The light came back — I had almost forgotten what light and color were. I could begin to put colors to the shapes and sounds of the fish around me. And besides the many small fish, I saw larger shapes as well, swimming toward me or toward the source of the song — creatures with dolphin’s hindquarters and more or less human arms and heads.

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Not Beyond Conjecture

Part 2 of 3

by Trismegistus Shandy

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How I produced those sounds I don’t know. Not by pushing air from my lungs through my mouth, as when I was a man; but how? All I know is that I could and must sing.

“Through the water dark and teeming,
Teeming with the fish so tasty,
I have heard your lovely singing,
And I come to hear you better.”

After a short rest, during which an uncomfortable feeling in my lungs and belly had gradually gone away, I resumed swimming toward the song and singer I had heard before. I sang as I went, and I heard other singers far off, gradually drawing nearer.

The light came back — I had almost forgotten what light and color were. I could begin to put colors to the shapes and sounds of the fish around me. And besides the many small fish, I saw larger shapes as well, swimming toward me or toward the source of the song — creatures with dolphin’s hindquarters and more or less human arms and heads.

Finally I reached the surface and burst through. After a moment of panic, I realized I could breathe the air as well as the water. And other heads and shoulders and arms were bursting from the water all around me. We swam toward one another and circled the first singer, who continued to sing:

“I have called you all together,
Here upon the trackless ocean.
For how long I cannot reckon
I have swum beneath the ocean,
Felt my body slowly changing,
From a man into a siren.
When my lungs first filled with water,
And I thought my life was over,
Then I cursed the sea-marauders,
And the drunken traitor wizard.
Then I found I still was breathing,
Breathing in the deepest water,
Living still, no longer human.”

It was a womanly voice, high and clear; it reminded me of my sister, and I thought of the trees I had seen growing in my parents' house. I looked more closely at myself and the others, now that we were above the surface of the sea, bathed in sunlight. I scarcely recognized any of the faces at first, but then I thought I detected in one a sisterly resemblance to Fira, and then, in the singer, the altered but still recognizable features of Tiram. All of us, it seemed, had taken on a feminine appearance; all of us had breasts, too, though mine were among the smallest and it was thus perhaps that I had not noticed them among the other, more radical changes to my body when I was still immersed in darkness. I could not call us women, I did not think we were still human, but we certainly appeared to be female. The singer continued:

“Now I seek my siren vengeance
On the men who would have drowned me,
Who enslaved my friends and brothers,
Who have slain my dearest brother.
Nowhere can they sail to hide them,
Nowhere on the seas escape me,
Nowhere in the lakes and rivers.
Only if they leave the water,
Trek into the driest desert,
Climb into the highest mountains,
Change their trade to mountain-bandit.”

The one I had recognized as Fira sang:

“I am eager too for vengeance,
And I seek the death of pirates,
Pirates who have killed our captain,
Pirates who enslaved our shipmates.
Yet I do not understand you:
How do you propose to find them?
How do you propose to slay them?
Now indeed we breathe the water,
Swim more swiftly than the dolphins,
Yet we cannot board their vessel,
Walk the deck or climb the rigging.”

Tiram sang in reply:

“I forget you were a landsman,
Soldier from the wars far inland.
Now you are my siren-sister.
Sirens call their prey by singing;
Call them from the shore of islands,
Call them from the decks of vessels,
Bring them leaping to the water,
Diving into deepest water,
Seeking the embrace of sirens,
There to perish, still ecstatic,
Still rejoicing in the singing,
As the siren rends and tears them,
Spills their blood into the water,
Fills their gasping lungs with water.”

Another siren, one who had been a sailor I didn’t know well, sang:

“Let us wait and watch the heavens,
See the sun go on his journey,
See the stars that come to follow.
Then we’ll know the way to travel,
Where to swim to find the pirates.
When the pirates swarmed our vessel,
And we lifted swords to meet them,
Then I killed my two marauders,
But another struck me senseless,
And I sprawled upon the foredeck,
Seeming dead to all who saw me.
When I had regained my senses,
I lay and heard the pirates talking,
Where they’d sail and sell their captives,
In the port of Dakrimandu,
Slave-mart of the eastern islands.”

