Song of the Deep (7 page)

10

THE DEEPLIGHT

T
he
wreckage of Skeleton Reef flies by me on either side as the current pulls me
down past the twisted remains of ships and along a winding sandy riverbed. It’s
useless to pedal. The current is too powerful for me to break free. Wherever
it’s taking me, I’m now at its mercy.

I pass beyond Skeleton Reef, back into open water. In the
distance, across a long stretch of rolling sand, I see the shadow of a tall
tower. A powerful beam of light shines from the top of the tower.
It’s the
undersea lighthouse
.

As we near the tower, the current speeds up, and I’m pulled into
the darkness as it yanks me down into a tunnel below the sandy floor. Then,
just as abruptly, I feel myself being tugged upward. At last there is a
lurching jolt and my submarine comes to rest.

I’m bobbing in the water. Half my window is light and half is
dark.

I lift open the hatch, scarcely believing what I’m seeing. The sub
is floating
above
the water. I’m inside the tower, in a wide circular
pool at the center of a huge stone room. Tall gray walls of stone rise up,
forming a cold cylindrical prison. I jump out of the hatch and splash down in
the water.

A moment later, Swish pops his head up right next to me. He must
have followed me in the current.

I swim to the edge of the pool and lift myself out onto the stone
floor. My legs feel unsteady. This is the first time I have been able to stand
up in hours.

“I’m going to go look around,” I call to Swish. “I’ll be right
back, okay?” He wags his tail in the water as if to say
yes
, but I can
tell from his eyes that he’s worried about me.

I look around the big round room. A narrow stone staircase curves
along the interior wall of the huge cylindrical tower, disappearing through a
hole in the ceiling high above me.

As I walk over to the base of the steps, I see something black
lying on the floor. It’s a glove. Not just any glove, but a heavy rubber
fishing glove with a faded picture of a dandelion painted on the back.
It’s
my father’s glove
.

My father was here. Maybe he still
is
here, somewhere in
this tower. He must have followed the current, just like the merrow said. I
pick up the glove. It has a large tear in it that runs from the front of the
wrist to the middle of the hand. Did it snag on something in the fast journey
through the current? Or was he attacked by something? Despite my new fears,
this is the first evidence I’ve found to suggest my father might still be
alive.

I feel a rush of happiness and hope as I race up the stairs and
through a hole in the ceiling. I emerge onto the floor above and find twelve
beds, each with neatly folded white sheets, arranged in a ring around the
perimeter of the circular room. In the middle of the room are three square
wooden tables, each with four chairs. At the very center of the room, in
between the tables, is a glass column that runs all the way up into the
ceiling. The circular stone wall that surrounds the room is embedded with four
glass hemispheres, all taller than doors and reinforced with strips of rusted
iron. They each face one of the cardinal directions: north, east, south, and
west. Three of the glass cases are empty, but inside the fourth is a
ball-shaped submersible, the top half made of glass and the bottom made of
gold. It’s just big enough for a person to fit inside. Attached to the wall
adjacent to the glass hemisphere, there is a lever.
Is this how they
transport people in and out of the tower?

I look inside at the last remaining submersible. The front of its
glass top has been smashed, as if the vessel met with some violent collision.
Behind the broken glass, I can’t see any form of steering controls or
navigation. Each of the submersibles must be designed to go to a specific
location all on its own.

I return to the center of the room and study the tall glass tube
that rises to the ceiling. On one side there is an oval opening big enough for
me to step into an oblong golden capsule. Judging from what I’ve seen of the
Fomori’s creations so far, this must be some means of transportation. But where
is it going to go? I step in, nervously, and immediately a flap seals the tube
shut and I hear a rush of air as I am yanked upward. I zip through the ceiling
and into darkness. For a moment I feel weightless, and then the capsule bounces
slightly and I come to a stop. I step into a tall round room with windows that
go from the floor to the ceiling.

