Zion looked around irresolutely and yet, if he was honest with himself, he did not have to demand a supreme mental performance from himself to decide what was the only right thing to do. He would be of no help to Triton and the soldiers, that was out of the question, and an escape on his part would advance them just as little. He had to pull himself together and seize the opportunity. He could not allow the distraction Morgana had so masterfully created for herself to now allow her to slip away unnoticed.

Despite their trap, they had probably surprised the witch. Even though they had swum straight into her tentacles, she had probably not expected them to be able to turn on her again so quickly. Certainly, she had not had time to grab her belongings and evade their grasp, for if she had, she would have taken off immediately and certainly would not have come into confrontation with them. So she played for time and kept the soldiers busy so as not to be pushed into a hasty departure, but it was precisely this calculation that Zion wanted to draw a line through.

Morgana only gave him a quick glance before heading towards the dark hole from which she had appeared moments before, a nasty grin on her face. Her two rays continued to linger stricken in place, waiting for their mistress to return to them or give them further orders. This fact made Zion suspect that there was probably no back exit from the grotto through which Morgana could make her escape unseen. After all, she would surely not just abandon her two darlings to their fate. However, Zion was not entirely convinced of the witch's loyalty to her henchmen, which forced him to follow the other inside.

If Zion had had a similarly powerful artefact as the ruler of Atlantica at his disposal, it would have been easy to trap the sea witch in her own lair. A quick wave of the trident would have been enough to collapse the entrance to the grotto, but Triton had his hands full and would not be able to give him a hand. So the Lion Prince had to think of something else to catch Morgana.

Whatever it was that Morgana was still planning to take from inside her lair, it had to be so valuable to her that she risked being trapped in the grotto. If Zion failed and Morgana managed to escape, he had to at least bring this something into his possession. It would give them an enormous advantage if the sea witch escaped once more. Zion gathered all his courage and swam after the sea witch.

He followed her through a dark corridor, in whose walls of solidified lava small luminous creatures had settled here and there, bathing the long path in a dim light. For the time being, the prince held back enough to just make out Morgana's dark tentacles in the distance. He didn't know if she hadn't noticed him following her or if she was just ignoring it, but if the former was true, he didn't want to draw her attention to it until it had to be.

At the end of the side vent, the passage finally opened into a spacious grotto that was probably in the centre of the volcano's image. All around, shelves had been carved out of the dark rock on the walls that towered far above, on which a number of colourful vials and vessels were stored.

As Zion's eyes wandered over the various labels, he recognised some of the ingredients from his research. Small herringbone symbols were noted among the filigree letters, the number varying from one to a maximum of five. Other warnings on the shelf closest to him made him pause briefly before turning his attention back to the rest of the room. In the centre of the grotto was a table of sorts, an enormous conch shell held in place by claw-like surrounds. Dark streaks gathered in the semi-circular shape, constantly spilling over the edge and flowing towards the floor, where they continued to spread across the bottom until they became so diluted that they were lost in the seawater. At their centre, to his amazement, he caught a glimpse of the soldiers and the king, who still seemed to be busy with some of the whales. To his relief, Triton and the men had regained the upper hand.

Retreating behind the edge of the grotto passage, Zion watched curiously as Morgana hurriedly filled several of the bottles into a bag with her tentacles and her two hands. Meanwhile, she moved purposefully towards a point on the opposite wall.

Zion narrowed his eyes to get a better look at what was there and ventured a little out of his cover.

"Uninvited guest, Morgana," a deep voice sent a shiver down Zion's spine and at the same time made him irrevocably aware that he had been discovered. Only now did he realise that Morgana was by no means alone in the grotto. In his shrunken form, the third of her henchmen was easy to miss. Nothing but his intimidating voice was left of the fearsome tiger shark after Triton had shrunk him into a pitiful image of himself with the trident. Driftwood swam excitedly like a guppy to draw his mistress' attention to Zion. The sea witch turned to him emphatically slowly and addressed her words to the Lione again.

"Curiosity is a boon to the explorer's spirit, prince. It will be your undoing, however, or have you decided to join me after all?", Morgana prophesied to him as she patted her purse shark's head contentedly.

Zion didn't bother to answer her, sensing that now was not the time for words but for action. He unceremoniously grabbed two of the vessels near him and held them threateningly over the bowl. The hoped-for reaction from Morgana was not forthcoming. She raised her hands placatingly and continued to talk at him.

"We don't want to do anything stupid, prince. Put that down again and I'm sure we'll work something out."

Unwilling to negotiate further with Morgana, Zion wordlessly let go of one of the two vials. It shattered against the shell's edge and the contents poured into the black mass. For a brief moment the connection to the outside remained unchanged and it became apparent that the remaining whales were abruptly leaving the Atlantians. A moment later the image of Triton and the soldiers began to distort and finally dissolved completely.

A laugh that betrayed mild hysteria sprang from Morgana's throat.

"Surely you will not put your own life in danger just to support your father-in-law in his pointless fight against me. Put that aside and I promise you won't regret it," she continued talking at him, unobtrusively letting herself slide backwards a little.

The Lion Prince took a deep breath to calm his own racing thoughts and equally fast beating heart, reassuring himself that what he was about to do here was the right decision. He would probably go down in history as the stupidest Linoe in a long time, but this probably went hand in hand with a brave and selfless act for the greater good.

"I'm not going to let you go," Zion uttered, opening his hand.

