Tylar could only imagine such a sight. As the Hundred were bound by blood to the lands they settled, it was rare for one god to meet another. Occasionally those who shared neighboring realms would meet at the borders, but even that was rare.
“Some say,” Rogger began, lasciviously cocking up an eyebrow, “that the two were once lovers. Before the Sundering. Now I’d slap down a silver yoke or two to see those two together.”
Color rose darkly to Delia’s cheeks, but before she could reprimand him, shouts burst from the port side.
“The weed is opening!” a man in the high riggings called down. He pointed an arm.
Those gathered atop the deck rushed to the port rail. Tylar was pulled along with them, trailed by Rogger and Delia.
A lone sailor left on the starboard side rubbed prayer beads together. “Everyone on your knees!” he yelled to his ship-mates. “Beg forgiveness from she who moves beneath! Cast the blasphemer from our sight!”
A few glanced to the crazed supplicant until someone in the rigging threw a tin cup at the man’s head. He cried out and went silent.
Captain Grayl stepped to Tylar’s side, plainly worried the tense crew might mutiny against his sworn charge. “Stay close,” he warned. “No telling when the lot of ’em might forget how you fought off the jelly shark and saved their filthy hides.”
Grayl cleared a way to the port rail. Tylar stared at the rolling spread of weed. Its sweet scent wafted stronger now.
“Something’s rising!” the crewman in the nest yelled.
They all saw it a moment later. Through the gap in the weed, a huge black bubble rose from below. It surfaced, sluicing water from its iridescent smooth sides.
“A deepwater pod,” Rogger said.
The top of the bubble peeled open like the petals of a nightshade. Cupped within the center were six men, tall, muscled, hairless from crown to heel. They were naked, except for snug loincloths that blended with their skin, a fish-belly paleness striped in swatches of gray, brown, and ebony.
In their right hands, they carried spears that glinted in the sun. Traceries of green phosphorous crackled along the shafts. Weapons blessed with Grace.
Tylar knew who stood before the ship. The elite guard of Fyla. The Hunters of the Deep. The Shadowknights of the seas.
Their leader stepped forward onto the closest edge of the folded petal of the pod. “Tylar de Noche!” he called to the ship. His voice was oddly nasal, but still rich with authority. “You are ordered by she who moves below to present yourself to her court, to address the heinous acts of which you are accused.”
Captain Grayl gripped Tylar’s elbow and whispered fiercely. “It is certain doom.”
“No doubt, but we have no choice here.”
“We can still fight. I have archers in the riggings, ready on my word. I owe you my ship, my life.”
“And I would have you lose neither defending me.” Tylar freed himself from the captain’s grip.
“Then what will you do?”
Tylar found Rogger and Delia staring at him. “I will go. Once you’re all safely out of harm’s reach, I’ll seek another way to escape.” He had little hope for such a possibility. He barely understood the Graces that ran through his blood and bile, let alone how to use them. And the daemon inside could not save him from drowning.
Delia shook her head. “I’m going with you. I can speak on your behalf. Fyla might listen to words coming from Meeryn’s blood servant.”
“And where you go, I go,” Rogger added.
Tylar sought words to argue. He wanted to bravely cast aside their loyalties, but in his heart, he found strength in their companionship.
Before he could settle the matter, a shudder passed through the ship. Sails shook, ropes rattled in their stanchions, planks trembled underfoot. Cries arose throughout the ship.
“What’s happening?” Delia squeaked.
Captain Grayl answered, “We’re sinking!”
Leaning over the rail, Tylar saw the waterline climb the flanks of the ship. “It’s the skagging tangleweed!” Grayl spat. “It’s pulling us under!”
The leader of the Hunters called out again. “Tylar de Noche! Show yourself or the ship and all aboard will be drowned!”
The Grim Wash continued its shuddering descent into the choked seas, pulled from below. There was no more time for discussion or debate.
Tylar raised an arm high. “I am here! Spare the ship and I will come freely!”
With his words, the tremble in the ship stopped.
The eyes of the Hunters narrowed on him. The Grim Wash remained half-submerged, awaiting his cooperation.
