Chapter Three GIFTS AND SURPRISES Rinka
Chapter Three
GIFTS AND SURPRISES
Rinka
The journey to Wilderise aboard HMS Delphine, the flagship of King Derkomai’s navy, was a far-cry from the ferry Rinka and Idris had taken over the summer.
The Delphine was less a battleship and more a floating parade, a grand, opulent display of the wealth and power of Loegria and of the king’s might and influence.
She was equipped with luxurious quarters for traveling courtiers and diplomats, her dining hall catered elegant meals with fresh ingredients from its latest port of call, and there was even a live band that played after dinner concluded.
Rinka enjoyed her time aboard so much that she regretted that the journey itself was so much quicker—the Delphine moved at twice the speed of the ferry.
But Rinka and Idris had not chosen to ride with the Delphine for its luxury or its speed. The Delphine was equipped with something very important for Rinka’s present mission: a DIALS system; DI(stance) A(nd) L(ocation) at S(ea).
The only thing that might help Rinka find the mermaids that saved their lives.
The DIALS system was intended to spot enemy vessels, particularly the underwater vessels the dwarves on the continent preferred.
But since Loegria was still technically at peace—Idris explained that that was becoming more of a technicality as tensions rose in the continent, although so far, Loegria had managed to keep out of it—the DIALS system had gone unused for some time.
It turned out the Admiral in charge was only too happy to put DIALS into use once more, and he made no comment about the frivolity of the mission.
“Got your sea legs under you yet, my lady?” asked Idris when he joined Rinka on the deck. It was freezing cold outside, but Rinka had found it stuffy in the bridge with the naval officers.
“Not ‘my lady’ anymore. Just Rinka,” she replied with a smile wide enough to show her fangs.
“You’ll always be my lady,” said Idris. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, rubbing her upper arm for warmth.
Rinka pulled back to look at him. “That’s the corniest thing you’ve ever said. Are you ill?”
Idris laughed. “And here I was trying to be romantic. What did she say about me in the article? ‘My affections are plain?’”
“‘Plainly written on your face,’ I believe. Obvious. Not plain as in boring.”
“Ah, that’s it. So I’m meant to be more mysterious and withholding.” Idris withdrew his arm and backed a pace away.
He was such a smart arse. He was lucky he was so handsome there in his suit and bowler, the cold sea air bringing color to his cheeks.
Rinka could not resist him.
“The time for mystery has passed,” she said. She closed the distance between them again and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’ve seen bits of you you’ve never seen yourself.”
Idris’s almond eyes flared. The time for mystery had ended, perhaps, but she still managed to surprise him every once in a while. “There’s more I could show you—”
Admiral Northwood cleared his throat behind them. Rinka and Idris sprung apart. “Forgive me, your royal highness. Miss Rinka. We believe we’ve spotted something out in the reef.”
Rinka looked to the Wilderisen coastline. They had passed the southeastern corner and were heading up the coast towards Gull Bay, just where they’d spotted the mermaids the first time. “Is there any reply?”
Admiral Northwood, a greying human who had begun to gap the buttons on his naval uniform, smiled apologetically.
“I’m not certain the mermaids have the ability to signal back.
Some of my crew claim to have spotted them in these waters, and we’re picking up something large and stationary not far beneath the surface. Too large for an underwater ship.”
“A city?” asked Rinka.
“Could be,” said Admiral Northwood. “We haven’t spent much time here. We’re too slow to take on Burning Ash.”
“This is slow?” asked Rinka. She hadn’t answered Idris’s sea legs question, but truthfully, she was struggling a bit. As beautiful as the Delphine was, her speed was rough on the stomach.
“And too obvious. Burning Ash can spot us from miles away. We’re setting course for the reef now. We should arrive shortly if you want to accompany me on the dinghy.”
“Of course,” said Idris. “And the trunk?”
“Already loaded, your highness.”
Rinka gave Idris a look as they followed the Admiral: the dinghy? She looked out over the water. It was so cold up here there were chunks of ice floating in the sea. She was grateful they’d gone overboard in the summer—going in the water now would be death.
Idris sighed as he noticed her look. Then he took off his jacket and helped her put it on. “It’s a good thing I have dragon’s blood.”
Rinka didn’t argue with that. The warmth of his skin was a blessing at this time of year.
Admiral Northwood helped Rinka into the dinghy as Idris checked the trunk. It was a large wooden thing with a great iron clasp and a set of iron weights to carry it under the surface.
“I’m sorry to your crew that they’ll have to lower us with this thing. It must weigh a ton,” said Idris.
