The Deep

by Helen Dunmore

  And above all, the Kraken is sleeping. Cusca, cusca, cusca, Kraken. Cusca, cusca, cusca, Kraken. Sleep for a thousand years. Sleep forever. Don’t ever wake again….

  “Look ahead, Saph,” shouts Conor. He and Faro are swimming toward me. “The dolphins are coming!”

  “And the Mer!” calls Faro. “Look, little sister, my people are coming!”

  I’ll never forget the last part of the journey. The dolphins and the Mer must have been watching and waiting, hoping against hope for our return. They keep at a safe distance as the whale breaches, then surge in and swim alongside like a guard of honor as she makes her way slowly forward. Blood rolls away from the gashes in her side into the clear water. The dolphins leap and curve, brimming with life, rushing up to the surface, crashing through it, and then plummeting back into the water.

  It’s wonderful to watch the arc of a dolphin’s leap from below. I long to ride on one of them, but I can’t leave the whale now, after all she’s done for us. The Mer stay below the water surface, their hair streaming out behind them, their faces glowing in the brilliant light of the sunwater.

  “Sapphire, the dolphins want us to ride on them. Come on!” shouts Faro.

  The dolphins are so beautiful. Maybe just a short ride. The whale would understand.

  She told me last time that dolphins are much cleverer than whales. Cleverer and more playful and more beautiful. She’d understand completely why I’d want to be with them, and she’d try not to be hurt; but it wouldn’t quite work.

  “Go with them. They will carry you faster,” says the whale.

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  Conor hesitates for a moment. Then, “Thank her for us, Saph,” he says. “You speak her language.”

  “You tell her, Con.”

  Conor clears his throat. He looks almost embarrassed, which is rare for Conor. For half a second I see the whale as Conor sees her. Not as a person but as a rough-skinned mountain.

  “We are grateful to you,” he says at last. “I can’t tell you how much. We all know that we owe you our lives.”

  He hesitates again. Slowly, massively, the whale dips her head in acknowledgment. And Conor’s released. He plunges toward the dolphins.

  The next moment I see them both, Conor and Faro, mounted triumphantly on dolphins, like young warriors coming home. The Mer swim farther off, driving through the water with powerful strokes of the tail. I peer around, but there’s no sign of Ervys, Talek, or Mortarow. I wonder how Ervys will feel now that we are home safe from the Deep and Saldowr’s mission has been accomplished. He should be glad, because the Kraken’s power has been broken and the Mer children are safe. But somehow I doubt that we’ll be getting much thanks from Ervys.

  Faro calls back to me over his shoulder, “The Groves of Aleph, Sapphire! We’re almost home.”

  The dolphins leap like horses at the sight of the finishing line. Faro’s face is exultant. “Hurry, little sister! You’ll be left behind.”

  I want to be with him. I want to be first into the Groves of Aleph, to bring our victory to Saldowr. Why should Conor and Faro—

  Sapphire, get a grip. What does it matter who goes first? The Kraken’s sleeping; that’s all that matters.

  Besides, the whale’s pace is slackening. She’s swimming so slowly that I have to hold back, or I’ll leave her behind.

  “This water is too shallow for me,” she says at last. “I must leave you here, little barelegs. Go on with the dolphins.”

  “But you came to Saldowr’s cave before. Please come. He’ll want to thank you. Please, dear whale!”

  “No, little one. I am injured and cannot find my way as well as I could before. I must leave you now.”

  “But, whale,” I say in a panic, “you’ll be all right, won’t you? You’re not going to—”

  I can hear the smile in the whale’s voice as she says soothingly, “I will fight many more squid before I die, and kill them too. It’s a pity that you don’t care for the taste of squid, little one. You don’t realize what you are missing. Perhaps one day you will let me catch one for you. Life has few pleasures to equal a stomach full of squid.”

  “Come on, Sapphire!” Faro’s impatience swirls through the water. He hasn’t realized why the whale has fallen behind. “I see Saldowr’s cave!” The dolphin that is carrying him arches its back, hangs for a second in the bright water, and then dives.

  “Go, little one. Go with them.”

