Drowned (3 page)

“Oh. But he has Star.”

“No
male
heir,” he says. “No one to assume the throne.”

“That’s a stupid rule, that the ruler has to be male.”

He shrugs. “It is. But regardless, Star is not fit to rule. She has no understanding of what it is to lead, and I doubt that she would want to.”

My father told me what life was like without a king. Before King Wallow assumed the throne, there was a gap, as well. King Wallow had been only ten when his father died. The world had been thrown into absolute chaos. People fought constantly. They murdered people in their sleep, just to make sure they had a spot on the platform. The one thing I remember of my father, more than anything, was him pressing his forehead to the king’s ring before leaving on his Explore. He would do anything for our king. He believed in the power of his rule; that it was good, or at least necessary. But with no one to assume the throne? A shiver runs down my back. “So what are you saying? That—”

“He wants me to do it,” he interrupts. “To be king.”

“Oh.” I’m silent for a moment, trying to take this information in. I’m not sure if I
can
take it in. Tiam... The boy I grew up next to... He is many wonderful things. But not a king. Not
my
king. “But you’re...you’re not...royalty.”

He shrugs. “But how does one become royalty in the first place? The Wallows weren’t always royalty. You know that. There was difficulty, and they rose up and took the lead.”

I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. All of the thrill that I’d felt about being his confidant evaporates. I’d foolishly hoped that telling me his secret would bring us closer. If he’s a king,
the
king, there might as well be an ocean between us.

“What do you think?” he asks cautiously.

I look at the ground. Then I start to laugh. I can’t help it. He studies me, confused, until I explain. “I’m sorry. But you as a king? This is only your sixteenth Hard Season.”

“King Wallow assumed the throne on his sixteenth season,” he points out.

“But still...why
you?
”

His voice is hurt. “The king said it’s not the first time they had to choose a commoner for the throne. He said he’d had his eye on me for this since I was a child. Supposedly, when I was a child, I narrowly evaded death. I was cast out into the ocean, and survived. This impressed him. It was a sign from the gods, he said, like Star. You know he’s always given me special allowances. I think he’s always seen himself in me. Plus, I’m more of a king than anyone on this island. I mean, would you rather Vixby, or Mutter...” He names the two maddest men on the island.

Immediately guilt seeps in. “No. I mean, I know you can do it. But I just... I’ve known you forever. And I’ve never thought of you as a king.” I pause for a moment, squinting, imagining him sitting up on a throne above the formation in a brilliant pink robe, looking down upon us. I wonder if I won’t be allowed to look at him anymore. I guess that doesn’t matter. It might even make things easier, since I already have trouble looking at him without blushing. “Yeah. You would make a pretty good king.”

“You think?” Now he seems doubtful.

“Well, sure. You’re right. You’re the best choice there is.” I can tell there is something he isn’t telling me. “Why? What are you thinking?”

“Not much. Just that there are a lot of things I would change.”

“Like what?”

“Like wearing those ridiculous pink robes and stuff.” We both laugh at that. “And the palace. It’s...well...it’s not right. It’s totally not fair that they get the best of the salvaged items. I’d have teams of people go into the royal stores and figure out if there is anything we can use. It’s not fair that only a select few get to go down there. And maybe we could build up the platform, make it higher, bigger....”

“Maybe,” I say, trying to keep the doubt out of my voice because he sounds so adorably hopeful. But we both know they’ve tried to bolster the platform, make it bigger and wider and stronger. Every effort has failed. The materials that wash up on shore are inadequate, and on top of that, there’s only slightly more than half a day between high tides, which isn’t enough time to get anything in place. The ocean that surrounds us is blacker than night, except for the whitecaps that foam above it. It is always rough, always vile and menacing like poison, never smooth or glassy or pleasant to look at. There is a strong undertow only a few feet offshore, so we’ve lost just as many fishermen to the ocean’s pull as to the scribblers. When it came to bolstering the eroding platform, the builders would make progress, only to have it undone by the waves a tide later.

“I think I can help us. As king, I mean. I think I can do good. Only...”

He looks troubled.

“Only?”

“I’d hate to be the last king of Tides.” He pauses. “That’s what I’ll be, right?”

“I don’t know.” But of course I do.

