The song of Lou Canto V: The Hero

Canto I
Canto II
Canto III
Canto IV

“Your end now approaches. The current draws you swifter toward your fate. Do not fight the flow; master how to ride it.”

O Laurie, most wise and yet most fickle. Fill me with character. Color me with setting. Move me with plot. Immortalize me with theme. And do something with mood, too, in whatever way you think best, because this is it, my zoeae, Lou’s last skitter.

While the others slept off the weariness of pursuit and battle, Caridio stared across the deserted expanse of sea floor.

Malaco brushed him softly with an antenna. “Get some sleep. We’ll need your guidance tomorrow.”

“I can’t do it!” Caridio spit back. “Who am I? Why me? I look around and see only what you see, emptiness, darkness.”

“You are chosen, my son. Do not foreswear your gift. Accept your fate and listen to your instincts.”

“Go away, old man. Leave me alone. All of you just leave me alone.” With that, Caridio flit off into the darkness.

The morning found the followers bickering, confused, and scared.

“Let’s go back,” said Norman.

“Let’s go on, he’ll probably be waiting for us up ahead,” said Betty.

“No,” said Sam, “let’s go back. I’d rather take my chances against what’s left of the prawns than starve to death out here.”

The only thing they could agree upon was that, without Caridio, they were lost.

It was Malaco that finally broke through to them. “Stop thinking of yourselves. We are nothing. Go back, stay, it doesn’t matter. If Caridio is meant to have followers, he has followers. If he is meant to be alone, he is alone. Do whatever it is you feel you must. My heart tells me that my part in this adventure is done. I shall never go back to Estuaria and slavery, nor will I see Almeria and freedom. I shall await my fate here.”

Two groups of followers finally formed. Sam and Norman led the larger group of eight back toward Estuaria. Betty, Joey and two others struck out into the unknown. Malaco alone stayed.

And it was there that Malaco returned to the surface.

Sam and Norman were determined to make the reef by nightfall. The others struggled to keep up. Finally, the shadow of the great reef loomed into view.

And it was there, at the camp at the base of the reef, that Terterus returned.

Sam heard it first, the whirr of swimmerets approaching, then circling the camp. They prepared themselves for attack by the prawns. Norman pounced on the first one as soon as he emerged from the shadows. The others thought a battle imminent, but it was Terterus, and he was alone.

Norman held the bastard prince down, ready to pith him with his rostrum, but Terterus said, “No, wait. I am not what I was. The power I was given never sat easily on my shoulders. The mantle was like a drug. I knew what I did was wrong, but I was addicted to the power. Now that I am defeated, I feel for the first time that I have the will to choose right. I came here to help you.”

“Why should we trust you?”

“You have no reason to trust me beyond my word. But listen to what I propose. I can get you into the palace. I can get you close to Secundus.”

“Why not do it yourself?”

“I am a coward. I know that. I do not trust myself to follow through when eyestalk to eyestalk with that prawn. That prawn who has given me power. That prawn who has made me what I am. I need you to finish it.”

“What is your plan?”

The next afternoon found Terterus, dressed again in his red robe, entering Estuaria alone, battle-worn, but with eight of the troublemakers as prisoners. The prisoners were taken to the dungeon as the prince was greeted as a hero.

“Is their leader among them?” asked Penae Secundus from his throne in the royal hall.

“No, sir,” the genuflecting Terterus responded, “Caridio fell in battle.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” The old king boomed, “So much for superstition, eh? Bah, haw, ha, ha, ha, cough, cough.” The laughter dissolved into a hacking fit.

“Father, let me take care of you.”

“Thank you, my son. Lead me to my bedchamber where I have my Vick’s.”

They walked, aged king led by chosen son, out of the hall, “Father, do you not want to visit the prisoners before they are executed?”

“Son,” and the old king turned a knowing eyestalk toward the prince, “they are already dead. I had them executed while you were de-fouling your gills and dressing.”

Terterus stopped, pleopods shaking in fear and anger. “Am I trapped again?” he thought.

And so he did it, felt under his robe where his second abdominal segment overlapped the first.

And so Terterus squeezed his father’s carapace, closing off the gill chambers. “Secundus, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not what I was.” Soon the aged monarch ceased to struggle.

And so, in an empty corridor of the palace, Terterus avenged the eight and became king.


The other two followers having lost heart and left, Betty and Joey alone trod on in their blind search for Caridio, Almeria, anything.

“Betty, please, we must rest, I’ve got blisters on uropods and my pleopods are stiff and swollen.”

“Joey, see that rise in the sand over there? I have a feeling that we’ll find where we are going once we reach it. Either way, we will rest once there.”

“Yes, I can make it there if you can.”

And so they lumbered painfully up the swelling in the sand to the edge of the rift.

And there it was that they were entangled in the hooked net, dragged, scraped, and smashed in with hundreds of other unfamiliar creatures for what seemed like an eternity, then, hauled toward the surface.

“Oh, Betty, we’re headed for the surface. Goodbye. I only hope Caridio escaped this fate.”

“Joey, we were destined to go to the surface eventually. Be strengthened by the part we played in the freedom of our people.”

They broke the surface: choking dryness, baking sun, crushing gravity. Then, a life giving rush of warm water washed over them again. Then darkness.

“Where are we, Betty?”

“Shut up, or I’ll eat you, stupid little shrimp,” hissed an eel.

