The Siren Depths (49 page)

Even if it was, Moon didn’t want anything to do with it. Then he heard a crash behind them, with a whoosh and a rush of water, as if a waterfall had just exploded into the chamber.
Oh, no
, Moon thought.
It couldn’t be that stupid—

Malachite growled, “Don’t stop.”

Moon asked Shade, “Can you see anything?”

Shade looked back over Moon’s shoulder and reported breathlessly, “It must have broken the windows in the chamber. Maybe it won’t—No, the water’s coming right toward us!”

The opening into the first big hall wasn’t far ahead, but the floor leading from it dropped down, offering no refuge from the onrushing sea. Moon could feel the spray on his back.

Jade raced ahead and leapt up, clung by one hand to the top of the arch and held out the other. Moon sprang for the arch, caught it with his claws, but Shade’s weight kept him from using the momentum to swing up and around. He grabbed Jade’s free hand and she pulled, and they both scrabbled up onto a ledge no wider than his feet. Chime landed an instant later, scrambled up with a desperate cry.

Malachite hit the arch then, with Lithe clinging to her, and then the water struck them.

It rushed out below in a white-capped torrent, pouring down and into the hall. Jade crouched and grabbed one of Malachite’s wrists, and Chime grabbed the other. Still holding Shade, Moon had to watch helplessly. There was just no room to brace themselves and Jade and Chime couldn’t hold on for long.

Then Lithe climbed around and up Malachite’s back, got her claws into the ledge and pulled herself up next to Chime. Without the extra drag, Malachite clamped her claws into the ledge, constricted her body, and popped up out of the water like a jumping fish.

As Malachite hooked her claws into the wall, Jade asked, “Where now?”

“We make our way back to the outer door.” Malachite scanned the hall. “There’s a perch across there. We should be able to reach that.”

Jade’s spines flicked in assent, and she turned to Shade. “After you and the Fell came down here in the metal huts, the flower-door opened when you touched it?”

Shivering, Shade nodded. “It did. You think it won’t open for the creature?”

“I hope not.” Jade glanced at Malachite. “But if the water has already filled up the ramp to the outer door—”

“I know,” Malachite said, and for once she didn’t seem annoyed that Jade existed. “Once the water fills this place and the pressure eases, we may be able to swim through it.”

Some of us can swim through it,
Moon thought. From his own experience he knew Aeriat could hold their breath underwater for far longer than most groundlings, and he knew Jade and Malachite would be just as strong in the water as they were in the air. But Arbora were built differently. And Shade was still unable to shift and seemed to be getting weaker by the moment; his skin felt chilled through his clothes.

Chime said, “Wait.”

They all looked at him. He was half-crouched at the end of the row next to Lithe. He took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for their reaction, and said, “I don’t think this is real.”

Jade and Malachite frowned. Moon decided to get the question in before anyone else did. He asked, “Which part isn’t real?”

“The water.” Chime sounded stricken. He scooped up a double-handful. “When it’s in my hands, I can’t see it.”

Lithe reached down and touched the water in Chime’s cupped hands, and rubbed her fingers together. “I can feel it. I think I can feel it.”

Heartened that they hadn’t dismissed him out of hand, Chime said, “I think… that creature knows we have Shade, that he can open the outer door. It’s chasing us there. It’s going to follow us right out.”

Shade said suddenly, “My clothes are dry. Moon, your scales are wet, but my clothes are dry.”

Moon felt the sleeve of Shade’s shirt. The light material wasn’t clinging damply, wasn’t spotted with water. If the water was an illusion, the creature could have missed a few details. “Chime, I think you’re right.”

Jade was still frowning, but she said, “You were right about that creature, Chime. There was two of it, in a way. Maybe it isn’t even a true shifter, maybe it was just making us see it as one of our ancestors.”

Lithe said, “That would explain why only a forerunner—or someone close to them, like a crossbreed—could let it out. If our ancestors imprisoned it here—”

Malachite dragged them back to the point. “The water was real enough to kill the groundlings. The creature was still trapped inside the flower, but something made them run, killed them when it caught them. If we can’t make ourselves believe the water isn’t real, it will kill us too.”

