Tiger's Voyage (36 page)

Kishan laughed. “I’m definitely the beef, which means Ren must be the cheese.”

Ren grinned malevolently at Kishan and punched his arm.

Kishan smiled good-naturedly. “That reminds me. I’m hungry. Let’s head back.”

After we ate lunch, enchiladas being the main dish, we strapped on our tanks and headed straight for the cave. This time I went slowly, cautiously, and let Ren and Kishan call the shots. I listened to the hiss of my bubbles as I descended. When we neared the cave, I felt a twitching on my arm. Fanindra became animated and unwound herself, moving away from my limb. Her golden body sparkled, gleaming in the water. Her mouth opened and closed several times, and she twisted, as if in pain.

Her hood collapsed against her body while her head elongated. Her tail stretched and flattened into a thin paddle and her body became thinner, laterally compressing, as if someone was squishing her between their hands. Her jeweled eyes shrunk to small beady buttons but kept their emerald brilliance, and her nostrils moved closer together.

The tip of her forked tongue shot out, and Fanindra swam around my body. Her paddle-shaped tail swung back and forth, propelling her forward quickly. As I paused, she floated lazily nearby. Her winding movements reminded me of the dragons. She’d become something new. She was a sea snake.

We began swimming toward the cave again. Ren kicked his fins and entered first, disappearing into the blackness beyond the opening, and was followed by Kishan. Fanindra and I took up the rear. Sunlight streamed into the opening, casting turquoise rays across the pebbled floor. My hand scraped against the bumpy rock wall, which was covered with green algae. Tiny fish swam in and out of dark holes. The cave floor was covered with basaltic rock, the only color coming from phosphorescent plants that grew between them in patchy clumps.

Bubbles hissed from Kishan’s regulator, and his fin hit the bottom, kicking up sand that momentarily obscured my vision. I swam carefully, trying not to disturb the area. We needed to see as far as possible. As we passed a rocky grotto, a strand of seaweed touched my hand. I jerked back but then, seeing no danger, tried to force myself to relax. The cave became darker. I worried that if it was too dark we wouldn’t be able to see where we were going. We turned a corner around a bumpy outcropping, and the light was cut off completely.

Fanindra’s body began to glow brighter, and she lit up the area around us like a powerful beacon. Pale stalactites hung down from the ceiling ready to impale us. I swam a little closer to the cave bottom. We approached another opening. This one was much smaller. Ren stopped and turned to signal us. He asked if we should go on or turn back. Kishan said go on. Ren swam through first while we waited.

He came back and gave us the thumbs-up sign, and we continued through. I kicked quickly to catch up. The opening was a tight squeeze for me, so it must’ve been claustrophobic for the two of them. We came to a wider area and floated, scanning the water around us. It was as black as the inside of a covered well. Fanindra swam out of the hole and lit the area. More stalactites hung from the ceiling. The gritty floor angled down and disappeared in the murky water below. Fanindra shot ahead of us, and we followed.

We’d used one quarter of our air. When we approached the halfway mark we’d have to turn around. The cave was wide enough to swim side by side now. In fact, we couldn’t make out the sides of the cave at all anymore. Ren and Kishan dropped back to flank me on each side. I had the creepy feeling that we were being watched. I scanned the water below, expecting a giant shark to attack, jaws open, but then I also had goose bumps across the back of my neck and wondered if an attack might come from above.

I looked up, but the water was so dark even Fanindra could light up only the area directly around us. I realized that we were very visible to any creature that happened to be looking when suddenly the entire cave lit up. We stopped swimming and hovered. The bright light was coming from the overhead stalactites. I could now see the sides of the grotto and the floor that dropped down into a deep chasm.

I could also see we were about halfway across to our destination. On the far wall, carved rocky steps led up through the ceiling. One light turned off, and another turned on. There seemed to be two lights about ten feet apart, and they were moving. One would hide behind a stalactite while the other one shone down on us. Then the lights both shut off and turned on again. I felt the water move me, shoving me against Kishan. The cavern shook, and the lights blinked again.

They … blinked?
I panicked.
Those aren’t lights. Those are eyes!

A stalactite started moving toward us.

No! It’s not a stalactite. It is a tentacle!