Betty grabbed Joey with her nipper and pulled him through the press of fish, crustaceans, and moss, down to where the bivalves had settled. “Joey,” she whispered, “I think we can talk here. These guys seem pretty out of it.”

“Where are we? I’m scared!” Joey shivered.

“I don’t know. It’s crowded, dark, and hot.”

“Oh, no! You mean we’re --”

“-- In a live well. [click]”

“Who said that?”

“Jes wait’s all ye’ can do here. So, jes wait. [click]”

“Joey, it’s that oyster over there. Excuse me, sir?”

“Ma’am? [click]” The oyster’s shell opened ever so slightly as it talked, then clicked shut.

“Is there any way out of here?”

“What did I say jes a minute ago? Alls ye can do in here is wait. So jes wait. [click]”

“But isn’t there any hope?”

“Well, back on the farm, my uncle use ta tell a story about ‘The catch that got away,’ but thems bedtime stories. My advice is jes wait. [click]”

“Joey, we’ve got to look around. Maybe there’s a way out.”

“Jiminy, you shrimps all sound alike. ‘Gotta get out,’ ‘Gots to find ole’ Maria.’ Jes take ‘er easy and wait. [click]”

“What?! What did the other shrimp say?”

“That guy was a real piece o’ work. First he sits there in the corner not talking to no one, looking like he just lost his momma. Then he up and snaps into action and starts to askin’ around about getting outta here. I guess he wanted to get back to his girl, ole Maria. [click]”

“Almeria! It’s Almeria! Joey, did you hear that. Joey? Joey!” Joey was gone.

“—Betty?”

Caridio’s antenna stroked Betty’s rostrum. “Oh Lou, I mean Caridio! It’s you, it’s really you!”

“Betty, Joey just saved my life. He jumped in the way just as the eel was about to swallow me.”

“That eel, I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I—“

“—Ouch! Grh, dghugga, ouch!” The eel began writhing in pain, squealing and contorting, thumping against the lid of the live well.

“I guess Joey isn’t giving up just yet!”

“Betty, look!” Each time the eel whacked the lid of the live well, it popped open for just an instant, letting in shafts of blinding light.

“Caridio, you must escape. Do not mourn me. Your fate is what drives us all. Follow that river.” Before he could question or protest, Betty, with perfect timing, threw herself into the breach between the lid and the deck, wedging open the lid. “Go,” she gasped, “go now and free us all.”

“You will never be forgotten.” Caridio skittered through the slit, finding himself nearly paralyzed with dry weight on the sun-baked deck. He reached down to find all his strength to wiggle and scrape toward the edge, but was weakening with every passing moment as his gills burned for oxygen.

And so it happened. The sky darkened. Caridio thought he had seen his last. Then a bright flash seared the scene into his eyestalks, a deafening explosion shook him. The boat lurched and heeled as the Wave of Grace reached over the deck, picked Caridio up, and returned him to the sea.

And so Betty and Joey had entered the overworld and saved Caridio.


Terterus was once again overwhelmed with the weight of rule. Once again he found himself too weak to refuse the lure of leadership. He was adorned with gifts and worshipped. He knew this praise to be hollow, but could not fight his desire for it. He held absolute power, and did not find the will not to wield it.

“I am weak. I will never be loved. So, let me be hated.”

Terterus had become Estuaria’s new tyrant.

The shrimps had begun to forget the hope of the prophesy. The only rebels to return had been executed. The others presumed dead.

And so it was, when old Mr. Fringe the skeptic, old Mr. Fringe the doubter, lay dying, almost no shrimps remembered or believed. They gathered around to pay their respects.

“Listen, listen to me,” Mr. Fringe wheezed in a low whisper. The crowd drew nearer. “Do not fear. Believe in Lou. Caridio he was. Caridio he is. He will return.”

“But Terterus said Caridio was killed!”

“Yes he did. He said, ‘Caridio was killed,’ not ‘Lou was killed.’” With that he stopped drawing water and began to float.

And so it was that a glimmer of hope returned to the shrimp.

And so it was that they began to see the fear behind the eyestalks of the tyrant.

And so it was that they were prepared when Lou, Caridio, returned on the back of a sea turtle.

Haggard and exhausted, Lou slid from the back of the sea turtle and lay so still on the sediment many believed he had breathed his last. Then a pleopod twitched. Life returned to his eyestalk. He struggled heroically to lift himself up to his full height. We all sensed that we were witnessing history as he wheezed through fouled gills the famous words:

“I have found Almeria. We are saved.”

And so it was that Terterus met with Caridio for the last time. On the steps of the palace, before the gaze of the populous, they spoke:

“Terterus, I am done. I die. Please, brother, l beg you to lead the shrimp to Almeria. All you have here is respect bred of fear. Start again.”

“I am damaged, Caridio, broken. I have the cries of a thousand innocents howling in my head. When I see you, I am only a shadow, an echo. Please just end my pain now.”

“I am sorry, brother. I can’t do that. I can only do what is best for all shrimp. You are a leader. Lead.” With that, Caridio, Lou, slackened. A gasp went up from the crowd. Somewhere, a zoea started crying, then everywhere wailing rose.

Terterus finally found strength. Strength enough to lift the body of Caridio, gently letting it rise from his upstretched nippers.

The crowd was silent again as they watched the body float up and out of sight.

Tearfully, quietly, Terterus said, “If you will follow, I will lead you to Almeria. Not as a ruler, but as a shrimp fulfilling his brother’s dying wish.”

And so it was that Caridio once again removed Terterus’ robe, this time forever.