Authors: T. A. Barron
For what might have been hours they voyaged downward. At last, ever so slowly, Kate discerned a subtle light ahead. For a while she thought it was merely her own wishful thinking. Yet the passage was indeed growing less dark. The abyss began to widen and to dive less steeply, even as it brightened. Finally they entered a great cavern, wider and taller than they could tell.
Geoffrey angled upward, leading the others. With a trio of splashes, they broke through the surface of what appeared to be a lake, set inside the expansive cavern.
“Air,” puzzled Kate, keeping her gills underwater. “How did air get down here?”
“The sea holds many surprises,” answered Geoffrey. He swished his tail, then said, “If you look up, you will see another.”
R
aising her eyes to the ceiling of the cavern, Kate saw the one thing she least expected to find, far beneath the stormy surface of the ocean.
Stars. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Shimmering with an eerie undersea light, beaming down upon the little band. Like an endless procession of candles, the stars vaulted overhead, illuminating the immense chamber.
She could see none of the familiar constellations she had come to know during her evenings at the research station, when the dome of night had risen over San Lazaro Lagoon. Yet here she found a myriad of new patterns and shapes, clusters and swirls. Galaxies upon galaxies adorned the cavern, floating in fairylike reflection on the water. And, as ever, the spaces between the stars spoke to her of wonder and infinity.
Then a familiar wailing echoed, a song of loss and longing. The three companions listened in silence.
Geoffrey swayed his dorsal fin. “Whales may wander far and wide, seeking some way to ease their pain, but it does
them no good. Even such a flowering of undersea stars cannot soothe them.”
“I remember,” said Kate wistfully, “my dad’s stories about Merlin.”
Geoffrey’s fin stopped moving. “Yes?”
“He told me how sometimes Merlin would enter a cave, someplace blacker than night, and take off his cape that was studded with stars. Then he would flick his cape in such a way that the stars would float up and stick to the ceiling of the cave. So when anyone else came, it would be light instead of dark. My dad said that if you ever found a cave like that, you could tell that Merlin had been there.”
“Hmmmm,” said Geoffrey. “I rather like that story. Perhaps it is true.”
“And perhaps it is just a story,” replied Terry.
Geoffrey examined him with reptile eyes. “So you don’t believe in Merlin?”
“Believe he really existed? No, I’m afraid not. He makes a fine legend, I’ll give you that much. I don’t expect to run into him on the street, though.”
“You might run into someone who knew him,” cautioned Geoffrey.
“Meaning Nimue?” asked Kate.
The white mane bristled. “Do not speak that name. We are close. Too close.”
At that moment a fragrant wind, full of the smells of the sea, swept over them. Kate suddenly noticed that, on every wall of the cavern, waterfalls gathered and tumbled into the lake. The water within them sparkled with such purity that the cascades seemed to glow with liquid light.
Here we are, she thought, in the realm of Shaa.
The place where the sea begins, the womb where the waters are born.
Then, in
a hushed voice, she asked, “Where is the castle of Merwas?”
Geoffrey simply plunged downward, leaving her question unanswered.
They swam just deep enough in the warm currents to coast along the border between light and dark. Below, all was black. Above, the horizon stretched over them like a shining circle, perfectly round. Within this circle danced the stars, seeming to belong first to water and only second to air.
Once Kate glimpsed a solitary form swimming above them. Its shape was blurred, but it appeared to possess the tail of a fish and the upper body of a man. She turned to Geoffrey to catch his attention, but by the time she looked back, it had disappeared.
Before long, the lake began to smell richer, like the scent of deep woods in autumn. A few trunks of kelp rose from the bottom, with fronds so intricate and plentiful that Kate had to swim carefully to avoid entangling her brass ring. Prickly sea urchins clung to rocks. Eels drifted lazily past.
Fish of all sorts wove their ways through the sparkling water. Some, as slim as snakes, encircled the swaying trunks of kelp that climbed upward from the bottom. Others, brightly painted, inhabited the colonies of pink and purple coral shaped like lacy fans, bulbous horns, or grooved brains. Passing nearby, Kate could hear hungry fish biting the corals with their teeth, crunching and scraping in search of food. Towering sponges, splashed with colors, sprouted on all sides. And from dens under ledges, shadowed eyes watched with interest.
