“Nice shot, Sil,” Yaz said, racing by him. Franco and Sera were right behind him.
As two other Black Fins dragged the unconscious merman over to a closet, Silvio cast an illusio spell to transform himself into an exact double of the watchman. He would busy himself checking dials and valves in case Vallerio’s soldiers decided to patrol the lava chamber.
Sera, Yaz, Luca, and Franco swam into the west tunnel, hugging their tools and weapons close to their bodies, and followed it upward. Lava globes, spaced ten yards apart, illuminated the tunnel. Each had a hook underneath it to hold maintenance workers’ tool bags. Unable to move their tails vigorously for fear of smashing the globes or getting caught on the hooks, the four lost speed. They’d hoped to reach their target destination in five minutes, but it took them nearly ten.
“I see it,” Franco finally said, pointing above them to where the main artery split into two. One section of pipe continued straight up into the palace. Another ran due west above the treasury vaults. “We’re behind,” a tense Yaz said as they reached the join. “The lightworks show is going to start soon.”
“There’s the valve,” Luca said, pointing at a bronze handwheel jutting out just past the join. “All we have to do is rip a hole in the old pipe, then open it.”
“Easier said than done,” said Yaz, holding his torch up to the tunnel that contained the west-running pipe.
The tunnel snaked horizontally through the rock foundation and was much narrower than what they’d just swum through. Small blue crabs clung to its top; they scuttled away from the torch’s light. A thick layer of silt lined its bottom.
Franco was the slimmest of the three mermen. He entered the tunnel’s mouth and started to swim through, holding his torch in front of himself. When that didn’t work, he crawled…until he got stuck.
“I can’t move!” he called out. “Yo, pull me out!”
Yaz and Luca grabbed his tail fin and yanked. He came out covered in silt.
“I’m the smallest. I’ll go,” Sera said.
Her nerves were as taut as a bowstring as she entered the tunnel. She was worried about getting stuck in the small space, but excitement overrode her misgivings. They’d made it this far. They might actually do this if she could just break the pipe.
Yaz handed her his pickax. “Swim about ten yards in, then rip open a good-sized hole,” he said.
Sera made her way down the passageway on her back, holding the torch and pickax on her chest and pushing herself along with her tail. Silt swirled around her, making it nearly impossible to see.
When she got far enough down the tunnel, she waited for the water to clear. There was so little room to maneuver that she had to extend both arms above her head and swing the pickax from her shoulders without bending her elbows. Within minutes her muscles were screaming. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she forced herself to swing over and over again.
The pipe was made out of goblin-forged steel, strong enough to resist the extreme heat of lava, but it was centuries old and corroded. Finally, just when she thought she couldn’t swing the ax one more time, Sera heard a satisfying metallic screech as its blade punctured the pipe. She gave a victory yell and swung again and again, ripping at the hole’s edges until it was big enough. Then, spent and shaking, she wriggled back down the tunnel. As she crawled out, her excitement dimmed. She’d realized they had a problem. A big one.
“I was able to rip the pipe open, but that doesn’t change the fact that the tunnel’s super narrow,” she informed the others. “Even if we manage to get into the vault, how are we going to get any treasure out? Most of the fighters won’t be able to squeeze through.”
This was the Black Fins’ one and only chance to get into the vaults. Their break-in would eventually be discovered and Vallerio would make sure it could never be repeated.
“We’ll think of something,” Yaz said. “We have few weapons, little food, and no medicine. We can’t keep fighting without any gold.”
“We need the ochi now,” said Luca. “It’s gotta be close to showtime in the Grand Hall. You ready?”
Sera nodded. An ochi, or spying songspell, was fiendishly difficult to cast and needed all the energy the caster could summon. It required that a gândac, or bug, usually a shell of some sort, be placed near the mer to be spied upon.
It would have been tough to get into the palace to place a gândac, and even if Sera could manage it, Portia had the rooms swept for them regularly. But what Portia didn’t know was that a gândac was already in place. It was one of Sera’s favorite shells—a large, beautiful nautilus.
