The Tree of Water (29 page)

“And if we did—”

“Then the sun won't be coming up, or at least when it does, it will only change the water from total darkness to gray total darkness. We could try to find our way back, but we will probably end up wandering, lost, in the sea forever. Or at least until our luck runs out and something eats us.”

Char blew out his breath, sending a stream of bubbles into the drift as he did.

Ven bent down beside Amariel and touched her arm. It was hard to tell for certain underwater, but she seemed colder than usual. He fought back the panic that was rising inside him.

“I think we need to find a safe place until morning,” he said, looking around at the sea beyond the glow of the air stones. “Do you think there's a shipwreck or something where at least Amariel can be sheltered?”

“You stay with her, an' I'll go look,” Char said.

“Don't go far,” Coreon advised.

“No worries about that,” Char said.

The light around Amariel dimmed as Char swam away, clutching his air stone in front of him. He left a trail behind himself, a little like a tunnel of light, and Ven could see him holding the stone aloft, checking the murky darkness beyond where Amariel was lying. A few moments later he returned, bringing the light with him.

His face was pale in the blue-white glow.

“I don' know
what
this place is, but I'm not sure I want to take shelter in it.” His thrum was shaky.

“What's out there?” Ven asked.

“Go look for yourself. It's sort of hard to describe.”

“Let's all go,” Coreon said. “We have to get Amariel out of the drift. If a predator comes along, or more than one, we won't be able to defend her where we are. Let me carry her so you don't risk dropping your stone.”

The hippocampus bobbed its head in the drift. Ven looked over at him.

“Can you carry her, Teel?”

The giant sea horse nodded.

He and the other boys exchanged a glance.

“That's prolly a good idea,” Char said. “You lift her, Coreon, an' I'll get her across his back.”

Teel shook his head, then curled and uncurled his spiral tail.

“Oh,” said Ven. “Well, we can try letting you carry her. But if you think you're going to drop her, tell us quickly.”

Together they carried Amariel over to the chubby hippocampus and held her where he could curl his tail around her. The giant sea horse bobbed down to the ocean floor, but then righted himself.

“All right,” Ven said. “Let's go see what's beyond the ring of light.”

Walking into the complete darkness is something I'm not sure I could have done alone. Under the sea, the blackness is much heavier than a moonless night in the upworld, especially for me. In the upworld nighttime, even if there is no other light, I can see shapes, and sense what things have weight. It's easy to separate out dark emptiness from solid things that are all around you but not visible.

In the sea, there is no weight to feel. Non-living things do not give off thrum, so you can sometimes come right next to something massive that you had no idea was there if there is no light. It would be as if you were walking across a big open meadow in the upworld and suddenly were standing next to a castle you hadn't known was there.

Which was a little bit like what happened.

Ahead of the circle of light, what looked like a giant rock cliff suddenly appeared.

Char held his air stone up to cast the light a little farther.

“What do ya make o'
that?
” he said.

Towering above them was a sunken ship, broken at the keel line down the middle, but almost entirely intact. It lay, partially buried, on the sandy ocean floor, its bones bleached as clean as it might have been in the air of the upworld. Not a barnacle or rusticle or undersea creature of any sort was visible on its decaying hull. The mainmast was intact, a tattered flag still flapping in the drift off the crow's nest.

“That doesn't look like any other shipwreck we've seen, that's for certain,” Ven agreed. “But maybe it's just because the water is deeper here, and it's colder. Maybe it's too cold for the normal ocean life that makes a crust on ship bones to grow here.”

Coreon shook his head.

“It's cold, but not that cold here,” he said. “I've heard that cold seas can preserve ships, but this one seems too clean to even be possible.”

“I've never seen ship bones like that,” Ven agreed.

“Well, you would have if you had held your stone a little to the left,” Char said.

Ven looked puzzled. He turned with the small bubble of blue light, and almost dropped it in shock.

Beside the enormous galleon was another huge ship, also in almost perfect condition, with a gaping hole in the hull, but otherwise intact, as clean and free of sea life as the ones outside Ven's family factory in Vaarn.

And, while he could not see very far in the darkness beyond the glowing blue bubble, it appeared that there might be a line of similarly broken ships stretching into the gloom, side by side, on a reef of sorts.

A reef that sparkled.

“Criminey!” Char whispered. “Look at all the
gold
, Ven.”

Ven didn't need the suggestion. His eyes were already locked on the sight of mountains of coins, of every possible kind, taller than the houses of Vaarn, on which the ghostly ships were seated. Lower down on the reef was a line of ships' wheels, like the ones that steered the
Serelinda
, each carefully mounted in the pile of treasure. There were many more of them, and they were turning slowly in the drift, like windmills on top of a long underwater hill.

But by far the most unsettling sight was what at first had appeared to be a gathering of frozen women, their glassy eyes staring at him in the devouring darkness. Then, as he looked closer, he realized what he was seeing was a collection of figureheads, the wooden sculptures carved into the bows of almost every large sailing ship. His eyes wandered over them, taking in the wide variety of colors of their hair and clothing, their different facial expressions, which ranged from warm and welcoming to stern and forbidding. There was even one that seemed very familiar, as if he had seen it before. He stared at it, trying to make out its details in the pale light of the air stone.

The statue of the woman had its eyes closed, unlike the others he could see in the halo of light. The figurehead had been damaged, as if it had been in a great fire or explosion, but was still intact enough for Ven to tell that it had once been of a dark-haired woman in what had been a flowing blue gown. She was smiling, her arms stretched out behind her, with watery-looking wings dripping from them. The statue looked as if she had once been enjoying the sun and the wind on her face.

Then, in a sickening rush of memory, he recalled where he had seen her before.

