The Forgotten City (29 page)

T
he herd of seahorses raced the predatory shadows chasing them through the deep waters, carrying Eli and Ismail past the sunken wreck of a public transporter and downward toward a dome of light – a vast underwater city encased in a transparent film – Nineva.

By the time the seahorses neared the dome, Eli’s lungs were screaming and the sharks’ jaws snapping right behind their feet. The horses darted into a glass tunnel at the top of the dome and the water started churning. Eli felt an artificial tide dragging him and Ismail off their seahorse’s slippery back. They fought to stay on, but lost their grip, the powerful current sucking them through to the end of the tunnel, where a trapdoor opened and dumped them in a cascade of water down into a pool inside the dome. Ismail dragged Eli to the surface and hauled him, coughing and gasping, to the edge. Eli hauled himself out and kneeled there, rubbing the salt water out of his eyes.

When he could see again, he looked around and saw they’d landed in some kind of grand entrance chamber in a palatial coral building. Eli checked his navigation. They were not far from the Superior Hall where the portal hung; they just had to get there. Amphibious marine-breed of all varieties, walking in and out and around the chamber, cast the pair suspicious looks. Outside the transparent film, a mighty blue whale swam alongside the building. It stopped and opened its monstrous jaws. A crowd of marine-breeds poured out from inside its mouth. They began to enter the chamber, dropping in from the sealed-off tunnels above, as Eli and Ismail had a moment ago. He watched the creatures fall, their flippers changing to legs just before they touched the ground. Some of them were marine-breeds and some of them were human-breeds of aquatic blood.

“Incoming,” Ismail muttered from where he stood beside him.

Eli staggered to his feet and saw a group of armed guards approaching fast. He recognized them as Johanians, a type of deep-sea marine-breed that had come to Scorpia after their city, Latlas Seaport, had been destroyed. Fins protruded from their backs and arms, which were covered with blue wave bloodline marks. Their scaly skin held many scars, and gills sliced the sides of their necks. Each carried a trident spear, their clothes made of green sea-plant clothing. Their expressions were of grim mistrust, but their round shark eyes moved over the strangers with a cautious interest.

“
Vak marak pak martak
,” the guard at the front of the group called out.

“He’s asking why we’re here,” Ismail translated to Eli.

“We mean trespass – I mean – we
do not
mean trespass,” Eli replied, as the group circled them. “We were just out walking, exploring – and took a wrong turn.”

The last thing he wanted was to let on that they were there to steal something.

The guard replied in Urigin, exposing gold and silver teeth, “Really? Because you don’t look like explorers. More like soldiers, I’d say,” His eyes focused especially on Ismail, on his shark bloodline marks. The other guards around him nodded in agreement.

Eli tried to cover. “Well, we were both soldiers, before the war. We were attacked by some razor-fins – in a tunnel.” He pointed to the transparent ceiling where the sharks were still circling in the waters above.

The guard didn’t look up, just eyed Eli then said, “I see. In that case, you can stay and rest a time. They’ll tire in a day or so and then you can leave.”

“Thank you,” Eli said. “We really appreciate it.”

“Your gratitude is acceptable, but of course you’ll have to hand over any weapons you’re carrying,” the guard continued. “Unless you have a problem with that?” His eyes bored into them.

“No, not at all,” Eli said, while cursing inside his mind. He took his electrifier and blades off his belt and handed them over, then stood still while the Johanians checked the rest of him, taking his lightblaster and rope.

Eli glanced at Ismail. He’d given over his spare electrifier and all the other weapons, but not the Morsus Ictus. The blade was nowhere in sight. The Johanians patted him down – twice – and didn’t find it.

Once the guards stepped back, satisfied they were clean, their captain indicated to a cluster of female marine-breeds who had appeared behind them and said, “Follow the women. They will show you to a place where you can bathe, feed and rest and they will alert you once the hunters have gone.”

The women bowed and Eli nodded back. It seemed like the perfect opportunity – follow them, and then when they leave go and find the portal. Except nothing in life was ever perfect and he could feel the eyes of the guards consuming them as they left the entrance chamber.

