what that semicircle was supposed to be. If the straight line was the horizon, then anything below it was water. And there was only one thing that was supposed to be below the water in these parts.
“Could it be?” Spader asked in awe.
“I’ve heard about Faar since I was a girl,” said Yenza with reverence. “It’s supposed to be the most wonderful place that ever was. It’s where Cloral was born. To think that it could be real…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. The idea was too incredible to her.
“One way or another, we’re going to find out,” said Uncle Press.
I could tell from his tone of voice that he wanted to treat this as any other expedition. He probably wanted Spader and Yenza to get rid of any childhood fantasies and fears that might get in the way of our solving this mystery.
“Let’s all eat something,” he said. “Then get ready to dive. As soon as it’s light enough to see, we’ll have a look at what’s down there.”
There was a stock of dried fruits and vegetables on board. The thought crossed my mind that these might be poisoned like the rest of the food on Cloral. But since they were dried, they had probably been here for a long time and were safe. So we all sat on deck and ate breakfast. To be honest, it was disgusting. That stuff tasted like shoes. Not that I’ve ever eaten shoes before, but if I had, I’m sure they would taste like this. But we had to eat something so I pretended like they were Pop-Tarts. Shoe-flavor Pop-Tarts.
Gradually, the sky grew brighter and then the sun began to peek up on the horizon. Soon we were bathed in its warmth and light.
It was time to start our mission. Since this was an aquaneer speeder boat, it was well equipped. There were air globes and spearguns and water sleds. It was decided that Yenza would stay on board while the three of us went sunken city hunting. So Uncle Press, Spader, and I got geared up. We each popped on an air globe and strapped on spearguns.
I didn’t have my watch, but I was pretty sure we were past the twenty minutes that you’re supposed to wait to go swimming after you eat. I had to laugh to myself. Here I was about to search for a mythological underwater lost city on the other side of the universe, and all I could think about was some old wives’ tale my mother told me about getting cramps at a picnic. It was times like this that I really missed her.
“If we see something, we’ll surface and let you know,” Uncle Press said to Yenza. “But understand one thing. Zy Roder has the same information we do and I guarantee he’ll be headed this way. Whatever you do, do not take him on yourself, understand?”
“You’re talking to a chief aquaneer, Press,” said Yenza with a little bit of an attitude. “I can handle things.”
Uncle Press smiled in apology. “Sorry, my bad. Just be careful. Please.”
“I’ll say the same to you,” she said with a little smile.
I was beginning to think that Yenza was developing a “thing” for Uncle Press. Bad idea for her. He wasn’t the kind of guy you’d want to start a relationship with. He was on the road a little too much.
“Spader, take the lead,” Uncle Press said. “We’ll follow on either side of you.” He then smiled and said, “Look for a really big city.”
“Hobey-ho,” said Spader with a laugh.
“Hobey-ho,” I echoed.
We all grabbed our water sleds, gave a quick wave to Yenza, and did a giant stride into the water. A few seconds later we were all settled and floating next to each other on the surface.
“Everybody set?” asked Spader.
We were. He dove underwater and Uncle Press and I followed right behind him. We descended in V formation for several feet, then took a look around. Yenza was right. The water wasn’t all that deep here. I’m guessing it was maybe sixty feet to the bottom. That isn’t very deep at all and certainly no place to hide an entire city. The bottom was fairly barren. For as far as I could see there was nothing but blue-green water and a huge field of low, brown coral. No city. No nothing.
“Let’s head this way,” said Spader. “It’s the way Pendragon lined the map up with the stars.”
As we sped along with our water sleds, I saw that this area of the ocean was much less interesting than the ocean bottom around Grallion. There were no plants or kelp fields. There were no farms. There didn’t even seem to be any fish. This was the Cloral equivalent of our moon. We traveled for a long way with nothing to see but more nothing. I hated to be the killjoy and say that we should give up, but I was beginning to think we were wasting our time.
I was just about to say something when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Quick movement. I looked to my right, but nothing was there. I figured it must have been an eyelash or something… until I saw it again. Something moved out there. I saw it a little better this time and thought it was a fish. It made me think back to the big fish that was shadowing Spader and me when we were making our escape from the raiders under Grallion. It was the same kind of thing.
Then I saw it again, and again.
“Did you see that?” I asked.
Spader slowed to a stop and we pulled up.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I saw it too,” said Uncle Press.
Phew. I wasn’t crazy and hallucinating. But that meant there were strange fish out there who were smart enough to be shadowing us. They were fast, too. And big. Not Moby Dick big, but at least as big as a man.
“There!” shouted Uncle Press.
We all looked to see a green shape moving off to our right. It was far enough away that we couldn’t make out exactly what it was, but it was moving a little more slowly than the others so we could at least confirm that it was real.
“I say we follow, mates,” said Spader.
“Hobey-ho,” answered Uncle Press.
Oh, swell. I really hoped this wasn’t a bad idea. We all gunned the water sleds and took off in the direction of this strange green fish. We were at full throttle, but the fish far enough ahead of us that we really couldn’t get a good look at it. I felt like it was teasing us and luring us forward. But that was impossible. Fish don’t lure people — people lure fish.
“Are you seeing this?” Spader asked.
We all looked ahead to see that the bottom was beginning to fall away. It was getting deeper.
“Stay near the bottom,” said Uncle Press. “Don’t lose that thing.”
I felt the water pressure build around me. At home it wasn’t smart to dive any deeper than, say, sixty feet. Going deeper caused all sorts of problems with water pressure and decompression sickness and a nasty thing called “the bends” that you got if you stayed down too deep for too long. But that wasn’t a problem on Cloral. I guessed it had something to do with the rebreathing devices in the air globes that kept the right mix of gases in your system. But still, this was deeper than I had ever gone before. It was getting dark, and the bottom kept falling away. We were chasing a big, smart fish into the dark unknown and I was getting scared.
“There’s a ridge up ahead,” announced Spader.
About thirty yards ahead of us it looked like there was going to be a drop-off. Yenza had said this was the deepest trench on all of Cloral, and I had the feeling we were about to see it. But I was sure this was the end of the line for us. There was no way we were going to go any deeper. We didn’t have lights, the water was getting cold, and who knew what was down there?
I also saw that the fish thing we were chasing reached the edge and shot down over the side. I had no plans to follow it.
“Take us to the edge,” said Uncle Press. “We’ll stop there.”
Phew. It was official. The edge was as far as we were going. Uncle Press and I pulled up even with Spader so that the three of us were now traveling shoulder to shoulder. Whatever we were going to see over the edge, we would see it together. A few seconds later we reached the end and looked down into the abyss.
Mark, Courtney, yeah, I’ll say it again. What we saw was impossible. It was a vision like I had never encountered in my life and I can’t imagine I ever will again. There are unique things in every territory. Some are evil, some are beautiful, and some are just plain spectacular. What we saw fell into the spectacular category. The
