by Kali Wallace
“I don’t know who they are. I didn’t see their faces. I only know—”
There was an unimpressed snort in the darkness. “You don’t know anything.”
Mara’s skin prickled all over. “Who’s here?”
“There are ten or twelve of us, I think,” Izzy said. “They took five others when they got me, and there were already about that many here.”
“But they only brought in one this time,” a man grumbled. “Maybe this one’s a spy. Did they grab her too? How’d she get here?”
“Oh, please,” Izzy said. “I know Mara. She’s my friend. She’s not a spy. Whatever the Lord of the Muck wants—”
“We should give it to him,” said another voice, also a man’s. “You don’t mess with mages. Not mages like him. Cooperate and go along. That’s what we should do.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” a woman said. “I’m not going along with anything.”
“I don’t think he’s looking for cooperation,” Izzy said. “If he was going to ask us, he wouldn’t be kidnapping people off the docks.”
“Even a mage can be reasoned with,” said the second man.
The woman chuckled darkly. “Have you ever met a mage?”
“You’re all so stupid.” That sounded like the same girl who had snorted before. “You don’t understand anything.”
“Why don’t you explain it to us, if you’re so smart?” Izzy said. “You keep telling us we’re stupid but you don’t help.”
“It’s not worth asking,” said yet another person, a woman with a faint Lunderi accent. “She was here when they brought us in, and she hasn’t explained anything.”
“How did you get here?” Mara asked, before they could start arguing again. “What happened? Was it the same for all of you?”
The first to answer was a woman. Her voice was weak and cracked like weathered wood; she coughed, a rough phlegm-wet sound, and said, “They grabbed me from the docks on Summer Island. I was walking to my daughter’s house. I didn’t see their faces. They were wearing masks, then they put a hood over my head.” She spat derisively. “What sort of cowards hide behind festival masks, like they think it’ll scare us?”
Mara had been about to ask if the shuffling, silent gray men had been the abductors, but the woman’s words brought her up short. “How many of them were there?”
“Four or five,” the woman said. “I couldn’t see once they got the hood over my head.”
“Me too,” said a boy, his voice trembling and soft. “Just like that. I wasn’t scared of the masks. The masks are stupid.”
They were wearing animal masks to hide their faces. That’s what Fish Hook had said about One-Eyed Bennie’s pirates. Bennie told so many wild stories nobody listened anymore. But maybe this time, this once, she had been telling the truth.
“I fought ’em,” said a man, and his words were echoed through the dungeon. They had all fought, to no avail. “One of them had—must’ve been knives. My arm got sliced up.”
“One of them was a skinny girl who laughed the whole time,” another man said. “They put us on a ship, then dumped us into a small boat to bring us inside. I couldn’t see anything, but I’ve been on the water my whole life. I know a ship from a rowboat.”
As the prisoners spoke, Mara counted at least ten different voices, including the rasp of an old woman saying something in Roughwater. A man translated for her: the old woman had been waiting for her grandson’s fishing boat when she had been taken.
The first girl who had spoken, the one who had called them all stupid, didn’t tell the story of her own abduction. Mara noticed and wondered what her silence meant.
“What about you?” said the coughing woman. “You come in here asking all these questions and don’t share the same about yourself? Why are you alone?”
Mara didn’t know how much to tell them. She didn’t want to give any information to the man who wanted to cooperate with the Muck, and she couldn’t explain that she had sneaked inside without revealing how.
“I don’t remember,” she said finally. She didn’t like to lie, but it was simpler for now. “I think they hit my head. I woke up when that horrible man was carrying me in here.”
“Oh, Mara, that’s awful,” Izzy said. “Are you hurt? Do you feel sick?”
“No, no, it’s not really that bad,” Mara said quickly. “It’s okay.”
She wished she could talk to Izzy without anybody else listening. She wanted to tell her that the Lady of the Tides and Professor Kosta and Driftwood knew she was here and would notice when she didn’t return. She wanted to tell her not to give up hope, if only because saying the words out loud might help Mara believe them as well.
