From that day forward, there was not a single thought for my son. There was an echo of something protective that sputtered weakly once, and it was for a pair of eels who had had their tails tied together. I drove off the merchildren tormenting them, and I didn't even know why. From that day on, Flotsam and Jetsam were my only companions. I gave them protection and food, and they gave me a set of eyes with which to spy on the world.
Through them, I learned of the merfolks' weaknesses. Not their collective weakness, but their individual failings, downfalls, and longings. And I knew my plan of attack.
I found, just on the borders of Atlantis, the carcass of some ancient, land-dwelling creature that had found its end on the ocean floor. Here I began amassing a collection of necessities. Herbs, books, and spells I had learned the hard way painstakingly copied down on scraps of hide. Wherever I could, I stole information. I hoarded every last drop of useless data, picking through them to find base roots of spells buried deep in the merfolk's everyday conversation. I was disgusted. This was a people saturated in magic, yet they no longer remembered how to use it themselves. If they turned their wills just a bit, they could move whole reefs with their words. But they had forgotten, and they carelessly mouthed words that could rend the ocean floor had they only known it.
My most valuable discovery, though, was in experimentation with the hands. I found that I could delay the collection of the price of magic for up to three days. After that, collection was swift and merciless. This I learned at the cost of my memories of my family. One moment they were there, and the next there were holes in my memory. I didn't even know what it was I was missing, just that there was an ache whenever I tried to recall what it was.
By sending out Flotsam and Jetsam, I learned to lure the merfolk with promises of acquiring what they desired. Most were a blur to me, faces and fins and desperate measures demanded, but the first two I remember with excruciating clarity.
The first was little more than a fishbone of a merman, barely more than a slip of skin swimming forlornly into my lair. There was a mermaid, he said haltingly, eyes darting around the dimly lit corners of the leviathan's carcass with fear, whom he loved. He wanted to woo her, to tell her how much he adored her, but she would surely never look at him, not like this. Please, he pleaded, wringing his hands, do something.
I laughed to myself. Flotsam had already visited his beloved's home and relayed to me that she loved him as well, and also thought he would never look at her. This situation was perfect. For me.
I produced for him a magical contract that allowed him three days, after which he must either produce the payment of a fresh shark's liver, or be mine forever. He barely listened, so eager was he for my services. The fool signed the contract, not even thinking about the dangers of lone shark hunting. I gave him the body of a god, and sent him on his way.
Not two hours later, his beloved came to me. She lived well, in a wealthy house, and it showed. Her form curved and billowed nearly as much as mine did. I admired her for a moment, until she opened her mouth. Then it was all I could do not to fly into a rage. She wasn't pretty, she wanted to be thin, she wanted to be little again. Did she not know what she had? Was she not grateful for the chance to have so much protection against hunger hanging around her? I seethed under my smile, I could hardly wait for three days to pass for this one.
The price I required of her was her very first toy. She laughed and signed away her life, as if she could even remember what her very first toy was. I stripped away her flesh and left her a skinny shriveling, but she crowed and said it was the most marvelous change she had ever felt. She swam out, eager to find her man.
I counted the hours as the days passed, and when they did, I sent my hands to drag the lovers to my home.
"Where is my shark's liver?" I asked the merman. He didn't have it, he quailed. How was he supposed to get one? Did I really expect he could pay such a ridiculous price? I grinned, turning to the mermaid. "Where is your first toy?" She began begging right away, claiming she had searched every corner of her house, but couldn't find it. Perhaps merely her favorite childhood toy would suffice?
The hands turned to me, awaiting my order for what to take as their price.
"Strip them," I crooned in delight, "Strip them of their beauty. Their tails. Their voices. Their very form. Root them to the throat of this beast, let them watch others come in, and be unable to warn them."
The hands became a whirlwind, winding around the helpless merfolk and transforming them into polyps. They turned their woeful, ugly faces to me, and opened their maws in soulful wails, but I merely threw back my head and laughed. They were only the first.
Year after year I reeled them in, promising wealth, beauty, love. They came, sometimes by the droves, sometimes one by one. Every now and then, one could pay the price, and I released them. I did not need them all, just most of them.
Do not think, during all this time, I did not have my eyes on the palace. I watched as Triton found his own love, and had with her many daughters. I burned as I watched, seeing him rest his favor on the youngest. What right did she have to his favor? It shouldn't have been her to have his favor! Who should have had it was a vague feeling that flitted away when I turned to it, but it didn't matter. She was undeserving, and he would pay for what he had done to me.
