The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy Read online

  She stirred the water around him with her glowing fingers, causing the bubble to flutter and wobble. Instantly the pain of the pressure dropped away.

  “Thank you, Merantia…”

  “You are a surface creature. Such a good and clever helper to bring your own air…”

  She poked at the bubble. It wavered and rippled.

  “Tell me. The air is a long way away. How did you bring it so far?”

  “It isn’t far… Just beyond the tunnel…”

  The glow of her eyes became more piercing.

  “I see… so that is how they hoped to keep them captive…”

  Rustle squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember what had brought him here.

  “My… My friend Eddy. I need to help him.”

  “Oh, my dear little helper. You needn’t worry about your friend. Wouldn’t you rather help your dear Merantia?”

  She ran her hand around the edge of the bubble. He could feel little sparks of power filter through to him.

  “… I would do anything to help you, Merantia.”

  “Just as a little helper should.” Her glowing lips curved into a smile. “And why do you want to help me?”

  “Because you are power and beauty. Because you are wisdom and grace…”

  The words barely seemed to be his own. With each passing moment Rustle felt his own thoughts floundering beneath a sea of devotion.

  “What would you have me do, dear Merantia…”

  “You have spoken to Stuartia. I can feel her influence upon you…”

  “We did, dear and wonderful Merantia…”

  “And I imagine she sent you here to destroy me.”

  “I would never dream of hurting you. You who are as sweet as the wind that carries the scent of honeysuckle…”

  “Wind? Honeysuckle?” She seemed displeased. “Oh, cruel fate to send me a know-nothing creature of the surface as my first follower in death… You don’t know how to worship me properly. No matter. I have made more from less. Have you encountered the Thieves?”

  “I don’t know. I have encountered Stuartia, and I have encountered a thing with a face like the head of a round eel with no mouth attached to the back half of a tuna with a skirt made of legs.”

  “… I believe my helper may be broken… Listen, helper. Here is what I wish you to do. First, you must find where they have hidden the thieves and release them. Then you must find a way to get rid of all that nasty air that you say is so near. Then you must banish Stuartia.”

  “The water in the cave is already rising, oh magnificent and majestic Merantia.”

  “Splendid work! Then you have just two tasks remaining.”

  “How shall I perform the other tasks?”

  She sneered. “I don’t know… If they have been able to lock me away, and Stuartia as well, then they have used enchantments unknown to us.”

  Merantia reached out and ran her fingers along the edge of the prison. A red gleam followed her finger as she tested the edge of the barrier.

  “This feels like it has holy magic. The work of both Tria and Tren.” Her smile widened. “Ah, yes… I remember now… Surely Stuartia spoke of this.”

  “Please tell me in your own words, my beauteous and merciful Merantia…”

  He had been drifting steadily closer, his eyes locked upon hers and unblinking. Now he was nearly face to face with her. His expression was that of someone hoping for the chance to steal a kiss.

  “Ugh. Back,” she said.

  A motion of her hand thrust him away, bouncing him and his bubble off the far wall like a flicked insect.

  “As even the simplest mind should understand, the gods are forbidden from clashing with one another. They are simply too powerful. The world would not survive.” She smiled broadly. “It seems when Stuartia and I tested our skills against one another, we approached the same level of destruction, at least in the eyes of the other gods. We are, thus, very nearly gods ourselves. Not that, of course, I was not already fully aware of my might.”

  “You are a goddess to me, Merantia.”

  “And you are delightfully susceptible to my mystic wiles, little helper. But please, I am speaking. The same rules that prevent the gods from clashing with one another prevent them from imposing their will entirely upon the mortals below. There must always be a way for us to undo their workings. Anything less would be to rob us of our will, and then what purpose would we have to exist? More to the point, what purpose would they have to create us?”

  “Tell me, oh brilliant goddess Merantia.”

