Location: The Trench of Rays | Year: 8003 A.A
The Trench of Rays was no more. Where once a vibrant, sprawling metropolis of living coral had pulsed with the gentle, communal light of a thousand symbiotic creatures, there was now only a vast, silent crater, a wound upon the face of the deep. The magnificent structures, carved by patient currents and grown over millennia with the care of a gardener tending a sacred grove, were reduced to anonymous dust and featureless rubble, their brilliant colours bleached to grey. The only light that reached this new desolation was the distant, filtered sun far, far above, a single, mournful grey beam that served only to illuminate the sheer, terrible scale of the devastation, a stark contrast to the defiant, gleaming luminescence of Derinkral a few mere metres away.
Amidst the ruins, the other remnants of the Cartil Clan moved like ghouls, their powerful forms bent in a desperate, hurried rummaging. They sifted through the debris with a frantic energy, their movements sharp with purpose. They were looking for something. Their acting leader, a Hammerhead Tracient with a jaw that seemed permanently set in a snarl, scanned the ruins, his small, dark eyes narrowed with impatience and a deep-seated anger.
"Make sure you look carefully," he growled, his voice a low, grating sound that disturbed the settling silt. "Every crack. Every shadow. Search every nook and cranny. He must be here."
From within a particularly large, unstable mound of debris, a faint, gritty shifting sound could be heard. Then, a single, scarred arm, thick with corded muscle burst through the fractured coral, fingers clawing weakly at the water. There was a moment of struggle, a tense, silent battle against the weight of his own tomb, and then a shower of fragments as the arm was joined by a broad, battered shoulder, and finally, a head.
"Master!"
With frantic, reverent haste, they converged, digging with their own claws, pulling their chieftain from the rubble that had been his intended grave. Kashi emerged, broken and breathing in ragged, pained gusts that sent clouds of silt billowing from his gills. His right arm was gone, sheared away just below the shoulder by a power so pure and absolute it had not merely cut, but had erased. The wound was sealed by a heat so profound it had instantly fused flesh, bone, and chitin into a smooth, blackened, and utterly useless stump. There was no blood, for the sea itself had been boiled away in that moment; only the stark, silent evidence of absolute defeat remained.
"Get me out of here..." he rasped, his voice a hollow, broken echo in the dead water. His once-ferocious eyes, now glazed with a pain that went deeper than the physical and into the very core of his pride, held a deeper, more corrosive humiliation. They supported him, their own forms bearing the lesser wounds and bruises of their narrow survival, and began to move, a slow, sombre, and utterly defeated procession fleeing the site of their shame, heading for the dark, hidden canyons and lightless trenches they called home.
They did not see the watcher. From a deep, shadowed fissure in the trench wall, a sinuous, shadowy form uncoiled with a fluid, boneless grace. A great eel, its skin the mottled colour of old blood and deepest midnight, watched them go. Its eyes burned with a violent, intelligent violet light, holding a cold and ancient interest in their retreat. It observed the broken chieftain, the humiliated survivors, as a scholar might observe a particularly interesting specimen. Then, as silently as it had appeared, it melted back into the black rock from whence it came, leaving the vast, silent crater to its eternal, newfound silence.
***
Location: The Council Hall of Derinkral
The Council Hall of Derinkral was a chamber of such profound and majestic beauty it seemed designed not by architects, but by the sea itself, to remind all who entered of its boundless, ancient glory. The walls were fashioned from vast, seamless sheets of mother-of-pearl, their surfaces swirling with iridescent colours that shifted and danced like a captured, eternal sunset. The vaulted ceiling was a living tapestry of enormous, gently swaying bioluminescent anemones, their soft, rhythmic pulses casting a serene, eternal twilight throughout the hall. Great, arched openings, unsullied by glass, offered breathtaking vistas of the open ocean, where immense schools of glittering fish moved with one mind, like living constellations charting a course through a liquid sky. The thrones for the ruling council were not built, but carved from single, colossal pearls, each one a minor miracle. The floor was an intricate mosaic crafted from every known shell and polished stone found across the seven sea-kingdoms, a silent, sprawling history of the Mertuna lineage laid beneath their feet.
In the central and largest throne, a seat of power that seemed grown from the heart of a legendary oyster, sat Dirac Mertuna, the Sea King. His magnificent trident, Aurummare, stood upright beside him, its sky-blue core pulsing with a gentle, sleeping light that added its own quiet, potent hymn to the chamber's magical aura. Arrayed around him in a respectful semicircle were the Grand Lords of Narn: Adam and Darius to his right, their forms radiating a land-bound solidity, while Trevor and Kon were to his left, their postures more fluid, yet no less imposing. Flanking them were the five Mertuna Governors, the rulers of the other great sea-kingdoms, a council of the most powerful beings beneath the waves. Before them all, standing at stiff attention in the centre of the pearlescent floor, was Kael, his posture rigid with military formality and a touch of deeply familiar, weary exasperation.
