Voyage of the Basilisk : A Memoir by Lady Trent (9781429956369) (26 page)

The serpent seemed inclined to oblige me, for it bent back upon itself and dove once more. It shot by at speed, and then the bell rang like its namesake as the serpent’s tail slapped the side.

I put my hand against the wall, more out of shock than a need to catch myself. The bell weighed a
great
deal; a mere slap scarcely did more than shake it. But Suhail, off-balance with his foot up on the bench, almost staggered against me. He met my gaze and said quietly, “I think you should stop wishing for such things.”

The bell rang again. “Oh dear,” I said, my nerves returning. “It—cannot break the bell, can it? Or the porthole?”

“Those, no,” Suhail answered, looking up with sudden concern.

My heart began beating double-time. “What do you mean by,
those, no
? What else could it—” Then my gaze followed his, and I understood.

At the top of the bell, a small hole gave access to the umbilical which supplied our air. That hollow cable was a sturdy thing, and laced through the chain besides; surely that would be enough to protect it.

I returned my attention to the porthole, trying to see what was transpiring outside. I arrived just in time.

The serpent had circled and come about to face us. I saw its mouth open wide, its flanks ripple peculiarly. I had just enough time to say, “I think it is drawing water in—”

And then the serpent spat it back out.

This time the bell did more than simply ring. It rocked dangerously backward, shifting on the seabed. I caught myself against the far wall, the bench striking the backs of my knees. “Jet of water,” I said, and the part of my mind that takes refuge in science made a note to discuss abdominal musculature once more with Tom, who had dissected the serpent up in the arctic. “But this bell weighs a
very
great deal; we should—”

I cannot tell you what happened next, for I was no longer looking out the porthole, and it offered a limited view regardless. I do not know whether the first serpent returned to lend its aid, or whether that jet had been a mere test and now the second, larger serpent mustered its full strength. I know only that the floor of the bell tilted beneath my feet … and then the whole thing tipped and rolled, throwing me against the bench, against Suhail, and then there was water spraying all around us, and I was screaming.

He regained his feet before I did. By the time I determined which way was up, Suhail had stripped off his shirt and jammed it against the hole for the umbilical—the hole which had previously supplied us with air, and now, despite his best efforts, was admitting a steady flow of water.

The bell was on its side again; the cable had broken; we were in imminent danger of drowning.

I managed to stand, slipping a little in the accumulated water, and joined Suhail in pressing the fabric against the hole, trying to block the points at which it was leaking. We met each others’ gazes, and the panic in his eyes felt much like that in my own heart. “They’ll have seen that above,” I said. Tom and the others could not possibly have failed to notice the bell being torn from its chain.

“They cannot get to us in time,” Suhail said.

My mind had already performed the same calculation. If someone dove in immediately, perhaps—but what good would that do? They could not reconnect the chain, could not haul us from the sea before we drowned.

We turned as one to regard the hatch through which we had entered. Perversely, I blessed the serpent for not merely breaking the umbilical, but knocking us on our side; had it not done so, we would have had no escape, for our jury-rigged hatch was in the base of the bell, and had been pressed firmly against the sand. Now it offered a slender reed of hope.

Suhail’s voice was quiet with tension. “We would have to let the water in, then swim out once the force had subsided.”

“And hope we can make it to the surface in time,” I said.

A heartbeat passed, during which the water continued to leak in.

I did not think of Jake in that heartbeat. Those who claim their thoughts go to loved ones in such moments of crisis are either liars or made of different stuff than I. All my thoughts were bent to the calculus of survival. We were a little less than ten meters down; I was not a fast swimmer. The serpent was still out there, and might come for us once we were free of the bell.

But if we stayed here, we would certainly die.

“Exhale as you go up,” Suhail said, and by that I knew he had reached the same conclusion. “Otherwise the air in your lungs will expand and kill you.”

I had not thought of that, and nodded. Then he said, “Are you ready?”

