The Tree of Water

“Going down,” he said.

  Char snorted. “I think it’s already got the idea, mate. How long ya think this is gonna take?”

  Ven shrugged. “I don’t know—but if you can keep the light out I bet it will seem like it’s not as long as it will if we have to descend in the dark.”

  “Good point,” said Char. “An’ even if I let it go if I fall asleep for a minute, it should just float up inside the top of the bell.”

  “Let’s not take a chance with that,” Ven said, brushing Amariel’s hair away from her colorless face. “We’ll take shifts. Let me know when you get tired.”

  “That would be now,” said Char. “I can barely keep my eyes open.”

  “Why don’t you both sleep?” said Coreon. “I’m not tired—Lirin-mer only sleep at the turning of storm. And I don’t mind the dark, so put your air stone away, Char. I’ll wake you both if anything changes, and that way we don’t risk losing either of your air stones.”

  “Thank you,” said Ven gratefully. “I could use the sleep, too. Even though I’m sorry about the circumstances, I’m glad you came with us, Coreon. We’d be dead without you.”

  “Well, you still may be, even with me,” said the sea-Lirin boy. “Get some sleep.”

  “What’s that for, do ya think?” Char asked, pointing to a hole in the top of the diving bell with a sealed cover.

  “I think it’s for the air hoses,” Ven said. “On some of the ships my father builds there are diving bells, though I’ve never really looked at them carefully before. I think they work a lot like the airwheel in the Drowning Cave. The pressure of the water outside keeps the air inside.”

  “Good to know,” Char muttered, trying to get comfortable beside the merrow. “Just in case we find air down here in the dark.”

  “Go to sleep,” Coreon repeated. “You may not get the chance again.”

  Ven stared down below the slatted metal door of the diving bell at the black Deep into which they were slowly sinking. A moment later, when Char’s air stone was back in his pocket, that blackness swallowed the inside of the diving bell.

  He was now more aware of the descent, like a slow falling to the bottom of the world. His mind did not want to think about it, so he let sleep take him.

  His dreams were filled with eyes that watched him from the dark, glassy eyes belonging to creatures with terrifyingly large teeth that carried their own light as a lure to unsuspecting victims longing for a little bit of the sun. Every now and then the diving bell would shudder, and in his sleep he knew that a deep-sea shark was ramming its body against it, trying to jostle them free from the protective cage.

  His nightmares were all the more frightening because they were reality.

  How long he slept, he could not tell. He awoke to the sound of Coreon’s voice. It was cracking both high and low.

  “Uh, guys—I think you better take a look at this.”

  37

  All the Way Down

  * * *

  I opened my eyes, then closed them quickly.

  A strange hazy light was filling the inside of the diving bell, not as piercing as it normally was when one of us took out our air stones, but stinging nonetheless.

  From Char’s reaction, I could see he was surprised as well.

  I wondered why Coreon would risk taking out one of our air stones while we were asleep.

  Then I realized he hadn’t.

  The light was coming from below us.

  Where it looked like part of the sea was boiling.

  * * *

  Below the slatted floor of the cage, it seemed as if a river of light was flowing into the black depths, along with clouds of billowing smoke.

  “What the heck is that?” Char asked.

  As if in answer, the diving bell suddenly stopped in its descent.

  “Oh boy,” said Coreon. “I think we’re here.”

  “Where? Where is ‘here’?” Ven asked.

  “We’ve descended all the way through the Midnight Realm, and the Abyss as well, I guess,” said the sea-Lirin boy. “You’ve both been asleep for a very long time. Lancel said the diving bell would take us to the far edge of the Abyss, so we must be at the Ocean Basin, a full three thousand fathoms down. The basin is the ground floor of the sea. The only place in the whole world deeper than this is the Trenches.” He shuddered visibly.

  “Sort of like the creepy dark root cellar in the basement of the Crossroads Inn,” Char suggested.

