by T.A. Barron
Alas, the whales did not seem at all interested in saving Geoffrey. Though he called to them, waved his arms wildly, and begged to be taken in their jaws, they paid no attention to him. So one man, and one man alone, went down with the doomed ship.
XVIII: Ageless Fears
Geoffrey hung his head dejectedly. “And here I have stayed.”
“I wish my dad could have heard that,” said Kate. “But I thought you were going to tell a story of hope and promise.”
The old man pouted. “I suppose I exaggerated a bit.”
“A bit! I feel more hopeless than ever.”
“Enough sitting around,” announced Terry, pushing to his feet. “I’m going out there to see if I can learn anything useful.”
“Be careful,” warned Kate.
“Don’t go too far,” added Geoffrey.
“Do I have any choice?” The young man gestured at the whirling wall of water surrounding the ship. He strode off, stumbled on a warped timber, then lifted the> trapdoor and descended.
Watching him, Geoffrey sighed. “Impatient youth! Though I can’t suppose I blame him for wanting to try to find a way out of here. But with the whirlpool’s strength intensified by the Horn, no one—not even a great magician—could escape.”
“How did he get in, anyway? You said that only a friend of Arthur could enter the whirlpool.”
Thoughtfully, Geoffrey tugged his beard. “I cannot say. Perhaps time will tell.”
“I wish I could talk to Dad,” Kate said wistfully. “He’d have an idea . . . unless he’s in too much trouble himself right now.”
“Tell me,” probed the monk. “Just what would your father do if he were here?”
“He’d think. About where we might find a clue. The way he did with the ballad.”
“Ballad?”
Kate pursed her lips. “It’s an old ballad about the ship, the whirlpool, the whales. I can’t remember much, but it ends in the weirdest way:
One day the sun will fail to rise,
The dead will die,
And then
For Merlin’s Horn to find its home,
The ship must sail again.”
“Weird, indeed,” agreed Geoffrey, studying her with keen interest. “Especially that part about Merlin’s Horn finding its home.” He swatted at a strand of rigging dangling by his head. “Can’t make hide nor hair of it, I’m afraid.”
“Maybe the Horn’s home is wherever it is now.” She returned his scrutiny. “You do know where it is, don’t you? How did you find it, anyway?”
“Stubbed my toe on it, to be precise. It was practically buried in the sand near the anchor.”
“Have you ever . . . taken a drink from it?” asked Kate, her voice a whisper.
“No,” he replied. “You recall what happened to Merlin when he took a drink before he had passed the test of Merwas, don’t you? He lost whatever good sense he had! And before long, he lost everything else as well. That’s not to say that I haven’t been tempted. I have. Often.”
“You must have plenty of willpower to resist.”
“Not really. I’m as weak as any mortal being. Weaker, no doubt. But I do have one advantage that poor Merlin never had. The whirlpool surrounding this ship seems to coax out the essence of the Horn, and I breathe some of it in these swirling vapors every day. That has to ease my thirst a bit, although it is not the same as drinking from it directly.”
A bit guiltily, he added, “On top of that, I sometimes allow myself so sniff the Horn’s aroma, just to smell that fragrance of the mountaintop that Emrys gave to it.”
“Do you do that often?”
The hint of a grin touched Geoffrey’s face. “Only on Feast Days and Holy Days. Of course, there are dozens and dozens of those! Last time was the Sunday after Saint Vitus’ Day.”
Staring into the mist off the bow, Kate said darkly, “If your story is true, while we’re trying to find some way to pass through the whirlpool, so is Nimue.”
At the mention of that name, Kate felt a cold wind blow over the deck of the Resurreccíon. She shivered and turned to Geoffrey. Oddly, he did not seem to have noticed anything. Her chill soon passed, yet it left her with the uncomfortable feeling that she had felt it before, and would, before long, feel it again.
