Rising (33 page)

S
ara looked around at the dark, rocky hallway. Green algae swayed like dead, rotting fingers pointing her toward her death.

The guard pulled her along, avoiding her gaze. She had no idea where she was going or what would happen to her. Were they going to torture her before she was executed? She hoped not. She hoped she lived long enough to escape, and even more, she hoped they wouldn’t harm Xanthus. Of all the things they could do, that would be the worst.

They snaked
their way through winding hallways. The guard stopped as he came upon a door guarded by one small soldier. Well, he was small for a Dagonian. The guard holding her arm spoke to the other guard, who nodded, left for a moment, and then brought back a chain with shackles. He snapped one of the shackles around her fin and then pushed her through the door. A blast of putrid air hit her face as she fell. Her body hit the dry, silted ground several feet below. She coughed as she breathed in the dust her fall had stirred.

The guard remained within the
wall of water as his hand reached inside to clamp the other end of the shackle to an iron ring mounted to the wall. Then he shut the door. Sara was chained to the wall inside a dry cell. She lifted her hands off the floor to see them caked with mud. A giggle escaped her lips. So this is the torture they had planned for her? Tears streamed down her face as her giggles turned to sobs.

A
familiar voice called out from within the room. “Well, look who’s come to join us.”

Xanthus’s blood pulsed in his throat as the guards led him deep into Panthon Prison. The water seemed to thicken and darken. The cells were packed with inmates. Each wore the same expression—a mixture of shock and elation. Half of the criminals here had been brought in by Xanthus. He’d never dreamed he would one day be a prisoner alongside them.

“Oran…
Ry…” His voice growled low. “The female is not what she seems. I am giving you fair warning. If you find yourself on the wrong side of this, you will assure your death. And it won’t be delivered by me, but by someone infinitely more powerful. But if you help me, you will not go unrewarded.”

“Shut up, prisoner
,” Ry said, poking the point of his harpoon at Xanthus’s back, drawing blood.

Rage and despair nearly overcame
Xanthus when they reached the deepest prison cells or ‘the belly of the beast’ as they called it. The cells here were small, so small that a Dagonian couldn’t swim, couldn’t even move. Each cell was a living coffin. Whether you were put in head first or tail first would determine how much you suffered here.

Tail
first—you would still be able to catch the occasional fish that swam close to the bars of your cell. Head first—you had no chance. You’d waste away and die a slow death. Some of the Dagonians down here were nothing more than skin and bones. Their near immortality allowed them to live quite a long while despite their emaciated conditions, but each moment was wrought with a hunger so fierce they were soon driven mad.

Xanthus hear
d the wailing of other prisoners. He’d always hated this part of the prison. The endless suffering, the way each Dagonian, no matter how strong-willed, succumbed to the misery here was difficult to witness. No one who had been here for any length of time could escape the madness. He knew Sara’s only hope was for him to convince one of the guards to help them.

“I will give you one final warning
, honorable guards.” Xanthus spoke low. “Don’t listen to my father, brother, or the counsel on this one. They are wrong, clinging to twisted beliefs. In this case, it will lead to a great number of deaths and suffering for us Dagonians. You don’t know who it is you hold in this prison. Help her and you’ll find protection, but harm her in any way and there will be no mercy.”

Oran turned to Ry. “Maybe we should listen to him.
Xanthus has always proven honorable before.”

“Are you siding with a cur lover?” Ry
shouted and curled his lips in disgust.

“But he said she
isn’t what she seems. I think we should believe him.”

“
Well, I think you may need to be taken before the counsel yourself. You know the punishment for disobeying a counsel order.”

Oh yeah
. Oran’s life as a soldier would be over.

“You’re right
,” Oran relented. “He’s got to be lying.”

“I know I’m right.
This pathetic Dagonian has decided to side with the human murderers. He deserves our worst.”

Xanthus didn’t like the sound of that. But he’d reached Oran on some level. It
might not take much to push the soldier into helping him.

Ry
opened a cell that had recently had its bars replaced. They looked shiny and strong. There would be no breaking out of this.

Xanthus
resisted the urge to try to reason more with the guards. He didn’t want to appear desperate, despite feeling just that. Instead, he narrowed his eyes and gave them a hard look that promised retribution. Oran took one look at his face and quickly turned away.

“In the cell
,” Ry said.

Xanthus began to back his way in.

“No. You go in head first.”

“You really want to do that?” Xanthus sneered. “The counsel might be angry if I’m not alive to answer for the many soldiers I killed this day. But hey
, it’s your life.”

Doubt clouded
Ry’s eyes for a brief moment and then it was gone. “If you’re that important to them, they’ll ask for you long before your life expires. Now move.”

