A Tale of Traitors

Willow: Rule of Sirens

 
         "I beg your pardon, Chief," the woman spoke when the chief himself had not addressed us. "My friends are simply overjoyed to be here."

Friends? Did we know her?

"All is forgiven." The chief spoke in a voice that sounded like the gentle padding of water against the soft sands of a beach. "I am delighted to host such heroes in my castle. I wish for you all to know that my people support you, and you will always be welcome here, even though this will not be the case in perhaps any other realm."
 As the chief was now addressing us, I found it fitting to look right into his eyes. The scales of his marvelous tail were colored black, gold, and emerald green, and he was covered in elaborate gold armor which reflected every beam of light from the glowing stones that illuminated his castle. His skin was quite dull, as if he didn't want to be noticed. Something about him looked half-dead, as if he was only partially there with us in the massive, empty room. His eyes—oh, those eyes—were more animal than anything else. His massive red pupils bore into my soul, and if I had come with anything to hide from him, I would have readily given every secret if it would turn those awful eyes from me. That's when I saw his teeth...



We had not come to partner with mermaids.



We had come to partner with sirens.

Sirens were dangerous, tricky, manipulative, and, well, pretty much evil—weren't they?

"Thank you, Chief," I smiled warmly as he allowed us to rise from our knees. "You are very brave to risk Tormod's wrath if he finds us here."

"Nonsense," the chief pretended to shrug off my compliment, but the pride shone evidently in his gaze, "you are truly the brave ones who will be risking your lives to kill him."

"Speaking of killing him," the professor said cheerily, "I was wondering if you know where the wreckage of Pirate Moonlight might be resting, or if it's possible for us to begin searching for it."

"My enemies and allies alike have been searching for that wreckage for years." The chief stroked his full, seaweed-textured beard and then began to address the woman in another language. It sounded like a mix between clucking and the crashing of water, the language so well concealed that it would almost pass as nature talking to itself. Brilliant.

"I could take you there. But there is something you must do for my chief first," the woman's majestic voice boomed throughout the empty room, heavy with dignity and confidence.

"What must we do?" I spoke when no one else had.

"Follow me down to the strategy room and we will continue to speak there. We know it is secure." The woman responded and led us through the massive castle to a room hidden near the dungeons. There was something so familiar about her, but not in her glowing ember eyes, which seemed to see everyone and everything all at once. Not in the way her dark purple and red tail flickered perfectly in the light, complimenting her grey skin that matched the chief's. Not in the pearl jewelry she wore to show that she was a battle hero, or how her deep midnight curls spun beautifully down her back. Wait... 

"Professor, where is Dalia?" I whispered to him when I got close enough. "Is she... the siren woman?"

"Yes, that's our Dee!" He chuckled. "I'm sorry, I should have told you beforehand that she would look like her normal self again. The magic of Earth has worn off."

"She's so different," I said in awe, watching her open the passageway door for us and smile as we entered. 

"Yes," the professor shrugged. "Oh! I forgot to mention, try not to stare into her eyes or the chief's for long. They have the power of hypnosis, like the vampires do. Although they do not intend to use it, it still may happen. I'm certain that if their motives are pure—as Dalia's, I'm sure, are—then they will protect you by not looking into your eyes. Just be careful."

I nodded.

          The room was like the inside of a cave, but with a massive brown and ancient map of Realm Five hanging boldly on the wall facing us. The ornate glass table was covered in old books, papers, and prototype weapons and traps. The walls were covered in paintings of fish and other aquatic animals. In the middle of all the paintings was one in which Sirens and Mermaids had joined forces and fought together, hand in hand, against Pirate Moonlight himself.

"Please, take a seat," Dalia offered, waving her hand over the seats by the table. We each took one and sat as still as possible.

"As you can see from our current stage of planning," the chief began, sliding a massive sheet over the books so we all could see, "we have successfully united forces with the mermaids once again, although we do not know how long we can make this last. Most of them are on board with overthrowing the king, as his troops have continued to kill our people during inspection days. Any citizen with a weapon in their homes—which they will need to defend themselves—gets killed, and their families are left vulnerable to natural predators as well as raiders, or remaining pirates, though there are not many here anymore." He looked at Dalia.

