Song of the Deep (4 page)

7

THE MERROW MAIDEN

W
e travel
down through the rocky tunnel until it opens up into a huge undersea cavern.
The cavern must be more than forty feet tall, from floor to ceiling. The walls
are made of shiny black obsidian, with patches of red and orange crystal that
gleam like fire opal. Rays of yellow light shine down from the ceiling, as if
the sun were somehow peeking through the rock above.

Large cylindrical rock formations are grouped in clusters all
around the cavern. Long strands of kelp with brightly colored bulbs grow up
from the floor, stretching their flowing leaves toward the rays of light. I
sail closer to the rock formations, and as I get nearer I see why the seahorse
brought me here. These aren’t rock formations at all. They’re houses.

This is an underwater
village
. Each building is round
and is built from perfectly interlocking gray stones of all different shapes
and sizes. The roofs are covered in shiny overlapping tiles, like beautiful
gleaming fish scales. Colorful coral gardens blanket the seabed between the
buildings. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Does someone
live
here?
I
sail from house to house, checking the windows. They are all dark and still.
The only movement comes from the schools of silvery fish weaving through the
rooftops.

Looking closer, I see that many of the walls are crumbling. A few
of the houses have been smashed entirely, leaving only a jagged circular foundation
sticking up from the ground. The rocky floor is lined with dents and craters,
some more than twelve feet across. Bits of rubble lie strewn in all directions.

This must have been a very beautiful place once,
but whoever lived here is now long gone. I wonder
. . . could this have been where the ancient explorers
lived? I suppose
they would have needed domes or some other source of air, and I don’t see
anything like that. Whoever lived here was born to live in the sea. Could this
have been a merrow village?

I feel a rush of excitement at the possibility that merrows are
real. How old are these buildings, and why would the merrows have abandoned
them?

I look back at the clockwork seahorse. He’s floating near the
center of the village, watching me. That must be where he wanted me to go . . .
but why? Am I supposed to do something there?

He senses my confusion and swims over.

“What do I do?” I ask. “Is my father here?” The seahorse lowers
his head. “Am I supposed to search for clues? Can you at least give me a hint?”
He looks back at me and then points his head toward a tall house on my left. I
sail toward it. Its round outer wall has been broken on one side, revealing
what once was a merrow home.

The inside walls are covered with bright yellow and orange seashells.
A tall stalk of glowkelp grows up from the center of the floor up to the
ceiling. That must have provided light for the whole house. Along the walls, at
different heights, are four giant clamshells attached with ropes of kelp. Those
must have been beds.
A whole family of merrows once lived here
.

I get closer. The smallest of
the clamshell beds hangs just below a round window that is decorated with pink
and purple stones. The wall around the bed is covered with mosaic pictures made
of tiny pieces of colorful stone and seashells. Each picture depicts a
different adventure. In one there is a young merrow girl with flowing black
hair and shiny black eyes riding on the back of a giant serpent. In another the
girl is being chased by a monstrous nine-eyed squid.

I can’t stop looking at the drawings. There was once a young
merrow girl living here, making pictures on her wall just like me. What
happened to her? What happened to her family?

My eyes move from one picture to the next, looking for some kind
of answer without even knowing the question. And then I see it.

Just above the clamshell bed is a picture of the girl playing with
a golden seahorse. The seahorse has emerald eyes.

Was this why the seahorse brought me here? Did he know the merrow
girl?

Suddenly I have the eerie feeling that I am being watched. I turn
around, but the seahorse is nowhere in sight.

I speed the sub away from the
merrow house, toward the center of the village. I shouldn’t have let my guard
down like that—now the seahorse is gone. Did he just abandon me here? The whole
village is perfectly still and quiet. Maybe I was only imagining being watched.

Then, behind the wall of the house where I had just been, I see a
flash of green and blue. I sail around the back side of the building. There is
nothing there. I search all around, sailing up above the colorful shining tiled
roofs. And then from the corner of my eye I see the golden glint of the
seahorse. He swims up toward me and wiggles his nose.

