Song of the Deep

by Brian Hastings

  I think about how the merrow said she never comes near the tower. This tower must have been built by the Fomori to battle the merrows. I watch the searchlight sweeping its slow arc through the depths. In the distance I see the gleam of a golden sentinel. Is the tower still helping the sentinels find the merrows, even now?

  Then I remember why I entered the Deeplight in the first place, and I am jolted by a terrible thought: I am at the top of the tower, and my father isn’t here. Where could he have gone? The only possibility I can think of is that he took one of the submersibles from the room below. But the only one of them that remains is broken, so I have no way to follow him.

  I wonder if the merrow maiden knows where the submersibles go. Where is she now? I think of how she lured the sentinel away from me to allow me to make it safely to the Deeplight. She risked her life to help me reach a tower that was used to hunt her own people . . . Why would she do that?

  My mother knew the truth about the Deeplight. Her voice was so certain, she must have known it was more than just a story. Had she actually seen it before? I remember the sadness in her eyes when she spoke of it. Up above me, the immense powerful light shines out into the sea. I think of all the merrows who must have died because of this light. I can’t let that go on any longer.

  I hope my mother would be proud of me for what I am about to do.

  I leap up and grab onto the lip above the entrance to the glass chute. Lifting my leg up over it, I grab onto one of the levers that is part of the moving machinery turning the light. I pull myself up until I can see the complex inner workings that drive it. I stare at the moving parts in awe, thinking of how long these hundreds of gears have been turning on their own without anyone to repair them. This is truly a masterwork of engineering, unlike anything I have ever seen.

  And now I am going to destroy it.

  The bolts along the base of the frame come loose with a few hard twists. Holding on to one of the slow-moving levers, I pull myself along the edge of the frame, loosening each bolt as I go. I can feel the whole frame begin to wobble as I turn the last bolt. I give it one big push and leap down to the ground.

  The frame topples over, pulling the enormous light down with it. I cover my face as the light shatters into a million shards that spray across the room in all directions. A thunderous clanging of metal echoes through the room as the heavy gears smash apart and roll toward the walls.

  The sea outside the windows is dark now. The Deeplight is no more.

  A little shard of glass is stuck in my left hand. I pull it out carefully and put pressure on the cut to stop the bleeding. It doesn’t look too deep. Looking at the long knife-like slivers of glass across the floor, I realize how lucky I am not to have been more badly hurt.

  Out of the corner of my eye there is a tiny golden glow. I turn toward the window and see the clockwork seahorse staring in at me from the water outside. How did he find me here? Did the merrow send him?

  He swims up to the window and taps it with his nose a few times. Then he looks at me.

  “Yes, it’s nice to see you too,” I say. He tilts his head at me as if he is trying to tell me something, then swims forward and taps the glass again. He’s tapping in a kind of pattern. I tap the pattern back on the glass: five taps . . . one tap . . . five taps.

  He leans forward and points down with his nose.

  “You want me to go down? Down where?” I ask. He taps the glass again in the same pattern, then points down. He looks back up at me to see if I understand. “Okay,” I say, nodding to him. I still don’t know what he’s saying, but the best I can do is go down to the lower level and try to figure it out.

  I get back in the glass chute, and it zips me down to the room below. Did the seahorse want me to take a submersible? I think of the pattern of taps: five, one, five. Or was he just tapping out the number eleven? I look at the twelve beds, arranged in a ring around the room. Is there something special about the eleventh bed? How would I even know which one is the eleventh? They’re in a circle—there’s no beginning!

  A plaintive howling sound rings out, and I remember that I left Swish all alone. I race down the steps into the room below. Swish splashes his tail in the water excitedly as he sees me.

  “I’m sorry, Swish! I didn’t mean to take so long,” I tell him, rubbing his head. He rolls over in the water, ready to go play. With another splash of his tail, he dives down into the deep circular pool and out of sight. Could the seahorse have wanted me to find something in the pool?

  I step back into the submarine and dive down below the surface. Swish circles around me, ready to start a new game of tag.

