"I've
touched down on the seabed."
"And what
can you see?"
"Not a
lot right now. The water is thick with
sand and mud. Is it going to be like
this every time I take a step?"
Siren finished
her question with a sigh. She was alone
at the bottom of the ocean, standing on the silt carpet of the continental
shelf and wearing some kind of mechanical diving dress. She was connected to the surface and the
crew of the Ebon Crest by a double cable, one part supplying air pumped from
above, the other hypostatickally amplifying her conversation with Harker on the
deck. It had been a long journey to get
this far, longer, it seemed, to descend to these depths and, truth be told, she
was getting tired of it.
"Probably
not," Harker replied at last in his deep, cut glass voice, "The force
of your landing will have stirred things up much more than any mere step could,
besides, I'm sure Marveille has some other tricks built into that thing. Try the lowest switch."
Siren fumbled
around the edge of the brass and leather suit, trying to reach the panel of
switches, levers and valves that activated its more specialist features.
"It's
difficult to get my gloves to grip it," she said, "Hold on a second. Wait.
There! Oh!"
The murky
water around her seemed suddenly to be pushed back into the darkness, beyond
the reach of the small hypostatick head lamp which sat atop her globe-like
helmet. There was still water all
around her, of course, but now it was only the smoky colour of water everywhere
in Shadow, with nothing else suspended in it.
"What is
it?"
"I think
I'm projecting a field of hypostatick energy or something. It's clearing the water and... I think the
pressure seems less now."
There was a
throaty chuckle down the length of the cable.
"Say what
you want about Marveille, he's a clever little villain."
"I'll be
sure to pass on that compliment when I get my hands on him," Siren
replied.
"Oh, Klarisse,"
his voice was like rich, smoky syrup, "save some of that enthusiasm for
me, please."
Siren gritted
her teeth, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly before replying, as
calmly as she could manage, "I've told you to stop calling me that Harker.
Are you ever going to stop?"
"You'd
rather be the mysterious uncharted ocean than the mapped mountains and
valleys. I understand that, but I don't
want you forget that I have mapped you, every inch, and my fondness for you has
never faded."
"This
isn't the time, Harker. If you want to
have this discussion, let's have it over dinner some time when I'm not several
leagues beneath the surface of the ocean!"
"Harsh
but fair, I suppose. So, can you see
anything useful yet?"
"The
water has cleared a bit, yes, but I can't see much. It's so dark!"
She turned on
the spot slowly, letting the lamp on her helmet scan the seabed. Eventually the light fell on a murky patch
of olive-green foliage.
"Wait,
there is something. I think it's the
base of that kelp forest we passed. The
currents must pull the fronds far from where they're anchored."
Harker made a
thoughtful noise, then there was silence.
Siren tried to see if she could see any more detail, but the kelp was at
the extreme range of her light.
"I'm going
to investigate," she said at last, taking a tentative step forward. She was surprised by how easy it was to move
in the diving suit- another benefit of the strange hypostatick field Marveille
seemed to have included.
"Be
careful," came the voice from above, "that forest might just be the
perfect hiding place for whatever Marveille keeps visiting down here."
"That's
what I thought," Siren agreed, "and that's why I'm heading
there. Anything else is just a waste of
time, right?"
"I guess
so, still, be careful."
Siren nodded,
before remembering that Harker couldn't see what she was doing. It already seemed to late to reply, so she
continued on in silence, taking each step as it came and being careful not to
sink too deeply into the mud of the seabed.
She was
impressed by just how much was going on around her. It didn't look like much of a place for wildlife, but there were
fish darting in and out of the beam of light from her headlamp and crab-like
creatures scuttled along the seabed away from her. Even the mud seemed to be alive, full of worms and other creatures
Siren had never even imagined before. A
lot of them made her wish she were walking somewhere else, or that the rubber
of her suit was several times thicker, but these were balanced out by the
creatures that were truly beautiful. It
seemed odd to her that here, on the ocean floor, where there was no light,
there should be so much colour and variety in the organisms. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she
caught a brief display of light from some bioluminescent creature, all
concentric circles and radiating lines for a few seconds and then nothing. She never saw what had actually made it.
