A mermaid and a corsair

Natalia Lilienthal Translator

© Natalie Yacobson, 2023

© Natalia Lilienthal, translation, 2023

ISBN 978-5-0060-8628-9

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

A mission for the pirates

“There she is!” The sea creature, which had recently taken control of the ship, clapped its clawed hands in triumph. “I got her at last! It is your duty to deliver her to King of Opal. And be quickly!”

“Her?” Desmond looked doubtfully at the silver net spread over the sea. It was not the Princess of the Seas, but a heavy gilded chest with runic inscriptions.

Morgen must have gone mad trying to get revenge on the sea king. Desmond clenched his fingers on the hilt of his saber, expecting the crew to mutiny, but none of his corsairs moved. They all stared at the catch like hypnotized men. He guessed it’s the magic marks engraved on the lid. They take away people’s thoughts. Then why hadn’t he fallen under their influence himself? It must be the amulet. Desmond lovingly stroked the silver pendant given to him by a young witch on the coast who had fallen in love with him. Cassandra was well versed in sea enchantments and how to defend against them. There was a reason she was considered a worthy follower of the famous coastal sorceress Rokuela.

But the huge oblong chest that had been caught in the net looked more like treasure from a shipwreck than a personal item of the Morgens. Morgens, as the sea-dwellers were called, were creepy, ugly monsters. One of them, for some reason, decided to betray the sea king. It approached Desmond in a tavern on the pirate island of Peony and began to exhort him:

“You are a brave corsair and a corsair captain. You need to get something from King of Opal to rule the seas, and King of Opal needs a princess of the sea. I will catch her for you, but you will deliver her to Opal.

Desmond was drunk at the time of the conversation, but not drunk enough not to suspect that he was being lured into a trap. However, a few leading questions settled the conversation in the morgen’s favor.

“I want revenge on the sea king,” he confessed at the end of the conversation, hiding his monstrous body under a cloak made from a scrap of black sail.

“You’re taking a risk! Even all who sail the seas are at his mercy. And what’s it like for those who live in the water?”

“It’s a lot to ask for a broken heart.”

Desmond didn’t even know the morgen had a heart, but the creature pressed his hand to his chest. There beneath the bones and slime was indeed a ball of black muscle beating beneath what looked like a human heart.

Desmond was willing to go to great lengths to please the ruler of Opal. After all, the wizard who had recently taken control of piracy ruled there. If you don’t please him, you can’t plunder the seas. In the last decade, corsair fishing has become extremely difficult. The sea king does not let you sail the seas without his permission, on the other hand are the rulers-sorcerers of coastal countries. Either pay tribute to all of them or sink.

Not surprisingly, Desmond agreed to the absurd proposal of the morgen, not even thinking about what punishment awaits them all in case of failure. And so the morgen spread a silver net over the sea, and in it instead of the princess was caught a shining chest. Desmond was not discouraged. The chest could be resold at the market in Pion. After all, it was made of scarlet gold. The magic symbols engraved on it might scare many away, but Cassandra would know where to find a magic buyer. Desmond had turned to her more than once when no one wanted to buy valuable items that supposedly bore a curse.

The chest was too heavy. Even a dozen pirates couldn’t drag it onto the deck, but morgen was able to lift it over the side and bring it aft at once. How could the net not be torn by the weight of the thing? The net itself disappeared as soon as the chest was on the ship.

“Now sail to Opal!” Morgen commanded. “Change course before they miss it.”

Desmond couldn’t understand what the morgen was up to, but he gave the command anyway.

“Where’s the Princess of the Sea?” He asked after a pause. “Why did King of Opal need her so badly?”

“It is for the wedding, of course.”

“What wedding is it?”

“It is the royal wedding.

“Had the King of Opal thought of getting married? I remember he’s a wizard and a bachelor.”

“That’s why he chose the daughter of the sea king as his bride. Only problem is, she didn’t choose him. She must be forced to make the right choice. This chest will solve King Opal’s wedding problem, and you will be rewarded.”

That’s even better than catching the princess! Desmond was already afraid that Cassandra’s amulet would not save him from the fury of the angry sea sorceress. After all, everyone knows that the sea king’s daughters are powerful sorceresses. For them to create a storm and sink an entire fleet is worthless. If King of Opal pulls off his marriage scam and marries such a sorceress, he will become the most powerful ruler among all the coastal kingdoms.

“Do I have the right to ask a favor from the king instead of a monetary reward?” Desmond asked the morgen.