When her beloved grandmother died, a heartbroken Sera had placed the shell, her most prized possession, in the cupped hands of a statue of her grandmother that stood in the Grand Hall. The nautilus had been there so long, everyone thought it was part of the statue.
Sera closed her eyes now and cast the ochi. As soon as an image of the hall formed in her mind, she launched straight into a convoca spell, so that Yaz, Luca, and Franco could see it, too.
“Got it?” she asked, her voice straining with effort.
The mermen said they did, and Sera focused even harder. A rough eddy of emotion swirled through her heart as the image sharpened. Her mother, Regina Isabella, had died in the Grand Hall, at the foot of her throne, protecting Serafina. It was hallowed ground to Sera, and Lucia had turned it into a nightclub.
Above the guests, jellyfish with huge diaphanous bells and long ruffled tentacles pulsed to the music, turning different colors with every beat. Bright sea lilies decorated the tables. Banded kraits twined in the arms of the huge chandeliers and neon anemones bloomed on the walls.
Lucia was dancing with Mahdi. He had his arm around her waist. She was laughing, her head thrown back, her black hair fanning out in the water like a swath of midnight.
Sera’s heart leapt at the sight of the merman she loved. She hadn’t so much as glimpsed him since that day in the kolisseo when she’d watched as he “promised” himself to Lucia. Yazeed had forbidden convocas between them. The spells were to be used only when absolutely necessary. Powerful songcasters could break them and listen in. Mahdi sometimes managed to get a conch to the Black Fins’ headquarters, but even that was risky. He and Yaz had planned tonight’s raid with the help of a palace groom who couriered conchs while exercising hippokamps in the waters outside Cerulea.
The partiers at the palace tonight included Lucia’s parents and some of their friends, but they were mostly members of her court—young, gorgeous mermaids and mermen all dressed as colorfully as parrot fish. Lucia didn’t tolerate anyone plain or dull.
Breathless and laughing, Mahdi dipped Lucia at the end of the song, and kissed her.
Jealousy seared Serafina’s heart. She quickly doused it. Hard lessons had taught her to control her emotions. Mahdi’s life depended upon his ability to keep Lucia convinced that he loved her. All their lives did.
As the guests hooted and clapped, Mahdi straightened, grinning, then held up a hand for silence.
Sera drank in every detail of his appearance—his ebony hair, tied back; his white sea-silk shirt and emerald jacket; his shimmering blue tail; his dark, expressive eyes. She longed to touch him, to be with him. To hear him say that he still loved her. Her left hand instinctively went to the ring she wore on her right. The ring Mahdi had given her, carved from a shell.
“I have a little surprise…” he began.
Oohs and ahhs went up.
“I’ve brought the best lightworkers from Matali here to dazzle you with their art. Lightworks, with their rare and sparkling beauty, remind me of the light of my life…my future wife, Lucia.”
Franco rolled his eyes. Luca acted like he was going to hurl. Yaz smiled grimly and Sera tried to.
Mahdi’s performance was a lie. He was hers, not Lucia’s. Sera and Mahdi had exchanged their own vows months ago in a secret Promising ceremony. He wanted to defeat Vallerio as much as she did.
As a thumping Matali beat began, li
ghtworkers in bright silks and glittering jewels, their faces painted with swirls of color, danced into the Grand Hall. Some threw handfuls of pearls high up to the ceiling, where they exploded into shimmering clouds of pink and yellow. Others trailed ribbons of silver and gold waterfire behind them. As they warmed up the guests, six master lightworkers prepared to cast.
“The lights, bro, the lights,” Yaz whispered to himself.
As if on cue, Mahdi signaled for the chandeliers to be dimmed. Most of the lighting in the Grand Hall ran directly off the lava lines. A few wall sconces did not; their globes, self-contained and full of bubbling lava, continued to glow faintly.
“We’re on,” Yaz said.
Sera ended the convoca and the four snapped into action. Yaz grabbed hold of one side of the handwheel, Franco the other. Sera and Luca swam above them to give them room to work in the confined space. Yaz and Franco counted to three, then threw all their strength against the wheel, but it wouldn’t budge. The wheel was green with corrosion and crusted with barnacles. They tried again. Luca took a turn, replacing Franco, but still the valve wouldn’t open.
