The Demon Lord And His Hero

Syryn's group began their swim out of Silisia. They crossed the shipwreck zone and went through a deep canyon whose walls exposed the skeletal remains of underwater creatures that had died aeons ago. The mage was shocked by the size of some of the skeletons. If the wearers of those bones were still alive, he was sure that the mermen would not be living in peace the way they were.

Up ahead of him, the mage could hear the clicks and whistles of a dolphin pod frolicking over a bed of clams. The clamshells were the same ones that the merpeople slept on. But these clams were not empty. Tightly shut shell mouths let out a few bubbles of air from between their ridged seams. It happened often enough that the water above the clamshells was filled with tiny bubbles of air rising to the surface.

"What are the dolphins doing here?" Syryn asked the merman. They looked like ordinary dolphins with their grey skin and bottle noses, but bigger somehow. Or at least that's what his mind told him.

"Feeding on the bubbles," Drevin replied. "We aren't sure why they do that but there may be some nutrients that the clams let off in the air bubbles."

"Have you tried swallowing the bubbles?"

"No, I don't think we should," the prince replied. "That's what gets you killed in the ocean, trying things that you have no- Syryn!"

The mage swallowed a mouthful of salty water and a few bubbles. "Ugh." There was a bitter aftertaste at the back of his tongue.

Drevin held Syryn by the shoulders and shook him. "What have you done??"

"I was tasting the bubbles-"

"I know that! Are you alright? Does your stomach hurt?"

Enkansh settled down on a rock and closed his eyes. Syryn was going to be just fine. If the fake human was so easy to kill, he would have died at the shipwreck.

"No mother," the mage deadpanned. "Let me go."

"Come on, let's go, let's goooooo!" Shali tugged on Syryn's hand. "Dolphin riding!"

"Alright, alright, you don't have to separate my arm from its joint, princess. What are we supposed to do?"

Shali held out a bag to the mage. Looking inside it revealed some dead fish.

"Feed them to the dolphins after you get a ride. They know what to do if you just approach them."

"A ride for some dead fish? Are you sure those dolphins will accept this reward?" He was sceptical about it.

"Believe me, they love them!" Shali said to Syryn before swimming away with the speed of a mermaid who was unencumbered by a slow human.

"Go ahead," Drevin said to Syryn. "The dolphins are friendly."

He didn't need to be told twice. The mage was off, swimming to a dolphin nearest to him. The creature noticed his approach and clicked enquiringly.

"Can I get a ride?" He asked it.

Three high pitched squeaks answered him. The dolphin swam around Syryn and came closer so that he could grab its fin.

"I guess that's a yes," The mage said to the dolphin. He held onto the fin and was yanked forward by the excited dolphin. It zoomed through the water and led him around in a circle over the clamshell ground that was spread out over several metres.

Syryn was having the time of his life but he was also hanging on for dear life. The dolphin was faster than he had anticipated. It looped, danced, cut through the water like a knife, squeaking and clicking at Syryn like it expected him to understand whatever excited dolphin conversation it was conducting.

Round and round it sped through the clamshell bed. There were a few harrowing moments when it almost bumped into the other dolphins that were feeding on the bubbles. Syryn was beset by nausea from the circling and he wanted the ride to stop.

"Can we stop?" He shouted. "I'm gonna throw up!"

The dolphin came to a halt and turned its head to eye him suspiciously. Two clicks and a sharp squeak.

The mage pressed a hand to his mouth and handed the dolphin its reward. The entire bag was emptied into the open mouth of the dolphin.

"Thanks..." He said to the dolphin that still circled him. "I am out of fish."

The creature squeaked a few more times at Syryn and waited.

"What?" He asked. "Look, no more fish."

'Gratitude' It squeaked.

"What?!"

Syryn's head reared back on his neck and he stared at the dolphin, shocked. Did it just speak to him?

It clicked and swam off. He was hearing things. That had to be it.

"Syryn, is something wrong?" Shali came swimming to him.

"No," the mage replied. "I'm just a little nauseous."

"Oh! It happens to some mers too. Come sit for a while," she told the mage.

They swam towards Drevin, Enkansh and the guard, Vaiu. Little did they know that something dangerous was creeping upon them.

Syryn's inner warnings went off but he didn't know why. He just knew he had to get out of there quickly.

The dolphin pod behind him scattered in alarm as a swarm of what looked like snakes came rushing through the clamshell bed. Thousands of them, each one long and red coloured with rings of blue on their tails, charged en masse towards the mer girl and the human.

Drevin, Enkansh, and his guard were too far away to help them. The snakes were faster than even the dolphins.

"Go!" Syryn shouted to the frozen Shali.

He couldn't swim fast enough to escape but at least the little girl was not going to die with him.

The princess snapped out of her shock and tugged at Syryn to take him along but he pushed her away. Enkansh and Drevin were only a mere hand's breadth away when the snakes arrived first.

Shali who Syryn had pushed with all his strength, watched the snakes surround Syryn in a ball of writhing red bodies.

She let out a scream of horror as Enkansh pulled her away from the mass of red that was sinking to the bottom of the seafloor.