Deeplight

by Frances Hardinge

  Hark leaned forward, holding Pale Soul’s gaze.

  “That’s why I became an acolyte,” he went on, in hushed, confidential tones. “So that I could protect people . . . and so that I could see beings like that again. They would never understand that, would they?”

  “You are right!” The suspicion had melted from Pale Soul’s eyes. “The beauty and the terror—they could never understand. I . . . am sorry, Flint. My eyes are not so good today.” The priest put out a hand and gently laid it on Hark’s arm. “Tell me, are they still in Sanctuary, asking questions?”

  “No,” said Hark. “They’ve gone. They gave up.” He didn’t know who “they” were, but he had no intention of arguing with Pale Soul about it.

  “They’ll be back,” said Pale Soul in an urgent whisper. “They want what we know, for their warships and bridges and medicines to change their bodies. They want to trick us. Nothing is sacred to them—they sell everything, they cut apart everything, they want to know everything. They do not understand that some secrets are dangerous! Why do they think we hid such things from the world?”

  There was enough truth in the old priest’s words to make Hark feel uneasy, but there was no turning back.

  “We hid everything well, though, didn’t we?” asked Hark. “I don’t think they found anything.”

  “You are sure?” Pale Soul’s brow frowned uncertainly. “They . . . didn’t find it?”

  “I don’t think so,” answered Hark, his heart banging with excitement. Could “it” be the secret library? “Do you want me to check? You’ll . . . need to tell me where to look.”

  “Yes . . . yes . . .” Pale Soul beckoned Hark to lean closer, until Hark’s ear was close to his mouth. “Everything is under the lighthouse on the tip of Gimlet Point.”

  Hark’s spirits plunged again. He had walked past Gimlet Point many times and had seen the pile of rubble that had long ago been a lighthouse. Even the foundations had fallen in. If there had ever been a hidden cellar, by now its contents would probably be crushed by rockslide or destroyed by the weather.

  “You should take the crab dance,” whispered Pale Soul clearly and carefully into his ear. “One bottle will see you there and back.”

  Hark bit his lip hard and tried not to panic. Apparently the old man had slid into nonsense. He waited, but apparently there was no more coming. He sat back in his seat.

  “The crab . . .” he began, but Pale Soul furrowed his brow and put a hasty finger to his own lips.

  Hark tried to keep his face serene, even as he boiled over with frustration and alarm. If he asked more questions, he would probably make Pale Soul suspicious again. Evidently the old man thought he had been perfectly clear.

  “I’ll go and look later,” he said, and saw the priest’s face relax a little. “How will I know if it’s all there?”

  “The archives . . . for four hundred years. Thirty-nine scrolls, in cases of ivory. Twenty books in a great chest of black oak. The great Volvelle calculating the Festivals of the Year. The four Knives Whetless . . .” The list went on, in a meticulous, careful drone, while Hark tried to remember everything he was told.

  The more he heard, the lower his spirits became. It sounded like most of it was paper. If these precious documents were buried in the lighthouse rubble, rain and time would have rotted them years ago.

  Kly had told Hark that his neck was on the line. Hark needed more information, something that would satisfy Vyne and save him from her sudden, icy anger. Probing Pale Soul for information was starting to turn his stomach, though. He felt like he really was squeezing the juice out of the weak old man.

  I don’t have a choice, Hark told himself fiercely. He’s dying anyway. It won’t make any difference to him in the long run . . .

  “This . . . is as it should be, is it not?” The nervous wariness and distress was creeping back into Pale Soul’s gaze. “I can tell you this now? Is it . . . is it . . . is it time?”

  It was the old question that he always asked and that Hark had always answered in the same calming way. No, not yet. This time, for some reason, Hark could not force out the usual words. If it was not “time” now, it never would be. Pale Soul would have waited meekly for something that never came, on Hark’s assurance that it would. It would feel like breaking a promise.

  “Yes,” he said, on impulse, then regretted it as he saw panicky urgency blossom in his companion’s eyes. “I mean, you don’t have to do anything! It was ‘time’ a while ago and . . . you were ready for it. You did everything you needed to do.”

