Ascension

by Kara Dalkey

  “The fact that it’s dangerous means no one will look for us there,” Cephan replied. “Stay put. I’m going to see whether the way is clear. I’ll be back in just a minute.” Cephan took off as fast as a mermyd could go.

  Nia crouched down beside Dyonis. “Grandfather, are you all right?” she asked him, her voice trembling. It didn’t matter at that moment if Dyonis was her father or grandfather, or even that he had withheld the truth from her. He was still the caring adult who had seen her through childhood and whom she loved more than anyone.

  “If I can get some time and some quiet, I can heal,” Dyonis said. “It is strange, so strange. . . .”

  “What is?” she asked.

  He heaved a deep breath. “The Farworlders had a vision—that the next Avatar would somehow bring disaster to Atlantis,” he said, obviously straining to speak. “We were so certain that you would win the Trials if you competed that we kept you out of it, thinking it would help avoid the fulfillment of the prophecy.” He paused, giving her a sorrowful glance. “Nia, I’m so sorry,” he said. She shook her head, letting him know she was no longer angry. “We decided, instead, that we would choose the candidate of all the clans who seemed least able to pose any threat.” He gazed over at Garun. “Garun had no desire for power,” Dyonis explained. “And so we . . . helped him win. Little did we know the disaster would occur anyway. Though Garun himself did not bring it. Oh, Nia, we have wronged you and the people of Atlantis terribly, terribly. Will you ever forgive me?”

  It struck Nia with full force then. She was to be the Avatar. And she had brought the disaster. She choked back a sob. “I’m afraid I’m the one who needs your forgiveness,” she said softly.

  “What?” Dyonis narrowed his eyes in confusion.

  “I let Ma’el in here,” Nia confessed. “I didn’t mean to. I thought it would be Cephan. And there’s more—I spoke to Ma’el, before you mentioned him to me. His Farworlder touched my mind. I think they did something to me. Oh, Dyonis, it is all my fault!”

  “Do not blame yourself, Nia,” Dyonis said. “The Unis is strong, and it will have its way, just like a wave crashing on the shore. By choosing Garun, we were going with the Unis, not against it. The fault is ours for not seeing clearly. You were caught in the middle.”

  Just then Cephan returned. “All right, the way is clear,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “We must see to Garun,” Dyonis said. “Once the Naming is complete, it is then possible for us to apply our powers to greater problems. Help me up, young fellow.” Dyonis extended an arm to Cephan, who hesitated, then took it. Dyonis awkwardly sheathed the sword in a scabbard at his side.

  “Strange that a sword of peace should have to be used as a sword of war,” Nia murmured.

  “As the riddle that Garun accurately solved implied,” Dyonis said, “sometimes the price of peace is war.”

  “This way,” Cephan instructed. He guided them out of the Farworlder Palace Great Hall and led them toward the edge of the Dome. All around them lay the silence of the tomb. Mermyds floated, sleeping, drifting among the buildings. If the water didn’t begin flowing soon, the sleep would turn to death.

  “You were in the Trials, weren’t you?” Dyonis asked Cephan. “Did rather well, as I recall.” Dyonis looked at Ar’an, who seemed to be signing with his tentacles, although Nia could not read the gestures.

  “I do not think this is the time to speak of such things, sir. We must hurry before Ma’el returns. Come along.”

  With Cephan guiding Dyonis, and Nia and Ar’an guiding Garun, who was clutching the Farworlder prince, the six of them made their way hurriedly toward the great crystal curve of the Dome.

  The sea beyond the Dome looked dark and uninviting. Shadowy shapes drifted among the rocks below. Here and there, smoke plumes marked the presence of steam vents. Glimmering lights from deep-sea fishes and jellyfish, hydras and glow-shrimp, twinkled in the distance.

  Garun’s legs stopped moving, and Nia pressed her shoulder closer to his neck. She worked the crank of the bubbler to get more air to him, and he seemed to perk up a bit. She didn’t know what she could do for the Farworlder prince, still huddled in its shell. Its skin was now gray instead of pink.

  Nia fell silent. Her whole world was coming apart, her present and her past. But if I am to have any future, she thought, I must concentrate on the now. I must see Garun through the Naming safely, and then I must help Cephan and Dyonis wake up Atlantis, so that we can defeat Ma’el. Somehow.

