A Letter to the Luminous Deep

Chapter 22

(Transcribed at the insistence of Clel and Cidnorghe through the kind generosity of Mr. Reiv Clel: Husband, Stenographer, and Unofficial Archival Assistant)

SOPHY CIDNORGHE: Thank you for meeting with us, Jeime. Yes, I know it’s contrived, but I did want to greet you officially so we could record it in our transcript.

(Duly noted! –R.)

JEIME ALESTARRE: The pleasure is mine. Of course, I had no choice. I knew this day would come.

SOPHY CIDNORGHE: Then why didn’t you say anything to me? Anything at all?

VYERIN: Sophy’s—

SOPHY: Do you object, Vy?

VYERIN: I was about to say that Sophy’s questions are fair, Jeime. You could have spared us this entire archival adventure.

JEIME: What would you two have me say? Would you have believed me if I told you what I knew? Your own sister could not even tell you! She told me she worried that you—

SOPHY: That was a different time. You have no idea what I’ve seen, and what I’ve experienced, and what I believe. Now, at any rate.

JEIME: I am sorry. (To be fair, she does look rather contrite. No one involved here is in the wrong, in this humble Stenographer’s opinion. –R.) But you must understand. I already feared I had broken my promise to your mother by giving E. so much information – information that, as far as I knew, sent your sister to an uncertain fate! While I did not encourage E. to go out to the Structure with Scholar Clel, and would have warned her against it if she’d told me, I felt responsible all the same. So, as your mother would have done, I chose to wait instead of approaching you with this confession. I hoped that once you read all your sister’s letters, you would come to me, and I could own up to my actions and provide answers. Which I am happy to do now.

SOPHY: I am sure Mother would have been immensely pleased that you inspired E., of all people, to literally dive into the unknown in her search for the truth. And I understand, Jeime, that it is not your fault that she did. But how did you know that E.’s letters contained any of this information?

JEIME: A fortunate guess. I knew from E. that she wrote to her correspondent about the Structure. Also, speaking of which, seeing the Captain here is a surprise. I did not even know Scholar Clel had a brother.

VYERIN: Nor did I, until now.

(My dearest, while I am awed by your active participation in this conversation – what does that statement even mean? –R.)

SOPHY: You said you would provide us with answers, so let us proceed to some more difficult questions, if you would be so kind.

VYERIN: We know about the, er, lifecycles of the Structures. I mean, the Entries. Whatever you wish to call them. We’ve learned a little, anyway. You said the Entry at the Deep House would explode or what have you in two months’ time. Why did it happen earlier than predicted?

JEIME: I thought perhaps you would have figured this out already.

SOPHY: More’s the pity. I second Vyerin’s question.

JEIME: The Entries emerge from—wherever. That’s the first stage. The following “burst”, as I understand, charges them, as though they were a Battery. The second and more powerful “burst”, on the other hand, is their dying breath – the end of the Entry when it does not complete its mission.

VYERIN: What mission?

JEIME: As far as I understand it from what Ami told me – their mission is transportation. Or, more fittingly, evacuation.

REIV CLEL: To where and from what, respectively?

(Behold! I too may pose questions. –R.)

JEIME: I do not know the specifics, but the gist is: away. To another world. To a better place.

NIEA: Is this an examination question with multiple answers from which to choose? In that case, I select “Away”.

VYERIN: I, on the other hand, am personally partial to “a better place”.

SOPHY: As far as I understand, then, the Fleet were one’s garden-variety misguided idealists, yes? They dreamed up a fantastic “better place” to replace – what? Academic ennui? Unfortunate social situations? The Campuses struggle with many issues, to be sure. Scholars like Rawsel – thoughtless, even cruel people – they live among us, of course. But, if you’ll forgive the rational pessimism, people like that would exist in any civilisation, regardless of how mystical or mysterious its origins. Do you not agree?

JEIME: Perhaps I have mischaracterised their desire. If you will recall what I wrote to E.: yes, the Fleet might seem like just another silly Society of daydreamers. Yet their motivation was not idealism, but fear. If what Ami believed is true, the Entries would bear us to safety. To our very last hope, in fact.

SOPHY: Yet it did the opposite for E. and Henerey.

JEIME: It seems the Fleet calculated exactly how long an Entry could last before our world destroyed it. Perhaps there is something in seawater that is not compatible with Antepelagic technology. I cannot say. But the Deep House Entry did not follow the pattern. And as I said, Sophy, if I thought—if I had suspected that E. was in danger—

SOPHY: I know. I know, Jeime.

