Mordred was Four Years Old.
That was one of the most important things in his world, along with his nurse, Nereid, who had taken care of him from the very first day when he was born. She took care of him cuz his mommy couldn’t, cuz she was dead and gone and never coming back no matter what. He used to cry a lot when he thought about it, but didn’t so much anymore cuz he was big boy now – Four Years Old, even. He knew he was special, that he didn’t fit into anybody else’s rules, not the nobles not the servants, not the in-betweeners – he was different.
So, he went everywhere and anywhere he wanted to in Rebma’s castle, for even though he was ‘only four years old and not quite all the way grown,’ as his nurse Nereid said, he was also ‘...extremely precocious and absolutely fearless.’ That is what he heard Aunt Vialle’s ‘portant friend, her ‘Visor, Lord T’kilarn say one time, and her Aunt Vialle laughed - the big laugh that made her shake and squinch up her face, so it must be a good thing.
One day Mordred was wandering in the palace. He passed by the big-room-filled-with-paintings-of-dead people, and turned into one of his favorite places, the hallway-that-had-lots-of-funny-looking-mirrors. He liked to come here when he was by himself and play with how they all made him look funny; sometimes big and sometimes little, sometimes all stretched out and sometimes all squished in.
He wondered idly what it would be like to be able to change into other things, like some of the faeries in the stories he liked best – the Really scary ones about so much a long time ago that Nobody At All knew anymore what happened for real … But that made him sad cuz then he wished that he *could* change himself into something else. It made him think of when he realized how different he really was - it was only still just the other day, and it still made his ears burn and heart go fast and his eyes sting - even though he was NOT going to cry, not-not-not.
He’d gone past a group of the servant children that were a little bit older than him, on the way to a secret passageway he just found the day before. Turning the corner, he ducked into it and followed it right back the way he came. He wasn’t going to listen - not at first - cuz nurse Nereid said it wasn’t nice if they didn’t know you were there, but then they said his name so he had to of course.
His excitement turned sour when they all said mean things about him, bad things... they said he was ugly! They said it so many times and about so many parts of him, his too-pale skin and wrong-colored eyes and red-red hair and everything, until he swore right then that he’d get back at them - somehow.
Coming back to himself, Mordred saw in the mirror that his fists were clenched and his shoulders hunched and his face all squinched up, just like when he was about to have what nurse Nereid called ‘one of those temper-fits’. He decided that this was not a place for him to go anymore, and left to see if he could find aunt Vialle and if she had any fun visitors today. As he walked, his image kept him company, thin and pale like a fish’s belly - it screamed out ‘different different!’ - especially that red-like-fire hair. It didn’t belong UnderSea.
Nurse Nereid said that lots and lots of people had hair like that in the surface world, which was where his father was from. They never talked about his father, so Mordred knew he must be super-special ’portant. He wondered about his father, a lot, and if they’d let him go and visit someday soon. It would be nice to be in a place where he wasn’t different.
When he reached Vialle’s sitting room, he saw it was empty, but he knew that the Emerald Room was being used, cuz the doorway was covered up and there was one of the Special Guards there. Mordred really wanted to see who his aunt was talking to, cuz she only used the Emerald Room for Super-Important and Very-Special visitors, but he knew better than to bother one of the Special Guards when they were On Duty.
Who could be visiting? He never saw them here in Vialle’s home before – only at the big palace… He smiled to himself then, remembering how he tricked those mean-mean-mean kids and got them in Big Trouble by getting them to bother one of the Special Guards. They weren’t so smart, even if some of them were really-really old - Muruach was seven-almost-eight!
And now they were all scraping the barnacles off of the Guard Sergeant Partholon’s second best chariot. The best part of it was that they thought he was such a stupid baby that he didn’t mean to get them in trouble so they weren’t even mad at him! Holding his revenge tightly to him like a treasure like a warmer when the cold currents came through the city, Mordred almost missed Aunt Vialle coming out of her private meeting, but when he saw who was with her all of his attention was riveted - it was Great Lady Llewella! Now he knew why there was a Special Guard outside the Emerald Room… Great Lady Llewella had a King for a father and a Queen for a Mommy! And… she was sister of THE Queen! It almost didn’t get specialer than that.
