Free The Water Mirror by Kai Meyer Page A

no windows to give access to
     the outside, and in the darkness neither the ceiling nor the side walls were
     discernible, only the strange incline, which came closer and closer.
    Merle realized now that her first doubts had been right. There were no
     plants growing on the incline. The branching structure was something else.
    Her heart suddenly missed a beat as she realized the truth.
    It was bones. The bones of hundreds of mermaids. Twining over and under
     and into one another, forged together by death, aslant and in a jumble. With racing
     heart she saw that the upper bodies looked like human ribs, while the fish tail
     resembled a supergigantic fish bone. The sight was as absurd as it was shocking.
    â€œThey all came here to die?”
    â€œOf their own free will, yes,” said Eft as she steered the
     gondola to the left so that the starboard side faced the mountain of bones.
    The torchlight gave the illusion of movement in the
     branched bones where none was. The thin shadows twitched and trembled, they moved like
     spider legs that had been detached from their bodies and now were flitting among one
     another on their own.
    â€œThe mermaids’ cemetery,” Merle whispered. Everyone knew
     the old legend. The cemetery had been thought to be far out on the edge of the lagoon or
     on the high sea. Treasure-seekers and knights of fortune had tried to track it down, for
     the bones of a mermaid were more precious than elephant tusk, harder, and in olden days
     they were feared as weapons in the battles of man against man. That the cemetery lay in
     the city, under the eyes of all the inhabitants, was hard to grasp—and in
     addition, that a human must have helped to establish it. What had prompted him to do it?
     And who had he been?
    â€œI wanted you to see this place.” Eft bowed slightly, and only
     after a moment was it clear to Merle that the gesture was meant for her. “Secret
     for secret. Silence for all time. And the oath upon it of one who has been
     touched.”
    â€œI should swear?”
    Eft nodded.
    Merle didn’t know how else to do it, so she raised a hand and said
     solemnly, “I swear an oath on my life that I will never tell anyone of the
     mermaids’ cemetery.”
    â€œThe oath as one who has been touched,” Eft demanded.
    â€œI, Merle, who was touched by the Flowing Queen,
     swear this oath.”
    Eft nodded, satisfied, and Merle gave a sigh of relief.
    The hull of the gondola scraped over something that lay under the surface
     of the water.
    â€œStill more bones,” Eft explained. “Thousands.”
     She turned the gondola and sculled back in the direction of the tunnel entrance.
    â€œEft?”
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œYou really think I’m something special, don’t
     you?”
    The mermaid smiled mysteriously. “That you certainly are. Something
     very special.”

    Much later, in the dark, in bed, Merle slipped her arm into the water
     mirror under the bedclothes, enjoyed the comfortable warmth, and felt for the hand on
     the other side. It took a while, but then something touched her fingers, very gentle,
     very reassuring. Merle sighed softly and fell into a restless half sleep.
    Outside the window the evening star rose. Its twinkling was reflected in
     Junipa’s open mirror eyes, which stared, cold and glassy, across the dark
     room.

4

    â€œH AVE YOU EVER LOOKED INTO IT ?” J UNIPA ASKED NEXT morning, after they’d awakened to the
     sound of Eft’s ringing the gong in the hallway.
    Merle rubbed the sleep from her eyes with the knuckle of her index finger.
     “Into what?”
    â€œInto your water mirror.”
    â€œOh, sure. All the time.”
    Junipa swung her legs over the edge of the bed and looked at Merle. Her
     mirror fragments flared golden from the sunrise behind the roofs.
    â€œI don’t mean just looked in.”
    â€œBehind the water surface?”
    Junipa nodded.