  “They don’t mean to forget you, dear whale. You did so much for us. You saved everyone.”

  “It was nothing. Your brother thanked me. We’ll meet again. And I never told you my joke after all.”

  “Go on then, tell me.”

  The whale pauses. Her eye shuts in concentration. The wrinkles in her forehead seem to grow deeper as I wait.

  “When is a whale…not a whale…?” she says at last, hesitantly.

  “I don’t know. When is a whale not a whale?”

  “When it’s a…when it’s a…wait a minute, it’ll come back to me. I had it just there on the tip of my teeth.”

  “When it’s a?”

  “When it’s a…when it’s having a shark attack!”

  There’s a pause. I say carefully, “I’m not quite sure why that’s funny. I expect it’s because I’m human and it’s a whale thing.”

  “No,” laments the whale, “it’s not because you’re human. It’s because we whales can’t tell jokes. I got the punch line wrong again.”

  “I’ll tell you what, I’ll teach you one of Conor’s jokes next time.” A very carefully selected one, I think. “We can go over the punch line until you’re sure of it.”

  “I’m sure you can teach me, little barelegs, if anyone can,” says the whale.

  You can’t hug a whale. It’s completely impossible. Anatomically impossible, as Faro said to me a long ago, the first time we met, when I blurted out something about his being a “mermaid.”

  All you can do is stretch out your arms as far as you can, and touch as much of her rough, wrinkled skin as you can, and hope that she understands that it means you’ll never forget that she saved your life, and you wish her daughter hadn’t gone to the bottom of the world and left her alone, and you wish you didn’t have to say good-bye.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SALDOWR IS WAITING FOR us in the heart of the Groves. His hands stretch out toward us. Even his cloak seems to have come back to life. It ripples and glistens like living water, although its hem is still torn. He’s better! Saldowr’s wound has healed, and he’s come back to us.

  We swim closer, and I see that it’s not quite like that. Lines of pain are still written on Saldowr’s face. It’s obvious that it must have taken a huge effort for him to swim out of his cave.

  But he’s done it. He’s waiting for us, and his face is illuminated with pleasure as he holds out his hands in welcome. Faro bows his head over Saldowr’s right hand and kisses it. Conor stiffens beside me. There is no way he’s going to do that, I think, and I’m right. Saldowr doesn’t seem to expect it either. His eyes gleam with sudden humor as he grasps Conor’s hand in his and then turns to me.

  “You’ve done well, myrgh kerenza,” he says, and his eyes scan my face, searching it. I feel the power in him. It’s not like the terrifying destructive power that forced its way into every one of the Kraken’s shape shifts, but it’s just as strong.

  “The Kraken called me that too,” I say.

  Saldowr nods thoughtfully. “The Kraken would have less power over us if he knew less about us,” he observes. His eyes are clouded by thoughts I can’t follow.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the Kraken knows what we are. He knows our fears. He knows our weaknesses, and he plays on them. He is similar enough to us to do that.”

  I think of the Kraken’s last shape shift, before he vanished inside the cave of his own mouth. “Saldowr, is the Kraken—was the Kraken ever Mer?”

  A hiss of disbelief comes from the M
er who encircle us. Saldowr sweeps them with a quelling glance, and they are silent.

  “I believe that there is Mer in the Kraken,” he says, “and maybe even some of the blood of your own people.”

  I shiver. I want monsters to stay monsters. It’s easier to think of the Kraken as a monster than to believe he might be like us. Or even worse, that we might be like him.

  “The Kraken is sleeping now,” says Faro, tossing back his hair and looking like a young warrior who has brought home the spoils of his first battle. “He will not wake to trouble us for a thousand years.”

  Saldowr frowns at him mildly. “Beware of hubris, my son. Let it be enough that you have fought the Kraken and conquered him.”

  Faro bows his head, accepting the rebuke. Conor and I glance at each other. I’ve no idea what “hubris” is, but it doesn’t sound like a compliment. Faro’s just risked his life in the Deep and still Saldowr isn’t satisfied. Sometimes the Mer are so rigid.

  Saldowr smiles. The tension flows away. “You have done well, all of you,” he says. “The Mer have much cause to be grateful to you.”

