by Raymond Cain
Flynn closed the book and sighed. The era of heroes and adventure was over. It was forbidden to explore beyond the Safe Zone and he had not heard of anyone doing anything adventurous for as long as he could remember. He returned the book to its drawer and slid it closed.
The bedroom door was thick stone but a gentle pull swung it wide open. After walking along blue stone hallways and ascending a set of stairs, Flynn reached a set of double-doors leading outside.
Seahaven rested in a bowl-shaped depression in the ocean floor that was one mile wide and two-hundred feet deep. A dome-shaped barrier of crystal-enriched water protected the city from the crushing depths above. His house was among hundreds of homes perched along a ring of cliffs looking down on the rest of the city.
Flynn stepped out into a courtyard covered in bright blue seagrass. The lawn was littered with a handful of stone fountains depicting moving water sculptures of dancing mermaids and battling mermen. Thorny bushes grew against a tall metal fence encircling the property and two rows of pink flowers flanked a stone path that led to the gate. The fountains moistened the air and the flowers smelled sweet and fruity.
The translucent blue dome over Seahaven soared high above. The magic that gave the barrier its strength also painted the city and its surrounding waters in a pale blue glow. As creatures outside the dome stared at him, Flynn felt like he was the one trapped in an aquarium for the amusement of the fish, not the other way around.
A liquid trident smacked Flynn in the face. He rubbed his eyes and sputtered, spraying droplets that rolled back up the sides of the fountain and back into the water. The merman-shaped golem perched in its fountain, resumed its fighting routines, and Flynn moved out of its reach.
A liquid mermaid in a nearby fountain danced seductively, and she enlarged certain parts of her anatomy to catch his interest. In the past, he admired her shapely form and rhythmic movements. But after seeing a live mermaid in the flesh—and scales—the water sculpture didn’t do it justice.
“I’m sorry, beautiful,” he said, smiling, “but you’re nothing compared to the real thing.”
The sculpture elongated her arm and tried to slap Flynn across the face.
Flynn backed away from her and held up his hands in surrender. “But you’re still beautiful in your own way.”
The liquid mermaid crossed her arms and turned her head, poking out a watery bottom lip.
Flynn gave the remaining fountains a wide berth and headed for the tall steel fence surrounding the property. He passed his crystal ring near an enchanted lock on the front gate and it swung open. After walking through, steel hinges coated in enchanted water closed the gate behind him. He headed down a white cobblestone path leading into the main part of the city.
Houses, paths, terraces, and vegetation covered the cliffs encircling Seahaven. Dozens of waterfalls spilled out from caves and poured into reservoirs in the lower part of the city. Colorful vegetation flourishing along the cliffs created a bouquet of aromas ranging from sweet, to fruity, to spicy.
Two girls walked ahead of Flynn on the path. The left one wore a seagrass skirt and she had long black hair that hung in curls. The one on the right wore a white skirt made from a leafy plant he could not identify. She had blonde hair divided into three tight braids woven together into one large braid. Flynn couldn’t help but overhear what they were saying.
“Wellllll…” the blonde girl said, dragging out the syllable for greater impact. “I’m not supposed to say…”
The dark-haired girl laughed. “But you will anyway because that’s what friends do.”
“Of course,” said the blonde, chuckling. She brought a hand up to her mouth as if to hide her words, but she spoke in a whisper that was just as audible as regular speech. “One of the patrols killed a colossal squid last night.”
Flynn was suddenly paying close attention to what the girls were saying.
The black-haired girl jerked her head back. “No way! In the Safe Zone? I can’t believe it got in. And they killed it? That’s impressive.”
Flynn discretely shortened the distance between himself and the girls. After hearing the last statement, he proudly puffed out his chest.
“Well they did,” the blonde continued. “And apparently, some idiot in a ship lured the creature over to them, and they saved his life too.”
