Odysseus watched the two boys hug and laugh with the three sirens and felt like scratching his head. This definitely changed everything he’d known and experienced for who knows how long.
It had all started with the appearance of Daniel and Nemo. He was certain this had never happened in any of the previous journeys he now remembered more clearly, just like he’d never actually managed to free himself from the ship’s mast and swim to meet the sirens. And now, to find out that they were actually not evil at all… Odysseus had a very good feeling that his fortunes were finally about to change. Home suddenly seemed closer than ever, and he felt his hopes regenerate and give him new found strength.
When the boys and the sirens were finally done catching-up, Daniel seemed to remember him and beckoned him over, introducing him to the one who apparently was Nemo’s mother. Her beauty struck him like lightning on a moonless night. She seemed to be no older than his Penelope, with long dark red hair and pale spotless skin. He could definitely see the resemblance between her and Nemo. The other two mermaids were just as beautiful as she was and could definitely pass for her sisters.
‘My lady, this is Odysseus, son of Laertes and King of Ithaca. We owe him our lives. My lord Odysseus, may I present to you Eleanor, Queen of the Seas of Endërland.’
‘Former queen,’ Eleanor corrected him, looking up at Nemo, pride and love beaming through her eyes. ‘It is nice to finally meet you, King Odysseus. Long have we tried to get your attention as you pass us by, though our hope of any rescue failed a little bit every time you sailed away. We’d resigned to the idea that we would never leave this place.’
Only then did Odysseus notice the thick chains tied to their waist, imprisoning the three mermaids to the rock.
‘My lady,’ the king bowed his head respectfully. ‘I must confess I find myself bewildered. This day has been one of constant revelations and surprises. I’ve heard tales about you and this place; they say that many ships have crashed into these rocks and many sailors have lost their lives because of your enchanting voices. I didn’t want to risk my men’s lives, but I was keen on hearing your song for myself. And I have to say, the tales don’t do it justice. Though, I never understood why it caused me such pain, until now. I guess, the song was your plea to be rescued. Had I but known.’
Eleanor smiled.
‘You couldn’t have; no one but our own kind could understand those words, my lord; it was our way of keeping it a secret from our captors. Instead, we added whatever magic we had left to our voices, so that whoever heard it would not resist, but come to us. Only, you never come. We can see you struggle, tied up on your ship’s mast, begging your men to cut you loose so you can reach us, but they never do. This happens every time you pass this way, and every time we think that this might be the one where you finally come to us, but it never happens. Until today,’ she looked at Nemo again. The young man’s eyes glistened with fresh tears, and he could barely hide the pain over her mother’s suffering.
‘How many times have we passed through here?’ Odysseus asked.
‘Too many to remember,’ answered Eleanor.
‘What about other ships before us? Have they not been able to free you?’
‘There’ve been no other ships, my lord,’ one of the other mermaids spoke for the first time. She looked like the older one of the three. ‘Yours is the only ship we ever see.’
‘That is very strange indeed,’ said Odysseus, thoughtful.
‘My lady,’ Daniel decided to ask something which no one else seemed to be thinking of. ‘Who was it that imprisoned you here, and why?’
‘I’ve only ever seen them once, when they first captured and tied me to this rock with my mother and grandmother. Their song drew me here, just like you. They’re a race of giants, cannibals from what we understand, though I guess they do not enjoy mermaid flesh. If they did, we would not be alive still, especially since we’ve never caught anyone for them to eat.’
‘Is that why they’ve tied you to this rock?’ Nemo asked.
Eleanor nodded affirmatively.
‘It sounds like you’re talking of the Laestrygonians, my lady,’ said Odysseus, a touch of anger in his voice and gaze. ‘But I don’t understand how they can be here; we’ve left them way back in Telepylus.’
‘Maybe this is a separate clan,’ Daniel offered. ‘Any idea how many of them there are, my lady?’
‘I think there’s about fifty of them, living in a small village on that rise,’ the older mermaid pointed towards the cliff to her far left. They could see the tops of several wooden structures from where they were.
‘That’s about half hour from here,’ Nemo said.
‘Less, for them,’ Odysseus corrected.
‘Do you think they’ve seen us?’ Daniel asked.
