lead shark, even Faro was afraid. The shark’s jaws moved, as if he were thinking. Faro hung still in the water, his heart racing. Slowly, very slowly, the cold eyes seemed to remember who he was. Grudgingly the shark moved aside to let him pass.
Everything in the Groves appeared silent and deserted. For a moment Faro wished he had not come back. Saldowr would be very angry at his disobedience. But, thought Faro, I am Saldowr’s scolhyk and his holyer. I have to be with him if he needs me. Cautiously Faro swam forward, keeping in cover behind weed, boulders and the uprooted trunks of huge branching weeds. For once he was grateful for the devastation left behind when the Tide Knot broke. It hadn’t all healed itself yet and the debris gave him plenty of hiding places. He glided from thick, tangled weed to the shelter of a pile of rocks, and settled himself to wait, his tail curled under him.
Faro did not hear them coming, but suddenly they were there, close together, in front of Saldowr’s cave. Ervys and Saldowr. Faro’s fists clenched in shock and anger. How had Ervys dared to return to the Groves of Aleph? And why was Saldowr talking to him so calmly? Ervys had no right to be there after the way he’d plotted against Saldowr.
Saldowr should have banished him when he had the chance, thought Faro. Ervys was weak then, after we defeated the Kraken. If Saldowr had used all his powers, we would never have seen Ervys again.
But he must not be disloyal to Saldowr, even in his thoughts. Whatever Saldowr had done or not done, he had good reason. It will be part of a pattern that is too big for anyone else to see, thought Faro hopefully.
Ervys looked formidable. Resolute. His defeats seemed to have done nothing but polish his anger and his hunger for power. Faro looked at the tall, powerful figure, and dread rippled through him. But Faro refused to be afraid. He was about to fling back his head defiantly, but just in time he remembered that he must be still and silent. There would be plenty of chances to confront Ervys, he told himself. Now he must watch, and listen, and wait…
“…the Kraken, I think, is alive,” says Saldowr, and Faro watches the Groves darken.
“Are we going to talk about the Kraken for ever?” demands Ervys. “It’s time to move on. The Kraken is sleeping.”
“Let us hope he does not turn over in his sleep and remember us,” says Saldowr. “But you are right in one thing, Ervys. It is time for me to make the Call. It takes many days to bring together all the young Mer who wish to make the Crossing of Ingo.”
Ervys swishes his tail. “There are many among the Mer who will not answer when you blow the conch,” he says, putting the faintest emphasis on the word “you”.
Faro has to dig his nails into his palms to stop himself from crying out in protest at this insult to Saldowr. But a small, reluctant part of his mind knows that Ervys is telling the truth. Many of the young Mer in Faro’s own age group have turned away from Saldowr and everything he stands for. They follow Ervys now. They want what he promises them – freedom, independence, an end to this mingling with humans. Pure-blooded Mer must unite and build a future together. If that means that they have to fight, then so be it. Only old people and has-beens say that the Mer must resolve all their conflicts peacefully. Ervys is a real leader, a man for our times.
Saldowr’s silence goads Ervys into recklessness. “Many among the young Mer no longer recognise your authority, Saldowr,” he says.
“I am aware of that,” answers Saldowr quietly.
Why won’t he fight? thinks Faro, burning with anguished fury against Saldowr. Why doesn’t he destroy Ervys now that he’s got him here alone? Saldowr could do it; I know he could.
“Then let us act on it,” says Ervys smoothly. “Let us make the Call together. You will call your people, and I will call mine.”
“They are not my people,” says Saldowr with sudden anger. “I am privileged to be Guardian, no more than that. The Mer belong to no one but themselves.”
Ervys looks at him consideringly. “Do you agree that we should both make the Call?”
Saldowr appears to be thinking deeply. His cloak swirls around him, his hair flows across his face, hiding it. At last he draws himself upright, pushes back his hair and says, “We will each blow the conch in turn. But hear me, Ervys, everyone in the age group for which the conch blows must be free to answer its summons. No one shall be prevented, understand me? No one.”
The power than Faro has longed to see is alive in Saldowr now. His eyes burn with inward, hooded fire. Ervys moves back, just a little.
“Of course,” he says, with the first touch of uncertainty in his voice.
“I want to hear none of your talk of pure blood, and half-and-halfs. Neither from you nor from your followers. Ingo can only be healed when it accepts that it is not complete in itself. Do you understand me?”
Ervys raises a hand in protest, and then slowly his hand drops to his side. How can he understand? Faro wonders. Even I don’t understand what is in Saldowr’s mind now. But after a long hesitation Ervys bows his head in agreement.
“Wait here while I fetch the conch,” says Saldowr with all the old authority in his voice.
Saldowr swims to his cave entrance and disappears inside. Faro watches Ervys closely. The man’s face is knotted with concentration. He is thinking something through, and Faro wishes he knew what it was. When Saldowr emerges with the conch in his hand, Ervys shakes his head as if a shoal of tiny fish were nibbling at his skin.
Faro eases himself a little way further around the side of his boulder, holding a bunch of weed in front of his face to camouflage it, and peering through the strands. The conch is as big as a man’s head. It is full of lustrous, changeful colours: dark at the tightly whorled tip, pearly at its broad base. Saldowr lifts it high and flings back his head. His lips touch the lip of the conch. Water pulses through it, building up pressure, and the conch begins to sound.
At first the Call is no more than a palpitation of the water. Faro is disappointed. He has heard the sound of the Call before. Even though he was always too young and he knew that the Call was not meant for him, his whole body had thrilled down to the tip of his tail. Perhaps the Call doesn’t sound the same if you are too close to the conch.
But the Call grows. It begins to beat the water like a whale’s tail, sending waves of sound to crash against Faro’s ears. Now he hears it truly. It enters his body and vibrates against every part of it. The Call is in his muscles, in his bone. It is inside his heartbeat. It grows louder and louder until his whole body shivers with the impact. He wants to leap through the water, to turn a thousand somersaults, to fly down the currents like a dolphin. This time, the Call is for him.
Faro curls up tight, tight, hugging his tail. He must not be seen. If Ervys and Saldowr knew that he’d watched this…
The Call thrums through him, on its way to the ends of Ingo, on its way to the ears of the young Mer who are ready to hear it. Elvira hears it as she sorts red weaver-weed to make dressings for wounds. Her skin prickles and her eyes grow brilliant. Girls diving with dolphins hear it and backflip, stunned, listening. Boys surfing wild currents hear it and fight their way out of the surging bubbles, shaking their hair out of their ears. The Call flows over the rocky cradles of Mer babies. Ancient Mer shake their heads and smile, remembering the past as the Call rushes past them. Mothers press their young children close, glad that it’s not yet their time for danger and adventure. The Call races through Ingo, into every underwater cave, through the hulls of sunken treasure ships, into coral reefs and gullies where conger eels live, through kelp forests and shadowy underwater caves, searching out the Mer who are ready to make the Crossing of Ingo.
The Call is like a snatch of music thrilling through Ingo, so irresistible that those who hear it will do anything to hear it again. It’s time, the Call says. Time to leave your family and your home behind. Time to say goodbye to all the places where you’ve played and learned and slowly grown up. Time for your own journey to the bottom of the world and for your own adventure.
At