Their guides took them through a series of hallways fashioned from smoothed coral and into a bathing room lit with large, glowing pearlescent shells. Three sides of the room were the same white coral as the hallways, with the fourth made of seamless glass. It gave them a view of the lights of another city far below Nineva. This city, which Eli assumed was Nereus, the best known of Adliden’s suburbs, didn’t have the transparent dome stretching over it – it was a pure underwater kingdom, and alarming in its beauty. Even though they were still in Scorpia, below a man-made sea with mechanically propelled waves, Eli felt as though he was actually under one of the fantasy oceans from the fairy’s tales his gran’pa used to tell him.

Between them and Nereus lay another wreck, this one a ship, its tattered sails swaying in the undulating water. A diffuse light shone through its hollow window eyes, as though the ghosts of lost sailors were still feasting in a parlor aboard. Marine-breeds swam in pairs and groups between the amphibious Nineva and Nereus, a multitude of glowing starfish lighting the sea sky above them. Under other circumstances, Eli could have spent hours entranced by the scene, but their reason for being there hammered at his mind and he turned his back on the window. He looked over the various soaps, cloths and lotions that the girls had set out for them. Some of them were shaped like flowers and fruit. Eli’s stomach growled. His supplies hadn’t gone far to fill the void. As though on cue, the women returned with platters of food and jugs of juice.

“Let us take your clothes,” one of them said, starting to undress Eli. “We will wash them for you.”

He clung to his shirt and said quickly, “No thanks! Really, that’s okay.” If growing up in Ufftown had taught him anything, it was never to let anyone take your clothes “to wash them”. “I don’t take off my clothes – ever. It’s part of … my religion.”

The marine-breed women looked confused, but didn’t argue. They glanced at Ismail and he folded his arms over his chest to indicate he wouldn’t be getting nude either. They lingered for a moment longer and then filed out, closing the door behind them.

Without warning, all the taps and shower heads in the room spluttered on and started spraying out warm fresh water, filling up the numerous white rock tubs around the walls. Steam rose, twisting to the ceiling. Ismail opened his mouth and dragged out the Morsus Ictus, which somehow he’d been hiding inside there. Eli couldn’t understand how he’d done it without choking himself or cutting up his throat, but somehow he had.

“Extremely impressive,” Eli said.

The scullion shoved the blade into his belt and moved to the door. He opened it a fraction and peered out.

“Confirmed presence. Five armed hostiles,” he whispered to Eli.

“What?” Eli asked, moving to peer around the scullion. All he saw was a glimpse of the women still standing in the hallway.

“They’re not hostiles. They’re just marine-breed girls,” he said.

“They’re not girls, they’re guards,” Ismail replied. “And they’re keeping us here.”

“Why? What would they want with us?” Eli asked.

“I don’t know. Their electro-shields block their intentions from me, but in my experience the Johanians are pure mercenary.”

“You think they’ll try to sell us out?”

Ismail’s face darkened, something flickering in his stare, and Eli knew he was thinking of the witch.

“Is there any way around them?” Eli tried to peek past Ismail again.

“Not out there,” Ismail said, carefully closing the door. He scanned the room and his gaze settled on one of the tubs. Ismail moved to it and started using the Morsus Ictus to cut the seal joining the tub to the ground. He worked fast until, with a heavy grinding, he shoved the tub to one side, exposing a large open pool underneath it.

“Hold your position here while I scout an exit,” Ismail said to Eli and without a further word leaped in.

Eli stood on the edge staring down into the dark waters. Several minutes after the bubbles stopped surfacing, he was well and truly panicking. He didn’t know what to do. What if Ismail had gotten stuck somewhere and needed help? Should he jump in, should he stay there? The door started opening and he rushed over to block it. The marine-breed woman on the other side peered in, looking shocked and slightly angry that he was barring the door.

“Is everything alright? We heard a sound …” she said.

“No … I mean,
yes
! Yes! Absolutely everything is perfect. It’s just that my friend is … bathing his body … naked, of course … and he’s very shy and embarrassed – so if you wouldn’t mind just waiting for a few more moments before coming in, that would – that would be great.” He grinned.

The marine-breed gave him a very suspicious up-and-down look but said, “Very well,” and stepped back a few paces.

Eli gestured his thanks and slammed the door shut. He raced back to the water and took a wild leap in. As he did, Ismail surfaced, and Eli ended up sitting on top of his head. Ismail dragged him off into the water, giving him a look.