"With the permission of the Sea King, may the council officially begin," Kael announced, his voice crisp and clear, cutting through the respectful, watery murmur that filled the hall.
As if in direct, magical response to his words, the very light in the chamber shifted. The deep, night-blue glow emanating from the ceiling anemones warmed and softened, their collective bioluminescence transforming into a bright, hopeful sky-blue hue that promised clarity, truth, and open discourse.
"First," Kael began, turning formally to the assembled Mertuna council, "may I present to you the Grand Lords of Narn, who have ventured from the sunlit world into our sacred depths on a grave and sacred mission." He gestured with a sharp, precise motion. "King Adam Kurt." Adam, his features hidden by the yellow blindfold, gave a slight, acknowledging tilt of his head. "Lord Trevor Maymum." Trevor offered a charming, irreverent wink that made one of the younger pearl-bearing attendants fumble her slate and blush a shade of deep coral. "Lord Kon Kaplan." Kon's nod was a single, sharp dip of his head. "And King Darius Boga." Darius, the Bull Lord, placed a massive fist over his heart, a gesture of solid, unwavering respect that resonated with a gravity all its own.
Turning smoothly to face the Lords, Kael continued the introductions, his voice a formal roll-call of oceanic power.
"My Lords, may I present the original members of the Mertuna Council." He gestured to his right. "Bey Toluban Mertuna, Governor of Tuzgölge, the Salt-Shade."
Toluban, whom they already knew, inclined his head regally, his crimson hair and tail swaying like a graceful, underwater flame. "Bey Hirosha Mertuna, Governor of Ayderin, the Moondeep."
A young merman with hair as white as a bleached pearl and a calm,almost priestly demeanour offered a serene, welcoming smile. "Bey Thelina Mertuna, Governor of Şarkıdeniz, the Song Sea."
A graceful mermaid with hair the colour of emerald seaweed plucked a single,clear, perfect note from the small, abalone-shell harp in her lap, a sound that seemed to hold the entire ocean's melancholy melody. "Bey Dorthain Mertuna, Governor of Gökkörfez, the Sky Gulf."
An elderly merman, his bearing stooped with the weight of centuries but his eyes sharp and discerning as a hawk's, nodded once; his earthy brown hair was faded and streaked with grey, but his gaze was not. "Bey Selena Mertuna, Governor of Işıksu, the Light Water."
An elderly mermaid adorned with heavy,beautiful ropes of pearls that glowed with their own gentle, internal light, her face a kindly map of wrinkles earned from a long life of rule. "And His Majesty, King Dirac Mertuna, High King over the Seven Seas and Governor of Derinkral, the Deep King."
"Oh, stop, Kael," Dirac rumbled from his throne, a warm, teasing light sparkling in his eyes. "You're making me blush with all these titles. You'll have the Lords thinking I'm full of myself."
A stifled snort of laughter, quickly disguised as a cough, broke the formal air. It came, unsurprisingly, from Trevor. Kael's face flushed a deep, mortified shade of cerulean, but he pressed on, his voice tighter than before. "Without further ado, we invite the Lords to tell us themselves why they are here."
***
Location: The Council Hall of Derinkral
Kon rose from his pearl throne with a fluid, unhurried motion, his powerful form cutting through the water to float at the centre of the council circle. "Thank you for your welcome," he began, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that commanded attention without needing to be raised. "As His Majesty is a sworn part of our Order, he is already aware of our purpose, but I will recount it for the benefit of this esteemed council." He paused, his single eye sweeping over the assembled governors, ensuring he had their full focus. "A great evil, one born of the Shadow and woven from despair itself, has barred the Great Lion, Asalan, from the world. Its power is not merely an army or a curse, but a lock upon the very door of life itself, an attempt to silence the song that sustains all things."
A worried murmur, like the distant rush of a troubled current, rippled through the Mertuna governors. The anemones above seemed to pulse a fraction faster.
Dorthain Mertuna, the elderly Governor of Gökkörfez, scoffed, the sound dry and brittle as old coral. "It has been years since the Narnian Lords last assembled in their full number. We were told by prophets and seers that such an event would herald the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy. The dawn of a new age." He leaned forward, his gnarled hands gripping the arms of his throne. "Instead, things have only grown darker. First, Narn was lost to shadow and silence. Then Archenland fell, its great halls drowned in blood and ice. Now you come to us saying even Asalan himself is locked out. And these calamities… they seem to follow in your wake." His sharp eyes fixed on Kon. "How are we to know that your presence here in our last, great sanctuary will not bring its own… complications? That you are not the harbingers of the very doom you claim to fight?"
