Song of the Deep (10 page)

13

THE FORBIDDEN CITY

W
orking as
fast as I can, I hammer each piece of scrap metal into shape. None of them is a
perfect fit for what I need, but with a little bending, twisting, and hammering
I can get them close enough. I roll a thin piece of metal into a makeshift gear
axle and bend another to be a hand lever. I hammer a sharp rock against the
sub’s roof to make tiny holes for the bolts, and a thin slit for the lever arm.
I quickly slide each piece into place to stop the spray of water pouring
inside.

The parts are starting to come together, one by one. I take a look
at the progress with a mixture of pride and uncertainty. The gears are rusty,
and there are no screws to keep their levers in place. The whole contraption is
only barely holding together at all. But I don’t need it to be perfect. I only
need it to work for a few minutes.

I reach up to the ceiling and gently pull the hand lever. I grin
as I see the segmented claw arm stretch out. I yank the lever all the way back,
and the metal claw slams shut. The bolts on the roof rattle where the claw’s
arm is connected, but it seems to be holding tight. Well, tight
enough
,
at least.

I sail back out of the cavern and look at the circling sentinels
above me. I have one chance to make this work.

Moving up along the side of
the wall, I watch the sweeping beams of light on their endless patrols. I wait
for just the right moment. When the beams are all pointed away from the wall
above me, I sail up and yank a large loose rock from the wall with the claw. I
struggle to force the sub upright as the weight of the rock pitches it forward.
As the sentinel beams turn back toward me, I pull back on the lever, but
nothing happens.

Three sentinel beams are approaching. They’ll see me at any
second! I grip the lever with both hands and yank it with all my might. The arm
pitches forward and hurls the rock through the water, slamming into one of the
sentinels and sending it spinning around. Five sentinels all turn toward the
rock and chase it as it sinks down through the trench. I hear their torpedo
shots firing at the rock as they go.

That worked almost too well, but four more sentinels are
patrolling in a figure-eight pattern higher above me. Beyond them it looks like
there are at least another four—no, five. But as long as I can keep distracting
them faster than the other ones can return, I should be fine.

I pull another chunk of rock from the wall. It’s about half the
size of the first one, so it doesn’t throw me off balance as badly. I follow
the pattern of the sentinels above me, again carefully waiting for the right
moment. When the nearest sentinel is just starting to pass by, I yank the
lever, and the stone sails through the water and slams into the top of the
sentinel with a satisfying
clank
. But rather than bouncing forward, the
stone ricochets upward and back toward me.

I watch, frozen in horror, as all nine sentinels turn their beams
and follow the rock straight toward me. There’s nowhere I can go. I’m
completely surrounded by them. I remain motionless, hoping that they might turn
back around. But they don’t.

The first torpedo launches. I
dive down as it slams into the wall behind me, and the blast sends me spinning
around out of control. I pull the claw lever, trying to grab onto anything I
can. The claw sinks into the tail of one of the sentinels, jerking me to a
stop. I’m about to release it when I have an idea. I pull the lever back even
harder, forcing the claw to bite down harder into the sentinel’s tail. Its
diving plane, the fin-like part of the tail that lets it go up or down, is
jammed upward. The sentinel is forced into an uncontrollable dive, pulling my
sub down with it.

I’m being tugged straight down into the endless maw of the trench.
Sentinel beams sweep all around me as they give chase from behind. They’re
going to fire at any moment. There’s only one thing I can do.

I force open the hatch and dive out. The sentinels race past me
into the darkness below. I see the torpedoes fire, one after the other. There
is a bright flash below me. My submarine is blown into a million tiny
fragments.

I feel a painful knot in my stomach. I take a short gasping breath
through the zephyr whelk. My body is shaking. There’s no time to think right
now—I just have to move. I swim upward. I block everything else out. All that
matters is swimming upward as fast as I can go. The water above me is dark. The
sentinels are all below me. I have a few seconds at most. Keep going . . . keep
going . . .

The light of a sentinel beam sweeps up past me, through the water
on my right, illuminating a ceiling of gold above me. The metal struts widen as
they stretch up to the ceiling, as if they are holding it up. At the center of
the ceiling is a circular opening of water. I swim straight up toward it, just
as the sentinel’s beam sweeps over me.

