The Tree of Water

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  It is with the greatest of thanks and the most sincere admiration

  that I dedicate the translation of this recently discovered volume

  to

  His Majesty, King Varoon de Muk Muk

  of the sovereign island kingdom of Digitalis,

  the only head of state willing

  to underwrite the expedition to unearth the first of this newly found set of Ven’s journals

  and with equally sincere thanks

  to

  Roberto Eugeneve Hadoni

  my rickshaw driver (and amateur rocket scientist)

  who transported me from Mobile, Alabama to the streets of Rome

  (as well as several extraterrestrial destinations)

  without a whisper of complaint and who will always have

  my enduring admiration and love.

  Acknowledgments

  After such a long stretch between the discovery of Ven’s first three journals, a number of my colleagues deserve recognition and thanks for sticking with the project:

  Eloise Breadwater, my fellow documentarian and research archanologist, for her patient assistance piecing the fragments of Ven’s journal together with wax,

  Professor Lee Butterscotch Kalin, for his sweetness and good humor in last-minute reviews,

  Zovenistra Deswatch, oceanographic researcher, for the loan of her human-to-whale/whale-to-human dictionary,

  Dr. Susan Persimmon Chang, for once again fighting off brigands on the Ivory Coast who were either trying to steal the chest with Ven’s water-soaked journals or the expedition’s precious supply of chunky peanut butter (it’s not exactly clear which),

  The Royal Undersea Institute of Arcane Creatures in London for its kind help in identifying some truly revolting sea animals from Ven’s time,

  And Miss Zoe Goodtowne, record keeper.

  All of your help is greatly appreciated.

  PREFACE

  Long ago, in the Second Age of history, a young Nain explorer by the name of Ven Polypheme traveled much of the known and unknown world, recording his adventures and the marvelous sights he witnessed. His writings eventually formed the basis for The Book of All Human Knowledge and All the World’s Magic. These were two of the most important books of all time, because they captured the secrets of magic and the records of mythical beings and wondrous places that are now all but gone from the world.

  The only copies of each of these books were lost at sea centuries ago, but a few fragments of Ven’s original journals remain. Three of these journals were discovered a few years ago by archaeologists and were studied and tested at great length. Finally it was determined that they were, in fact, Ven’s actual journals. Those three journals, The Floating Island, The Thief Queen’s Daughter, and The Dragon’s Lair, were then published. Included in them were the fragments of diary entries that had survived, reproduced in Ven’s handwriting as they were originally written, along with the drawings that he had sketched and signed.

  For some time it was believed that those three journals were the only surviving record of Ven Polypheme’s research. But recently, a Mr. Dieter Bigglesworth of Ketchup-upon-Hamburg, South Germany, was on vacation with his wife, Euphemia, in the tropical paradise of Langerhan Island. Mr. Bigglesworth had buried Mrs. Bigglesworth (except for her head) in the sand of the pink beach of Langerhan, when suddenly her toes scraped against something rough and wooden. After receiving medical attention for splinter removal, the Bigglesworths returned to the pink beach and dug until they unearthed a small sea chest, bound in brass and very old.

  The chest contained what appeared to be three more journals in the familiar handwriting of Ven Polypheme.

  As before, the journals were given to internationally known archanologist Elizabeth Haydon, who was at the time attending a yak-milking seminar in the high peaks of Katmandont. After a very large coffee, she immediately began studying the newly found volumes and, at the end of a grueling authentication process, declared them to be genuine. This first of these journals, The Tree of Water, contains entries that are reproduced in Ven Polypheme’s handwriting, as they were originally written. Some of them are little more than a few words, or a sentence or two. A number of sketches from his notebooks also survived and are reproduced here as well. Great care has been taken to reconstruct the parts of the journal that did not survive, so that a whole story can be told.

  At the time of the original excavation of the first three journals, a separate notebook containing only sketches of dragons, plus drawings of what appear to be cards made out of dragon scales, is still being restored. It was found, buried with the journals, in a water-proof chest lined in gold.

  It is perhaps the most deeply magical book of all Time.

  The dragon scales appear to be cards in an ancient deck that allowed a special reader to see the Past, know the Present, and predict the Future. They apparently had older, deeper powers of magic, which we are just beginning to learn about. The archaeological dig is continuing in other places Ven was thought to have visited.

  These few scraps of text and sketches provide a map back in Time to hidden places, where pockets of magic might still be found.

