And then Conor moves too. One clean stroke takes him to Saldowr’s side. He looks across at Ervys as if he’s Ervys’s equal. Faro hesitates for a moment. He’s wishing he’d thought of it first. Then he makes up his mind and swoops to Saldowr’s other side. They close in, as Ervys’s followers have done. Saldowr glances from Conor to Faro. A smile flickers across his face.
“Let us return to the subject of that whale,” says Saldowr calmly, putting aside what Ervys has said about leaders. “She’s patient, but she can’t be patient forever. She’s waiting to take these children to the Deep, Ervys. You know as well as I do that it’s our only chance of avoiding sacrifice to the Kraken.
“The whale knows the patterns of the Deep. Even where darkness covers everything, she can still hear her way. There’s no creature in Ingo like her for understanding echoes and reading the darkness. You would be lost there, and so would I, so let’s not waste our time talking of leaders. Leaders can do nothing against the Kraken in his own territory.”
Ervys and his followers subside and move back a little. But they’re only biding their time; I’m sure of it.
“These children,” says Ervys, waving his hand scornfully at Conor and me. “We hear a lot about what they can do, but so far we have no evidence of it. It’s all words.”
“Evidence!” Once again power flashes from Saldowr. “How can there be evidence or certainty in any of this? I don’t know what is going to happen, nor do they. It’s a risk we have to take.”
When Saldowr says that, the weight of what we’ve agreed to do hits me. At the back of my mind I’ve had the hope that somehow Saldowr magically knows what’s going to happen and knows that we’re going to come back safely. Otherwise he wouldn’t send us, would he? Because he’s an adult, and we’re children….
You idiot, Sapphire. He’s not a teacher, worrying about our safety on a school trip. He’s Mer, and Ingo is under threat.
“And I am going with them,” says Faro proudly, staring at Ervys with defiance.
“Is this true?” demands Ervys of Saldowr. Saldowr nods.
A strange smile flickers over Ervys’s face. “But no Mer can enter the Deep,” he says. “Not even your scolhyk and your holyer, Saldowr, unless you can break all the laws that govern us. Or unless, in this particular case, for some reason they…don’t apply.”
There is a long silence. Ervys’s followers look puzzled but aggressive, as if they haven’t quite understood what this argument is about but are just as happy to fight it out anyway. Faro understands, though. He pushes forward, but Saldowr restrains him.
“Now is not the time,” says Saldowr, and then a fit of coughing seizes him. Veins stand out on his forehead as he struggles to control it, while Ervys looks on with that smile of satisfaction deepening on his face.
Faro dives for the cup and brings it to Saldowr’s lips. Saldowr drains it, his fingers shaking on the rim. “And now no more, Faro,” he whispers, “no more, even if I beg you for it. I have reached my limit.”
I don’t know whether or not Ervys hears this. He and his followers dominate the cave, gazing at Saldowr as if the sight of his distress pleases them. How dare they? Who asked them to come here? My fists clench, like Faro’s.
“This child has something to say to you,” Saldowr says hoarsely at last, and he indicates me. For a moment I’ve no idea what he means. I’m so caught up in what’s happening that I’ve forgotten all about our bargain. But then Conor nudges me, and I remember.
“We’ve agreed to go to the Deep,” I say. Fear makes my voice shaky, but I swallow hard and look straight at Ervys. He’s not going to scare me out of saying what I mean. Too much depends on it.
“And so?” asks Ervys coldly.
“In return we ask the Mer to agree to something. Our father is in Ingo. Our father must have the choice to return to the human world.”
Ervys frowns deeply and folds his arms. Immediately Mortarow and Talek fold theirs, too.
“This should have been discussed in the Assembly chamber,” growls Ervys.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” says Saldowr.
“She’s asking us to break the law of the Mer.”
Saldowr sighs wearily. “Don’t you understand, Ervys, that everything is broken for us already? The Kraken is awake.”
Ervys ponders angrily. I’m afraid that he’s going to agree with his lips, but not in his heart. I don’t trust him.
“This is blackmail,” he says at last. “I agree to it because I have no choice. Let my followers be my witnesses. Talek, Mortarow, witness that I agree under duress.”