“I must go,” Tylar said.
Captain Grayl wore a determined but resigned expression. “I’ll drop a rope ladder.”
It was all done hastily. The crew was anxious for Tylar to abandon the ship. A few looked ready to simply push him overboard. As he swung a leg over the rail, Grayl grabbed his arm and twisted his wrist.
“What-?”
“Here,” Grayl said. “A return for the remainder of the journey not sailed.” Three gold marches were dropped into his palm.
Tylar shoved them back. “Where I go, I have no need for coin.”
The captain refused to accept them, and the marches fell between their fingers and bounced on the planks.
Rogger set upon them in an instant. “Who says we won’t need coins? You sound like a man heading to the gallows.”
Tylar frowned at him.
“Trust me,” the thief continued. “I’ve lived enough lives to know that the future is never fixed to one path. And no matter which course opens, a bit of gold never hurt.” He jangled his pocket and waved Tylar over the rail. “Now get going before I change my mind about following someone so lacking in good sense.”
Tylar mounted the ladder and descended while Rogger helped Delia over the rail. They didn’t have far to climb. The water’s edge was three-quarters of the way up the ship’s side.
Tylar reached the last rung, ready to jump into the seas and swim to the awaiting Hunters. He turned to get his bearings and found the deepwater pod floating toward the boat, petals extended toward Tylar’s group. The weeds parted before its path.
After a moment, the lead petal’s edge bumped against the ship. Tylar stepped out onto it, wary of his footing. He needn’t have worried. What appeared delicate was firm and steady. Thick veins ran through the leafy petal, supporting it. It was a living thing, a part of the mass of tangleweed.
He stepped away, allowing room for Delia and Rogger. Up at the rail, Captain Grayl raised a hand in sad farewell.
Tylar nodded, mystified by the simple nobility of someone tied to the notorious Flaggers. He had always known that the world was more gray than black and white, but he had never imagined that gray came in so many shades.
Rogger spoke as he stepped onto the petal, his eyes focused on the pod’s center. “Let’s hope these Hunters are half as hospitable as our good captain has been.”
Tylar turned to face the gathered guards. Closer now, he spotted the ribbed lines that shadowed either side of the Hunters’ throats. Gill breathers, like all who lived in Tangle Reef. They could live for short spells above the waters, but it was uncomfortable, and after a day’s time, they would sicken and die unless they returned to the seas.
Tylar led Delia and Rogger forward. The points of five spears tracked them. Only the leader kept his weapon by his side.
“I am Kreel,” he said when they were a step away from him. “Know that you will die on my spear if you attempt any misdeed. She who we serve has blessed me with the sight to see any flows of Grace, whether dark or bright. Cast any charms or summon your daemon and I will know it within a breath, and you will die on the next.”
Tylar noted a glint in the other’s eyes that had nothing to do with the sun overhead. He spoke the truth. There was power hidden there. Tylar refused to flinch from his gaze. “I swear that I will bring no harm to anyone in Tangle Reef unless provoked. As
you protect your god and people, so I will my friends here.”
Kreel nodded and stepped back, opening the way to the pod.
They gathered into the center of the pod. The Hunters stood at the edges, spears pointing at them like the spokes of a wheel.
“What about the ship?” Tylar asked.
Kreel nodded. “They will leave unharmed.”
As proof of his word, the Grim Wash suddenly bobbed up amid small cries of distress from the crew. The boat had been set free. Tylar watched as a lane opened in the weed behind the ship’s stern. He heard Grayl’s gruff voice bark orders. Sails climbed up the masts. Even before they could be unfurled, the ship began to move, gliding down the open space in the tangle.
“The weed’s pushing ’em,” Rogger said. “Shoving them out of here.”
Tylar watched. “At least they’re honoring their word in this regard.”
“I suspect it’s not so much honor that grants this boon.”
Tylar glanced to the thief.
He nodded to the retreating ship. “There goes all hope of ever escaping Tangle Reef.”