JEIME: Here is what I propose. We all know, by now, that E. and Henerey did not disappear during a simple courtship call. Henerey came to the Deep House in a depth-craft to take E. out to investigate the Structure. The explosion that occurred on that fateful day was not the destruction of the Entry. It was the Entry fulfilling its mission because two people in a depth-craft had entered it.

(We all sit in silence. Suddenly, Vyerin starts guffawing out of nowhere, which he has only done before on precisely one occasion. Dear Vy, are you quite all right? –R.)

VYERIN: I knew it. I knew Henerey was too clever and too kind – that slippery seaborn, he’s escaped death!

SOPHY: But escaped to where? To that peculiar island that E. visited in her vision?

JEIME: Your sister had a vision of an island? She did not mention that to me.

VYERIN: O, she did far more than see it.

SOPHY: “Vision” is not quite the right term, but I am not sure how to describe it. She told Henerey that it felt as though she travelled to an ineffable elsewhere. A world lit by luminescence instead of sunlight. E. even brought back sketches, if you can believe that!

JEIME: I can indeed. Because I believe I saw the place myself when I was with Arvist in the depth-craft that day.

SOPHY: You—so you and E. were both—

JEIME: No, I did not encounter her. In fact, unlike her, I would not say that I “travelled” anywhere. It was only the briefest glimpse – dark skies, glowing water, the hint of land in the distance – that crossed my sight for a moment before I returned to the task of piloting us away from the explosion. I assumed it was some strange hallucination caused by shock. Perhaps E. and I both witnessed yet another mysterious function of the Structure’s technology.

SOPHY: But what manner of technology could transport E. there in such a perplexing fashion? And to what end?

JEIME: I cannot say. This is beyond even the knowledge Ami entrusted to me – o, Sophy, don’t look so cross. I can’t even begin to hypothesise, I’m afraid.

SOPHY: Cross? Is that what you think?

(Now SOPHY guffaws. Niea pats her arm comfortingly. –R.)

SOPHY: I am—terribly sorry—

NIEA: She hardly knows how to—

SOPHY: I hardly know how to respond to any of this. If this is true, if I can let myself believe that this is true, that E. might be—if this is true, how do we pursue them? I apologise for my outburst. The facts, yes. Must we wait for these “Entries” to appear again?

JEIME: Yes. We require an “Entry” or an “Envoy” to lead us to one. Though from what Ami told me, we know even less of the Envoys than we do the Entries.

VYERIN: And I know even less of the Envoys than you do. Would you care to elaborate?

JEIME: According to the Fleet, the “Envoys” are like – well, they are really like nothing else known to Science. Darbeni proposed that they were akin to automata, created by our Antepelagic ancestors, but other members of the Fleet disagreed and suggested they were a different order of beings with forms unlike our own. All Fleet Scholars seemed to concur that these Envoys travel to various points around the world to guide us to Entries. But no one has ever seen them. I think that anonymous poet that Darbeni revered wrote a poem about them once.

NIEA: Surely not. Sophy, surely not.

JEIME: No, she most certainly did write a poem, otherwise how would we know about this?

SOPHY: No, that is, I—o, blast, Niea, could that really be—

VYERIN: Please tell us, my friend. Is this about the Ridge mission?

(Niea looks at Sophy and nods. –R.)

SOPHY: There is something I simply must show you. The last letter I ever wrote to my sister – she never saw it, as far as I know.

NIEA: And don’t forget Tevn’s letter.

SOPHY: I think—o, seas, I think it might help us understand this even further.

(We stopped talking here so that Sophy may produce the letters. O, I do hope this is not a fool’s hope. –R.)

Dearest E.,

I hope this letter will not trouble you

I have gone back and forth in my attempts to

Today was unlike any other

As you can see, I hardly know how to begin.

Ever since your accident, dear E., I never know what to say to you. Before I left, I noticed this stiffness between us, some strange spell that I did not know how to disenchant, and I sorrowed to think that I might have said or done something during your convalescence that offended you. But it occurs to me now that my interpretation of your behaviour has been rather limited and self-centred. For I imagine that whatever experience you had in the water made it hard for you to understand how to return to “normalcy” – if such a thing exists. I understand this now because I too experienced something unexpected and I do not know how to proceed.

So, in my confusion, I turn to you. And I hope that if there was anything about your accident that you did not wish to share, that you did not know how to process or understand – I hope you will understand my position, in this moment, and perhaps feel comfortable telling me about your experience in the future.

Yesterday, we travelled directly from the Spheres to the Point of Interest without stopping along the way, without speaking often, and with much buzzing in our minds. We could not have made it without the automata, which carried us quite cheerfully. Their clicks brought solace to us – or to me, at any rate. I think the repetitive noise certainly annoyed Scholar Mawr, and possibly even Vincenebras.

