Chapter 10

Erik had given up swimming the perimeter of the cave they were in and had settled on the rock next to Mimmi, who was muttering to herself.

'There's definitely no opening,' he said, more to himself than to her. She nodded absently.

'You forming a plan to escape?' he asked her, not really expecting an answer.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I'm just trying to remember everything exactly as it happened. How we ended up here. Maybe if I can work it out, I can get us back to…'

She trailed off again and went back to muttering under her breath. Erik looked her over, concerned, and wondered at the fact that this mermaid was his sister. How could that have happened? And Zac.. Zac was family, too. He had a family.

'How long do you think we've been here?' he asked Mimmi, trying to divert her from what seemed like a descent into madness.

'Days, maybe?' she said. 'It's impossible to tell. No sunlight, no current. Nothing. It's a prison cell.'

'Under Mako?'

'Maybe. Why not? There's a lot about the caves under Mako that we don't know.'

There was silence for a moment and then Mimmi said, quietly and anxiously, 'He was here for years. He must have gone crazy. Maybe he was ok before he was trapped here. Maybe he would have liked me.'

Erik saw the tears about to fall and pulled his newfound sister into a fierce hug. She sniffled against his chest and he let her cry for a bit. It wasn't like they were headed anywhere.

'He loved your mother,' Erik said. 'Or he wouldn't hate her so much now. It must have been love. You know what they say about a fine line between love and hate.'

He was instantly annoyed with himself because she was clearly not in the mood for jokes.

'I'm sorry, I was just trying to lighten the mood.'

'It's ok,' she replied, smiling slightly and sniffling. It was the third time she had broken down and cried since he had gotten there, and he was wondering whether this would be a regular thing. He was also starting to wonder how long it would be before he was the one breaking down in tears. Boredom was starting to take over and he could only swim laps for so long before starting to lose his mind. At least he wasn't alone.

Just as he was about to speak again, there was a flash and a light seemed to shine from beyond the wall.

'Mimmi, look,' he said, drawing her attention to the glowing wall and she stared eagerly at it.

'What is it?' she asked anxiously.

'No clue,' Erik replied. 'Stay behind me.'

She looked as if she were about to retort about how she was a grown mermaid with a moon ring and she could take care of herself but now did not seem to be the time for argument. She swam slightly behind Erik's bulky frame.

Suddenly, there was an opening in the wall, like a window, and she could see something that looked like the spires of towers beyond. It made her think of the city centre in Gold Coast, but smoother, more rounded.

'Holy shit,' Erik muttered. 'It's a city. It's an underwater city.'

Before Mimmi could ask what he might mean by that, she saw two strangers - mermen - swim into the cave and towards them.

'Stay back!' she shrieked, swimming closer towards the ledge and trying to get away from their outstretched hands. 'I'll kill you! I'll hurt you!'

She brandished her moon ring as if to show the seriousness of her threat and the mermen, who had surfaced enough that their heads and shoulders were out of the water, looked at her ring quizzically.

'Erik?' one of them said, looking at him, and Erik bristled.

'Who are you? What is this? How do you know my name?'

The questions might have continued to pour out of him, but he was interrupted by one of the mermen, who grinned at him, and said, 'Save it for your father.'

His accent was strange, not Australian, not anything that Erik particularly recognised.

'My father?' he repeated, and the mermen grinned at him.

'Yes, the hero of the hour!' the other one boomed, still with that strange accent. 'Come, come, he'll want to be seeing you. Both of you,' he added, seeing that Mimmi was still staring at both of them with ferocity in her gaze.

'Put away the claws,' he said, winking at her and she just stared open-mouthed.

They dove under, gesturing with an arm for Mimmi and Erik to follow, and they did, staying very close to each other. Mimmi reached a hand towards Erik and grabbed his arm. He looked at her as she did so, slightly puzzled by this familiar move, but then relaxed and let her grip onto him.