Surrounded by the jungle of coral and its many inhabitants, Geoffrey slowed his pace. He swam almost leisurely, hardly bending his back. At length, he surfaced again. The others followed.
Kate gasped. Facing them stood a glorious castle with walls made of streaming, spraying waterfalls. Thundering and crashing, it lifted high out of the lake, glittering in the starlight, a tower of sculpted water. Columns of cascading liquid supported its turrets and buttresses. Archways made of rainbows ran along the rims of its battlements. Stairs of lavender coral spiraled into its rampways and towers, leading to halls and chambers hidden behind crystalline curtains.
“The Glass House,” she said in wonderment.
“Known in other times,” added Geoffrey, “as the castle of Merwas.”
Kate fluttered her fins. “So they are the same!”
“One and the same.”
Viewing the magnificent castle, she said, “What a place to hide the Treasures.”
“Yes,” agreed the white-haired fish. “It made good sense at the time. Remember that when Merlin found his way here, the entire realm of Shaa, including this castle, was deserted. Not only had the mer people fled, but…the sorceress, having searched fruitlessly for the Horn, had abandoned the cavern as well. And so Merlin believed,” Geoffrey added dismally, “that it would stay that way. He simply did not count on the fact that one day she would return here and discover the hidden Treasures. Or that she would willingly destroy the Glass House and everything in it, not to mention the whirlpool and the ship and much else besides, just to get the Horn.”
“That N—”
“Hush!” commanded Geoffrey, looking around fearfully.
“Sorry,” she replied. “I won’t slip again. I promise.”
Focusing again on the Glass House, she followed the contours of its flowing walls. Then she gasped again. For at the
base of one of the battlements, partially concealed by a fountain, she spied a large silver shape.
The submersible.
She had no chance to cry out. In an instant, the castle vanished and the stars eclipsed. The world went dark, dark as the abyss.
K
ate awoke, shivering.
The water here is so cold I feel numb.
She reached to rub her sore head. Reached, she realized all of a sudden, with her own hand.
She sat bolt upright. Though this place was very dark, she could still make out the shape of her hand. She closed it into a fist, then reopened it. She touched her face, her hair, her arms.
No more brass ring.
She took a deep breath.
No more gills.
Her head still throbbed. All she could see in the dim light was water, running and rushing from all directions. And all she could feel was wet and cold.
A strong hand reached out of the shadows and clasped her by the forearm.
“Terry?”
“Glad you’re back with the living. I was getting worried there.” Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “Especially when old Geoffrey had you looking like a partridge.”
“An unavoidable detour,” grumbled the old man, emerging from the shadows. He scratched the tip of his pointed nose. “I had to do it to get rid of the ring.”
“That’s not what you said when it happened,” Terry reminded him. “But you got it right in the end, as you did with me.”
“You mean to tell me,” queried Geoffrey innocently, “you didn’t like being a donkey?”
“Not in the least.”
“Once an ass, always an ass.”
“All right, you two,” interjected Kate, clambering to her feet. She sloshed a few steps across the wet floor. “Where are we, anyway?”
“We are in the dungeon.” Geoffrey’s morose face came closer. “Somewhere under the Glass House.”
“The dungeon! How did we get here?”
“We were captured. By the sea demons. For some reason they didn’t kill us on the spot, but merely rendered us senseless and threw us in here.”
“Have you looked around for a way to escape?”
Geoffrey eyed her somberly. “Since regaining our human forms, that is
all
we have been doing. But although these walls and this floor are made only of water, they are as sturdy as iron.”
“Dad and Isabella are somewhere around here, too! I saw the submersible.”
“Yes,” answered the monk. “Though I cannot tell you where they might be, or in what condition.”
“We have to find them.” She flapped her arms to warm herself. “Why is it so c-cold in here? It’s been getting hotter and hotter as the eruption gets nearer. But now I’m f-f-freezing.”
“I will show you,” answered Geoffrey. He led her over to a squarish hole in the wall where no water flowed.
“A window,” she marveled, shivering again.
