Crystal Doors #2: Ocean Realm (No. 2) (25 page)

Vic looked up at him. “Can I talk to her?”

The dark sage nodded pensively. “You’ll have to earn that privilege. For now, dear Kyara will be quite safe, as long as the two of you do as you’re told. Perhaps once you’ve broken a seal for me, I will let you speak with her.”

Vic’s heart sank. In order to talk to his mother, he or his cousin would essentially have to help Azric recover his armies and possibly conquer worlds. “What if we don’t?”

Azric gave an eloquent shrug. “Being revived from ice coral is quite a sensitive process. In addition, ice coral is extremely delicate. If it should be accidentally jostled or broken, or if perhaps an aja bomb were to be detonated nearby, I’m afraid Kyara would not survive.”

Vic pressed his cheek against the ice coral. He finally had an answer about his mother: She was alive, but caught within powerful sorcery. For more than two years he had wanted to see her, had wanted his family back together.

It was still possible, of course. Visions of an idyllic future danced in his mind: A family picnic on the beach. He and his parents would sit on the soft sand talking and soaking up the sun, while Gwen frolicked in the surf, playing fetch with a golden retriever named Orson. Vic wasn’t sure why he had imagined a golden retriever, but it seemed like a family dog, and therefore rounded out the picture. His father was in Elantya now, but with his mother trapped here, frozen underwater, would they ever be together as a family again?

He and Gwen were in an impossible position. They had to protect his mother, and they had to find a way to save Elantya from the merlons’ destruction. It was a fine line to walk. How far would they have to go?

He gave the dark sage a bleak look. “What do you want us to do first?”

28

THE ELANTYAN WAR GALLEYS, led by Helassa and Admiral Bradsinoreus on the Bright Warrior, glided out of the harbor and cut like sharp swords through the sea. Golden sunlight from the eastern horizon glinted off the polished armor of their prows. Protective designs were painted in glittering aja pigments along the sides of their curved hulls.

With war drums setting the cadence, like hearts pounding before battle, muscular soldiers pulled the oars while sages stood on the decks, reading from spell scrolls to add a nudge of current and wind, increasing their speed.

Accompanying the galleys, Sage Pierce’s flashy speedboat from Earth zipped along, propelled by its new magical motor. Lyssandra rode with Vic’s father in the glossy purple boat, looking across at the warships, anxious over what they were about to attempt. She had slept restlessly the night before, again troubled by mystic and disturbing dreams. Lyssandra rubbed the almost invisible cuts at the base of her neck, where Orpheon’s spell had given her gills.

The speedboat’s deck was already loaded with the equipment that Sage Pierce intended to use in their rescue efforts. Copying the original vessel designed for Sage Polup, the hardworking teams in Rubicas’s laboratory had completed three more of the small bubletts. Each was made of silvery metal topped by a clear bubble tank of water, in which the volunteer anemonite scientists waited, ready to launch.

By noon, with the aid of Elantyan spells, they all arrived in the vicinity of the submerged metropolis, which Lyssandra and the anemonites had pinpointed. The speedboat scouted the area, while the warships made ready. With the hulls of numerous galleys prominently obtruding beneath the surface, the merlons would pay little attention to such a small boat. Or so they hoped.

The water around them was glass-smooth, like a mirror reflecting the blue sky. Everything seemed peaceful and calm. Not even a breeze ruffled the ocean. The war drums on one galley after another stopped, the soldiers lifted their oars from the water and locked them into place, and the ships coasted to a halt. The final drumbeats faded into silence.

Surely the merlons had heard the vibrations and seen the dark predatory shapes of the galleys slicing through the water. Even now, King Barak must be summoning his generals, rallying his aquatic warriors. Perhaps Azric himself would join in the battle. And that, Lyssandra was sure, would give them a chance to find Vic, Gwen, Tiaret, and Sharif.

Beside the copper-haired girl, Sage Pierce stared toward the blue horizon, shading his eyes. Perhaps he held out a faint hope that Vic and Gwen and their friends had escaped after all and were even now swimming toward them, which would make this entire operation unnecessary.

