Nikolas and Company: The Merman and The Moon Forgotten

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This book is a work of fiction. The
characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s
imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to
actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Nikolas and Company: The Merman and The
Moon Forgotten

Kevin McGill

Copyright Kevin McGill 2012

Published by Aero Studios Publishing at
Smashwords

ISBN 9780983415626

FIRST U.S. EDITION

Designed and illustrated by C. Carlyle
McCullough/Aero Studios.

One • A Foggy
Flight

A long time ago in a world
not so far away…

The World of Mon. Eynclaene
Province. Nuus Village.

Sweet Huron!” Yeri swore . . . well,
judging by his mother’s standards.

The stagecoach wheel had nearly
slipped, threatening to throw driver and passengers to the frothing
sea below. Yes, Yeri had taken the stagecoach driver’s oath to
“guide passengers through every hazard and peril.” Still, he didn’t
have to enjoy it, especially when a devilish creature with
red-pronged eyes gave chase all the way from Nuus village on one of
the foggiest nights ever. And when the fog thickened so that Yeri
couldn’t see its red eyes, or his own nobbly hands for that matter,
he could rely on its smell. The monster reeked of rotten
onion.

Yeri looked up in time to see a black
shape envelop him.

“Aaah!” he cried.

He opened his eyes and patted his frock
coat. No teeth ripping flesh from body. No blood being dispensed
from its human vessel.

“Just a misty mirage, ol’ boy,” Yeri
chuckled to himself.

“Grauhh!” came a blood-curdling
roar.

“That was no mirage,” Yeri said, trying
to steady the horses. But their nerves got the best of them, and
they darted left, forcing the stagecoach wheels to skate across the
cliff face again. Just when he thought they would descend to their
briny death, wheels grabbed rock, and the stagecoach righted
itself. Yeri was one of the more able drivers, but if they did not
reach their destination soon, cliff or creature would win this
race.

Of course, Yeri was
sufficiently capable of driving the horses above a scamper, if it
wasn’t for the double stagecoach. Mr. Fungman was always trying to
save a sulmare and so devised the double stagecoach, allowing him
to charge twice as much for every driver. Well, Mr.
Fungman
didn’t have to
steer these monstrosities around every sheer drop.

A pounding fist came from the front
stagecoach. Yeri thought to ignore the passenger’s need, but that
was another oath he had taken. Maybe he should stop taking so many
oaths.

The horses whinnied to a stop. Yeri
scrambled from the stagecoach, pulled out a key and grasped the
iron latch. Then, he changed his mind.

“Please, sir,” Yeri tried to control
his gasps. “For, uhm—er—your safety, it’s best we
continue.”

“Let me out, driver.”

Yeri’s eyes darted from the stagecoach
door to highway and back to stagecoach door. Come to mention it,
Yeri had never met his passengers. At the very last moment he had
been charged with them after the previous stagecoach driver came
down with squatters. Jamison’s face was covered in budding, orange
flowers.

The key spun past tumblers, and Yeri
swung the door open. The stagecoach lamp washed away any view of
the passengers, but what Yeri couldn’t see, he could hear. There
were gears on gears turning and belts locking into place. Slowly,
something that looked like a collection of spokes and cranks
crafted by a mad clockmaker emerged from the coach. The gears
turned out to be legs—automaton legs, an invention and wonder used
only by the wealthy.

The man must be a
cripple,
Yeri thought.

Leather gloves reached out to the edges
of the stagecoach door, and the man pulled himself out.

Yeri gasped.

The passenger didn’t have two gnarled
legs, but one long, iridescent fishtail. It bent where knees should
bend with a wide fin and a line of sharp, bony protrusions
outlining the dorsal. The automaton legs seemed to be a near
extension of the man’s upper body.

“Thank you, driver,” said the
passenger.” Unable to hear over the horses.”

“Dear me. Ve—very sorry sir.” Yeri
removed his hat. “Jamison was sick, and I was unaware, of—er—your
handicap, sir. I took zoology, of course, but it was only for extra
credit, and my teacher was a blunderbuss of the highest
ord—”

“Do not concern yourself, driver. It is
no handicap. Now please, silence.”

“Forgive me, sir. One should be of more
assistance, Mister?” said Yeri, with eyes locked on the passenger’s
fishtail.

“Lir,” he sighed. Evidently, Yeri’s
curiosity was greater than Lir’s need for silence. “My name is Lir
Anu Palus, and this is Nia Menweir Palus. We are the Duke and
Duchess of the Eynclaene coast.”

The woman he called Nia pushed her head
out and offered a smile.

“Duke and Duchess?” Yeri’s mouth
widened, and then he quickly bowed. “I am Yeri Willrow, senior
stagecoach driver for Fungman, Zedock and Josiah Stagecoach
Company. And at your utmost service.”

Even with the fog’s white plumes
rolling past, Yeri could see that Lir was strong, with commanding
features and bluish grey eyes. He wore gentlemen’s leather gloves
and a red silk frock. Oddly enough, though his hair was deep
silver, he had the features of a young man. Yet, Nia was the one
who captured the gaze of the stagecoach driver. She had a quiet,
slender frame and the kind of crystal eyes that would liquefy the
heart of any man.