  “I did?” Pale Soul asked faintly.

  “Yes,” faltered Hark. “It’s all done now. It’s over. You . . . can be very proud.”

  Pale Soul let out a breath, and it was as though some weight had been lifted from him.

  “Anila was proud of me,” he said quietly, as his trembling slowly faded. “She always was. She said so.”

  Hark watched Pale Soul recede from him again, through scores of years, beyond his reach. A kind sisterly hand was waiting, and a patchwork sea. This was Hark’s last chance to force Pale Soul to recall his priestly days.

  “What was she like?” he heard himself ask instead.

  “Anila?” Pale Soul smiled. “She was fair, but not white-haired like me. She had a scar on her hand from cutting open nuts.” He laughed. “She used to bring some with us when we went up to the cliffs. Most of them were too hard. We had to smash them with rocks . . .”

  The old priest’s eyes lowered and closed. His breathing became more rhythmic, and there was a slack peace in his face. Perhaps he had slid into a dream of that happy time, before tragedy, disillusionment, and despair.

  “Sir?” Hark put out a hesitant hand and prodded him a bit. There was a hiccup and a small moan, then more gentle snores.

  What do I do? Wake him up again?

  Hark could shake the dying man’s frail shoulder and force him back into his adult memories. He could yank him out of his last sleep, away from the warmth of the cliff top, the bright sky and the pink sails . . .

  Well, I can’t. I can’t do that, I guess.

  It was stupid, but there it was. He couldn’t. As soon as he knew that, everything was simpler, which was a bit of a relief somehow.

  Hark would just have to hope that the description of the archive was enough to appease Dr. Vyne. She would probably have little interest in the story the old priest had most wanted to tell. As it turned out, his most treasured possession had been a vision of two children on a sunset cliff top, wishing oblivious ships on their way.

  Chapter 21

  Hark had to bang on the museum door several times before Vyne answered it. She looked less than pleased to see him.

  “Why aren’t you with Pale Soul?” Her brow slowly cleared. “Oh, no. Already? Tell me you got him to talk!”

  “I did!” Hark said quickly. “But there wasn’t long—”

  “Did he say anything about the archive?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Well, come in, don’t stand there like you’re selling spoons.”

  The doctor led Hark up to her study. By the time she dropped into her chair and grabbed a pen, Hark’s insides were playing leapfrog. He quickly rattled through as much of the archive’s inventory as he could remember, while the doctor made notes.

  “There’s a catch, isn’t there?” Vyne said abruptly. “I can see it from your expression.” Her eyes widened accusingly. “He never told you where it was, did he?”

  “Yes, he did . . .” Hark trailed off, looking for a way to soften the news.

  “But?”

  “He said it was under the lighthouse on Gimlet Point.”

  Vyne stared at him for a few seconds, then threw her pen across the room.

  “The lighthouse on Gimlet Point? The one that was smashed into chunks during the Cataclysm? That lighthouse? Then this”—she brandished the paper with the archive inventory—“is useless, isn’t it? All the books on this list are waterlogged or padding gannet n
ests by now!”

  It wasn’t Hark’s fault, but he had too much sense to point this out. People weren’t fair when they were angry. Vyne couldn’t punish the weather, or the fallen rubble, or her own bad luck, but she could lash out at him. If he annoyed her, she would lash out even harder.

  “Did you get anything useful out of him? Think!” She listened with furrowed brow as Hark recounted all that he could remember. “‘Take the crab dance’ . . .? ‘One bottle will see you there and back’ . . .? You can’t have heard that right. I wish you’d asked him to repeat it!” She pressed her fingers against her temples.

  I should have done, thought Hark, his stomach hollow with dread. I should have pressed him. But I didn’t, and it’s too late.

  “Crab dance,” Vyne was muttering. “What did he really say? It can’t have been ‘crab dance.’ Crabs scuttle and run. They don’t dance!”

  Crab dance. When did I ever see a crab dance? Delicate as a moth, a thought settled on Hark’s mind.