The other sirens who had been sailors thought the plan a good one — they were confident that by watching the sun and the stars, they could figure out which direction Dakrimandu was in, and that we could swim thither fast enough to overtake the pirate vessel and their prize-ship which had been our home. Fira, Midrun and I didn’t understand, but we trusted them to know their way around the ocean; and after we’d swum in circles for a while, watching the sun long enough to see that it was going down the sky and thus it was in the west, we all swam away from the sun, not directly but at a bit of an angle. We swam along just below the surface — we made better speed underwater, but we needed to be near enough to the surface to see the sun. After the sun set and the stars appeared, we surfaced and the sailors studied the stars. We adjusted our course and increased our pace.

And as we went, we sang. I sang my puzzlement at our new forms, and the sailors sang the stories of the sirens, which I, child of the inland plains, had never heard. All the sirens they had ever heard of were female, though one of them said, perhaps as a joke, that in the antipodes, where the ships are crewed by women and the men stay in port to take care of the babies, the sirens who lure them to jump overboard are male. We sang of the things we had felt and heard in the deep water, of the fish and stranger creatures we had caught and eaten, and then, as the surface above us grew light again, of what we would do after we had our revenge on the pirates.

Several times we spotted the shadows of ships in the water above us; Tiram sang softly for the rest of us to remain silent, then surfaced briefly, and descended to tell us that they were not the ships we sought. It was a little while past dawn when we finally overtook the pirate ship that had attacked us.

Once Tiram had surfaced to identify it, and returned to tell us we had found our first target, we fanned out around the vessel, still underwater, and all surfaced at once, singing, forming a circle around the ship. We sang:

“Come and look upon the waters,
See the sun on waving ripples,
Lovely light on waving water,
And are we not still more lovely?
The deck is hard, your work is harder;
Come and rest on something softer.
Come and swim with us this morning,
It’s a lovely day for swimming.”

And one by one, and then three or four at a time, the pirates came to the rails to listen to us, and then dove into the sea. Some had the presence of mind to remove their shoes and tunics first. Some swam toward the nearest of us after they had dived in; some seemed to remember only after they had hit the cold water (it must have been cold to them, though I did not feel it so) that they could not swim, and they floundered for a few moments before going under, or until one of us swam to catch them.

Two of the pirates were swimming toward me, one with stronger strokes than the other. I swam to meet him, still singing.

“Come to me, brave sea-marauder.
You have slain a thousand sailors,
You have ravished countless women,
You have gathered piles of treasure,
But have you e’er swum with sirens?”

We met, and he wrapped one arm around me, while with the other he struggled to untie the string holding his trousers in place. I looked down in distaste at the bulge they imperfectly concealed, and for a moment I almost pushed him away, but I restrained myself; I didn’t want to discourage the other one — no, two now — who were still swimming toward me. But when he groped my breasts (which were larger than they had been when I first saw myself in sunlight, but still smaller than most of my sisters'), I lost all patience with him. I paused in my singing only long enough to tear his throat out with my teeth. Then I smiled a bloody smile at the other two pirates who were swimming toward me, and sang again.

“Joyous end to reckless living!
Pirates live each day with danger,
Risk their lives for loot and pleasure,
Never count the cost to others.
To die in bed with failing kidneys
Ill befits a sea-marauder.”

To my surprise, the men swimming toward me did not slacken their pace, though their faces showed panic and horror at the fate of their friend. One I knew well; he was one of the sailors who had fought the pirates with us, but had then chosen to join their crew rather than drown or be sold as a slave. He swam slowly and clumsily, encumbered by shoes and tunic which he had not taken the time to remove, but as he reached me he said:

“Please, can we at least kiss before you kill me?”

I felt scarcely less distaste at that than at what the other pirate had clearly intended to do to me. But I sang:

“Do you know me, turncoat Siru?
When we heard the captain’s offer
I chose drowning, you turned pirate.”

He gasped, and not only because he was getting water in his mouth. “Kadrim? You were a man — how did you...?”

Now the tables were turned; my singing still enthralled him, but another part of him rebelled at the idea of embracing a woman — or a female creature — that had once been a man and a shipmate. For a moment that disgust seemed to override his fear of death and his desire for me. And, paradoxically, that disgust offended me more than the other pirate’s crude, clumsy expressions of desire. But I didn’t kill him right away; I pulled him to me and kissed him. He struggled for only a moment before he kissed me back. When he started to put his tongue into my mouth, I bit off the tip of it, but he didn’t pull away; he continued embracing me until I grew tired of him and tore his throat out as well.

