Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A (39 page)

S
ERA, IN A SPELL-SHOCKED DAZE, viewed the devastation of war all around her—Orfeo’s headless body; Astrid, on the ground sobbing; Yazeed, his tail bleeding badly; Ava crawling out from under Alítheia; Black Fins, some bruised and battered, others dead; the remains of thousands of rotters. Her fighters needed help, but she didn’t know where to begin.

“We need to get to the wounded, Sera,” Ling said. “They’re our first priority.”

“And Abbadon,” said Neela.

Sera nodded, grateful for her capable friends. The haze receded. She snapped into action.

Some of her goblin commanders were nearby. “Garstig, Mulmig, Rök,” she said, “find all the able-bodied fighters you can and have them carry the wounded to the infirmary tents.”

As the three goblins hurried off, Sera glanced at the Carceron. Becca was still there, still songcasting, but it was quiet at the gates. There was no further sign of Abbadon.

Ava swam up, and Sera turned to her. “Where is it?” she asked.

“Deep inside the prison,” Ava replied. “It knows Orfeo’s dead. It’s hiding from us.”

“Orfeo’s
not
dead,” Astrid said, slowly rising from the silt. “I destroyed the body he used, that’s all. He’s still here and he’s still dangerous.”

She cast waterfire, high and hot, in a circle around and above Orfeo’s remains. “His soul lives on. In there,” she said, pointing to the black pearl, covered in blood and hanging from what was left of Orfeo’s neck. “No one can touch it. He knows how to jump bodies. That’s how he’s endured for four thousand years.”

“We should throw the body, and the pearl, into the lava pond,” Ava said, shivering.

“Lava would only destroy the body,” Astrid said. “The pearl is indestructible. The waterfire will keep everyone away until we figure out what to do with it.”

Sera put a gentle hand on Astrid’s back. Astrid turned, and the two mermaids embraced each other fiercely.

“I’m sorry,” Sera whispered.

Astrid nodded, fighting to hold back tears. “It was the only way to stop him.”

“But he still meant something to you.”

“Yes, he did. He gave me my magic back. I’ll never forget it. Or him.”

When her emotion finally subsided, Astrid released Sera and hugged the others.

“Good acting job, merl,” Neela said admiringly. “You had me fooled.”

“Me, too,” Sera admitted. “I should have known you would never go over to Orfeo’s side, though. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

Astrid shook her head. “I
needed
you to doubt me,” she said. “The whole performance had to be convincing. If Orfeo doubted that I was on his side, I never would’ve gotten near the talismans.”

“I could sense your intention,
mina
,” Ava said. “I saw your heart. It was shining like the sun. I could feel the courage in it. Coco’s, too.”

“I wanted to stop you,” Sera said to Astrid. “Ava’s the reason I didn’t. She held me back, or I might’ve blown the whole thing.”

Ava smiled proudly.

“Coco was in on it, too?” Becca asked. She’d joined the others. Her waterfire was still burning.

“Yes,” Astrid said. “Orfeo gets mer to do what he wants by threatening to hurt those they love. When the fighting started, I told him there was a child that you all cared for, and that she was probably in the camp. Orfeo told me to find her. I did. Coco knew who I was, and as soon as I told her about my plan, she was in. I tied her up and brought her to the clearing. Orfeo never suspected a thing. She’s very brave.”

“Where is she now?” Neela asked.

“Hiding in a sea cave just east of the camp. She told me about the cave, and I instructed her to stay there with the talismans until I came for her. After both Orfeo and Abbadon were dead.”

“One down, one to go,” Neela said.

All six mermaids looked at the Carceron. Becca’s waterfire was burning low. In a moment, it would be out. The gate was still hanging ajar. A silence fell over them.

Sera was the first to break it. “This is it, merls. This is why Vrăja summoned us. Why we hunted for the talismans. Why we’re here.”

“Can we do this?” Neela asked.

“Like we have a choice?” Ling said.

