The Tree of Water (41 page)

“Do you think it's safe to explore?” he called to Char.

His best friend replied by crawling through the porthole and disappearing into the shattered ship.

Ven hurried to catch up. The opening that Char had slid through was a little small for him, so he crawled through as carefully as he could. He found himself in the old ship's hold, the rotten wood floor wet from the water that had splashed through the porthole, but otherwise dry.

The hold was empty, except for a few pieces of rusty hardware, hinges and metal plates bolted into the ship's interior walls. A few links of what had once been chains were attached to the plates.

“This musta been a horrible ride,” Char mumbled. “It's easy enough to get seasick when you're free to move around. But being chained day after day to the wall of a prison ship? Gives me the willies just bein' in here, all these centuries later.”

“I don't see anything of interest,” Ven said as he walked carefully around the hold. “I'm not surprised it's so solid. My father has built a few prison ships, and they are as sturdy as ships come. They can't sail very fast because they're so heavy, and they put extra strong wood and iron in them to make sure none of the prisoners escape.”

“What did that key you found tell you to do in here?” Char asked. “Because I want to get out of here right now. I'm startin' to get gooseflesh.”

Ven fished the skeleton key out of his pocket and held it up to the porthole to catch the last of the day's light.

“
Free the only innocent prisoners she ever held,
” he read.

“Well, we're clearly too late for that,” said Char. “Anybody who was imprisoned in here, innocent or not, is long gone.”

“So it seems,” Ven agreed. “We should search the place carefully anyway.”

“What's to search?” Char asked crossly. “This is just the hold, the very bottom o' the ship. All o' the cabins and cells and decks are long gone as well. It's just a big, empty, broken wooden box now. Which is good, because even as dead and shattered as it is, I can still feel the sadness, and the evil that it was built to contain. It's makin' me shake. C'mon—let's get outta here.”

Ven was pacing back and forth across the length of the rotten deck.

“We're missing something,” he said.

Char sighed. “We sure are. We're missin'
supper
. And the hearth and the fire and the kitchen o' the Crossroads Inn. And Mrs. Snodgrass. And our friends. And Felitza. C'mon, Ven—let's go.”

Ven shook his head. He turned and walked back to the front of the shipwreck.

“I know we're missing something,” he repeated.

Char threw up his hands in disgust. “What?
What
are we missin'?”

Ven shook his head, trying to clear it of salt water and confusion. There was something nagging at the back of his mind, but he couldn't force it to come forth. He decided to try not to concentrate too hard.

As he did, a picture came into his mind. It was the image of a fish, one of the many odd creatures they had met on the coral reef before venturing into the Deep. There was something particularly odd about it, ugly and spotted, with yellow fins. He thought back to where he had seen it, then realized that it had inflated into a ball almost as soon as they came upon it.

Then, suddenly, he understood.

“Remember that poisonous puffer fish from the reef?” he asked. “The one that swelled up out of nowhere?”

Char nodded.

“I think Amariel said he had a stretchable stomach that could fill with water or air to keep him upright, didn't she?”

“Yes—so what?”

“Well, a lot of ships have something like that, too.” Ven knelt down and tapped on the rotten floorboards.

“A stretchable stomach?”

“No—but something that fills with water or air to keep it upright. It's called a ballast tank. My father put them in almost every ship he made—the big ones, at least.”

“I've been on plenty o' ships in my life, an' I never saw nothin' like that,” Char said suspiciously.

“Unless you see the ship out of the water, you never would,” said Ven as he continued to tap on the floor. “The ballast tank is at the very bottom of the hull. It's either sealed to keep air in, or there are tiny slits that keep it filled with water.” He stopped when he heard a hollow sound beneath the floorboards. “I think I found it.”

“Criminey.” Char crouched down on the floor and joined in the search. Within a few moments they discovered a long regular crack in the floorboards that appeared to be the seam of a hatch or doorway.