"Lord Dorthain," Hirosha of Ayderin interjected, his moon-pale face placid, his voice a calming balm. "That is enough. The Lords are our guests and our allies by ancient covenant. Please, continue, Lord Kon."
Kon, utterly unruffled by the accusation, gave a slight, acknowledging nod to Hirosha before continuing. "As I was saying. The Great Lion was able to impart to us the one, true path forward. "We must seek the Primordial Mother", Gaia."
"Gaia?" Selena of Işıksu breathed, the glowing pearls around her neck brightening with her surprise, casting shifting patterns of light on her wrinkled face. "Is she real? Not merely a myth from the First Songs?"
"Indeed," Kon confirmed, his tone leaving no room for doubt. "And she is most wonderful. She has shown us that the Runes of the Original Clans, which make up the very foundation of the Order of the Narnian Lords, must be gathered and placed upon Asalan's Table at the Eastern End of the World. Only then will the evil be broken and the Lion walk among us once more." He held up a hand, counting off on his claws. "So far, we have secured the Wolf, the Tiger, the Monkey, the Bull, the Rodent, and the Panther runes. Those that remain are the Merman, the Reptile, the Avian, and the White Fox."
A distinct, sharper murmur went through the council at the mention of the last rune.
"Our journey here," Kon concluded, his gaze settling firmly on Dirac, "is to respectfully request the Mertuna rune for this sacred purpose. To complete the set and unlock the world's salvation."
"Hmm. As far as I am concerned, I have no objections," Toluban stated, his voice a low gravel of certainty. "After what Lord Darius did for Tuzgölge, I would trust these Lords with the very heart of the sea."
"Agreed," Thelina of Şarkıdeniz added, her fingers drifting over her harp strings, producing a clear, resonant chord that seemed to echo her resolution. "The melody of the deep has grown somber for too long. It is time for the music of light to shine forth upon the world again. The rune should go with them."
Kael turned formally to the central throne. "What does Your Majesty say?"
Dirac leaned forward, his immense presence seeming to fill the entire chamber. "My mind was made long before this summit was ever called," he declared, his voice rich and final. "The Lords will have the Mertuna rune. They will have my full support, and the support of Derinkral's might. This gathering was a necessary formality to unite our entire kingdom behind this decision. Thank you, my fellow Governors, for being a part of this historic accord."
"With all due respect, Your Majesty," Dorthain's voice cut in, sharp and stubborn as a barnacle on a keel, "I do not feel safe handing our most prized, ancient relic over to… visitors. To surface-dwellers whose very arrival seems to stir the shadows. How can we be sure it will be used as they claim?"
The temperature in the water seemed to drop several degrees. Dirac's gaze, which had been warm and inclusive, settled on Dorthain, and the warmth cooled to the hard, unyielding pressure of the abyssal plain. "Need I remind you, Governor," he said, each word dropping like a stone, "that where the Grand Lords of Narn are concerned, all other ranks, all other powers and principalities, are as insignificant as silt in the current? My own throne, this very city, is as nothing before the sanctity of the Order of Narn and the task Asalan has set before them." He paused, letting the weight of his words press down upon the old merman. "I would be exceedingly careful how I address them, and how I question their purpose."
A profound, heavy silence fell over the Council Hall, broken only by the soft, rhythmic pulse of the anemones. Dorthain's face tightened into a bitter, resentful mask, his jaw working, but under the Sea King's unwavering gaze, he said no more.
"Now that is settled," Kael said, swiftly steering the council away from the tense confrontation, "I would like to inform the council that Kashi of the Cartil Clan has been decisively defeated. His rebellion is broken. We must now discuss how to handle the scattered remnants of his clan to prevent any further uprising and restore order."
"They are savages," Dorthain waved a dismissive hand, his earlier frustration finding a convenient, safer outlet. "Brutes who understand only violence. They are insignificant to the true workings of the Seven Seas. Hunt them down, imprison them, do with them as you please. They are not worth this council's precious time."
"I apologise for interjecting," Darius's steady, grounding voice broke in, "but was this not the same clan that began the great uprising that divided the kingdoms after the former king passed? The one that took decades and immense resources to quell? If they are so irrelevant, how could they have wielded such destructive influence?"
"Come to think of it," Trevor added, leaning back with an air of casual curiosity that belied the sharpness of his mind, "Kashi said something to Dirac right before he got vaporized. Something about his clan being the rightful rulers of the sea. What was that all about? Sounded like more than just standard-issue villain bluster."
Dirac's expression grew thoughtful, a flicker of unease in his violet eyes. "Yes… they have always made that claim. A story passed down through their line. I have long dismissed it as the bitter fantasy of an exiled and embittered people, a tale spun to justify their raids and their hatred."
