Water Music

“Jorge.”

Jorge shift­ed in his ham­mock, exhaled fit­ful­ly. He wrapped a hand round his sleep­ing head, hunched his shoul­ders, dozed on. Beside, the speak­er, a short sailor in corn­rows, moaned. “Jorge, get up. There’s some­thing wrong.” She seized the hand, yanked on it. Jorge sput­tered awake. 

He blinked tor­pid­ly, sniffed. “Mar­got,” he mum­bled, sniffed again. He shud­dered, frowned. “I was hav­ing the most awful dream.”

“Just get up. Some­thing’s wrong.”

“Aren’t you on watch shift?”

“Come one. Every­one’s on deck.” 

“What?” Jorge rolled out of his sling, stood bare­foot on the plank­ing. He shiv­ered, pricked by goose­bumps. About him, rope ham­mocks hung between stout hold beams, swing­ing gen­tly. All were emp­ty. 

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, just please come with me. I can’t go alone,” said Mar­got, drag­ging him to the hatch lad­der.

“This isn’t like you,” Jorge stut­tered, rub­bing his arms.

They clam­bered into a night awash with mist. Chill rivulets clung from the deck­ing to Jorge’s feet, ran from the masts, yardarms, and rail­ings. Ragged lines of cloud hung white under the swollen moon, trailed like slow rib­bons from the veiled peaks of moun­tain islands shroud­ed in the dis­tance. 

“Cold,” said Jorge, shak­ing his feet. 

“There they are,” said Mar­got. 

She head­ed to the star­board gun­wale, where two dozen or so sailors stood fast, silent, shiv­er­ing, at the rail. They stared down and out at the dis­tance, rapt. Some chat­tered, cold, even sobbed, but none spoke. Jorge and Mar­got wan­dered over. “Oh…”

Out on the water, some hun­dred meters out, stood wide out­crop­pings of dark, flat-topped basalt. Geo­met­ric col­lec­tions of pil­lars, only feet above the water, clothed in curl­ing vapor and dark weeds sway­ing in the mist. Atop them lounged beau­ti­ful, pale crea­tures.

Lithe, bare forms. Long and ath­let­ic, heads cush­ioned by fold­ed arms or rest­ed affec­tion­ate­ly on neigh­bor­ing chests and laps. Sea­spray glis­tened on their grey-alabaster flesh and volu­mi­nous lengths of black tress­es. Some dozen crea­tures, in total, peace­ful­ly asleep amidst the rocks and weeds.

“Blimey,” whis­pered Jorge. A half-heart­ed smile of relief passed over his fea­tures. 

Mar­got looked sick, nod­ded. “Just like the sto­ries.”

“Sto­ry’s don’t say any­thing about feel­ing like doom’s hang­ing over your head, though.”

“How can some­thing so beau­ti­ful be so dread­ful?”

Some­one nudged Jorge, pushed him a spy­glass. “Take a clos­er look, you two,” they whis­pered, voice cold. “And maybe you’ll under­stand.”

Jorge squint­ed through the lens, direct­ed it to the crea­tures. He turned the focus, teeth chat­ter­ing.

“My…” He scrunched his nose, exclaimed soft­ly at inhu­man details couched in beau­ty. Love­ly faces, set with eyes so black and so large as to show bul­bous through translu­cent lids. Shape­ly legs, strong, half again longer than a human’s, and end­ed by oar­like flukes. Sculpt­ed lips, part­ed in sleep to show car­ni­vore’s-teeth. 

Jorge pulled the glass from his eye, shoved it to Mar­got. She looked, squint­ed, blanched, hand­ed it away fast. “Be glad to get past them.”

“Too bad, then,” whis­pered a bald sailor from along the rail. He took his glass back, point­ing ahead of the prow. Jorge leaned to see. Amidst the loom­ing islands, count­less more basalt stands stood from the sea. Indis­tinct, swathed in fog and weeds. All lit­tered with love­ly, preda­to­ry forms.

“They over­win­ter, here,” said the bald man, grim­ly. “We’ll be lucky to get past the lot, by morn. Slow going, for the rocks.”

Jorge shiv­ered. “Think I’ll head back to my sack, then.” He turned, nod­ded to Mar­got, who quiv­ered.  “Don’t envy your watch.”

“Wait.” The bald man hissed, caught his arm.

“What?”

“You ever encounter them before?”

“No,” said Jorge.

“Then take these.” He hand­ed over two globs of beeswax.

“Oh.” He went pale.

“Lest they start to sing.”

“The lob­by is prac­ti­cal­ly a brawl,” said a sil­ver mask, plop­ping into vel­vet uphol­stery. Silk-gloved fin­ger­tips pinched at the nose bridge, pulled the vis­age away. Tired eyes and a rouged nose. “Peo­ple are throw­ing things. And there’s no more wine. I asked,” said Clove, rub­bing her tem­ples.

