CHAPTER 6
Filled with anxious anticipation, the cousins spent an uncomfortable night in the Hall of Healers. Uncle Cap slept deeply, probably more relaxed and content than he had been in months. He still didn’t know about all the troubles with the merlons. Gwen sat cross-legged in a chair, trying to sleep, while Vic sprawled out on the stone floor beside his father’s bed.
Uncle Cap had explained a lot, but Gwen’s mind still overflowed with questions. In the morning, though her eyes felt gritty and her throat scratchy, she was glad to see that Vic’s dad looked much improved. The plump chief Healer indulged them by letting the two stay for breakfast with Dr. Pierce, but then she shooed them out.
“The man needs his rest, and we will take good care of him here.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And are you not two of the new apprentices to Ven Sage Rubicas? I am certain he has important work for you.”
Uncle Cap gave them each a hug. “Don’t worry, you two. I’m here now. I’ll come and see you as soon as they let me out of here.”
Feeling relieved, tired, and excited all at the same time, Gwen left the Hall of Healers with Vic and headed off to join their three companions in Rubicas’s main laboratory.
Seeing Uncle Cap had reminded her of all the things that had changed for them since coming to this watery world full of magic and danger. Sure, she missed her friends from Stephen Hawking High. She missed being able to choose from dozens of tops, shorts, slacks, dresses, and skirts in her wardrobe. She missed her tennis shoes and sandals. She missed shopping, cinnamon buns, In-N-Out burgers, and school dances.
But there were plenty of things she didn’t miss: heavy traffic on the freeways, earthquakes, smog, computer viruses, tedious homework assignments, irritating commercials on TV and the Internet, junk email, having to explain to teachers why her parents couldn’t come to parent-teacher conferences…
Now that Uncle Cap was here in Elantya, Earth no longer held the draw for her that it once had. She had good friends in this new world, the mystery of her family’s background to solve, and the opportunity to learn more than she could possibly absorb in a lifetime—and an obligation to help in the war against the merlons. In an odd way, Gwen actually belonged here.
As they arrived in the communal area of the apprentice quarters, Tiaret trotted in from her morning run, glistening with perspiration.
Without pausing, she bounded through the archway, down the stairs into the communal area, and jumped feet-first into the hot springs pool, throwing up just the barest hint of a splash. She submerged herself completely, then sprang back out onto the rim of the pool all in the space of a few heartbeats. She stood there dripping, in the short outfit of animal leathers and furs that she wore day after day. Tiaret brushed droplets of water from her skin.
Sharif entered, carrying his rolled-up carpet under one arm. He stashed the carpet in his adjoining quarters and strutted back out wearing a look of surprise, as if wondering why the others hadn’t already started work without him. “Ven Rubicas is waiting for us. As my people say: A day wasted is never regained.”
“Where’s Lyssandra?” Vic asked.
“Coming.” She emerged moments later from her quarters looking tired and pale but otherwise ready for work.
At the same time, Vic and Sharif asked, “Nightmares?”
Lyssandra produced a faint smile. “You know me well. Drowning again, and explosions, fire and water—and sea monsters.” She shook her head. “I do not wish to think of it.”
They went together into Rubicas’s primary experimental chamber, where the racks, shelves, and tables overflowed with scrolls and equipment. Bright morning light streamed through windows and the skylights in the domed ceiling, drawing attention to the giant aquariums built into the curved wall.
The first task that the preoccupied Rubicas assigned his apprentices for the day was to refill the wall-sized aquariums at long last. The great tanks had stood empty for many weeks, ever since his apprentice Orpheon had tried to kill him, smashing the glass fronts of the aquariums in the process. The aquits that had once inhabited the tanks had been living in a deep urn, waiting for their home to be repaired. A few days ago, a ship had arrived carrying the crystal replacement panes, which workers had immediately installed.
The Ven Sage himself sat on a tall stool at his high marble writing lectern, busily compiling a single scroll from all of the most successful verses and spell fragments he had collected so far in his efforts to reconstruct and expand the shield spell for Elantya. He looked as if he had a headache.
Before Orpheon had betrayed Elantya and fled to live among the merlons, Rubicas had crafted a complicated spell for a powerful force field that he hoped would one day protect the entire island. But the assistant had stolen key parts of the work, and now the old sage worked to reproduce it from scratch.
A thick pile of unfurled spell scrolls lay beside him on the sloped desktop, and the sage used his elbow as a paperweight. Each time Rubicas finished with one of the fragment scrolls, he lifted his elbow to allow it to reroll itself, then dropped the scroll gently to the floor beneath the desk.
Gwen sighed, knowing she would have quite a job of reorganizing the scrolls. She was aware, however, that the shield spell was crucial to defending the island and its inhabitants from the merlons. So absorbed was Rubicas in his work that he never looked up once after giving his apprentices their assignment for the morning. His only sounds were an occasional “hmm” or “ahhhh” and the furious scritching of his quill.
Gwen turned to look at the empty aquariums, biting the edge of her lower lip as she pondered her approach to the problem. “The aquits prefer seawater, and I think that the creatures the Ven Sage plans to collect live in salt water, too.”
