THEY WERE IN AN underwater cavern, lit by flickering torchlight. Around its edge was a rocky shore and here a number of people had gathered. Dark, glossy shapes broke through the surface of the oily water. Ustredi. The people were singing to them. Baskets and carts were arranged upon the damp sand, filled with joints of meat, cheeses, hams, fruit. Young people decked in flowers and shells stood among this produce. Varencienne and Valraven stood some distance back from the group, although Varencienne knew they were in no danger of being seen. She and her husband were invisible ghosts in this world. They were far below old Caradore. “These are your ancestors,” she said. “They are honoring the contract between the people of the land and the people of the sea.” “I remember,” Valraven said, “but these are not my memories.” “They are the memories of your blood,” Varencienne said. A sheet of water seemed to fall before her eyes. The world rippled. Varencienne realized her attire had changed. She was now wearing a loose, ill-fitting robe of coarse green cloth, as was Valraven beside her. They must have become part of this time. She gripped his hand more tightly. He began to walk towards the water, taking her with him. As they approached the shore, people turned to stare and their ranks parted. They bowed as Varencienne and Valraven walked between them. Women threw their skirts up over their faces to hide them, while men placed their hands over their eyes. Are we so hideous to them? Varencienne wondered. At their approach, the sleek shapes in the water became agitated. The surface boiled with their movement and haunting cries filled the air. Valraven released Varencienne’s hand and raised both his arms. At this gesture, the youths and maidens bedecked with flowers ran forward, uttering ululating shrieks, and threw themselves in among the restless Ustredi. The sea cries became more predatory. Now the Ustredi reared up from the water, beauteous creatures, hideous creatures. They flexed the claws of their long-fingered webbed hands. They shook their weed curtains of hair. Fish-lipped mouths gobbled at the dry air. They fell upon the willing sacrifices, pawing at their bodies, dragging them down. The farm produce was left ignored on the cold wet sand. The Ustredi wanted living tribute. The victims made no sound, and on the shore, the waiting company murmured soft prayers to Foy. Varencienne observed these proceedings impassively. It was the way of things. She knew the time had come for her to cast off her loose robe and dive into the water. Her body craved this element. Her skin itched uncomfortably. Only the cool salt tide would soothe her. She and Valraven must join the Ustredi, who would soon return to their city beneath the sea. She pulled the robe over her head, while Valraven tore the cloth from his body. His skin was hairless and greeny-white in the dim light; his facial features had become more blunt. When he turned to Varencienne and smiled, she saw that his teeth were pointed like a shark’s. Despite these strange changes, he possessed a stark, alien beauty. From his expression, she could tell that her appearance was similarly changed. They had become Mera and Merin, the first of the Palindrakes. Once again joining hands, they dove into the water, following the Ustredi who had now begun to retreat from the cave. Varencienne could see their lissome shapes below her, trailing a wake of shining bubbles. She could just make out the floating gowns of the sacrificial girls, the limp limbs of the youths. Crushed flowers broke free from their bodies and drifted up past her like flakes of perfumed skin. She swam with her arms pressed close to her sides, using the muscles of her belly, torso and thighs to undulate through the dark water. Her desire to breathe ripped open the seals of the long unused gills at her throat. The Ustredi were joyous in their return to Pelagra. They had brought their prodigal siblings with them. Varencienne was caressed by the swift bodies that darted over and under hers. The sea was filled with the sound of their fluting purrs. And then the great crevasse was before them. The city below exuded a strong acid green radiance. Varencienne and Valraven plunged over the abyss amid their brethren. They felt the cold burn of that subaquatic light, the lifegiving properties of its rays. Down they swam to the great triangular entrance of the temple of Foy. They had come to report to her, to tell her of their great victories over the people of the earth. The Ustredi swam away, carrying the drowned bodies of the sacrifices among them. Valraven and Varencienne went into the temple. They did not have to swim down miles of labyrinthine corridors as Varencienne had done the last time she’d made this astral journey. On this occasion, Foy was vigorous and strong, curled upon a vast dais in the cathedral vault of the first hall. Her appearance was clearly serpentine and her wings resembled elaborate fins or the floating tails of great fishes. When Foy noticed her visitors, her head snaked upwards on a sinuous neck, and a long black tongue flicked out of her mouth to take morsels from a passing shoal of tiny bright fish. Varencienne could feel the immense slow tide of the Dragon Queen?s feelings. They were not like human emotions, nor even the cold instincts of the Ustredi. This was truly elemental, the primal form of every existing feeling. Mera and Merin?s interaction with the people of the land had changed Foy. She