“How long have you been here?” Mara asked.
A man answered, “Who can tell? One of those shuffling men brings us food once a day, so it’s been about twenty days for me. My belly isn’t as reliable as the rising sun, and we’ve got none of that down here. I was one of the first. The girl was here before me, her and the man they took away.”
His words sent a fresh shiver through Mara’s entire body. “The man they took away?”
“Ask her,” said the man. “The girl. She knew him.”
“I don’t know anything,” the girl said. She sounded younger now, with a hint of fear creeping into her voice. “Why don’t you ask the mage when you get a chance? He’s powerful and clever. He has a reason for everything. But I don’t know what it is, so stop asking me!”
The dungeon echoed with the force of her words, and for a long moment nobody said anything. There was only the quiet hiccupping noise of somebody crying and trying to hide it. It might have been the girl, but why would she be crying while also praising the Muck for his cleverness? It sounded an awful lot like she knew more than she was letting on, but Mara didn’t know how to draw it out of her. She had to think, but it was so hard to do when every time she opened her eyes she saw only darkness, a darkness so deep and so complete her mind began to invent things for her to see: reaching hands, blinking eyes, fluttering gills. There was a candle by the door. Maybe she could—but that was stupid. She didn’t know any fire-lighting spells. She didn’t know any useful magic at all. She rubbed away stinging tears.
“Have they taken anybody else?” she asked.
A pause.
“No,” said one woman.
“Not yet,” said another.
What was the Lord of the Muck doing? What did he want? Mara knew why he had put her in his dungeon, but Izzy and the others had only been going about their lives. They didn’t deserve to get captured and locked up. It didn’t make any sense. If he was trying to study the magic of the founders in the bones of ancient creatures, he didn’t need prisoners.
But not all of the bones she and Izzy had found on the seafloor had belonged to animals.
One of them had come from a person.
“Izzy?” Mara said quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you? Which way?”
“Over this way. Can you follow my voice?”
Mara tried. She crawled toward Izzy, stopping only when she bumped up against the rusted iron bars.
“Reach out toward me,” Izzy said.
Mara reached blindly into the next cell. She grasped around, closing her fingers on open air, pressing into the bars until the cold metal bit into her skin.
“I’m trying,” she said.
“Me too,” said Izzy.
But they were too far apart. Their fingers did not meet. Reluctantly Mara dropped her hand and settled against the bars with her knees drawn up to her chest. The dungeon was so cold her teeth had begun to chatter.
“Here,” Izzy said. “You’re freezing. I’m throwing you my shawl.”
Something soft brushed Mara’s arm.
“Now you’ll get cold,” Mara said.
“I’m fine,” Izzy said. “You keep it for now. We can switch off.”
Mara wrapped the shawl tight around her shoulders,
tucking her nose under the cloth. It wasn’t very warm, but it was better than nothing.
“Somebody has to know we’re here, right?” Izzy said.
Mara knew what she was asking. “Yeah. Somebody has to.”
She tried to sound reassuring, to counter the quiet plea she heard in Izzy’s voice. The Lady of the Tides did know where they were—where Mara was, at least. So did Driftwood and Professor Kosta.
But the Lady had warned her: if Mara was caught, there might not be any way to help her. She had to rely on her wits.
Mara didn’t know what good wits were against iron locks, but she did know she couldn’t count on the Lady and Professor Kosta and Driftwood to rescue them.
12
The Hall of Glass
Mara jerked awake from a restless sleep. She couldn’t see anything. She was shivering, and she felt clammy and damp all over. In her stomach there was a deep hunger ache, the sort she hadn’t felt in a long time. She rubbed her eyes and blinked. It didn’t help. Only after a few heart-thudding moments did she remember: the dungeon.
She must have slept for hours and hours, to have grown so hungry. It had been almost midnight when she sneaked into the fortress. An hour or two before dawn when she was captured. It would be daylight now. By now, the Lady and Professor Kosta must have realized that Mara had been caught.
