The Wyrm King

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  After their mother died, their dad had come up with a long list of things that were too dangerous to do, including swimming in the

  ocean. Jules got around some of that because he’d already spent all his weekends in the ocean, but Nick hadn’t been swimming in ages. He grabbed the board from where Jules had dumped it in the sand.

  Mallory glanced toward the wagon, where the nixies huddled in the backseat in their towels. Laurie was talking to them, keeping them calm. “Do you trust them?”

  “Barely,” Nick said.

  “They’ll help one another,” Jared said. “Nick brings out one of the nixies on the surfboard. We can have another nixie in the car and maybe a third nixie somewhere else. That way, when one of the nixies stops singing, another one starts.”

  Nick nodded. “And the singing lures in the giants, and we bring them to a sinkhole. Right.”

  “There is only one way that I’m letting you do this,” Jules said. “You have to promise to get back to the car before we drive away. We’re not leaving you on the shore.”

  Jared started to say something—maybe to object—but he closed his mouth at Jules’s glare.

  “Okay,” Nick said. He didn’t want to admit how relieved he felt at the idea that he wouldn’t be out in the ocean with a nixie, dodging giants, while everyone else drove away. “How far out in the water do I have to go?”

  “We should practice,” Jared said. “Swim out a ways and then we’ll time how fast you can get in to shore.”

  Jules pointed. “How about to that sandbar? That seems far enough.”

  “You can swim, right?” Mallory asked him.

  “Yes,” Nick said, and headed off toward the water.

  Paddling out on Cindy’s floral-patterned longboard, the scent of pineapple surf wax in his nose, gulping mouthfuls of salty water, Nick concentrated on the fact that whatever happened, at least he was trying. He was really trying. He had always thought that if he really put in an effort and things didn’t work out, that would be worse than never trying at all. But, kicking with his back legs and holding his breath as water crashed over his head, he realized that one good thing about this was that if he failed, he probably wouldn’t live long enough to feel bad about it.

  He looked back at Jules standing on the beach. Laurie was standing beside him. He wasn’t quite to the sandbar yet. He guessed he’d better go out farther.

  For a moment Nick thought he saw something in the waves. A dark shape. Then the crest of a swell broke over him and he was thrown under the waves.

  He spun upside down, and his board crashed down on his head, stunning him. The pain made him gasp, drinking down water. He struggled toward the surface, panicking,

  “What do you wish to tell us?”

  and felt his hand touch sand. He had been swimming the wrong way.

  Lungs burning, he pushed off the ocean floor. Light was above him now, but he didn’t have any air left. Everything was going fuzzy and black at the edges.

  Then in front of him was a face with hair flowing around it in a nimbus. For a moment she looked like his mother, and then her mouth touched his and his vision cleared. Air—sweet air. He took a breath from her lips and then another.

  He looked around and there they were— merfolk. They swam in circles, their long fins seeming to float, their scaly tails lashing the water languorously. A swirling vortex of bodies, circling him in tandem.

  “What do you wish to tell us?” they said together. He couldn’t have really heard them—the sound of any voice would be swallowed by the sea—but he could see their mouths move and somehow understood them.

  He made a frantic gesture toward his mouth. Now that the mermaid was no longer feeding him air, he couldn’t hold his breath much longer.

  One of the mermaids swam close and gave him a cap of woven sea grass. She mimed putting it on, so he did.

  She opened her mouth and gestured toward it. He shook his head, making a strangling motion. She shook her head, and he finally opened his mouth a little ways. He gasped and a little bubble formed around his mouth. A bubble full of briny air. He could breathe.

  “I’m sorry about the giants,” he said. The bubble burst, and his voice came from it. A new bubble formed.

  “We do not believe you,” they said, and there was no mistaking that he heard their voices this time—a strange, deep echo, like whale song. “You tricked us.”

  “I’m really sorry. And we want to get the giants out of the water now. We’re trying to make up for it.”

