by Liz Kessler
Phew! We’d pulled it off. Now we just had to figure out how to force Neptune to listen to us before Njord and Archie put whatever they were planning into effect.
“In fact, it is so exciting that I would like to bring the party forward.” Njord went on. “Why wait a moment longer?”
“Why wait, indeed!” Neptune agreed.
“Wonderful!” Njord said. “Let’s get the celebrations started straightaway.”
“Straightaway?” I gasped. What was he up to?
Neptune threw a dirty look my way. “Sounds good to me,” he said, turning back to Njord.
“Give me half an hour,” said Njord. “I would like to prepare a surprise for my brother.”
I bet you would.
“Ooh, I love surprises,” Neptune said.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not going to like this one,” I whispered under my breath.
“What was that?” Archie asked.
“What? Nothing. Just saying that I love surprises, too,” I said stiffly. “Can’t wait.”
“Well, then, that’s just swishy,” Njord said, with a smirk. “Now, go fetch your other friends — Beeston, and that Millie person — and we shall meet back here in half an hour.” He looked around at us one last time, and with another evil sneer that I couldn’t believe Neptune still hadn’t noticed, he said, “Let the celebrations begin.”
We were back at the meeting place at the top end of the fjord, just in front of the mountain range.
“This is exciting, isn’t it?” Millie said from her boat.
Archie was in the water beside her. “It certainly is, my darling,” he simpered.
“Now, then,” Njord said, as we swam closer to the mountain range. “There is a special and very beautiful place in a cave nearby. I believe it is the perfect place to begin our celebrations. Come!” He spread an arm out, showing us where to go. “After you,” he said to Neptune, patting his shoulder with brotherly affection.
We started to swim down the fjord toward the cave.
Don’t do it.
The voice was so soft I only just heard it. “What was that?” I asked, spinning around to whisper to Shona and Aaron.
“What was what?” Aaron asked.
It’s a trap.
Again, I only just heard it. It sounded as though it were coming from a long way away, or from inside a tunnel or something. “That! The voice! Didn’t you hear it?”
Shona shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything,” she said.
If they hadn’t heard it, that only meant one thing. It was the narwhal! I swam harder and caught up with Neptune just as he was on the very edge of the cave. “Please, Your Majesty,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Don’t do it — I’m begging you!”
Neptune looked down at his arm and shook my hand off. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t go in there. It’s a trap!”
Njord swam over just in time to hear what I said. At my words, he burst out laughing. Neptune glanced at him, and immediately did the same. Then he looked more serious.
“I don’t know why you are intent on spoiling this special day,” he said, “but I will not have it! Do you hear me?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m not trying to spoil anything,” I hissed. “I’m trying to save you.” I nudged my head at Njord. “He is the one trying to spoil things for you. I promise you. He’s not what he seems.”
“I’m telling you, child,” Neptune said, his face growing red and his voice rising. “I will not have it. You will not —”
She’s telling you the truth.
The narwhal. Clearer this time. It sounded as if he were coming closer.
Neptune spun around. “Who said that?”
No one answered. I fought down the hammering heartbeat that was jumping up into my throat, and in a squeak, said, “The narwhal.”
“The what?” Neptune asked.
Njord swam right up into my face. “The what?” he growled.
“The narwhal,” a voice behind us said.
The three of us turned to see a young merman swimming toward us. As he got closer, I could see who he was. Seth! The merman who’d helped Shona and me escape from the mountain!
And he wasn’t alone.
The narwhal emerged from behind him and swam straight over to Neptune. As soon as Njord saw him, his face turned white.
Njord pointed at the narwhal. “You’re supposed to be dead!” he said before he could stop himself.
The narwhal touched Neptune’s forehead with his tusk. Instantly, the whole place lit up with swirling colors, flying between the narwhal and Neptune and dancing in the air like a bouncing rainbow.
For a moment, everyone was so still that I actually wondered if time itself had somehow frozen. Neptune stared at Njord; Njord stared at Neptune; Archie stared at the narwhal; Mr. Beeston stared at Archie; Millie stared into space; Shona and Seth stared at each other. And Aaron and I stared at them all and waited for the serious sparks to fly.
Which, approximately two seconds later, they did.
Neptune erupted out of the water and practically flew through the air as he made a grab for Njord’s neck.
“You filthy, dirty, lying eel!” he bellowed. “You double-crossing, vile piece of sea scum! How dare you try to trick me like this? Pretending to be my loving, long-lost brother, when you are in fact my most sworn and hated enemy!”
Njord was still white with shock. He turned to Archie. “What’s the meaning of this?” he hissed. “I thought you told me you’d taken care of it.”
Neptune froze. Slowly, he turned to Archie. “Archie? My closest adviser?” he said in a shaky voice. “You were part of this?”
Archie looked down.
“What, you haven’t even got the decency to admit it?”
“Decency?” Njord spat. “Why would he need decency when he works for me?”
Neptune carried on looking at Archie. “Why?” he asked, almost in a whisper.
Archie finally raised his head to meet Neptune’s gaze. “I was always with Njord,” he said firmly. “It is in my family’s blood.”
