Then Hark forced the stops back, setting the wings on full ripple, and plunged toward the Undersea, just ahead of the wave.
Hark couldn’t tell how many people in the sub were screaming, or if his own scream was making any noise. He could see the great, inky wave rolling in with impossible speed. Too fast. It would catch him. He ramped up the undulation and increased the sub’s velocity.
The smooth, glossy expanse in front of the wave sped toward him, and Hark braced. He expected a physical impact, like hitting the surface of the real sea from above. Instead, it gave easily as the Butterfly smashed into it.
Purple fireworks exploded before Hark’s vision. His ears and eyes ached, and for a moment he felt like every single tiny part of him were floating away from the rest. There was no Hark, only terror, lightness, and a strange peace.
Then he was blinking the blots away from his vision and trying to remember who and what he was. There were metal sticks and wheels under his hands. Everything was dark and light. A rocky spire ahead was very eager to meet him and was rushing toward him.
Hark tugged at the controls and persuaded the Butterfly to wheel away from the great spire, which he could now see sprouting from a great plateau of boulders. Was that the sea bottom, though, or a cliff? Which way was up? Was there an up? For a moment, Hark didn’t know.
Then he looked the way he had come and saw the underside of the divide between sea and Undersea. It billowed like a vast cloth of deep purple silk, glittering all the while with a poisonous iridescence. He could see the underbelly of its vast waves, every crinkle and undulation picked out in silver.
He could see. He could see everything. His vision was no longer limited to a halo of murky light. He could look down at the landscape of the sea bottom, with its rock spires and its plains of rubble and pale silt. Everything was purplish dark yet seemed as vivid and clear as daylight air.
The girl next to him was waving at him and signing rapidly. He couldn’t remember what the hand motions meant. She was pointing at the old man, who was slumped and sick-looking, his eyes closed.
Who were they? They were his friends. If all three of them survived, they would be his best friends. They would know who he was at the bottom of the sea.
Selphin and Quest, he reminded himself, starting to recover his senses. Selphin and Quest. We’re in the Undersea. And I think Quest’s hurt.
He blinked hard to clear his head and focused on Selphin.
. . . still breathing, she was signing. I can’t see blood. She reached past Hark to retrieve the current air-bottle and released a little of its contents near Quest.
Quest slowly seemed to come to but didn’t move from his slumped position. His chest quaked as he breathed. The priest looked around him at the purplish vista, then directed one of his small, wry smiles at Hark. It was an exhausted smile, and Hark was afraid that it might be a farewell.
Stay with us! Hark signed furiously. We need you!
Quest raised one hand and managed to touch a finger to his forehead in a tiny, half-mocking salute. Aye, Captain.
It hadn’t occurred to Hark that he was the captain. He’d never been captain of anything in his life. He hadn’t even been captain of his own life. Yet here he was.
He took a deep breath and looked around him. They were in the Undersea, but time and air were running out.
The Butterfly was still thirty feet above the sea bottom, with a good view across it. In the distance, he caught a glimpse of motion. Something large and dark was gliding slowly between the rocky spires. It was too large to be a shark and too slender to be a whale. Oars twitched, filament-fine in the distance.
It was the Abysmal Child.
Chapter 41
It took only a moment for Hark to point out the Abysmal Child to his companions.
No sign of the god, signed Selphin, her face tense.
Still in the hold, Quest signed feebly. If it was free, we would know it.
Hark blinked. A glistening line seemed to have been drawn around Quest and Selphin, as though to make it clear that these two objects were important. His mind felt like an open wound, his thoughts tender and exposed, but he was starting to recover a little now.
Selphin, as usual, came out with the most important and awkward question.
What do we do now? she asked.
Let’s hide before they see us, Hark signed. Then make a plan.
He set the Butterfly on a slanting descent path and halted it when a rock pillar hid it from the Abysmal Child’s view.
Hide? asked Selphin doubtfully, and gestured at her surroundings. Screaming submarine! They’ve heard us already. They’ve seen us already.