Chime nodded anxiously. “That’s the part I don’t have any ideas about.”

A sudden dark stirring in the water below them cut off that line of discussion. Malachite snapped, “The ledge, now!” and grabbed Lithe.

Moon waited, knowing they had to go one at a time, but as Malachite sprang into the air, Jade said, “Moon, then Chime, go!”

There was no time to argue. Moon crouched, leapt, and flapped for all he and Shade were worth. He made it to the perch across the hall, snapping his wings in on the landing. Malachite caught his shoulder to steady him. Chime was right behind him, but as Jade sprang off the ledge, a dark clawed arm shot up from the water to reach for her. Moon gasped but she twisted at the last instant and flapped across the hall. As she landed, Moon snarled, “It almost had you!”

She snarled back, “I know.”

Malachite said, “Children, quiet.”

Moon followed her gaze and saw the dark shape move just under the surface. Something about it was more like a swarm of sea creatures than a single being. And it seemed to have more limbs than it had started out with. It fetched up against one of the seaweed-carved pillars and climbed out of the water, then swung to face them.

Chime made a strangled noise of horror in his throat.

Moon stared, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The creature had killed the Fell, but had merged their bodies with its own, somehow. Clawed arms, legs, a leathery wing, a tail hung from the fluid shape of its back and sides. The progenitor was attached to its chest, her body partially melded with it. Moon could glimpse one of her wings, half unfurled, through the creature’s gray semi-transparent flesh. Then her right arm, still free, twitched and she tried to lift her head; she was still alive.

Malachite hissed slowly, in mingled disgust and shock. Moon thought,
The forerunners or whoever built this place left this creature buried alive here for a reason. They wanted to punish it for all the turns left in the span of the Three Worlds for a reason. And whatever we do, we can’t let it get out.

The progenitor said, “Why do you run? They attacked me. I had no choice.”

Moon felt sick. Her voice had a hollow effect, almost an echo. It was clear who—or what—was actually doing the speaking.

Jade called back, “You lied to the Fell and you’re lying to us!”

“I had to be free. Take me to the surface, I will still give you powers—” The progenitor choked, then her voice changed, dropping the strange hollow quality. “This place was first a fortress against it, then its prison when it was defeated.”

“That was her,” Shade whispered, horrified.

Malachite shouted, “How did they defeat it?”

One clawed limb grabbed the progenitor’s remaining arm, and ripped her out of the creature’s own body. It snapped her spine and tossed the corpse into the water. Then it dove in, vanishing under the swirling foam.

Malachite ordered, “That ledge, go!”

They made it in a mad scramble, flapping hard, newly terrified of touching the water. They assembled on the ledge near the archway that led into the next hall, the one they had to get through to reach the ramp and the outer door. This ledge was wider and higher above the water, but wouldn’t offer much protection if the creature came at them.

Moon set Shade on his feet and they both slid down the wall to a crouch. Chime, huddled at the other end of the ledge, was shivering almost as badly as Shade. Lithe squeezed in between Malachite and Jade, her spines flat in fear; Moon didn’t feel so good himself. The creature was using the illusory water to conceal itself, which made it nearly impossible for them to reach the outer door without letting it out. It could come at them at any moment, escape from its prison…
What did the progenitor say? A fortress, and then a prison?
Moon blurted, “It’s afraid of water.”

Jade’s and Malachite’s attention snapped to him. Jade said, “Because it’s using the illusion of water against us?”

Lithe’s frightened expression turned intrigued, and Chime’s spines shivered in excitement at the thought. Chime said, “Because our ancestors put it here?”

Moon said, “The progenitor said that this place was a fortress against it and then its prison, and then it killed her. It can’t talk to us without her, so shutting her up was more important than trying to convince us to help it. Maybe she was trying to tell us how to kill it.”

Jade wasn’t convinced. “But why would she do that?”

Moon started to answer, then shook his head in frustration. He couldn’t put it into words, the way the Fell became weirdly attached to their Raksuran prey. The Fell often seemed as if they were having a relationship with you that they expected you to reciprocate, and they became angry when you didn’t respond the way they thought you should. Maybe they were, but their complete lack of empathy prevented them from understanding the reactions and feelings of any other type of being. He just looked at Malachite and said, “She had Shade with her all that time. You know how they get.”