  “Hold on, boy, I just need to look for something,” I tell him as he eagerly swims up to my window and then darts away. The pool is much deeper than I first realized, and there are tunnels leading out from it at varying depths. Some of the tunnels have water flowing out of them and into the pool, while others have water flowing in.

  I think this place must be a nexus of underground currents. The Fomori would have used these tunnels to travel to all different parts of the sea. Above each tunnel there are symbols etched into the stone—of stars, triangles, and vertical lines. Was the seahorse telling me which tunnel to take?

  One tunnel has three lines, followed by a triangle. Another has a star and two lines. The seahorse tapped eleven times, so I look for two vertical lines.

  Swish swims back up to me, wondering why I am staring at the walls instead of playing with him.

  “Do you want to race me?” I ask him, nodding and putting on an excited smile. He swishes his tail back and forth. “I’m going to go through a tunnel, and I want you to follow me, okay?” His whole body is wiggling in anticipation. He might not understand me, but he knows we’re about to do something fun.

  I look back at the tunnels, remembering the seahorse’s pattern of taps: five, one, five. What if the five taps represented a five-sided star? I search the tunnels, one by one, until I see one with a star, a vertical line, and another star. There is a powerful current flowing into it. This has to be the right one.

  “Ready, Swish?” I call out as I sail toward the gaping circular mouth. Then I’m pulled in more suddenly than I expected. “Ahhh!” I scream in shock as the current whips me into the tunnel at lightning speed.

  11

  THE SEAGARDEN

  The gray stone walls of the tunnel fly by in a seemingly unending blur. I brace my arms against the walls of the sub as it bangs back and forth against the hard stone. My stomach lurches with each new turn, and I half expect to be thrown through the glass window at any moment. I hear the sound of rushing water getting louder and higher pitched. The tunnel narrows.

  Then, with a sudden heaving jolt, I am launched up out of the tunnel and into a world of color.

  I am surrounded by a garden of a thousand different hues. My eyes go wide. In all my dreams of the sea, I never imagined anything as beautiful as this. Purple blooms of acropora stretch out their fuzzy fingers like spring lilacs. Orange sun polyps blossom in great dazzling bouquets. Red carnation corals shoot out like flames. Bundles of translucent blue bubble coral shimmer in rays of gleaming light. And everywhere I look there are schools of fish, swooping up and down in great undulating patterns like flocks of starlings. The whole garden is alive with movement.

  Something bumps me from below, and I see Swish’s head pop up in front of my window. He swims a slow wide circle, taking in the sights around us. I can tell from his reaction that he’s never seen anything like this either.

  I sail over the brightly colored coral, exploring this newfound wonder. A graceful stone-shelled kelp turtle turns its head toward me as I pass, its rocky shell broader than my submarine. It feels so peaceful here. This place looks like it has never been touched by the Fomori.

  A familiar glint of gold emerges from a clump of waving sea grass and comes toward me. The clockwork seahorse floats just in front of me, beckoning with his head for me to follow.

  He swims down to a l
ittle nook within the rocks and points toward a speck of orange peeking out from underneath a small pile of loose rocks. There’s something hidden there.

  I really don’t want to go back into the freezing water again, but I sense that this is important. With a quick roll of the sub, I dive out of the hatch and hurry toward the nook. I brush aside the loose rocks. Underneath is a thin gold chain necklace with an orange seashell as a pendant. I look closer at the shell. It’s a zephyr whelk!

  Holding the shell up to my lips, I take a slow, careful breath. The air feels salty and wet, but it works. I look back at Swish and then at the seahorse to see if they share my astonishment. I’m breathing underwater. Bubbles tickle my nose as I laugh in spite of myself. I put the necklace on over my head, still giddy with excitement over this new discovery. As long as I don’t lose the zephyr whelk, I’ll never have to worry about running out of air outside the sub. The seahorse points again toward the rocks where the whelk had been.

