Double Life - Book 1 of the Vaiya Series (31 page)

“Thanks for saving me,” she said tenderly.
“Those treacherous men have evil hearts. There is no compassion in
them.”

As the silence stretched on, Ian, wanting to
remove the tension, asked, “So, how did you end up there in that
cage anyway?”

Tears welled up in her eyes, as her tail
swayed nervously. “Please, Ian, I can’t talk about this. Not
now.”

Ashamed of his hurtful question, he stood in
silence. “Forgive me, Taeria.”

“No, Ian, you do not need my forgiveness. I
was foolish. That is all.” She dried her tears, and then smiled.
“But enough of this, we have much to celebrate.” Striking the water
with her palms, spraying Ian’s face with water, she darted away
from him as if she were playing tag.

“Hey!” Amused, Ian remained motionless,
waiting for her to resurface, wondering at her sudden swings in
emotion. When she popped her head out of the water about twenty
feet from him, he just shook his head at her, guessing all too well
her intentions. “I’m not even going to try to catch you.”

“You’re not?” she asked, smiling cutely.

“I’m not.”

Swimming back to him, her purple tail like a
dazzling amethyst, swishing back and forth, Taeria folded both of
her hands behind her back when she stopped four feet in front of
him. “You disappoint me, Ian. As a merman, I expected you to be
more playful. I thought you’d like water tag.”

“But I’m still a human at heart,” said Ian,
suppressing a smile, avoiding all eye contact with her tail.

But she just gave him a dry expression, as if
not fully catching his meaning. “I’m pretty sure you're wrong,” she
said pointedly. Then, before he could reply, she laughed and swam
back towards him, slapping her tail against the water and sending
myriads of droplets at Ian. As he shielded his eyes with his arms,
she just smiled, revealing her dazzling white teeth. “So, how do
you like being a merman?”

“It’s interesting … but it will take some
time getting used to,” he said truthfully, hesitance in his tone.
Truly, being able to swim so fast as well as breathe underwater,
something he’d done subconsciously without even realizing it, was
incredibly amazing and almost surreal. But was all that worth it
for having a disgusting tail attached to him? He didn’t think
so.

Despite the doubt in his tone though, she
seemed to not even notice it and in fact grew even more cheerful.
“You’re definitely more handsome this way,” she said candidly,
before grinning suspiciously, the sort of smile that Eddy would
make before trying to trip Alan.

Ian gave her a weird look. “What are you so
happy about?” he asked, finding that she was sounding more and more
like Hazel by the minute.

“It worked even better than in my dreams,”
she replied delightfully. “Your face is like a pearl shining in
pale moonlight. I never imagined it would work so well on a
human.”

Now this was not a typical response from
Hazel. Succumbing to embarrassment over her poetic words, and not
even wanting to know their meaning, he managed a weak “thanks”.

Laughing at his bashfulness, she swam in
circles around him and then paused once she saw the slightest
ripple in the water. Darting her head to the side, she saw her
father approaching, and she dove underwater and talked to him
briefly, before resurfacing, holding out two open palms to him.

Ian stopped abruptly, mistaking the meaning
of the gesture.

Sensing his confusion, she only laughed.
“Come, Ian. You are invited to our kingdom.” Lightly striking his
tail with her tail--perhaps as an invitation gesture--she then
added, “Please realize that this is a rare honor for a land dweller
to receive.”

“I do.” He bowed solemnly, hoping that she’d
never touch him with her tail again. “I’m extremely grateful.”

“Let’s go then.” She dove under water,
followed somewhat distantly by Ian, who wondered how he was going
to make it in this merfolk kingdom. Though he really wanted to just
make the best of this world and hope that when he teleported back
to earth he’d easily be able to clear up any misunderstandings, the
longer he stayed here, the more improbable that became, saying
nothing of the fact that going to a city with half-fishlike
creatures filled him with utter horror. If his queasy stomach
didn’t get any stronger, he didn’t know how he was going to make it
there.

