The Glimmering Sea

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

They swam beyond the Watcher Station with its heartening thrum and headed to Ziphra's home. The Adriatico was clean and soothed Armida physically and emotionally, but she felt an emptiness. Liath had no presence anymore in the sea he had once roamed. It helped to have Paolo and Ziphra with her but, although Paolo's strength was returning, Armida avoided pushing him too hard.

Paolo was as willing to explore as Armida had never thought to at his age. Then again, he'd seen things in his life and had met with hardships she never had. Despite his ordeal, he never lost his sweetness with her. But she minded him closely because he was nevertheless altered. Before they left Marea, she had noticed he no longer felt at ease with his pod.

Saying farewell to Ziphra was as difficult as Armida expected. At the cave, she and Paolo brought treats to her as Ziphra strung her eggs, and they spoke of what would come next. After a few days, Armida knew they needed to leave. She did not want Ziphra's fading glory to be the last memory.

≈Come, Paolo. The adventure I promised is upon us.≈

Paolo swam close, eagerness in his eyes. ≈Where will we go?≈

≈I will show you tomorrow. But we must stop here.≈

Despite the absence of sludgeshark sightings, Armida did not relax her guard. They would need a secure place for the night. She scanned the shore of two small islands as they passed and found what they needed. A cave with an entrance too small for the sludgesharks.

Armida turned to Paolo. ≈Soon the waters will be dark enough for your first krill column hunt. Let us find our dinner.≈

The sea offered its bounty to them.

Paolo patted his stomach and grinned. ≈Is the hunt always so easy? I'm full.≈

≈Sometimes.≈ Armida took Paolo's hand, and they dove deeper toward the dark edge. ≈Watch this.≈

Armida let go, dove into the black, and twirled in a spiral. Blue luminescence sparked off her fingertips and fluke, outlining her body with a gossamer magic.

≈Blue lumes? Can I try?≈ Paolo spun, and the lights formed an eddy around him.

And Armida thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. The lights of the night sea and the joy on Paolo's face.

✧✧✧

Their travel to Ziphra's cave had been direct, not like the wandering route she'd taken on her impulsive, poorly planned trip to Thalassa those many months ago. That trip had led her to the shipwreck with its untouched bounty. Armida needed no special guidance to find it again.

She spotted the ship ahead as Paolo raced toward it without regard for danger.

Armida shot after him to stop him. ≈Paolo! No!≈

When she caught up to him, wonder danced on his face.

Beneath them, among the fish weaving in and out of the relic, was a small bronze statue of a figure with a coiled serpent detailed on his helmet. Sea silt had covered the legs, and Armida brushed the deposits away to expose the entire figure.

≈Who is it?≈ Paolo swept away more fine rubble.

≈I don't know. A great king of Egypt. They were called pharaohs. Or perhaps it is a god.≈

The murkiness meant limited visibility, but they continued to explore. Inside the ship, clay vessels rested amid sand and roaming fish. Armida pointed to them. ≈This was a trade ship. There might be wine or oils in some of the corked jars. We will take only a few.≈

A statue, headless, of a female was more beautiful than anything Armida had seen in Venice. Draped in a transparent gown delicately rendered in stone, the elegance of her figure was reminiscent of the Botticelli Venus her mother had posed for. She stared at the carvings on the torso with disbelief. Some symbols were the same as those in the Library of the Antichi. How she wished Isabetta were present to share her moment of seeing into the past.

✧✧✧

Paolo played among the debris until Armida pulled him away. ≈It is time to go.≈ They collected the clay jars, small glass bottles, and a few metal objects. Paolo filled Armida's waistpouch with coins. It would take both of them to tow the net bag weighted with their treasures. Armida hated to leave behind a blue and yellow glass bowl she admired, but it was too delicate to carry with them.

Paolo's eyes were wide with a silly, merpup longing.

≈I'll add two of the coins to your marble necklace when we get home.≈ Armida laughed at his silly spinning. At times she forgot how young he was, but not today. Armida relaxed and let herself be entertained as Paolo chased a school of parrotfish for play.

≈Armida! Watch me! Watch me breach!≈

≈I'm watching! Look at you! So strong!≈

By evening, they were ready for the plankton migration to supply an ample dinner ahead of the next leg of their journey home. After locating a protected cave, Armida promised Paolo another night of luminescence to celebrate.

A strange drumming hit Armida's soundbones. ≈Paolo, I sense a predator but am unsure what it is. Not as large as a sludgeshark. Something unfamiliar. We should leave.≈

But, as Armida soon realized, they were sludgesharks. A pair. Smaller than those in Marea. They came fast, too fast.

Armida grabbed Paolo's hand and dove into the dark. ≈We must hide in the blackness and hope they cannot sense us. There is plenty of other food for them.≈

The sludgesharks followed. Armida soon understood the luminescence that sparked as they sped through the night water created a trail the sludgesharks tracked. Armida pulled a knife from her waistpouch.

≈Hold as still as possible. If we are careful, we won't brush against anything—and nothing will brush against us—to spark their lightning.≈

Careful...and lucky.

≈I'm scared.≈

≈Don't worry, Paolo. We will track the sludgesharks when they trigger the lights.≈

The sludgesharks slowed and circled ever closer. Armida readied her knife.

Two long trailing lumestripes, brighter than any she'd ever witnessed, lit up the sludgeshark's outlines. She knew precisely where the sharks were. Armida poised to make an attack.

In the next moment, they were gone. Not gone exactly. The ballooning mouths of two giant gulper eels had opened wide and swallowed the sludgesharks whole.