by James Derry
“I think that’s right. But a splash would have brought guards running.”
“True.” Jamal rolled over and inched to the edge of the platform. “Let’s climb down from here and find a quiet way—”
An eruption of guttural laughter stopped him short. It came from the sycamore trees at the southern end of the courtyard. Sygne and Jamal flattened themselves as three troglodytes emerged from the shadows. Each wore breastplates issued from the Issulthraqi Army. And they carried ponderous clubs. She imagined taking the full brunt of one of those clubs in motion. There would have been nothing left of her but a spray of red droplets and bone fragments.
She shuddered, turned her head away from the troglodytes, and pressed her cheek against the platform. She couldn’t watch the cavemen without raising herself to see over Jamal’s body, so she decided it was better to keep a lookout toward the palace and the balcony of Yur’s bedchamber.
Unfortunately this angle also afforded her a better view of Ramyya. Sygne studied her corpse with a frightened curiosity that was half-morbid, half-scientific.
She looked like a red cactus, except that the quills in her body were all perfectly aligned to the same angle of perspective.
Sessuk had said that the spikes of the Dweller’s gaze went out in all directions radiating from its center. Looking at the angles of the quills in Ramyya’s skin, Sygne was reminded of a geometry lesson regarding spheres and converging radials. Judging by the tiny amount of skew between the needles, Sygne guessed that their angles might have converged at a point that was hundreds of feet away. If the Dweller was real, then it was hundreds of feet from their current location. If it wasn’t real, then what kind of hideous contraption or wicked spell had Sessuk used to fill Ramyya’s body with needles?
“Poor Ramyya,” she muttered.
An unwelcome thought sprang into her head: What if Ramyya had volunteered to become an oblation? Ramyya was not a noble, but she considered herself a Kritan. She believed in their gods. She might have jumped at the chance to take a princess’s place and ‘commune’ with the Dweller Under Dreams.
“Uh-oh,” Jamal said. A fresh burst of laughter came from the troglodytes’ end of the courtyard. The tone of their mirth was unmistakably malevolent.
The troglodytes started to hoot like apes. At least one of them was whacking his club excitedly on the courtyard floor. Sygne could hear broken mosaic tiles bouncing and clattering away.
“What are they doing?” Sygne asked.
“Nothing good,” Jamal said.
Sygne heard the unmistakable smack of something big and hard slamming into meat.
Jamal groaned. “We’ve got to move.”
“But what are they doing?”
“What cavemen do.” Jamal crawled toward a corner where one pylon led into the water. Sygne followed his train of thought. They could climb down into the pool and hide there under the Great Bell. Her eyes darted to the balcony of Yur’s room. Nothing but a flickering of torchlight. She raised herself onto all fours and looked to the troglodytes.
They were slaughtering sleeping guests.
One troglodyte slung a nobleman so that he flopped bonelessly over his shoulder. Then he heaved the body down. The unconscious nobleman’s skull cracked open against the tile floor.
Without thinking, Sygne shrieked, “Stop!”
The three troglodytes turned her way, and there wasn’t a trace of shame or remorse in their eyes. They didn’t even seem particularly perturbed by her interruption; mostly they seemed excited at the prospect of a new victim. They abandoned the bloodied nobleman and plodded toward the pool.
“Me likes awake people,” one of the troglodytes said. “They makes gooder noises when me squishes them.”
Jamal unsheathed his sword and made ready for a fight. Not only had the cavemen found them, but Sessuk had rushed to the balcony to see what was happening.
“Wait!” Sessuk called. “Take those two alive.”
The troglodyte in the center glowered up at Sessuk. “Me takes them alive. But me gives them to you when they are good and squished!”
The other two troglodytes laughed.
“Me laughs at Womp’s talking.”
“Me laughs too. Me says Womp is good leader.”
The central caveman (whose name was apparently Womp) nodded at his two companions. His massive club was hoisted casually on his shoulder.
Sygne cringed. If she hadn’t yelled at the troglodytes, they might have been able to hide themselves. Instead they were completely exposed on the archway of the Great Bell.
To her surprise, Jamal smiled at her. He stood straight, as if the archway was his podium, and he pointed to Sessuk. “That man killed General Yur!”
