The Expeditioners and the Secret of King Triton's Lair

by S. S. Taylor

  The massive submarine kept rising and finally came to rest on the surface. Loud clanking and whirring sounds added themselves to the whoosh of water running off the metal, and a glass-and-chrome elevator car rose up out of the tower that soared above the deck of the submarine.

  A door in the elevator opened, along with many hatches on the deck, and we watched as black-clad figures poured onto the surface. Now we could see the words on the hull: the Trident, painted in official white block letters above the BNDL logo, shining in bright red.

  There must have been a hundred agents on deck now, leaping into the huge black inflatable boats that sprang out of the railings along the deck, lowering themselves to the surface of the water, and buzzing toward shore on invisible motors. I raised my spyglass and watched as two men, instantly recognizable by their clothes and hair, stepped out of the glass-and-chrome elevator tower, made their way down a ladder on the side of the hull, and were escorted into a swift little speedboat that had appeared below.

  Mr. Mountmorris approached in the speedboat, surrounded by agents and dressed in a shiny black suit, his earlights flashing slowly.

  “So we have found our castaways at last!” he called out as the boat came up on the beach. Jec Banton leapt out and helped him to step out onto the sand. Mr. Mountmorris’s assistant still had his hair dyed blood red and cut into a lethal-looking spike along the top of his head.

  Mountmorris’s eyes gleamed with something like suspicion as he met my gaze. I always felt he was able to see through me and I had never felt it so keenly as I did now.

  “I am very pleased to see you alive and well,” he said, his pale blue frog’s eyes never leaving me. “Very pleased indeed!”

  “Mr. Mountmorris, I’m so sorry,” Lazlo Nackley told him. “The storm came up and we did the best we could, but I’ve failed you. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not Lazlo’s fault,” Leo Nackley said in a weak voice.

  “I’m really sorry,” Lazlo said again. He looked very thin, his shoulders rounded in defeat and his black jacket and pants dull and dirty.

  Mr. Mountmorris grinned. “But Lazlo, my boy, what are you talking about? You’re a hero!”

  “What . . . do you mean?” Lazlo glanced at his father, who looked as confused as he did.

  “The oil!” Mr. Mountmorris announced. “You found the oil! We saw it on our way in.”

  “The oil?” Lazlo asked, turning to us. “Oh, yes, of course, the oil!”

  “Do you know what this means?” Mr. Mountmorris asked the group assembled on the beach. We could see agents leading Monty Brioux and the other pirates into speedboats headed for the Trident. “It means tanks, it means bombers, it means trains. It means we win the war.”

  There was a long silence.

  “War?” I finally said. “Which war do you mean? Sir?”

  Mr. Mountmorris grinned. “Oh, of course, you haven’t heard, have you? You’ve been on a desert island! Ha ha, you’ve literally been on a desert island! I mean the war that was declared yesterday by the Indorustan Empire in the Simerian Territories!”

  A hushed silence fell over the group. “We’re at war?” Lazlo asked lamely.

  “They’re calling it a military action now, but yes, we are or very soon will be at war. And you, Lazlo, and your great find will make it all possible. If this oil field turns out to yield even half as much as I think it will, well . . . all of your names may go down in history.” Mr. Mountmorris grinned broadly.

  “You are all to be commended, of course,” he added, turning to us. “And you will see that your work on this expedition will not go unrewarded. After all, not only did you find the oil, but you discovered an uncharted island and you appear to have saved Leo Nackley and his son, as well as your classmates, from a notorious band of pirates. No, your work will not go unrewarded at all.” He nodded to Zander. “There are lots of opportunities for such an enterprising and brave young Explorer as you, Mr. West. Miss West, Miss Neville, Miss Kimani, Mr. Asker: I think you will find that this opens many opportunities for you all, and all of you will be rewarded. I think you can count on that! Look, the Trident’s airship has already disembarked. We’ll get word to the authorities and within a couple of days we’ll have twenty ships here to install the drills and pipes.”

