by A. L. Knorr
They did not appear to have intentions of killing or hurting Antoni at the moment, and the fear of this subsided enough that I was able to think. My mind tossed about various scenarios––picking off the men one by one from the back, silencing them, until we got to Antoni. Then, when he was within our grasp we could come between those in front and him to protect him. But how would we silently ‘neutralize’ the men behind him without alerting the others? Only if the party grew very stretched out might we have a chance to do it, and even then…it would require them not to be immune to my voice and we had no idea who these strangers were.
Emun was following behind me, neither of us bashful or self-conscious about being naked––one of the gifts of the mer. I was thankful to see that tritons had this same lack of embarrassment because if Emun had been squirming or staring, it would have been a distraction.
We began to ascend and the work of our toes gripping on the slick surface of the stone beneath us became arduous and slowed us down. How I wished for a pair of hiking shoes. My skin was now dry but my hair was damp and cold water ran down my back, tickling and annoying me. I stubbed my toe on something hard and bit my lip to keep from making a sound. Taking a step up, I stubbed the big toe on my other foot and halted, lips pinched in pain. Feeling gingerly forward with my toes, I realized something that stilled my whole body for a moment.
Emun tapped on my arm after a while and I looked back at him. In the near pitch, his pupils had expanded to fully black, as had mine, but his face and frame were a blur of pale skin and dark features.
I whispered a single word at him. “Stairs.”
He looked down, then bent over and felt in front of his feet with a hand to find that I was right. We were no longer ascending on rough rock and the organic shapes of the cave floor. Someone had built stairs here––smooth-edged, worn and shallow, easy to climb. I braced myself on the walls with my hands as I began to climb. My hand found a smooth depression in the wall, long and straight and running parallel to the angle of the steps. A kind of banister?
The skin on the back of my neck seemed to crawl up and over my scalp.
Someone had been here long, long before us.
24
I lost track of time as we continued to ascend. The men slowed as their legs were surely burning from the seemingly endless climb. Eventually, the stairs led to an open cavern with a high arched ceiling dotted with bioluminescent algae. Bright green and teal smudges of the stuff glowed from depressions in the walls, but didn’t provide any helpful illumination. When looking back, I could see Emun’s form a little better, a pale smudge in the darkness with limbs and a torso. The party of men ahead of us had grown quiet as they continued to hike, shoes scuffing against the cave floor and the beams from their headlamps and flashlight shooting around like spotlights from a nightclub. Probably, they were all breathing too hard from the exertion to talk.
We passed dark pools of water, and several waterfalls of varying volume, from thin streams to thick and quite powerful. I wondered at where the water was coming from and longed to touch it, to discover its nature. I marveled at the nature of the network we’d found ourselves in, that it was not completely natural, but augmented by the hands of craftspeople. Emun had spoken of Atlantis whose territory the man in Boston claimed extended from Africa to the Azores. Were we in the ruins of Atlantis? We even passed what looked like a fountain, a tall womanly shape making a spire from a pool of still, black liquid.
The presence of engineered stairs disappeared and reappeared as we traveled. Here, I could not leave runnels of ice behind us, and the potential to get lost and wander for days in this complex city was very real.
The air had been cloying, humid, and dank since we left the cave with the sub, so when a gentle wind of fresh air brushed past our faces, Emun and I glanced at one another. Ocean air was coming into this network from outside, but it was impossible to pinpoint where it was coming from. It caressed my face, smelling of salt and sea and ozone.
The men’s chatter picked up again, as did the narrow staircase, but this time the steps were short and curved before opening up into another huge subterranean cave.
Emun and I stopped at the entrance to the space and looked around with awe.
The entire cavern was illuminated by a soft golden and blue tinted glow. Hundreds of thousands of bright pinpoints––glowworms, I assumed––spread across the cavern ceiling. The surface of rock making up the jagged ceiling of the cathedral glittered like gold. Black pools and rivers of water spread out as far as the eye could see, snaking this way and that between rock steps and platforms. More curvy fountains could be seen throughout, some still spouting water and others grown still. The sound of water pouring filled the space like music.
More astounding than the unique setting was a thick tower of glittering aquamarine gems like the one from Sybellen’s pendant. They had been collected into a glass cylinder set on the cave floor. It was as high as a man’s waist and as thick as a human thigh. These aquamarines glittered and sparkled with their own source of light, throwing more illumination in all directions. Overtop of the cylinder of gems was a clear glass dome.
The men set their bags down and some of them crouched by the water’s edge, reaching their hands toward it.
I gave a soft intake of breath when I saw how the water lit up at their touch, churning to life with a bright teal glow. At first glance, it looked magical, but I realized it was bioluminescent algae leaving the bright trails of light.
After concealing ourselves behind a thick stalagmite Emun and I watched quietly as the men took in their surroundings. My eyes found Antoni and swept him from head to feet. He seemed fine, and just as amazed by this wonder of nature we found ourselves in as everyone else was.