Vialle’s visitor whispered something to her and she lifted her head and beckoned for him to come over and be introduced. She used his full name, Mordred-son-of-Morgen-of-House-Corini, which meant he must ‘be on his very finest behavior’, so he nodded his head extra politely and bowed like nurse Nereid had shown her was proper for land-folk.
The Great Lady Llewella reached out her two hands in the traditional Rebman greeting, with an odd little smile, so Mordred ever-so-lightly touched fingers with her, trying extra hard not to ask all of the questions that were piling up on top of each other so that they were fighting to get out of his mouth so bad that none could come anyways... Then she spoke, saying,
“I believe he may spontaneously combust, Vialle - which would be a first here in Rebma and quite a feat at that. Shall we watch then, or would you like to ease the pressure on him a bit?”
She talked like the Nobles did ‘at-Court’, with more thoughts happening in her eyes than her words said, so Mordred knew he had to pay extra special close attention. Vialle grinned, and then nodded her head and said,
“Mordred, you of course know who this is, but this is your first real introduction… this is the Lady Llewella, who is daughter of the Old Queen and of King Oberon of Amber, sister to our Queen. She is visiting here to advise me on some matters of importance and will be staying with us for a few days, maybe more. If she is willing, you may speak with her about the surface realm, but you must promise me two things first.”
He nodded his head violently, ready to promise Anything, then realized that of course she couldn’t see it and said,
“Yes, Aunt.”
Vialle smiled, and continued,
“First, Llewella is here to work, and her work will make her very tired, so you are not to bother her if she tells you she is too tired.”
She waited, and Lady Llewella smiled, while Mordred thought it through. Vialle spoke again…
“Next, we are going to start our work right now, so you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to get started.”
This was not at all pleasing, but he could tell that Vialle was trying ever-so-hard to treat him like a Big Boy, with ‘Sponsibilities, so he bit his lip and nodded, saying,
“Yes, Aunt Vialle.”
He slid his eyes sideways to look up at Llewella. There was an odd glint in her eye that made Mordred wonder, part humor, part challenge and part something really strange. Then she winked, as Vialle said,
“That’s my boy. Now why don’t you give poor Nereid a chance to catch up with you, hmm?”
He looked over his shoulder and saw his nurse there, waiting impatiently to make him nap. Turning back, he saw Vialle and her companion were already deep in conversation, though Llewella did look back and lock eyes with him for just a moment, sending an odd shiver down his spine... Then Nereid’s hand came down on his shoulder and he was led away.
It took a few days, days in which he was constantly frustrated in his attempts to speak with Llewella - who did look very tired. Vialle simply turned his questions about what her visitor was doing aside, saying "It is not a matter for a little fish, Mordred". He’d figured out that Lady Llewella was traveling some distance, and even had an idea about what direction she went in, but that was it.
Finally he managed to catch nurse Nereid at an off moment and fled, going as swiftly as he could to the place where he knew the two of them usually met to talk. Sure enough, there they were, and Lady Llewella was just about to set off on one of her forays... he was just in time, for within moments she was far off ahead of him, only a dim light showing where she had gone.
Mordred set off after her, and swam and swam and swam, down ways he’d never known were there, along coral reefs and through underwater caverns. When it got very dark he crept closer to Llewella and her light – not that he was actually scared or anything, but it was hard to see. Luckily she didn’t seem to be in a rush and never looked back, being very involved in her thoughts.
Then suddenly it was there - a hidden city sunken ages ago, probably before Aunt Vialle was even born. The place loomed out of the darkness like a living thing clawing it's way up from the ocean floor. High spires were cracked and broken with age, Coral walls shaped and grown over centuries; It was a large place to be so abandoned and only the smallest portions of it could be captured in the bioluminescent glow of the lantern that Llewella brought with her. Ancient glyphs had been written on the walls, and the buildings were really old, but still beautiful in a creepy sort of way.