I enjoyed his brief sorrow when his wife died, but after that, he took solace in his many daughters. I watched the youngest carefully, Ariel she was called. Triton was the most careful, the most cautious with her, and as a result, she strained against his rules and regulations. She developed a strange obsession with the surface, and visited often. I kept Flotsam and Jetsam watching her, waiting for an opportunity, and one finally came.
The child fell in love with a human. I could not have asked for a better chance. When her father found out, he flew into a rage. Merfolk could not mate outside their kind, of course, but he did not explain this. Perhaps, I thought with a tinge of bitterness, it touched too close to home. He only thundered, "He's a human! You're a mermaid!" And destroyed her safe place.
It was there, in the wreckage of that safe place, in the aftermath of tears, that my faithful servants dangled in front of her the promise of help. My help.
And so she came.
I made, for her, a great exception. I did not set a price for her. Oh I asked for her voice, but that was in case she proved too close to reaching her goal. For her, I made a bet. If she was able to seal her love with a kiss, she would become human forever. If not, she would be mine. This, I knew, would be dangerous. If she won this gamble, it would be me paying the price. But it was worth it. I could almost feel the trident in my hands.
Watching the wench from the sea when she was on land was more difficult, but I managed. I watched as she ensnared the prince, slowly, seductively with those innocent eyes and those mournful expressions. It was revolting. When I couldn't stand to watch her any longer, I turned toward Triton. I spent hours reveling in his misery, his regret at how he had handled the situation. He sent his subjects far and wide, searching everywhere for her. I laughed. They would never find her, not in any of the seven seas. Not until it was too late.
I turned back to the child to find she had help. Her friends, the crab and the fish, were setting a romantic mood for a boat ride. I knew I was in trouble when the human began glancing uneasily at her, asking her name. I sent Flotsam and Jetsam as fast as I could, and they barely averted a catastrophe. Just as the pair were about to seal my doom with a kiss, my servants overturned their boat.
Rage coursed through my veins. How dare she even get that close? That close to wrecking all these years of work, all my watching and waiting? No. It would not end this way. I swam around my lair, hurling things into my cauldron and calling forth from the darkness within me the most alluring human image I could conceive of. "Triton's daughter will be mine. Then I'll make him writhe. I'll see him wriggle like a worm on a hook!" I crowed, as my body transformed. To the hands, I willingly gave my memories of being a skinny, starving stripling, any memory before living in the palace.
My first few steps on land were as unsteady as hers had been. I could have made it easier with magic, but I had already indebted myself enough. I spent the time necessary to walk upright, and by then it was nightfall of the second day. With her voice at my command, I walked the beach and sang her song, laced with a spell. I did not see the prince, but I did not need to. I could feel the webbing of the spell wrapping around his soul, binding it to the bearer of the voice for all eternity. To keep the hands at bay, I relinquished my memories of Triton's parents, and their treatment of me.
The human found me. He came to me, drawn by a longing he could not explain. He asked, what was my name?
"Vanessa." My eyes widened and I fell to my knees. Vanessa. I had all but forgotten. Triton had named me Ursula, had never asked my name, and I had never volunteered it. Ursula day in, day out, it was who I had become. Why did it come to me now? It did not matter. It was what had come out, and I would use it. "My name is Vanessa."
The next day, he began wedding preparations. He planned them in front of her, and I watched with satisfaction as her heart cracked and shattered into little pieces.
Safely aboard the wedding vessel, I could not help myself. Her voice was mine, this form—though lacking in the security of flesh I was used to—was alluring and powerful in its own way. I lowered my defenses and sang.
I had never had a beautiful voice before, and I reveled in it. Perhaps, I thought, I would keep it for myself when I returned, and torment Triton with it. I gazed at myself in the mirror laughing. There I was, the reflection revealed the truth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a seagull burst into flight away from the window, but thought nothing of it.
Not until the denizens of both the sky and sea disrupted the wedding did I think of the seagull that had departed from my window. Of course. I had been foolish, overconfident to forget how many allies the wench had made. The seagull attacked with ferocity the necklace in which I had stored her voice, yanking it from my neck where it shattered… at her feet.
When had she come on board? She called out to him, and the very spell with which I had ensnared him drew him from my side to hers, now the bearer of the voice. I called out to him, but my own rough voice repulsed me. They embraced, and I saw my doom approaching as they leaned toward each other.
The gods must have smiled on me for a moment, because the sun slipped below the horizon at just that moment, leaving her a helpless, stranded mermaid. I shed my seductive form and exploded out of the dress in a mass of flailing tentacles and purple flesh. I seized Ariel and dove overboard, back into the sea. My victory was nearly complete.