“We
can
do this,” Sera said decisively.
“Together.”
She turned to Ava. “You thought the gods went silent on you, Ava, but they didn’t. You
have
the answer you’ve spent your whole life searching for. You’ve always had it. The gods didn’t take your sight just so you could survive the Okwa Naholo; they took it so you’d develop another kind of vision—the kind that lets you see deep down inside someone. If you hadn’t seen inside Astrid just now, who knows what would have happened. When we get inside the Carceron, turn that vision on the monster, daughter of Nyx, and tell us what you see.”

Ava nodded. A determined smile graced her lips.

Sera turned to Ling next. “Ling, Abbadon is surely the noisiest monster ever made. It howls and screams and spews rage. There must be a reason for that rage, and I think it lies not in the monster’s words, but in the silences between them. You’ve broken through other impossible silences, daughter of Sycorax, and you can break through this one. I know you can.”

“Becca,” Sera said, putting her hands on her friend’s shoulders, “you’re the most practical, most strategic thinker of us all. Because of you, we have the right weapons loaded with the right ammo, we have warm clothing, and the right number of tents. If anyone will be able to guess the monster’s next move, it will be you. Daughter of Pyrrha, help us forge our way through the Carceron.”

Sera moved to Neela and took her hands. Neela’s bioluminescent skin had turned sky blue. “Our shining star. Our moon and sun,” she said to her best friend. “You kept me going when I’d lost everything. You keep us going now. You lift our spirits and our hopes. We’re about to swim into the heart of darkness. Daughter of Navi, keep the light before us.
Please.
”

And then there was only Astrid. Sera looked into her eyes and was silent for a moment. When she finally spoke, Sera’s voice was full of feeling. “You were my enemy when we first met back in the Iele’s caves. Now you’re my friend. We were both afraid—of each other, of ourselves. Now we’ve learned to make fear our ally, to listen to it. I’m listening now, Astrid, and it’s telling me that the greatest mage who ever lived created Abbadon and that it’s so powerful, that one of us, or all of us, might not come back out of the Carceron. But it’s also telling me that we’ve got the daughter of Orfeo at our side. If anyone can understand his creation, it’s you. And if you can understand it, you might be able to defeat it.”

Sera held her hands out. Everyone else did, too. As soon as the last hands had been clasped and the circle closed, Sera felt it—a rush of power as strong and unstoppable as a tidal wave. She looked at her friends, at the brave, stubborn, hopeful mermaids beside her. She remembered Mahdi and Desiderio back home in Miromara, and her heart swelled with love.

She let her eyes linger on each of their faces. Then she took a deep breath and said, “It’s time.”

The six mermaids released one another’s hands and swam to the gate.

Yazeed was there, his tail bandaged. Styg and Rök were with him. “Let us come with you,” he said.

Sera shook her head. “No, Yaz. It started with us; it finishes with us.”

Steeling herself for the biggest battle of her life, she swam inside the prison.

A
SCHOOL OF ICEFISH, scaleless and silvery, drifted by the six mermaids as they made their way across the open corridor behind the prison’s high exterior wall.

“This was called the Death Run,” Sera said, gesturing to the passage. “According to the conchs I listened to about Atlantis, there were guards with crossbows patrolling on top of the walls. If a prisoner escaped from his cell, he still had to make it across the Death Run. But no one ever did.”

“I wonder if
we’ll
make it across the Death Run,” said Astrid.

“The cellblocks are behind that,” Sera continued, pointing to the prison’s inner wall “They were built like a labyrinth to confuse any escapees. Guards used a series of levers to shift the hallways and staircases every day.”

“Abbadon could be anywhere in there,” said Becca.

“There’s a courtyard in the center of the cellblocks where the prisoners could exercise. It has a domed ceiling made of thick panels of glass set into metal frames. If I were an enraged homicidal monster, I’d try to lure us there,” Sera said.

“Why?” Ava asked.

“Easier to kill us. More room,” Becca said.

Sera nodded.

“So, I guess that’s where we’re headed,” Neela said with a sigh. “Because why stop swimming straight into the jaws of death now?”

“Any idea how to get inside?” Ling asked.

“The entrance is there,” Sera said, pointing at an arched doorway. “We’ll have to figure out the way to the courtyard once we’re inside.”

