The first thing you hear is the plinking of bone against bone in quick rhythmic trills. The first thing you see is a curious-looking siren virtually wrapped from her long neck to her lengthy curling tail in informal vestments of seaweed and sponge. Whereas most merfolk you've seen—especially the females—have voluminous tresses of sea-green hair, this one is entirely bald, revealing prominent cranial fins. The plinking is coming from a marimba of sorts, crafted from the ribcage of what must have been a massive fish.
The plinking stops as the siren becomes aware of your presence. She quickly sets down a pair of fishbone mallets, tugging at her coverings to be sure no part of her below the neck or above the wrists is exposed. She turns (really just rolling over to lean on her other flank) to see who has arrived.
"How many have you brought?" she drawls in a high, shrill voice. She extends one webbed hand, clutching her clothes tighter to her body with the other. "The lamps! Give them to me—I must have all of them!" And only now do you notice: in the corner of the grotto sits a massive pile of discarded lamps of every variety—old and new, metal and clay, pristine and shattered beyond repair.
Winona is the firstborn daughter of a miner from the village of Kaneonuskatewstead, where her mother worked to exhume the bones of mighty sea creatures from the ocean floor. She took Winona with her on every dig she could, teaching her how to remove the skeleton and preserve it without breaking.
The first skeleton Winona ever extracted all on her own was that of a small whale, the meal of a much larger sea serpent. From it, she crafted her signature instrument, a marimba. Along with a pair of fishbone mallets, she taught herself to play, earning some renown among the villagers. As her popularity grew, she played for more and more of her village until, at the request of the chief, she set up her marimba in an underwater grotto. It was there, where the acoustics added a haunting tone to her music, that she was fated to leave her marimba forever after.
The sound filled the chamber, and rose up, up, out of a natural chimney in the rock, to be heard by a ship captain and his mates who had made anchor at the place the night before. The captain was enchanted by the music, and he vowed he would find the source. By happenstance, he had traded a mage some seafaring supplies for a magical lamp, which he was eager to try for the first time. So, lacking the necessary gear to get to the bottom of the chimney—and the source of the music—the captain elected to try the lamp.
Calling the name of the entity within, the captain tilted the lamp as if to pour out the oil it would have contained. But instead of oil, a sinuous snake of water emerged, and gathered and gathered until it formed itself into a comely woman; a marid, for so are the elemental water-geniuses called. The captain commanded the marid to find out what the source of the music was, and away she slithered, down the chimney.
About that time—the performance had long since finished, the chief and the rest of the audience had gone home—Winona was practicing a new song she had composed, and down the wall of the grotto came this sinuous snake of water which formed itself into a comely woman. The marid listened a moment, enchanted by the music herself. Only when the song was finished did she compliment Winona on her skill. Startled, Winona clutched her clothes, as if to cover up what she had been doing while being watched unawares.
The marid quickly raised a reassuring hand, apologizing for not announcing herself, and explained why she was there. Now that her task was done, the marid added, she would quickly be summoned back into the lamp that was her prison.
You see, it is the usual method of mages to invite an elemental genius into the mortal world to interview it, and benefit from its knowledge. The Wizard's Creed, which governs such things, dictates that such an interview be limited to three questions, after which time the mage is obligated to release the elemental genius back to their homeland. The mage who had summoned this marid had only asked two questions, and never had the chance to ask a third, as she was being pursued by those who would do her harm. For this reason had she traded the powerful lamp to the ship captain for the means to escape her pursuers. This, however, left the marid bound to the lamp, and the mortal world, until the mage could be found and the final question asked.
All of this the marid explained to Winona as quickly as she could, adding that if Winona could find some way to release her, the marid would love nothing more than to remain with her and listen to her music for the rest of time. And then, in a moment, the marid's form dissolved into a sinuous snake and slithered back up the chimney.
Wide eyed, her mind beset with the matters of the wide world so forcefully in so little time, and deeply honored at the compliment the marid had paid her, Winona vowed with the sea as her witness that she would do all she could to find the lamp and release the marid.
And that is why, when sailors pass that spot in the open sea, they are likely to hear the haunting music of a marimba coming from a certain natural chimney. And one of those very sailors will turn to his less-experienced fellows, wordlessly pull a lamp from his bag, and throw it overboard into that chimney. The music will stop for a moment, as it always does. But moments later, without fail, the haunting sounds return.
"For Winona," the sailors will mutter to themselves, though none of them know why. And onward they sail.
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