“Sorry,” Eli said, treading water. “I thought you might need assistance.”

The door to the room started opening again and Ismail barked, “Dive!”

Both of them dropped down beneath the surface and Eli felt Ismail grab him by his jacket, then with a whoosh, the scullion took off, dragging him through the water.

Ismail swam fast through a pipe and out into a larger desalination processor. The water here was hot and filled with the muted thud and clanking of cogs and rods. One slammed down right beside Eli’s head. He could feel the pressure building in his lungs and his panic rising. He grappled for Ismail and felt him increase his speed. They were definitely swimming upward now and they finally broke through the surface into darkness. Eli gasped in the hot, salty air. “I’ve decided I hate water,” he rasped. “Never going swimming again, ever.”

Ismail didn’t respond. He started clicking, using his echolocation to project out an image of their surroundings. They had surfaced in a large pipe, with rungs in one side leading upward. Ismail swam for them and Eli followed. They climbed to the top and cautiously opened the hatch there. Eli looked out at a desalination plant in full swing. They ducked back down as a group of workers bustled past. Once they were out of sight, Ismail carefully maneuvered out of the pipe and down onto a grid platform. He held the hatch open for Eli to follow and he scrambled out.

At the sound of more workers approaching, they dropped down behind some machinery. Above them, the light from the starfishes shone through the glass roof of the factory. Eli held his navigator up to a beam of light and found it had blanked out. The machine was water-resistant, but not waterproof. Thinking quickly, Eli blinked, engaging his front-core. The system was back up after its lapse in Duskmaveth. He sent a thought command to the implant to call Diamond and almost immediately her voice spoke into his ears.

“Eli, I’m here.”

“My navigator has shorted,” Eli whispered. “I need a copy of the portal map sent to my front-core – urgently.”

“It’ll be quicker for you to command the implant to harvest the image straight from your memory,” Diamond told him.

“It can do that?” Eli asked.

“Definitely,” Diamond said, then talked him through the process step by step. Soon he had the map open in front of his eyes, including their location and the best route to take.

“We’re close,” he whispered to Ismail, his hopes lifting. “Through that door and straight down the corridor.”

The scullion nodded.

They waited for a clear path, then made a dash for the door, bursting from the processor plant out into a long white corridor. They moved cautiously along it, keeping silent and pausing at every sound, until the walls started to widen out, white rock becoming glass as they entered the Superior Hall, a vast oval chamber with a glass domed ceiling and artwork covering every inch of wall space.

Distracted by questions of how to determine which painting was the portal, Eli started to step into the chamber without first clearing it. Ismail dragged him back into the shadows of the doorway. He pointed to a gathering on the other side of the Hall. It was the Johanian guards who had taken their weapons. Their leader was speaking with several other official-looking marine-breeds in uniform. They were standing around a painting, which was a mass of small pictures making a larger image. It reminded Eli of the painting in Englan Chrisholm’s cell.

“That’s it!” he whispered. “The portal.”

He turned to Ismail and saw a reflection of light flare in the darkness of the scullion’s eyes. He spun back around to the painting. The images had vanished into a blaze of white. Figures were taking shape in the glow, growing larger and clearer, until a group of men crashed out of the frame into the Hall. The light died, out leaving the portal blackened and destroyed.
Firebird bloodline marks, deep brown skin, green eyes with flames flickering behind them – Omarians
. Eli and Ismail shrank back as the fire-wielders gathered opposite the marine-breeds. There was a moment of eyeing off and staring down, and then negotiations began, questions and answers, intra-group conferring and outer-group confirming.

“They’re selling us,” Ismail whispered beside Eli and he nodded. He could see it from their gestures –
one tall – one short – flapping motion, wings.

Soon an agreement was reached – an amount demanded by the marine-breeds and given the nod by the Omarians. The Johanian leader started giving directions, pointing the way to Eli and Ismail, but then one of the officials motioned for a pause. He made an unmistakeable Urigin gesture, holding out one palm and slapping his other palm against it –
payment first.
The Omarians shook their heads, their refusal met by a counter-refusal –
no payment, no prisoner.
The Johanians clearly had not the first clue of who they were dealing with.