"Can we get on with this, or are we going to watch him behave like a spawnling all night?" Duon grumbled.

Zane ignored him, twisting in a tight circle until he was dizzy and laughing, marveling at the flow of water against his fins, the way he never even had to think about coming up for breath. He came to a stop, twisted back the other way to undizzy himself, then drifted in place for a second while things stopped spinning around him.

Laughing again. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed this much.

“Let him play.” Zane caught Myli's eye; she was smiling as she watched him. “There has been too little happiness of late.”

"We should be well away from this place," Duon hissed. "The Usurper would love nothing better than to tear down this sanctuary, we should not give him any excuse. If this is not the one you're after, we must be able to try again."

Zane did a backwards flip, then a forward flip, then grinned and swam at the coral wall full speed.

"Perhaps we should stop him before he hurts himself," Myli ventured.

Zane twisted at the last moment, spreading his arm fins as he flipped around, shoulder on, redirecting his momentum...

He still slammed into the wall. And it was sharp. His shoulder stung and faint red trailed away in the water, but he barely noticed. Pushing off that wall he aimed for the other one, pushing himself into the fastest straightest shot he could. And slammed into it again.

"Called Cerulin? Are you alright?"

Not discouraged, he launched himself again. Then again. He was accumulating quite a few scratches across his shoulder and thigh from slamming into the coral, but compared to what he'd endured less than an hour ago they were meaningless.

Finally he twisted at the last second and only brushed the wall before he turned, slowed but not stopped, and shot off toward the opposite wall again.

He was growing more used to moving now, more aware of each minute movement and how it would shift his course. He reached the far wall and this time instead of turning before reaching it he flipped around just as he arrived, landing feet first. He bunched up and pushed off like an olympic swimmer, but unlike them he only increased in speed as he shot across the vast cathedral-like dome.

When he reached the far wall he twisted and redirected his momentum, not even touching the wall. He inwardly cheered at the accomplishment - it had taken over a dozen tries to perfect that move, but it was so satisfying to pull off.

He did it again. One foot snagged a particularly out-jutting piece of coral, and Zane silently cursed, but his next try was flawless.

"Enough of this." Duon swam up to intercept Zane, catching his arm and bringing him to a stop. "We must go. You can play around when we're somewhere safer."

"Right, right, the danger and death part." Zane sighed, his mood sobering, but the bubbles escaping his mouth in a tiny stream as a result was enough to make him laugh again. "I'm sorry," and now he couldn't stop laughing, "This is so awesome. I can't believe this is really happening, I've never felt so good!"

He'd never been one of those obsessed with working out, but he jogged and ate well enough to keep himself healthy. But this new body was something else entirely. He kicked out, legs pushing him through the water, soaring up to the ceiling. He stopped just below it in case it would be sacrilegious to touch the mural, then stopped moving entirely as he saw just how detailed it was up close. What he'd thought were single tiles from below were actually groups of tiles, twenty or thirty of them, grouped together in an almost fractal style, imitating the broader pattern on a smaller scale.

This picture must have taken months to assemble.

"I'm afraid Duon is right," called the elder merman. "We should leave quickly before anyone hears of our presence."

Zane turned away from the ceiling and dove to meet him. "I didn't catch your name. I'm Zane, by the way." When the older mer only seemed confused, Zane explained, "Where I come from it's customary that we introduce ourselves when meeting for the first time."

"Strange custom, Called Cerulin. I am Faihar."

"My name is Zane," Zane repeated, more slowly. "Is Called some kind of title?"

"A designation, yes. For those brought from beyond the boundaries."

"Talk while we move." Duon poked his head out one of the doorways, then shook his head. "We should go now, while it’s still clear. I know they're looking for him." He jerked his head toward Leor. “We weren’t exactly subtle last night.”

"Why are they looking for him? Or me? Why have you summoned me? In fact ...” Zane exhaled in a half laugh, bubbles streaming away from his mouth. “Okay, yeah, let's get going and you can explain everything on the way.”

Duon took the lead, swimming out the archway he’d scouted, followed by Leor, then Zane and Myli, with Faihar bringing up the rear.

The cathedral was built atop a mountain. Duor stayed close to the slope as they descended. Never presenting his silhouette from any angle.

Zane followed his example. His feet brushed the vibrant gold tips of waving hairlike sea plants growing sparsely over and around the tumbled stone and silt of the mountain's slope, flashing the dark green of their stems, no taller than his finger. Thick purple or orange clusters of sea anemone waved taller and broader tendrils, while others were large and flat, spreading out across the ground in dark patches that almost like a discarded rug. Crystalline constructs glinted dully as they shifted and clicked at the group’s passage.

And beyond there was no end to the deep in any direction, blue-green water fading to darkness in the distance, broken only by hills and ravines and the shadowy outline of another mountain looming nearby.