Llewella moved down ancient halls that had never seen the light of any star and passed objects whose purpose Mordred - far behind her and with much less light - didn't even bother trying to imagine. It was silent - silent like a grave. The place was without even the slightest sound; even that of his own swimming was muffled. There were no fish, no anemones, no life at all to be found as they swam. They went on deeper, past alcove's filled with some black substance like volcanic glass. The writing on the walls of this huge hall seemed odd – odder even than what they had passed before… more alien.
Although he didn't stop to study them, they were done in strange relief and looked like the ones he had seen in Rebma’s Temple of the Unicorn, but they depicted some kind of tentacled beast. The relief-work became more and more erratic, seeming to turn into mere scribbles when they reached the doors. They weren't exactly doors - they were huge stone things some forty feet or so high and some sixty feet wide. There upon those doors was the sigil Old Lir, the King of Rebma from long before. He had seen it before in places around the palace, and wondered about what he could have been like - the stories that people told made him sound like a God, as powerful as the Unicorn.
Maybe Aunt Vialle had found some treasure chamber or storehouse of knowledge, and wanted to share it with Lady Llewella and told her about it and so she came to see it? Maybe she was here because her Sister was the Queen and She told her to look at it? If she had, it didn't look like Mordred was going to find out yet, because she just stayed there for a really long time, then started talking to herself under her breath. He couldn’t really hear it so great, but he heard her say ‘closing’ and ‘locking’ and so he figured out that he wasn’t going to see any treasures. It was already closed wasn’t it? Well anyway, he had to wait for her to go back.
Bored after a few minutes, and more tired than he realized from the long trip, Mordred settled behind a twisted column and waited for something to happen. Nothing really did for a while, even though she seemed very serious, and he slipped into a sort of a daze, until he saw Llewella take a dagger out of its sheathe, one that looked hard and shiny and dark in the dim light, sort of like it was made out of that ‘volcano rock’ that Vialle called ‘bsidian… She raised it up with her eyes closed, said some words under her breath that he couldn’t hear at all, but he could see her lips moving, and cut her hand with the knife. Then she pressed the bloody wound against the Sigil of Lir, and said, "There. Sealed by my blood."
It looked like it was finally all over, and Mordred watched her and wondered at how tired she looked - it was just like he felt when he stayed up Far Too Late past his bedtime, sneaking up to the Ballroom from his chambers below to watch a party. He was awake though, cuz He took a nap! Feeling quite smug about this, he didn't realize she was gone at first, because even though she took the lamp with her, there was a great greenish glow to the doors themselves that filled the chamber - and then it was too late.
He was here all by himself! For a moment or two he let himself get scared, but then he said out loud to himself, "I'm a Lord of Rebma. My Mother is a Noble of House Corini. The sea is my home." It was what Vialle always told him whenever he got scared or not sure about if he could do something or not by himself. Thinking about her made him almost want to swim as fast as ever he could until he caught up with Lady Llewella, but instead he shook his head and went right up to the Doors and said, "Open up!" *This* would show those mean old kids…
Nothing happened. He knew it wouldn't, cuz he saw what Llewella did to make it happen, and he knew what he had to do, but he was a little bit scared to do it. Again he said his 'be brave words' to himself, two times this time, cuz he knew it was going to hurt. But Aunt Vialle said not to be scared of things that hurt you, that instead you had to look and see if they meant it on purpose or if it was accident. Mordred knew lots and lots about accidents, cuz he made lots and lots of them, and he knew that sometimes you hurt things or broke them and you really didn't mean it, and so you told the truth and said you were really sorry and you had to Mean It, or it Didn't Count.
