This Dark Endeavor

by Kenneth Oppel

  “Will he eat?” whispered Elizabeth. “What if he’s satisfied his hunger already?’

  “He won’t resist such easy food,” I murmured confidently. But as the minutes ticked by, I was not so sure. Maybe this creature did not care for pickerel. Water lapped at the toes of my boots, and I shuffled back a few steps.

  Suddenly my rod gave a jerk and the line raced out.

  “He’s taken it!” I cried.

  “Don’t try to stop him yet!” Konrad cautioned.

  I watched where my line entered the water. The coelacanth was moving swiftly, spiraling lower in the pool.

  “He’ll have all my line before long!” I said, eyeing my reel nervously.

  Ever so slightly I increased the drag, and needed to lean back with all my weight. I didn’t like to ask for help, but I had no choice.

  “I’ll need you to hold me, both of you,” I said. “He’s too powerful!”

  “Coming!” said Konrad, and—

  At that very moment the tip of his own rod dipped low, and his reel spun furiously.

  Our lines, I noticed, were angled in exactly the same direction.

  “He’s taken both our hooks!” cried Konrad.

  I felt the strain on my rod lighten. This was good news indeed.

  “He has the two of us to contend with now!” I said.

  “The Frankenstein boys will bring him in!” hooted Konrad. “Let him tire himself.”

  “Good, good!” I said, feeling a surge of exhilaration. I was not thinking about Elizabeth or my jealousy—only working with my twin.

  “I think he begins to slow,” said Konrad after a few minutes.

  “Gently now,” I said, and we both increased the drag on our reels. My feet felt wet, and when I glanced down, once again I saw that water was lapping against them.

  “Konrad,” I said, my pulse quickening. “The water’s rising.”

  “What?” He glanced over at me in confusion, then down at his boots, wet to the ankle.

  I realized that we’d unknowingly backed up very close to the cavern’s wall. There was not much more room to retreat.

  “The pool must be filling from beneath,” Elizabeth said. “That waterfall …”

  She hurried to pull back our packs and keep them dry.

  “We don’t have much time,” said Konrad. “It rises quickly.”

  “If it overflows the ledge,” said Elizabeth, “it will begin to fill the tunnel.”

  “Temerlin made no mention of this,” I muttered. But I remembered the wet floor and walls as we’d approached. This was no rare occurrence.

  “We’ll have the fish any moment,” I said, leaning back to test its strength.

  “Definitely he tires,” agreed Konrad.

  “There he is!” cried Elizabeth, pointing.

  Once again the blue form shimmered below the surface, but this time he actually broke it for a moment—and for the first time we saw his full size. I swallowed.

  “He’s seven feet!”

  “We will have him, though!” said Konrad. “His fight is gone. Let’s reel in.”

  All at once the coelacanth flashed out of sight, Konrad’s line snapped, and the full power of the fish was in my hands. Instinctively, foolishly, I gripped my rod tighter and was instantly yanked off the rocky ledge. I was pulled some twenty feet through the air, and then crashed into the pool.

  The cold was like a hammer blow. It was all I could do to keep my head above the water and fill my lungs with air. I felt like a ship trapped in ice, slowly being crushed. The fishing rod was long gone from my hands. I was dimly aware of my name being called, voices echoing everywhere. My clothes and boots were heavy with water. Sluggishly I turned to face the shore, the lanterns, Konrad and Elizabeth.

  I tried to kick, but my legs hardly moved. Were they so numb already? Then I felt a painful tightening around them, and realized they were bound together by loops of fishing line, cinched by the circling coelacanth.

  I dragged my sodden arms through the water, my legs lashing up and down like a fish tail.

  “Victor! Stay still!” cried Elizabeth.

  “What?” I gasped.

  “It will think you’re a squid! They eat squids!”

  I looked around in terror. And then, suddenly, it shot past me, not a foot away. Its length was one thing, but its width was equally worrying. How much could it swallow? It seemed to take forever to pass—and then it began to circle.

  “Konrad!” I shouted. “My saber!”

