by E. G. Foley
“Well, they were English, clearly. One boy, with a bowtie, he seemed reasonable enough, but the cousin he had with him was just ghastly! Blond-haired, maybe thirteen, fourteen. He levitated me right up off the ground like you did with those boulders that day! He turned me upside down until I almost couldn’t breathe!” It seemed only prudent to exaggerate, seeing the scowl on the face in the smoke.
“Did you at least catch a name for this boy?” Wyvern asked in an ominous rumble.
But at that moment, a draft hit the candle, causing it to flicker. The image of Lord Wyvern’s head wobbled and grew misshapen. “Giannop—”
The flame winked out.
Dmitri cursed himself for being too slow to block the draft with his hand, cutting his patron’s question off midsentence.
He winced, wondering what the sorcerer earl could do to him at this distance if he annoyed him sufficiently. Hands shaking, his pulse skittering with anxiety, Giannopoulos finally got the candle lit again.
Lord Wyvern stared out the cloud with a long-suffering look.
“Sorry, my lord.”
“As I was saying. This boy. Did you by chance catch his name?”
“Not his surname, no, but I heard the little red-haired girl call him Jake.”
Wyvern growled. “Just as I suspected.”
“You know him, sir?”
“Indeed. The Griffon heir. The gentlemen I represent have long wished to get their hands on the little menace, but others have been hiding him. Did you happen to catch where he’s staying? Also on Malta?”
Dmitri shook his head. “No, sir, but they did say they had traveled here on the ferry, if I’m not mistaken. They didn’t specify which one, though. There are several here that run daily to a few different ports. They said they had come across my book and wanted to know anything I could tell them about the orb. Somehow they had already deduced that it came from Atlantis.”
Wyvern shook his head. “He really is the most irksome boy.”
“Well, sir, don’t worry. This lad is either headed to jail, or, if he and his cohorts slip through the hands of the local police, to Nisáki. And we both know what will happen when they get there and start poking around the caves. Your golems will reconstitute and pound them into paste!”
“Perhaps. However…when dealing with Jake Everton, we’ve learned that it’s best not to leave things to chance. I daresay it may take something stronger than rock golems to defeat that lad. No matter. I’ll think on it and send something worse to hunt him down and finish him, now that I at least know the region where the blasted Order’s been hiding him.” Wyvern tilted his head. “Did you tell the little darlings anything else?”
“Oh, no, sir!”
Wyvern narrowed his eyes. “I trust you didn’t give them my name.”
“Of course not, my lord!” Giannopoulos said, hiding his gulp. “Never.”
“Lucky for you,” Wyvern said. “How’s the research coming along on the rest of the artifacts, anyway?”
“Progressing,” Dmitri said eagerly, grateful for the change of subject. “I’ve begun to decipher a few more of the hieroglyphs—”
“Yes, yes,” Wyvern said. “Beg your pardon, I must go. Carry on with your research. If you see the boy again, contact me at once.”
“Yes, my lord,” Giannopoulos said, and with that, the image of Lord Wyvern’s head nodded his dismissal, then disappeared from the smoke cloud.
Mystified, Giannopoulos licked his fingers, pinched out the flame, then went back out into his shop, where the police were now banging frantically on the door.
About time. He hurried to let them in.
# # #
Fortunately, Jake had enough experience dodging the London bobbies that he managed to lead his friends away without getting arrested. He didn’t know this ancient city, of course, but he took his friends on a weaving path through several blocks until they reached the pier.
There they hired a tubby little fishing boat that sported both sails and steam power to take them to the uninhabited island where Giannopoulos had said the Atlantean treasure was hidden. The decks were draped with nets and piled with empty traps and buckets, and the whole thing reeked of fish, but it looked seaworthy.
The sun-leathered captain was the only one who would agree to take them at this time of day. They stressed to him that they needed to be back in time to catch the evening ferry back to Catania; with a puff on his pipe, he agreed this was possible for a few extra lire. Jake paid him, then they hurried up the gangplank, and soon were chugging and sputtering along out of the harbor.
