Beneath the surface off Chile's coasts, there are tunnels. One doesn't have to dive too deep to get to them. Alas, as far as much of the human Rapa Nui are concerned, as are most of the Inca, there's nothing down there worth diving for. But then, they've never been as deep as a merfellow.
Kletos hasn't, either. For that, a lot of merfolk royals might get concerned, if they knew that some of their women were trying to hire a human detective...let alone a Greek. Even so, some of the ladies here can't afford to leave the quipus to chance. Either that, or they want Kletos to build new quipus; ones so high tech, they'd make the Inca king's look like Stone Age relics...if they don't.
Into the deep, a few mermaids dive. They've black-bagged Kletos, and are towing him via his arms. The black bag is enchanted via merfolk magic; he can breathe with it on.
With him, they dive deep into one of the caves; the Virgin's Navel. The main passage isn't too narrow...but narrower than a lot of Rapa Nui mermen would prefer, for sure. Along, they drag Kletos. For merfellow and human, it can be a monotonous journey; it's just as well that Keltos remains unconscious during this dive.
In some of the cave walls, runes have been chiseled. Some of these runes are actually fossils. Hence, these caves have high limestone content. Too bad they're nowhere near Malta. (If they were, at least, Kletos would sense he's closer to one of the few homelands the Greeks have ever had.)
Here and there, there are very large stalagmites. They've been carved into heads; not too unlike the moai heads on Easter Island. Hence, it seems to the Rapa Nui merfolk, at least, the moai is an amulet. Even so, Kletos would hate to get on a moai's bad side...whatever that's like...if it's even real.
Above, the surface of a cave lake glimmers. Keltos's convoy swims up, and towards it. They surface, and drag Kletos to shore. Here, they un-bag his head.
The main mermaid who attends to Kletos is Claudia. She wears her hair in a pixie cut. In some ways, she reminds Kletos of himself. In others, he feels more like the frog that met the toad.
Claudia fixes his hair, after un-bagging his head. Kletos is almost suspicious, now...
Via her own mermaid magic, she levitates just in front of Kletos, as she leads him to the part of the cave that she means to show him. Kletos must confess that her ass looks spectacular from behind... He even says so, more than several times. Alas, Claudia only smirks, each time he does this. Her hypnotic charms work a little too well on him.
Where the cave dead-ends, there are quipus. And there are more runes on the walls. The runes change themselves every now and then...as do the quipus.
At last, Claudia falls back, and allows Kletos to observe. Kletos is amused...and it doesn't take long for his left brain to analyze what they're for.
"Obviously," he says, "you keep records down here. And the records change, which is why you've bewitched them. The runes, on the other hand, might just be the other side to the quipus' coin." He studies them in more depth. "They change constantly, much like a computer of one of the Great Powers. Hence, they're controlling something. Either that, or they're keeping records of something they constantly monitor." He studies the runes. "There's a condor's eye at the center of all of this; quite possibly the inlet for all the quipus' data... And there's a fish rune, that seems to be bigger than all of the others."
Claudia grins, while stretching herself between two stalagmites. "Very good, Detective. In truth, these quipus and runes monitor our people's connections with a pocket world, beyond this one. To us, it's a 'hive soul' of sorts. Some people in your world might call the same thing a heaven."
"I believe in no such gibberish."
"Well, I don't pay much heed to it either. Alas, my race does. I'm not the inventor; just the record-keeper."
He nods. "I understand." He studies her. "Has anyone ever been to this...'hive soul' of your race's?"
She shrugs. "A few claim to have been. But not even I know if they can be listened to. Anyhew, you're probably wondering what's so wrong with all of this, that I'd risk becoming a bigger scapegoat of my race, than I already am, by taking you down here."
"Well it all seems stable enough. Quipus use the ten-knot system, don't..."
Kletos studies a lot of the strings on the quipus...and sees it. He sees that some strings have more than ten knots on them...and that others don't have any knots on them at all. Some are also bent in weird shapes; like the headdress of an Incan king having a bad-feathers day...so to speak.
"Then again," Kletos admits, "I might be a better detective than you think..."
Claudia smirks, and nods. "They're intelligible...and they've been that way for a while. On one hand, it's like a person to keep their relationship with their religion a secret. On one hand, that's one thing; most humans don't speak gibberish as a substitute for talking about their religious life with other people. It also makes just as less sense, as to why they'd use it as an alternate cover, if silence wasn't broken."
Kletos shrugs. "You can't break silence with anything but noise. But of course, that adds insanity to the thought; who would deliberately break their cover if their cover still had a purpose?" He scoffs. "I'm not saying I understand religion; I'm just saying that I think I might understand that particular aspect of it."
Claudia grins...and mindlessly caresses one of the stalagmites she leans against, while levitating and stretching her tail.
"What about that big fish rune in the wall? What do you know of it?"
"The short answer is 'I don't know,' and the long answer is the same thing. It might be an omen of doom...but it's hard to tell."