Emun tapped my arm and pointed to a cave wall beyond the cylinder of gems. I could see what appeared to be pieces of broken artwork on one of the far walls. Human figures, sea creatures, and possibly mer were depicted, but it was too far away and the art too ruined to make out much detail. These had to be the ruins of some ancient civilization and if I hadn’t been so focused on rescuing Antoni, I would have been astounded.
My attention returned to the men as Adrian retrieved a tablet from his backpack, turned it on so the screen was aglow, and crossed over to Antoni. He held it out to Antoni and spoke to him, pointing to something on the screen.
Antoni took it and seemed to study whatever was on the screen for a short time, before handing it back with a shrug and a few words.
Adrian shoved the tablet back into Antoni’s hands, looking insistent and jabbing at the screen. He pushed Antoni backward until he had no choice but to sit down on a mound of stone at the edge of a pool, then walked back to the others, muttering either to himself or to them.
Antoni set the tablet on his knee and interacted with the screen, sliding it back and forth and pinching to zoom in and out.
“What is happening?” I mouthed to Emun.
Emun made a doubtful face and shook his head.
We watched as all the men, aside from Antoni, surrounded the glass dome containing the gems. They bent beside it, feeling with their fingers around the base, wanting a way in. One of them knocked against the glass with a knuckle, and a blue ripple of light went across it, originating from the point of impact. The men looked at one another, surprised. Another man knocked on the glass, three times in three different places, and again the blue ripple of light shimmered outward from where he’d struck, in the manner of pebbles tossed into a calm, glassy surface of water.
One of the men put his hands on either side of the dome and exerted force, attempting to push it over or twist it off. The dome did not budge.
“There is magic here,” whispered Emun, eyes glued to the dome. “They want to get at the gems and they don’t know how.” His huge-pupiled gaze drifted to where Antoni was bent over the tablet. “They think he knows a way in.”
I could have laughed if the situation wasn’t so tense. Antoni? Know the way into a dom
e protected by magic? The idea was absurd. Antoni knew spreadsheets and corporate management, not magic. They had to have the wrong person.
One of the men pointed out something, low, near the floor. They bent to study where he was pointing. One of them called Antoni over and he joined them at the dome.
He bent over to look at where the man was pointing. I looked too, and could make out glyphs etched into the glass, almost hidden in the shadows.
Antoni spoke, shaking his head. He pointed to the glyphs one by one and seemed to be translating them. Straining, I finally caught one of the Polish words, one of the few I knew, and it made my blood run cold. The word was: Death
I knocked Emun on the shoulder, mouthing. “What are they talking about? Do you understand?”
“It is a curse, I think,” Emun said, frowning as he listened.
Antoni straightened and the other men did as well, he was saying something to them while shaking his head and handing the tablet back.
The men seemed upset by Antoni’s words. One of them threw up his hands in disgust and growled something to his mates. Walking to where he’d set down his pack, he opened it and retrieved something that looked like an ice-pick. He heaved it in one hand, turned, and began striding back to the men with purpose. Hefting it, he made as though to swing.
My whole body tensed for flight, my voice swelled in my throat. Emun put his hand on my arm and whispered, “Wait!”
The man swung the evil looking pick, not at Antoni, but at the glass dome. He struck it hard. There was a terrific cracking sound followed by the tinkle of broken glass as the dome flashed bright blue. The men cried out and covered their eyes. As the blue flash dissipated, the dome was clearly now spidered with fractures.
A few of the men applauded as the man with the ice-pick hooked the business end of the tool into the hole he’d created and began to yank the glass away from the aquamarine gems in the cylinder.
Emun’s hand tightened on my forearm, his face visibly taut. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
There was the sound of wind moving through the cave, but no actual wind accompanied it. Everyone paused in what they were doing, as they heard it too. Heads with lamps attached looked around the cave, making a laser-light show. The sound of the wind increased until it was whistling, the whistling took on a keening sound, and the keen became a scream. The men bent again, crying out inaudibly and covering their ears. Emun and I covered ours as well.
The man with the pick dropped the tool and it thumped onto the cave floor as he clutched at his throat, eyes wide and bulging. His mouth opened, making a perfect O as though he was trying to scream—the sound, if any, lost in the sound of the intangible wind.
One of the other men went to him, reaching for him, trying to help him, but the moment he touched him he suffered a similar fate. Scratching at their mouths and necks as though they could not breathe, faces distorted in expressions of terror, they fell. For a time they writhed horribly on the stone floor, desperate for oxygen. The man who’d broken the dome rolled in his agony, tumbling into a pool with a splash of bright blue-green. The remaining men were too afraid to touch them, watching helplessly as their companions died. Antoni stared on in horror, but something in his face expressed a sad expectancy––he had tried to warn them.
My heart had taken up a thick energetic rhythm as the scene played out in front of us as adrenaline coursed through my limbs. There were only three men left, Adrian, one other, and Antoni.
The screaming sound of the wind had stopped as the men died. The stunned silence in the cave was as loud as the shock on every face.
The glass dome had a large jagged hole large enough for a hand to reach in and draw out the gems, but neither Arian nor the other man moved. The scene was like something out of a movie poster––broken glass on the stone floor, a glowing cylinder of gems, Antoni standing behind the dome, and one man on either side. A body lay on the edge of a pool, hands still gripping the throat.
