Heaven Cent (8 page)

Then the merwoman caught him. “Now you are mine, you precious boy!” she said. “Kiss me!” She put her face to his.

The contents of Dolph's stomach spewed out, splashing against her nose and soaking her hair.

“Yuck!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were house-broken!” But she did not let go of him. She hauled him under the water, and in a moment it was much calmer.

Dolph inhaled. He thought he would drown, but he took in a full breath of water and it was just like air. She was right: she had enabled him to breathe the water.

He watched the vomit being carried out of her green hair by the water as she swam. Her tail stroked back and forth, and her body undulated, and she moved with considerable grace. She hauled him along, her grip on his arm so strong that he knew he could not break free. And if he did, what would happen? The moment he broke contact with her, the sea might change back to water for him, and he would drown.

He was her captive, without doubt. What was going to happen to him?

Mela deposited him in a cave garden at the bottom of the ocean. Treelike seaweeds surrounded it, arching up overhead to form a canopy. He could breathe, but knew it was water, because he was able to swim in it.

The ground was covered with pretty colored stones. Some of them glowed, their gentle green, red, blue, and yellow radiance lighting the region so that he could see. Here and there, there were floating masses of fine seaweed that looked like cushions. Between the sea trees and the stones was a rough circle of shiny metals.

“Do not go beyond the canopy,” Mela told him. “My enchantment extends only within it, and you will not be able to breathe the water beyond unless you are in contact with me. We are far down; you would surely drown.”

Dolph swam over and poked his head beyond the sea trees. The water seemed thicker here, and the farmer he went, the worse it got, until he was choking. She was right: he could not swim away.

In the middle of the garden she had a fireplace. She put some waterlogs on it, and the fire blazed up warmly.

“But how can there be fire under water?” Dolph asked, amazed.

“It is mermagic, of course,” she explained. “We are excellent housewives, managing the hearth and land until our husbands return.” Then she turned away.

“Husbands?” Dolph asked. “If you have a husband, why—”

“I had a husband, Merwin Merman. But he is gone.”

“Gone? Where?”

She turned to face him, her flukes twitching. “You are young, and I brought you here against your will, so I must forgive you your inadequate social grace. I spoke euphemistically. Merwin is dead.”

“Oh.” Dolph had indeed failed to understand her manner. He wanted to ask more questions, such as what that big word “euphemistically” meant, but realized that this might not be smart. “I'm sorry.” He was getting better at apologizing in the adult fashion.

And she reacted in the adult fashion. “No, you could not know. I apologize to you for what I have done. But let me explain.”

That was exactly what he wanted. Adults had funny, indirect ways of doing things sometimes, but they generally got there in the end. He kept his mouth shut and listened.

“We merfolk live a long time,” Mela said. "The males get old and grizzled, while the females remain young in appearance. This has to do with hormones—well, no need to get technical. But Merwin had a fine charm that helped him stay young. It was a large, brilliant firewater opal that sparkled with its internal energy. We merfolk collect pretty gems and rare metals, as you may have noted; we like them for our homes and gardens. But Merwin had only this one, and he valued it above all others. He wore it on a chain about his neck.

“One day he was aloft at the surface of the sea, generating a truly fine storm with the cooperation of the clouds that were on duty then. A flying dragon came and offered to help by breathing fire and smoke and thickening the mists. But then it saw Merwin's opal and coveted it. While Merwin was concentrating on the storm, that fell dragon turned its fire on him and toasted him. We merfolk are vulnerable to fire, which is why we stay in the water.

Merwin was stunned and fell senseless in the water. The dragon scooped up the firewater opal, breaking the chain that held it, and flew away to his lair somewhere on the land.

"Merwin, deprived of the protection of the gem, died. I was a widow. It was hard for me to manage after that, because a merwoman does not like to live alone. We had been building up our property so we could raise a family; our property was just about good enough, but now there could be no family. I did not want to share our estate with a strange merman, but that was academic; without the firewater opal it was not a sufficient estate to attract another merman. My only chance at recovering some share of my hopes was to recover the firewater opal, and the chance of that seemed remote indeed.

