Lunia made a noise in her throat and Lecanora knew what she was thinking.

  About a little lost girl, washed up on a wild stretch of coast. Of course this would be close to her heart.

  In seconds, they saw it: a long, back car, pulling in to the parking area ahead of them. And beside it another one, smaller, and also dark. Doug maintained speed until he was very close to the entry to the parking space, then he swerved in quickly, just as Lecanora saw a black-suited figure alight from the long car. Doug kept the engine running and he and Larry jumped out. Larry ran to the smaller car and trained a stout black gun at the window, barking something Lecanora could not hear as she hurried out the other side. Doug was on the guy in the suit before he could move, and had pushed him to the ground on the other side of the vehicle, screaming don’t move, don’t move.

  And then, slowly, carefully, Susan Murray stepped out. She reached back in and offered her hand to someone. Her father followed her out, looking very old and tired.

  Lecanora bowed low to them both. ‘Mrs Murray,’ she said. ‘I would like you to come with me. I have something to show you. I hope it will help you make up your mind about what you need to do.’

  Her father pushed in front and drove a finger into Lecanora’s chest.

  Doug made a dark noise in the back of his throat. He held the suit in place on the ground with his foot and stepped closer. ‘Do not touch her,’ he growled. ‘I don’t care how old you are, I’ll drop you like a sack of rice if you touch her again.’

  The old man stared at Lecanora, and she felt warmth rising to her cheeks. ‘But you would take my daughter from me,’ he said. ‘You told me much of your people. Of their peace, and gentleness. How advanced they are. Well, you all seem like you’re common or garden-variety thugs to me. You don’t get what you want, so you take it. Like every bully I ever knew.’

  ‘No,’ Lecanora said, placing her hand on his arm. ‘You are wrong. I will not take your daughter. Not if she says no. But I wanted the chance to tell her this in person. Susan.’ She turned to the woman who would be president and touched her arm. ‘I can show you my home. Your home.’

  Susan seemed cool and relaxed. She was not breathing heavily or showing any signs of distress. She raised her eyebrow. ‘I cannot go, Lecanora,’ she said. ‘I have much to do here. I have a mission. I have thought about this all night. There is much to fix here, on…what do you call it? The Land. I am running for president because people hurt each other. They die and they suffer and I know—’ She paused, and for the first time Lecanora saw the tell tale signs of her unease, small beads of sweat forming on her lip. ‘I know I can make a difference. Already, I am turning the tide on some issues.’

  ‘I understand,’ Lecanora said. ‘And I believe you. But listen to me.’ She made her voice low and smooth, thinking about all the ways sound could be used. All she had learned, from Zorax, the Choirmaster, and even (she admitted to herself) from Manos, and the schemes he had hatched. She concentrated her goodwill into her voice, communicating peace and self-belief. ‘I can show you without taking you there. There is a way. But we need to talk in private. I can show you, but you must come with me, you must let me.’

  Susan nodded, and Lecanora could feel that she was pulled under by the power of the words, but more, by the tones she was injecting into the soft, sweet call to believe, to listen and be compelled. She raised a hand and motioned to the people around her: Larry, his gun still aimed at the window of the car. Doug. The agents. Her father.

  ‘My friends will take them,’ Lecanora said. ‘Somewhere very close by. I will personally guarantee their safety. No-one you love will be harmed on my watch.’

  Susan nodded. ‘And none that I am responsible for?’

  Lecanora nodded, and held a finger to the wind. ‘I swear it,’ she said. She nodded to Lunia. ‘And my mother will stay with them.’

  Susan walked to Lecanora, and took her hand. ‘Let us go then,’ she said.

  Susan’s father shook his head and reached for his daughter’s arm as she walked past him. Susan reached up and touched his face. ‘It’s okay, Dad,’ she said, smiling gently at him. ‘I’m going to go home. You know I need to.’

  Lecanora watched the old man’s face as his daughter turned to leave him. It was grey and shaking, his eyes watery. ‘This way,’ she said to Susan, pointing to a winding path that led from the parking area down to some rocks. ‘There is a cave down there where we can talk. My friends will ensure your people are taken somewhere safe. I will ensure their safe return.’

  * * *

  ‘How does it work?’ Susan sat on a flat stone, and Lecanora crouched beside her. She held the tiny shell flat in her palm and turned it over with the index finger of her other hand. ‘And what is it?’

  Lecanora sighed, trying to find the right words. ‘I guess it is…kind of a focused telepathy. Old dolphin magic. They belonged to lovers, who were to be separated. They were designed so they could find each other, wherever they
were, if they were enchanted the right way. Through them, you can see through the other’s eyes.’

