Chapter 20

Rory swam deeper. He left the warm, shallow waters, with the colorful corals and fish the color of polished jewels to swim into the unknown, into the abyss. The sunlight that filtered through the ocean grew dimmer and dimmer, and the water cooled dramatically fast. He could feel the pressure against his ears and opened his mouth in a gaping yawn to relieve it. The water felt like icy steel against his skin, but his tail shook more from fear than the cold. He knew the way to go, like every merperson did; he knew the way since he had been a young child. Every merparent taught their younglings to avoid the grotto where the Warlock lived. Filled with horror stories about what happens to young mermen and mer-wym if they strayed too close, no one went down to the deepest layers of the ocean. Yet it always stayed in the back of their minds, like a cold, dark reminder of their inevitable fate.

Still Rory swam deeper. He swam past the translucent jellyfish lit up by the glow of the angler fish and dodged the long, grasping arms of the octopi. He turned west and to follow the string of caves and grottos and swam deeper still. He could feel the emanation of maleficence grow stronger, and despite his deepest instincts, he swam toward it. Finally stopping at the mouth of the cave where the emanation was strongest.

"You can hover in the doorway until the end of time, or you can enter."

Rory froze. The Warlock.

He considered turning around and swimming away as fast as he could, back to the surface, back to warmth and light and goodness. But he was here now. No turning back.

He entered the yawning, jagged mouth of the cave and tried to quell his quaking heart.

A faint, pulsing light showed up ahead. Rory followed it, into the stillness and depths of the cave. He entered a large, cavern, where hundreds of glowing jellyfish, lanternfish, and squid were kept behind glass against the wall, as if in an open-range aquarium. The glow of their light blue and green light threw eerie shadows against the walls, as if the creatures were larger than they appeared to be. Hundreds of bottles lined shelves reaching from the floor to the top of the cave, each arranged neatly, with strange symbols etched into their glass.

The Warlock seemed engrossed in a game with an octopus.

"Echthroús!" The octopus vanished against the wall, shifting its tones to match its surroundings.

"Arpáxteaftó!" The Warlock pointed to a sword on the wall, and the octopus raced to catch hold of it, shifting the object among its eight arms.

"Epíthesitou!" The octopus suddenly dropped the sword and in two great propulsions launched itself at Rory and wrapped its arms around his head. Rory panicked and tried to scream, despite the suckers closing in over his mouth and eyes.

The Warlock laughed, a frightful, mirthless staccato and watched the two scramble about the cave.

"Apeleftheróste ton," The Warlock said casually. The octopus let go of Rory and with a squirt of inky black, swam back to its Master and perched on his shoulder. The warlock gave a whole prawn to the octopus, which it promptly devoured.

"Clever little beast. Much more clever than foolish mermen who swim too far outside their home." The Warlock turned to Rory with a malignant stare. "State your reason for being here. I have little patience for vertebrates and even less for halflings."

Rory froze. The water of the cave was icy, the gloom as thick and oppressive as rotting whale blubber, and he felt suffocated by the sudden attack of the octopus.

"You...you can...what I mean is-"

"Do continue to babble, I most thoroughly enjoy having my time wasted," the Warlock said.

"I need to go above the surface!" The need shot out of Rory like the ink from the octopus. "I need to become human."