To avoid getting splashed—and for fear of Davy Jones’s spies watching for them everywhere in the water—the mermaids stayed out of sight in the dim, stinky cabin, as they had aboard the packet ship.
It was slow going. The tide was out, and the afternoon wind was sluggish.
Once they were clear of harbor traffic out on the glassy sea, the captain opened up the engines a bit to increase their speed, and even let down a few of the sails. But the sun was hot, and the canvas hung limp off the yardarms.
“So why you wanna go there?” the captain asked the boys at length. “There’s a-better islands all over de place. De beaches. De grottos. De fishing. Is nothing on Nisáki.”
“Well, sir, we heard there are fascinating caves on the western edge of the island, beneath a rock formation called the Cyclops’ Crown. Do you know the place?”
He nodded. “Is-a most mysterious. We are on the edge of what is called the Calypso Deep, deepest region of the whole Mediterranean. No one even knows how deep it goes. Miles,” he said.
“Yes,” Jake murmured, “we’ve heard of it.”
Archie sent him a guarded look.
The water grew more lively as they chugged on, passing in between various small islands; cross-currents molded by the seamounts clashed and swirled.
And then at last, in the distance, a small island rose from the cobalt sea, wearing a menacing rock formation along its ridged top like a jagged crown.
“Well,” said Maddox, standing by Jake at the rails, “I can certainly see where it got its name.”
“It does look like a crown for a Cyclops,” Dani agreed from nearby, shading her eyes from the sun.
The captain shifted gears, slowing their pace through the increasingly choppy waves as the boat chugged toward the island. Boulders outlined the crescent-shaped cove before them, and he obviously didn’t want to be dashed against the rocks as they arrived.
Against the azure sky, the weirdly jagged rock formation loomed above them. Wind and sea had sculpted towering spiky fingers of limestone. Below the Cyclops’ Crown was a steeply sloping bluff covered in loose scree and pockmarked with a whole warren of black-mouthed caves, large and small.
“Look—seals!” Dani pointed at the sleek, whiskered creatures sunning themselves on the boulders that stretched out like thick arms defining the rocky cove.
The seals flopped into the water and swam away as the boat approached. The flock of gulls standing around idly on the narrow pebble beach didn’t like the engine noise, either, but they merely flapped around a bit and screeched, annoyed, instead of leaving.
At last, the captain cut the engines and dropped anchor. He ran the gangplank out and braced it with a bang atop the outermost clump of boulders, then pointed, showing Jake how he and his friends could use the rest of the armlike boulders as stepping stones to the beach.
It wasn’t too precarious a walk, although the sea foam splashed up in places. Even so, the mermaids decided to risk it in their fascination with their human adventure. Liliana was bored, anyway, and couldn’t bear to stay behind on the boat with her sister while everyone else went exploring.
So, one by one, they walked cautiously down the gangplank and stepped onto the rocks where the seals had lolled. Jake and Maddox kept an eye on everyone, ready to assist as they walked in single file along the bridgelike boulders and finally jumped down onto the gravel beach.
“Careful,” Sap
phira chided her sister as they neared the spot where the waves broke, splashing up into white curlicues of sea foam. A protective hand clutching Lil’s shoulder, she bade her sister wait until the wave retreated, then they dashed past before the next one rolled in.
“Well, here we are, then.” Archie glanced around on the beach, hands on hips.
Between the rhythmic soughing of the surf, the rattle of the shingle rasping up and down the beach with every wave, the cries of the gulls, and the wind that curled into the cove, it was hard to hear Maddox’s mumble over their crunching footsteps.
“What did you say?” Jake asked loudly.
“That’s a lot of caves!” the older boy repeated.
Jake nodded, scanning the concave bluff before them. “At least it’s in the shade. We’d better split up or we’ll be here all day. Can’t miss the ferry.”
“How do you want to approach this?” Archie mused aloud as they made their way toward the bottom of the slope.
