“Miss me?” I asked, trying to spit blood and only managing to bloody the water.
“I did, in fact,” he said smugly. “It gave me time to consider how to help you meet your end when we’re done with you. The Draven agreed to leave that part to me.”
“And the Saaasallla?” I asked. “Did he give you instructions? Or should I say ‘orders’ since you are his errand boy?”
A slap made my head ring, but I accepted that. More than that – I yearned for more. Every jab, every push bought my dragon more time to scale the sea mountain undetected.
“The Saaasallla is not here. This choice is all mine. I thought about slitting your throat and breathing your blood in with the water – but it seemed too quick.”
“You know that’s gross, right? You can be a bad guy and not be disgusting.” There was no slap. Maybe that one hadn’t stung.
“Then I thought about capturing your soul. That might be nice, but you don’t really have anything I want and yet you’re too powerful for me to give to a rival. So, I don’t think I’d like to do that.”
“Can’t handle me in your belly, Branson? Don’t have a strong enough stomach?” I taunted him.
He smiled.
“I thought about a lot of options, but in the end – while you were away – I settled on my favorite.” He lifted his rod and set it against my forehead. “This is going to be good.”
“If you’re planning to blow bubbles with that,” I said icily, “You should know that I’m not scared of that at all.”
He snickered.
“Oh no, little cousin. No, I thought to myself, how much fun would it be to take your memories.”
“Not exactly original. Don’t the Draven do that all the time.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “But they do it all at once. I plan to do it a little at a time. I’ll make it start with just a few – and then it will take more and more. That way, you’ll know that they’re being taken. And you can watch in horror as I slowly strip you of yourself. And then I’ll make you a pet. And I’ll make you follow me around and fetch things I need or kneel on all fours to be my footstool. I’ll like that. I can do anything to you – anything I want. And you won’t fight me. You won’t even complain. Because it will be the only life you’ve ever known.”
I felt a chill in my belly. It wouldn’t go away.
“Is it so hard to find friends that you have to erase memories to get anyone to be around you willingly?” I asked, but the bite wasn’t in it. I was too afraid that he’d do what he was threatening.
The point where the rod touched my head grew hot.
I tried to step backward, but rough hands grabbed my arms, holding me in place.
“The key,” Branson said. “Is to make sure we don’t erase the keys to the Haroc. So, let’s start with a long time ago. With your memories of Tambrel. Remember your parents? Your siblings?”
Memories – faint and dull with time – flashed through my mind.
“Now,” he said with a smirk. “Try to remember that again.”
He was tricking me. I knew it.
But when I tried to pull up the memories again, there was nothing there. I felt a stab of icy fear shoot through me. Were they ... they weren’t really gone were they?
Panic bubbled up inside me and I urgently fought it down. I’d sworn to do this – to get Nasataa on the Haroc, no matter what it took. Even this. But I felt my first stab of doubt. Would he take everything from me just like he promised? Would I end up so broken that I looked to Branson with devotion in my eyes like Heron had done with Atura?
Could I allow that? Could I make that sacrifice?
His smile grew bigger. “See? This is going to be fun!”
“Done playing with your food?” A voice said from behind him.
Branson turned me with the hand in my hair so that we could look at Atura as she swam over. She had a collar with a bubble over it the same as mine. Where had she gotten that?
“Neat little device, don’t you think?” she asked, running a finger over the collar. “My father took it from the Blue Dragons when the Draven were finished plundering their cities. I have one for you, Branson – if you’re a good boy. Are you a good boy?”
She made a pouty face as she spoke like she was talking to a pet rather than another human.
“What do you want, Atura?” Branson asked bitterly through his Bubbler mask. “Just because the Saaasallla set you free doesn’t mean that you are now my equal.
“I never claimed to be your equal, Branson,” she said with an answering smile. Every time they used each others’ names, it felt like they were stabbing each other with knives. “I am your better. You should remember that.”
