The Lost City of Faar

CLORAL

Swimming underwater is a very cool thing.

My parents taught me how to snorkel in Long Island Sound when I was a kid and Uncle Press, as I told you, took me to get my diving certification. I never liked regular old swimming much. To me, doing laps in a pool was like jogging on a treadmill. There was nothing interesting to look at. But diving below the surface was a whole other story. That was like dropping in to a different world.

Of course, I had been dropping in to a few too many different worlds lately, so I wasn’t as psyched about this dive as usual.

Once I sank below the surface, I was afraid to take a breath. I was used to breathing through a mouthpiece connected to a hose that was connected to a scuba tank. But there was no mouthpiece in this weird head-bubble thing. And there was no tank of compressed air strapped to my back either. All I had was a stupid little harmonica-looking doo-dad stuck near the back of my head that was supposed to take oxygen out of water. Suddenly the whole thing sounded pretty impossible. Even though I knew I was underwater and my head was still completely dry, I couldn’t bring myself to let go and…

“Breathe!” commanded Uncle Press.

I spun around and saw that he was floating right next to me. How weird was that? I could hear him even though we were underwater with our heads encased in clear plastic. His voice sounded kind of high and thin, like the treble knob on my stereo was cranked all the way to ten and the bass was backed off to zero, but I could hear him as plain as if, well, as if we weren’t underwater.

“Trust me, Bobby,” he said. “Look at me. I’m breathing. It works.”

I wanted to trust him. I also wanted to shoot back to the surface and breathe real air. But my lungs were starting to hurt. I didn’t have any choice. I had to breathe. I exhaled what little air I had left in my lungs, then took in a tentative breath, to discover it worked. I had no idea how, but that little harmonica gizmo was letting me breathe. It was even better than using a mouthpiece and a scuba tank because there were no hoses to deal with. And because there was no mouthpiece, I could talk. We could communicate underwater!

“That’s better,” Uncle Press said reassuringly. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “How come we can talk?”

“It’s the re-breather,” he said, tapping the silver device on the back of his globe. “It carries sound waves, too. Cool, aye?”

Cool was the word.

“Let’s go,” he ordered.

With a kick of his fins Uncle Press took off swimming. He left a trail of carbon dioxide bubbles that came from the re-breathing device as he exhaled. Now that I was getting used to breathing in the air globe, I took a quick look around to get oriented. The pool of water we had flumed into turned out to be the opening to a passageway underneath a huge overhang of rock. Uncle Press was now slowly swimming toward a ribbon of light about thirty yards away that I could tell was the end of the rock ceiling, just as he had described. Behind me I saw that the ceiling only went back a few more feet before ending at a craggy wall. This was a pretty out-of-the-way place for a gate to be hidden. But I guess that was the idea. The gates wereallhidden in remote places so ordinary people from the territories wouldn’t accidentally find them.

Uncle Press was already several yards ahead of me and I didn’t want to be left here alone, so I kicked off and started after him. The BC belt was doing a perfect job of keeping me neutrally buoyant. I kicked easily and swam perfectly level. I didn’t have to worry about banging my head on the rock ceiling above or crashing into the sand below. Excellent. If only I weren’t so worried about a quig sneaking up on us, it would have been perfect. I gripped the speargun and did a quick look right and left to make sure no bogey had wandered under the rock shelf to join us. The water was incredibly clear. I’m guessing I had about a hundred feet of visibility, which is amazing. If there were any quigs headed for us, at least we’d have a little bit of warning before we got chewed on.

Uncle Press stopped when he got to the end of the overhang. The ceiling was lower there, so the distance from the rock overhead down to the sandy bottom was now about five feet. Uncle Press swam a few yards out into open water then motioned for me to look at something. I joined him outside and saw that he was pointing back to the lip of the rock where we had just come out. There, carved into the stone, was the familiar star symbol that designated this as a gate to the flumes. I gave him an okay sign, which is the universal signal you use underwater that means you understand.

Uncle Press returned the okay sign, which is custom, then smiled and said, “We can talk, remember?”