was becoming more human, because of the human faith that poured into her. The land people were reshaping her with their thoughts. Foy’s voice resounded inside Varencienne’s head. There were no words, but symbols and colors that formed a language she could understand. “Show to my daughters the wonders of the world you have explored.” “It is our pleasure, Great Queen, to bring you this tribute,” Varencienne replied. A gout of acidic radiance engulfed the Dragon Queen, and from this emerged the etheric forms of Jia, Misk and Thrope. Like Foy, their appearance was very different from what Varencienne had seen before. They were primitive mermaidens, with neckless fishes’ heads. Their eyes were devoid of any feeling, but a cold passionless intelligence lurked in their glassy depths. The Daughters came weaving out from the shadow of their mother, their dead eyes fixed upon the changed forms of the beings they perceived as Mera and Merin. So, the emotion of envy was born in the collective soul of the sea people. Jia, Misk and Thrope gazed upon these semihuman forms and found them beautiful. “Give this to us,” they said in unison. “Give us your shape.” “This shape comes from living on the bare land,” said Valraven. “It involved sacrifice to attain.” “We would do that,” said the daughters, sidling closer. “Oh Merin, you are fine to look upon. Let us taste this shape.” They sniffed around Valraven and Varencienne’s bodies. “Oh, Mera and Merin, let us eat of these strange tides that move through your bodies. We want to experience these clenches of the heart, these cataracts of intention.” “These are feelings you describe,” said Valraven. “They come from living upon the land, among human folk.” “We could do that,” said the Dragon Daughters. Unexpectedly, Foy expelled a rumbling gust of disapproval, making the water roil. From the wild splashes of color that flashed across her mind, Varencienne sensed the dragon queen perceived the hunger in her daughters and detested it. ?No!? she roared. ?These tastes are for me alone, for only I have the wisdom to use them. You are wild, daughters. You are hungry. Move back.? Jia, Misk and Thrope ignored their mother. Without further words, and with a callous precision, their essence slid into the bodies of Valraven and Varencienne, crossing from one to the other in rapid succession. Varencienne reeled beneath this violating assault. She sensed the icy inquisitiveness of the Dragon Daughters, the surge of lust they experienced to wear human flesh. It was a hunger that would never leave them. “We shall linger, yes we shall,” they sang, squirming their dark essence through Varencienne’s flesh. “No,” said Varencienne, though she was powerless to prevent them. Beside her, Valraven’s face was stretched into a rictus of agony. His body swayed as the daughters investigated it. “Enough!” boomed Foy, lashing out with her tail. This action sent both Varencienne and Valraven flying but was enough to expel the curious daughters from their bodies. “Mother, what is yours is ours to share,” they sang. “For are we not of your being, your presence?” “You are the dreams I have had in the dark,” replied Foy. “Know your place.” The Dragon Queen’s head thrust forward towards her visitors. “You have not come here alone,” she said, “but draped with ghosts. They think of fire.” Sh
e lashed her great head. “What is their purpose? What calamity do they portend?” “I have come to learn the history of my people,” Valraven said. The Dragon Queen regarded with one of her round eyes, cocking her head to the side. She sniffed him and recoiled. “You have carried a taint to me.” She began to twist and writhe upon her dais, uttering audible sounds of distress. Her daughters wheeled around her, crying out in fear. Varencienne reached for Valraven. The boiling water made it difficult to see what was happening, or to control their own movement. They were in danger of being expelled from the temple on a current of Foy’s feeling. Valraven was torn from Varencienne’s grasp. She was helpless to prevent it, and saw his body twisting away from her, a pale shape in the greenish murk. Images slapped across Varencienne’s inner eye. She saw the human followers of Foy carrying the dragon banners into the land of fire. She saw the battles, which were bloody and protracted. The representations of the fire-drakes and the court of Foy flapped, ripped and tattered, in the hot smoky wind. She saw the evolution of Foy, from sea serpent to a creature embodying other elements. She saw Foy rise in splendor from the ocean on wings of immense span that were like intricate carvings of coral. Delicate spines adorned her head like a crown. Her claws were of mother of pearl. This was Foy in her prime, full of vigor to beat back the onslaught of the smaller, quicker fire-drakes. The Palindrake family was the guardian of the land, interbreeding with pure humans down the millennia until virtually all the aspects of the Ustredi vanished within them. All that remained was the ability to commune with the sea people and with the sea dragons themselves. Jia, Misk and Thrope, covetous of human shape, but nevertheless still within their mother?s control, transformed into the sirens, creatures who were imagined in a variety of forms. They were beautiful sea maidens, they were smaller versions of their great mother who could fly in sea or sky, and they were sail-like predator fish, attended by a court of manta rays. The Dragon Daughters were feared and respected, for