I maneuver into the opening and up through a wide cylindrical
tube. I hear a clanking of metal and look down to see that the bottom of the
tube has closed behind me. I’m safe from the sentinels for now, but where am I?
Is this the entrance to the Forbidden City?

Above me, a hole forms at the center of the ceiling. The hole
widens as I approach, and brilliant yellow light shines down on my face,
forcing me to shield my eyes. I feel like I’ve walked out of a dark cave and am
looking straight into the midday sun.

I swim up toward the light, and my head emerges into air. I climb
out of the tube and turn around in astonishment.

I’m standing in the middle of an entire city made of gold. Pointed
spires of buildings tower high above me like a golden forest. Walkways paved
with gold zigzag and branch between the gleaming golden walls. Archways and
buttresses stretch between the buildings. An immense dome of glass arches over
the building tops. Beyond that is the great empty darkness of the sea.

At the edges of the city, the glass dome walls are lined with
forty-foot-tall golden gears, each in slow and steady motion. Four tall
cylindrical glass tubes, filled with water, run through the center of the city
from floor to ceiling. Pumps inside the tubes keep the water in constant
motion. Are these gears and tubes used to filter air out of the water?

As I walk through the city, I am stunned at the beauty and wealth
all around me. There is more gold in this city than I thought could have
existed in all the world. Tall piles of gold coins are pushed up against walls,
as if they ran out of places to put them. But where are the Fomori? What could
have happened to them to make them abandon such riches?

I think back to what Cara said about the Rimorosa . . . a great
ancient beast more powerful than any leviathan. If the Fomori had captured it
and even controlled it, could it have turned on them? Maybe they didn’t abandon
the city after all. Maybe, after so many years of pillaging the sea, the most
deadly of all its creatures fought back and destroyed them. Still, it’s strange
that the city seems to have been abandoned without any kind of struggle.

And where is my father? There is no sign of him anywhere. My
submarine is destroyed, and I have no idea where to go next or what to do.

I kick a pile of coins in frustration, watching them scatter and
roll across the gleaming golden walkway. I would trade all this gold just for
the tiniest hint of where to look for my father.

I follow the winding walkways through the tall buildings until I
reach an open garden at what seems to be the center of the dome. There are
canals built into the floor, little rivers that travel through the city. They
intersect in a shallow pool within the garden, where arching fountains of water
take turns shooting up into the air and sending sparkling jewel-drops of water
raining back down. Inside the canals, golden clockwork seahorses swim along, busily
attending to some invisible task.

Looking closer, there is something different about these
seahorses. Cara’s seahorse was lit from within by a pulsing white glow that
these seahorses don’t have. Their movements are more stiff and precise, and
they don’t seem to be alive and aware of me the way Cara’s seahorse was. Now I
wish I had asked her how she became friends with it. There must be a bigger
story that she didn’t tell me.

I follow one of the seahorses through a canal, away from the
garden. It seems to move with a purpose, as if it has a job to do. Do the
seahorses keep the whole city running? Something must be making the repairs to
the machines and keeping the pumps active. And if so, there must be some
location in the city that controls all the machinery. Maybe my father came to
the same conclusion and has already found it.

The seahorse leads me through golden city streets, along winding
canals merging with larger canals and then splitting off again. Finally, it
takes me into a low-ceilinged tunnel at the edge of the city. At the end of the
tunnel, the canal empties into a deep circular pool. The walls of the pool are
covered in little golden switches. The seahorse moves from spot to spot along
the wall, flicking the tiny switches with its nose. This must be some kind of
control center for the whole city. Maybe there’s even a way to disable the
sentinels from here.

I dive into the pool and look around the walls, searching for some
pattern to the switches. If my father has been here, he must have done the same
thing I am doing now. Did he flip one of the switches? And if so, where did he
go? I look down at the golden floor. I would guess that it leads back into the
open trench beneath the city.

The switches are arranged in long densely packed columns with no
symbols or any other indication of their purpose. The seahorse stops flipping
the switches and turns to me.