They’ll hear something, Hark signed back. They probably don’t know what. They may not have spotted us, either. We’re small and hard to see.
It was one thing to notice the large outline of the Abysmal Child, its black metal distinct against the pale silt seafloor. Spotting a much smaller glass submarine against the coruscating underside of the Undersea’s surface would be a lot harder.
The Butterfly’s scream sounded holy and terrible, and not remotely like a submarine. Someone hearing it for the first time was unlikely to guess what it was, or where it was, for that matter. Many sea creatures could sense the direction of underwater sounds, but people couldn’t. To human ears, underwater noises were generally loud, strange, and from everywhere at once.
Selphin rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, then blinked hard.
Everything looks strange, she signed. She was gazing out through the glass wall of the sub. Hark looked out in the same direction.
A shiver was passing through the seabed, as if it were a living thing. The rock pillars were quavering and shifting. Some pushed upward, becoming a few feet taller, while others sank farther into the seabed. The purple dark-light was fluctuating around them, flickering like flames. He could feel the light’s coolness against his mind, the way sunlight warms the skin . . .
Hark realized that Quest was tugging hard at his arm.
The Undersea will enchant you, the priest signed, ashen-faced but icily calm. Concentrate! Does the Butterfly have weapons?
Hark stared down at the controls and forced himself to think. He was fairly sure he knew what all of them did now.
The Butterfly has its scream, he signed. That can knock you out like a cudgel. It probably wouldn’t be so loud outside the sub, but he still didn’t envy anyone nearby without ear protection. There’s nothing else.
Would the scream melt their god-glass? asked Quest, frowning in concentration.
Hark shook his head. Vyne had told him that the Abysmal Child’s windows were of specially tempered glass that no single note could melt.
Our scream might stun the crew for a bit, he signed. But that wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t help us get in the hold to destroy the heart.
Can we ram them? suggested Selphin, then winced and shook her head. Hark didn’t much like the idea, either. The little Butterfly’s solid inner sphere had a decent chance of surviving collision with the bigger sub’s withersteel hull, but the glass wings and tail seemed softer when in motion. If they were torn to shreds, the Butterfly wouldn’t be a sub anymore, just a glass globe with slowly suffocating people inside.
If we damage the Leaguer sub but do not destroy it, signed Quest, Undersea water will get in, and bring the god to life. That thought dampened the discussion for a few moments.
We could wait until they bring the god out, signed Selphin slowly. Then ram the god.
Hark exhaled slowly. It was the best plan they had yet, even though it involved throwing themselves at a god in an experimental submarine.
We’d need to be quick, he signed. Knock it apart before it can glue itself together properly.
Quest was shaking his head.
Not enough, he signed. The heart would escape. We must destroy it!
Hark didn’t like where logic was leading him. He was fairly sure his companions wouldn’t like it, either.
>
The Butterfly rams the god, he signed. I go outside the sub and smash the heart.
There was a pause while the implications sank in. Undersea water was breathable and wouldn’t crush you to a pulp like the water in the deeps of the real sea. You could never be sure how it would affect you, however.
There’s only one hatch, signed Selphin. If you open it, the sub fills with water. No more air. She was right. This plan meant all of them breathing Undersea water until they reached the surface again, if such a return were even possible. Selphin put a hand over her mouth, and her breaths became shallower and shakier.
One can breathe Undersea water for a long time, Quest signed, and Hark remembered that he was speaking from experience. One does not always get Marks.
Selphin was glaring at Hark, making calculations. Then she scowled and thumped the arms of her seat hard.
You can’t go! she signed angrily. You need to stay, to pilot the sub! I’ll go out! She folded her arms hard and was clearly gripping them to stop them shaking. He remembered her adopting the same pose just after shooting Jelt.
