by Royston Wood
Chapter Ten
Into the Deeper Blue
Bunsen flames with fury all the way down but his rage is extinguished with a FFTTIZZZZ when we hit the sea.
The icy water smacks me hard and blasts the air out of my lungs. This is majorly bad because the fall has driven us some way under the water.
My body desperately wants to suck in a breath. I force it not to but it isn’t easy: my mind is already busy with that inner voice, shouting unhelpful things like, HELP and AIR and NEED and FREEZING and ARRGGHH!
I have to get to the surface! But which way is up? The air dragged under the water with us has formed a mass of swirling bubbles all around, blocking my vision and making me disorientated.
My legs just want to kick out and get me moving. I force them to wait. I need to work out which way they should kick!
There’s a crushing pressure forming at the top of my throat: if I don’t breath soon I think I’m going to vomit. I swallow hard and the pressure eases for a moment.
The bubbles have stopped swirling around. They’re starting to stream in one direction now. Bubbles float to the surface don’t they? So that must be up!
My mind is starting to spin as I finally let my legs kick out. Making up for lost time they kick in a frenzy and I’m soon streaking in the same direction as the bubbles.
Suddenly Tim emerges out of the bubbles before me, swimming hard in the opposite direction. My mind is a washing machine of churning images and words now but I instinctively reach out and grab the collar of his robe as he goes by and drag him behind me.
My mind is starting to let go. The body’s need for breath is too hard to hold back. But the water is brightening! I can see the rippled, silvery, almost mirror like, underside of the surface. It’s getting brighter and brighter. Or is my mind getting whiter and whiter? It’s too late! Swallowing is not holding back the need to retch. My mind is shutting down and my body’s impulse to breathe is taking over...
Bursting through the surface I gasp in a huge breath of air GGUUUHHAAAAWWWW!!
Coughing and spluttering I try to drag air into my lungs. Luckily my legs are still working on automatic, kicking downwards keeping my head mostly above water.
As I suck in great gulps of air my mind begins to clear and I become more aware of other things, like how heavy these leather clothes and weapons are! Luckily I’m a strong swimmer but I’m not going to be able to keep my head out of the water for much longer.
Tim is also struggling, weighed down by his robes. But Bunsen is already back in the air, flapping a few inches above Tim and shouting at him.
“You bungling fool! Call yourself a wizard! More like a hazard! I knew I shouldn’t have brought you along! How are we going to defeat Cretin now! The Realm will be destroyed and it will be all your fault!!”
Bunsen is right, how are we going to defeat Cretin without a huge dragon on our side?
“Sorry Bunsen...the words were...muddled in...my head,” Tim splutters between ragged deep breaths.
“Idiot!!” storms Bunsen and flaps off towards the shore.
Tim and I swim in the same direction. Fortunately it’s not too far away and before long we are clambering out of the water onto the jagged rocks at the base of a cliff. It is a good thing the sea is calm today or the waves would have smashed us to pieces against them.
Slumped on a rock, huffing and puffing trying to get my breath back, I look about for Bunsen. At first I can’t see him anywhere but then a flash of green catches my attention. He’s fluttering around, about ten metres up the cliff face that stands between us and Cretin’s stronghold, high above.
Nudging a gasping Tim, I point wordlessly at Bunsen. We haul ourselves up and scramble across the rocks, trying not to slip into the rock pools, to a spot below him.
“What have you found?” I shout up.
Bunsen drops down to us and lands on a rock. He glares at Tim but most of his anger seems to have cooled.
“Idiot!” he snarls.
“Sorry Bunsen! I hope that we can still be friends?”
Bunsen snorts and a cloud of black smoke puffs out of his nostrils. “We’ll see about that if we get out of this alive!”
There’s an uncomfortable silence.
“Can’t you just make me big again?” Bunsen mumbles.
“No. We left my tower before I had a chance to collect the things I would need,” says Tim with an apologetic smile.
“Idiot!” snaps Bunsen.
Tim’s apologetic smile disappears, replaced by a frown.
“Of course if you hadn’t snatched me up and leapt from the tower at such speed I might have brought the things I’d need,” he hisses.
“What? So suddenly it’s my fault I’m tiny again is it?” snarls Bunsen, flames curling around his bared teeth.
I decide to step in before things get any worse, “Tim, is there any spell you could cast that would help?”
Tim rootles about in his pockets pulling out bits of string, frog legs, bags of soggy powder, jars of goo and the like. After a moment’s thought he says, “I could cast a spell to make you strong...”
“Pah! Knowing you, you’d make me pong!!” snaps Bunsen.
Tim thrusts the spell ingredients back into his pockets and turns on Bunsen. “Well that would be a waste of effort; you already stink of dragon slime!” he spits with a sneer.
Sighing I turn to watch the sun set over the sea.
“Why you little armoured rat! I may be small again but I can still roast you in your shell!!” I hear Bunsen shout as he jumps up and down on his rock.
It’s funny, you’d think there would be a lot of steam and hissing and stuff when the sun sank into the sea. But the sky just gets more and more orangey red and then starts to turn a darker and darker blue.
“Armoured rat? That’s good coming from you, you puny fire breathing bat!” Tim snarls in the background of my thoughts.
Dark blue! That means it will be dark soon. The day is nearly over and with each passing moment there will be more werebeasts filling the castle!
