The Tree of Water (32 page)

Ven could only nod. He was trembling, and he could feel both Char and Coreon trembling beside him as well, either from cold or fear.

“And going down to the Midnight Realm is only the first step,” the dragon continued. His thrum sounded amused again. “You will have to descend even farther than that to find if Frothta still lives. Deeper than the Realm of Midnight is the Abyss, a full three thousand fathoms down into the very cellar of the world. Were it not for the salt in the sea, that water would be ice, it is so cold in the lifeless Abyss. And while that truly is the floor of the ocean, there is a place even deeper.”

“The Trenches,” Coreon whispered.

“Ah—you've heard of them, then?” the dragon said. “Good—then the sea Lirin remember the tales from the Before-Time, of the cracks in the world five thousand fathoms or more down, where new islands form and the earth splits and spits out lava, even in the freezing black of endless night. It is said that in that empty land of death, Frothta once grew atop a seamount, the highest mountain in the world, in the depths of the deepest trench of the ocean. And if she still lives, that is where she would be found.”

Madame Sharra's words rang in Ven's foggy memory.

It might be in a place of extremes—the hottest and coldest part of the sea, the highest and lowest place in the world, the brightest and darkest realms, all at the same time.

“That must be it,” he said. “If the Tree lives, it's in the Trenches.”

“No one would survive to see it, then,” Coreon said. “Especially not land-livers. The pressure and the cold of the water would kill any of us long before we even got to the Abyss. We can't even survive in the Midnight Realm. My father warned me never to even go into Twilight—how is it possible to find something that grows in the
Trenches
?”

The dragon shrugged.

“You didn't ask me if it was possible to live through getting to where the Tree grows,” he said. “You only asked me where to find it.”

“That's true,” Ven said. His heart was pounding, and the fear in his thrum was obvious even to him. “But my first question was ‘How can I save Amariel?' If you are to keep your word, you can't very well give me an answer that does me no good.”

The dragon's eyes narrowed, but his smile grew brighter.

“Actually, I can,” he said. “But since I have no stake in whether you live or not, Son of Earth, I will tell you how you can go to the Tree of Water, if you are willing to make the sacrifice.”

“I am,” Ven said quickly. “Tell me.”

The dragon snorted. “You're a fool, Son of Earth,” he said. “You should never agree to terms you haven't heard yet. Has our little negotiation taught you
nothing
?” He stared at them for a long moment, then extended his claw over their heads.

In it was a strange sort of metal cage, shaped a little like a woman's skirt, with a chain on the top, a metal lattice bottom, and a smaller cage attached to the slats of the bottom by a hook and smaller chain. Unlike the other items in the sea dragon's hoard, it was encrusted with barnacles and other grime from the sea, and was large enough to hold several people.

The boys looked at each other.

“With respect, Lancel, what is that?” Ven asked.

The dragon's smile grew even brighter.

“This is a special diving bell,” he said. “A diving bell is something humans use to gather treasure and other things they want to salvage from the ocean floor. Of course, that's in the Sunlit Realm, where the floor of the sea is only a few fathoms deep. The shape allows the pressure of the water to trap air inside the chamber. But this diving bell is different, because it's made for just one purpose—to transport the curious to the deeper realms. The sea is full of these, believe it or not.”

“How does it work?” Char asked.

The sea dragon laughed. The thrum of it was ugly, and it made the boys shiver.

“You get into the large chamber, and the bell will descend through Twilight to the Midnight Realm all the way to the far edge of the Abyss,” he said. He sounded as if he was having great fun. “When it gets to that depth, it will stop in its descent, because the pressure is too great for it to continue. And then you have a decision to make.”

“And what is that decision?”

Lancel laughed again.

“Whether or not you are willing to separate your body from your spirit—your soul,” he said. “This large metal part is for your body—the smaller cage is a diving bell for the soul. If you are determined to see the deepest part of the sea, you just speak your name, say
going down
, and will yourself to step into the smaller cage. Then turn the key in the lock on the floor, and you will descend into the Abyss—or so I'm told. I've never done this myself, as you may have guessed. Dragons are said not to have souls as other beings do—our souls are part of the Earth. Of course, if you separate your soul from your body, it's only your soul that descends. You leave the mortal part of you behind in the cage, locked, to be safe from the creatures that prowl the Deep, looking for prey in the dark—and if you return, and if the key is still there, you can reunite with your body, say
going up
, ride the diving bell back up through Midnight to the Realm of Twilight, and back you go to the Sunlit waters.” He chuckled.

“It sounds like that doesn't happen very often,” Ven said.

The dragon shrugged. “Well, as I said, the sea is full of diving-bell cages, and the cages are full of bodies. And the darkness of the Midnight Realm is haunted by souls looking for the cages where they left their bodies, hoping in vain to reunite with them. Sometimes when they actually find their cages, the key is gone. Reunion of body and soul isn't, shall we say, a likelihood. But that doesn't mean it
never
happens.”

“Great,” Char muttered.

The thrum in the dusky water grew bristly, and Ven knew the dragon was becoming irritated.

“Take my gift, or leave it. My offer only remains open for a moment longer. There is a pathway of pearls in the seafloor past my lair to the place where the Midnight Realm begins. You can follow them in the dark, and when they stop, well, you'll know that you've come to the last place where light touches in the sea. Now, decide, Son of Earth. Do you want the diving bell, or not?”