“Is there someone else here?” I ask. “Is that why you brought me
here?” He tilts his head at me and then looks back down in the direction he
came from. There is something coming toward me.

It’s a merrow! A merrow maiden, with flowing raven hair draping
down around her body.

She swims up right in front of
me. Her eyes look like big shining black jewels. Her long tail moves gracefully
back and forth, gleaming like it’s made of blue and green sea jewels. She
reaches out to touch the sub’s window. I reach out in return, placing my palm
against hers, with only the glass between us.

“Why are you here?” I can hear her voice in my head without her
lips even moving. I don’t know what to say or how to even begin.

“I’m looking for my father. He’s a fisherman. Have you seen him?”
She is quiet, studying me. She’s looking at me the way people do when they know
your face but can’t remember your name. I feel self-conscious and blurt out the
next thing that comes to my mind. “Are you the girl who made the pictures in
the house?” If it’s her, then she must have made the pictures years ago. She
looks away in silence toward the ruins. I feel embarrassed, as if I said
something I shouldn’t have. “Are there . . . other merrows living here?” She
lowers her hand from the window and turns away. “Wait!” I say. “I’m sorry!” Now
I feel even worse. A terrible thought occurs to me. Is she the only one of them
left?

The clockwork seahorse moves
next to her. She strokes his nose with one hand. She studies his tail for a
moment. Then she looks at me. Uh-oh. Can she tell that he had been damaged?
Does she think that I did it?

She puts her hand back up to the window.

“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for fixing him. He says you did
very good work.”

“I . . . did my best,” I say, weakly. “I’m sorry he got hurt.” She
looks at me for a while. Maybe she’s never seen a human before?

“Just once,” she says. Can she hear my thoughts? I feel suddenly
uncomfortable.
Don’t think anything stupid
,
I tell myself in my
head. The merrow laughs. “You’re a funny one,” she says. I cover my face with
my hand, feeling more foolish than ever.

She swims away from me, then
turns and beckons with her hand. I follow her toward a narrow tunnel in the
rocky wall behind the village. She turns back to me
.

“You are trying to find your father?”

“Yes! Do you know where he is?”

“Travel west from here and you will reach Skeleton Reef.”

I look at her uncertainly.

“If your father’s boat is anywhere below the sea, it will be
there,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say. There is so much more I want to ask her, if I
just had more time. Yesterday I thought the merrows were just a myth. Now I
have to wonder if all my father’s stories might be real.

I start to wave good-bye when I see a sudden look of terror in the
merrow’s eyes. I turn to see a golden submarine sailing toward us. Its oblong
hull is perfectly smooth, without a hatch on top. At its rear is a wide
fan-like rudder and from its front it casts a sweeping light back and forth
through the water, as if it’s searching for something.

“
This way
. Follow me,” the merrow’s voice says in my head.
She swims around behind the wall of the house.

But that was a submarine! I want to signal to it. Maybe whoever’s
inside can help me search for my father.

The merrow senses my thoughts. “You don’t want to get its
attention,” she says. “There is no one alive inside.”

******

F
rom the
shadows of a half-crumbled wall, we watch the sleek oblong submarine glide
silently past. On its roof, mounted near the front, is a long segmented
mechanical arm with a three-pronged metal claw at the end. Its bright
searchlight sweeps past us, casting long jagged shadows across the broken rocks
that were once a home.

“What is it?” I whisper once the vessel has passed by.

“A Fomori sentinel,” replies the merrow. Her voice sounds colder
and distant now.

“Fomori?”

“Long ago there were human explorers who visited our world. They
were like you. They respected the sea. They respected
us
.”

“What happened to them?” I ask, beginning to fear the answer.

“In the beginning they were friendly. We showed them our secrets.
We helped them to survive the perils of the deep. Over time they grew stronger
. . .”

