Lynn Abbey - Realms of the Deep

Getting back to his task, Keros swam easily across the hall to the uppermost mosaic, momentarily catching a glimpse of himself reflected in the crystalline doors to the Great Vault. He had almost reached his full growth, his shoulders and frame having filled in with strong muscles. His skin had lost the lighter blue of his youth and now its deeper color signified his entry into adulthood. While a contrast from the norm, Keros had long since stopped wondering why his hair was a kelp green rather than the usual blue, and accepted it. Though he shaved it off more than once, it had grown back to a full mane of hair trailing just past his shoulders now. He looked like an adult-why couldn't they treat him like one?

Keros knew that many expected him to become a priest like his mother and father both, though the closer he got to his indoctrination from acolyte to the ranks of the clergy, the more pensive and sullen he became.

They never ask me what I want, he began the argument in his head for the thousandth time, because they're still mad at Nalos for rejecting the church and joining the army. I don't want to do that-by Persana's mane, I don't know what I want to do-but they've never given me a choice. They just assume I'll become a priest like them, and they don't listen when I tell them I don't hear Persana's voice in me.

Keros began buffing the mosaic depicting the capture of the Arsenal of Xynakt, binding the unholy items in solid ice, but his anger put more force behind his hand, and he heard a crackle beneath the rag.

Panic brought Keros out of his reverie, and he brought the rag away from the mural. Coral chips over a thousand years old glistened in the rag, and many more now tumbled off the wall. He sank as quickly as his heart did, scooping up the fragments before they drifted too far in the waters. A roaring began in his ears as he began to imagine the punishments his father would dole out for such sacrilege. Far worse would be the disappointment in his mother's eyes, for she loved these murals with a passion. In one second, Keros had ruined a priceless treasure. Having caught what appeared to be all of the fragments, Keros swam up the wall again to look at the damage, though the small pile of coral in his cupped hands seemed more terrifying than a horde of koalinth descending out of the gloom.

Returning to the mural, Keros gasped in horror. He had totally crushed and eradicated the mosaic of Numos casting the ice around the artifacts taken from the morkoth. While Numos's figure still remained on the wall, there now loomed a jagged blank spot between him and the. figure of the wounded Balas. Keros shifted the coral fragments into his right hand and touched the blank area with his left. The stone wall felt rough from the missing coral pieces, but it too crumbled at his touch. Pushing himself away from the wall in another wave of fear, Keros gasped as cracks appeared in the very spot he'd last touched. They grew wider with each passing beat of his heart. The coral chips drifted out of his right hand and down through the water to the floor, forgotten as Keros watched an entire section of the wall crack and split from where he touched it.

Distracted by his rising panic and the roaring in his ears, Keros had ignored the sounds before now. Fearing the worst punishments, the triton boy imagined the loud booms to be cell doors slamming behind him as he mentally threw himself into the dungeons beneath Vuuvax, city of the Wrathful. He finally recognized them to be real sounds as the cracks widened, and the wall exploded inward. Thrown back by the force of the blast, Keros barely registered the chunk of coral carved to represent Xynakt the Arcane flying toward his head by the tune the blackness closed around him.

Keros swam fitfully through the seas, as he had seemed to be swimming for days. No matter how quickly he swam, the sharks kept to the waters around him. His heart racing, Keros wondered why they didn't close in for the kill. He was tired and wounded, with blood clouding the water around him, and they proved more than a match for his speed. One shark lunged at him and Keros dived frantically, leaving the shark with only a mouthful of green hair and Keros with a sharp pain in his head. The other shark closed in and Keros found himself too tired to avoid this one's attack. He blinked once, then opened his eyes to see his death coming-as his father would want him to do. The jagged teeth of the shark seemed innumerable and — the shark veered upward and thumped him on the chest with its tail.

Keros blinked in shock, then woke up to his little sister Charan pounding on his chest in terror.

"Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup! Keros! Getupge-tupgetup," she screamed.

She kept her eyes firmly shut in desperation as she clung to the only thing she wanted right now-her brother to wake up and make things better for her. She almost looked comical perched there, flailing her little four-year-old arms against his chest as hard as she could, but he could hear the fear in her wails.

"All right, all right, Char, I'm awake. What's…?"

Keros grabbed her hands and held them as he woke up more fully, and his senses came back to him. All around him was rubble, the coppery smell of blood, and the sharp tang of fear. His head pounded, but he didn't seem to have any wounds on him. Keros almost believed he was still hallucinating, as the Founders' Battle erupted once more all around him. Where the broken mosaic once was there now gaped a massive hole in the wall, which had also knocked out the supports and archway for the doors into the Great Vault. The doors lay in massive fragments on the hall's floor. Keros and Charan huddled among them in an impromptu lean-to of stone. While the lucent coral globes still provided light to the hall, more light streamed out of the Great Vault, as did the shadows of fighting figures made large in shadow on the shattered wall.

All about Keros and Charan lay the shards of the Great Vault's doors and the broken bodies of triton priests who'd died defending home and honor. Each time she saw another dead body-often a family friend whom they both knew-Charan grew wide-eyed and silent, her tiny grip nearly puncturing the webbing between Keros's fingers. Keros lifted her onto one of his arms and looked toward the former exit. "Let's get out of here, Char," he said.

She nodded silently, one hand around his neck and the other firmly planted thumb first in her mouth. Her gills and nostrils flared wildly, and he knew she was terrified. Keros began to hum Charan's favorite lullaby, the melody audible to her via her touch on his throat. As she relaxed slightly, Keros began swimming toward the far end of the hall, using the rubble for cover. He didn't know what brought the morkoths here, but he knew he couldn't face them while he had charge of his sister.

Charan began to whimper, the high sobs resonating through the water. Keros heard someone swimming swiftly in pursuit of them, and exhaled in relief as Second Priest Naran flashed through the waters far above them, her glowing trident preceding her out of the Vault. She appeared tense and ready for battle, but she heard her children beneath her and swam to meet them.

"Thank Persana you're alive, Mother," Keros said in a relieved exhale as he swam up to meet her. When she turned to him, Keros saw a look he'd never seen before-a look of despair.

"Keros, listen very carefully to me-no arguments." Locking eyes with him, Naran shook her mane of sapphire hair back as she glanced at the Vault. "Arcount Axar Xyrl and his morkoths have invaded Abydos. Though their efforts concentrated first on the tower your father guessed correctly that they're after the Armory of Xynakt."

As she talked, she undid the strange belt at her waist and handed Keros a strange shaped item. A bright golden loop shone atop a long, flat, hide-covered sheath, all of which was hooked to the belt by golden loops.