Once we arrived, we assembled our Bubbles, enjoyed a brief meal – accompanied by an appetiser of more nervous chattering. Thus sated, we descended into that canyon once more. I found myself strangely nostalgic for the great Nautilus – at least it brought some light to the depths!

I was not nostalgic, however, for those days when the connection between myself and Niea was more tenuous. This time, she squeezed my hand as we swam downwards, and even through my diving glove I felt her fondness and warmth!

For some time, I almost thought that we would never reach this door – that my colleagues shared a hallucination, that it had been a waking dream, that some great creature would steal the door away before I would have the chance to lay my eyes upon such a spectacle. But sure enough, Irye’s lantern soon cast eerie beams on something glimmering in the depths, and we floated downwards to the inexplicable.

Due to the isolated circumstances of our upbringing, dear E., I can remember with near-perfect clarity most of the doors I have encountered in my short life. The airlock portal, of course. Mother and Father’s elegantly carved white-coral door, always open. Yours and Arvist’s – both always closed. The grey door of my dormitory, the windowed door of the lecture hall where I spent much of my time as an Apprentice, the tall cast-bronze door inlaid with reliefs of great Cartographical Accomplishments that swung open with such cacophony every time I dared to enter the Department of Wayfinding—

Compared to all of those, I would not deem this door particularly exceptional in form alone. It was finely wrought, to be sure, but so are the tracery doors that lead to the School of Inspiration studios, or even the way in which Father carefully finished Mother’s handiwork at the airlock by adding in a wreath of sea-floral forms for the tympanum. What was so unusual about this door was the location and the history. Was it last opened on a floating island in the heavens, a thousand years ago, by people who never thought their world would one day be destroyed? What Antepelagic history might we find inside?

Vincenebras and Irye set to pressing a kind of clay onto the door to take an impression, while Niea glided to the front of our group, took several photographs, and then placed her gloved hand tenderly on the door-ring. Ylaret offered her a crowbar, but Niea shook her head.

“I will open it if it gives,” Niea said, softly. “But if it does not, we will proceed with caution. I do not wish to damage it unduly.”

We nodded in agreement. I thought perhaps Vincenebras would have objected, but he – for once – said nothing. As soon as Niea gave the ring the slightest of tugs, the door floated open, revealing a tunnel of water lit by bioluminescent algae.

Tevn was the first to speak. He played it so casually – slipping into that passageway as though it were the door to his dormitory and turning around to face us with a look of careful confusion.

“Who can make sense of this?” Tevn’s question crackled through my communicator, and I find myself pondering it still. Did he choose those words with intent? He did not say “What is this?” or “I think I’ve found something” – he asked us for interpretation.

“Perhaps we will find it more sensical once we enter,” replied Vincenebras. “If you agree, Niea?”

Niea nodded her assent. “So long as one of us stays here and goes for help if we—do not return,” she said. “I am happy to take this role myself if necessary.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Irye. “Surely you, of all assembled, should go if you wish. I will remain and content myself with listening to you if the communicators stay in range. I shall keep an ear out for other strange sounds, too!”

The tunnel – or hallway – or whatever you would like to call it – behind the door took us all by surprise. There was nothing to suggest it was wrought by human hands – it resembled a lava-carved passageway, or perhaps those sheaths in which the Tube-Worms sleep. Unsurprisingly, Niea turned to me moments after we entered, her eyes alight.

“If a great Tube-Worm made this tunnel, dear Sophy, I shall simply perish of excitement!”

I do believe I love her.

Though the tunnel was filled with water – not an air pocket in sight, disappointingly – I could tell that it did not flow in and out regularly. The ceiling stood about a fathom above my head, and both top and bottom of this “cave” featured the most extraordinary seagrasses the height of my waist, growing in such great quantities that it felt as though we walked through a sea of clouds. Once I thought I felt something far more mobile than seagrass slip across my leg – but I did not glance down quickly enough to identify it. Perhaps that was for the best.

The tunnel proceeded horizontally for a time before reaching a wall beneath which stood another descending hole. And into that inexplicable pit swirled the topmost steps of a spiralling staircase. I cannot tell you what colour the stairs were or of what material they were crafted, for each step’s surface was encrusted with a millennium’s worth of deep red algae.

Because of the water, of course, it was difficult to walk down the stairs as we would at home – and you know I certainly thought back to the dear old Deep House staircase, remembering how you mastered the art of stepping just so to keep the stairs from creaking and prevent anyone from hearing you from up above. At any rate, we had no need to worry about that, since we swam our way down instead. We did not speak – at least not that I can recall, anyway. The only sound was the occasional clicking of Niea’s camera.

