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"I will post sentries," I vowed, "to warn us of any sign of smoke."
About her other suggestion, moving Aecor… I would need to think on that. Aecor was hundreds of years old.
To my surprise she put a hand on my arm, "Myles, there could also be underwater earthquakes, that could threaten your city."
Those words resonated with me even more, because now and then the sea ground had grumbled underneath us. Nothing bad or serious, just something that had happened and overtime we had come to expect it. It had never occurred to me that it could be stronger and actually bring the city down.
If that was the case, I owed Niara much for her warning.
"Alright, I will think this over, for now, let's start dive training."
We descended into the depts of the ocean. I kept an eye on each of Myle's dragoons as they took their first tentative kicks with their fins and found themselves propelled forward.
I don't think anything compares to watching a person experimenting rushing through the water faster than a fish for the first time. Just like it had fascinated me watching Myles’ expression of ecstasy the other day, my heart expanded at watching these hardcore warriors become one with the waters that had surrounded them all their lives and finally be free to fully explore it for hours.
Each one held old fashioned diving flashlights, long ago charged by my ancestors with precious energy cells from Earth that would light a diver's way much longer than the oxygen tank would last provided they received enough charging time in the sunlight, which was plentiful on Aecor.
The deeper we dove, the darker it became, only illuminated by the thirty or so beams of light.
A tall, dark shape emerging from the ocean floor, ahead of me, grew my curiosity and I swam closer. When I ran my light over it, I noticed that the shape was formed like a large bowl. Filled with pretty algae in all colors and small crustaceans that had made their homes inside. The bowl was brittle and over however many years it had stood here, had filled with its own version of ocean floor. Fine sand, covered the bottom, making up its very self contained miniature sea ground.
I moved my light over the outside of the large bowl, inspected it and followed it's half circle down to find the exact replica of a hand—missing a finger and a half—holding the bowl up precariously. The hand extended into an arm, that I followed until I came face to face with the carved features of a woman. They too had deteriorated over time, but had unmistakably been crafted by an unknown artist.
My heart hammered a little faster as I followed the statue down. Whatever she had held in her other hand had long crumbled to the ocean floor, but the folds of her dress had been lovingly and painstakingly carved out of rock.
She stood on some kind of pedestal and when I reached its end, I found myself hovering over sand as expected, but when the sand moved from the waves my fins made, I discovered a mosaic arranged of colorful stones. Shocked I realized that I was hovering over the remnants of what once had been a street.
My light didn't penetrate far enough, but Myle's and the dragoons were as eagerly as I exploring our unexpected surroundings and by the illumination of their flashlights, I made out buildings. Reminiscent of old Greece or ancient Rome like I had seen in my books. Crumbling pillars and breaking stone steps surrounded buildings crafted from rock.
With a few kicks I moved myself forward to one of them, without meaning too it was the same Myles was exploring. Through our masks our eyes met for an instant and then we moved through a large entrance that had taken a beating at some point, making it large enough for both of us to swim through.
I wasn't sure what I had expected to find inside, but most of whatever had been in the house before had long fallen victim to the ocean's environment. Except some stone statues and benches. There was even a derelict fountain. One lone stone figure, shaped as a fish had survived and I imagined three counterparts, all happily spewing water into the basin large enough to be a bath for several people.
In another room Myles opened a sort of stone box and I swam over quickly to see what he had uncovered. Particles rushed up into the water, fine and white, so many that momentarily I couldn't see anything but them. But when the current had carried them off, all that remained was a fragile skull and a couple of larger, longer bones that I would have bet had been parts of arms and legs.
Myles lifted the skull. I wanted to warn him to be careful, but didn't have the means to and watched helplessly as the skull crumbled between his hands, turned into more fine particles and floated up.
We stared at each other for long moments. The skull, like the disintegrating face on the statue hadn't looked entirely human or Leandar, but close enough to send a shudder through me.
By unspoken agreement Myles and I both left the building. He caught his dragoons' attention by waving his flashlight, until we all followed him through the ghost of a village and out, toward where the beginning of Death Mountain rose from the ocean floor.
Once we left the buildings behind at first there was nothing, only what you would expect at the bottom of the sea, fish, crustaceans, corals and algae. Here and there lay long forgotten artifacts from the city we had discovered. A green turned, metal cup, a badly decomposing dagger, sword and so on, but eventually I noticed smaller, rising up piles of rocks, the beginnings of Death Mountain? But no, these looked more like little miniature volcanoes, and I stopped to inspect one more closely. As I moved my hand over it, a small crustacean, a so called chodion—underwater scorpion—came rushing out. Its tail was curled, it's deadly spike set to strike. Spitting water bubbles, I pedaled back, as the fist size creature advanced. Four front pinchers were opening and closing, ready to seize my hand or anything it could reach to hold me to allow its spike to inject its poison into me.
Suddenly it was speared by a narrow dagger, right in the center. Pinchers and spike moved angrily but didn't bring it any closer to me. My frightened eyes found Myles's smug face. I let out a small sigh and nodded my thanks at him.
He indicated for me to keep the beam of my light on the chodion, while he put his down to grab his sword as well and began slicing the creature, to ensure it was dead. Only when it was turned into several small pieces, did it stop moving. Disgusted I turned my head as Myles cleaned his dagger and sword on the sand before sheathing both.
I motioned for him to give me the dagger, which after a curious glance at me he did. I returned to the little mountain I had examined before the chodion emerged and used the tip of his dagger to move the rocks to the side. Curiously Myles watched me, even pointed his light at it. I exposed a sort of underground tunnel, but it didn't mean anything to me, other than it might have just been the cave the chodion called his home.
I swam to the next and readied myself to encounter another nasty harbinger of death, but nothing happened. The rocks didn't even move like they had with the first. They were more like a miniature mountain. Solidly made.
I took a mental picture, fully intending on doing some more research on it when I was reunited with my books.
I handed Myles the dagger back and indicated I was ready for more exploration.
It had only been a few hours, we still had a third of a tank left, but I figured this might have been enough for my dragoons for the first day. I remembered how tired my legs were after the first dive, not that mine would be any better as this was only my second, but at least I knew what to expect now.
I signaled for everybody to move back up to the surface and noticed some of them picking up a few of the fragile relics we had found on the ocean floor. When I watched Niara take a small cup, I gave in to my own curiosity and took one of the better in shape looking daggers hoping it wouldn't disintegrate in my hand like the skull had.
