The Deep (11 page)

“But Sapphire has Mer blood, and she went to the Deep.”

“Her blood is mixed, and so is Conor’s. They belong to Earth and Air, and they belong to Ingo. For this reason they can go beyond what those who are pure Mer can do.
Or at least they have a chance of doing so.

“Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you still want to go with them? Do you still believe that you are capable of it? Ask yourself these questions, my son. Don’t look at what you want to believe, but into the truth that lies in your heart, waiting for you to find it.”

I don’t understand what Saldowr’s implying. How can Faro go? It’s useless to suggest it. But there must be something else beneath the surface of Saldowr’s words.

Faro frowns. A shadow of disquiet passes over his face. “What are you saying to me, Saldowr?” he asks harshly. “I am your
scolhyk
and your
holyer
. I belong to Ingo with every drop of my blood. I would die for Ingo’s sake.”

“I believe that, my son,” says Saldowr. “You belong where you choose to belong, just as I do. Are you ready to look into your mirror? It will answer your question if you let it. It will tell you if the Deep will push you away or let you penetrate its dark heart.”

Faro folds his arms. For a moment it looks as if he’s about to challenge Saldowr, and then his arms drop to his sides. “I will look,” he says.

“Then take the mirror.”

Faro reaches out and grasps the handle of the mirror as if it’s a snake that could lash round and bite him. The mirror gleams dully. I can’t see the reflection. I only see its effect.

Color drains from Faro’s face until he’s ashy pale. He
stares into the mirror for a long moment and then shudders all over. The mirror drops through the water onto the sand of the cave floor. Faro’s face is haggard as he mutters, “The mirror is lying.”

“My mirror cannot lie.”

“It’s got to be lying.”

“Then, Faro, you cannot go to the Deep.”

Faro’s face is tormented. He looks round wildly for help, as if he’s caught in a trap. I wish I could help him. I know what it’s like to see your worst fears in that mirror, as I did when it showed me my father living happily in his Mer life. Saldowr should keep his mirror in the treasury of reflections and never let it out. It’s much too dangerous.

“Faro,” I say quietly, trying to show my sympathy, wanting him to know that he’s not alone. But he ignores me. I reach out my hand to him, but he brushes it away. He throws back his head in defiance as if Saldowr isn’t his much-respected teacher but an enemy, like Ervys.

“I will go then,” he says in a strained, harsh voice. “I will go. What choice do I have when Ingo calls on me for help? But I will not carry that cursed mirror with me. I will never touch it again.”

Saldowr rears up on his couch, hair streaming and eyes blazing. “No more!” he orders Faro. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You will come to bless my mirror, not curse it. You say you are my
scolhyk
? Then study. Listen.
Learn
. You cannot reject what you now know.”

The words rap out like bullets. Saldowr sinks back, exhausted, and Faro rushes to him, kneels by the couch, and seizes his hand as if begging forgiveness.

Poor Faro
, I think. Whatever the mirror showed him, he didn’t deserve it. He’s so brave, and it’s clear that the mirror has cut him to the heart. All Faro wanted to do was to help his people. Why does he have to kneel to Saldowr? He loves Saldowr so much. Too much maybe.

Saldowr lays his hand on Faro’s shoulder. “Know yourself,” he says in a gentler voice; “that’s all I ask.” Suddenly he tenses. His hand drops. He’s looking toward the cave mouth, listening.

“We have another visitor,” he says calmly, “and this one won’t wait outside. You may enter, Ervys.”

D
AD USED TO SAY A
game of chess was war by other means. He taught me how the pieces moved when I was five. The kings can’t stand next to each other, Sapphy, he told me, when I tried to make the pieces whizz round the board, doing just what they wanted. He got two magnets out of the toolbox and told me to try to push them together until they touched. I couldn’t do it. The air seemed to go solid and keep the ends of the magnets apart.

Each king has his own force, Dad explained. He can’t stand to be that close to another force, just like these magnets, Sapphy. You try to push them together, but they don’t want to be together. They want their own zones of power. So listen, the idea of this game is to keep your king’s force strong. You’ve got to think like a king with an army.

This didn’t mean much to me when I was five, but it does now.

