Chapter 41: The Shrine of the Deep

Nerine refused to take them across any of the bridges, so instead they crossed the river into the harbor district on a fishing boat that belonged to her cousin, and three of them ended up huddled in the back of it under a pile of fishing nets that smelled like death.

"I feel like something just moved under me," Kai whispered.

"It is a crab," Nerine called from the front of the boat. "Do not squish him. He belongs to my cousin."

"He has a name?" Kai whispered.

"His name is Captain," Nerine said.

[Captain is at 0%. I checked]

Mira was lying pressed against Kai’s left side under the nets, while Princess Seris was squeezed against his right with her notebook held above her head to keep it dry, and every time the boat rocked, all three of them rolled into one another. Garrick had flatly refused to get under the nets, so he was sitting in the middle of the boat in plain sight, acting like a very large fisherman. Sunny had left his white armor behind at Hale’s house, and he was wearing a borrowed coat that was much too small for his shoulders.

Elowen sat at the back of the boat with her face turned towards the water, and she was completely dry, because no one had been brave enough to tell her to get under the nets.

[Mira is nervous, and so is the princess. I would also like to point out that you are sandwiched between both of them under a fishing net]

"I didn’t mean for this to happen," Kai whispered.

[You never plan ahead. That is why you are always in these situations]

The harbor district was a maze of wooden docks that stretched out over the water and narrow stone paths that wound between them, and boats were tied up along every pier, three rows deep. Almost none of them were moving, and the fishermen sat on the docks fixing nets that didn’t need fixing, staring out at the rocks that surrounded the harbor, where the mast of a sunken boat poked out of the water like a headstone.

"That was the second one," Nerine said softly as they sailed past it. "There were four men on that boat, and only two came home."

No one spoke again until the boat bumped against the old stone steps that led up to the shrine.

The Shrine of the Deep sat on a small rocky island at the very end of the harbor. It was a circular temple built of blue stone and coated in barnacles, with a roof shaped like the inside of a shell, and long wooden walkways connected it to the docks. Below the island, a dark sea cave opened right at the waterline, wide enough to fit a boat inside.

"The bells hang in the cave below the shrine," Nerine said as she climbed out of the boat and started up the steps. "When the tide comes in, the water flows into the cave and moves the bells, and they ring. The fishermen have read the tides by those bells for the last five hundred years. Each bell rings at a different height of water, so a fisherman can tell exactly how high the tide is from anywhere in the harbor."

"And now they don’t make any sound?" Kai asked, climbing out from under the nets.

"The water still moves them," Nerine said. "But they make no sound at all, as if the ocean has lost its voice."

They were halfway up the stairs when a door opened at the top of the shrine, and an old woman came out to greet them. She was short and hunched, with white hair that had dozens of shells braided into it, and she leaned on a cane made from a piece of driftwood.

"Nerine," the old woman said, in a voice sharp enough to cut through rope. "You brought him here."

"Elder Marrow," Nerine said, bowing her head. "I only want him to see the bells."

Elder Marrow looked Kai up and down, from his messy hair to his new pair of boots, and she grimaced at the sight of him.

"The Tide Mother has forsaken this city because of you," Elder Marrow said. "There are two boats at the bottom of our harbor because of you, and now you want to walk into her shrine?"

"I’d honestly rather not be anywhere near the water," Kai said. "I’m not good at swimming."

Elowen walked up beside Kai, and Elder Marrow’s eyes went straight to the sword on her hip.

"Elder," Elowen said politely. "Did the Tide Mother tell you that she was angry?"

Elder Marrow opened her mouth and then shut it again, and she gripped her cane even tighter.

"The Radiant priests told us," Elder Marrow said. "They said that the Mother of all the gods had spoken, and that the Tide Mother stood with her."

Elowen’s sword stayed dark, because Elder Marrow wasn’t lying, but Kai had been a con man long enough to recognize someone who had been lied to.

"So the Tide Mother never told you she was angry," Kai said. "Some guys from the Radiant Church just told you that she was."

Elder Marrow didn’t answer him, but she allowed Nerine to lead them past her and down a narrow set of stairs carved into the rock, into the sea cave below the shrine.

The cave was much larger on the inside than it had looked from the water, and it was filled with a faint green glow that came from the moss covering its walls. The ocean washed in and out through the entrance in slow, heavy waves, and hanging above the water on iron chains were seven giant bronze bells, each one bigger than the last, swaying gently every time the water moved underneath them.

They were swaying, and they should have been ringing, but the only sound in the whole cave was the water.

Garrick walked out to one of the smaller bells and examined it with a frown on his face, the same way he looked at a horseshoe that came back to his shop crooked.

"The bronze looks fine," Garrick said. "I don’t see any cracks in it. A bell like this should carry its sound all the way to the palace."

Elowen turned her blindfolded face towards the bells, and she went completely still.

"There is light within them," Elowen said softly. "It is a golden light, the same light I see in every priest of the Radiant Church."

[Kai, the Radiant Church has done something to those bells]

"Can you tell what?" Kai whispered.

[No. But I think you are going to try something]

"Yeah," Kai whispered. "I am."

Kai stepped out onto the ledge beside Garrick and pointed his finger at the biggest bell, the one hanging in the very center of the cave, and he thought about the mast in the harbor and the two men who hadn’t made it home.

"Minor Blessing," Kai said.

A small ball of golden light shot out of his finger and flew towards the giant bell, but as it got close, it dipped and missed the bell completely. It splashed into the water below and kept sinking towards the bottom of the cave, growing brighter as it sank, until the whole floor of the cave was glowing with golden light.

Everyone leaned over the ledge to look down, and Mira gasped out loud.

At the bottom of the cave, about twenty feet underwater, lay a pile of bronze shapes, each one about as long as a man’s arm and shaped like a giant drop of water. There were seven of them chained together, and the chain was fastened to an iron anchor stamped with a golden sun.

"Those are the clappers," Garrick said in disbelief. "Someone took the clappers out of the bells and threw them in the ocean."

"Then what is inside the bells now?" Sunny asked.

Garrick reached up and pushed one of the smaller bells so that it swung towards him, then stuck his arm inside it and felt around. When he pulled his hand back out, he was holding a wooden copy of a clapper, wrapped in cloth and painted gold, and it was giving off the same faint light Elowen had seen.

"They put this in there," Garrick said in disgust. "Wood and rags with a blessing on it, so no one would notice the real ones were missing."

Elder Marrow had followed them down the stairs, and she stood at the bottom of them, staring at the golden light and the clappers lying at the bottom of the sea.

"The Radiant priests asked to pray in the cave," Elder Marrow whispered. "Alone. We allowed it."

[You missed the bell]

"Yes," Kai whispered.

[You hit the water, and you revealed what the Radiant Church threw into it]

"Yes," Kai whispered.

[There is only one problem]

"What?" Kai whispered.

[You just told Elder Marrow that you are not good at swimming, and someone is going to have to go down there and get them]

Kai looked down at the clappers lying twenty feet below the water, and then at the waves rolling into the cave, which were getting higher with every one that came in. Beside him, Nerine was already taking off her necklace of shells, and her face looked worried.

"The tide is coming in," Nerine said. "We have about an hour before this cave fills with water. If we want those clappers, we need to go now."