Poul Anderson - The Merman's Children

A measure of peace lifted within Tauno. Here was a remnanl of his world, the wildworld, which lived wholly within itself. loved, slew, begot, suffered, died, was born, knew delirious magics but never would probe and tame the mysteries behind them nor peer into a stark eternity. Here were spoor of Faerie. . . the spirit bone brought names into his awareness, as if he had always known them. . . Leshy, Kikimora, also flitting restless, shy of him but—

But what else was it he winded? No, he caught this one sensation otherwise, in his blood, part fear and part unutterable yearning. His pulse thuttered, he quickened his footsteps.

The trail swung around a canebrake, and they met.

For a time outside of time, both halted. In their sight, where a human would have been well-nigh blind, each stood forth white I against enclosing many-layered shadows, as if having risen from the fog that smoked about their feet. She was much the paler; it was as though the fugitive moonlight streamed through thinly carved alabaster, save that when she did move it was like a ripple across water. Very fair she was in her nakedness, with the slim, unscarred curves of waist, thighs, breasts which bespoke a maiden, with delicately carven face and enormous, luminous eyes. Her hair made a cloud about her, afloat on the air. She had no color except the faintest flushes of blue and rose, as upon snow beneath a false dawn.

“Oh,” she whispered. Terror snatched her. “Oh, but I mustn’t!

And for his part, recalling what he had heard that day, and earlier from his father, he shouted, “Rausa/ka!” and whipped out his knife. Hc darcd not turn his back. She vanished behind the underbrush. He stood tensed and snarling, until he decided she was gone and sheathed the blade. The intimations of her drifted everywhere around, maddeningly gentle, fresh, girlish, but he knew little of such beings; their traces might well linger. . . .

Would they?

Why, he had the talisman to ask. He need but ease himself, think in Hrvatskan about what he had seen, and let knowledge flow upward. Muscle by muscle, he summoned calm, until he could know and could call: “Vilja. Stay. Please.”

She peered around the brake; he barely glimpsed an eye, the gleam of a cheek, the delicacy of an elbow. “Are you Christian?” she fluted timidly. “I’m forbidden to come near Christians.”

So she was no menace; she was merely beautiful. “I’m not even a mortal man,” said Tauno against a rattle of laughter.

She crept forth to stand before him at arm’s length. “I thought I could feel that,” she breathed. “Would you really like to talk with me?” She kindled, she trilled. “Oh, wonderful! Thank you, thank you.”

“What is your name?” He must needs gather courage before he could lay down: “I hight Tauno. Half merman, half human, but altogether of Faerie.”

“And I—” She hesitated more than he had. “I think I am, I was Nada. I call me Nada.”

He reached out to her. She tiptoed close. They linked hands. Hers were night-cool and somehow not quite solid. He thought that if he took a real hold upon them, his fingers would part their frailty and meet each other: wherefore he gripped as tenderly as he was able. The clasp shivered.

“What are you?” he asked, that he might hear it from her own lips.

“A vilja. A thing of mist and wind and half-remembered dreams—and how glad of your kindness, Tauno!”

Desire, long unslaked, was thick within him. He sought to draw her close. She flowed, she blew from his embrace, to poise trembling beyond his reach. Fear and grief worked their ways across her countenance, which was young to behold but inwardly had grown old. “No, Tauno, I beg you. For your own sake. I’m no more of the living world. You’d die, yourself, if you tried.”

Recalling how Herr Aage had risen from his grave to comfort Lady Else his beloved-simply to comfort her in her misery—and what came of that, Tauno shuddered backward from Nada.

She saw. Briefly, her aloneness ruled her; then she straightened her shoulders (there was the dearest hollow between them, right below the throat) and said, with a shaken smile, “But you needn’t run away, need you, Tauno? Can we not abide a while together?”

They did until morning.

Andrei Subitj, captain in the Royal Navy of Magyarorszag and Hrvatska-he who once was Vanimen, king of Liri-turned from the window out which he had been gazing. This was in Shibenik, on an upper floor of the mayoral palace. When such an officer took special leave from the war and came south, in answer to a message from the zhupan, he could have whatever place he asked for. Day had waned while he and Eyjan held converse. Towers stood dark against deep-blue gloaming, above walls and battlements within which links bobbed along streets. Bells pealed a call to vespers. Andrei traced the Cross.

“And thus we know each what has happened to the other,” he sighed. “Yet what do we truly know?” Tall in a gold-broidered kaftan, his body moved across the carpet with more fmnness than his voice. “Why would Tauno not bestir himself to come this short way and greet me?”

Eyjan, who was seated, stared at the hem of her gown. “I can’t tell,” she replied. “Not really. He said there was no use in it, that you simply are no more the father he sought. But he says little to anyone these days, nothing that might reveal his mind.”

“Not even to you?” Andrei asked as he took the chair opposite hers.

“No.” Fists clenced in her lap. “I can but guess that he’s poisoned with bitterness against Christians.” Andrei sat straight. His tone crackled. “Has anybody done ill by you twain?”

“Never. Far from it.” The red head shook, the gray eyes lifted to meet his. “Although we admitted early on we’d been lying to him-for we couldn’t well stick to our deception after our kin recognized us-Ivan did not resent it. Rather, he increased his hospitality, and that in the teeth of his chaplain, who’s scandalized at having two creatures like us beneatq yon roof. Ivan’s actually doing his best to keep our secret from leaving the village, that we may fare back to Denmark without hindrance if we choose.”

“Of course, he hopes to convert you.”

“Of course. But he doesn’t pester us about it, nor let Father Petar do so.” Eyjan smiled a bit. “I see Father Tomislav more gladly, aye, as often as may be. He’s a darling. Tauno himself can’t slight that man.” Her thought veered. “Something strange is there too. I know not what or why. . . but Tauno is very mild with Tomislav. . . almost the way one might be with somebody who’ll soon die but doesn’t know it. . . .”

“How is his daily life? And yours, for that matter?”

Eyjan shrugged. “As an acknowledged sea-wife, I’m not fastbound the way a Croatian woman is. I can swim or range the woods, provided no man sees me. Around mortals, however, I think it best to act the lady. There I pass most of my time learning the language, since Tauno keeps the amulet. Often the maidservants and I will sing together; Ivan’s wife joins us now and then, or his son.” She grimaced. “I fear young Luka is getting much too fond of me. Unwillingly would I bring woe on their house.”

“Tauno?”

“How can I tell?” Eyjan said roughly. “He goes off into the wilderness for days and nights on end. When he returns, he grunts that he’s been hunting, and is barely courteous to folk. I bespoke my idea that he hates the Faith for what it’s done to his people. Though why he shuns me—”

“Hm.” Andrei cupped chin in palm and gave her a long regard. “Might he have found a sweetheart in some distant hut? I’m sure neither of you can have a lover in Skradin.”

“No,” she clipped forth. “We cannot.”