Chapter 8
(Plot 7)Calufray entered the sheriff’s quarters, well hidden by the tarp and the clothes lent to him by the astronomer on the mountain. The room was full of cheerful laughter, as if the last twenty minutes hadn’t happened. Calufray overheard Nizhoni’s voice:
“Can you believe it? She’s always been that hot-tempered. If she ever ran out of fuel for her oven, she could bake bread just by breathing on it!” Several belly laughs cascaded across the room. “It’s too bad her husband was taken by the fire…” The conversation in Nizhoni’s corner died down to a low murmur. Calufray bent a keen ear that direction. Nizhoni’s voice broke the silence: “If she’d tossed him in the firepit, she’d at least have a loaf or two to show for it!” Nizhoni cackled alone, but no other laughs joined in. “Come on, men, it’s all for a la—whoof!”
Calufray’s fist had slammed into Nizhoni’s gut. Immediately, the contents of the siren’s stomach emptied out of his mouth and he doubled over, supporting himself with the webbed hand that still gripped his tankard. The room, already quiet, fell more silent still. Several officers began to edge toward the door.
“You don’t speak that way about the dead,” Calufray said slowly, letting the tarp slide from his back. “You don’t speak about anyone lost in that fire.” His hand went to the Pitcher at his waist. “You’ve done nothing but take advantage of Cadfelham since you took over, and it stops tonight. Get up!” And with a single hand, Calufray pulled Nizhoni’s retching body from the floor by one arm and hauled him outside.
Nizhoni seemed to be brought around by the hamlet’s afternoon drizzle. “Calufray,” he said spitefully, spitting the taste of sick from his mouth. He yanked away from Calufray, but failed in pulling free. “It took you long enough to get back. The way you ran away the last time I saw you, I was sure you’d just save your own hide and we’d never see you again.”
Calufray winced at the smell of him. “You’re vile, Nizhoni.” And he tossed him to the ground. Lunging as if to land another blow across his face.
“Wait, stop!” Nizhoni pleaded, cringing into a ball.
Calufray just sneered. “You’re not worth it. Nothing I do will compare with what you have coming.”
Officers began to shamble out of the sheriff’s quarters, shoved aside by Master Folger on his way out.
“This is treason!” the swan-folk whooped. “Nizhoni is your baron, cur!” A feathered hand swiped out for Calufray’s face. “Learn some resp—”
Calufray caught the master’s wing and threw him to the ground on top of the siren. “You haven’t earned my respect,” he said. Tonya now entered the square with a growing crowd of hamlet-folk behind her. “I respect the people of Cadfelham.”
“I bought Cadfelham,” Nizhoni hissed, climbing to his webbed feet. “I redeemed it with skill and scale. You think I floated around in the bay while everyone else broke their backs? If you had been here, Calufray, you would have seen me framing windows and laying planks right beside them. But you don’t really care for them, do you? You weren’t here when they needed every pair of hands they could get. I was.”
“You’ve rebuilt these homes, yes,” Calufray conceded, “but only so you could profit from them. You drink yourself into a stupor and celebrate your conquest of law. Or have you told the people that you’ve positioned yourself to become baron of the island?”
The folk murmured with mounting discontent. “I heard it myself,” said Tonya. “Calufray speaks the truth.”
“They work hard so their families can eat,” Calufray continued. “You work so you can live off the fat of the land. And you were willing to do anything to get it.” Calufray displayed the Pitcher. “Including trading away stolen goods to seal the deal with Tin Obeliskdale. This pitcher belonged to my mother, and when Nizhoni took it, it belonged to me.”
Master Folger’s attention was drawn in by this claim. “Is this true, Nizhoni? You know offering stolen goods voids the contract.”
“We saw you take it from him, Nizhoni,” said Tonya, stepping forward. “You can’t lie your way out of this.” The folk nodded their assent. “We all saw you!” said one. “You’re a thief!” said another.
Nizhoni was nonplussed. “You were there the day I found that on the beach, Master Folger.” Nizhoni rebutted. “It was nothing more than jetsam washed to the shore. A trifle.” He stared Calufray in the eyes. “I told you this one doesn’t speak for Cadfelham. He’s only trying to hide his own crimes...”
Calufray licked his lips.
Nizhoni’s eyes narrowed—he knew Calufray was in the palm of his hand. “Or haven’t you told the people why you really left the hamlet? Convenient that you were nowhere near the fire that took so many innocent lives. You went missing the night it happened, didn’t you? Convenient that neither you nor your father were harmed—that you were both absent while your empty house smoldered. No harm to you, and yet these people had to suffer. And for wha—?”
