Deepstone (Secret Depths Book 2)
Page 23
“Hi, Flynn. I’m going back to the healer for a fresh bandage. Join me?”
“Sure.”
Before long, they arrived at a shop displaying a leather sign bearing the word HERBALIST scorched into it. Flynn smiled when he saw it; the herbalist kicked him out of her store months earlier when he entered with a deadly, untreatable wound that she feared might infect her. At the time, she told him he had only days to live. He wondered how she would react when she saw him again.
The herbalist, a portly, middle-aged woman wearing a kelp apron over kempcloth clothing, smiled warmly at Lycia. “Hello, Lycia. Let’s take a look at your—”
The woman stopped in mid-sentence when she noticed Flynn.
“Wound,” Flynn said, finishing her sentence and grinning.
The woman kept staring at him and Lycia took turns looking at each of them, a quizzical look on her face.
“It’s not like the injury I once had,” Flynn added, hoping to end the awkwardness. He pulled aside his shirt collar to show a small red scar was all that remained of his old wound.
The herbalist relaxed her shoulders and sighed in relief. “Surprised you survived that.”
“So am I.”
“If the two of you are almost finished,” Lycia said, sliding her sling over her head and cringing as she lowered her wounded arm. “I’d like to get my shoulder looked at.”
“Of course,” the herbalist said, removing a jar of salve from the wall along with a fresh bandage.
Once Lycia’s wound was cleaned and dressed, the pair left the shop. Flynn took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of deep-fried sea cucumber, smoked eel, and roasted octopus in the Marketplace. He sidestepped between a pair of rough-looking patrons and placed his hands over the hilts of his darksteel blades, more to protect the weapons than himself. The drawback of having such magnificent weapons was constant anxiety over losing them.
Lycia looked curiously at him. “What was that all about?”
It took a moment for Flynn to realize what she was talking about. “Oh, the herbalist? Theoric attacked me with a soul-stealing gem a while back and the wound nearly killed me. Treating a wound like that was beyond her abilities and she seemed pretty scared of me at the time.”
“Oh,” Lycia said. “But you’re fine now, right?”
“I suppose,” he said, looking wistfully through the dome at the massive ocean overhead.
Lycia raised an eyebrow. “Something on your mind?”
Flynn smiled broadly. “After where we’ve been and what we’ve done, Seahaven feels like a giant fish tank, protecting me from the world outside. But I don’t want protection, I want to be immersed in it. I want to go somewhere and do something but I don’t know where or what.”
Lycia smiled. “I might have a solution to that.”
Flynn looked sidelong at her. “Really now? Do tell.”
“Not yet. I have to give something to Tasker first.”
Flynn looked at her skeptically. “What are you planning?”
Lycia smiled, but did not reply. The pair walked side by side through the crowded Marketplace, took The Lift to Uppercity, and soon arrived at the fenced yard surrounding the Arcturus home. With a wave of Flynn’s hand, a gate swung open, allowing them access to the seagrass-covered courtyard.
Once they entered the house, Flynn unsheathed his darksteel blades for perhaps the thousandth time since he’d procured them from Gideon days earlier. As he and Lycia entered the lower level of the home, Flynn admired the blades as he walked. The crafter’s signature in the bonded sword, a crimsonite dragon imbedded at the base of the blade, glowed in his grip. He wasn’t bloodthirsty, but the magnificent sword was begging to be used.
Lycia rolled her eyes at the sword display. “You never get tired of those, hey?”
Flynn smiled broadly. He held up one of the dark blades and the lines of crimsonite imbedded in the steel glowed, like the veins under the surface of a person’s skin. “Not even remotely.”
The muffled sounds of breaking ice and splashing water drifted down the hall. “I presume the commotion is from Kylara?”
Flynn nodded. “She spends most of her time in the training room. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go in there. I have something for her.”
“Of course.”
The sounds grew louder as they approached the training room door. They went inside and found Kylara busily smashing eight-foot-tall golems into chunks of ice and puddles of water. Any injuries she suffered at Gideon’s hands no longer seemed to be troubling her.
After tearing through the last golem, Kylara hooked a stave under one of their icy axes and hurled it in Flynn and Lycia’s direction. The darksteel blade containing Flynn’s crimsonite crystal slid out of its scabbard and slapped into his palm as he reached for it. He slashed the axe in two, and each piece flew wide, slamming into the wall behind them.
Kylara nodded approvingly. “Nice cut.”
“It’s a nice sword,” Flynn replied. “I have something for you.”
Flynn sheathed the sword and produced the small pouch he procured from the jeweler. He poured the contents into his hand, a pair of red crystal earrings.
“I’m not a jewelery kind of girl,” Kylara said, recoiling slightly.
“Don’t’ you recognize them?” Flynn said, holding them up higher and giving them a shake.
A confused look passed over Kylara’s face. “Wait. Are those…?”
“Yes,” Flynn replied. “Gideon’s crystals. I had a jeweler in the Marketplace turn them into earrings.”
