*
Dusk, earlier that day…
Sift’s fin muscles ached, burned as he swam along the East Shale Wall’s darkened crevices further and further away from Evanshade and closer to his destination. Had he been recognized by Evanshade? He swept on for leagues in the depths, darting glances behind him, expecting to find he had been followed, and expecting to find at any moment the pangs of death upon him. A burning, tingling pulse swept through his ankle and wrist fins causing them to go numb and cease beating in exhaustion. His body careened into a rugged stone outcropping before him, sweeping him in a tumbling swirl beneath the stone ledge.
Sift cursed himself, knowing he had become so out of shape relying on Lola to take him everywhere. Where was she? He had sent her away as he and Maanta had neared the crowds surrounding Cardonea Tower, but why hadn’t she sensed something was wrong with him? Surely she’d come searching for him, wanting to be by his side.
As he caressed his leg fins with his massive black hands, Sift mentally willed them to beat again. In the aquatic, light blue daylight something shimmered in a small cove room above him in the East Shale Wall. Sift saw this and his thoughts warmed. This was where he had been swimming toward vigorously.
There was only a small distance farther to go, and then there would be someone he could share his thoughts with, no matter how dreadful he knew his thoughts to be. As the pulse of his fins moved him briskly in the waters toward the small Meridian wall home, something bumped hard into his back.
He swirled in the waters in nervous anticipation. A large, slim, colorful fish stared back.
“Lola!” His low voice bounded out as he wrapped his large arms around her scaly body.
The fish nudged him lovingly with her head, a look like a smile shining in her glimmering, emerald eyes. Sift then clasped his hands upon the gripping stones along Lola’s back, caressing her scales as he sat, and the two swept together toward the shale cove home close by.
As they came upon the opening Lola swirled slightly below it, as she was too large to enter. With the beating of his fins Sift raised upwards, hovering into the home of a blue skinned, gangly, old man who scampered to and fro from kelp parchment to kelp parchment covering the cove’s walls. The man’s slim fingers swept along lines written upon them. A light blue glow lit gently in his eyes.
“They’ve arrived, Amaranth,” Sift spoke quickly to the man.
“I thought we had more time,” the man replied. “I’ve found nothing written amongst our scholars’ scrolls or the scripts of before our time telling of another race with serpentine fins where legs should be. You said there would be more time before their coming.”
“Their tailfins must allow them to move quicker than us. There were three of them when they arrived and they were without fish or whales to pull them along. If these beings can move that fast then perhaps many others could be close before night falls.” Sift himself cringed as the words crept along his lips. These had been the same beings who held him in captive enslavement years before. He knew the wrath their tortures reaped on the body and then on the mind for years afterwards, as it did in his own mind.
“In speaking to you last night I told you of the young boy in my tribe who spied on their race for us, telling us of their plans to slaughter and enslave Meridia.”
“Yes,” Amaranth replied, seeing there was more in the man’s eyes he had to tell.
“What I did not speak of was the enslavement all of my people have endured in times before this. Our tribe is a tribe of escapees from their enslavement camps.
“This mark,” Sift swirled around, indicating the eye branding singed upon his back, “is the evil ones’ marking of ownership they have of us. They keep my race in nets when not using them, to mine resources from the molten rock along the ocean crust. As slaves grow old and feeble, often the evil ones’ skewer their flesh with tridents and press them up against the lava crevices, laughing as the flesh of our elders boils and simmers into the life-swallowing molten walls.
“A peaceful civilization such as Meridia, with no army or history of war, is doomed. There is little time left. As many Meridians as possible must be warned and brought to our tribe’s waters where they can learn the ways of battle to retake Meridia.”
“To convince my people to leave their home waters, where many have never ventured beyond, will be difficult.” Amaranth’s eyes glowed a dark blue now. “Much of Meridia knows and trusts me though, and so there is hope of convincing many Meridians to follow.
“There is just one thing. A person of noir skin such as yourself has never ventured into our depths and many would be wary to follow you. They could fear you and instead place their trust in the serpent-finned beings. Possibly for now I should gather up my fellow Meridians and lead them to meet you further off in the depths.”
“Very well, but my people all are dark skinned, and yours are blue except for Maanta, from what I’ve seen. We must deal with this in time. Where do we meet?”
“Do you know of any place close to these waters?”
“I believe Maanta called it Orion’s Birth, a place along the outskirts of Meridia where oxygen bubbles boil beneath the ocean floor, rising through a stone temple toward the crest of the waters above. I’ve seen it from a distance and easily could I find it again.”
“Our people,” Amaranth cringed, “are scared of that place. It is sacred because it is said that is where we descended through the waters when Gelu shunned us from the land and air above. We are connected to Gelu there more than anywhere else. But people fear the ‘forbidden fluid’ air, which bubbles up from the earth there. They believe that because it is what our ancestors breathed in the world above, it will suffocate us.
“I will meet you there before darkness falls tomorrow with as many Meridians as will follow me but only outside the stone chapel’s walls. They will not enter where the forbidden fluid swells and ripples towards the ocean surface.”
“Agreed. And then I will lead you to my lands where we can best plan how to help Meridia. Maanta was hurt while we were fleeing the crowds surrounding the serpent finned people’s arrival, and taken to Cardonea Tower for healing. Surely he is in danger there. I will try to find him and bring him to reunite with us.”
“Take great care of him, Sift. He has a unique heart and at times is like a grandson to me.”
“I will. Until we meet again, my friend.”
“Something tells me that this day, when we remember it, will seem like leagues of time away. A grievous darkness is cloaking itself upon us.”
10
Meridia Adrift
Cardonea Tower, in the darkness
________
The Present