Trafalgar and Boone in the Drowned Necropolis

by Geonn Cannon

  “That’s impossible,” Dorothy said. Trafalgar didn’t respond, so Dorothy looked up and saw she was examining the cave leading to the pool. Her lips were moving behind the glass of her helmet, but Dorothy couldn’t hear a word. She reached out and tapped her glove against the viewport. Trafalgar looked at her. “I can’t hear you. And you can’t hear me. And... it’s ridiculous that I’m speaking aloud right now.”

  Trafalgar mouthed, “What?”

  Dorothy shook her head and pointed toward the pool. Trafalgar nodded and gestured for her to lead the way. Dorothy pushed off the side of the submersible and swam forward. Her heart pounded so hard she thought she could hear it echoing through the suit. She was aware of the pressure, but it was nowhere near as strong as she had feared. She reached the pool and positioned herself underneath it, gazing up into what appeared to be a large open space.

  “This is impossible,” she said again, and she dropped her hands. She pushed herself up and broke the surface, the water cascading down the front of her mask. The opening was wide enough that she had to stretch her arms out to either side to grip the edges.

  She had emerged into an open room that appeared to have been naturally formed. It was a cathedral of stone and what appeared to be coral, porous trunks and branches that stretched from the floor all the way up to a vaulted ceiling thick with stalactites. Some of the rock formations were as thin as needles, while others looked to be thicker than her torso. The room was at least a hundred yards wide, vast enough to make her feel puny in the center of it. It reminded her of the theater that had so impressed Clara the Librarian, but on a much grander scale. The entire space was lit with a pale green glow that she couldn’t immediately find a source for. Directly in front of her, the stone floor sloped downward to a wall broken into a series of arches that looked to have been hand-carved. Her pulse raced as she looked at them, staring in slack-jawed wonder.

  Trafalgar slapped her hip and Dorothy realized she was blocking the exit. She crawled up through the opening, careful not to snag her suit on the edges. She turned around and bent at the waist, taking Trafalgar’s hand to help her up and out as well. Once they were out of the water, the hum of their respirators was impossible to ignore. Oxygen hissed through their suits to keep the pressure constant and the echo seemed to make it even louder.

  Dorothy was looking at the arches, so she didn’t notice Trafalgar removing her helmet until it was already halfway off. “No!” She reached out to stop her, but the damage had been done. Trafalgar looked at her and then held up her wrist to show her gauge. Dorothy saw the blue light indicating the environment was safe. Though she couldn’t count the number of times she’d said the word in the past minute, again she said, “Impossible.”

  “The air is breathable,” Trafalgar said, breathing deeply. “Not the freshest, granted. It feels... thin. But it’s definitely not fatal.”

  Dorothy unhooked her own tubes and reluctantly took off her helmet as well. “That was incredibly reckless.”

  “This whole endeavor is reckless. And look what we’ve discovered. My God...”

  Dorothy had to admit that point. She put down her helmet so she could use both hands for the camera. Their voices were echoing from the rock formations, the dying echoes still ringing even as they responded to one another. She followed the slope of the ground to the archways. They were carved into a stone wall which blocked the mouth of the cavern. Inside she could see other arches leading into more corridors. She was shaking, her mouth dry, her eyes wide and unblinking as she took in the sights.

  “Look at this,” she whispered reverently. “This is not natural. This was made by someone.”

  Trafalgar said, “Yes.”

  “This chamber serves as a... an antechamber for the rest of... whatever this is.”

  “The Eula Boone Antechamber.”

  Dorothy looked at her and smiled, tears in her eyes. “Yes.”

  Trafalgar smiled and moved forward. She looked at the section of stone between the archways. There were no markings, nothing to identify who had made it or what its purpose had been, but there were blatant tool marks on the openings. At the threshold to the antechamber was a thin line, a paper-thin gap separating the exterior and interior. There was no denying that the antechamber had been created by humans at some point. She took off her glove and brushed her thumb over the stone.

  “It’s smooth.”

  “Perhaps it’s not always above water level,” Dorothy said. “We may have arrived at the perfect moment to see it revealed.” She passed through one of the archways. The blue-green glow was present inside as well, just dimmer than in the main room. “Can you see any source for this light? It’s gorgeous. But this entire chamber should be pitch black.”

  Trafalgar turned and moved back up the slope. She took out her flashlight and aimed it at the stalactites. “There’s some kind of algae on the stalagmites. It appears to be some sort of bioluminescence.”

  “Tites.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Stalagmites are on the ground. Stalactites are the ones in the ceiling. Because they must hold on tight to remain in place.”

  Trafalgar laughed softly. “That’s one way to remember.”

  “I’ve never forgotten.” Dorothy saw something gathered in one section of the antechamber. She turned her light toward it and gasped as a pile of skeletons were revealed. “Bloody hell!”

  “What is it?”

  “It would appear we aren’t the first souls to find this place after all.” She walked over to the remains and crouched in front of them. They couldn’t be as old as the chamber, but they were by no means new. “A few other explorers seem to have met their end here.”