  A murmur of approval comes from the gathered Mer.

  “Even Ervys,” continues Saldowr easily, sweeping his people with that glance again. “Even Ervys has great cause to thank these children. But where is Ervys? Has he not come to celebrate with us? He is so concerned with the fortunes of the Mer that I was sure he would be here to rejoice with us.”

  Some of the young Mer in the front rank look at one another and smile. I can almost feel Ervys’s power over them weakening. Saldowr has won, I think exultantly. He’ll get strong again, and he’ll lead the Mer, and…

  Out of the corner of my eye I see the dolphins playing out in the bright water above the Groves. I hope the sharks will never come back to patrol here. The dolphins are so intelligent and warm and beautiful. But I suppose there have to be sharks—or do there? My head is muzzy. I’m so very tired…. It sweeps over me suddenly, like the tide filling a cove. All the fear, all the dread, all the waiting. The Kraken’s cruelty, the terrors of the Deep, the flaying tentacles of the giant squid. Everything in me has been used up. I’m sucked dry. How stupid I am! We’ll probably never have another moment of triumph like this, and all I want to do is go to sleep.

  Someone is holding a cup to my lips. A young Mer woman, with long red hair and green eyes with that silvery glint in them. She nods and smiles at me encouragingly. “Drink. It will put back your strength.”

  The drink looks like melted sapphires. I take a sip, and it tingles in my mouth. I take another. My exhaustion rolls back like the tide over the sand. I feel as if I’ve just woken up on a fresh, bright morning. I take another long, deep draft, and then the Mer woman passes the cup to Conor. But he shakes his head. “I’m all right.”

  “It’s wonderful, Conor!”

  “You’ve had enough, Saph. Don’t drink any more. We’ve got to go home now.”

  Home…of course. Home. I’d almost forgotten again.

  I look round the circle of Mer faces. This isn’t like the Assembly chamber, where everyone was seated in ranks, distant and formal. My people, Faro said. He said it so proudly, as if there could be nothing better than belonging to the Mer, knowing that you’ll never have to choose between one world and another.

  But Faro went to the Deep and survived, like me, and the Mer can’t do that. Faro knows what this means, but he’s still fighting not to acknowledge it. He’ll fight it if it kills him. He wants to be all Mer, to belong one hundred percent with heart and mind and body, and never have to face the pain of being different. I know exactly how he feels. I want to belong so much. But where?

  “You have our gratitude,” says Saldowr at last. “The Mer will never forget what you have done for them. Your dangers shall be our dangers. Your friends shall be our friends. Your enemies shall be our enemies.”

  A murmur of agreement rises from the Mer. They stretch out their hands in front of them.

  The Mer don’t clap as we do. Their applause seems strange at first. They stretch out their hands and bang the heel of the left hand down of the back of the right, slowly and rhythmically. The rhythm quickens until the sea beats like a drum.

  I’ve never been applauded before, except for ordinary things like going up to get my swimming medals at school. It’s one of the proudest moments of my life but also one of the most awkward, because I don’t know if I ought to thank the Mer, or just smile graciously like the queen, or act as if I’m used to it. Faro looks stern and self-possessed. Conor’s color has deepened, but he seems to know what to do. He bows his head slowly, acknowledging the Mer applause. I wish I’d thought of that. Saldowr’s watching me, with a gleam of amusement in his eye. I decide that staring straight ahead is probably the best option now.

  Suddenly the applause dies away. A figure is shouldering its way through the crowd.

  Ervys. He’s come after all. He’s got some nerve, I think. And courage too; I’ve got to admit it. If he’s angry, he’s hiding it well; his face is stern and self-assured. I can’t see his followers, but I suspect they’re here, somewhere at the back of the crowd, where they hope they’ll be well out of range of Saldowr’s mirror.

  Ervys moves forward alone. The Mer draw back to let him through. The atmosphere darkens and fills with tension as Ervys comes to the front, swims forward, and faces Saldowr.

  “I hear that the Kraken sleeps,” he says harshly.

  “The Kraken sleeps,” agrees Saldowr, watching him carefully.