That made the troglodytes pause. Three Issulthraqi soldiers hustled onto the dais—with javelins at the ready. Jamal bellowed at both trios of enemies with feigned authority. “He thinks he can out-smart you!”
“I…” Sessuk was obviously thrown back on his heels. “That’s…”
Jamal shouted, “Tell them! Is Yur dead?"
From up on Yur’s balcony, the vizier eyed both the troglodytes and the foreign soldiers. Sygne realized that neither group was likely to be amenable to him—unless he could wrest away authority from Jamal. But Sessuk’s retort was rather lame. “How would you know he’s dead?”
“Stop trying to trick these strong cavemen and brave soldiers! Is he dead or not?”
“Yes he is dead. But—”
“Aha! Then I am right.” Jamal kept his eyes trained on the troglodytes, making sure they understood his points. “Yur was a great man who let the cave-studs wander this palace and do whatever they wanted.” Jamal gestured to the troglodytes, who nodded at each other. “Sessuk murdered Yur. And the reason you know that’s true is because Yur is dead!”
The cavemen muttered to themselves. Womp stepped toward the balcony. “Wizard thinks he is smart. But me thinks STRONG beats smart! Strong beats smart… with fists!”
Sygne felt as confused as Sessuk seemed to be. Jamal had completely enthralled the troglodytes with his circular logic. The Issulthraqi soldiers were not as solidly convinced. She called to them, “He’s right. Think about it. Sessuk is Gjurian, formally in the employ of Krit. He is no friend to the Issulthraqi Empire!”
She could see that she was beginning to sway the soldiers. The cavemen were listening to her as well. “Yur was murdered in his own locked bedchamber. Who else could find access to that room but the palace vizier?”
Womp scratched his head.
Jamal stepped close to her and whispered, “Too many words. Don’t confuse the savages.”
Sygne shrugged him away. She pointed to Womp. “You said that Sessuk has a high opinion of himself. That is true.” She locked eyes with Sessuk, thinking it would be an impressively oratorical thing to do, but Sessuk’s frightened look made her falter. “H-he keeps saying things like ‘the killer will get what he deserves,’ ‘or the killer must be a genius.’ He’s saying those things to be clever… because he is the killer!”
The troglodytes shook their heads. Jamal was right. She was rambling, and they were losing focus. But she couldn’t stop herself. She had to provide more information, make them see her line of reasoning. “Sessuk is doing that because he’s a Gjuiran. A... treacherous Gjuiran!”
“Hey,” Jamal grumbled. “Hurtful.”
Sygne continued, “And he believes his snooty gods are watching him. He thinks he can amuse them by making up inside jokes that none of you will understand.”
“That’s ludicrous,” Sessuk barked. “Those two took away the pretty princess.” He directed his words at Womp and his drooling companions. “We were going to kill the pretty princess, and they stopped our fun. I didn’t kill General Yur… They did!”
The troglodytes growled at Sygne and swung their clubs in frustration.
The Issulthraqis still seemed ambivalent, but it was clear that, at the very least, Sygne a
nd Jamal needed to be arrested for ruining the evening’s human sacrifice. The soldiers angled their javelins at the archway platform, but before Sygne could gauge that threat, Womp was pouncing across the glowing pool. He clutched the top of the archway with one huge, hairy hand.
“Me tired of talking! Me will kill you first, because you are easiest to reach.”
Womp raised his head over the edge of the platform. A caveman’s version of a smug smile spread across his face, showing two mangled rows of brown fangs.
Jamal promptly slit his throat.
Womp’s body fell to the water, and Jamal called to the other two troglodytes, “We are not that easy to reach. Stay back, or you’ll end up like Womp.”
The cavemen flew into a rage, attacking the bell’s archway with their clubs. With the very first blow, the upper platform shuddered and moved an inch toward the turquoise waters of the pool. The bell’s archway was made of tons of stone—it had probably been built a hundred years ago—and the troglodytes were going to knock it down in a matter of minutes.