  “Perhaps we should--”

  The rest of her suggestion was drowned out by a roar of stone sliding on stone. The floor under Dorothy’s boots shifted as if there was an earthquake, and she had to fight to keep her balance. The entire antechamber was moving counterclockwise and the archways were lining up with the solid stone.

  “No, no, no...”

  She ran, tripping over her boots as she tried to move in a straight line on the spinning ground but she could tell she would come up short. Trafalgar was running as well. By the time they reached the wall, the opening was less than six inches thick. They stared at each other, Trafalgar horrified and Dorothy terrified as the final gap closed. As soon as every entryway and exit was blocked, the spinning ceased. Dorothy fell to her knees and flattened her hands against the wall.

  “Crumbs,” she gasped, her bottom lip trembling.

  “Dorothy?” Trafalgar’s voice was hollow but audible through the stone.

  “I can hear you,” Dorothy said. Tears burned in her eyes. “I’m... I’m here.”

  “Can... you...” Trafalgar sounded panicky, desperate. “Are there any markings?”

  Dorothy had already looked, but she shined her flashlight over the wall again. “No. There’s nothing. There’s... there isn’t anything.”

  Trafalgar was silent.

  Dorothy turned and put her back against the wall, legs out in front of her, gaze locked on an empty spot in front of her. If there had been a puzzle, if there was some clue she might have overlooked, or some clever escape... but the room was completely featureless. She felt cold.

  “Ignacio’s box,” Trafalgar said suddenly. “I could... there might be something...”

  Dorothy laughed. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  Trafalgar said, “It’s... it’s worth a shot.”

  “No, it isn’t. I looked in the box our third day at sea. Boxes of ammunition, rope, a first-aid kit, rations. Nothing that could remotely be useful in this predicament.”

  Trafalgar laughed mirthlessly. “You lasted a day longer than I did.”

  Dorothy closed her eyes. “I knew we would never sabotage ourselves that way. The future. Everything we would need, laid out at our fingertips. But we both know what would have happened.”

  “We would peek,” Trafalgar
said.

  “And we would conform our actions to fit the contents of the box. We would have made different choices based on what we thought we would do.”

  Trafalgar said, “So you believe in free will?”

  “I don’t know,” Dorothy said so softly she was certain it wouldn’t pass through the wall. “I believe there are no free rides. There is no easy answer. No psychic ready to hand you a magic wand. His recall is flawed. Who is to say giving us a jackhammer wouldn’t have changed the future?”

  More silence. Then finally, “What do you want me to do, Lady Boone?”

  Dorothy had no idea. But she was saved from answering by another sound. At first she thought it was the stone moving again, but the floor remained stationary beneath her. Then she felt it, a wetness against the underside of her suit. At first she thought it was the residual moisture from swimming up through the cave, but then she saw that there was a thin layer of water covering the entire antechamber.

  “Oh, crumbs.” Her voice broke when she said the word.

  Trafalgar said, “Dorothy...”

  “The water is rising.”

  “I know. The same thing is happening out here.”

  Dorothy felt choked. Her entire body was trembling. She aimed her flashlight at every wall, every flat surface, but there was nothing she could see that could assist in her escape. She looked at the skeletons and the mystery of how they had come to be there was suddenly very clear in her head. The water was rising up through the cracks in the ground, the same cracks which had allowed the antechamber to turn and trap her inside.

  “There must be some way to get you out of there,” Trafalgar said, her desperation raising her voice to a level Dorothy had never heard.

  Dorothy aimed her light at one of the skulls across the room for her. “I believe there might be,” she said, “but it might take you awhile. And I believe it would technically be a recovery, not a rescue.”

  The water continued to rise.

  Chapter Twenty

  The water rose slowly. In a way that was worse than if the chamber had filled quickly. The slow rise gave Dorothy time to examine her options and find herself utterly helpless. She moved along the edge of the room and looked through the churning water to see where it was rising through the cracks. They were too narrow to even fit her fingers in. She couldn’t see how she could possibly push the entire room back to where it had started while she was standing in it. There was nothing on any of the walls, no ancient riddle or rhyme she could decipher to save herself.

  “This room was meant to kill,” Dorothy said. “It’s not a test of wills or worth. It’s a death trap, pure and simple.”

  Trafalgar said, “That doesn’t mean it’s inescapable.”

  The water was nearly to Dorothy’s knees. “There aren’t a hell of a lot of options here, Trafalgar. I’m not the sort to just give up, but...” She held her arms out to either side and then dropped them. “I’m standing in a room that has no entry, no exit, and it’s filling with water just slowly enough for me to understand what is about to happen.”

  “I can... I can go back to the ship and bring Beatrice back down. She can use her magic...”

  Dorothy said, “Even if you did bring her down and she freed me in time, the submersible only seats two. There’d be no room for all three of us to go back up without making multiple trips. Besides, you’re forgetting the ship is currently under siege. If you go back to the surface, Virago would simply take you hostage as well. You may well be able to fight her off, but not before this room has completely filled with water.”

