Crystal Doors #2: Ocean Realm (No. 2) (26 page)

As the whale picked up speed, coming closer and closer, the soldiers aboard the galley braced themselves. Some threw harpoons, but they were like tiny needles to the beast, not powerful enough to make it pause.

Rubicas swiftly altered the aja crystal rune on the side of the spell-barrel, and Lyssandra’s father heaved the barrel over his head with both hands and threw it down into the path of the oncoming whale.

Only a second after the barrel struck the water, the bubble spell dissolved and the sea fireworks erupted right in front of the gigantic black creature. Rockets and feathers and horsetails of light in blue, orange, red, and yellow splashed in all directions. The whale reared, spinning so that one wide fleshy flipper splashed up. Then the creature dove deep under the water, blinded by the flash as sparks continued to sizzle in all directions.

Lyssandra had been unable to tear her eyes away, but Sage Pierce tugged on her arm. Startled by an ominous howling sound, she turned to see one of the waterspouts racing toward them, whipping up spray.

“I guess they noticed us after all!” Sage Pierce gunned the magical engines and the speedboat circled, dodging through the water. He steered the boat on a zigzag course, and the sea tornadoes gave chase, though the merlons could not move the waterspouts so accurately. They had much larger concerns with the Elantyan war fleet.

The bubletts were already under the water, and Sage Pierce tried to circle around to get back to the right spot in the ocean. “Time to dive!” he called, pulling the full face mask over his eyes, nose, and mouth. The two of them jumped overboard, leaving the purple speedboat just as the waterspout glanced past.

Lyssandra plunged into the sea as the funnel of silvery white froth rocked and then capsized the boat like a toy, and spun it around. She felt herself being pulled by the current, sucked back toward the surface. She couldn’t breathe. Her gills flapped, but her lungs still held air. Finally, she expelled the bubbles, coughing and choking, trying to reset her lungs to accept seawater. But she wasn’t strong enough to swim against the maelstrom.

Sage Pierce, with his weight belt, sank rapidly. He moved his arms and flippered feet to swim, though he was already out of the current’s clutches. Then, unexpectedly, Polup’s bublett streaked in front of Lyssandra, and she grabbed the metal fin at the back of the teardrop base. As the little vessel dove, she held on, letting the anemonite sage pull her deep out of harm’s way. Finally she drew a swift rushing breath through her gill slits and felt energy flood into her bloodstream again.

The tornado churned past, rumbling like thunder under water.

Flashes of color showed that the sea fireworks bombardment was continuing. The four anemonite bubletts, towing Lyssandra and now Vic’s father, as well, streaked downward toward the fairy-tale structures of the merlon city.

30

THREE MERLON GUARDS WERE stationed just outside the scalloped windoor, again. The cousins had been taken back to the undersea tower to wait alone while Tiaret and Sharif worked at Lavaja Canyon alongside the rest of the slaves. With a growing sense of dread, Vic feared that he and Gwen would soon be forced to cooperate.

Now that Azric had shown them Vic’s mother frozen in ice coral, the dark sage seemed confident he could bend them to his will. Vic felt miserable. He no longer had any idea how they could get out of this.

Thinking about his mother, he wondered if there might not be some way to free her from the ice coral. Doctors sometimes saved people who had died of hypothermia, but he wasn’t sure how it was done. And this was tied to some kind of spell. Simply smashing his mother out of the ice coral could be deadly if he didn’t know what he was doing.

Gwen stared out the guarded windoor to the open undersea expanse. “Hey, Taz! Something’s going on out there!” Her voice carried equal measures of concern and hope.

Vic joined her, saw undersea warriors moving about the merlon city in a flurry. They swam in squads, summoning packs of trained sharks, rallying sea serpents, all of them rushing up toward the distant surface. They even saw King Barak riding with Azric in a strange seashell chariot drawn by serpents.

“Somebody must have sounded an alarm,” Vic said, craning his neck and trying to see up through the shimmering depths.

“Do you think it’s the Elantyans coming for us? Maybe if Lyssandra got through . . . ?” Gwen turned her violet eyes toward him with a small hopeful smile.

