FLOOD

Celebration of the Sea God

The corridors of the shipwreck castle were long and winding, and they didn’t seem very stable. There were a few times that the boards beneath our feet crumbled, but luckily we could simply swim upwards and not have to worry about falling through. Of course, it made sense that it didn’t have to be structurally sound, exactly. As long as the roof didn’t fall in, the mermaids wouldn’t care if the floor collapsed.

            At last we came out of the corridors and into a wide, open room. It was some kind of throne room, which was made obvious by the giant throne that had been assembled and decorated with sea shells and pearls.

            The first thing I noticed was the sheer size of the man who sat on that throne. He was twice as tall as any Jotun, and wide too, barrel chested. He had gray hair down to his shoulders, which flowed around him as he moved, and he wore a good deal of gold jewelry, cuffs and necklaces, and that was mostly it, except for what looked like a flimsy loincloth.

            The second thing I noticed were the mermaids crowded around him, perched above him, holding on to the top of his throne, swimming in circles around him, resting in the water beside him, all women, all incredibly beautiful.

            So this was King Aegir.

           

            When he spotted us his face lit up, and he shot off his throne so fast that the mermaids scattered in surprise.

            “Daughter of the sea!” he roared, in a voice that boomed through the shipwreck castle so loudly that I nearly fell over in surprise. “Welcome! You are newly awakened to your power. I felt you reach out.”

            I only stared at him blankly for a moment, before I realized what he must mean. I had reached out during the storm, to try to calm the water. That’s when I’d felt the entire ocean and all the creatures in it. Somehow I must have accidentally reached him, or he’d felt me somehow. For the first time, now that Eli was beside me and neither of us seemed in immediate danger of dying, I thought of the other boat, of Cain huddled in the front, and his grandfather waving the rifle at the mermaids.

            “What happened to the people that were chasing us?”

            Aegir tilted his head back and laughed. “Do not worry, ocean daughter, we are not the killers you think we are. We sent them on their way home. Though I cannot blame my girls if one of them took a chunk out of that obnoxious old man.”

            The mermaids around Aegir exchanged toothy smiles, and the sea god laughed again, which almost made me smile. Honestly, I wouldn’t care if they made a meal of Cain’s grandfather. But Cain was another matter, he was on the wrong side, and he was foolish and cowardly and wrong, but still…he hadn’t called his grandfather when he’d seen me in the woods. I wishes a lot of nasty things on him, but not death.

            “Will you help us?” I said, interrupting Aegir’s laughter. “I need to get to Jotunheim, I need to get to my people, to warn them. They are being hunted and they don’t even know it. And now…” I trailed off ,letting the words hang in the air like deadly poison, feeling the dread form in my belly. Now, I didn’t know what was going to happen. The humans had gotten into Jotunheim somehow, even though it should have been impossible. They had guns and ammunition. There was only so much that ice and fire could do to stop bullets. My people abhorred guns. They were vile, modern weapons. You were considered a coward if you used them, totally without honour. But honour didn’t stop bullets either.

            It was true, also, that modern weapons seemed to fail after you’d passed the boundaries of our lands, the ancient magics didn’t like machine guns any more than we did. But I didn’t trust a few malfunctions to stop the humans entirely. The damage they could do if they decided to unleash their full forces on us…it didn’t bear thinking about.