Oh, right. We didn’t have to use hand signals. I’d forgotten. Habit, I guess. I looked up and saw a wall of rock we’d been swimming under that extended straight up. This was the formation that housed the cavern and the flume.

“Now check this out,” he added, and pointed behind me.

I turned around and was confronted with one of the most breathtaking sights I had ever seen. Beyond us was open, green-blue sea. The sandy bottom turned into a coral reef that spread out before us like a colorful blanket. It was awesome. I had been on tropical reefs before and seen all sorts of tropical fish and unique coral formations, but I had never seen anything like this. The colors of this reef were nearly as vibrant as the flowers in the cavern we had just left. There were intense blue fans the size of umbrellas that waved lazily in the soft current. Dotted around them were giant chunks of brain coral, which are called that because they look like, well, like brains. At home brain coral is kind of brownish and dull. Here on Cloral, it was bright yellow. Yellow! I told you before that water filters out red and yellow at this depth, but not here on Cloral. Every color of the spectrum could be seen. There was vibrant green vegetation growing all over the reef. Off to our left was a thick forest of kelp. The vines started on the reef and floated all the way to the surface like leafy ropes — and they were bright red! Other coral had grown up out of the rock bed and formed shapes that looked like a green topiary garden. If you used your imagination, they seemed like a herd of small animals grazing on the rocks. But they weren’t; they were coral. Amazing.

Swimming among all this splendor were the most incredible fish I had ever seen. They traveled in schools, each seeming to know exactly what the others were thinking as they all changed direction at the exact same time. It always amazed me how there could be a hundred fish in a school, but none of them ever made a wrong turn or bumped into one another. One school looked like silver flutes with long delicate fins that fluttered quickly like the wings of a hummingbird. Another school of fish were perfectly round and thin, like a CD. Only they were bright pink! Still another school looked exactly like small bluebirds with beaks and feathers. I know they were swimming, but with each flap of their fins it sure seemed like they were flying. It was all a perfectly orchestrated ballet, and it was beautiful to watch them swim about the colorful reef, lazily enjoying their day.

I was totally in awe of the spectacular scene. The water was as clear as air. It was even more special because the air globes allowed me to look all around. Unlike diving goggles where you pretty much had to look straight ahead, the air globe gave me a perfect view of everything — and, man, it was worth it!

That is, until something happened that caught my eye.

“Uh-oh,” said Uncle Press.

He had seen it too. One second there were hundreds of these weird fish gently dancing through the currents. The very next moment they all scattered. It happened so fast that if I had blinked I would have missed it. Every single last fish in my view had suddenly darted off in a different direction. There’s a better word for it. They had fled. Something had scared them. And if they were scared, I was too.

“What’s going on?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“Something just spooked the fish.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “What do you think — “

“Look out!”

Uncle Press grabbed my arm and pulled me back down under the rock ledge. A second later I saw what caused the fish panic. Yup, it was a shark. A quig shark. It wasn’t in a hurry though. The big beast drifted past us as we cowered back in the shadow of the ledge. It used no effort to propel itself along.

It was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Most of its body was battleship gray, but its underbelly was jet black. And it was big. We’re talkingJawsbig. It was way bigger than the shark Saint Dane had sent back at us through the flume. One thing was the same though. Its eyes. The beast had the cold, yellow eyes that told me it was no ordinary shark. It was a quig, no doubt about it. The monster glided past, turned away from the rock, and started swimming directly away from us.

“Maybe it didn’t see us,” I said hopefully.

“It saw us,” came the flat response. “It’s just taking its time to — here we go!”

I quickly looked back outside and saw in horror that the shark had done a complete 180 and was now swimming directly at us! It had moved away from the rock overhang so it could get up a good head of steam to make its kill run at us. There was nowhere to run, or should I say, swim. We were trapped and this thing had us in its sights.

Uncle Press grabbed the speargun away from me, planted his feet, and took aim. The quig kept coming. It was almost on us. Its jaws were already open in anticipation of the big bad bite.

“Shoot!” I yelled. “Get him!”

