Into the Abyss (13 page)

Apparently Finnivus had met Takiza a few times when he was growing up. Indi Shiver had even done a study on the Siamese fighting fish in case they had to fight him one day. Long ago Takiza had power to do almost anything he wanted. But that was no longer the case; the little dweller was getting weaker as he aged. There were reports that when Takiza performed a large magic, such as he did when he led the AuzyAuzy mariners from the Sific to the battle that must not be named, he had to rest for many days afterward.

“They will feel my wrath!” Finnivus said, fever brightness in his eyes. He coughed, and Velenka stopped herself from smiling, lest the emperor see it. “The entire Atlantis will be taught a lesson by me and my Armada of Justice. I will, umm,
we
will dispense royal justice by sending every sharkkind swimming against me to the Sparkle Blue for disobeying our will!” He laughed again, the high giggle grating up and down Velenka’s spine.

“Your plan was a wonder, Emperor,” she said,
smacking her teeth as if she had enjoyed a piece of one of the prisoners.

“Of course! I thought it up!” he said smugly, tapping his tail on the blue whale that was currently underneath him.

Finnivus leaned against the Speakers Rock embedded in the whale’s back. She had asked Tydal the know-it-all court shark how that was done. It seemed that when the blue whales were pups, the area in their backs was eaten away to snugly hold the symbol of Indi Shiver power. The mobile throne was a potent tribute to Indi Shiver’s might and ruthlessness for everyone in the Big Blue to see. It showed that they owned the waters wherever they swam.

Velenka longed to rest herself on the backs of those whales. She wanted all the fools in the royal court to drive their snouts into the muck whenever
she
commanded! In time they would. Velenka swore this to herself. She would be empress of the seas!

Finnivus went on: “We knew the Golden Rush would be too sensitive to defend themselves against my pup soldiers! It makes them weak, not being able to do everything that’s necessary to be the greatest emperor there has ever been!”

The emperor turned to the rows of pup mariners, allowed publicly in the court for the first time. They were trying their best to maintain an attention hover as Finnivus shouted, “Isn’t that right, my children?”

The group raggedly dipped their snouts and shouted, “MY LIFE FOR YOU!”

Finnivus preened to the court. “They love me, even more than you do. Perhaps, one day, they will replace you all.” He cackled as those in the court fidgeted in nervous silence, twitching fins and swishing tails. “I—
we
—are only kidding. But as you can see, my pup mariner force certainly did not
opud
!” The emperor tittered, and this time everyone joined in.

The pups were under strict guard, of course. The emperor’s plan had been hatched in the weeks after the battle that could not be named. It was this idea that got Finnivus out of his funk after they fled from Riptide to the Indi homewaters. Of course, pups were always taken and trained to be part of Indi’s armada when another shiver was defeated. This was nothing new. But after he got his idea, Finnivus began destroying shivers
just
to take their
pups
! This was a new and, Velenka thought, admirable, twist. The emperor gathered the young from all over the Big Blue and had them taught to worship him as if he were the second coming of Tyro.

He couldn’t use Indi Shiver pups for this, of course. That would cause a riot from their parents and the other royals in the court. And these pups weren’t even the sons and daughters of those in the armada. Again, that would probably have gotten Finnivus a bite to the gills. But the pups from the shivers he conquered—they were fair game.

Their parents were sent to the Sparkle Blue and used to feed the armada. Then Finnivus had the younglings taught that he was their protector. He gave them the best of everything. He made them know they were important and vital to the defense of the Indi homewaters and also that the forces against them were the ones who killed their parents.

Finnivus said everything a young and impressionable pup would want to hear. And soon, they were willing to lay down their lives at the emperor’s command. The pups were too young to be actual mariners in anything but name only—and would be ground into paste by a well-trained force—but that wasn’t the point.

Though Velenka herself would not care what age an enemy was—she would kill without hesitation—sharkkind with children
did
care. In the training battles against other shivers, Velenka saw that the other forces hated fighting the young pups, some of them barely old enough to speak. Especially those who were parents. And who would know to sort a battle fin by parenthood? No one! Their formations became useless! That was when the superbly trained Indi armada would sweep in and destroy them. It was a brilliant and merciless plan.

Velenka decided she could not afford to be any less ruthless and began swimming her own current to be empress of the Big Blue. She watched in satisfaction as Finnivus coughed and paled slightly.

“Take the rest of this away, Tydal!” Finnivus yelled
at the brown and yellow epaulette shark. “The Riptide flippers I’m—
we
—are eating—they do not agree with me!”

“Yes, Your Magnificence!” Tydal said, nosing what was left of the carcass into the court area. Others hovering there finished it with gusto. They loved to feast on the emperor’s scraps. Velenka smiled on the inside as she noted a few more sickened faces in the royal court.

Eat up, she thought. Have your fill.

What Finnivus and the court didn’t know was that they were being poisoned.

Velenka had learned many things in her studies when she was younger. One list she memorized well was the different types of poison greenie. It was rare, this greenie. Velenka went off searching in every area where they stopped for food and finally found a good amount of one particularly toxic variety called revulent. It had been easy to hide in the royal baggage area where Finnivus kept a few comforts from the Indi homewaters such as coral representations of his likeness that he enjoyed looking at and the blooms of sea flowers that he thought were fragrant. Only a little bit of revulent fed to the prisoners poisoned their flesh for a week afterward. Sometimes the prisoners could barely swim! And Finnivus wondered why they defended themselves so poorly.

Velenka only needed them to stay alive long enough to feed the emperor.

“My Magnificence,” Velenka said. “Are you sure
you won’t eat some more? You must keep up your strength if you are to defeat those cowards!”