At the bottom: another door, in the same style as the one guarding the mysterious place, though this one seemed smaller, lither, and certainly less worn by the constant efforts of the ocean. Its iridescence was unsurpassed. If I half-closed my eyes (which I did frequently enough, if only to recalibrate my vision to ensure that I might truly see everything before me) I could imagine that the door consisted of constellations reflecting on the water.

“Would someone else prefer the honours this time?” said Niea. Even her ebullient voice was hushed. None of us accepted her offer, but I did swim forward and take her hand in mine once more. Before she could reach with her opposite arm to pull on this door, it glided open of its own volition.

And our ears began to pick up something unexpected.

“Irye!” shouted Ylaret. “Can you hear this?”

Though Irye’s communicator was nearly out of range, I heard their voice crackle faintly.

“Hear what, dear Ylaret?”

“No matter. I shall describe it to you,” she replied, switching to a private broadcast. I saw her lips moving silently under her helmet.

Indeed, at the back of my mind, I sensed some unknown melody – extremely faint and barely pushing through the static of my communicator, but present nonetheless. A sound lush and complex and made with no instrument I could recognise – perhaps in the string family? – with what felt like a thousand tempos layering over and over each other. I did indeed wish, in the moment, that Irye could hear it!

But that music quickly became the least important sound. Because interwoven into it – I swear, E., though we had no way of recording it, and likely we shall never be believed after what else came to pass – was a voice. No. It was more like the music became a voice, a voice that rang through our communicators and vibrated through the water like an ocean of choirs.

“You return,” the voice sang. “It worried me. I spent nights thinking you perished and enumerated all the ways in which that might have come to pass. But you are here at last! Why do you not enter?”

Formal words. Odd words. Strangely enough, I remember the precise thoughts that flooded my mind as soon as I heard this speech – namely, that the voice spoke in crisp Academic Vernacular rather than a regional language, and that the unknown entity talked – not quite with an accent, but it was rather as though the mediocre sounds of our speech were impossible for the mellifluous being to recreate. Later, Niea compared it to the experience of hearing a trained soprano drone in a drab monotone.

Such thoughts, however, halted when this mysterious announcement received an unexpected reply.

“My apologies,” said Tevn. “I did not intend to leave you for so long. I was prevented from returning. May my friends enter with me?”

How did the figure hear these words? I wonder. Tevn spoke into the communicator with his helmet still on. Yet as if in response, the water rippled about our bodies, pushing us – well, I can hardly say pushing, as that sounds far more aggressive than I intend – perhaps I mean propelling us through the hall into the chamber until we reached what appeared to be a cosy, well-equipped conservatory that just happened to be at the bottom of the ocean.

It appeared to be made entirely of glass, and the sunlight dazzled in—

Well, it occurs to me now that of course there is no sunlight under the water in the abyssal zone. Perhaps, in retrospect, I should say that there was – o, how would I even describe it – some form of carefully cultivated phosphorescence that produced the illusion of light shining through these windows?

At any rate, I can say with confidence that there were plants, hence the conservatory analogy, but instead of being pinned back in pots, they were wrapped around large, metallic sculptures – the forms of which were all soft, biomorphic shapes – so that the overall appearance of the place suggested it had been built by a mythical Scholar of Life who also happened to affiliate with the School of Inspiration. O, and in case you somehow forgot, let me remind you that this entire “room” was still filled with water – from floor to ceiling – but it felt warmer, and softer, and clearer than any water we encountered previously, such that I nearly forgot we were completely immersed!

In the centre of the room, sitting on a throne made of what looked like the pulsing, breathing appendages of some massive unknown Nudibranch, was a finned figure. She was tall, perhaps a few fathoms in height, but utterly transparent – which is not to say that I saw her internal organs on display (thank goodness). She was more like a phantom: I could discern the outlines of her face, her rippling hair, and the gown-like wrapping that covered her torso but did not obscure the great tail beneath. (Niea pointed out, afterwards, that the tail was not that of a fish but cetacean in nature. Covered in barnacles. Not scaled, but soft like a dolphin’s skin.)

“O, curious one, comical one,” she sang, “I missed you! You are so delicate that I was certain some ill had befallen you. But you brought me the greatest gift that you could! So many wise ones, so many scholars, though I asked only for one more!”

“Please wait – I have not yet told them,” Tevn said, quickly, as he swam across the strange little room to this sunken singer.

“Tevn,” whispered Niea. “This was what you saw.”

Tevn nodded slowly, tipping his helmet over as though its weight might sink his head to the very floor.

“But what is this?” asked Ylaret – only to me, I think, as nobody else seemed to react.