The third pirate had taken time to remove his clothes and shoes before he jumped, and while I was embracing my former shipmate, he had overtaken me. I had scarcely a moment to chew and swallow a mouthful of Siru’s neck muscles before he came at me from the side, planting kisses on my shoulder and neck and wrapping his arms around me. I pushed Siru’s corpse away and grasped the other pirate firmly by his arms, then pulled him under and swam downward with him. As the light faded I saw a few bubbles trickle from his bulging mouth, then a great burst of air, and then, after a pause as he took in a lungful of water, a few tiny bubbles. Before he could lose consciousness, I bit into him and tore off several mouthfuls — not from his throat, where he would bleed to death quickly, but from the flesh of his arms and belly. He stopped struggling only after four or five bites. I ate until I was satisfied — he tasted better than any of the fish I had eaten in the last few days — then let him sink, and swam to the surface.

I saw, a few fathoms away from me, Midrun embracing a pirate with no more clothes on him than the one I had dined upon. He was bleeding from a few small bites his shoulders, but seemed to still be alive, and embracing her enthusiastically... I realized in shock what they were doing, and quickly turned away.

There were spreading pools of blood around each of my sisters. Some were still feeding on the pirates they had slain; others had already disengaged themselves from the corpses and were singing again, luring out a last few stragglers who had probably been asleep in their bunks when we first surfaced. I joined the song, but as a handful of additional pirates staggered sleepily on deck and off the side, I wasn’t quick enough to finish them; they jumped in nearer to Fira and some others than to me, and my sisters tore their throats out without preliminary.

By now sharks were gathering, and devouring the drifting corpses of the pirates. I was terrified when I first saw them. But they did not attack us, nor dispute with us for the bodies some of us were still eating. Tiram sang:

“Do not fear the white devourers;
They know well that you’re their mistress.
They know better than to harm us.
When we learn our fullest power,
They will even do our bidding.”

Then there were no more pirates visible on deck, nor in the rigging. I swam around the ship, and saw Midrun again, nibbling fastidiously on the choicest morsels of her late companion.

I sang with my sisters, and found that they had identified many of the pirates we had fought, including the captain, and the other sailor from our ship who had joined them; but the traitor wizard was not among them. Tiram had learned, having questioned one of her victims before she killed him, that the wizard and the other pirates were all aboard the West Wind as a prize crew, and that it was on the same course to Dakrimandu. Since it was a slower vessel than the pirate ship, we must have passed it, probably during the night, at a large enough distance that we did not see it. So after a little discussion, we spread out in a long line, each of us in easy earshot but not in view of our neighbors to right and left, and swam back westward, staying near the surface so we could see the shadows of ships. I would swim along just under the surface for a while, then give a powerful kick with my fluke and jump a fathom or more out of the water, momentarily letting me see much farther in all directions as I flipped in midair and tumbled into the sea again. Sometimes I would see one of my sisters surfacing or jumping at a distance. As agreed, we remained silent while our heads were above the water, singing to each other only underwater; we did not wish to lure innocent sailors or passengers from trading vessels overboard — at least (I thought, fearful of my own surprising new appetites) not while we were fully sated with pirate blood and flesh.

Once, in one of these leaps, I saw a ship at a great distance, and swam toward it underwater until I was fairly near; then for just a moment I poked my eyes above the water, and got a better view of it. Even without reading the sigils on its side, I could tell from the shape of its hull that it was not the one we sought; I descended and sang to tell my sisters. Twice I heard their distant songs, saying they had seen a ship but it was not ours. And then, after a few hours, Midrun called us, saying:

“Here I’ve found the stolen vessel,
Noble West Wind, once our safety,
Now the prey and prize of pirates.”

I swam toward her voice, and soon saw my sister sirens gathering in the light zone near the surface. The shadow of the West Wind's hull moved steadily eastward. We waited until all of us had gathered, then spread out and all surfaced singing, as before.

Again, the pirates on deck eagerly swarmed overboard as soon as they heard us singing; a few took time to remove their shoes or some of their clothes first, but most dived in fully dressed. Stragglers who’d been asleep or resting belowdecks followed them soon after. Those who didn’t drown right away, we soon killed; I didn’t stand for any groping or kissing from these men, but tore their throats out as soon as they came within my reach. I wasn’t as hungry as I’d been when we found the pirate ship, so after tearing off a few strips of muscle from the upper arms of my last kill, I let the sharks have the rest of him, and sang again, asking my sisters if any of them had slain the wizard.