Flynn scoffed. The girls stopped and stared at him. He stopped too and stifled a fake cough. He rubbed his throat to complete the performance. They raised their eyebrows skeptically, but they apparently accepted the unspoken excuse and resumed walking.
The dark-haired girl spoke in a hushed tone, quieter than before. “How did you find out?”
“My mom works in the Sorcery Academy. She overheard a couple wizards talking about it.”
“Why is it being kept a secret?”
“To avoid causing a panic. They’re trying to find out how the predators are getting in so they can deal with the problem privately.”
Flynn gasped. It hadn’t occurred to him that the tunnel he found extended outside the Safe Zone. He felt like a fool for missing something so obvious. Of course it led to unprotected waters, otherwise, the colossal squid would not have been able to enter it in the first place.
The tunnel needed to be sealed before more predators got in, and Flynn might be the only one who knew where it was.
Chapter Three
Flynn ran to the docks and found his ship moored at the end of a pier. The crystal windows’ glow was almost imperceptible and the steel hull was scratched after years of use. It bobbed on the surface from the ripples created by other ships submerging in the docking area.
As he approached the vessel, Flynn’s ring flickered, triggering the hatch door in the roof. The hatch swung open and he dropped down onto the sponge pilot’s chair. After strapping himself in with kelp belts and closing the hatch, he submerged the ship.
Flynn soared over a cluster of sea anemone, plant-like animals with glowing green tendrils bursting out of their heads like Medusas. Other brightly glowing plants writhed in the wake of gulper eels, damselfish, and dottybacks. When he came too close to a pufferfish, it inflated itself until it was three times its size and covered in spines.
As he exited the city, Flynn passed under a portcullis. The lattice of steel was taller than three houses piled on top of each other and sharp points on the bottom aligned with holes in the ground. The portcullis was another reminder of the way things had changed since Seahaven’s early days. Instead of sending heroes to deal with threats, the city sealed itself off like a turtle in its shell.
Flynn passed between a pair of guard towers and waved at a trio of guards stationed there. The warriors were refitting flotation devices to their triple-crossbows, ensuring the heavy weapons were buoyant underwater. Armed with one of those crossbows, a skilled soldier could take down any creature typically found in the Safe Zone.
The marine life whipping by his crystalline windows broadened Flynn’s smile. His green eyes appeared blue in the light of the windows, but his reflection made him scowl. Tufts of chestnut-brown hair stood up in the back. He tried to push it down into submission, but, as usual, the offensive strands proved impervious to his efforts. He gave up on his hair and peeked back over his shoulder at Seahaven. The domed, glowing city shrunk in the distance behind him.
Much of the landscape around Seahaven resembled a checkerboard with different colored squares. Carefully measured square farms grew various species of kelp and seaweed that was edible or used in materials such as clothing and rope. Other farms grew sea grapes, fruit trees, or orach, a leafy vegetable used in salads and sandwiches. He often wondered how his ancestors tended their farms before the Safe Zone was erected. Shark attacks must have plagued ocean farmers constantly.
Flynn banked his vessel, steering it into a maze of twenty-foot tall vegetation. He veered side to side, weaving between giant coral formations shaped like freshly-bloomed roses. Luminescent algae grew within the folds of their surfaces, giving the org
anisms a bright red glow. After he passed them by, he flipped the ship on its side, avoiding stone-like stalks sporting large discs filled with glowing orange algae.
The steel and crystal vessel burst out of the vegetation. The inner workings of the ship emitted a low hum and thick rows of bubbles trailed behind the propeller blades as Flynn sped along the ocean floor. Ahead of him, a patrol was crowded around something and he rose higher to get a better look. The men surrounded a recently slain great white shark. Its silver-blue glow faded as its life ebbed away.
“Keep up the good work, gentlemen,” Flynn said mostly to himself, as the soldiers could not possibly hear him.
Minutes later, Flynn arrived at the Giant’s Fingers. Tiny crawling creatures created pinpoints of light that crept along the stony projections. As he headed toward the tunnel, his thoughts drifted to the mermaid. He hated himself for not being able to capture her but he presumed the colossal squid devoured her and that brought him some measure of comfort.