the land people knew their ways were capricious, but they could still be petitioned to grant boons and to exact revenge on enemies. The song of the Dragon Daughters could be captured in great shells and used as an allure by the lovesick. Varencienne experienced this pageant of images. She saw the generations of Palindrakes, enacting rituals beside the sea, ensuring the prosperity of the land. But then a dark and bloody smoke came encroaching from the south. Within it was concealed the army of Cassilin Malagash. Old Caradore fell before them, and the Dragon Heir was forced to swear fealty to Madragore, the lord of fire. The Ustredi fled from this influence, and no longer came to the cool caverns beneath the castle. No one remained there to greet them in any case. Foy sank down to the farthest reaches of Pelagra. The wounds inflicted on the slaughtered Dragon Heir manifested as injuries on her own body. Her essence leaked from her as a black stream. She lay in pain, tortured by the strong emotions of those who had previously worshipped her. The Dragon Daughters, free of their mother’s influence, became dark hags to harass the living souls they so envied. The Dragon Heir was lost to Foy. She could no longer commune with him, the sea wife, and their cabal of priests and priestesses, for all had been disbanded. Ilcretia Palindrake, fearful of the consequences of the Malagash dynasty having recourse to the ancient sea magic, made sure this would never occur. She sacrificed her son to the fire, let the fire-drakes cast their ember wings over him. The secret history remained in the book her daughter took to Magrast, but the rituals themselves were never recorded. It was up to Ahrenia to instruct her own daughters and other female relatives in this lore. For a moment, Varencienne thought the story had ended, for the sight of her inner eye went dark, then a flash of light made her wince. She felt wind against her body and saw the beach of Caradore, illumined by a dull green light. Valraven was there, and Pharinet and Bayard. Varencienne could see spiky colors of lust emanating from all three of them, a mutual need and hunger. Then she saw Ellony. It was the moment before the Dragon Daughters took her. Ellony was looking right at her, as if Varencienne was hovering above the sand some feet away from her. Varencienne saw the overwhelming fear in Ellony’s eyes, the hideous awareness of all that would happen to her. She saw the rushing formless shapes of the Dragon Daughters fly past her and force themselves cruelly into Ellony’s frail body. She saw the ghastly transformation, the thousands of different expressions of terror, lust, greed, hunger, despair, misery and glee that crossed Ellony’s face. Can I help you? Varencienne thought. She felt strangely serene even though what she saw appalled her. She sensed Ellony reaching out to her through time, desperate for someone to save her, someone strong. Varencienne almost felt as if she could reach out and pluck Ellony from her fate, hold her close, shield her. But then a dark figure came running across the sand, a man. It must be Thomist. The Dragon Daughters were delighted. They wrenched Ellony’s body into fearsome contortions as Thomist sought to control them. Varencienne could hear their laughter. Then it was too late. Ellony and Thomist were dragged into the sea, taken down beneath the waves. The images in Varencienne’s head turned to mist and blew away. She found herself hanging as a blade of silver light, like an etheric eel, before the present form of Foy. Insubstantial luminous forms hung from the Dragon Queen’s ragged body like sucker fish. They were attenuated and gaseous, but Varencienne was still able to recognize two of them as Ellony and Thomist. Here their spirits must have clung for nine years, prisoners of the underwater realm. Varencienne sensed that Foy was unaware of their presence. The spirits clung to her, because there they were safe from the predations of the Dragon Daughters, but they needed release. Something swam past Varencienne, a spined half-human creature with a long, sinuous tail and taloned hands. Black hair streamed from its head and all the way down its spine. It was Valraven. He glided up to Foy and hung before her in the water. The Dragon Queen examined him through a tired eye. She could barely lift her head. Varencienne became tense. Could he raise the Dragon Queen now? Could he restore her glory? Valraven swam close to Foy and caressed her gently heaving flank with waving fins. Varencienne could see his life force shooting out from his body in spiked rays of light. If anyone, or anything, had the power to heal Foy, it was he. The Dragon Queen raised her snout a little and blinked her enormous eyes. Was there hope in her expression, or fear? Valraven hovered before her, his fins spiralling blurs along his flanks. “Great queen, do you hear me?” he asked. “I hear you,” Foy replied. “Then accept my command.” “I hear you,” said Foy. “Sleep,” said Valraven. “Be at rest. The hurt will leave your body. The torment will leave your mind.” Foy exhaled a plume of bubbles in an immense sigh. Her eyes closed, and the life seemed gradually to leave her body, until all that lay before Valraven was a monstrous heap of bleached bones, broken coral and waving weed, whose shape barely suggested the form of a sleeping dragon. The untidy pile shifted and collapsed, and at the same moment, all the captive souls began to stream upwards like a shoal of shining fish.