“Shame,” said her com­pan­ion, a dark woman with cropped hair. She too wore an aris­to­crat’s mask on thin cord about her ruf­fled neck. 

The two looked out from a high box, stage left, on an sump­tu­ous audi­to­ri­um half-filled with folk in evening wear. Some, seat­ed and qui­et with con­cerned thought. Most, up and out­raged. Aisles thronged with pushy clam­or­ers in dark suits, dress coats, and feath­ered hair embell­ish­ments. Ringed hands and wine glass­es raised in ges­tur­al pique. The mez­za­nines’ rails over­flowed with indig­nant gen­tle­folk and bal­anc­ing noble mice, who all alike frowned and point­ed to the shut cur­tains hind the stage’s gold and mar­ble prosce­ni­um arch. Below, ner­vous eyes and brass instru­ments flashed in the half-hid­den orches­tra pit. Across, fel­low masked box-goers leaned to mut­ter and con­spire dourly.

“Sup­pose that’s why the inter­val has dragged on, so.”

“It’s ter­ri­ble,” said Clove. She adjust­ed her tulle cra­vat. “The com­pos­er, that fel­low from Adaleu­tia, has dis­ap­peared. Some­one’s threat­ened to duel the pro­duc­er,” she rolled her eyes. “And that asi­nine princeling from Lisa is demand­ing every­one in the stalls be escort­ed out.”

“They were applaud­ing rather inap­pro­pri­ate­ly.”

“They were applaud­ing at nov­el­ty, Karene.”

“ ‘Nov­el­ty,’ ” mocked Karene. “That soloist was essen­tial­ly nude.” *

“Poor thing,” said Clove. “I’ll not envy the atten­tion she draws, after this.”

“Who was she, any­way?” said Karene, lip wrin­kling. “Some under­fed waif? It’s a shame what the Com­pa­ny has stooped to.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Clove raised her eye­brows. “The cast is sup­ple­ment­ed by a troupe from Adaleu­tia. Brought on spe­cial­ly by the com­poser’s request. Evi­dent­ly, he’s very proud of his her­itage.”

Karene toyed with a gold cuf­flink. “Was that the oth­er lan­guage in the sailor’s duet? The one from off stage. Adaleut­ian?”

“No. Come to think, I’ve nev­er heard it before.”

“Very inap­pro­pri­ate, then, intro­duc­ing non­sense tongues,” sneered Karene. “A bla­tant break from civility.”“It gave me chills, real­ly,” said Clove. She picked up a pair of opera glass­es, pol­ished the lens­es with her silk fin­ger­tips.

“And not nice ones.”

About the audi­to­ri­um, most folk had resumed their seats, few­er and more sedate than before. A ner­vous, mut­ter­ing ener­gy fol­lowed them; mut­ed, but yet undi­min­ished. Up and behind the mez­za­nines, a heavy chime rang twice. 

“Near­ly time,” said Clove.”

At last. Last bell was ten min­utes ago.” Karene frowned, watched tail­coat­ed ush­ers attempt to qui­et the house. 

“Look how few remain,” Clove mused.

“Can’t blame them. The per­for­mance is aes­thet­ic scan­dal.” Karene turned to her friend. “Do you think we should leave, too?”

“No. If the night’s to be scan­dal, it’s ever more worth watch­ing. We’d best see it through.”

Karene nod­ded, pursed her lips. The chime rang again, and the front lights dimmed with a sub­tle hiss. “Final­ly,” she said. There was a final scuf­fle to resume seats. Near the back of the house, a bel­liger­ent old man was dragged out by staff. Hun­dreds of opera lens­es flashed, resumed their places in silk and ring-couched hands. The house lights sunk to black. Silence grad­u­al­ly swelled.

Invis­i­bly, the stage opened in a sus­sur­ant swish of vel­vet and run­ner rings. From the orches­tra, a thin and amelod­ic qua­ver of bas­soon began to swell. And as it swelled, there bloomed in the stage’s heart a spot­light. First a pin­point, then a cold flood, reveal­ing as if by starlight a lone per­former on a curi­ous set. The audi­ence imme­di­ate­ly began to mum­ble. 

It was lone, grey-pale woman. She reclined, head bowed, clothed in naught but liq­uid spills of black tress­es on an angled bed of rock. Curi­ous pin-lights of  stars glit­tered above, some­how reflect­ed in the sea of blue and white-tipped silk which appeared to lap at her half-sub­merged calves.

Sur­prise caught in Clove’s throat. She raised the stem of her the­ater glass­es, squint­ed agape. “Oh, beau­ty,” she mut­tered.

“Oh, scan­dal,” said Karene, frown­ing, but like­wise fas­ci­nat­ed. 