Darting quickly after Taeria, who swam with
such gracefulness and ease, he sighed inwardly. He really should be
enjoying himself more; it wasn’t every day that he got to breathe
underwater or swim faster than an Olympian. Nor was it every day
that he got to meet a beautiful princess and be a guest at her
underwater palace. As strong as his aversion to fish was, he really
needed to get over it and move on, if at all possible. Otherwise,
he’d be ruining a once-in-a lifetime opportunity.

With those thoughts somewhat consoling him,
he swam for over twenty minutes, now rather deep under the water,
gazing curiously at the bright, colorful schools of fishes that
darted around him, the dark blue, green, and fuchsia-colored coral
reefs that teemed with ocean life, the shiny purple dolphins that
followed him, the blue-green seaweed arches that brushed against
his face, and the myriads of different seashells that littered the
ocean floor. Still, he didn’t see the kingdom.

About to grow impatient, he scanned around
him and caught the faint glimmer of a city in the distance. At
once, his irritation evaporated, as a strong urge to check out the
city invaded his mind.

Curiosity pulling him onward, he drew nearer
to the specks in the distance and noticed several golden-seaweed
arches, perfectly symmetrical, shimmering under the water with a
mysterious light. Surprisingly, though he’d expected many sentinels
to be around the arches, as each of the three elven gates had
multiple guards stationed at them, there wasn’t a guard in sight
around any of them. Apparently, the merfolk kingdom was much more
trusting and peaceful than the elven kingdom, a fact that set his
mind at ease. The last thing he wanted here was to have a repeat of
his bad encounter with the elves.

A smile on his face as he pictured King
Kadeth’s utter confusion upon finding him nowhere in the palace,
Ian resisted a chuckle; maybe the king would finally believe in
teleportation now. Or perhaps, more likely, he would simply think
Ian a sorcerer who had turned invisible and had somehow managed to
escape the palace.

No matter what the case though, his respect
for Ian had to go up slightly, as it couldn’t get much lower, and
that fact somehow made Ian feel better.

As his thoughts turned to Master Thargon, and
he wondered how he would react when the king informed him that his
victim had somehow disappeared overnight, Ian grinned and gazed
beyond the wide arches to an enormous city, which pervaded the
landscape, stretching for miles and miles, as far as the eye could
see. It resembled the lost city of Atlantis, only it was much more
vivid with bright pastel colors in nearly every building. His eyes
widened with intense interest, his thoughts about the elven kingdom
put behind him for now.

Darting and twisting around in the water like
a fish, Ian shot forward at humanly impossible speeds, at times
reaching fifty miles an hour. The necklace had radically altered
his entire body; besides being able to breathe underwater and swim
extremely fast, he could also see very far around him with
piercingly clear vision. What was more, the water didn’t even look
blurry or sting his eyes at all, and it never got up his nose.

Musing in wonder and slight disgust over his
transformed body, he propelled himself forward and they soon
reached the first of the five golden arches, which they swam
through promptly. The other four arches were no different and once
they’d swam through them, they finally arrived at the crystal gate,
which led into the Kingdom of Yavara. There wasn’t a soul in
sight.

Full of anticipation, waiting for somebody to
let them in, Ian watched as Taeria moved closer to the gate. As she
whispered a few secret words, the gate began rising.

Smiling, she held out her open palms to
him.

Now recognizing the gesture, Ian, intrigued
that the merfolk used a secret code to secure the gate, quickly
followed after her through the gate into the Kingdom of Yavara.

“Where’s the mermaid?” A young man with
owlish purple eyes, leaned against a tree, his hands relaxed at his
sides. His night-colored hair spiraled into curls that flowed down
to his shoulders. His gray cloak rustled in the wind, temporarily
revealing a yellow lightning bolt symbol underneath.

“She’s escaped.” The woodsmen leader, along
with his hunters, surrounded the youth. Supposedly hidden in the
woods, a one-eyed man held a loaded crossbow, awaiting an apparent
signal, though the young man had already spotted him and
indifferently waited to see what would come of it.

“How does the Forest Scourge let a weak,
harmless mermaid slip away while trapped in a cage?” The young man
flashed a wicked smile. “Explain.”

The commander brandished his axe, as the
young man noticed curiously that the man’s clothes were rather wet
as if he’d been swimming. “A man freed her while we were away.”