The old man patted her arm. “That wretched sorceress craves nothing more than the chance to drink from the Horn. But for several centuries now, we’ve had something of a stalemate, she and I. She can’t get into the whirlpool, and I can’t get out! The wall that divides us is utterly impermeable. So you needn’t worry. Nimue and her sea demons, along with Garlon, have been trying for ages to get in here, with no luck. Why should anything be different now?”
“She must be getting awfully impatient.”
He angled his face upward. “If it makes you feel any better, on top of Merlin’s protective spell, we have the whales.”
“The gray whales?”
Geoffrey nodded. “They seem to work very hard at keeping intruders away from the whirlpool. And, similarly, the ship.”
Kate reflected on this. Could the whales, as Isabella suspected, have purposely tried to erase the sonic image of the sunken ship? Could the whale who was so badly tangled at the buoy have been trying to interfere with the equipment?
“Why would they do that?” she demanded.
“At first, perhaps, it was their old loyalty to Merlin. But in more recent times, they mainly want to keep people away from themselves.”
“What makes you say that?”
He scratched vigorously inside each of his nostrils, then lifted the slender red volume. “They told me so themselves. I can listen to them whenever I like, with this.”
Kate slid closer. “Your little red book?”
“Haven’t done it much lately,” he continued, trying to stifle a yawn. “This infernal heat, you know. Makes me sleep more than usual. But in times past I have listened to the whales for hours on end. Because their hearing is so good, they have become the ocean’s eavesdroppers. I have even listened to the songs of the whales who don’t stay by the whirlpool year after year, who swim every year to the far north. From them I have learned about the coldness of currents, the size of newborns, the passage of seasons, the taste of krill, the motions of stars.”
“You were saying that the whales want to keep people away.”
A cloud passed over Geoffrey’s face. “Once, long ago, the whales befriended everyone, just as they did Merlin. They were as helpful to him as the mer people—more so, because they were not so difficult to find. Ever since the fall of the realm of Shaa, mer folk have lived in the shadows, appearing only rarely. Not so the whales. In Merlin’s day, and even in mine, they felt no reason to hide. So they had no hesitation about showing themselves to save the sailors from the Resurreccíon. I am sorry to say they paid dearly for that mistake.”
“How?”
“Word spread. Hunters came in droves. Soon only a few whales remained alive. Some of the survivors simply swam away, never to return. Others chose to stay in these waters near the whirlpool, circling endlessly, grieving for their lost mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. Still others chose to swim to the far north, hoping to evade more hunters by moving always, never resting. They are the lucky ones, because they have grown old and died, making room for new generations who are not burdened by such painful memories.”
At once, Kate understood. “So that is why the songs of the whales who stay around here are so sad.”
“Right. The nearness of the Horn sustains them somehow, as it does the ship, the whirlpool, and myself. But for them, continuing to live means continuing to suffer. Their fate is most cruel. They cannot forget, cannot move on.
Ye who drink from Merlin’s Horn
May for dying not be mourned
May grow younger with the years
May remember ageless fears.’’
Kate thought again of the young whale ensnared in the net. Had he been more afraid of drowning, or of her? Sh
e ran her hand along a length of rigging, sturdy as it was when it left Manila centuries ago.
Geoffrey looked at the vapors swimming about the sails. “It is said, by the whales themselves, that their agony will not be over until the whirlpool itself comes to an end.”
At that, the trapdoor flew open. Terry squeezed through the opening up to his armpits. “A steam vent!” he exclaimed, his voice full of fear. “Opened up right by my feet, not far from the hull.”
“Steam, eh?” asked Geoffrey calmly. “No wonder it’s so beastly hot.”
“Don’t you see?” the geologist cried. “The eruption is going to happen any time now! We’re all going to be burned to ashes, including your precious Horn.”
Geoffrey’s wrinkles deepened. “My, my! That is rather worrisome.”
“Worrisome! Can’t you understand, old man? This isn’t going to be just another tremor. This is going to be a full-scale eruption!”