“Look at her–” On stage, the silk-water woman raised her head. The bas­soon swelled, quit into silence.

“Eyes,” fin­ished Clove. Black orbs, larg­er and more liq­uid than any human’s. Beside, Karene shiv­ered vis­i­bly at the sight, knit­ted her shoul­ders. Below, the audi­to­ri­um did like­wise, twitched like a lot of rab­bits shot sud­den­ly dumb and dread­ful by the gaze of a fox in the under­growth. Some­one whim­pered. Anoth­er sobbed. None moved.

“What is hap­pen­ing?” Karene turned to her friend, fear large in her eyes. She dropped her glass­es, half stood. “Please, I feel wrong. I think we real­ly must–” Clove seized her wrist, held her still; enrap­tured, for the crea­ture on stage had begun to sing.  

A clear con­tral­to note spilt warm and love­ly from smil­ing lips. A sound so invit­ing­ly anti­thet­i­cal to the dread of moments before that the audi­to­ri­um gasped in choked relief. Then, a com­pli­men­ta­ry swell of strings. 

Anoth­er note, ascend­ing. Anoth­er peal of strings. Folk began to stand. Anoth­er. High­er, quiv­er­ing with liq­uid vibra­to. Mem­bers of the orches­tra fal­tered in their accom­pa­ni­ment, began to clam­ber from the pit. Yet anoth­er, all instru­men­ta­tion for­got. The aisles and mez­za­nine rail clam­ored with push­ing, weep­ing mass­es. Clove rose, dragged an unre­sist­ing Karene to stand with her.

On stage, white, preda­tor’s teeth gleamed in lime­light, part­ed with round­ed lips in a tremu­lous solo; unadorned, mul­ti­ton­al. Inhu­man­ly beguil­ing.

In the spot­light’s dark periph­ery, folk rushed blind for the stage, scram­bling over and crush­ing seat­backs and fel­low patrons alike. Bod­ies tum­bled will­ing­ly from box­es, bal­conies, and mez­za­nine. Screams rang out, some­how soft­er than any charmed note of song. The singer beamed.

Clove and Karene clung at the rail of their box. “If we stay here, we will die,” stam­mered Clove.

Shak­ing, Karene glanced to the back of the box, to the crash­ing riot, to her friend’s pan­icked eyes. “I know.”

“Come.” 

Hand in hand, they leapt, tum­bled to the mad­dened sea below.

In 3.445, just five years past, a tragedy came to play at the Roy­al Opera.

A per­for­mance of momen­tous antic­i­pa­tion, com­posed and con­struct­ed by a multi­na­tion­al col­lec­tion of the era’s great­est musi­cal and the­atri­cal minds. Its open­ing per­for­mance, which would host the Coast’s most esteemed and eval­u­at­ed patrons of the arts, was fore­cast­ed to be the most expen­sive and prof­itable show­ing of either bal­let or opera in his­to­ry.

Its title: Water Music. The most calami­tous and lit­er­al­ly dead­ly tragedy to have ever graced the world of Coastal arts.

What would begin as a shock­ing­ly-nou­veau per­for­mance, renowned for spark­ing out­raged duels and fist­fights dur­ing its inter­mis­sion, would be remem­bered for caus­ing over two dozen fatal­i­ties, mass hys­te­ria, and the parad­ing of a siren’s corpse through the streets of Forten­shire.

A siren: A crea­ture absent for a cen­tu­ry or more from the lex­i­con of mod­ern folk­lore. An Oth­er­some brand of sea-mon­ster so reduced in per­ceived dan­ger as to be con­sid­ered threat­en­ing only by sailors, who had long-ago learned to avoid its charm­ing ways.

Indeed, a tempter and a beguil­er of prey grown over-wary of its preda­tor’s charms. ** An eater of man­flesh so lim­it­ed in its wiles as to have cur­tailed even its own depre­da­tions, opt­ing instead to dine on seal, mus­sel, and oys­ter. A crea­ture reduced from leg­endary ter­ror of the sea to strange sea-mam­mal; more allur­ing, but no faster or more dead­ly than its bet­ter, the shark.

And yet, some­how become the unex­pect­ed star of an ill-fat­ed opera, recruit­ed by a for­eign com­pos­er of strange sen­so­ry and social ori­en­ta­tion. How this came to pass, none can pre­cise­ly say, for the man him­self, an Adaleut by the name of Andrei Ilyushin, sunk into her­mitage and obscu­ri­ty after the inci­dent.

What can be known is this: Ilyushin was a man of audi­to­ry genius, capa­ble of draw­ing har­mon­ic inspi­ra­tion from sources he claimed only he could hear. He was also a social recluse, apt to dis­ap­pear to the vast beach­es on the wild Sea of Khaw­dor for months at a time. Rumor sup­pos­es that it was on one of these long hia­tus­es that Ilyushin encoun­tered a siren, one made cor­dial by gen­er­a­tions of non-pre­da­tion of humans, and befriend­ed her.