I grabbed Kishan’s arm and pointed up. He quickly unhooked his
chakram
. I pounded Ren’s back, but he’d already seen it. The purplishbrown tentacle that shot toward us was thicker than a tree trunk.

Hundreds of pale white, subspherical suction cups trembled, ready to grab anything the tentacle contacted. The arm shot between Kishan and me, and I got an up-close-and-personal view of the cups. The round discs were ringed with sharp, jagged rows of chitin and ranged in size from a teacup to dinner plate. On its way back, the tentacle touched Kishan, probing his shoulder as if testing his freshness.

The eyes blinked again, and I felt another rush of water as the giant creature moved closer. It shot out two more tentacles, and this time one smacked against Ren. The meaty arm slapped his chest and pushed him several feet back. The suction cups caught onto his wet suit and yanked him forward at an incredible speed before Ren could push it off, ripping the front of his wet suit in the process. He turned to check on me, and I saw three large circular wounds on his chest ooze blood into the water.

Ren started healing quickly, and Kishan swam over to check Ren’s gear. His tank and straps were all still secure; he’d been lucky. Another tentacle snuck out while we were distracted and wrapped around my leg. I barely stopped myself from screaming. Kishan swam over quickly, sliced cleanly through the tentacle with the
chakram
, and gently removed it from my leg. The detached arm quivered and pulsed as if still alive. It oozed black blood as it spun in a circle, falling to the rocky cave bottom below. My leg was bleeding, but I couldn’t tell how badly. I mentally asked the Divine Scarf to make a bandage to wrap around it. I felt it wrap tightly and hoped it was enough to stop the bleeding.

Another arm shot toward me, and I fired on it with lightning power. A black hole appeared in the tentacle, and we all heard the scream. It vibrated in the water all around us. The giant eyes moved quickly toward us, flashing revenge.

In a flurry of brownish-purple waving tentacles, the creature approached. Arms clung to the long stalactites as it moved like a monkey descending a tree limb. It paused when it reached the end and dangled in the black water above us. We finally got a good look at what we’d been fighting.

The kraken hung from one tentacle; its soft bulbous mantle was pressed between stalactites, but it slowly slipped through like a blob of Jell-O, reforming itself to fit between the small spaces. Its skin pulled, and its eyes seemed to stretch. It oozed toward us—a dark, pulsing, fleshy monster.
It looked hungry.

It got stuck briefly, and we heard a scream of frustration. Goose bumps rippled across my skin, and I began kicking backward. The kraken saw me move and suddenly thrust toward us violently, using its tentacles to propel itself closer. It ripped its flesh in several places on the rough stone but didn’t seem to care. It was determined to reach us. Its body shifted, and I stared, fascinated as its beaky mouth snapped violently several times, ready to carve us up and scoop our bloody chunks into its mouth.

Then it was free of the stalactites and its massive head ballooned into its normal shape. It blinked again and hung free in the water for a moment.
Probably calculating which of us would taste the best.
It was enormous. The elongated oval mantle was as big as a bus, and its tentacles were easily twice as long. It centered its attention on me, and my heart stopped beating.

The creature shifted, angling its head down as if lying back, and began shooting arms out toward me. Then it suddenly stopped. Ren has raised his trident and was trying to get the monster’s attention. The colossal black orbs turned to him. Its eyes had the reflective sheen that only animals that live in the dark possess. As it turned, I noticed that the bright light seemed to come not from its eyes but from the paddled tips of its longest tentacles.

As a tentacle moved past its head, I saw its posterior surface change color. Its purplish-brown skin briefly turned pale with black spots. I saw the funnel above its eyes shoot out a stream of bubbles as it moved again, thrusting out powerful tentacles. The water surged around us.

Ren twisted the staff of his trident and shot three spear darts in quick succession toward the beast. One glanced off a moving limb, one speared a tentacle to the stalactite, and one grazed the mantle. Black blood clouded the area where the creature hung. With a quick move, it yanked its pinned tentacle away from the stalactite. Others shot out in every direction. I blasted one that wrapped around Kishan’s throat, but it hung on tenaciously. He began sawing at it and was successful in getting it off, but it tore away his breathing tube. Kishan reached for his backup and gave me the thumbs-up sign.