Ervys comes into the cave like a king, not like a visitor. He has two of his men with him. They don’t carry weapons, but they bear themselves like soldiers. They’re huge, broad-shouldered men with flowing hair and powerful tails. Muscles ripple in their shoulders and arms. They remind me of the gray seals that guard Limina.

I mustn’t show them that I’m afraid. I glance at Conor and Faro. Conor’s looking at them with cool interest. Faro’s face is dark with anger. I feel my way toward his thoughts and hit a storm. He can’t bear the fact that they dared to come here. He’d like to kill them for intruding on Saldowr and seeing him weak like this. But he knows he can’t. His rage swirls and eddies like the tide when it turns. I retreat out of its range.

I thought it was the light in the Assembly chamber that gave the faint blue tinge to Ervys’s skin. But it’s the same here, and his followers have it too. Their eyes have the same silvery sheen. A small flick of the tail, and they move closer. Ervys is in front, his followers just behind.

“Saldowr,” says Ervys.

“Ervys,” responds Saldowr. “And I should greet you too, Talek and Mortarow.”

As Saldowr says their names, a brief look of uneasiness crosses their faces. Saldowr looks past Ervys as if he’s not here and talks directly to the one called
Mortarow. “You remember, Mortarow, how your grandfather served the Tide Knot, as Faro here serves it now?”

Mortarow frowns and glances at Ervys for support, but Ervys doesn’t even look at him.

“That was before my time,” Mortarow answers. “My granddad passed on to Limina when I was three years old.”

“Of course. But you know of it, and I remember your grandfather well. Your family has a long tradition of faithful service to the Tide Knot. I have always trusted in the strength of the sea bulls. Your grandfather and his father before him.”

He says no more. He doesn’t need to. Mortarow mutters something and looks down uncomfortably. But Ervys breaks in. “We have come to talk of the present and the future, not waste time on the past.”

“You think you have,” returns Saldowr equably, “but the present cannot exist without the past.”

“I am not your
scolhyk
, Saldowr,” says Ervys with a cold arrogance that makes Faro clench his fists.

But Saldowr doesn’t react. Instead he smiles faintly and says, “You may have noticed a whale, I think, Ervys, as you entered my cave?”

A stifled snort of laughter comes from Conor, and Ervys glances at us angrily. “Your questions are fit for children, not for a leader among the Mer,” he replies.

“A leader among the Mer,” repeats Saldowr softly. He draws himself up until his eyes are level with Ervys’s. I forget that Saldowr is weak and wounded, and only see the raw power that surges through him. His eyes blaze.

“The Mer have no leaders,” he says with quiet fury. “We have learned the danger of that. Leaders lead to division and bloodshed. We have Guardians, not leaders.”

“But how have our Guardians served us?” asks Ervys smoothly. His right arm sweeps out in a wide, dismissive gesture. “Can you deny that Ingo is torn and full of grief? Can you deny that we are weak? Can you deny that the Tide Knot broke and almost shattered us? Perhaps, Saldowr, if we had had a leader, none of these things would have happened.”

Ervys’s followers close around him, shoulder to shoulder. Mortarow and Talek look confident again and even stronger than they did a few minutes ago. Maybe there are more of Ervys’s supporters waiting outside the cave.

And then Conor moves too. One clean stroke takes him to Saldowr’s side. He looks across at Ervys as if he’s Ervys’s equal. Faro hesitates for a moment. He’s wishing he’d thought of it first. Then he makes up his mind and swoops to Saldowr’s other side. They close in, as Ervys’s followers have done. Saldowr glances from Conor to Faro. A smile flickers across his face.

“Let us return to the subject of that whale,” says Saldowr calmly, putting aside what Ervys has said about leaders.
“She’s patient, but she can’t be patient forever. She’s waiting to take these children to the Deep, Ervys. You know as well as I do that it’s our only chance of avoiding sacrifice to the Kraken.

“The whale knows the patterns of the Deep. Even where darkness covers everything, she can still hear her way. There’s no creature in Ingo like her for understanding echoes and reading the darkness. You would be lost there, and so would I, so let’s not waste our time talking of leaders. Leaders can do nothing against the Kraken in his own territory.”