‘I’m sure they have. They’re probably on their way here already. If we are to escape, we need to leave now.’
‘But how do we break these chains?’ Nemo asked, fearing they were thinking of abandoning the mermaids to their cruel fate again.
Odysseus analysed the chains, but did not like what he saw. They were quite thick and sturdy, attached on one end to the rock, through a well bolted iron plate, and on the other end, an iron belt fasted tight to each of the mermaids’ waist. Their strength alone could not undo the chains; they would need tools for this.
Just as he was about to speak, one of the mermaids, the one who had not said a word until that moment, yelled out loud.
‘I see them; they’re coming.’
They all turned in the direction she was pointing and saw four giants running towards them. Odysseus saw that they were the same race as the Laestrygonians alright, quite human in appearance, apart from the fact that they were thrice as big in size. Still, smaller than the Cyclops, as he himself could testify.
The giants were getting closer by the second; the terrain of the island had allowed them to sneak by unnoticed, thus giving them less time to react. Odysseus knew there was no chance of escape, so he had to think fast.
‘Nemo, I need you to swim quick and reach my men. Tell Eurylochus to take the ship further out into the sea, so that the giants and their rocks cannot get to them. There you are to wait for us two days. If by the third we are not back, you should continue without us.’
‘What about you?’ asked Nemo alarmed. This was not what he had hoped would happen when he’d found his mother again.
‘We can’t swim as fast as you, Nemo; there’s no escape for us. We’ll just have to find another way. Go, Nemo, now.’
Still unsure, Nemo looked at his mother, who smiled at him, just like she used to do.
‘Go, Nemo, we’ll be fine. They will not hurt us.’
As the ground around them began to tremble under the approaching feet of the giants, Nemo was still standing there, not convinced that leaving them all behind was the right thing for him to do.
‘Nemo, go.’ Daniel gave him the last push, causing the young king to jump into water and turn into a merman in a heartbeat. Within seconds he had already swam half the distance between them and Odysseus’ ship, while the giants reached the rock where the mermaids and the two men were.
Ignoring Nemo, Daniel now turned to face the creatures that were about to capture and most probably eat them alive. What he saw, sent chills down his spine. They were big, standing three times taller than normal men, with big bones and long fingers. Their hair was long and dirty, their eyes freakishly small and barely visible behind bushy eyebrows. Their clothes seemed very old fashioned and could be easily mistaken for dirty rags, while they wore no shoes or sandals. But the most disturbing bit of all was their gaze. It reminded Daniel of the look in the eyes of the wolfmen outside the icy walls of Arba, hot like burning coal, hungry and deadly. There was no kindness to be found in those eyes, and that made the whole thing a hell of a lot scarier.
The giants wasted no time in grabbing them, one of them Daniel, and another Odysseus. Their fingers wrapped around the small men, lifting them off the ground with e
ase, their grip a bit stronger than their prey was comfortable with. The other two giants, stepped towards the water, looking towards the ship with more men on sailing away from them. With angry grunts and murmurs, the two began grabbing big rocks from all around them and threw them at the retreating ship. Lucky for Odysseus’ men, the ship was already out of reach and harm’s way.
Struggling to breathe, Daniel watched as the defeated giants abandoned the rock throwing and turned to their friends and their two captives. All this time, Odysseus kept fidgeting and cursing from under the locked fingers of his captor. The giant, who Daniel thought was the ugliest looking one of the bunch thanks to a big old scar that stretched diagonally across his whole face, as well as a nose that seemed to have been broken more than once, lifted Odysseus to his eye level and growled.
‘Stay put.’
In response, Odysseus managed to slash his hand with his knife, causing him to roar from the pain and drop the king of Ithaca on the ground. Odysseus had no chance to get up and go anywhere, however, for the giant planted one strong foot on top of him, while examining his injured hand. The cut was deep and wide enough to bleed considerably, but the giant did not concern himself too much with it. He swallowed the blood pouring out of it as if it were a well-aged wine, and closed his hand tight into a fist. He then bent down over Odysseus, sneering.
‘I will enjoy roasting you alive, midget.’
Odysseus smiled over this one small victory, though Daniel wasn’t sure there was much to smile about. He knew Odysseus was clever and most likely already had an escape plan formed in his mind, but somehow, this seemed highly unlikely to him. Neither of them had accounted for this turn of events. Still, if anyone could pull it off, it would be Odysseus.
