A Divide
The kelp basin
Sunrise filtered down from the surface of the ocean, nudging Maanta awake from his nightmare. He lay in the dimly lit kelp basin with Anna sleeping on his chest, and his tense muscles began relaxing in the currents.
Then something smooth bobbed against his hand, and Maanta flinched at the thing’s touch; his mind still shaky from the dream.
The smooth thing bobbed against his hand once more. He pulled away, and swam up quickly in the waters despite his exhaustion; Anna’s body clutched against his.
She groggily woke as Maanta searched for what had been rubbing against him. He knew he had just experienced a dream, but this physical presence was different. He couldn’t take any chances; he couldn’t assume it was just a fish.
“Wha?” Anna sleepily questioned as her eyes squinted in the pastel light of morning.
Where is it? Maanta thought as he searched the waters below. Whatever it is it must have gone.
And then he saw it approaching quickly in their direction.
It moved swiftly, with smooth gray skin, fins and a body that pulsed up and down as it swam. A blowhole sat in its forehead and its long mouth grinned at him as it approached. “Ooooaaaaaooooo…” it sang.
“Archa!” Maanta exclaimed. “Anna, it’s Archa. She’s returned to us.”
Anna was fully awake now and Maanta released her from his arms. She kissed him briefly and then gave him some space, as Archa barreled into his chest.
He hugged Archa tightly and the two went swirling off into the waters before returning once more to Anna’s side.
“Where have you been, girl?” he asked while mounting Archa’s back. His hands stroked her forehead affectionately. “I thought you would meet up with me in Meridia.”
“Ooooaaaaooooo…” she sang.
“Never mind where you’ve been.” Maanta kissed her forehead. “It’s just good to know you’re safe and that you’re here with me again.”
Soon the remaining Meridians and Banealians awoke, and dined on the kelp they had been sleeping amongst. It wasn’t the most delectable morning meal, but it would nevertheless provide Maanta’s body with the necessary nutrients for the day ahead. He also cooked a few minute sand-dwelling fish on cracked malta shells for himself and Anna.
Toward the end of their meal, Tao swam above them in the basin and sounded his conch shell horn. The entire basin of Meridians and Banealians turned their attention to him.
Maanta noticed that Tao looked now as if he had regained a confidence in himself he had lost. But he still appears troubled, Maanta thought.
“My fellow Banealians and Meridians,” Tao bellowed. “Today is a day of both great joy and sorrow! We have been reunited with many of the people of Meridia we had feared lost to enslavement, and at the same time we have lost many of our number in combat.
“We find comfort that we are reunited. Yet Meridia is eternally lost, and Banealians are still enslaved in Sangfoul! We search for rest, but can we truly believe the people of Sangfoul will simply leave us to live in peace?”
The gentle humming of ocean currents was the only audible sound, for the group in the basin listened attentively.
Tao float above them and appeared to stare down each of their eyes. “That is why, when we speak of what to do next, I have a proposal for us all! I say we head for Sangfoul, free the enslaved of Baneal and take our revenge on our enemies! We slaughter them and destroy their home, as they have done to us! Then and only then can we find peace, and live without fear!”
Many of the basin’s crowd roared with approval. “Revenge!” they chanted. Maanta was surprised to see that the ones roaring in response were mostly the Meridians he had freed from the lava mining caverns.
Surely they are ready for peace and not warring now, Maanta thought.
Many more of the crowd held silent while others mumbled to companions close to them.
And no one made a response in opposition to Tao’s plan.
Something must be done, Maanta thought. Someone has to say something to bring people to their senses. Maanta swam swiftly above the basin, yards away from Tao. “No one can deny that the people of Baneal should be freed,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “But revenge is not a just reason to do so, and to immediately go to Sangfoul after we are so weary from battle would be suicide.
“You speak of slaughtering their people, if we best them in combat, so that they can never attack us again. Would you murder their elderly and children as they did to us? Would we not be becoming what we hate most?”
The crowd below listened carefully, watching as Tao’s face grew angry and ridged.
“They deserve it for what they have done to us! They murdered my son!” he roared.
Maanta stared into Tao’s hateful glare, the other man’s eyes penetrating intensely into his. “You speak blindly and in despair, Tao. What you propose would lead to sin breeding in us all, and to our ultimate destruction. I have a plan that would free us and would leave us with no more reason to fear the people of Sangfoul. We do not need to charge blindly into Sangfoul, or slaughter their young to find peace once more.”
“We have no need of your plan!” Tao thrust his arms and fists into the swaying currents, not providing Maanta with the opportunity to voice his plan. “Revenge!” he chanted. “Revenge! To Sangfoul!” He pivoted, mounted his riding-fish and sped off in the direction of Sangfoul.
“Revenge!” Many people in the basin chanted back. They swam up and followed in Tao’s wake. Again, Maanta realized most of those who followed were the Meridians he had freed.
The remaining Meridians and Banealians stared up from the kelp basin toward Maanta, their eyes wide in shock, their minds searching for direction.
Sift swam quickly up from the basin to Maanta’s side. “Go on,” he spoke to the boy. “Tell us what your plan consists of.”
“What just happened?” Maanta asked Sift. “Why did he leave like that and why are they following him?”
“He has been overcome with insanity,” Sift spoke softly to Maanta. “And those that follow him have been overcome as well. There is truth in what you have said. There must be another way than slaughter and death. Tell all of us your idea.”