What was it indeed, E.? As I gazed around the room, I searched for recognisable signs of Antepelagic architecture or technology – images of rainbows, clouds, and other Upward Archipelago iconography, you know – anything that might look vaguely and comfortingly familiar. But it was all incomprehensibly new. The panels that made up the radiant glass room were not joined together. It was as though a sleek cube dropped fully formed from the surface to land here. Even Mother could not mask her glass seams so well! And while I initially thought the glass lacked any ornament, upon closer inspection I could detect tessellating geometric forms.

The sea-woman swam slightly closer to us, maintaining a safe distance. Her eyes – transparent domes, as ethereal as the rest of her – swept over our company.

“Your lives are the greatest treasures to me, the most precious – is it morsels?” she hummed inquisitively, inching nearer so she could wrap her transparent fingers around Tevn’s hand.

“Let’s hope not!” uttered Vincenebras in a tone so far from his usual joviality that it made my heart skip.

“The word you want is ‘jewels’, my friend,” replied Tevn, daintily holding her hand like an adult might hold fondly on to a toddler. “Let me speak with them.”

Niea gripped my hand like an adult might desperately hold on to a toddler who has tumbled too close to the side of a ship.

“Please do, Tev,” Niea said.

Tevn shrugged as the song continued. He did not look scared, but rather – bashful?

“Where do I even begin? Do I begin a year ago, when I left you during our dive and first discovered this place? Do I begin when—”

“Is it true?” called the sea-woman, suddenly dropping Tevn’s hand. “Is it true what I see?”

“Yes,” said Tevn patiently, “they really are here, and now I need to explain—”

“No, not here,” she said, cocking her head as though gazing at someone in the far distance. (I turned around and saw nothing.) “Two have found an Entry. Two are curious. Two will escape. At long last, a chance emerges!”

Suddenly, the sea-woman patted Tevn on the shoulder – affectionately, I might even say, as Father might have done to us! With unexpected force, she propelled herself down to the “floor”, where I noticed – for the first time – how the tiles glistened. For just a moment I saw a ring of light form around her – like how one might see the sky flash green after the sun sets – and then, right before our eyes, she began to glimmer away, becoming fainter and fainter. As she faded, a great tremor suddenly shook the room.

“My vigil ends at last,” she called, singing out one last time in that voice to which I had not quite grown accustomed. “You must leave. This is not your path!”

“No!” shouted Tevn, his cry reverberating painfully through my ears – since he had not thought to silence his communicator before screaming.

The room shuddered violently again, sending one of the sculpted plant “vessels” spiralling to the floor. Right after it shattered, object and plant alike vanished completely. Like the sea-woman, they seemed to dissolve, but, o, E., I hardly know how to explain this – it was as though they dissolved into sound. Three pulsing notes, again and again, seemed to project from that very spot on the floor where the vase had fallen.

Then the windows cracked, and a sea of sound poured in, erasing the walls in broad strokes, consuming the plants and the carvings and producing different harmonies and tempos for each object, and horrific though it all was I thought for a moment what a wonder it would be to become a part of that melodious multitude—

Until another sound – Niea’s voice – brought me back to myself.

“To the door!” she shouted as the ever-hungry music multiplied.

“You needn’t tell me twice!” cried Ylaret before slipping back into the hallway, Vincenebras hot on her fins. By instinct, I pulled Niea towards me, but she wrested free of my grasp.

“I will collect Tev and bring up the rear,” she said in the most cursedly reasonable voice, pressing her helmet towards mine in a diver’s kiss. Indeed, Tevn stayed stalled in the centre of the room, paddling aimlessly. A thousand new harmonies emerged around us.

“You had better,” I said with far more force than I intended.

The vibrant colours blurred my vision, but I kept my eye on the darkness of the tunnel beyond the door. Ylaret and Vincenebras made good time – I could barely see them in front of me – and they’d left not a moment too soon, as the walls of the tunnel itself began to shake and sound. I lagged a little, as I kept glancing behind me, and eventually spotted Niea tugging Tevn. The music rolled in a great circle around them, consuming the tunnel walls just after Niea cleared them. And her pace kept slowing.

So I turned back.

I never thought of myself as a particularly strong swimmer – you and Arvist could easily overtake me – but the circumstances gave me a speed I did not know I possessed. I glided to them, seized Tevn, grabbed Niea by the hand, and pulled them both along. My legs burned beneath me as I kicked through the seagrass. Moments later, we emerged, shooting out of the tunnel just as it collapsed behind us.

Even the door was gone – not broken or damaged, but vanished. The wall of the canyon remained intact. As it was meant to be.

And the music stopped.

Perhaps we should have taken some more photographs or measurements. Surely all of our Scholarly instincts would have urged us to. Instead, we returned to our Bubbles, breathing heavily, crowded together in one fused space, and ate a simple meal.