The sheer variety of life, both plant and animal, boggled Zane's mind. He'd always heard the ocean floor was an alien place, but seeing it for himself was another thing altogether.

Fish swam by, some sedate and others darting, alone or in schools, straight or erratic, large and small. And some creatures that weren't quite fish at all: some froglike, or swimming with arms like alligators, many with fins spreading from their other limbs.

It was beautiful and chaotic, peaceful in a way that contrasted starkly with the furtive glances and excessive caution of his new companions.

Which, speaking of, he should get started on learning more about his purpose here.

As they continued their descent down the slope, Zane edged closer to Myli. “So, what’s the deal with the magic trident? What’s my quest? Who am I saving you from?”

She flipped over onto her back to answer, still swimming effortlessly in a way that made Zane highly conscious of her form. “The Trident of the Deep Sovereign has been stolen. That which was meant to serve only the true Lord for the protection of his subjects has been turned against its people as a weapon of conquest. A usurper sits upon the Coral Throne, and with every passing day the power he holds grows."

Zane blinked and forced himself to focus on her face, silently berating himself. Now was not the time to go all dopey over a girl. He’d learned his lesson about that long ago. But however much he tried to tell himself to stay detached, there was something about her that warmed him straight to his soul.

"The Trident is a divine artifact, given to the True Lord of the Coral Throne, the one whose authority reaches all seas and whose power is unquestioned. Not every dynast is a true Lord, but those who have risen have been benevolent and strong, protecting the world both from dangers beyond and monsters within. Between True Lords, it remains enshrined in the Alabaster Palace, driven into the founding stone at its heart. None may withdraw the Trident but the new Lord. Any who tries is flung away within moments.”

And her voice! Even delivering the most mundane of information, he could listen to it forever. Deep without being rough, accented with just the faintest trace of something that softened her words around the edges. It had to be the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard in either of his lives.

"But the Usurper did not draw the Trident from its stone. Instead, he wrought a dark hecta to shatter the stone around it, and wore twisted gauntlets of nullification to break the Trident's forbiddance. He took the Trident and with it slew Dynast Kerlen and his entire family, declaring himself the new Lord of the Coral Throne. Only the youngest prince, an acoseer in training with the Curranti, escaped."

Myli fell silent as they maneuvered through a forest of boulders and overgrown coral and dove down into a ravine between two arms of the mountain. It was so well concealed from above that if Zane hadn't been following right on their tail he'd have missed the opening.

She resumed once they were zipping along the chasm bottom. "Father and Duon and I are all that remain of his escort. We’ve been pursued relentlessly as we travel from shrine to shrine, calling for the one who might be able to save us. We cannot hope to overthrow the Usurper alone. His power is too great and his armies too many.”

Finally mastering himself enough to think, Zane glanced at their company. Pieces fell into place. “Leor is the prince. That’s why they’re chasing us.”

“And if the Usurper’s mer find us, they’ll kill him before he can lay claim to the Trident.”

"So, what, you want me to steal it back?"

"We've sent Called assassins. We've sent Called thieves. None have returned."

"I'm not exactly a one-man army here. If all of your allies couldn't defeat him, we need a plan. A peasant revolt or something, perhaps."

"Would you seek rulership of the seas?"

Zane scoffed. "Hell no. I want to travel, not be tied down by bureaucracy. You should know I'm not leader material. I'm happy to help out, of course," especially if there was a chance they'd teach him magic! "but I am the last person you want running anything involving people." His brief stint managing a short-lived marketing department had made that very clear. The memory still made him shudder. "As soon as your prince is safely on the throne I've got an ocean to explore."

Even here, so near to the mountain, the creatures and plants within the rift had their own distinct feeling to them, yet still wondrous. Lizardlike fish with huge eyes clung to the walls, pausing as they crawled along them to hiss after the intruders to their domain, satisfied with having run them off. The crystal outgrowths were more common here, closer together, and ranged in hue from smoky grey to a clear sky blue. Long strands of wiry orange kelp rooted in the ravine’s floor floated in the currents, like a forest of organic copper sculptures, closely enough spaced that they had to slow their pace to avoid running into them and leaving an obvious trail from above.

"Fearless," Myli murmured, her swimming somehow bringing her closer to him, a glint in her eyes that made it hard to look away. "Just don’t be too fearless. That’s what got the other Called killed. Thinking they were protected, special, immortal. You’re no use dead to a monster in the middle of nowhere, and we don’t have the regim for another summoning. You’re our last chance.”

“For a few years, perhaps,” Duon interrupted dismissively. “The shrines will recover without our intervention. So long as we stay hidden we can try as many times as necessary.” He didn’t sound the least bit enthusiastic about the prospect.

“This one is different,” Leor said. “We won’t need another try.”

Zane hoped he could live up to that expectation.