Full Circle
Between Meridia’s hollow shell and Sangfoul.
It had been days since Cardonea Tower had collapsed and Evanshade had been forced to flee Meridia. And yet still he swam on toward Sangfoul, harnessed to a bone cage with Illala and her pregnant womb inside.
The rest of his fleeing people had passed him days before because they had more speed without hauling things on their backs. Surely at this very moment they were telling his superior, Venge’s father, of his failure.
Evanshade’s flesh was worn and sensitive from the constant beatings from the deep-sea tides. His stomach growled from malnourishment. He had given almost all food he had gathered to Illala.
What am I doing?
Why am I returning to Sangfoul? Surely I will be reprimanded for my failure to sustain Meridia after its siege.
A mountain rose up before his path and he swam above its peak.
Surely they won’t approve of my relationship with Illala.
Illala’s soft voice surprised him from the cage strapped to his back. “I love you, Evanshade.”
What is on her mind? he wondered. Does she know that we may not be welcomed back to Sangfoul? He feared for her more than anything but where else was he to flee to? Sangfoul was his home. “I love you too.” He looked over his shoulder and blew her a kiss. “Do you know that everywhere I go, everything I do, I think of you, Illala? You and our future child are always on my mind.”
A school of shimmering blue fish wiggled past him as he swam.
Illala moved up the cage so that she was sitting just behind its front bars and Evanshade’s back. She stroked her fingers on his neck as he swam. “I think of you constantly too. I worry about what you may be doing when you are not with me and about whether or not your people will accept our child.”
“Why would they not accept our child?” Evanshade asked. He had been so worried about what they would think of him being with Illala that the thought of them not accepting his future son or daughter had not crossed his mind.
Illala traced his back with her fingertips now. “What do you think our child will look like, Evanshade?” she asked. “You have a tailfin and I have legs. Your skin is dark as night and mine is blue. Our child will be beautiful to us but if it has legs, such as I do, will they butcher it or enslave it in lava mines when it is older?” As she traced her fingertips along his shoulders, goose bumps rose to her touch.
“I will not let them harm our child. You have my word.” Evanshade swam forward, his movements slightly slower and in defeated strokes.
“I love you. I know you won’t.” Illala sat back in the rocking bone cage now. “But who will protect you when you protect our child?”
Evanshade swam with more determination now. “No-one will harm our child. No matter what happens, I will stop them.”
Long moments passed as he pushed forward in the rippling currents, their cool breath licking on his lips and tailfin. He stared at a hammerhead shark high above as he swam. We have almost arrived, he thought. The terrain had become more familiar and hammerheads often dwelled close to Sangfoul.
A large manta-ray stretched its flowing wings beneath him as it burst up from the bed of sand below.
Evanshade squinted. In the distance, the silhouette of Sangfoul rose in jutting spiked spires above the sands where the city had been constructed. He could make out small, tailfinned people, whipping about the structures.
Soon I will have to explain my failures to my people, he thought.
“Uah!” Illala moaned in the cage behind him, sliding against its bone bars.
Evanshade immediately looked to her. “What’s wrong? Do you need me to set the cage on the sand?”
Her body quaked against the cage as Evanshade halted it in mid-float. “Uah!” She cradled her rotund belly. “No!” She shot out at him. “The pain is so great! The baby must be coming!”
Evanshade wanted so badly to let the cage rest on the sand below and hold Illala in his arms to take away her pain but he knew the only cure would be to reach Sangfoul in time for their child’s birthing. There, he could find a healer to help her deliver their child.
“Hold on!” he called back to her. “Sangfoul is not far now! I will get you there in time for our baby to be born! Wait a little longer!”
“Aaaah!” she wailed. “You try holding a child in your body who wants to come out! The baby will come when it comes!”
What if I lose Illala when she gives birth? the horrible thought crossed his mind. He didn’t know if he could bear to live without her. Evanshade shut the thought away and focused on what he needed to do for the sake of the woman he loved. “I love you!” he called back to her. “We will make it there in time!”
With all the strength his muscles could muster Evanshade beat his tailfin up and down behind him. He thrust through the currents, moving three times as fast as he had before. All water before his eyes meshed into a blur. His heart raced and burned inside his chest.
