by Raymond Cain
Titus stood six inches taller and an arm’s width wider than any of his friends. The boys’ tight-fitting, gold embroidered clothing revealed they would rather display their wealth than dress comfortably. They stood between Flynn and his ship and he saw no way of getting to it without being seen.
A young girl wearing a plain kelp top, a seagrass skirt, and leather sandals walked by.
“What are you doing on the docks?” Titus said, sneering at her. “You obviously can’t afford a ship if you’re dressed like that.”
The girl had a hurt look on her face and she walked faster, not saying a word. Titus and his friends laughed until she was out of earshot. Flynn clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.
“I can’t believe I still have last year’s model,” one member of Titus’ group complained. Flynn recognized him as Fitch, Titus’ younger brother. Fitch was a dark-haired boy dressed in byssus cloth clothing, a silky material made from mollusk filaments. He stared with disdain at a vessel worth more than what most people earned in a year. “When I get home I’m going to make Dad buy me a new one.”
Titus laughed. “I make Dad buy me the best ship every year. And most years I break one so he has to buy me two.”
“Like the one you almost broke today, right?” Fitch asked, chuckling.
“Excuse me?” Titus said with a scowl, and an awkward silence passed over the group.
Fitch looked down and gulped under Titus’ glare. “I was just kidding.”
“Of course you were,” Titus replied in a tone that sounded half-skeptical, half-threatening.
As Titus intimidated his brother, a group of fish merchants walked by Flynn toward the pier where his ship was parked. He discretely joined the merchants and a few of them gave him questioning looks, but none challenged him. He kept his head down, grunting in agreement when the conversation called for it, and tried not to get noticed by Titus or his cronies.
Flynn and the merchants made it past the boys without raising attention, but his hopes sank when Titus spoke.
“Who do we have here?” Titus sneered.
Assuming the bully was talking to him, Flynn turned around and steeled himself for what would happen next. To his surprise, Titus had focused his attention on a meek-looking blonde girl that looked to be about twelve years old. She struggled to carry a large basket of fruit and Flynn guessed she gathered it from a nearby grove. Her clothing was an inexpensive kelp weave, worn and faded. Concern gnawed at Flynn; he’d seen Titus toss a young girl into the water once before and the bully looked like he was about to do it again.
Titus stepped toward the girl and Flynn hated the idea of tangling with Titus, but he hated the idea of him bullying the girl even more.
“Nice ship!” Flynn shouted, referring to a familiar Marlin II parked next to him. Beside it was a similar vessel that bore the inscription “Marlin I” on the hull. He guessed the Marlin I belonged to Fitch. “But I think the spear you mounted on it is broken.”
Titus turned around, his face red and his nostrils flaring. He cracked his knuckles and loosened the collar on his silk surcoat. After some shouts of encouragement from his cronies, he charged.
The bully tackled Flynn to the pier, knocking the wind out of him. Titus climbed on top and rained punches on Flynn while the others cheered. Flynn covered up, preventing most of the damage.
Once he was out of breath, Titus sat up and spoke. “I replaced the spear,” he said, assaulting Flynn with something new—breath reeking of chocolate-covered shrimp. “Why don’t you take a look?”
Titus pulled Flynn up to his feet and threw him off the pier. Flynn splashed into the water in front of Titus’ Marlin II and the spear mounted on it cut a line across his chest. Flynn winced in pain, and covered his chest with one hand while holding onto the spear with the other.
Flynn pulled on the spear, removing it from the braces that mounted it to the ship. He dropped the weapon into a cluster of spiky sea urchins nestled within the lush vegetation at the bottom of the docks. From below the surface, he heard Titus shout but the words were muffled by the water.
The bully crouched down and hung his head over the pier, peering into the water. Flynn hid under the Marlin I and glanced up to see frothy saliva dripping from Titus’ lips as he stared into the depths. After a few moments, Titus slapped the water in frustration.
