His intuition. Yeah, I guess I could give him that.
We sank lower and lower. The water got darker and the air got colder, but at least we could still breathe. The shark swam alongside us.
“It didn’t strike you as weird they wouldn’t tell you what’s going on?”
Naji glanced at me. “It’s a little strange,” he said. “But not nearly as strange as a talking shark.”
I sighed.
Deeper and deeper. It was dark as night now, no sunlight to speak of, just the endless black press of the ocean.
And then a light glimmered off in the distance, tiny and bright.
“What’s that?” I asked, leaning forward. I was afraid to touch the walls of the box, afraid they’d shatter into a thousand pieces.
The light brightened and expanded.
It swelled, looking for all the world like the moon on a cloudy night. A big bright circle amidst all that watery darkness.
The box hissed and screeched.
And then we got close enough and I could see – it wasn’t just a ball of light.
It was a city.
“Kaol,” I said, my words forming white mist on the glass. Even Naji wasn’t so unconcerned no more. He pressed his hands against the side of the box, his eyes growing wider and wider.
The box slipped through the water, churning up bubbles behind us. I could see the buildings were made out of broken-up shells and something rough like sand and what looked to be glass. A fuzzy algae that glowed like a magic-cast lantern grew over everything, hanging off the edges of buildings like moss. And the buildings didn’t look like the buildings anywhere on land, cause they twisted and curled out of the ground like seabones, and they merged together and split apart without no definite order. Sea creatures flitted past us, some of ’em wrapped in strips of seaweed that fluttered out behind ’em, and some of ’em were decked out in the same shell armor as the sharks.
Naji and me didn’t say a word to each other. I got flashes of his thoughts: wonder, confusion, a little bit of fear. Or maybe it was my thoughts. They were all mingled together.
The box came to a tunnel, encased in shining shells, with words spelled out across the top in a language that didn’t look nothing like anything I’d seen before. The tunnel sucked us down to a sort of dock, and the box lifted up, water streaming over the sides. We weren’t underwater no more.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
The box lid hissed open. Air rushed in, damp and musty.
Naji looked at me and I looked at him, and then he climbed out.
“It’s fine!” he said. “There’s air, a place to stand–”
“I can see that,” I snapped, since I could spot him, a little wavy from the cut of the glass, but definitely standing. I climbed out, too, though I kept one hand on my pistol as I did so.
We stood in a hallway as big and empty as the desert. It was all made out of glass, too, except this one didn’t flood with sunlight and rainbows. It didn’t flood with anything, thank Kaol, although every time I thought about all that ocean water crushing in on us I took to shaking.
Naji and me stood on the platform and waited. Our box bobbed in the strip of water that flowed in through an opening in the wall, and I could feel the magic sparking around us.
A shark’s fin appeared in the water. Part of me wanted to grab for Naji’s hand, but I grabbed for my pistol instead.
A shark lifted his head up out of the water. It wasn’t the same one that brought us down, and he wasn’t wearing no armor, neither, just a circlet of seabone around his neck.
“Follow me,” he said. “Along the walkway.”
I couldn’t stand it no more: I took Naji’s hand in mine. Like a little kid, I know, but swords and pistols can’t save you from drowning.
Naji dipped his head politely and together we followed along with the shark, our footsteps bouncing off the glass. When we came to the end of the hallway, the shark said, “You may open the door. Preparations have been made for your arrival.”
I murmured an old invocation to the sea, one Mama’d taught me years ago, while Naji pushed open the door.
No water. Just air.
It opened up into a big round dome, the way I’d always imagined a nobleman’s ballroom to look. Only the floor opened up here, too, a ring of cold dark seawater. The shark’s head popped up.
“Our soothsayer will be here soon,” he said. He disappeared into the darkness.
“What do they need a soothsayer for?” I muttered.
Naji wrapped his arm around my waist and buried his face in my hair. I was too startled to react, so I just stood there and let him touch me. “Thank you for coming with me,” he whispered, and his gratitude rushed into my thoughts, turning all my fear into a weird sort of happiness.
“Thank you?” I laughed. “I thought this was proof that it wasn’t dangerous.”
“That too.”
It’s funny, cause even though we were at the bottom of the ocean with only a layer of glass between us and the deep, I still couldn’t get enough of his hands on me. I leaned against him, his body warm and solid and reassuring, and thought about giving him my blood the day of the battle. It wasn’t so bad, being in his head now and then. It was the whole reason I knew he cared about me.
Water spilled across our feet.
“Naji of the Jadorr’a!” The voice boomed through the big empty room. “Is this your companion?”
I pulled away from Naji. An octopus bobbed in the water, its tentacles curling around the edges of the floor, its skin a rich dark blue, bright against the water’s black. He wore a row of small white clam shells strapped to one tentacle.
“Yes,” said Naji. “This is Ananna of the Tanarau.”
“Of the Nadir,” I corrected.
The octopus heaved itself out of the water. “How lovely to meet you. My name is Armand II, and I saw you,” he turned to me, “in my visions as well, in the swirls and mysteries of the inks.” He looked at me expectantly.
“Uh, that’s good.”
