Reading a book that is many times larger than one’s body is a slow and challenging endeavor. Rustle learned this in no uncertain terms as he flitted to the corner of a page and peeled it back to begin another spell. All of the incantations he’d encountered in Eddy’s spell book thus far had been far too dangerous for him to risk miscasting. Aside from refreshing his memory of the ice spell, his perusal had done little to reveal any tools that might help him find Eddy. It was profoundly discouraging.
“There must be something,” he murmured, unwilling to give up.
The shapes on the latest page formed words in his mind. This spell was a short one. Its title was simple, if a bit ambiguous.
“Stir the currents… Utter the following words with light focus while gesturing one’s hands in the desired direction.” He paused. “This might be safe to cast. Even if it isn’t, I am wasting time here if I don’t try something.”
He buzzed upward, dragging his bubble with him, and glanced down at the shifting shapes below. His lips formed the awkward, unfamiliar wording, and he thrust his arms forward. The effect was subtle, and not immediate. At first, he thought the spell had failed entirely. But then he saw that the bubble was rippling forward.
Rustle allowed himself to drop down until all but his head was dipped into the warm water, then repeated the spell. There was no doubt. The water around him moved in the direction he’d waved his arms. It was a tiny motion, barely enough to disturb the bubble or jostle his wings. The size didn’t matter, though. What it helped him realize was the real prize.
The water moved just like the wind did. He wasn’t the best manipulator of wind by any stretch—though he’d improved markedly over the course of the day through sheer necessity. But until this moment he’d never truly been able to link the motion of water to the same flexing of will that allowed him to stir the breeze. Now he had. It was as though someone had lit a candle in a darkened room, and now he could see what had always been there.
He cast it again and felt its motion. This was so like the magics that were a part of him from birth. It was just a matter of this twist of the mind instead of that. And he knew he could navigate by the breeze. He knew he could follow it to the outside, no matter where it led, and feel its presence, even when it was far from him. He cast the spell yet again. In a half-heard whisper, he heard the water begin to tell the same tales.
Again and again he cast the spell. Each time he learned a bit more of how the water differed from air, how to adapt what he knew to what he needed to know. Finally, he set the spell aside and instead attempted to sculpt the water around him not with words, but with the same innate magic that was as natural to him as flying.
It took more will than he imagined should ever be necessary for a spell, but finally he felt a sluggish imitation of the spell’s effects without the spell. The amount of strength he poured into moving the water would have been enough to cause a veritable gale if he’d been directing it to the air, but that didn’t matter in the slightest. What mattered was that, just as Merantia had done with her written language, the sea had just made its own voice known to him.
He took a deep breath and let the bubble drift away. His mind became still as he listened to what the currents could tell him. From the wind, he’d already cobbled together an image of much of the cavern, and he knew that there was no connection to the surface. Now a similar, complementary image of the flooded cavern came to mind. It wasn’t yet enough for him to navigate by. He could feel that there was, for now at least, no direct connection between this place and the rest of the sea. And he could feel which of the tunnels around him dug deepest into the earth. He could feel chambers, vast and unexplored, that had been just beyond the reach of his glow as he’d flown about.
There was no clear path to the dull flicker of Eddy’s spirit in the depths beneath, but there were chambers that seemed closer to it. That was enough for him. He launched to the surface and darted toward the largest and deepest of them. It was his best chance to find Eddy.
#
Cul swam along, sweeping his sensitive eyes left and right. The rift that held Eddy’s farm wasn’t very wide, but it was deep enough to be almost devoid of light, even in the middle of the day. He was limited to what light his own personal glow could provide, and thus could only search a small patch of the rift at a time.
He tried to keep himself from being distracted, but the words of his teammates refused to leave his thoughts. They thought he was falling in love with Mira. Absurd! She simply knew more about the surface than anyone she’d met in ages. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? She spoke quite intelligently as well, and seemed to be quite the trader. Weren’t those worthwhile reasons to have a chat? She was quite lovely, too. A strapping young merman like him would have been a fool to pass up a chance to spend some time with her just because she was a shore-lover.
His argument was absolutely solid. He knew he was right. He also knew the only things doing a better job at keeping his mind spinning than the implications of his burgeoning feelings for her were his thoughts of her specifically. Her face, her voice.
He shut his eyes for a moment. Infatuation. That’s all this was. Again, entirely natural. She was lovely and interesting. It was infatuation. Entirely different from love. Those two didn’t know what they were talking about.
The circles of distraction shattered as he heard two high-pitched chirps of a horn. He shifted his direction toward one of the rift walls. Bult had found something.
