Читать книгу A mermaid and a corsair - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 3

In the chest among the shells and pearls slept a beautiful mermaid. She looked ominous. She was dead! Desmond had never seen a dead mermaid before.

One fin moved. Is it a reflex? So is she dead or asleep? She doesn’t seem to be breathing, but do mermaids breathe? If they needed air, they wouldn’t be underwater.

“There are so many jewels!” His assistant said. “It’s a whole treasure trove!”

“But how do we get them off?” Desmond ran his fingers over the large pearls embedded in the mermaid’s skin. Even the coral crown grew from her forehead. And in her fins were small diamonds and rubies.

“Just like a princess of the sea!” Desmond whistled in admiration. His knees buckled, as if he had never seen a princess before. Well, maybe he’d never seen a sea princess. But he’d seen enough earthly ones. They’re all greedy and scheming! That’s why he became a pirate. Secular society is sometimes worse than a pack of wolves. Pirates are more honest. They rob directly, not bypass them.

“I know a rich collector who’d buy the whole thing,” said the assistant.

“No!” Desmond’s indignation boiled over.

“Do you think it’s more profitable to pick out the stones one by one?”

“Just leave her alone for now!”

He wanted to keep the mermaid as a shrine, but he couldn’t tell it to the sea robbers. She was like a goddess who sleeps, but is about to wake up, and then at her will there will be a storm. All the pirates would be swamped like blasphemers who had committed sacrilege. They’re idiots for agreeing to such a dangerous mission. It’s best not to mess with sea deities, but the customer assured that simple amulets would help keep the mermaid’s magic power in chains.

Her purple lashes fluttered. Or was it just a thought? Desmond caught himself wishing she were alive and earthy.

The crew would laugh at the fact that he missed the harlots always hanging around the harbors. Desmond had long detested the harlots and dancers of Peony Island. But he liked the graceful coastal sorceresses. They were also called sorceresses, enchantresses and wave charmers. They often performed ritual dances on the shore, their dresses spreading sea foam on the sand. Cassandra was one of them. Unlike most blond sea wizards, she had a bright red hair and a stroppy temper. She had once brought down an entire fleet. She simply whispered a spell while standing on the rocks above the waves, and all the ships began to sink in the middle of a calm sea. The storm didn’t even start, and the royal frigates that had been launched in pursuit of Desmond were left in splinters. That day the pirates learned to respect the witches of the sea, and Desmond had time to see the tentacles of the kraken that had dragged the ships to the bottom.

“I will help you make a contract with the sea king’s representatives,” Cassandra promised, and that evening she made a deal with a blue-skinned creature that crawled out of the waves. The creature had a shell horn that summoned a sea army of monsters and a golden crest of spikes on its horned head. Cassandra befriended such monsters, and sometimes bargained with them over something.

“My help is not disinterested,” she liked to say. “You will give half of your loot to the sea king, and I will get a tenth of the captain’s share.”

It’s good to be king of the sea! You can profit from all the pirates in the world. If you don’t pay your tribute to the king, your ship will sink.

Desmond now carried a glowing treaty rolled up in a scroll. If broken or lost, the contract would be broken and the ship would be in trouble.

Greatly, the contract did not contain a single clause forbidding a pirate from kidnapping a sea princess.

“You are only mine!” Desmond gently ran his finger over her cheek, which was studded with pearls, and hurt himself. The pearls were very sharp.

He was immediately reminded of the forced sacrifices of the captives. The bound beauties were thrown overboard into the sea. Sometimes they were seen being caught by the paws of the morgens sticking out of the waves. Desmond had always watched indifferently, but now it seemed to him that he himself might be sacrificed to the sea creatures.

The webbed hands of the mermaid moved. This was no longer a reflex! The purple webbing resembled lace, but the claws on the mermaid’s fingers were as sharp as razors. A mermaid could kill if she got her claws on someone’s throat.

The foam of purple curls around the mermaid’s face also looked like lace. Desmond hadn’t realized that mermaids could be so beautiful. Until now, he had thought Cassandra was the most beautiful girl in the world. It turned out there were more beautiful creatures. Only they weren’t human!

