As dark night lingered on in the depths the small company found the exhaustion of an emotionally wearying day weighing on their bodies and minds. More than once Maanta’s eyelids succumbed to heaviness and his mind slipped into temporary sleep, only to be jostled awake by the feeling of slipping backwards off Archa’s back into the water’s currents.
Through squinted eyes upon awakening from the short rest the third or fourth time, he couldn’t remember, Maanta noticed something which brought warmth to him. A sleek stone outcropping jutted up from the ocean floor below them. His heart jumped with happiness as he recognized it as one of the places he had discovered and rested in on his wanderings with Archa outside Meridia.
“Here we can rest in security!” He called back to his companions, knowing they could use a break before continuing. More than anything I need a break, he thought. I’m the only one who knows the way and if I keep falling asleep on Archa like this we’ll never get there.
A puzzled look crept upon Illala’s face. “We’ll be safe in the open waters next to a stone mound? Maanta, what do you take us for? Shouldn’t we just continue to Orion’s Birth?”
“Things often are not as they seem in the waters beyond the realms of dwellings.” Sift turned to her. “Something tells me Maanta’s stone will be a blessing worth relishing.”
“I’ve explored all of these depths,” Maanta continued. “I know their bearings and their secrets. Follow me.”
He nudged Archa’s smooth gray side with his left foot and dove swiftly with her to the far bottom of the stone hill. Floating from her back he scooped his body downward toward the place where the stone appeared to meet with kelp along the sea floor. Sift and Illala were close behind, along with Anna who sat poised, eyes closed, upon Lola.
Maanta’s webbed fingertips pried at the seaweed upon the stone revealing an opening a little more than the height and width of Archa.
“Because of how smooth and stern the stone looks no-one will suspect a secret opening in the bottom of it and there is room enough for all but Lola inside.” Maanta saw that a hungry expression lingered in Sift’s eyes. “And small cavern crabs dwell within also.”
There would be no better place, they agreed, to rest before continuing on to Orion’s Birth. Any of the single-finned beings who came searching would hardly recognize Lola if she rested close to the stone mound. She could also serve as a watcher to warn them if need be.
“Watch out for giant octopi.” Sift grinned as he stripped Lola of her riding garb, so she would appear to be an ordinary fish, and patted her scales.
Archa and Lisaly swept beneath the stone elegantly before their riders. Illala followed closely and then Sift, with Anna mimicking his movements, followed him.
“It’s beautiful!” Maanta could hear Illala exclaiming from inside. “And warm.”
Sheer black darkness swept around him as he entered. He curled his body back to re-cover the opening with kelp and then swam along in the pitch dark. A turn here, a turn there and the water began to warm. A glowing hot-molten light shimmered up from the room below him where the others were already getting comfortable.
Maanta also spotted the small lava stream sweeping through the room, and knew the others would like that. This place provided warmth, food and a kind of comforting temporary home for the night rest.
Sift formed a net from kelp and rustled up crustaceans from the cave. He placed them in it and they simmered over the flowing molten stream. The creatures popped and sizzled while changing to a dark rust color. Sift’s massive hands plucked the first critter from its net cooking chamber.
“Scrumptious,” he exclaimed after crunching on the first one, savoring its salty-sweet flavor as it fell upon his taste buds.
Maanta and Illala partook of the small morsels while Sift snapped the shell from one of the crustaceans and swam towards Anna.
“Here.” He held the food up for her to eat. “You must be exhausted after all that has happened today.”
She stared at him blankly, her precious emerald eyes looking gently into his. “I am dead. And soon I will join my family. There is no need to eat, no reason to nourish a soul without life.”
“You are not dead,” Sift said to her. “Men from foreign lands have killed your family and brought destruction to your world, but life still beats in your chest. Literal death has not come and mental death can only arrive if you surrender to its calling. Together we will survive this tragedy. There will be vibrant life once more if you have faith. In time the world will repair its misfortunes.”
“How can I live without my family? What kind of existence is that?” she asked.
“They are with you in spirit, young one, and always will be. I have lost my family too. I never knew my mother, and I saw my father murdered by the same race of creatures who have come to Meridia. I don’t know much of your people’s ‘one God’ Gelu. But my race has its own religion and we believe that as death takes our relatives and friends, their souls travel as kin with our own souls, protecting us until we meet our deaths. Sometimes they act as spirits to protect us. You see, to me my father and your family are with us here in this hidden cavern, providing us the loving strength needed to see us through.”