Uncle Press waited to make sure he wouldn’t miss. I hoped he was as good with this speargun as he was with the spears on Denduron. His finger tightened on the trigger, but he didn’t fire.

Believe it or not, the shark being so big turned out to be a good thing. Its head slid underneath the ledge, but its dorsal fin hit the rock above. Yes! It was too big to fit under the ledge. It couldn’t get to us! Uncle Press lowered the speargun because the immediate danger was gone. That is, unless the quig could figure out how to squeeze in sideways. I didn’t think that would happen. Fish don’t swim sideways.

“So much for your decoy theory,” I said.

“It worked,” replied Uncle Press. “But this bad boy was quicker than I thought. Look.”

I saw that stuck in the shark’s teeth was the decoy water sled, completely tangled up in pants and vines. The quig went for the bait all right, but it was just an appetizer. It now wanted the main course. Us.

The huge quig wriggled and squirmed, trying to force its way under the rock shelf. If it’s possible for a fish to look angry, this thing looked major-league ticked. It writhed its body, swung its tail and gnashed its jaws, desperately trying to get at us. We were just out of its reach by a few yards. Too close, in my book, but no matter how furiously the quig pushed, its body was too big to squeeze any closer. Phew!

“If you’ve got a plan B, now’s the time to tell me,” I said nervously.

“I’ve always got a plan B,” came the confident reply. “I’m going to swim over to the left and come out from under the ledge. When it sees me, I guarantee it’ll come after me. As soon as I get a clear shot at it, I’ll take it. Its skull is thin. One shot and he’s gone.”

“Why wait?” I shouted. “Do it here!”

“I can’t get a good shot through the sand. I don’t want to miss.”

He was right. The quig’s violent thrashing had kicked up a storm of sand and it was hard to tell which end was up.

“As soon as it follows me, swim out as fast as you can, and keep swimming straight ahead along the reef. About a hundred yards dead ahead you’ll see an anchor line that’ll lead you up to the skimmer. I’ll catch up with the water sled. Got it?”

“No, I don’t,” I said with rising panic. “What if you miss? What if the spear misses the skull and all you end up doing is pissing him off more? I want a plan C.”

“There is only a plan B.” Then he added with a confident smile, “And I never miss.”

“Uncle Press I — “

He didn’t stay to listen. He kicked off forward, coming dangerously close to the snapping jaws of the quig, then shot off to the left using the speedy water sled to pull him along. He did a great job of tempting the quig, because it pulled its body back out from under the ledge and started to shadow him.

Now was the time. The quig was busy, and if I was going to get out of here, it had to be now. Unfortunately, I couldn’t move. Panic had set in and I was frozen. The idea of swimming out into open water where that quig could turn around and chomp me like a Slim Jim had shut down all of my systems. I was absolutely, totally incapable of moving.

Then I spotted something. The billowing sand was starting to settle and I saw it lying on the bottom near the edge of the rock outcropping. It was the water sled Uncle Press had used as a decoy! The quig must have dropped it out of its mouth when it backed out. It gave me a flash of hope. If I could use the speed of that water sled, then maybe I had a chance of getting to the skimmer before Moby Dick came a-nibbling. That was it. I had to do it.

My legs worked again. I pushed forward and quickly swam to the tangle of pants and vines that engulfed the water sled. I picked it up to find that the pants were totally wrapped around the thing. The fruit stuffing was gone though. The quig had gotten a treat out of this after all. But there was a problem. I quickly saw that the sled wasn’t going to work because the pants were totally wrapped around it. The pants kept water from entering the slits, and that’s where it got its power. I had to get rid of the pants, or the sled would be useless. So I frantically began tugging at them.

While I worked I glanced up to where Uncle Press had gone, but there was no sign of him, or the quig. Had he speared it already? I had absolute confidence in Uncle Press. If he said he was going to shoot the quig, then the quig would be shot. But what if the quig had hisownplan B and decided not to follow him? Then all bets were off. I had to think less and work faster. Finally I figured out how the pants had gotten twisted around the sled and with a final yank, I pulled them free.

Big, big mistake.

