The Tree of Water

  While the others were staring off into the darkness, watching the giant shark turn, Coreon was looking overhead.

  “Holy crab,” he said. “Ven?”

  “What?”

  “Not to make an already bad day worse, but our friends are back.”

  Ven glanced above.

  The three great whites that had fled when Megalodon appeared had returned. This time they were swimming deeper, ten fathoms or so below the surface, less than two fathoms above Ven’s head. Their thrum was sharp and loud, the hunting rhythm Ven had heard in the cage of whale bones. It was scattered, as if each shark was hunting alone, rather than in a pack, so it was even more frenzied.

  Prey! Prey! Prey! Prey! Prey!

  Prey! Prey! Prey! Prey!

  “Man, there’s not even going to be enough of us left to look like snowflakes, the way the herring did,” Char muttered. “Well, at least Megalodon won’t be getting us—we’ll be being digested before he gets back here.”

  The mention of herring gave Ven an idea.

  “Herring Ball, you guys,” he said as he pulled Amariel back-to-back with him. “Get into a circle, so someone’s watching forward at all times.”

  “Because that worked so well for the herring,” said Char.

  “No, it’s a good idea,” said Coreon. “Sort of like having eyes in the back of your head.” He swam over to Ven’s side and turned his back, so that now they were facing three different directions. He pulled his barbed crossbow over his shoulder in front of him.

  Reluctantly Char took the last position. “You know you can’t kill a great white of that size with a barb, right? You’ll be lucky if you scratch ’em.”

  Coreon smiled. “Don’t need to kill them,” he said. “He’ll take care of that.” He gestured with his head toward the massive shape approaching from the darkness.

  “Why would Megalodon eat another shark when I’m the one that’s been bleeding?” Ven asked. “It’s my blood he’s been tracking.” He pointed to the wound on his forehead.

  “Because they’ll be bleeding more than you.” Coreon sighted his weapon and fired as one of the large great whites swept past, missing it by a hair.

  Understanding awoke in Ven’s mind like a candle being lighted.

  “A feeding frenzy!” he exclaimed. Char must have come to the same conclusion as well, because both boys pulled their crossbows over their shoulders at the same time.

  “A feeding frenzy is not a good thing, Ven,” Amariel whispered as the second and third sharks circled closer. “Sharks go crazy—they eat anything in sight.” She ducked out of the way of a tail fin as it swept past her, narrowly missing her head.

  “We’re on the menu at the moment anyway,” Coreon said. He reloaded his crossbow as the first shark came around for another pass, closer this time. “But a couple of tons of shark will make a much better meal for Megalodon than we will.”

  “Sometimes it probably doesn’t hurt to be the smallest things in the water,” Ven agreed. He was keeping his eye on the approaching monster in the shadows.

  Hovering above its gigantic dorsal fin was a fish of enormous size, though it was tiny by comparison to the shark. It had scales that were blue with thick dark stripes, an angry-looking jaw, and eyes that gleamed in the dim light. Ven remembered Amariel’s words when they first were entering the sea.

  Megalodon is frightening, but the pilot fish is said to be utterly evil. He clings to Megalodon, helping guide him through the sea, and feeds off the scraps left behind from whatever Megalodon devours. And there always are some.

  He was not certain, but it felt as if the pilot fish was watching them closely. As its excitement grew, the blue of its scales was turning white. Its thrum, unlike that of the sharks, was careful and intelligent, and the feeling in Ven’s body when that thrum connected with him made his blood run cold.

  As if it could read his thoughts.

  Coreon took aim as the first shark suddenly swung wide, lining up for a direct run.

  “Crab,” he whispered. “It’s coming at us head-on.”

  “Ven,” Amariel said. It was the only thought that she could form.

  Megalodon appeared at the edge of the sunshadow, streaking toward them in the sunlight. It was moving faster than anything he had ever seen before, sweeping great currents of drift ahead of it.

  Char turned as the other two sharks passed again and fired his barb.