Of course not,
I wanted to say. But delay would accomplish nothing beneficial, and so I said, “Yes.”

Suhail let go of his shirt. The spray of water increased greatly, utterly drenching me. He waded through the growing depth to the hatch. Once there, he wasted no further time, but broke open the seal.

To my horror, the hatch did not open immediately. It had been designed to swing outward, so that the pressure of the sea would assist in keeping it closed; now that worked against us. Suhail kicked it, and that let in a gush of water; then the flood began.

I gulped in the greatest lungful of air I could hold. My body ached with the volume of it, and I remembered what he had said about pressure—but I would need as much oxygen as I could get.

The bell was almost full of water. Suhail had gotten the hatch fully open, and eeled out through it with the ease of a practiced swimmer. I pushed for it, swimming against the inrushing current, and found he had waited for me; he gripped my wrist and helped me out. Then, still holding me, he kicked off from the seabed, and we rose.

Ten meters had not seemed like so very great a depth as we went down, with the water so clear it made distances small. Now, fluttering like mad for the surface, ten meters seemed like ten kilometers. We ascended so slowly—so slowly. Only the growing pressure in my lungs told me we had gone anywhere. I exhaled in little spurts, trying to keep as much air as I could, for soon my body was clamouring for fresh oxygen. Suhail, a better swimmer by far, dragged me up and up and up.

I could not help looking about. The nearest serpent was up at the surface now, but not facing us; it was thrashing away in an unhappy fashion. I saw the underside of a canoe in the water, some distance from the great shadow that was the
Basilisk
’s hull, and knew the Keongans were doing something. But I could not spare any thought for what that might be. I had to swim for the surface.

My lungs were aching. I could no longer tell what was pressure and what was the thirst for air. The surface was still so far away. I tried to exhale again, but there was nothing left in my body. My diaphragm jerked, fighting to draw breath, only my clenched jaw preventing me from inhaling seawater. Suhail’s hand was like iron around my wrist, holding fast against my thrashing.

Then my mouth opened, against all my will, and I began to drown.

FOURTEEN

Return to life—Amowali—Plans for the peak—The lava tube—Statues at the crater—The barren zone—Fire-lizards—Unseen peril—A second near miss

I came to my senses on the deck of the
Basilisk,
coughing out what seemed like half the Broken Sea across its boards. My lungs fought between the need to gasp in air, glorious life-giving air, and the need to expel the remaining water. The conflict between those two impulses racked me for an eternity, until at last my airway was clear and I could breathe.

I lay where I was for quite some time after that, curled on my side, listening distantly to the voices around me. One voice I recognized as Tom’s, murmuring an uncharacteristic prayer of thanksgiving. (There is nothing like the near death of a companion to bring religion out in a man.) Others belonged to the sailors and the islanders, barking orders and arguments I lacked the wit to follow just then.

One voice I did not hear: Suhail’s.

As that thought came to me, I rolled over and tried to sit up. I hit someone’s knees, and fell victim to another coughing fit. When it stilled at last, I found the knees belonged to Suhail, who was gazing down at me in wordless relief.

“Oh, thank God you’re alive,” I said.

He managed something like a laugh. “Those should be my words. You are the one who nearly drowned.”

I remembered his hand around my wrist, dragging me toward life. “I have you to thank for my survival, I think.”

Suhail’s colour suddenly improved. He had been as sickly as it is possible for a sun-browned Akhian to look; now he appeared much healthier, and I realized he was blushing. “I’m afraid I have to beg your forgiveness again,” he said, and edged back a few centimeters, so that I was no longer against his knees.

I noticed, for the first time, how close to me he knelt. Tom was crouching half a pace away, and although there were a few sailors looking on, they were all standing. And I had heard tell of how the victims of drowning were saved, though never seen it firsthand.

My own face must have flooded with colour. All at once I was aware of my state: soaking wet, lying full-length on the deck without so much as a blanket to cover me. Undoubtedly there had been no time for such things when Suhail set about reviving me. The water had plastered his curls to his head; they clung to his cheekbones in damp tendrils. He stared at me with the expression of a man who knows he should look away, but has misplaced the ability to do so.