Geoffrey shook his head. “But I don’t understand how such a thing could happen. The Horn ought to be protecting us, as it has these many years. Something must have changed! I only wish I knew what.”
Kate seized him by the shoulder. “The whales might know! You said they hear all kinds of things. Try listening to them!”
“An excellent idea,” agreed the monk.
“A ridiculous idea,” countered Terry.
“Come on,” said Kate, taking Geoffrey’s arm to help him stand. “Let’s try it.”
Opening the book to the page decorated with green-and-gold vines, Geoffrey inhaled deeply, then began to concentrate on the page. At once, the continuous humming of the whirlpool reduced to a mere whisper. All other sounds, including their own breathing, diminished. At the same time, one sound grew steadily louder, until it seemed to spring from only inches away.
The wailing rose and fell like the surging waves. Kate could not tell just how many whales were singing, only that some of the voices sounded young and vibrant, others old and thin. All of them exuded sorrow.
She glanced at Geoffrey, who was scratching his ear anxiously. All of a sudden, he stopped. His hand fell to his side. For a long moment he stood as still as a wax figure.
Finally, the ragged robes stirred. At the same time, the mournful cries of the whales receded until, at last, they could no longer be heard.
Geoffrey grasped a line of rigging to steady himself. His face a mixture of fear and confusion, he mumbled, “It can’t be so.”
“What did they say?” pressed Kate.
“They said,” he replied, almost choking on the words, “that Nimue has finally lost her patience. That she has set out . . . to destroy the whirlpool.”
“But how?”
From the corner of her eye, Kate saw Terry lean forward to hear better.
“She has found some way to make the rock beneath the ocean floor buckle and boil. Until . . . until it explodes like a volcano.”
“The eruption,” whispered Terry.
Kate tugged Geoffrey’s robe. “Where is Nimue now?”
“Still in the Glass House, not far from here.”
“But wouldn’t the eruption destroy that, too? And all the Treasures there?”
“Nimue cares not! If somehow she can shatter the whirlpool and escape with the one thing she craves more than any other, that is her only goal.”
“Wait a minute,” objected Terry. “I’m the first to agree we’re on the edge of an eruption. But . . . this is geological force we’re talking about. Primal. Uncontrollable. Even if you accept the idea of a sorceress and her sea demons, which I don’t, they couldn’t control volcanic energy. Nothing can! And besides, why would anyone want to do something like that?”
Geoffrey examined him grimly. Then he reached one hand deep into the folds of his habit. He seemed to be searching for something, or possibly scratching again. Then, slowly, he pulled out his hand—and a gleaming object, suspended from a necklace of scarlet coral beads. Shaped like a curling conch shell, it glistened with a sheen of blue and silver. Within its mouth brimmed fluid no less radiant than a rainbow.
“This is why,” he announced.
Kate stared in awe at the Horn.
Terry pulled himself through the trapdoor and came over for a closer look. Like Kate, he kept looking at the wondrous object, which glowed with an opalescent luster.
She reached to stroke its smooth surface with one finger. Quietly, she said, “They’re all the same shape, aren’t they?”
“What are?” asked Geoffrey.
“The Horn, the secret code, the whirlpool. They’re all a spiral.”
“Yes,” agreed the monk, a curious gleam in his eye. “So they are.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Terry. “You’re saying this—this sorceress of yours is trying to cause an eruption just so she can get that thing.”
“Precisely.”
“Are you sure you heard the whales say that?”
“Quite sure,” Geoffrey answered. “They were perfectly clear.” He replaced the Horn under his garment. “The only questionable part came at the end.”
“What was that?”
“I hesitate to tell you, since I might have misunderstood.”
“Tell us,” Kate insisted.
“All right. It seems Nimue has taken s6me unfortunate souls as her prisoners.” He swatted the side of his neck. “That may or may not be true, but the puzzling part is that the whales described the prisoners’ ship as, well, an enormous bubble.”
“A what?”
“Quite absurd, I agree. Imagine a ship built like a bubble.”
“I can! It’s my dad!”