It was on the morning of his last birthday, the day of his first Inspection. He had admired her from the pier. He was watching Old Max, his father's master painter, apply the finishing touches to her, just before he painted the name of the ship on the bow above her. The name of a ship was a secret before it was officially launched, but as a special treat, Max had allowed him to look at the oilcloth from which he was copying that name, not knowing what it was himself, because Max couldn't read.

Ven could almost hear his father's voice in his head again, just as he had that morning.

No one hears a ship's name until she is christened. It's bad luck.

And now, the figurehead of that ship was here, lying on the ocean floor in the dark Realm of Twilight.

Beautifully maintained.

Carefully collected.

Along with hundreds of others.

In the cold depths of the black water, the enormity of their situation was beginning to dawn on him.

“By the Blowhole,” he whispered. He had no idea what the expression meant, but every sailor or merrow he had ever met had used it when they sensed trouble.

And trouble was looming from all around them.

“Char—do you know what this is?”

His best friend was ghostly pale. He could only nod.

Ven replied to his own question.

“We've stumbled into a sea dragon's lair.”

All around them, like a great clap of evil thunder, the drift itself seemed to answer them. There was an acid in the thrum that stung the insides of Ven's ears and head.

Indeed you have. How unfortunate for you
.

Then, like a giant fireball a thousand times brighter and hotter than the explosion that had blown up his father's ship and that of the Fire Pirates attacking it, the sea lit up around them.

Blinding them.

 

31

Lancel

“Please,” Ven thought desperately at the dragon. “If you're going to blast me, please spare my friends. The merrow is unconscious, and had no idea we were bringing her here. If she had, she would never have allowed it. Cor—I mean, the sea Lirin and the human were forced to come along. And the hippocampus as well. Please don't flame them.”

Don't be ridiculous,
the hideous thrum-voice answered. It sounded sickly amused. It was so powerful that it shook the drift around them.
The hippocampus, like all of his kind, is a distant cousin of mine, and feeling ill. I would never harm a relative in his condition. The rest of you are another matter, however. You are trespassers, interlopers. Kindly move away from the hippocampus, please.

Trembling, the three boys started to swim away from the reef of treasure.

Teel's round eyes rolled nervously, and he shook his head. He swam after Ven, dragging Amariel, still curled in the spiral of his tail, with him.

Teel.
The thrum-voice was disapproving, and it rattled the inside of Ven's skull.
You know better than that. Don't get in the way.

Ven stopped in the drift. “You know the hippocampus's name?”

I know your name too, Ven, you fool.
The thrum of the wicked voice felt proud, as if it were bragging.
Each of your names has been spoken in my realm—so I have them all
.

“Wonderful,” muttered Coreon.

That's not a bad thing, Coreon. It's so impersonal to be devoured by a stranger. Now, move aside, Teel.

“With due respect, we don't know
your
name,” said Ven. “That makes you a stranger still.”

Good point.
A massive wave of sand rolled up from the ocean floor, blasting between the ship bones and adding sting to the underwater light that was blinding their eyes.

Behind the wave of sand an enormous head emerged, dwarfing the massive broken ships. It was serpentine in nature, with powerful jaws from which gleaming, sword-like teeth protruded. Its hide was green black, and its eyes burned with a light as intensely blue as the one from the stones of elemental air. Kelp-like structures hung between its teeth and from the pointed horns on its head, and it seemed to slither as it rose from the ocean floor, until it towered in the drift high above them. Its eyes cast a cold blue light over them all.

“I am Lancel,” the beast said proudly. “It is a name feared throughout the Deep, which you would discover if you weren't about to be eaten. And I hope you all feel suitably honored. While I have feasted on many humans, merrow, and Lirin-mer in my time, you are the first son of Earth that has had the privilege of being my supper. Congratulations. Now, Teel, drop the merrow and get out of the way.”

“That seems a waste,” Ven said, thinking as quickly as he could in the heavy pressure of the Deep. His brain was struggling with a memory, and he could feel it rising to the surface, but it was still not within his recollection yet. “I thought dragons were curious to know everything about the world. Do you not want to at least see if there is something I might know that you do not?”

A blast of acid smoke rolled forth from the beast's nostrils. The boys and Teel darted out of the way just as the sand beneath them exploded in fire that burned bright as daylight, even in the depths of the sea.

“Arrogant boy. You have
nothing
that interests me,” the beast replied haughtily. “I am the keeper of the secrets of the Deep. In my collection are more than a thousand human ships, each of them full of the stories, songs, dreams, and fears of the men who sailed them—it's a library of the greatest information ever to pass from continent to continent in the upworld. I know the names of each and every one of those ships. What could you possibly know that I do not already know, or have that I do not already own the story of?” The searing blue eyes turned on Char, making him tremble violently. “You do not even know
your own name
, human. What do you think you could possibly tell me that has any value to me?”

I looked at Char.

He was already white in the bright glare that had lit up the sea when the dragon appeared.

But now he was almost colorless.

All the pressure of the salt water had made my brain slow. I had forgotten until that moment what I had known almost as long as I had known Char himself—that he was an orphan, a child with no past, not even the memory of his real name.

Once, within the Gated City, in a place called the Stolen Alleyway, a sweet-voiced woman had offered him the chance to see a memory of his childhood in exchange for a gold coin. Char had not been able to explain to us what exactly he had gotten in return for his money, but it was more important to him than anything. The name
Char
was a joking one, a reference to his tendency to burn the food he cooked. It had been given to him when he was little more than a baby by sailors who knew him as a fellow member of the crew, a cook's mate, but who had no idea where he had come from. He believed that someone had really named him once, long ago, but he had no idea what that name had been.