Neptune made a kind of snorting noise. “And what is your motivation? What false promises has he led you to believe?”
Archie held Neptune’s eyes. “He has promised me one of the largest areas of ocean to rule,” he said.
Neptune laughed drily. “And you believe him?”
“I have no reason not to.”
“Then you are a fool!” Neptune said with a dismissive shake of his head. “And he is welcome to you.”
I swam forward. “And what about me and Aaron?” I asked.
Archie looked down at me as if I were a piece of garbage he thought he’d gotten rid of. “What about you?”
“What was the real reason you wanted us to have Neptune’s power?”
Archie looked at Njord.
“Tell them,” Njord snarled. “What harm can it do now?”
“Njord had begun to melt,” Archie said. “The midnight sun was slowly working on him. We knew that one day he would rule again. We were patient. We waited.”
“But then Neptune removed the memory drug and started remembering things,” I said.
Archie nodded. “If he had remembered before Njord came back to life, he would have frozen him all over again. Njord would never have returned to power.”
“And you would never have been given your share of the spoils,” Neptune said bitterly.
“So where did we fit in?” Aaron said. “You couldn’t have thought that we would be on your side.”
“You would never have known whose side you were really on. In case Neptune remembered everything, we needed to get you here before he came himself, get you to catch the tears and melt Njord.”
“To do the very thing we ended up doing, in fact,” I said.
“As it turned out, yes.”
“Which was why you were so eager to escort them on the trip,” Mr. Beeston put in.
“And why you wanted me to phone you and
give you updates on exactly what was happening here,” Millie added through gritted teeth.
“And you’d have spun whatever pack of lies we would fall for, to make us do it,” I said. I felt sick to my stomach.
Archie shrugged. “I was just doing my job,” he said. “Everyone is loyal to someone.”
We fell silent for a moment as we digested everything Archie had told us.
Then Seth cleared his throat and swam forward. “Um, excuse me.”
Neptune had his head in his hands. “Not now,” he said.
“Your Majesty, it’s important.”
Neptune finally turned to face him. “Wait, I know you. I remember you. You’re —”
“Yes, I’m one of your spies. I have always been loyal to you. But we haven’t got time for that now.” He pointed over his shoulder. “It’s Njord,” he said. “He’s getting away!”
We all looked to where Seth was pointing. He was right! What was Njord up to? He’d swum halfway down the fjord and seemed to be rising up from the water, lifting himself higher and higher. Holding his arms aloft and turning in a slow circle, he was talking — chanting something. The water around him was beginning to ripple.
Seth was still talking to Neptune. “Your Majesty, I’m sorry but I really think we need to —”
His words were literally washed away. Whatever Njord was up to, it was causing havoc with the water. The fjord’s level had risen, and the sea was bubbling and frothing all around us.
Millie screamed from inside her small boat.
“Hold on!” I yelled.
Aaron battled through the foaming water to help her. “Throw me a rope!” he yelled.
Millie threw a rope from the deck, and, between us, we began to pull her away as the water grew fiercer.
“Where’s Archie gone?” Neptune yelled to us.
I glanced around. “There!” I said. He had swum over to join Njord. What were they up to?
You have to get away from here.
“Did you hear that?” I said to Neptune.
He nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”
We swam as hard as we could, battling against the currents and the whirlpools that had taken over the once peaceful fjord.
Hurry. Get to the open sea. You will not survive anywhere else.
“Swim!” I yelled to the others. “Swim as hard as you can!”
We pelted down the fjord — Njord’s laughter bellowing through the narrow passage and chasing us all the way down.
“Swim as fast as you like!” he called. “You will not stop me. No one can stop me now!”
My arms worked like a windmill in a cyclone. My tail spun like an airplane’s propeller. All I could think was that we had to get away from whatever Njord was doing.
Eventually, we threw ourselves out of the end of the fjord into the open sea. Neptune led the way. After him came Mr. Beeston, then Aaron pulling Millie in her boat, then me, and finally Seth and Shona.
Panting and breathless, we looked around at one another.
“All here?” Mr. Beeston asked.
“I think so,” Aaron said.
Below my tail, the narwhal nuzzled against me. “You’re safe!” I breathed.
As safe as any of us are right now.
I shivered. “What now?” I asked.
Neptune shook his head. “I don’t know.”
We didn’t have long to wonder.
Millie was the first to see it. Lifting a shaking hand, she pointed back down the valley we had just swum through. “L-look,” she stammered.
I turned to see what she was pointing at. “But that . . . but that’s . . .” I ran out of words. There was no longer a valley with a peaceful fjord and towering mountains on either side. The whole space was filled to the top with foaming, rushing white water, building higher and higher and rushing in our direction. It was bigger than any of the waves we’d seen so far. Bigger than any wave I would ever have believed could exist!
“The tsunami,” Neptune whispered. “He’s actually doing it.”
“Doing what?” Millie asked.
“He wanted to flood all the lands,” Neptune said, his voice coming out in rasping gasps. “He wanted to turn the whole world into an ocean. That was the plan. That was how this all started.”