With those words, the petals of the pod folded up and over their heads, forming a seamless seal. Instead of darkness, the space glowed with a soft green luminescence, filtered sunlight through leaf.
As they began their descent, Tylar was reminded again that the pod was a living part of the weed… and they’d just been swallowed up.
For a long silent stretch, they continued blindly into the depths, pulled smoothly by a stalk underneath the pod. Tylar, standing in the center, sensed tiny vibrations through his boots.
“Look,” Delia whispered, drawing his attention to the walls.
When they had first begun their descent, filtered sunlight from the surface had slowly faded to eternal darkness. A small glass lamp-a fire lantern blessed with a single drop of blood from a fire god-had been shaken and bloomed with a tiny flame to light the darkening space.
Now, like an onion peeling, the outermost layer of the pod’s walls had begun to fold back. Translucent walls transformed to fine crystal, opening a clear view to the seas beyond the pod.
Tylar gaped.
All around, a vast forest spread through the dark waters, lit by glowing globes that hung from arched branches. Slender trunks rose in fanciful spirals, while giant fronded leaves waved everywhere. Currents wafted entire sections in slow, undulating dances, moving to a music beyond their hearing.
Rogger spoke. “Who would’ve guessed that snarl topside would look so handsome from down here?”
“I thought you’d been here before?” Tylar said.
He hitched a thumb upward. “Only to the surface docks. I was branded under the sun. To travel down more than a handful of fathoms is forbidden to all but a select few. The mistress here likes to keep the true face of Tangle Reef turned away from sunlight and wind.”
A sudden storm of luminous pinpricks swept up the pod, swirled in eddies like a snowstorm, then rolled away.
“Sea sprites,” Delia said, amazed, following their flight as they fluttered away. “They’re the tiniest bits of sea life, more energy than substance.”
Other larger denizens came swimming up with flicks of tails or writhes of bodies: sharkrays, nibblecray, mantai, and a monstrously large gobdasher. This last curious visitor dwarfed the pod and stared in at them with one baleful yellow eye, then the other. Its mouth cracked enough to reveal three rows of palm-sized teeth, razor edged. But a school of puffer crabs chased it off, jetting through the water with little bursts and nipping claws at the gobdasher’s tail.
Tylar watched it flee through the forest. Farther away, movement caught his eye. Something shifted as the gobdasher passed. It made their recent visitor look like a minnowette. Tylar caught a brief glimpse of flailing tentacles, falling upon the gobdasher; then the sight vanished away as their pod descended farther into the depths.
Tylar knew what he had seen.
A miiodon… very likely the same one that had attacked the Grim Wash.
Kreel stirred from his place by the fire lamp. “The Reef,” he announced.
Tylar turned. A starscape sprawled below. Glow globes, fire lanterns, and natural phosphorescence mapped out small homes, towering villas, terraces, and courts. Crowning it all, a vast castillion blazed, appearing on fire from the number of lamps lining its parapets and towers.
Their pod dropped toward the tallest tower, dragged by a winding stalk that disappeared down its open throat.
As they drew nearer, figures appeared, limned in the city’s glow. They swam or floated among the buildings, which seemed to be constructed of the same sturdy material as their pod. A lone girl, arms laden with an empty net, glided through the waters with small flicks of her ankles and twists of her torso. She swept up to the pod.
Kreel noted her approach and made a keening sound that set Tylar’s teeth to throbbing. In response, the girl spun in place and with a swift kick of her legs sped away.
The pod reached the tower’s top and continued down its throat. All sight vanished to the sides. Overhead, the glowing opening retreated as they dropped into the depths of the castillion.
Heading to the dungeons, Tylar thought sourly.
After another moment, a rough bump shook the pod and almost knocked him on his backside. They had stopped. He glanced to his companions but found only worry in their expressions.
Tylar searched upward. The tiny circle of light vanished as a hatch pinched closed just overhead. Once sealed, a gurgling vibrated through the pod.
“They’re draining the water,” Delia whispered.
Bubbles danced all around the pod. In only a few breaths, the waterline trembled down the sides and disappeared away. As the gurgling ceased, a light bloomed to the right, outlining an open doorway. One of the pod’s petals peeled toward the new glow.