  I saw him scramble through my gear and grab the sword. He threw it. The blade flashed in the lantern light, and I caught the saber in my cold-clawed hand.

  “I’m coming, Victor!” he cried.

  He was kicking off his boots, stripping down to his shirt. He snatched up his own saber.

  The coelacanth plowed past, so close that it grazed me, its jagged scales rasping against my clothing—and possibly my flesh, but I was so cold I felt nothing. Twice I stabbed at it with my sword, and was dismayed when the blade deflected off as though from armor. The fish’s muscular flank swatted me. My head went under. I lost grip of my sword. I choked on the cold water, and came up spluttering, weaponless.

  The fish was coming straight at me now, its mouth wide, and wider still. It did not have many teeth, but those it had looked very sharp. I flailed at it with my feet, trying to kick it away. With its head it batted my legs effortlessly to one side and came at my torso.

  Before I could raise my fist to pound its head, it took my entire arm into its mouth. Its teeth closed around my bicep, not tearing, not gnawing, just gripping. I screamed in pain. Against my hand and forearm its fleshy maw contracted and sucked, trying to drag me in deeper.

  I heard a splash, and seconds later Konrad surfaced beside me, like some Greek hero, his face alabaster and fierce with cold. In his hand was his saber.

  “It has me!” I cried.

  I tried again to drag my arm out, but the fish’s teeth were sunk into my flesh and every movement was agony. With my free hand I punched and pummeled the fish’s head, but it seemed to feel nothing. Its throat sucked and spasmed wetly around my arm.

  Konrad struck the coelacanth. His first two hits were deflected, but the third went deep. And yet the blade seemed to have no effect on the brute. Konrad yanked his sword out and drew back his arm for another strike.

  “Where should I aim?” he cried out.

  “Its eye!” yelled Elizabeth from the shore.

  “Watch my arm!” I hollered at my twin, for fear he’d impale me. “Hurry!”

  “Stay still!”

  “I can’t stay still!” I roared. “It’s eating my arm!”

  Konrad drove his saber into the fish’s right eye. It thrashed violently and its mouth opened. I yanked my numb arm clear.

  Konrad struck once more with his blade, a brilliant upward thrust through the roof of the creature’s gaping mouth and into its tiny brain. The fish gave a spasm and then was still, rolling over onto its side.

  “Come, let’s get you back.” Konrad helped drag me to the shore, and then turned back to retrieve the fish. Elizabeth pulled my body onto the ledge, which was now completely submerged under several inches of water.

  My arms and legs were almost too cold to bend. Elizabeth helped me to my feet. Luckily she’d found a deep ledge several feet up the wall where she’d jammed our packs. From one, she now pulled a dry blanket.

  “Take your shirt off!” she ordered me. My numb fingers could not manage the buttons, so she started to undo them. I stared at her, mesmerized by her beauty. Then, in exasperation, she just ripped the entire sodden shirt from my chest.

  I saw her gaze fly to my right arm, and I looked too. I’d actually forgotten my injury, for the cold numbed all pain. There were three blue triangular gashes where the coelacanth’s teeth had pierced and held me. The surrounding skin was blanched white, but even as I watched, the color began to return, and with it, the wounds slowly welled with blood.

  She put the blanket
around my shoulders. “Dry off,” she told me.

  From her pack she produced bandages and a bottle of antiseptic unguent, which she applied on my wounds before wrapping the cloth tightly around my arm. I was shivering violently now.

  She came close and hugged me, rubbing my back and shoulders.

  “I like this,” I murmured, teeth chattering.

  Konrad reached the shore, gasping with exertion, dragging the fish. It took all three of us to wrestle its seven-foot bulk onto the ledge.

  “We did it!” Konrad said, grasping me by the shoulders.

  “I was just the bait,” I said.

  Elizabeth was looking at the pool in horror. “The water’s overflowing down the tunnel! We need to go!”

  There was no question of bringing the entire fish. Polidori had said the head was more than adequate, and so Konrad began to hack at it with his saber.

  “Hurry!” Elizabeth cried.