But anyway, this was a different kind of hurt, like when you got a cut but only on purpose, so it wasn't really by accident and he just had to say sorry to himself, which was silly cuz he was right there, but maybe it would help... He looked around for something to use, something sharp, until he found a piece of coral that had gotten broken off one of the walls. He held out one hand, then held the coral over it with the other one and closed his eyes tight and said,
"I'm really sorry, me,"
… and he meant it cuz he really was. Then he sliced down through the palm of his hand. Blood leaked out, but he almost didn't notice it cuz of the pain, but then he knew she had to Finish What He Started, cuz that is just what you did, and he pressed his bloody palm up on the same place where Lady Llewella had and said,
"There. Open up, by my blood!"
The Doors opened up, just like he knew they would, cuz he had special blood too, so it had to, cuz that’s how things worked. What lay beyond might have seemed a nightmare to someone else, but to Mordred it was just one more of the things in the sea that served Rebma and the Queen, although it did look sort of scary. The darkness of the chamber behind the Doors was moving like it was alive. It surged and roiled and when he looked inside he could see it was something that looked like three different creatures all mixed up together. He couldn't describe it really.
Then a big tentacle of dark stuff wrapped about his tummy and started dragging him into that opening. He opened her mouth to say something, but just then it seemed like another tentacle just like the first one wrapped around his head, but on the inside, all oily and dark and icky. Then it started to squeeze. Mordred got mad, then, cuz this creature was s'posed to do whatever it was told to do by a Noble of Rebma and Aunt Vialle and Lady Llewella were Nobles of Rebma and so was he and they would never do anything to hurt him so this was wrong. They would never try to make him scared or squeeze his tummy or his head...
This was just like those mean kids, that's exactly what it felt like and that made him even more mad. Then he realized that the more mad he got the less it hurt inside his head and he took a really, really big breath and shouted at it Really Really Loud,
"STOP THAT!"
… and it did. Both of the tentacles let go, outside and inside of him, and he kept on yelling, finally able to let out all of the frustration and embarrassment and anger from the past few days...
“I'm The Young Lord Mordred Son of Morgen Noble Lady of House Corini of Rebma in Ancient Ys!! I've got ‘Nothing to fear in the sea, no matter how large or how strange, cuz I am a Noble of Rebma!' You are just a big ol' meany is what you are, trying to scare me cuz I'm not as big or not the same as you and it is Really Really bad to go inside people's heads - it's even Worse than eating them and you were gonna try an do both! Shame on you!"
The creature actually backed up a little, either from the force of his words or what he said or some other purpose entirely. He couldn't tell, but he followed it right in, too angry to see or even care that he was inside the Doors and the darkness was starting to go around him on the sides, until it was too late. He felt the Doors closing, saw the tentacles that had reached around him and were pulling them closed, and then suddenly heard a loud voice behind him shout out some words that made no sense to her. But the voice did - it was the Great Lady Llewella.
He felt her hand grab him and sweep him back outside the doors as she said the same words again, louder, and the thing inside the Doors backed away from them and hid in its shadows like it was 'shamed or scared. Then she said them one more time, Really Loud, and the Doors slammed closed. She took his still bleeding hand and put it on the Seal and said,
"Sealed by my blood, by our blood."
Then she looked him straight in the eyes and said with a really really serious voice, "Mordred?"
That's how he knew he was in trouble. But he was so glad she was there that he didn't try even a little to get out of it or pretend it wasn't him but really somebody else that already got away and he just came along... He said,
"I'm sorry Lady,"
… and he Meant it, he really did, and she must have believed him, cuz she took him in her arms and held him tight, so he decided it was ok to relax, cuz the Great Lady was there and she would make everything right. He was asleep in her arms in minutes.
It was very soon after this that the Great Lady Llewella started coming more often and spending time with Mordred. At first he thought it was to keep an eye on him cuz he got in trouble, and it did sort of feel like that, cuz she talked lots and lots about rules. But what she said sounded so interesting he always wanted to hear more, so he didn’t mind, and then after a while it wasn’t just rules anymore…
Many years later, Mordred knew that his foray into the forbidden depths had been a rare opportunity and had brought him access to wealth that he’d never tire of, and thanked that younger little boy who he had been for beginning it all.