  Coreon shrugged. “I don’t know what that means. I only know that if we’re at the bottom of the Abyss, we should be being squashed by the weight of the water. The only thing that is saving us from the pressure is the diving bell.”

  “Why is there light in the Trenches, when most of the rest of the ocean is so dark?”

  “The skin of the earth is thin at the bottom of the world, they say,” said Coreon. “The fire at the Earth’s heart melts the earth into lava. Sometimes it leaks out—that must be what we’re seeing.”

  Char’s thrum was tight and nervous. “Like Lancel said—black smokers, whatever that means, rivers of lava—”

  “Wonderful. Well, I guess here is where we have to make that choice the dragon told us about,” Ven said. “Our bodies will never survive outside the bell—the only things that can go on from here are our spirits.”

  “Yeah, like the poor chap we saw floatin’ in the Midnight Realm.” Char shuddered as well. “I hope we don’ end up wanderin’ the black sea like that forever.”

  “It’s a pretty big risk,” Ven admitted. “I don’t feel my curiosity itching at the moment, just my stomach flipping over and over. If there was any other way to save Amariel—and get home—I would say we should head back up for the surface now.”

  “She really hasn’t been breathing much this whole time,” said Coreon. “I’ve seen her gills open every now and then, but that may just be from the water passing over them. I think you’re already too late.”

  Ven looked down at the merrow beside him.

  Coreon was right. Her gills were barely moving, and her body was cold.

  “I wish I’d never come here,” he said, his thrum choking as his throat tightened. “I should have known better. I’m out of place in this world, even more than you are, Char. Everything we’ve met in the sea so far has said so—the marble ray, the Sea King, the dragon. I’ve probably killed her.”

  The boys fell silent in the dim light inside the diving bell. Then Char spoke.

  “Remember that prophecy the Epona gave her? The one about the wanderer out o’ place in the sea?”

  Ven nodded. He squeezed Amariel’s limp hand. Her webbed fingers were cold and bony.

  “Do you think that might have been about you?”

  Ven looked up in surprise.

  “I—I don’t think so,” he said. “The queen said it was an old riddle, something she had studied during her lessons a long time ago. And if it was long ago to her, I can’t even imagine how long it would have been in our years.”

  “You said Madame Sharra told you that the card you drew could represent an unsolvable riddle, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it again? The one the Epona told to Amariel?”

  Ven thought back. “Wanderer, out of place in the drift,” he repeated slowly,

  “This riddle is to you a gift.

  Free the captive who stays by choice

  Sing a hymn without your voice

  Find the souls forgotten by Time

  Believe the view is worth the climb.

  Follow the path without using your eyes

  Five gifts are the price to spare one who dies

  Until the stars shine in the depths of the sea

  Home again you will never be.”

  “Well, I hope it’s not about you,” said Coreon. “Because there is no way for the stars to shine in the depths of the sea, as you can tell. This place is miles below the surface, and even the light of the sun can’t penetrate the darkness, let alone starlight. And thi
s isn’t even the deepest part of the sea.”

  “Maybe it’s just a fancy way of sayin’ you’ll never see home again,” Char said gloomily.

  “You really are a cheerful fellow, aren’t you?” said Coreon. “It must be such fun being you.”

  “I haven’t thought about it at all since she gave the prophecy to Amariel,” Ven said. “The waterspout came along right after she finished the prophecy, and we’ve been just trying to survive ever since.”

  “Well, you may want to take a moment and think about it before we go any farther,” said Coreon.

  “Especially if you were thinkin’ of usin’ another weird gift that a strange person gave you,” Char added. He tapped Ven’s palm where the image of the Time Scissors was. “If it’s still there, that is. I never have been able to see it.”

  Ven examined his palm. In the dim light he could see the hourglass and scissors, and even the thread, very clearly, almost as if they were glowing with a light of their own.

  “It’s still here,” he said.