“I’m afraid the King of Salt and Foam is not a two-way creature, like myself.” Armand lurched forward, dragging across the floor, his legs coiling and uncoiling. “But we have made preparations.”
He opened up one of the clam shells and pulled out a pair of glass vials filled with a dark, murky liquid. “It will not harm you,” he said.
I got this slow sinking of dread, but Naji took one of the vials and held it up to the light. He opened it up and sniffed. Looked at me.
“It’s water-magic,” he said.
“So? You’d expect sand-magic down here?”
Naji brushed his hand against my face, his touch gentle, almost as soft as a smile. “Forgive her,” he said, turning to Armand. “Her profession requires a certain amount of wariness.”
“As does yours, I imagine.”
Naji looked at the vial again. “Less than you might think.”
“What’s it gonna do to us?”
“You will be able to breathe water,” Armand said.
I frowned. Of course. And Naji was right; that was old sea-magic, the sort of thing Old Ceria would know how to do. It wasn’t impossible. It was dangerous, I suppose, but then, so’s all magic. So’s cutting open your arm and giving your blood to the man you love.
“I’ll give it a shot,” I said. I took off my shoes and my coat, though I figured I shouldn’t meet the King of Salt and Foam, whoever he was, in my underwear. I left my pistol cause there was no point having it underwater. Then I took the vial from Armand, unscrewed the lid, and shot the stuff back like it was rum. Immediately my lungs started burning, and I gasped and choked and clawed at my throat. Naji pushed me in the water.
Release.
The water filled up my lungs and then pulsed out though gills that appeared on my neck. The lights from the city swirled and bled into one another, bled into the darkness of the sea.
It was beautiful. And I’d never even have to come up for air.
A
nother muffled splash and then Naji was beside me, barefoot and coatless, his hair drifting up in front of his eyes. I laughed, bubbles streaming silvery and long between us, and for the first time in a long time I wished I could do sea-magic myself, so I could swim through the water undeterred by breath, and Naji could come with me, and we could swim and play and entwine ourselves together.
“This way,” Armand said, graceful now that he was underwater. He propelled himself forward, toward the blur of lights, and Naji and me followed with slow easy breast strokes.
The King of Foam and Salt held court in a big curling palace that looked like more bones. Everything glowed with the light of that weird algae.
I’ve never been to court before. In Jokja Queen Saida didn’t hold court, just met with petitioners in her sun room. Court’s an Empire thing, and the Empire don’t like pirates. But I bet the Emperor’s court had nothing on the Court of the Waves.
It was full up with all manner of sea life, rows of little clams and a whole school of flickering fish that turned to us like one person when we swam in. There were big sharp-toothed predators and slippery sparking eels and the rows of shark sentries, swimming ceaselessly in circles around the room.
And then there was the King.
He wasn’t like any fish I ever saw. He reminded me of the manticore, cause he had a long curling shark’s body and the wide graceful fins of a manta ray and the spines of a saltwater crocodile, all topped up with a human face with pale green-gray skin and flat black eyes and hair like strips of dark green seaweed.
He was coiled around a hunk of coral when we swam in, and as we approached he rose up in the water, his full length taller than any human man. Naji stopped and bowed his head best he could in the water. I figured I should do the same.
“Are you Naji of the Jadorr’a?” the King asked, his voice booming through the water like the blast from a cannon.
“I am.”
“And who is your companion?”
“I’m Ananna of the Nadir.” Water flooded into my mouth when I talked, only to pour back out through the gills in my neck.
“And how do you know Naji of the Jadorr’a?”
I didn’t want to talk again, cause of the way the water rushing through my head made me dizzy. But everybody was staring at me, especially the King with his flat black shark eyes.
“I saved his life,” I said
The King smiled, showing rows of teeth. Exactly like the manticore.
“Well, I am grateful for that, Ananna of the Nadir.” He swam toward us, his tail flicking back and forth in the water. “I suppose you’d like to know why you are here.”
“Yes,” said Naji. “Your Grace.”
The King of Salt and Foam stopped a foot away from us. I kept picturing his teeth sinking into my arm, into my belly – but no. He was like the manticore, right? He wouldn’t hurt us. His shark-sentries hadn’t hurt us–
“You created this,” the King said to Naji. His manta-ray fins swooped in and out, like they were trying to gather the city up in his arms. “All of this.”
Naji stared at him.
“It was your magic, the soothsayer told me.” The King nodded. “You cast wave after wave of magic into the sea, and from that magic we were born.”
“That’s impossible,” Naji whispered.
“But it isn’t,” the King said. “Look at all this. Our city, our people. We can feast you in our hall, we can entertain you in our gardens…”
I wondered how an underwater city could have gardens.
“All of this came about because of you,” the King said. “The soothsayer saw it.”
Over in the corner, Armand bowed.
Naji shook his head. “No, no… My magic… it doesn’t create, it destroys…” His voice trailed off. He was shaking, I realized, the water bubbling around him. And his skin had gone pale and sickly-looking, even in the soft glow of the algae. I pushed over toward him, wound my arm around his, touched his scars.
“You told me blood-magic can do whatever you will it to do,” I whispered, cause he was wrong, his magic had saved me from a gunshot wound.
