Chapter 11
Escape From the Coral Palace
As Clay's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see that the hand covering his mouth belonged to Queen Amelia.
"Hmm hmmph…" Clay began, but Amelia put a finger to her lips.
"Shhh! It is important that we speak quietly. Do you understand?" Clay nodded, and Amelia removed her hand from his mouth.
"Why are you here?" was Clay's next question.
"I came to warn you," the queen of the merfolk replied. "Quickly, wake your friends and tell them we must leave now."
"Leave?" Clay was still somewhat sleepy and confused.
"I wanted you to spend the night here so I could offer you some protection," the queen admitted. "If you had attempted to leave the city, I am sure my husband would have secretly sent a squadron of soldiers to imprison or even kill you."
Clay was dumbstruck. "But why?" he finally sputtered. "Have we done something to offend him? I thought merfolk and humans were on peaceful terms with each other."
"When you revealed that you had the ashen curse, the king began to suspect that you and your friends are spies for Flameheart," Queen Amelia explained. "My husband has a suspicious nature, and although he may appear unconcerned by the threat Flameheart poses, he is truly as terrified of him as anyone else.
"That is why you three must leave now. I have sent one of my most trusted servants to Oliver's home to warn him as well. Oceanus may want him executed for aiding spies. He will be waiting for us outside the city."
Clay jumped out of bed and first shook Matt awake. The man rolled over with a sleepy groan and cracked open one eye.
"Clay, it's the middle of the night," he mumbled. "What-" he caught sight of the queen and was on his feet in an instant, bowing low. "Your majesty!" he exclaimed, still trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. "We are honored to have you-"
"Quiet!" Clay hissed. "She's not here for a chat and a cup of tea. She just warned me that King Oceanus wants us dead, and thus we need to leave as soon as possible."
Without another question, Matt rushed to Wooly's bed and gave him a sharp poke in the ribcage. "Wake up, Seth," Matt hissed in his friend's ear. No response. Matt gave him another prod. This time, Wooly's deep snores faltered slightly but soon resumed again. In one final, desperate act, Matt planted both hands on his friend's back and gave him a hard shove. Since Wooly was sleeping on his side, the shove sent him rolling off the bed and onto the floor with a muffled thump. With a startled snort, Wooly woke up and scrambled to his feet.
"What was that for?" he demanded grumpily, making an enormous yawn.
"We're leaving the palace," Matt replied. "The king wants us and Oliver dead, so I have a good feeling we've overstayed our welcome. Never mind the details now," he snapped as Wooly opened his mouth to ask more questions. "We just need to make our exit as silent as possible. The queen will show us the way."
Queen Amelia had already poked her head through the bedroom door and was scanning the hallway for any guards. Turning back to them, she whispered, "I'm going to walk along our escape route and reassign any guards I meet along the way to new posts. When I return, I will knock with three taps, followed by two."
"We understand, your majesty," Clay replied. "We'll wait here."
Once Queen Amelia was gone, Wooly voiced a suspicion all three had been worrying about. "How do we know she's not leading us into some elaborate trap? How do we know she's not working with the king?"
Clay shrugged. "We don't. We'll just have to trust her."
Ten long, anxious minutes passed before the five knocks were heard. Wooly cautiously opened the door, allowing the queen to slip inside. "All the guards have been given new assignments, and the path is now clear. I was only able to reassign the guards in the palace without raising suspicions, so it is possible that the ones guarding the outer perimeter may still spot us.
"Once we leave the castle, we will make our way to the northern wall of the city. There is a secret door there that only the king, myself, and a few of our most trusted advisors know even exists. Oliver will be hiding in a grove of kelp on the other side." She leaned out the door once again to check the corridor. "We must leave now. I will escort you as far as the wall, then I must return before anyone realizes we have left."
The humans followed Queen Amelia through hallway after winding hallway, peering around every corner to make sure they wouldn't be stepping out into someone's full view. Sometimes they had to pass an open door in which a servant would be tending to housework or some guards were wiling away the hours playing dice or cards. In either case, the queen would enter the room and engage them in conversation while the humans slipped past unnoticed.
Finally, the party reached the outermost halls of the palace and approached a small side entrance. The queen cautiously pushed the door open and checked outside for sentries.
"I wasn't able to reassign any of the guards who normally patrol out here," she reminded them, "so keep to the shadows and be quick." They had to cross a small courtyard, forcing them to duck behind stone statues and decorative structures to avoid being spotted. Once the four of them had reached the wall surrounding the city and palace, they all took cover in a thick stand of sea fans as a pair of guards made their patrol circuit overhead.
