Selkie Warrior

by Finn Black

  ‘What? Ant, no!’

  It was now or never. ‘I’m going in!’ Ant launched the Shadow Knight towards the forest.

  A few moments later he was surrounded by waving fronds of seagrass in a dim green twilight. It felt strange and spooky, as if undersea ghosts might be lurking in the shadows. But there were no ghosts in there, he told himself.

  Only Edwina.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ant penetrated further into the forest. The swirling seagrass closed behind him like a curtain. The tall fronds towered over his head, blotting out the light. He looked back at the way he’d come, but all he could see was a deep green darkness full of swaying shapes; he was already unsure if that was the way he’d come. All directions looked the same. I’m lost, he realised. And I’m on my own. A finger of dread touched his heart.

  And then his heart nearly burst out of his chest as a face suddenly peered through the grass at him.

  Edwina parted the fronds and emerged in front of him. She hovered in the water, her tail gently rotating. She was smiling.

  ‘Won’t you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.’

  Her words came through loud and clear. Her radio must be tuned to the same frequency as the Nektons’ radio. I was right. She’s been able to hear our radio messages all this time. How much did she know? Had she heard about the etching of the snake on the stonefish’s lair? Ant was certain it was a clue to something. The glowing image on the Circlotron had confirmed that there was a link between the symbol on the stonefish’s lair and their journey. He didn’t want Edwina gatecrashing.

  He tried to make his voice sound big and bold and brave. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You know what I want. The Circlotron, as you call it, is rightfully mine. Just give it to me and you won’t get hurt.’

  ‘Yeah, like I’m just going to hand it over!’ He wished he felt as confident as he sounded. And he wished Fontaine was with him. He could use an ally right now.

  ‘I know it’s in your backpack,’ said Edwina. ‘Strange, isn’t it, the way you keep turning up in front of me with the Circlotron? Almost like you want me to have it!’

  Edwina was slowly moving closer. Ant saw the greed and excitement in her eyes.

  I have to get out of here. I should never have come. Thinking quickly, he switched on the boosters on his Shadow Knight and shot upwards.

  But Edwina reacted fast. Her metallic tail whirred and she shot up alongside him. She flipped on its end like a circus acrobat and her tail scythed round, slicing through the Jorange’s straps.

  Ant’s backpack tumbled down to the depths of the ocean, with Jeffrey spinning in his tank, flapping his fins helplessly.

  Edwina dived after the Jorange.

  But before she could reach it, a large white shape powered into view, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake. With a stab of relief, Ant saw Fontaine in her White Knight scoop up the Jorange, a second before Edwina got there.

  Once again Fontaine had arrived in the nick of time. She was never going to let him forget this.

  Ant swam down to join her. The two of them stood side by side in their Knight suits, facing Edwina.

  ‘Think you can take us both on?’ said Fontaine.

  ‘Yeah, and we have the Aronnax as backup!’ said Ant. ‘Why don’t you just give up?’

  Kaiko’s voice came through on the radio. ‘Need some help?’

  ‘No, I think we’ve got this,’ said Ant, not taking his eyes off Edwina.

  Edwina’s face behind her mask glowered with rage and frustration. She raised her hand and muttered into a wristwatch device on the sleeve of her selkie suit.

  Ant looked at Fontaine. ‘Who’s she talking to?’

  ‘You kids can have this round,’ Edwina said. ‘Enjoy it while you can. The next one will have a very different outcome, I can promise you that.’

  Ant heard a rushing sound – and a moment later the Outcast homed in like a guided missile and came to a stop beside Edwina. A section of its gleaming titanium shell opened and Edwina climbed in.

  ‘She must’ve radioed The Outcast,’ said Ant to Fontaine.

  ‘And it’s a sub too!’ Fontaine replied, unable to hide how impressed she was.

  ‘I’ll see you again,’ Edwina said, staring out at them. The section of metallic lid closed over her, and the Outcast zoomed away.

  Fontaine handed Ant the Jorange. He smiled in at Jeffrey, who swam up close to the glass, his mouth opening and closing as if to say ‘Thank you!’