Well, I say together, but there was one of our number missing. Tevn seemed utterly spent when we returned. Ylaret gently assessed his injuries, though shock appeared to be his foremost symptom. Quietly and dazedly, he begged to return to his own Bubble and spend some time by himself. Perhaps he feared we might interrogate him. There was such a pallor to his face that Niea agreed, urging him to sleep and recover.

The rest of us, I expect, will not rest for some time. It has been hours and we are still awake, talking among ourselves, replaying and reciting everything that we can remember about the experience. Irye, our brave lookout, proved the most reassuring of us all, and promised to personally validate and support our “story”.

Why do I invalidate it by putting it in quotation marks? Do I doubt what I saw with my own eyes? Certainly I fear others will not believe it. At some point – when we feel we are ready – we will begin the difficult task of preparing a statement to share with the Chancellors. To think that this marvel occurred for us and we cannot understand it – and that we have no proof, no evidence, no data to analyse! (There are the photographs, of course, though they need to be developed. Niea fears that our perilous escape may have damaged the device’s delicate machinery.)

And yet there is no one in this world, I believe, who may understand this feeling so well as you, my dear sister. I do so very much love you.

More to come,

Sophy

P.S. It is morning now, and I decided to write you a few more lines. Tevn is gone! I know not how. He left Niea a note, which she reads right now as I write. I find it difficult to believe I am not dreaming. When I first awakened, I forgot everything – it felt like a normal day on the expedition – and then it rushed back to me.

E., do you believe me? What do you advise? I hope I will be able to speak with you soon. I find myself completely adrift and in need of my elder sister. I am desperate to talk about this and anything else that you would like. I shall end this letter here for now. I cannot wait to see you again.

My friend:

I hate to disappear once more. Truly. But this time I will not do so without an explanation (of sorts). I do apologise for my silence last night. Too much happened too quickly. I cannot abide with Chancellor Rawsel etc. any longer. So I must take the time to put my thoughts in order as though they were a conservatory of underwater plants tended by a mysterious guardian from another world (see, at the very least, I can still jest about what has happened).

I suspected I could not deceive you for long. In fact, you know that I am incapable of deceiving anyone, so perhaps it is surprising that my various ruses vaguely succeeded at all. But you may still have many questions, so please enjoy what follows as I attempt to fill any gaps in your knowledge.

I encountered her – the sea-woman, the spirit, whatever you wish to call her (her name, she told me, was a particular melody that I could never write down, not even with Irye’s composition paper to hand) – during our mission a year ago. When we left the capsule that day and you suggested that we explore by ourselves, I agreed with a haste that surprised me. I did not feel entirely myself. As I swam away from you and dived deep into the trench, I could barely control my strokes. Heavy music enticed me closer to a destination I could not name. Though you will hardly believe it, I have the distinct, dreamlike memory of unfastening my tether to swim further, even while my rational mind lambasted me for such life-threatening foolishness.

Freed from my one connection to you and our depth-craft, I reached the ledge. I noticed the architecture, opened that glistening door accented with algae – and found myself in the unnatural light of the chamber for the very first time.

You know that I always dreamed of the day when I would discover something truly inexplicable, something magical, something that no one else had ever seen before.

But then as soon as I did, it shattered me. I did not feel remarkable. I did not feel clever or curious or awed by the mysteries of the sea. I became ill. My hands shook. My head ached. I could not grasp the fact that she was real. I could not believe my own senses. And that shock weakened me in ways I did not expect – as you discovered when you pulled me back to the depth-craft that day. (Impossibly, I have no memory of finding and reattaching my tether. Yet some inexplicable providence intended for me to return to the surface.)

Thanks to your quick thinking, I made it safely back to campus. Though I stayed quiet throughout our return journey, I began indiscreetly babbling about my experience to the medics who received me at the infirmary. Clearly they were alarmed, given the importance of our expedition, and promptly reported their observations to Chancellor Rawsel. One very polite and sinister private interrogation later, and the Chancellor announced his verdict: he wanted so very much to believe me, but I had nothing – no proof, no corroboration by my partner, nothing other than my relatively un-besmirched reputation as a young scholar of moderate promise – to confirm my account.

This I expected. Ever since you and I joined the Expedition and started dealing with Rawsel and Boundless Campus, I learned early on that there is no room for anything that does not fit into the neat categories into which the Boundless Scholars organise their little World.

But I did not expect him to make me a bargain.

Because my account was “so remarkable” and my description “so lucid” and the Ridge expedition “of such monumental importance”, the Chancellors would allow me another opportunity to prove what I had seen.