Yaz slapped his tail against the valve’s housing. “We don’t have time for this!” he yelled.
“We could scrape some of the barnacles off,” Franco ventured.
He started working at them with the broad edge of the pickax. As he did, Sera heard something—tiny voices angrily shouting. She realized that she understood them.
Bending down to the barnacles, she politely asked them to get off the valve. Furious over the assault on their home, they stubbornly refused. Sera then explained that it was their ruler asking them to do so and the survival of the realm depended upon their cooperation. Immediately a staccato of pops was heard as the barnacles released their grip. Some relocated to the new pipe, others to the tunnel walls.
“Since when do you speak Cirrian?” Yaz asked, astonished.
“Since the bloodbind,” Sera replied, silently thanking her friend Ling, an omnivoxa—one who can speak all languages.
Back in the Iele’s caves, Sera, Ling, Ava, Becca, and Neela had sworn a blood oath, and in so doing, each had received some of the others’ powers. They were sisters now, bound forever by magic and friendship.
Yaz and Franco grasped the handwheel again and put every last ounce of their strength into turning it. For a few seconds, nothing happened; then there was a groan as the ancient valve opened, and a deep rumbling as lava entered the old pipe.
“Yes!” Yaz said, tailslapping Franco.
Sera and Luca cheered, but their cheers were cut off as bubbles blasted out of the old tunnel, followed by a rush of sulfur gas. It swirled around the four violently, filling the water with hot, choking fumes.
“Something’s wrong,” Yaz said tersely.
“What’s hap—” Sera started to say, before a fit of coughing overtook her.
“Oh, my gods,” Franco whispered, lurching toward the valve.
Yaz peered down the tunnel. Fear filled his eyes. “Blowback!” he shouted. “Close the valve! Now!”
SERA FOLLOWED YAZ’S gaze, horrified. Lava was rapidly filling the tunnel. They’d released too much and now it was flowing in the wrong direction…toward them.
“Franco! Grab the handwheel!” she shouted, ripping her jacket off and tying it around the bottom half of her face.
But Franco couldn’t hear her; he was limp in the water, overcome by the poisonous gas. Luca was thrashing his tail in pain. He’d been closest to the tunnel and his back had been burned by the superhot bubbles.
“Luca, get Franco out of here! Swim down!” Sera shouted, her voice muffled by her jacket. She knew the gases would rise and that clean water was below them.
Luca, shaking with pain, grabbed Franco and swam. Yaz, teeth clenched, was already on the handwheel. Sera joined him. They tried their hardest to turn it, but it didn’t move. Yaz and Franco together had barely been able to open the valve, and Sera wasn’t as strong as Franco.
She glanced fearfully at the lava again. It was only a foot away from the lip of the main tunnel. In a few more seconds it would be dripping down into it. She and Yaz would not be able to swim back down the main tunnel and get out, as Luca and Franco hopefully had. They’d have to swim up into the palace and try to escape through a window—if they weren’t caught first. The Black Fins’ one chance at the vaults would be gone.
Desperation gripped Sera. Without treasure, she’d never be able to take Cerulea back. Lucia would remain upon Miromara’s throne. The death riders would continue to raid villages and enslave their inhabitants. Vallerio and Portia would get away with murder, and the mysterious figure for whom they were trying to get the talismans just might succeed in freeing Abbadon.
These things can’t happen, Sera thought fiercely. I won’t let them happen.
With a warrior’s cry, she threw all her strength against the handwheel. The muscles in her arms shuddered; the cords stood out in her neck. She and Yaz, on opposite sides of the wheel, churned the water white, using the force of their powerful tails as leverage. And finally, with a grudging groan, the wheel turned.
“Keep going, Sera!” Yaz shouted.
Sera did, and a few seconds later, the valve was closed. The flow of lava stopped. Yazeed looked down the old tunnel and shook his head.
“It’s over,” he said, his shoulders sagging, defeat in his voice.
“Over?” Sera echoed in disbelief. “It can’t be over!” She ripped her jacket away from her face and tied it around her waist.
