Chapter 8
Dear E., Beloved Sister of Sophy,
Perhaps this message – sent by a Stranger! – will alarm you upon receipt. If that is so, allow me to offer you a prefatory apology!
Yet I hope – o, SO earnestly! – that this is not the case – that I am not a stranger, and that Sophy indeed told you a little about me and what life is like down here in the “Deeps”. (That, by the way, is highly original researcher slang used to refer to the Ridge – as coined yesterday by Schr Vincenebras. I imagine that soon everyone will use it widely. Welcome to the future!)
Now, I suspect Sophy also told you that our current “field mission” will make it difficult for her to send you regular letters. It is no permanent solution, I’m afraid, but as the Expedition Specialist, I am required to deputise one of our automata to return to the surface bearing updates from the first day of our journey (which happens to be today). Only while we are still close enough to the Spheres to make such a thing practical, of course. I mentioned this to your sister last night, and we hatched a plan together! It is a pleasure to bring you some cheer while we Deep Ones (surely you can work out the etymology there) wander around like eager children playing at hiding and seeking with luminescent sea creatures! She allowed me to write whatever I wished in this cover letter (I chose nonsense, clearly) if I included the following two phrases:
Are you still writing to HIM?
AND
Please take care of yourself.
Great waves – whatever could it all mean?
While she gave me no further instructions, I assumed that she – and you – would not turn down the inclusion of a silly little sketch of the very cetacean automaton who will carry your letter up to an enterprising mail-boat. (I dubbed this particular creature “Seacilia”.)
I look forward to truly meeting you one day, E.!
Niea
Dear E.,
First of all, I swore to myself that I shall only describe briefly any events in my journey that might bring you anxiety. Even so, if anything in this or a future letter troubles you, please take heart that the very act of writing confirms that I am alive, so you need not fear for me. But you will be pleased to hear that I survived my first full day adrift in the depths!
This morning (was it really that recently?), I proceeded to breakfast only to find Ylaret and Irye already with Eliniea at “our” table, deep in conversation about the upcoming field study. Perhaps this seems out of character, but for a moment, as I watched them chatter – Niea sparkling as usual, smiling demurely at a witticism from Ylaret – I felt a rivulet of nervousness overcome me.
But then Eliniea’s eyes met mine and she pulled out the chair right next to hers, and all such anxieties dispersed. Then the “moment” was promptly interrupted by the arrival of a boisterously sleepy Vincenebras, wearing upon his head the elegant blouse he mistook for a hat in his morning weariness.
A necessary few wardrobe changes later, the five of us bid a fond farewell to the Spheres – and to think I had just started to find them relatively homelike! – in favour of the great unknown. My assigned automaton, a sprightly teal-and-steel replica of a Recalcitrant Porpoise, clicked along cheerily as I held tightly to its glimmering back; Ylaret, my dive partner for the day, rode beside me on her stately striped Commonplace Dolphin. Though we did intend to swim much of the journey on our own power, Eliniea decided that it would be prudent to receive an initial “boost” from the automata to help us progress more quickly on the first day.
One of the strangest parts of travelling through the deep ocean is that I find myself incapable of tracking time. Unless I manually count each second under my breath, there are no environmental or humanmade signifiers to suggest that the present moment advances at all. I find myself missing that gaudy old baro-clock in its place of pride in the dining room – would you believe that I long to hear its shuddery, off-key chimes to keep me on my temporal course?
It did not help that our first field day was relatively uneventful. An unpredictable current prevented me from descending deeper into the trench, so I had to rely on my portable Wayfinding Device alone for surveying. In this way did I pass my time – waving that sonar wand about like some sunken conductor, monitoring the rose and orange flashes on my Monitor, and attempting to mentally reconstruct the readings to comprehend the contours of the landscape. Relatively banal, with one recent exception.
Some short time ago – perhaps an hour? Perhaps several? – my communicator pulsed, and Eliniea’s gentle voice materialised in my helmet. (How sonorous her speech is!)
“Welcome to our lodgings, friends!” she said – or rather, murmured, because there is no need to shout when a microphone amplifies your speech into everyone’s ears.
“As we traverse this route for the first time,” Eliniea continued, “I thought we might wish to pause here. It is about halfway between the Spheres and the Point of Interest. I hope everyone will have a chance to rest tonight! Please feel free to stop by my Bubble if there is anything you would like to discuss with me.” She then gave us a brief introduction to underwater shelter assembly – I cannot believe how portable these “Bubbles” are! – and we all made ourselves comfortable within a companionable distance from one another.