She didn’t know what had awoken her until she heard a loud metallic rattle, and a voice hissed, “They’re coming back!”
Down the long row of cells, the door opened. The candle flared as the tall gray man came into the dungeon. The light was barely bright enough to see by, but still it stung Mara’s eyes. The gray man shuffled along, keys jangling in his hand.
He hadn’t brought in anybody new. He was coming to take somebody away.
Mara’s first thought was: please don’t let it be me.
Her second thought: it has to be me.
She had seen more of the inside of the Winter Blade than any of the prisoners. She knew at least two ways out: the sea cave and the well. She was hungry and tired, but not as hungry and tired as the people who had been here for days. She could swim for help. She would make the Lady and Driftwood and Professor Kosta understand that the prisoners needed to be rescued.
She stood up. She couldn’t see much, but she was able to fumble her way to the barred metal door.
“Hey!” she shouted. Her voice bounced around the dungeon, a sudden shock of sound. “Hey, you! Back here!”
“Mara, what are you doing?” Izzy hissed.
“It’s okay,” Mara whispered. “I have an idea.” She didn’t have time to explain. She only knew she had the best chance of any of them to get away.
“Mara—”
“Hey!” Mara shouted again. “Hey, you! Do you hear me?”
The gray man swayed his head toward her. She caught a glimpse of the gills on his neck and shuddered. He blinked at her. He was listening.
“Tell your master I’ve got a message for him. From my master. He knows what I mean.”
The gray man swayed as he looked at her. He blinked again.
“I have a message for him,” she said again, enunciating each word carefully.
The gray man shuffled forward and stopped in front of Mara’s cell. He picked through the keys on his ring one by one, moving with agonizing slowness.
“Leave her alone,” Izzy said from her cell. She banged on the bars, making the door rattle loudly. “I said leave her alone! Take me instead!”
“Izzy, don’t,” Mara pleaded. “I have a plan. Trust me!”
Finally the gray man found the right key. Mara’s instincts told her to shrink away from the cell door, but she didn’t let herself move. Izzy’s shawl was still around her shoulders, but she had no time to give it back. She knotted it around her waist like a belt so it wouldn’t get in her way.
The moment the lock clanked, Mara shoved the door open and darted out.
The gray man dropped his keys in surprise. Mara was already running. She sprinted out of the dungeon, plunging herself into the dark corridor beyond. The light from the single candle faded, and soon she was surrounded by darkness. She didn’t stop running. She had to get out. She might not get another chance.
Behind her the gray man huffed and wheezed as he chased her. How did he breathe air if he had gills? Could he see in the dark? Mara didn’t want to find out. She had to find the sea cave. That was her way out. She was going to get away. She was going to the Lady for help. She was going to—
Run smack into a wall.
Stars exploded in Mara’s eyes. She bounced back and fell, landing hard on her butt. Fiery pain burned across her entire face, and blood trickled over her lips. She scrambled to her feet and reached out blindly, tears gathering in her eyes, groping the wall to figure out if she was at a dead end or only a corner.
She heard the gray man’s shuffling footsteps, his rasping breath, and too late she realized he was right behind her. She dodged to the side, but she wasn’t fast enough. He caught her shirt with one hand, her arm with the other, and before she could even yell he was slinging her over his shoulder.
“Let me go!” she shouted. “Let me go! Let me go!”
She wriggled and fought and beat at the man’s back, but she couldn’t break free.
He carried her through the dark corridors, around corners, and down stairs. Mara was hopelessly lost by the time they entered a hallway lit by flickering candles. All she knew was they were not going back to the dungeon. They were going farther than that.
And deeper, even though they were already below the sea.
In some places the walls on both sides were smooth, featureless, and shaped from solid stone; but in others they were made up of large fitted blocks, forming a tunnel as tall as two men and completely round. It gave Mara the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped in the guts of a massive stone beast.
She knew where they were.