Sygne stumbled and nearly lost her balance. Jamal waved his sword at the two cavemen, but he also didn’t get too close to the edge, where he might get caught by a ricocheting shard of stone or wood. The platform tilted closer to the pool, and Sygne felt something massive shift beneath her feet. The Kritans’ mighty bronze bell was beginning to sway. Could the cavemen hit the archway hard enough to ring the bell? Or would the whole thing collapse into the glowing pool first?
A soldier cocked back his arm to throw his javelin. He had a trepidatious look on his face, as if he didn’t want to kill Jamal. But perhaps he’d decided it might be a more officious resolution, and cut down on collateral damage. He hurled his spear, but it flew wide.
“Hey!” Jamal shouted at the man.
Sessuk was shouting as well. He didn’t want to see the Kritan landmark destroyed. But the cavemen couldn’t hear him over the noise of their clubs. Sygne felt as if the whole world had descended into chaos. A troglodyte’s club or an Issulthraqi’s javelin, one or the other was about to end her life. She couldn’t see any way out of this.
Jamal shouted over the din, “Can you swim?”
Sygne blinked at him, then at the eerily glowing water. The Pool of Transfixion seemed like a third way to die, not a means of escape.
Jamal continued, “The princess said there are underwater passages leading from the bottom of the pool. Remember?” With his free hand, he grabbed Sygne’s arm and shook her. “I don’t think there’s any other way that we’re getting out of here.”
“Let’s do it.” Sygne wasn’t very good at swinging from ropes, but she was a strong swimmer. The Academy had a beautiful lagoon on the eastern end of its campus, and Sygne had spent a good deal of her spare time there. She swam laps from one massive hydraulic invention to the next. The water-lifting screw. The water-wheel. The diving bellows…
“Wait! I have an idea!”
Jamal glanced at her dubiously. “Is it a good one?”
“Yes! I think. Can you climb down into the bell?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Another javelin soared past them.
“At least it will protect us from those spears,” Sygne said. “Just trust me.”
Jamal’s head moved from side to side. A bit of a headshake, a bit of a nervous scan of his situation. Finally he relented. “Fine. But this is the last time I follow one of your ideas.” He grabbed Sygne and lifted her off her feet. “And that’s not just because we’re both going to be dead soon.”
He carried Sygne with him as he hopped off the platform. They plummeted toward the turquoise pool for an instant; then Jamal grasped the lip of the great bronze bell and arced their momentum so that they swung into its insides. Sygne’s legs dangled; her toes trailed across water. She hardly had a chance to peep; then Jamal had splayed his legs and one free arm into place on the interior of the bell. They both hung tightly to the leather strap of the bell’s clapper.
The troglodytes bellowed angrily, and the archway shook as one of the brutes pounced onto the newly abandoned platform. He jumped up and down and bashed the top of the archway with his club, and the structure rocked and groaned under the new strain. From the safety of the bell, Sygne stared down into the blue water, and she saw the rippled surface shutter and come a few inches closer. The tumult of voices sounded strange on the inside of the bell—echoing dimly so that they were even harder to understand. She assumed Sessuk and possibly the Issulthraqis were imploring the troglodytes to stop their blasphemous destructive rampage. But Womp’s tribe-mates had gone full berserker. It was only a matter of time before the Great Bell fell into the water.
She smiled nervously at Jamal. “Do you know what happens when a hollow object full of air is lowered into water?”
Jamal groaned. “How can something be ‘full of air?’ Air isn’t even—” A monstrous blow jolted the bell, and it dropped closer to the water. He said, “Just be ready to swim. Take a deep breath…”
“No! Stay in the bell.” To emphasize her point, Sygne flexed her muscles and crammed herself tighter against the conical bronze surface.
There was another monstrous crash, and the troglodytes roared in triumph. The bell listed for a moment; then something gave way and the huge bronze bell gave in to gravity. Water splashed up through the bottom of the bell, but the tumult quickly subsided. The water at the bottom of the bell foamed and burbled, and Sygne felt disconcerted, like she was on the inside of a cauldron that had been suddenly turned upside-down and inside-out. But the water didn’t rise—didn’t encroach into their diving bell as it descended to the bottom of the Dweller’s pool.
“We’re sinking.” Jamal said.
“Yes.”