“It will be easy for you to bargain with him when he gets the chest. Just don’t open it for the rest of the voyage.”

“Or else a water genie will come out of it?”

“It will be bad!”

Desmond bit his tongue.

The chest was fluted like a shell.

“Do not open it, no matter what sounds come out of it,” morgen warned again. “Carry the chest closed all the way to Opal. I won’t be able to see you off. I have business to attend to!”

What business could a sea monster have? Desmond didn’t have time to follow the morgen’s disappearance. It was a muddy puddle on the deck. It splashed into the crew.

“Oh, I don’t like these signs!” Desmond ran his fingers over the runic engravings on the side of the chest. The lid creaked and slid open easily. From the inside, it looked like the sash of an enormous shell.

Morgen had said not to open the chest. Something monstrous might be hidden in it. Desmond instinctively gripped his saber, wondering what kind of monster the sea king’s daughter might be. After all, the sea king himself is probably a monster with octopus-like limbs. His daughters might resemble squid, large toads, or a living mountain of clams. Desmond expected to see a creepy sea witch clawing at him with all her tentacles, but he was in for a surprise.

A souvenir from the bottom of sea

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?

Sleeping mermaid

It began to rain. The slanting jets beat on the sails, but the blood stain on the center sail was not washed away. The seagull’s blood was staining the deck as well. The mermaid’s lips became so bright as if they were stained with blood.

Couldn’t she rip the bird’s head off and drink its blood? The mermaid lies in the chest as if in a coffin. Why does it seem that she drank the bird’s blood?

Desmond found that he could not lift the chest himself and drag it into the cabin. He was strong, but his strength was not enough this time. We’d have to call for helpers. So far, all the pirates were drunk. Drunks are useless. Only the helmsman and the ship’s healer who had treated his wound remained partially sober. Neither of them was fit to help.

Desmond tried again to move the heavy chest. It wouldn’t budge an inch, as if it were embedded in the deck. What to do? You can’t leave a mermaid unattended. We’ll have to keep watch next to the chest. Desmond felt like taking a nap. His eyelids were drooping. From somewhere in the depths of the sea came sounds like a mermaid’s song. Or were they coming from the deck?

The predatory mermaid packs, swimming away, were heaving something about going to sic newts or even a leviathan on the ship. They were probably just intimidating the pirates.

A familiar morgen appeared abruptly on board. A puddle of dark water immediately spread across the deck.

“Did someone tell you we were in trouble?” Desmond wondered. How quickly these sea creatures react to everything.

“I smelled it myself,” the morgen took a quick look at the damage and became enraged. The sight of the sleeping mermaid had stirred a storm of emotions, from anger to worship.

“What’s the matter with you? Would you like some rum to calm you down? It always makes pirates feel better,” Desmond didn’t think that one day he’d have to comfort a ruthless sea monster.

“This is the first time I’ve seen her not in a sea temple or palace,” it hissed.

“And who put her in the chest if not you?”

It was probably a stupid question. The morgen poked his tentacles at the runes on the shell-like walls of the chest. Apparently the rune signs explained everything without words. Cassandra would have understood such an explanation, but Desmond was almost illiterate in magic. He only knew what he had been taught by Cassandra herself and an old court wizarde from Mirid.

“What is her name?” Desmond began to inquire.

“It is none of your business!”

“Yes, it is, if she’s sailing to Opal on my ship.”

“It would be easy for me to sink your ship,” the morgen threatened, his many amber eyes flashing.

“If ‘The Triumphator’ sinks, who will take her to Opal?”

“I’ll drag her to the oncoming ship and hypnotize the captain to be more cooperative than you are,” the morgen immediately found a compromise. Apparently, his powers aren’t in the dozens.

“I doubt there’s a fool enough to bring such a dangerous cargo to Opal, even under hypnosis. She reeks of death. Are you sure she’s alive?”

“She’s asleep!”

It was as if the word “sleeping” meant something magical. Cassandra had told him that the ocean dwellers became dull when they hibernated and were easily mistaken for statues standing upright in the water. But touch a statue like that and it would grab you with its many tentacles. So Desmond never touched the carved figures standing like pillars on the water. The ship always sailed past them without hitting them, even if it came straight at them.

He explained to his pirates that such figures were mile’s poles for morgens, and it was forbidden to touch them. He would not tell the crew directly all of Cassandra’s secrets. Sometimes you can make things up as you go along. Once, an oncoming sculpture winked at Desmond. It was alive, though it seemed carved from white wood.