  She looked sharply at him. “There wouldn’t be a reason. The question was rhetorical. All you need to know is that everything the gods have inflicted upon us must be reversible by us. Us, in this case, indicates the merfolk, though I will include strange, simple-minded surface creatures as well. And most importantly of all, they will have left the knowledge of how to undo their work. You shall search until you find the proper incantations. They will be inscribed in tablets or upon the walls themselves, in places of great importance.”

  “But I cannot read, dear Merantia.”

  She glared at him.

  “… I would be hard-pressed to find a more useless pawn to serve me. Try to clear your mind. It seems that is a task to which you are very well suited.” She shut her eyes. “Listen, listen. Hear and know. The language of the sea…”

  Rustle felt his thoughts stir. Symbols and shapes flooded into his mind. They came in pairs, first a symbol, then a thought. They layered atop each other, flashing with dizzying speed. Some twist of magic or flex of will kept the images from slipping away. In the space of a minute, the entirety of Merantia’s knowledge of her written language found its way into his mind. His head ached terribly when she was through.

  “Now go. Search. Find a way to free me, destroy Stuartia, and unleash my precious beast. And do not return until you have succeeded.”

  He buzzed rigidly before her and all but saluted, filled with the bone-deep need to satisfy her orders. He ushered his bubble back to the gate, squeezed through and began to navigate through the tunnel. As his distance from her grew, the edges of her influence frayed. It was slight, but enough for him to realize a few key things.

  “Wait…” he said. “I went to her to try to get her to fix me, so I could find Eddy. She fixed the pain from being so deep, but I still have the water for air problem.”

  He turned, preparing to go back and request to receive that blessing as well, but he hadn’t drifted more than a few inches when he was stricken with doubt.

  “Oh… but if I go back to her so soon, she will be disappointed. I cannot disappoint my dear and wonderful Merantia. She who is like the sun in the sky!”

  He reached out and dabbed his finger at the water held at bay by his magic.

  “I suppose this is working well enough… I just need to be mindful. That is all. I need to refresh it at every opportunity. You can do this, Rustle. This is your time. This is your time!”

  He buzzed off down the tunnel, infused with the sort of confidence and dedication that only an enchantress can inspire.

  Chapter 11

  Eddy flicked his tail a bit and gazed at the cooling walls around him. This adventure had taken a rather tedious turn. Things had been going so well. Hidden caverns, mysterious spirits, dangerous collapses, living machines. Now he’d been reduced to slowly following said machine as it bored through stone. He couldn’t even watch it happen up close, because a combination of the lashing mechanical pincers and the intense heat convinced even him that staying back and waiting for the walls to cool was the best option.

  Alas, with the thrill of discovery replaced by the monotony of listening to a machine grind through volcanic rock, the nagging pain of his accumulated injuries was beginning to weigh down his normally upbeat demeanor.

  “Borgle!” he called to the machine. “Is there maybe a way you can tell me where it is we are going?”

  The machine continued to grind onward.

 
“He cannot hear me…” Eddy muttered. “I miss Rustle. Such an interesting fellow. Even if he could barely understand me. Though I’m sure at this point he’d be fretting over the beating I’ve taken so far.”

  He touched the sore bit of his tail and winced.

  “I am going to need some time to rest and something to eat if I’m going to keep exploring… Strange that our adventure would have a part like this. Separated in an unknown place is exciting, I suppose. That would be well at home in one of the great epics. But floating along, heading nowhere, and doing it slowly, all while nursing an achy tail? What proper adventure has that?”

  Eddy tapped his pick against the wall, testing its glassy surface. The pick was the only piece of his equipment he still had, so he tried is best to occupy himself.

  “Wait… Of course they wouldn’t write about this part. If it is boring for me, it is boring for the people who would be reading or listening! This is just the part between chapters, surely.” He grinned. “This is the part where one of the heroes is suffering an unknown fate, and we all think he is dead. But really he is getting in place to save the day just when the other hero thinks all is lost! Now that is a proper part of a story. I should take advantage of this, then! I’ll plan what to do next and try to heal up a bit. The last thing I want is to be hurt so bad I can’t play my part when my big heroic moment comes.”

