In the foothills of the Ibrian Mountains...
Cahe Vehswo was in the field repairing a wooden fence. It was less to keep the wolves out than to keep the stupid sheep in, where the only slightly smarter child-shepherds could watch them.
It was a beautiful day, almost sparkling. The pines weren't yet brittle from late summer heat and the deciduous trees were in full glory, their dark green leaves crackling in the wind. The mountains were dressed in midseason blooms and tinkly little waterfalls. The clouds in the sky were ridiculously puffy.
The only off note in nature's symphony was a strange stink when the wind came up from the southern lowlands: burning animal fat, or garbage, or rot.
Everyone in the hamlet was out doing chores in such forgiving weather; rebuilding grapevine trellises, chopping wood, cleaning out the cheese barrels. No one was quarreling—yet—and life on their remote hillside seemed good.
Then Cahe saw something unlikely coming up the old road, the King's Road. It was a phalanx of soldiers, marching in a surprisingly solid and orderly fashion considering how far they were from whatever capital they had come. With their plumes, their buttons that shone like tiny golden suns, and their surprisingly clean jackets, there was almost a parade-like air around them. If not for their grim, haughty looks and the strange flag they flew.
An order was cried; the men stopped. The captain, resplendent in a bright blue cap and jacket, rode up to Cahe along with his one other mounted soldier, who carried their flag.
"Peasant," he called out—somewhat rudely, Cahe thought. "Is this the township of Serna?"
"No," the farmer started to say, then remembered long-forgotten rules for dealing with people who had shiny buttons, big hats—and guns. "Begging your pardon, sir, but that's farther along, on the other side of Devil's Pass.
People call this Adam's Rock."
"No matter," the captain said. "We claim this village and its surrounding lands in the name of Tirulia!"
He cried out the last bit, but the words bounced and drifted and faded mto nothing against the giant mountains beyond, the dusty fields below, the occasional olive tree, the uninterested cow. Villagers stopped their work and drifted over to see what was going on.
"Begging your pardon again, sir," Cahe said politely. "But we're considered part of—and pay our taxes to—Alamber."
"Whateveryour situation was before, you are now citizens of Tirulia, and pay homage to Prince Eric and Princess Vanessa."
"Well, I don't know how the kmg of Alamber will take it."
"That is no concern of yours," the captain said frostily. "Soon the king of Alamber will just be a memory, and all Alamber a mere province in the great Tirulian empire."
"You say Tirulia," Cahe mused, leaning on the fence to make his statement sound casual. "We know it. We buy their salted cod and trade our cheese with them. Their girls like to wear aprons with braided ties. Perde, son of Javer, sought his fortune down south on a fishing ship and wound up marrying a local girl there."
"Fascinating," the captain said, removing one hand from his tight grip on the reins to fix his mustache. "And what is the point of all this?"
Cahe pointed at the banner that flapped in the breeze.
"That is not the flag of Tirulia."
In place of the sun and sea and ship on a field of blue that was familiar even to these isolated people, there was a stark white background on which a black-tentacled octopus with no eyes gibbered menacingly. It looked almost alive, ready to grab whatever came too close.
"Princess Vanessa thought it was time to...update the sigil of house Tirulia," the captam said, a little defensively. "We still represent Tirulia and the interests of Prince Eric, acting for his father, the king, and his mother, the
"I see." Another villager started to speak up, but Cahe put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Well, what can we do, then? You have guns. We have them, too—to hunt with—but they are put away until the boars come down from the oak forests again. So... as long as the right tax man comes around and we don't wind up paying twice, sure. We're part of Tirulia now, as you say."
The captam blinked. He narrowed his eyes at Cahe, expectmg a trick. The farmer regarded him mildly back.
"You have chosen a wise course, peasant," the captam finally said. "All hail Tirulia. "
The folk of Adam's Rock murmured a ragtag and unenthusiastic response: all hail Tirulia.
"We shall be back through this way agam after we subdue Serria. Prepare your finest quarters for us after our triumph over them and all of Alamber!" And with that the captam shouted something unintelligible and militaristic and trotted off, the flag bearer quickly catching up. As soon as they were out of earshot, Cahe shook his head wearily.
"Call a meeting," he sighed. "Pass the word around... we need to gather the girls and send them off into the hills for mushroom gathering or whatever—for several weeks. All the military-aged boys should go mto the wilds
with the sheep. Or to hunt. Also, everyone should probably bury whatever gold or valuables they have someplace they won't be found."
''But why did you just give in to him?" the man next to Cahe demanded. "We could have sent word to Alamber. If we'd just told the soldiers no, we wouldn't have to do any of this, acting like cowards and sending our children away into safety...."
"I did it because I could smell the wind. Can't you?" Cahe answered, nodding toward the south.
Just beyond the next ridge, where the Veralean Mountains began to smooth out toward the lowlands, a column of smoke rose. It was wider and more turbulent than what would come from a bonfire, black and ashy and ugly as sin.
"Garhaggio?" someone asked incredulously. It did indeed look like the smoke was coming from there. From the volume and blackness there could have only been scorched earth and embers where that village had been just the day before.
"I bet they told the captain no," Cahe said.
"Such causeless destruction!" a woman lamented. "What terrible people this Prince Eric and Prmcess Vanessa must be!"
Eric woke up.
He was having that dream again.
It came to him at the strangest times—when reviewing the menu for a formal dinner with Chef Louis, for instance, or listening to the castle treasurers discuss the ups and downs of dealmg with mternational bankers. Or when his beautiful princess went on and on about her little intrigues.
All right: it was when he was bored and tired. If a room was stuffy and he was sleep}- and could barely keep his eyes open.
Or right before he fell asleep properly, m bed—that moment between still being awake and deep m dreams. The same split-second when he often heard angelic choirs singing unimaginably beautiful hymns. He could only listen, too frozen in half-sleep to jump up and quickly scribble it down before he forgot.
But sometimes, mstead of the choirs, he had this:
That he was not Prince Eric wed to Vanessa, the beautiful prmcess. That there had been some terrible mistake. That there was another girl, a beautiful girl with no voice, who could sing. No-
There was a beautiful girl who could smg, who somehow lost her voice forever on the terrible day when Eric fell asleep. He had been dreaming ever since. There were mermaids in this other world.