Two of the guards outside the windoor consulted each other, barked orders for the remaining merlon to stay, then swam off to join the fray. Something big was happening. Through the black seashells in their ears, Vic and Gwen heard angry chatter, shouted orders, a call to arms. Vic grinned. Something told him that his dad was up there, trying to rescue them. Dr. Pierce was not the type to give up.

The fireworks started. The first flash of light was only a distant flicker, then a brighter burst accompanied it. They could hear thumps and rumbles reverberating through the water. “Those sound like depth charges,” Vic said.

“They won’t try to blow up the merlon city if they know we’re down here,” Gwen said.

“Nope. The explosions aren’t even coming close — but they’re sure creating quite a disturbance.”

Agitated fish swam past the tower. The lone merlon guard outside the entrance thrashed about, glaring in at the cousins, then looking up toward the continuing display. He seemed angry to be stuck down here while a great battle was going on overhead.

Fireworks exploded in repeated flashes of color. Two branded sharks streaked past. The guard at their windoor shook his spear in frustration.

Vic looked at Gwen, wondering if they might somehow be able to overpower the guard. With all the warriors gone up above and the remaining people in chaos, the merlon city seemed almost deserted.

“Doc, this might be our chance,” he said as quietly as he could. Gwen’s hand clenched into a fist, but they had no weapons.

Just then, a teardrop-shaped craft flitted outside the tower’s windoor entrance, a self-contained vehicle that zoomed in circles. The merlon guard, suddenly on the alert, jabbed at it with his spear. A second bubble vehicle drove in, as if to taunt the guard. Vic’s mouth dropped open in surprise when he saw an anemonite inside the craft. “It’s Sage Polup’s minisub!”

The guard left his post and pursued the bubletts. Vic watched through the mesh of one windoor, wondering if they dared to take a chance.

Now, a swimmer entered through the open windoor on the opposite side of the tower chamber — a human form with flippers, rubbery skin, and scuba tanks! Lyssandra swam in beside Dr. Carlton Pierce. Vic saw his father’s bright eyes behind the full-face diving mask, and watched a trail of silvery exhaust bubbles spill from the air hose.

Lyssandra spoke through the shells in their ears. “Come with us. Are you ready to escape?”

THEY STREAKED OUT OF the tower, swimming as fast as they could. After leading the merlon guard on a wild-goose chase, the anemonite bubletts circled around to join the four swimmers.

“We cannot leave without Tiaret and Sharif,” Lyssandra said. “Are they out at the lavaja cracks?”

“Yup. But there’s something else — something we have to show my dad first.” Vic didn’t know if they could free his mother from the ice coral, but he couldn’t leave without giving his father the chance.

Gwen hastened to support him. “It’s more complicated than you think.” Seeing Lyssandra’s expression of surprise and anxiety, she added, “And very important. We have to go there.”

The copper-haired girl gave them each some items she had brought along for the rescue, the crystal daggers from Vir Helassa, the finger suntips from Sage Polup, and even Snigmythya’s handkerchiefs, all neatly stored in the leather pouches Vir Questas had given them. “I thought you might find these useful.”

As the furious battle continued on the surface, sea fireworks flashed and boomed through the water. All the merlon warriors seemed to relish a good fight. Vic didn’t think King Barak and Azric suspected that the purpose of the attack was to provide an opportunity for the prisoners to escape.

The bubletts pulled them along like underwater scooters. Vic and Gwen directed the anemonites toward the reef mound that held the ice coral grotto. Despite their speed, Vic felt that the journey took an eternity. He hoped that his father, or Lyssandra, or the anemonites could free his mother.

“Whatever this is all about, kids, we need to hurry,” Dr. Pierce said, sounding muted inside his full-face mask. “I don’t know how long the diversion will last.”

When they reached the cavern mouth at last, Gwen got out her finger suntip to help Vic find the rune Azric had activated on the wall. Vic traced the rune while his cousin muttered the syllables that they had heard Azric use — though they contained a ridiculous number of consonants, and Vic wasn’t sure she pronounced everything correctly. The walls produced only a faint glow.