Ervys and his followers subside and move back a little. But they’re only biding their time; I’m sure of it.

“These children,” says Ervys, waving his hand scornfully at Conor and me. “We hear a lot about what they can do, but so far we have no evidence of it. It’s all words.”

“Evidence!” Once again power flashes from Saldowr. “How can there be evidence or certainty in any of this? I don’t know what is going to happen, nor do they. It’s a risk we have to take.”

When Saldowr says that, the weight of what we’ve agreed to do hits me. At the back of my mind I’ve had the hope that somehow Saldowr magically knows what’s going to happen and knows that we’re going to come back safely. Otherwise he wouldn’t send us, would he? Because he’s an adult, and we’re children….

You idiot, Sapphire. He’s not a
teacher,
worrying about our
safety on a school trip. He’s Mer, and Ingo is under threat.

“And I am going with them,” says Faro proudly, staring at Ervys with defiance.

“Is this true?” demands Ervys of Saldowr. Saldowr nods.

A strange smile flickers over Ervys’s face. “But no Mer can enter the Deep,” he says. “Not even your
scolhyk
and your
holyer
, Saldowr, unless you can break all the laws that govern us. Or unless, in this particular case, for some reason they…don’t apply.”

There is a long silence. Ervys’s followers look puzzled but aggressive, as if they haven’t quite understood what this argument is about but are just as happy to fight it out anyway. Faro understands, though. He pushes forward, but Saldowr restrains him.

“Now is not the time,” says Saldowr, and then a fit of coughing seizes him. Veins stand out on his forehead as he struggles to control it, while Ervys looks on with that smile of satisfaction deepening on his face.

Faro dives for the cup and brings it to Saldowr’s lips. Saldowr drains it, his fingers shaking on the rim. “And now no more, Faro,” he whispers, “no more, even if I beg you for it. I have reached my limit.”

I don’t know whether or not Ervys hears this. He and his followers dominate the cave, gazing at Saldowr as if the sight of his distress pleases them. How dare they? Who asked them to come here? My fists clench, like Faro’s.

“This child has something to say to you,” Saldowr says hoarsely at last, and he indicates me. For a moment I’ve no idea what he means. I’m so caught up in what’s happening that I’ve forgotten all about our bargain. But then Conor nudges me, and I remember.

“We’ve agreed to go to the Deep,” I say. Fear makes my voice shaky, but I swallow hard and look straight at Ervys. He’s not going to scare me out of saying what I mean. Too much depends on it.

“And so?” asks Ervys coldly.

“In return we ask the Mer to agree to something. Our father is in Ingo. Our father must have the choice to return to the human world.”

Ervys frowns deeply and folds his arms. Immediately Mortarow and Talek fold theirs, too.

“This should have been discussed in the Assembly chamber,” growls Ervys.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” says Saldowr.

“She’s asking us to break the law of the Mer.”

Saldowr sighs wearily. “Don’t you understand, Ervys, that everything is broken for us already? The Kraken is awake.”

Ervys ponders angrily. I’m afraid that he’s going to agree with his lips, but not in his heart. I don’t trust him.

“This is blackmail,” he says at last. “I agree to it because I have no choice. Let my followers be my witnesses. Talek, Mortarow, witness that I agree under duress.”

“It’s not blackmail!” I begin hotly, but Saldowr won’t let me speak.

“You are testing my patience, all of you, as well as the patience of the whale. You’re not in the Assembly chamber now, Ervys. The time for talking is over.”

Maybe it’s just old habit that makes Ervys and his followers fall silent. But it’s an ominous, waiting silence. I cling to the hope that Ervys has decided not to cross Saldowr’s will openly now, while he still needs us.

Ervys is strong. Muscles bulge in his arms and shoulders. He is in his prime, and he can afford to wait. His expression says that he’ll get what he wants—if not now, then soon.

If Saldowr dies, we’ll have no protection from Ervys. If Saldowr dies…

No, it can’t happen. We won’t let it happen. If we go to the Deep, if we stop the Kraken, then Ingo will be itself again. Everything will be as it was, and Saldowr will be as we saw him the first time: tall, strong, and more alive than anyone.

