The arrogant engineers ran their tests here before. The sequence is clear. Ignition. Pressure seal. Ballast release.
The hydro-engine coughs to life. A low, angry rumble vibrates through the iron hull.
"Hey!" a guard shouts from the pier. "Get away from the restricted vessel!"
The young soldier stands framed in the iron-glass viewport.
"Tell Elder Soryn a message for me," I say, my voice amplified by the skiff's external comms. "Tell him if he wants his prized vessel back, he must come into the dark to get it."
I punch the heavy throttle.
The skiff lurches. It rips from the heavy docking cradle with a screech of tortured metal. I point the iron nose into the black water.
I bypass the grand city gates, a ghost in their own machine. I evade the blind patrol lines, their lights sweeping past my stolen vessel. I steer the roaring machine toward the dense shadows of the Silt District.
I remain unfit for the crushing Abyss. I possess the machine, but a iron hull is still insufficient for the entire journey. I lack the raw biology. The crushing weight will shatter my betta mind and snap my soft bones. To drag Vaelis back to the light, I must break the pressure seal and abandon the armor. I can only hope he has survived the dark on his own until I reach him.
I require dark magic.
I must once again seek the Witch.
I park the stolen skiff in the dense shadow of the lower ridge. A cluster of rotting waste-pipes hides the machine from the upper patrols. I swim to the hidden fissure in the rock.
Oona is waiting inside the cave.
She is always waiting in the dark.
"You smell like fresh treason," the old witch croaks as I enter her domain.
She hovers over a bubbling jar of liquid. The brew glows with a sick, green light. Her long, sensory barbels twitch in the water, tasting the sour adrenaline pouring off my skin.
"I need to go deep," I say.
"How deep?"
"Abyss deep. Trench deep. Monster deep."
Oona pauses her work. She turns her blind, eyeless face toward my voice. "You are a delicate Vael, little guard. The gods made your kind for the warm sun. The abyss will crush your pretty bones into fine powder. You are not acclimated."
"I have a pressurized skiff," I tell her. "I have a reinforced hull to get me most of the way down, but it's not enough."
"A metal hull protects the fragile body," Oona wheezes. "It does not protect the fragile mind. The silence down there is a weapon. It gets inside your skull. It squeezes the sanity out through your ears."
She swims closer to me. The smell of decay follows her.
"You gave me a small fortune for a specific poison," she says. "You wanted to silence a trench monster. Did the venom work?"
"Yes," I spit. "But he took the prince. The monster took him."
"Ah," Oona smiles. It is a wet, unpleasant expression. "You want blood."
"The venom was not enough. I must kill the beast," I say. "And I want to bring Vaelis back to the light."
"Vengeance," Oona muses. "A costly endeavor."
"I have nothing left to trade," I confess, the words tasting like acid in my mouth. "The Council has likely marked me for treason. I am a rogue soldier... I have nothing to give you—"
"I do not want your petty coin," Oona says, her voice a dry rasp in the oppressive dark. "I want your considerable potential."