Suddenly inspired, Flynn came out of hiding and swam in full view of the boys. He lured them over to the other side of the pier and dove down out of sight. Once they were headed to one side of the pier, Flynn changed direction and headed for his ship. He quietly surfaced to take a breath, and he heard the boys looking for him at the other end of the pier. When he reached his ship, the cronies were not far away, pushing the other ships around looking for him.
Flynn’s family ring flashed and the hatch opened. He pulled himself up onto a wing and slid inside the ship. The enchantment that prevented water from entering the vessel dried him as he passed through the hatch and he plopped onto the pilot’s chair, cold but dry. There was a shout from one of the cronies and they ran toward him.
The hatch closed and Flynn pulled back on the acceleration levers, reversing the propellers and pulling away from the pier. He submerged the ship and the last thing he saw as the water’s surface rose over the window was spittle flying from Titus’ screaming face.
Chapter Nine
Flynn wasted no time getting out of the city. He pushed the propellers up to full speed and flew over the kelp, sponge, and colorful plants that covered the ground below the docking area. After glancing back to see if Titus was following him, a school of lanternfish bounced off the hull, blinding him. He tried to blink away the glare but it was still in his eyes when an incoming vessel was heading his way and he flipped his ship sideways to avoid it.
He passed under a portcullis and rose up through a slanted tunnel to the surface of the ocean floor. The guards stationed at the twin guard houses outside the opening looked especially grim-faced that day. Flynn gave them a customary nod but that time, it did not get returned.
After passing the guard towers, a lion’s mane jellyfish floated in his path. It had a two-yard-wide bowl-shaped body and it cast a crimson glow in the navy-blue water. A wall of eight hundred sticky tentacles hung from it and he banked his craft around the tentacles to avoid getting stuck. Sea anemone were feeding on its strands and clusters of shrimp used the tentacles as shelter. His wake dislodged some of the shrimp from their unusual home.
Titus and the others were surely close behind, and Flynn flew low between the trees of a sea grape farm to avoid detection. When he reached the other side, he pulled up to avoid crashing into a cluster of organic pillars known as indicator coral.
Flynn found indicator useful for its ability to provide a sense of time to intelligent creatures in the sunless depths. At the start of each day, the base of each pillar cast a bright, green glow. Over a twenty-four-hour period, the glow climbed to the top of each pillar and descended back down to its base. At that moment, the glow reached the three-quarter mark on the coral, informing him that it was a few hours before noon.
The unique coral also provided a sense of direction. Flynn had seen many clusters of the unusual organisms in various locations and every coral leaned north. He did not know why they grew that way, but Tasker once told him they may be attracted to the colder waters in that direction. Whatever the reason, the coral provided him with a sense of time and direction and reassured him that he was heading north toward his family mine in the Shark’s Teeth Mountains.
A sixty-ton humpback whale caught Flynn’s attention. The dark-skinned creature had a fifty-foot long body, a blocky head with glowing knob-like projections, and a fluked tail. It headed toward his ship and its cavernous mouth opened wide.
“Oh, give me a break,” Flynn said, spinning the steering globe forward. The move dropped his ship under the creature and sent him whipping through a grove of pink, leafy plants below. He flew blind as pink leaves slapped at his ship and c
lung to the windows. The leaves were covered in bubbles, and he recognized them. Mermaid’s kisses, an important deep sea plant named for its ability to provide mammals with breathable air.
Bubblefish, transparent fish with elastic skin, crawled along the mermaid’s kisses. They swallowed the bubbles that clung to the leaves and the more air they drank, the more they expanded. They stretched like balloons that clung to the plants as long as they could until the abundance of air ripped them from the plant and forced them to rise.
As Flynn tore through the grove of mermaid’s kisses, he knocked bubbles off their leaves and dislodged bubblefish from their perch. With surprising agility, the whale curved its massive fluke and spun around. Its mouth was wide open and, to his surprise, it gobbled up bubblefish by the dozen.
Flynn laughed at the sight. “It’s just breathing,” he said, remembering that whales were air-breathers. Deep sea mammals needed mermaid’s kisses and bubblefish to survive in the depths.
