Endless Adventure

The Merman's Target - Valerie Michelle

[The Island]

Avaris hadn’t stepped off the shore of his island in nearly twelve months. The advantage of being able to take steps at all was enough to bind him to the land. Legs were both his privilege and his curse. Still, he preferred the solitude of his shores to that of his own people. The ones who jeered as he passed and taunted him as the landwalker. As such, he kept to his small, deserted island for months at a time.

That is, until a chunk of dead coral was left on his proverbial doorstep; an invitation to show his face once again. He’d been staring at the porous, decayed thing since daybreak, screwing up his courage to face the others.

He hadn’t made the journey for one year, according to the cycle of the moon which controlled the tides. That was the last call of The Covenant. The last time he attended the grand meeting of all the mermaids from his realm. They convened to discuss and find agreement on important matters of state, and every year he waited for the day with impending, mounting dread.

Only two things caused Avaris this heart-pounding, breath-constricting pain in his chest. The first and most intimidating reason was a who.

The Matriarch ruled the mermaid realm with an iron tail. Like so many years before this one, not a single agreement would be made without her final consent. Nearly a century of peace between the seven seas had been achieved under her leadership, but that was nothing to him. The Covenant was merely a spectacle. A pageantry of the people’s worship of the Matriarch.

Though most loved and praised her, Avaris could never bring himself to see her as anything more than vile and cruel.

Avaris absolutely detested the Matriarch. He loathed her silver hair and matching eyes that swirled in the water with the molten iron hue of her similarly spectacular scales. Her high cheekbones and blood-stained lips, which were celebrated as the most beautiful of all, disgusted him. Her long, pointed fingernails, which served her as severe and talented weaponry, only churned his stomach in repulsion.

Even before her ascension to high Matriarch of the Underwater Realm, she was noted as the most skilled and stunning of all the sirens. Political ascension was her natural path. And yet, for all her artistry, her cunning, and her grace, Avaris truly hated his mother.

See, mermaids are typically just that: maids. As powerful sirens, they lure human men to them with their haunting song and indescribable allure for the sole purpose of breeding. A gruesome process of pulling the men under the waves until the salt water fills their lungs, drowning them, so the maid can consume their soul for the procreation of their own kind. It is a magic born of

devastation.

Humans were not to be loved. Human men were not mates. They were rivals for resources of the sea. Therefore, they could only be used as mere ingredients for mermaids to beget more mermaids. So, while foolish men believed they ruled the land, the oceans belonged to the feminine.

However, once in an era, change would occur. Instead of producing a mermaid, a merman would be hatched from fate. Although rare and much more powerful than their female counterparts, mermen were shunned from the realm. As a merman was the only being of their kind that could magically transform from tailed-swimmer to bipedal walking creature, they were forced to live on land, isolated as a being who belonged nowhere. It had been that way since the beginning of genetic memory.

That is why from the age of five, Avaris lived on his little island alone. He learned to pluck lesser sea creatures from the shores for sustenance. He found shelter further inland against the storms which plagued mankind. He suffered the belly aches and wounds of one ignorant of survival. And he did it all alone.

Perhaps, he was not entirely without companionship. Avaris’ only friend was currently perched upon the rock in the sand, which had recently been living, vibrant coral from his homeland. It was barely visible beneath the large webbed feet of his friend, but there was no mistaking what it was. The now gray, dead chunk was left by his realm to harken him, serving as both a call to return and a reminder that he was not a true part of that colorful world.

“I suppose today is the day, Carry. The calling of the The Covenant,” Avaris said to his feathered friend. The large albatross squawked back at him with an odd sort of understanding at hearing its name. The pair had developed a language all their own.

The first year on that once cursed, but now precious island, had been one of consuming loneliness and fear. Avaris was building a pile of sticks, moss, and palms to bed down on when the giant winged bird arrived. Seeing the young boy build a nest must have been endearing. It watched Avaris for a while, and then decided to help, choosing the boy for its own flock. The bird began bringing Avaris more items to add to the bed, carrying them in its elongated, pink beak.