“Aaaaah! It’s coming!” He heard her scream behind him.
In the blur of the waters before him the dark spires of Sangfoul grew larger and larger until they stretched out so far above him that he knew he was almost to his destination.
A trumpet horn resounded in Evanshade’s ears. They must have noticed me farther out and are announcing my arrival, he thought. He slowed his speed immediately. His fast beating heart breathed a slower movement as he noticed a group of his fellow soldiers swimming out to greet him.
“Get a healer!” he shouted to them. “Illala is giving birth to my child!”
Immediately, one of the members of the group pivoted with his tailfin and swept off toward the city for a healer.
Sangfoul stretched like a dark luminous claw above. The other members of the group quickly swept to Evanshade’s side. They joined him in his quick speed toward Sangfoul.
One of the men, a burly man decked in shimmering crimson armor and deep black whale leather, gave Evanshade a panicked look as he swam beside him. “She has died, my liege,” he spoke to Evanshade solemnly.
Evanshade ignored the man, swimming faster past him in the currents. As he set the bone cage gently down on the sand, just outside Sangfoul, a healer swept to his side.
The healer was an elderly, wrinkled woman, who was closely followed by three younger helpers holding numerous potions and tools. “We must act quickly,” she spoke to Evanshade as he released the cage’s straps from his back.
Evanshade choked on his own aquatic breath as he unlatched the cage door and looked upon Illala, crumpled and contorted as she lay against a far corner of the cage wall.
Blood curdled all about her body as it quaked and convulsed. Her eyes had rolled to the back of her head.
“Nooooo!” Evanshade screamed. What his comrade had said set in. “She’s dead.” He held his head and wept tears into the ocean. His body shook violently. His heart struck with stabbing pains.
As Evanshade wept with anger and horror the elderly healer swam into the cage and pressed her fingertips to a vein on Illala’s neck. “She is alive, my liege!” she called back to Evanshade but he did not hear her through his own distress.
The healer grabbed a green bottle of liquid from one of her helpers outside the cage and pressed the small bottle to Illala’s lips, forcing her to breathe it into her gills.
Illala’s glazed over eyes returned to look forward and her limbs regained movement. Her own pre-birth blood swayed in the currents before her eyes. “Uh,” she moaned. “I’m in such pain. Where am I?”
The healer brushed Illala’s hair away from her face. “That is not important now. You are giving birth. Pay attention to me and do exactly as I say.”
“Uh,” Illala moaned. “I am so weary.”
The healer moved down to Illala’s thighs and massaged her tense muscles. “Push!” she called to the girl. “Push!”
Illala pushed with what little strength she had, but her body was exhausted from the combination of the water b
eating against her as Evanshade swam and the contractions which reaped their way painfully through her body. “Uah!” she moaned.
“Push! Damn you, girl!” the healer called to her. “This child will not be born without a little effort and pain! Push!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Illala pushed continuously now, anxious to birth her child and be free of this anguish.
Evanshade had heard her scream and looked up from his own distraught thoughts to find her still alive and the healer down by her open legs, massaging Illala’s thighs. I never thought I’d be so happy to hear her voice, let alone her scream, Evanshade thought as he raced to the cage’s side.
“It’s coming!” the healer exclaimed excitedly. “I can see the baby’s head crowning! One more push!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Illala screamed as a tiny baby slipped into the currents from her body into the healer’s cupped hands. Illala’s tense body relaxed against the cage and sand beneath her.
The baby cried and squirmed in the old healer’s cupped hands. A tailfin wiggled from the child’s waist. Its skin was a dark navy-blue. Beneath the top of the baby’s tailfin there was a small bulge.
“It’s a boy.” Evanshade smiled and reached his arm through the cage bars to Illala’s shoulder. “We have a son.”
Illala reached her arms out to the baby. “Please,” she said to the healer, asking for her child. “He is so beautiful.”
The healer took a sharp tool from another of her helpers and carefully cut the baby’s umbilical cord before passing the child to its mother.
In Illala’s arms, her son cooed and squirmed gently. Its beautiful deep blue eyes looked up at her own, causing her heart to melt. She kissed him tenderly on the forehead and tilted her head to look back at Evanshade behind her. “He looks like you,” she said. “We have been blessed.”