  “Thank you,” I try to say to him, releasing another mouthful of bubbles. He points back to the rocks once more. I look back and pull a few more rocks aside, revealing a piece of pale orange fabric. Pulling it out, I realize that it’s an old diving suit. The fabric is soft and stretchy. The seahorse looks from the suit to me and back again.

  Sure, why not, I think. I pull the suit on over my shirt and shorts. Although it looked several sizes too large when I was holding it, the fabric seems to shrink to my body. I can no longer feel the cold of the water at all; I feel as if I am in my bed, snuggled inside a warm blanket.

  “How is this possible?” I ask the seahorse. I look toward Swish and shrug. He swims up to me, looking me over with curiosity. He seems as surprised as I am by my new outfit. “Now we can play tag!” I say, tapping his front fin and swimming away as fast as I can. Swish chases after me, and I dodge away as he tries to tag me back. The corals below me look like a rainbow of summer blossoms. A shiny golden glint in the sand catches my eye, and I dive down just as Swish comes racing back to tag me.

  I brush off the sand, discovering the glint is a heavy golden coin almost as big as my palm. On one side is an engraving of a tower that looks like the Deeplight, while the other side has the image of a coiled serpent. Running my hand through the sand, I find two more coins. They both show the Deeplight on one side, but they each have a different engraving on the back. One shows what looks like a gleaming golden city, and the other has a picture of a shell that looks like a zephyr whelk. I put the three coins into the pocket of my diving suit. My father will want to see these too.

  As I look back up, I see the clockwork seahorse swim toward me and beckon for me to follow. I meet his eyes, looking at him sheepishly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “You brought me here for a reason, didn’t you?”

  He leads me across the colorful gardens of coral, down to the mouth of a small cave that lies at the base of a tall sheet of rock. I peer inside. The floor of the cave is covered in what look like glowing rubies, each one as big as the tomatoes from my garden. I follow the seahorse through the entrance and into the cave. Lying on the ground, her body curled up around the rubies, is the merrow. As I get closer, I realize that these aren’t rubies at all—they’re eggs.

  The merrow seems to be sleeping. I swim closer, careful not to wake her, and in the faint glow of light from the eggs I can see her face is pale. There is a long gash in her tail as well as a red cloud in the water above it. She must have been hurt by the sentinel back at Skeleton Reef.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “How can I help?” The seahorse just looks from the merrow to me. He brought me here in hopes that I would know what to do. I look at the merrow with a feeling of utter helplessness.

  Stay calm, I tell myself. You can do this.

  My father taught me how to bandage a wound, but I’ve only ever had to do it once. Even then it was only a minor cut on his arm from a jagged piece of scrap in the nets. I’ve never had to bandage anything serious before . . . and besides, I have no bandages to work with! I’m going to have to find some way to improvise.

  I swim out of the cave and find a cluster of tall swaying kelp stalks. I take out my coral knife and cut each stalk at the base. Back in the cave, I wrap the stalks tightly around the merrow’s wounded tail, tying the ends with a square knot to keep them secure.

  It looks like the bleeding has stopped, but she is still pale and weak. I’m going to have to find her something to eat.

  I swim along the seafloor, gently lifting up the colorful fan-like corals and searching the sand underneath. In just a few minutes, I have collected ten violet-shelled scallops. I bring them back to the merrow and open the shells with the coral knife. The merrow’s eyes open halfway, but they are distant and unfocused. I hold a scallop up to her lips and she takes a tiny bite.

  I keep feeding her, and, after a few minutes, she is able to sit up. She looks at the ruby-colored eggs. I can tell she is counting them in her head. There are thirty-three. I counted them twice already as I was feeding her. I look at the eggs, each glowing faintly from within, and wonder if these are the very last merrow eggs in all the sea.

  “Seagarden,” the merrow says, startling me as she speaks. I look at her quizzically. “We call it the Seagarden,” she says, indicating the clockwork seahorse and herself. “It lies in the shadow of a ridge in the sea that protects it from the eyes of the Deeplight. It’s the last place in the sea untouched by the Fomori sentinels.”