  ‘The eyes of your lover?’ Susan’s face was soft and focused, her listening face not unlike that of Lunia’s, and for the first time the resemblance slammed Lecanora like a fist to her stomach. She took a steadying breath.

  ‘The man you will see is not my lover, no,’ she said. ‘But he did agree to enchant them for me, before I left.’ Something in the way Susan listened made Lecanora remember those hours, when she had planned to say good-bye to her mother and her home, and make the journey to The Land. She found tears scratched the back of her eyes as she thought about it. ‘It was very generous of him. It is…an imposition.’

  Susan nodded. ‘But you are his princess,’ she said. ‘He could not say no.’

  Lecanora stared at Susan, uncomprehending. ‘It is not that he could not,’ she said, willing her to understand. ‘It is that he would not. He would not want to.’

  Susan nodded. ‘He loves you,’ she said simply.

  ‘No,’ Lecanora said, shaking her head. ‘No, it is not like that.’ Then she thought about Rashind, in the days before she had left. His attentive care of her. The looks she had sometimes intercepted. ‘I do not think so.’

  Susan smiled a small smile. ‘Come then,’ she said. ‘Let us do it.’

  Lecanora took a breath. There was one more thing to ask. ‘I want to guide you,’ she said. ‘But there is only one of those.’ She pointed to the small shell.

  ‘So…?’ Susan looked at her like she already knew the question.

  ‘I want to walk with you,’ Lecanora said. ‘In your mind, as you enter Rashind’s mind’”‘

  ‘Hmm,’ Susan said. ‘Telepathy?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lecanora said. ‘In a way of speaking. We have access to each other’s minds. But you can stop me. You can stop anyone. So I need to check it sits acceptably with you. Otherwise, it will not be possible.’

  Susan looked hard into Lecanora’s face, almost as thought she was searching for something. Lecanora reached out, tentatively. I would never go where you do not want me, she said into her mind. It is your mind, your most private place.

  She felt Susan grasp for the technique. Go easy on me, she smiled. It’s my first time with a mermaid.

  Lecanora frowned. How strange this woman was. So of The Land. And yet, being here like this, so close to her, she could feel exactly what she was. Mermaid, like her. Aegiran. And more, something more like her. Foundling. And important. Important to the outcome. One of The Three.

  She took a breath. This was important. She had to show her.

  She closed her eyes briefly and hoped that wherever Rashind was, he could show this woman all that her home was. And why it was in danger.

  She slipped the tiny shell into Susan’s ear, and then held her arms tight. She knew how it would be. Strange, and disorienting. She did not know whether Susan had ever been in someone’s mind before, or had someone in hers. If she had to guess, she would say she had probably experimented, given what she was, and the gifts she must have that set her apart from Land dwellers. But still… Lecanora grasped her shoulders tightly, and tried to project warmth and comfort through them. She felt Susan shudder, and a quick jolt.

  Lecanora reached back into her mind to see what she was seeing, to be with her. It was hard. It took a few seconds, like seeking and locking onto a target. And then it worked.

  Rashind was in The Eye.

  For a moment Lecanora felt a wash of guilt, as she realized he had gone there to be alone. The Eye of the Goddess was the center of Aegiran life. It had been the piazza on the island of Hlsey, the home of Aegir, God of the boundless seas. When Aegir gave up on humans, and decided to sink his island paradise to the deepest place of the ocean floor, he bestowed on his people the gift of water-breathing, and the piazza became something altogether magical: a still, perfect underwater lagoon, around which a magical underwater tornado broiled and seethed. The space had lasted ten thousand years, the walls of The Eye constant as time itself.

  Until recently.

  After Manos had breached the city, and ripped one of the walls, making it a dangerous place, Aegirans had been banished from The Eye. The Queen had feared that it was no longer safe. But Rashind was here. And it was still beautiful. Golden light filtered through the space, casting a glow across the pale green. It was vast and serene, the settled sand of the ocean floor shining like polished marble. A floating dais was suspended at its center, shining like crystal. Lecanora marveled at the skilled artisans who had cut it from sea-diamonds, and shuddered to herself, wondering again how The Land dwellers would cope with the riches of her home. She hoped that reason could prevail.

  As she watched, Rashind approached the altar. He climbed it and then turned, and through his eyes Lecanora realized he was not alone.

  Before him swam a multitude of creatures of the deep sea. At least a thousand Aegirans, their serene beauty so familiar and perfect it almost hurt Lecanora’s brain, after days on The Land, her eyes growing used to the diversity. But, dotted among the Aegirans, was the true wonder of the deep sea. The creatures of all the treaty nations of the deep, terrified at the things that were happening, were seeking refuge and vowing to protect their haven home.