He shrugs. "It wouldn't surprise me. My race, at least, is no stranger to oceanic leviathans. My ancestors have slain a few themselves... Or rather, they've claimed to. The orphanage raised me on stories of them, of course."
She scoffs. "You were raised in an orphanage... The connections just don't stop being made between us, do they?"
Kletos studies her. "There are orphanages in the merfolk world? Funny; I would've thought that mermaids were nannies by nature."
"Most are. But as far as personality types go, we're just as varied as humanity. I, at least, am no human infant's nanny. And I'm certainly not the bimbo who saved you from drowning at sea, not too long ago."
"And yet...I sense that you would've."
"Maybe... But you know how these things work. If I save one human from drowning, I've got to save every sea-doomed human in Sfaíra. And of course, that would cause the head count locked up in Will Turner's locker to become imbalanced...if you follow that sort of thing."
"I don't, but I understand the reference." He reexamines the quipus. "So, I take it that you also don't know why the strings on the quipus are crooked, over-knotted, or otherwise unforgivably un-knotted?"
She shrugs. "They were fine, not three moons ago. Or rather, they were stable. And this isn't half of it. A lot of my nation's folk have jobs that they can never get to, because they oversleep. And if they don't oversleep, they're always in a trance. They can't tell the difference between anything anymore."
"And yet...some of you saved me from drowning."
She shrugs. "It affects us less than some races. However, I worry that if we can't contain our own problems, they'll soon expand, and start to affect other races. More of the human Rapa Nui might discover that we exist; or worse yet, the Incas. The Incas might try to exterminate us, if they saw us as a threat. Or worse yet, they'd poach us and experiment on us as if we were guinea pigs up for grabs."
"Funny," Kletos says, grinning. "I thought South America was the homeland of the cavy."
She studies him...still doing her stretches, but with less effort than before.
He blinks and nods. "But yes, I see what you mean. Before I get started, though, I must warn you: I don't believe in magic."
"I'm not asking you to prove that magic exists. I'm just asking you to look into it. It could be nothing... But then, I'd also expect 'nothing' to take a shorter time to run its course."
"I understand. I also don't think there's any need for you to pay me. You saved my life; hence, by taking this case, I could potentially knock out two birds with one stone...as the old saying goes. First, I'd get to repay my debt to your kind. And second, I'd get to explore your nation's heritage in more depth."
"I'm afraid that's as far as your explorations can go. Only a few of my kind know that you know about us...and I dread that if I try to expand beyond that, where that is, I might get in trouble with our nation's royals. They might not understand you as well as I do."
"That makes sense. There are in fact, many humans in my world who've known me for a long time, and STILL don't get me. Some of them, even, are Greek like me."
Panting interrupts the moment...as a lone bush dog lumbers into the cave chamber where Kletos stands and Claudia levitates. The bush dog sits, and rolls over on his side. He's very fat.
"A strange animal," Kletos admits, "to find so far from a mainland."
"That's Pietro Allegro," she tells him. "He's a bush dog; Speothos venaticus." She heeds Kletos's strange look. "One of my exes was a magizoologist."
Kletos gawks at the high-tech term, that even he doesn't know. "Sometime when I don't have an addling mystery to solve, I'll ask you what that means."
"Pietro is really native to some woods on the Chilean coast."
"Why is he here?"
"He once tried to swim a strait that he couldn't. One of my sisters swam off to save him...and got attached." She smiles down at the dog's adorable face. "Easy to understand how."
Kletos studies him. "He looks like he's seen one Atacama winter too many." He looks at her. "I might have a potential use for him in mind, just so you know."
She shrugs. "It doesn't matter to me...as long as you don't kill him. I wouldn't mind...but my sister might. And just so you know, she's one of the best swordswomen I've ever seen."
"I'm a fencer too, just to be fair."
"Yes, but she's a witch. Your chances against her might not be..."
"Let's talk about known leviathans off the coast. Do you know of any...or do you know someone who might know of any?"
She scoffs. "Of course I know of them. You'd think I wouldn't swim in an ocean if I thought there was something dangerous in it that'd eat me on-sight."
"Of course. So, which one do you fear most?"
"Only one comes to mind. A lot of us have managed to restrict his territory. Twice since, though, he's broken one of our pacts. He broke the pact of the Japanese merfolk once, and attacked Tokyo. His next time was in Port Jackson, off NSW. Now he's got every macho Aussie lifeguard along that coast bathing in soapy oils, before going to work...as if a lifeguard in pantyhose wasn't queer enough."
Kletos shrugs. "It's the Land Down Under. When was it ever not queer?"
She studies him.
"Again, I see what you're saying. What is this leviathan, and how do I get to him? Also, who'd be daring enough to take me to him?"
She scoffs. "Don't worry about it. For me, being scared of him was just a phase. I'll do better than tell you where he is. I'll take you to him."
"Fair enough; done deal." He looks around. "I...don't suppose that your nation's herbalists would know how to brew sleeping potions?"
On the cave floor, Pietro makes noise, while yawning. In Spanish, his name means "glad stone."