You know what it’s like when you’re walking in bare feet and stub your toe really hard? A weird thing happens. There’s about a half-second delay between the time you crunch your toe and when the pain registers in your brain. That’s just enough time to think “Uh-oh!” before you feel the hurt. I don’t know why that happens, but it does. Well, that’s kind of what happened to me right then and there. The instant I pulled the pants off the water sled, I realized I had made a huge mistake.

What hit me was that the little piece of vine Uncle Press had used to tie the trigger down was still in place. The sled was still turned on. The only reason it wasn’t moving was because the pants had prevented water from entering the slits. But as soon as I pulled the pants away, the slits were cleared and water could rush in to power the engine and — like when you stub your toe — I had about a half-second to think “Uh-oh!”

Oh, yeah. The sled was on and ready to go. I wasn’t. Too bad.

Things happened fast. The powerful little engine sprang to life and jumped out of my hand. It only got worse. While trying to get the pants away from the sled, I had gotten the vine twisted around my wrist. It was the vine that had tied the pants to the water sled. It was the vine that wasstilltied to the water sled, and the other end was now wrapped around my wrist. Yeah, you guessed it. The vine snapped taut and an instant later I was yanked sideways and dragged through the water by the runaway sled, full throttle.

Worse still, it pulled me out from under the rock ledge, into open water and right in the same direction that Uncle Press had lured the quig. That was thelastplace I wanted to go, but I had no way of steering because the sled was out of my reach. I desperately tried to pull the vine off my wrist, but it was so twisted I couldn’t free it. I was absolutely, totally out of control. I tried to look ahead, but I was moving so fast the force of the water kept spinning me around. No matter what I did to kick my fins or twist my body, I kept spinning helplessly. I felt like the tail on an out-of-control kite. I wasn’t the one in charge, it was the runaway water sled that was calling all the shots, and right now it was pulling me toward an angry quig.

I twisted my neck to look up ahead and sure enough, there it was. I saw the immense gray shape of the quig, lurking just outside the rock ledge, peering in at what I guessed was Uncle Press. I was traveling parallel to the rock ledge, further out than the quig. In a few seconds I would pass by the monster and unless it was deaf and blind, I would get its attention. I could only hope that between now and then Uncle Press would nail it with the speargun. But he would have to shoot fast because I was almost at the quig.

Then two things happened. When I flew by the quig, it heard me coming and it made a sudden, surprised turn to see me. It was a small turn, but enough to let something else happen that made me want to scream. I saw the glint of a spear come shooting out from under the rock ledge — and miss its mark. The missile sliced through the water just over the quig’s head. Uncle Press assured me that he wouldn’t miss, but he hadn’t figured that I’d be flying by like an idiot to distract his prey.

The quig had dodged eternity, and now the prey was me.

I was traveling on my back now. My arm felt like it was going to rip out of the socket, that’s how powerful the pull from the water sled was. But when I looked back, I realized the pain in my shoulder was the least of my problems. The quig was after me. As fast as this sled was pulling me, the quig was faster.

It took only a few seconds for the huge beast to swim right up beside me. We were traveling at the same speed with ten yards between us. I can’t begin to tell you how helpless and vulnerable I felt. I knew that soon this bad boy would turn into me and clamp its jaws on my midsection. I saw its yellow eye staring at me. There was no emotion there, just calculation. It was measuring the perfect moment to turn and strike. This was going to be a bad way to die. I’m not exactly sure if there’s agoodway to die, but if so, this isn’t it.

The quig didn’t come any closer. It didn’t need to. When it struck, it would need a little bit of distance to get a good run at me. In fact, it started to pull a little bit ahead. It made a few quick little head turns toward me, as if judging the exact right distance and speed for its attack. This was torture. I was at the point that I wanted to get it over with.

Finally it struck.

The shark opened its jaws and made a sharp turn toward me. I gritted my teeth, waiting for the pain.

But then I saw a flash of light just over the shark’s head. Was it a flash of light? No, it was another spear! I thought for an instant that Uncle Press had reloaded, but that was impossible. There was no way he could have reloaded and got up above fast enough to be shooting from that angle. No, the spear had come from someone else.

