CHAPTER 8
It was the first time Gwen had ever truly believed she was going to die—whether it would be from drowning or from having her throat slashed made little difference. The merlon that dragged her under the water swam with powerful strokes. Unable to breathe, she struggled feebly, feeling the raw pain of the salt water on her torn throat, knowing she was bleeding. Trails of bubbles streamed from the gashes on her neck.
Orpheon’s glimmering green magic infused the water surrounding them. Gwen didn’t understand what was happening.
Other merlons pulled Vic, Lyssandra, Tiaret, and Sharif along. The sleek, branded sharks streaked alongside like prowling guard dogs.
They went deeper, stroking toward the rock barrier that blocked off the cove from the rest of the sea. Farther from the surface and breathable air, Gwen became frantic. The merlon held her in a vise grip. Ahead of them through the dim, turquoise water, she could discern that a tunnel had been melted through the breakwater wall, forming a secret passage through which the merlons could whisk the five of them out to the open sea. But that hardly mattered. Gwen and her friends would all perish before long.
She remembered Lyssandra’s frightening dreams of merlons and drowning. It was too late now to heed the prophetic warnings.
Strangely, Gwen felt the long claw-mark gashes in her throat fizzing, bubbling… improving somehow. Her lungs ached. Right now her greatest need was for air. Gwen tried to endure just a minute longer as the merlons tugged their five captives through the hole in the undersea wall.
She was going to black out in a few seconds; she knew it. She hoped the merlons would surface on the other side, give her a chance to breathe. If Orpheon and the aquatic creatures simply wished to kill the five friends, this was a very complicated way to accomplish it.
But once they were all through the breakwater, instead of taking their captives up for air, the merlons followed the ocean floor as it dropped sharply away to shadowy depths. Gwen’s lungs were about to explode, and the merlons were going deeper and deeper!
The water grew cooler, darker, or maybe her vision was fading. Oddly enough, the pain from the claw wounds in her throat had subsided. Now they itched rather than burned.
Her head pounded, but she couldn’t let herself pass out. It wouldn’t just be fainting; it would be dying.
She struggled for a few last moments of life while her merlon captor squeezed harder, digging vicious claws into her arm. But how much more harm could they do to her now? She wished she’d had a chance to say goodbye to Uncle Cap.
Finally, when she could bear it no longer, Gwen drew in a huge breath, knowing that it would be heavy, liquid death and not blessed air. At least she would foil whatever plans Orpheon and the evil merlons had for them.
But as she drew in a gulp, instead of choking she felt the cool water rush through the slash wounds in her throat. It was like breathing! Water flowed in, filled her lungs. It was the strangest sensation, like a dense bubble inside her. The slashes in her throat were… gill slits! Orpheon had worked some kind of spell, and she was drawing oxygen from the seawater.
Gwen coughed, jerked, spasmed, and took in another gulp. Her vision began to clear. She blinked in amazement. Water circulated through her windpipe and lungs just like air. Because of the thickness of the seawater, she had to work harder to breathe—but she was breathing! Breathing water.
She turned to see Tiaret thrashing, amber eyes bulging as she desperately tried to hold her breath. Vic had already succumbed and was now sucking deep breaths of water through his gill slits, an expression of comical surprise on his face. He looked at Gwen and pointed to his throat. She nodded. Sharif was also breathing through gills, as was Lyssandra. When Tiaret finally began to draw in water, she fought with a greater determination, struggling until a second merlon seized her other arm.
Their captors continued dragging them downward, far out to the depths of the sea. Once the five friends grew too weary to struggle any more, their merlon captors paused to fit them each with a heavy belt made of seashells to reduce buoyancy, like the weights scuba divers used. Uncle Cap had kept something like that with his gear on the purple speedboat.
Then the merlons took hold of the sharks’ fins, as if the deadly creatures were pet dolphins, and let the predators pull them and their captives swiftly along. The journey seemed interminable.