Evanshade had a proud, fatherly grin on his face. “We have.”
“What should we name him?” Illala stroked the baby’s soft skin.
“I have an idea.” Evanshade kneeled down on his tailfin and hugged her with the bone cage between them. “I haven’t told you this but when I was first born my parents gave me a different name than the one I have now. My name was changed to Evanshade when I became a warrior. My birthing name was Equilious.”
Illala smiled and kissed his hand. “What a handsome name.”
“I’ve always wished it was still my own,” Evanshade admitted.
“Then it will be our son’s.” Illala rocked their baby in her arms. “Welcome to the world, Equilious.” She kissed the baby’s adorable bald head gently.
Equilious cuddled up warm to his mother’s bosom.
“We should get you inside and clean you up,” the elderly healer swam outside the cage as she spoke to Illala.
Evanshade opened his arms from his embrace with Illala. “We’ll take her to my quarters. There she can rest, and we both can enjoy the company of our baby boy.”
Illala tried to swim upward but couldn’t. She was too exhausted from the journey and giving birth.
“Rest your body, Love,” Evanshade spoke. “We will carry you in the cage to my windowsill.”
Illala rested back against the sand and cage floor beneath her as Evanshade summoned a few of the strong men in his welcoming party to his side.
“Each one of you grab an edge of the bottom of the cage and follow where I direct you to my quarters,” he instructed them. He grabbed hold of the cage directly above Illala’s head and lifted it, with the others, high above his head in the currents.
With thrusts of their tailfins, the group swam the contraption high above the ocean floor to a room almost at the tip of one of the spiked towers that stretched before them.
As they reached his room’s windowsill, Evanshade halted them where they float. “Move the cage’s door against that sill there,” he spoke. “Hold it still, and I will carry Illala and my son out of the cage and into my room. After we are out take the cage to the slave yard.”
“We will,” one of the younger men replied.
Evanshade let go of his grip on the contraption and pushed with his tailfin to the door in its front. He unlatched the door’s lock and swam inside to Illala, swooping her and Equilious up in his arms. “Soon you will be able to rest.” He kissed her on the cheek and swam from the cage, through the windowsill and into his bedroom.
When he turned to look out the window once more the cage was gone.
The room was dark as Evanshade wrapped Illala and baby Equilious in warm, woven-leather sheets, and gently let them float in a corner of the room. “I will make some light, Love,” he spoke to Illala while swimming to an intricate crimson vase aside a coral desk along the far wall.
After reaching his arm inside the vase’s opening, Evanshade withdrew it with three malta-eggs clenched in his hand. He broke them open onto dishes sitting on pillars about the corners of the room. A molten glow illuminated the walls.
Evanshade watched Illala’s eyes as she took in the space.
He had commissioned a slave once to carve scenes of battle in every inch of stone on the faces of the walls about him. The slave had done a magnificent job. Evanshade had dreamt of and lived battle his entire life and could think of no better way to decorate his room.
He smiled with pride as Illala took it all in. And then something happened inside him, something that had happened a few times lately, a realization came to him like a swift crack in stone.
By having scenes of war carved into my walls I have paid tribute to the very way of life that will inevitably be the end of me, he thought. He was ashamed. This battle-hungry thirst in my spirit led to the deaths of Illala’s family. How do I keep it from leading to the deaths of Illala and my son? I have given Equilious my name. How do I assure he is not doomed to relive my fate?
Evanshade dove to Illala and held her in his warm arms. His lips kissed Equilious’ forehead. “These depictions on my walls are not who I am,” he spoke to her. “They are what I once was. Once you are healed we will find a safe place to live outside of the realm of Sangfoul,” he promised her.
Illala half-smiled at Evanshade’s attempt to calm her thoughts. “How will you do that when my people will surely be looking to take revenge on you for the heartache you have caused them? And surely your ruler would come searching for us.”
“We will find a way.” He held her close as she rocked Equilious. “I will find a way.”
There was silence then as Illala found comfort in Evanshade’s strong arms.
