Price of the Light

3

After defeating of Brineskimmer and the conclusion of the peaceful alliance with Queen Nerea, the absurd laws forbidding getting sick, climbing to heights and, most importantly, loving were canceled. And immediately the citizens of the city, who seemed to be carriers of some incomprehensible secret and as if frozen, came to life, felt the refreshing wind of freedom. The all-seeing eye of Hydropolis no longer pursued and controlled every step, the soldiers no longer guarded the entrances to the stairs leading to the roof, from which a stunning view of the azure-blue sea was opened. Merfolks and people walked along the romantic streets, daring to finally reveal to each other the feelings that all this time had to be suppressed or hidden in the invisible depths of the soul, so that the All-Seeing Eye could not penetrate its caches and read what secret forbidden thoughts they hid. The tension, which seemed to make even the air heavy, threw its chains off Hydropolis life.

That night, after a hard battle, Evan, Aranella, Roland, Tani and Batu stopped at the Queen Nereid's underwater castle, which was accessed by a secret elevator carefully guarded by guards. Roland compared the principle of a monarch's residence to the principles of a submarine. Outside, nothing could be seen above the water, except for the elevator in the form of a round blue slippery elevator platform, covered with a luxurious canopy held over the columns, with stucco patterns. A whole kingdom lay deep at the bottom. Evan and his friends walked on the smooth glass floor, blinded by the whiteness of pearl statues. The walls were made with glass to observe the view of the colorful seabed, represented by multi-colored underwater plants, corals, sea shells, inside which lay huge glowing pearls, fish and unprecedented underwater fish and creatures that looked like mermaids, but it was an outlandish rare species sea creatures with a translucent body, like a jellyfish. They did not have such a soul as humans, merfolks, grimalkins and other races. A wonderful feature of these mermaids was their voice - charming, mesmerizing with its purity, sonorousness and songs that touch the deep strings of the heart. But they could be heard only at sea depths at night or in windy and cloudy weather, because the heat of the sun painfully affected them: they began to melt. In rare cases, they could rise to the sea surface. This usually happened before dawn, when the sun had not yet had time to rise over the horizon.

The totalitarian atmosphere of Hydropolis in recent years has affected the behavior of mermaids: they left the territory of the state and swam into distant waters. The inhabitants of Hydropolis have not heard their voices since then.

Another unique property of the singing and songs of mermaids was that their songs could embody the melody of the mood, the secret spiritual motives of the person whom they met at dawn, if, of course, they liked his soul melody. It was a rare good fortune to hear the embodied melody outside, around us that the lips could not convey.

"Look, look! What amazing creatures!" Tani exclaimed as Leander led the guests down the marble corridors. Tani jumped to the window, bewitched by the iridescent tints of the transparent body of the mermaids.

Leander looked in the direction that Tani was pointing. Suddenly, his always seemingly unemotional face lit up alternately with surprise and then delight.

"Amazing! They are back!" Leander gasped.

"Who are they? Are they mermaids?" Aranella asked, also approaching the glass and carefully studying the azure fins of the mermaid.

"We call them wondrous singers as a species of the genus of mermaids. But... it can't be..."

"What can't be? Are wondrous singers rare creatures in Hydropolis?" Roland asked.

"In recent times - yes, a rarity. Wondrous singers did not want to live in the conditions of the harsh regime, which we were forced to maintain with Queen Nereida. We are very sorry that it happened, ladies and gentlemen," Leander explained apologetically.