  Ahead and below, the crackle and grind of stone took on a distinctive sharpness. A moment later, a calamitous scrabble replaced the regular grinding and Borgle dropped from view. Eddy scarcely had the chance to question what had happened when a strong current drew him forward. Were he healthy, he could have easily outpaced it. Had the walls not been so smooth, he could have jabbed the pick into a crevice to brace himself. In a glassy tunnel, weak with hunger, and injured, Eddy could do nothing but slow himself as he was drawn toward a ruptured bit of tunnel.

  “Stay away from it…” Eddy urged himself. “The closer to the hole, the stronger the current. No current stays strong forever…”

  He flapped his tail, enduring the jolts of pain, but he was already past the point of no return. Once again, he curled himself into a ball, wrapped around his pick, and hoped the rupture at least lead somewhere without too many jagged edges.

  As he launched through the hole, that wish was granted. There was certainly no jagged stone. But he took little relief in the fact, as there was nothing to replace it either. He was plummeting through the air, the column of water turning to a sprinkling waterfall as he dropped. Eddy had lived his life beneath the sea. Until this adventure, he’d never been completely outside of the water, and he’d certainly never fallen. Now, the rare feeling of panic seized his brain for the second time as he helplessly dropped like a stone.

  He landed with a wet slap. His body struck a pool deep enough to spare him any broken bones from the landing, but not so deep as to be painless. A blow to the head dizzied him enough to make him briefly forget that his gasping, breathless wheeze was thanks to the fact his head wasn’t underwater. He rolled over and stuck his face into the shallow pool, drawing a precious breath of water. When he felt clearheaded enough to utter the words confidently, he recited the air-for-water spell, blinked his eyes open, and tried to work out what had happened. The sight that revealed itself to him offered few answers.

  “Wow…” he murmured.

  It was bright as a moonlit night in this new cavern, which for Eddy may as well have been a cloudless noon. The glow was warm and yellow, seeming to come from yellow stalks that rose up from the rough stone all around. The stalks were perhaps two feet tall and stood or hung in scattered tufts on the floor and walls of the cave. They traced out a massive cavern, sprawling as far as the eye could see. His brief search turned up no other water, save for the little pool that held him. The ceiling was another thing entirely. It was visible far above him as a dull glow, a bit more orange than the brighter fronds. It looked at this distance to have a spongy texture. He sniffed. It was always somewhat difficult to process what his nose told him when under the influence of the air-for-water spell, but even if it had been in perfect working order he would have been hard pressed to put his finger on the scent. It was fruity and sickly sweet, like sugared melon, two things he’d never encountered.

  Wide, smooth paths wove in a serpentine fashion along the floor. They were too meandering to be intended to be footpaths, but they were also far too regular to have been the result of simple erosion. The air echoed with the constant splash of the water showering down from above and the irregular, pathetic clank of metal. He turned to the source.

  “Borgle!” he yelped.

  The bizarre mechanism had landed nearby. It had survived the fall, but not without consequence. Eddy dragged himself over to the machine, which was sitting in a shallow crater formed by its impact. Three of the arms had hit hard and seemed completely nonfunctional. Its tail fin was bent into an odd position, and two large dents marred its side. A panel had popped open and ejected a handful of gears, chains, and sprockets. The merry clicking and whirring sounds from within its body sounded a bit more labored and dissonant. Eddy pulled himself to the machine’s “face” and looked in its eyes, which flickered as they focused on him.

  “How badly hurt are you?” he asked. “Can you move at all?”

  Its functional pincers scratched at the floor and attempted to heave its massive metallic bulk upward, but a straining groan and a rattling slide were the best it could manage. The motion dislodged another bit of chain from its open panel.

  “Stop! Don’t move. You are… I suppose this is what it is like to bleed if you are a machine. Stay still and let me see what I can do. I don’t know if you intended to bring us here. But we aren’t getting out without your help.”

  He gazed into the open panel. A dizzying array of bits and pieces clicked and spun. They were stunning in their complexity, arranged in precise assortments.