Calufray’s fist slammed into Nizhoni’s jaw. The siren collapsed to the ground, sliding several feet across the mud. He lay still.
“I said you don’t get to speak about the dead,” Calufray huffed. Several hamlet-folk began shuffling backward, away from the scene.
“Is it true?” said one of the folk. “Were you the one that burned our homes to the ground?” demanded another. An angry uproar spread across the crowd.
“It’s true!” Tonya shouted, turning on the crowd. “He set fire to our homes! It was all Calufray’s doing!”
Calufray stood dumbstruck. “Tonya…”
The halfling woman didn’t look behind her, but gently extended a hand to one side, silently asking for his trust.
And so the baker’s wife told her story, explaining everything she saw those months ago by Cadfel Cove. She had been harvesting salt from the rocks when she noticed Calufray at the fairy circle, pleading for the heart of a merrow woman. She witnessed his misfortune as that very woman betrayed him, taking his father captive and making an impossible demand of him in exchange for his ailing father’s life. She watched as Calufray made the heart-wrenching choice to set the hamlet on fire, starting with his own home. She told the people everything she knew, and when her tale was done, she said:
“Do with him as you will, but think on those you have lost. Would you not do anything to defend them? Would you not set the world on fire, or drown it in water if it meant saving your son, your daughter, your wife...your husband?” And with these words tears welled in her eyes, joining the streams of drizzle that already wet her face.
“Yes, I would.”
The voice was low and husky, bodiless and booming as if from the depths of some underwater cavern, and yet it came from all around them. Slowly, the drizzling rain ceased, and suddenly a growing puddle gathered on the ground. From the puddle swirled a column of water, spiraling in an inverted whirlpool up to the height of a man, then a house, then seemingly as high as the mountain itself. All at once, the whirlpool lost its form and burst apart, outlining the enormous shape of a woman’s face with long hair. Her eyes were kind, yet fierce, with the look of a feral sea lion. She spoke again:
“I am Natsiq, queen of Aviqming,” said the low, husky voice, though the water-woman’s mouth did not move. “I have watched you, Calufray, since your mother passed into my realm. When she did, I gave her the task of finding a protector for my daughter, Ila, who was forcefully bound to a clay pitcher against her will. Many used her for their own gains, bending her power to their whims. Her curse could only be broken by one true and fierce of heart.
“Your mother’s faith in you was well-placed, Calufray, and you have shown yourself a valiant protector—strong as the moon, and unyielding as the waves. You were willing to do anything to save your father, and when you committed wrongs, you strove to right them. Even she of this hamlet who lost her mate by the hand of your devotion advocates for you. I can ask for no more worthy a man for my daughter to care for her. Come forth, daughter, and speak your will.”
And all at once the Pitcher fell from Calufray’s hand and supported itself on a column of water that flowed from the mouth. The column grew into the shape of a woman, her hands reaching up to remove the Pitcher from her neck, the bulb of a head followed by long flowing tresses, like the freshwater falls of Obeliskdale.
Her whole body was made of shimmering blue water, translucent and beautiful, Calufray thought. Her physique—though liquid—appeared strong, and across her chest undulated the outlined image of a glossy, long white mayfly. From her wrists and around her legs waved dark, blackened water in the shape of a skirt and sleeves, this corrupt garb indicative of her cursed imprisonment.
“I am Ila, an undine, princess of Aviqming.” Despite the gravity with which she appeared, Calufray noticed, her voice was a high, jovial staccato. “By your faithfulness, Calufray of the Sisseton, you have proven yourself worthy to free me from my earthen prison. Will you not now take me as your wife and protect me from those who would misuse me for their own gain?”
Calufray was instantly enchanted by this creature, knowing nothing but love for her from the moment he heard the sincerity of her plea. “I will, if you will have me.”
Ila smiled and laughed, sending pangs of longing through Calufray’s chest. He realized now more than he ever how much he craved someone to give his love to. Here, before him, was she who offered herself freely. Ila nodded happily, her watery hair bobbing and flowing around her face in such a way that Calufray’s heart skipped a beat.
He embraced her, and he found her as real as any woman, though her form was only water. As he held her, the darkness dissipated from her gown, leaving her only made of bright, vibrant sea blue.
“This sea is mine,” said the low, husky voice of Queen Natsiq. “I forgive this man of any harm he has caused in the name of loyalty to those he loves. Hereafter he is a champion of my realm, and all will accept him as heir to my throne. Such is my will as queen of Aviqming.” And the enormous face dissolved into the drizzle so familiar to the folk of Cadfelham.
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