The Dragon's Lair

  Ven nodded. "That's supposed to be an hourglass."

  "What's an hourglass?"

  "Something humans—er, people—use to keep track of time," Ven said. "It's made of glass and the bottom is filled with sand. You turn it over and the sand starts running from the top to the bottom. It lets you measure time."

  "You are making absolutely no sense," the merrow said. "How can you measure time? No one can even see time, let alone get it to stand still long enough to measure it. And running sand? Please. Even I know that sand can't run, and I don't have feet."

  Ven smiled. "Not yet, anyway," he said. "Do you see anything else?"

  The merrow eyed him suspiciously, then took his palm and looked into it again.

  "There is something else, but it's quite strange. I think I saw one of those once in a sea dragon's lair. It's a human thing, and my mom would not let me look at it up close."

  "Can you describe it?" Ven asked. His curiosity was rising inside him, making his face feel hot.

  Amariel made two circles with her fingers, then a V. "Like this," she said.

  Ven nodded. "Those are scissors. They are very sharp tools used for cutting things."

  The merrow dropped his hand in alarm and moved away from the dock.

  "Don't worry—it's just a picture," Ven said. "It can't hurt you."

  "You know, you keep saying that," Amariel said. "But between kings that set you on fire, and angry people looking for you, and pictures in your hand that can cut you, and worst of all, humans—I'm not sure the dry world is even the slightest bit safe to explore."

  "You do have a point," Ven admitted. He could see in her eyes the same gleam of interest that he saw in his own whenever he looked into a mirror. Amariel had the same gift, or curse, of curiosity that he did. "And if you're worried and don't want to go, I understand completely. It sounds like your mother won't let you, anyway."

  The merrow's face lost some of its shine. "My mother is on the other side of the sea, very far away," she said sadly. "When I followed your ship, I had to leave my school and my family behind."

  "I'm sorry," Ven said. "I didn't know." Just like me, and the other children at the Inn, he thought. But that means she's alone here—and she would have to swim north past the Gated City to get home. An even better reason for her to come overland with me.

  "Well, that's because I didn't tell you," Amariel said. "Merrows don't go around telling their business to just anyone." She looked up and down the beach, and when she looked back at Ven, her eyes were beginning to sparkle once more. "When she kissed me goodbye, my mom said I should stay away from humans, but to have fun and see as many exciting things as I could before I came home. So I guess she wouldn't really mind if I went exploring the dry world, so long as I don't give my cap to a human."

  The top of Ven's head began to itch fiercely.

  "So you'll come, then?" he asked hopefully.

  "Well, it sounds like you're going to be gone a long time. If I don't come with you now, I might never see you again."

  "That's possible. So will you come?"

  The merrow glanced around again. "It's going to be morning soon," she said. "Even though no one uses this pier anymore, there will be people around here."

  "Then we'd better hurry," Ven said. He tried to sound calm, but his voice cracked with excitement. "How do we do this? Do you just give me your cap and that's it?"

  The merrow shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I've never done it before. I suppose we can start with that." Her smile faded. "Don't lose it, and don't you dare let anyone else touch it. Especially a human—if a human touches it, I'll start going human, too. And if that happens, I think I only have a turn of the moon to get back to the sea before it's permanent." She shuddered. "Uggh. My scales get itchy just thinking about it."

  Ven unbuttoned the pocket in his shirt. "I promise I won't let anyone touch it," he said. "Not even my human friends. I would never want anything bad to happen to you."

  "And don't tell anyone I'm a merrow. Especially boys. My father told me to be especially careful of human men, because they're the ones who want a merrow to be their household slave. If they know the legend, they might try to steal the cap from you. I don't want to be doing anybody's chores—I hate chores, especially cleaning. Once when I got in trouble, I had to peel seaweed off rocks every day for a turn of the moon—my fingernails are still green from it. If it even looks like that might happen, you are in so much trouble."

  "I promise. I won't tell them—they'll think you're human."

  "There's no need to be insulting."