“And the water isn’t touching us.”
“Yes…” Sygne was distracted by the idea that the bell might sink straight to the bottom of the pool, potentially trapping them like bugs under a bowl, with tons of water clamped down over them. But just then the bell stopped descending. What was left of the supporting structure must have become somehow lodged against the edges of the pool. Sygne sighed, and for the first time she registered the open, awed look on Jamal’s face. She couldn’t help but laugh.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m relieved it worked.”
Jamal’s expression shifted from a blank look of amazement to a conspiratorial smirk. “You really are a scientician. This is… If we dive through that water will the spell break? Will the water flood in?”
“No. This isn’t a spell. It’s air pressure. The problem is that eventually we will use up all the breathable air in this space, and then we will smother. So we have to go with your first plan: We dive and look for an underwater passage. I can go first. I’ll drop through the bottom of the bell and swim around and look for a tunnel. Then I’ll come back here for a breath.”
Jamal nodded. “Sounds good. You lead the way.”
Sygne took a deep breath and eased herself into the glowing water.
7 – The Deep Down
Jamal’s lungs were nearly bursting. He kicked his legs and swam faster. He was in a rough stone tunnel, submerged beneath the Pool of Transfixion. He used his hands to grab outcroppings of stone, pulling and thrusting himself through the glowing blue water.
Where was Sygne? She had swum ahead, building speed with an annoying grace.
By comparison, Jamal had made stuttering progress through the meandering tunnel, and he had quickly lost Sygne among the twists and turns. Occasionally the tunnel tightened, and he clawed at rocks to pull himself along. He had left his sword and scabbard in the pool because he was afraid they would inhibit his swimming, but still he found himself hampered, even without his weapon.
Sometimes the tunnel dipped. And that forced Jamal to descend into depths that pressed in on his eyeballs and pincered down on his temples. Swimming downward meant that he wasn’t getting any closer to air, and he was starti
ng to need air badly.
Drown. Drown.
Soon he would start to drown.
Finally the tunnel canted upward, and Jamal skimmed along its bottom, losing strength in his legs. He scraped through another bend in the passage, and nearly rammed headfirst into Sygne’s belly button. Why was she standing in his way? How was she standing in the way?
He saw that her head and shoulders were hidden on the other side of the water’s glimmering surface. She had found an air pocket tucked into a recess in the tunnel’s ceiling. Jamal twisted and burst into the air. Sygne shrank back from him. It was a tight space, and Jamal’s gasps and wheezes seemed extra loud in their alcove of stone.
Sygne patted his heaving chest and said, “I’m so glad you made it! I was about to go back for you.”
Jamal decided to take this as an insult. He asked her, “How did you swim so fast?”
“I don’t know. The Mentors theorize that, in times of stress, the human body may produce some sort of chemical that increases muscular—”
“All right. Never mind.”
“You’re right, we should conserve air. I’ll go on ahead and search for another air pocket. It’s likely that this isn’t the only one.”
Before Jamal could object, Sygne submerged and slipped away, moving like she was part-mermaid. Maybe that explained why her skin was fish-belly white. Jamal considered that thought, and he felt a pang of shame. Why did he suddenly feel so hostile toward Sygne the Scientician? The way she had studied Yur’s body. The way she had grasped what was going on before he did. The stunt with the diving bell. Her exceptional swimming skills. Now that he thought about it, Sygne had been the one to choose their way through the basalt caverns once they had lost Ilona. She had initiated the fireworks that led him to help Ilona escape. She was leading him now…
Was Sygne the true hero of this story?
If Sygne was the hero, what did that make him? Was he the comedic relief? The plucky sidekick? Jamal swallowed hard—a reflex that burned his raw throat. Suddenly he had a new notion of his role in this adventure. Was he the ‘old, wasted warrior?’ The former hero, ready to die and pass on the torch? Jamal held his hands out of the water and studied them. His palms were calloused and heavily lined. Jamal couldn’t think of a sadder place to die than stuck in this tunnel. There would be no honor in it. He had no sword. He was hidden from the sun. Only the fish would commemorate his passing, as they chewed on the parts of him that weren’t too scarred-over or calloused to eat.