  “We warned you about the balance,” they said.

  “We should have listened. Please just let us lure them out again. It’ll be like it never happened.”

  “We will not help you, land dweller.”

  “But I thought you didn’t want them here in the water.”

  “We do not, but now that they are here, they are ours to protect. They are closer kin than you.”

  “There are creatures. Dragons—I don’t know, but—”

  “We people of the sea have longer memories than those of the land. We know of the hydras forming now. We wished for the land to burn. Now it will.”

  “Please,” Nick said.

  “Good-bye, land dweller.”

  Suddenly Nicholas found himself rising through the waves to sputter at the surface.

  Laurie was paddling nearby, her body on top of Cindy’s surfboard, calling his name.

  “I’m right here,” Nick yelled before he choked on another mouthful of water. The cap was still clutched in one hand.

  “What is that?” Laurie asked, gesturing toward the cap.

  He opened his mouth to answer her, but he gulped sea instead. Then, sputtering, he said, “It’s for breathing underwater. From the merfolk.”

  She reached out her hand. “We should never have let you come out by yourself,” she said. “I thought you’d drowned!” She looked angry.

  He swam over and held on to the board, panting. Together, they let the current push them back to shore and then staggered up the beach. Nick collapsed on the sand.

  “Merfolk,” said Nick. “They’re glad we’re going to be destroyed. I think that’s pretty much exactly what they want.”

  The giants followed the car.

  Chapter Six

  IN WHICH Everybody Runs

  Sitting on the sand as Sandspur dug a hole, they went over and over what the merfolk told Nick. Up at the wagon the nixies looked down accusingly from their towels.

  “I think the merfolk thought I was going out there to ask for help,” he said. “I don’t think they know we have another plan.”

  Jared looked out at the ocean and tilted his head as he sketched the landscape. “They probably don’t think there is any other way of getting out the giants. They may never have even seen a nixie—I mean, they didn’t seem to know you could get a fish from far away.”

  “Still, they’re faeries!” Laurie said.

  Nick’s first urge was to snap at Laurie that it was faeries who’d gotten them into this mess, but he didn’t. He could blame faeries, or Laurie, or himself, but it wouldn’t help. What they needed now was a way out.

  “I think we should go through with the plan,” Nick said. “Just the way that we intended.”

  “The nixies won’t agree to that,” Laurie said.

  “We won’t tell them,” said Nick, and then, seeing her expression, he frowned. “Oh, come on, like you’re going to act like you suddenly have an objection to lying. Anyway, technically we won’t even be lying—just not telling the nixies absolutely everything. So they don’t worry.”

  Laurie rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.

  Jared looked out at the ocean.

  “It’s too dangerous,” said Jules.

  “He’s right,” said Mallory, with a nod toward Jules.

  “Oh yeah,” said Jared. “Because you’re all about safety, Mallory.”

  Nick sighed. “Do any of you have a better idea?”

  Jared looked at the surfers
and the sunbathers. “I don’t have a better idea. I think Nick’s right. I’ll even go with him.”

  “We should try,” said Simon, staring at the sand. “We’ve tried dumber things.”

  Mallory whirled on him. “You’re on Jared’s side?”

  Simon held up the jar with the dragons. They had grown so much that one of their heads had dented the top of the jar. “We need to do something. Now.”

  Nick got up. “Look, everything about this plan is dangerous, but it’s my decision how I do my part. And it’s Jared’s decision if he wants to come with me.”

  “Dad would kill you for even thinking of going out in the water,” Jules said. “And he would kill me for letting you.”

  Nick didn’t want to point out that their dad’s killing them required the optimistic assumption that they’d make it home alive. “I know,” he said instead, getting up.

  “You know, you could be a politician when you grow up, with all your promises and your deals and your technically not lying,” Mallory said to Nick as he walked up to convince one of the nixies that everything was going according to plan.

  Nick had never really considered a career in politics, but if he pulled this off, he might have to give it some thought.