  The bolt sped through the water, a direct hit against the great white’s vertical gills.

  And bounced off, useless.

  “I have no shot.” Coreon’s thrum filled their heads. “It’s coming straight at me!”

  “Get ready,” Amariel said. “Hold just where you are.”

  Before Ven could stop her, she shot out of the Herring Ball formation and swam straight across the field of vision of all three sharks.

  The first two immediately stopped their slow circling and gave chase.

  “Amariel! No!”

  “Aim for the eyes!” Her thrum echoed through the water. “And don’t shoot me.”

  She streaked past Coreon, her tail beating the water as fast as Ven had ever seen it. The shark that had been heading for him veered to the side and followed her, with the other two right behind it.

  Coreon fired.

  Ven spun, taking his eyes off the pilot fish, and sighted his weapon on the last of the three sharks. Its hollow eye was twitching as it passed, close enough, it seemed, that he could reach out and touch it.

  He tried to keep the crossbow from shaking as he aimed for that eye.

  And fired.

  Beside him, he could feel the vibration as Char’s crossbow let loose as well.

  Suddenly the water was filled with commotion.

  One of the three great whites reared up like a bucking horse, thrashing around wildly. The other two stopped following Amariel and veered back, their tails twitching in excitement.

  A streak of black blood hung in the drift outside the cathedral coral.

  The merrow was by his side an instant later. She grabbed him by the elbow and pulled hard.

  “C’mon! We have to get out of here now!”

  The water around them was suddenly almost too heavy to swim in. A terrible pressure filled the drift as the enormous beast roared toward them like a sailing ship being pushed through the sea by a hurricane.

  Ven looked down at the ocean floor as Megalodon’s approaching shadow darkened it. He saw the pieces of the small shipwreck that Coreon had pointed out earlier get swallowed up in the dark.

  “Quick,” he said. “Take cover in the bones of those ships.”

  Coreon lifted his crossbow again. “I’ll cover you—go!”

  “Grab hold and don’t move,” Amariel ordered, holding out her arms. “Don’t breathe, either—no thrum, or we may get caught up in the frenzy.”

  Char and Ven each seized one of her arms. The merrow straightened herself, moving only her powerful tail, and glided down to the sandy ocean floor, followed within a moment by Coreon.

  Above them, the water began to swirl, thrumming violently.

  It seemed to take forever to reach the shipwreck. Difficult as it was, the merrow took her time, moving as little as possible in the whipping drift that was turning darker and bloodier by the second.

  The broken pieces of what had once been a fishing trawler were small, just two barrel-sized parts of the hull. As they approached a crusty porthole, Amariel pushed Char loose and in through what had once been a window in the ship’s side. One smooth flap of her tail, and she and Ven slid under the other pile of broken boards. Coreon followed Char into the porthole.

  “Shhhh,” Amariel whispered as she and Ven sat down on the ocean floor. “It’s about to get really ugly.”

  “You know, you say that an awful lot.” Ven peered out from under the broken boards into the porthole of the ship bones where the others had taken shelter. He could see both Coreon’s and Char’s eyes glittering in the darkness below their piece of the
dead ship.

  No noise, no movement, he thought as loosely as he could, trying to keep from making any disturbance in the drift. He was aiming his thrum at the other boys, but it might as well have been a reminder to himself.

  * * *

  The pressure around us was even worse than when Megalodon had first passed overhead. Pieces of shark were beginning to rain down from above like the silver scales of the herring had, making the water around us cloudy.

  It occurred to me as we crouched there, waiting for some sign the frenzy had ended, that we would never know which of us had hit the shark that had started it all.

  I knew in my heart that was a very good thing not to know.

  While the three great whites were distracted by the blood in the water, they did not have the ability to flee Megalodon.

  Once he got there, it must have all been over pretty quickly.

  Because that hideous pressure only lasted a few moments.

  And then the thrum I had been hearing since we entered the sea began to move away.