  ‘What’s that, Jeffrey?’ Ant asked. ‘I’m your hero? Well, you know I would never let you down, don’t you?’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt this touching reunion,’ said Fontaine, ‘but do you think we could get back to the Aronnax now? Or would you prefer to rush off and do something stupid all on your own again? Like go and pick a fight with a killer whale?’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Ant said. ‘Let’s go. Oh, and Fontaine ...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Fontaine smiled. ‘All part of the service, little bro.’

  *

  The Nektons sat on the roof of the Aronnax, each of them sipping from a steaming mug of hot chocolate as they gathered for a debrief.

  After Ant and Fontaine had clambered back through the Moon Pool, Kaiko had brought the Aronnax up to float on the surface of the ocean. It was a calm, mild night and the stars twinkled above them.

  ‘That was all a bit hectic,’ Will said. ‘But we came through it – Edwina didn’t get the Circlotron. We’d better keep it safe from now on.’ He looked meaningfully at Ant.

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ said Ant, slightly shamefaced. ‘Still ...’ He brightened up. ‘That was one cool adventure! We got the Circlotron back, and saved Jeffrey – and saw that amazing giant stonefish – and – and –’

  Kaiko smiled at his excitement. ‘We still have some unsolved mysteries on our hands though. How did Edwina know about the Circlotron?’

  ‘Who else knew, apart from us?’ asked Will.

  Ant remembered how the pirate captain of the Dark Orca had seen inside his Jorange when he and Fontaine had been on their ship. ‘Captain Hammerhead,’ he said in a low, regretful voice.

  ‘But why would he just give away information like that?’ Fontaine asked.

  ‘He might not give it away, but he’d definitely sell it,’ said Will.

  Back below deck, Kaiko nibbled a cookie thoughtfully. ‘Edwina must have had the whole thing planned. It must have been her who jammed our satellite connection – she obviously has access to some pretty advanced technology. And when I was fixing the ballast tanks I saw they’d been sealed shut with a soldering iron. Remember when we felt that bumping under the hull? I bet that’s when she did it.’

  ‘And then she deliberately smashed into us during the storm – trying to damage the Aronnax so we’d have to stop for repairs!’ added Ant.

  ‘Well, her plan failed,’ said Will. ‘We still have the Circlotron.’ It was now safely perched on the map table again, next to the Ephemychron.

  ‘And Jeffrey!’ Ant had placed the Jorange beside him, and Jeffrey was now happily nibbling at some fish food.

  Suddenly Ant remembered the carving they’d seen outside the stonefish’s lair. He jumped up and took the Circlotron from the map table. He spun it around in his palm, searching for the image of the serpent. And there it was, etched into the ring: the exact same sinuous curving shape, with the protruding forked tongue and the small dot beside it.

  ‘Look!’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s here! I found this picture at the king’s lair, etched into the stone!’ He held the Circlotron out for his parents to see.

  ‘I spotted it first!’ said Fontaine.

  ‘All right, we found it, then,’ Ant conceded. ‘What do you make of it, Dad?’

  Will put on his glasses and scrutinised the image. ‘It’s right next to the etching of the Child of the Mountain,’ he said. ‘And then when you get to the stonefish’s lair, you find an image
of a snake – so now we just need to work out where it’s leading us.’

  ‘It’s like – it’s leading us along a route,’ Fontaine said. ‘First the dragon’s cave – then the stonefish’s lair –’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out!’ Ant took the Circlotron from his dad and pressed his hands against its curved sides. It still amazed him to think that he was the only Nekton who could summon the Circlotron to life. Instantly a powerful beam of white light shot up into the sky. It traced a path through the stars, arcing towards the west.

  ‘It’s pointing in the direction of the Indian Ocean,’ Kaiko said.

  At the same moment the etching of the snake began to glow.

  ‘There’s something familiar about that shape ...’ said Will.

  He pulled out a map. He unfolded it on the floor and they all crouched around it. Will traced the course of a winding blue river with his finger. ‘It’s the Pangani River,’ he said. ‘See? It’s the same shape.’

  ‘Where is the Pangani River?’ asked Ant.