  Cephan led them all to an opening—clearly the beginning of an oxygenation tunnel that had diverted some of the circumference current down to the Lower Depths. Nia was about to protest, then realized it would be foolish. The water flow was shut down—there would be no wild ride.

  Instead, it was a long, dark journey, swimming down and down. The only fear was that whoever was helping Ma’el, or Ma’el himself, might appear.

  At last, Cephan opened a door in the tunnel and helped to guide everyone out.

  “Is it far?” Nia asked. “I’m not sure how much longer Garun can continue.”

  “It’s right here.” Cephan pointed at a large, circular gate covered with a fine mesh screen of net. He swam over to it and hauled on a lever of whalebone. The gate swung open. “Get in. Hurry.”

  Ar’an and Dyonis swam in first, Nia and Garun next. Cephan swam in last and pulled the gate shut behind them.

  It was terribly cold in the filtration tunnel. Even though its mechanisms ran on steam from vents below, the dwindling warmth in the pipes could not offset the chill of the ocean depths. The water was fresher and easier to breathe in, but still not as breathable as what Nia had been used to all her life.

  At the far end of the filtration tunnel was a pressure seal of Farworlder technology, a sort of membrane that allowed water through but held the crushing pressures of the deep sea at bay.

  The six of them huddled together at the center of the tube. Nia held Garun’s left shoulder; Cephan held his right. The princeling’s shell was nestled in Garun’s lap. Ar’an wrapped its tentacles around Dyonis’s side to bind his wound closed. Dyonis began the drone that focused energy. Since he was only one, as opposed to the ten of the Low Council, Dyonis had to choose carefully where to focus his magic. Nia noticed he focused on the Farworlder prince.

  Garun shuddered under her arm, and Nia held him closer to warm him. Little tentacles began to rise, wavering, out of the nautilus shell. The long tentacle with the circle of talons on the tip rose up, higher and higher.

  “Do you have the name ready, Garun?”

  “Yes,” Garun growled through gritted teeth.

  “All right. I’m going to help you.” Nia grasped Garun’s right hand, and she lifted it into position to receive the slap from the Farworlder tentacle.

  Suddenly, she saw the knife in Cephan’s hand. Too fast for her to intercept it, the knife plunged into Garun’s chest.

  “Cephan! What—”

  Cephan reached across with his other hand to grab the prince’s tentacle, and stopped it from touching Garun’s hand. Garun cried out in pain and arched his back, spilling the Farworlder shell off his lap. Ar’an scooped up the shell in its membranes and swam to the far end of the tunnel.

  Nia jumped up and pushed Cephan off of Garun. “What are you doing? What are you doing?” she screamed at him.

  “I was going to be Avatar!” he yelled back. “I was going to be the greatest Avatar there had ever been! Look!” He pushed the hair back from his forehead, revealing the long scar. “Ma’el is a physician. He put an oculus into my head. I already have some Farworlder powers. I was able to use them—I touched your mind, and you felt it.”

  “That was you,” Nia whispered in wonder. Her heart hurt within her chest. So many shocks, but this was the worst of all.

  “Ma’el thought he was going to take over Atlantis. But I was going to use my power to control him. I just wanted to help my people, Nia. It was our turn, our time!” He stopped, his voice quieter but st
ill urgent. “I still love you, Nia. We could be the most powerful pair in Atlantis. We could found a new clan! Just let me receive the mark!”

  Nia looked over her shoulder at Ar’an, crouched defensively beside the pressure seal. “I don’t think Ar’an’s going to give you that chance.” She knew the strength of an adult Farworlder. Even Cephan would not be able to break that grip. “Dyonis, can you heal Garun?”

  Dyonis was hunched over Garun, trying to press his wound shut. But the water around them was rapidly turning red with Garun’s blood. “I can’t save him, Nia. The prophecy is fulfilled after all.”

  “Look,” Cephan cried, “the little squid is going to die if it doesn’t get to join with someone. Give it to me! I’m ready! I’m healthy. I can take it! Then I’ll help you defeat Ma’el.”

  “Why is it,” asked Dyonis, “that somehow I don’t trust you? You speak of love, and yet you have murdered Nia’s blood kin before her eyes.”