  As Nick and Jared swam against the tide, pushing the surfboard carrying Ibi out into deeper water, Taloa got stationed down the beach with Laurie, while Jules, Simon, Mallory, and Ooki stayed in the wagon with the hatch window down so that Ooki’s singing would be more audible.

  Above them thunder cracked, and rain began to fall. Ibi seemed to brighten beneath it. She shook out the strange tendrils of her hair and raised her webbed hands to collect drops of it.

  “I’d love to draw her,” Jared said to Nick.

  Nick nodded, but he wasn’t really paying attention. Wearing the sea grass cap, he watched the waves for merfolk.

  He didn’t see anything, but the water seemed to get rougher, the waves larger. They paddled frantically out, cresting a wave just before it broke over them. He could feel a riptide pulling them away from the shore. It was like the whole sea was angry with him.

  Ibi hissed as salt water splashed her. Her skin looked pinker and more puckered where it hit.

  Nick considered suggesting going back. Maybe ignoring the merfolk’s warning had been the result of some kind of bravado mixed with banging his head when he’d gotten tossed around in the surf.

  Just then Ibi began to sing. Strands of her song floated through the air.

  Jared stared at Ibi as though in a daze. Even the not-so-far-off surfers stopped paddling. Nick wasn’t sure what they heard without the Sight; maybe everything. The music washed over him, sweet and pure. He never wanted it to stop.

  The distant rocks were changing, unwinding themselves, pushing to unsteady feet. The rain began to fall harder.

  “Keep singing!”

  “Keep singing!” Nick yelled. “We have to start toward the beach.”

  Ibi sang, louder and louder. A wave flung the surfboard forward, and Nick and Jared were left treading water behind it. Nick grabbed hold of the edge and scrabbled to get up on it with Ibi. He reached for Jared.

  The giants were coming, their mountainous forms lurching toward Ibi. The waves grew even rougher, each swell threatening to capsize the surfboard.

  Then came a huge wave. It crested above them like a shadow.

  “Oh, no,” said Nick, pulling at Jared’s wrist. “You need to get up here before that hits.”

  Jared was half-kicked and half-pulled onto the board. It tipped to the side and Ibi keened, nearly falling off. She grabbed hold of Nick with moist, rubbery fingers.

  The wave frothed and curled as though eager to topple them.

  “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Jared asked.

  “Oh yeah,” said Nick, and gripped the board as tightly as he could.

  Somewhere in the distance the nixies on the shore had taken up the song.

  Then the wave crashed down on the surf- board.

  Nick held on to the board as it spun underwater. He could feel Ibi’s arms around him, and one of Jared’s feet kicked him as they were knocked around under the waves. Then he felt the scrape of shells and sand as the wave tossed them all onto the beach.

  Nick coughed. He was pretty sure he’d skinned his knee. Taloa and Laurie started running for the car. Only Ooki still sang.

  “Get up!” Jared yelled, yanking Nick to his feet. “They’re coming.”

  Ibi was already hopping toward the station wagon, her slippery rain-drenched movements swifter than he would have guessed possible. Nick didn’t look back at the water as Jared sped ahead. Nick just tried to run toward the station wagon as fast as his waterlogged body could go. Ibi was already hopping into the back of the wagon, and Jared threw himself into the backseat. Mallory hauled Nick inside.

  Giants crashed onto the beach a moment later.

  “Go,” Nick said, slamming the door. “Gogogogogo.”

  Jules hit the gas and they pulled out of the parking lot with a screech. Just like they’d planned, the giants followed the car.

  Please, Nick told the universe silently. Please let no one get in the way of those giants.

  Jules pulled onto the highway. It was mostly deserted, which meant it was probably dotted with sinkholes. The few cars veered off the road as the giants lurched into view, and Nick could only imag- ine what they saw. A landslide of moving rock.