Tiaret nodded. “What is our closest source?”
Vic cocked an eyebrow at her. “You mean, other than the ocean?”
Piri, who seemed to find this funny, twinkled a bright pink through the mesh of the net that hung at Sharif’s neck. The boy from Irrakesh looked dubious. “Yes, the ocean is close, and we could use buckets and my flying carpet, but it would take a very long time. Thousands of buckets. There is a saying among my people: A wall may be built one grain of sand at a time. But a supply of large rocks speeds up the process.”
Vic laughed out loud. Ignoring her cousin, Gwen mused, “So the question is, how do we get a large supply of water here faster than in buckets?”
“We could fill barrels and move them here on a sail cart,” Lyssandra said. “But the barrels would be very heavy.”
“How about a garden hose?” Vic suggested.
Lyssandra put out a hand to touch his arm and drew the image from his mind. “Yes, we have such things.”
“We can’t really run the hose all the way down to the harbor and then make the water run uphill, can we?” Gwen said.
Vic snapped his fingers. “Water runs both up- and downhill here. We just have to find the right spell.”
Sharif looked relieved. “Indeed it does, Viccus. Most of the canals that line the streets in Elantya carry seawater. When I first came here, I often allowed Piri to ride in a small boat in the canals beside me while I walked from place to place, getting to know the city.” The nymph djinni gave off a yellow glow of contentment at the memory.
“I would have thought you’d just use your magic carpet to explore every street without getting your feet tired,” Vic teased, though the prince did not seem to find it amusing.
“I did that as well, but I do not wish to become fat and lazy, refusing to use my own muscles or my own mind as some sultans have done.” His voice was haughty, his olive-green eyes full of pride.
“Good,” Gwen broke in. “Let’s use the canal along the street outside the tower.”
Vic stroked his chin with a thumb and forefinger, pretending to be very thoughtful. “Nothing simpler then. If Lyssandra can get the hose for us, we’ll rig it so it enters the canal beneath the surface of the water so we won’t block any deliveries, maybe flare the opening a bit so that it gathers more water. Then we face the end of the hose into the current—and let gravity or magic do the rest of the work.”
Lyssandra’s father always kept a hose at the ready while designing his pyrotechnics, so Sharif flew the petite girl home on his carpet to fetch it. Meanwhile, Gwen busied herself rearranging Rubicas’s discarded scrolls, and Vic and Tiaret went outside to survey the canal and make plans. When Lyssandra and Sharif returned, the five of them set to work together.
Vic admired the vivid spring green color of the thick tubing. “How do they make this?”
“We do not make it. We collect it from the sea. It comes from doolya, a type of seaweed that can grow up to a hundred times as long as I am tall. We use the sap-stalk as tubing, and the fronds make excellent rope. Thick jungles of doolya grow in many places beneath the water, and we harvest what we need.”
Gwen found herself fascinated by this explanation. The doolya stalk was as tough as bamboo, yet nearly as flexible as a boiled noodle, and translucent. Working together, they ran the hose from the main aquarium tank through the experimental chamber, down the hallway, out to the street, and into the canal. When all was ready, Gwen waited by the canal holding one end of the hose and sent Tiaret and Vic inside to hold the other end steady where it ran into the aquarium so that the flow of water would not accidentally dislodge it.
When they were ready, Tiaret signaled from the top of the tower above Rubicas’s laboratory. “You may begin!” she shouted down, then disappeared again.
While Piri “supervised” the operation through her eggsphere wall, Sharif and Gwen fed the tube into the canal and Lyssandra weighted it down, securing it at the bottom of the canal with rocks. Water gushed into the tubing, filling the hollow space and making the hose twitch and buck. The three went back into the laboratory to watch the tanks fill.
Vic greeted them with elation. “See? No problem. Works like a charm.” Water gushed from the end of the sap-stalk at a satisfying rate. The hose squirmed in his hands, so he held it in place with a precariously balanced chunk of rock. When he had secured the tube, he let go and climbed back down the copper wall ladder to the floor. “Easy enough. How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Many hours,” Sharif concluded.
“Even so, we should remain close by,” Lyssandra said.
“Or we could go visit my dad, see if he’s all right,” Vic said anxiously. “What could possibly go wrong here? It’s just a water hose and a tank—”
As if in response to his words, the floor beneath their feet rumbled and trembled, and the water in the tanks sloshed wildly. “Earthquake!” Gwen said at the same time Vic cried out, “Stand in the doorway!”
Before they could head for the safety of the door arch, the rough stone chunk weighing down the doolya hose tumbled to the floor. The sap-stem slipped out of the aquarium and, writhing like a snake, sprayed water every which way around the laboratory. The floor still shook from the quake, and now the stone tiles were slippery.
At his worktable, Rubicas did not look up from his scrolls.
Vic and Sharif dove for the wild hose, but both missed as it squirmed away from them. Vic landed on the floor and slid like a penguin on ice.
Gwen ran to salvage the scrolls beneath Rubicas’s desk, but she slipped and landed squarely on her rear end. Lyssandra too landed on the floor with a delicate yelp. Tiaret, proving her agility, darted back and forth in pursuit of the snaking water tube; though she did not catch it, neither did she land ignominiously on the floor as the others had.