Hark felt an unexpected rush of affection for Selphin and her proud, stubborn courage. She had braved her fear of the sea to come all the way to the Undersea, and now they were talking about flooding the Butterfly, which clearly terrified her. He couldn’t ask her to fling herself up into the Undersea, as well.
After we ram the god, we won’t need anyone piloting the sub, he pointed out. Just someone pumping the bellows, keeping the Butterfly screaming while I grab the heart.
Selphin’s panicky scowl relaxed a little, and after a few moments she nodded.
What are the Leaguers doing now? asked Quest. Hark edged the Butterfly forward so that he and his friends could peer.
The scenery outside was no longer palpitating. The Abysmal Child had settled on the seafloor and raised her many oars aloft. Several figures in metal diving suits were now visible outside her. Some floated while others walked on the silt, their feet stirring up grayish clouds. They appeared to be unscrewing the side of the hull.
They’re opening the hold! signed Quest urgently. There is no more time!
Hark guided the Butterfly downward so he could attack at a flatter trajectory and avoid slamming the sub straight into the seafloor after ramming the god. Selphin yielded her seat to Quest, so that he could make use of the seat belt, and clambered into the narrow gap behind the seats. There she hastily sealed and strapped the breather boxes and secured the air-bottles in their rack, before wedging herself in and bracing.
Hark’s god-glass knife had melted during the journey, fusing with the fabric of his belt pouch. It wouldn’t be much use for destroying the god-heart, so instead he tucked a heavy wrench into his belt.
The dun-colored seafloor was closer now. It bewildered the eye, appearing to move in a gentle, roiling motion. With a shock, Hark saw that thousands of white, spindly starfish were blindly writhing over each other in the bone-pale mud. Disturbed silt rose in little clouds, then eddied to form shapes and patterns. Letters, these were letters, and he would be able to understand them if he thought hard enough, if he felt hard enough . . .
Two people were jabbing him painfully in the arm. He started and looked around apologetically.
There were shapes, he signed. I wanted to understand them.
They would tell you only of fear, Quest replied.
That was right; Hark had been forgetting. The Undersea was where all the fears of the Myriad ran, like rainwater into the sea. Every scintillating drop of it was aglow with human terror.
When the Undersea water comes in, signed Quest, breathe the water in quickly, but remember that you are breathing fear. Do not believe what it tells you.
Hark took a deep breath, exchanged signals with his companions, then carefully slid the Butterfly out from the pillar to get another view of the Abysmal Child.
He could see the Leaguers more clearly now. They wore cylindrical diving suits of a sort he had seen before, with holes for the arms and legs and windows in front of the face so they could look out. One of them was lying on his side, knees drawn up, hands over its faceplate. Perhaps Hark wasn’t the only person struggling with the mental effects of the Undersea.
Two other figures were cradling what looked like copper air-bottles in the crook of their arms. Hark guessed that these were probably attached to wind-guns. The Leaguers were prepared for attack.
Six more figures in diving suits emerged from the long, black oblong of the gaping hold, carrying a wooden platform, on which rested an enormous and familiar bulk.
Immediately it was impossible to look anywhere else. The god-construct no longer looked like a patchwork of parts. Now it had a horrible harmony. The strange dark-light glisten Hark had seen for a moment around his friends snaked all over the vast figure, as if the entire Undersea had turned its attention to it. This was where the monstrous thing belonged.
The shape heaved and arched, and Hark could imagine the fear in the water, the terror of countless minds, being sucked into the thing’s gray gills.
Now.
Hark pulled the Butterfly out from behind the rocky pillar, and ramped up her ululation. The little sub swooped down and raced toward the awakening god.
Hark saw the Leaguers reel back from the full force of the Butterfly’s scream. They dropped to their knees, some letting go of the platform, others losing their grip on their wind-guns.
The floating, glistening mass of the god-construct loomed before Hark as he sped toward it. He felt the god-heart pulse, sending a shimmer through the air and a shudder through the Butterfly.
