Rogue Wave (Waterfire Saga #2)(42)
She hurried along, relieved to have found merpeople and hopefully a place where she and Ooda could shelter for the night. But as they drew closer, Neela slowed to a halt.
It was no sea-cow ranch or caballabong game that was raising the silt cloud.
It was an enormous prison.
Full of merfolk.
“MY GODS!” Neela whispered, stunned.
She swam a little closer, crouched down behind a rock, and peered out from behind it. She’d seen prisons before—every realm had them—but she’d never seen a prison like this.
Mermen and mermaids—thousands of them—were inside. They had the darker skin of the West Matalin mer, and they were digging. Neela could see them. She could see everything, because the fence surrounding the prison was made of dozens of sea whips, monstrous bioluminescent jellyfish that were almost entirely translucent. There were hundreds of them, each about twenty-five feet long and eight feet wide. They were floating in a tight circle. Their lethal tentacles formed the bars of the prison.
“That’s why I’m glowing!” she said to herself.
More sea whips, even bigger than the others, floated above, alert for any movement.
“Living guard towers,” Neela whispered.
As she watched the prisoners, one of them—an older mermaid—stopped to lean on her shovel, obviously exhausted. Immediately a death rider was on her. He yelled at her and hit her with a crop. She cried out, then quickly resumed digging. Nearby, a reed-thin merman, his clothing in rags, collapsed. More death riders dragged him away.
And then Neela saw something far worse—children. Hundreds of them. She couldn’t tell what they were doing from where she was, but they weren’t digging. Upset, she opened her bag, took out one of her two remaining transparensea pebbles, and cast it. She wanted to have a closer look.
“Stay here, Ooda,” she said, as soon as she was invisible. Careful to stay out of striking range of any tentacles, she swam to the fence. Sea whips were the most deadly jellyfish in the world. The pain of their sting was so excruciating it could stop a mermaid’s heart in minutes. The sea whips couldn’t see her, but they could still feel her movements in the water and would lash out if she got too close.
From her new vantage point, Neela could see a group of children clearly. They were shaking large rectangular sieves full of mud. Inside the sieves, crabs and lobsters scuttled back and forth, picking through pebbles and shells. The mud was brought to the children’s work area in carts pulled by thin, frightened-looking hippokamps. The children, too, were thin and fearful. Many were crying.
Neela swam the entire perimeter of the prison, seeing misery everywhere she looked. Barracks stood at the far side of the prison. They were little more than sheds. Behind them, two guards stood close to the sea whip fence, talking. She could hear what they were saying.
“We’ve dug up every damn inch of the mud in this gods-forsaken hellhole. Traho says these are the old breeding grounds, and it might be here, but I say different.”
“We have orders to move the whole prison five leagues north if we’ve found nothing by Moonday,” the second guard said.
“The farther we get from the dragon caves, the better. We’re only three leagues east of them now,” he said, hooking his thumb to his right. “It’s sheer bloody luck they haven’t discovered us yet.”
“Traho came yesterday. Did you see him?”
The first guard shook his head.
“He wasn’t happy. He wants the moonstone and he wants it now,” the second guard said. “He says the prisoners need to work harder. Smaller rations. Harsher punishments and—”
The guard stopped talking and looked up. A huge shadow passed overhead. “It’s him,” the guard said. “Mfeme. With more prisoners.”
“We better get moving,” said the second guard. “We’ll be needed to help herd them in.”
Neela followed their gaze. For a moment, she saw nothing but the silhouetted hull of an enormous ship. As she kept watching, though, she saw things dropping down through the water. They looked like big black squares. As they got closer, Neela saw that they were cages filled with merpeople.
The jellyfish floating over the prison parted, and the cages landed roughly on the seafloor inside it. Guards opened the cage doors, shouting at the prisoners, hitting them with crops, driving them to a central assembly area. As the guards herded the prisoners, they tore any remaining personal effects off of them—beaded armbands, head wraps, belts—and tossed them through the sea whips’ tentacles. An armband landed near Neela. She picked it up when the guards’ backs were turned and put it in her pocket. The prisoners, gaunt and sick-looking, were frightened. Once they’d all been crowded together, they were told they were here to dig for a valuable object, a large moonstone, and that whoever found it would be set free. They were all given shovels—old and young, strong and weak. A man protested that his wife was too ill to dig. He was promptly beaten.
Neela reeled back from the fence, sickened, and saw that her tail was shimmering. The transparensea pebbles were not as strong as transparensea pearls. The spell was wearing off. She swam back behind the rock where Ooda was waiting and sat down on the ground to collect herself.
“Sera was wrong, Ooda,” she said, her voice shaking. “Mfeme has the people from the raided villages on his ship, yes, but he’s not taking them to Ondalina. He’s taking them to prison camps. To dig for the talismans. I’ve got to send messages to the others, but we have to get out of here first, before we end up inside the prison, too. Or inside a dragon.”