“They didn’t do
this
, did they?” I ask, gesturing to the
broken walls of the ruins around me.

“They were builders and inventors. They made whole cities beneath
the waves,” she continues. “They became rich from the treasures of the sea . .
. and with each year that they grew richer and more powerful, they also grew
more afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of losing it all. Afraid of everything.”

“That’s why they made the sentinels?” I ask.

“The sentinels are built to plunder the sea. They are unmanned
automatons that tirelessly patrol every inch of the underwater world. They sink
ships to steal their treasure. They crack open the seafloor to mine the gold
below. They take whatever is valuable and destroy the rest.”

“Including you?” I say, my voice shaking with sorrow and shame.

“Not all the Fomori were bad. Some were kind to us. A few of them
left their cities and lived among us. They learned our songs. They helped us
fight against the sentinels that attacked our homes.”

I think of my father’s songs. Could they have come from the
merrows?

“Are you . . . you’re not the last merrow, are you?” I ask. She
looks past me for a moment, as if she is thinking of something far away. When
she looks back, I can see her mind is on something else.

“Wait here,” she says. “I have something that will help you.” She
swims to one of the beams of light coming from the ceiling. She reaches up to
it, and the light seems to disappear. When she returns, she holds in her hand a
bright yellow starfish. Light shines out of a white-hot circular patch at the
center of the starfish’s body. “It’s a sunstar,” she says, as she presses it
gently onto the front of my submarine. “It will help you in your search for
your father.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I tell her, still amazed by the
sight of the sunstar.

Before I can say another word, I see the white beam of the
sentinel’s searchlight sweep over us.

“Go!” The merrow’s voice resounds in my head. I turn to see the
Fomori sentinel facing us, less than twenty feet away. Its long claw arm snaps
down at the merrow, narrowly missing her tail as she dodges out of the way.
Three circular green emeralds form a triangle along the front face of the
sentinel.
Are those what it uses to see?
The faceted emeralds look just
like the eyes of the clockwork seahorse. Did the Fomori create it as well?

As these thoughts race through my mind, the sentinel turns to face
me. I can see two dark hollow tubes mounted on its lower hull. I manage to
dodge to my right just as a spray of bubbles appears in one of the tubes and a
torpedo whizzes by me on my left.

There is a terrible cracking sound from behind me, followed by a
powerful wave that sends me tumbling sideways and banging against a stone wall.
Pieces of rock shower down all around me, debris from the crater left by the
torpedo.

Turning back toward the source of the shot, I see the sentinel
sailing over the broken walls of the village ruins. It’s not looking for me.
It’s trying to kill the merrow.

I crank the pedals as fast as they will go and aim my sub toward
the sentinel. I sail straight for it, gaining momentum as I go. At the last
moment, I turn sharply, slamming into its rear propeller with the side of my
sub. There is a loud clanging sound. For a moment I think I may have ruptured
the wall of my own sub. I can only hope I managed to do some damage to the
sentinel, too.

The sentinel turns back toward me. At least I’ve distracted it for
a moment! I turn around, trying to lead it farther away from the merrow. Across
the cavern I can see the faint outline of the tunnel where I came in. I know
there’s no way to make it there in time, but I’m going to try anyway.

I charge full speed toward the roof, trying to get some separation
from the sentinel. When I hear the burst of bubbles behind me, I dive the sub
down. The torpedo slams into the ceiling above me, sending chunks of rock
showering down on the roof of my sub. I keep diving down toward the floor,
hoping it can’t hit a moving target.

I hear another torpedo launch, closer behind me this time. I yank
the controls back and the sub lurches upward as the torpedo sails underneath me
and slams into the cavern wall right below the tunnel exit. I sail into the
cloud of debris, unable to see where I’m going. I brace myself for the
shattering of glass and the cold rush of water, but I pass through the cloud
and safely into the tunnel.