ISLANDS

Cool depths closed around me with the echoing sshhh of my breaths, bubbles trailing toward the light. The water was very clear, but there was a strange, subdued tint to it, not at all like the bright turquoise bays or deeper blue of the open sea.

Manden hovered by the coral clumps. He gestured curtly, leading the way around encrusted shapes that looked like nothing manmade. Christmas-tree plumes fringed the cream and rust coral, vanishing at our approach. Tiny fish darted in and out of crevices in sparks of orange, yellow, and neon blue. I hovered in weightless suspension to watch the spiderlike progress of an arrowhead crab across a brain coral. Now that I was finally down here, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see the anchor where John died.

Manden pointed at his watch. He gestured me over to a long protrusion of coral, taking my hand and guiding it toward the rounded end. Feeling the raised rim, I realized it was a hollow tube, nearly filled in. A cannon. On a cleared plate near the base, engraved letters: Phoenix.

Teeth clamping on the rubber mouthpiece, I turned quickly away. No rising from the ashes here.

Manden was pointing out shapes in coral where they’d been working, cast-like impressions of now-disintegrated beams. Blue-green bits of corroded copper lay scattered among the debris. He was right, there wasn’t much to excite visions of treasure. We dropped deeper, colors leaching away into blue-gray dimness.

The snakelike shape of a chain solidified out of the shadows. Huge links, blotched and encrusted, twined over a leaning boulder that cut off the light. Below it, the flukes of the anchor stretched taller than me, freed from their two hundred years in the coral.

I’d seen it before. Shadow man grabbing John, pushing the anchor onto him. He rages helplessly, pinned as his air runs out and he’s drowning.

I blinked quickly, taking a deep breath, regulator hissing. Manden was watching me, eyes cool blue behind the mask, face expressionless.

I swam to the anchor, touched the corroded shaft where it rose from its solid-looking bed. It shifted under my hand. Like a sleepwalker following a nightmare script, I raised my other hand to grasp the rough surface and pull. Metallic breaths echoed. The anchor rocked, started a ponderous dip toward me. He’d pulled it over on top of John this way, making it look like an accident.

I pushed the anchor and it rocked back, moving heavily in its bed. I turned, and sucked in a startled gulp of seawater.

Manden was rushing at me in a swirl of foam, kicking hard. He grabbed my arm and yanked me toward him. Choking and coughing, I struggled for air, trying to break free. A spill of bubbles burst up between us. He wrenched me around, jabbing a finger toward the anchor.

It was rocking forward in its bed again, rebounding quickly this time, tumbling over. Manden tugged me back. The anchor crashed in a cloud of silt onto the coral where I’d been hovering.

His fingers dug in on my shoulders, shaking me roughly, masked face furious.

*gold mask of the death god, cruel face glittering over me, over John, mouth dripping blood —

A screaming gale rips the sails to shreds lashed by driving rain. The frigate heaves and shudders in the crashing waves, pitching, flinging outward limp arms of a body lashed to the mast, grotesquely beckoning. Lightning strobes dark bloodstreaked faces, teeth flashing, howling with the storm, arms waving glitter of silver and jewels. Demon face hard gold the sharp stab of devil horns —

Manden’s ice blue eyes behind the Bocor’s mask. Hands clutching John clutching me as we fight blindly, drowning, screaming our fury*

Past, present, future blurred into the nightmare pulling me deeper. Manden was shaking me, making me look at the anchor, making me relive it. John, myself, pinned beneath the anchor, our hands tearing uselessly at the massive bar, shredding our skin on the corroded metal and raging at death. Those eyes coldly watching.

Hatred flamed. The air feed hissed faster and faster in my ears. John’s killer. Shadow man. I thrashed and kicked at him. His grip tightened. Panting, breath gusting in swirling bubbles, I raised my fists to batter Manden’s face. He brushed my fists off. I pounded his chest, snatched for his air hose, clawed at his face.

His arms were always there to block me. Finally he spun me around, twisting one arm behind my back and forcing me up against his body. His other arm crossed over my chest and squeezed.

He pressed harder against my windpipe. I thrashed desperately, but couldn’t get any air. Red swam in my eyes. “You taste blood, you get a taste don’ die.” The fury abruptly drained, leaving me limp in his grasp.

The choking pressure eased, and I dragged in a harsh breath. Manden still held me against him. I sagged, gone numb.

Then, with an odd hesitance, he touched the top of my head. Everything was off-kilter, unreal in the floating, flickering shadows leaching color away into monotone. He held me as we hovered in the depths, stroking my shoulder like he was soothing a frightened animal.

A shudder rose through me and escaped in a bubbling swirl. He peered closely at my face. Drifting in the surreal suspension of time and gravity, we stared through our masks, deep into each other’s eyes.

Manden abruptly released me. He shook his head, made the diver’s hand signal: OK?

Like a robot’s, my hand returned the signal. He swam away from the wreck of the Phoenix. I followed.