They swam into the underwater city, which was like nothing either had ever seen before. The buildings looked like futuristic skyscrapers, all smooth domes and few edges. Through the glass windows, Erik could make out shapes moving around inside. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people. They followed the mermen towards the entrance to one of these buildings and, exchanging one look with each other, swam inside.

The sight there was stranger than any they had seen yet. The building led into an airlock and both Mimmi and Erik stared as the two mermen locked the gate behind them and water began to drain from the room until very little remained.

'What is this place?' Erik said, awestruck.

At that moment, he saw the man who had attacked him and trapped him and Mimmi, not so long ago, come into the airlock room. He was wearing a simple suit that looked like it was made of linen or silk, with long flowing trousers and a loose shirt with a high neck. On his head was a circlet made of gold.

'Erik! And… Mimmi, was it? Well, welcome home!'

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Both Mimmi and Erik were too stunned to say anything. The two mermen who had led them there were already standing up and walking towards Adrian, who had also managed to have his hair cut in the meantime, and was looking at least a decade younger.

Erik saw that while most of the water had receded, there was still a small layer of it surrounding them and he motioned to the two guards.

'Hey,' he said. 'There's still some water, we can't dry off.'

As he spoke, he realised that both of them, as well as Adrian, were barefoot, and they were walking in the inch or so of water that remained in the airlock.

The three mermen stared down at them, equally amazed.

'They're like infants,' one of their escorts marvelled.

'They just never learned,' Adrian responded. Then, addressing Mimmi and Erik, 'Give me just a moment.'

He raised a hand over the room and the water lifted up entirely. The water folded itself up and then vanished. Erik and Mimmi were completely dry now and had regained their legs. They looked at each other, puzzled, and then at the three mermen.

'Come inside,' Adrian said. 'We need to talk.'

Both Erik and Mimmi hesitated at the threshold. Beyond the open door, they could see lush carpets, cream walls and marble pillars. It was like a palace.

Adrian heaved a sigh and turned to face them.

'Look, you have no reason to trust me. I understand that. I was… abrupt.'

Erik let out a bark of laughter. 'Abrupt?! You magicked us into a prison of infinite water!'

Adrian raised an eyebrow, then sighed again.

'I know. It's not all as simple as it seems. I didn't know if I could trust you.'

'And you think you can trust us now?' Mimmi asked derisively.

'I don't know,' Adrian replied. 'But I'm home now, and I can make sure that you at least hear me out and, if you do decide you want to attack me, I'm safely away from a place where you might actually cause me real harm, and I've got some allies on my side.'

Erik and Mimmi exchanged another look. Erik probed Mimmi's face, looking for some sign of what she was thinking at that moment.

'Fine,' Mimmi said. 'But when you're done talking, we want to go home.'

Adrian opened his mouth to speak but instead of saying anything, he huffed. Then, after a moment, he finally conceded.

'I'll… Yes, let's go inside. Please.'

Mimmi and Erik held hands as they walked through the door. Something unthinkable in the last few days perhaps, but now it seemed like they were allies against a common enemy.

As they walked through what turned out to be a corridor, they marvelled. The walls were decorated with richly coloured stained glass and mosaics. The building seemed to be covered in jewels. It was unclear where the light was coming from, but it was as bright as the sun, and this seemed to be the case indoors as well as in the water outside. Adrian, along with the two other mermen, walked over a threshold into another room. There was no door, but it did not seem like any of the rooms, apart from the airlock, had any doors.

Inside were three divans, arranged to face around a low table in the centre. Adrian sat on one, reclining back on the edge, and the other two mermen followed suit, sitting and then leaning back on the second. Mimmi and Erik sat on the edge of the third, looking anxiously.

The room had mostly windows instead of the cream walls, though very few were stained glass. Through the clear glass, they could see the water outside, which to their astonishment was filled with mermen and mermaids, swimming along, some together. They were all clothed to some extent. They mostly wore brightly-coloured vests, though some had sleeves that billowed in the water.

