The Tree of Water (28 page)

Ven felt the seaweed snap beneath his hands as the tether broke free.

“Quick—get on and ride as fast as you can,” he thought to the others. “Ride west if you can, away from the funnel.” He grabbed Amariel's hand. “Hold on to me. I'm not sure Teel is going to be fast enough.”

“We'll just have to help him, then,” she thought back at him.

Char pulled himself awkwardly up onto the orange hippocampus with the sunflower mane, while Coreon mounted the blue one with black spots. Ven climbed on the yellow and gray sea horse that had stopped for lunch in the middle of the race.

“Go on,” he thought to the other hippocampi. “Save yourselves.”

Then he wrapped one arm clumsily around the neck of the yellow hippocampus.

“Get us out of here,” he said. The thought burned in his head.

The sea creatures obeyed, dashing off to the west, then veering into several different directions.

Another undersea wave swept past, spinning the mounts around.

Ven lost his grip on the merrow's hand as he and his mount were swung around in a fast circle.

Amariel, on Teel, looked over Ven's shoulder and gasped.

Ven turned.

The waterspout was coming, ripping up the ocean floor as it approached. A swirling wall of black water swept across what was left of the Festival grounds, driving debris in front of it.

Heading straight for them.

“Go!” Ven shouted in his head. “Keep going!
Go!
”

Char's orange hippocampus, along with Coreon's blue sea horse and the yellow one Ven was riding, tore off toward the west, swimming as fast as they could. Only Amariel's mount lagged behind, puffing and panting, struggling to keep up. Ven kept squeezing the yellow sea horse's neck, trying not to get too far ahead of the merrow and her blue-green friend, but it was no use.

Over his shoulder he could see her falling farther and farther behind.

And the waterspout coming closer and closer, the black wall of swirling filth rushing ahead of it.

Then, as he struggled to hold his sea horse's back, the wall caught up with the merrow and Teel.

Ven watched in horror as the blue-green hippocampus and the merrow were swallowed up before his eyes.

He screamed her name, his mouth filling with salt water.

“Ven! Ven! Hurry up! Where are you?” Char's thrum seemed very far away.

A moment later his friend's vibrations were drowned out in the tornado that was splitting the sea.

Despair washed over him only a few seconds before the wave of debris did.

It hit him square across the shoulders, making his head snap back with a sickening
crack
.

Then everything went black.

I think the yellow hippocampus dashed out from beneath me as I lost my grip on her neck, but I can't be sure.

I'd like to think she got away, that I was just holding her back, and that she was faster once I was off her.

I'll never know.

When Ven awoke, he was alone on the ocean floor, in the dark.

He thought he might be lying on a piece of broken coral because whatever was poking him in the back was sharp, but there was no way to see for certain. Even the special sight that Nain had in the darkness could not penetrate the complete, overwhelming black of the sea.

I wonder how long I've been unconscious
, he thought
. It must be night now, by the look of things
. His stomach dropped.
And that means the last day of summer is over. Threshold has come and gone—and the Sea King didn't get a chance to send his message to the Cormorant. Which means the attack will begin when the sun comes up.

He felt like crying, but no tears came to his eyes, awash as they already were in salt water that was pressing down with great force on him.

He tried to concentrate on the thrum of his friends, but could feel nothing specific in the still-unsettled drift. He closed his eyes again, trying to keep his breathing steady and his heart from pounding too hard. His thrum came out like a call in a wild wind.

Amariel? Can you hear me?

Nothing but the slurping and swishing of the drift answered him.

He felt around in his pocket for the air stone. He already knew it was there, because he was breathing, but there was comfort in feeling the bubble beneath his fingers, still with him even after the entire sea had seemingly turned upside down around him.

If I take it out, I will have light,
he thought.
But if there is no other light, whatever else is around me will see me. That might be worse than being in the dark.

At that moment, however, it was hard to imagine anything worse.