Yeri had no doubt they were a Duke and
Duchess, for both were garnished with the type of jewelry more
valuable than the whole of Nuus village. Yeri felt his own stark
contrast between driver and passenger, for he was orphan-thin
except for a gourd-shaped midsection, a nose like an elbow and lips
that couldn’t fully close. More so, his wilting hat and tattered
knee-breeches didn’t speak of a man who would come into his fortune
anytime soon.

“Is—Is it painful?” said Yeri. “Not
being near water and all?”

“I have not lost my humling nature,”
Lir laughed.

“Please understand, sir.” Yeri took off
his hat. “I have never set my eyes upon a mermaid, aside from a few
schoolbooks.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Lir, “which
explains your lack of anatomical observation.”

“Sir?” Yeri wrinkled his
brow.

“I am no maid. I am a merman. But
anyway, we are called Merrow.”

“Merrow,” Yeri mouthed the word. His
eyes darted to the second coach. “The passengers—in there. They’re
Merrows, too?”

“Yes,” said Lir, glancing back at the
stagecoach. “My brother and sister-in-law. We were taking a well
needed rest after months of patrolling the coast of Eynclaene. Now,
afraid I’ll still need that moment of silence.”

Lir raised his ear to the fog. Slowly,
he sidestepped to the coach, opened the door and retrieved what
Yeri could only describe as a small harpoon attached to a handheld
catapult.

Yeri turned his own ear to the night
sky. “Can’t hear them coming before the devils are upon you. Quiet
as anything and fast as death, you know.”

Lir held his hand up, signaling
silence. “I am able to hear a sea urchin sneeze forty knots out to
sea if I wish . . . Still, you are correct. They’re
fast.”

“Pardon me?” said Yeri.

Lir’s automaton legs spun him around.
“To the horses, now!”

Yeri, bug-eyed, grabbed the back rail.
He pulled himself up, buttocks last. With a bit of squirming, he
found himself up right.

“Lift me up.” Lir held a hand
out.

Yeri hooked his foot to the railing and
reached over. With a grunt, Yeri heaved the merman onto the
passenger seat. The automaton legs slipped off Lir and clattered to
the ground.

“Get going, you lame muck snipes!” Yeri
cracked the whip like a runaway windmill. The horses kicked dirt
and leapt into a gallop. As a rule, Yeri didn’t curse at his
horses, but now was not the time for rules.

Something shook the rear of the second
stagecoach. Yeri turned to see claws shoved into wood, slowing the
coaches down. The merman raised his harpoon and whispered
something. The harpoon blazed with fire just as it sprung from the
catapult.

“Raiiggh!” The creature lit into a ball
of flames and tumbled into the mist.

He retrieved the harpoon by a thin
cord. Several more cries came from everywhere, from
nowhere.

“There are more?” said Yeri.

“Do you have anything useful?” Lir’s
voice competed with the grinding wheels. “A charm or maybe
jynn’us?”

“No charms, sir, and no useful weapons
. . .” Yeri’s voice trailed off.

“Jynn’us? Do you have
jynn’us?!”

“Well, I—I can make toys come to life,”
Yeri offered, “which would explain Mum’s ban on any and all toys
since the age of eight. Lonely years, as you can imagine. I do
wonder if things would’ve turned out different for me and Agatha if
Mum afforded me but a few toys . . .”

“Thank you, Yeri.” Lir pounded the
roof.

Nia tried her best to lean out the
window.

“The door prize,” Lir said.

“It was for Mother,” Nia
contended.

“We are two breaths from death, dear,”
Lir shouted. “Might we save our domestic disputes for some other
life-threatening circumstance?”

Nia disappeared and then leaned out,
holding a tin box with an ‘L’ painted on top. “Here. Do be
careful!”

“There you go, Yeri.” Lir shoved the
box into Yeri’s hand. “That’s a Ludwig. No better display of
toymanship.”

“A Ludwig—the famous toymaker? And this
is his?” Yeri licked his chops as he slid the top open. “I’ve
always wanted a Ludwig.”

“It’s a Roc. Very good,” Lir
said.

Yeri’s left eye quivered. “Oh, sir.
There must be a better way to rid ourselves of these monsters. It’s
a Ludwig, for Pete’s sa—”

“Yeri,” Lir warned.

“Really, sir, Rocs are a beast of
burden. It would be cruel to send such a creature into the grips of
batt—”

“Yeri!”

“Very well.” Yeri resolved himself. He
gently unwrapped the toy from its velvet bed. It looked like a
horned eagle with tattered wings and a neck barren of any
feathers.

“Simply brilliant,” Yeri mourned. He
covered the toy with his right hand. Smoky, bluish-light sifted
between his fingers.

“Ouiwww!” Yeri howled and pulled his
hand back. With a leap, the Roc hovered eye level before its
audience. “Little troglodyte bit me!”

“Yeri. Aren’t they a mite bigger?” Lir
said.

“I said I could make a toy come alive,
not change its size,” Yeri said.