Crystal Doors #2: Ocean Realm (No. 2) (29 page)

“Swim — unless you want to be boiled alive!” Gwen cried, but none of them needed prompting. The water currents billowing up were hot enough to scald skin.

The two anemonite bubletts had climbed far ahead, pulling Vic and Tiaret. With the nymph djinni bobbing ahead of him, flashing an urgent yellow, Sharif strained to swim even faster. Beside him, Gwen was also pumping furiously, but he doubted they would get away in time.

Faster, Piri urged. Now.

Unable to resist the terrifying temptation, Sharif stole a glance back down into Lavaja Canyon, still concerned for Lyssandra. Rainbow plumes of molten aja now unfurled from every vent and crack in the sea floor, as spectacular as any fireworks Sage Groxas had ever unleashed.

But Sharif could not savor their beauty while fleeing for his life. His arms felt heavy and his legs were growing stiff. Though he was utterly exhausted, panting water through his gills, he could not pause, even for a moment. A fresh burst of searing current scalded their feet and legs.

Then in a flash, something dark struck them, pushed them. In a scramble he reached out, grabbed on. A soggy tassel? At first Sharif could barely grasp what was happening. In his mind, Piri’s gleeful voice sang, Yes! Better!

He clutched the edge of something that felt like wet fabric — his flying carpet! The carpet had returned, responding to his summons after all! Sharif caught Gwen’s arm in mid-stroke and pulled her to the carpet with him.

“Where has it been?” Gwen asked in astonishment, wrapping her fingers around the edge and letting herself be drawn upward as swiftly as the embroidered rug could work its way through the water.

As they gained speed, rising away from the welling heat, Sharif had a chance to take a good look at the rich purple rug. The once-fine embroidered fabric was now quite a bit worse for the wear. Loops of seaweed were tangled in its fringes, a glowing streak of slime marked its center, and several large tooth punctures at its edges gave evidence of how much difficulty the loyal flying carpet had encountered on its journey to find him.

“We will never know what happened to delay it,” Sharif said, “but I have never seen any thing so beautiful in my life.”

Piri, glowing bright orange, darted ahead of the tangled tassels of the carpet, lighting the way toward the surface. The flying rug canted at a sharp angle and headed almost straight upward while Gwen and Sharif clung to it.

Gwen sighed with relief. Sharif couldn’t see Vic or Tiaret anymore, and he feared that Lyssandra was entirely lost.

Suddenly, Piri blazed bright red again. Shark, was the only word that blared through Sharif’s head. Then, Sharks! Many!

Noticeably slower under water, the carpet might not be able to outrun these deadly creatures. Sharif cast about, trying to see them, and realized that the predators were coming from above, streaking downward to intercept them. Sharif’s heart pounded in his chest. He had no weapons.

“Sharks ahead of us,” he said to Gwen. She surprised him by drawing her crystal dagger with one hand while holding onto the carpet with the other.

The carpet whipped around to evade the gray torpedolike shapes, but there were too many and they swam too fast. There must have been twenty at least. Blazing an angry battle red, Piri rocketed forward to pound one of the beasts repeatedly on its snout until it retreated. Then she shot out after another.

Meanwhile, several of the stealthy predators had doubled back and approached from behind. Gwen shouted a warning, and with her incredibly quick reflexes, she kicked the nose of the closest shark, which briefly retreated.

Fighting with one hand, Sharif thrust his thumb into the dark eye of a shark that darted too close, its teeth flashing. The beast thrashed furiously, more surprised than blinded. He and Gwen continued to lash out with a flurry of one-handed punches, kicks, and jabs, as they clung to the edge of the ascending carpet.

Too many, Piri said, and Sharif knew she was right. They would never be able to fight off all of these predators.

Something enormous now swooped up from underneath and careened in among the sharks. Sharif’s strength was nearly spent, and he wondered desperately what could be coming after them now. A sea serpent? A small kraken?

Forcing himself to keep moving, he swung his arm to punch at another shark. His fist only succeeded in grazing the shark’s flank — and he realized that it was swimming away from him and Gwen. In fact, all of them were. Piri glowed dazzlingly bright.