  “Do you claim this victory for yourself, Saldowr?”

  “I claim nothing.”

  “I see that you’ve risen from your sickbed to welcome your saviors,” Ervys goes on smoothly. “As I would, in your place, Saldowr. They have done much for you.”

  I see what he’s doing. He’s telling Saldowr, and all the Mer here, that Saldowr is so weak that he has to depend on children. He’s trying to turn our victory over the Kraken into some kind of victory over Saldowr. Without quite realizing what I’m about to do, I swim forward a couple of strokes. Ervys fixes me with a cold, contemptuous glance.

  “You are interrupting, child,” says Saldowr, not angrily but with a finality that I hardly dare challenge. Yet I’ve got to challenge it.

  “Saldowr, we’ve forgotten something. The choice. My father.”

  Saldowr draws his brows together. He looks stern but not—no, not absolutely forbidding.

  “We chose to go to the Deep to help the Mer,” I plow on. “Now let my father choose.”

  Everybody is silent. They must know Dad, I think suddenly. But they’ll know him as one of themselves. As—as Mer. They won’t understand about the life he had before, or what it means to us.

  Conor swims forward to join me. “We’re not asking the Mer to release our father from Ingo,” he says. “All we want is for him to have the power to choose.”

  The silence continues. It’s not so much hostile as baffled. At last a voice speaks out from the crowd. “But why would anyone choose to leave Ingo?” it asks.

  There’s a swell of agreement. Even Faro nods slightly, without seeming to notice that he’s doing it. Saldowr holds up his hand. “It’s true that I gave these children a promise,” he says. “They have fulfilled their side of our…agreement, and I shall honor mine. Your father will have his choice, Sapphire, as each of us must one day choose for himself. But not now. It will come when the time is ripe. To enter or leave Ingo is not as simple as to open or close one of your doors.”

  The Mer are looking at one another. They don’t like this, but respect for Saldowr keeps them subdued. I hear mutterings: “Door? What does he mean, door?” “We’ve never had doors in Ingo, and we’re not starting now.”

  But I don’t care. Saldowr’s words throb in my mind: Your father will have his choice.

  Conor and I glance at each other. He gives me the slightest, most fleeting of winks.

  But we’ve forgotten Ervys. “So,” he says bitingly, “I see that it is h
uman children who decide the laws of Ingo now. When did they earn such power?”

  Saldowr refuses to get angry. “These children have earned some credit in Ingo, Ervys,” he says calmly. “Without them, the Kraken would still prey on us. This is why we show them our gratitude.”

  “Are you telling me that thanks to your guardianship, our people must depend on creatures like these? They are not Mer. They are no part of our lives, and they never will be. Why are they here, except to make bargains in exchange for their ‘heroism’?

  “And maybe you will tell us, Saldowr, why you take for your scolhyk and your holyer this boy whose Mer blood is compromised?”

  Faro’s face flares into rage. He thrusts forward, dodging the arm that Saldowr holds out to stop him.

  “Faro,” says Saldowr in a measured voice, “such words are not worth your thoughts. You have proved yourself before all the Mer.” His gaze sweeps the crowd of Mer. “Which of you has faced the Kraken?” he demands, and his voice rolls out like thunder.

  There’s a low muttering from the Mer, but Ervys seems completely unmoved. Arms folded, he continues to stare straight at Saldowr.

  “You are my scolhyk and my holyer,” says Saldowr more quietly, speaking directly to Faro. “Remember what I have taught you.”

  “You have taught him to usurp privileges that do not belong to him,” says Ervys.

  Still, to my amazement, Saldowr won’t react. It’s clear that he’s holding Faro back too. Faro would love to charge into Ervys, but even though Saldowr isn’t touching Faro, his grip on him is like iron.

  “Wish he’d show Ervys the mirror again,” Conor murmurs in my ear.

  But the mirror is lost in the Deep. I keep my face impassive. I can’t be as bold as Conor. I’m afraid of Ervys, deeply afraid.

  “Ervys,” says Saldowr evenly, “all you show here is your lack of understanding. You think to insult Faro. You fail to realize that I am preparing my son for the future, not for the past.”