  ‘In Africa,’ Will said, straightening up to gaze across the water. ‘It flows through Tanzania.’

  ‘And its mouth is in the Indian Ocean,’ said Kaiko.

  There was a pause as they all looked at each other.

  ‘I reckon we know where we’re going, then,’ said Will.

  Ant leaped to his feet and pointed dramatically in the same direction as the Circlotron’s beam. ‘Nektons – set sail!’

  ‘Well, tomorrow,’ said Kaiko. ‘Let’s have a good night’s sleep first.’ She began to walk over to the control deck. ‘I’ll key in the coordinates, ready to set off at sunrise.’

  Will rolled up his map. They all began to move down the hallway towards their bedrooms.

  A short while later, lying in bed, Ant tossed and turned, struggling to get to sleep. He couldn’t rid himself of the thought that Edwina was out there somewhere.

  ‘This isn’t over,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Not by a long way.’ If the Nektons were going to follow the route mapped out by the Circlotron, there were two big questions still to be answered.

  Did Edwina know, or could she guess, where the Aronnax was heading to next?

  And what would they find when they got there?

  THE SEA IS DEEP

  AND FULL OF SECRETS

  TURN OVER TO FIND OUT MORE!

  DID YOU READ THE NEKTONS’

  FIRST ADVENTURE IN

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Come on, Jeffrey! Last one there’s a blobfish!’

  Ant Nekton zoomed through the ocean in the Shadow Knight, the sleek, high-tech underwater exploration suit he used for missions. Beside his visor, he could see Jeffrey, his pet fish – and best friend – flapping his fins furiously to keep up, but the Shadow Knight was too fast for him. Ant steered the suit down to the sea bed and away from the Aronnax, the giant submarine that the Nekton family called home, which floated above them like a huge metal whale.

  Ant had convinced his parents, Will and Kaiko, to let him explore the nearby kelp forests. As a junior explorer, he knew that the kelp forests were often used by organisms as a safe place to hide from predators. Ant was always on the lookout for new discoveries, whether it was a strange species of sea snail, or something more exciting …

  As he approached the forest he cut the Knight’s engines so that the vibrations fell to a low hum. He didn’t want to disturb any forms of sea life living there. He felt his heart give a nervous flutter. There was no telling what he might find in the depths of the ocean …

  ‘OK, what do we have today?’ he muttered. Jeffrey finally caught up and swam next to Ant, his eyes bulging from the effort. If a fish could pant for breath, that’s what Jeffrey would have been doing. Ant reached out the Knight’s mechanical hands to part the swaying column of kelp and peered between the strands. ‘Kelp … kelp … and more kelp. Hmm, I was hoping for something a little less … kelpy.’

  They investigated a little further and found nothing more than a strangely coloured piece of algae, but then Jeffrey darted off towards a hidden corner of the forest.

  ‘Jeffrey? What is it? Have you found something?’

  Ant followed his little orange and purple fish to a mound of sand and looked closely at it.

  ‘Seems like it’s just a heap of sand,’ he said to his faithful fish. ‘Come on, let’s go back to – Whoa!’

  A sudden swell of current buffeted the Shadow Knight and caused the kelp forest to sway. Grain by grain, the sand mound in front of them drifted away to reveal a strange, ancient-looking object beneath the surface.

  Ant felt his eyes grow wide and his skin prickle. ‘What. Is. That?!’

  He carefully brushed away the rest of the sand to reveal a round metal object the size of a cricket ball. It was a dirty green, the colour of an old, unpolished penny. Around the centre of the sphere was a protruding ring, and it was covered in barnacle shells, just as most things were under the sea when they had been there for a long time. But how long? Something about the look of it made Ant think it had been there for centuries.

  Slowly, he lifted the orb out of its resting place and instantly felt a shiver of excitement run down his body. Jeffrey danced around him.

  ‘It could be anything.’ Ant shrugged. ‘Maybe just a piece of sea junk, or something someone dropped off the side of their boat years ago.’ He glanced at Jeffrey and burst out in a grin. ‘Who am I kidding? I have no idea what this is, but it’s definitely awesome!’