“That is why I was interested when I heard you mention the Heaven Cent. With that I might get to the opal.” She shrugged. “But it was a foolish passing notion. That dragon lives on land, and I am a creature of the sea; if I went to that dragon's lair I would only get myself killed. I can not use the Heaven Cent, because it would take me only to my death. But even as I realized this, I realized that you were a pretty boy who might do instead. The fact mat you are a prince made it even better. So I captured you, and I regret it if this makes you unhappy.”

“I don't want to stay here,” Dolph said. “Will you let me go?”

“No.”

“But I'm only a boy! I can't—do what you want.”

“Oh, I am sure you can, once you mature. Your kind and mine can interbreed, and merfolk often make it with captive sailors. The storkfish brings halflings, who may choose either the land or the sea. This will take time, of course, but I will treat you well as you grow up, and I am sure you will come to like it here.”

“I don't even know how to—whatever. The secret has been kept from me by the Adult Conspiracy.”

She laughed. “Is that what they call it on land? We consider it to be mere discretion. I would not be concerned about it.”

“Well, you're an adult,” he retorted. “You already know!”

“And I will gladly show you—when the time comes. You should find it interesting.”

“Never!”

She smiled tolerantly, just like an adult. They were all so smug about this! “You will see.”

“But I have other things to do!” Dolph protested.

“You may do them after I am through with you,” she said firmly.

“I'll escape!”

“You are welcome to try.”

Dolph changed form to a fish and swam for the edge of the canopy. But as he passed outside, he began to choke. His gills couldn't handle the water!

He had to back off. He had done a little fish swimming in the past, but evidently not enough; something wasn't working.

“I had not realized that you were a form changer,”  Mela said. ”But I see you are not an experienced one. Your body is attuned to my enchantment, so that you can breathe the water. When you try to adapt to normal fish breathing, you can not; your magic and mine interfere with each other, and you choke."

Dolph returned to boy form. “I'll learn how!”

“Surely you will—in time. All it takes is a good deal of practice. Meanwhile, I hope to persuade you that your best interests lie with me.”

Dolph doubted that she would succeed in that, but thought it best not to argue the point. “What about the Heaven Cent? You said you'd tell me one more thing about it if I came down here.”

She smiled. “But you did not come here voluntarily, I am not certain that counts.”

“You didn't say it had to be voluntary!”

She tilted her head, and her halo of green hair swirled around her torso. “Perhaps there is room for interpretation. Let me make you a proposition.”

“Nuh-uh! That sounds mushy!”

“Not necessarily. This is merely an agreement we both shall honor. Because you are a form changer, you could be a threat to me, so that I might be concerned about sleeping in your company. That would be inconvenient. So let's agree that I will tell you the rest of what I know about the Heaven Cent, and you will not try to harm me. You will not become a swordfish and slice me up, for example. You may do anything else you wish, but you will not offer me any violence or other harm.”

“I can try to breathe water and escape?”

“Yes. You just may not attack me, or try to hurt me otherwise.”

The truth was that Dolph really did not want to hurt her, she was a reasonably nice person, once allowances were made for her adult nature. He just wanted to get away from her. It seemed a fair deal. Except—

“Will you also tell me how folk summon the—”

“No. Not while you are a child. You know that.”

Dolph grimaced. It was infuriating the way all adults hung together; not one of them would break the Conspiracy. But he hadn't really expected to succeed. “All right. You tell me about the Heaven Cent, and I won't try to hurt you.”

“Agreed.” She extended her hand, and after a moment he realized that he was supposed to shake it to seal the deal. He did so. Her fingers were webbed, but her hand was marvelously soft, and she squeezed his fingers in a way that sent a small tingle through him. More magic, of course, but not really objectionable.

She moved to the fireplace. “Now I will fix you something to eat. You're a growing boy; you need good food.”

Dolph didn't like the sound of that. It seemed to be another adult conspiracy: to make all children eat yucky stuff. “What—?"