The sight of the sleeping mermaid frightened the crew, and Desmond didn’t want to think about having to part with her. He had kidnapped her for King of Opal, not for himself. And he wanted to keep her for himself.

“Merediana will give you a hard time. You’ll be sorry you ever touched her!” Some nimble crab with a carbuncle in his forehead crawled out of the mermaid’s hair. Did he really say that? No way! Crabs can’t speak human, and the pirates on Desmond’s crew can’t grunt like old men. So who had said the words?

Desmond looked around. There were legends that some ships were haunted by the ghosts of men who had died at sea, and by clabautermanns, the tree spirits of the masts, who were brought along with the logs to the scaffolding. Dryads, who did not like to leave even felled trees, stayed to live in the logs and thus also became part of the mast or even the carved figure on the bow. Maybe he had something like that on his ship? This ship belonged to another pirate before him. His ghost is probably haunting the place.

“And who is Merediana?”

“I’m sorry, who, captain?” The mate heard nothing and wondered.

“Merediana,” Desmond repeated dully. “I’ve never heard that name before.

“Neither have I, Captain.”

“Maybe that’s the name of the wife of the king of the sea?”

“No, it’s definitely Lilothea,” the mate glanced warily at the waves. “But it’s better not to say her name. They say you can summon her that way. If you say her name over the waves and drip blood, she will appear in the open sea, come to the ship, treading on the waves, and use magic… only for harm or for good, it is not known, so it is better not to call her.”

The mate’s fears were understandable. The entire crew still had wounds from the recent battles. Blood could have already dripped into the water, all that was left was to say Lilothea’s name. Instead, Desmond whispered instead:

“Merediana…”

A seagull flew over the ship and gave a high-pitched squawk. A bloody stain spread across the big sail. The gull’s corpse with its head torn off fell to the deck. Who would have time to rip a seagull’s head off in flight?

“Open a barrel of the best rum for the crew. Get them drunk and set course to Opal,” Desmond told the mate.

He understood and grinned. Better to get the crew drunk than let them talk about the curse. Many of the pirates were already whispering that the chest with the mermaid must be thrown back into the sea or there would be trouble. How superstitious sailors are!

Desmond himself was not particularly superstitious. He often saw creepy morgens on the shore, handing out gold to simpletons, who then became slaves of the sea king. He himself had once taken a few coins from a morgen, and nothing had happened to him after that. But they said that his skin would be covered with slime, he would be unable to breathe, and some force would drag him to the bottom. The morgen gold was said to be paid for by eternal slavery at the bottom.

The morgen’s coins were kept in Desmond’s cabin as a souvenir. Another souvenir from the sea’s bottom will be a purple mermaid. We should move it to the cabin so the crew won’t stare at it. The pirates have a dark look in their eyes. They’re just waiting for the mermaid to start a riot.

The mermaid’s fin moved gracefully. Is she really waking up? The fan of purple eyelashes trembled slightly.

Could it be that she is the one called Merediana? Cassandra had once danced on the shore and called the names of all the sea king’s daughters in a chant. Desmond could hardly remember them all. There were Yasmin, Aisha, Mirelle, Etea, Anemone, Foletta, Korethia, Mirilla, Serpentina, Amirana, Morelia, and Lorelei. Meredian’s name, on the other hand, he had not heard.

The sky above the ship was darkening rapidly. A storm must be brewing soon. A stormy wind was blowing. Out of the wind came a chorus of voices:

“You are a rebel!”

“You are a kidnapper!”

“You have abused the trust of the sea king!”

“You have desecrated the shrines of the sea!”

“You have taken on board an unearthly creature!”

“You are a notorious pirate!”

“You are marked for doom!”

The ominous words echoed in his ears. Desmond expected a storm to come. Instead, it was as if a swarm of piranhas had swooped down on the ship. “The Triumphant” rocked on the waves and tilted as if a cannonball had hit its side. But no one was firing cannonballs at it. There was no one to do that! No oncoming ships are visible on the horizon, and it seems that the sea battle has already begun.

