“You freely gave into a boon
A promise you must keep
And now you follow as a fool
The path that leads to sleep.”
Unaccustomed to music, the King disregarded what little he understood of their chant and returned to his palace. Remembering the witch’s face, he stowed the potion behind the looking-glass in his chamber.
True to her word, the King promptly forgot about the spell, the witch, and his visit to her. He took to the business of the Kingdom, and chose a noble maid to become his Queen. It was not until one hundred years later, when the Queen had produced six daughters and wasted away into death, that the King entered his darkest hour, and the potion behind the looking-glass began to beat out a terrible, hammering rhythm. The King was frightened by its ominous sound, and remembering the witch’s words, swallowed it whole. The hard corners of the spell cut the insides of his throat as he choked it down.
Nothing happened.
Except he felt his limbs on fire, his head on fire, his dead, empty heart on fire. They were on fire for the witch, the beautiful witch, and every ounce of him ached with desire for her. For days he lumbered about, utterly consumed. Finally, when he could stand it no more, he abandoned his guardians and made a final journey to the deepest part of the sea.
Three
The Beginning of the End
The witch had not changed in the last century, there was not a single line on her face or hesitation in her movements. She appeared ageless as indeed, she was. She was spell-binding, as always, and the King was utterly bewitched. His body tingled with lust, and he was certain that the witch could see his longing etched all over his being. The Sirens were nowhere to be seen.
“I want to be with you,” said the King. “I wish to mate with you urgently.”
The sea-witch was filled with disgust, bile rising in her throat at the repugnance of the thought. “There is nothing that I would detest more,” she declared truthfully, and turned away.
The King was taken aback, for there was no male in existence more attractive than he, he with his glorious shining head and form so mesmerising, he so like a god. He advanced upon her, beginning a mating ritual. “You can not deny me,” he said, believing it to be so, “for it is nature.”
“I am not a part of your nature,” responded the witch. “Have I not said I am a law unto myself?”
“I will make you my Queen,” offered the King.
“You are an abomination!” spat the witch, for the very smell of him nauseated her. Yet she was prepared for this, for it was of her own design. It had taken her a hundred years to steel herself for the inevitable outcome.
The King was not discouraged and advanced further, driven by the potency of the magic within him. “I will make you my Queen, and give you half my kingdom.”
The witch laughed at the absurdity of his plea. “If I had wanted your kingdom,” she said scornfully, “I would have had it long ago. But who would wish to possess a realm of artificial creatures, more animal than human, who cannot feel, or express, or hate?”
The King did not know the meaning of these words, and so discarded them. “I will give you supremacy, and my whole kingdom. I will step down,” he promised, beginning to feel desperate. He was inches away from her now, and his body had begun to coil around hers.
“Do not insult me with your paltry offerings,” hissed the witch. “It was I that created your kingdom. I am the mother of all your kind. Did you not think my Sirens would report to me your every move, as they did your father’s, and his father’s before him? You vile creature, I witnessed your conception, and saw your malformed, artificial body in its egg. I knew your Queen and all your hideous daughters see my face in their looking-glass. You are mine, and it is I who grants the favours, not you.”
But all of this was gibberish to the King, who, if he had the sense to listen to reason, would not fathom her words for the terrain of his intelligence was limited, and animal desire is strong. As the King began that ancient act, the witch drew in her breath and gritted her teeth. Blood began to trickle from her lip onto her chin. Her heart pounded within her, echoing in that dark cavern, but the King did not care. Every ounce of her will begged her not to throw his body off hers, to murder him and drink his blood for the outrage, the sacrilege. She had a goal, one single aspiration, and she was prepared to pay the price.
As it continued, it occurred to her that she had once enjoyed this very ritual. A face returned to her in the darkness, that loved and despised face, his body buried beneath the rubble. And in her native language that had long ago escaped her tongue and memory, she cried out his name, and the names of all the people she had known and loved. She cried out for humanity and all of its weakness. And suddenly, the King fell off her, and the spell was broken.
Filled with alarm and a faint sense of disgust, he witnessed the scene through fresh eyes and realised what he had done. His body repelled hers like magnets in reverse. His head was swimming, for had he really lain with this creature a moment ago? And why had she suddenly lost her beauty? But with one glance at the witch’s contorted face, the King backed away, sensing he was in grave danger.
The witch gave into her instincts and came after him. He had never before noticed how her nails were like long, yellow talons, and now they were embedded in his flesh and ripping it away from his bones. This time it was her own eel’s tail that twisted around his own, strangling him like a snake strangles its prey. Like a ravenous wolf, her sharp teeth tore into him, and she chewed the pieces of him with relish and swallowed them with gusto. It was too easy, for her strength far outweighed his own. Restraint, my sweet, said her inner voice, you must leave him alive. Coarse, strangled cries omitted from the witch’s mouth as, in an act of supreme force, the Sea King threw her off and fled.
As he longed to reach the sanctuary of the palace for the healers to begin their work, so did the Sirens attend to their mistress, who was still quivering with the heat of the fight.
The Sea King’s imagination was so limited that he did not realise the trickery that lay behind the event. Still he trusted the witch’s words, for he had swallowed the potion in the darkest time of his life, and the glorious reward for the witch’s most valuable potion must have been that fleeting, sickly sweet hour he had lain with her. And he trusted deeply her final promise: that his entire fortune was about to change.
For the weeks that followed, the Sea King was nervous and easily alarmed, perturbed by the events that had conspired. If he had been a mortal man, he would have spent hours in self-analysis, he would have suspected the woman, he would have sulked under the burden of guilt. But merfolk know nothing of these things, and it is not in their natures to analyse or to consider, so the King went about his business as usual, with the exception of three things.
He took to avoiding his daughters regularly, refusing to spend time with them and barely listening to the nanny’s report on their health and doings. When he heard their voices in the corridor, he would escape to the nearest chamber. When his eldest daughter entered the throne room uninvited on one occasion, he berated her in front of his court, and she fled from him. To him, they were an omen of bad tidings, but he did not confide this to anyone. And vaguely, they reminded him of his Queen, and if he were a mortal, he would have felt he had betrayed her, and this was unpleasant also.