It did not sound like when Ariel used to smg.
Oh, it was the mermaid's voice all right, and the tune was dead-on. But it was too loud, and the words had no soul, and the notes didn't flow from one to the other harmoniously. It was as if a talented but untrained child with no life experience to speak of had suddenly been commanded to smg a piece about a woman dying of consumption who had lost her only love.
Scuttle tried not to wince. Seagulls of course had no innate musical abilities themselves—as other birds loved to taunt—but the song still sounded blasphemous m Ariel's voice.
Vanessa laughed, purred, and made other noises with her throat Ariel never would have. "Did you enjoy that, mighty sea king? The little song from a lovesick mermaid?"
"I don't see a mighty sea king, " the great-grandgull whispered to Scuttle. "May-be she s mad. "
Scuttle had no response. He frowned and ducked and peered back and forth into every corner of the room that he could glimpse from the window But there was nothing, not even a small aquarium, that might hold a polyp.
Vanessa paused in front of the overwhelming collection of bottles and trinkets on her vanity: musky perfumes in tiny glass ampoules, exotic oils in jars carved m pink stone, enough boar-bristled brushes to keep an army of prmcesses looking their best. The one thing she didn't have—which Scuttle would not have realized—was a maidservant performing these ablutions for her. She made a kissy-face mto the mirror and then moved on, disappearing from view into her closet. It looked like she was holdmg somethmg, but it was hard to be sure.
The two birds strained and leaned forward, trying to follow her movements.
"I'm so sorry you missed such a wonderful opera, Kingv," she called from the darkness. After a moment she came back out wearing a bright pink silk robe. Now they could see that she carried a bottle half hidden in her voluminous sleeve. "But I think Eric may put it on again, one more time. Not that you'll get to see it then, either. Such a shame! It was so imagniative. It was all about a little mermaid, and how she loses her prmce to a nasty old sea witch. The hussy.'''
She paused... and then cracked up, her delicate mouth opening wider and wider and wider, billows of distinctly non-Ariel laughter commg out.
She turned to hold the glass bottle up to regard it in the light coming from the gull-decorated window...and the gulls gasped.
It was a narrow glass cylinder, like that which a scientist or a physic might use when doing experiments. On top was a piece of muslin held on with gobs of wax. Inside was filled with water., .and one of the most horrible things Scuttle and Jona had ever seen.
A dark green mass, gelatmous, with a vaguely plantlike shape filled most of the bottle. One knobby end kept it rooted on the bottom of the glass. Toward its "head" were things that looked like tentacles but floated uselessly in the tiny space; these were topped with a pair of yellow eyes. A hideous cartoon of a mouth hung slackly beneath. In a fmal bit of terrible mockery two slimy appendages flowed down the sides of its mouth, apmg the sea king's once foam-white mustache and beard.
The great-grandgull turned her head to avoid gagging.
"It's him!" Scuttle cried—at the last second covering his words with a squawk, remembering that the sea witch could understand the languages of all beasts, same as Ariel.
Vanessa spun quickly and suspiciously.
Jona thought fast. She pecked at her grandfather—realistically, as if she were trying to steal a morsel from him. Scuttle squawked. "What the..."
"NO IT'S MY FISHY!" Jona screamed. She widened her eyes at him, willing him to understand. Her great-grandfather just stared at her for a moment. Then he relaxed.
"What? Oh yeah, right," he said, giving her a big wink. "No—ray—great-grandgull—that—is—my—fish!" They both fell off the ledge, away into the air, wheeling and squawking like perfectly normal seagulls.
Vanessa ran to the window but relaxed when she saw just a pair of birds, fighting in midair over some nasty piece of something-or-other. With a snarl and a flounce she turned back inside. "That was some pretty smart thinking back there," Scuttle said, giving his great-grandgull a salute. "What now?" she asked. "Now? We go find Ariel"
Far far below the wine-dark waves upon which wooden boats floated like toys lay a different sort of kingdom.
Coral reefs were scattered like forests across the landscape, lit m dappled sunlight that had to travel a long and slow liquid passage to reach them. Long ribbons of kelp filled in for their Dry World tree equivalents. These bent and dipped gracefully in the slightest aquatic breezes, and were soft to the touch—yet tough as leather, sometimes with sharp edges. Fingerlike tips reached for the sun, photosynthesizing just like their landlocked brethren.
There were mountains in this deep land, too, and canyons. Just as rivers drained the surrounding countryside and flowed downhill in the Dry World, so too different temperatures of water flowed together, creating drifts and eddies. Fissures in the earth erupted with boiling water that blasted out of the hellish depths below—too hot for everyone except the tiny creatures whose entire existence depended on the energy from those vents, mstead of on the vague yellow thing so far above.
And everywhere, just as there were animals on land, were the animals of the sea.
The tiniest fish made the largest schools—herring, anchovies, and baby mackerel sparkling and cavorting m the light like a million diamonds. They twirled into whirlpools and flowed over the sandy floor like one large, unlikely animal.
Slightly larger fish came in a rainbow, red and yellow and blue and orange and purple and green and particolored like clowns: dragonets and blennies and gobies and combers.
Hake, shad, char, whiting, cod, flounder, and mullet made the solid middle class.
The biggest loners, groupers and oarfish and dogfish and the major sharks and tuna that all grew to a large, ripe old age did so because they had figured out how to avoid human boats, nets, lines, and bait. The black-eyed
predators were well aware they were top of the food chain only down deep, and somewhere beyond the surface there were things even more hungry and frightening than they.
Roundmg out the population were the famous un-fish of the ocean: the octopus, flexing and swirling the ends of her tentacles; delicate jellyfish like fairies; lobsters and sea stars; urchins and nudibranchs...the funny, caterpillar-like creatures that flowed over the ocean floor wearing all kinds of colors and appendages.
All of these creatures woke, slept, played, swam about, and lived their whole lives under the sea, unconcerned with what went on above them.
But there were other animals in this land, strange ones, who spoke both sky and sea. Seals and dolphins and turtles and the rare fin whale would come down to hunt or talk for a bit and then vanish to that strange membrane that separated the ocean from everything else. Of course they were loved—but perhaps not quite entirely trusted.
The strangest creatures of all lived in a city they built themselves, a kingdom m the depths.
Here no roofs separated the inhabitants from the water above or around them; creatures who could move in any direction had no love of constraint. All was open, airy—or perhaps oceany—and built for pleasure and the whimsy of the architect. Delicate fences led visitors into the idea of another place. Archways, not doors, opened into other rooms, some of which were above one another. Stairs were unnecessary. Columns, thin and delicate as stalactites in an undiscovered cave, supported "roads" that soared around halls and were decorated with graceful spires. Everything glowed white from marble or pale pink and orange from coral, or glimmered iridescently like the inside of a shell.