  Contents

  Frontispiece

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Map

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  1. To Go, or Not to Go

  2. The Fortune Teller’s Return

  3. Frothta

  4. Eyes in the Sky

  5. Thrum, Drift, and Sunshadow

  6. Kingston Harbor

  7. On the Skelligs

  8. Firstlight

  9. The Herring Ball

  10. The Coral Reef

  11. A Deadly Song

  12. Coreon

  13. The Drowning Cave

  14. The Airwheel

  15. An Uneasy Truce

  16. Back to the Drift

  17. Into the Deep

  18. The Underwater Forest

  19. Spicegar

  20. The Desert Beneath the Sea

  21. A Cage of Bones

  22. The Octopus’s Garden

  23. In Coral Cathedrals

  24. Feeding Frenzy

  25. The Summer Festival

  26. The Wild Hippocampus Roundup

  27. The Second-to-the-Last Race

  28. A Coming Storm

  29. The Waterspout

  30. At the Edge of Twilight

  31. Lancel

  32. A Risky Negotiation

  33. A Bargain Struck and Fulfilled

  34. The Diving Bell

  35. Descent into Darkness

  36. The Abyss

  37. All the Way Down

  38. At the Bottom of the World

  39. Letting Go of the Last Lifeline

  40. The Real Queen of the Sea

  41. The Fulfillment of Most of Two Prophecies

  42. Another Riddle Answered

  43. A Familiar Friend

  44. A Mysterious Reunion

  45. A Rescue, Long Time in Coming

  46. The Return

  47. The Surprise

  Excerpt from The Floating Island


  Reader’s Guide

  Also by Elizabeth Haydon

  Copyright

  1

  To Go, or Not to Go

  * * *

  The human boys had an expression back in the faraway city of Vaarn where I was born. It went like this:

  Curiosity killed the cat

  Satisfaction brought him back

  I am a curious person. I was just as curious back in my early days in Vaarn as I am now, perhaps even more so, because my curiosity had not yet been given a chance to be satisfied.

  The first time I heard this expression, I was very excited. I thought it meant that my curiosity could make me feel like I was dying, but it would let up if I discovered the answer to whatever was making me curious.

  I told my mother about the rhyme. She was not impressed. In fact, she looked at me as if I had just set my own hair on fire on purpose. She patted my chin, which was woefully free of any sign of the beard that should have been growing there.

  “That’s very nice,” she said, returning to her chores. “But just in case nobody told you, you are not a cat, Ven. Unlike you, cats have whiskers.”

  My pride stung for days afterward.

  But it didn’t stop my curiosity from growing as fast as my beard should have been.

  My name is Charles Magnus Ven Polypheme, Ven for short. Unlike the human boys in Vaarn, I am of the race of the Nain. Nain are somewhat shorter than humans, and grumpier. They live almost four times as long as humans, and tend to be much less curious, and much less adventurous. They hate to travel, don’t swim, and generally do not like other people. Especially those who are not Nain.

  I clearly am not a good example of my race.

  First, I am very tall for a Nain, sixty-eight Knuckles high when I was last measured on the morning of my fiftieth birthday. I’ve already mentioned my uncontrollable curiosity, which brings along with it a desire for adventure. I have been blessed, or cursed, with quite a lot of that recently.

  But as for the curiosity, while I’ve had a lot of satisfaction for the questions it has asked me, it doesn’t seem to matter. As soon as one burning question is answered, another one springs to mind immediately. As a result, I am frequently in trouble.

  So now I am about to lay my head on a chopping block, on purpose, and a man with a very sharp knife is standing over me, ready to make slashes in my neck.

  I’m wondering if in fact instead of being a live Nain, I am about to end up as a dead, formerly curious cat.

  Because now I have three whiskers of my own.

  * * *

  Ven Polypheme had two sets of eyes staring at him.

  One set was black as coal. The other was green as the sea.

  Neither of them looked happy.

  The green eyes were floating, along with a nose, forehead, and hair on which a red cap embroidered with pearls sat, just above the surface of the water beneath the old abandoned dock. The brows above the eyes were drawn together. They looked annoyed.

  The black ones were in the middle of the face of his best friend, Char, who stood beside him on the dock. They looked anxious.

  In the distance a bell began to toll. Ven looked to his left at the docks of the fishing village to the south of them, where work had begun hours ago. Then he looked behind him. The sleepy town of Kingston in the distance was just beginning to wake up.

  Ven looked back down into the water.

  “Come on, Amariel,” he said to the floating eyes. “I can’t really go off into the sea without him.”

  A glorious tail of colorful scales emerged from below the surface, splashing both boys with cold salt water.

  “Why not?” a girl’s voice demanded from the waves. “He’s a pest. And he isn’t nice to me.”

  Char’s black eyes widened.

  “I—I’m sorry ’bout that,” he stammered. “When I first met you, Ven didn’t tell me you were a mermaid—” He shivered as another splash drenched him again. “Er, I mean merrow. I’m sorry if I made you mad.”

  “Hmmph.”

  “Please let him come,” Ven said. “Captain Snodgrass gave him orders to keep an eye on me. So if I’m going to explore the sea with you, he kinda has to come along.”

  Char nodded. “Cap’n’s orders.”

  “He’s not my captain,” said the merrow. “I don’t take orders from humans. You know better, Ven. My mother will fillet me if she finds out I’m traveling with a human male. Especially if we are going to go exploring. There are very clear rules about not showing humans around the wonders of the Deep. And besides, it’s dangerous. You have no idea how many sea creatures think humans are tasty. I don’t want to get chomped on by mistake.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ven watched Char’s face go white.