I do my reputation no favours to admit this, but I stared at him in much the same way. We had just survived a harrowing experience; those among you who have done the same know that it often heightens the senses, giving one a vivid awareness of life and its fragility. I was not so very old yet, and Suhail was naked to the waist, and for a moment I had difficulty thinking of anything else.

Tom broke the stasis, for which I shall eternally be grateful to him. He moved from his crouch, and Suhail retreated, allowing him to help me to my feet. (It may give you some notion of how strongly my near drowning had affected me that I was almost as self-conscious of my wet clothing with Tom—
Tom,
who had seen me naked and covered in mud when I fell victim to yellow fever in Mouleen.)

As usual, I took refuge from embarrassment in my work. “What happened?” I asked, once I was something like steady and had recovered from a new fit of coughing. “Do we know why the serpent attacked?”

“I have an idea.” That came from Heali’i, who had been at the railing, calling down to the men in the canoes below. For once there was not the slightest hint of amusement in her expression. She beckoned me to her side, and when she could speak quietly in my ear, she said, “I think the serpent is
amowali
.”

I shook my head, not understanding the word. Heali’i sighed in annoyance, turned so that others could not see what she did, and shaped a curve in front of her belly with one hand.

Pregnant.
This was enough to drive all thoughts of my recent experience and current state from my mind. I straightened up, looking to the water as if I might see the creature there, but it was gone. A chance—possibly my
only
chance—to examine a bearing sea-serpent, and I had wasted it.

“What did the others do?” I asked, remembering the movement above as Suhail and I broke for the surface.

“A rider,” she said, gesturing to where a naked man was hoisting himself into a canoe. I hastily averted my eyes. “He dove in and seized hold as the serpent broke the surface, then turned it away from you.”

I was unspeakably grateful to him for it, and told him so as soon as he was clothed once more. He did not seem to mind the risk he had taken on our behalf; his friends were all praising him for his courage and quick thinking, saying he had won great
mana
by that action. Although I do not attribute spiritual significance to the concept, as they do, I could not dispute the general point, which was that he was indeed a man worthy of respect.

Any further questions regarding the serpent itself had to wait until I was on land once more and could speak to Heali’i in greater privacy. Tom, Suhail, and I were loaded into a canoe along with her, while the sailors stayed to prepare the ship for its move to shore. The bell, of course, was left on the outward slope of the reef, to be retrieved when the
Basilisk
was seaworthy once more.

By the time I reached shore, I was shivering badly. The warmth of the islands, which ordinarily I found pleasant, was no longer enough, and I could not catch my breath. Liluakame was familiar with these symptoms (drowning being a hazard the Keongans face regularly), and bundled me into heavy barkcloth blankets to sit by a fire outside our hut. There, Heali’i and I could talk at last.

“Do sea-serpents regularly attack when bearing?” I asked. I did not want to leave the shelter of my blankets enough to take notes, and I was not certain what she would think of it if I did. Keongans distrusted writing in those days; they believed strongly in the power of words, and did not like the notion of those words, along with the knowledge they carried, being left sitting about where anybody could pick them up. But I was accustomed to holding on to such things for later recording.

Heali’i’s answering snort was pragmatic. “Wouldn’t you?”

I drew the blankets closer about me and forced my thoughts to focus. “Is their breeding seasonal? It must be a very great danger for your people if this could happen any time of year.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what they do when they aren’t here. Maybe they breed at other times. But we know that when the serpents are around, there’s a risk.”

Tired and worn as I was, it took some time for the implications of this to come clear for me. “You mean—they aren’t always here?”

“Of course not,” Heali’i said. “They follow the currents and the storms.”

Migration. I did not know the word in Keongan, and had to flounder my way through twenty or thirty words in its stead, but once Heali’i understood my meaning, she nodded. “Yes, like some of the birds. They come and go.”