Chapter 7

Rory turned back to the flow of the river. He picked a few swaying pieces of kelp and wrapped them around his gills. Whatever he was about to face, he did not want to respire any of it through his body. But his hands shook as he wrapped the kelp around him. He had seen enough horror during this one day to give him night-visions for months. But he knew he had to tell his father about what the humans were doing; to do that, he had to see it for himself.

Slowly, Rory made his way upstream. The farther he went, the harder it was for him to respire. Although the river appeared clear, he felt as though his gills were trying to process sand and muck instead of water. The tang on his tongue tasted bitter, as if he had licked a rusted anchor. But as he looked up, he saw dark, oily patches sitting on top of the water, like clouds of squid ink.

Soon he reached the familiar roots of the foxtails and saw the round pads of the water lilies. The murky substance accumulated most heavily where the foxtails met the mouth of the river. Rory swam around to the banks of the river, where the plants clumped together. As his head broke above the surface, his body made the switch to gill-respiring to nose-breathing, although Rory did not think about it consciously.

Suddenly, he understood why the River Folk had fled. Jutting up against the horizon like a menacing giant, stood a massive building, spilling dark clouds into the air. It was huge, more than three times the size of his father's castle. Even from where he treaded, he could see that part of the forest had been felled to make room for the ugly fortress.

It was nearly dusk, and Rory beheld a long stream of humans exiting the building. They were mostly men, as far as Rory could tell. He vaguely remembered that human women wore long billowing curtains of cloth, while men preferred to wear pieces of forked cloth on their legs. All of these creatures wore the forked sort. A group of three walked around to the side of the building that was closest to the river's edge. One held a long panel of metal, that was curved like a trough or trench. Another held another piece of metal, albeit a bit shorter than the first.

Rory watched as the three men walked to where there was a short tube extending from the wall. The three men first placed the short piece of metal under the longer half-tube, to support its weight. Then they extended the long panel all the way to the river's edge. Rory sank down until only his eyes and forehead peaked out of the water, to avoid their gaze. Once they had arranged all the pieces, one of the men turned the piece of metal attached to the building, until the black, muddy substance came out of the spigot. It flowed along the panel, until it reached the river and started to wash away downstream.

The merman was right. There was a vile spring coming from the humans, an unnatural, vile spring that seemed to pour forth death itself.

A spark grew inside of Rory. How dare these three humans destroy the river, make his people violently ill, and kill off the innocent roe? How dare they use the water as some sort of waste disposal?

He tried to breathe evenly, but every second that passed seemed to magnify his anger one hundred fold. As the three humans stood watching the river and talking, one of them took out a small, wooden object. It looked like a very small tube attached to a simple bowl. The human also took a pouch out of his shirt pocket and took a pinch of a mossy-looking substance out and stuck it in the bowl of the wooden object. Another human offered a small stick to the first, and the human ignited a fire with the tiny stick. Once he had lit the mossy substance in the bowl, he threw the stick into the river.

Instantly, the river itself caught fire. Flames licked the top of the water, and Rory's anger transformed into horror. Never had he seen anything so unnatural, so unnerving as water itself burning. The fire burned in patches along the water and flowed downstream. Slowly, the fire crept toward the foxtails, and all the fear and anger Rory had been holding in check suddenly unleashed.