Morgana's tentacles sprang forward, trying to grab the bottle before it too would shatter, but they missed. The glass shattered and all three pairs of eyes moved anxiously to the now bubbling and bubbling mixture. Driftwood fled behind his mistress into a crevice, but when her triumphant laughter echoed off the walls, as the expected bang failed to appear, he peeked back into the grotto a little.

"A fine plan you had there. What nobility, what a shame it didn't work out. A prince to be reckoned with, you should be proud of yourself," she mocked him and turned back to her luggage. "Excuse me, but I will leave now, it has been a pleasure to have made your acquaintance."

Accomplished, she turned to Driftwood and motioned to him between the field walls.

"Stay here!" ripened Zion resolutely, and pushed after her. He left the still bubbling cauldron to his left and just managed to grab Morgana by the arm before she could slip away through the hidden back exit. Their eyes met and they continued to fight their battle wordlessly for a moment.

"I will not allow..." began Zion, but the rest of his words were lost in a deafening crash, followed by a shockwave that took everything in the immediate vicinity with it. The bottles and jars burst on the spot. Zion and Morgana were pressed against the rock face. Cracks formed on the grotto ceiling and eventually it collapsed, burying everything and everyone underneath.

A rumble made Triton and his men sit up and take notice. The killer whales had let them go, but now an even greater danger seemed to be lurking. The floor of the caldera shook, small cracks formed and stretched across the entire seabed. Growing larger and larger. Everything indicated that the extinct volcano was very much still active after all.

"Get out of here! Now!", Triton's voice blared across the valley, urging his men to hurry. Together they dashed over the ridge, finally casting shocked glances behind them as they found themselves out of immediate danger.

A deafening rumble accompanied the collapsing mass of rock and a cloud of dust and debris formed in the depths of the cauldron, but the devastating seething masses of lava were absent.

Not trusting their luck, some of the soldiers peered over the edge, waiting until the gigantic dust cloud began to settle again. Meanwhile, Triton surveyed the ranks of his men and was shocked to see that he could not make out his son-in-law among them.

"Zion?!" he called out loudly to the Lione, hoping that he had already made his way to safety, loyal to his people, but he received no reply. Again and again the prince's name echoed through the water.

"Find him!" Triton ordered and immediately began to swim back down into the cauldron. The soldiers rushed after their ruler and hurriedly began to move larger boulders aside. With their combined strength and the power of the trident, they soon uncovered a part of the underground passage system that must undoubtedly have belonged to the hiding place of the sea witch. Again and again, however, they were stopped by piles of rubble and the danger that the walls, which were still standing, would also collapse was omnipresent.

So they laboriously worked their way forward fin by fin. Triton didn't want to believe it, but since the other one hadn't responded to their calls, he must have been pursuing Morgana on his own. He knew that the latter had retreated under cover of the whales attacking her and Zion had also disappeared from his sight since then.

"Your Highness!" one of his soldiers snatched his attention and waved him over, "we've found something."

Preparing himself for the worst, Triton swam closer.

The soldiers had worked their way far into the tunnel system. Again and again, smaller and larger intact areas had been uncovered, but what Triton now saw before him shattered all hope that those who had been inside the grotto were still among the living.

There among the stones hung limply and lifelessly the tip of a dark tentacle.

The king took one deep breath to summon the strength to give his men further orders, then spoke, "Go on, set them free."

They had done it. They had taken Morgana out of the game and yet Triton could not rejoice in their apparent victory. Too great was the price they had, by all appearances, had to pay. How was he to teach Alana and his granddaughter, still so young, that their beloved husband and father would not return? That Zion had sacrificed his life to free them from the horror that the sea witch had brought upon them? Nothing would be able to fill the gap that had just been torn in the family's life. No favour or honour could make up for what the Prince of Lione had done for Atlantica.

Such situations were by no means foreign to a ruler like Triton. But he always felt like a young boy who had been thrown out of his depth when something like this occurred. He doubted that he would ever know how to deal with such a situation any other way, but this realisation helped very little.

To clear his head and also contribute something productive, Triton used the trident to clear away some large chunks. However, the stubborn artefact did not forgive him for not having his mind completely on the matter at the moment and slightly resisted his orders, so that the effort was written all over his face.

Eventually, however, it managed to move the last stone aside and clear the view. Triton opened his eyes in shock as he followed Morgana's limb and could not find the rest of her body at its end.

This could not be happening!

Morgana could not have escaped!

"Keep digging! Find her! Find Zion!" Triton urged the others on, thrusting the trident into the seabed beside him and now laying a hand on it himself.

Noise.

Darkness.

Scratching.

Pain.

Blackness.

Muffled sounds.

Deep all-consuming blackness.

Blood.

The figure trapped between the stones, tried to move. Tried to get free, to escape, but she was stuck. She had been so close, only to fail miserably. Had she not risked and sacrificed enough. Why did the plan have to go so wrong? Had she missed something?

Rustling in the ears.

Darkness in front of her eyes.

Scratching on the walls.

Pain in the limbs.

Blackness envelops.

Muffled sounds echo across.

Deep all-consuming blackness.

Blood in the water. One's own blood?

The scratching and scraping grew louder, soon the figure could make out voices. Triton and his men. They were digging, searching for the buried. Maybe it wasn't the end after all. Maybe there was another chance, another opportunity to finish what had been started.

The battle may have been lost, but the war would have a different outcome.

This was only the beginning.