“I don’t suppose you could show
me what these do?” I ask with a smile, gesturing to the switches. The seahorse
just turns away from me and moves to another column, switching them all down
one by one. I hear a grating of metal and look up to see the golden iris
ceiling closing. A moment later the floor slides up below me, revealing the
endless trench. I look at the seahorse with a feeling of betrayal. “Did you do
that?” There is no sign of the sentinels, at least. Maybe they are patrolling
deeper in the trench.

The seahorse is just floating there, watching me. It makes me a
little uncomfortable, but I’ll just have to ignore him and stay focused. I scan
the columns of switches and swim over to one. I could start by flipping all the
switches in the column just to see what happens. But as I’m reaching for the
first one, I feel a swell of water pushing up from below.

I look down to see a huge red tentacle reaching up. Before I can
move, it wraps around me and pulls me down into the darkness!

I’m sinking so fast I can barely see. My ribs feel like they are
going to crack from the pressure of the tentacle’s grip. The beams of sentinels
and glints of golden struts fly past me and disappear.

This must be the Rimorosa
. This is the creature that sank
my father’s ship. I struggle to free myself from its merciless grip, but the
undulating tentacles just propel me farther into the depths.

14

THE RIMOROSA

I
’m enveloped
in blackness now, except for the glimmer of yellow-orange glowkelp bulbs along
the walls of the trench, their lights streaking by me like shooting stars. I
feel the tentacle loosen its grip for a moment and I am able to take a quick
breath through the zephyr whelk. For a moment I see a glimpse of the Rimorosa’s
face. Its head is like that of an octopus but is covered with eyes. I notice a
gold band around its skull, like a helmet. Maybe that was how the Fomori
controlled it. And is that what allows the Rimorosa to control the sentinels
now?

The glowkelp bulbs fly past as the ancient beast pulls me farther
down into the depths. I wriggle back and forth, pushing as hard as I can
against the constricting arm. I make it only a few inches before the tentacle
squeezes even tighter.

But those few inches are enough to allow me to reach the handle of
my coral knife. As I pull it out, a second tentacle wraps around my head and
neck. I can feel its suction cups against my face. Now I can’t see, and I have
no way to breathe. My fingernails dig into the suction cups along the tentacle
at my waist, trying to pry them free, but it’s no use.

Gripping the knife with both hands, I blindly stab it into the
tentacle at my waist. I hear a piercing screech as the coral blade sinks into
one of the suction cups. Both the tentacles loosen, and I kick my way free. I
swim upward as fast as I can go. One of the tentacles brushes my leg, but I
slip out of its grasp before it can get hold of me.

I swim toward the wall, sliding through a web of tangled vines and
into a long narrow crack, just big enough for me squeeze into sideways. I hold
my breath as the tentacle arms tear through the vines and try to pry me out. I
can feel the suction cups tickling my shins, so I wedge myself in deeper. The
tentacles try again and again to grasp hold of me, but they aren’t able to get
a solid grip.

At last, the tentacles retreat and the Rimorosa disappears down
into the depths.

I listen for any movement from below, but all is silent. I swim
out of the crack, feeling the tendrils of the vines reaching toward me. As I
shake them off and push away from the wall, I see what they are. The walls are
covered in thick layers of strangleclaw kelp. Its bulbs may look pretty, but if
it gets its barbed, claw-like hooks in me it will pull me all the way to the
bottom of the trench.

That’s why the Rimorosa left. It wasn’t giving up; it was merely
waiting for the kelp to grab me and bring me down to it.
How much time do I
have before it comes back to check on me?
I swim up through the trench, the
glowing kelp bulbs forming a cylinder of tiny lights leading upward along the
walls of the trench.

As I swim farther up, I see a
long dark swath in the lights, running vertically down the wall. It looks like
a column of darkness in a starry sky. Remembering what my father once said
about using the kelp bubbles to breathe, I swim toward the bottom, where the
patch of darkness ends. There, tangled and still amid the vines, is the body of
a man. It’s my father.

I race toward him. His eyes are closed—he looks like he’s
sleeping. A deflated kelp bulb is clenched in his fingers. Was he breathing
through the kelp bulbs as the strangleclaw pulled him farther down into the
trench? How long has he been down here? There must have been more than a
hundred kelp bulbs in the dark swath above him; he could have survived for
quite a while on them.

I grab his arm and shake him, but he doesn’t move. I take off the
zephyr whelk necklace and hang it around his neck, putting the shell up to his
lips. He still doesn’t move.