The whale is waiting. All the time, I can feel her presence in the back of my mind. Her huge body with its skin that’s wrinkled like an elephant’s. Her box-shaped head and the teeth that would frighten me if I didn’t know her.
We don’t eat your kind, little one.

Her vast tail with the flukes that could knock a boat out of the water. Her sonar that can find a giant squid at
the floor of the ocean, thousands of meters down. And her huge heart. Conor showed me in one of his books that the heart of a sperm whale weighs as much as two men. I think of the heart inside her, pumping and pumping, getting ready for the dive.

I look across at Ervys.
How big is
your
heart? You claim that you’re doing everything for the sake of the Mer, because Saldowr’s weak and can’t save his people anymore. And so you’re the one who’s going to rescue them from the Kraken and get the glory of it. The Mer will be so grateful that they’ll give you anything you ask for. They’ll make you leader, all right.

They’re too close. Saldowr and Ervys shouldn’t be as close as this. You can feel the pressure of it, like two magnets pushing against each other.

What’s Conor doing? At a murmur from Saldowr he’s dropped behind Faro. Suddenly I see that Conor has the mirror in his hand. He’s not looking into it, but he’s rubbing at the metal back. Polishing it.

“Give me my mirror, Conor,” says Saldowr. Conor passes it, and as Saldowr takes it, the metal flashes like lightning in the summer sky. The dull metal is suddenly brilliant. Ervys and his followers raise their hands in the gesture I remember from the Assembly chamber: hands up, fingers crossed as if they’re warding off evil.

“I see you’ve cleaned my mirror for me, Conor,” says Saldowr. “All these years we’ve never managed to get a
shine on it, have we, Faro? Perhaps it was waiting for this occasion. Waiting for you, Ervys, do you think?”

Ervys says nothing.

“Yes, I think so…. I believe my mirror knows that you are here. It wants to see you, Ervys.”

Ervys lets his hands fall to his sides again. Reluctantly his followers do the same. You can see that they don’t want to. They’re rattled now, uneasy, glancing at Ervys to see what to do and then at Saldowr.

“You’ve come here uninvited,” says Saldowr. “You’ve cast doubts on these children’s courage. Let’s see
your
courage, Ervys. Look into my mirror.”

A little gap appears in the water between Ervys and his followers. Yes, they’re separating themselves from him. Shrinking away. He’s too clever not to see it and know what it means. He swims forward.

“Your mirror doesn’t frighten me,” he says.

It’s obvious that it does. His color has gone. His lips are set in a tight line. Even so, he reaches out his hand.

“Look into it well,” Saldowr tells him, and turns the mirror to face Ervys.

The water seems to turn to ice around Ervys. Slowly his hair lifts as if a current is drawing it, until it stands around his head in a halo. His eyes glare into the mirror, fixed.

“So stand there, Ervys,” murmurs Saldowr, “stand there, and let my mirror teach you.”

How stupid I was to believe that Saldowr was like a benign wizard in a children’s book. Ervys has trespassed, disrespected the Groves of Aleph and Saldowr’s own cave. He taunted Saldowr with his weakness. He brought his followers to swagger here. He challenged Saldowr, and Saldowr didn’t challenge him in return.

Ervys must have thought he’d won already and that Ingo was his. But Saldowr has done the most terrible thing of all. He has shown Ervys himself. Ervys looks as if he’s been turned to stone. His followers raise their hands, shielding their faces.

“No,” Saldowr commands them, “you must look at Ervys, unless you want to take his place.”

He wants them to see Ervys humbled. They know it, and Ervys must know it. Talek and Mortarow almost certainly don’t want to take Ervys’s place, so they gawp at him obediently. A smile of triumph curls on Faro’s mouth as he too stares at Ervys, but I look away.

At last, after long minutes, Saldowr removes the mirror. Slowly Ervys’s tortured grimace fades into a more normal expression. He shudders all over, and then with a huge effort he regains himself. He gives Saldowr a look of such hatred that I’m chilled. The hatred flashes around the cave like cold fire, over me and Faro and Conor, even over his followers. He hates us all because we’ve witnessed his defeat.