Legends of Belariath
Winn
The laughter died slowly. It’s leftover peals slapped dully into the tent walls .. Usine tore a last strip of meat from the greasy rib without so much as a whisper of the familial smile he’d worn only moments ago. All around him, the tribe’s expressions settled into similar stone; the warriors sat back on their stools, licked their teeth, put their sweat and grime palms to the pommels of their swords.
The bonfire had been struck hours ago. Once the proper ceremony had been accomplished – the showing of the ships, each waiting for the other’s acknowledgement – and then the contents of each vessel emptied onto the beach. A stand-off amongst the seaweed, moonlight marked the place where they had sized one another up. One was a high-boot crew of libertines; the other, a proud fur-clad clan of the north.
They had the faces of the barbarians. Squared, blunted features and eyes that sank into pits of sockets, they walked heavily and evenly. They wore the skins of animals they had eaten, mostly leather armor; metal plate was reserved for few. Usine wore the breastplate of his father’s father. He was just shy of his thirtieth year, and the eldest. His eyes wore the burden of many battles. Braided into his dark brown forelock was the token of his woman, a seashell that clacked against this plate when he strode. It was this that his fingers strayed to, looking into the black eyes of the most garish of them – the one who called himself Captain.
The libertines were jaundiced, were skinny, they wore broad red sashes across their waists that had, at first, made the warrior men laugh and murmur. They spoke loudly at their interpreter and often adjusted their hats. One face was so scarred that the man could not open both eyes. Another had a leg missing from the middle of the thigh, down – he walked with a lion headed cane. The Captain had a scar beginning at one corner of his mouth, trailing up his face, so that when he grinned the split was far too wide. It was a primate smile, a grimace, whispered Usine’s first man when they had begun to break bread.
At first discussions were boisterous – the libertines had brought women, exotic women, beautiful creatures of strange make. One of them was urged to dance; she was veiled, barefoot, silver cymbals on her fingertips. Both brotherhoods shared their stories and were soon clapping one another on the shoulder, the interpreter the most hailed. He’d been offered too much to drink. By the time the Captain began talking about what he’d really come for, his translator was slurring and weaving.
“No,” said Usine finally in the coarse language of his ancestors. “The creature you speak of is not with us. It dwells in the sea. It is not to be bought, nor sold. Belonging neither to you nor me.”
“But sir,” crooned the Captain, sibilant and charming, his fish-hooked mouth spreading like something dead and split at the belly. “We have tracked you from the farthest oceans. We have followed your fast sails for many days. Can you not tell us even a little about the thing?”
Usine paused and put his hands on his knees. They were formidable hands, meaty, calloused paws. He leaned forward across his lap, his woman’s shell swung whitely in the air. “The story is only for kin. And it is not a goddess as you have been told. It is a spirit, no more.”
“A goddess to those who have seen it, sir! Hair of spun gold, eyes of the Asiatic, flesh of pearl and porcelain.”
“I’m afraid it is time for us to retire. We must sail again at dawn.”
“I am a dealer in fine goods. My ship is heavy with gold and spoils. Have a woman, have a chest of gold, have three women, a dozen – but tell me where I can find this ocean maid and we will be brothers.”
“You mistake our hospitality for indulgence,” said Usine after a great pause. When he stood, his first and second man stood with him. The tribe was taller than any of the libertines by at least a foot, broader by two. Their leather creaked. Their smell was of blood and brine. His pale gaze blistered the gibbet grimacing Captain. “It is time you returned to your ship. Take your women with you.”
But one gypsy woman managed to slip between the furs of a warrior. Perhaps he’d kept her purposefully, not knowing the depth of her connivance. To her, dizzied by her flesh and her fire, he whispered the legend. The tale of the Nereid, the sea foam spirit that had followed him and his ancestors since the gods had molded them from the silt. He told the gypsy how to summon the creature – he told her how to keep the creature. In the morning, while dawn was still crimson, she stole back to the libertine’s vessel and divulged all for a promise of freedom at the next port.
While the tribe slept, they called it from the sea with the prescribed rhymes, the lullabies. It emerged naked from the surf in the hour before daylight. Its eyes were of an innocent, crystalline, its stare more brilliant than the Northern star. When it came close enough they stole its shawl and it wailed, it cried, it wept and became simply flesh. Possession of the garment was possession of the creature’s soul. The libertines caught it up and put it in a gilded cage, lashing its arms and legs together like an unruly calf – the wind was in their favor that morning, or Usine and his men would have overcome them. To the shores of Nanthelion they sailed, with coin dazzled eyes; the sea borne thing, the woman of brine and of the sweetest fruits, went with them. By waves first and then by land, farther and farther from the smell of the sea they traveled.
It was the one who was promised her freedom and did not receive it that beat open the lock and let the Nereid loose. They were a caravan then, a few miles from the small citadel of Belariath. The gypsy threw the shawl at the creature and pushed it out into the grass. Winn stumbled and ran toward the lamplights of the town, where her innocence was first tarnished and – with each passing day since – becomes a mockery of itself.
She came seeking shelter and those who offered spread her tender white legs to see between. She learns to write their language, slowly. She patches her clothes when they are rent from her, she gathers again the things she has found to feed her hungry mind each time they are scattered in lust. Once protected by Unigo, she has put aside its mark – has become the sum of her circumstance, the growing conflict between her expansive intellect and her Judas flesh must soon come to a head.
The Nereid remembers the songs they sang. She recalls all of the flowers they left and all of their faces. No longer there to watch them grow, as her mother and her mother’s mother had done, Winn must forge a new sight. One that must include the pain and pleasure of her new life. One that must bend to her suitors, balance her hungry mind, or break beneath the strain.
For a little more information regarding the origins of the nereid legend, please refer to these sites:
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/n/nereids.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nereid
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/NEREIDS.html
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