“Come nearer. You can see the lake. And something more.”
“Are you sure she’s strong enough?” asked Terry.
“I’m f-fine,” said Kate, not really feeling that way. She approached the window, peering out at the starlit cavern and the still water below. “It’s darker in here than out there,” she observed.
Geoffrey nodded. “These walls—see how thick they are?—keep out much of the light from the stars. And Nimue has not equipped her dungeon with a torch.”
“You never answered my question. About the c-cold.”
“The truth is,” Geoffrey explained, “it is quite warm in here.”
“But I feel—”
“You feel cold. You feel chilled to the bone. That is because you were touched.”
“Touched? By what?”
Geoffrey raised his arm and pointed his knobby finger out the window. “By one of them.”
Kate turned again to the glistening surface of the lake, just as a whitecap appeared. From beneath it came a dark form, rising slowly to the surface. At first she thought it was an enormous eel, but the intense chill in her chest told her otherwise. She watched, transfixed, as it lifted its huge, triangular head above the water.
The sea demon spun a half rotation, growled fiercely, then fell back with a colossal splash. In two seconds it was gone, yet that was all she needed to view the massive body covered with purple scales, the savage jaw, the teeth sharp as knives. The sight seemed to fill her whole body with ice.
Then a hand, larger than hers, slid into her own. It was Terry, standing beside her. As she turned to him in thanks,
the chill seemed to lessen a bit. Little by little, she felt her lungs breathing and her heart pumping, with growing strength and growing warmth.
“Do you think,” she asked quietly, “we still have a chance? If not to stop Nimue, at least to save Dad and Isabella?”
Terry stroked the cleft of his chin. “That depends on how soon the eruption hits. With these tremors and vents bursting open…my guess is we have only a few minutes left, at the most.” He observed her thoughtfully. “But whatever we have, I suppose it’s something.”
Lightly, she squeezed his hand.
Geoffrey approached, the breeze from the window ruffling his unruly hair. “It is a bleak moment,” he confessed. “Bleaker because I must share it with both of you.”
“We came by our own choice,” said Kate.
“By your own folly,” corrected Geoffrey. “And by my folly as well. I fear we have arrived too late to stop Nimue from destroying everything. And even if we did have enough time, what could we do?” He shrugged disspiritedly. “The days of the Glass House, and Arthur’s final hope, are ended.”
“You don’t know that yet,” insisted Kate.
The old man locked into her gaze. Somewhere behind his eyes, a frail fire kindled. “Perhaps.” He patted the folds of cloth over his chest where the last of the Treasures lay hidden. “You remind me that we still possess the one thing Nimue most craves. And she will not get it easily.”
“Couldn’t we take a drink from the Horn? Maybe its power could help us.”
Geoffrey shook his head. “Whatever the Horn’s power truly is, no one who has not first met the test of the Emperor Merwas may drink from it. Merlin learned that painful lesson!
In any case, I doubt that taking a drink would help us stop Nimue. The Horn’s power is of a…different nature.” He scratched behind his neck. “Yet you do make me wonder. Perhaps—”
At that moment, a blinding light flashed. When Kate’s vision cleared, she could see that a door had opened in the liquid wall of the dungeon.
“Oh no,” she said.
“Good Lord,” muttered Geoffrey, placing his hand over his chest.
A
stout, square-shouldered man stood in the doorway, sizing up the group. In one burly hand he held a torch, but its light burned dimly compared to the glowing sword he held in the other. His face looked weathered and wrinkled, though less from outer storms than from inner ones. A torn oilskin shirt hung over his chest, the sleeves long ago removed. The hair on his head, blond and curly, matched that sprouting from his close-cropped beard as well as his biceps. His nose was swollen and inflamed, but the rest of his skin was white, like someone who has not seen the sun for many years.
Kate glanced at Geoffrey. He could not take his eyes off the shining sword of light. For her, however, it was the man’s eyes that caught her curiosity. They were dark as night, much like the monk’s, but with a difference. While Geoffrey’s eyes seemed younger than the rest of him, this man’s eyes seemed considerably older, as if his body had remained frozen in time while his eyes had continued to age.