When they left, Queen Amelia parted some of the fans to reveal a small wooden door no taller than four feet set into the wall. The door was kept shut with a padlock, so the queen removed a ring of ornate coral keys from beneath her robe and fitted one into the keyhole. The lock was somewhat stubborn since it had never been used, and it took the queen a solid thirty seconds of persistent twisting before the door finally swung open.
She pocketed her keys and turned to the three humans. "I am so sorry we must part under such tense circumstances," she apologized. "I truly did enjoy your visit. I only wish my husband would have taken your offer, despite the dangers. You were right, Matthew: we merfolk are possibly the humans' only hope for an alliance."
"We are truly grateful to you as well, your majesty," Wooly assured her. "If not for your warning, I fear we would have never left that palace alive."
The queen's mouth parted in a quick smile before she waved them toward the hidden door. "Now go! The guards on the ramparts may pass this way again soon, and Oliver is still waiting for you. He is an intelligent merman, and I trust you three will be in good hands while you travel with him." She made a small bow of her own. "Farewell, and may fortune smile upon you and your quest." And with that, she disappeared into the deep shadows surrounding the palace walls.
After squeezing through the door and shutting it firmly behind them, the three humans found Oliver hiding anxiously in a nearby stand of seagrass.
"Oliver! Thank goodness you made it!" Clay breathed in a sigh of relief. "We should get back to our ship now. Where is the palace located?"
"It is about two dozen nautical miles off the western shore of what you humans call Smugglers Bay," the merman replied.
Matt's eyes bulged. "We met you off the coast of Devil's Thirst! Do you mean to tell me that current carried us from one corner of the sea to the opposite that quickly?"
"Indeed," Oliver confirmed. "Now, follow me. Once we are away from the city, I can find another current." The fugitives began swimming as rapidly away from the palace as possible, still keeping their cover behind boulders and barriers of coral. Soon they reached the rock on which Oliver had been painting his mural of the citadel. The merman fondly stroked the surface of his artwork and sighed. "I may never be able to finish this piece," he reflected sadly. "My paints are still at my home, and I dare not go back and retrieve them now."
Clay could tell he was still worried about being infected with the Whispering Plague. "Don't worry, Oliver," he consoled his newest friend. "If you are stricken with the plague, the three of us will help you fight it."
"But what if I turn into a monster and hurt you?" the merman whispered, fear creeping deep into his voice. "I could never forgive myself if I realized what I had done."
"We would know that Oliver is still in there," Clay assured him. "We won't allow ourselves to be scared away."
"I greatly appreciate your support," Oliver sighed in relief. "Now I will find us a current to take you back." He pulled out the familiar sky-blue shell and was just about to whisper the magic words, when the sound of a horn reached their ears. The note was deep and came rolling through the water like an ocean tide. Oliver confirmed the humans' fears. "The watchmen have sounded the alarm! We've been spotted!"
Sure enough, the four of them could see a dozen merfolk soldiers swimming toward them from the palace, wielding their thick staffs.
"Quick, Oliver! The current!" urged Wooly.
"Wait! That current practically glows in the dark," Matt pointed out. "We might as well be laying down a trail of arrows as we escape."
"But we can't outswim them without it," Wooly countered.
"I know!" Clay exclaimed. "We'll follow the current part of the way, then we can break away and hide somewhere until the guards pass by. Maybe we can summon another current to take us around a different way."
"It's worth a try," Oliver agreed. He finished whispering into the shell, and the current appeared in a dazzling blue ribbon before them. The party swam in and were swept away at the speed of a racing dolphin.
"How long should we go for?" Matt asked.
"A good ten minutes, I'd say," Oliver suggested. "I know of a good place to hide. There's a collection of boulders resting on the seabed that would provide excellent cover."
After ten minutes of riding the enchanted current, Oliver pointed downward. Across the seabed below were strewn hundreds of rocks ranging in size from bowling balls to nearly seven feet in diameter. The merman led the three humans behind one of the larger rocks, and all four waited in tense silence. Five minutes later, the search party swept past, and none of the soldiers even cast a glance down toward them. In mere seconds, they were all gone. Just to be safe, Clay and his friends stayed hidden for another five minutes, just to make sure the merfolk were truly gone.
"Safe at last," Wooly breathed as they all emerged from behind the rock. Hardly had the words left his mouth when what looked like an enormous bubble came zooming through the water and smashed into the rock on his left.