On the prow of the lead galley, Vir Helassa raised her hands, and shouted to the commanders on all of the ships. “Prepare to face our enemy! Ven Rubicas, Admiral, Sages Groxas, Polup, and Pierce — are you ready?”

From their various locations, all of them indicated their readiness. Fighters ran about the decks, gathering their weapons. Lyssandra’s bearded father directed brawny workers to position small barrels filled with his special sea-fireworks mixtures.

Sage Pierce touched her arm. “Let’s get ready, Lyssandra. We never know when the merlons will show up.”

Working the controls of the new motor, he inconspicuously guided the speedboat away from the main cluster of war galleys. Lyssandra checked the four small bubletts, prepared to deploy them when it was time. The anemonites drifted contentedly inside their bubletts, testing the controls, getting used to the release mechanisms of their simple weapons. Fingering the gills on her neck, Lyssandra hoped she could remember how to breathe under water.

As the speedboat withdrew from the Elantyan ships, Sage Pierce moved methodically, pulling on the rubbery wet suit, gloves, socks, swim fins, mask, and tank. Despite the urgency he obviously felt, Lyssandra understood why he could not afford to rush. Deep underwater, any mistake could become a disaster for someone without gills. Vic’s father refused to do anything that would hinder his chances of rescuing the captives. When he was done, he looked almost like a strange sea creature himself.

Looking up to the deck of the Bright Warrior, Lyssandra watched her father roll some of the waterproofed barrels filled with his special powder to the edge of the deck. The barrels were sealed with spells designed to release the aquatic fireworks as soon as they reached the appropriate depth. Groxas waved over at her, and she waved back with a bold assurance she did not feel.

“This is too quiet,” Lyssandra said uneasily. “The merlon king hates surface dwellers. He cannot ignore this war fleet. And I do not trust Azric either.”

“They must be preparing something, then,” Vic’s father said as he checked his diving suit, and put on the weight belt. “But they can’t possibly know what we have in mind. We’ll see how they respond as soon as —”

The glassy, smooth surface of the sea shattered like a breaking mirror. First, five scaly merlon heads broke the surface. Then twenty. Then a hundred. The snaking forms of sea serpents also split the water, displaying their brand marks, polished metal spikes, armor, and harnesses.

King Barak appeared among the warriors in a mother-of-pearl chariot drawn by two large sea serpents, and Azric was beside him. Both looked confident, as if they had lured the Elantyan war galleys into a trap.

From the Bright Warrior, Helassa shouted orders, and the war drums began to beat again. Oars dipped into the water, and the galleys shot forward, ready for battle. Groxas prepared to launch his explosive sea fireworks. Admiral Bradsinoreus and his sailors and soldiers lined the decks holding long harpoons.

Seeing the merlon king and the dark sage working together on some sort of spell, spilling blazing lavaja in rune designs on top of the water, Lyssandra cried, “Azric and the merlon king are working magic together. This is worse than I had feared!”

“Or better,” Sage Pierce said. “The fleet came out here to divert the merlons’ attention so that we can slip under the water and pull off a rescue mission.” His lips quirked in a smile. “Yup. This is shaping up to be the perfect diversion.” The speedboat raced away from the center of the brewing battle.

Azric and the merlon king finished their lavaja spell, unleashing a strange magic. Already, clots of black cloud stained the sky overhead. The wind freshened, swirling, picking up water and stirring it into a vortex. Three separate focal points of the weather magic churned the ocean into a froth with invisible propellers, pulling funnels up into the air to form a trio of angry waterspouts.

The sea tornadoes danced and thrashed, kicking up spray and moving toward the Elantyan fleet as if they were living things that could tear the armored war galleys into splinters. Facing the approaching waterspouts, Vir Helassa and the sages on the galleys shouted counter-spells from fluttering scrolls into the rising wind.

As the purple speedboat slipped away, Lyssandra felt as if they were letting the other Elantyans down. But they had their own job to do. Watching the whirling tornadoes churn toward the war galleys, she knew Vic’s father was right — this was going to be a spectacular diversion.

29

NOT RELYING ENTIRELY ON the waterspouts, the merlons began to attack the massed Elantyan ships directly. The female general Goldskin rode one of the lead sea serpents, raising a jagged trident into the salty air. Merlon warriors splashed and burbled, making a hooting sound of challenge, and all the giant serpents rallied. Goldskin bellowed a loud, vibrating call to her soldiers.

