body deforms, the mind deforms. I am in anger at people and at the morgen.”
“Why is it? Captains and merchants have drowned, entire fleets have been wrecked, and you alone have been spared by the sea. You’re the chosen ones who didn’t drown like my brothers!”
“Look at me!” Dodger opened his robe. “And tell me whether it was better to survive or to drown.”
Desdemona recoiled, glimpsing a black, slimy body with many bifurcated tentacles. There were no legs, only tails of some kind, twisting in a tangle. And she thought it was hard to turn into a mermaid! How could such a creature live? Unlike Moran, he was a full-fledged monster. There was nothing human left in him.
“I know all sorcery,” Dodger admitted, pulling up his cloak. At least it made him look more like a court magician who had disfigured himself with his experiments than a man of the mire. “For example, I can make a mermaid a bipedal girl for a day, but I can’t make myself human again. So you’re doing the right thing by avoiding me. Moran is at least half handsome, I’m ugly from top to toe, I mean to the tip of my tail.”
“What are you trying to get out of me? Why are you hitting on me in the first place?”
“It is to flirt with you,” he corrected. “I’ve still got all the sympathy I used to have for pretty ladies when I was a beau to match them.”
“Do you mean to say that you have not yet killed or dragged down a single woman of the earth?”
“I don’t drown pretty women, if that’s what you mean. And I don’t live on the bottom either. Our society has to huddle in the swampy backwaters of human settlements, like the marshes behind the capital’s hot districts. We’re monsters, but we don’t hurt women.”
That’s not what she saw! The gutted corpse of a woman in the rain with a sickle wouldn’t leave her mind. Was the ritual performed by the very society to which Dodger belonged?
“How long have you been like this?” She began to ask cautiously. “Have you learned all the habits of creatures like you? You said you were becoming embittered. Does that imply acts of cruelty?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Dodger stopped the interrogation. “Ever since the king turned his attention to you, all our plans had to change. We couldn’t let him see you, but he did. There was nothing I could do, even though I was hovering nearby. I found you, but he found you too. Unfortunately, he’s stronger than the rest of us. And his power will eventually bring down the whole kingdom.”
“What makes you think that?”
“What do you think? Will the Morgen stay on earth forever?”
“That’s why he came to the country.”
“No, it’s just convenient for you to think that. Because if it turns out he can’t stay on land forever, you’ll be a burden to him. How do you take a wife who can’t breathe underwater to the sea?”
“They say there are remedies that allow you to breathe at depth for a while.”
“It is not for you! Darunon’s chosen victim is unaffected by them. So how are you going to follow the morgen to the bottom?”
There is a remedy! What seemed like a curse to Desdemona suddenly seemed like a blessing. She was able to turn into a mermaid once, so she could do it again.
“Don’t even think about it,” Dodger guessed her thoughts. “The only way you can become a mermaid forever is if you become a priestess of Darunon. If you reject the sea god, you’ll never be a mermaid again.”
“How did you know I could turn into a mermaid?”
Did he spy on her? Then he’s always hiding somewhere in the palace.
“I can see the signs of transformation in your face,” he admitted. “I’m skilled enough in magic to see them. And if I examine your feet, I’m sure there are scaly growths on your feet.”
He’s right about that! Desdemona swallowed hard. The gorgeous golden crown of rubies and emeralds pressed against her forehead. Its heaviness was symbolic. Being queen was proving to be very hard. Even with a monster husband who could solve most problems with force and magic.
Maybe she’d tell him about the Dodger. And then the insolent double-talk would be over. Only Desdemona was not a snitch. She preferred to keep quiet about her strange acquaintance. But he kept prophesying, scaring her to the point of palpitations.
“If you choose Moran, you can never become a mermaid, and if you become a mermaid, you can never be with Moran again.”
“But that amounts to a dead end. Without becoming a mermaid, I won’t be able to live together with Moran. I’d just suffocate underwater.”
“It’s a vicious circle that can be broken, but I don’t know how.”
No one has ever considered her wise, but now that she’s queen, she’ll have to sharpen her wit. How can you rule an entire country without learning the wisdom of life?
Some sounds were heard in the neighboring rooms. Desdemona immediately took advantage of the noise to say goodbye to the annoying guest.
“Go away! Or crawl away! And don’t come here again.”
“Tell him you have a secret lover,” said Dodger.
“Don’t joke! I don’t fall in love with monsters!”
“Who’d believe it, hearing that from a monster’s wife!” caught her on the word sullen guest.
“Moran will think we’re plotting against him if he catches us together, and he’ll execute us both. He can find a way to deal with a creature like you, too, can’t he?”
The Dodger shook his ugly head in denial.
“We are all at an impasse: you and I, Moran and my society. We can’t let Darunon’s chosen victim live, and we can’t let you stay with the king. There is no way out.”
“But then maybe you and your society should drop this whole conundrum and do something else,” Desdemona snapped at him and wanted to walk away. As luck would have it, none of the servants or guards was in a hurry to open the door of the queen’s bedroom to see who she was arguing with. We need to get away from Dodger. He seems insane. Suddenly all his stories about turning into a freak by chance were just his own made-up nonsense. It was hard to believe that he had once been handsome.
Desdemona turned to give him the locket and almost shrieked. A gilded sickle glittered in his black tentacle-like hand. It was most definitely a weapon, not a tool. The handle, mottled with runes, reminded him very much of Alais’s dagger.
“There were nineteen days left until the sacrifice. On the nineteenth sunset, the sickle will be stained with the blood of the nineteenth mermaid!” promised Dodger in a sepulchral tone.
Desdemona felt a prick in her heart and a wild fear. Why should she be so frightened? Was she already a mermaid?
She has two slender legs