  On the other side of the wall, Trafalgar was pacing through ankle-deep water. There was far more area, so it was taking longer to fill. Soon, however, she would be forced to put on her helmet and cut off all communication with Dorothy. Her mind was racing. Dorothy couldn’t save herself, fine, then it was on her. She was the one with a complete suit, she was the one with access to the submersible. If there was a solution, she would have to be the one to find it.

  “Trafalgar.” The stone wall between them made Dorothy’s voice sound hollow. “You should go.”

  “What?”

  “This trap is still standing eons after it was created, and it still works. If there was a way to escape it, then someone would have found it. I’m looking at a pile of skeletons that tells me that isn’t the case. Meanwhile, Beatrice and the crew of the Cervantes are facing an incredibly smart enemy. You would be better served helping them.”

  Trafalgar said, “There must be some way to save you. I won’t leave you.”

  “Look around. Do you see any way to break the stone? Anything that could help you cut through rock? This room was built to kill.”

  “That’s not possible! Whoever built it must have had a way to pass through to the other side. This entire place was carved from stone. They must have had a reason. There must be a purpose to this room besides trapping their enemies.”

  Dorothy said, “Perhaps it was an execution chamber. They brought their enemies here to get rid of them. It would explain the lack of ornamentation. This is a charnel house and I’m merely their latest victim.”

  “I refuse to believe that.”

  Trafalgar paced back toward the pool where they’d entered. Their helmets were now bobbing on the surface of the water and Trafalgar scooped them up so they wouldn’t get cracked against the wall. She refused to believe Dorothy would never wear the helmet again, just as she refused to even picture herself taking the submersible back up alone. She saw her reflection in the facemask of one helmet.

  “Besides, I can’t go back to the ship without you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Beatrice would murder me the second she discovered I left you down here alone. I’m terrified of that woman.”

  Dorothy laughed. “We are in agreement there. Oh, Trix... Trafalgar, when you do leave, tell her that I was fortunate to have her in my life.”

  Trafalgar said, “She loves you, you know. She absolutely adores you.”

  Dorothy said, “I know. But it’s nice to know it’s so obvious to others.”

  “I would have thought the opposite. If it was known you were--”

  “I don’t care. I won’t announce my sexuality to the world, but... I won’t be ashamed of wearing my love for Beatrice as a beacon.”

  Trafalgar cursed under her breath and moved quickly back to the wall. “There must be some way to break through! If these blasted walls are thin enough we can hear one another, then it stands to reason they must be thin enough to break! Perhaps there is a blunt instrument in Ignacio’s case...”

  “There’s not.”

  “I know there’s not!” Trafalgar snapped. “But... there has to be something!”

  Dorothy said, “We both looked inside. Why are you so certain we overlooked something so crucial?”

  “Because if we didn’t, it means I’ve let you die twice. It means that I stood here and walked away, then went to Ignacio and didn’t ask him for that damned hammer or a pneumatic drill or something that could save your life. I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe I would choose your death over some vague idea of truth or honor.”

  Dorothy said, “If there were any way out of here...”

  “I would have asked for it,” Trafalgar said.

  Dorothy rested her forehead against the cold stone. The water was now to her waist, the current lapping against her stomach. “I understand now, Trafalgar. This past year, we haven’t been working toward a partnership at all. I was learning who you were, seeing how you operate. I was becoming comfortable with the idea of letting you carry on when I’m gone.”

  “Enough of that talk.”

  “If not now, when? All the explorers we’ve spoken to in the past months about creating an alliance, none of them hold a candle to you. None of them come close to your skills or ingenuity. None of them combined come close to your strength of will. Someone has to take on my legacy. It might as well be you. I would like very much for it to be yo
u. The townhouse, everything within, my accounts. It’s all to be yours, Trafalgar.”

  “Stop talking like that.”

  Dorothy sighed and closed her eyes. “You’ve become a very good friend, but I don’t regret the years we spent butting heads. It’s made us both stronger people. Thank you, Trafalgar.”

  Trafalgar said, “Thank you, Lady Boone. You saved me from an ignominious end to my career after Adeline died and Leola left. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t brought me in.”

  They were silent for a long while, and still the water continued to rise. Outside, it had just reached Trafalgar’s mid-thigh. Dorothy was now letting her hands float on the surface, heart pounding at how close it was to her face. Soon she would have to start treading water, then swimming. How long could she keep that up? She had the tank of oxygen on her back, so she could conceivably just put the tube in her mouth and breathe until that was gone. And then...

  “How can you just give up?” Trafalgar asked.

  Dorothy scoffed. “I don’t see much choice. There’s literally nothing for me to work with in here. I’ll suck the last of the air out of my tank because it would be stupid to die with it left in reserve, but after that... I choke and drown.”

  “How can you say there’s nothing to work with? There’s your mind! How can you die with a mystery unsolved?”

  “What mystery?”

  Trafalgar shouted, “What the hell is this place?” Her voice echoed off the stone and the water. “The place that killed you when everyone and everything else failed. You’ve survived your whole life. You fought off anyone who tried to kill your spirit and became the woman you are today. You fought off anyone who said you had to love and marry a man to be whole. Goddamn it, Dorothy, do not die with a question in your mind. Know what kills you.”