"They are nothing more than a clan of rogues, banished and secluded for their vicious nature!" Dorthain insisted, his voice rising with a strange, defensive urgency. "Their history is a lie! They are disposable!"
He was interrupted by a voice that was not his own, a voice that seemed to echo not from a throat, but from a deeper, more ancient place within the chamber itself. It was regal, imbued with an awe-inspiring gravity that stilled the very water, and it spoke in the measured, poetic cadence of a forgotten age.
"The Cartil Clan is much more than that… and thou knowest this full well, Lord Dorthain."
Every head turned as one. The voice had come from Adam. Yet it was not Adam's voice. The blindfolded wolf sat perfectly still, but the power emanating from him was palpable, an ancient, vast presence that filled the space around him.
"The Cartil Clan is as old as the Mertuna line itself," the ancient voice—Kurtcan's voice—continued, resonating through the pearl and mother-of-pearl as if the very hall were speaking. "They were amongst the first children at the birth of the world, shaped from the same primordial clay. And thou… thou knowest this truth, buried though it may be."
All eyes now swung to Dorthain. The old governor seemed to shrink under the collective, heavy weight of their gazes, but most of all under the hard, questioning stare of his king, whose expression had shifted from thoughtfulness to dawning, stern realization.
"Governor," Dirac said, his tone dangerously calm, the way the sea is calm before a hurricane. "Care to explain further? It seems there are chapters in our history that this council has not been privy to."
Dorthain seemed to wrestle with some internal demon, his pride warring with the undeniable authority pressing down upon him. His shoulders finally slumped in defeat, the fight draining out of him. He let out a long, weary sigh that sent a cloud of bubbles drifting towards the vaulted ceiling.
"Yes.Very well." He looked around the council, his eyes old and tired, stripped of their former bluster. "As we all know, the Sea was founded by the first Merman King, Poseidon. The history taught in every grotto and sung in every current tells that he divided the Seven Seas into six great kingdoms and assigned a Governor to each." He paused, the weight of his next words hanging in the water. "However… what was hidden, deliberately scrubbed from all common knowledge, was that there were seven kingdoms, and that Poseidon had a brother. His name was Cartil Mertuna."
Gasps, sharp and startled, echoed through the hall. Thelina's fingers stilled on her harp strings, the music dying into an appalled silence.
"It was Cartil who was given the seventh kingdom," Dorthain continued, his voice a low, confessional monotone. "Karanlıkakın, the Dark Surge. A stormy, shadowy realm in the southern sea—powerful, mysterious, and feared. It was the home of the shark-kind and other brutal creatures, a place of brutal tides and shadow currents. For a time, the seven kingdoms coexisted. But Cartil grew hungry for more. He delved into the darkest trenches of magic and unearthed a cursed and forbidden power, a necromantic art that allowed him to turn his own citizens into blood-zombies, feeding off their life-force to increase his own. He waged a war of annihilation upon the sea, and he was winning. Poseidon was forced to face his own brother in a battle that shook the ocean. He could not bring himself to destroy Cartil, so he used the full, devastating might of the royal trident to seal him away—him and his entire corrupted southern kingdom—within a glacier of eternal, magical ice, to be locked away for all eternity."
"The Southern Glaciers…" Dirac whispered, his eyes wide with the shock of the revelation. The forbidden zone, a place of legend and dread, now had a terrible, specific history. "So all this time, the place we forbid any to sail or swim near… it was the Seventh Kingdom. A frozen tomb."
"Yes," Dorthain confirmed, his head bowed.
This time, it was Adam's own, younger voice that spoke, the ancient presence receding. "But not all of the Cartil clan were infected and locked away. A remnant survived, scattered and hidden across the other kingdoms, their lineage diluted but their memory intact. They have lived on in shame and secrecy to this day, bearing a grudge against the throne they believe was stolen from them, mourning a kingdom lost to ice."
"This… is grave," Dirac said, his voice thick with remorse. "All this time, I thought their grievance was simple, unwarranted malice. I punished them as pirates and raiders, never knowing they were… cousins. I see the truth now." He turned his gaze, now filled with a new, determined resolve, towards the entire council. "I have made up my mind. I will seek a diplomatic encounter with the Cartil clan. I will hear their story from their own lips, and I will work to find a path forward, to bring them back into the kingdom from which they were severed. I swear it upon the Heart of Derinkral."
A determined, righteous light filled Dirac's eyes. He looked at his nephew, pride in his revelation warring with concern for the burden it represented, and then at his council, silently demanding their unity.
"And so shall it be," the Governors intoned in unison, their voices blending into a single, powerful tide of agreement.
Only Dorthain was silent, his gaze fixed on the intricate mosaic floor, as if he could see the dark, frozen shapes of the past he had helped bury staring back up at him from the colourful stones.