Adrian’s remaining companion rounded on Antoni and began to yell, gesturing wildly at the dead men and the dome, as though it was his fault. He grabbed the front of Antoni’s jacket, yanking him forward and almost off his feet.
Before I could think, my thighs flexed and I stood up, readying to spring to Antoni’s defense. Emun grabbed my elbow and hauled me back down, but not before Antoni’s eyes caught on the movement and locked for a microsecond on my gaze. His expression flickered from shock to deadpan, his face became ghostly as the blood drained. His eyes released me as I squatted again, cutting back to the man yelling in his face.
The man turned to see what Antoni had been looking at just as I disappeared behind the stone again, panting.
“Wait,” Emun said. “They’re not going to hurt him.”
I wanted to scream at him, ask him how he knew that, yell that he wouldn’t be affected if anything happened to Antoni.
Peeking out from behind the stone I watched as the man hauled Antoni forward. My body tensed, and again I felt Emun’s hand on my arm, begging for me not to do anything rash.
The man gestured at the gems, glittering in their cylinder, commanding Antoni to touch them.
Antoni seemed hesitant, and no wonder, considering what had happened to the others.
He glanced at where I was hiding and slowly walked forward, shoes crunching on the broken glass. Standing in front of the cylinder, he looked down at the sparkling jewels, face aglow with blue light. Adrian and his last companion looked on––their own little guinea pig, the cowards.
Antoni’s eyes swept up, the only thing on his body that moved, he caught my gaze and I felt that he was trying to communicate something to me. His eyes begged me to understand something, but what?
I clenched my teeth, not knowing how long I could be still, my mind grasping for a plan for when the inevitable happened. It was very likely that these men were immune to my voice because how would they know about this place if they weren’t Atlanteans?
With the speed of a viper striking for a kill, Antoni’s hand darted through the hole in the dome. Snatching a handful of aquamarines, he sprang sideways and sprinted the short distance to a black pool of water, dropping gems as he ran.
The other man yelled, and Adrian fumbled in his jacket, probably for a weapon.
Antoni dove headfirst into one of the pools, with an explosion of bright green teal swirling against black as the water closed over him.
“Antoni.” His name tore from my lips as I sprang from our hiding place, and this time Emun’s hands could not hold me down.
Sprinting, I crossed the stone floor in moments. Small cuts stung my bare feet from the broken glass. Ignoring the men, who were too shocked to react anyway, I dove into the pool behind Antoni. Water filled my ears, muffling the sudden sounds of shouting. I looked around in the dark water, desperate to find my beloved.
The pool seemed so deep as to be nearly bottomless. The bioluminescent algae that lived on the surface trailed after Antoni in the direction of a dark hole in the wall under the water.
My heart leapt into my throat and pounded so loud it was all I could hear. Why would Antoni swim into an underwater cave? He’d drown in just a few minutes.
My legs melded into a tail and propelled me into the cave.
Darkness closed around me and the sound of limbs moving in the water came to my ears. A moment later, a dim glow appeared ahead. Antoni’s shape was a black silhouette against the glow. He was swimming smoothly and in places where the tunnel was tight he braced his hands against the walls and propelled himself along. He passed through the glow and into darkness again.
How long could he hold his breath?
“Antoni,” I called out, my voice smooth and filling the space around us.
He looked back so quickly I couldn’t register an expression. He immediately looked forward again and continued on. I followed, fighting my growing panic that he would soon lose consciousness. For a human, this was the most dangerous environment possible––underwater tunnel
s with no apparent way out, and Antoni had chosen this rather than staying with the men.
I reached his legs, preparing to pull him back to me and give him oxygen, but the tunnel was too tight. There wasn’t room for the two of us to be side by side, we’d only become wedged.
I began to push him forward, and he went with it, lifting his hands away from the wall and making an aquadynamic shape. Ahead was another glow, and I prayed for an opening where we could emerge. We’d already been down here for too long for a human to survive unless they had Olympic level lungs. Did Antoni?
The glow ahead became brighter and the tunnel opened into another cave. The water’s surface rippled overhead and I shot toward it, pushing Antoni ahead of me. Relief swelled in my heart, and amazement that he was still conscious. He was going to make it!
Antoni broke through first, then me, and suddenly we were side by side. A small cavern opened overhead, dusted with more glimmering glowworms.
“Antoni,” I cried, my hands grasping at his shoulders. “Are you okay?”
He rubbed the water out of his eyes, opened them and looked at me.
“Targa,” he reached for me. “How did you…”
As I began to wrap my arms around him, I saw something on his neck that made me freeze. Holding him still by his shoulders, I looked more closely. He tread water and let me look, tilting his chin up. They were difficult to see, but there was no mistaking them: closing up, even as I watched, and seaming over with perfect skin––gills, just beneath his ears.
I looked at him with shock and he read my expression.
One hand emerged from the water and he held up a single jewel, glittering in the blue light.
“I wasn’t sure if I could believe the legend,” he said, “but when I saw you down here, I knew it had to work.”