Eventually the
vast stalks of the kelp forest loomed before her. If she looked up she could just see the start of the fronds,
bending with the current, tapering off into oceanic darkness. Here the sea life was even more
concentrated, its business all the more frenetic. Some kind of eel lurked in the shelter of the stalks, eyeing her
warily, whilst other, smaller fish darted in and out, teasing their predators
who no doubt lurked a little further out.
Siren couldn't help but feel more exposed here, despite the
shelter. This was a focal point for all
the sea life in the area and she was standing right in the middle of it.
There was
nothing else of note about the edge of the forest and so, with nothing else to
do, Siren stepped between two of the stalks and began to venture into thriving
depths of the seaweed colony. Here
there was even more life, more creatures swimming and scuttling and writhing
around her, to the point where she began to feel paranoid about what might be
in the periphery of her vision, or under her next footstep. It made her skin crawl and her eyes twitch,
but she kept moving forward, through the dark kelp, following a path that was
no path, just the choices she made between one gap and another.
And then there
was a light ahead, a strong one, clearly artificial with a faint greenish
hypostatick glow. It filtered between
the stalks like ghostlight, though its source was clearly quite distant yet.
"There's
something ahead," Siren said in a whisper she hadn't quite intended.
"What do
you see?"
"A
light. Something manmade I think."
"Could it
be Marveille's submersible?"
"I don't
know," she admitted, "I think it might be bigger than that."
Harker's
silence was like a raised eyebrow, full of meaning.
"Keep me
posted," he said at last.
She took
another few steps forward into the kelp, trying to keep the light in her line
of sight. It was still a long way off
and yet she felt suddenly nervous approaching it, as if it might spring a trap
on her at any second. She was reminded
of tales she had heard of gigantic fish that used lights to lure their prey in
before snapping their jaws around them.
This couldn’t be one of those, could it? But no, they had tailed Marveille here
several times over the past six weeks and so whatever was up ahead, it must be
something of importance to the evil little man.
She started
walking more confidently again, pushing her way through the thick stalks of
seaweed where necessary to keep that light ahead of her. As she drew nearer, however, it became clear
that it was not just one light, but a whole series of them, piercing through
the kelp forest like spotlights on a stage.
Or searchlights, Siren thought as she drew a little closer still.
Her wariness
returned and she began to be more careful once more, approaching slowly, trying
to conceal her bulky suit behind the kelp.
“I’m nearly
there,” she told Harker as it became clear there were only a few hundred yards
left between her and the edge of the kelp forest, although it was still very
hard to make out the source of the lights.
“Okay,” he
replied, “be careful, but, if you’re able, try to tell me everything you see.”
.
“Will do,”
said Siren and then she stepped beyond the last of the kelp stalks and found
herself standing on the lip of an ocean canyon, the lights she had seen beaming
up over its edge through the smoky water, making something akin to a bowl of
light. At the bottom of the canyon the
source of those lights could be clearly seen.
It was all domes and glass tunnels, brass valves and algae-covered
hatches. It had spires of metal
scaffolding and networks of pipes so complex as to be strangely beautiful. It was enormous, filling the bottom of the
canyon where it glowed softly and invitingly within its glass and metal
confines. Siren could see a garden
beneath one dome, something like a market beneath another.
The
realisation that she was staring at a city, a little sliver of Shadow on the
ocean floor, came slowly. She was too
awed by it all. That such a work of
engineering could exist at all, never mind at the bottom of the ocean, was
simply mind-boggling and, not for the first time, Siren found herself impressed
at what Marveille was able to achieve, although, surely, he didn’t do this
on his own?
And that was
when a shadow rose out of the depths of the canyon before her, dwarfing her
suited form with its round, metallic bulk.
Two searchlights flicked on at its bow, like glowing eyes, peering down
at her, and then a mechanical arm reached out and, before she could even turn
away, grabbed her around the waist and began to pull her down with it.
“Harker,” she
shouted, “I’ve been taken, I-”
“Wait, what’s
happening,” he replied, “what did you see?
Who’s taken y-”
His voice was
cut of so suddenly and artificially it could only mean something was blocking
the hypostatick amplification of the speaking tube. So siren descended with the submersible, towards the city, in
silence.
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