Adrian watched the two admiring the scene open-mouthed.

'Isn't it extraordinary?' he asked, smiling. 'It's been so long. Even I find myself stunned.'

Erik snapped out of his stupor first.

'So, what did you want to say? You've forced us to come here, haven't you?'

'I wanted… I wanted to tell you about what happened. About how I came to be in that terrible place, the reason why I abandoned you… why I did what I did when I got out.'

Mimmi frowned deeply, lines etching into her forehead.

'You attacked us,' she said. 'You threatened us and our friends.'

'I…' Adrian stumbled around for the right words. 'I didn't know if I could trust you. Or them.'

'Just talk,' Erik said. He suddenly felt exhausted. He hadn't actually slept in the prison cell or whatever the water chamber had been and he felt as though it was catching up with him now. Oddly, he did not feel hunger, though he hadn't eaten since before their ill-fated trip to Mako.

'What is this place?' Mimmi asked.

'This,' said Adrian proudly, 'Is Morya. It's one of the city-states below the sea, and my home, as well as yours. It's one of the oldest of the cities,. I was born and brought up here and would never have left, except perhaps to travel to some of the other cities, if I had not been too damned curious for my own good.

'We don't execute criminals here, though it is not unheard of in other cities. But the worst crimes are punished by banishing the convicted to a life on Earth, never to return here. Nobody leaves - nobody would truly want to, we have all we need here and we are very content. But there is a contingent that has appeared in all of the major cities. It started in Vidal, centuries ago. A cult, there's no other word for it.

'They worship their goddess and believe that the females of the race are some kind of superior being. So they started to leave - to head towards the surface and build up their own little tribes there. Of course, once they leave the city, mortality starts to kick in and they find they can't live forever, so they take to kidnapping human children and converting them to bolster their numbers. We learned all this from one who had left with the cult and returned, horrified by what she had seen on the surface.'

'If you're talking about the pods,' Mimmi interrupted hotly, 'You're absolutely wrong! There's no chance that they kidnap humans. They don't even like humans - nobody is allowed on land.'

'You went on land,' Adrian pointed out. 'Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Let me finish. So, the cult continued to operate, despite the reports that came back from some of those who returned. Worse, they began to steal our children to take with them. We found out how they were converting the humans - gathering their magic and using it to create a concentrated area of power that would be ignited by the light of a full moon.

'It was a small minority that left, of course, and for a long time we remained unconcerned. Until the regent's daughter was taken. She was only a child. I was still a child at the time, but even I remember the outcry and horror. Everyone hunted for the girl and some brave souls dared to go to the surface and try to overpower the cult to demand her return. But none of them came back, though they did manage to put something in place that we hoped would help us.'

'The merman chamber,' Erik muttered.

'Is that what you call it?' Adrian said amused. 'Well, how would you know otherwise, after all? Yes, the place where you found me. It served two purposes. It would make for an easy return home - a portal where we could guard the door, and a siphon that would absorb and destroy the magic that powered the cult's machines.'

'It was meant to destroy the moon pool?' Mimmi asked, horrified.

'Oh, it was for all of them,' Adrian replied airily. 'Every last one.'

Before Mimmi could continue, he started speaking again.

'As I grew older, the quest to find the princess and return her home continued, but it had cooled somewhat. By then, it was believed by many in Morya, even if the princess was found, she would be in no fit state to return home. She would have been thoroughly… what is it the humans say… brainwashed? There were half-hearted efforts, but nobody returned to the surface.

'So I decided I would do it. I wanted to find her. I wanted the glory that would come with bringing home the missing princess and the challenge and adventure of going to the surface to fight the monsters that had stolen her away. I was a fool.'

He paused again and sighed deeply. Erik and Mimmi were too shocked by his story to interrupt, but were listening raptly. After a moment, Adrian began again.