  “Well, maybe you should undo us comin’ here in the first place. We would never have met Coreon, and he would still be in good graces with the Cormorant. Amariel would still be alive—”

  “But I don’t have any idea which single moment of Time I would like to redo,” Ven interrupted. “Messing with Time is something you should only do when there’s no other choice—and you know what you’re doing. If we were to redo a single moment, do we keep the knowledge of why we did? Who knows—if I pick the moment just before we entered the sea, but don’t remember why, we’d probably just go again in the next moment anyway.”

  “What’s a hymn?” Coreon asked.

  “A song that’s also a prayer,” Char replied. “Sailors sing ’em all the time. An’ that part about the stars shinin’ in the sea—maybe that’s the Sleepin’ Child! Remember that place we sailed past on our way here, in the northern islands? The grave of the Sleepin’ Child. It was a legend about a star that fell from the sky into the sea, and we could see the steam, remember?”

  “We’ll drive ourselves crazy if we try to figure out the prophecy, especially since it probably doesn’t have anything to do with us,” Ven said impatiently. “Lancel also said that there are some things that are just supposed to remain mysteries. Sometimes I think they are there just to distract you, to keep you from doing what you know you’re supposed to do.”

  “So what do you want to do now?” Coreon asked.

  Suddenly a face and a pair of ragged hands appeared at the grate below them. The skin was pale and filmy, but the eyes were black as the depths of the sea. It let loose a howling thrum that sent shivers through all three boys and caused them to draw their legs up quickly beneath them.

  “Ven—Ven!” Char whispered, his thrum shaking. “What is that?”

  “I’m guessing it’s a lost soul, looking for wherever it left its body,” Ven answered quietly. “Hold still. It should figure out that its body is not here in a minute and move along.”

  The filmy hands reached through the grate, grasping at their legs.

  “Ven?” Char began again, but Ven waved him into silence.

  “Keep your thrum calm—think of things that make you happy,” he said. “If we learned anything from the great whites it’s that nervousness just attracts bad attention.”

  He closed his eyes and thought about the forest outside of Vaarn, where colorful kites danced on the warm spring wind above green, fresh-smelling branches.

  When he opened his eyes a few moments later, the face and hands were gone.

  “We had best be on our way, if we’re going to do this,” said Coreon. “Nothing natural lives in the Abyss—it’s too dark and cold for ordinary sea life, as the dragon said. But there are legends about the things that do—and obviously the stories about ghosts walking the Deep are true. So let’s go on—or let’s go back.”

  “Agreed,” said Ven. “I’ll go first. And if anyone wants to stay behind, it’s probably safer.”

  “What about Amariel?”

  Ven looked down at the merrow.

  “She’s coming with me. We’re here to find a miracle for her. I can’t very well leave her behind.”

  “How do ya propose to make that happen?” Char demanded. “She has to be able to say her name in order to get into the smaller divin’ bell, doesn’t she?”

  Ven exhaled. “Right.” He leaned over the merrow. “Come on, Amariel,” he thought to her as he did before. “Come with me.” In his head he chanted her name, over and over again, then picked her up in his arms. “All right Char,” he said. “Unlock the grate.”

  “Careful, mate,” Char cautioned as he turned the key in the lock.

  “Good luck,” added Coreon.

  Amariel, Amariel, Amariel, Ven thought as he lowered himself through the opening into the smaller diving bell. Amariel. Then he spoke his own name. After all the times he had been told to keep it to himself in the depths of the sea, it seemed particularly odd to be pronouncing it now. As he did, the diving bell rang with it and echoed the name over and over until the sound disappeared.

  “Charles Magnus Ven Polypheme.”

  He felt a slipping, as if he were coming down a slide. With ease he passed out of the metal diving bell and down the tether into the smaller basket below.

  When he looked down, he saw his arms were empty.

  The merrow’s body had remained behind.

