Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One) (53 page)

Will stared at him for a moment, confused.
What?

The Sea Spirit be mostly an extension of my mind and soul, with a dollop of your power thrown into the mix. Where our bodies be made of flesh and blood and bone, his be made of...something else. The Void, maybe, if such a thing be possible.
He shrugged.
Regardless, his true form be different from ours.

But—wait, so the gold outline shows what we really look like? But Feothon told me that the Titans all have true forms that aren't human.
He raised his hand in front of his face—it was human.
I look like a human. You look like a human. Mostly.
He shook his head.
I don't understand.

Borbos nodded emphatically.
All true, all true. These be not our true skins. Not really. But we be gods, Will. If we tell the world that we be human, then to the world we be human. For the Sea Spirit, it be different. You be stronger than an ant, yes?

Will cocked an eyebrow.
Yes...obviously...

Aye. So where you can lift and swing a sword with ease, an ant can carry around only a small sliver of metal. You and I, we have power beyond comprehension—you especially. But the Sea Spirit, he be the ant. When he tells the world something, it does not always have to listen.

Will nodded and said no more.

You know,
Clare's voice said in his mind after a short silence,
that looks extremely strange watching you two have a conversation when I can't hear it. It makes you look like madmen.

Will laughed, loosing a heavy stream of bubbles into the depths; they trailed away in a flurry of glinting gold.
I'm sure it must,
he said. He paused for a moment, and a thought entered his mind.
Clare, back before we got attacked...you were going to say something. What, ah...what was it?
He swallowed, suddenly nervous, and he felt his heart beat harder in his chest. His mind raced around at all the possibilities, and at some of them he felt his stomach twist anxiously.

But she was silent. For a moment he was afraid she was angry about what he had said earlier, but when he looked over at her he found she had turned in his direction. Her eyes, though, darted every which way, as though searching for the answer to a difficult riddle. She licked her lips—a redundant gesture, Will thought absently—and opened her mouth to speak before realizing that physical speech was impossible.
I was...ah...
He saw her take a deep breath and let it out very, very slowly.
I was going to say that...that back in the Forest, when Borost died, he told me something important.
She closed her eyes.
He said that no matter what, I should listen to—

The deep, grating bellow that halted her words was so close that Will nearly tumbled off of his water drake. He looked over his shoulder, unsure of what to expect, and saw...nothing. Perhaps the beast was not so close after all.

Borbos, however, seemed to be of a different mindset entirely.

Go!
he screamed, rattling Will's mind with the intensity of his thoughts.
Go, go, go!

Will had thought they were moving fast before. When his water drake suddenly leaped forward, however, and he was almost thrown from his mount, he realized that they had not been moving very quickly at all. His grip tightened reflexively on the drake's spines, and he was just barely able to avoid spinning off into the abyss. He looked over to make sure that Clare was still there and saw with relief that she was, though her face was pinched in a mask of anxiety. She turned toward him and flashed him a rather forced grin.

Borbos, slow down!
he thought frantically.
It can't be that close behind us—I don't even see it!

Oh, it's there, boy,
the Titan said, and Will heard fear in his words.

And then, as if to emphasize Borbos' words, Will heard a scream. He looked back just in time to see one of the merfolk being dragged bodily through the water by...nothing. Will stared in confusion, uncomprehending. And then another merman disappeared, his pig-like eyes bulging as the life was crushed out of him, and soon the golden forms around him began to vanish with terrifying rapidity.

Father,
the Sea Spirit said, and his voice was maddeningly calm.
My guardians can hold it off for a short while. But it will be a very short while.

Borbos glanced first at Clare, and then at Will.
Do it,
he said.
We have precious cargo.
Later, Will decided, he would have to thank Borbos for caring so much about Clare's well-being.

The Sea Spirit's golden cloud-body began to pulsate then, and a strange, deep thrumming began to course rhythmically through the water. It reached Will's ears with unnatural clarity, seeming to fill his entire body with its music. The sound almost reminded him of an instrument he had once seen a fellow mercenary play—it had been little more than a log with bee's wax around the small end, but when the man had blown into it an unearthly and strangely beautiful bellow had emanated from the instrument's cavernous bottom.

The sound Will was hearing now was very similar, and it had the same soporific effect on him. His eyelids fluttered as the melody began to lull him to sleep against his will, and he had to fight fiercely against the urge to close his eyes.

And then the nautilus guardians turned smoothly around, never breaking their arrowhead formation as they began to drift slowly farther and farther toward the back of the group. The deep music—for that was the only way Will could describe the noise—intensified, and blue light began to glow from within the depths of the nautiluses' spiraling shells.
Sky-blue light,
Will realized, and no sooner had the thought entered his mind than a cloud of the tiny glowing squid began to billow from where Will assumed each of the guardians' mouths were. The minuscule creatures danced to and fro, their numbers ever-growing and their light waxing steadily brighter, until soon the golden outlines disappeared and Will could see the people around him with daylight clarity.

In a flash the cloud of squid shot away into the dark toward the back of the racing pack, where they began to spread into one enormous, twisting cloud.

And, for a brief moment, Will saw it.

It was massive—at least as big as the Leviathan, if not bigger, but where the Leviathan had emanated a sense of peace and tranquility despite its fierce appearance, the Behemoth radiated pure hatred and anger. Will saw the head of what he guessed was a long, worm-like body, its mouth opened like the petals of a diseased flower. Hundreds of wickedly sharp teeth covered the insides of its gaping maw, and long, roping tentacles snaked out from its gullet, questing through the darkness as though they had minds of their own. It screamed as the light touched it, a sound so loud and piercing that it pummeled Will with enough force to daze him and leave his ears ringing. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his head, and then he saw the cloud of squid begin to wrap around the monstrosity's tentacles and mouth, forcing it back into the depths despite its immensity. It screamed once more as it disappeared, and this time Will nearly fell off of his drake, barely catching himself at the last moment.