The light of hope sparked in Anna’s eyes as he spoke of this. “We believe that Gelu is always with us much like that and that our dead look down at us from a place called heaven, a beautiful place where the waters and souls swim clean and pure. Do you know your religion to be true?”
Sift smiled, happy to see Anna returning to her senses. “In truth I know very little, but it is what I believe and where I place my faith. I feel my father with me when I’m sad. It is possible the truth lies somewhere between our religion and yours. Possibly, it is the same, in different words.”
“Whatever the truth is, thank you for helping bring hope to this day of misery.” Anna cupped a crustacean in her fingers and passed it through her lips, enjoying the simple delicacy. “Thank you for helping rescue me.”
The two swam toward Maanta and Illala, taking turns to reach within the kelp net for another of the remaining edibles, which they then savored.
As they floated along the cavern walls that night, preparing to enter the night’s world of dreams, Maanta looked to his companions, a group of friends of circumstance. What would this makeshift tribe experience together, he wondered? How were the rest of Meridia’s survivors reacting?
“I’m sorry,” Maanta whispered to Anna, who was floating close by. He thought her precious red hair flowing in the calm current was so beautiful. “I shouldn’t have been rude to you back in the tower.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Anna opened her eyes to look upon him. He was handsome, she thought, in a quirky kind of way. “I barely remember any of what happened between us back there. Thank you for finding me.”
Even then when you were distraught, you were beautiful, Maanta thought but couldn’t bring himself to tell her. Surely she wouldn’t want to hear things like that on a day like this.
“You seemed like you weren’t yourself and I didn’t have any patience with you.”
“How dare you!” She smiled with a glint in her eyes. “You were worried about being found out and killed and you didn’t take the time to coax me from whatever distortion my mind was going through. I tell you, the next time you’ve gone loopy and we’re being pursued I won’t take the time to reason with you either. Deal?”
“Deal!” He felt a little better now after Anna’s little bout of sarcasm.
From across the warm cavern Sift opened an eye as he listened in to the young ones getting to know each other.
“Where did you live in our waters?” Anna asked.
“I lived with my mother along the East Shale Wall before she passed. I never knew my father. He died of a heart sickness before my birthing. And so as they are both now gone I live along the East Shale wall alone, or I guess I did until today.” Something about being there with her took the harshness of that reality temporarily away. “I love our Meridia. D
o you know, I never realized how the peace we experienced there was so valuable until today.”
Tears from Anna’s eyes drifted into the waters. “Father always said that peace and love were treasures worth more than any other. He always did his best to provide us with that world we had in Meridia, I think. And yet here we find ourselves being pushed to warring times without the peace he provided.”
“Zhar Nicholea was a remarkable man.” Maanta looked to her. “At least there is one thing that he valued that they cannot take from us - love. We can carry a love for all things with us wherever we go. He nurtured that in your family and our culture and we must remember to hold on to that and remind our people of its importance when we reunite with them.”
Sift grinned from across the room as he heard the maturity in the boy’s words. He knew that would help Maanta to survive the troublesome times to come.
Something inside Maanta was yearning to change the subject. He just wanted to find a topic fun but simple, to get to know Anna better with. The day had been tragic but surely the night didn’t have to end like that.
“Have you ever seen the daylight twinkling down from the ocean’s crest as it rises in the morning, in the waters beyond Meridia?” he asked, figuring she had probably spent most of her life within the city walls like most Meridians.
“I’ve only ever seen the sunrise from Cardonea Tower.” She smiled. “Why? Are you telling me the sunrises are different out here?”
“Oh they’re so much more beautiful out here. The molten heaters within the East and West Shale walls cause the waters above Meridia to filter off some of the rising daylight. The rising daylight colors are vibrant and crisp beyond the walls.”
“Do you think we could awaken in time to watch the next morning’s sunrise?” she asked.
“Young ones, it is time to sleep,” Sift called from across the room before closing his eyes to sleep. He decided he would enjoy a little bit of the pestering adult role. Never having children of his own, maybe he would take these orphaned three under his wing and attempt to teach them ways of the world they’d not yet known. “Morn light will soon arrive and you will have found no rest.”
Anna’s crimson locks drifted gently. “Would you want to?” she whispered.
“That sounds enchanting,” Maanta whispered back. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
And the two held hands while closing their eyes and letting the world of dreams sweep them away.
A duet of deep crimson eyes seared the waters as they scoured the depths near the stone hiding-place, searching out their prey. Lola scuttled beyond the sight of the eyes’ grasp behind a patch of coral.