“Don’t think that you can come here and poach my prize,” Branson said through clenched teeth. “I’m bringing her to the Draven. We’re going to finally get that Haroc unlocked. And I will have my victory.”
Atura raised her voice. “The Saaasallla has arrived – only minutes ago. He has ordered that the Troitan be brought to him for inspection before she is handed over to our Draven masters.”
Around me, the Bubblers moved slightly, seeming to stand up a little straighter as she faced him.
“Shall we go then?” she asked him, but her words were sheathed in steel.
“If I say no?” he asked – pushing her just a little.
“Then I hope you have the allies to back up your little rebellion.”
I realized, finally, that she looked a lot different than the last time I’d seen her. It wasn’t just the collar that let her breathe air and talk. And it wasn’t just that she was clean and tidy again. She wasn’t dressed as a Bubbler. She was dressed in a clean-cut suit clearly meant for underwater. It clung to her with a thick fabric that served as much as protection as for modesty. But more than that – her face had a very slight overlay – as if she was beginning to be tattooed but they hadn’t finished the job.
And the tattoo looked like the overlay of a skull.
Chapter Seven
“I’ve seen that pretty skull tattoo before,” I said as Atura crossed over to me, grabbed the woven collar around my neck and tugged me after her.
“Have you?” she asked, her tone clipped.
It was hard to talk while being dragged by the neck, but the more trouble I could stir up here, the more chance that Heron and Nasataa could escape while everyone was distracted, so I kept pushing.
“I saw it on the face of the man who ordered Branson’s parents’ deaths,” I said as we passed him.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He sounded bitter and I looked back and met his eyes, stumbling when Atura pulled me forward anyway.
“Sure,” I said. “Did you know Atura was the one who killed them? She was better at this when she was seven than you are right now.”
The look on his face almost cut me. Pain and loss ripped across it followed by black anger.
Well. I’d wanted to stir up drama. This would be drama.
“What are you doing?” Atura hissed, dragging me along after her.
“Oh, you know, just bragging about what a stone-dead killer you are. Get it? Stone, like the people you suck the souls out of?”
The look on her face was a thunderhead as she dragged me up onto the top of Branson’s anthrod and kicked it into motion.
“We’re riding a crab? We can’t just swim?” I had to keep at it – needling her as much as possible. The angrier she was, the more mistakes she would make.
“That’s my anthrod!” Branson protested from behind us.
“Get another one,” Atura barked, not even glancing behind her as she kicked the anthrod into a full scuttle.
“Your outfit is different. Did they take those red robes away? I hope it wasn’t something I did.”
She snarled. “It is an honor to be raised from the ranks of the Bubblers to my true position as the daughter of the Saaasallla.”
“And a bit of a lifesaver since the Draven seemed to think you were little
more than trash after you didn’t have their keys,” I said. “Daddy arrived just in time.”
Atura pulled my collar so that I had to look her in the eye.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” she hissed. “And that isn’t going to be true for very long. So get all the insults you want in there, but know this – the Saaasallla is not merciful. The Saaasallla is not forgiving. If you offend him, he will make you pay in ways that Branson or I can only dream of.”
“You’re saying he can do something worse than turn me into a rock?” I asked wryly.
“Yes.”
“Worse than giving me the memories of the dead?”
“Yes.”
“Worse than stealing my soul?”
“Yes.”
“Well, spit it out! I’m dying of curiosity now.”
Her face was dark with anger as she replied. “He can put you in Branson’s body. Imagine that? Living forever in the body of your worst enemy. Or in this anthrod. You’d never again speak to those you love. Never even be able to tell them that you’re in there. He can destroy your world in ways worse than you can imagine.”
I steeled myself with as much courage as I could. “Like he did to you when he killed your mother?”
She gasped.
“Like he did to you when he made you kill innocent people when you were a child?”
She looked pale now.
“Like he did to you when he sent you on an impossible quest that you were certain to fail?”