  Cephan’s face contorted into a mask of rage. “As if I should trust you, who used your great powers to cheat in the Trials!” Brandishing the knife, he rushed at Dyonis. “Tell your creature to release the prince, or I will kill you!”

  “I will tell Ar’an no such thing,” said Dyonis. “And I am already dying, so your threat means little to me. And if you try to harm Ar’an, he will kill the little prince himself.”

  Cephan raised the knife. “We will see.”

  “No!” Nia cried. Grabbing Cephan’s arm, she pulled him aside. Desperate, she snatched the Sword of Peace from the scabbard at Dyonis’s side and swept it up to point at Cephan. “I won’t let you harm another member of my family!”

  Cephan narrowed his eyes at her. “I will do what I must, Nia. Drop the sword, and I will give you another chance.”

  “Chance at what?” cried Nia. “To be with a murderer? No!” An image came clearly to her mind then. An image sent by Ar’an and Dyonis. The valve over your head, Nia. Open it. Quickly.

  Nia kicked off and shot up to the steam pipe overhead. Tucking the sword under one arm, she reached up and turned the valve wheel.

  “What are you doing?” Cephan cried. “You’ll kill us all!”

  “We shall see,” Nia said.

  With a mighty whoosh and a groan, the pipe separated, and a blast of hot water struck Nia in the chest. The seal to the tunnel, made to withstand pressure from the outside but not from the inside, blew open. Nia tumbled out of the tunnel alongside Ar’an, and rose up along the Dome of Atlantis. The pressure was crushing, pressing her gills tightly shut so she could not breathe. She caught one last glance of the city, beautiful and dead before her. So this is how it ends, she thought, as her mind emptied to blackness.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nia’s back was hot. Aching. Something was pressing her hard against the floor. She felt heavy, oh so heavy, as if all her body was made of wet sand. I’m in a dry room, she thought. What am I doing there? For a moment she tried to open her eyes, but it was too bright, too bright. She kept them firmly shut.

  Then the coughing began. First a little. Then a great heaving as she gasped and gulped air in and vomited water out of her lungs and stomach. Again and again she coughed and coughed. I am dying, she thought. And then, But aren’t I already dead?

  She raised herself up on her elbows and heaved the last of the seawater from her lungs. Her hands and arms were sinking into a soft, gritty surface. She stayed in that position, thinking only about breathing, breathing. Breathing air?

  Nia tried to open her eyes again. Slowly, one eye. Too bright. Slowly, the other eye. Too bright. Slowly both eyes. Blinking constantly, she could not make sense yet of what was around her.

  She was lying on sand, wet sand. She could hear a roar and hiss behind her that bore no relation to any sound she knew. She tried to jump up, which in water would have been simple. Instead she merely sank back onto her knees.

  Nia had to squeeze her eyes shut before she could look again. There were black-and-gray rocks ahead of her, rising to hillocks with green stuff on them, like moss but not wet. And beyond that, tall green-and-brown branchy things . . . trees! Nia suddenly remembered the term from the Academy, and wall paintings she had seen. I’m on a shore. I’m on a beach. I’m on LAND!

  Panicked, Nia tried to turn around, but something was caught on her leg. She looked—it was Ar’an. Now flattened, stretched out, dried and stinking, its huge eyes milky in death. Ar’an saved my life, she thought. And then another thought came, one she didn’t want to face. But she knew it was true; if Ar’an was dead, then so was his Avatar.

  Nia carefully moved her leg out from under Ar’an’s stiff tentacles, forcing herself to concentrate on the present. Slowly, legs spread apart, she was able to raise herself up, wavering, wavering. Her blue-and-silver gown stuck to her skin. Some of the silver scales had fallen off. Nia plucked at the material, trying to get it to hang right. Then she looked up and saw . . . the sea.

  It stretched away from her as far as the horizon. Sunlight danced on its surface; its swells waved and beckoned to her. Nia had never seen anything so beautiful in her life. She stepped toward it, nearly falling over with each step. She stopped as the surging seafoam swept over her feet.

  What if Ma’el and Cephan are waiting for me out there? I am so weak, I couldn’t fight them. I don’t know where I am. What if Atlantis is very, very far away? We were always taught that a mermyd alone, Outside, in the open sea, does not have much chance of a long life. There is so much danger. What am I going to do?