“We should clean you up,” Evanshade broke the silence as he realized her clothes were still tainted with blood that had come forth from her body in the birth. “Equilious could use a cleaning as well. Wait here.”
With a swoop of his tailfin he swam to the vase once more where he retrieved kelp-cloths to clean his family off with. He warmed them over the cracked malta-shells and returned to Illala’s side. “We need to get these clothes off of you,” he said. “Once you are clean I have garments that you can wear until we can buy you more in the market.”
Equilious cooed in his arms while Illala disrobed. She is so beautiful, he caught himself thinking as she slipped her loose fitting leather garments from her body. Her cool blue skin was supple. Her breasts glowed in the room’s crimson light. Evanshade marveled at how much smaller her belly had become after giving birth. But her pregnancy bump was one of the most beautiful parts of her body out of them all.
Her pure eyes looked into his as she reached out her arms to hold her child. Evanshade placed Equilious gently back in her cradling arms and began to move the warm kelp-towel across her smooth body.
Droplets of blood disappeared from her skin and into the towel as it brushed beneath Evanshade’s fingertips along her body. He kissed her as he did so. He couldn’t help but enjoy the sensation. But he didn’t make an advance toward her. He restrained himself.
When she was clean he retrieved a fresh towel and cradled baby Equilious in it in his arms’ embrace. He wiped the
child off gently and wrapped him in yet another fresh kelp-towel.
Equilious wiggled in the cloth as Evanshade handed him back to Illala.
Next, Evanshade swam to a coral chest along one of the walls and retrieved a set of his clothes for Illala.
He cradled Equilious as she put them on. Equilious’ tender body in his arms was comforting somehow.
Evanshade looked up and smiled at Illala’s beauty. She was beautiful even in his clothes that were tailored, not just for men, but also for people with tailfins. The fancy skirt he had given her usually was worn around the top of his tailfin but fit her body just right. “You look amazing in my clothes.”
She rolled her eyes and gave him a grin. “You’d think I look amazing in anything. It’d be nice if we could go to the market tomorrow and at least get some clothes for a female to wear. We need to get some things for Equilious too. Besides, I’d like to see a little of what your realm looks like.”
Evanshade swam to her and gave her a kiss. “If you feel up to it then it sounds like a plan to me, Love.”
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! A booming knock echoed through the room’s door.
“Who is it?” Evanshade called back, surprised that someone was interrupting him so soon after his arrival. He spun and swam to the door.
A youthful male voice responded from the other side. “I am Calpis, a page of Lord Malistour’s! He summons you to the Hall of Reckoning!”
Evanshade turned to Illala, a worried look in his eyes. “Malistour is Venge’s father. He is ruler to our race. His only superior is the Dark Master himself. If he summons me I must go. Do you wish me to request someone to stay here with you?”
“No. I should be fine.” Illala kissed him once more. “Gelu knows I was alone enough in Meridia that you should not start worrying about leaving me alone now. Be safe, Evanshade. I love you.”
Evanshade kissed his son once more on the forehead before pushing open his large stone door.
Calpis hovered on the other side, his tailfin beating gently. His clothes were tattered, eyes were sunken in and Evanshade thought he looked malnourished as well.
Malistour’s pages always look like this, Evanshade thought. If he’d just treat them better they’d be healthier and of a lot more use to him.
“Follow quickly. Malistour is waiting,” Calpis said choppily before spinning and swimming off quickly down the hall.
Evanshade was surprised at Calpis’ speed but kept close as he led the way to the Hall of Reckoning. This was an insult, Evanshade realized, and Malistour was keeping a close eye on him. Evanshade knew the way to the hall. He had no need of an escort. “What is this all about?” he questioned Calpis as they swam.
“Ask Lord Malistour,” was the only response Calpis gave him.
The halls swerved and turned in all directions and led straight up at one point. Then, halfway down the core of the massive black spike tower, Calpis swerved quickly left and into the Hall of Reckoning. Evanshade followed just behind.
Evanshade had forgotten the morose grandeur of this great hall. It was haunting, even to those who ruled here. Its dark black stone was lit only by a few malta shells cracked in the center of the room. The space itself was immensely vast in width and length.