“It’s not blackmail!” I begin hotly, but Saldowr won’t let me speak.
“You are testing my patience, all of you, as well as the patience of the whale. You’re not in the Assembly chamber now, Ervys. The time for talking is over.”
Maybe it’s just old habit that makes Ervys and his followers fall silent. But it’s an ominous, waiting silence. I cling to the hope that Ervys has decided not to cross Saldowr’s will openly now, while he still needs us.
Ervys is strong. Muscles bulge in his arms and shoulders. He is in his prime, and he can afford to wait. His expression says that he’ll get what he wants—if not now, then soon.
If Saldowr dies, we’ll have no protection from Ervys. If Saldowr dies…
No, it can’t happen. We won’t let it happen. If we go to the Deep, if we stop the Kraken, then Ingo will be itself again. Everything will be as it was, and Saldowr will be as we saw him the first time: tall, strong, and more alive than anyone.
The whale is waiting. All the time, I can feel her presence in the back of my mind. Her huge body with its skin that’s wrinkled like an elephant’s. Her box-shaped head and the teeth that would frighten me if I didn’t know her. We don’t eat your kind, little one.
Her vast tail with the flukes that could knock a boat out of the water. Her sonar that can find a giant squid at the floor of the ocean, thousands of meters down. And her huge heart. Conor showed me in one of his books that the heart of a sperm whale weighs as much as two men. I think of the heart inside her, pumping and pumping, getting ready for the dive.
I look across at Ervys. How big is your heart? You claim that you’re doing everything for the sake of the Mer, because Saldowr’s weak and can’t save his people anymore. And so you’re the one who’s going to rescue them from the Kraken and get the glory of it. The Mer will be so grateful that they’ll give you anything you ask for. They’ll make you leader, all right.
They’re too close. Saldowr and Ervys shouldn’t be as close as this. You can feel the pressure of it, like two magnets pushing against each other.
What’s Conor doing? At a murmur from Saldowr he’s dropped behind Faro. Suddenly I see that Conor has the mirror in his hand. He’s not looking into it, but he’s rubbing at the metal back. Polishing it.
“Give me my mirror, Conor,” says Saldowr. Conor passes it, and as Saldowr takes it, the metal flashes like lightning in the summer sky. The dull metal is suddenly brilliant. Ervys and his followers raise their hands in the gesture I remember from the Assembly chamber: hands up, fingers crossed as if they’re warding off evil.
“I see you’ve cleaned my mirror for me, Conor,” says Saldowr. “All these years we’ve never managed to get a shine on it, have we, Faro? Perhaps it was waiting for this occasion. Waiting for you, Ervys, do you think?”
Ervys says nothing.
“Yes, I think so…. I believe my mirror knows that you are here. It wants to see you, Ervys.”
Ervys lets his hands fall to his sides again. Reluctantly his followers do the same. You can see that they don’t want to. They’re rattled now, uneasy, glancing at Ervys to see what to do and then at Saldowr.
“You’ve come here uninvited,” says Saldowr. “You’ve cast doubts on these children’s courage. Let’s see your courage, Ervys. Look into my mirror.”
A little gap appears in the water between Ervys and his followers. Yes, they’re separating them
selves from him. Shrinking away. He’s too clever not to see it and know what it means. He swims forward.
“Your mirror doesn’t frighten me,” he says.
It’s obvious that it does. His color has gone. His lips are set in a tight line. Even so, he reaches out his hand.
“Look into it well,” Saldowr tells him, and turns the mirror to face Ervys.
The water seems to turn to ice around Ervys. Slowly his hair lifts as if a current is drawing it, until it stands around his head in a halo. His eyes glare into the mirror, fixed.
“So stand there, Ervys,” murmurs Saldowr, “stand there, and let my mirror teach you.”
How stupid I was to believe that Saldowr was like a benign wizard in a children’s book. Ervys has trespassed, disrespected the Groves of Aleph and Saldowr’s own cave. He taunted Saldowr with his weakness. He brought his followers to swagger here. He challenged Saldowr, and Saldowr didn’t challenge him in return.