  But in his hand was her red pearl cap, her most prized possession. It was the object that merrows entrusted to a human man in order to grow legs and walk on the land of the upworld—as she had done with him not long ago.

  Ven looked up through the gate.

  And saw himself sitting on the seat beside Amariel, fast asleep. Char and Coreon were staring back at him.

  He felt the same as he had a moment before, though a little lighter. Seeing his body in the metal diving bell should have been unnerving, but he felt calm and confident.

  “Whoever else is coming, be quick about it,” he said. “We have to get that grate locked.”

  Coreon said something that Ven did not hear, then sat back on the inner ledge of the diving bell and seemed to fall asleep. A clear shadow of the Lirin-mer boy stepped away from his body, much as Ven’s must have, and swam through the grate into the smaller cage, followed a moment later by Char.

  The body his best friend had left behind was sleeping fitfully, as if it were partly awake, Ven noticed. In addition, the spirit form was much fainter than his or Coreon’s, leading Ven to believe the strength of their names may have determined how strong those forms could be. Char’s could only be faint because he knew so little of his own identity.

  A tiny blue-white light glowed in Char’s pocket.

  He looked down at the red pearl cap in his hand. Inside his buttoned vest pocket he could feel something with weight, but otherwise he was as light as air in the drift. He closed the top of the smaller diving bell.

  “All right,” he said to the other boys. “Into the Trenches. Going down.”

  38

  At the Bottom of the World

  * * *

  It was really hard to leave the second diving bell.

  The first one, the dark metal cage, was one of the most unpleasant rooms I’ve been inside in my life, a little like the dungeons and prison cells I’ve spent time in, only smaller.

  And miles deep in the sea.

  You would think that it would be a relief to get out of such a place.

  But I had a very hard time taking my eyes off of Amariel, broken and quiet, leaning up against my own body. It was strange enough seeing myself from the outside.

  It was even harder seeing it for what might have been the last time.

  It is one thing to face your own death. Char and I had done that many times before. But facing the future as wandering spirits, separated from our bodies, haunting the sunless sea forever, was more than my mind could handle.

  It was time to go.

  I took a
last good look at myself, just in case.

  Then I turned the key in the lock, opened the grate, and dropped out of the diving bell and into the dark drift.

  Char and Coreon followed a moment later. Char was almost impossible to see. The glow in his pants pocket where he kept his air stone weighted down with pebbles was far brighter than the light of his spirit.

  I waited until they were free of the diving bell, then pushed the grate shut.

  Then I turned the key in the lock. The thud of its thrum was a sickening sound.

  A little like the tolling of a bell.

  The second diving bell, the little cage below, was even smaller, as well as flimsier.

  What Lancel had called the diving bell of the soul.

  It was lucky that we were nothing more than spirits, because it was too fragile to hold anything else.

  * * *

  They descended for a long time into the deep Trenches.

  Far below, a split in the ocean floor crawled with lava, like a glowing thread of light. Clouds of smoke rolled upward in the drift, then were devoured by the dark.

  Above them they could feel vibrations, slow and lonely.

  “More diving bells?” Char guessed.

  “Let’s go see,” Ven suggested. “We’re not mortal at the moment. We may as well take a look.”

  “Leave the cage?”

  “Why not? We can bring it with us—but it’s not going to keep anything with teeth from eating us anyway. It will be good to be out in the drift, I think.”

  “After you, mate,” said Char.

  Ven grinned, then swam out of the bell, followed a moment later by the other boys.

  They floated along in the misty light from the Trenches below them. Above them, hanging in the black drift, were rusted bells and cages, many of them empty, but most with their grate floors closed, the keys missing.

  Wandering below the old diving bells were what at first looked liked patches of light, but as they watched, their shapes became clearer. Like the few they had seen before, these spirits had faces and hands, though it was hard to tell if some of them had legs, because their clothes were tattered and raggy as they hung in the blackness above the world’s root cellar.