Every step on the gravel beach was difficult, and the climb before them promised to be even harder. Beneath the spiky Cyclops’ Crown, the hill that awaited them was covered in rocks of all sizes.
Such terrain would’ve been challenging for a mountain goat, but for two mermaids still getting used to walking on human legs, it was impossible. Even Sapphira admitted she was not ready for that.
Instead she stayed on the beach with her sister, roaming about precariously, and watching as the others approached the slope, debating where to begin.
“How about this?” Maddox said. “We divide the bluff into thirds—right, left, center—and then split each third into upper and lower halves. The girls can check the caves on the lower portion. Harder to climb wearing skirts, I should think.”
“You’ve got that right,” Nixie muttered.
“We three”—he gestured to himself, Jake, and Archie—“will search the caves on the upper half. Archie, Nixie, you take the caves on the right. Isabelle and I will take the left. Jake and Dani, you’re in the center.”
“Sounds fair,” Dani said, still eyeing him in disapproval for his roughing up the professor.
Jake snorted. “Mind your footing, everybody,” he advised, then they all started scaling their assigned sections of the bluff.
“Take your time,” Maddox added, looking eager to get started. “This loose scree, as it’s called, can be treacherous. We don’t want anyone falling and getting hurt out here.”
“And nobody start a rockslide, please,” Archie said wryly.
Jake was right behind Dani as she started picking her way up the center of the slope. “I wonder how deep these caves go,” she remarked.
“And which one holds the treasure,” Jake replied with a wily smile.
“Whoever finds it wins!” Dani called out playfully to everyone. With that, she started running up the hillside—and promptly stumbled, landing on all fours with a small cry of pain.
“Carrot!” Jake dashed after her and helped her up. “Watch yourself!”
“It didn’t hurt.” Her face turned beet red as she dusted off her hands.
“Don’t be in such a hurry. I don’t want you breaking your neck.”
She gave him a meaningful glare, not needing to say a word.
“I’m sorry, all right?” he exclaimed. “I had to do it!”
“Not like that. Red would be ashamed.”
“I got him to talk, didn’t I?”
“Humph.” Thankfully, she let it go. “What are we even going to do with this Atlantean treasure once we find it?”
Jake shrugged as she steadied herself and continued climbing ahead of him. “I suppose we’ll load it onto the boat, have the captain sail out over Calypso Deep, and throw it all back down into the sea where it came from.”
“Hmm. Then at least some good could come of your bad behavior.”
Jake rolled his eyes.
As Dani peeked into the first cave she came to about a quarter of the way up the hillside, Jake paused to check on Sapphira.
Bracing his foot against a rock, he glanced down at the beautiful older girl on the beach below. Briefly entranced all over again by the way her waist-long, blue-black spiral curls blew in the breeze around her graceful figure and the wind rippled through the long green day gown that Isabelle had begrudgingly lent her, he felt a surge of pride at having the two princesses under his protection.
Mermaid princesses, at that.
She hadn’t minded his intimidation tactics on that greasy little man. Then he saw that, while he had lingered to daydream about Sapphira, he had fallen behind Maddox and even Archie. Right.
“Be careful,” he reminded Dani as he moved past her, resuming the climb toward the upper half of the bluff.
She snorted, and he realized as he moved past her that she had just seen him ogling Sapphira. She shook her head without a word and looked around for the next cave.
Jake scowled. So what if I think she’s pretty? Blimey, the redhead never let him get away with anything! It annoyed him to no end.
Who did she think she was, always having her opinions on everything he did and said?
Still, he thought uneasily, there had been a different quality to the flicker of disappointment he had read in Dani’s green eyes just now compared to her obvious disgust with him for roughing up Dr. Giannopoulos back at the shop. That had clearly been anger, but this had almost looked like hurt.
He turned away, confused, and focused on climbing. What would she care if I fancy Sapphira? We’re just friends.
Aren’t we?
Small rocks rolled and skittered down the hillside behind him.
