Before he could settle the matter, a shudder passed through the ship. Sails shook, ropes rattled in their stanchions, planks trembled underfoot. Cries arose throughout the ship.
“What’s happening?” Delia squeaked.
Captain Grayl answered, “We’re sinking!”
Leaning over the rail, Tylar saw the waterline climb the flanks of the ship. “It’s the skagging tangleweed!” Grayl spat. “It’s pulling us under!”
The leader of the Hunters called out again. “Tylar de Noche! Show yourself or the ship and all aboard will be drowned!”
The Grim Wash continued its shuddering descent into the choked seas, pulled from below. There was no more time for discussion or debate.
Tylar raised an arm high. “I am here! Spare the ship and I will come freely!”
With his words, the tremble in the ship stopped.
The eyes of the Hunters narrowed on him. The Grim Wash remained half-submerged, awaiting his cooperation.
“I must go,” Tylar said.
Captain Grayl wore a determined but resigned expression. “I’ll drop a rope ladder.”
It was all done hastily. The crew was anxious for Tylar to abandon the ship. A few looked ready to simply push him overboard. As he swung a leg over the rail, Grayl grabbed his arm and twisted his wrist.
“What-?”
“Here,” Grayl said. “A return for the remainder of the journey not sailed.” Three gold marches were dropped into his palm.
Tylar shoved them back. “Where I go, I have no need for coin.”
The captain refused to accept them, and the marches fell between their fingers and bounced on the planks.
Rogger set upon them in an instant. “Who says we won’t need coins? You sound like a man heading to the gallows.”
Tylar frowned at him.
“Trust me,” the thief continued. “I’ve lived enough lives to know that the future is never fixed to one path. And no matter which course opens, a bit of gold never hurt.” He jangled his pocket and waved Tylar over the rail. “Now get going before I change my mind about following someone so lacking in good sense.”
Tylar mounted the ladder and descended while Rogger helped Delia over the rail. They didn’t have far to climb. The water’s edge was three-quarters of the way up the ship’s side.
Tylar reached the last rung, ready to jump into the seas and swim to the awaiting Hunters. He turned to get his bearings and found the deepwater pod floating toward the boat, petals extended toward Tylar’s group. The weeds parted before its path.
After a moment, the lead petal’s edge bumped against the ship. Tylar stepped out onto it, wary of his footing. He needn’t have worried. What appeared delicate was firm and steady. Thick veins ran through the leafy petal, supporting it. It was a living thing, a part of the mass of tangleweed.
He stepped away, allowing room for Delia and Rogger. Up at the rail, Captain Grayl raised a hand in sad farewell.
Tylar nodded, mystified by the simple nobility of someone tied to the notorious Flaggers. He had always known that the world was more gray than black and white, but he had never imagined that gray came in so many shades.
Rogger spoke as he stepped onto the petal, his eyes focused on the pod’s center. “Let’s hope these Hunters are half as hospitable as our good captain has been.”
Tylar turned to face the gathered guards. Closer now, he spotted the ribbed lines that shadowed either side of the Hunters’ throats. Gill breathers, like all who lived in Tangle Reef. They could live for short spells above the waters, but it was uncomfortable, and after a day’s time, they would sicken and die unless they returned to the seas.
Tylar led Delia and Rogger forward. The points of five spears tracked them. Only the leader kept his weapon by his side.
“I am Kreel,” he said when they were a step away from him. “Know that you will die on my spear if you attempt any misdeed. She who we serve has blessed me with the sight to see any flows of Grace, whether dark or bright. Cast any charms or summon your daemon and I will know it within a breath, and you will die on the next.”
Tylar noted a glint in the other’s eyes that had nothing to do with the sun overhead. He spoke the truth. There was power hidden there. Tylar refused to flinch from his gaze. “I swear that I will bring no harm to anyone in Tangle Reef unless provoked. As you protect your god and people, so I will my friends here.”
Kreel nodded and stepped back, opening the way to the pod.
They gathered into the center of the pod. The Hunters stood at the edges, spears pointing at them like the spokes of a wheel.
“What about the ship?” Tylar asked.
Kreel nodded. “They will leave unharmed.”
As proof of his word, the Grim Wash suddenly bobbed up amid small cries of distress from the crew. The boat had been set free. Tylar watched as a lane opened in the weed behind the ship’s stern. He heard Grayl’s gruff voice bark orders. Sails climbed up the masts. Even before they could be unfurled, the ship began to move, gliding down the open space in the tangle.
“The weed’s pushing ’em,” Rogger said. “Shoving them out of here.”
Tylar watched. “At least they’re honoring their word in this regard.”
“I suspect it’s not so much honor that grants this boon.”
Tylar glanced to the thief.
He nodded to the retreating ship. “There goes all hope of ever escaping Tangle Reef.”
With those words, the petals of the pod folded up and over their heads, forming a seamless seal. Instead of darkness, the space glowed with a soft green luminescence, filtered sunlight through leaf.
As they began their descent, Tylar was reminded again that the pod was a living part of the weed… and they’d just been swallowed up.
For a long silent stretch, they continued blindly into the depths, pulled smoothly by a stalk underneath the pod. Tylar, standing in the center, sensed tiny vibrations through his boots.
“Look,” Delia whispered, drawing his attention to the walls.
When they had first begun their descent, filtered sunlight from the surface had slowly faded to eternal darkness. A small glass lamp-a fire lantern blessed with a single drop of blood from a fire god-had been shaken and bloomed with a tiny flame to light the darkening space.
Now, like an onion peeling, the outermost layer of the pod’s walls had begun to fold back. Translucent walls transformed to fine crystal, opening a clear view to the seas beyond the pod.
Tylar gaped.
All around, a vast forest spread through the dark waters, lit by glowing globes that hung from arched branches. Slender trunks rose in fanciful spirals, while giant fronded leaves waved everywhere. Currents wafted entire sections in slow, undulating dances, moving to a music beyond their hearing.
Rogger spoke. “Who would’ve guessed that snarl topside would look so handsome from down here?”
“I thought you’d been here before?” Tylar said.
He hitched a thumb upward. “Only to the surface docks. I was branded under the sun. To travel down more than a handful of fathoms is forbidden to all but a select few. The mistress here likes to keep the true face of Tangle Reef turned away from sunlight and wind.”
A sudden storm of luminous pinpricks swept up the pod, swirled in eddies like a snowstorm, then rolled away.
“Sea sprites,” Delia said, amazed, following their flight as they fluttered away. “They’re the tiniest bits of sea life, more energy than substance.”
Other larger denizens came swimming up with flicks of tails or writhes of bodies: sharkrays, nibblecray, mantai, and a monstrously large gobdasher. This last curious visitor dwarfed the pod and stared in at them with one