Ren and I pummeled the monster with lightning power and darts. The mantle expanded, and in a flash of light and a rush of water, the creature was gone. I swam in circles trying to see where it went, but with the lights off, it could have been anywhere. I kicked my legs and moved closer to Ren, figuring it might help if we fought back to back. Kishan had just started moving closer to us when the lights came back on. The kraken was right behind Kishan.

Two fleshy limbs wrapped around his body and shook him in the water. One of his fins came off and dropped slowly into the chasm below us. Ren swam powerfully forward and thrust the trident into the largest tentacle. The creature squealed but held on. Kishan slashed with the
chakram
and, at the same time, I raised my hand to blast through it. That’s when I felt a tug. The beast had wrapped a limb around my waist and yanked me toward it at a frightening speed. Attacking Kishan had been a diversion. The creature pulled me aside and shut off the lights.

Fanindra shot away from me like an arrow and disappeared. Suddenly, I was far apart from Ren and Kishan, who probably hadn’t even noticed I’d been taken. Suction cups gripped me hard, digging bony little pinchers into my skin, like acupuncture needles. I blasted firepower into the limb, but the only result was that the pressure increased. It had me around the ribs, and when it squeezed, I thought my lungs would collapse. The turbulence of the water increased the closer I was to the creature. Kishan and Ren turned on flashlights. I could see them, but they couldn’t see me. They had finally detached themselves and were searching for me, but I knew they’d never get to me in time. The monster curled its arm, and my perspective changed. I was now facing the mouth of hell.

A part of my brain shut off, and I was able to analyze the creature from what seemed a safe distance. I could coldly calculate the manner in which I would meet my end. The mouth snapped open and closed. It opened and closed similar to a fish. The similarity stopped there. The orifice that I was rapidly nearing reminded me of the Sarlacc pit in
Star Wars
, a round black hole filled with several rows of sharp teeth. Three long green tubules shot out from the gaping mouth and began slathering my face and wet suit with an oily substance that I could only assume would help me to slide down its gullet easier.

I used my power to blast the kraken’s mouth. The beast shook angrily in response and clacked its razor beak several times. The long green tubules wrapped around my throat, waist, and arms, pinning them to my sides and drawing me closer. I was trapped. I couldn’t use my lightning power anymore. I was going to be eaten by the kraken. The tentacles squeezed me roughly a final time, shook me, and let me go, trusting that I was sufficiently incapacitated by the green tongues.

I writhed back and forth, desperately trying to free my hand, but I was beaten. I couldn’t move. I tried to turn my head to see if Ren or Kishan were near, but I couldn’t twist enough. My mask was torn off as the creature shifted me. It was apparently going to eat me feet-first. I squinted in the murky water, trying to see without my mask. I thought I saw a golden blur near me, but I wasn’t sure it if was the trident or Fanindra.

Something brushed my arm, a long sinuous shape.
Probably another
tentacle to give me a final tenderizing.
My feet were in its open mouth. I kicked a leg, but my calf hit a serrated tooth. My leg burned. I had the Scarf wrap a bandage around this new wound, which was probably moot as the kraken was going to eat me any second. I waited for my leg bones to crunch, but the creature didn’t bite down.
Maybe it was
going to swallow me whole?
An idea surfaced, and I asked the Scarf to tie both ends of its beak open. The threads raced up, wrapped around the creature’s body above and below, and then wrapped several times around the top and bottom of the monster’s beak to hold it open.

The kraken thrashed and moved, shaking violently like a shark trying to rip the flesh from a whale. When its razor beak started ripping through the threads, I asked the Scarf to reinforce it, but I knew it was just a matter of time. The kraken would eventually get angry enough to bite through the thread all the way and cleave me in half.

As my body was whipped back and forth in the water, I briefly wondered what my parents would have thought about the way I was going to die. I thought about the afterlife and wondered if people shared death stories. If so, I’d have the coolest story ever.
You died in your sleep?
Drunk driver? Cancer, huh? World War II? Well … yeah, those deaths are
great and all, but wait till I tell you what happened to me. Yeah … that’s
right … I said a kraken.