Beyond the walls of glass, the sea stretches out below me in all
directions. I must be in the top of the tower. At the center of the room, near
the ceiling, there is a powerful white light housed in a hemisphere of gleaming
gold. It rotates slowly, sweeping its beam out through the windows and deep
into the sea. Below it is a contraption made of heavy gears and exposed levers,
all steadily turning, keeping the light in constant motion. I watch the
sweeping white beam piercing through the empty blue water outside.

As I follow the light with my
eyes, I hear my mother’s voice. A long-forgotten memory is suddenly vivid in my
mind. I can see myself lying in my bed under a patchwork blanket. The distant
sound of crashing waves rises up through my window. My mother is sitting at the
edge of my bed, telling me a story.

“Deep beneath the sea, in the darkest depths, there is a tall
tower, made of stone. And atop the tower is a shining beacon of light,” she
says. She looks down sadly as she speaks. “They call this tower the Deeplight.”

“Is it a lighthouse?” I ask.

“Yes, in a way it is.”

“But how can there be ships under the sea?”

“The light isn’t there to help guide ships. It’s there to search
for things.”

“Like what?”

She is quiet for a moment. “You know how some of the things under
the sea are scary?”

“Like leviathans?”

“Yes, like leviathans. The tower was built to keep people safe
against the scary things,” she explains. “But sometimes . . .” She stops, as if
the rest is hard for her to say.

“Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes things don’t work out the way they were supposed to.
Sometimes people are scared of things . . . even though they shouldn’t be.” Her
eyes appear to look far away. I wonder what she’s thinking.

“Did something bad happen at the lighthouse?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. But that part of the story will have to
wait.”

“Until tomorrow?”

“Until you are this tall,” she says, smiling now as she holds her
hand a few inches above my head.

“Promise?” I ask.

“Promise.” She kisses my forehead.

I shiver as the memory fades away and I am back in the cold stone
room.
The Deeplight
. It’s strange to think that I am actually standing
inside it. I wonder what could have happened here that was so terrible. Why did
my mother not want to tell me?

I look around at the windows that surround the circular room.
Chairs are mounted into the floor, facing toward the windows, and in front of
each chair are what look like metal handlebars, except the handles are pointed
upward. Peering out the window, I can see a ballista poking out from the tower
below the window. Its heavy barbed-iron spear is aimed and ready to launch out
into the water. And that’s when I realize: This isn’t a lighthouse at all. These
are turrets. This is a fortress.

I think about how the merrow said she never comes near the tower.
This tower must have been built by the Fomori to battle the merrows. I watch
the searchlight sweeping its slow arc through the depths. In the distance I see
the gleam of a golden sentinel. Is the tower still helping the sentinels find
the merrows, even now?

Then I remember why I entered
the Deeplight in the first place, and I am jolted by a terrible thought:
I
am at the top of the tower, and my father isn’t here
. Where could he have
gone? The only possibility I can think of is that he took one of the
submersibles from the room below. But the only one of them that remains is
broken, so I have no way to follow him.

I wonder if the merrow maiden knows where the submersibles go.
Where is she now? I think of how she lured the sentinel away from me to allow
me to make it safely to the Deeplight. She risked her life to help me reach a
tower that was used to hunt her own people . . . Why would she do that?

My mother knew the truth about the Deeplight. Her voice was so
certain, she must have known it was more than just a story. Had she actually
seen it before? I remember the sadness in her eyes when she spoke of it. Up
above me, the immense powerful light shines out into the sea. I think of all
the merrows who must have died because of this light. I can’t let that go on
any longer.

I hope my mother would be proud of me for what I am about to do.

I leap up and grab onto the lip above the entrance to the glass
chute. Lifting my leg up over it, I grab onto one of the levers that is part of
the moving machinery turning the light. I pull myself up until I can see the
complex inner workings that drive it. I stare at the moving parts in awe,
thinking of how long these hundreds of gears have been turning on their own
without anyone to repair them. This is truly a masterwork of engineering,
unlike anything I have ever seen.

And now I am going to destroy it.