Whoever the archer was, he was good. The spear flew directly down at the shark and struck it on top of the head, burrowing into its skull. The instant the spear found its mark the quig started to thrash. It was still headed toward me though, and as it spun I got slammed in the ribs by its tail. Yeow. It hurt, too. Bad. But I didn’t care. It didn’t hurt like its teeth would have.

The quig continued thrashing and sank down beneath me. A moment later it crashed into the reef. The sled kept pulling me away, but I looked back and saw that the monster was writhing uncontrollably. It was a horrifying sight. This fish was history. It wasn’t going to eat me or anybody else.

I was saved from the quig, but I was still traveling out of control. I wondered how long this little engine would go before burning out. Now my arm was starting to hurt bad. Not to mention my ribs, which had taken a healthy whack of shark tail. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take this.

Then something caught my eye. It was a gray shape moving up alongside me. Uh-oh. Was there another quig? I spun around to get a better look and saw that it wasn’t a quig at all. It was a guy being pulled by another water sled. But it wasn’t Uncle Press. This guy wore black pants with a black top that had no sleeves. Through the clear air globe on his head I saw that his hair was kind of long and black. He had an empty speargun strapped to his leg, which meant he was probably the shooter who saved my life. I had no idea who this guy was, but I liked him already.

He knew how to handle a water sled, too. He eased over close to me until we were traveling side by side. He held on to his sled with one hand and let go with the other to reach back to his leg. What was he doing? He brought his hand forward again and I saw that he was now holding a very large, very nasty-looking silver knife. For a second I freaked. Was he going to stab me? But that didn’t make sense. He wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of killing the quig just to kill me himself. At least I didn’t think so.

He reached forward with the knife and with one quick move he lashed out at me. Not knowing what he was doing, I closed my eyes. But what he did with that one strong swipe was cut the vine that attached me to the runaway water sled. The pull on my arm stopped instantly. The force of the water slowed me down. I looked ahead to see the runaway water sled continue forward on its crazed trip to nowhere. Good riddance!

I was dazed and hurt. I tried to move my legs to get some sort of control, but I was floundering. That’s when I felt something grab the back of my shirt. It was the guy in black. He had come around and was now right next to me.

Without a word he grabbed the back of my collar and began towing me to the surface. I totally relaxed. Whoever this guy was, he was in charge now and I didn’t care. All I could think about was breathing fresh air again.

The trip to the surface took about twenty seconds. The closer we got, the brighter the water became. I couldn’t wait to get on top. Then just before we surfaced, the guy in black let go of my collar and let me float up on my own.

It was a great feeling. My head broke the surface and the BC belt kept me floating. That was a good thing because I didn’t think I could tread water just then. I yanked the air globe off my head and took a deep breath of fresh air. The sun was warm, the air smelled sweet, and I was alive.

“Friend of Press’s, are you?” came a voice from behind me.

I spun around to see the guy in black floating next to me. He had taken off his air globe and I now saw that he was a little older than me, and had a slight Asian look with almond-shaped eyes. He had deep, sun-colored skin and long black hair. He also had the biggest, friendliest smile I thought I’d ever seen in my life.

“Told me he was bringing somebody to visit,” the guy said cheerfully. “Sorry ‘bout the rude welcome. Them sharks can stir up a real natty-do sometimes. Easy enough to handle ‘em though. Just gotta know the soft spots,” he said, tapping his head.

“Who are you?” was all I could think of saying.

“Name’s Spader. Vo Spader. Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Bobby Pendragon. You saved my life.” I wasn’t sure what else to add but, “Thanks.”

“No big stuff. It happens. Never saw anyone caught up by a sled like that though. No sir, that was a real tum-tigger.”

“Took us a might off course though,” he added, looking around.

I looked around too and what I saw made my heart start to race again. Because what I saw was… nothing. Oh, there was plenty of water all right. But that was it. We were in the middle of the ocean with no landmass in sight.

If a tum-tigger was bad, this was definitely a tum-tigger. (CONTINUED)