But he needn’t have apologized. The dinghy was lowered with a great ‘lectric pulley. They hit the cold water with a splash that thankfully landed outside of the small vessel.
“Now let’s see if we can find some mermaids,” said Admiral Northwood as a Halfling crew woman started rowing.
“Do you know how to signal to them?” asked Rinka.
“I was going to ask you,” said Admiral Northwood.
“The rowing will bring ‘em if they’re out here, Admiral,” said the crew woman. “That’s if they didn’t hear the Delphine coming.”
The waves were calm as she rowed, but the vessel didn’t have the ability to cut through them as Idris’s water boat had. The bobbing up and down was more than Rinka’s stomach could take. “How long do you think we’ll be—"
Before she could finish the question, she heard a laugh.
It wasn’t the giggly laughter of Cordy and Em. It was a deep laugh, warm and musical.
“Did you hear that?” asked Admiral Northwood. “It sounded like it came from the sea.”
“It’s them,” said Idris. “It has to be.”
Admiral Northwood pointed the crew woman in the direction of the laughter.
“What if we can’t find the girls?” Rinka asked Idris. It hasn’t occurred to her that they might find different mermaids.
“I’m sure they can help us find them.”
“You think they all know each other?”
“That’s not what I—”
There was more laughter then. A dozen or more different laughs and the sound of bodies breaking the surface.
“We’re surrounded!” shouted the crew woman.
Admiral Northwood instinctively reached for his sidearm. “Who’s there?” he called. “Show yourselves!”
A head popped up over the side of the dinghy. It was a bald man with very dark skin and the characteristically large round eyes of the mermaids. “Testy, aren’t they? For landfolks who showed up in our waters?”
A second head popped up on the other side. This one was a man with red hair that was like Rinka’s, only much more vibrant even when wet. “Typical landfolks. Bringing all their metal and their trash into our ocean.”
“What are you doing here, landfolks?” asked the bald man. “What business do you have with the king of the ocean?”
“The king of the ocean?” muttered Admiral Northwood. “I am Admiral Northwood of King Derkomai’s Royal Navy. We have business with two of your kind. With whom am I speaking?”
The red-headed man laughed. “He just told you. That’s the king of the ocean, mate. Are you thick?”
“King Olo, at your service,” said the bald man, pulling himself up onto the dinghy to bow, his fish tail flopping over the stern.
“King Olo, we’re trying to find the young mermaids Cordy and Em. Er, Cordelia and Maisie. We have a gift for them,” said Rinka, jumping in to hopefully avoid an international incident over the sovereignty of the ocean-dwelling peoples.
“Ah, Nora’s girls,” said the red-headed man. “What did they do this time?”
“We didn’t do anything!” shouted a familiar voice from behind a floating block of ice.
“Not us!” came another familiar voice.
“Oh, that’s too bad. I suppose you won’t want your gift then. As king of the ocean, I’ll just take that—”
“WAIT!” shouted one of the girls. They both came splashing over with incredible speed.
“Oh, it’s you again,” said Cordy as she propped herself up on her elbows to look inside the dinghy, her wet blonde hair matted across her face. “Em, look. It’s the orc and the weird guy.”
“How dare you! This is the crown prince of Loegria, Prince Idris—” began the crew woman.
“The prince?” squeaked Em excitedly. “You didn’t tell us you were a prince. He can do magic too, King Olo!”
Rinka shot a nervous look at Idris, but he simply shrugged his shoulders. While they had concealed his use of magic in their magazine interview in order to avoid further antagonizing the king, it wasn’t as though the royal family’s magic was a secret. “I did what I had to in order to survive.”
“Of course, your highness,” said the Admiral.
“We heard there was a present,” said Cordy.
Rinka smiled at the girls. “We wanted to thank you for saving us. We didn’t know what to get you, so we brought you a few things from the land we thought you might like.”
Rinka opened the chest to show the girls what was inside: a mirror, a hair comb, a doll with red hair, and a spying glass.
The girls leaned over and reached for the items, picking each up and asking about its use before discarding Rinka’s explanations in favor of their own.
“It’s for poking fish when they won’t stop bothering you,” Cordy told Em regarding the comb as she poked her in the arm with it.
“Ow!” said Em.
“We appreciate your gift to our girls,” said King Olo, willfully ignoring the chaos to his right. “Is that all you came for, landfolks?”
“King Olo,” said Idris in a serious tone that Rinka had seldom heard from him. “We owe a debt to your people. Is there a way we can repay it?”