Finnivus nodded. “You’re right. Bring me some of what you’re having.” Velenka dutifully swam over with a large flank in her mouth and placed it before the emperor. He took a tentative bite and grunted in approval. “Yes, this is better.”

With a flick of his royal tail, Finnivus dismissed her and spoke to everyone present. “We didn’t really want our first plan to succeed,” said Finnivus between bites. “It wouldn’t be any fun! No, I must be watching when we crush those traitors! We will be victorious, or my name isn’t Finnivus Victor! Tail stroke by tail stroke we swim ever closer to our destiny!”

Velenka and everyone else cheered loudly.

And every bite the emperor took brought him a tail stroke closer to the Sparkle Blue.

And a tail stroke closer to my own shining future, Velenka thought.

“AGAIN!” TAKIZA YELLED IN THE DARKNESS AND
cold at the training fields near the Maw.

Gray sighed and forced himself to go on. He was exhausted, mentally and physically, almost at the breaking point. And still Takiza pressed him. The betta had returned from wherever he had mysteriously gone, without telling Gray anything about it. There was plenty of time for insults, though.

“You are a megalodon, yet you display the strength of an injured anemone!”

Gray struggled in the snug embrace of the greenie harness. This one was the biggest that Takiza had ever woven for him. And it contained a boulder! Not a rock, an actual boulder!

Gray whipped his tail back and forth as he strained to swim through the obstacle course of urchin-spine- sharp coral spires. “Faster, faster!” the betta urged. Gray
grunted and huffed, his gills pumping furiously. Takiza swam serenely in front of his left eye. “Miraculous. For once, you haven’t the strength to complain. Perhaps we should always train at this level.”

The new course was so long that Gray despaired and let the boulder hit the seabed with a
thump
. “I can’t do it,” he gasped. “I just can’t.”

“You can’t? Or is it that you
won’t
?”

“I can’t! Can-not!” Gray yelled. “I would if I could, but I can’t! And let me guess, here’s the part where you tell me how Lochlan was able to lift a rock three times this size and swim through the course while singing the AuzyAuzy fight song. But
I
can’t!” Gray felt his body go slack. He had nothing left. “This is pointless. Why are you making me do this?” he whispered to himself.

“We are doing this because you are good for nothing else
but
lifting heavy rocks.”

Gray chuckled. “I don’t think this is the time for jokes.” He looked up just in time to get a stinging slap to his snout. “Ow! What was that for?”

“It wasn’t a joke. It was an insult, yet you are too dim to understand it as such,” the betta said, dead serious. “You are useless in the battle against Finnivus. Better you spend time here, moving rocks, and let the others fight without you.”

Gray glared and tried to leave before saying something bad to Takiza, but the harness yanked him back. “Okay, I’m done! Get me out of here. I need to get back to the homewaters.”

“For what? Because you are bored? I am not bored. Lift.”

“I
don’t
want to do this anymore!” Gray shouted. He felt tears coming to his eyes and shook his head side to side as hard as he could to stop them. He felt embarrassed and shamed for some reason.

Takiza slashed his gauzy fins through the water. “You do not want to do many things, Nulo. The list grows longer with each day, even as Finnivus draws nearer.”

Gray strained against the greenie harness. It held him tight. “Which is why we shouldn’t be here! I should be—I should be … should be …”

“Should be—?” asked the betta crossly. “Training to lead a massed formation to victory?”

“For one thing!” Gray shouted. “Yes! Take this harness off, Takiza! Now!”

“I do not believe I will. I think it would be better for your friends to have no leader at all, than be led by you.” Takiza gave him another stinging slap on his snout. It was loud even in the heavy waters of the training field and made a cracking noise that echoed among the coral spires. “I say this because you would fail, wouldn’t you, Nulo? You-would-
fail
! Say it!”

Gray gasped in physical pain from the words. It felt as if Takiza had released a magic that entered his body and exploded his heart into pieces.

Tears began gushing from Gray’s eyes. “You want me to say it? That’s all I think about day and night! It kills me that I can’t be the leader they need!” he said, fins trembling in utter dejection.

“Then we are agreed,” Takiza said softly in Gray’s ear. “You would fail, so there’s no reason for you to do anything but move a large stone because I tell you to do it.”

Gray felt his anger rising. “Shiro, stop …”

Takiza was eerily calm, drifting in front of Gray. “I will say what I want, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“Shut up!” Gray shouted. “Shut up, now!”

“You cannot stop me, Nulo. I do what I please, just as Finnivus will do as he pleases … with everyone you love.”

“DON’T SAY THAT!” Gray screeched.

“What will you do?
Nothing
?” Takiza asked in a mocking voice that seemed to scratch Gray’s mind.

“I don’t deserve this! I don’t! Leave me alone!”

But the betta continued hovering in front of Gray, his eyes boring into him. “Your friends will swim the Sparkle Blue because you can do
nothing
to prevent it. Your mother will swim the Sparkle Blue because you utterly
failed
. And your brother and sister will also swim the Sparkle Blue, again, because you were good for …
nothing
.”

“NO-NO-NO! Gray struggled against the harness, trying to swim away from Takiza. He didn’t want to hear this!
He tried to flee from the betta’s cutting words, but the greenie harness held him tight.

“You have managed to lose the battle before you swam a single stroke. You will fail
everyone
you know and love—without even giving a token effort to save their lives from the horror that is Finnivus. He will do what he pleases with them … as I do with you right now.”

Gray shot straight at Takiza. If it weren’t for the boulder in the harness, he would have chomped down on the betta. As it was, his teeth came together in a thundering crash inches away from Takiza as he calmly hovered in the cold water.

The Siamese fighting fish shook his head in disappointment. “It’s a wonder you can feed yourself, Nulo. You are pathetic.” The little betta turned and slowly swam away.