The ugly giant ordered one of the other two to pick Odysseus up from under his foot and then turned to face the mermaids, who observed everything with terror in their eyes. With a hateful and terrifying sound, he bellowed one single word, ‘more,’ and then turned his back on them, heading towards the village on the rise.
Far from the shore, Odysseus’ men and Nemo watched as everything unfolded in the distance, feeling powerless to do anything or help in any way. As had been proven back in Telepylus, they were no match for the Laestrygonians. Daniel and Odysseus were well and truly on their own.
The small house that once was home to the great leader of the giant eagles reminded Hëna very much of the old shack on the outskirts of D’ardh. Instead of a central stove, it had a built-in fireplace with a chimney rising up one of the walls in the main room. On the next wall to the left, she saw an old shield hanging, with the image of the double-headed eagle carved on it. Two old swords crossed each other hanging below it. Torches hang on all four corners, all of which she had lit up.
There were no beds in the room, only a couple of straw mattresses laid on the floor and covered with old sheets and small pillows. Other than that, there were just a handful of old and long unused wooden utensils for cooking and cleaning on a cupboard in a small annex, as well as a bronze basin for washing.
Hëna was grateful for the soft bed, no matter how dusty or old it was. She felt tired like she rarely had before and her wounds were bothering her still, despite Mara having tended to them again only minutes ago. Mother eagle had insisted she check on Hëna again and re-dress her wounds before they went to sleep. She would not take “no” for an answer. Hëna had felt touched; Mara was so very much like her own mother; she seemed to be able to think of everything and know exactly what one needed and when. She was definitely a very wise and kind eagle, and Hëna felt they had been quite lucky. After all, they might have ended up being caught by these tergs she kept hearing about, and their situation might have been entirely different by now. Still, she wouldn’t go as far as to say that she was glad Junior was the first native they had encountered; she had almost paid with her life for it.
Thinking of Junior inadvertently brought on a sour taste in her mouth, even to her own surprise. She had rarely experienced anger and she didn’t like the feeling. Even more so because the young eagle seemed to still feel bad about what he’d done, and appeared uncomfortable around her. Thinking about it now, she almost felt sorry for him. She hadn’t missed the cold treatment he’d received from the other eagles in the village and she’d clearly heard their teasing and mocking, for which she hadn’t felt very appreciative. But she’d stayed out of it, of course; it would not do for her to get involved in the eagles’ internal affairs. Junior, however, had not reacted to the bullying, and for that, at least, she had respected him.
Movement on the other side of the room called her mind off of Junior. Séraphin had already fallen asleep, despite the bed not being up to his usual comfort. She was happy he had come along; it made this whole thing so much easier for her. As planned, she had tried to talk to him before they’d gone to bed, but he had not let her.
‘I know what you’re gonna say,’ he’d told her, ‘but I will not go back home without you. Wherever you go, I go, Hëna; I made a promise to Daniel and I intend to keep it.’
She’d felt relieved and had even smiled; remembering the similar promise she had gotten from Nemo before they had all said goodbye. She wondered where they were now, Nemo and her Daniel, and what they were doing? Were they safe? Had they reached another world yet? Had they found any sign of Serena?
She missed her daughter so much. The first few days without her had been the hardest; she would see her anywhere in and around the house at first glance, and when she’d look again, her heart would break every time, for she wasn’t really there.
She missed Daniel too. She had never been apart from him for so long, and the worst part was that she had no idea when she would see him again. What if she never did? What if something were to happen either to her, or him, or to both of them? If something did indeed happen, she prayed that it was to both of them; she knew she wouldn’t be able to live without him anymore than he could live without her. Time had not weakened their passion for each other one bit; if anything, it had made it even stronger. He was her heart and soul, her best friend, her everything. She could not imagine not looking into his beautiful green eyes or be held in his strong arms again. She refused to.
With Daniel’s handsome face in her mind and her troubled thoughts refusing to back off, she finally fell into a deep sleep. Desperate to regenerate, her body shut down her main senses, allowing her to properly rest and regain some strength. Perhaps it knew that she would soon need it.