  We all watched the miniature airship lift off from the deck of the Trident and bank west, flying back toward St. Beatrice.

  “Our expert on the sub says it may be the most important find of its kind ever,” Jec Banton said as the red lights in his ears blinked on and off.

  I knew Zander felt sick, thinking of the turtles, of the fish—even of the eel. I felt sick too, but there was nothing I could do. At least the map was safe, the lines formed by the stones and shells on the walls of the underwater chamber hidden in the deepest recesses of my brain. I could practically feel it hanging there, a heavy weight I now had to carry.

  Forty-four

  It was a marvel of modern engineering, and there were many people who would have killed for a chance to explore every nook and cranny of the Trident, but we spent our twenty-four hours aboard the submarine sleeping and eating, exhausted and barely aware of our surroundings. We surfaced on the second day, and as we steamed into St. Beatrice Harbor, we all went up on deck to watch the island come into view. It was a perfect Caribbean day, hot and sunny, with a slight breeze. We could see crowds of people standing in the harbor and Coleman and Mr. Wooley right at the front of the crowd, waving wildly. Dolly Frost stood next to them with her notebook at the ready.

  Sukey stood alone on deck and I went over to her and leaned against the railing so I could look at her. They had found clothes for all of us on the Trident and she was wearing a fancy silk blouse in a shade of brown that made her eyes look luminous. I felt seasick, my head pounding, my stomach empty.

  “Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” She smiled nervously, barely meeting my eyes before she looked away again. I remembered the way she’d looked at me on the beach as we watched the jellyfish. I wished she would look at me like that again.

  “So there’s going to be a war,” I said.

  “I know. I think they’ve known for a while. I told you about the flying squadron I was practicing with back at school. Well, I had the feeling we were training for something. The only question was where they were going to get the fuel.”

  “But how could they have known?” I asked her. “The uprising just happened.”

  “I don’t think they cared whether there was an uprising or not,” she said carefully.

  “Well, we know the oil’s not a question anymore.” I tried to meet her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at me.

  “You did what your father wanted you to do,” she said after an awkward moment. “There’s that, at least.”

  “Yeah, although I still don’t understand why. I don’t understand what he wants me to do with it. I can’t just keep following the maps from one place to another. There must be a reason.”

  “Maybe—”

  “Hey, guys,” Zander said, joining us on deck, a troubled look on his face. He stood very close to Sukey and I saw her blush bright red. Still, she leaned into him, just a little, barely enough to notice.

  “Are you okay?” she said.

  “I feel so guilty about the oil.” He looked out across the harbor. “It’s a terrible thing we’ve done. They’ll get it under control, but if it ever leaks, if the pipes break . . .”

  “It’s not your fault,” Sukey said. “You know that. You were following the map.”

  “The map he gave to Kit,” Zander said, and there was something in his voice that made me look up. His eyes were narrowed in anger. “Not me. Kit.”

  “Zander,” Sukey said. “You know it isn’t like that.”

  “Except that it is,” he said. “I just don’t understand why he would send us on a treasure hunt without telling us what we’re looking for. These maps—it’s ridiculous. We don’t even know what the next one is. We
don’t even have it. It’s just . . . in Kit’s brain. And who even knows if he remembered it correctly? Who else is going to get hurt? Who else will get killed if we keep trying to follow them?”

  “Zander,” Sukey said quietly, touching his arm.

  I flinched. “I’m going to get my stuff ready.” I left them alone, but when I turned back, Sukey was standing even closer, whispering in Zander’s ear and gazing up at his face. Pucci had been flying back and forth between the submarine and the harbor and now he flapped down onto Sukey’s shoulder, cawing and nuzzling her neck. Behind them, Leo Nackley was making his way up on deck with the help of a cane. He caught my eye and the look he gave me was so full of hatred that I shivered, even in the hot sun.