  Jules drove in front of a sinkhole gaping across one lane and off the road. The car screeched to a halt, tearing up the grass and dirt with the tires as it pulled onto the shoulder. Taloa stopped singing and they waited.

  The giants crashed toward them as Nick consigned himself to a certain and messy death.

  But as they got close, the first giant scented the air, nostrils flaring. It went still. Then it headed for the sinkhole. The others—about a dozen— followed its lead, moving toward the station wagon and the enormous crater in the ground.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Jules said. He eased his foot down on the gas and they began to drift slowly toward the road.

  One of the giants jumped into the pit with a groan. He began to reach down and fill his mouth with sand and wriggling black things. The others reached down too.

  “It’s working,” Mallory said.

  Taloa touched the window with the wide pads of her fingertips.

  Then, suddenly, one of the giants roared and turned to the other. Fire blew out of its mouth in a great gust, causing the other to throw its arms over its face.

  Laurie screamed.

  Out of the pit rolled a black hydra, its dragon bodies twisted and tangled together into a single mass. One of the giants grabbed hold of the wriggling mass and, lifting it up, dumped it into its mouth. It turned toward the giant in the pit and exhaled a long line of flames that caught all along the pit itself. The giant within bellowed and clawed at the sides.

  “I think we messed up again,” Nick yelled. “This can’t be the right thing. This can’t be good.”

  “They’re eating the dragons,” Simon said. “But they’re going to set fire to everything.”

  “We have to do something!”

  “What?” Jules said, hitting the gas harder. They were moving away from the fire and smoke, away from the giants and away from any answers.

  Jules pulled the car over to the side of the road. He flipped on the radio. The newscaster said there had been a wave large enough to blot out the sun. Others said that rocks had crashed down from nowhere.

  “Ibi is hurt,” Taloa sang.

  Nick looked back. The nixie’s skin looked puffy and raw. She moaned.

  “The salt,” Nick said.

  “Get her into the rain,” said Laurie.

  The kids scrambled out and helped Ibi to stand. She sighed as rain touched her skin.

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Ooki began to sing softly as Taloa glowered.

  “What’s that?” Mallory asked. She was pointing o
ut to the water, where four more giants were heading for land. “Give me the keys!”

  Jules hesitated a moment and then threw them to her as they all scrambled into the car.

  It took longer for the giants to make their way out of the deep this time. When they came from the ocean, they were dripping with strands of sea grass, and when they shook their great bodies, bits of coral flew off them.

  Mallory turned the wheel hard and pulled onto the road, driving like a lunatic. In this particular instance, Nick could only be glad.

  Simon closed his eyes. “I can’t look,” he said.

  “Sing,” Nick called to Taloa.

  “No la-lo,” she sang softly.

  “Why should we not la-lo-la be la safe?

  We do la not want them to fa-la-lo follow.”

  “We can bring them to another sinkhole,” he said. “Please.”

  “Please,” said Laurie.

  “This is the last la-lo-le time, Lauranathana,” Taloa sang. “Ibi was hurt. There is nothing more la-lo to offer la- lee us, and in the rain, we can go la-lo anywhere we like.”

  “I know,” Nick said.

  In the back Taloa’s song swelled impossibly loud. The earth shook as the giants began to follow them.

  The car careered down an unfamiliar street, giants lumbering after it.

  “Jules, I think I made a wrong turn,” Mallory said.

  Jules fumbled with the glove compartment. He pulled out a map, but he couldn’t seem to get it to unfold.

  “You live here,” she yelled. “Don’t you know where we are?”

  “I don’t go this way,” Jules shouted back, looking frantically at the map. “Turn here!”

  She did, making a turn so sharp that the nixie’s song turned into a shriek. A black pit gaped before them like a yawning mouth. They hit the sinkhole before the screeching brakes could have any effect. The car tipped in headfirst.

  Nick was thrown forward against the seat in front of him. The jar of dragons flew out of the backseat to crack against the dashboard. The front end of the car folded like paper as it struck the ground.