The crew had no time to react. Desmond regretted getting them drunk. It felt like there was a hole in the bottom and “The Triumphator” was going down. The helm was unattended. The helmsman was clutched by the tentacles of a large octopus. It began to strangle the poor man. Desmond threw his saber and cut off a couple of tentacles. They hissed and crawled across the deck.

“You are a pirate!” A voice came from over the side.

Desmond leaned over the side and looked out over the waves. There were swarms of mermaids frolicking below. Their voices sounded like a ghostly chorus. Their slippery blue and green scaled bodies were no match for the purple mermaid he had kidnapped. Truly, she is the princess of the seas. The predatory mermaids with sharp teeth and ears that besieged the ship were no longer admired, but disgusted. Only one of them had something like a diadem shimmering on her head. Apparently, among all the mermaids attacking the ship, she was the only one with a noble nautical background.

“He’s a corsair, not a pirate,” she corrected her friends.

“And what’s the difference?” The other mermaids showed claws as sharp as stilettos and jagged elbows. All of them were clearly not princesses, but something like fighting half-fish, ready to ram a ship with their sharp limbs.

“Corsairs are those who had noble blood in them before they became brigands. Corsairs must have some manners and honor. And pirates are just common, brutal bandits. You can’t negotiate with them, you can only sink them.”

The mermaid with a diadem on her forehead raised her white eyes at Desmond.

“You are a man of noble blood. How can you kidnap the princess of the sea? Return her to the sea and forget that she ever existed.”

The request was made in the tone of an order. The sight of the mermaid made Desmond’s mind go foggy. It must be some kind of hypnosis. Desmond made an effort and averted his eyes.

The mermaid’s suggestion was pointless. “The Triumphator” was already sinking. He could give the mermaids the Princess or not, the ship will sink anyway. He could try to make a deal, but it wouldn’t be worth it. All pirates will either die in the water or be slaves in the sea kingdom. Too bad the crew got drunk when they should be fighting back. But then again, what can pirates do against mermaid magic? All corsairs, alas, are not magicians. Desmond touched Cassandra’s amulet and recited the short spell she had taught him.

The holes in the bottom caused by the mermaids’ claws immediately healed, as if the ship were a living creature capable of rapid healing.

The annoyed mermaids swore with glee and beat the water furiously with their fins. They swooped at the ship again and again, crushing the wooden sides with sharp notches on their arms that resembled gills. The amulet around Desmond’s neck glowed, and the ship self-repaired. All the breaches were filled with fresh wooden planks, as if someone had nailed them over the damaged ones. The mermaids had fallen into despair. No matter how hard they tried to sink “The Triumphator”, they failed.

“It will soon sink itself,” predicted the mermaid with the diadem. An ominous green mist immediately spread through the water around the ship. It enveloped the ship amorphously, but somehow it could not penetrate on board, as if it was bumping into an invisible barrier.

“Remember that Shaina has cursed you.”

And who is Shaina? Desmond didn’t know that.

“My father cursed me, too, when I ran away from Mirid,” he muttered to himself as he picked up the bloody saber. The blood on it came from the helmsman’s wound, and the severed octopus limbs were water instead of blood. Desmond cursed himself for saving the helmsman and injuring his shoulder. But he could not abandon the poor man, who was being strangled by something that had crawled aboard from the sea. Now this octopus-like creature was trying to push the chest with the purple mermaid overboard. It was unable to do so, although it was working with all its tentacles, of which there were dozens.

“Get out!” Desmond threatened it with his saber. But it was not the saber that frightened the creature, but the shining amulet around the captain’s neck. It squinted, hissed, and crawled overboard, dropping the chest.

The glow of Cassandra’s amulet repelled sea creatures. He would have to thank her. Desmond had even intended to give Cassandra a bunch of flowers until he saw the purple mermaid. Things had changed since she’d been dragged aboard. She slept as peacefully as if she were dead, but there was danger from her. And her beauty was enchanting, stripping away will, clouding judgment. Desmond could not think clearly in the presence of the mermaid.

Even now, while she slept, he felt himself in her power, as if she had kidnapped him, not he her. It appeared that it was possible to be captured by a mermaid even while she slept. But what happens when she wakes up?