“Seaweed soup. Plenty of vitamins and minerals and proteins. As sure as water douses fire, a growing boy needs them.”

His worst fear had just been realized! Why hadn't he thought to make that part of the deal: no yucky food! Now he was stuck with it.

As they ate the soup, she explained about the forging of the Heaven Cent. “It can not be Grafted by ordinary means; it requires a very special magic called electricity. This is used to plate the copper on it: electroplating. Only when it is done just so will it function properly. So you will need someone with that kind of magic, and time.”

“Time?”

“I understand it is a very slow process. I believe it took two years to make the last one.”

“Two years!”

“I agreed to tell you about the cent; I did not say you would like that information.”

“Well, I agreed not to try to hurt you,” Dolph said, annoyed. “I did not say I wouldn't insult you, fish-rear.”

She laughed, her merriness returning. “Beautiful, Prince Dolph! We shall get along famously, as sure as sand displaces water.”

“You aren't mad?” he asked, disgruntled.

“Of course not. My rear is fishy. But that it merely an option; I, like all my kind, can change.” And abruptly her tail fuzzed, and reformed as a pair of well-fleshed human legs.

“Oh.” He should have realized. “But then you can go on land. You said—”

“I said I was a creature of the sea, as indeed I am. Certainly I can go on land when I have to. But I don't like it; the weight on my feet is burdensome, and the dryness intolerable. If I went to the dragon's nest and were lucky enough to get the firewater opal, I would still have to walk back to the sea, and I doubt I could make it. No, these legs are mostly for show and for certain specialized applications; otherwise I prefer the tail.” The legs fuzzed, and the tail reformed.

Dolph was almost disappointed. He seldom got a good look at bare woman legs; usually all he saw were those of nymphs as they ran away. Nymphs were great teases. It wasn't that legs were special, but that for some reason children weren't supposed to see them too close, and that of course made him curious.

Then Mela swam out to tend her estate. She had, she explained, a herd of sea cows and a sea horse, which she maintained on sea oats. Also a nice patch of sea cucumbers, which she had to protect from the mischief of sea urchins. She offered to take him out to see them, but he declined; he had had enough experiences for one day.

“Tomorrow, then,” she said. “You can join me in searching the sea floor for shells and gems. Wouldn't it be nice if we found another firewater opal!”

“Would that mean that another merman would marry you?” he inquired.

“Yes, probably.”

“Then you wouldn't need to keep me!”

“Oh, but I like you better,” she said. “It isn't often that a girl gets to raise a genuine prince.”

So much for that notion.

In the evening Mela fed him disgustingly wholesome seafood and dolphin milk, with—sure enough—slices of her homegrown sea cucumber. She put him to bed at the unreasonably early hour adults insisted on, and gave him several floating pillows that reminded him alarmingly of her bare bosom. Ugh! There was a seaweed-cloaked cubby for natural functions; the seaweed snatched the stuff away as if it were a great prize and used it for fertilizer. Dolph had hoped that Nature would not be able to find him down here, but her call came as insistently as ever. Nature was evidently another adult. Mela even provided him with a nightshirt of woven sea grass fiber. He had to admit that her garden and her care were comfortable; she was not mistreating him at all, by adult definitions. She even gave him a tasty piece of saltwater taffy, then insisted that he brush his teeth with a toothbrush she had salvaged from a sunken ship, and wash behind his ears.

As he drifted to sleep he pondered the events of the day. He was not happy about his captivity, but he had to admit that Mela's position was reasonable by her reckoning. She was simply making the best of her situation and her opportunities.

Obviously the Heaven Cent would not do her much good. He could now appreciate why she would settle for a human man. She probably didn't like it any better than the man would, but it was a way to have her family without the firewater opal. It was just his misfortune that she had captured Dolph and planned to keep him until he became an adult.

He would just have to learn how to handle those overlapping magics, so that he could become a fish and breathe the water naturally. He hoped he could do it before Mela managed to convince him that it was better to stay with her. Already he feared that he did not have an awful lot of time.