The six friends all cast illuminatas as they swam through the doorway. Becca hooked arms with Ava.

“If we’re going to defeat Abbadon, we have to find its weak spot,” Sera said, leading the way down a dark, narrow hall. “Astrid, did Orfeo tell you anything about Abbadon while you were with him?”

“Like how to kill it?” Astrid asked, sardonically. “No. He kept me busy practicing songspells pretty much nonstop.”

“While I was Lucia’s prisoner—” Sera began.

“Wait…
what
?” Astrid said.

“I’ll give you the details later, but I spent some time in Alítheia’s den—”

“Miromara’s big scary bronze spider?” Astrid asked. “The same who I saw clanking through the camp?”

“That’s her,” Sera said. “She told me that Abbadon’s made of immortal souls.”

“Immortal souls. As in, can’t die.
Ever
. Which means there
is
no weak spot,” Astrid said. She sighed. “Is it too late to change my mind about this?”

“Abbadon is
so
powerful. If only we knew where its strength comes from, we might be able to block it,” Becca said.

The mermaids fell quiet as the cells loomed into view. Their doors were made of iron bars sunk deep into the stone walls. Large padlocks secured them. The illuminatas did little to dispel the gloom.

“Maybe the souls give Abbadon its power,” Ava said, resuming the conversation.

“And a talisman,” Ling added.

“But it doesn’t have a talisman. There are only six,” Neela countered. “The black pearl’s still on Orfeo, and Coco has the other five.”

“No, there was one more,” Ling reminded them. “Orfeo had a talisman before he had the black pearl.”

“The emerald!” Becca exclaimed.

“Exactly,” Ling said. “When Sera and I were in Atlantis, we talked to a vitrina. She told us that Orfeo destroyed his original talisman—an emerald given to him by Eveksion, the god of healing. He ground it up and put it into the wine of the people he sacrificed to make them healthy and strong.”

“But he
didn’t
destroy it. He couldn’t have,” Becca said. “The talismans are gifts from the gods and can’t be destroyed. He only changed its form.”

“So, Abbadon’s not only immortal, it’s powered by a talisman?” Astrid said in disbelief. “We’re chum, merls.”

She was at the front of the group, swimming backward as she talked, when suddenly a hand shot through the bars of a cell. Fingers wrapped themselves around her neck.

Astrid’s eyes widened in terror, a gasp escaped her. It felt as if those icy fingers had wrapped themselves around her heart.

“Hey, get away from her!” Neela cried.

She raced to Astrid and pried the fingers off her neck. As she was pulled clear of the cell door, Astrid could see a face pressed to the bars, framed by a mop of shaggy hair, frosted by ice. Dark eyes burned with malevolence. A vicious grin revealed a mouthful of rotten teeth.

“What
is
that thing?” she rasped, rubbing her neck.

“A ghost,” Sera replied. “The Carceron was in use right up to the destruction of Atlantis. There would have been prisoners in the cells when Merrow and the others herded Abbadon inside.”

“So they…they would’ve—” Ava started to say.

“Drowned,” Sera finished. “When Atlantis sank.”

“Wow. This just gets better and better,” Astrid said.

More faces appeared at cell doors. Astrid drew her sword.

A ghost saw it and chuckled deep in his throat. “What are you going to do, mermaid? Kill me?”

“Stay clear of the cells,” Sera ordered her friends. “Swim in the center of the corridor. Becs, keep a tight grip on Ava.”

As the mermaids swam past cell after cell, the ghosts inside called to them, trying to get them to come close, promising them that they would soon become ghosts, too. Looking up ahead, Astrid could see that the corridor ended in a T. She was relieved when they finally reached the end of it.

“Which way, Sera?” she asked.

“To the left, I think.”

“Um, nope. Not happening,” Astrid said, pointing down the hall.

Three ghostly men stood there. Their chests were bare, and they wore wrap skirts of linen pleated in the front, leather belts, heavy bronze bracelets, and menacing expressions.

“Guards,” Sera said. “This way,” she ordered. She darted to the right, then stopped dead. Another group was blocking the way.