Ven took out his jack-rule. He extended the magnifying glass and found the lines of a door. He folded the glass back in and pulled out the knife blade, then cleared away a lot of the gunk from the seam. He tucked the tool back in his pocket when he was done.

“Watch your fingers,” Ven advised as they tried to pry the hatch in the floor up. “The wood of the door is almost as thick as your arm—it has to be in this part of the hull.”

They struggled, lifted, and pulled until finally the hatch gave way. It swung up, revealing a small ladder with three rungs, one of them broken.

And darkness.

“Whaddaya know,” Char whispered.

His question was answered by a deep, threatening growl that made the hair on both of their necks stand on end.

And two yellow eyes, glowing at them in the darkness.

A hair's breadth away from them.

Then, before they could breathe, the beast leapt from the darkness and lunged at Char's throat.

Knocking him to the ground.

 

44

A Mysterious Reunion

Ven's hand went immediately to his jack-rule. He pulled the tool from his pocket again and quickly extended the knife. His hands were shaking.

Then he looked down in surprise.

Char was lying on his back. Standing on top of him, looking confused, was a slender dog the color of butter and cream, with long ears the color of toasted marshmallows. He was staring down at Char as if he knew him.

Ven realized a moment later that he did.

“Finlay!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

Char's eyes were closed tight. He opened them slowly.

“Is—isn't this Mr. Coates's dog?” he asked. “From the weapons shop?”

“One of them,” Ven said. “Hey, boy! What are you doing here? How did you get out of the Gated City?” He crouched down and held out his hands to the yellow dog.

Finlay leapt off Char's stomach and trotted over. He licked Ven's hands while Ven scratched his ears.

“I assume you're not expectin' him to actually answer you,” Char said, slowly standing up. “The only talkin' animal in the upworld I know is Murphy the cat—at least if I'm rememberin' correctly. My brain is boiled since we've been in the sea.”

“What could he be doing here—in the wreck of the
Athenry?
”

“Dunno,” said Char. “Could he be one o' the only innocent prisoners she ever held?”

As if in response, the dog ran over to the dark hold opening and began to bark.

Ven followed him. He peered through the opening.

Cowering in the back of the ballast tank at the bottom of the ship were two human children, a boy and a girl. Ven guessed them to be about Char's age. They were ragged and thin, and their eyes were wide and hollow in their faces, which Ven could barely see in the slashes of light that came in from a pair of small slats on each side of the ballast tank, too narrow for a person to fit through.

But just wide enough for a skinny dog.

They looked scared to death.

Ven's heart leapt into his throat.

They looked more afraid than I had ever seen anyone look in my life.

Their raggy clothes were ill-fitting, as if the children had shrunk since putting them on. After a moment I realized it was because the clothes were made to fit human adults, and were just too big.

Both of them were chained to the wall with leg irons that were probably left over from the
Athenry
's days transporting criminals to their prison-colony home. There were two small cots with thin blankets behind them, with chamber pots underneath. An empty flask and a few scraps of bread lay on the floor near them.

Otherwise the ballast tank was empty.

And as my heart sank all the way from my throat to my stomach, I realized we must have found the only innocent prisoners the
Athenry
had ever held.

“Water—please,” the little girl whispered.

Ven and Char looked at each other. Then they dug furiously into their packs and pulled out the half-full flasks of fresh water the Cormorant had given them. Ven pulled out the cork from his, hurried to the girl, and held the flask to her lips. She drank greedily as Char let the boy drink the rest of the contents of his flask.

“Don't be afraid,” Ven said to the boy, who was shaking so hard that the water was spilling over his face. “We'll help you. Who are you?”

The little girl leaned forward. Just as she did, the last light of the day splashed through the slats in the tank. In that dim light Ven could see that she had dark eyes with dark circles beneath them and similarly dark hair. The boy, on the other hand, had hair that was almost colorless and eyes the color of the sky.

The girl said nothing.