Though it took scarcely a minute to reach the source of the trumpet toot, Sitz was already there when Cul arrived. The merman had been busy. The pouches of his outfit were notably more tightly packed than they had been when they’d parted ways. Bult’s own harvest was even less subtle, with the feathery tips of some stolen fronds sticking out of a pouch on his side. He’d also taken the liberty of snatching a few snails to munch on.
“You two are going to get a thump from Trendana when we get back. We weren’t supposed to be robbing this place,” Cul said.
“How is she going to find out unless you snitch?” Bult said.
“Yes. Or if she has eyes.” Cul batted the bit of improperly stowed frond.
Bult tucked the evidence out of sight. “It’s just a few fronds… Hardly anything…”
“Did you just call us over here to let us know what a lousy thief you are? Or was there more to it?” Sitz asked.
“Just follow me,” Bult muttered.
He swam down to the floor and along the base of the rift. The others stayed close behind. It took a trained eye to see what had convinced him to summon the others. The entire base of the rift was made up of stones that had broken free and tumbled down over the untold centuries. A quick glance would have suggested this stretch of the rift was just more of the same. But the fractures here were fresher, free of the thick growth that clung to everything else. And there were caves as well. Plenty of little shallow caves, some still visible above the mounds of stone. Others were half-obscured by fresh debris. One could only imagine how many others were entirely hidden.
“You called us over here for this?” Sitz said.
“A merman could fit in one of these caves. If he’d been in one when the trembler hit, he might have been trapped.”
“Why would he be in one of those caves?”
Bult shrugged. “He’s a shore-lover. They like little places, right? And look here. This one’s got empty shells in it. Maybe he eats lunch in one of these caves. And he’s got a mine, right? If these things can get buried, a mine can.”
“We’ve got to tell Mira,” Cul said.
“She’s going to make us search all of this and we’re going to end up missing our first shot at a proper chance to trade in weeks,” Sitz objected.
“Someone could be hurt, Sitz,” Cul said sharply.
Bult nodded. “We took her gems. A deal’s a deal. And I’d want someone looking for me if I got trapped.”
“You wouldn’t have got trapped because you’re sensible enough to live your life in the open sea, not cramming yourself into little hollows like an eel…”
“Sitz…” Cul rumbled.
“Fine. But if we miss Casta’s Drift, remember who just had to look around for nothing.”
#
“What do dwarves eat?” Eddy asked, rocking his improvised cart up and down as he watched Mab work.
Eddy had thought it would take only a few replacement gears and a few minutes of work to get Borgle up and running again, but Mab had been working for far longer than it would have taken to install them. Considering her evident skill with machinery, he trusted she knew what she was doing. As a bonus, this gave him the opportunity to indulge his curiosity about this fresh resource on the nature of things beyond the sea.
“Mira says people from the surface eat things that grow in the sun and things that eat the things that grow in the sun. We do the same, except also we eat things that grow in the warmth down below where the sun isn’t. You live in caves. Caves are places where the sun isn’t. So what is there to eat?”
Mab looked wearily to him, then leaned back into the open hatch of the digger. When she replied, her voice had the tinny resonance of Borgle’s insides.
“We eat plenty. Mushrooms grow in the mountain. Bats and lizards live in the mountain. We trade for wheat and cabbage and potatoes. And we brew ale.”
She paused and pulled herself from her work for a moment. Her eyes were shut. She seemed lost in a lovely memory.
“Oh… the ale. The mead. Even the rotgut. I can feel it on my lips now. I can feel the nourishing burn as it trickles down my throat…”
“What are these things you are remembering?” Eddy asked.
“You don’t know ale?”
“No.”
“It’s booze.”
Eddy blinked expectantly.
“Don’t you drink? … No, I suppose you don’t.” Mab scratched her head. “How do you drink?”
“Fresh water? It comes from the food we eat… What is booze?”
“It is a beverage. A whole type of beverage. The finest type of beverage. Great, brimming tankards of foamy golden delight. The perfect balance of bitter. Or the harder stuff. Like drinking fire.”
“That sounds like it would be not very much fun.”
“You only think that because you haven’t done it. A little bit of booze eases away the day’s troubles. A little bit more hides the woes of life in a pleasant fog. And a lot more makes it so hard to think you just give up on it and enjoy the night.”
“Oh… oh… This is like pannet.”
“Which is what?”
“Pannet is like a dough. It is made by the mermaids up at the surface. They leave things in the sun to… turn… not good.”
“Ferment.”
“Yes. The spell for talking is weak. But they leave it in the sun for that, and then mix it into dough for serving at festivals. Very pleasant. Except if you eat too much. Then, headaches the day after.”
