Lilophea-2: Consort of the Sea King. Natalia Yacobson

flanked by many circular bridges that led nowhere. There was some secret in them.

      One narrow bridge closed in a circle over the whirlpool below. At the railing of the bridge there were countless mermaids. Their slippery bodies twisted against the railing like green bas-reliefs. The mermaids all had a dirty, swampy look, as if they had just come up from the mud. And their eyes were sparkling, wild. Lilophea was afraid to approach them. They did not even greet her, though they noticed that the queen was before them.

      “Do you know which way leads to Nereida’s grotto?” Lilophea turned to them first.

      “Why would you want to go there?” One of the mermaids answered, and the others began whispering:

      “This is the very grotto where Nereida keeps treasures from sunken ships mixed with the skulls of their victims. She does not know which is more precious to her: the treasure or the bones of those she drowned.”

      Could this be about Nereida? Lilophea grew wary.

      “She is not evil at all.”

      “But she will drown you if you come near her,” the mermaid, who had been the first to speak, warned her.

      “I can’t be drowned, I’m the queen of the sea, and I can breathe under water,” said Lilophea, faltering as she realized how presumptuous that sounded. She only breathes underwater as long as Seal lets her, and he might get angry if she escaped in his absence. But the mermaids didn’t laugh in unison, only looked more closely at Lilophea. Their eyes glittered.

      “She’ll drown you for sure. You’re her rival.”

      “No, I’m her friend – or rather, I was her earthly friend before I married the underwater king, which means I broke the promise I made to her. Nereida asked me not to even go out with Seal.” Lilophea bit her lips. Perhaps the green mermaids were right.

      “Nereida doesn’t have any girlfriends, and she never has any,” they confirmed. “Because she never wants to share anything with anyone. Remember that! If you have anything she wants, you are her sworn enemy. And she drowns her enemies, even if they are mermaids. She knows how to do that.”

      Are they all afraid of her? Their voices became so sad that Lilophea backed away. It sounds like a mournful chorus.

      The bridge itself glistened, and the green bodies of the mermaids curled around it like seaweed. Lilophea turned and walked away from them.

      “Keep away from Nereida,” the mermaids’ warnings boomed behind her. “We all stay as far away from her as possible. Once you get too close to her, bad things happen.”

      Trouble has already happened. Lilophea realized she was lost forever. Either the spirit of the bridges led her around, or the parapet of bones of dead fish, mermaids and even human skulls stretched so far that she always had to stumble on it. Dead fish came to life and tried to bite as soon as you put your hand on the parapet.

      How to get out of the maze? No matter which shore Lilophea approached, it turned out to be either unfamiliar or dangerous. In any case, it is dangerous to go to the shores that you do not know, and where there are no your family and friends. You could easily be enslaved by the same pirates, or taken hostage by the local rulers to demand a ransom from your father. Lilophea was afraid to go ashore in a foreign country. She’d be lucky if she strayed into any familiar lands.

      It is better not to think of the bridge to Etar. It must be of white gold, for its ruler is fabulously rich.

      As she wandered through the labyrinth of bridges, Lilophea saw sunset, dawn, dusk, and night. Either it was day or evening in different parts of the world, or she had been wandering in the above-water labyrinth for twenty-four hours. All around there was only sky, water, and some kind of ringing, as if a mermaid’s pack was singing out of the water.

      She wished she could meet at least one person. Not a spirit, not a monster, but a mere mortal to talk to.

      Lilophea’s dream came true some time later. A fairly ordinary-looking guy sat huddled at the intersection of the bridges. His face was certainly not fishy. He wrapped his arms around his head as if it were splitting in unbearable pain.

      “Who are you?” Lilophea leaned over him and noticed that his eyes were swollen with tears. He seems to have been lost himself, and has been looking for a way out for a long time. He probably hadn’t eaten anything in weeks. His clothes were hanging off him like hangers. Soon he would be a skeleton himself. Probably that bridge lined with bones is made of the remains of those who became prisoners of the maze of bridges.

      “I went after the princess the waterman had dragged away,” the boy confessed, looking at Lilophea with vacant eyes. He didn’t recognize her, but he reminded her of someone.

      “And that’s how you ended up on the bridge?”

      It was as if the boy didn’t hear her, talking about something of his own. His pocket vibrated strangely, as if a fish were hiding in it.

      “I cut off a kraken’s claw with a harpoon,” the fellow drew out and pointed. So that was what was moving in his pocket. The claw was creepy, and it crawled up on its own, trying to claw at Lilophea’s feet.

      “And the Morgens didn’t tear you to pieces for it?”

      “They have no right to crawl on the bridge. It is the decree of the master of the bridge.”

      “Is it Seal?”

      “I don’t know.”

      A severed claw was biting him, and he didn’t even notice. Lilophea wanted to console him, but all she could think of was false bravado.

      “Come on! I will get you out of here. I know the way. Or someone will show me the way.”

      “They won’t!”

      “They wouldn’t dare. The Water King owes me for my company.”

      “I cannot leave here.”

      “Why is it not?”

      “I’m looking for the princess. She’s definitely here. I saw her on this bridge from the shore, so I jumped on it myself, bypassing the kraken. I’m not leaving until I find her.”

      He looked at the compass. The device was as useless here as the kraken’s severed claw.

      “I love the princess,” he groaned.

      “Which one is it?”

      “Lilophea. I am looking for her.”

      “But she is in front of you.”

      “No, you’re a spirit woven out of thin air by the local jokers.”

      So it is true that they do lose their minds on this bridge.

      But it’s a good way to get to Shalian and Etar. So the winged fish were talking to each other as they hovered over the parapet. Lilophea listened to them. She spotted the jester spirits the boy had been talking about.

      They were fighting, hovering over the bridge. There was a whole flock of them. Only one spirit, sat on the parapet of the bridge.

      “Look, the queen is coming,” he proclaimed as he spotted Lilophea from afar. “Let us sing to her our hymn to all the kings of water and earth.”

      And they sang, so she had to cover her ears. Their voices rumbled in her head.

      “She is a queen, not a king.“Sing gently,” the same spirit urged. “Don’t frighten her. She has not come to maneuver us. The wives of rulers are much nicer to talk to than the kings themselves. And through them you can control their husbands. We usually do that. We know a lot of serenades to titillate women.”

      He fluttered over and plucked a ribbon from her hair.

      “Give it back!”

      “And will you kiss me in return, Queen of the Seas?”

      He