Now, Sharif could see what had drawn their attention: the great jhanta — with Lyssandra riding on its back!

Their petite telepathic friend rode the graceful creature, which swam furiously among the startled sharks, ramming them with its snub head, battering them with its heavy fin-wings, striking at them with its tail.

Soon, all the sharks had been driven off, scattered or stunned. The predators retreated, while Lyssandra, Sharif, and Gwen raced the rest of the way to the safety of the surface, where they hoped the Elantyan war fleet would be waiting for them.

34

BY THE TIME VIC broke the surface, the spear wound in his leg was hurting badly. He could tell he was still losing a lot of blood, and he pressed his hand harder against the bandage to slow the flow as he coughed out seawater and gasped for air.

He was surprised to see that the anemonite bublett had brought him directly to the capsized purple speedboat — where his father now rested on the waves. The boat still floated and might even be salvageable.

The capsized craft could only be a temporary island of safety, though. Vic had almost forgotten that an equally titanic battle was taking place with the Elantyan war fleet.

Not far away, they saw sea serpents and angry merlon warriors. Most frightening were the whipping pillars of waterspouts that continued to circle and harass the powerful war galleys. To his relief, however, the furious blue-and-white tornadoes smashed into an invisible wall as they approached the galleys, battering again and again against a smooth, impenetrable bubble.

Vic could see the sages on the prows of the galleys reading from spell scrolls. “Look, Dad! Ven Rubicas got his protective spell working. He’s covered the whole fleet.”

All the war galleys were carefully protected under a clear dome, and the merlons’ sorcerous energy was dissipating. The waterspouts seemed to be weakening, tumbling into disorganized spray and steam.

Deep beneath the surface, the light from the furious lavaja tempest brightened as hot crystal continued to erupt, flashing like a giant lightning storm on the ocean bed.

“Where are your friends? Where’s Gwen?” Dr. Pierce said, coughing again. His skin looked gray and he seemed to be quite ill.

“They’re coming. They were right behind me, swimming as fast as they could.” Tiaret surfaced holding Ronra’s bublett, looking satisfied with the battle she had just finished, and clinging to her teaching staff as if she would never let go again.

On the opposite side of the boat, Sharif’s bedraggled flying carpet sprang out of the waves with a loud splash. Gwen and Sharif both clung to the edge, but as they were pulled out of the ocean, they could no longer maintain their grip and they dropped, panting with their gills, back into the water. Vic tried to swim to them, but the pain in his leg was too great. The bleeding had increased.

Then Lyssandra surfaced, riding the graceful gray jhanta. Sheltered by the capsized boat, they all continued to watch the last gasps of the waterspouts strike ineffectively against the shield spell that protected the galleys. Lyssandra dispensed refreshing greenstepe from the inexhaustible tiny vial at her throat. Vic had never found anything so delicious before. He tried to maintain his optimism.

The massed merlons and their combative sea creatures seemed to be in a flurry. King Barak, in his mother-of-pearl chariot, was waving his clawed hands and ranting in a loud hissing voice. Beside him, Azric looked concerned as merlon sentries swam up to deliver their reports.

The merlons had seen the brilliant holocaust of the erupting lavaja canyons down below. Goldskin sounded a retreat, and all of the merlons ducked under the water, leaving the battle behind.

Blinking her eyes, Gwen said, “It looks like Azric just got the news that we all escaped.”

“Or that his whole lavaja operation just went belly-up,” Vic added. “Good thing he didn’t notice us over here.”

When the merlon armies were gone, Ven Sage Rubicas dropped the protective spell from the war galleys.

Still applying pressure to the wound on his leg, Vic said, “Not to complain, but I think my dad and I need to get some first aid here.”

Sharif quickly got them onto his flying carpet. “I will take you to the ships swiftly. There will be healers waiting there.”

Lyssandra, still astride the jhanta, said, “I can take a rider, too.”

The anemonite bubletts circled, offering their assistance as well. With Sharif’s carpet zooming above the waves like a tasseled ambulance, they all headed for the war galleys.