Far away, he felt a familiar
ping
against his skull. He could almost place the location of the feeling, in his forehead, above his right eye.

Ven? Ven, is that you?

Ven's heart pounded harder with excitement.

Char? Char! I'm over here. Where are you?

His best friend's answer seemed very far away.

Here. I'm comin'. Stay where you are and keep thinkin' my name. I'll come to you.

Can you see?
Ven thought.

Not a bit. But I'm human, so I'm prolly more used to it than you are. Hold still
.

Ven exhaled and lay still, trying to keep his thoughts clear.

Char. Char. Char,
he thought, over and over.
Char.

The sand beneath him wriggled, and Ven sat up, blind in the dark.

Ugh! Char!

“No need to shout.” Char's thrum was right next to him.

A blue glow appeared, blinding in the pitch darkness.

Ven shielded his stinging eyes.

Char was hovering in the drift a stone's throw away, his hands cupped around a cold, gleaming pinpoint of light.

“I'm so glad to see you,” Ven said, taking his hands down as his eyes adjusted. “Are you all right?”

Char nodded. “Neck's a bit sore, but it's amazin' we both still have our air stones and knapsacks.”

“It's amazing we're both alive. I lost my spear.” Ven swam up from the ocean floor and over to his friend. His shoulders and back felt bruised, but otherwise his body seemed to be working.

“Any sign of Amariel or Coreon?”

I'm here,
Coreon's thrum replied from a distance.
Put your light away until I get there. I can see you—and so can a whole bunch of giant squid nearby. They're on their way to find you right now
.

Char quickly slipped his air stone back in his pocket, dousing the light.

The two boys waited in darkness, hanging in the drift, for what seemed like a very long time. Finally they heard Coreon's underwater voice very nearby, its inconsistent tone a little deeper than before.

“You two both in one piece?”

“Yes,” Ven replied. “How about you?”

“Fine.” Coreon swam nearer. “Any sign of Amariel?”

Ven closed his eyes and tried to find her thrum. After a few moments' concentration, he shook his head sadly.

“Not even a whisper,” he said. “I can't hear her at all.”

“Me neither,” said Char. “What happened to your hippocampi?”

“I don't know,” said Ven. “I think mine bucked me off her back, or got swept out from under me. I hope she got away.”

“Mine too,” said Char.

“Mine as well.” Coreon's thrum seemed somewhat more spirited. “Do you hear that?”

Ven concentrated, but felt nothing out of the ordinary.

“No—what are you hearing?”

“There's a strange, sort of sad, helpless thrum not terribly far from here—can you feel it now?”

Ven thought he could, but he didn't recognize it.

“I do, but it doesn't sound like Amariel to me.”

“No, it doesn't,” Coreon said. “But I think it might be Teel.”

Ven quickly unbuttoned his pocket and pulled out his own air stone.

“Where? Can you find a direction?”

Coreon listened again, then nodded. “I think so.”

“Then we'll follow you.”

The sea-Lirin boy nodded again, then started off into the drift.

With the light out, the black ocean looked ghostly. Both of his friends' faces appeared, disappeared, then reappeared as they passed through the cold shadows cast by the glowing stone. They swam over broken bones of long-buried ships encrusted with claw-like rusticles. Ghost shrimp flitted in and out between the bones, while goliath groupers, enormous pink speckled fish twice as big as each of them, swam slowly past.

It seemed to Ven that he was floating through an entirely different world.

He and Char followed Coreon for a very long time over an ocean floor that was now almost totally absent of plant life. The heavy ceiling of the black water above pressed down on them, making Ven's heart beat hard in his chest.

“It's a good thing Amariel told us Teel's name,” Char said as Coreon swam ahead at the edge of the cold blue light. “I'm not sure we'd ever be able to find his thrum in the sea if she hadn't. That thing about names having power in the sea sure seems true.”

“Teel trusted her right away,” Ven agreed. “She really does have a skill with hippocampi. I bet she wins the Grand Trophy one day, just like she wants to.”