“You know everything. You’re the smartest person in the world.”

“My father is,” I say.

We walk along the shore in a long moment of silence. There’s pity in his silence. I know he thinks, the way everyone else does, that I’m pathetic to believe Buck Kettlefish is still alive. But he, too, knew that we didn’t have much time. It was the reason he volunteered for the risky Explore. Once every one thousand tides or so, the builders put together a raft to be used during the Soft Season, when the ocean is slightly calmer, to be used for an Explore. They build it on the platform. Every tide the ship is kept safe in the dry center of the formation, and we in the spaces surrounding it will gaze upon it in its various stages of completion. Finally, when it’s done, one soul will be selected, usually by lottery, since it’s a death sentence. Nobody ever comes back from Explores. That is why everyone was shocked when my father volunteered.

“Okay,” he says. “You’re the smartest person
on the island,
then.”

Which isn’t saying much,
I think. A truly smart person might have the answers, might be able to save us. I bite my lip. “Yes, I think you will be. The last king, I mean.”

After a moment, he stops, picks up an oyster shell and pries it open. It’s been roasting in the sun for a while, so the contents are dry and rotten. He dips his index finger inside and, with an “aha!” pulls out a nice-sized, perfectly round pearl. He’s been gathering them forever, and has the best collection on the island. He must have thirty or so by now. He reaches into his pack, pulls out a small box and drops it inside with the others. I always wonder what he expects to do with them. Maybe make a string of them to give as a gift to the princess. It’s not as if any commoners would wear them; they’re just not sensible.

But they sure are pretty. There is a picture of a girl in a long gown in
Fifty Famous Fairy Stories,
with hair braided upon her head and beautiful white pearls adorning the hollow of her throat. I sigh, imagining a string of them around my own neck. I don’t know why I constantly think of such impractical things when I am around Tiam.

We walk along to the west side. There’s not a single soul anywhere to be seen, and so when a seagull squawks above us, it’s eerie and foreboding.

Tiam is thinking something else as he watches two birds soar over us. “I wish we could live up there, in the clouds. And fly, like them.”

Tiam wishes a lot. I guess I do, too. But his wishes are so creative. He doesn’t think like everybody else. He’s not only strong, he’s smart. Yes, he would be a good king. “We used to,” I mumble.

He laughs. “Yeah, right.”

“We
did,
” I insist. “We built machines that could fly like birds and carry people inside them. But that was a long time ago. Like thousands and thousands of tides ago.”

“Really?” He sighs. “That was the Golden Age of Man, right, that you told me about?”

I nod. I’d explained to him that every civilization, every race, has its Golden Age. Ours was so many tides ago, all we have are rumors and stories about its grandeur. Back then, every human was clean and beautifully dressed. Children had fat, rosy cheeks and so much land of their own that they could run across it until they were out of breath and still have more to conquer. Every dinner table was piled high with so much food of all colors and tastes, more food than anyone could possibly eat. People went to social gatherings and did things called dancing, music, art, because they enjoyed it, because it made them feel good and because they didn’t have to fight for what they needed. They had everything they needed at their fingers. They never had to wrestle for food or dodge scribblers or clean out a craphouse.

I’d told him that every civilization also has its decline. Some go quickly, others erode away slowly. Our decline started quite suddenly, with the floods that covered the earth. Nobody knows why it happened, because it wiped out nearly everything. It made recovery impossible. Now what little is left is just fading away, bit by bit, like the last embers after a fire has been stamped out. Humanity is fighting, and has been fighting for a long time. But we’ve been losing for too long. We used to think that we could get back some of that lost rosy-cheeked grandness, but nobody believes that anymore. We’re almost at the end. I don’t think anyone can deny that.

He smiles at me, only for a moment. “You’re amazing,” he says into the wind.

“Sure,” I mutter, blushing more deeply.

“It’s true. The things you know. It’s just sad that, well...” He looks away, but I can complete the sentence for him.
It’s just sad that you are so deformed.
He smiles irresistibly, which makes it impossible to hate him. “Forget it.”

I quickly change the subject. “So what does
you
being king have to do with me?”

“With you?”

“I mean, why did the king pick today to talk to me?”