Then the glassy nose of the Screaming Sea Butterfly crashed into the Leaguers’ makeshift god. The impact threw Hark forward against the controls, his seat belt nearly cutting him in two. The front of the sphere was suddenly dark, obscured by splattered ichor, flabby sacs pressed against the glass, and one great, sprawling claw. A second impact jolted him over sideways, yanking his neck.
Hark spent a second half-stunned before realizing that he didn’t have time to be. The Butterfly was still screaming and stirring up the seabed. He could hardly see anything through the glass and didn’t know whether the collision had successfully knocked the god apart.
Behind him, Selphin was clutching her head, her face contorted in a rictus of pain. She didn’t seem to be bleeding, thankfully.
There was no time—no time to ask if she was all right, if she needed anything. So he tapped her arm and signed the only question he could.
Ready?
Her eyes widened with utter terror and panic, and she nodded. Before he could think about what he was doing, Hark yanked the lever to open the hatch.
Neither of them were ready.
As the hatch gaped, Undersea water surged in with terrifying speed. One minute Hark was sitting in the cockpit with his hand on a lever, the next minute the water hit him like a vast icy fist. It knocked the wind out of him, and as he gasped in another breath, the water was somehow already up to his neck. Then that last trace of air was gone, too, and he was floating, struggling, his belt still binding him to his seat, his mouth clamped shut reflexively.
His eyes were stinging, and everything was indistinct and purplish. Shapes and outlines slithered out of focus. Hark wasn’t ready to breathe in the Undersea. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready for any of this. But he had to be. He gathered his will, opened his mouth, and took a breath.
All his instincts recoiled as he felt the water rush into his mouth and nose and sting his throat, then choke his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. His chest convulsed. His limbs flailed, wanting to fight his way back to air, even if he had to swim all the way to the distant surface to do it.
It didn’t matter that he knew he wasn’t drowning. It didn’t matter that he could feel the strangeness of the Undersea water numbing his lungs instead of chilling them. At the same time he knew he was a shipwreck victim sinking under the weight of his clothes, he knew he was a child fallen overboard, too young to swi
m, he knew he was drowning in a broken diving bell. These terrors were not his, but they were in his eyes and throat and lungs. He was full of them, choking on them.
Remember you are breathing fear, Quest had told them. Do not believe what it tells you.
Hark fought back. He wasn’t drowning, it wasn’t true. He was breathing. He took breath after breath, feeling the numbing tickle of the water through his throat. It tasted the way the scare-lamps smelled.
Selphin had drifted upward and was flailing in panic, just as Hark had, moments before. If she was experiencing what he had, she was living all her worst nightmares—a thousand ways for the sea to kill her, crammed into one moment. Her wide eyes were on Quest, though, who was leaning forward to sign to her, holding her gaze calmly and steadily.
Hark wanted to stay but couldn’t. There was no time. He unbuckled his seat belt, then pushed the hatch fully open. He dragged himself up through it and looked around, dazzled by the dark-light.
The Butterfly had come to a halt against the side of the Abysmal Child, with a messy splat of god-construct sandwiched between them. It looked like Hark’s ramming swoop had taken off the construct’s left claw, along with some machinery and oozing glands.
Looking back at the Butterfly’s wake, Hark could see the rest of the god-construct sprawled on its back a few yards away. The impact had not knocked it to pieces, as he had hoped. The bulk of it was intact, but a ragged hole had been torn out of its left side. Yellowish fluids dissipated into the water in misty curls. The flesh containing the gills looked misshapen now, like a slab of gray dough someone had punched. All of this would probably heal, though, once the god-heart started to beat.
Around the god-construct, Leaguers lay sprawled or curled, some of them vainly clutching at the metal casing around their heads. In their diving suits they couldn’t even cover their ears.
Where was the heart? Hark swam over to the god-construct as fast as he could.
There! The white orb was hanging from a tangle of soft, translucent pipes. As he drew near, it pulsed, and for a moment it seemed to blaze black. A blinding shimmer rippled out from it through the water.
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