Tiger's Voyage (37 page)

I should have panicked. I should have drowned. But I just drifted in the wake of the surging limbs and calmly waited for the creature to swallow me.
What was taking so long? Sheesh. Get on with it already.

The kraken’s body gave off a strange sort of glowing light as if it had tiny winking bulbs under its skin. I could see its black outline in the water, barely.

I felt like someone had thrown me into a giant washing machine. I could feel the smooth flesh of tentacles, the rubbery discs of suction cups, and the sharp sting of teeth as they whirled past me in the wash. I heard the screeches and felt the surging of the agitated water and the pulpy slick probing of the tongues as they continued to slather me in oil. I hung like a fish caught on a line, waiting to be reeled in—but something was distracting the fisherman. I cracked open my eyes and saw black whirling tendrils of blood.

Wriggling shapes shot past me, one golden.
Fanindra.
She lit the area, although I decided I’d rather be in darkness. The monster loomed over me like a fleshy purple cloud in the water, ready to destroy me with the violence of a hurricane. I watched her as she swam over to a tentacle and bit. The creature shivered.

More long shapes swam toward me—yellow-and-black striped, black-and-white striped, gray, green, long, thin, thick—sea snakes. The cave was full of them. They attacked the beast, swarming over it like needles in a pincushion. In fact, I watched as several snakes followed Fanindra’s example. Some of them bit savagely into the purple flesh and wriggled their way inside. They moved under the squid’s skin like worms, biting and tearing as they went.

The creature screamed and filled its mantle. Black ink jetted out from the funnel and coated me in warm waves. It stung my eyes. I quickly shut them and almost threw up as the funnel pushed water again. Suddenly, the kraken moved dozens of body lengths away from where it had been, dragging me violently along with it.

In the confusion, the kraken loosened its grip on me. I had shifted out of its mouth, but it still held me paralyzed in the grip of its tongues. It was just in time too, because the monster’s movements snapped the threads clean through.
It would have sheared me in half.
As I pondered my lucky state, I watched the snakes that were still attached to its skin. I saw Fanindra bite the skin next to the giant, black eye, and the beast shook itself. Tentacles flailed back and forth in the water, desperately trying to dislodge the snakes.

Something touched me, and I flinched but then felt a hand squeeze my arm. Ren grabbed a green tongue and removed it from around my neck. The powerful muscle began to wind itself around his arm, but he tugged hard and got it off. Kishan swam up to us and sawed through the green tubes. Slick, oily liquid gushed over us as he severed the tongues from the creature’s body. He freed my legs while Ren freed my arms. Kishan wrapped an arm around me in the distressed swimmer grip and started swimming away, tugging me along with him.

Bent on violence, Ren swam up to the beast. He thrust the trident deeply into the creature’s maw over and over again. Black blood rushed out in a cloud, and soon I couldn’t see him anymore. Kishan pulled me closer to the rock steps. After we reached them, we turned and watched as the creature jetted murky ink again. The last we saw of it was the blinking lights on the tentacle pads as the kraken descended into the dark chasm below. We waited anxiously another few moments until we first saw the gleam of the trident and then Ren making his way toward us from the black cloudy water.

Sea snakes shot out of the chasm by the hundreds and hovered in a wriggling cloud nearby, Fanindra at the head. A small light high above us indicated a way out. We swam up. Kishan led with me gripping his hand. He broke the surface in a white tiled pool and reached down to pull me up. Ren shot out next to me and removed his breathing apparatus. We all sucked in several deep breaths. Kishan tugged me to the side of the pool. He carefully removed the tank and my flippers and began checking me over.

“Are you okay?”

The question made me laugh hysterically until finally I could shake my head. “No.”

“Where are you hurt?”

“Everywhere. My leg especially. But I’ll survive.”

He took his diving knife and cut off the leg of my wet suit to inspect the damage. I’d used the Scarf to create a bandage. Wes had taught us to leave the bandage on and keep putting more bandages on until the blood stopped. It wasn’t bleeding through, so I had hopes that it wasn’t that severe of an injury. I had the Scarf wrap another layer, and Kishan squeezed my arm.

“How bad is it?”