  Forty-five

  We returned to the Academy in the dead of winter. There was a huge snowstorm in the White Mountains just after we returned, and for a couple of weeks, the snow was too deep for us to go anywhere but the Longhouse for meals and the library to study. Zander and Sukey went snowshoeing or skiing nearly every day, sometimes taking Joyce or Kemal with them. Lazlo and Jack had gotten permission to stay in New York with Lazlo’s parents until classes started again. M.K. was full of ideas for new gadgets and machines, and she retrofitted a SteamCycle with a small plow so she could clear the path to the workshop. I spent my time in the library, trying to find references to the Mapmakers’ Guild, trying to learn what Dad might want me to do with all these maps. Of course, I didn’t find anything, and after a week of searching I couldn’t believe I’d been stupid enough to think I would. After that, I focused on the atlases, trying to find a match for the mysterious arrangement of lines and angles in my head.

  One night, I was walking to the library when Mr. Wooley caught up to me. He had taken the Deloian Princess home with us, but I’d barely seen him during the eleven-day voyage and I’d assumed he’d been seasick again. I’d had the feeling he’d been avoiding me since we’d been back at school.

  But now he put a hand on my arm and said, “Hi, Kit.”

  “Hi, Mr. Wooley.”

  We each gave a New York glance down the path for agents who might be listening.

  “How are you?” He didn’t look at me and I could see his fingers knotting and unknotting the ends of the neon-green plaid scarf tied around his neck.

  “Fine. Cold.”

  “I . . . wanted to apologize, to you, for what happened on the expedition. I’ve been feeling terribly guilty about it. I abandoned you. You could have died, and . . .” His pale face twisted with worry, a lock of platinum hair falling across one eye. I turned to face him.

  “Mr. Wooley, no one blames you. We all knew that Leo Nackley had you kicked off the expedition so he could come along. They probably planned it from the beginning.”

  He hesitated. A cold wind blew through the trees and he said, “Well, as it happens, that’s not exactly right. I asked to be taken off. I pretended I was sick.”

  “Because you were scared of going back there?”

  He looked surprised. “No, no. Well, there was that. But I’m an Explorer of the Realm. I can deal with fear. No, I didn’t want to go because . . .” He lowered his voice. “They asked me—forced me, really—to spy on you. They were convinced that your father had given you a map and they wanted me to find out where you kept it and steal it for them. For BNDL. That’s why you were all assigned to Lazlo’s expedition. It was all planned out. They set off in the Trident before you’d been gone two days.”

  I stared at him. “You were the spy?”

  He smiled. “Well, as it turned out, I wasn’t the spy. But I’ve been feeling terribly guilty about it and I just wanted to apologize. And to tell you how glad I am that you survived. It’s like something out of an adventure story, isn’t it? Castaways on a desert island. Well, goodbye for now.”

  I watched him go. So it hadn’t been Kemal after all.

  I was still turning Mr. Wooley’s words over in my mind as I sat down at a table on the second floor of the library and started working. I couldn’t risk drawing the map from my memory, but I’d been drawing pieces of it, which I then destroyed, in order to keep it fresh and to see if it meant anything. I doodled for a few minutes, aware of the sound of my pencil in the silent library, but something was bugging me. It took me a few minutes to figure out what it was.

  Castaways on a desert island.

  I jumped up and went downstairs to request the books I’d looked through all those months ago, the ones that had led me to Gianni Girafalco. This time Mrs. Pasquale didn’t scowl quite as hard. Everyone at school had been nicer to us since we’d returned from the Caribbean.

  Back upstairs, I started flipping through them, rereading until I found what I was looking for.

  But in May of 1823, his ship disappeared and he was never heard from again. The sole survivor, a boy native to Southampton, UK, described rough and turbulent seas just before the ship foundered. The boy was found floating on a piece of wood by a fisherman.

  There had been a survivor. A castaway. Just like Dad. I’d forgotten that detail. I thought about the debris we’d found on the island, the swords, the pieces of a lifeboat.

  I went back through the books and found the one with crew lists from important nineteenth-century expeditions. I looked up the lists for Girafalco’s voyages. Running a finger down the names for the 1823 trip, I stopped at James Rickwell. Age 16. Southampton. Sixteen years old. A boy. Southampton. That had to be it. Rickwell.

