Triton’s Realm

We both stripped off and dived into the river, followed by the band of merfolk. The water was clear and warm, and as my eyes adjusted to the water, I saw fields of coral and brightly colored plants spread out before me. Shoals of tiny blue fish darted forward to nibble from the reef, then shied back, as if at an unheard command. Anemones swayed like dancers in the current, seahorses inched their way between branches of coral and sea grass, and large fish patrolled the reefs and gullies, as if keeping order in their undersea world.

Two of the merfolk swam alongside of me and signalled for me to grasp their hands. I looked over to the captain. She nodded. So, I allowed myself to be led.

We swam deeper and deeper into the clear water, down past the reefs, past bare rocks and underwater grottos, down into the realm of the water folk drifting and swirling around us. I’d had no idea that so much life existed unseen but a few steps from the world in which I lived. Eventually we swam into a large cave and into the presence of a creature who looked like the other merfolk but was larger and much, much older. Only then did it occur to me that all the merfolk I’d seen, apart from this one, looked young. I was in no doubt that I’d arrived in the presence of the legendary Tanagran Triton.

The triton had the torso of a man and the tail of a dolphin, with a band of loose scales, like a skirt, between the two. His face was obscured by a curtain of long hair the green of fern algae and it flowed and eddied around him in the underwater current, as if alive in its own right.

The merfolk who had brought me to him withdrew and left me standing in the center of the cave alone, facing the Triton.

A Strange Conversation

“Who are you, mortal”, he demanded, “and why are you here?”

He sounded neither friendly nor particularly interested.

“I am a traveller who wishes to pay her respects to the mighty Triton and bid his permission to enter Mudjimba”, I replied.

“You and many others, it seems”, came his response. His voice was tinged with boredom, as if our exchange were merely a ritual he tad taken part in more often that he cared to remember.

“And what can you offer as your toll?”

I thought for a moment before replying. “What might please thee, Lord Triton?”

He flexed his tail, sending the fronds of his hair whirling. “I have no need of gold and bright stones and garlands”, he said, but you might provide the answer to a question, if you are able.”

My spine tingled. My experience of the mythworld was sufficient to tell me that our conversation was taking a turn that might lead anywhere, possibly into some kind of danger. Like most travellers, I also knew that many of the mythfolk were wont to play strange games with their guests. The merfolk were legendary in that respect. I decided to play for time, in the hope that his real wish would become clear before I made a commitment I might be unable, or unwilling, to keep.

“What kind of question might that be, Lord Triton? If I am able, I will gladly offer an answer, though I doubt the power of a mortal to answer any question of interest to someone who embodies the wisdom of ages.”

He thrashed his tail, and I sensed his anger. “Save your pat words, woman! And look at me!”

Mighty Triton swept aside the hair that had covered his face, and I gazed into his eyes.

He spoke slowly, with a brief pause between each word: “Show me who I am, woman. For I no longer have the power to see it myself. Who… am… I?”

We stood in our silence, for I knew he expected no pistol shot answer. I looked into the eyes of the mighty Triton. I gazed into eyes that could not look back into mine, for the Triton’s eyes were milky with the veil of blindness.

Seconds passed, then he exhaled with a deep sigh, his energy visibly spent, and allowed the curtain of hair to sway back across his features.

“Tell me, Lord Triton,” I ventured, “do you ask this question of all who pass here?”

Moments passed before he answered. “Not of all,” he replied. “Not of the young or of the gay in spirit, not of the dreamers and the bold, not of the lovers or the beautiful, for theirs is a different kind of life and a different journey.”

I nodded, then remembered… “Yes”, I said, “I can understand that.”

Our encounter had taken a turn I would not have imagined. I tried to remember everything I’d heard about the merfolk, and about tritons in particular, in the hope some idea would occur to me, and that I might be able to offer some kind of answer to Lord Triton’s question.

Carefully, I posed a question… “What of immortality, Lord Triton?”

He seemed to gaze into nothingness. “Ah, yes”, he replied eventually, “…. what of it, indeed? Once it was a promise, but now it shows its other face. The fates of immortals are tied forever to those of the human world. Though we may not die, we pass from memory into forgetfulness and fade to become mere shadows of our selves. We, too, forget, but not enough. Our memories are like wraiths; they haunt and torment us, but escape our grasp. As humans turn from our world, we are obliged to fade from theirs. When that happens, we, too, forget who we are and what purpose our existence serves. Though we cannot die, neither may we fully live, when the vision of our world thins in yours.”

They were the words of a tired man whose weariness would not be assuaged through sleep alone. They were the words of a once mighty Lord Triton who had lost his vision in both senses of the word. A hunch told me he that he would probably allow me to pass to Mudjimba one way or the other, but that if I passed without answer, I would simply be one of a stream of humans who had entered and left his world as unseeing as he himself had become.

But I had an idea. I reached for the oilskin pouch at my waist. The knot was difficult to untie underwater, but eventually I managed t open it and fumbled in my bag for one of the tiny items.

“A dream, Lord Triton. I possess dream seeds. I can offer you a dream. And in your dream you may remember who you are.”

I had no idea whether the dream seeds would work that way, but I thought it might be worth a try.

The Triton gazed in my direction. “Then dream with me”, he said. “It has been a long time since I shared a dream with another soul.”

His response surprised me. I had little understanding of the working of dream seeds and no way of knowing whether they could enable two to share a dream, but I was touched by his loneliness.

“Yes”, I said. I opened the packet of dream seeds to find perhaps twenty in a variety of shimmering, opalescent colors. I pondered for a moment then removed two identical, tiny seeds in shades of deep ocean water and sea grass.

He held out a hand.

I placed one seed in his palm and held the other in my own as I retied my bag and pouch.

“To dream…”, he said, and swallowed his seed.

“To dream…”, I echoed, placed the tiny seed on my tongue, and swallowed.