Maanta took a moment to collect his thoughts and then spoke once more to the remaining people in the basin. Archa swam to his side to comfort him. “I have been to the world of air above our waters,” he began. Then he told them what he had told Anna the night before, and of his idea that they should return to the land above the waters, where they could all learn to breathe air. Up above they could prosper, where the people of Sangfoul would never be able to reach them.
“He is as insane as Tao!” a voice called up at him from the basin.
“No! I have heard stories of others of our people adapting to breathe air!” came another voice. “If he knows the way to the world of land and air, then we must go!”
“The air will drown us all and we will die!” a third voice called.
Anna rose up from the basin on the backside of her riding fish and joined Maanta and Sift. “Listen to me, people of Meridia and Baneal,” she spoke to the group below them. “I know Maanta well and if he says he has been to these places and done these things, then he speaks the truth. Do not doubt that. Meridians, I remain your Zharista and I say we follow him to the world of air with our fellow people of Baneal.”
I hope they will listen to her, Maanta thought.
Anna spoke to them again. “But there is one more thing I feel we should do before we leave the waters. The people of Baneal have fought valiantly by our side to free our enslaved, and we owe it to them to try to release their people also.”
The crowd below cheered.
“But I do not propose slaughter or killing,” she continued. “Instead, we should approach Sangfoul and, as the city sleeps, send a few of our number behind their walls to stealthily free the enslaved Banealians. Then we shall follow Maanta to the world of land, air and freedom above ou
r waters.”
Sift spoke softly so that only Maanta could hear. “She speaks wisely,” he said.
“She does,” Maanta agreed, before riding Archa to Anna’s side.
The crowd was speaking in hushed voices amongst themselves again, but Sift called above their whispers.
“People of Baneal, Tao has assisted in leading us well for years, but insanity has overtaken him. If we follow him, we will bring death and sin upon us all. Anna speaks the truth, and she has such a valiant idea for freeing our enslaved. I say the people of Baneal should join her!”
The Banealians in the crowd below cheered.
“Will you follow me to free the enslaved Banealians in Sangfoul and then to freedom and peace in the world of air?” Anna asked the Banealians and her Meridian subjects below.
“Yes!” Millay hollered up from the crowd.
“Yes!” Another call followed.
“We will!” A Banealian voice called out. The crowd was cheering and clapping again now.
Maanta smiled as he watched the group raining praise upon their leaders. We are no longer Banealians and Meridians, he thought. We are now one.
Sift swam quickly down to rejoin the group in the kelp basin. “Prepare your belongings quickly. We should leave shortly if we wish to free the enslaved Banealians before Tao attacks Sangfoul.”
Within an hour they gathered their supplies and prepared their riding fish for the travel to Sangfoul. They formed a square formation, much like a blanket, that would hug the terrain beneath them as they moved. Their group was smaller now but would still be easily detected if they traveled much above the sea floor. Not only could the people of Sangfoul be looking for them, there was no way of knowing what Tao’s reaction would be if he noticed them moving behind him. Sift would lead with Anna, Maanta and Millay from the front.
“To Sangfoul!” Sift called back over the crowd as they perched, some two per fish, on their riding companions.
With a thrust, the group burst up from the kelp basin toward Sangfoul. A group of small, shimmering jelly fish scurried from their path.
Maanta hugged tight to Archa’s smooth muscled body as water whipped vigorously past his form. “Oh, how I’ve missed this feeling!” he called to her.
They would travel for days, hugging the ocean floor over mountainous terrain and deep caverns. They dined on whatever sea life they came across, sometimes whale, sometimes squid, sometimes kelp, coral and worms. Not once did they see Tao and the others ahead in the distance; nor the people of Sangfoul.
But Maanta could not shake the feeling that they were being watched. Flickering shadows in the caverns played tricks on his mind; convincing him that something followed him. But when he would swoop away from the group’s formation to check, nothing was ever there.
On their fifth day of travel, as a large mountain of the ocean floor rose above them in the distance, Sift instructed them all to stop. “We shall remain here,” he told them. “Sangfoul lies just beyond the yonder mount. It has been ages since I was enslaved here, but I know this to be the place.”
What was moving at the mountain’s base? Maanta squinted his eyes. Tao, he thought as he spied a better view of his old comrade and the others that had followed him after his mad rant. They had camped in close to the mount’s base and scurried about it like tiny minnows in the distance. The light of the day was fading now.
“Do you think they see us?” Maanta asked Sift as they hovered in the water upon their riding companions.
“Not likely,” Sift replied. “They have immersed their minds in warring thoughts and vengeance. They look ahead to battle and an enemy which waits beyond the mountain, not back to ones they do not know trail them.” Sift waved his arm in the currents to the others behind, and turned to address them. “We will rest here tonight,” he called to them. “And tomorrow we will discuss how to free the people of Baneal.”
As darkness laid its full cloak upon the ocean’s depths that night, Maanta and his companions settled in as close as they could to the sand beneath them so as not to be discovered by Tao or the people of Sangfoul.
Maanta held Anna close in his arms once more, as small fish flittered across his sight. Nearby, he heard Archa breathing as she dreamed. He closed his eyes, opened them, and closed them again, embracing the warmth of Anna’s head resting on his shoulder.
It would take him hours to get to sleep, because every time he was on the brink of slumber, he thought he heard an unwelcome presence moving in the darkness just beyond the group.
Maanta was the last to find sleep that night. But eventually he convinced himself he was hearing things and he allowed his mind to rest.
After he and all the others’ minds were lost away in the realm of slumber, something whispered in a cracked voice.
“…odyssey…”
32