"Furthermore," she continued where he left off, "the mermaids believe they have discovered a way to breach the border into Realm (pick). While this was previously thought to be impossible, it appears that they have found a way to pierce it in which you could swim right into the next realm and land on dry ground without the king ever knowing of this breach's existence. This mission is incredibly dangerous and risky, but will soon be attempted. If this works, after we find the wreck, we can escape into Realm 7 and the king—as well as his assassin—will be none the wiser. However, from then on, you will be on your own."

"Soon enough, a spirit may come through to ensure that everything is running as it should, and at that time it may be obvious that we have all decided to rebel against the king," the chief spoke from the other side of the table. "Fearing this discovery and the punishments that come with it, a group of our united peoples have decided to tamper with the machine that will pierce the border and have taken to fighting with our rebels. Although their numbers are not greater than ours, we don't have much choice but to defend the project instead of go on the offensive. If you would be so kind, we could greatly use your help in attacking them. Some of our scouts believe they know the general location of those loyal to Tormod. It appears that they may be hiding in an old contraption that crashed down in our oceans a few hundred years ago. If it isn't too much to ask, I was hoping that Dalia and Willow might lead a squad down there to attack the troublemakers, or sneak down there and kill them while they sleep." The chief's eyes were dead of remorse. "I don't think it will be necessary to take prisoners."

Everyone looked to me for an answer.

"I would like to stress the fact that these are not simply thieves or annoying subjects of mine," the chief continued, seeing my uneasiness. "We have decided to wage war, and they have chosen the wrong side. Many of us have been killed by their attacks and reckless actions. If you do choose to kill them, you will eliminate a threat of Tormod's from our entire realm. They are only a few hundred."

"If Dalia agrees, we will do it." I nodded firmly, shockingly secure in my decision. Something in me, the part of myself that I couldn't remember, said it was the right thing to do. I knew I had killed before. Murder was not something that I was fond of, but I needed to weigh the consequences. This was war—good against evil. There was no other way of looking at this. Either way, people are going to die. At least we'll be fighting on the side of the light, I thought as we began to plan our attack. 

          By nightfall, we had assembled almost 1,200 mermaids and sirens alike. It was still quite amazing to me that they had united for one common cause; throughout history, I recalled, they had only been united five or six times and had been at war since the beginning of creation. Back when the realms weren't separated and we were completely free, sirens had been created by the breeding of vampires and mermaids, and they were despised for being a new type of creature. It took hundreds of years for our races to see them as equal beings, because they were found to be so dangerous and unnatural. The more I pondered their existence, the more I realized it had been incredibly unfair of me to assume that us allying with the sirens was a bad idea. Just like Elves, and even Averages, some were good and some were bad, but everyone has a decent combination of those two qualities within themselves. Who am I to say who is good and who is bad? And how dare I judge them before really knowing who they were? I felt ashamed of my judgement, even though no one else knew what I had been thinking. I would be sure not to judge someone so quickly again.

          Our warriors seemed strong, capable, and intelligent. Most were handy with weapons that I had never seen before. One of them, something that resembled a staff, fired controlled lightening shots into the water. When it landed in the sand, it would shock and kill anyone within a ten-foot radius, and then the pulse would stop. I continually questioned how in the world this was possible, but the technology was much too advanced for me to understand. All I knew was that I was completely amazed. Although these weapons would be helpful and powerful, they were also expensive to manufacture, which meant there were not enough for everyone. We decided that we would have a squadron of 100 people who would have two of these each. They would go inside the enemy's hiding place—which, I discovered, was essentially an airplane grave site—and thrust their spears into the ground where the most amount of Tormod's soldiers would be waiting. If they could get to the most concentrated areas, they would do the most damage and leave the most casualties. With any luck, the enemy would surrender after seeing this much damage; we decided that if they surrendered, we would take them as prisoners. However, we did not expect or hope for this outcome.
 To my delight, it appeared that electric weapons were the way to go for most of the troops. There were weapons that reminded me of sniper rifles, and those who were most talented with these weapons were carefully selected and placed strategically among the planes so that they could target and eliminate the leaders of our enemy. Perhaps most importantly, there were already foot soldiers who were incredibly skilled with glass-like blades that flung quickly through the water. I had never witnessed a battle such as this one, and I had to calm my excitement by telling myself that Tormod's faithful followers probably had most of the same weapons that we had. I questioned the chief for some time about the weapons that the enemy had been using, and he said he did not think they possessed any of the staffs that we planned to use. This was a relief to me. 