Ervys must have thought he’d won already and that Ingo was his. But Saldowr has done the most terrible thing of all. He has shown Ervys himself. Ervys looks as if he’s been turned to stone. His followers raise their hands, shielding their faces.
“No,” Saldowr commands them, “you must look at Ervys, unless you want to take his place.”
He wants them to see Ervys humbled. They know it, and Ervys must know it. Talek and Mortarow almost certainly don’t want to take Ervys’s place, so they gawp at him obediently. A smile of triumph curls on Faro’s mouth as he too stares at Ervys, but I look away.
At last, after long minutes, Saldowr removes the mirror. Slowly Ervys’s tortured grimace fades into a more normal expression. He shudders all over, and then with a huge effort he regains himself. He gives Saldowr a look of such hatred that I’m chilled. The hatred flashes around the cave like cold fire, over me and Faro and Conor, even over his followers. He hates us all because we’ve witnessed his defeat.
“I have looked into your mirror, Saldowr,” he hisses, “and one day, I promise you, you will look into mine. All of you will look into mine.”
Fear licks over me. I believe him. He will bide his time, and one day his chance will come.
“Now leave us, Ervys,” says Saldowr quietly. “These children must make ready for their journey.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WHALE IS LIKE AN oceangoing liner, ready to depart. She wants us to tuck in behind her flippers for the dive, so that the rush of the water won’t sweep us away from her. She’ll have Faro and Conor on one side of her and me on the other for balance.
“You must lie close to me, little barelegs,” she tells me. Her huge affection laps round me. “Think that you are a part of me.”
I remember how we rode with the dolphins. You can’t ride on dolphins as if they were bicycles. You have to let go of being separate and relax against them until it feels as if you’re sharing the same skin. Perhaps it’s like that with whales too.
None of us knows how long we’ll need to be in the Deep. None of us knows what we’re going to do when we find the Kraken. It’s like staring over a precipice. It makes you feel sick and dizzy.
But Saldowr’s wise, and he’s the one who is sending us. He wouldn’t throw our lives away for a one-in-a-million chance.
Conor says sperm whales only dive for about an hour. Males can dive longer than females, so maybe my whale won’t even be able to do an hour. He’s not sure that it’ll be long enough, when you think that we’ve got to find the Kraken and somehow make him sleep again. Somehow!
“We have to trust the whale’s judgment,” Conor says. “Maybe time in the Deep is different from time in the rest of Ingo, just as human time is different from Mer time. Why would she take us if she knew we wouldn’t have time to do anything? There’s no sense in it if we’re bound to fail.”
Conor sounds so logical. I suppose he’s right. Bound to fail. Bound to fail. Our chance of success feels so slender. All we’ve got is Saldowr’s mirror and the talisman. Oh, and don’t forget a handful of rowanberries. When you add it all up, it’s not impressive.
Don’t think of that now. Think of one stroke at a time. I’m not going to say anything to the others about my doubts. It’s bad enough for them to be going to the Deep for the first time. At least I know what to expect.
“Faro, are you sure? Are you really sure?” I murmur just before we separate to swim to shelter behind the whale’s flippers. Conor has swum ahead a little way to find a length of weed to bind the mirror to his leg.
Faro’s eyes look like black holes in his white face. He tries to smile his old teasing smile, but it’s no more than a shadow. He looks shocked and angry, not afraid. It has something to do with the mirror and what it’s shown him about himself. The cursed mirror, he called it. Suddenly I’m afraid that we’re forcing Faro into a danger so terrible, he can’t possibly survive it. He’s not like us. Our mixed blood gives us a chance.
“Please, Faro, don’t do this,” I beg him. “You can’t throw your life away.”
His eyes glint. There’s no warmth or friendliness in his expression. “Didn’t you understand what Saldowr was telling me?”
I stare at him. A flash of understanding passes between us, from his mind to mine, and then I know why Faro is coming to the Deep, why he’s able to come.
A wave of his pain and shock hits me. He can’t believe it; he doesn’t want to believe it. He, Faro, always so proud of being pure Mer. But the mirror is too strong. You can’t escape the knowledge it gives you. It has sunk into Faro and changed him. I reach out to him, but he shrugs me away.
“Not now. Leave me alone, Sapphire.”