“It could be worse. I think it will be okay.”

He nodded and stood, looking around.

We were in an underground room, completely enclosed except for a set of stairs. I grunted in pain, and then padded on bare feet to the stairs, limping, and looked up. The stairs were too small for a dragon.
It must be able to change into a man like Lóngjūn
. Motivated to hurry while the kraken was licking its wounds, I started up slowly, favoring my strong leg and the brothers followed.

At first, I leaned heavily on Kishan and bit my lip trying to control the pain. After one flight, he growled and picked me up, carrying me up the rest. We climbed. Ten floors. Twenty steps per floor, but Kishan wasn’t even breathing hard. When we finally reached the end of the stairs, we stepped out onto the stony roof on top of the ruined castle. Kishan carefully set me down on a rocky bench, and he and Ren approached the head of the sleeping blue dragon.

“Wake up!” Ren roared.

The dragon shifted and snored. A cloud of fog descended on the brothers.

Kishan shouted, “Get up. Now!”

The dragon huffed and cracked a lazy eye.
What do you want?

Ren worked his jaw angrily. “You will wake and speak with us, or I will ram this trident into your fleshy throat!”

That got the dragon’s attention. The fog turned black, and the dragon whipped its head around and bit the air. It narrowed its eyes.

You may not speak to me in that manner.

Ren threatened. “I’ll speak to you in any manner I wish. You almost killed her.”

Killed who? Oh. The little girl? I never touched her.

“Your filthy beast did. If she had died, I would have come up here and killed you.”

She obviously didn’t die, so you should be happy. I warned you that the
task was hard.

Kishan stepped forward. “Give us what you promised.”

The dragon moved a heavy limb and bared its neck.
Take it then.

A large disk hung from the dragon’s neck by a thick leather cord. Kishan stepped forward and, using the
chakram
, freed the disk. The brothers turned and headed back to me.

The blue dragon shifted its bulk noisily.
Don’t I get a thank you?
Qīnglóng said.
After all, the sky disk is no trifle.

Ren picked me up and turned his head slightly toward the dragon. “
Neither
is she.”

I looked up into Ren’s blue eyes. His livid expression calmed somewhat, and he pressed his forehead against mine for a brief moment. Then he passed me to Kishan, said, “Help her,” picked up the disk, and started down the stairs.

I protested that I could try to walk, but Kishan ignored me and carried me down the stairs. My leg had started bleeding through the bandage, and I asked the Scarf to wrap it several more times until the bleeding stopped.

When we finally got to the pool, Ren was already waiting for us. I didn’t relish the thought of getting back into the water with the kraken again, but I gamely slipped on my tank.

Kishan had just offered me his goggles when Ren interrupted. “Her goggles are here. So is your other flipper. Fanindra brought them up.”

A golden head popped out of the water. I leaned over to pat her head, and she slid over my arm. Kishan checked the gauges on my tank as Ren slid into the water.

“Her tank’s low.”

“We’ll share,” Ren replied.

I watched him drop all his weights, but he still couldn’t achieve buoyancy with the sky disk. It was too heavy. When I expressed concern, he turned away and said, “I’ll manage.”

Ren took the bag I’d made with the Scarf and positioned the strap across his chest while I equalized the pressure in my ears.

“We’ll have to be quick,” Kishan warned. “We’ll just swim across and get out of here as fast as we can. If we run into the kraken again, just turn around and swim back here. We’ll figure out a different way to get back to the yacht. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He smiled and kissed my nose before lowering his goggles. I took an experimental breath on the regulator and dove through the hole in the pool, following Ren. Fanindra stayed close to me as we descended. The sea snakes swarmed to welcome her back and surrounded us as we swam.

It was dark again without the light of the kraken, but Fanindra seemed to know the way. She gave off just enough light that we could see ourselves cocooned in our sea snake bubble. I kept my eyes peeled for the kraken, but there was no sign of it. Still, it seemed like giant eyes were watching our progress and I expected a quivering tentacle to snatch me away to oblivion.

My nerves stood on end. I felt like I was one of those dumb high school girls in a scary movie that opens doors she shouldn’t, putting herself in harm’s way, deliberately taunting the monster chasing her. The only difference was, I wasn’t making out with a boyfriend in a haunted house or wearing a miniskirt.