  We waited until it was so far gone that we could no longer feel it in our skin. But I could still hear it, way in the back reaches of my mind, just as I could from the beginning when I did not know what it was.

  I’m not sure if I will ever be able to clear it from my mind completely.

  What really scares me is that I’m not sure if the thrum I am hearing is that of Megalodon alone—or of the pilot fish, the only sea creature that has ever looked at me and smiled as if he knew my fear.

  * * *

  When the pressure of the drift had returned to normal, and none of them felt any predator thrum nearby, they slowly began to emerge from the shipwreck pieces, first Ven, then Char, then Coreon, and finally the merrow, who needed to be assured that there was nothing hovering above them.

  “Well, that was disgusting,” she said, swimming over a chunk of shark meat on the ocean floor amid scattered shark teeth, including one as large as her hand. “What a messy eater.”

  “When you’re the size of the Crossroads Inn, I s’pose it’s easy to miss a piece of your lunch now and then,” Char said. “Yuck.”

  “I meant the pilot fish.” The merrow brushed her scales with her hands, as if trying to erase the memory. “It’s his job to clean up the scraps.”

  “Let’s be glad he missed a few,” said Ven. “If he had come down to pick them up, he might have seen us. He gives me the creeps.”

  “Hey, Ven, do ya think this might have been part of the Athenry?” Char asked, looking back in the window of the shipwreck from the outside.

  Ven shook his head. “Too small, probably a fishing vessel.”

  “What do ya think that message about freeing ‘the only innocent prisoners’ meant?”

  “I’ve no idea. Maybe someone was falsely accused of a crime, and came with all the other criminals. But that was so long ago that it hardly matters. All those people are dead by now.”

  “Maybe the key is really old, too. Maybe none of it matters anymore.” Coreon looked around, his crossbow ready. “I think we better get out of here. A feeding frenzy causes as much thrum as a thunderstorm, and soon there will be a million scavengers here looking to feast on shark remains.”

  “Good point,” said Ven. “Do you know the way to the desert’s end, toward the Summer Festival?” He bent down and picked up the giant tooth.

  “We just have to keep heading due west, following the sun, like the Cormorant said.”

  Amariel looked into the shadows where Megalodon had turned around to come back at them. “I wish I knew which way he went for certain.”

  “Speaking of following the sun, it’s beginning to dive,” Coreon said.

  Ven looked up to the surface and saw that he was right. They had remained in the shipwreck for a much longer time than he had realized, and now the light above was beginning to fade. The water of the Sea Desert had turned from a clear blue to a cloudier green as the sunlight dimmed, and now the ocean was full of shadow.

  What was more, he was beginning to feel the thrum of many things approaching from the east.

  The direction in which Megalodon had been traveling.

  “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.” He stuck the giant tooth in his pack.

  Without another word, they shouldered their knapsacks and weapons and began to swim, heading due west.

  As quickly as they traveled, the sun was winning the race across the sky, and the sea grew darker with almost every breath. Every now and then, as Ven and Char began to slow down, the two ocean dwellers would grab them by the arm and pull them along in the drift, keeping them moving quickly.

  Finally, at the edge of the last light of day that was shining on the surface above, just before the sunset, Amariel stopped and squinted.

  “What is that?”

  Ven squinted too. He saw what looked like a vast curtain of seaweed in the drift ahead, blocking their path.

  “Another kelp forest, perhaps?”

  “Maybe,” said Coreon. “Thank goodness the moon is already high in the sky. In a moment it will be Total Dark, but we may have a little moonlight to see by until we find shelter.”

  “Shelter would be good,” Char said. “Anybody else feel that?”

  Ven listened. The thrum he had heard from the east was getting closer. It did not sound like the ancient music he now knew as Megalodon’s thrum, but it seemed to be coming from a great number of creatures.

  Large, strong creatures.

  “Keep going!” he urged.

  They were swimming as fast as they could toward the upcoming forest of what looked like kelp when the light of day gave out completely, plunging the ocean into darkness.

