SO WE RUN. But just like a nightmare our legs are heavy as we force them through the water, and we hardly move. I know we can’t escape.
And so this is it.
The end of Herbert Lemon, Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel. And of brave Violet Parma, too, who thought she could reason with sea monsters and change the world. There’s nothing left to do now but decide if it’s worth fighting for a moment or two of extra life, or if it’s better to just fall down into the water and hope the end comes quickly.
I remember what Eels said about the sea being good for disposing of bodies. I suppose that’s true. Especially if the bodies are quite small, and devoured by a fish-man from legend in the belly of a sunken warship.
The malamander is not held back by the water as we are. If anything, it gains speed as it approaches, its fins slicing through the flood, its hands slapping back the sides of the corridor in its furious charge towards us.
I grip my Lost-and-Founder’s cap with both hands and close my eyes as the monster leaps. I wait for the pain of the tooth-needle bite, for the rush of the venom, but … nothing. I open one eye, and roll it around as much as I dare.
Still nothing!
Violet is crouching beside me, both eyes wide open.
“It jumped right over us!” she gasps. “It’s gone!”
I stand up and stare down the corridor. The water in the T-junction is still swirling crazily where the creature passed. We can hear it screeching and clicking and scraping its way deeper into the ship.
I look at Vi.
“Eels!” we both say.
We wade forward to the T-junction, and look to where the creature went. Somehow my torch fell from my hands when it jumped over us, but Vi still has hers.
“How much time do we have?” she asks.
I look at my watch. And gasp. “We don’t. It’s quarter past ten. Low tide. We have about twenty minutes of slack water, tops, and then the tide will be coming back up. This corridor will be flooded again in half an hour.”
“Then come on!”
The water is nearly waist-high in this corridor, and the cold ferocious. As we wade forward, we hear a new noise, a gusting human cry. I can’t help hoping it’s Eels getting his backside bitten by the beastie, but I recognize the cry-maker as Boathook Man. And the cry, which comes again, sounds triumphant. There’s a fearsome answering roar from the malamander, and then all hell breaks loose, somewhere in the dark ahead.
“They’re fighting,” I say, as we push on.
The corridor ends in another T-junction, but there’s no doubt which way we have to turn. The right-hand passageway has corroded away altogether, and widens out to an open space. The ceiling has gone too, along with several bulkheads, and we are standing at the entrance to a great cavern. The iron beams of Leviathan’s hull are exposed, and curve overhead like giant ribs as we look into the belly of the sunken ship.
The cavern is one great pool of water, criss-crossed with half-submerged obstacles and twisted girders. At the far end, a great, glistening mound of seaweed can be seen, wreathed in mist.
“But … where are they?” Violet flashes her torch here and there.
The water is swirling and writhing, and suddenly I know why the malamander and Boathook Man can’t be seen.
“They’re underwater,” I say. “Still fighting. It must be really deep in here.”
I climb onto a fallen beam, suddenly afraid to be up to my waist in this icy black pool.
“M-maybe we don’t need to do this,” I say to Violet, stammering with the cold. “The m-malamander will fight them, and protect its egg. W-we should go back.”
“Not yet,” says Violet, and I see that she’s shining her torch at that strange mound of seaweed at the end of the cavern.
“It’s over there,” she says, climbing onto a girder ahead of me and edging into the cavern.
“What?” I say. “The egg?”
“Yes, look!”
And so I look.
The seaweed mound is riddled with rotten things: mouldy life jackets, slimy wood and what look like bones. Human bones. But on the top of it, nestled in a slight dip, something glows with a dim red light.
“Well, well, well,” says an echoing voice, and Violet goes still on the girder. “Come to witness my moment of triumph, have you?” A figure emerges from the water, and begins to climb the seaweed mound.
Sebastian Eels.
“It isn’t yours,” Violet declares. “I won’t let you take it.”
“And I,” says Eels, raising his harpoon gun in a lazy motion and aiming it at Violet, “won’t let you stop me.”
“You won’t shoot,” says Violet.
“Really?” Eels leers at her. He seems to be enjoying the moment. “Now why wouldn’t I do that?”
“Because if you did, I’d fall in the water,” says Violet. “And if that happened, you’d lose this.” And she pulls something out of her pocket, and holds it up.
It’s the big pebble of ruby-red sea glass that Mrs Fossil found, and which the doc used to lure the malamander to the museum – the pebble of sea glass that Violet took from Dr Thalassi’s dressing-gown pocket.
Violet is holding the torch in the same hand, in such a way that the light shines through the glass pebble, making it glow a deep and magical red.
“But…” Eels’ mouth drops open. His hands and the harpoon gun fall to his side as he splutters his astonishment. “But … how? How can you have the egg already?”
Then a look of dark fury passes over his eyes and the harpoon gun snaps back up. But before he can fire, Violet flings the glass pebble far out over the flooded cavern.
It lands in the water …
ploop!
… and vanishes from sight.
“The tide’s already rising,” she shouts. “You’ll never find it in time.”
“No!”
Eels scrabbles to get his mouthpiece in and the goggles over his eyes. He snaps the head-mounted torches on as he runs back down the slimy mound and dives into the water.
And he’s gone.
“OK, Vi,” I say, giving a slightly desperate laugh of relief. “Nice trick. Now we need to get out of here.”
“Not yet, Herbie.”
And Violet makes her way along the iron girder, and then jumps across to a buckled section of wall that is still above water. She runs across it smartly and jumps onto the mound.
“Vi!” I shout, running to the end of the girder, waving my wristwatch in the air. “There’s no time! We have to get out of here!”
“I can’t go yet, Herbie,” she calls back to me. And she climbs up the seaweed nest, towards the egg.
Cursing and gasping, I jump after her. I fall flat on the stinking mound, face first, and then start to crawl upwards through the bones and filth. By now I’m ready to drag Violet out of the ship if I have to. But when I get to the summit, I see her crouching over the softly glowing egg, reaching her hands gingerly forward like she’s afraid to actually touch it.
“What are you doing?” I want to say, but the words won’t come.
The egg is astonishingly beautiful.
It’s like a promise of all things wonderful.
It’s like a crystallized dream.
Then Violet touches it and it blazes, casting an eerie, dancing light over her wondering face.
“The malamander egg,” says Violet, to herself not to me. “It’s the malamander egg.”
I shake my head clear. I look around. The water is definitely higher than it was before. “Vi, we’re leaving. Now!”
“No,” says Violet Parma, lifting the fiery object with both hands and standing tall. “I have the egg at last.”