  "Actually, I only have one human male friend who I think will be going overland—his name is Char—and he would never want you to do chores. He likes doing them himself—because it gives him a chance to be around a girl he likes."

  "He likes chores? More proof that there is something seriously wrong with humans." Amariel looked around one last time. Then her eyes met Ven's, shining so brightly that they looked like starlight on a green sea.

  "All right," she said. "Let's try it."

  Ven put out his hand. It was shaking violently.

  Amariel's eyes were locked on his for a long moment. Finally she reached up, her hand shaking almost as much as his, and gently took the lacy red cap from her head. She stared at it, then slowly held it out to Ven.

  I was almost afraid to touch it. I wasn't sure what it was made of, but it seemed very fragile. As much as I wanted her to come with me, I suddenly was worried that something bad might happen to her outside the sea where she has lived all her life. It probably wasn't the best of ideas to take this chance when a whole market of thieves was about to come looking for me.

  But I didn't think about that until the moment after the red pearl cap was resting in the palm of my hand.

  The cap felt very strange. It was cold and wet, as I expected it to be, but not very soft. It didn't have the suppleness that lace has, but instead appeared to be some sort of sea plant, delicate but hard. It was as intricate and fine as a spider's web, and looked a lot like one, the tiny pearls glistening the same way dew does in the morning on the nets that spiders build. I could have stood there and stared at it all day.

  But if I had, I would have missed seeing something much more amazing.

  And terrible.

  4

  The Transformation

  AT FIRST, NOTHING SEEMED TO HAPPEN.

  The merrow continued to float in the water off the pier. She looked around her, then back at Ven.

  "I don't think it's working," she said after a few moments. "I guess it really does have to be given to a human man after all. Oh well. This is stupid. Give back my cap."

  "Wait," said Ven. He thought he had noticed a difference in the color of the water surrounding her, more than just the change of full-sun. He kept watching as the waves swirling around her went from blue-green to a paler aquamarine to yellow to gold.

  An intense light swelled beneath the surface, gleaming brighter than the morning sun. A few seconds later, an explosion of bubbles rose up in great rolling streams, turning the water white, as if it were boiling.

  "It's happening!" he shouted.

  "Uhmm—yes," said the merrow uncertainly. "I—I'm not sure I like this—"

  Like a giant snake shedding its skin, great peels of multicolored scales, now white and lifeless, began rising to the surface of the water on the bubble stream. Amariel's face went similarly white as she struggled to push them back down, but it was no use.

  She was beginning to unravel, like a piece of cloth with a thread snagged, or a fruit being skinned.

  Amariel winced as if in pain. She rubbed her shoulder against her neck, then her hand, as the tiny flaps of skin that served as her gills began to seal shut. Her mouth dropped open in horror.

  "Ven," she gasped, "help me!"

  Ven lunged to the edge of the pier and bent down.

  "Here!" he shouted. "Give me your hands!"

  "Give it back!" the merrow screamed. "Give me back m
y cap!"

  By now coils of dead scales were floating away from the merrow and flipping around, lifeless, on the waves. Ven held the brittle cap out to her, struggling to keep from dropping it into the sea. Amariel tried to reach it, but she was being dragged farther and farther from the pier by the storm of bubbles. Ven dropped to his stomach and reached as far out over the water as he could with his free hand.

  "Give me your hand!" he shouted again.

  Fighting panic, the merrow stretched her arm out toward him.

  Ven made a grab for it, and caught hold of the webbing between her index and middle fingers. It was slippery and cold.

  And then, suddenly, the webbing slid back into her hand and disappeared.

  The rolling clouds of bubbles began to slow their boiling.

  The merrow, no longer in Ven's grasp, disappeared below the waves.

  "Amariel!" Ven screamed. He looked around desperately for a few more seconds, but there was no sign of her.

  He put the cap down on the pier, pulled off his boots and dove into the water.

  Even though it was summer, the water was cold. Ven was stunned by the impact at first, but let his body straighten out as the waves rolled over him. He opened his eyes, which stung from the salt. Before him was a moving wall of green and white, cloudy with seaweed and sand and sunlight.