  Lecanora and Susan followed Rashind’s eyes as they ranged over the crowd before him. Among the species Susan would recognize—multi-colored tropical fish, some of the friendlier sharks, a pod of arrogant dolphins—there were others that Lecanora knew Susan would never have heard of. Secret creatures, intelligent enough to know their invisibility kept them safe. Gynomarls, the silvery-blue snake creatures with the faces of goddesses, midwives to Aegiran children, their kindness beaming from their faces. Vast cephalopods, glowing brilliant with fluorescent light, sometimes dark, invisible, then lighting up as their advanced brains processed and sorted the information around them. Freeleins, the drifting cloud-like creatures of weed and intelligence that streaked past the life around them, brushing others lightly and passing on their life-gift of spirit energy.

  Lecanora felt Susan gasp as she took them in.

  Rashind eyed all of the life around him, and then his eyes lifted to the city beyond The Eye. Aegira’s buildings glowed burnished copper through the walls of The Eye. From this vantage point, the city looked like a blurred, magnificent Atlantis. It looked like a dream of a different place, a place of possibility and acceptance.

  Lecanora and Susan together felt the beautiful man who stood on the dais ready himself and then begin to speak. ‘Friends,’ he said, speaking aloud because he knew not everyone would understand his mind-talk. ‘I bring you here with sad and troubling news. Our Queen, Imd, Dusk…’ He stopped, and both Susan and Lecanora felt a rush of empathy rise up inside them as they experienced his pain thinking about his Queen. He gathered himself and continued. ‘She is dying. It is near the end of her time. And we face the greatest foe we have ever known. Our Princess will return soon, and she will take on our leadership when she does.’

  Lecanora felt herself flush as she experienced the warm glow that rose in Rashind as he said her name, thought about her. She was closely connected with Susan at this point; she knew that the woman registered it too.

  ‘But until then, the Queen has asked me to tell you that you must stand together. You must be of heart. You must—’ Lecanora felt him look for the words Imd had pressed on him. He paused. ‘I am not Imd. I cannot say it as she would. But she believes in you all. Her people, and the others who have come here for refuge, and who now call our nation home. She believes that we will stand together, and that help will come. That we will finally be as one with our brothers and sisters on The Land.’

  As Rashind looked out over the crowd, they began to croon as one, in different languages and dialects, but the effect was the same—a low, slow moan of understanding. Of endorsement. The Aegiran equivalent of applause. Rashind pooled his resources for one final push. ‘Imd tells us not to be afraid,’ he said. ‘We will overc
ome the demons that swim among us. And we will emerge the other side better, stronger and more completely whole than we were before.’

  * * *

  Susan looked small and lost, sitting on the flat stone on the cave floor. ‘So it’s true,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Lecanora said, rubbing the woman’s shoulders, feeling the swirling of her blood under her fingers and the layers of clothes. ‘And you are part of it.’ Lecanora picked up Susan’s arm, and turned it over at the wrist. ‘You must have seen it before,’ she said. As they watched, the alorha darted past. ‘The life fish,’ she said. ‘It is what makes you alive, and makes you one of us.’

  Susan nodded, and when she met Lecanora’s eyes there was a different understanding in them. ‘I will do it,’ she said. ‘I have access, all kind of access. I will brief the right people. But I will need you there with me, to prove that this is no hoax. And we…will need a careful plan, to ensure your safety.’

  Lecanora nodded. ‘I have people who can help,’ she said.

  Chapter 15

  Going home

  Lecanora stood and held out her hand to Susan in the dim light. As Susan took it, and stood, Lunia’s voice broke through the spell that still held them a little in its thrall.

  ‘Daughter,’ she said, her voice high and strained. ‘They are coming. They have found us.’

  ‘Who?’ Susan’s voice took on a quiet, authoritative depth.

  Then Lunia was in front of them. She was in simple clothes—white pants, a pale yellow T-shirt, and practical shoes. But in this dark cave she looked like a wild goddess, yellow-blonde hair streaming behind her, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

  ‘The soldiers. The ones from the prison. They are here, on the beach. They are coming for you.’

  Lecanora’s mind spun. How? And why? And how could they have known?

  ‘Doug took the guards—’ She motioned quickly to Susan. ‘—and your father, to the place we agreed.’ She glanced at Lecanora. ‘It is not far from here. But while we were there, I felt them coming. I…at least, I thought I did. I needed to check. I slipped away. Told Doug and Larry I needed some air. As I did, I felt it more strongly. I felt them coming here, to the two of you. Their minds were…as one. They were focused on you. They know you are here. Both of you. And they are determined to stop you.’