Conor has bound the mirror to his leg so securely that it’s almost hidden by straps of weed. He has the talisman safe around his neck. The little diving figure still frightens me. Why does Conor think that it has his face when it’s so obviously Mer? Nothing seems certain anymore. I used to know what was human and what was Mer. Faro was Mer, everybody in St. Pirans was human, and I was half-and-half. Now the boundaries are shifting, and it frightens me.
Those rowanberries seem to burn through the cloth of my pocket and into my skin. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought them. They belong to Earth. They might harm me in Ingo. Granny Carne wouldn’t have known if I’d left them behind.
What was it Saldowr said to me? Did no one give you a talisman, Sapphire? I’m sure he knew about the rowanberries in my pocket. But I wasn’t going to admit I had them.
I hope Saldowr will never be angry with us in the way he was with Ervys. Ervys looked as if he was trapped in a nightmare. He couldn’t wake up until Saldowr let him.
Faro and Conor must have reached the other side of the whale by now. I’ve just got to wait. I hope they’re all right. It’s dark tucked in behind the whale’s flipper, but it feels secure.
We’re moving now, slowly gliding our way out of the Groves of Aleph. There’s no one to say good-bye to us. Saldowr couldn’t leave the cave, and Elvira’s staying with him. Ervys, Talek, and Mortarow must be miles away by now. They couldn’t leave fast enough.
I still wish we hadn’t been there to witness Ervys’s nightmare. He’ll punish us for it. He’s the kind who’ll wait and wait and get his revenge when you’ve stopped expecting it.
I wonder if I can hear the whale’s huge heart beating. If I put my ear against her skin…No, there’s nothing. Her heart’s such a long way away. It’s strange to be almost part of someone this big. How careful the whale has to be as she maneuvers herself out of the Groves into free water. Her flippers move gently, steering her, grazing the underwater trees as she goes. I peer out into the water, and weed rushes past. The water feels shallow compared with her hugeness.
“Are you all right, little barelegs? Do my flippers move gently enough for you?”
“Yes, dear whale, I’m fine.”
She doesn’t seem too concerned about Faro and Conor, even though she was willing to take them to the Deep as well. Maybe she feels closer to me because of the way we f
irst met, in the Deep. She was a warm-blooded fellow mammal in all that cold-blooded darkness. I think she must have felt the same.
I wonder what it would be like to be a whale’s daughter. Of course I’d miss Mum, I think hurriedly, feeling guilty. Mum has gone shadowy in my mind, the way she does when I’m in Ingo. Even darling Sadie has become distant. I can’t remember the exact tone of her bark. I know I love her, but I can’t find the feeling.
We’re traveling faster now, close to the surface. I tuck myself in as tight as I can. I daren’t peer out now in case the racing water grabs me.
And then the whale’s huge body loses speed as it breaches the surface. She rocks from side to side, wallowing. Her speed dies to nothing, and she blows. I feel it all through her body. I picture the column of water shooting into the air from her blowhole. Where are we? I wonder. Miles out to sea, I’m sure. Maybe a fishing boat is in range, and the men will see the whale blow. Dad used to say it was a sight that took your breath away.
It’s the power of the creatures, Sapphy. We’re nothing next to them. When you’re out on the bare ocean and you see a whale breach and blow, you’ve seen glory. I’ll take you down south beyond Scilly one day, and we’ll watch for whales.
The fishermen would expect to see other whales, because sperm whales live in groups. But my whale is alone, always alone.
Dad and I never made that journey. There wasn’t time.
The whale’s got to gather her breath for the dive. She’s not talking anymore. How could she think of conversation when she’s preparing to plunge down hundreds of meters—maybe thousands? I lay my face against her rough, pruny skin. Dear whale, dive well. Dive deep.
It must be like this for astronauts when they’re waiting for the countdown, strapped into their seats. It’s too late to go back. All the exits are sealed, and everybody’s watching and waiting and hoping.
Ingo’s watching and waiting and hoping. My stomach slithers. Too late to go back now. I wonder if some of the Mer have followed us and are watching, from a safe distance, their hair flowing around their shoulders and their faces eager to catch sight of the dive.
The Deep Page 12