  Below the surface, the water was still swirling with strands of discarded skin and scales. Ven could see nothing else, so he swam away from the pier and tried to get beyond the churning mess. He held his breath as long as he could, but he could still see nothing in the murky green waves.

  His head popped up at the water's surface. He shook the water from his face and looked around, but aside from the pier behind him, he could see nothing.

  "Amariel!" he shouted. "Where are you?"

  My stomach cramped so hard that I almost bent in half. I was thinking of the sight of the gills in her neck sealing shut, and realized suddenly that she could no longer breathe beneath the waves. Apparently she could no longer swim without her tail, either, and had sunk like a rock.

  I should have known this would happen.

  I should have made her sit on the dock before she gave me the cap.

  I should have left well enough alone.

  But my bloody curiosity made me forget everything I should have kept in mind.

  And now I'd probably killed her.

  High above, a harsh cry rang out.

  Ven looked up.

  Circling in the air was an enormous white bird with webbed feet, its wingspan wider than the pier.

  Ven's heart leapt. The albatross! he thought, watching the bird dive toward the surface of the waves as if it were fishing. Then it banked up into the air again and returned to flying in low circles, just as it had when he was floating on the wreckage of the Angelia, his father's new ship that had been destroyed when the Fire Pirates attacked.

  He swam quickly for the area above which the bird was flying.

  "Amariel!" he shouted. "Amari—" He caught a wave in his mouth, sputtered and gagged. He spat out the bitter water, then looked up at the albatross again.

  The bird was diving from above, a terrifying swoop that skimmed the surface a few feet in front of him. Then it rose up into the sky once more.

  Even though he could see nothing, Ven took a breath and dove himself. He swam through the gloomy green water, feeling his way through the floating weeds, until his hands felt something similarly long and flowing but smoother and less slippery. He gave it a yank, and could tell it was attached to something heavy.

  It's her hair, he thought desperately. It must be her hair.

  He tugged again and swam to the surface, pulling the weight along with him.

  When he broke through to the air, he pulled as hard as he could.

  A fisherman's buoy popped to the surface next to him, slimy and criss-crossed with weeds.

  Panic exploded inside him. Ven made another dive, kicking hard to get down to the sand at the bottom as quickly as he could. He searched blindly through the weeds until he found more smooth strands. This time he felt along them until he found that they were attached to what felt like a ball at the other end. He gave the strands a jerk, and immediately the weed patch began swirling as whatever he was clutching began to thrash around inside it.

  This must be her, Ven thought as he kicked back toward the surface. If it's not, whatever I'm pulling up is going to beat me to death.

  He dragged the slippery strands, and pulled with all his might.

  The merrow's head popped above the water, her hair full of kelp. She was gasping for breath, her arms flailing wildly around her. Ven pulled harder to try and keep her mouth away from the breaking edge of the wave rolling toward them.

  Amariel's arms stopped flailing. She reached out and punched him in the face, rocking his head back.

  "ARRRGhhh!" she screeched. "Let go of my hair!"

  Ven dropped it quickly, then seized her arm instead. He pulled her onto her back and helped her float.

  "Calm down," he said quietly in her ear. "Don't panic—you're all right now. Just lie on your back and I'll get you to shore." He looked down into the merrow's face. It was gray, her lips blue and trembling, her peg-like teeth chattering, and he felt his throat start to close. "I'm sorry about everything. I never should have suggested this. Don't worry, I'll get you to shore."

  "G-g-g-ive me m-m-my c-c-c-ap," the merrow whispered.

  "It's on the pier," Ven said. "I didn't want to lose it in the water. Stay calm—we're really not that far from the beach. We'll be there in a minute."

  "I w-w-want to g-g-go h-h-home," Amariel said, struggling to keep her eyes open. "I think I'm g-g-going to d-d-"

  "Don't even say it," Ven said. He was only using his feet to swim now, holding Amariel steady with both hands and letting the natural direction of the waves carry them closer to shore. "You're not going to die—I won't let you."