Mab nodded. “Yes. That’s booze.”
“I would like to try some.”
“I’ve made some from these stalks, but it is barely worth drinking. And if you’ve never had liquor, best not to start with the stuff the dwarfs drink. Talk to some elves. Their stuff is fit for infants.”
“I would very much like to meet an elf! Only I have met merfolk and a fairy and now a dwarf and one time a human very far in a boat who didn’t see me.”
Mab shook her head. “You don’t want to meet elves. I don’t even think elves want to meet elves. I never met an elf who liked anyone else half as much as he liked himself.”
“Always some are bad of a type of person. But always some are good as well,” Eddy said sagely.
“You find me an elf worth half what the worst dwarf is worth and I’ll give you a barrel of the finest ale.”
“I will do this!”
Again she shook her head. “No, you won’t.”
She clicked a final cogwheel into place. Eddy didn’t need to ask if Mab was through. Borgle made it clear. The mechanism rattled and chimed ecstatically, then raised itself up on its many legs. At first it wobbled and teetered with its blunt nose pointing straight up, then it rearranged and curved a few legs to angle itself to face the others.
“You did it, Mab! You are very much good at fixing!” Eddy crowed.
Mab mopped some sweat from her forehead. “Now to see what good it will do. Can we use this thing to get out of here?”
“We can! Borgle will help us because he is a helper in our adventure! All we need to do is know what it is Borgle should help us by doing. When I ask him to dig, he digs down, and down is not where we need to go.”
“This is why you don’t use magic to give a machine a mind. A hammer doesn’t disobey.”
As they spoke, Borgle rolled itself from leg to leg until its two operational eyes were on the bottom of the ring, putting it in a much better position to look Mab over. The merry ticking melody of its workings gradually became harsher. The points of light in its eyes darted about, focusing on various bits Mab’s equipment. One of its pincer-tipped legs curved forward and poked at the gearhead hatchet on Mab’s belt. Borgle gave an accusing whir and gestured with the same pointer to the open hatch on its side.
“What’s this about?” Mab asked irritably.
“I think… Oh, I see. If I may speak to Borgle in my native tongue? It is the language Borgle knows. I think.”
“Do what you must. But I don’t like how that thing is looking at me.”
Eddy cleared his throat and looked to the mechanism.
“Do you think she stole some of your parts?”
Borgle chimed an affirmative.
“It is not so. Do not worry. There are other diggers all about. They fell in here like we did, and all are very broken. Much more broken than you. These parts she has utilized as part of her equipment are from other diggers, not you. Mab is a friend. She is here to help us, and we are here to help her.”
Borgle looked doubtfully to Mab. It reached down with a claw and shut its open panel with a slow, deliberate click. The distrustful look lingered for a few moments more before Borgle turned and looked to Eddy, awaiting orders.
“We will tell you what to do as soon as we determine just what it is we should do. But listen to me very carefully. Do not dig down.”
Borgle chimed happily and drove all of his legs deep into the stone angling himself downward.
“No, no, no!” Eddy scolded.
He flopped from his cart and slid between Borgle and the ground. The mechanism came to an abrupt stop rather than bash into Eddy. It gave an inquisitive whir and backed away.
“You can do that later. But right now, down is not where we need to go. At least, I don’t believe so. Can you wait? Can you dig downward later? After we get out?”
Borgle chimed and settled down. It kept its eyes focused on Eddy.
“Is that thing through trying to escape then?” Mab asked.
“I think it is,” Eddy said, slipping back into his broken enchantment. “I wonder why it is that Borgle wants always to dig down.”
“Plenty of reasons to dig down. Deeper down is harder to reach, so fewer people have been there. Fewer people having been there means if there’s anything good, it’s still there. Some things you don’t even find unless you dig down good and far. I wouldn’t advise digging down too much further here though.”
“Why?”
“Those quakes feel like they are coming from somewhere close.” Mab ground at the stone beneath them with her boot. “And this stone doesn’t show up unless there is lava nearby.”
“What is this, lava?”
“It is stone so hot it is molten.”
Eddy’s eyes widened. “Glowing pools… I knew it! There are glowing pools near here. I have said, many times, the good hot water must come from something like glowing pools. And there is a lot of good hot water in the rift. So that means there must be glowing pools somewhere.”
“I wouldn’t be excited. We’ve got plenty of stories back in the mountains where I grew up about dwarves who dug too deep. Once lava starts flowing it is hard to stop. A few hundred too many pick-blows near molten stone leads to a few million to chisel out what’s left of a mine after the lava flows through.”