Provided I, strictly speaking, was not the one to prove it.

In Rawsel’s mind I was biased – and possibly traumatised – and in no mental state, he told me, to return to such a high-stakes mission. It was all for my own wellbeing, of course, that I would take a brief sabbatical in a medical rehabilitation apartment – off-campus, in the complex by Sapient Bay – so I could restore myself. And to ensure that the rest of the new team – for now Rawsel would form a team to return to the Ridge, to guarantee as many corroborators as possible – was not in any way influenced by my opinion.

Most of all, I was not, under any circumstances, to contact you until the mission was complete.

Why did I agree to these ridiculous terms, you might ask? Well, Niea, you understand my weaknesses better than anyone. Somehow, Chancellor Rawsel appealed to my greatest ambition in life – to change the world by discovering something anomalous. If what I saw was real, then our entire perception of the deep ocean would change forever. And to think I would be the one – along with you and your colleagues – to usher it in! I could not resist.

The Chancellor was not pleased with the speed of your progress, I’m sorry to say. You see, in his attempt to formulate this contrived and relatively nonsensical plan, he neglected one thing – only I had been to the door in the trench. You attempting to find it on your own would be like searching for an oyster in the open ocean. (Unless the music were to lure you as it did me, but how could we count on that?)

So when Sophy left unexpectedly, I decided to strike a deal of my own. I proposed that I would rejoin the mission and “help” you find the door. Unobtrusively, needless to say. And Rawsel accepted my new terms.

Now, you might think to yourself – Tevn, that makes no sense.Did Rawsel not set up this entire complicated operation because he was concerned about you “influencing” the mission?

Well, I tend to agree. It is all contradictory and confusing. Here is the best that I can understand it – Chancellor Rawsel, for reasons unknown to me, wanted desperately to find that door. Needed to find it. Quickly. And when his complex first attempt did not produce satisfactory results, he decided to try something else.

Perhaps I would have been more suspicious if it weren’t for the fact that I had another reason to find the door again.

You may have predicted all I’ve written so far. But I would be most impressed if you had deduced this: that the sea-woman and I became… friends?

We did not exchange a word during my first encounter. At least, not in any language that I could understand. She did sing, of course, and somehow that song followed me out of the sea.

It was during my first week of rehabilitation that I heard her again. I would not say that the voice was “in my mind”: I could hear it reverberate around the walls of my flat, and it grew louder under particular circumstances (in the evenings, when the rain fell, when I lay prone, and, fittingly, whenever I held a seashell to my ear in that childlike way). Somehow, she spoke Archaic Scholar and quickly picked up Academic Vernacular – she told me at one point that she had “requested every book” (?) on the subject of our language as soon as she met me – and while she found my metaphors incomprehensible and my slang laughable, we connected. (Dare I say she reminded me of you?) She told me such things, Niea, things you would never believe – talk of a Society in some incomprehensible Elsewhere, where great Scholars and Artists and Mechanists and Leaders wait for us – for our return – no, it’s more than that – for our rescue – and more than anything I wanted to go there with her, and she said I might, and I could even bring someone with me to that other world, and—

And now she is gone. And I will never see all that of which she spoke.

But I intend to sneak out before you wake and my time for this exposition runs short. I shall have to tell the rest in the future. Whatever happens, I hope you will remember how much I respect and care about you. You would think that a man with seven sisters would not have need of an eighth – but I am fortunate beyond words to have found you.

With love,

Tevn

P.S. I reread my letter and found it far too predictably sentimental for my tastes. Let me make you a promise, which I hope shall speak louder than words. If you ever find yourself face-to-face with a thrilling anomaly or unexplained event – let me know if I can help. I don’t suppose I will be particularly useful with my Anxious Personality and all that, but I offer my assistance nevertheless. It is the least I can do. To that end, my parents will be happy to provide you with my current whereabouts in the future should you need them. (Yes, this time I have told them where I am going.)

The story must be finished, so I shall now write down what I can remember. After Tevn left, we returned to the station. (Now, I don’t fully understand how Tevn managed to “leave”, but I imagine he simply got a head start back to the Spheres on his automaton, used the station communicator to contact some trusted contact (his mother?), and borrowed the emergency capsule to make his escape. Though I understand his desire to depart dramatically, I do think it must have been an awful lot of extra work.)

When we arrived, Niea crammed us all into that funny little communication room so that we could “call” Chancellor Rawsel as a unified body. Our plan was to briefly summarise our experience of the day prior and to argue the following – that this “experiment” to verify Tevn’s account was unethical and that it was under no circumstances appropriate for us to continue our work until Rawsel came clean with us about his interests in this expedition.

