pool.
“He’ll have all my line before long!” I said, eyeing my reel nervously.
Ever so slightly I increased the drag, and needed to lean back with all my weight. I didn’t like to ask for help, but I had no choice.
“I’ll need you to hold me, both of you,” I said. “He’s too powerful!”
“Coming!” said Konrad, and At that very moment the tip of his own rod dipped low, and his reel spun furiously.
Our lines, I noticed, were angled in exactly the same direction.
“He’s taken both our hooks!” cried Konrad.
I felt the strain on my rod lighten. This was good news indeed.
“He has the two of us to contend with now!” I said.
“The Frankenstein boys will bring him in!” hooted Konrad. “Let him tire himself.”
“Good, good!” I said, feeling a surge of exhilaration. I was not thinking about Elizabeth or my jealousy-only working with my twin.
“I think he begins to slow,” said Konrad after a few minutes.
“Gently now,” I said, and we both increased the drag on our reels. My feet felt wet, and when I glanced down, once again I saw that water was lapping against them.
“Konrad,” I said, my pulse quickening. “The water’s rising.”
“What?” He glanced over at me in confusion, then down at his boots, wet to the ankle.
I realized that we’d unknowingly backed up very close to the cavern’s wall. There was not much more room to retreat.
“The pool must be filling from beneath,” Elizabeth said. “That waterfall…”
She hurried to pull back our packs and keep them dry.
“We don’t have much time,” said Konrad. “It rises quickly.”
“If it overflows the ledge,” said Elizabeth, “it will begin to fill the tunnel.”
“Temerlin made no mention of this,” I muttered. But I remembered the wet floor and walls as we’d approached. This was no rare occurrence.
“We’ll have the fish any moment,” I said, leaning back to test its strength.
“Definitely he tires,” agreed Konrad.
“There he is!” cried Elizabeth, pointing.
Once again the blue form shimmered below the surface, but this time he actually broke it for a moment-and for the first time we saw his full size. I swallowed.
“He’s seven feet!”
“We will have him, though!” said Konrad. “His fight is gone. Let’s reel in.”
All at once the coelacanth flashed out of sight, Konrad’s line snapped, and the full power of the fish was in my hands. Instinctively, foolishly, I gripped my rod tighter and was instantly yanked off the rocky ledge. I was pulled some twenty feet through the air, and then crashed into the pool.
The cold was like a hammer blow. It was all I could do to keep my head above the water and fill my lungs with air. I felt like a ship trapped in ice, slowly being crushed. The fishing rod was long gone from my hands. I was dimly aware of my name being called, voices echoing everywhere. My clothes and boots were heavy with water. Sluggishly I turned to face the shore, the lanterns, Konrad and Elizabeth.
I tried to kick, but my legs hardly moved. Were they so numb already? Then I felt a painful tightening around them, and realized they were bound together by loops of fishing line, cinched by the circling coelacanth.
I dragged my sodden arms through the water, my legs lashing up and down like a fish tail.
“Victor! Stay still!” cried Elizabeth.
“What?” I gasped.
“It will think you’re a squid! They eat squids!”
I looked around in terror. And then, suddenly, it shot past me, not a foot away. Its length was one thing, but its width was equally worrying. How much could it swallow? It seemed to take forever to pass-and then it began to circle.
“Konrad!” I shouted. “My saber!”
I saw him scramble through my gear and grab the sword. He threw it. The blade flashed in the lantern light, and I caught the saber in my cold-clawed hand.
“I’m coming, Victor!” he cried.
He was kicking off his boots, stripping down to his shirt. He snatched up his own saber.
The coelacanth plowed past, so close that it grazed me, its jagged scales rasping against my clothing-and possibly my flesh, but I was so cold I felt nothing. Twice I stabbed at it with my sword, and was dismayed when the blade deflected off as though from armor. The fish’s muscular flank swatted me. My head went under. I lost grip of my sword. I choked on the cold water, and came up spluttering, weaponless.
The fish was coming straight at me now, its mouth wide, and wider still. It did not have many teeth, but those it had looked very sharp. I flailed at it with my feet, trying to kick it away. With its head it batted my legs effortlessly to one side and came at my torso.
Before I could raise my fist to pound its head, it took my entire arm into its mouth. Its teeth closed around my bicep, not tearing, not gnawing, just gripping. I screamed in pain. Against my hand and forearm its fleshy maw contracted and sucked, trying to drag me in deeper.
I heard a splash, and seconds later Konrad surfaced beside me, like some Greek hero, his face alabaster and fierce with cold. In his hand was his saber.
“It has me!” I cried.
I tried again to drag my arm out, but the fish’s teeth were sunk into my flesh and every movement was agony. With my free hand I punched and pummeled the fish’s head, but it seemed to feel nothing. Its throat sucked and spasmed wetly around my arm.
Konrad struck the coelacanth. His first two hits were deflected, but the third went deep. And yet the blade seemed to have no effect on the brute. Konrad yanked his sword out and drew back his arm for another strike.
“Where should I aim?” he cried out.
“Its eye!” yelled Elizabeth from the shore.
“Watch my arm!” I hollered at my twin, for fear he’d impale me. “Hurry!”
“Stay still!”
“I can’t stay still!” I roared. “It’s eating my arm!”
Konrad drove his saber into the fish’s right eye. It thrashed violently and its mouth opened. I yanked my numb arm clear.
Konrad struck once more with his blade, a brilliant upward thrust through the roof of the creature’s gaping mouth and into its tiny brain. The fish gave a spasm and then was still, rolling over onto its side.
“Come, let’s get you back.” Konrad helped drag me to the shore, and then turned back to retrieve the fish. Elizabeth pulled my body onto the ledge, which was now completely submerged under several inches of water.
My arms and legs were almost too cold to bend. Elizabeth helped me to my feet. Luckily she’d found a deep ledge several feet up the wall where she’d jammed our packs. From one, she now pulled a dry blanket.
“Take your shirt off!” she ordered me. My numb fingers could not manage the buttons, so she started to undo them. I stared at her, mesmerized by her beauty. Then, in exasperation, she just ripped the entire sodden shirt from my chest.
I saw her gaze fly to my right arm, and I looked too. I’d actually forgotten my injury, for the cold numbed all pain. There were three blue triangular gashes where the coelacanth’s teeth had pierced and held me. The surrounding skin was blanched white, but even as I watched, the color began to return, and with it, the wounds slowly welled with blood.
She put the blanket around my shoulders. “Dry off,” she told me.
From her pack she produced bandages and a bottle of antiseptic unguent, which she applied on my wounds before wrapping the cloth tightly around my arm. I was shivering violently now.
She came close and hugged me, rubbing my back and shoulders.
“I like this,” I murmured, teeth chattering.
Konrad reached the shore, gasping with exertion, dragging the fish. It took all three of us to wrestle its