  Downstairs, I searched through the clockwork card catalog, the cards flipping past me as the engine clicked and whirred, but couldn’t find anything by or about Rickwell, James. I took a deep breath and went over to the big desk.

  “Here you go, Mrs. Pasquale,” I said, handing the books over. I pretended to hesitate and then added, “We don’t have anything by a James Rickwell, do we? I checked the catalog. But I think it might be one of the old books in the special collections. A study of, uh, tropical frogs and their eating habits.”

  She studied me, then turned to the huge card catalog for the special collections behind her desk. “Rickwell, Rickwell,” she murmured, flipping through the cards printed with authors’ names and titles.

  “Nothing about frogs,” she said after a few long minutes. “But we do have something by James Rickwell. Diary of a Caribbean Voyage. Surely it’s not the same—”

  “I’ll take it,” I practically shouted. “I mean, it’s the Caribbean. That’s tropical. It might contain some of his notes.”

  She looked at me carefully before slipping a hand into the IronGrabber and reaching high into the stacks to bring down a wooden box. “It’s damaged and very fragile,” she said, reading the label on the front. “Be careful.”

  I nodded, my heart pounding, and took it upstairs.

  Inside the box, I found a small leather book. The pages were stained and torn, some missing altogether and many others torn in half. I lifted it out very carefully and began to read.

  I, James Rickwell, aged 16 years, of the city of Southampton, in the country of England, on this 3rd day of May, 1823, do hereby put down this record of the voyage of the Adelaide, captained by the mapmaker and explorer Gianni Girafalco, in the hopes that our expedition will prove of historic value to those who come after us. It is my hope that if our expedition is successful, this journal may prove of interest to future generations of explorers.

  It was a diary of a boy on Gianni Girafalco’s voyage to discover King Triton’s Lair. I started leafing carefully through the entries that were still legible, a sense of déjà vu washing over me. I was reading about the precise voyage that we had just taken.

  Rickwell had met Girafalco in Southampton and been taken on board to learn navigation. It sounded as though he’d started to suspect that Girafalco had a secret motive in making the voyage to the Caribbean, but it didn’t sound like Rickwell had ever learned of the existence of the underwater city or the maps.

  I read the short diary straight through over the course of the next two hours. When
I got to the diary’s final entry, I read:

  . . . when the sea started to become very rough, despite the clear skies and lack of any wind or rain. As we looked down at the churning water, he seemed to be filled with joy and he said, “This is it. This is what I have been searching for.”

  I now must go above deck to see if I can help. The ship is pitching terribly. I pray to our Lord for our survival and salvation. If I should not survive and this book is found, give my most fervent regards to Miss Mary Jennings of Southampton and tell my mother and father that I love them.

  There wasn’t anything else in the book—just empty pages, torn and stained like the others. I closed the book and stared at the black leather cover.

  It had seemed like such a promising lead. I’d been sure that I would find something in the journal. I flipped through it again. On the outside of the box a small printed label read, “Generously donated from the personal collection of Mr. R. Delorme Mountmorris.”

  As though I could will words into existence, I flipped through the torn and blank pages after the final entry again. Running a finger over the water-stained pages, I felt a slight texture on the surface. I remembered the feeling of the bioluminescent ink on the map, like a faint scar, barely there under my fingertips.

  Was it possible?

  I felt my heart race. I was wearing the whistle—it had become something of a talisman since we’d returned and I’d never taken it off. I needed a dark place to look at the book in safety. There was the secret room, but I couldn’t risk leaving the library with the book. Mrs. Pasquale was already suspicious, and if I was caught leaving with the book hidden on me, it would draw attention to the map. I looked around. I was completely alone on the second floor. I listened for a moment, then opened the door to the stairway that led to the roof and climbed the stairs as quietly as I could, hoping Mrs. Pasquale didn’t have some kind of listening device.