The Shark’s Teeth Mountains loomed in the distance. Glowing orange algae decorated their bases and their peaks disappeared in the dark, forbidding water high above. The hairs stood up on the back of Flynn’s neck as he looked up at the blackness.
The peaks were the first seamounts in a long mountain range that extended far beyond the Safe Zone. Flynn flipped the ship onto its side and started banking around the first mountain. The windows’ pale blue gave the orange algae a purple tinge. He flew close enough to the slopes to send tiny, glowing crustaceans crawling into their holes for safety.
After a long arc around the mountain’s base, Flynn spun the steering globe forward. The vessel dove toward a cave and he pulled back on the acceleration levers as he approached. Glowing green algae on the walls illuminated the cave and he navigated between stony projections jutting up from the floor and hanging down from the ceiling.
A section of stone slid away at the end of the cave, revealing an air-filled tunnel. Flynn left his ship in the water and pulled himself out of his craft. He half-swam, half-walked through an entrance surrounded by crystals that formed a water-barrier. He stepped through, entering the air-filled area, and walked by a dozen eight-foot-tall water golems standing guard with icy spears. The constructs were Tasker’s creations and they made no move to stop Flynn due to the crystal ring he wore. Without his family ring, they would have speared him the moment he tried to enter the chamber.
Flynn replaced his tunic with a kelp apron that hung from a stalactite. A pick and hammer were leaning against the stone and he picked them up, sending a few crabs scurrying back into the water. He carried the tools over his shoulder and headed to a vein of ore that he had been trying to free from the rock. A pair of water golems stood nearby, ready to clear away rubble.
The vein of aquazite ore glowed bright blue in the gloomy cave, and his shoulders slumped at the sight of how much rock would need to be removed for him to reach it. With a heavy sigh, he chipped away at the stone. After hours of exertion, there was a sizeable pile of rubble at his feet.
It was strenuous work but it required little concentration, and his mind drifted toward thoughts of his mother. The hours flew by and before he knew it, he extracted handfuls of the precious ore. It was more profit than he typically made after two days’ work, and water golems were busy removing the piles of rubble he left behind.
After pouring the ore into an inkskin pouch and cinching it closed, Flynn left the tools behind and returned to his ship. He was grateful the vessel’s enchantment prevented water—and sweat—from entering. But it did little to prevent the smell of hours of hard labor. He made the mistake of sniffing his armpits to see how bad they were and cringed in disgust.
“It’s going to be a long ride home.”
With a push of the acceleration levers, the ship sped out of the mine and soared up along the base of the Shark’s Teeth mountains. It would be some time before he reached Seahaven and he fished around in his pocket for his mother’s compass.
When Flynn held up the crystal orb, his mouth fell open. The compass needle pointed firmly at something ahead. He moved the compass around and no matter how it was oriented, the needle remained fixed on something in the distance.
Flynn squinted to see what it was pointing at but saw only empty water. His heart pounded in anticipation and he sped off at full speed in the direction indicated by the compass. At first, he saw nothing but open water and marine creatures. But, in time, he caught sight of a ship cruising along the ocean floor.
The vessel was constructed from aquazite and chitin, the latter of which was an unusual material for a ship’s hull. Flynn had to move at full speed to keep up with it and he guessed its builder used the lightweight material to make the ship faster. It sped off toward the edge of the Safe Zone, not far from the Giant’s Fingers.
Flynn stayed high above the vessel to avoid being seen. He kept up with the chitin ship until it reached the edge of the Safe Zone and, to his surprise, it slipped through the barrier without any of the boundary golems intervening to stop him. It seemed the chitin hull prevented the golems from being able to distinguish the vessel from a shelled animal. The mysterious ship entered the unprotected waters outside the Safe Zone without incident.
Chapter Ten
A watery hand slapped Flynn awake the following morning. Half asleep but full of rage, he unleashed kicks and punches against his foe. The offending water golem withdrew the water it splashed on him and waited patiently for the feeble attacks to stop.