After what happened to his parents, Flynn despised merfolk. His father, Galyn, was the first to disappear. A simple miner, Galyn disappeared one day along the route to the family mine. His broken ship was later discovered and a pair of merfolk tridents were found inside.
Days later, Flynn’s mother went looking for Galyn and never returned. As merfolk seemed responsible for one or both of his parents’ fates, Flynn scoured the region each day hoping to capture and interrogate one of the evil creatures. The taunting mermaid he saw the previous day was the first one he encountered. He clenched his fists as images of her pouting face echoed in his thoughts.
“Forget about her,” Flynn told himself, breathing deeply. “You’ll find another mermaid.”
Flynn pushed the troubling thoughts to the back of his mind and focused on the task at hand. He recalled where the tunnel was, and he resolved to give the nearby patrol precise directions to it after he found it again. But after many minutes of searching, he found no trace of the opening. The tunnel disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. In its place, there was rocky terrain.
“Maybe they filled it in already.”
Even as he spoke the words, he didn’t believe them. There was no evidence of digging and the spot where the tunnel opening was had no dirt in it. It was feasible that his people sealed the tunnel but the surrounding vegetation seemed untouched. If they performed such a difficult task so quickly, there should have been traces of their activity left behind.
Flynn needed to take a closer look. He landed his ship and opened the hatch, creating a widening ring of dust as the vessel touched down on the soil. After checking for predators, he plunged into the cold, dense water and swam toward the spot where the opening should have been.
The crystal pendant his mother gave him flared, releasing a bright blue light. The unexpected flash sent him reeling backwards, but he swung his arms in circles to get back to his feet. A barreleye fish that happened to be staring when the pendant flared blinked its tubular eyes and swam into him.
As Flynn blinked away the remnants from the flash, the rumble of scraping stone sounded from the ground in front of him. Two stone doors, cleverly disguised to match the rocky landscape, slid open. The mouth of the hidden tunnel was revealed.
Flynn stood at the edge and looked inside. A pair of frilled sharks circled within the gloomy tunnel and he backed away. The pendant flashed again and the stone doors slid closed. He stared at the crystal pendant, his eyebrows wrinkled in disbelief.
Still reeling from what had just happened, he headed back toward his ship. To his surprise, a thirty-foot long whale shark swam between him and his vessel. Its two-yard-wide mouth was open, revealing over three hundred teeth, and it was headed straight for him.
Chapter Four
Flynn’s thoughts about the secret tunnel were swept away when the forty-ton whale shark headed for him. Each stroke of its tail sent fish flying and its grey body was covered in glowing yellow lines and spots. Its mouth was large enough to swallow him whole.
But it was a gentle giant and it had no appetite for humans. Flynn recognized the creature; it often swam near Seahaven and took people for a ride on its fins. It had swum alongside Flynn’s ship many times before and he considered it a friend.
The whale shark soared over him, inhaling a cloud of glittery plankton. There was a scar on its stomach surrounded by whale lice, shrimp-like parasites that fed on its skin. The unfortunate creature was forced to tolerate the parasites because it was unable to remove them, but Flynn had an idea.
Flynn closed the hatch behind him as he plopped down into the captain’s chair. He strapped himself in and launched his ship toward the whale shark. Its tail pumped up and down and he flipped his ship upside-down, facing the belly of his craft toward the belly of the mammal. He skimmed along its body, using his ship’s wings to scrape away pests and barnacles. Pounds of unwanted cargo was removed.
“You’re welcome, old friend.”
After cleaning off the parasites, Flynn circled around and used one of his ship’s wings to remove a lamprey that was latched onto a pectoral fin. Once the whale shark’s malicious passengers were removed, the enormous mammal swam in a spiral around Flynn’s vessel. It was a game the two of them had played many times. Eventually, the whale shark nudged Flynn’s ship affectionately and swam away to filter feed through a cloud of plankton.
