“Where do you go, small man?” she asked.
Yap squeezed his eyes shut, wanted to clap his hands over his ears, but he knew it was no good, her voice held such power, for she was the sea witch, Yolandhe. She had long, long ago cursed him and his crew to be held stranded on a windless sea, trapped in a bottle for all time until someone had dropped it, releasing the spell. Oddly, the Mermaid had materialized in a house nestled deep in the forest, far away from the sea. Yap was the last of his crew who lived.
“I believe,” she said, her voice the calming rush of the tide combing the shore, “you took something that is not yours when last you were upon my island.”
“N-no,” he croaked.
“Give. It. Back.” She did not shout, but the command had the power of a storm in it, the crashing waves, the shrieking winds.
An upwelling in Yap’s gut caused him to vomit, first only salty fluid, but then more came up, a viscous mass of globules that, when deposited on the ground, was a small pile of pearls slimed with bile. More heaving produced coins of silver and gold, an emerald, a pair of rings, a necklace of gold links, more pearls, a brooch of a dragon, and worst of all, a long dagger with a gold hilt and ruby pommel. He thought it would slice his insides as it came, that it would choke the life out of him as it caught in his throat. When the hilt reached his mouth, he pulled it out and tossed it aside, and yet more pearls gushed out. When it seemed he was finished, he lay there shivering.
Yolandhe did not move. She waited.
Waited for what? Sweat poured down Yap’s face. His belly ached, but this time it was from all the heaving. Then he hiccupped and a diamond pendant popped out of his mouth.
Yolandhe nodded. She walked on as if he were no more than driftwood. She didn’t even pick up any of the precious objects he’d spewed at her feet. Perhaps that they had been returned to the island was enough.
He rose shakily to his knees, feeling much, much lighter. “Wait!” he called. “Have ya seen my master? We was wrecked in the storm!”
Yolandhe paused, the sea breeze tossing her hair back. She spoke softly, almost delicately, but the breeze carried her words to Yap with no difficulty.
“Yes,” she said. “I have found him. He has returned to me.”
PLUMBING
Karigan decided she was not a good patient. Not a patient patient. Following her conversation with the professor, she was up and down, pacing despite the pain lancing through her leg. She windmilled her good arm and stretched her back. Too much time in bed and her muscles would grow weak and limp. Arms Master Drent would never approve.
She further occupied herself by seeking out the privy Mirriam had mentioned. When she found it, she paused in awe, gawking at the shiny porcelain bowl supported by four bronze mermaids, its seatback fashioned into the shape of a breeching whale.
“Oh, my,” Karigan murmured. She peered into the bowl and saw that it contained still water. This was different than the privies she was accustomed to. There’d been shacks with holes and finer closets with aqueducts of actual running water coursing beneath. Selium had a fine system of piped water to deal with the unmentionable.
A brass lever, filigreed with twining seaweeds and periwinkles, jutted from the floor adjacent to the bowl, reaching to the height of her hips. It was not clear to her exactly what the lever was for, but its proximity to the bowl suggested it was integral to its functioning. There was only one way to find out. She pulled on the lever.
It drew back with a clack-clack-clack-clack that emanated from some hidden mechanism beneath the floor. When she pulled it back as far as it would go, she released it and the roar of water made her jump. She’d expected something to happen, but it still surprised her when it did. She watched in fascination as the water in the bowl whirled out of existence in a forceful vortex through a hole in the bottom.
As the lever slowly returned to its starting position, with additional muffled clicking and clacking, a trap door opened from above the seatback and a brass fish emerged. A stream of water spouted from its mouth and cascaded neatly into the bowl until it was refilled. Then the fish backed into the wall, and the trap door slammed shut.
One would need to be standing when one pulled the lever, she thought, or get all wet. Or, perhaps this was how the people here cleaned themselves?
So enchanted was Karigan, that she pulled the lever again just to watch the fish emerge. And again. And again.
After entertaining herself with the bowl, she discovered an adjoining room with a magnificent tub, also supported by brass mermaids, pairs of fish spouts poised on the edge of the tub, and higher above on the wall. So, one did not have to clean oneself while sitting on the bowl! There was a complicated looking array of levers around the tub. Karigan pulled on one, and again there was the mechanical clattering from beneath the floor and behind the wall, and a rush of water flowed from one of the fish. To her wonder, the water was hot. Perhaps they’d found hot springs to tap into, as in Selium? She guessed its companion spout must produce cold water, and without pumping or dragging in heavy buckets!
She was about to strip off her sleeping gown and fill the tub. She’d not had a bath since before leaving Sacor City—her Sacor City—and heading into Blackveil. How wonderful it would be to soak in such—
“There you are!”
Karigan almost fell into the tub as Mirriam burst into the bathing room.
“Are you the one playing with the water?” the housekeeper demanded. “The pressure is off in the kitchen, and Cook is most displeased. In quite a state, actually.”