O, but I realise I used some expedition terminology with which you might not be familiar! When Eliniea undertook her first survey of this region – when the station was still being built – she found one area of the Ridge, termed “The Point of Interest”, that seemed most fruitful as a centrepoint for our studies. It features impressive biodiversity and the most unique topography, to name a few characteristics that obviously hold no particular meaning to me.
At any rate, though I have no way of judging our distance from the Point of Interest, we do seem to be just out of the range of the Spheres. Before tucking away into the seclusion of our Bubbles, we five floated together to enjoy a rare moment of respite. The station we knew so intimately diminished in the distance, looking more like a necklace of radiant, rainbow pearls than a feat of life-sustaining technology. Yet even thus reduced, the lights illuminated our spirits as they did the water – until the moment when the glow vanished utterly as though it had never existed.
The darkness lasted only for a short while. It frightened me at first – I feared I had overexerted myself and that my vision had begun to falter. I took comfort, however, in the fact that both Eliniea and Irye immediately turned on their communicators to express their shock: clearly I was not alone in witnessing this oddity. In a tone that suggested reassurance for herself just as much as the rest of us, Eliniea noted that one of her Architect colleagues did say that the power system occasionally resets itself when the Station is in “stasis” and unoccupied. Vincenebras scoffed at this, concerned that the existence of such a glitch even in the stasis cycle could easily occur when we were aboard (with potentially deadly consequences). Irye suggested that it might be some abyssal optical illusion – a suggestion that Eliniea, too, found convincing. Only Ylaret stared silently at those reawakened lights, with no commentary to offer.
But as I may have mentioned previously (I find myself too weary to flip back through the pages and confirm), I am now safely ensconced in my temporary quarters for the night. Thanks to the semi-opaque “shields”, I can see little beyond the vaguely bright outlines of my colleagues’ Bubbles. I am grateful that Eliniea anchored hers adjacent to mine – it calms me to spy her silhouette bent over a book.
Actually, it seems she noticed my shameless spying! And—now my communicator pulses. Farewell!
Sophy
Dearest Sophy and Niea (if I may), co-conspirators,
Let me express my overwhelming appreciation for your jointly authored scheme to cheer me in your absence. I shall be brief since I know you will not read this for some time.
Yes, I still write to him, and I will do my best to take care of myself.
Please look out for each other and I can’t wait to hear news of your field study.
Affectionately,
E.
Dear Sophy,
I suppose this is as good a time as any to make an embarrassing confession.
Nothing – and I do mean nothing, short of losing Reiv or my children (or, previously, my brother) – terrifies me more than those deepest and darkest parts of the ocean.
Some people operate under the misguided assumption that a sailor never truly fears the sea. On the contrary, I find that my extensive experience navigating the great waves has taught me too much about the terrors of the endless watery depths. The only reason why I am able to step aboard a ship at all is because I developed an innate ability to “abstract” the sea, if you will. In other words, when I stand on deck and look out at the grey or azure or midnight ripples before me, I pretend they are nothing but creases in a flat carpet, one stretched over the thick floor of the world under which nothing rests, and into which nothing could possibly fall.
I have never admitted this practice to another person, and I fear my attempt to articulate these thoughts will only make me seem rather irrational. But I risk my credibility as a captain to tell you this because I want you to understand how much these letters from your time on the expedition make me want to bury myself in blankets and never leave the house again.
And yet – in an attempt to entertain and connect with your faraway sister, I suspect? – the Sophy of the past is a remarkably fine narrator. Against my better judgement, I must read more. (Though I suspect you will have my husband with whom to reckon if (when?) my deep-sea anxieties disrupt our mutual sleep.)
With anticipation,
Vyerin
Dear Vyerin,
I find nothing embarrassing whatsoever about your confession! In my expert opinion (as someone who has spent a record-breaking amount of time continuously underwater), anyone who does not fear the abyss is simply na?ve to its perils. There is something philosophically crisis-inducing about the seemingly infinite. This is not to say that the deep ocean is boundless – of course it has a limit, as all things do! – but because we cannot see the seafloor, or really any landmark of consequence that might give us a sense of space, it feels as though it goes on forever.
And that’s just the deep ocean on a base level – never mind what we encountered down there.
My apologies in advance to Reiv.
Fortunately, we shall now enjoy a brief respite from my account (I was, indeed, increasingly making my letters more like episodes in a thrilling story, I suppose, to appeal to E.!) because I had no further opportunity to send missives via the unfortunately named automaton “Seacilia” until we returned to the station. Perhaps, in the interim, you might enjoy a letter from Henerey?