Flynn’s thoughts returned to the hidden tunnel. He wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the fact that it existed, or that his mother had a key to open it. He rubbed the crystal blade-and-fins pendant between his thumb and forefinger as though doing so would yield a clue. Perhaps she used it to explore potential mining areas outside the Safe Zone. But that still didn’t explain how she acquired it in the first place.
It occurred to him that the tunnel explained the mermaid’s presence. Surely, she could not have gotten past the golems to enter the Safe Zone. She must have entered the tunnel from the other side and opened the doors. He almost felt sorry about her encountering the colossal squid as she fled from him.
Flynn’s daydreaming nearly sent him crashing into a cluster of soft coral. It looked like colorful plants and slender trees swaying in the mild current. Countless seahorses, angelfish, and butterflyfish fed on it, painting the surrounding water with their iridescent glow. The coral was fragile and Flynn was careful to avoid getting too close to it, lest he injure it in his wake. The last thing he wanted to do was damage something beautiful, and a vital source of food and shelter for countless ocean species.
A sleek, luxurious ship emblazoned in gold sped past him. The words “Marlin II” were emblazoned on its wings, identifying it as the most expensive ship Seahaven had to offer. Its pilot, a stocky boy with black hair, flashed his middle finger at Flynn and plunged into the delicate coral. Four other vessels followed it, each one worth more than most houses in Seahaven. They ripped through the vegetation, tearing leaves, breaking branches, and scattering fish as they went. The four ships later emerged, covered in leaves and other debris. After destroying much of the precious vegetation, the pilots threw up their hands in celebration.
“They’re celebrating?” Flynn said, shaking his head in disgust.
He knew the pilots of those ships well. Their ringleader was the stocky boy in front, Titus Rocknugget. Titus’ cronies, as Flynn liked to call them, were members of the wealthiest families in Seahaven and they often spent time in poor parts of the city, flaunting their wealth and belittling others.
The Rocknugget family was the richest in the city and their castle looked down on the city, both literally and figuratively. They made their fortune by mining aquazite, a magical blue crystal used to manipulate water. Surviving on the ocean floor would be impossible without it. Aquazite was used in helms to breathe underwater, in swimming boots to withstand the depths, and in ships for propulsion.
Flynn’s family was the Rocknuggets’ only competitor for mining aquazite. His family owned a single mine that was not as abundant with ore as the collective
Rocknugget mines were, but it provided enough income to maintain a modest home in the upper part of the city. As the only two families with crystal mines, there was a rivalry between the two houses. The frequent displays of wealth and reckless behavior by Titus was his way of showing which family was winning.
A pang of jealousy gripped Flynn as the joyriding teens flew by him. After his parents disappeared, he took over their mining duties and had little time for such pursuits. He’d already wasted too much time that day and he headed to his family mine until the squeal of a marine creature reverberated through the water.
Titus and his friends were tormenting the whale shark. The cronies flanked the creature and Titus’s ship was directly behind it, prodding it forward. A stream of inky blood trailed behind the mammal and it pumped its tail vigorously to get away, but it could not outrun the powerful ships. A spear protruded from the nose of Titus’ craft and he skimmed over the back of the whale shark, cutting a line across its tail.
“You bastard!” Flynn yelled, nostrils flaring. He pulled his ship into a banking turn, nearly colliding with an unseen manta ray, and he sped toward Titus and his crew. It would be dangerous to provoke the sons of the most powerful families in the city, but he could not allow an innocent creature to be treated that way.
The bullies and the whale entered the Giant’s Fingers, a labyrinth of stone passages flanked by rocky pillars. Flynn knew the area well because it was next to the coral reef where his father’s broken ship was found. It was difficult for a one-man vessel to navigate through, let alone a thirty-foot long whale shark. With four ships on its tail, the bulky creature would surely get stuck, much to the delight of the ones chasing it.