Xanthus
inched his way into the dark, stony cell. He felt as if he were entering his own coffin. Perhaps he was. His mind raced. Should he have continued to fight after Sara was captured, regardless of whether or not they survived? Death may have been a better option. He hoped not, but at this moment, he had serious doubts. As bad as he found his own situation, he was tormented not knowing what was happening to her. The guards were not known for their gentleness, but so help him, if they laid a hand on her, he’d send them all to Tartarus to answer to Hades, or better yet, he’d send them to her father.

With that thought, a light switched on in
Xanthus’s head. A smile spread across his face. There was hope after all. Once the guards were gone, he spoke the words that would bring him unimaginable pain.

Sara’s eyes widened as they rose from the ground and rested on the last person she expected to see deep under the ocean’s surface.

Slink
.

H
e was flanked once again by Ettie and Tane. “No,” she said in surprise. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Dreams do come true.” Slink
ignored her question. His smile widened, showing blackened teeth. His body looked more emaciated than ever.

“How’s your boyfriend?
” Slink chuckled. “It looks like he’s doing a great job protecting you.”

“Shut up, Slink.”
The deep, baritone voice caught her attention. She looked toward the opposite end of the long, narrow cell. A blond, tanned man strode toward them. His skin was dusted with white (salt maybe). Her defenses rose. There was something familiar about this man.

He sauntered over to
her. “Sorry about Slink. I think his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby.”

The stranger put his hand out to shake
hers. She kept her hand to herself, not willing to trust this prisoner yet.

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite. I can’t vouch for those three.” His head
jerked back towards Slink, Ettie, and Tane. “My name’s Josh, Josh Talbot.”

Sara’s
jaw dropped. “You’re the famous deep sea diver. The one that was lost in a diving accident.”

Josh
barked out a laugh. “You heard about that? It was no accident. I made the greatest discovery of this century, this millennium, probably of all time. Too bad you merpeople don’t want to be discovered. Nice to meet one that speaks English.”

“They aren’t
merpeople. They call themselves Dagonians.”

Josh raised his eyebrow
. “They?”

She
ignored his question and looked around, inspecting the cell. It was not overly large, about ten feet wide and twenty feet long. The stone walls were layered in algae. Iron rings were bolted in the wall about every six feet. The floor was bare silt, except for a few rocks, a bowl of dirty water, and a couple of fish bones. The opposite wall was not made of stone, but was a wall of water. Sara couldn’t see much except blue water, grey silt, and a school of silver fish.

“Who cares what they call themselves
,” Slink said. “They’re all worthless. They think they can keep us down here. We’re Americans. We have rights. These things don’t feed us. They give us dirty water to drink; there are no beds, no bathroom, and no hope of leaving. And she’s one of them. She’s the reason we’re here in the first place. I say we rip off her arms and have ourselves some seafood. What do you think, Ettie? Tane? You think you’re strong enough to do it?”

Ettie
moved forward. “Oh, yeah. I could do it.”

“No one touches her without going through
me,” Josh said.

“Back
off, Talbot. She has it coming,” Slink said.

“You idiots don’t realize.
” Josh shook his head. “She’s not like us. She can escape if we help her. Then, if we do, then just maybe she’ll help us get out of here too. Dudes, there are hundreds of feet of water between freedom and us. And as good a swimmer as I am, there’s no way I could make it to the surface. I’m not seeing any better option, are you?”

“I can’t leave,” Sara
said.

Josh turned to
her. “Sure you can. That lock doesn’t look too complicated. I know I could spring it.”

“You don’t understand. They have my husband here. If I escape
, they’ll kill him.”

“Well
, shoot.” Josh plopped down, cross-legged in the sand. “You know, keeping my famously optimistic attitude has not been easy down here.”

“Join the club
,” Sara said, eying Slink and his friends. They had strolled away and were whispering enthusiastically amongst themselves, planning something. Slink put his arm around Tane’s shoulder. It was then she noticed Slink’s hand was shaking. Drug withdrawals. That wouldn’t put him into a very reasonable frame of mind.

“Okay.” Slink
slipped his arm away from Tane and strolled over to Josh.

Josh stood and Slink sneered at him.
“Now that we know she won’t help us, we’re back to my original plan. And don’t try to stop us, Talbot. We out number…” Josh’s elbow slammed against Slink’s nose. Blood exploded from his face as he bent forward. “Augh. What’s wrong with you?”

Ettie
and Tane came at Josh from opposite sides. Josh stepped back and Tane’s fist hit Ettie in the forehead. From there, it was an all-out brawl between the three of them. Fists flew, kicks landed, and spittled grunts peppered the sand with blood.

What Sara
didn’t see until it was too late, was Slink coming up behind Josh with a rock in his hand. She shouted out just in time for Josh to turn around and get slammed in the face with it. He fell unconscious to the floor, blood running from a gash in his forehead.