He whipped his head around almost drunkenly, suddenly afraid that Clare had fallen—but, though she looked in much the same condition as he, she had been able to keep her grip as well.

How long?
Borbos' voice asked in his head.

Not very,
the Sea Spirit answered.
We have precious little time to reach the City.

The mention of the surface cleared Will's head abruptly.
Wait,
he asked,
we're not going to meet the others?

Borbos shook his head.
Not yet, lad. We'd never make it if we tried. Our best bet be to wait in the City until the Leviathan can reach us. Then we'll make a break for the flotilla.

I hope the others are alright,
Clare's voice said, and he knew that the thought was for him alone. He nodded, a sick feeling twisting inside his stomach—not for his own safety, but for that of his friends. If they had only encountered a small guardian force in the depths, what must it have been like on the surface? His thoughts went immediately to Castor, Katryna, and Hook, and he blanched.

Me too,
he said, and though he tried to make the thought sound brave he knew he was failing.
Death and damnation, what if they don't make it? This whole thing was a trap. There have to be thousands of tamyat on the surface.

If they don't,
Clare said fiercely,
we'll kill every last one of those monsters.

Will nodded weakly, but did not respond.

He was surprised by the speed with which they finally reached the surface, though he supposed he should not have been; as fast as they were going, covering so much distance so quickly would have been an easy feat.

What surprised him even more was the fact that, on the surface, the darkness did not abate. He looked up in confusion as his head broke through the water and out into the clean air, and saw with a shock that the sky was inky black and covered in stars.
They're different here,
he thought in a secluded portion of his mind—and then he coughed, hacking and gagging as his lungs tried to forcefully expel the mermaid's gift from inside of them. It came out in a thin stream of silver that glowed in the moonlight, splashing back into the ocean, and he watched bemusedly as it seemed to dart back down to the depths like a fish. He shook his head a moment later, deciding that the sea was perhaps too strange for him.

Borbos,
he thought, looking back up at the stars,
how long have we been down there?

When he did not get a response, he realized with some embarrassment that sharing thoughts was no longer necessary—not to mention most likely impossible back on the surface. He repeated his question out loud.

“A long while, obviously,” Borbos replied, looking at the sky. “The whole day. Time moves differently beneath the waves, lad.”

Off in the distance, Will could just make out the towering spires of the City in the Waves, its white walls shining in the moonlight. They made for it hastily, kicking up plumes of water in their wake as they raced toward what Will hoped would be relative safety. He was having doubts, however, about the fortitude of a city made of coral in the face of the Behemoth's onslaught, even bolstered as it was by the songs of the merfolk.

As the City drew near, he noticed that the merfolk were not their only companions on the waves; he saw tall, curved fins carving silent paths along the surface, and he felt an inexplicable thrill of fear shiver through him. He heard Clare gasp, and saw that she too was staring at the new arrivals.

“Sharks,” she said in a small voice when she saw Will looking at her. “The same things we saw before.”

Will recognized the fins then, and with the realization came a very vivid memory of a mouth full of serrated teeth. He shuddered. “I think they're on our side, though,” he said softly. “Otherwise they would have attacked us by now.” He noted then that there were a rather large number of fins—he guessed somewhere in the hundreds—and he added, “And I think we'd have been in a bit of trouble.”

“I'm never coming back to the sea after this,” Clare said, squeezing her eyes shut and exhaling slowly. “This is the most terrifying place I've ever been in my life.” Will could not have agreed more.

“I apologize,” Borbos said softly, his voice sad. “The sea be a dangerous place, yes, but under different circumstances it would have been beautiful.” He sighed. “They've turned my home into a battleground.”

Soon they reached the base of the City. From afar it had seemed unreal—like a painting done by an artist with an overactive imagination. But up close, where the waves crashed and boomed against the dead coral and the towering spires stretched so high above Will that he could not see their tips, the City's size finally, truly struck him. With no land in sight and only an endless field of star-studded black to use for reference, the City seemed even grander. “Why is everything in the sea so big?” he wondered aloud.

“There be more space to move around here, lad,” Borbos replied. “Not as many restrictions as there be on your dirt. A thing can grow here, truly grow forever without reaching even a half of its true potential.”

Will gaped up at the City. “And this?” he asked, indicating the bleached, gnarled coral. “Is this always growing, too?”

Borbos nodded, his head dipping humorously beneath the surface. “Aye. It has been growing since the first days of the first Titans, and it will grow until the end of time. Who knows? Someday it may
even reach the shore.”

They moved into a cavern in the City's side, a great round hole that, naturally, had the organic look of something that had been grown rather than cut. More of the ethereal sky-blue light emanated from beneath the choppy waters, dancing along the walls of the cavern and bathing everything in its glow, and the sound of the waves crashing outside echoed within the hollow until they were all that Will could hear. Borbos and the Sea Spirit, who had forged ahead of them, climbed up onto a small platform that sat just beneath the surface. The water drakes carried Will and Clare over to them. As Will stepped off of his mount and onto the coral, the drake raised its spined head out of the water and nuzzled his hand affectionately, staring at him with its golden eyes. He smiled and patted its scaly snout, and then it darted back down beneath the water and was gone.