She hit me and even cushioned by the water it made my ears ring.
“That’s enough from you. Be silent until we arrive.”
I held my tongue after that. Held it as she bound my hands and tied a rope to the collar so she could drag me around with it. But all that time I was thinking and planning. There had to be a way to slip out of these bonds and out of her grasp. If I could just hold everyone off until Nasataa sat on the Haroc, it would be okay. I just had to focus and make that happen.
And if I could bring down Atura and Branson in the process, I would.
Oh, I would.
Chapter Eight
I suppose I should have expected that the absolute ruler of a cruel hierarchical nation would arrive somewhere with pomp and circumstance, even underwater. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t even realized that you could put up pavilions the size of small palaces underwater – or that you could light them with magical flames that burned magenta.
As Atura whipped the anthrod into the fastest skitter it could manage – running the thing half to death to get to the establishment at the base of the mountain – I let the view sink in.
This was crazy. Anyone who put that kind of effort – and magic! – into something built only for their own magnificence was evil.
What had I expected? Of course, he was evil. He was responsible for the suffering and deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocents – his own people. People who had counted on him to rule them with kindness.
And I was going to have to face him now. I didn’t think it would be as easy to distract him as it had been to distract Atura.
I glanced behind me, wondering what everyone else was doing while Atura made her headlong sprint toward the underwater pavilion. Branson wasn’t far behind, whipping his own anthrod into a frenzy. Who would have thought that you could make these strange creatures move so fast? It was like the world’s slowest race.
All the other anthrods in the area followed like a swarm of insects. Good. We had all human and anthrod eyes on us.
That meant that Heron and Nasataa only had to deal with the Draven. Only. As if they weren’t the worst thing out there! But I had to trust that Heron could do this. I had to let him be my wings and fly this thing home. It was my only chance.
I fidgeted with my tied hands. The ropes chafed – especially underwater. I couldn’t reach anything or steady myself and my Dragon Staff was gone. I’d lost it when they’d been trying to kick me into submission. I was going into this as vulnerable as possible. If only I could get that collar off my neck!
I’d handle the bound hands just fine if I could get my mind unbound.
As if prompted by the thought, another vision rocketed through me.
“Why here?” I was asking the glowing Troglodyte. He was small as Troglodytes went, and only his luminescence lit the tall underground cave we were in.
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT.
I wouldn’t call a cave ‘plain sight.’
I THINK YOU HUMANS CALL IT, ‘A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK.
Well, that was accurate. I placed the key – small and steel with a single arrow stamped into it – on a hook on the wall. At the Troglodyte’s direction, I’d already placed hundreds of other keys there over the years.
I still didn’t understand why.
ONE DAY, A HERO WILL COME HERE WITH KEYS ON HER MIND. SHE’LL NEED THIS KEY.
And how would she know which one to take? If we were leaving this for someone, maybe we should leave just the one key so she wouldn’t be confused.
THE SHEER NUMBER PROTECTS THE KEY. NO ONE ELSE WILL GUESS WHICH KEY TO TAKE.
But how would the hero know?
WE HAVE TUNED IT TO THE SONG OF OUR CHILDREN – THE BLUE DRAGONS. ANY WHO HEAR THE SONG WILL FIND THE KEY.
What was it a key for?
AN ANCIENT THING. OLDER THAN US.
That was pretty old. I thought the Troglodytes were the oldest things on the earth.
HUMANS ARE OLDER. THIS IS A HUMAN THING.
Why not just give the hero the thing instead of only the key?
HER ENEMIES WILL USE THE THING AGAINST HER. THIS WILL HELP HER ESCAPE.
Troglodytes were difficult to understand sometimes. If I had an ancient thing that was going to be used against an ally, I’d destroy it.
IT IS NECESSARY.
Why?
SHE MUST SEE WHAT IT SHOWS BEFORE THE END.