Off to his right, Archie and Nixie were making good progress. They had managed to find a little winding path up the base of the hillside. To his left, Maddox was vaulting nimbly up the boulders, and Jake frowned to notice that Sapphira was watching him intently, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.
Isabelle had hitched up her skirts a bit, her white ankle boots already scuffed and dusty from her efforts. The cave entrance in front of her was one of the largest and easiest to reach. It looked like a sensible place to put a treasure.
“See anything, Izzy?” he called down, curious, as she reached its threshold.
Before she could answer, Maddox suddenly fired out an order. “Everybody—hold still!”
“What is it?” Dani cried.
“Quiet!” Maddox stood motionless on a large, round boulder, scanning the whole vista, no doubt consulting his Guardian instincts. “Something’s off. I sense danger.”
Everybody waited uneasily for him to identify the source of the threat.
Silence.
“Well? I don’t see anything!” Jake called, growing impatient at the delay.
“I don’t see anything either, but I still…”
“If this treasure is as valuable as Dr. Giannopoulos claimed, they probably didn’t leave it unprotected,” Dani said.
“She’s right! The real cave could be booby-trapped!” Archie yelled.
“Everybody, test them first.” Jake picked up a bread-loaf-sized rock and tossed it into the cave nearest him.
Nothing happened, booby-trap-wise, but Archie let out a yowl. “What are you doing, man?” he yelled at Jake from across the cove. “You’ll smash the artifacts if they’re in there!”
Jake cringed to realize the clumsy error he had made in front of Sapphira. “Well, what do you suggest?” he retorted.
“I don’t know, but we can’t risk breaking all the artifacts!”
While they started bickering about how to proceed, Nixie heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes, and took matters in hand. Carefully approaching the nearest cave entrance, she pulled her wand out and waved it at the cave mouth before her.
Nobody saw exactly what had happened, but a little lightning bolt of magical energy bounced off some sort of invisible barrier over the cave entrance, and flew back at her, hitting her squarely in the torso.
The next thing anybody knew, she was falling,
flying backward off the ledge.
Archie let out a cry of horror as her skinny, black-clad body plummeted.
“Jake!” Dani screamed, pointing at her.
He gasped and reacted directly from his training: in the nick of time—forgetting all about the watching fisherman—he used his telekinesis to catch Nixie in midair. Forcing himself to focus, he set her down gently on a rock ledge a few feet below her, while Archie began scrabbling down the slope toward her.
“What happened?” Isabelle cried. “Did anyone see?”
They shrugged and shook their heads, but Liliana piped up, “She used her wand on that cave, there!”
The little girl pointed at the place where Nixie had been standing.
Sapphira nodded to confirm it. “I could see it, too, from where we’re standing. She flicked her wand and the flash from it bounced off the cave mouth back onto her.”
Jake was baffled by this revelation, but the question of how to determine whether or not the caves were booby-trapped was put aside for the moment. They all watched anxiously as Archie reached Nixie’s side and dropped to his knees.
“She’s unconscious!” He lifted her upper body to a sitting position, but her eyes stayed closed and her head flopped back. He tapped his fingers on her milk-white cheek. “Nixie? Nix, wake up!”
“Maybe she fainted,” Jake suggested as he started climbing down toward them.
“Nixella Valentine never fainted in her life!” Archie said with a scoff. “C’mon, Nix, can you hear me?”
Just then, Jake heard a strange, scraping rumble of stone on stone from about ten feet away, near the cave where Nixie had had her accident. He glanced over, and what happened next was strange even in the life of a boy with a gryphon for a pet.
A large boulder wedged into the hillside came to life.
Glowing orange eyes opened in its blunt, craggy surface, stared at him for a second in mindless malevolence, and startled a small shriek out of him as its massive body started rising from the bluff.
Everyone was screaming. Jake’s heart pounded, but he just stared in disbelief, tilting his head back as the rock golem rose up before him, presumably to guard the treasure cave that Nixie, still unconscious, had unwittingly found.
