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To continue my story...
The next thing I saw was one of the strangest things I have ever seen. The deck of the ship was covered by a crowd of sea-people, led by a sea-man, who, as well as being much taller then the other sea-people, had a golden crown perched atop his finned head. It looked like it had been made for a human head, and I guessed it had come from the sunken ship.
But that wasn't importent, Yama was! Why was he down here, and more importantly, how? I tried to call out to him, forgetting that we were underwater, but he must have "heard" my thoughts anyway, for his answered, "Gill enhancements."
I had no time to think of that. The king took me by my shoulders, and I noticed that although both of our feet rested on the deck, he was at least a foot taller then me. The thought he asked then was the last thing I was expecting... "You are the Gambino child?"
Nobody had ever called me that before, as far as I knew nobody had even thought I could possibly be that! Now the sea-people, the ones Gambino had tried to kill, knew... But they seemed not the slightest bit hostile. Their fishlike faces were expressionless, but a friendly feeling hovered over them. They must have a group-mind, I thought... The next thing the king thought answered my thoughts. "So your father has driven you to seek safety among us? We noticed your presence on the Isle weeks ago. At first we were surprised he had let you live, and it seemed unsafe for you to stay there, but you ignored our signals..."
Signals! So that was what the lights had been! I tried to clear up the sea-peoples misunderstandings, but only got amusement. This reached its peak when I explained that I'd tried to drown myself. Reaching up to stroke my new gills, I saw how absurd I must seem to them... Then I snapped back to the moment. Yama was still locked up in the cage! I had to get them to let him lose. Looking up into the kings glowing red eyes, I thought, "Will you set my friend free?" I was getting the hang of thinking what I wanted to say by now. The king stared hard at me, then a t Yama. When he thought again, it was in a much graver tone. "On one condition. Neither of you may ever tell the land-people that we still live. We fear that it would be the end of us if they found out." I agreed, of course. I didn't want to cause more death! Yama also agreed, in his own style. "I agree, I will never tell, on my honor as a Knight of Mother Gaia," he thought, and I thought I "heard" something like a titter from some of the younger sea-women. One of the guards standing by the cage opened the door, and he swam up next to me, bowing to the king.
The king seemed pleased."I am glad you have returned to us, child," he thought. Then his mood seemed to darken. "Perhaps you will be able to help us battle the pl..." He was drowned out by a shrill wave of garbled, pain-filled thoughts that washed through the crowd. It seemed to come from above...from the crow's nest!
Yama kicked off the deck and swam upwards, but as I tried to follow, the king grabbed the back of my shirt, "shouting" (that's the only word for the way he thought), "You must not!" His thoughts were louder and more powerfull then the others as he thought "Inside, all of you! Now!". The crowd dived for the hatchs, the king dragging me. Something was slowly falling from the mast...something thin...and black...and jerking wildly...a sea-woman, her face covered with a large blue-purple blob...a jellyfish!
Not again, I thought, my heart sinking. If I had somehow caused this... I managed to pull my shirt out of the king's grasp as he dived into the ship, and kicked toward the woman. A picture from a long-ago biology book came to mind...jellyfish only have stings on their undersides! Quickly but carefully I grabbed the jellyfish by its stingless top and pulled it off the sea-woman's face. As I flung it away, a tentacle brushed my thumb and I felt as if a bolt of lightening had hit my hand.
One look at the sea-woman's face made me forget the pain. It had puffed up, and her eyes, mouth, and gills had swollen shut. As I watched in horror, her bloated gills gave one last feeble flap, then were still.
At that moment Yama came back down with bad news. The surface was covered with jellyfish! Following the sea-people, we dived into the ship. As soon as we got through the hatch, the king swam up to us. He seemed suddenly frightened."You must leave us, you must not be here while the plague is here!" he thought. My heart kept sinking.
"The plague....these jelly fish bring you a plague?" Yama asked. "Is there nothing we can do to help?"
Well, not quite. As the king explained, the jellyfish are the plague. And as for how they got there...well, it's not very nice. They were Gambino's attempt to destroy the sea-people, who he blamed for the failure of the experiment that created me. Until then, there were no jellyfish in the seas off the Isle. Now they come every summer...and every summer more sea-people die. The venom is made just for them to have a very strong reaction to...the young are much more sensitive then the adults, so they're taken to caves in the reef when the summer nears. That's why we had only seen adults so far. Still, the jellyfish take their toll every year...
Both Yama and me knew that we had to help them. The king said (and he was probably right) that the only way we could help was to go back to land. He took us to the end of the ship, where another tunnel led into the rock, and told us that a current would bring us up near the beach, where the jellyfish should not be yet. As he pushed us into the tunnel, I grabbed Yama's hand, and as the swirling water pulled us down, I "heard" the thought "If you ever need us, come to the water. We will be waiting!"
We were a moody pair as we rode the current out of the tunnel and to the surface. It was getting harder to comunicate as we got further from the sea-people, but we could still feel each other's thoughts. Yama was furious at Gambino's attempt at genocide, and so was I. But to me, it was more personal. More then once, the king had referred to Gambino as my father, and I had to admit that the ugly fact was true. But I was also of the sea-people. As we came to the surface, I thought furiously, "I'm not a Gambino and I never will be!"
As we broke the surface, Yama's gills shrank back into his neck and he said, "Dawna, I know you are not...you are nothing like him or his people.There has to be a way to put a stop to this."
With my natural gills, I wasn't having as easy a time as him. For a moment I felt as if I was drowning again, and in that awful moment I wondered if I would be able to breath air again. But then my gills closed and I could breath again. Then I discovered that Yama, treading water, was holding me in his arms.
To hide my embaressment, I quickly swam for the shore. It was strange to be back, sitting in the shallow water, breathing the air, with the sun on my skin... And as we sat, Yama told about himself. As well as being a mountain knight of Gaia, he also works for some group called the Order of St. George, who seem to know a bit about the sea-people. He's sure they will help us save the sea-people.
Since it was late, jellyfish were starting to wash up on the beach, and my hand still hurt, we parted ways, him to the alchemist at the Order of St. George, who he thought could help make an antidote, and me to the place I call home for now, Angel's flat. She had just woken up, and made an awful fuss about my soked clothes, stung hand, and the new scars on my cheeks. I only knew what she meant when I looked in a mirror and saw that my gills had closed into four thin, dark, scarlike lines, two on each cheek. Thank goodness that my fins had pulled back to the sides of my head and were hidden by my hair...and that she really wasn't interested in me and let herself be convinced that the scars had always been there. At least I think she did. I must be careful...
As far as helping the sea-people goes, nothing seems to be working. Yama's alchemist friend dosn't seem to be able to help, and the most I can find is a few articles from old newspapers I found at the library, but they're just warnings not to swim when there's jellyfish. The Isle library is pathetic, they still have the old newspapers on microfilm instead of a computer database like everywhere else in Gaia. The library is just one small room in the same building as the theater and cinema, and the librarian is so stupid that I don't even think she can read.
Oh yeah, and just to top things off I let myself get convinced to go to a beach party with Angel tonight. More madness, another night I can't work on finding out about the sea-people, jellyfish, and Gambino, and if I'm really lucky, someone will ask about my gill-scars. Great! Maybe I should go back to the sea-people...