  It wasn’t every day that Ant came across buried treasure in a kelp forest.

  He held it gently in his mechanical grip and powered up the Shadow Knight. He turned to head back to the Aronnax, where he would be able to investigate properly.

  ‘Jeffrey, old pal, I have a feeling life in the ocean just became even more interesting …’

  A column of bubbles erupted from the little fish as he mouthed his agreement. The two of them headed home. This discovery was something they had to share … when Ant was ready.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘You guys are not going to believe this!’

  Ant carried his mystery object across the bridge of the Aronnax. The orb was covered with an old dust sheet. He’d managed to keep his discovery a secret from the rest of the Nektons for an entire two weeks while he’d worked on it. None of them had any idea it even existed.

  It was nearly dusk and the family had just returned from a talk Kaiko had given at the Tokyo University of Marine Science. Everyone, that is, except Ant, who had stayed behind to prepare his surprise. Ant loved visiting new places but, having grown up on a submarine, being on solid land felt peculiar to him. There wasn’t the usual hum of engines and swaying movement that he was so used to on the Aronnax.

  Ant carefully placed the strange object on a control panel.

  ‘So what have we got here, Ant?’ asked Will. The Nektons gathered round, used to Ant’s hobby of creating imaginative (and occasionally unsuccessful) inventions.

  ‘You remember that I went exploring in the kelp forests a while ago?’ he began, looking from face to face. He paused for dramatic effect. ‘I found something!’

  ‘Would that “something” be the reason you stayed back on board the Aronnax these past couple of weeks?’ said Kaiko with a smile and a raised eyebrow. ‘I thought you said you were staying behind to “guard” the Aronnax?’

  ‘Um, I was kind of doing both?’ said Ant with a sheepish grin. ‘I’ve been working on restoring my “something” to its former glory. And now I want you all to see it!’

  ‘Can’t this wait, son?’ yawned Will. ‘I think we’re all pretty beat from your mother’s talk at the university – which was excellent, by the way, dear!’

  ‘Thank you!’ smiled Kaiko, folding her arms. ‘Good to know I didn’t bore you to sleep.’

  ‘What is so important that it has to keep me from my bed?’ said Ant’s sister, Fontaine, giving him a level stare.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Ant, ‘this’ll be worth it.’


  The family looked on in anticipation.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen! And you, Fontaine! I am pleased to finally unveil the latest of my amazing, mind-boggling, awe-inducing discoveries!’ Ant performed a drum roll on his tummy. ‘I call it – the CIRCLOTRON!’

  He whipped the dust sheet away to reveal the strange-looking contraption he had saved from the sea bed. Since recovering it, Ant had lovingly cleaned it and carefully brushed away the mud of hundreds, maybe thousands of years, so that it was now a tarnished brown colour.

  ‘The … Circlotron?’ said Fontaine, peering at it.

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah, seriously!’ said Ant, affronted. ‘It didn’t have a name, so Jeffrey and I came up with one. Cool, huh?’

  Fontaine rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said, turning to leave.

  ‘Wait a second, Fontaine,’ said Will. He moved closer to inspect the unusual device. ‘Your brother may have something here. What does it do, Ant?’

  ‘Do?’ said Ant. ‘Um … I haven’t got a clue! But that’s the fun part about science, right? Finding out about stuff?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said Kaiko, peering at the Circlotron. ‘What are those markings?’ She traced her fingers over a few engravings on the ring that ran around the centre of the globe.

  ‘They’re glyphs. Lemurian, wouldn’t you say, Dad?’ said Ant.

  Will grinned as he examined the Circlotron more closely. ‘If this is a Lemurian artefact, then it is incredibly exciting.’

  ‘Look – just yesterday I cleared away some impacted sand and I found this hole in the side.’ Ant angled the Circlotron so that the others could see a tiny hole, hidden beneath the ring. ‘I think it might be a keyhole. Maybe it’s mechanical, like clockwork?’

  ‘And you want to wind it up?’ said Fontaine. ‘It could be anything! A crazy, mechanical cricket ball! A weird robot-fish egg!’