“But glowing pools are important for us! There are only a few, and that is where the metal is made.”
Mab scratched her head. “You mean you use lava for smelting?”
“Maybe this is what we do? I do not know the words, it is not a thing I do. But tools, things made of metal and not stone, come from people with glowing pools near. And there are no glowing pools near Barnacle. We could use some.” He scratched his head. “But I should not be talking about things like that. First, we leave this place, then we talk about the exciting parts.”
“Agreed.”
“Borgle, perhaps you can answer this. Are you heading for the glowing pools? The lava?” Eddy asked.
Borgle paused, then released first a knock, then a chime.
Eddy frowned. “I know the knock means no. And the chime means yes. So… No and yes?”
Borgle chimed.
“First you aren’t, and then you are?”
The digger chimed much more enthusiastically.
“Splendid!”
“What’s all this gibberish?” Mab asked.
“Borgle was digging for the glowing pools.”
“Then… maybe we shouldn’t have fixed it up. Things are bad enough here already without a harebrained thinking-machine trying to dig a lava well.”
“No, it is good. It is a thing we learned. Always it is better to know than to not know. And we know that it is heading somewhere else first! Maybe we can learn that. Maybe that is a thing that will help us. Let me talk some more.”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you get it to do what we say so we can get out of here regardless of what it wants to do. It shouldn’t want to do anything.”
“Do we know what we can do to escape?”
“Do we… what do you think I’ve been working on since I got here!?”
“You have a way out?”
“I have a plan for a way out. I just haven’t been able to do anything about it because I’m too old and used up to do it myself.”
“What do you want to do?”
Mab revealed her spyglass and held it up.
“Look, there. Near the edge of that crust of growth on the ceiling.”
Eddy turned the looking glass about in his hands, then held it up to his eye.
“This… This is for seeing far!” he said excitedly. “Mira says there are things like this that the sailors have!”
“Try to focus, Eddy,” Mab said. “It’s not the spyglass I’m trying to show you. Do you see that dim spot?”
“Where it does not glow much?”
“Yes. That’s what dim means.”
“I do.”
“I’ve paid attention to the way that stuff acts. Where there’s water, it glows bright. Where there’s stone, it has sort of a medium glow. When it’s dim like that? That’s when it’s got air behind it. There’s a tunnel behind there. And it’s the same direction I came from. All we need to do is dig through it and we’re out of here. I guarantee you, with a machine that can dig, I can find my way back to dwarf tunnels. I would have been through it years ago, but the stuff grows so fast I can’t dig through it.”
“That is very good for you. Not good for me. I do not need to get to dwarf tunnels. I need to get to the sea.”
“Not everything is about you. But if you’d been listening to how I got here, you’d know that most of those tunnels are flooded. The water had to come from somewhere.”
Eddy considered this.
“It is still not good. My friend Rustle is looking for me. If I go to the tunnels and then to the sea, how will he find me? How will I find him?”
“I couldn’t care less. I’ve been trapped here for longer than I can count. I just want to get out!”
“Yes… maybe this is the part of the adventure where I help the one who helped me…” Eddy nodded. “We go. But when you are on your way, I come back. There is more to explore here, and this is where Rustle will find me.”
“I’ve been all around this place. There’s nothing worth seeing except…”
Mab flinched, evidently realizing a word too late that it might not be the best course of action to suggest there is something interesting in the cavern.
“Is there something amazing here? More amazing than the glowing and the stalks and the lobstery tasty things?”
“No. Nothing. Forget I said anything.”
“Show me to this interesting place, Mab! Show me and I will ask Borgle to dig you to wherever you want to dig!”
“It is nothing! Just a statue of a mermaid holding a hammer.”
“A statue of one of the right hands of Tria!” Eddy cried. “You show me! You show me now! Please, please!”
“It’s a long way from here, and my legs aren’t what they were.”
“Borgle, please give our dwarf friend a lift and go where he leads. There is something interesting to see.”
Borgle chimed happily and grasped Mab with one pincer, hefting her up and dropping her astride its back.
“What is this! Get me down, you foolish contraption!”
“Now you don’t have to walk, Mab! Show us to the statue please, and then we dig where you want to dig!”
Mab made some faces and furious gestures, but ultimately sagged in defeat.
“Very well. This way. At least we can make it quick… It will take us past my home. I could use a drink.”
“Forward, Borgle!” Eddy proclaimed. “To the next discovery!”
The digger, moving rather gracelessly along on its many tentacle-like legs, thumped along the ground with a dwarf atop it and a merman in tow.