Princess of the Sea,” an orange-haired woman shouted at her from the waterfall, her skin orange and flame-colored clothing merging with the water. Her skin, too, was as orange as fire. And she seemed to have wings of fire fluttering behind her. She was probably one of the firewomen who lived in the waterfalls.
She mispronounced Lilophea’s new title, but there was no way to correct her. Sparks from the waterfall flew in all directions. Lilophea turned and ran away.
From the orange bridge she turned onto the malachite bridge. This one led her to deserted, cold shores where nothing grew.
There was a herd of white horses galloped by the water’s edge. No, they were not horses, but horses of sea foam. Only after a closer look one could see that their hooves merged with the foam of the waves. Such horses can carry riders only on water. They cannot jump onto dry land. But one unusual horse was galloping on the sand. It had no saddle or bridle and its skin was as white as milk. Not a speck, not a grain of dirt. Only magical horses could be this pure color. Lilophea was not mistaken. In a moment the horse turned into a boy with sharp ears and wild eyes. It was exactly the sort of creature she and Ornella had listened to stories about by the fireplace as children. It is a spirit who seduces girls by pretending to be a submissive horse and takes them into the sea to drown them. One story she heard as a child was of a fisherman’s daughter who was left alone for the night and a spirit came to visit her. At first she took him for an ordinary young man, but when she saw that he had sharp ears and fish eyes, it was too late to save her.
The young man on the shore looked enticingly at Lilophea standing high on the bridge, and his unusual eyes sparkled slyly, as if informing:
“I would love to drag a beauty like you down to the bottom, but I see someone else has already beaten me to it.”
Lilophea groaned as she looked down at her hands on the parapet. Webs sprouted between her fingers. They looked like a lace of sea foam. She might as well become a mermaid herself, or worse, a creature like Urun and his morgen armies.
Lilophea moved her hands. The webbing was tight, but not uncomfortable. Too bad she didn’t have a mirror with her right now to look at her reflection. Had her face changed, resembling the creepy faces of the Morgens?
A bright yellow pair of winged fish, as if hearing her wish, held the mirror up to her. The reflection was pleasant. Nothing had changed in her face. True, the mirror itself resembled water, inserted by a wizard into a coral frame.
And where does the bridge of coral lead to? Lilophea had a long choice between it and the Jasper Bridge. Finally she saw a bridge of amber looming up ahead like a mirage and she turned there. It didn’t go straight ahead, but took sharp turns, spiraling, and was flanked by many circular bridges that led nowhere. There was some secret in them.
One narrow bridge closed in a circle over the whirlpool below. At the railing of the bridge there were countless mermaids. Their slippery bodies twisted against the railing like green bas-reliefs. The mermaids all had a dirty, swampy look, as if they had just come up from the mud. And their eyes were sparkling, wild. Lilophea was afraid to approach them. They did not even greet her, though they noticed that the queen was before them.
“Do you know which way leads to Nereida’s grotto?” Lilophea turned to them first.
“Why would you want to go there?” One of the mermaids answered, and the others began whispering:
“This is the very grotto where Nereida keeps treasures from sunken ships mixed with the skulls of their victims. She does not know which is more precious to her: the treasure or the bones of those she drowned.”
Could this be about Nereida? Lilophea grew wary.
“She is not evil at all.”
“But she will drown you if you come near her,” the mermaid, who had been the first to speak, warned her.
“I can’t be drowned, I’m the queen of the sea, and I can breathe under water,” said Lilophea, faltering as she realized how presumptuous that sounded. She only breathes underwater as long as Seal lets her, and he might get angry if she escaped in his absence. But the mermaids didn’t laugh in unison, only looked more closely at Lilophea. Their eyes glittered.
“She’ll drown you for sure. You’re her rival.”
“No, I’m her friend – or rather, I was her earthly friend before I married the underwater king, which means I broke the promise I made to her. Nereida asked me not to even go out with Seal.” Lilophea bit her lips. Perhaps the green mermaids were right.
“Nereida doesn’t have any girlfriends, and she never has any,” they confirmed. “Because she never wants to share anything with anyone. Remember that! If you have anything she wants, you are her sworn enemy. And she drowns her enemies, even if they are mermaids. She knows how to do that.”
Are they all afraid of her? Their voices became so sad that Lilophea backed away. It sounds like a mournful chorus.
The bridge itself glistened, and the green bodies of the mermaids curled around it like seaweed. Lilophea turned and walked away from them.
“Keep away from Nereida,” the mermaids’ warnings boomed behind her. “We all stay as far away from her as possible. Once you get too close to her, bad things happen.”
Trouble has already happened. Lilophea realized she was lost forever. Either the spirit of the bridges led her around, or the parapet of bones of dead fish, mermaids and even human skulls stretched so far that she always had to stumble on it. Dead fish came to life and tried to bite as soon as you put your hand on the parapet.
How to get out of the maze? No matter which shore Lilophea approached, it turned out to be either unfamiliar or dangerous. In any case, it is dangerous to go to the shores that you do not know, and where there are no your family and friends. You could easily be enslaved by the same pirates, or taken hostage by the local rulers to demand a ransom from your father. Lilophea was afraid to go ashore in a foreign country. She’d be lucky if she strayed into any familiar lands.
It is better not to think of the bridge to Etar. It must be of white gold, for its ruler is fabulously rich.
As she wandered through the labyrinth of bridges, Lilophea saw sunset, dawn, dusk, and night. Either it was day or evening in different parts of the world, or she had been wandering in the above-water labyrinth for twenty-four hours. All around there was only sky, water, and some kind of ringing, as if a mermaid’s pack was singing out of the water.
She wished she could meet at least one person. Not a spirit, not a monster, but a mere mortal to talk to.
Lilophea’s dream came true some time later. A fairly ordinary-looking guy sat huddled at the intersection of the bridges. His face was certainly not fishy. He wrapped his arms around his head as if it were splitting in unbearable pain.
“Who are you?” Lilophea leaned over him and noticed that his eyes were swollen with tears. He seems to have been lost himself, and has been looking for a way out for a long time. He probably hadn’t eaten anything in weeks. His clothes were hanging off him like hangers. Soon he would be a skeleton himself. Probably that bridge lined with bones is made of the remains of those who became prisoners of the maze of bridges.
“I went after the princess the waterman had dragged