  “Wait,” he said slowly. “I’ve never seen a ‘crab dance,’ but I’ve seen a Sharkdance. And a Marlinwaltz. And a Herringleap.”

  “What?” Vyne looked up at him with confusion and irritation.

  “They’re boats,” said Hark, with growing excitement. “They’re the names of boats!”

  The doctor’s scowl was replaced by a look of hungry animation as she stared at her notes again.

  “He told you to ‘take the Crabdance’ to check on the archive. He was asking you to travel by a particular boat?”

  “Maybe! No, wait, he told me one bottle would see me there and back—”

  “Air!” exclaimed Vyne. “One bottle of compressed air!”

  “Not a boat, a sub!” Hark eagerly finished the thought. “The Crabdance must have been a sub! So maybe there’s a hidden cave, and you need to be underwater to get to it!”

  Dr. Vyne’s eyes shone. She leaped to her feet.

  “We need to find that cave right now,” she said. “Come with me.”

  “Do you have a sub?” asked Hark, surprised.

  “Yes,” said Vyne, with one of her less reassuring smiles. “After a fashion.”

  Once they were outside the fort, she led him around the headland to Dunlin’s beach. She ignored the lone shack and instead walked up to the mysterious door in the cliff and unlocked it.

  Hark followed her through the door into the dark and down a set of stone steps to the left. Soon he could hear the lapping of water. The steps led to a passage, which widened out into a cave. A few feet ahead of him, the stone floor ended abruptly, and he could see the sinuous motion of dark water beyond. Vyne picked up a lantern and lit it. Hark felt the familiar tickle of chemical unease as the purple scare-light licked over the cavern.

  On the surface of the water lay something fifteen feet long, tethered with chains and suspended in a hammock of rope strands. As Vyne had promised, it was a sub “after a fashion,” but not after a particularly reassuring fashion.

  It appeared to be made of clouded glass, its glossy surface gleaming with a pearly iridescence. It was shaped like no other submersible he’d ever seen, with a sleek sphere in the middle, tapering winglike flaps on either side, and a long tail ending in a propeller. The elegant, fluid outline resembled that of a gelatinous sea creature. It looked like it might slither under the touch.

  Inside the central glassy sphere, Hark could just make out a rounded metallic cage containing seats and a tangle of machinery. A long metal shaft ran like a spine inside the translucent tail, all the way to the rear propeller.

  “Is that made of god-glass?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “My own invention,” explained Dr. Vyne with surprising warmth, turning a large wheel to lower the sub into the water. “I call her the Screaming Sea Butterfly. She’s a prototype.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Hark.

  “It means that every voyage is a safety test, and it’ll be scientifically fascinating if we die in her,” Vyne answered cheerfully.

  The Screaming Sea Butterfly wasn’t as slimy as it looked, but its glassy surface was still treacherously smooth. Vyne draped a knobbly waxed mat along one of the “wings” so that they could crawl to the open hatch.

  Hark was used to subs and diving bells with windows, but it was different sitting in a vessel that was all window. On every side, he could see the undulating waterline licking against the side of the sub. Above it was dim, mauve-lit cavern, below it was dark water. The god-glass distorted everything, adding rainbow halos to outlines. Only the racks of air-bottles and breather boxes behind the seats were reassuringly familiar.

  In front of Vyne’s seat was an intriguing mechanical tangle, with three wooden wheels, great square bellows, assorted levers, and jutting metal pipes like those in a musical organ. Each seat had a flimsy-looking safety belt that buckled across the waist and a set of bicycle-style pedals in front of it.

  Vyne pulled the hatch closed, its underside a mere inch above her head. Hark was impressed that the doctor had managed to create a craft that could make you feel exposed and claustrophobic at the same time.

  “Don’t worry!” she said, as if reading his mind. “This won’t be more dangerous than any other sub you’ve been in. Skimmers, turtles, barracudas—they’re all death traps, most of them. Ten-year-old hand-me-down parts, stuck together with hope and watered-down god-glue. At least this one’s new, and I know what most of the dangers are!”

  She lit a little lantern in the front of the cockpit, and the murk under the water became cloudily visible. Grains of disturbed silt glittered as they swirled.