“Breathe!” I yell. I feel the strangleclaw wrapping around me and
tightening. My father’s eyes stay closed. The kelp pulls me lower, tugging me
away from him. I reach toward him and grab onto his boot as I am pulled away
again.

He’s too far away for me to reach now. His body is still. The
zephyr whelk hangs at his neck.

I am too late.

There is a rush of moving water from below. I turn to see the
Rimorosa swimming up through the trench, straight toward me. Before I can even
move, it yanks me out of vines and grips me in one of its giant red arms.

With another arm, it grasps my father’s body and it pulls us both
back down into the depths. My father’s arms flail gently in the water beside
me. I reach for his hand and hold it tightly in mine, knowing I won’t be able
to hold my breath much longer.

And then he opens his eyes.

His eyes widen in disbelief when he sees me and then quickly fill
with horror. I gesture to the zephyr whelk around his neck, then put my hands
to my mouth to show what to do. He holds it up and takes a deep breath. He
looks at me incredulously. There are a million things he wants to say and no
time to say them. He takes off the necklace and stretches it out to me. I take
a deep breath.

We pass the zephyr whelk back and forth as the Rimorosa pulls us
deeper into the trench. My father starts to say something, but I shake my head
and hold my finger to my lips. We’re going to have to conserve our breaths.
Maybe when the Rimorosa comes to a stop, we’ll have a chance to escape.

From high above us, a terrible roar echoes down through the
trench. An immense shadow engulfs the lights as it descends toward us. There is
another great roar, and I see an enormous gaping mouth, filled with a thousand
saber-size teeth.
It’s a queen leviathan
, the most feared creature in
all the sea.

Her great mouth lunges toward
us. I grip my father’s hand and close my eyes as the giant teeth gnash down. I
feel the Rimorosa’s tentacles loosen their grip, and I open my eyes.

The leviathan has bitten into
the other creature. My father pulls me away from the tentacles, and we swim up
alongside the thrashing serpentine body of the leviathan. The Rimorosa has
wrapped its tentacles around the head and neck of the leviathan as the
leviathan struggles to attack again. The two are locked in a desperate
struggle—and neither seems to have an advantage.

My father tugs me away from the
battling beasts. Two yellow eyes are coming toward us. Protectively, my father
plants himself in front of me, but I recognize the eyes instantly. It’s Swish.
I look back down at the queen leviathan, still battling the Rimorosa.

“Swish, is that . . . is that your mother?” I ask him. My father
looks from me to Swish and back again. “I’ll explain it all later,” I tell him,
taking a breath from the zephyr whelk. I give Swish a big hug. He swims above
us and wiggles his tail, as if asking us to grab on. “It’s okay,” I say to my
father, and we both grab hold of Swish’s tail.

Swish pulls us up out of the trench and into the cavern where I
came in. From down below I hear another roar, and the giant leviathan flies up
through the trench, with the Rimorosa chasing close behind it. Swish makes a
whimpering sound as he looks toward the trench. I squeeze his fin, trying to
console him.

Loud crashes of metal and rock
echo through the trench, and I look at my father, suddenly realizing what is
happening. The leviathan is destroying the metal struts that support the
Forbidden City.

The sound builds to a thunder.
The leviathan swoops down into the cavern as the weight of an entire city comes
crashing down behind her. I see a glimpse of the red tentacles of the Rimorosa,
but a moment later it is buried beneath an avalanche of gold. All the riches of
the Forbidden City disappear out of sight into the infinite abyss of the
trench.

I turn to the queen leviathan. Swish’s mother. She looks like she
came away unhurt. I think of the giant skeletons of leviathans that I passed in
the cavern. She must have known she was taking a great risk to come here. Swish
rubs his cheek against his mother’s face.

“Thank you,” I say. “We can never repay you for that.”

She rolls her back toward us, revealing the spines along the back
of her head.

My father looks at me in disbelief. Is she offering us a ride?

We grab onto the spines, and the leviathan carries us out of the
trench, up into the open sea where the Forbidden City once was. She takes us
higher and higher, until we can see the distant streaks of the sun’s rays above
us.

And then we are above the water, sailing toward the dark brown
cliffs in the distance.

We’re going home.