Naji shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I never willed–” He stopped and looked at me. His eyes widened. “Your blood,” he said.
“What?” Water swooshed through my head. I did my best to ignore it. “What about–”
“Your blood mixed with my blood…” His hands were on my face, his touch muted by the water. “We did this. Together. And I think…”
Lightness passed over his face like sunlight. He drifted away from me and floated up toward the ceiling, his mouth hanging open in something like surprise. Tiny white bubbles spun around him.
“Naji of the Jadorr’a?” The king flicked his fins at the courtiers and the school of fish flashed forward and swarmed around Naji, brought him back down to the floor. “Is he hurt?” the King asked me. “I don’t understand what he’s saying.”
I looked at Naji out of the corner of my eye, caught up in all those flashes of light and silver. “I helped him,” I finally said. “Whatever he did to make all you…”
And then I understood too. The battle with the Hariris. The magic we created. That violence, it all spilled into the ocean. This was all the magic-sickness. This was clams growing out of the side of the Tanarau, this was blood staining the walls of the Ayel’s Revenge, this was Queen Saida’s garden house collapsing into jungle plants in the middle of her garden. All that left over magic sank to the floor and brought forth this city, this whole civilization, with a king and a court, with soldiers and soothsayers. Life.
The third piece of the puzzle.
Once I understood what had happened, I felt the curse dissolve away. There was a sharp and sudden crack, like what I felt when I kissed Naji back on the Isles of the Sky, and then there was only a lightness, an absence of weight. This was northern magic, after all, unknowable and strange – we might have created life during the battle, but the curse had stayed in place until this moment, when Naji learned, when we both learned, that the third task wasn’t impossible. Completing the task wasn’t what broke the curse, it was learning that the impossible wasn’t really impossible at all.
Naji burst out of the school of fish, his clothes and hair fluttering around him. “Thank you,” he said to the King. “Your hospitality is most kind.” He seemed back to himself. My head was reeling from what I’d just figured out. It’s gone, his curse is gone.
The King looked confused. “No,” he said. “I am thanking you.”
He lowered himself to the ocean floor, and then so did all the rest of the courtiers, until everyone, every fish and clam and eel in the Court of the Waves, was bowing to me and Naji.
Naji’s face was full of light. He wasn’t smiling, but he was happy, and his eyes were gleaming, and his hand looped in mine and squeezed tight as we kicked our feet there in the water. I pressed against him and held his hand as tight as I could. Music was pouring through the hall – not like the music up on land, but this soft creeping echo, like the reedy melody of a flute.
“Is it true?” I murmured to him, wanting to feel his body close to mine, wanting to hear him say it even though I already knew for certain, even though I could feel that the weight of the curse had drained away from him. “Is it broken?”
“It’s broken.” His hand squeezed mine. The King rose back up, solemn-faced and grateful, and the rest of the courtiers followed. The water churned from their movement.
“You’re free,” I said.
“Yes,” Naji said. His hand gripped mine so tightly my fingers ached. “Free of the curse.”
The King was smiling at us. Water rushed into my head and out through the gills in my neck.
“We broke it,” Naji said. “I didn’t know until I understood, but we broke it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The King of Salt and Foam gave us gifts: sacks of pearls, vials of Armand’s potion that granted breath underwater, hard pink shells lashed together into strange clatte
ring sculptures. They were brought in by a school of fish, all those tiny silvery bodies buoying up the gifts as they swam beside the King.
“The art of our society,” the King told us. We were in his garden – turned out it was all seaweed and coral and glowing algae, beautiful and haunting. “We shall erect statues of your faces, Naji of the Jadorr’a and Ananna of the Nadir. Our children’s children will not forget what you gave us.”
“I thank you deeply,” Naji said, bowing his head low, all serious and respectful. When I tried to do the same thing I almost turned a cartwheel in the water.
“Come,” the King said, “swim with me.” And then he began to slice through the water in his graceful, fluttering way, bubbles forming at the tips of his fins.
Naji and me paddled along beside him.
“I would like to know the story,” the King said.
“The story?” I asked. Naji kicked me, hard and on purpose.
“Yes. The story of how this all came to be.” The King stopped and floated in place, his seaweed hair drifting up away from his shoulders. “I know it was your magic–”
“And Ananna’s,” Naji said.
The King gave him a polite smile. “Armand saw you,” he said firmly. “He saw the spells you cast into the sea. You were trying to defend your vessel, I know.” The King fluttered his fins. “Armand saw that as well. But what we know of magic – it is all intention, yes?”
“Technically,” Naji said. “But when a great deal of magic is cast, the way it was when I – when Ananna and I – were working to defend our ship… it sometimes takes on a… a life of its own.”
The King gazed at him with flat black eyes. “Our life,” he said. “Our lives.”
“Yes.” Naji bowed.
“So we really are creatures of magic.”
“Magic and the sea,” Naji said. “And yourselves, given the time.”
That was a nice touch, I thought. You could tell Naji was used to dealing with royalty.
The King nodded. “I don’t entirely understand,” he said, “but I will set my scholars to studying the phenomenon.”