          We spent the next several hours training our troops and assembling them into their squadrons. We decided that we would train all day the next day and then see where they were at. The chief made it sound as if the enemy had not had formal training, but were an equal match for most of our troops. Not much training? Awesome. Easy kills. Equal match for our troops? Not great to hear. We obviously wanted as few of our own casualties as possible, and I thought of all the ways we could prevent their deaths. I asked that each man and woman wear the same color clothing, and the chief had cloaks made for all of us that were a gorgeous shade of blue that he called aqua marine. This way, we could identify each other and have some level of camouflage against the backdrop of the open ocean. Then, I asked if it would be possible to fit our soldiers with some simple first aid supplies so that they would be able to help themselves in the case that they were wounded. The chief readily took all of my advice, and I was quite surprised. I taught our new allies the most helpful defensive and offensive techniques that I discovered after swinging their weapons around. Something in me felt completely right, as if I was fully recognizing myself again. I had many feelings that were familiar.

          I popped out the broken Shadow Catcher and switched the old one for a new one. I still hated that nasty cracking sound it made as it popped into my skull. Disgusting. I shuddered as I remembered how many times a day I was switching the Shadow Catchers in and out back when we were on Earth. Now that the spirits had not detected me and were not close, I was back to switching them out on a semi-normal basis. As soon as they discovered my location, however, I would have to switch it more and more frequently until they found me. We would have to move fast after seizing the enemies, as Tormod would quickly get wind of the rebellion rising here and desire to crush it immediately. I sighed as I laid down my weapons for the night and began to change into PJ's. I was ready to get this battle over with, ready to finally do something right. All this time I felt like I had been dependent on everyone else to help me, and finally it seemed like I was going to lead. I would be in control. But that meant the whole thing rested on my shoulders. Could I handle this? I racked my brain for answers but, unfortunately, I couldn't recall any scenario in which I had led others, or gone into battle myself. Maybe I needed to be dependent on them... but they had followed every order I had spoken with trusting obedience, even respect. Maybe they saw something in me that I just couldn't see yet. Nevertheless, I was afraid.

Afraid of failing.

Of letting my friends down.

Of losing them.



          So much rested on my shoulders.

 I sighed and decided against going to bed. I wanted to meet the people whom I was protecting. I wanted to see some of this city, because why not? I was counting on being alive after the battle, but I was aware that I could die fighting. Maybe my last night should be spent sight-seeing in a land that most people went their whole lives without seeing or understanding. Maybe Queen, Bob, Dalia, and Adrianna would even go with me. I showered, fixed my hair as well as I could, and changed into some casual clothes that I found in the closet of the guest room I was staying in. Then, I searched the entire castle for my friends. Somehow, everyone was asleep, but I hadn't found Dalia yet. I was becoming frustrated and had determined to leave on my own, so I headed for one of the hidden doors. 

"Where are you going?" Said a voice from behind me. Inside, I was screaming, but I wouldn't let it show.

"Hi, Dalia," I smiled, turning around to face her. "I was hoping to go out into the city. I want to see some of it before we head out."

"It's dangerous to go out alone, even for a warrior," she returned my smile. "How about I come with you?"

"Sounds lovely," I nodded, and we set off together into the warm night.