At first, Avaris was scared of the giant albatross. But as the boy watched the smooth, white body and wide, dark gray wings soar back and forth through the lush vegetation of the island, it became calming. When the nest was built, Avaris would watch the bird fly to him from the sea, always carrying a tasty snack in its beak to share. With the creativity of an average five year old, Avaris then named his new friend, Carry. Twenty-five years later, Carry was still the only being Avaris had ever spoken to above the water.

“As mother would say, why put off for tomorrow what can be done today,” Avaris sneered in mockery.

Carry expressed a sad hoot. The c**k of its head and dullness of its black, beady eyes also gave an appearance of empathy and compassion, which Avaris appreciated on this day of all days.

Avaris gave up stroking his dark beard, and pushed himself to stand. His toes stretched instinctively in the sand. An act which brought a selfish satisfaction of being the only one of his kind to do so. Then, with a deep sigh, he trod toward the shoreline.

Carry spread its large wings and flew from the rock when the merman got close, sensing the anger rolling off him. The flap of its great wingspan caused a sudden wind to whip the merman's hair about, but Avaris did not even blink in reaction. Years of self-reliance had hardened him. Instead, he squatted to pick up the rock, tightening his grip on it until the jagged pieces of dead coral ripped into his palms and sliced open his skin, painting the sand beneath. He heaved the thing far into the horizon so that when it smacked into the water, the rock hit with such force that the ripples would be felt for miles both above and below the tides.

Then, he narrowed his eyes towards the place of impact and strode forward. He took more determined steps until there was no more ground beneath his feet and his head was completely submerged. Salt water invaded his eyes, his pressurized lungs, his gills, and the fresh cuts on his palm. Each burned as familiar as his childhood memories. Avaris welcomed the pain of the sea; another member of his kin.

As he began to tread water, the unique magic within him took over. The kicking of his feet became the swishing of his tail, combining the powerful muscles of a man’s legs into something singularly stronger. His vision cleared, and images around him brightened. His fingers webbed as he stretched them in the waters. And he waited impatiently for each part of his body to contort. Eventually, the agony of change subsided.

One flick of his tail was for confirmation of his enduring magic. Two flicks more were for disdain. With the transformation to a merman complete, Avaris shot off into the cooler depths towards a place his mother called home.

***

[The Underwater Realm]

“I’m glad to see you here, Avaris,” the Matriarch announced loudly to those gathered around them. Avaris’ lip twitched at the corner involuntarily. His heart may swell each time he hears those words of sentiment, yet his mind knows better than to trust they have any meaning beyond self-serving greed.

“Mother,” he replied with a slight bow of his head in her general direction, per custom. Then, he waited for the bright silver of her eyes to darken like her lead heart. His use of the word mother was a slap across her elegant face.

“You shall address the Matriarch by her title, landwalker!” her chief guard shouted, the soundwaves forming actual ripples in their intensity. The fierce mermaid with dark dreaded hair like eels, waved a spear at his chest.

Avaris smirked. Address the woman he hated with respect? He would not be doing that. And certainly not at the spearhead of an inferior warrior.

He watched the chief guard with a passive expression bordering on boredom. As it was under the sea, his vision swirled in a constant motion, watching the guard in front of him wave and distort, much like a flag on a mat in the wind. He preferred the generally consistent stagnation of vision on land to this.

Sure, he could have also used her informal name, Tiamat, to annoy the Matriarch. The name Tiamat was given to her as a child for her infamous resemblance to the Ancient Goddess of saltwater and chaos. The Goddess would later be referred to as Salacia by the Greek sailors, then Amphitrite by the Romans, but those were bastardizations of the Goddess’ glory. A man’s version of making the Goddess a secondary consort to her male counterpart.

Using his mother's informal name was a slight to her station and power, especially during the Covenant. However, Avaris knew that the endearment of his birth would gnaw deeper at them all.