It failed. Spectacularly. Now, we did not tell him everything – we said little of the music or the conservatory or really anything other than that the door and all behind it had been destroyed. And, at any rate, Chancellor Rawsel seemed to hear nothing. All he would say – over and over again, as though they were the only words he knew – was this:

“And what has become of the envoy?”

(Well, now I recognise that the last word should have been capitalised.)

I might have folded there, I must admit. Even Niea seemed shaken by Chancellor Rawsel’s odd behaviour. But then Ylaret pushed in front of us and waved at the communicator (as though the Chancellor could see her – understandable, since it is so very strange to just hear a voice coming out of nowhere!).

“It’s Scholar Ylaret Tamseln here, Chancellor Rawsel. I do not know what has gotten you into such a state, but please believe me – whatever was down there is gone. Still, we would very much like to know what it was, and Scholar Mawr suggested that you might have some answers for us. We desperately want to understand, you know. If you do not offer us some explanation, I am afraid we might have to enlist the assistance of our Colleagues to puzzle out this strange occurrence. We did take photographs. Surely you would not mind if we took this story to the papers to see what the public makes of it?”

Vincenebras grinned, applauded, and parted his lips as though he were about to cheer – which likely would not have helped our position. Irye, thinking quickly, placed their hands over Vincenebras’ mouth and pulled him into an awkward embrace.

Static played over the communicator for a few minutes before Rawsel spoke again.

“I need not provide you with any answers. I am satisfied with your account that nothing down there could have survived the destruction, Scholar Tamseln. At this point, I happily declare this mission complete, and I will tell the other Chancellors and the presses that I pulled you out of the Ridge due to a recently confirmed study that suggests extended exposure to deep-water pressures can cause hallucinations and Maladies of the Mind. You will all be given a sabbatical to recover, and once a few years have passed, we will discuss your return to Scholarly work.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Niea. “Please send my best regards – and my resignation – to the Scholars of Life.”

Now it was my turn to open my mouth, though I needed no Irye to silence me. It occurred to me just then that everything I had worked for – my career, my research, all I had hoped to discover and learn – might vanish in an instant. I had heard rumours of Scholarly “exiles”, those given extended “sabbaticals” due to antisocial behaviour that eventually turned into self-induced Scholarly Seclusion like my father’s, and how even those who decided to leave the Academy of their own accord would never be able to—

Then – for the first time in my life – I silenced that Scholarly part of myself.

“And mine to the Scholars of Wayfinding,” I said.

I suspect there was some assorted chatter afterwards – perhaps more quiet fury from Rawsel, perhaps Vincenebras cutting in to say, “I too resign!” or something of the sort – really, it’s been a year, and a traumatic one at that, and it’s remarkable that I remember any of this with clarity.

But I do remember how Rawsel bid us farewell. It was, with unbelievable cruelty, through these words that haunt me:

“As you have all decided to end your relationships with the Academic world, perhaps your research skills might be better put to use in investigating the Deep House – since I hear rumours that there has been a second seaquake.”

I won’t continue, as you know how this part of the story ends.

But here is the part that embarrasses me the most – no, “shames” is perhaps a more appropriate term. Niea and I do not speak about what we experienced in that “conservatory”. (O, yes, she would like me to clarify that she has tried to raise the subject before, but I did not wish to discuss it.) Our crew managed to move on with our lives, for the most part – Niea with her work on the Sunken School, for example. Irye, I believe, continues research with the Scholars of Sound since that particular department is far too chaotic to even notice that one of their members has been excommunicated by the Chancellors – and occasionally advises Ylaret and Vincenebras in their joint business venture (shocking, I know), which involves offering “writing workshops inspired by the cosmos” to participants for a small fee.

To be fair, when we all ascended to the surface for the last time in the capsule, we came to a general agreement that it was probably for the best that we forget our experience. First of all, what we saw was gone – permanently – and though some clues might remain in the wreckage, we did not feel particularly inclined to pursue them. Perhaps this was because we all realised, in an instant, that though we are Scholars, there are some parts of the universe that we just cannot understand – and should not, moreover.

I suspect it was also some kind of self-denial: if we did not research this further, it would be all the easier to catalogue the experience away in our brains as something strange that happened in the past from which we have moved on. What we saw down there terrified us – and more than that – threatened to completely restructure our understanding of the world, defying everything we had ever known.

And in my case personally, I had too much else on my mind to worry about the sea-woman – because my sister had disappeared. In a grimly convenient way, my thoughts were far more occupied with her whereabouts than other mysteries under the sea.

Now, however, it is abundantly clear that these two mysteries must be intertwined. At least, I hypothesise that they may be. And I intend, as you might imagine, to go after them.

Let the record show that we intend to go after them.