Calmingly, I hope,
Sophy
Dear Sophy,
O yes, Henerey – the very reason why I sat down to write you an Automated Post in the first place before my ramblings about deep water distracted me. I did so hope you would have another letter that he sent to E. for me to read. I thought it might be useful to precede it (if it will suit you) with a new section from his daybook – including his request log from the library around this time.
V.
Moments of delight amid today’s frustrations (if I could think of an aquatic metaphor, that would almost be a perfect Darbeni line!):
· A sunrise like no other. Unbelievable colours!
· A dessert well-deserved.
· The Nascent Carp in the Anchorage’s Conservatory – how they weave over and under each other in endless tessellations.
· A letter to reread again and again as I try to formulate a reply (and – though it embarrasses me to write this and I know the Scholars of the future will mock it in years to come – imagine what her voice sounds like).
The following receipt records the Library materials requested by
SCHR HENEREY CLEL
The following requests have been approved and submitted by the Library Attendant:
Cloyd, Schr Dovis Elvin. Size Anomalies of the Second Ocean. The School of Observation at Intertidal Campus, Year 705.
Darbeni, Schr Kenven. A Sail, A Sea, A Secret: Further Musings. The School of Inspiration at Boundless Campus, Year 950.
Parnel, Schr Tyram. Enigmas of the Abyss (That We May Soon Understand): A Forward-Looking Retrospective. The School of Intuition at Boundless Campus, Year 1002.
The following request:
Larnard, Schr Jos. Sunken Splendour Volume the Third: Including Mythes, Tales, and Dreames and Accompanied by Several Mappes and Illustrations By the Author. The School of Intuition at Boundless Campus, Year 380.
has been denied by the Library Attendant for the following reason:
RESTRICTED CONTENT (COLLECTION OF RARE MANUSCRIPTS)
(Sorry, Henerey, but you know you must come into the Reading Room to look at something that precious. Everyone else does it, and no one has perished yet! – Elaxand)
V.,
I assume that note was left by Scholar Elaxand Iyl? I barely saw the fellow, as I often used the Library Anchorage midday when he was not the attendant on duty, but I did know of him. He had a reputation as both a skilled researcher and the most sympathetic of the collections’ wardens.
P.S. I, a Scholar of the Future, would like Henerey to know that his desire to imagine my sister’s voice is not embarrassing in the least!
S.,
Yes, it was Scholar Iyl. My brother considered him a personal friend.
Which meant Henerey’s correspondence with E. doubled his “personal friend” count instantly.
Dear E. (if I may? Since you so aptly demonstrated your ability to drop my honorific?)
Once again, your letter arrived precisely when I needed it most – how do you always manage that? It pains me to admit this (and I hope you will not think ill of me), but it seems I can do nothing correctly in the eyes of the Department these days. Another project over which I laboured for many months has been summarily dismissed as “irrelevant” and “backwards” by Chancellor Rawsel, who made it clear that those adjectives also apply to me. For three days I abjured the company of my colleagues, taking meals from our Refectory back to my quarters and spending all my free hours either deep in the stacks of the Library Anchorage, wandering the Conservatory paths in solitude, or collapsed on my bed in a most ungraceful posture. In such a position was I arrayed when the courier passed through my hall a while ago, sliding your neat envelope under the door with a sound loud enough to pierce my malaise.
The sight of your handwriting – and your ever-transporting words – brought about a great calm within me. How marvellous that an unexpected letter introduced me to someone who seems to see the world exactly as I do! All I can do is thank you for your kindness and pray that I will not frighten you away with my melancholic thoughts.
I just reread my previous two paragraphs and am indeed astounded by the melancholia that permeates them. Where are my signature parentheticals and eager exclamations? Let me remedy this henceforth, as the very act of writing to you has already lifted my spirits.
I am gladdened to hear, by the way, that you find the very act of writing to me helps you cope with your sister’s absence! Everyone at Boundless Campus speaks of nothing but Schr Eliniea Hayve Forghe’s “pre-mission update” that she sent via automaton on the first night of their field study. I smiled to myself when I read of the promising initial progress your sister made in mapping the seafloor. How it boggles my mind to remember that “esteemed Scholar of Wayfinding, Philosophy Cidnosin” and “E.’s dear Sophy” are one and the same! It heartens me to know that your sister found kindred spirits among her crew – it is difficult enough to get on with one’s Department under the best of circumstances, to say the least of when one is trapped under the sea with them! (I would rather swim with all the predators in the ocean than spend an hour in a depth-craft with Chancellor Rawsel.)