Malachite’s gaze turned thoughtful. “That only makes sense if we’re right about the water being a hallucination.”

“I know I’m right about that,” Chime said, more life in his voice. “And maybe that’s what this thing wanted with the groundlings. To make the huts as a way for it to get out of here. Maybe it knew all along they couldn’t set it free. It was waiting for the Fell to make crossbreeds, but once it was out, it needed a way to get to the surface without touching the water.”

“That could be it,” Lithe said. “If the forerunners had a way to get in and out of this place without swimming, they must have destroyed it when they left, to make the prison more secure.”

“So we let the water in,” Moon said.

“We’ll have to swim to the surface?” Chime shook his spines. “Can we do that?”

Jade said to Malachite, “Not all of us.”

His voice rough and weak, Shade said, “I can try to shift. Maybe if I wait till the last moment—”

Moon was pretty sure Shade was lying to keep them from reconsidering the plan. If he could shift, he would have done it by now.

Jade must have had similar doubts. She said, “If we distract it by letting the water in, we could get back up the ramp to the huts.”

Malachite said, “Yes, that’s still our best way out.” Her gaze was on the roof of the hall, on one of the round windows in the curve of the dome. The sea outside pressed against it, the water darker as if clouds had covered the sun somewhere far above them. “The rest of you get ready to go.”

“You think you can just tear through it?” Jade asked. “If more than one of us—”

“What about—” Chime began.

Water boiled in front of them. Moon pushed in front of Shade, instinctively protecting the one member of their group who couldn’t shift. The limb caught him across the shoulder and knocked him off the ledge and into the water.

Moon fell right through the surface, struggling against the illusion. He knew he was falling toward the floor of the hall, that there was no water around him, but for a heart-stopping moment his body was unable to do what his brain told it. He closed his eyes and forced his wings out, flapped with all his strength. He felt his body lifting up, a moment before he collided with a soft surface. He bounced off, slid down, and hooked his claws into it. He opened his eyes to see he was holding onto one of the seaweed-carved pillars, above the illusory water.

He looked back for the others and the creature. The water churned, and Chime clung to the wall above the ledge but Moon couldn’t see anyone else. He almost flung himself toward them but somebody had to let the real water in.

He swarmed up the pillar, and leapt from it to the curved roof, sunk his claws into the soft material and climbed across it toward the round window. It was the same as the other one, the crystalline substance webbed with translucent fibers. He struck at it with his claws and jerked back, anticipating the rush of water. His claws barely scored the tough material.
You should have known this wasn’t going to be easy.

He swung out onto the window and dug his claws in, using all his strength, trying not to think about what was happening below him. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and jerked away, but it was Chime with Lithe clinging to his chest. Chime gasped, “Malachite is distracting it, Jade has Shade. We’re supposed to be with her but Lithe had an idea.”

Moon looked down, but couldn’t see anything but boiling water below the arch where the walkway was.
Jade, be careful.
The creature would be after Shade, knowing it could use him to get through the outer door to the groundling huts. Grimacing, Lithe stretched to reach the clear material of the window. She said, “This didn’t work on the groundling boat, but our ancestors made this.”

Moon didn’t understand what she meant until the crystalline substance started to warm under his claws. He dug them in again and leaned back, bracing his feet on the window. The material felt more permeable, but it still wasn’t tearing. Chime huffed in frustration, then climbed down next to Moon. “Please don’t kill us with your spines,” he said and wrapped an arm around Moon’s waist. Lithe hooked an arm around Moon’s shoulder.

Moon said, “All right, together. One, two, three!”

They all threw their weight back at once. And a small hole tore under one of Moon’s claws, saltwater squirting through it. Moon made a desperate hiss and said, “Again. One—” Then the whole window ripped apart.

The rush of water blew them down into the hall. They were caught in the torrent, as if the whole world had turned to water, and Moon couldn’t imagine how they had ever thought the creature’s illusion of an onrushing sea was real.