“The sooner you are given your target, the sooner we shall be rid of both our recent danger and our repetitive nuisance,” the Matriarch finished, ignoring the snickers from those around them fawning over her words.

The task…

This was the second reason Avaris despised his mandatory attendance at The Covenant each year. As the only current merman of the realm, and son of the Matriarch, he would be bid for the tasks of an assassin. This was how he earned his life.

As a child, some voted to kill the merman. A proposition championed by his very own mother. Yet, a larger group of the realm agreed his unique skills were too valuable, and they voted to keep with tradition. As the only landwalker, who also possessed the unparalleled strength and destructive nature of the oceans, Avaris could protect the secrets of the mermaid realm by destroying those too clever to succumb to a siren call.

For millennia, humans had voyaged on top of the seas. It had benefited the realm below the surface as those mermaids no longer needed to venture to the shorelines to beckon men under their spell. Boats provided a new source of valuable souls for breeding.

Yet, only in recent years had some groups of humans begun to think they owned the water. These men, with their well-constructed ships and explosive weapons, were more dangerous to mermaid kind than any who had dared to cross the oceans before them. For they had learned the truth of the siren’s call, and spread tales not to trust mermaids.

Some of the bravest - or most foolhardy - of these men, had even begun attempts at capturing mermaids in their sick curiosity. Avaris was called upon to destroy the men who called themselves Brethren of the Coast.

Pirates.

The Matriarch dismissed her chief guard to stand down and addressed her son directly, not wanting to waste any more moments in each other’s presence than absolutely necessary. "His name is Gregor Calvado. They call him the Pirate King. He sails a ship called Disenchantment. He gained his notoriety by thieving merchant and trade ships from the continents. But lately he has desired a new challenge. Uncovering our kind to the world."

Avaris was often ignorant of the latest mermaid gossip, having spent so little time in the underwater realm. Yet, even he had heard of the Pirate King among sailors he had hunted the past few years. For the Matriarch to task him with such a famous target must be crucial. Certainly a King’s death would risk exposure as well. Avaris decided to use this to his advantage.

“I believe a King’s death also calls for a King’s ransom,” Avaris declared.

His mother turned on him, wearing a mask of rage to cover her pride at his shrewd perception. “How dare you? I gave you life and now you have the gall to ask for more?”

The merman said nothing. He merely lifted his bearded chin, and let his larger muscles and ferocious superiority speak for him. Avaris was no longer a boy who could be easily put down.

The Matriarch bristled. “What do you want?”

“I want to be left alone.”

Tiamat scoffed. “You are, Avaris. And you always will be. We want nothing to do with you.” “Until the Covenant,” he corrected.

There was a sparkle in his mother’s eye as she realized that for the first time, they might just want the same thing. With this bargain, they could be rid of each other once and for all.

“I do not like to repeat myself,” she said as her eyes trailed down to his sapphire tail and back to the silver eyes that matched her own. “What do you want, merman?”

“Freedom.” Avaris echoed the word like a prayer. “I want to be left alone on my island. Not for a year, but for eternity.”

The merman wouldn’t live forever. In fact, there was no telling how many centuries a merman may be able to live without venturing into the magic of the seas. But Avaris didn’t care. To him, even one day without the looming connection to his realm, and to those who hated him, would feel like a blissful eternity.

The Matriarch’s pointed teeth shone in her smile like daggers revealed in shadow. “To be rid of all the males who plague me at once? What a fortune that will be! You have a deal, Avaris. Bring me the head of Gregor Calvado, the Pirate King, and an invitation to join our realm will never again wash up on your shores.”

As was his ritual, one flick of his broad tail was for confirmation of his deal with the mermaid realm. Two flicks more were for his disdain. He smiled in triumph at the chief guard once more. Then with the pact complete, Avaris shot off into the warmer tides towards a horizon where he hoped to find the Disenchantment.