Chapter 4 Creature in the Deep
Silence is not emptiness, but a space for the heart to speak. In stillness we find clarity. In quiet we hear truth.
Stale air brushes my face. The smell of rot and festering meat fills my nose and I gag, opening my eyes to realize that If I'd taken one small step forward it would have been over the edge of the rock shelf to the dark water below.
A narrow bridge has been carved out, connecting my small ledge to the other side which sits lower, a long downward slope that appears slick and unstable.
A path both treacherous and steep.
There’s an insistent tremble in my knees as I peer down into the thick black and note with a pang of panic that my head’s swimming and my vision’s going dim.
The dreamberries are already pulling at me, lulling me into the mortal afterlife, to Dáinnheim.
It’s a miracle I made it through the veil, feeling nothing but cool wind. My clothes are dry. I'm in one piece.
I bring the sanaberries to my mouth and chew them.
They're bland in comparison to the poisonous ones, but their effect is immediate. The hazy fog settled over my mind begins to clear and I can see straight again. Not that there’s much to go on.
This cavern is even dimmer than the last. I think I'll be forced to try summoning flame.
Finding my footing, I close my eyes and picture a spark of heat welling within me, starting deep in my chest. Just an ember that grows and spreads.
Trying to remember my móeir’s words used to guide me as a child, I will it to expand out through my shoulders, follow the curve of my arms down to sets of willowy fingertips I flex in anticipation of the heat that should follow.
Nothing. Nothing to show for it but a cold sweating sheen across my forehead and a ragged rhythm to my breath. It wasn't enough to save Móeir and I that day; it's not enough now to even light my way to redemption. The holes in the ceiling will have to do.
I go slow, inching along the frigid, mildew slick stone.
One toe, and then another, and then a whole foot to test the bridge.
Will it hold me? It looks so fragile, like it could crumble under a strong gust of wind.
I may be tall, but I'm willowy and lean like my móeir before me, more bone than skin from a diet of street scraps and want.
I'll take my chances across. This is the closest I've ever been to a piece of the crown and it's that thought keeping me going, even as I peer into the murky waters below.
A ripple, quiet and slow, blooms over the still surface. It starts as a small ring and then expands when the culprit below slinks to the top; a puckered tentacle, the shade of mucus men from the workhouses spit after a long shift in the mines outside the city.
At the sight, a horrible shiver crawls along my skin and I lower down on all fours, gripping the rough edge, pulling myself along it even as the slick scum seeps through my pant legs.
There is a monster below me. It's a paralyzing thought and as I move forward, as more of the bridge crumbles off to pelt the water.
I imagine the creature, disturbed by my presence, lashing out with one of those fleshy, sucker lined tentacles to take hold of one ankle, dangled down to straddle the narrow path.
My breath hitches. I dig my long fingers into the stone, trying to press deeper than the coat of mildew reaches, until they scream with pain, and pull, half slipping, half climbing down the steep decline.
The only sounds are that of dripping water, my sharp breaths, and a soft humming that emanates from below to tickle at my ears.
A compelling song, words I vaguely recognize threaded through, sung in the old mother tongue of the gods.
The sound only grows more intense the deeper I go.
Light from the ceiling no longer penetrates the air around me, but a new source glows in the distance.
It's strange and golden, illuminating the bottom of the bridge that meets a flat shelf opening to another cave.
Terrifyingly, the shelf is hardly a foot above the dark waterline and the ominous singing seems to come from the murky depths—perhaps the beast within I glimpsed.
It could be one of the sirens of old, but those wicked creatures haven't shown their deceptive faces in over a century, though their cruel acts are still sung about in warning amongst sailors and shore scavengers.
How they pluck and feast on those who dare fall into range.
A drip of water from the cavern ceiling falls and hits the top of my head, making me jolt, almost slip forward.
It’s not too late to turn back. To clamber up the slick bridge and cross the veil.
To return to the half-life waiting for me on the streets of Helgate.