An empty passage awaited them.
Two of the Hunters hurried ahead and flanked the entry.
Kreel pointed his spear. “She awaits in the grotto.”
Tylar stepped out of the pod, leading his companions. The low passage was tubular with curving walls, lit by a vein of phosphorescence that ran along the ceiling. The air was damp but surprisingly warm, smelling of salt crust and algae.
They proceeded down the passage. Kreel kept a step behind them. Tylar felt his eyes on him, a dagger tickling his neck. He studied the pair of Hunters ahead of him.
One Hunter scratched a finger along his gill flaps, fluttering them, clearly dry and irritated. Their escorts had been out of the water a fair amount of time.
Tylar could not fathom why someone would choose this life for a child. The denizens of the Reef drank a special elixir when heavy with child, an alchemy of Graces from Fyla herself. It touched the growing babe in the womb, blessed its development. And though there were other folk that chose similar paths by imbibing godly elixirs when with child-producing loam-giants, fire walkers, and wind wraiths-at least these offspring still lived in the world of land and air. Why abandon the world above for such an isolated life below?
The passage ended at a translucent door. Brighter light from beyond set it aglow, but details remained murky. As they neared, the door parted, splitting in a perfect star pattern and withdrawing away in five sections.
A sweet billow washed over them. Tylar recognized it immediately.
The aroma of the tangleweed flower.
The two Hunters stepped through the open portal first, dropping to their knees just past the threshold. Kreel nudged Tylar with the tip of his spear.
Tylar entered a grotto of breathtaking beauty.
The space opened under an arched dome, large enough to hold all of Summer Mount and festooned with hanging plants, vines, and bright flowers. Light blazed from a single colossal fire lantern as wide as a man’s outstretched arms. It floated in the center of the dome’s space, unsupported, rolling and drifting gently over the landscape below.
Lit beneath it, pools and waterfalls graced walkways lined with flowe
rs unlike any seen under the sun. Rather than growing from soil, their beds were streams and sculpted puddles. Flowers of every hue grew riotous among trees and leafy bushes. Some he recognized: honeybloom, jasper’s heart, wyldpetal, sea-dandle, and ghost palm. Most were unknown. Strange fruit hung from one fronded tree, appearing like yellow vipers, twisting and hanging from branches. Another tree’s leaves twinkled with a soft violet radiance.
Every glance held a new wonder.
Delia spoke at his shoulder, a whisper of a whisper. “The Sacred Grotto. It is said Fyla collects her botanicals from all over Myrillia, some even from the hinterlands.”
Tylar simply stared. He had never imagined such beauty under the seas.
Kreel waved them forward, never taking his eyes from Tylar.
They were led down the central path that wound into the heart of the grotto. The guards maintained a ring around them, Kreel at their backs.
All about, the babble and tinkle of water echoed. Passing over one bridge, Tylar happened to glance down and saw another of the Reef’s Hunters glide along the channel below. The spear in his hand was plain to see.
Rogger noted the same. “I have read of this place.” He waved an arm over his head. “This is but half of the garden. The other half lies beneath our feet, a maze of waterways and flooded caves. She could hide an entire army down there and we’d never know it.”
Tylar’s sense of wonder dimmed as his anxiety rose again.
They mounted a long bridge, one that arched in a graceful curve over a wide pond. The waters below teemed with sea life: from tiny tick eels to the sweep of giant mantai. Schools of fish silvered the waters as they shimmered and danced.
In the center of the pond rose a tall island surrounded by a white sand beach. The fire lantern hovered directly over its peak, shining upon the rich flora flowing over the cliffs and slopes. From its very top, a frothing spring jetted high into the air, then raced down its sides in rivulets and cascades back to the pond. The most dramatic course was a wide waterfall in front: a flow of molten silver fell sheer from the peak’s top into a small rocky basin at its base.
As they reached the bridge’s end, the two lead Hunters crossed their spears, barring the way onto the island. The green phosphorescence of their blessed weapons flared brighter.
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