  As Coreon had noted, the moon was hanging in the sky, almost full. The surface of the sea took on a silver glow, casting a tiny bit of light below to the drift. They swam more carefully now, even though whatever was following them did not slow at all.

  Suddenly, just as they were within reach of the forest, Amariel stopped sharply.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “No. Look.”

  Ven stared into the murky green darkness. At first he couldn’t see anything except the occasional strand of light glistening down like colorful strings of pearls in what looked like moonshadows, even though night was just beginning to take hold. He thought he could even see the clouds hovering above the crest of the waves. Strange, he thought. The clouds are hanging low tonight; it must be getting ready to rain in the upworld.

  Then he looked closer.

  The strands of light were not from the sky above the water’s surface.

  They were tentacles.

  Long, stringy curtains hanging in the drift.

  Bazillions of them.

  And the clouds at the top of the water’s surface were not clouds but great colorless creatures, loose and puffy, like giant mushrooms. There were so many gathered there in the drift that they looked like a forest of shiny thread.

  “Jellyfish,” Ven murmured. It was the only word his thoughts could form.

  “Men-of-war,” the merrow corrected tersely. “Giants. One sting of those tentacles will kill any of us.”

  “Guess we’re not going through there, then.” Char’s thrum shook as it vibrated against Ven’s ears.

  “We can’t,” Coreon agreed. “Our chances are better against the sharks that are chasing us.”

  Ven glanced behind them.

  In the moonlit waters of the Sea Desert he could see great dark shapes speeding toward them now, faster than before.

  Many, many more of them.

  A terrifying thrum rose from the forest of men-of-war. It pounded against his skull and skin, making him shake uncontrollably. He understood its meaning perfectly.

  Death is coming. Death is coming. Flee—flee. Death. Death. Death.

  25

  The Summer Festival

  Char whipped around and looked behind him.

  “Oh, man! Whatever’s comin’, they’re not swimmin’ like sharks—wh
at’s after us now?”

  Amariel peered into the darkness. Then a smile of relief broke across her face.

  “They’re not after us,” she said. “They’re after the men-of-war. Those are leatherbacks!”

  “Leatherbacks?” Ven struggled to see better, but all he could make out was enormous shapes streaking toward them.

  “Turtles,” the merrow exclaimed. “Great armored ones. The men-of-war can’t hurt them. In fact, they’re the leatherback’s favorite food. The leatherbacks see a feast ahead of them—we should get out of the way. Come on, down to the floor, quick!”

  Ahead of them, the men-of-war were beginning to tremble, then move. A few of them drew their tentacles in, then opened up like umbrellas, launching out of the group like fireworks going off.

  Amariel grabbed Ven’s arm, while Coreon took hold of Char, and dove for the ocean floor. It took longer to reach, as the sea had become deeper, and they were swimming into complete darkness, with just the slightest hint of silver shadow from the moon above on the surface to light their way.

  “Put your pack over your head,” Coreon advised. “Just because this isn’t our fight doesn’t mean we can’t get injured, or worse.”

  “Watch out for falling tentacles,” the merrow agreed.

  Ven held his pack over Amariel’s head and moved closer to her.

  The pressure of the dark sea above them changed again, as it had when Megalodon first passed by, but in patches of heaviness that moved swiftly.

  The dark shapes roared in overhead. Ven was shocked to see that some of them were the size of wagons, while others were smaller, about as big as him. They were dark of color, though Ven was not sure exactly what that color was. They had smooth, oblong shells that looked like the armor soldiers wore. Chunky legs with flippers were jutting from that armor, and they bore down on the forest of men-of-war faster than the jellyfish could swim away.

  The thrum of excitement and fear filled the sea with vibrations strong enough to stir the drift so that it felt like waves.

  Tentacles rained down from above, like strings of beads in the drift. Char and Coreon dodged out of the way of a particularly big tangle of them that floated down fairly quickly.