Poul Anderson - The Merman's Children

Sensing trouble on its way, the travelers who were in the sea made haste to return. The ship could not hold them all, but their help might be needed. Vanimen saw them glimpsewise, fair fonDS among billows that fought them. Nearby lifted the backfin of his orca, loyal beast.

Meiiva climbed the ladder to join him. Braided, her blue mane did not fly wildly as did his golden, and she had wrapped a cloak from a clothes chest around her slenderness. She must bring her lips against his ear to say: “The helmsman asked me to tell you he fears he can’t keep her head to the waves as you ordered, once the real blow sets in. The tiller is like an eel in his hands. Could we do something to the sail?”

“Reef it,” Vanimen decided. “Run before the stonn,”

“But that’s from. . . northwest. . . . Haven’t we had woe aplenty with foul winds, calms, and contrary currents since we left the Shetlands behind us, not to lose the distance we’ve made?”

“Better that than lose the ship. Oh, a human skipper might well broach a wiser scheme. We, though, we’ve gained a little seamanship in these over-many days, but indeed it is little. I can only guess at what might work to save us.”

He laid palm above brow to squint into the blast. “This I need not guess at,” he added. “I’ve known too many weathers through the centuries. That is no gale which will exhaust itself overnight. No, it’s a monster out of Greenland and the boreal ice beyond. We’ll be in its jaws for longer than I want to think of.”

“This is not the season for such. . . is it?”

“No, not commonly, though I’ve watched a gathering cold breed ever more bergs and floes and storms during the past few hundred years. Call this a freak, and us unlucky.”

Within himself, Vanimen wondered. The watchman he slew to gain his vessel, a man who deserved no such fate, had cursed him first. . . and called on the Most High and his own saint. . . . The king had never told anyone. He did not believe he ever would.

If they sank- His glance went to the main deck and lingered. Most of them would die, the lovely mermaids who gave and took so much joy, the children who had yet to learn what joy truly was. He himself might win to some alien shore, but what use in that? Enough. Let him do whatever was in his might. No matter how long a life you might win for yourself, who in the end escaped the nets of Ran?

Vanimen sent a boy to summon the strongest males up the Jacob’s ladder. Meanwhile he rehearsed in his mind what commands to give. At least his tribe had learned quick obedience to their captain, a thing altogether new in the history of the race. But they had not learned many mariner skills. His own were scarcely superior.

The call for help was none too soon. Shortening sail proved a wild battle in the swiftly rising wind. Cloth and lines flayed blood out of crew while the hulk staggered prey to surge after surge. No few passengers were washed overside. One babe perished, skull smashed against a bollard. While death was familiar to the merfolk, Vanimen would not soon forget that sight, or the mother’s face as she gathered the ruin in her arms and plunged into a sea that might be kindlier.

That was a dangerous thing to suppose, Vanimen knew. The water embraced a person, gave shelter from sun and weather, brought forth nourishment; but it sucked warmth from the body that only huge eating could replace, and in its reaches laired killers untold. He caused lines to be trailed from the deck, to which swimmers might cling for a time of rest if they could not corne aboard. This might also help prevent them getting lost from the ship.

By then, the full storm was almost upon her. Vanimen sought the aftercastle. In the stern below the poop, two mermen stood at the helm. That watch was less arduous now that they were simply letting the wind take them whither it listed. He gave them advice, promised relief in due course, and turned away. Built into either side were a pair of tiny cabins, starboard for the captain, larboard for his officers. On this voyage they were seldom used, for merfolk found them confining. He wanted a while away from the elements. He opened the door of the master’s.

A lamp swung from a chain, guttered, cast dull light and trollshaped shadows and rank smoke. Who had kindled it-? A moan brought his glance to the bunk. The girl Raxi and the youth Haiko were making love.

To interrupt would be bad manners. Vanimen waited, braced against the crazy lurching and swaying around him, frostily amused at what agility their act required of them here. Above the head of the bunk was a crucifix; above the foot, where a man could regard it as he lay, was a painting of the Virgin, crude, dimly seen, yet somehow infinitely tender. The images had not turned their backs-this was not the church he had dared enter, seeking for Agnete—but he felt anew his strangeness to everything they were. He felt his aloneness.

The rutting couple finished, with a shared cry. Presently they noticed Vanimen. Haiko grew abashed; Raxi grinned, waved, and eased out from beneath her partner.

“Why are you in my berth?” Vanimen demanded through windhowl, thunder-crash, wave-roar, timber-groan.

“The others are full,” Raxi answered. “We knew not you’d come, nor thought you’d mind.” Did Haiko flush? “It. . . it would be unwise to. . . do this in the water,” he mumbled. “We might lose sight of the hull. But we may soon be dead.”

Raxi sat up and reached out her arms. In the narrow space, she touched Vanimen. “Will you be next?” she invited. “I’d like that.”

“No!” he heard himself snap. “Get out! Both of you!”

They did, with hurt looks. The door closed behind them, leaving him altogether solitary. Through foul gloom he stared into the eyes of the Holy Mother and wondered why he had been angered. What had those two done that was wrong. . . in her very sight? They were soulless; they could not sin, any more than an animal could. Nor could he.

“Is that not true?” he asked aloud. There was no answer.

Day and night, day and night, day and night, until counting drowned in weariness, the storm drove the ship before it.

Afterward hardly any of that span abode in memory. It was nothing but chaos, struggle, half-perceived pain, and loss. Sharpest in Vanimen’s heart was that his orca disappeared. Maybe it got stunned into bewilderment and drifted elsewhere, as several merfolk did. He saw it no more.

Somehow he and his people kept their vessel afloat, though in the end she was leaking so badly that the pumps could never stop. Somehow they outlived the tempest. In all else it had its will of them—

-until it was finished.

The hulk lay outside the Gates of Hercules. Vanimen recognized those dim blue masses on the world-rim, Spain and Africa, from a time past when he had adventured south. The seas still ran heavy, but azure and green beneath a sky washed utterly pure; glitter danced along every movement. Warmth spilled from the sun, calling forth odors of tar to mingle with salt and flavor the breeze. A throb and a murmur went through planks, ears, bones: a song of peace.

No craft had thus far ventured out of port. Insatiably curious, dolphins flocked about this one. Vanimen left on deck a crowd as gaunt and shaky as himself. He dived, struck, went below, rose anew to continue breathing air. His flesh felt each ripple through the cleanliness that upbore him. He addressed the dolphins.

What could they tell him of the Midworld Sea? On his earlier faring he had not swum much beyond a great lionlike rock in the straits. Christendom had prevailed hereabouts for long and long; little or naught of Faerie seemed to remain. Today was different for him. His ship would never cross the ocean. He would be lucky if she made another thousand leagues before foundering, and that would have to be through waters more mild than stretched westward. Did any refuge exist to which she might bring the Liri folk?