None had. We supposed that he was dead drunk again, and determined to circle the ship, singing, until he finally woke and heard us. And so we did, as the ship drifted before the wind under full sail with no one at the helm, and the sharks cleaned the flesh from the bones of our abandoned kills, and the sun sank low in the sky.

Finally the wizard came on deck and looked out at us, but he did not leap in. He didn’t even seem to be taking off his clothes to more easily swim and attempt amorous congress with us. He just stood there looking at us; I met his eye and swam nearer, just under the port rail where he stood. My sisters, circling the ship, saw him and gathered there, and we sang:

“Kasrigan, most useless wizard,
Always drunk, unless he’s sleeping,
Could not save his one-time shipmates,
When they were attacked by pirates.
Now the pirates too have perished,
Pirates whom you swore your allies;
They too died despite your magic,
Magic you’re too drunk to wrangle.”

But he stood there and ignored us. As useless as he was at protecting others, he seemed to be good enough at protecting himself; he had obviously made himself immune to our song. After blinking blearily at us for a while, he pulled a bottle from his pocket, took a long swig from it, made a ghastly face and coughed, then said, in a feeble voice:

“My dear sirens, you may save your breath, for I cannot hear you.”

We fell silent, one by one. After another drink, he said: “I can’t say the same for the slaves in chains below decks. They’ve been hearing you all this time, struggling to escape and jump overboard along with the pirates, and I’m afraid many of them have injured themselves in the process. But if you will undertake to remain silent for a few hours, I will go heal them, and unchain one of the helmsmen, and then chain him to the helm in case you start singing again. If you have any feeling for your enslaved shipmates...” He looked at us, and we remained silent, nodding our assent.

“Very well. I will have more to say to you in a little while. I hope we can work this out amicably.” He turned and walked away from the rail, where we couldn’t see him.

Work what out? We had been frustrated of our vengeance on the man we hated most except for the pirate captain. And if he was about to unchain the slaves, we could not make another attempt on him later without endangering those innocent (if not very brave) men. But we were curious. We dived below the surface, where we could sing to one another without endangering our sometime shipmates, and after some discussion, decided to stay with the ship until we knew more. We needed to know if the pirate ship too had had slaves belowdecks, who were now trapped in a drifting rudderless ship; perhaps the wizard or some of our shipmates who had been enslaved knew — though how we could ask them such a simple question without drawing them into the sea, or whether we could control our bloodlust enough to refrain from slaying them once they jumped in, we did not know.

We took up positions all around the ship and watched. A little later, we saw the wizard and one other man appear at the helm, talking with their heads close together; the wizard pointed us out and the helmsman nodded, looking badly frightened. He did not object when the wizard chained him to the wheel. Then the wizard came to the port rail again and spoke to us.

“By the terms of my oath I couldn’t attack the pirates. But I could save your lives, and I did; and if I did so in such a way that you were able, by your cleverness and persistence, to get your revenge on the pirates, I don’t think I violated my oath. And since I’m still alive, the source of my power clearly agrees with me. Now that the pirates are all dead, I am released from my oath.

“If you give me time and cooperate, I will undo the enchantment that turned you into sirens, at least as far as I am able. I am afraid it will be a slow process, as it was before, and that you will be very uncomfortable while it proceeds, but that can’t be helped. You’ll lose the ability to breathe water long before you have legs again, so you’ll lie helpless in a bunk or hammock until the reverse enchantment finishes.

“And I must warn you that the reversal may not be complete. You will probably each retain some sirenic traits — I cannot predict which, in each case. Most of you won’t look exactly like your former selves when it’s done.

“If you wish to remain sirens, swim away and leave us. If you wish to become human again — more or less — tell the helmsman so, and he will relay your message to me when you fall silent and he comes to his senses. You will have to swear to remain silent while I unchain a few more men to help haul you up, while we stow you in your bunks, and while I work the reverse enchantments.

“You have until sunset to think about it.”

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End of part two; I'll post part three early next week.

When Wasps Make Honey, the sequel to Wine Can't be Pressed into Grapes, is now available from Amazon in Kindle format and from Smashwords in EPUB format. See here for more information.