The inside of the Iron-Whale smelled of the concentrated, musk-heavy scent of three anxious alpha males.
It was a nightmare.
The sphere was eight feet in diameter. On paper, or scratched into the dirt of the courtyard, which had seemed spacious enough for three men. In practice, with Zarek’s massive, broad-shouldered frame taking up nearly forty percent of the volume, it felt like being packed inside a coffin.
They would have practiced before leaving.
It was hot. Zarek’s body naturally ran at the temperature of a blast furnace, and in the confined, sealed space, he was effectively a space heater set to ’kill.’ Sweat beaded on Syris’s pale forehead. Ren’s silk robes were already clinging to his skin.
Yet, no one complained.
Zarek did not growl about his cramped legs. Syris did not hiss about the humidity. Ren did not whine about the lack of personal space or the fact that Zarek’s elbow was digging into his ribs.
There was no room for discomfort in their minds. There was only room for her.
"Ballast released," Syris announced, his voice flat and focused. He sat in the pilot’s seat, a modified wooden chair bolted to the floor, manipulating a set of wooden levers. "We are leaving the river shelf. Preparing for the drop."
The Iron-Whale lurched.
Through the thick, reinforced crystal portholes, the murky brown of the river water suddenly gave way to a vast, terrifying expanse of deep blue. They had drifted over the edge of the continental shelf, directly above the Abyssal Trench.
Gravity took over.
The sphere tipped forward and began to sink in earnest. It plummeted like a stone, dragged down by the massive iron weights attached to its belly.
"Descent speed increasing," Syris murmured, his eyes fixed on a glass tube filled with mercury, his primitive but effective pressure gauge, the mercury was found in the peaks. "Passing two hundred meters."
The light from the surface began to fade.
First, the sun turned from gold to green. Then, the green deepened into a twilight indigo.
The wood groaned.
It was a sound that made the hair on Zarek’s arms stand up. It was the sound of a tree screaming as the ocean tried to squeeze it into pulp.
"My scales?" Zarek asked, his voice low in the darkness.
"Trying its best to hold it," Syris replied, though his knuckles were white on the levers. They sank deeper.
The Twilight Zone faded. The indigo turned to black. They entered the Midnight Zone, the point of no return where sunlight surrendered to the eternal dark.
Outside the crystal ports, the ocean was no longer empty.
Strange shapes drifted out of the gloom. A school of fish with transparent skulls and needle-teeth swarmed the sphere, tapping against the dragon’s scales.
They had never seen an object like this, a smooth, black egg that smelled of land and magic. They circled it with hunger and curiosity, their bulbous eyes reflecting the faint internal light of the cabin.
"Get away," Zarek growled, tapping the glass with a claw.
"Save your energy," Ren whispered from the back of the sphere. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed, his hands pressed against his chest. "Do not provoke them. We are invaders here."
"We can’t see," Zarek grunted, ignoring the fish. "Syris, the path is blind."
Syris reached up and pulled a small chain.
On the exterior of the Iron-Whale, a mechanism opened. Syris hadn’t used fire; fire consumed oxygen, and oxygen was their most precious currency.
Instead, he had harvested hundreds of bioluminescent vines from the deepest parts of the swamp, woven them into thick ropes, and encased them in tubes mounted on the prow of the sphere.
A ghostly, neon-blue light flooded the water ahead of them.
It illuminated the endless drift of organic particles falling into the deep. It lit up the jagged walls of the trench, miles wide, closing in on them like the jaws of a beast.
And it revealed the depth. The sheer, unending vertical drop that went down, and down, and down.
"We are a grain of sand in a well," Ren murmured, opening his eyes. They were glowing faintly violet, struggling against the darkness.
"Focus, Fox," Zarek commanded, leaning forward, his face bathed in the blue light of the vines. "Where is she?"
"She is deeper in there," Ren gasped, clutching his chest. "I can feel her, although it’s thin and faint."
Zarek let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for days. He slumped back against the curved wall, covering his face with his hands for a brief second.
"She is alive," Zarek choked out.
That was the only relief he had. She was fine, and that was the only thing that mattered; they would soon bring her back home.
"She is alive," Ren confirmed, with sweat on his face. The atmosphere in the cramped sphere shifted instantly.
The suffocating dread that had weighed on them since the cliff edge evaporated. A ferocious, burning hope replaced it. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t eaten. She was right there.
"Syris," Zarek barked, his energy returning in a rush. "We have to be faster."
"Okay," Syris responded instantly.
Syris’s eyes were shining with a rare, naked emotion. Happiness.
He pushed the levers forward. The Iron-Whale shuddered as the ballast weights shifted, angling the sphere for a steeper dive. The water rushed past the windows, a blur of bubbles and marine snow.
The wood groaned louder now, protesting the acceleration, but Syris didn’t care. He trusted his design. He trusted Zarek’s scales. And more than anything, he trusted the fact that he refused to live in a world without her.
"Passing four thousand meters," Syris called out, his voice rising over the noise of the hull. "Pressure at four hundred atmospheres."
"Faster," Zarek urged. "Don’t keep her waiting."
"Passing five thousand," Syris counted down.
The air in the cabin was getting thin. The runes Ren had carved to recycle their breath were working overtime, but they weren’t designed for this level of exertion and heat. The air tasted stale, metallic.
Ren started to cough lightly, his chest heaving. "The... the air..."
"Hold your breath if you have to," Zarek snapped, though he reached out and placed a stabilizing hand on Ren’s knee. "We are almost there."
Syris watched the mercury gauge. The liquid metal was climbing dangerously high, reaching the red line he had marked as ’Critical.’
He looked at the depth counter.
He looked at his brothers. Zarek, the mighty Dragon, looked vulnerable in his desperation. Ren, the cunning Fox, was exhausted and poured out.
"We are at six thousand meters," Syris announced, his voice echoing in the small, creaking wooden egg.
He reached up and adjusted a valve on the ceiling, releasing a hiss of their reserve oxygen. It wasn’t much. Just enough to keep them conscious for the final push.
He turned to look at Zarek and Ren, a grim but determined smile on his face.
"Prepare for the air shortage," Syris warned, gripping the controls as the sphere shook violently in a deep-sea current. "Breaths are going to get short. But hold on."
He looked out into the abyss, where the faint blue light of their vines cut a path toward the bottom of the world.
"We will get to our mate soon."