The girl whimpered in fear, and I scoffed at her. "Poor little princess, it's not you I'm after. I've a much bigger fish to—"
And then I heard it. Not through the conveyance of my servants' senses, but with my own ears. That voice I had not heard in decades, bellowing, "Ursula, stop!"
There it was, glowing with power in his hands. I couldn't help tracing a finger along it as I breathed, "King Triton. How are you?" I chuckled mockingly, and grinned as he winced.
"Let her go!" He blustered, digging the tip into my stomach.
I knocked it away, growling, "Not a chance, Triton, she's mine. We made a deal!" I lifted the contract as the brat began mewling, begging her father to forgive her. In his rage, he sent a surge of power through the trident at the contract. I was hurled against a nearby cave wall, but not even the pain could surpass my satisfaction at the dismay on his face when the contract didn't dissolve.
"The contract is legal!" I gloated. "Binding and completely unbreakable, even for you." I sauntered up to him. "Of course, I always was a girl with an eye for a bargain." My freedom for protection, food, shelter. My dignity for your plaything. "The daughter of the great sea-king is a very precious commodity." The contract whirled around Ariel, beginning to strip from her her form. "But I might be willing to make an exchange for someone even better."
I had won. I could see it on his face as he watched his daughter's beauty destroyed, her chances of freedom dwindling. He would do anything, anything at all.
"Do we have a deal?" I crooned, and was rewarded by his signature on my contract.
In a flash, Ariel had been restored, and the son of Neptune reduced to a polyp on the sea floor. Around him lay his crown, and beside him…
Wrapping a tentacle around what I had dreamed of and fought for for decades was the sweetest moment I could remember at the time. Because the sea-king had forfeited his freedom to me, he had also forfeited his power to hold the trident to me. I could touch it, and not be harmed by its power as before.
Hands clawed at me. The brat was enraged that I had used her. I hurled her down, ready to dispose of her, when a harpoon grazed my arm. Her lover had come for her. Well, I could fix that. Flotsam and Jetsam bound him, dragging him before me. "Say goodbye to your sweetheart," I cackled, as I pointed the trident at him. Again, she clawed at me, spoiling my aim. The beam of power shot past the human and struck the eels, disintegrating them.
For just a moment, a scream of loss ripped through my soul, an echo of having lost something else. But it was only a moment, and in the next, fury rolled through me. I called on the magic again, and the hands fed me power. Pure, raw power. I did not even realize they were taking my sanity from me, but it was harder and harder to put together coherent thoughts. Impulse was all I could feel, and I grew. I became a giant, a god. I waved the trident, and the skies tore open with lightening. On my whim, waves formed and crashed. It was mine, all mine, I thought. Nothing else mattered but the feel of the trident in my hands and the power to crush. Maim. Destroy.
I tore them apart, flinging the useless human aside, and creating for the mermaid a whirlpool prison. I looked down on her, and the rage burned hotter. Who was she, to take Tirton's favor? Who was she to steal it for herself? It should never have been hers! And to think, she had almost had a taste of the happiness I had never been allowed. Raising the trident over her, I shouted, "So much for true love!"
Then it came. The human had managed to board a wreck that had surfaced in the storm, and driven it toward me. Its spar had sheared off in a ragged, splintered spear that stabbed straight through me.
In these last moments, I feel the hands pass through my mind, restoring me to myself too late. My sanity, memories of my mother, my sister, my son, and my love for my son. It is cruelty, I realize, for they are born of my own need to take. The hands, by giving all this back to me, have taken their greatest price. My happiness. All that is left is a brief span of misery. My groan shakes the very sky as my tentacles writhe in pain, clamping onto the source of my destruction to tear it apart. As I sink beneath the waves, I see the young human diving over the side, and I gnash my teeth. Even revenge is denied me. She will see her human live, and by magic may even continue loving him.
My heart shudders to a halt, and I feel myself slipping from my body. With a last wrench of my will, I turn my thoughts from the wench. I do not want my final thoughts to rest on her… but on the son I once deemed more precious to me than my own security.
My spirit cries out as my body dissolves into silt, find my son. Find my son, care for him, love him. Give him what I sold my body and soul piecemeal for, and failed to attain. Talen's happiness.
Somewhere in the sea, a child's cries are attended by a doll with black, shining button eyes and a red nose. In some forgotten cave, patrolled by sharks and barracuda, a half-breed learns his first words, and plays with shells and toys that live. Somewhere in the vast stretches of wasteland, the firstborn son of the great sea-king, Triton, and the witch Ursula, sleeps on a bed of sponges, and dreams of soft, warm tentacles that hold him close and keep him safe.
THE END.