“Suck it up, Pierce,” Gwen muttered to herself. Closing her eyes, she spoke the syllables again, though with a slightly different inflection and tone.

“Cool,” Vic said as a bright, clear light blazed from every wall and tunnel. “Let’s go.”

Before they could move, though, the trio of guardian electric eels darted in to block the way. “Look out!” Vic knocked the closest anemonite bublett to one side just before it could touch a deadly eel.

The bublett Lyssandra grasped, however, extruded a pair of slender grappling arms and powered forward toward the serpentine guards. The sharp pincers grabbed two of the eels, the first one by its midsection and the second by its head. As the grapplers clamped down, the eels released simultaneous bolts of energy, short-circuiting the bublett’s controls. Lyssandra, close to the burst, went rigid, shuddering from the pulsing shocks.

Vic cried out.

Fortunately Dr. Pierce had insulated gloves. He grabbed the girl and pulled her free of the bublett and the discharging eels. Although the anemonite inside the bublett struggled to restart the self-contained vehicle, the unresponsive craft drifted toward the floor of the cavern, its circuits dead. One of the drained eels wriggled its way free, but the other was still held by the grappling claw.

Vic’s father grabbed the escaped eel, pulled it by its tail, and snapped it like a whip against the cavern wall.

The three remaining anemonite bubletts ranged themselves around Vic, Gwen, and Lyssandra in a protective cordon. Holding the motionless Lyssandra, Vic saw that the gill slits were taking in water. “Still breathing. Pulse is regular, but slow.” He turned to Gwen. “Stay with her.”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To help Dad!” He launched himself toward the remaining eels.

Seeing a fresh target, the uninjured eel darted toward Vic, ready to blast him with repeated shocks. But his father seized it with his other gloved hand, grabbing its tail and holding on. Vic snatched the drained eel that was trying to wriggle out of the pincer of the fried bublett. Already discharged, it could only jolt Vic with faint zaps, and he grimly held on.

Together, like Zorro and son, Vic and his father cracked their eel-whips against the wall. By the time they finished, Lyssandra had revived, though she was still a bit dazed.

One of the anemonite bubletts landed beside the disabled one. “Imbra is my daughter. She may ride with me,” Gedup said, opening the canopies of the bubletts, so the two jellyfish-brains could occupy the same crowded tank. They left the ruined bublett on the floor of the cave.

Now, when the miniature subs zipped forward, Vic and Lyssandra shared a bublett, each holding on with one hand, as Gwen led the way down the narrow tunnel filled with jagged crystals. Though the encounter with the eels had lasted only a few minutes, Vic felt an acute urgency. He needed to get to his mother, to break her free from the ice coral. His dad would know what to do. The water grew chilly around them, and he knew they must be close.

Once they entered the marvelous chandelier-like chamber, he and Gwen wasted no time. They swam straight toward the flat, broad patch of ice coral and traced the rune on it. “Over here, Dad! She’s here.”

“Who is?” His father hurried over just as the pane of frozen coral turned transparent to reveal Kyara, motionless behind the protective barrier. Watching the look of hope, joy, and astonishment on his father’s face, Vic felt his throat tighten. He had to swallow several times to ease the constriction. Through the diver’s face mask he could see tears well up in his father’s eyes. “Is she . . . is she . . . ?”

“She’s alive, but Azric used the aja in the ice coral to cast a spell to hold her frozen like that.”

Dr. Pierce didn’t waste any time. “Gwen, Vic, help me get her out of there.” He placed his hands against the transparent frozen barrier.

“We can’t,” Gwen said. “It’s a tricky spell, and we don’t know how to break it. We can’t just smash her loose.”

“Azric said she could die, and I don’t think he was bluffing.” Vic felt the dismay well up inside him.

“Doctors on Earth can do things like this,” Cap said. “There must be a way.”

Vic found that he had forgotten to breathe and he drew in several deep breaths of water. “I was hoping you knew.”

“Perhaps the anemonites,” Lyssandra suggested.

The anemonite bubletts floated in front of the preserved woman, intrigued. Sage Polup, Imbra, Gedup, and Ronra conferred briefly. “Yes. Yes, it can be done,” they said. Vic’s heart leapt.