Chapter 19

Rory watched with fascination. He saw the humans scurrying like tiny ants trying to save themselves from the maw of the storm. He watched with grim fascination men go overboard and attempt to swim if they knew how or drown from never learning. Wanting to help those poor, pathetic creatures, he started to swim closer, but feared the wrath of the waves. Rory helped struggling men grab onto pieces of wood, barrels, or anything else that could float. He darted away as quickly as he could, careful to swim up behind them, to avoid revealing himself to humans. He saw a tall, swarthy figure atop the ship, even as it was rollicking like a cork, throwing ropes to haul other men in. Admiring the man's courage, or partial insanity, Rory kept an eye out for this particular human if he were to be thrown over the ship.

Sure enough, Rory saw the human get tossed overboard and smash into the side of the ship. Securing one last human onto a barrel, Rory swam over to the slim, dark figure whose face had already turned pale. Lightning flashed in the distance and thunder roared across the open water. It lit up the dark sky just enough so that Rory saw the long, curly hair, the high cheekbones, delicate chin, and heart-shaped mouth of a woman.

He was aghast. He had always heard that human women were weak, that they couldn't swim, terrified of the water, and prone to fainting spells. But this woman couldn't be weak, for she had saved other men. And she was obviously brave enough to venture out into the ocean, for why else would she be on a ship? But what if she couldn't swim as far as the other men? Could she make it to shore? Besides, all these pitiful creatures were human; they were probably halfway decent beings, but evil lurked in every human heart. All merpeople knew that, from the time they hatched to the day they met Neptune in his watery kingdom.

Even now, Rory debated whether to help these humans reach the shore or simply turn around and forget what he saw. All humans were alike, weren't they?

He gritted his teeth. If he wanted to peacefully resolve whatever was happening in the delta, he would have to start trusting that humans were worth saving. He sighed, and started swimming toward the shore, guided by his innate sense of direction. The human woman was light enough, but he struggled to keep her head above the swirling water.

When it felt like his tail would fall off from exhaustion and his arms felt heavy as lead, he reached the sandy bottoms of the shore. Rory hauled the woman onto a rock and tilted her head to the side, in case she spat up water. Although the storm was still raging out in the open waters, near the shore, it had calmed to simply a downpour of rain.

Rory looked her over; she was fairly attractive by human standards, but strange and foreign-looking by merpeople's. Her brown hair was dark, reminding him of dirt. It wasn't bright and colorful like mer-wymyn and her eyes were the same color. Still, the overall effect was rather charming, if you liked that sort of thing. He noticed a necklace around her neck, and reached over to pull it out from beneath her shirt. It was a simply leather cord, with a silver medallion hung around it. He suddenly pulled back his hand, as if he had been pinched by a crab. The necklace had the human king's insignia on it. This woman was probably one of his inner circle, a courier perhaps; someone close to the one who had killed Finley.

Rory gripped the necklace harder. He thought about pulling it tighter, tighter, and tighter until it squeezed out whatever life remained in this woman. He thought he wanted peace between merpeople and humans, but anger at Finley's death welled up from someplace deep inside and it burned in his throat like acid.

He slowly released the necklace. His hands were shaking, from carrying this woman to the shore and from the desire for revenge. But not today. Perhaps one day, but not here. He could not take her life, after he had just saved her. It felt wrong, somehow.

He dove back into the ocean and swam to his home to think.

*

The next day, it was still raining, but not as harshly as it was over the ocean. Rory watched merchildren frolicking on the sand, splashing in the small surf. He watched them perched on a large rock that jutted out of the sea. Some of them had managed to crawl onto land and where pretending to be humans.

Rory smiled at the children; he loved their young exuberance, how everything was a game to them, an adventure to be taken, a mystery to explore. He shook his head at their naivete, that humans were something funny to pretend to be, instead of the monstrous killing animals they were. But mocking the humans was a fair enough game, Rory supposed.

As he watched them, Finley's words from his dream circled around and around in his head.

"Are you not royalty yourself?...maybe the king won't be speaking with a merman..."

Rory wished Finley had not been so cryptic. He wondered how he would ever arrange a meeting with the king. He couldn't very well just tell another human to go fetch the man, even if Rory could speak the humans' strange tongue. And he needed to find a way to see the king quickly, before his people attacked.

He heard peals of laughter from the small merchildren.

"I am the Sea Warlock, and I'm turning you all into humans!" one boastful little merchild cried out to his playmates. "Now you can't swim!"

The other children pretended to flop and flail on the sand, as if they were poor, desolate humans.

Rory shook his head again. Merchildren had such wild imaginations. No one had seen or heard of the Sea Warlock in over one thousand years; he was probably as much a myth or legend as anything else.

Yet something seemed to click inside Rory.

won't be speaking with a merman...

The voice spoke as clear as any other inside Rory's head.

Rory sucked in his breath.

No...that's probably the stupidest, most dangerous idea...

But there was no time to deliberate. No time to think twice about it.

He silently regarded the merchildren one last time and thanked them for their unintended wisdom.

He would go to the Sea Warlock and ask him to turn him into a human. It was the only way Rory could think of how to get to the king. To speak with the king as an equal, Rory had to be human himself.

He glanced at the human woman once more, then dove back under the surface before he lost his courage or conviction.