  Nia felt an itching on her right palm. She rubbed her hand on her thigh, but it wouldn’t go away. She raised up her hand and looked at it.

  There was a sun-shaped scar on the palm. The prince’s mark.

  Nia staggered back. How? How did I get this? Ar’an had been holding the Farworlder prince. And Ar’an was holding me. Is it possible as I slept . . . it must be so! The prophecy has been entirely fulfilled! I am the Avatar.

  A vision suddenly smote her mind. A box of wood, open to the sky. A young land-dweller’s face, full of curiosity. A black, shiny creature with a long beak and skinny legs—a bird! A low dwelling made of stone. A scowling face with a gray beard and wrinkled skin. Stop! Nia sank to her knees in the sand.

  The Farworlder prince is alive. Nia knew this; it sang in her blood. But for how long? We have not done the changing of the blood, the Naming. If I do not find the prince, it will die. I will die. Within seven days, the stories say. The prince was no longer on the beach. And he was very afraid. Nia was going to have to search to find him.

  Somehow, Nia found the strength to stand again. She glanced up the shore. There was something lying some yards away. Nia headed toward it. It took her some practice to adjust her footing to the slick stones, and then to the soft sand that ground against her feet. Several times she nearly fell over. How do land-dwellers manage? she wondered. I suppose they are used to it.

  She saw strange, parallel ruts in the sand that seemed to stop at one point along the beach. At last, Nia approached the object lying on the sand. Her heart caught in her chest as she recognized who it was. She fell to her knees beside the body of Dyonis. Nia ran her hands over his gills, his chest, even though she already knew what she would find—no breath, and no pulse in his neck. He was dead.

  “No. No, no.” Even after seeing Ar’an, she had held on to a slim hope for Dyonis, and now it was gone. Nia felt water come to her eyes and overflow down her cheeks. Her breath became ragged and gasping. She lay her head on Dyonis’s shoulder and cried for a long time.

  At last she raised her head, unable to sob anymore. “You were right, Father,” she said. “You and the High Council. Your prophecy was correct. I did become the Avatar. I did help bring disaster, by trusting Cephan and letting Ma’el into the Great Hall. And now I have to make it right. If it takes the last breath in my body, I must atone for what I have done, and save the prince and Atlantis.”

  The sun was sinking toward the horizon. What happens when it enters the sea? s
he wondered. And then she remembered her Academy teachings that the sun, in fact, at no time touches Earth.

  She gazed at Dyonis’s body and wondered what to do with him. Should I leave him as he is? Undersea, in Atlantis, the dead might be towed away by dolphins to drift with the tide, and to feed other denizens of the ocean. Sometimes a mermyd would stipulate that he or she become feed in a hatchery, or mulch in a kelp farm. None of that was possible here.

  Land-dwellers, Nia had heard, buried their dead in the ground. She knew she did not have the strength or time to make a hole big enough. Some land-dwellers burned their dead, but Nia had no idea how to make fire.

  She stood and grasped Dyonis’s tail fin and tried to drag him back into the water. But he was too heavy, and she was too weak. Besides, she thought, noting the movement of objects in the surf, the water would just bring him back in to shore.

  At last, she found a pile of beached seaweed and contented herself with covering Ar’an and Dyonis with that. Strange, tiny creatures, like krill, hovered and buzzed around her arms and hands as she spread the seaweed over.

  Then Nia said words of farewell to them both. She went back to the strange ruts in the sand. I have the feeling these lead somewhere. As I have no other thoughts of where to go, I will follow them. Guide me, my prince. Help me find you, before we both lose our lives.

  With one last long, lingering gaze at the sea, Nia turned to begin a journey into a new and completely unfamiliar world.

  The Making of the Water Trilogy

  These three books, Ascension, Reunion, and Transformation, were quite different from any other project I’d ever written. Unlike my previous books, the Water trilogy was more like a collaboration. Many people had a hand in bringing these books into creation.

  To begin with, I was given the concept and plot for the Water trilogy in the form of an outline, a list of characters, and some partial scenes. These came from 17th Street Productions in New York, which developed the project for HarperCollins, the publisher. It was my job as the writer to bring this outline to life, to flesh it out, and to turn it into a complete set of books.