'I found her, eventually, the princess. It took years. But first I found another. I loved her very much. Dear Ineda. Your mother,' he said, looking to Erik. 'She was one of their converts - a human girl by birth, converted with their magic. I hadn't yet found Mako and the dome, so I had no way to return her to humanity, though she begged me. It seems she had learned the truth from the elders by accident, and fled from them before they could harm her.

'It wasn't enough. She had you, and then she had to return to the sea. Staying on land was too dangerous. We would have brought you with us, but we knew those hags were hunting her, and we wouldn't have been able to defend ourselves, let alone you. So we made the decision to leave you in the care of Feddin. I regret that so much now. We should have returned here, to Morya. But Ineda was afraid of what would happen to her if she entered our city, being what she was. And I didn't know what would happen to you. I'm sorry.'

Erik didn't say anything. His mouth was wide open and Mimmi had taken his hand and was stroking it soothingly.

'I don't expect you to forgive me. But… I tried. We left you and went in quest of the dome - the merman chamber, as you called it - knowing that it might be used to reverse the curse on Ineda and give us a way to at least be a family on the surface. I could stay on land, as long as I was in the water sometimes, and we would be all together. But it all went wrong. Her tribe found us and while we did what we could to fight them off, there were too many of them. She gave her life trying to save me.'

He looked down at the ground, eyes red and brimming with tears.

'I will never forgive myself for that. But I escaped and was ready to go find you and return home to Morya, princess be damned. Which is when I found her.'

Mimmi looked at him earnestly.

'Nerissa. My mother.'

Adrian shook his head sadly.

'Yes. Princess Nerissa. Turns out she wasn't all that brainwashed after all. She didn't immediately try to kill me at any rate. She had been charged with guarding the dome on Mako and I stumbled on it almost by accident. I told her about Ineda and she comforted me. She was kind and… attentive. I hid for a while, trying to thing what to do about the dome. She didn't know its purpose, at least I don't think she did at the time, but she knew enough that she would never have left me alone with it, though she didn't tell the others in the tribe near Mako that I was there.

'Perhaps it was inevitable, after my heartbreak. But I… we…'

'Understood,' Erik muttered, not wanting to her the details. He knew the outcome, at any rate.

'Yes,' Adrian said. 'The less said the better. I knew she was pregnant, though she didn't understand what that meant. She was frightened - she knew with certainty the council or whatever those hags called themselves would have her head. So I took a risk - I told her why I was really there, that I was going to destroy their power and take her home. She was furious at first, but then I thought she came around to my way of thinking. I dared to hope. Maybe we'd be a family after all. I was ready to go after you, Erik, the night she duped me.

'As I say, I was a fool. I was heartsick and desperate. I thought I could trust her. She brought me into the dome and I saw it for the first time. She asked me whether anybody could use it - female or male. Well, I told her the truth. Anybody could, but they had to be true members of our race. None of the converts could have used it without harm to themselves. And she… she went to the panel and… well, that was the last face I saw before I saw you two dens ago. It's why I panicked when I saw you and the other girls. I thought you'd gang up on me, send me back. I couldn't survive another… however long I was in there.'

'Dens?' Erik queried.

'It means… I suppose the equivalent of what you know as a week. A unit of time.'

'We've been here two weeks?!' Erik exclaimed, suddenly jumping up hotly. The story had made his blood boil and his heart break, but the thought that he and Mimmi had been missing, with no explanation to Ondina and the others, for two weeks, was suddenly too much. He was about to start demanding that they return to Mako and find the others, when Mimmi spoke. Her voice was quiet and tear-filled.

'Where is she? Where is my mother now? What happened to her?'

Adrian looked at her sympathetically.

'Would you like to go see her?'

A/N: Please review if you're enjoying it! I know, I know… still out of left field. And perhaps too much exposition. But it's so fun coming up with this stuff!