This ancient passage had been carved by the founders a thousand years ago, or more. Tunnels like this, the ones that had once connected the city above with the founders’ city below, were supposed to have been lost centuries ago, collapsed or buried. Treasure hunters and mages were always looking for ancient tunnels, hoping to find some cache of valuable or magical artifacts, but Mara had never heard of anybody finding any this extensive. The past masters of the Winter Blade had been keeping secrets even more impressive than anybody knew.
Finally the gray man stopped before a round wooden door. It was a perfect circle, like a ship’s porthole, smaller and plainer than the library doors upstairs. There was a strange noise coming from the other side. It sounded— Mara had to be imagining things; she knew they were deep under the island, but it sounded like a singing bird.
The gray man pulled the door open without knocking. He ducked his head to carry Mara inside—her back scraped the top of the round frame—and dumped her onto the floor.
She jumped to her feet immediately, but before she could run the gray man grabbed her arm.
The room was murky with smoke and humming with the echoes of countless spell-songs, all clashing and clanging against one another. Altogether the noise was loud and grating enough to set Mara’s teeth on edge.
This was the Lord of the Muck’s laboratory. It was the room Mara had been looking for, but she had been looking in the wrong place. It wasn’t in the tower at all. The laboratory was hidden below the sea.
It was so much bigger than Mara had imagined. Every inch of the room was jammed with tables, shelves, and workbenches, half of which sagged under the weight of piles of books. The rest were crowded with jars and tanks and cages, nearly every one filled with specimens of fish and fowl, reptiles and mammals, so many animals both dead and alive Mara couldn’t begin to count them. Eels writhed in buckets, colorful parrots bristled on perches, and a school of silver anchovies swam in endless circles in a large tank. Two fat seagulls fought over a heel of bread on the floor. Sleek brown otters slept in cozy burrows in a large cage. In one tank
an octopus glared through the glass with a wary eye. A makeshift pen built out of chairs and boxes trapped a few knee-high goats; the black one was gnawing on a book.
The dead creatures were no less numerous, both those that were whole and those in pieces: fish and eels, crabs and lobsters, tangles of jellyfish and squid preserved in green liquid. There were tanks of shark fins and shelves of walrus horns, bird feathers plucked and strung on a line, and bowls of teeth and scales and fine bones. In one huge glass tank beetles swarmed over a pile of bones, devouring the flesh in a shimmering black wave. Beside it something was bubbling in a large vat over a magic-stoked fire; Mara was glad she couldn’t see beneath the foamy surface. Beside it was a butcher’s block and a large cleaver.
And on the floor: a lumpy woven sack tied up with rope, ready to be dumped in the sea.
The whole room smelled of fish and smoke and animals, with a faint hint of cooked meat, and the acrid scents of chemicals and compounds Mara didn’t recognize.
Against the wall there was a shelf of mirrors, some clear and some cloudy. In front of the shelf stood one mirror that was larger than the rest, the freestanding kind in a frame, like what a rich person might have in their dressing chamber. Smoke whirled and drifted in the glass, completely obscuring the view.
Beyond all that, beyond the cluttered tables, the sloshing tanks, and crowded cages, beyond the bubbling cauldrons and hazy smoke, beyond the mirrors spying across the city, it was the most magnificent room Mara had ever seen.
It was a massive round dome larger than the ballroom at Tidewater Isle. Half the dome was polished black stone, supported by smooth pillars that rose into high arches, eventually joining at a star-shaped point in the center of the ceiling. The other half was made of tall glass windows set between stone pillars. Shimmering green light shone through the glass.
Mara had seen great glass rooms like this in mosaics and tapestries, but she had not thought it possible one still existed. They were all believed to have collapsed when the founders left the city.
A school of slipfish darted past, their silver scales shining briefly before they turned as one and whirled away. There was sunlight up there somewhere, just as her stomach had been telling her. From the shade of green Mara guessed they were at least ten fathoms down. Deep enough that the weight of the water on the glass would be crushing—if the glass wasn’t magic, spelled centuries ago by the founders.