Flynn stifled a yawn and assessed his surroundings. There was a letter floating inside the water golem and he plunged his hand into the liquid torso to extract it. He yanked the page out from the water’s surface, causing ripples and a bloop sound as the water snapped back into place. The page had his brother’s handwriting on it.
Get up. Today is Selection Day. Don’t be late.
- Tasker
“Oh, damn. I forgot.” A water clock on the wall displayed the time using colored water in spiral tubes. “Eight-thirty. I’m going to be late!”
Selection Day was the one day each year where prospective college students were taken through the three colleges in Seahaven. Once the tour was over, they would submit a request for the one they would like to attend. Flynn’s parents met as students in the military academy and he wanted to honor them by attending the same school they did. Although honoring his parents was his primary concern, the fact that he needed a college ring to enter Seahaven’s taverns was a close second.
Flynn pushed himself out of his waterbed—or tried to; he fell face-first on the floor when his hands sunk into his liquid mattress. He sprang back up to his feet, got dressed in kempcloth clothing and a tunic, and charged through the water golem as he ran out the door. The golem split apart as he charged through it and its watery face scowled after pulling itself back together.
Before long, Flynn was out of the house and running toward the front gate. He ducked under liquid trident attacks from the fountains and readjusted his lopsided tunic as he ran. One of Tasker’s water golems approached the gate from the opposite side carrying an assortment of fruit in its chest. Instead of opening the gate, the golem pushed its body through the bars, one of which divided the fruit into two columns inside its torso.
Flynn ripped a handful of seagrapes from the golem’s chest and opened the gate with his ring. He hurried along the white stone streets, eating grapes along the way. It wasn’t long before his face and hands were sticky with grape juice.
A nearby garbage golem was absorbing dust and litter from the streets with flattened hands and feet. Flynn grabbed it by the neck and buried his face in its chest, shaking his head side-to-side until all the juice was gone. Once his hands and face were clean, he tossed his grape stems into the construct and continued his journey. The golem shook its blob-like fist at him and extended a watery digit from it, forming an offensive gesture.
“You’re the same golem I ran into on the Waterway,” Flynn said.
It nodded. Flynn laughed when
he noticed that his grape stem floated in the golem’s offending blob-like hand. He resumed his journey toward The Lift, chuckling as he ran.
Anxiety gripped Flynn when he saw The Lift on its way up. It was still far away and if he missed it, it would be a half-hour before it returned. By that time, he would be late for Selection Day and he would have to wait an entire year before he could be admitted to college. He didn’t want to have to wait another year to honor his parents or indulge in drunken behavior at the local taverns.
Many other aspiring college students waited at The Lift platform and Flynn sighed in relief. It looked like he was going to make it until someone grabbed his shoulder from behind and kicked out his feet from underneath him. He landed hard on his back and his head struck the cobblestones. Stunned by the fall, Flynn was trying to regain his senses when his attacker kicked him in the stomach. Flynn curled up into a ball as the aggressor stepped over him, laughing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw silk clothing on a large frame, and he knew instantly who it was.
“Tough luck, Arcturus,” Titus Rocknugget said as he piled on The Lift with the other students. Some of them looked at Flynn with concern, but they looked away when Titus glared at them. The dark-haired boy pulled the lever and retracted the bridge, leaving Flynn behind in Uppercity. “I guess you won't be making it to Selection Day this year.”
Flynn got back to his feet and watched helplessly as the platform began its slow descent to Lowercity. Titus smirked at him and Flynn groaned at the thought of having to wait another year. He could just imagine how much gloating Titus would do during that year as well.
Desperate for ideas, it was one of the many times he wished he had his brother’s intellect. The students were headed for the Sorcery Academy, the only college that focused on spellcasting, and there was no way for him to get there in time. What made it more frustrating was the building was almost right in front of him. Its highest point was a stone’s throw from Uppercity’s ledge.