The wall of water was still building. It was taller now than any of the mountains, racing toward the end of the valley — and toward us.
“As soon as it hits the open ocean, it will build to unimaginable heights,” Neptune said frantically. “And that will be the end of us — and the end of the world that we know. He has spent many, many years designing this wave. It will destroy every bit of land it touches.”
Seeing the speed at which it was traveling, I figured we had about thirty seconds to stop it — if that.
“Do something!” Shona yelled frantically.
Seth grabbed her hand. “Your Majesty, can you defeat him with your power? Isn’t it stronger than his?”
Neptune shook his head. “I can slow the wave down, hold it back, but that only gives it time to build even higher. I can’t stop it.”
“Please try!” I screamed.
Aaron swam to me. He took my hand — and as he did, the wave seemed to slow a little — and grow higher. It was towering over the mountains now, building into a white foaming peak.
Go to Neptune. Hold hands. Surround him with your power.
Of course! We still had Neptune’s power in our hands! Maybe between the three of us, we could be stronger than Njord.
I pulled Aaron over to Neptune. “Hold both my hands. Make a circle around Neptune,” I said, panic making me efficient. “Quick!”
Aaron did as I said.
Neptune glared down at us. “What do you think you’re —”
“We’re helping!” I said. The water was coming closer. I could feel the wave’s spray on my face.
I closed my eyes, held tightly on to Aaron’s hands on the other side of Neptune, and whispered quietly, “Make the tsunami stop. Freeze it, turn it to stone, do anything — just don’t let it happen.”
Over and over again, I whispered everything I could think of that might save all of us from being killed in a matter of minutes.
The first thing I noticed was the sound of a seagull flying overhead.
Wait — if I could hear a seagull, then that meant I couldn’t hear the sound of millions of tons of rushing water, and that meant . . .
I opened my eyes. We’d stopped it! The sea was completely still!
“Aaron! Neptune! Everyone!” I yelled.
One by one, each of us rubbed our eyes and looked around.
“Where’s Njord?” Shona asked.
Neptune nodded his head back toward the valley that moments ago had been full of a towering tsunami. Njord’s wave was still there — except it had changed. It was no longer water.
It was a mountain. The highest in the range.
“He always said that he would be at the center of his tsunami,” Neptune said. “He boasted that it would be made from his very essence, and that he would propel it across all the lands. We didn’t just stop the wave. We stopped him — for good.”
“And Archie?” I asked.
Neptune shook his head. “I imagine he was caught up in the tsunami, too, or perhaps he escaped. One thing I can tell you for sure — he won’t come near me or any of my folk ever again if he knows what’s good for him.”
“I’ll second that!” Millie said, sweeping a hand briskly through her hair and putting on as brave a face as she could. “I don’t know what I ever saw in the man.”
Aaron swam over and swept me up into his arms. “We did it!” he said. “We really did it!”
Shona and Seth smiled shyly at each other. They were holding hands. “You helped us stop Njord,” Shona said. “If you hadn’t come back with the narwhal, we would all be dead by now — or trapped in a cave forever.”
“It was nothing,” Seth said modestly. “Just doing my job.”
Neptun
e swam to Seth. He took him in his arms and squeezed him in a tight embrace. “It was a good job,” he said. “Thank you. And now that Njord has gone, I imagine you’ll be needing a new one.”
Seth shrugged. “I guess so.”
“How does adviser to the king sound?” Neptune asked with a smile. “A vacancy has suddenly become available.”
Seth grinned. “Really?”
Neptune laughed. “Really. You have more than earned it!”
“Thank you, Your Majesty!” Seth said, beaming. “I accept your offer!”
“What will happen to the narwhal?” I asked as he swam around in between us.
“The narwhal will come home,” Neptune said. “With me.”
I felt in my pocket and pulled out the crystal. “And this? What shall I do with it?”
“Keep it,” Neptune said softly. “As a memento of the day we made the world safer — and a reminder of your bravery and loyalty.”
I didn’t know what to say — which didn’t matter too much, as my throat was too choked up with tears for me to say anything, anyway. “Thank you,” I eventually managed to croak.
Neptune turned to leave. “Come, let’s go home.”
“Wait!” Millie said. She was pointing at the mountain. “I’ve seen this before.”
We turned and looked at the mountain. The icy peak that moments earlier had been frothing waves, the wriggling waterfalls that flowed in long, jagged lines all the way down its sides to the sea. That was when I realized — I’d seen it before as well. Or I’d seen a reflection of it. “The mountain from the lake!” I said. “The one that we saw reflected but didn’t exist in real life!”
“It certainly exists now,” Aaron said.
It was always meant to exist, I thought. This had always been Njord’s fate.
“I don’t know about any reflection in a lake,” Millie said. “But this is the one I told you about. The crying mountain from my dream.”
“Crying mountain?” Mr. Beeston asked.
Millie pointed at the waterfalls. As I looked, I realized she was right. The sun glinted on them, lighting them up with tiny dancing rainbows. They would always flow now. Njord’s tears, falling into the sea and fading away — just like all his evil plans.
“At least he got his wish,” Neptune said softly. “He can watch over the oceans forever now.”