We crossed the black cavern without incident and made it back to the small passageway. Ren entered first, surrounded by wriggling snakes. I steeled myself to follow.

By the time we’d made it through the other side, my air tank was empty. I gave Ren a signal, and he nodded, handing his regulator to me. I sucked a deep breath and passed it back. We did this a couple of times until Kishan emerged from the passageway. He touched my arm and nodded, indicating that he would share with me now so Ren could lead on.

Being underwater without my own air was frightening. It was all I could do to stop myself from swimming wildly up. I knew there was nothing above me but rock, but the intense survival instinct to head for the surface was compelling. The only thing that kept me grounded was Kishan’s solid presence at my side.

I kicked and followed Ren. The light was getting brighter. The murky water changed from midnight black to dark indigo and then, thankfully, to the clear turquoise blue of the open ocean. Finally, we turned a corner and I saw the cave opening ahead and the late afternoon sunlight slanting into the water.

Kishan passed me the regulator, and I took a breath. The air hissed and stopped flowing. His tank was empty too. He gave me a signal to wait and smiled in reassurance. He swam after Ren, who returned and pressed his regulator into my hands. I took a breath and handed it to Kishan.

The three of us moved slowly out of the cave toward the surface, sharing one tank of oxygen among us. The sea snakes, released from escort duty, darted quickly away for the open ocean. Many of them twined their bodies with Fanindra’s as they passed her. A moment later, they were gone.

Kishan took a small breath. Ren’s tank was almost empty. He signaled this, and we looked up. We’d have to make a break for it. Kishan handed me the regulator so I could take the last of the air. I shook my head, but he insisted, and I took a final breath and started swimming for the surface. I let my breath out slowly as the water became brighter and brighter. I needed air. I wasn’t going to make it.

Death by drowning was much less exotic than death by kraken. It was almost an embarrassing way to go, as if your death was somehow your own fault. I’d fully expect the other dead people to say, “Drowned? Well, what did you go and do a thing like that for? Couldn’t ya find the valve? It says
A-I-R
on the side. Did you forget that apparatus under your eyeballs? It’s called your nose. You breathe through it.” Oh sure, I’d try to explain what happened, but I’d go through eternity being the butt of dead people’s jokes. My mother would think it was hilarious.

Fanindra swam in front of me, leading the way, but it didn’t matter. I started to see black spots in my vision. The surface was close, maybe only twenty feet away. I kicked harder and tried to suck another breath from my own tank, but it was no good. My lungs felt like they were being branded by a hot iron. The burning was intense as my body screamed at me to take a breath.

I would have liked to have thought my brain was dominant, that I could face the inevitable drowning serenely, calmly. But when facing death, the body reigns. A raging, wild need to survive took over, and I started clawing at my mask and gear like a berserker. A hand grabbed mine. It was Kishan. He was kicking hard and tugged me along with him.

We broke to the surface, and he held me close as I choked and gasped. Air rushed into my burning lungs, and I became a being wholly focused on respiration. For the next few seconds, nothing existed except the hurried rhythm of inhale and exhale. Ren surfaced a few seconds later and panted.

The weight of the disk must have made it doubly hard for him to reach and stay at the surface. When his head ducked underwater, Kishan swam to help, and I whispered for the Divine Scarf to make a double strap so Kishan could take half the disk’s weight.

The ocean was covered with fog again. The cold water had numbed my throbbing leg, but I could tell the injury was bad. It pounded like the thrum of distant cannons, muffled but dangerous. Kishan and Ren swam next to me as I turned in a circle looking for the
Deschen
.

Ren said, “Stay close. We shouldn’t be too far from where we anchored. We’ll follow Fanindra. Will you be okay?”

I nodded. He blew the water out of his snorkel and led me to the ship.

Finally at the yacht, Kishan threw his fins into the wet garage and scrambled up the ladder. Ren handed him the sky disk and then threw his own fins over. My limbs were shaking. I couldn’t put any weight on my injured leg. I threw an arm around Ren’s shoulder and slowly hopped up the ladder into the safety of our boat.