  Finally he severed the head, wrapped it tightly in oilcloth, and crammed it into his rucksack.

  We turned up the wicks of our lanterns and made all haste, for the water was up to our knees now. When the tunnel angled downward, the water pushed hard against our legs and, after a few minutes, our waists.

  “No,” breathed Konrad, peering into the distance.

  Then I saw. At the tunnel’s lowest point, before the passage tilted sharply up, the water was nearing the ceiling. We were being cut off.

  “Run!” I shouted.

  It was impossible to run, loaded down as we were, up to our armpits in water. Elizabeth tripped and nearly disappeared under the surface. Her lantern snuffed out instantly. With my good arm I grabbed her and dragged her back to her feet. Ahead the tunnel was all but sealed. We slogged on with all our strength and speed, the icy water at our necks, spilling down our collars.

  Konrad and I held our lanterns high. We had but seconds before our heads would be covered.

  “We must get through!” Konrad cried. “It’s only a few yards until the passage slopes up again on the other side!”

  “The water’s current will speed us!” I said. “Go, go now!” The water was at my mouth.

  “Hold hands!” Elizabeth cried, grasping out for us.

  Our lanterns fizzled out, and the darkness was more intense than anything I’d ever known. I gulped air and went under, half swimming, half trudging, clutching my lantern. My hand slipped from Elizabeth’s. The glacial water churned and pushed at me—and my greatest fear was that I’d get turned around and die in the flood.

  Was the tunnel floor rising now? It was hard to tell in all the darkness and crushing cold. I forged ahead until I had no more breath, and then pushed up, slapping about with my hands. Water. More water, and then—

  Air! Was it air?

  My head came up and I gasped. I wallowed ahead, water still up to my shoulders and rising fast.

  “Konrad? Elizabeth?”

  “I’m here!” came my brother’s voice. “Elizabeth?”

  There was a splash, and coughing. “Victor! Konrad!”

  “We’re all here,” said Konrad, and I felt hands against me, all of us reaching out for the others.

  “Forward!” I cried. “The water’s still coming!”

  “Up ahead,” panted Konrad, “at the intersection, there’s another downward tunnel—”

  “The water will take that course,” I said.

  We slogged uphill, soaking cold and leaden with exhaustion. But we could not slow, for the flood was always at our armpits or necks. I fought for every step, every breath. We called out to one another, just to make sure we were all still there, all alive.

  The water was at my waist, then my calves, and then, suddenly, it gave me a last final push and I staggered and fell onto wet stone. On all fours I crawled until the floor beneath me was dry.

  “This way!” I called out.

  “Are we all here?” Konrad shouted.

  “Light the lanterns!” cried Elizabeth.

  “It’s no use,” came my twin’s voice. “The wicks are sodden. Victor—”

  “Half a moment,” I said, fumbling in my rucksack. My hands grasped the wet case, and I carefully slid out the glass container. At once the tunnel was bathed in a green glow.

  “We are glad of the flameless fire now, are we not?” I said to Konrad, my teeth chattering.

  “Glad indeed,” he said.

  “You’re a genius, Victor!” said Elizabeth, and her words warmed me.

  Behind us I saw the water, still welling up from the tunnel, curving round in a frothing serpentine torrent to plunge down the other descending passage. For a moment we all sat there and watched, numb and exhausted.

  “The light is wonderful,” said Elizabeth, “but did any of you think to bring a change of clothes?”

  Miserably I shook my head, as did Konrad.

  How could we not have thought of such a thing?

  “In that caving book I found,” Elizabeth said, shuddering, “it said the most common cause of death was getting wet and cold. So I packed a waterproof pouch and put in a change of clothes for myself—and you two as well.”

  “Elizabeth—,” I said, and was rendered speechless by my gratitude and admiration.

  “Thank you,” gasped Konrad.

  “Now,” she said, rooting around in her rucksack and producing dry clothing for us, “strip off your wet things. Get as dry as you can before putting on the fresh ones.” She looked at us impatiently. “Get on with it! I won’t peek, and you two mustn’t either.”