I could turn to opium, as so many others have, and drown out the world.
So many of the nymph slaves use it as a way of easing their pain, forgetting the cruel reality they’ve been thrust into.
No. I scowl. Not when I'm so close. Not after all of this time, when the prize is just a breath of courage away.
The world comes back into sharp focus. I feel every pulse of my heart, the sharp stirring of my blood.
Air above me, stone beneath me. An ancient strength that tells me to keep going.
Shakily, I press my feet into the end of the bridge and rise to balance the rest of the way down until I reach the shelf ledge.
Behind me, another faint ripple goes through the water, but I don’t linger to let it catch me even as the song grows louder and sweeter, still. Beckoning, inviting.
Slip into the water, warm yourself, friend, drink. Join me in a paradise, I promise you won’t sink. In these depths you’ll never hunger, never sorrow. Never want.
The light, focus on the light. Looking at it dims the desire to turn. I stumble inside the smaller cavern opening to find the source of it and gasp at the sight.
The walls themselves are gilded and shimmering with crystals.
Surrounding its base are piles upon piles of gold and silver eyrir, studded with deep rubies and gleaming emeralds.
Diamonds glistening like stars in the night sky.
At the center of it all, dull compared to the rest, is a risen stone dais carved from the same rock that makes up the chasm and bridge outside.
Resting in the middle under a fine layer of dust is one broken piece of a faded silver crown, forlorn, and undesirable compared to the endless treasure around it.
A treasure that seems to sing along with the voice echoing in from the water behind me.
Riches to last a lifetime. Several lifetimes.
With it, I could buy and free every slave in Helgate.
I could charter ships, go home, hire mercenaries to protect us all.
It’s a dream, a burning desire, and the treasure song promises it could be a reality if I only reached out to scoop handful after handful into my bag.
Trust no one. Trust nothing. Not even yourself.
I close my eyes, squeeze them shut as hard as I can.
When I open them, the magic ripples, shifts, but quickly settles back into place.
It was enough though. Enough to see through the spell, the Fade.
Kneeling, I study the crown piece before reaching into my bag to pull out the map and read the inscribed words again.
What a seeker claims, the seeker reaps. The last bit of the puzzle, a warning in itself.
I came for the crown and nothing more. There’s nothing else here I need.
The thought alone proves powerful enough to shed the trance that’s fallen over me.
My hand shakes as I reach for the fragment, the dull silver embedded with a ruby, made of the deepest red I’ve ever seen.
It’s practically weightless in my hand, but as I lift it the room falls away, glittering gold and silver melding into the same damp, leaden stone as the rest of the pathway.
In place of the treasure rests a pile of bones picked clean—cracked skulls, their jaws hanging loose.
Yellowing femurs and rib cages strung with hanging moss.
Seems I wasn’t the first to reach the cavern, after all.
The trail of decomposed bodies leads all the way to the watery edge and I shiver.
Perhaps they went for the gold and silver first, instead of the crown.
Perhaps the metal turned to a corpse in their hand and they reaped the death they reached for, as the passage warns.
I rise and note how as the luster of the treasure fell away, the crown piece’s true form shone through.
The silver now giving way to the darkest obsidian; the ruby, red as fire personified, is almost impossible to look away from.
It’s warm in my hand, humming with godly power as I tuck it into my satchel.
An urge to weep rises in the back of my throat, but I quell it.
Now is not the time to fall to the sweet call of relief for what I’ve achieved.
It’s not over yet. I have to make it back up the bridge, through the fall.
Back out to the sandy cove where anything could be waiting.
My feet find purchase on the pathway and I push myself forward across the cold ground, avoiding the trail of cracked bones. It’s not until I reach the base of the bridge that I realize the creature's song has gone silent and the water still as the longest night.
Too late do my eyes scour the glassy surface and the ledge around me. Too late do I look down to find that one of the fleshy tentacles is darting out from a mound of rocks on the far side of the bridge to wrap around my ankle and drag me into the deep.