The wooly eyebrows lifted. “Your father? Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“I am sorry to hear that. Dreadfully sorry.”
Looking from Geoffrey to Terry, Kate cried, “We’ve got to do something!” She grabbed the monk by the shoulders. “Isn’t there any way we can get out of here while the whirlpool is still going?”
His dark eyes seemed to darken even more. “No. I told you, the whirlpool is impermeable. No creature of flesh could survive the passage.”
“But something must be able to pass through it!” She glanced at the whirling spiral of water. “You said yourself the power of the Horn seeps through somehow. How else could it affect the whales?”
Geoffrey jolted as if he had been struck with a hammer. “You might . . . be onto something. Yes, yes . . . you just might.” Pensively, he combed his beard with his fingers. “I am not sure it will work, but . . . there could, in fact, be a way. I am stunned that in all the time I’ve been here I never thought of it before.”
“What is it?”
“It will be risky. Very risky. I would not try it at all, except that the Horn, and all the other Treasures, are in such grave danger. Everything Merlin worked so hard to achieve, everything he did to aid Arthur, is at stake.”
“Dad’s life is at stake!” Kate shook him fiercely. “You’ve got to take me with you.”
He pulled free. “I am sorry,” he said firmly. “It will be dangerous enough for one person to go. As it is, I have no idea how to stop Nimue. I only know I must try.”
“I can help you,” she pleaded.
“I may be a fool,” he replied, shaking his head, “but I am not that much of a fool. As unsafe as you may be here, you are safer here than going with me. Even if I can somehow survive the whirlpool, the route to the Glass House, which I know only from the whales, is fraught with dangers and darkness.” His furrowed face filled with compassion. “I will do what I can to help your father.”
“Take me with you. Please.”
A sudden tremor rocked the ship. Geoffrey shouted, tumbling backward into a maze of rigging. Terry skidded across the deck, smashing a row of clay jars. As timbers splintered and buckled, the floorboards under Kate gave way. She fell through a hole, landing on a mound of bundles in the darkened deck below.
With a final shudder, the violent quaking ceased.
Stru
ggling to gain her bearings, Kate rubbed her sore neck. She crawled over the bundles to the wooden ladder and rapidly scaled the rungs. Seconds later, she burst out of the trapdoor onto the main deck.
Pulling Terry loose from a web of torn rigging, she helped him to his feet. Then, as if one, their eyes trained on the spot where Geoffrey had stood only a moment before.
He had vanished.
XIX: Swirling Vapors
Where did he go?” asked Kate.
“Beats me,” Terry muttered.
She ran over to the mainmast. The old man was nowhere to be seen. Picking up a cannonball at her feet, she hefted it like a shot-put.
Where had he gone? Her neck stung, her back ached. Yet those things did not trouble her nearly as much as the disappearance of her prime companion in this strange undersea world. Despite his bizarre manner, she had found herself almost liking Geoffrey. He reminded her a little of her own grandfather, eccentric and vulnerable, or maybe of someone she had known in a story, or a dream. No matter. He was gone.
In frustration, she hurled the cannonball into the mass of rigging at the base of the broken mast. Then an idea drifted into her thoughts. Maybe he, too, had fallen through the floor! Maybe even now he lay sprawled on some stack of crates on a lower deck. She started shoving the rigging aside, searching for another hole in the deck.
Without a word, Terry came over and started helping. Although he was a bit clumsy without his glasses, he was strong enough to heave aside cases and timbers that she could barely budge.
After several minutes of furious searching, she concluded it was useless. Panting, she crumpled onto a barrel and sat there, her head in her hands.
Terry straightened up stiffly. Delicately wiping his sore brow, he said, “No sign of him.”
Kate lifted her head. “No. Thanks for helping, anyway.”
“Sure.” He leaned against the mast. “Don’t know where he could have gone.”
Her gaze fell on the jumble of rigging, and suddenly it came to her. “I do. He’s gone to stop Nimue.”