  “I, uh . . . I turned off the Deeplight,” I say, not wanting to explain that I had smashed it. Her eyes widen, and she is quiet for a long while.

  “Thank you,” she says at last. “That will help make the sea safe again.” She looks toward the cave entrance, deep in thought.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I look out the cave entrance. High above the coral, I see the sweeping light of a Fomori sentinel passing silently over us.

  “With the Deeplight off,” she whispers, “the sentinels have altered their patrols. Eventually one

  of them will find the Seagarden.” She sees my horrified expression. “It’s not your fault. You did a very good thing.”

  I peer out of the cave. The sentinel is nowhere in sight. But I know it’s just a matter of time before it returns.

  The merrow is still too weak to swim; and even if she could, I know she would never leave her eggs if there was any danger nearby. I need to figure out some way to stop the sentinels.

  “What are they looking for?” I ask the merrow.

  “Gold,” she says. “Minerals, gems . . . anything the Fomori found valuable. The sentinels destroy anything in their path and dig up the seafloor to mine what they want.” I think of the lifeless blue void I saw from the top of the Deeplight. Then I think of my father stepping out of his boat with empty fishing nets. How long has this been going on?

  “Where do they take the gold when they find it?”

  “To a place no one else can go. The Forbidden City.”

  “That’s where the Fomori live? If I did get there somehow, could I stop the sentinels?”

  “Even if you could stop them, there is something worse.” There is a tremble in her voice.

  “A leviathan?”

  “No, far worse than that. It has killed countless leviathans.” My mouth falls open, and I have to spit out briny water. I think of the dream I had where my father’s ship was pulled under the sea. I had seen a brief glimpse of the creature that pulled him down.

  “What does it look like? Is it red, with long tentacle arms?” She looks at me uncertainly, and I know the answer is yes.

  “We call it the Rimorosa,” she says. “It is ancient. It is unstoppable.” I can see from her eyes that she doesn’t want to say any more. But I still need to figure out a plan. I think back to the submersibles in the Deeplight. My father must have gotten in one. Did it take him to the Forbidden City? If so, there must be a way in.

  “How do the sentinels get in and out of the Forbidden City?” I ask.

&nb
sp; “There is only one way in, but it is an impossible journey.”

  “Impossible? How can the sentinels make it in?”

  “The entrance lies beneath the seafloor, on the other side of three impassable lands. Believe me when I tell you that no living thing will survive the journey.” Her eyes fall and her face looks pained. “My father was the last one of us to try.” I put my hand on top of hers. I want to say something to make it better, but I know that nothing will.

  I sit with her in silence for a long while. Her eyes are closed. She is tired and weak and needs to rest. I ask her one last thing.

  “Will you please tell me your name?” She opens her eyes the tiniest bit and smiles.

  “My real name is very long. Nobody has said it in a long time.” She is quiet for a moment. It must be hard for her to speak, but her voice is warm and sincere. “When I was young, I met a human girl who looked a lot like you.” Her eyes close again. She squeezes my hand gently. “She called me Cara. She said that it means friend. You can call me that, if you like.”

  “Cara, my name is Merryn. Get some rest. I’ll keep guard over the cave.”

  “Merryn,” she says softly. “Even your names are similar. The other girl’s name was Meara.” She closes her eyes.

  I hold her hand for a while, a wave of confused feelings rushing through my head.

  My mother’s name was Meara.

  ******

  Cara and my mother knew each other. Jumbled questions race through my head. There are so many things I want to know. Just then, I hear a yelping noise from outside and I peer out of the cave entrance. Swish is watching something in the distance. I swim out, and the long white beam of a Fomori sentinel passes right over my face. Through the blinding light of the beam I can see the sentinel tilting down toward me. I have only a moment to react.

  I dive forward, underneath the sentinel, forcing it to turn away from the cave entrance. I swim straight upward, knocking my head against its smooth, metal underbelly. If I can just stay in its blind spot I may be able to buy some time. The sentinel turns to the left, then to the right, sweeping its beam through the coral in search of me. I take a deep breath from the zephyr whelk as I try to plan my next move.