The bolts along the base of the frame come loose with a few hard
twists. Holding on to one of the slow-moving levers, I pull myself along the
edge of the frame, loosening each bolt as I go. I can feel the whole frame
begin to wobble as I turn the last bolt. I give it one big push and leap down
to the ground.

The frame topples over, pulling the enormous light down with it. I
cover my face as the light shatters into a million shards that spray across the
room in all directions. A thunderous clanging of metal echoes through the room
as the heavy gears smash apart and roll toward the walls.

The sea outside the windows is dark now. The Deeplight is no more.

A little shard of glass is stuck in my left hand. I pull it out
carefully and put pressure on the cut to stop the bleeding. It doesn’t look too
deep. Looking at the long knife-like slivers of glass across the floor, I
realize how lucky I am not to have been more badly hurt.

Out of the corner of my eye there is a tiny golden glow. I turn
toward the window and see the clockwork seahorse staring in at me from the
water outside. How did he find me here? Did the merrow send him?

He swims up to the window and taps it with his nose a few times.
Then he looks at me.

“Yes, it’s nice to see you too,” I say. He tilts his head at me as
if he is trying to tell me something, then swims forward and taps the glass
again. He’s tapping in a kind of pattern. I tap the pattern back on the glass:
five taps . . . one tap . . . five taps.

He leans forward and points down with his nose.

“You want me to go down? Down where?” I ask. He taps the glass
again in the same pattern, then points down. He looks back up at me to see if I
understand. “Okay,” I say, nodding to him. I still don’t know what he’s saying,
but the best I can do is go down to the lower level and try to figure it out.

I get back in the glass chute, and it zips me down to the room
below. Did the seahorse want me to take a submersible? I think of the pattern
of taps: five, one, five. Or was he just tapping out the number eleven? I look
at the twelve beds, arranged in a ring around the room. Is there something
special about the eleventh bed? How would I even know which one is the
eleventh? They’re in a circle—there’s no beginning!

A plaintive howling sound rings out, and I remember that I left
Swish all alone. I race down the steps into the room below. Swish splashes his
tail in the water excitedly as he sees me.

“I’m sorry, Swish! I didn’t mean to take so long,” I tell him,
rubbing his head. He rolls over in the water, ready to go play. With another
splash of his tail, he dives down into the deep circular pool and out of sight.
Could the seahorse have wanted me to find something in the pool?

I step back into the submarine and dive down below the surface.
Swish circles around me, ready to start a new game of tag.

“Hold on, boy, I just need to look for something,” I tell him as
he eagerly swims up to my window and then darts away. The pool is much deeper
than I first realized, and there are tunnels leading out from it at varying
depths. Some of the tunnels have water flowing out of them and into the pool, while
others have water flowing in.

I think this place must be a nexus of underground currents. The
Fomori would have used these tunnels to travel to all different parts of the
sea. Above each tunnel there are symbols etched into the stone—of stars,
triangles, and vertical lines. Was the seahorse telling me which tunnel to
take?

One tunnel has three lines, followed by a triangle. Another has a
star and two lines. The seahorse tapped eleven times, so I look for two
vertical lines.

Swish swims back up to me, wondering why I am staring at the walls
instead of playing with him.

“Do you want to race me?” I ask him, nodding and putting on an
excited smile. He swishes his tail back and forth. “I’m going to go through a
tunnel, and I want you to follow me, okay?” His whole body is wiggling in
anticipation. He might not understand me, but he knows we’re about to do
something fun.

I look back at the tunnels, remembering the seahorse’s pattern of
taps: five, one, five. What if the five taps represented a five-sided star? I
search the tunnels, one by one, until I see one with a star, a vertical line,
and another star. There is a powerful current flowing into it. This has to be
the right one.

“Ready, Swish?” I call out as I sail toward the gaping circular
mouth. Then I’m pulled in more suddenly than I expected. “Ahhh!” I scream in shock
as the current whips me into the tunnel at lightning speed.