  The merrow's green eyes, glassy from shock, cleared. She turned her head and stared coldly at him.

  "As if you have anything to say about it," she said scornfully. "You won't let me? Shut up. I'll die if I want to. And I was going to say 'drown,' thank you very much."

  I have to admit, when she said that I had to work hard to keep from chuckling. Amariel is the most stubborn, independent person I have ever met. She tells me all merrows are like that, and I believe it. Her biggest fear about giving me the cap was that she would "go human," which the stories say is what happens to merrows and selkies, creatures like her mother, when they let human men take their pearl caps. They grow legs so that they can walk on the land, but "going human" means that they lose their fiery natures, their stubbornness, and become wishy-washy and mealy-mouthed, doing whatever they are told. It's almost impossible for me to imagine that happening to her, cap or no cap.

  But if it does, I have promised her I will take her back to the sea myself, put the cap on her head and toss her in.

  I guess I won't get the chance to find out, though, since she wants it back already and I haven't even seen if she actually grew legs or not.

  "Well, I'd prefer if you didn't drown or die," Ven said. His foot touched the bottom and dragged along the broken shells and sand. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the abandoned pier was almost within reach. He kept kicking gently until he was at the edge of the shoreline, then stood up in the frothing waves, still holding on to the merrow's arm. "Can you stand up?"

  "Stand up?"

  Ven looked into the froth. Amariel was lying on the sand in the shallows, her formerly exquisite tail in tatters around her like a torn skirt.

  Peeking out from beneath the shreds of what had once been scales was a pair of human legs. They looked like any other legs he had ever seen, except there seemed to be a small amount of webbing in between the toes.

  "Try and put your feet on the ground," he said. The sand was slipping back into the waves beneath his own toes, making it hard for him to stand still.

  Amarie
l shook her seaweed-tangled hair violently.

  "No, I'm just going to lie here while you get my cap." She stretched out on the rippling sand. "I don't even want to try, I just want my tail back and to get out of here as fast as I can."

  "That seems like a bit of a waste, don't you think?" Ven said. "After what we just went through, don't you at least want to see what it feels like to walk on human legs? You did take the trouble to grow them, after all."

  "No, thank you," said Amariel firmly. "This does not feel at all nice—in fact, my stomach feels like it is going to be sick. So unless you want me throw up ambergris on you, I suggest you get me my cap right now."

  "What's ambergris?"

  "Whale vomit. Sailors are always looking for it floating on the sea. My mom says humans make perfume out of it. Yet one more reason not to trust them. Who on earth wants to smell like vomit?"

  Ven was watching the tide pulling out. The albatross was gone.

  "I don't think I can leave you here safely, Amariel," he said nervously. "I think you might get pulled back out with the waves. Stand up just for a moment and walk to the edge of the sand where the waves can't reach. I'll help you. Then you can wait while I run up on the pier and get the cap."

  The merrow eyed him suspiciously.

  "This had better not be a trick," she said. She was shivering, her skin still gray.

  "Not at all," Ven said. "I'm very sorry this happened. Let me help you up."

  The merrow glared at him one more time, then seized hold of his forearm.

  "Ugh," she said, staring at her hands. "Wiggly fingers. Yuck."

  "You get used to them after a while," Ven said. He pulled smoothly, helping her rise out of the foaming waves.

  "Hmmph," said the merrow. "Not if I can help it." She opened her mouth and took several deep breaths. "I don't know how you breathe this way," she said, sounding disgusted. "I miss my gills already."

  Once she was standing, Ven took the opportunity to get a better look at her. The scales that had once covered her body from her armpits to the fin at the end of her tail now resembled a colorful and somewhat ratty dress. The gown of bubbles that she usually wore seemed to have vanished, but the black cape that hung down her back was still attached to her shoulders. Ven remembered how she had told him that she had gotten the cape from her mother, and that when selkies wore them they resembled seals in the water. The one time Char had caught a glimpse of Amariel following the Serelinda, he had thought she was a seal.