Because you asked, I shall tell you now that I too experience such jealousy with my own brother. If you met Vy, you might think him terse and aloof, or perhaps altogether too intimidating to approach! Yet he remains capable of begrudging conviviality when he wishes. I began my Apprenticeship before he did, and once he joined me at Atoll Campus, he swiftly made more close friends in a week than I did in an entire year of study! For a while, it consumed me – his ability to catalyse a conversation when I siphoned all of its energy, his skill at discussing trivialities in a way that made people feel anything but trivial, the fact that he was tall and well-built and caught the eye of every person imaginable – perhaps I should end this sentence, as it makes it sound as though these thoughts still consume me!
In truth, they do not. I now realise Vyerin and I, though raised by the same parents and possessing similar genetic compositions, are entirely distinct sorts of people. Though I might envy those friends of his who share his personality traits, I take comfort in the fact that there is no one else in Vyerin’s life quite as different from him as I am – and the relationship that we share, therefore, is utterly unique. At the same time, this frees me to enjoy spending time with folks with whom I have more in common – including (most prominently!) yourself.
Speaking of our commonalities, I am delighted – but not, as you predicted, surprised – that you too enjoy Fantasies. The Star Sailors is a classic, of course. I cannot believe that our telling of it is four hundred years old (and that it describes alleged events from four thousand years prior, long before the Dive) – it feels as though it could have been written yesterday. Which of those noble voyagers did you find most relatable? Hopeless romantic of a child that I was, I found Lady Ei and her dedication to protecting her beloved at all costs admirable beyond belief.
For a moment, I found myself tempted to spill a full squid’s worth of ink simply naming stories and asking you for your thoughts about them – but how could I focus on fiction after hearing about the mythical occurrence unfolding in your own garden?
I can hardly put into words how your description of this mysterious Structure makes me feel. I have so many questions for you, and there is nothing I love more than something that piques my curiosity! First and foremost, though – what does it look like? You shared so many other details – your encounter with Scholar Alestarre, your dive in the garden, your hypotheses about your brother’s involvement (or lack thereof) – but the Structure itself remains an enigma to me. How large is it? What colours and textures do you see? Do you recognise the materials, or the visual style? Could it be repurposed Antepelagic technology, uncovered over time by the currents as those old machines from before the Dive sometimes are? Is there any chance that it is a coral formation that has coincidentally grown into a shape that our form-seeking eyes identify as “humanmade”? The architectural capabilities of coral colonies are truly exceptional – why, I once saw a cluster of pillar corals that created their very own colonnade!
But you asked for reading recommendations, not endless questions and speculation, so I will try to provide them. Something about your account struck a chord within the resonant recesses of my brain. There was one very old, very rare book I remember from childhood (though it was not particularly intended for children) that offered a brief history of mysterious sunken objects (including Antepelagic machines, but not exclusively). I had hoped to acquire this book from the library and enclose it for you (as my friend Elaxand is most lenient with due dates) as a small token of my gratitude, but unfortunately, the volume is non-circulating. (And I dare not even make a fair copy, because accessing rare volumes requires me to go into the Reading Room – which, despite the title, is more of a social gathering space than a room in which one accesses restricted books. There is only one small viewing table around which everyone must crowd, and you are forced to converse with your fellow readers the entire time. Even though you are supposed to be reading. Alas.) Yet do not despair – I have set some other plans in motion, and I anticipate that I may still be able to share this book with you soon.
Until then, I hope you will remember that you have a friend at Boundless Campus – however far away I might be! – and that he thinks of you with great frequency (but only if that suits you).
Gratefully,
Henerey
P.S. I beg your pardon for adding further length to an already-ample letter, but I realised that I did not answer one of your questions – what “my” library is like!
I am very much the kind of library patron who prefers consistency – so yes, I do have my own dedicated carrell, one that I borrow from a Senior Scholar who finds the space “suffocating”. It is a glorified desk on the library’s second floor, set before a small porthole window. Naturally, I keep my shelves as crowded as possible. My current “installation” features several Antepelagic fossils excavated from the earth of the Atoll (the gems of my collection – representing three terrestrial species endemic to the Upward Archipelago that went extinct during the Dive), the seventy-five books I currently possess on indefinite loan from the library, three jarred algae plants, a landscape painting of the Ragged Coast to remind me of home, and a small clay figurine ostensibly depicting me and my brother (though you would not be blamed for thinking it was a single porpoise) gifted to me by my precocious niece Avanne in her earlier years.
It is, altogether, a lovely place, and often inspires me to great productivity. I enjoy facing the window, but as I am altogether a jittery fellow, I cannot abide having my back turned towards the rest of the library. (Some particularly uncouth members of my Department seem to take an unfortunate pleasure in “surprising” me from time to time.) Recently, it occurred to me that I might enjoy the best of both worlds by sitting sideways on my chair – so I can turn my head to watch research vessels pulling in and out of the Anchorage on one side or survey the silent bustling of the stacks from the other.