“Ahem. Maybe they'd be less afraid if they weren't
chained to a wall
,” Char said pointedly.

“Oh! Yes. Sorry. My brain is still addled from the salt water.” Ven took the skeleton key out of his pocket. He read the inscription again.

“All right,” he said. “Here goes.”

He reached for the leg iron that was clasped around the little girl's leg. The girl shrank back, trying to scramble away. Ven put his hands up.

“Whoa. Don't worry,” said Char. “He's just tryin' to help. If ya hold still, he might be able to set you free. Hold still a minute.”

The children looked at each other. When they did, Ven noticed that in spite of having totally different coloring, they both had the same long thin nose that hooked slightly at the bottom.

Ven held up the skeleton key,

“May I?” he asked. He tried to keep his voice as gentle as he could. Finlay came over to him and sniffed at the long thin tool, then walked away, seemingly satisfied.

The children exchanged another glance. Then the girl nodded.

Ven took hold of the padlock on the girl's ankle. He winced at how bony and bruised that ankle was. Then he slid the skeleton key inside the hole in the padlock and jiggled it around.

A solid
thunk
echoed through the ballast tank.

The children's faces lit up. The little girl pulled the shackle off her foot and tossed it across the ballast tank and into a wall. Then she grabbed the shackle around the boy's ankle and held it still for Ven. He quickly freed the boy from his chains. The key almost fell out of his hands as the girl threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice was stronger than the first time he had heard it.

“Will you please tell us who you are?” Ven asked. “We've been looking for you for a very long time.”

“How can that be, if you doesn't know who we is?” the girl said.

Ven and Char exhaled at the same time. Then Ven held the key up where she could see it.

“I found this in a glass bottle floating in the sea on one of the skelligs outside the harbor to the north,” he said. “There was a scrap of oilcloth wrapped around it with just one word—
Athenry
.”

“What does that mean?”

Ven blinked. “Well, it's—this place, where we are. The prison ship, the
Athenry
.” The children just stared at him. “This was once a small part of a gigantic ship that brought prisoners from far away to the Gated City, to live in it as kind of penal colony.”

“I didn't know that,” said the girl. “I don't know what those words mean. None of them ever telled us anything about where we is.”

“Them?”

The girl hesitated. “The guards,” she said finally.

“Guards? There have been people holding you captive here?”

She nodded. “They bringed us food and water every few days—until about ten days ago. That night, there was a big
boom.
We could feel it, even in here. The tide was high, because the water was coming in.” She pointed to wet spots on the floor. “And it will be coming in again soon. But after that night, no one comed. We runned out of water two days ago.”

“That must have been the attack on the Gated City,” Ven said to Char. “The Cormorant said the tunnel was sealed half a turn of the moon ago—that means about two weeks. They must have been held captive by the thieves from inside the city—probably Felonia's thugs from the Raven's Guild. Once the tunnel was sealed, the guards couldn't get out to bring them supplies.” He turned back to the girl. “You've been without food and water for ten days?”

The girl shrugged. “Only water. The animal has bringed us food. He comed not long after the boom. He bringed us some bread. He goes out every night and comes back with something to eat. But I don't think he can carry water.”

“He must have escaped during the attack,” Ven said to Char. “The sea Lirin wouldn't have paid any attention to a dog fleeing the tunnel.”

“How long have you been here?” Char asked.

The children stared at them.

“We don't remember ever not being here,” the little girl said.

“You're kiddin'.”

“You've lived here all your lives?” Ven asked in disbelief. “Have they ever let you out?”

“Never,” said the little girl. “At least not when we're awake. Every now and then they gives one of us a drink that makes us fall asleep. Then they comes in and takes that one out in a blanket. When they comes back, we're still asleep. But they never takes both of us at the same time. Just one. I heared the guards talking once, and they said they were taking us to him, but we never get to see him, because we is asleep. But he comed to see
us
once, I remember. We both was awake. That was a good day.”