“Oh. I...don’t know,” he says, a peculiar expression on his face. Either he’s picturing himself sitting on the throne wrapped in pretty robes or he knows
exactly
why the king was talking to me.

The west side is the side of the island that gets hit the worst by the tides, but the best things wash up there. It’s also the part of the island that’s most often ridden with scribblers. Before, they were easy to avoid. Since I learned they’ve been burrowing under the sand, I, like most people, have been afraid to come here. But having Tiam with me gives me courage. Or maybe it’s that I’m already so nervous around him that the thought of being speared by a scribbler doesn’t sound so bad.

There’s a greenish slime on the sand where the waves once were, and bits of dead insects and jellyfish. In the same instant we see something triangular and reddish poking up from the ground, like an arrow pointing to heaven. We run to it, and Tiam picks it up. It’s just a small, narrow piece of plastic. There are some letters on it. “What does it say?” he asks me.

I am the only one who can read; if my father and I were gone it would be just another lost art, like dancing or painting pictures. Buck Kettlefish taught me, and I learned, because I’d always wanted to be like him, and that was the only way I could manage. I try to keep it hidden, though, because the king forbids anything that doesn’t contribute to our society. Tiam is the only one who knows I can do it. That secret has been safe with him for many seasons. “R-U-N. It says ‘run,’” I say.

“Run? From what?”

I shrug. “It might be part of a bigger word.”

“Hey, hold out your wrist,” Tiam says. I hold out my hand, and he ties it around there. “Looks good,” he says.

I admire the way it shines. If I squint just right, it’s just as bright as a string of pearls. Then again, pearls would look silly on me. I’m not royalty like Star. Royalty! “You can’t. You know you need to bring anything we find before the king first.”

“Nah. They won’t miss that little thing.”

I’m not sure, but I’m so used to hiding my right arm from them that I suppose it won’t be hard to hide my left one, too.

“Besides,
I
may be king in a few weeks’ time,” he says, a hint of disbelief in his voice.

“Yes, Your Most Grand and Benevolent Majesty,” I say, offering up a curtsy. But I’m unable to keep a straight face.

“I prefer Your Holiness,” he says, and we both start to laugh again. Then his face hardens. “There is one other thing. Something the king wants me to do.”

“Oh?” I say, studying the ground. And for the first time, I notice them. Long, winding scribbles in the sand. Fresh ones. They end right before our feet. How could we have been so stupid not to have noticed? Well, for me, whenever I’m with Tiam, I seem to forget everything, including simple things like how to walk and breathe. But was his head so in the clouds at the thought of being king that he didn’t see them? “Tiam,” I whisper.

He studies them. “Don’t worry. If they were under the sand, you’d see a small circular mound there. They hide with their heads poking up a little, and that’s how they can find us.”

I’m about to exhale, relieved, when I catch sight of the area behind him. There is, unmistakably, a mound right behind his foot. Two of them, actually. “Um, like those?” I whisper, trying to point. That’s when I notice that there are nearly a dozen more, all within jumping distance of his foot.

He swallows. “R-U-N,” he says softly, and I don’t have to be told twice.

I’m three steps into my dash back toward the sleeping compartment when I hear the hissing of the scribblers behind us. Or...in front of us? “Tiam!” I whisper, stopping short. “Look.”

There are more mounds ahead of us, and I can see their small black faces, dotted in sand, protruding from the ground, as if they’re ready to attack. If they can be called faces. They have no eyes, just horrible mouths with huge ragged teeth and a nose sharper than the royal guards’ metal spears. Tiam comes to a halt beside me, kicking up sand, then reaches behind his back and in one swift motion pulls out his spear. When one slithers out, he is ready. He slices it in half in midair with one quick, expert swing of his weapon. When two more spike out of the sand, he easily does away with those, too.

He’s so busy fighting, and I’m so bewitched by his moves, that we don’t notice the one snaking its way up behind us until I take a step back and feel a sleek form skirt against my foot. It rears back to attack me, and before Tiam can turn and notice it, I’m already beating it down with my backpack. I hit it again and again and probably more than necessary, because by the time I get full control of myself again, it’s been beaten flat, mutilated beyond recognition, its green insides spilled generously upon the sand. I stare at it for a moment, breathing hard, then turn to Tiam, who has fallen silent. He’s staring at me.