“I think I see him,” said Coreon.

They quickened their pace.

At the edge of the light Ven could see something vertical in the drift, trembling violently. As they got closer, he recognized the giant sea horse, paler it seemed than he had been before, shaking nervously, his round eyes wide and darting.

“Teel!” he called as they got closer. “Teel! Do you know where Amariel is?”

The hippocampus stared at them.

Then it bobbed forward slightly, as if it were bowing to them.

Ven glanced down at the ocean floor at what looked like a small mound of rags and broken coral, half-buried in sand below the giant sea horse.

He held up the air stone to see it better, then gasped.

“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, no. It's Amariel.”

 

30

At the Edge of Twilight

Char dove down to the ocean floor, followed an instant later by Coreon.

“Ven, hold the light closer,” he said. “Don't drop the stone.”

Ven obeyed. His hands had gone numb. He watched as Char turned the motionless merrow over onto her back, clearing the sand away from her neck.

“She's still breathin',” Char said. “But barely. Her gills are barely flutterin'.”

“Here, you get out your stone too,” Coreon said to Char. “We need more light.”

He lifted the merrow off the seafloor while Char fumbled around in his pocket. Char cast a baleful eye at the trembling hippocampus.

“This is
your
fault, ya fat waste o' breath,” he said. “If she hadn't insisted on savin'
you
, she'd have—”

“Stop it,” Ven interrupted. “We owe Teel thanks—if he hadn't stayed with Amariel, we would never have found her.”

“Yeah. Right.” Char glared at the trembling beast one last time, then held his light stone aloft in the drift.

The three boys and the frightened hippocampus all winced as the intense blue light brightened the murky black depths.

Now that they could see a little better, Ven was even more nervous. He could see in the cold light that Amariel had lost a good deal of her coloring. Her skin and scales looked bleached, and her mouth was open, her teeth showing, something she would never had allowed if she were conscious. Coreon lifted her wrist and then dropped it, hoping she would respond, but her arm fell, limp, to her side.

“What do we do now, chief?” Coreon's thrum was even deeper in pitch than before, and more stable.

“I have no idea. Do you have any sense of where we are?”

Coreon shook his head.

“The waterspout tore up a good deal of the seabed,” he said. “The ocean floor isn't the same as it was. And if even if it were, there's no way to tell whether it's just a moonless night in the Sunlit Realm, or if we've fallen over the edge into Twilight.” He gave the merrow a gentle shake, but she did not respond. “If it's the first possibility, when the morning comes we will know which way to go to get back to the coral reef. I'm assuming you are ready to go home now, and not pursue any more sea dragons or mythical trees, yes?”

“Absolutely,” Ven said, struggling to keep the kelp he'd had for lunch down. “Char, you may blame Teel, but this is all
my
fault. You told me from the beginning this was a bad idea, and you were right.”

“Hooey,” Char said. “If we hadn't o' come with her, she woulda been here anyway. She made it pretty clear that seein' the Festival was somethin' she was gonna do. And it
was
an amazin' sight, before the waterspout, wasn't it?” Ven nodded distantly. “All right. So she got to see somethin' she always dreamed of seein', and we got to explore the Deep. Like you said, one day we'll have a bajillion tales to tell the sailors on board the
Serelinda
, or whatever ship we're on. Things happen sometimes that you can't control. I apologize, Teel.”

The hippocampus just stared at him.

“Have you given her up for dead, then?” Coreon asked. “You sound like it.”

“Heck no,” Char said before Ven could reply. “I just don' want Ven to spend the night beatin' himself up. He does that enough at home. So I guess we wait until mornin', figure out which way is east, then head home, right?”

“Maybe,” said Coreon. “That only works if the waterspout didn't throw us too far. I was unconscious during the ride, so I'm not sure how long it carried us. It could have been a few leagues—or for many miles. And if it took us a long way, well, we could have fallen over the edge into Twilight.”