Helen Dunmore - The Crossing of Ingo

“They are not my people ,” says Saldowr with sudden anger. “I am privileged to be Guardian, no more than that. The Mer belong to no one but themselves.”

Ervys looks at him consideringly. “Do you agree that we should both make the Call?”

Saldowr appears to be thinking deeply. His cloak swirls around him, his hair flows across his face, hiding it. At last he draws himself upright, pushes back his hair and says, “We will each blow the conch in turn. But hear me, Ervys, everyone in the age group for which the conch blows must be free to answer its summons. No one shall be prevented, understand me? No one. ”

The power than Faro has longed to see is alive in Saldowr now. His eyes burn with inward, hooded fire. Ervys moves back, just a little.

“Of course,” he says, with the first touch of uncertainty in his voice.

“I want to hear none of your talk of pure blood, and half-and-halfs. Neither from you nor from your followers. Ingo can only be healed when it accepts that it is not complete in itself. Do you understand me?”

Ervys raises a hand in protest, and then slowly his hand drops to his side. How can he understand? Faro wonders. Even I don’t understand what is in Saldowr’s mind now. But after a long hesitation Ervys bows his head in agreement.

“Wait here while I fetch the conch,” says Saldowr with all the old authority in his voice.

Saldowr swims to his cave entrance and disappears inside. Faro watches Ervys closely. The man’s face is knotted with concentration. He is thinking something through, and Faro wishes he knew what it was. When Saldowr emerges with the conch in his hand, Ervys shakes his head as if a shoal of tiny fish were nibbling at his skin.

Faro eases himself a little way further around the side of his boulder, holding a bunch of weed in front of his face to camouflage it, and peering through the strands. The conch is as big as a man’s head. It is full of lustrous, changeful colours: dark at the tightly whorled tip, pearly at its broad base. Saldowr lifts it high and flings back his head. His lips touch the lip of the conch. Water pulses through it, building up pressure, and the conch begins to sound.

At first the Call is no more than a palpitation of the water. Faro is disappointed. He has heard the sound of the Call before. Even though he was always too young and he knew that the Call was not meant for him, his whole body had thrilled down to the tip of his tail. Perhaps the Call doesn’t sound the same if you are too close to the conch.

But the Call grows. It begins to beat the water like a whale’s tail, sending waves of sound to crash against Faro’s ears. Now he hears it truly. It enters his body and vibrates against every part of it. The Call is in his muscles, in his bone. It is inside his heartbeat. It grows louder and louder until his whole body shivers with the impact. He wants to leap through the water, to turn a thousand somersaults, to fly down the currents like a dolphin. This time, the Call is for him.

Faro curls up tight, tight, hugging his tail. He must not be seen. If Ervys and Saldowr knew that he’d watched this…

The Call thrums through him, on its way to the ends of Ingo, on its way to the ears of the young Mer who are ready to hear it. Elvira hears it as she sorts red weaver-weed to make dressings for wounds. Her skin prickles and her eyes grow brilliant. Girls diving with dolphins hear it and backflip, stunned, listening. Boys surfing wild currents hear it and fight their way out of the surging bubbles, shaking their hair out of their ears. The Call flows over the rocky cradles of Mer babies. Ancient Mer shake their heads and smile, remembering the past as the Call rushes past them. Mothers press their young children close, glad that it’s not yet their time for danger and adventure. The Call races through Ingo, into every underwater cave, through the hulls of sunken treasure ships, into coral reefs and gullies where conger eels live, through kelp forests and shadowy underwater caves, searching out the Mer who are ready to make the Crossing of Ingo.

The Call is like a snatch of music thrilling through Ingo, so irresistible that those who hear it will do anything to hear it again. It’s time, the Call says. Time to leave your family and your home behind. Time to say goodbye to all the places where you’ve played and learned and slowly grown up. Time for your own journey to the bottom of the world and for your own adventure.

At last, Saldowr lowers the conch. “Your turn,” he says, passing it to Ervys.

The conch must be much heavier than it looks. Ervys’s shoulders sag as he takes its weight, and for a second it looks as if the conch will fall to the sand. But Ervys braces himself and lifts the conch to his lips.

The Call is different this time. Ervys blows a harsh, blaring sound. It is loud, but it does not touch Faro. He hears Ervys blow on the conch, and feels nothing. But some of the Mer will answer it , thinks Faro. Some of them, who won’t answer Saldowr, will answer Ervys. They’ll come to the Assembly chamber and present themselves as candidates for the Crossing of Ingo, because Ervys has blown the conch.

It’s an ugly thought. Faro doesn’t understand why Saldowr even let Ervys lift the conch. He could have smashed Ervys’s skull with it. If I’d been holding the conch, that’s what I would have done , thinks Faro. Ervys’s body would have drifted down to the sand, his tail limp and his blood making red smoke in the water. Faro’s eyes sparkle as he considers the defeat of his enemy.

But he’s getting cramped, hiding behind these rocks. Surely Ervys will leave now that he’s got what he wants. Ervys lowers the conch. Saldowr swims forward and takes it. He seems to hold the weight without effort. Faro thinks that the lustre of the conch looks less bright now that it has been blown. It will be put away and it won’t emerge from Saldowr’s cave for another five years, when the next group of young Mer is ready to take on the challenge of the Crossing.

But if Ervys gets more power, everything will change. He won’t blow the conch for the whole of Ingo as Saldowr does. He’ll blow it, but only for his followers. Instead of a whole age group of the Mer travelling to the Assembly together, there will be angry arguments. Fights, maybe.

Faro’s fists clench again. He wants to leap through the water to Saldowr’s side and fight for him. Now’s the time to stop Ervys, while he’s alone and before he can grow any stronger.

It’s already too late. Ervys turns with a twist of his broad, powerful shoulders, and strikes off through the water with a blow from his tail. In a surge of bubbles he is gone, and Saldowr has done nothing to stop him.

But Faro is still stuck behind his rock. He can’t come out now. Saldowr will know that he saw and heard everything. His fingers tingle with cramp, and he unclenches his fists. His tail aches for free water.

“Come out now, Faro,” says Saldowr.

Faro’s heart jumps in his chest like a fish on dry land. Saldowr has turned to face the rock where Faro is hiding. His face is stern. Faro braces himself. This is the worst thing he has ever done. He has spied on Saldowr and eavesdropped on his conversation. How could he have been so stupid as to believe Saldowr wouldn’t sense his presence? Saldowr had only kept silent until now to shield Faro from Ervys’s fury. Cold, heavy trepidation fills Faro. He’s not afraid of any punishment, but if Saldowr says that Faro can no longer be his scolhyk and his holyer , he would rather die. He can’t imagine a life where he doesn’t serve Saldowr, and where Saldowr no longer teaches him and prepares him for the future.

All these thoughts flash through Faro’s mind in a couple of seconds. Already he’s swimming out from behind the rock. He won’t make Saldowr call him twice. He swims to within an arm’s length of Saldowr, and then the Guardian of the Tide Knot holds up a hand.