Death and Duty - Fantasy Smackdown Round 1

Part 7

I wiped the tears off my face once more at the memory, the flowing white fabric more useful than I had thought. I had not thought of Mother for many years, though she had survived her oldest child and trained one of mine to take Duyong’s place as Healer.

I had claimed her place on the Council, many years ago now, and I suspected none were as skilled in seduction as I. Not a single one of my students showed the promise I had – but perhaps they lacked the inspiration. A man who would love a dragon, indeed.

I felt the smile lift my lips as I turned my thoughts to the Council and of my mother. She had visited the Atlantic with her own mother as ambassador in the past. For a moment, I wished I could follow my mother and Grandmother to see the only city of our kind. Mother…

I rose to my feet and stepped over to the bookcase, opening the drawer at its base. I pulled out the rolled pages my mother had drawn at the end of her life, the colours still bright.

I unrolled them on my red-covered box, thinking of the envoys I must send on my return.

The first was a map, originally drawn by humans, but marked by her hand in ink. The city’s location, the location of other points she knew and visited. It would be a long swim to the Atlantic Ocean for the envoys I chose.

The second was her drawing of what the city of Atlantis used to look like, when it was on the surface. When our kind were known to humans.

My people taught the Greeks to build as they had. The city had been beautiful, built over and around water, a coral atoll that had sprouted pastel marble which reflected sun and water to perfection. I touched the picture, with its vivid colours. Mother had even drawn in the light in the sky, the glow of the volcano that sent a tsunami over my people’s home when only we had survived. What would it have felt like to swim in tsunami waves? The mere thought of the power of it aroused me more than was wise, alone as I was. I took a deep breath to steady myself.

I lifted the coloured page and set it beside the black and white sketch beneath it. Ah, the contrast between the city my people built and the ruin it had become, before I drew my first breath! I toyed with the thought of going in the envoy’s stead, but my duty lay here, in my human house in a human city.

I drank in the colours, wondering whether Cantrella would be willing to come on land and draw what she had seen for me. I doubted it. Perhaps I should purchase one of the underwater cameras the humans had and ask her to take that instead? I could put digital photographs on my laptop computer, which I would need to replace with the latest model once more.

I blew out the candles in a huff of annoyance, letting the papers crackle and roll up as I lifted my hands. Practical matters drew my attention more than memories of the past.