  “This… will not be easy…”

  Eddy gathered the loose pieces. Most looked to be fully intact, dislodged rather than broken free. He fiddled with them a bit, fascinated by their shapes and designs. To his surprise, they clicked into place with little effort, and each seemed to fit only in a single position and orientation. It was a puzzle, to be sure. But it at least was a puzzle that had a definite solution and, more importantly, a puzzle that made it clear when something wasn’t in its proper place.

  One by one he slipped the threaded the pieces together and clicked them into the place where they seemed to fit. Each new piece caused other bits and pieces of Borgle’s body to twitch to life. Shutters over his eyes flapped. One of the disabled arms twitched and wriggled. But after two thirds of the pieces were in place, Eddy made a disappointing discovery.

  “Oh no…” he said. “Borgle. This piece here… This big wheel… It is badly bent, and even sheared a little. I can’t get it to fit anymore, and I can’t get any of the other pieces to stay in place without it.”

  Borgle plinked in disappointment.

  “Let me think… Maybe a big rock. If I hammer it flat, it might work still.”

  Borgle clanked, a sound that struck Eddy’s ear as less than confident.

  “Don’t worry, Borgle. I am good with machines! We don’t have anything as fancy as you back in Barnacle, but I’ve fixed hinges and contraptions that you crank and such. I’ll find a way to help you. All I need something smooth and flat. It isn’t usually hard to find something like that along the sea floor. Let me just… Do you hear something?”

  Eddy had thought the clicking sound he was hearing was just another bit of Borgle’s workings falling in and out of rhythm. But as it grew louder than the sprinkling hiss of the falling water, Eddy realized it was coming from behind him.

  He turned. The rough floor sloped downward a bit in that direction, giving him a clearer view of the surrounding area. A short distance away, and approaching fast, was a beast the likes of which he’d never seen before. It had hundreds of stubby legs, all working in clacking waves
to drag a heavy armored body along the floor with startling speed. Two rounded claws were raised on either side of a tentacled mouth. The beast’s body was rocky and blue-gray. If he had to compare it to something he’d encountered before, it would be a huge lobster, but one that someone had grasped it by the head and tail and stretched until it was far, far longer.

  Its path swept back and forth, mowing down tufts of glowing fronds as it went. There was no doubt it was heading for Eddy. Another creature would have been terrified. The thing was many times his size and more than formidable. In his current state of mind and body, Eddy had a very different reaction.

  “Food!” he cried.

  He dragged himself to where he’d left his pick, then took it in hand and painfully pulled himself atop his aching tail. He curled it like a spring and used his pick to balance. His gaze locked on the approaching lobster beast. On his face was an almost demented grin.

  It crested the slope and charged toward him. He shoved with his pick and uncoiled his tail, lofting himself into the air. The thing slid to a stop and swiped at him with its claws, but Eddy’s lithe frame proved too small and swift a target. He came down hard. With his full weight, strength, and momentum behind the attack, the blunt metal tip of his pick pierced through the armor.

  The beast released a whistling squeal and whipped its head side to side. Eddy flopped about and grimaced in pain, but held tight. When the monster foolishly stopped and tried to reach him with its claws, he raised the pick again and hammered it down. Again and again he punctured the beast, holding tight when he needed to and doing more damage the moment it relented.

  After a brief, thrashing struggle, the thing succumbed to the crazed attacks of the merman. It fell still. Eddy levered a piece of the shell away. The thing’s resemblance to a lobster extended into its innards as well. It had similarly plump and hearty flesh. Eddy gave it a cursory sniff and a tentative dab of his tongue. When it didn’t strike him as overtly poisonous, he hungrily dug in.

  The flavor was slightly more bitter than lobster, and the texture was a little tougher, but after hours of endless swimming and taking so many bumps and bruises along the way, it was a feast fit for the gods. He ate his fill, and a few mouthful’s more for good measure, before pulling himself from the defeated beast and flopping happily to the ground.