As suddenly as it had started, the earthquake stopped. Water continued to spurt from the hose. Sharif got to his feet, wringing water from his dripping, billowy sleeves. “What was that shaking and rumbling?” Of course, a boy from a flying city would never have encountered seismic shocks.
“It was just an earthquake,” Gwen said a split second before the serpentine stream of water hit Sharif in the face, completely drenching him and Piri, who flickered alternately pink and orange, obviously vacillating between amusement and alarm.
Gwen and Vic and even Tiaret laughed. The friends ganged up on the rogue hose and, after a merry chase with a good deal more sliding and laughter, tackled it. Vic trapped part of the hose with his foot, and Tiaret grabbed the end. Sharif took the end of the tube, climbed quickly to the top of the aquariums, and fed the hose back into the partly-filled reservoir, where he anchored it much more securely this time.
Gwen groaned and sat down on the wet floor with a plop. “It’s going to take forever to clean up this mess.” She nudged Lyssandra, who sat in silence beside her, then realized with concern that her friend had not moved since falling there. The ethereal girl sat stiff and still, her face as pale as milk. Her eyes did not blink. Was she in shock? “Hey, Lyssandra, it’s okay.” She put an arm around the girl’s shoulder, hoping to comfort her. “It was just a short earthquake.”
“No. I—I saw that in my dream. The whole island shaking. And in the next part, I kept seeing myself drowning, being pulled under the water, unable to breathe.”
Vic sloshed over to them, also concerned. “Well, this water’s not very deep, and you’re not going to drown here. The quake is over now, just a little one. Nothing like the temblors we had in California.”
Lyssandra’s voice was barely above a whisper. “But Elantya was formed by magic, anchored to the foundation of the world itself. We have never experienced this shaking of the ground. Never.”
Rubicas finally got down from his stool and joined the conversation. “She is correct. In the history of this island, an earthquake has never been recorded. It is somewhat disturbing.” As he talked, he climbed a ladder to reach some high shelves, rummaged briefly among the paraphernalia there, and then retrieved the scroll he’d been looking for. Still high on the ladder, Rubicas opened the scroll, murmured a few words, and said “S’ibah.” Magically, a drain opened in the marble floor, and the water began to gurgle away. “Mmm. That should do nicely.”
* * *
Late that afternoon, when Dr. Pierce was thoroughly rested, fed, cleaned, and bandaged, he came to join the companions down at the partially rebuilt Elantyan harbor, where his purple speedboat was tied up to a half-restored dock. The crew that had rescued him out in the middle of the ocean had taken care of the boat, which sparkled in the slanted sunlight.
Vic stood by his father, admiring the design of the speedboat. Gwen stepped down into it and took a seat. “This would have been fun to have back home,” she said.
“It starts to feel a little cramped after you’ve sat in it for several days in a row,” Dr. Pierce said.
Tiaret, Sharif, and Lyssandra marveled at the sparkling amethyst color, the sleek lines. “A beautiful vessel, Sage Pierce,” said old Rubicas, nodding to himself. He and Sage Polup in his mechanical body had walked together to the end of the half-pier.
“She may be pretty, but she’s not going anywhere,” Vic’s father said. “No fuel left, and I don’t think Elantya has any filling stations.”
The anemonite swimming in the water-filled tank that formed his “head” turned his ring of eyes, and words came out of the speakers. “There are other ways to propel a boat, Sage Pierce. Elantyan engineers and I might come up with some suggestions.” Sage Polup raised one of his heavy, artificial arms. “If they created this body, they can power a small boat.”
Vic climbed in beside Gwen and opened up the storage cases, revealing Uncle Cap’s flopping wetsuit, a full-face mask, and air tanks for his scuba rig. “This could be useful,” Vic said. “I’ve always wanted to go diving.”
“It’s not as easy as it looks, Vic,” Dr. Pierce said. “There’s a lot to learn first, but I’ll teach you if you like.”
Rubicas scratched his beard. “Sage Pierce, I remain highly intrigued by how you managed to open a crystal door without training. Were you aware that you yourself must be a Key?”
“I never thought so and was never trained. I always figured that science could solve any problem that magic could. I certainly did a lot of trial and error.” He looked at Gwen and Vic. “Besides, I had a great deal of incentive. Since these kids made it through by accident, I was sure I could do it on purpose—if I just tried hard enough and got myself to the right place. I applied science to what little my wife had told me about the way your magic works.”
Polup turned his bulky body toward the Ven Sage. “I suspect that Sage Pierce could be of great assistance to us in our preparations against the merlons.”
Dr. Pierce looked down at the cousins. “I’m not sure I can match what these two have already done for you. But I’ll certainly do my best.”
“I look forward to hearing your ideas,” the Ven Sage said.
Lyssandra hung back, gazing at the water with a troubled expression.
Tiaret, watching Lyssandra, tapped her teaching staff on the dock and nodded to herself. “A good warrior also learns new skills when necessary.” She looked to her friends. “The time has come. I would like you to teach me to swim.”