The young man frowned. “And why were you
away? Please tell me, Jackal.” Stretching, he took off his leather
shoe and shook the dirt out of it, before putting it back on. It
appeared he had all the time in the world.

A slight pause. “Caravan hunting.”

“And did you get anything?” he asked,
enthusiasm bubbling from his smile.

“Ah, yes,” said the leader, more at ease, as
he let his axe fall to his side. “And we only had to kill two
people; the rest all ran--”

“I’m glad you like your stolen goods,” broke
in the young man, changing quickly from his happy tone to one of
rebuke, “because you’re not getting any of mine.” Pulling out a
thick woven bag of coins from his cloak, he held it out for all to
see. “It’s too bad, because I really wanted to share. It’s a shame
none of you did what I told you to.” He re-pocketed the black
leather coin sack.

Dargo, a lanky, ill-clad man, bridged the
distance between him and the speaker. “We ought to get something.”
His fingers clasped the handle of a rusty knife. “We’ve been on
this stupid fish woman quest for over a month.”

“Stupid?” asked the young man, placing a hand
on his chin, wistfulness drawn about him like a shadow, as if he’d
never even considered how this word could be used in that
context.

“Yes!” The ragged man shouted at the wind.
“We spent two weeks doing nothing but sitting on the pier trying to
earn the fish woman’s trust. Then, once she trusted us, we spent
another two weeks of gentle coaxing and handing out food and gifts
before she ever set foot in the cage.” He scowled. “Worse yet, we
don’t speak fish woman talk. Because of you we even had to learn a
little of that disgusting vowel-polluted language.”

But, as if unconcerned about their hardships,
the young man merely wrapped his cloak tighter, replying in a
sarcastic voice, “First, she doesn’t have feet, but rather a tail.”
He paused. “Second, in spite of your wealth, you don’t spend nearly
enough on clothes. Be glad she ever trusted you.” He smirked.
“Third, language skills are very useful for diplomacy. Even a
little knowledge can go a long way.”

“Not hard to say when you’re the one who just
sat on a stump all day,” said Dargo, as he made no efforts to
conceal the fact that he was sharpening his knife on a piece of
steel. “Try doing actual work for once, then tell us how you
feel.”

The young man only appeared amused, as he
located a comfortable looking tree stump and actually sat down on
it, putting his hands on his knees. “Are you implying in any way
that I’m lazy?”

“In every sense of the word,” spat out the
man. “If you’d actually helped us, we’d have gotten things done
much faster.”

“And what makes you think that?” he asked,
his purple eyes shining with an eerie starlight.

“You’re clearly a linguist,” replied Dargo,
nearly tripping over his words. “Only such a man would find the
fish woman’s repulsive language of interest.”

Another smile dawned on the young man’s face,
this one as calm as a stormless night.

“You’re wrong; I am no linguist. Though I’ll
admit without persuasion that among my many talents I am
exceptionally gifted at languages.”

“Conceited noble,” burst out Dargo, irked to
the point of ridiculousness. “It’s a wonder you ever set your slimy
tail in such harsh woodlands as these.”

But smiling, he simply chuckled. “Last time I
checked I didn’t have a fish tail … but I suppose with a little
help from my mother it could be arranged.”

These words set off Dargo. “You’re wasting
our time, Kethin; we didn’t come here to chat nonsense with you.”
He caught his breath as he launched another onslaught, his patience
clearly wearing thin. “Obviously, though, you have nothing better
to do. I get the feeling you’d listen to us all day.”

Kethin paused for a few seconds, maximizing
the moment before saying, “Your intuition is too keen, my
friend.”

But this time, the leader had had enough.
Stepping back into the scene, a calloused grin scarring his face,
he wasted no words. “Give us the money, Kethin.” As if his tone and
facial expressions weren’t clear enough, he raised his axe to seal
his point. “If you refuse, I’ll kill you myself.”

Kethin didn’t move a muscle. “Put down the
weapon, Jackal; we’re all friends here.”

“No, we’re not!” The leader pointed his axe
straight at the youth. “You either give us your money, or we’ll
take your life and then your money.”

A smile broke forth on his face. “Interesting
dilemma.” Kethin rubbed his chin. “Though I don’t like how both
options are aligned against me.”