  Vyne pulled a handle, and something behind Hark gave a long mechanical squeal. The surface of the water climbed up the side of the Butterfly, until they were completely submerged.

  “We’ll have to pedal at first, until we’re out and clear,” she said. “I’ll steer.”

  Hark fastened his belt, then slipped his feet into the little metal pedals, with their leather stirrups. He followed Vyne’s cue and pedaled hard, while she wrestled a great wooden wheel. The sub turned itself around, by jerky, sullen degrees, to face away from the ledge. Soon Hark was out of breath, and his leg muscles were burning. He started to understand why Dr. Vyne hadn’t wanted to pilot the sub alone.

  “Here we go!” exclaimed the doctor.

  The sub eased itself forward, the surrounding water gradually growing lighter. The darkness above yielded suddenly as the sub emerged into the sea, the shimmering, sun-jeweled surface ten feet or so above their heads. Below them extended a green-gold underwater rockscape, sloping gently away toward the greater deeps.

  “Stop pedaling—I’ll take over now.” Vyne dropped a rounded, leather helmet with straps into Hark’s lap. “Put this on and fasten it as tight as you can. Quickly!” She was donning a similar helmet but leaving the straps loose.

  Confused, Hark pulled on his helmet. It turned out to be heavily padded with cloth inside and came all the way down to his eyebrows, covering his ears completely. It fit with uncomfortable snugness, and he was pulling it off again to ask about this when the Butterfly screamed.

  The sound was deafening and agonizing. It sounded as though somebody had tortured a hundred seagulls for a small eternity, then forced their screams through a huge glass whistle. The undulating cacophony carved through his brain, ear-splitting, mind-splitting.

  Eyes clenched shut, Hark forced the helmet back onto his head again. When he had drawn the straps as tight as he could, the padding at last blunted the edge of the terrible sound. He could still feel the seat, the pedals, even his own teeth vibrating.

  A moment later, when he opened his eyes again, a second shock awaited him.

  The first thing he saw was Vyne, her face locked in a grimace as she adjusted one of the wheels while squeezing the bellows under one arm. Then a motion beyond her caught his attention, and he realized what the Butterfly was doing.

  The sub’s great, tapering fins were no longer rigid. They were moving u
p and down with supple ease, and rippling slightly as they did so. The motion reminded Hark a little of the gray-speckled eagle rays he had sometimes seen swimming with silent grace through the dappled shallows. The wings’ rise and fall matched the oscillations of the eerie, screeching note produced by Vyne’s machine.

  Reflexively Hark reached out to touch the side of the cockpit bubble. To his relief, it was still cold and hard, not jelly-soft or quivering with life.

  Vyne flashed him a grin, then shouted something that got lost in the screams of her machine. He hoped it wasn’t important.

  The Butterfly moved out of the silt clouds into clearer water and skimmed over the underwater rock pinnacles. A shoal of silvery mackerel parted before them and flowed past on either side. The sub slid over a stretch of rippled sand above its shadow, then ascended without effort, soaring above weed-furred crags like an underwater bird.

  Hark’s breath caught in his throat. He had been in many subs before, but none that moved with this speed, none that rippled as though they loved the water, and knew it, and were part of it. He could look all around him, as if he were the Butterfly, this supple, gleaming beast of the deep.

  For a single, mad moment, Hark was glad of everything. He was glad of his arrest, and his Sanctuary chores, and even the god-heart. He was glad of all that had resulted in him being there, right then, in that strange and beautiful craft. Just for one blissful, forgetful instant, he was in love.

  Then the craft tilted wildly to turn a corner, and Hark came perilously close to redecorating the cockpit with his breakfast. He realized that he was laughing helplessly.

  Ahead, Hark could see a place where the seafloor rose abruptly, the incline only a little shallower than the cliff. He knew that they must be close to Gimlet Point, because the broken bricks of the wrecked lighthouse lay scattered down the steep slope before him. Vyne turned the sub to glide parallel to the slope, with the rise on the right.

  “There!” Hark tugged Vyne’s sleeve to get her attention.