Now that I’ve furnished you with this preliminary description of where I spend my days, I hope you will do me the honour of returning the favour in whatever way suits you. Where are you as you read this letter? (I promise I ask this primarily because I am curious to know more about the world that surrounds you – not solely out of my continued fascination with the Deep House! Rest assured that I would want to imagine you reading my letters even if you lived in a Boundless Campus dormitory (the “charms” of which, I’m sure, your sister has not praised unduly.)) – H.
Dear Sophy,
In a way, these Henerey letters – seemingly sent from beyond the grave – are almost more harrowing than your suspenseful underwater adventures.
It is true that my brother struggled on campus – both when he moved to Boundless and even during his first years of study at home on the Atoll. I wish that I could have been a true older brother to him – helping and guiding him – but I did not fully understand how he suffered. Henerey has always been anxious around strangers. A profound fear of public humiliation coloured his every action as a boy, and the fact that he was the youngest and most accomplished Atoll Apprentice in recent history gave many a desire to embarrass him whenever he showed vulnerability.
Seeing the genuine joy in my brother’s words as he finally found someone similar to him comforts me immeasurably. (And thank goodness she enjoyed The Star Sailors I found that story unbelievably cloying – I could not bear to hear Henerey go on and on about “dear Lady Ei and Lady Je and their true love”. Almost worse than Darbeni.)
In exchange for “your” letter from Henerey, let me offer you a trade in kind – a letter Henerey wrote to me possibly minutes after penning his reply to E.
Your friend,
Vyerin
P.S. I still possess those objects from Henerey’s carrell, by the way. Reading this letter inspired me to break open that case and finally put its contents on display. The fossils and painting sit on my own desk as I write to you, and Avanne re-acquired her piece of juvenilia with great pride. Never did a porpoise sculpture give me such emotion.
Dear Vy,
Under normal circumstances, the news I shall announce shortly (in my next sentence, in fact!) would do nothing short of utterly delight you. At present, I am plotting a trip homeward! (In the midst of a most demanding time in the Department, nonetheless. What a paragon of familial affection I have become.)
Yet you, Vyerin, know better than anyone that I remain a much finer Scholar than a sibling. I confess that the reason for my visit is all too selfish. I have been charged with a rather unusual research undertaking by a friend of mine, and I find that the answers she seeks just might lie in some of the juvenile Fantasy volumes of our childhood. (Yes, “she” happens to be the very person who wrote to me out of the blue just about a month ago – in the intervening tides, we have enjoyed quite a wondrous correspondence! I cannot understand, frankly, why she would willingly read my miserable ramblings, but I admit that our conversations give me a raft to which to cling as I navigate a difficult time.)
Though I know it will pain you (and Reiv especially), please do not breathe a word of my potential impending journey to Avanne just yet – I want to make sure I may indeed get away, and I would hate to disappoint her! (Surely her righteous fury would match the toxic wrath of a startled Cone Shell.) I shall do my best to offer up a suitable excuse to the ever-demanding Chancellor Rawsel, catch an expedient transport vessel to the Atoll, stay the night, and return in the morning. (I don’t suppose anything moderately life-threatening currently ails you or Reiv at the moment? Not that Chancellor Rawsel would consider that a worthy excuse, of course.)
Until we meet again,
Henerey
Dear Vyerin,
Your resentment of The Star Sailors is understandable. I did not dislike it quite so strongly as you, being rather a romantic myself (with an unfortunate tendency to picture myself and my aforementioned ill-fated childhood sweetheart as the Vowed Ladies), but I did find it dull compared to less poetic, more haunting tales like The Errors of the Whirlpool. Yet it seems to have meant so much to our siblings. Perhaps we misjudged it?
Your friend,
Sophy
Dear Sophy,
I assume, in these “Star Sailor” imaginings, that you were Lady Ei and Seliara was Lady Je? (Yes, I have deduced the identity of your childhood love quite readily. You only knew one person, after all. Please correct me if I am wrong.)
Unfortunately, I can’t say that The Errors of the Whirlpool is much better, in my estimation. I suppose you and I are better co-archivists than “book friends”.
V.
Dear V.,
If you have gained any empathy towards my sister and her situation over the course of our project, prepare to be outraged on her behalf. We are now about to embark on a difficult chapter in the story of the Deep House.
S.
P.S. I begrudgingly admit that you are correct. (About Seliara, that is, and not about the quality of Whirlpool.) I am quite sure each of us siblings had a fancy for her at one point or another. (E. most briefly of all. Her standards are – were – quite high.) We shall speak no more of this.