Massive black shapes as large as the Elantyan war galleys breached and then splashed down. The gigantic whales — also enslaved by the undersea people — were covered with barnacles onto which needle-sharp spikes had been fixed. The menacing creatures moved toward the ships. Human soldiers and sailors rowed frantically, trying to move the galleys out of the way, but the attack came from all sides.

The angry water tornadoes spun closer, sending up spray. The ocean around them was choppy now. The galleys rocked and swayed.

From a distance, Lyssandra watched her burly father roll the first spell-barrel off the deck. It splashed on the surface of the water, then sank quickly. The approaching merlons who saw it paid little heed, continuing to swim forward. Groxas shouted, and three more spell-barrels were pitched into the ocean. From other war galleys, five additional spell-barrels plopped overboard and sank.

“The fireworks will begin in just a few seconds,” Sage Pierce said. “Get ready to go overboard. Is this the right spot?”

“As near as the anemonites and I can tell.”

Lyssandra pushed Sage Polup’s bublett over the side. The bubble-topped vessel splashed into the ocean upside down, then righted itself. The anemonite activated the engines, and the miniature sub began circling the speedboat.

Lyssandra gave the second bublett a shove. Though they appeared small, the metal hull, engines, and water-filled tank made the vessels quite heavy. Pushing the bubletts overboard without help proved more difficult than she had expected. Fortunately, the deck of the speedboat tilted downward with a swell, and the second bublett dropped into the ocean beside Polup’s.

Suddenly, booming reverberations rose from the deep water below. Lyssandra could see flashes of light and brilliant showers of sparks accompanying a swell of bubbles released by the underwater explosion.

Two more dazzling blossoms shattered the undersea calm, making the merlons on the surface frantic. Some dove deep to investigate, others pressed forward with their attack on the war galleys. The soldiers on the decks hurled their harpoons at the sea serpents. One jagged spear penetrated the scaly hide of an attacking monster, but the others bounced harmlessly off the serpents’ armor.

Lyssandra hurried with her work, hopeful that they could free her friends now that the merlons were so preoccupied.

The first of the waterspouts circled the Bright Warrior, coiling like a bullwhip, then lashing toward the prow, where Vir Helassa and her best sages stood reading from their spell scrolls. The whirling water howled and splashed forward, only to strike an invisible barrier, like a wall of wind, that deflected the watery tornado.

The barnacled whales, however, were not so easily diverted. Diving deep beneath the surface, one of the rough-backed sea beasts shot upward to ram into the keel of an outlying galley, nearly capsizing the vessel. The rows of oars flailed like the tiny legs of a centipede in the air. The whale submerged again and grated its back against the bottom hull, as if trying to scrape off the clustered barnacles.

The damaged galley rocked and tilted. A dozen Elantyan soldiers fell into the water and tried to swim back to the ships as sailors tossed down rope ladders. But attacking merlons closed in on them with deadly speed, raising their scallopedged scimitars and narwhal-tipped spears. Only two of the Elantyan soldiers made it back to safety on the deck.

Meanwhile, Goldskin led the sea serpents in a charge against two Elantyan galleys. Archers and harpoon throwers made a concerted defense against the slithering sea creatures. The female general shrieked orders, and the merlons attacked. Seven of them jumped from the backs of the sea serpents onto the decks of the war galleys, where they threw themselves into direct combat with Elantyan soldiers.

Vic’s father quickly helped Lyssandra push the last two anemonite bubletts into the water. Now all four of the small vehicles were in motion, circling, ready to submerge. “Time to go overboard, Lyssandra.” He picked up his specialized face mask, tugged the air hose, and checked the regulators on his tank.

Another of the black whales swam inexorably toward the Bright Warrior, ready to ram it. Lyssandra looked up from her work, pausing out of concern for her father aboard that ship. She tried to shout a warning, but the speedboat was much too far away. Nevertheless, the men and women on deck had already seen the threat. Groxas rolled one of the spell-barrels to the edge of the deck, calling for Ven Rubicas.