“It didn’t work, Sera,” Yazeed said. “I can’t tell if the lava ate a hole in the wall or not. Even if it did, there’s too much of it in the tunnel. We can’t swim through lava. We’re done.”
Bitter disappointment filled Sera.
“We should go,” Yaz said. “Get back to the others and—”
His words were cut off by a deafening roar. He grabbed Sera and pushed her against the main tunnel’s wall, covering her body with his. A rush of hot water came shooting out of the old tunnel, followed by pieces of rock and a thick cloud of silt.
Sera braced herself for the searing pain. For the suffocating fumes. For the end.
But it didn’t come.
The hot water spiraled up. The debris sank. There were no more bubbles. No lava. As Yaz and Sera opened their eyes and waved the silt away, they saw there was no more old tunnel, either—just a gaping hole where it used to be. A soft, golden light emanated from the other side.
“You okay?” Yaz asked.
“Yeah, I think so. How about you?”
But Yaz didn’t answer. He was already at the edge of the hole, looking down. Sera joined him, and caught her breath.
Gold glinted up at her. Rubies, emeralds, and sapphires sparkled.
Lava globes on the walls of the vaults illuminated mountains of Miromaran treasure.
“Damn, merl,” Yaz said in a hushed voice. “We didn’t just burn a hole in the wall, we caved it in.”
Sera nodded, her eyes sparkling like the jewels below her. The old pipe, the tunnel it had run through, most of the treasury vault’s back wall, and a good part of its ceiling were gone. Lava, still bubbling, covered some of the treasure. They’d have to be careful to avoid it, but there was plenty of treasure left untouched.
An electric thrill ran through Sera as she realized that her fighters could move much faster through this wide space than they could’ve through the old tunnel—and they could carry more loot, too.
Yaz read her mind. “We can haul out twice what we planned to,” he said excitedly.
“If we don’t get caught,” Sera added. She nervously glanced up. “It’ll be a miracle if they didn’t hear anything.”
“We’ll be okay. Mahdi has drummers up there. Singers, too. And plenty of lightworks explosions. Their noise will cover ours,” Yaz said.
Sera smiled. She reached for a sailcloth sack tucked under her belt, then plunged down into the vaults. “Come on, Yaz!” she called over her shoulder. �
��It’s time to rob the robbers!”
BIANCA DI REMORA, swathed in bright pink sea silk, fluttered like a butterfly fish around Lucia Volnero.
Bianca’s gown was pretty, but not overly so. She’d been wearing a yellow gown earlier, one that had done a better job of showing off her lush, curvy figure. Lucia had thought it quite beautiful and therefore had promptly made her change it. Her courtiers should shine, of course, but only a little. After all, they were merely the setting; she was the jewel.
“Those were, like, the best lightworks ever,” Bianca gushed. “And Mahdi did it all for you! He’s sooo in love.”
“He is, isn’t he,” Lucia purred.
She was seated in the center of the Grand Hall, at the Royal Table. The lightworks show had just ended and Mahdi had swum over to the lightcasters to tell them how pleased he was.
“You should have seen how he was looking at you during the show!” Bianca said. “Then again, everyone’s looking at you tonight.”
Of course they are, Lucia thought.
She was wearing a spectacular gown made of thousands of tiny overlapping disks of polished abalone. The shells caught the light as she moved, casting an iridescent shimmer. She wore her long, blue-black hair down. A stunning sapphire, set in a platinum headband, rested just above her widow’s peak. It sparkled darkly, like her eyes.
Lucia’s gown, her sapphire, her beautiful face—they turned all heads, but she hardly cared. There was only one merman whose gaze she craved—Mahdi’s.
She’d wanted him for her own ever since he’d come to Miromara for Serafina’s Dokimí. With his long dark hair, his chiseled features and soulful eyes, he was the most handsome merman she’d ever seen. And he was the Emperor of Matali, a large and powerful realm. She deserved no less.
Her eyes sought him out now. He was floating by the throne, laughing with the lightcasters. He was beautifully dressed and so good-looking it made her ache. Watching him, she recalled that he had not looked so good after the fall of Cerulea, when she’d found him in a prison cage.
Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel Page 2