  “We’ll be careful,” he promised. “Char will be on his best behavior.”

  “I’ve seen his best behavior. I’m not impressed.”

  “Look,” Char said. “If you get sick of me, you can always cover me with fish guts and toss me out as shark bait.”

  The merrow stared coldly at him.

  “Oh, all right,” she said finally. “But remember, there’s a reason they call bait for sharks chum. ‘Chum’ is another word for ‘friend.’” Her eyes stayed locked on Char. “And if you make a bunch of sharks angry, Chum—”

  “I’ll be chum,” Char said. “Got it.”

  “So if you’re coming, we have to find a fisherman named Asa with a red-bottomed boat.” Amariel pointed south to one of the far docks. “He’ll cut your gills, and we can get going.”

  Both boys grabbed their necks.

  The merrow rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. Do you want to be able to breathe underwater or not? Gills are the only way I know of to do that. I’m tired of waiting. Decide whether you’re coming or whether I’m leaving.”

  “We’re coming,” Ven said as he let go of his neck. “Sorry—it’s just instinct. Let’s go.”

  Char nodded, but did not remove his hands.

  The merrow disappeared below the surface of the water.

  The two boys hurried south over the packed sand along the shore.

  “Ya know, it’s not too late to change your mind, Ven,” Char muttered. “We could get a boat or somethin’, and follow her out to sea, like we did when we were chasing the Floatin’ Island, and then dive down to see whatever she wants to show us—”

  “You can stay on shore if you want to, Char,” Ven said, trying to see the merrow in between the waves. “But I promised her a long time ago that I would explore her world with her. It’s now or never.”

  “Have it your way,” Char said gloomily. “You always do anyway.”

  They followed the pebbly path in the sand south until the fishing village came into sight. Several long piers led out into the harbor, with docks along each of them. Small boats lined the docks. At each boat fishermen were hauling nets filled with flapping fish and cages with crabs and lobsters onto the piers. Seagulls flew in great wide circles above, screeching and crying, then diving for food.

  “So how did she happen to find this Asa, and how does she know he won’t just cut our throats?” Char asked as they picked their way among barrels and pieces of rope on the slats of the pier.

  Ven shrugged. “No idea. But sailors and merrows have a pretty good connection.” He pointed about halfway down the pier, where a small green fishing boat with a red bottom bobbed lazily in the morning tide. A wrinkled man in a wrinkled hat sat on a barrel at the edge of the dock, cleaning his morning catch of fish. “Could that be him?”

  Char squinted. “I guess so.”

  “Come on. We may as well ask. If it’s not Asa, he probably knows where to find him. Fishermen all know each other.”

  The two boys walked along the pier, stepping out of the way of men dragging lobster traps and heavy netting, until they got to the red-bottomed boat. They stopped behind the elderly fisherman, who did not seem to notice they were there.

  Ven coughed politely.

  �
��Excuse me, sir—are you Asa?”

  The fisherman looked up from his work, his sky-blue eyes twinkling in the sun.

  “Who’s askin’?”

  “Er, my name is Ven, sir. I was told I might find a fisherman at this dock who could, uh, cut gills.”

  The wrinkly man nodded. “Well, Ven, you’ve found ’im. But I can’t say as I’ve heard of any recent wrecks.”

  Ven blinked. “Pardon?”

  “Shipwrecks,” said the fisherman. “That’s the only reason I know of for a man to risk a slice in his neck—to salvage the treasure from the bones of a shipwreck.”

  “Oh.” Ven and Char exchanged a glance, then looked off the edge of the dock.

  In the water behind the boat, the beautiful tail of multicolored scales was waving at them from beneath the surface.

  “Uh, we weren’t really planning to dive for treasure,” Ven continued, trying to block the sight of the merrow’s tail. “We just want to do some exploring.”

  The fisherman’s eyebrows arched.

  “The sea’s no place to explore without a good reason, lads,” he said seriously. “Lots of bad stuff down there—believe you me. The only reason a man takes his life into his hands on a daily basis by going out there is to make a living for his family. Otherwise, we’d farm the land.” The blue eyes twinkled. “If we knew how.”

  “Well, we’d really like to have gills, nonetheless,” Ven said. “We’ve been told you know how to, er, cut them without too much pain—and safely. Is that true?”

  Asa exhaled, then nodded.

  “I suppose that depends on how much is too much where pain is concerned,” he said. “That’s really up to you. It’s not my business what you’re doing. We mind our own business on the sea. If you want gills, and you’re willing to take the risk, I can cut ’em for you right quick.” He held up a thin silver filleting knife. “Then I have to get back to cleaning my catch. So, what’ll it be? Make haste, now.”

  Char and Ven looked at each other once more, then nodded at the same time.

  “We’re in,” said Char.

  “All right then,” said Asa. He reached into the boat and took hold of the top of a small sea chest that held his tackle. He slammed it closed and put it on the dock in front of them. “Kneel down and put your heads on this chest, your left ears down.”