  She turned her back on us and went down the tunnel a ways to change.

  Shivering, I stripped, trying to mop the water off my skin. In the green light I looked like some shriveled goblin. As frigid as I was, it took a good deal of willpower not to turn my head and take a quick peek at Elizabeth.

  “It’s a pity we can’t have a fire to warm up,” she said when we were all changed.

  “We must get to the surface as quickly as we can,” I said.

  Even in the dry clothes I was cold. And our boots were still sodden, but there was nothing we could do about that.

  “What time is it?” Elizabeth asked.

  Konrad fished about in his pocket and dragged out his clock. “The face is shattered. Yours, Victor?”

  When I retrieved mine, I saw that the glass was filled with water and the hands were motionless at three o’clock. I showed it to my brother.

  “Coming on four, then,” he said.

  “It took us three hours to get down here,” I said, “and that was downhill, and when we were rested.”

  “Let’s go,” said Elizabeth. “Our exertion will warm us. And your fabulous green light will make sure we don’t miss my markings.”

  We silently began our march. I couldn’t have talked if I’d wanted to, my teeth chattered so violently. Every so often we forced ourselves to eat some soggy food and drink cold water from our flasks.

  One foot after the other. I did not know if I was slowly warming, or getting number still. I was not sure what I felt—until I was suddenly on my knees, Elizabeth beside me.

  “His wound’s bleeding badly,” she said to Konrad.

  “It’s nothing,” I said.

  “You nearly fainted, Victor.” She was pulling bandages from her pack and removing the old bloodstained one. She dressed my wound once more. I stood.

  “Are you all right?” Konrad asked me.

  “Let’s just get out of here,” I said.

  Time did not exist down there. Ancient rock, ancient fish. I would not have been surprised if a century had passed aboveground. I might have been sleepwalking, even as I squeezed once more through the tunnel’s birth canal and jumped again over the waterfall’s chasm. And then more walking.

  We had our coelacanth head. That was what I kept telling myself as we carried on, dragging our bodies up from the bowels of the earth. That was all that kept me going.

  When we reached the cave with our rope, I nearly cried—with gratitude and despair both, for I
feared I did not have the strength to make that final climb. I sat down on the lowest step of the stone pedestal to catch my breath.

  “Victor! Elizabeth! Konrad!”

  The voice came from overhead, and with it the blaze of a torch.

  “Henry?” I called. “Henry!”

  I peered up and saw his face leaning over the hole. It was impossible to imagine a more welcome sight.

  “You have been so long!” he called down. “It’s nearly nine o’clock! I was almost demented with worry!”

  “We’re here, Henry,” said Konrad. “Triumphantly here. Give us a hand, and we will all be up in a minute!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HOUSE ARREST

  WE SENT HENRY STRAIGHT BACK TO GENEVA WITH the coelacanth head. The city gates closed at ten o’clock, and he had little time to lose. I wanted it delivered to Polidori’s house as soon as possible.

  We’d told our parents that Henry would likely return straight home after our outing, so they wouldn’t think it strange when we arrived back at the château without him. The three of us made our way with all haste, for the light was quickly failing, and we knew that our parents would be worried—and likely furious.

  “There will be questions,” I said when we approached the stables, slowing our horses to a trot. “We must tell them as little as possible. We are wet because we fell into the water while fishing.”

  “We have no fish to show for ourselves,” said Elizabeth.

  “I should’ve thought of that,” I said. “But it can’t be helped now. We fished for the sport of it. We’re late because we lost track of the time.”

  “Most important of all,” said Konrad, “we do not mention anything about Polidori or our quest.”

  Mother and Father must have been listening for our horses, for they were in the courtyard scarcely before we had dismounted. On seeing us, Mother burst into tears and scolded, even as she embraced us. Her grief made me feel ashamed for the first time.

  We handed off our horses to the grooms and were ushered inside.

  “You have worried your poor mother to distraction, and me as well,” Father said angrily.

  When I removed my riding furs, Mother gasped.