Fur­ther, what can also be sup­posed is this: Ilyushin was immune to one of two of the lethal, oth­er­world­ly gifts pos­sessed by siren-kind. † Sirens, as schol­ars under­stand them, emit con­stant­ly an aura of infra­sound from an organ adja­cent to their bronchi. A strange ener­gy which unnerves all but the strongest of wills, sum­mon­ing a sense of pan­ic and impend­ing doom. For this, the com­pos­er, gift­ed as he was with an uncom­mon reck­on­ing of sound, had no fear. He had ears only for the siren’s sec­ond gift: Incred­i­ble vocal range and abil­i­ty.

It is by this nat­ur­al abil­i­ty that sirens beguile their prey. A human being, afeared by sub­audi­ble emma­na­tions from with­in the crea­ture, sees only a wel­com­ing, beau­ti­ful man or woman singing the most wel­com­ing of melodies. They have no mind for razor teeth, or black eyes, or pad­dle-legs: Only safe­ty and wel­come in the face of inex­plic­a­ble hor­ror. By this charm, sailors of old were so very eas­i­ly drawn from the decks of their ships and devoured.

This queer immu­ni­ty was both the gen­e­sis and the undo­ing of Ilyush­in’s mas­ter­work. The com­pos­er, igno­rant of the dan­ger which he had befriend­ed, wrote a bit­ter­sweet opera inspired by his inhu­man friend. A doomed romance between a sailor and a siren. A ground­break­ing piece unique­ly com­posed of both Firl­ish, Adaleut­ian, and Oth­er­world­ly lan­guages. An epic fea­tur­ing as char­ac­ters many a siren, only one of which would be filled by an anony­mous star: The gen­uine arti­cle.

By what cun­ning Ilyushin man­aged to smug­gle his siren into the venue, let alone the Firl­ish Cap­i­tal, none can say. Despite his dis­taste for soci­ety, he was yet a fel­low of great means, and in the end com­mand­ed the secre­cy nec­es­sary to hide his star soloist in the opera house­’s under­croft in time for open­ing night.

That day, it is said, the Roy­al Oper­a­house was haunt­ed. By the influ­ence of the latent siren, sev­er­al cast mem­bers were dri­ven to melan­choly and under­stud­ied at the last minute. Many musi­cians and prop­er­ty staffers became deliri­ous­ly, mis­er­ably drunk. The direc­tor was bare­ly pre­vent­ing from hang­ing her­self. How the per­for­mance ever pro­gressed to its fate­ful entr’acte, folk can only mar­vel, for all the while, the Com­pa­ny was forced to endure Ilyush­in’s uncon­scious sab­o­tage.

By inter­mis­sion, Water Music’s audac­i­ty, com­bined with the awful effect of a near­by siren, had dri­ven the house to artis­tic out­rage and the bring of vio­lence. Indeed, sev­er­al duels are rumored to have been fought in that time, most notably one by the pro­duc­er, who lost. Nudi­ty, incom­pre­hen­si­ble lan­guage, provoca­tive and vicious appli­ca­tions of bal­let: All were an affront to the artis­tic gen­try. The lengths to which Ilyushin had man­aged to unkil­ter his audi­ence were suf­fi­cient to cause a sub­stan­tial quan­ti­ty of walk­outs; and these quit­ters of the per­for­mance were per­haps the most lucky.

When the oper­a’s star was final­ly unveiled, only bare­ly made-up in human guise, Ilyush­in’s tragedy came to its rau­cous con­clu­sion. Unaware of both humans’ norms and her effect upon their behav­ior, the siren whipped her audi­ence into wan­ton, pan­icked fer­vor. She was, as it rushed the stage, only the first of the riot’s many vic­tims that night.

Ilyushin is rumored to have real­ized his ter­ri­ble error only then. Whether he saw, from his seat at the Roy­al Box, what became of his Oth­er­some friend, none can con­firm but the man him­self; and he is long since fled.

Since its calami­tous first per­for­mance, Water Music has been per­formed only once again. Once, this year. It was met with incred­i­ble suc­cess, both as a result of its leg­endary his­to­ry and its all-human leads.

By its effect, the folk of the Coast once more know the ter­ror of the siren, of beau­ti­ful tempters on shore­lines and sea­st­ones. Queer mon­sters, once reduced to pret­ty sea-mam­mals, now again remem­bered as beguil­ing eaters of mens’ flesh.

And with every pass­ing year, sto­ries of siren attacks creep from port cities with ever greater fre­quen­cy. Though absurd, though impos­si­ble, it would seem that sirens them­selves have heard the sto­ries, found new hunger and new ambi­tion in the cursed tale of Andrei Ilyushin.