Kylara smiled, and gingerly plucked the earrings from Flynn’s fingers. “Thank you. It means a lot.”
Flynn nodded and turned to leave, but he stopped when Kylara spoke again.
“I guess I should be thanking you as well,” Kylara said, staring firmly at Lycia.
Lycia raised an eyebrow. “For?”
“For saving me.”
Lycia scoffed. “Save you? I was the one who suggested we let Gideon kill you.”
Kylara smiled, knowingly. “Tasker tells the story a little differently.”
“Well,” Lycia added, “perhaps I may have been mistaken when I accused you of being a traitor.”
“Perhaps,” Kylara agreed, smirking.
“But I still hate you,” Lycia was quick to add.
Kylara smiled. “Of course.”
The three of them stood in awkward silence until Flynn cleared his throat. “Okay, Lycia, let’s go see Tasker.”
Lycia nodded and turned for the door. Flynn wasn’t sure if her eagerness to leave was due to a genuine dislike of Kylara or a desire to get away from awkward conversation. He presumed the latter was true.
Before long, they were riding down the lift to Tasker’s laboratory.
“Just to warn you,” Flynn said during the descent. “Tasker’s been pretty grumpy the last few days.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because we had to leave all those ancient books behind in Deepstone.”
“Ahhhh,” Lycia said with a nod. “Yes, that was unfortunate.”
The lift stopped and Flynn pushed the door open. The air was dusty, likely from grinding crystal and other minerals. Tasker was covered in glittery powder and he sat at one of the worktables wearing a utility helm. Two of its seven water tentacles held a double-barrelled version of Stingray as most of the other tentacles buffed the weapon with water-powered sanding tools. One tentacle glowed at its end like the lure of an anglerfish.
One of the glowing tentacles picked up a pair of lenses and placed them on the bridge of his nose. He paused when he noticed the two of them enter. “Flynn, Lycia,” he said, nodding briefly and returning to what he was doing.
Flynn skirted around a pile of metal debris and peered over his brother’s shoulder. “How’s it coming with the new Stingray?”
“It’s coming,” Tasker said, staring intently at the trigger mechanism through his lenses. “But it will come along faster without distractions.”
&nb
sp; “That’s too bad,” Lycia said, producing a small leather-bound tome from a hidden pocket in the folds of her dress. It was a small book, about the size of two hands pressed together, and an elaborate picture was embroidered on the front. “I guess I’ll have to find someone else to help me decipher what’s written in here, then.”
In unison, the tentacles on Tasker’s helms extended in seven directions in a manner that reminded Flynn of a pufferfish.
“That book looks familiar,” Tasker said, and the tentacle holding the lenses flipped them around and placed them backwards over his eyes for better distance vision. His eyes looked enormous through the lenses and Flynn stifled a laugh.
“It should,” Lycia said, standing just far enough away from Tasker for the book to be out of his reach. “It’s one of the ones from Deepstone.”
The tentacles went limp and released the objects they held, including Stingray. The weapon and tools clattered on the floor.
There was a tremor in Tasker’s voice as he spoke. “From Deepstone?”
Lycia nodded and absentmindedly opened the book and flipped through pages. “It has a picture on the cover that caught my eye. An ancient relic that has been sought after by the azurans for centuries. It even mentions how to find it. But if you’re too busy. . .”
The liquid chair Tasker sat on heaved, launching him so forcefully that he collided with Lycia. The collision knocked her off-balance and with one arm in a sling, she was unable to brace her fall. Tasker gingerly took the book from her as she fell, and she yelped as she landed hard on the flagstones. She got back up, rubbing her wounded arm and brushing dust off her dress. Her eyes bored into Tasker as he embraced the book reverently. If he realized he knocked her down, he showed no indication of it.
“This is amazing,” Tasker said, his face lighting up like a lanternfish as he flipped through the pages. “And extremely well-preserved. We must take care to prevent any harm coming to this.”
Lycia scowled, massaging her wound. “Yeah. Wouldn’t want to hurt anything.”
Tasker closed the book and offered the two of them an uncharacteristic smile. “I think it’s time for another adventure.”
The End
From the Author
Thank you for reading this, the first book in the Seacret Depths trilogy. If you enjoyed it, please keep an eye out for Graveport, the next in the trilogy.
Whether you liked my work or not, I’d love to hear what you think, so please leave a review. It will help me improve the things you didn’t like, and give you more of the things you did. And if you’d like to hear about new releases, join my newsletter.
Special thanks to my mom, Cris, and my daughter, Clara, for inspiring me and helping me bring this book to life.
If you haven’t read it yet, have a look for a novelette entitled Ruins of Scell – a prequel to the Secret Depths Trilogy.
Secret Depths Trilogy
Seahaven — released early 2017.
Deepstone — released mid 2017.
Graveport — will be available late 2017.
Contact Information
Website: www.raymondcain.com
Twitter: @Captraymondcain
Facebook: Raymond Cain
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
The End
From the Author