AFTER THE HEALERS HAD applied a salve and bandaged his injury, then read a spell to help the wound heal, Vic tried to take a nap in a bunk on the war galley. But the pounding drums and the swaying deck made it difficult for him to sleep. His father had been treated with a spell for what the Elantyans called “depth sickness,” and seemed to be recovering as well.

“In other words,” Gwen said, “they have a spell to cure the bends.”

Vic nodded. “Lucky for us, since we don’t have the Seaview and its decompression chamber handy.”

None of them had emerged unscathed from their fights with the merlons and their close call with the lavaja. They each had cuts, bruises, and burns, but they would all heal.

“I think we taught the merlons a lesson or two. Maybe King Barak won’t be so quick to come after us again,” Vic said.

“I wish we had been here to see the battle,” Tiaret said. “It must have been quite a spectacle. It appeared that the merlons suffered a great many losses.”

“That’s not the best part,” Vic said. “Orpheon’s gone now — one less big bad guy to worry about.”

Lyssandra’s brow furrowed. “Do not be so certain, Viccus. Orpheon was one of Azric’s immortals.”

Vic snorted. “Immortal is one thing — but being swallowed up in a sea of lava? It would be quite a trick for him to swim up out of that without a scratch.”

“Sorry, Taz,” Gwen said, “but I saw the evidence for myself. Tiaret put a spear right through his heart. He didn’t even blink, and he healed immediately.”

Sharif sat next to them, cradling the shimmering djinni globe, then rolled Piri’s eggsphere down his forearm and across to his other elbow. “I thought Piri was destroyed, too, but she was undergoing a metamorphosis in the lavaja. My people have a saying: The fire that destroys may also cleanse, heat, and shed light. I believe magic has similar contradictory aspects.”

He had already washed his flying carpet, and now gave the rug soothing strokes as he surveyed the tears, tooth marks, and unravelings it had suffered during its unknown adventures to come rescue them. By the light of Piri’s sphere, the prince from Irrakesh lovingly began to make his repairs.

35

THE MAIN EXPERIMENTAL CHAMBER of Ven Rubicas’s laboratory swarmed with activity. The skirmish out on the sea was over, and the merlon king and Azric had shown their destructive strength. Simply by escaping, Vic and Gwen had removed a powerful tool from the dark sage: No longer could he coerce them into breaking the seals that would unleash his legions of immortal warriors.

But the Elantyans could not rest. Their defenses now needed to be stronger than ever.

Dozens of the island’s best sages and engineers fabricated new underwater suits modeled after Dr. Pierce’s scuba gear. Teams of apprentices assembled many more anemonite bubletts, enough for each of the jellyfish-brains to use. Meanwhile, the Ven Sage locked himself in his chamber, surrounded by numerous spell scrolls he had borrowed from the Cogitarium. He worked tirelessly to expand his shield spell to protect all of Elantya.

Vic had a hard time keeping up with it all. He still limped from the wound in his leg, which had received further treatment in the Hall of Healers. Although the cut from the merlon spear hurt, he considered it a small price to pay for their lives. Blackfrill had paid much more dearly.

“I know we’re in the middle of a war,” Vic said to his father, working close beside him, “but what can we do about rescuing Mom?” Since their return from captivity, he and Gwen had not left Dr. Pierce’s side, except to sleep.

His father, watching a neosage tinker with the tiny engines of an anemonite bublett, warned, “Don’t seal off that circulation system. Anemonites breathe water, not air.” Then he turned back to his son. “Azric will have to keep her safe, son. If what you told me is true, she’s his only hope to break the seal on another crystal door.”

“But we can’t just wait here and do nothing,” Vic said.

With all the racket and bustle around them in the laboratories, Gwen laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly call this doing nothing, Taz.”

“I’ve got a plan, don’t worry,” Dr. Pierce said. “We won’t let Azric keep your mom. Everyone is working to come up with a way to free her.”

Gwen groaned. “What about all those lavaja bombs they were planting in catacombs under Elantya? How will we ever find them all?”