Tundra

Strange, lunar shapes drifted in the murky depths, eclipsing each other and winking in an out of view like stars behind inky clouds. Amongst the luminescent ghosts of the deep ocean, streamlined bodies swam, circling the shadowy, gaping hole in the water’s tapestry. This hole loomed, strange and mountain shaped, a yawning abyss that was somehow three dimensional. As we watched, patches of violet lit up in the darkness, casting spotlights on the pale fish and slack-jawed monsters circling the blackness. Immediately, the albino creatures went into a frenzy, scattering as if before a devouring mouth. Then, I realised, that was exactly what had warned them away. The pitch black void was in fact the space in an enormous maw. The rest of the submarine darkness behind the immediate sable, the gloom I had mistaken for overcast water, was in fact the bulk of the most monolithic animal I had ever encountered. It could only have been one thing. It flickered its lights again, groaning distantly.

Eiron froze mid-paddle. ‘What’s it saying?’

It was Aais who answered. ‘It’s telling them not to notice us,’ he said, sagely.

‘Notice us?’

‘It’s hard to explain.’ Aais squirmed in the water, wriggling closer to the dangerous mass. ‘Let me watch a while longer. This is a bit like coral, and a little like squids. I am not advanced enough to fully understand it.’

Hackley and I stood ready with our spells, but it was me who spoke first. ‘What should we do?’ I asked.

‘Try a mixture of green, blue and white, like the froth from a wave on the open ocean,’ Aais suggested. ‘That’s submission and obeisance.’

With the pre-etched rune on a waterproof stone –an innovation Hackley had thought of as an alternative to frail parchment– I conjured enough lights for a small lightning storm. The greens were seaweed and kelp coloured, the exact hue of rock pool slime. The blues were pale porcelain and deep sapphire, while the white was the foam of a breaking wave, as Aais had said it should be. As these lights faded into the inkwell ocean, more colours came echoing back– vibrant pinks and yellows, like an underwater sunset.

‘What did it say?’ I asked eagerly.

Aais concentrated. ‘It says that… wait. I need to get closer.’ Without another word, he swam forward, meandering in the tide, until the water around him began to glow with the faint gold of dying embers or a forge run cold. ‘It says it has been aware of us since we came below ground,’ he announced. ‘It says it is a mistake to think of it as just this part of the sea– the carnivores are a part of it, too, as is the coral, as is the water we swam in, this liquid for suspending dreams…’

‘It’s the whole ecosystem,’ Hackley paraphrased, as Aais became misty-eyed.

‘Yes,’ said the fish-man, excitedly. ‘And by swimming in it, we became part of the sea force, too. It turns out you are Hassis after all, Eiron,’ he finished, appealing to the Seafarer, who gave a gruff nod.

‘What does that mean?’ I asked Eiron, who shrugged.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said, unwillingly.

I turned back to Aais, who had his hands drawn in front of his face as though he was peeling back curtains. ‘Ask it if it can help us,’ I told him.

‘Red, white, a bit more white,’ he said, intuitively. ‘Then add turquoise, and the purple of the shells you find on the shore.’

And so I produced more colours. Pearly white and the turquoise of rusted bronze joined the rainbow, as did the bold tyrian hue for which Tyrian City, on the southern coast, is named. Once again, the elder flashed lights back in our direction.

‘It says it knows that there is a problem,’ Aais interpreted. ‘It says it has been trying to restore the tides and the moon to their normal rhythm, but another god is fighting it. It says that it can oppose this god, and intends to do so.

‘Tell it where we are going,’ I instructed.

Aais nodded, and then began to give me a further recipe, like a chef. ‘I need green like moss and fresh seaweed,’ he said, ‘mixed with flecks of the brightest white you can make.’ When we had finished, he added, ‘It can find the place. It does not want to disturb the sleep of those who wait below, but it will move there and make its decision then. It is invested in this world, and would not see it destroyed, but there are other worlds beyond this one.’

‘You said it will oppose the other god,’ Eiron remarked, with shuffling unease. ‘What does that mean?’

The fish-man only shook his mane of fins. ‘When gods fight amongst themselves,’ he said, prophetically, ‘who can say?’