Prologue
Kaelah started the fire, watched it fizzle out, and tried again. And again.
It wasn't the damp that was doing it. Atlantis had always been rather damp, but that had never stopped a fire lighting before. She sighed softly, her gills moving as she did so. Plenty of air in the vicinity, so that wasn't causing the fire to go out either. So what was it?
Doubts and worries began to creep into her mind, but she pushed them back, just as she would if her long white hair got into her sea-green eyes. Something told her she should report this problem to the senate, but she was reluctant; who would listen to a sixteen-year-old girl?
She sighed and tried again.
At first she thought she'd succeeded, but the flame that shot up from the wood was clear, not yellow. And it was growing much faster than normal fire. Kaelah backed away, thinking that perhaps she should report this after all.
Bad idea, said a voice from somewhere. She spun round, but there was no one else in the garden. The seaweed patches were too thin for someone to hide there, and she'd see if someone were in the pool.
I'm over he-ere, said the voice tauntingly. She turned back to the fire and was startled to see that it was as high as she was sitting. What's more, it had formed a face; she could see the garden behind it bent into the contours of a mouth, eyes and nose. She tried to yell out, but her voice had stopped working. Perfect, said the face, and rose to engulf her, forcing its was through her eyes, nose, ears, gills and mouth.