"Sirens!" Matt cried out in warning. Four of the creatures were closing in on them from all sides. Three of the monsters were the familiar bluish color, and Clay's heart sank as he recognized one of them. There was a round scar in its right shoulder, which marked this creature as the one Wooly had shot the day before. The fourth siren was green and larger. This was a siren leader, and he was carrying a trident.
Tridents were extremely powerful weapons that only the siren leaders were allowed to wield. They could be used for both direct combat and launching bubble-shaped blasts of magic that could inflict massive damage to its targets. The siren leader was currently using his trident in an attempt to rain heavy blows on Wooly, but the man had drawn his sword and was attempting to dampen the attacks as much as possible.
"Scatter!" Oliver ordered. "All it will take is one strong blast from that trident, and we're done for!" The four of them began swimming frantically away from each other, desperately dodging and weaving amongst the rocks. The sirens were forced to split up as well, each chasing one of the terrified foursome.
Of course, the siren with the bullet wound went after Wooly, thirsting for vengeance. It made wild, vicious slashes at the man with its claws, but Wooly kept his sword out and managed to parry most of the attacks. The two other bluish sirens chased Matt and Oliver, and the siren leader decided to make Clay its target. Poor Clay was forced to bob and weave amongst the boulders, ducking as blasts of bubble-shaped magic exploded all around him. Unfortunately, he made a wrong turn and was suddenly out in the open and painfully exposed. The siren leader was close behind, and the creature aimed its trident at Clay's fleeing back.
Suddenly, what looked like an enormous torpedo emerged from the shadows and bore down on the siren leader. The torpedo was actually a full-sized shadowmaw megalodon with dark gray skin, fins lined a luminous red, and glowing orange eyes. The enormous shark was upon the siren leader before it could even react and swallowed the unfortunate creature in two gulps. The megalodon vanished back into the shadows, leaving the siren's trident hovering in the water.
The other three sirens had fled upon sensing the arrival of the great shark, and Clay's friends swam over to rejoin him.
"What happened? Did they give up?" Matt demanded.
"There's a megalodon here," Clay whispered as he picked up the trident. He didn't know how to use it, but just holding it made him feel somewhat safer. "It swallowed the siren that was chasing me and swam away."
"He'll be back, though," Wooly predicted grimly. "I have a strong hunch that he's still hungry." As he spoke, the megalodon's four orange eyes could be seen burning ominously in the darkness before them. The beast was cruising at incredible speed toward them, jaws agape.
"Quick, Clay! Use the trident!" Oliver urged him.
"I don't know how!" Clay protested, violently waving the weapon at the oncoming nightmare. Were there some magic words he was missing? Could only sirens use it? Now the megalodon was so close that the boy could look straight down its throat and count every one of its cruel, serrated teeth.
In a final desperate act, Clay pointed the weapon at the approaching shark and yelled, "Stay back!" As the words left his mouth, a familiar hotness spread across his chest and back like a wave of heat from an open oven, and an intense pins-and-needles sensation crackled down his left arm. What appeared to be sparks began leaping off the trident's shaft, making the weapon glow with a dark orange hue. At the end of the trident appeared a sphere of magic nearly the size of the boulder Oliver had been painting on outside the palace. The magic was shifting in a bizarre spectrum of colors from fiery orange to deep sea green and back again.
As though fired from a cannon, the bubble of magic leaped from the trident's tip and hurdled toward the ravenous megalodon, causing the weapon to instantly disintegrate. When the two met, there was a terrific explosion that sent the four friends reeling backwards in wild, uncontrollable somersaults and turbulence. The water was clouded with chunks of megalodon meat, teeth, skin, and entrails. There were even treasures from chests to skulls that the beast had swallowed previously.
As all the debris drifted down and settled on the ocean floor, the four companions just hovered there, frozen in shock. Matt finally broke the silence.
"The megalodon… it just… evaporated." he murmured.
"I've never seen a trident channel so much power," Oliver exclaimed in awe. "What did you do to it, Clay?"
"I… I'm not really sure," Clay admitted, looking down at his ashen hands. "I think my curse definitely had something to do with it. Unfortunately, it does render Matt's theory about elemental opposites to moot. If the merfolk's powers were supposed to naturally act against Flameheart's, then I shouldn't have been able to use the trident at all. On the contrary, it seems that my curse boosted the power of the trident to unbelievably high potential." He shuddered. "I feel that my curse is reaching a critical point. Will I be able to maintain control, or will everything go wrong from here?"