Gwen’s eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness. Knowing they had no chance of escaping, she grew dismayed. Only an hour ago, their future had looked bright and optimistic. Uncle Cap had just arrived, the repairs to the city’s harbor were almost complete, Rubicas was re-creating his shield spell, and all Elantyans were preparing to stand together against the merlons.
But they had been caught off guard yet again.
Their undersea captors towed them over anemone-strewn coral reef cliffs and dropped down into a waving forest of golden and green fronds that looked like the doolya stalks they had used for filling Rubicas’s tank. The sharks guided the group through the seaweed forest, knowing their way.
Because of her interest in marine biology, Gwen couldn’t help being intrigued by her environment. Although being held captive by merlons dampened a bit of her natural scientific curiosity, she looked around her, identifying species of fish, mollusks, and undersea plants—some of them, that is. There were plenty of creatures here she had never seen before. She wondered if even the most famous undersea explorers had ever seen such marvels.
On the silty sea bottom, giant purple clams gaped open, showing what looked like large gray tongues inside. The shadows of the passing sharks triggered a reflex in the clams, and the big shells slammed shut like warehouse doors being locked for the night.
As they were all dragged along, Vic showed wary interest, and Lyssandra appeared withdrawn. Sharif looked stunned and outraged while, from the mesh sack dangling on his chest, Piri throbbed through a series of angry reds and oranges. Tiaret’s entire body seemed to project righteous fury, but she had ceased her overt struggles, for now.
Waving to get everyone’s attention, Vic pointed ahead, and Gwen turned to see something she had never expected to encounter again: the Golden Walrus. The broad cargo ship that had served the students on their training voyage now lay tilted to one side on the ocean floor, displaying the gaping holes in its hull. Tatters of the rigging chewed by the flying piranhas now rippled in the water currents as if blown by a ghostly breeze. When they passed over a rocky ridge, the shipwreck disappeared from view.
Finally, up ahead, Gwen saw their destination—an enormous merlon city at the bottom of the ocean. Buoyed by water, the architecture relied on sweeping organic shapes integrated into the tall rocks on the sea floor. The multihued towers, frilly balconies, cupolas, and spires looked as if they were made from coral and mother-of-pearl. Some smaller buildings were obviously created out of immense shells, and Gwen guessed that the merlons must kill giant undersea creatures to use the shells for individual dwellings, like hermit crabs did. The city had no streets, because swimming merlons needed none. Seaweed and anemone gardens floated up in stair-step paths.
At the outskirts of the merlon city, ferocious-looking eels patrolled the gates, like guard dogs. The creatures crackled with a barely-contained glow, and Gwen was sure they were a species of electric eel. Pearls larger than Piri’s eggsphere lay scattered on the ground near the buildings. Undersea lawn ornaments?
Gelatinous glowing fish tethered to the ground drove back the undersea dimness; though they strained against their thin chains to escape, the poor luminescent creatures would bob and drift as living streetlights to glow until they died. Then, no doubt, the merlons would cut the creatures loose and tether other glowfish in the same positions.
More merlons, wearing full seashell armor and carrying sea-urchin clubs and long mother-of-pearl scimitars, came out of the strange buildings to intercept them. The new group of merlons held iridescent black shells in their webbed hands; about the length of Gwen’s index finger, each shell was oddly cupped and whorled, like an ear turned inside out.
When Orpheon spoke aloud to Lyssandra, Gwen heard only a bubbling humming through the water; she could understand none of it. Orpheon took the black shells from the merlons, pointed to the apprentices, and explained something. Lyssandra’s cobalt-blue eyes were defiant, and she shook her head but made no sound. The red gill cuts in her neck pumped furiously.
Orpheon insistently put a black shell to Lyssandra’s ear and shouted something. When she continued to resist, Orpheon threatened Sharif with the teaching staff he had stolen from Tiaret. He pressed the sharp tip against the prince’s bare ribs so hard that blood oozed out. Nearby, the restless sharks reacted to the scent of blood with obvious hunger. The implication of the threat was clear.