Malistour hovered in the water on the far end of the open space. From tail to head he stretched twelve feet and his girth matched his rippling muscle. His body seemed to rip from his leather garments. His cheeks were drawn and ridged. To his left and right were two sets of massive guards, but in their girth they were only half his size. “You have failed us!” Malistour bellowed from across the hall as Evanshade entered. “What have you to say about losing Meridia?” A trident with a shaft as thick as a dolphin’s body was grasped in his fists.
“Losing Meridia was not my failing!” Evanshade shouted to the looming man as he approached. Malistour made Evanshade nervous because he was massive and unpredictable but Evanshade was damned if he was going to let the tyrant see fear in his eyes or hear it in his voice. Evanshade shivered though as he noticed something in the dark distance to his left and right. He could barely see the silhouettes of Sangfoul guards as they held something on iron leashes before them. The things bared their teeth viciously as they attempted to swim forward.
“I see you have noticed my new pets!” Malistour laughed. “Do you like them? I have beaten Banealian slaves into being mindless attack creatures!”
Evanshade remained silent. The Lord of Sangfoul disgusted him. He halted yards from Malistour.
Calpis scurried behind his master.
“So the loss of Meridia was not your failing? Explain!” Malistour’s voice sent a quake through him.
Evanshade took a silent gulp. “Surely you have heard from your son who has no doubt already arrived! We were attacked by warriors of Baneal and some of the escapees from Meridia’s original siege but were winning the battle when suddenly an eruption of air burst through Meridia’s soil, toppling Cardonea Tower and Meridia’s East and West Shale Walls! I do not know if the burst of air was our foe’s doing, but I can tell you there was nothing left and no use in staying!”
“You should have stayed and protected our claim! It was not your right to decide that Meridia is worthless to us now! It is not my right! That can only be decided by the Dark Master!”
“What would you have had me do?” Evanshade swam forward and upward, anger pulsing across his face. “Would you have had me stay and risk the lives of our people for a barren stretch of sand? Would you have had me risk your own son’s life?”
Malistour was outraged and swooped down like a giant toward Evanshade to skewer him on his pillar of a trident. He halted though and quenched his anger with another response. His weapon burned in his fists as they pulsed with red. “You taunt me, Evanshade! Do not tempt me to have you slain! Venge would have survived!” Malistour swam within a breath of Evanshade’s face. His head was twice Evanshade’s size and he grabbed the man’s face with his massive hands and shook it.
The slaves growled in the dark recesses of the room as they bit at their restraints.
Evanshade shivered with fear.
“You did not flee to preserve my son’s life!” He breathed his sour, fish-egg breath, into Evanshade’s nostrils as he almost deafened Evanshade’s ears. “You fled to protect the life of your Meridian wife!”
Evanshade almost fainted in Malistour’s grasp.
“Is that not true?”
Evanshade writhed to free himself. His sight began to fade to black. And then Malistour’s massive hand let loose his face.
“I asked a question! Answer! Is that not true?”
Evanshade sank in the water as he struggled to gain full grasp on his consciousness. He choked as he breathed water into his gills. His muscles tensed. His tail flipped back and forth instinctively.
“So help me, Evanshade Frost!”
Evanshade’s body stilled and he stuttered as he began to speak. “Sh sh sh she is not my wife.”
“She may as well be!” Malistour struck his trident into the floor. The room shook. “You have a child with her, do you not?”
Evanshade cupped his eyes as he curled in the fetal position. “I… I have…”
“A child with a tainted, legged Meridian! What were you thinking? You know of course they must both die!”
Evanshade straightened himself out and looked Malistour directly in his eyes. A newfound strength exuded from his body. “No,” he breathed in determination. “You will never take their lives. I will not let you.”
“Ha!” The massive hulking creature grabbed his rotund stomach. “No! I won’t murder them! You will slay them both, and in the end grovel to me for your own life!”
Evanshade burst forward at Malistour with hatred boiling from his eyes.
With one swift movement Malistour grabbed both Evanshade’s wrists and stretched his arms to their full span. Evanshade’s back bones cracked and echoed throughout the hall.
“You will beg me for forgiveness!” Mal
istour flung Evanshade’s limp body like a rag doll into the swaying aquatic darkness of the hall.
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