“We do,” Ven said hurriedly before either of the other two could speak. “Thank you, Lancel.”

The dragon's eyes narrowed to slits of blue fire again.

“I will give you the gift of one more piece of information, Son of Earth. It is this—you have survived your time in my lair only because you had information that I could not acquire anywhere else in the world, information about something special to me that would not truly have been
mine
if I did not have sole possession of it. You cleverly bargained that information into safe passage for yourself and your friends through my realm, and my promise not to harm you in the future. You also gained answers you wanted to questions you had. But allow me to be clear as the water at the surface of the sea—you and I are not friends, nor will we ever be.

“You claim you have a dragon friend, and your thrum says you believe this to be true. If you do, he is not much of a credit to our race. Real dragons know that friends are a luxury that we cannot afford, and most of us do not want them anyway. Survival in the sea is a constant vigil. One must remain awake and aware almost all the time, and that tends to make those of us who live here suspicious and quick to destroy anything that comes snooping around our lairs. You are
out of place
, Son of Earth, and that is more dangerous than you can even imagine, because you have cheated Death, so you do not know the real consequences of your actions. I advise you not to get used to that, because, sooner or later, Death always wins. Finish your business in the sea and then get out of here while you still can. Our conversation has come to an end. Follow the trail of pearls if you wish, or return to the Realm of Sunlight. But either way, I want you to leave my lair
now
.”

The black sea around the circle of Lancel's light rumbled with unspoken threat.

“We'll take the diving bell, with great thanks,” Ven said quickly.

The beast opened his claw.

The bell-shaped cage began to sink slowly to the bottom of the sea.

“I suggest you catch hold of it before it becomes stuck in the sand,” Lancel cautioned. “It's very heavy.”

Char and Coreon exchanged a glance, then swam up to meet the drifting metal cage, taking hold of the chains on top.

“You're not jokin',” Char said. His face turned slightly red with the strain.

“Will you point the way to the pathway of pearls, please?” Ven asked as he swam over to where the hippocampus was hovering in the drift. “I don't want to trespass on your lair any further.”

The dragon waved his claw in the drift. Nearby, several of the broken ships in the collection began to rock back and forth, then slid out of the way, opening a tunnel in the lair between them. Coins spun and fell in the undersea waves, then settled back onto the ocean floor again.

“The passageway will close behind you, so make haste,” said the dragon. “I do not want any of my ships damaged by falling on you.”

Ven put out his arms to the hippocampus.

“Here, Teel, give Amariel to me,” he said. “I think you should go back to your home now—I suspect, as she would say, that this is about to get ugly.”

The giant sea horse shook its head. Its skin faded to a paler blue than it had been before.

“Hippocampi are faithful creatures,” the dragon commented. “Often, when one's mate dies, the other will die of grief. It seems Teel feels strongly about not leaving your merrow friend.” He chuckled as Ven pondered what to do. “You may as well take him with you. He's likely to lose her either way shortly.”

Ven looked at the sad hippocampus.

“All right, Teel. Come if you wish. But you're not going in the diving bell—you won't fit.” He turned back to Lancel. “Since you and I will never be friends, nor are we likely to meet ever again, please allow me to ask one last question, just for the sake of history and curiosity. Your collection seems to contain ships that have gone down all over the world. How did all of these things come to be in your lair?”

“I call to them,” the sea dragon boasted. “A ship on the surface will only be mine if I rise out of the Deep and take it down with me, and some of them I have obtained that way. But the broken bones of ships sing their names sadly, over and over again, when they sink to the ocean floor. If I hear them, and I call out to them, they often come to me. They know I will care for them as no other would.”

“I see. Thank you,” Ven said. “The trail of pearls you mentioned—”

A belch of acidic fire burst forth from Lancel's enormous nostrils.

The boys swam as fast as they could down the open channel in the hoard of treasure. They had gotten past a few ranks of ships when the bright light that had erupted when the beast appeared winked out again, plunging them into total blackness.

Behind them they could feel the drift vibrate as the lines of ships moved back into their places again.

“Keep going!” Ven shouted to the others. “Follow my thrum—at least we'll keep together.”

In the distance he thought he heard what sounded like a bell tolling.

“Can you feel that?” he asked the other boys. They both nodded. “I wonder if that is the thrum of a body struggling within a diving bell.”

“Don't think about it,” Char advised.

“Pearls,” Coreon said.

“Where?”

“Down below. Look.”

Ven blinked several times. Coreon was right—for the first time since the dragon had sent them back into the Twilight by dousing his light, he thought he could make out something in the gloom all around him.

On the ocean floor tiny spheres were glowing with a blue-white light, neatly positioned in a line that led off into the dark for as far as he could see.

Except for one single pearl floating in the water in front of them.

“That's strange,” Char said as they approached the hovering pearl. “It musta been swept up out o' the sand.” He put out his hand to catch it.

And could only freeze in shock as a savage mouth with rows of pointed teeth and a jutting jaw roared, open, out of the darkness and snapped shut over his hand.

Filling the sea around him a second later with the thrum of his blood.

 

35

Descent into Darkness

For the first few moments I had no idea what was happening.

Even when I saw the teeth, and could feel the thrum of Char's blood, the heavy pressure of the water around me was making it hard for my brain to work.

Then I felt him gasp.