Finally, Lyssandra relented. Pulling free from her merlon captors, she took one of the black shells and swam over to Vic. The petite girl’s ponytail had come undone, and copper hair drifted around her head. She made a reassuring gesture and placed the black seashell to their friend’s ear. The curved shell fit inside as if it belonged there.
Vic blinked in surprise. He opened his mouth and sounds came out—the same strange, vibrating, bubbly tones as Gwen had heard from Orpheon. Then Lyssandra went to Tiaret with a second black earshell. Orpheon angrily gestured toward Gwen, insisting that she be next, but Lyssandra ignored him. Merlon guards took a black shell to Gwen and then to Sharif. Vic, who seemed excited and impatient, made strange incomprehensible gestures.
Wondering if she would hear the sound of rushing waves, Gwen took the shell, looked at it suspiciously, and then touched it to her ear. All of the underwater sounds became sharp and clear. Vic yelped, “Hey, Doc, can you hear me now?” His voice came directly into her ear.
Lyssandra said to the traitorous assistant, “There, I have done as you asked. Just because my friends can hear you, however, does not mean they will cooperate.”
“Lyssandra’s right. We won’t cooperate with you!”
Orpheon gave Gwen another sneering smile. “We can be quite persuasive, but I hope you do not surrender too easily. I am looking forward to this.”
He called in a loud voice, speaking to the merlons in their own language; Gwen realized that through some magic in the communication shells, she could understand. “They can now hear and comprehend the orders they are given. They no longer have the excuse.” Orpheon stroked in the water, pointing toward the highest underwater building. “Now, take them into the hall of the merlon king. Barak is waiting for them.”
The merlon escorts led them into the many-towered structure. The fortress gate was threatening, made of the forbidding rib bones of enormous dead fish and studded with jagged teeth from giant sharks. The archways were draped with rippling algae curtains.
Colorful fish flitted everywhere, as Gwen might have expected birds or butterflies to do in a garden. Inside the great undersea palace was an open courtyard, a huge throne hall that looked out upon an undersea cliff that dropped off to regions of the sea that were deeper yet. Merlon servants used clubs to beat on large, round drums, sending rich vibrations through the water.
Orpheon spoke in a loud voice. “My Lord, I have brought the prisoners you requested.”
The answering voice came from a throne surrounded by feathery seaweed. “I asked for two—only two. But three is better than two. Five is better than three. You brought me five. That is better than the two I demanded—and what I demand, I get.”
“Yes, King Barak,” Orpheon said with a bow.
Pushing away seaweed, a lanky merlon covered with ornate shell garments stood up from the throne. Taller than the other merlons, his skin was iridescent, and the pupils of his over-large eyes were slitted. The scalloped ruffle across his brow and down the back of his skull was larger than any other merlon’s; rust-red fins ran down his spine in a spiky frill. “Welcome to Oo’regl, capital of the Ocean Realm of Szishh. I am King Barak. I am your King. I am your master.” He came forward, stroking more than walking, to glare at them. “I am so glad to have new strangers. I get bored easily.”
His voice held a snarling hiss. “We will eat. I command a banquet. I summon food for all of us.” Then he turned. “Well? What are you waiting for?” The merlon guards darted away like startled fish in a pond.
Then from behind the tall throne emerged another figure. A human living among the merlons, like Orpheon. Straight, jet hair framed a handsome face made all the more mesmerizing by the man’s unusual eyes—one green, one blue. It was almost impossible to look away from him. Slightly taller than Vic, the man was dressed in shimmering robes made of a silken fiber that sparkled as if it were woven from spun jewels.
Beside Gwen, Sharif spat out a violent curse in a language she didn’t recognize. Straining against one of the few merlon guards that had remained in the hall, Sharif cried out in the underwater language, “You killed my brother.”
Gwen had recognized the man, too. She had seen him before in the stands at the Ocean Kingdoms Learning Center and Amusement Park. He had worn jeans back then, and his brow had been furrowed in an expression of intense anticipation. This mysterious man had somehow driven Shoru the killer whale into a frenzy, endangering Gwen’s life.
Her heart turned to ice. She also realized that this man—directly or indirectly—had murdered her parents.
Azric.