I shrugged, stepping back from the key. Hiding them all here had been the work of years. I sure hoped it turned out to be for some reason.
“Seleska?” Atura’s voice snapped me out of the vision and I shook myself, stunned. “Pull yourself together. I will not bring an empty-headed fool before my Saaasallla.”
The key – the very one from the vision – was in my belt pouch. If my hands weren’t tied, I could pull it out right now. I felt a chill at the knowledge that freedom was so close – and yet too far away. For now. All I needed to do was to get my hands untied.
For the first time since they put this collar on me, I felt grateful. I had a chance to be free of it – if I could just find a way to take it. A chance I would never have guessed was possible.
We were close to the door of the pavilion when Atura pulled the anthrod up short in front of a line of guards four deep and dozens wide. They stood along the seafloor as if their boots had been planted there, the red flowing robes of Bubblers swirling around them in the ocean current and their masks covering their faces. It felt surreal to see them like that – even more than my last vision.
“We’re about to go in there,” Atura said, leaping off the anthrod and settling on the ocean floor. She tugged the rope around my neck so that I slipped off his back and tumbled to the seafloor, struggling to stand again without the use of my hands and with a rope dragging against the collar around my neck. “You will remain silent. You will not speak to the Saaasallla. You will not look at him. You will kneel and keep your eyes to the ground. Is that understood?”
“If I’m going to die anyway, it seems like a waste of time to kneel and pretend I care,” I said. I was watching out of the corner of my eye as Branson gained on us. If I could keep her distracted until he arrived, there would be more drama. More distraction. More time lost so that Heron and Nasataa could achieve their goal.
“There are deaths and there are deaths,” Atura said. “I can offer you a quick and painless death if you don’t humiliate me. Is that understood?”
“Yes, I can see how death would be a tempting offer when dealing with you. I bet
that’s why you don’t have any friends hanging around except for the ghosts of the people you killed. Did they all choose death over kneeling, too?”
“Just hold your tongue – or I will ask the Saaasallla to gift it to me.”
I shut my mouth with a click, and she seemed satisfied. But I’d bought the time I needed. Branson’s anthrod skidded to a halt beside us and he leapt down from it, eyes flashing.
“If you think you can cheat me out of this victory, Atura, you are wrong!”
Atura gave him a stony look, but she didn’t reply. She simply turned and began to pull me after her into the entrance of the pavilion.
And though I knew I had to do this, my belly churned at the thought of seeing her father, the Saaasallla – the man responsible for the hundreds of deaths I’d witnessed in my memories.
Chapter Nine
If I’d expected the pomp to end at the door, I would have been in for a big surprise. It was like the Rock Eaters were just ignoring the fact that they were underwater. Servants stood just inside the door carrying platters with fluid-filled bottles – tightly stoppered, of course. Others held glowing magic braziers up high, as if they were lamp posts and not people. And others were simply arranged in artistic poses, doing double-duty as servants and also as art.
If I didn’t already know that the Rock Eater empire valued human life somewhere below goats and barely above pond scum, I might have found that shocking. Part of me still did – but the brazen part, the part that was flying high on my new-found guts and determination to play my part – that part breezed over the horror of it. After all, in less than a day this would all be over one way or another. Either Nasataa would win and all these people could find freedom if they wanted to fight for it – or I would be dead and would not be able to mourn the pain of others anymore.
Beyond the servants and into the great pavilion, guards stood tightly arranged along a long red carpet that someone had spread on the seafloor. The absurdity of it made my mouth twitch but even stranger were the row upon row of people – masked like Bubblers, but in heavy, thickly folded clothing that was nothing like Bubbler robes. It was more like clothing I remembered from the dolls of my early childhood – when I had been a rich princess rather than an island girl – only these dresses went from chin to floor and were layered so thickly that the people under them could be male or female, large or small, tall or short and no one would be able to tell. Though the colors and patterns of the thick cloth were distinct, the people looked as uniform as the guards and Bubblers.
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