not tired at all, even though we must be more than a mile out from land already.
Now there’s the first tug of a current. It seizes us in its strong arms, and drags us southward. Slowly at first and then faster, faster, until the water flies past us and the sea bed below us is a blur.
But no matter how fast we go, Faro’s friend is still ahead of us. There he is, just visible, riding the current’s crest. He’s not going to let me catch up with him. Faro could, easily, but I’m not fast enough.
“Why won’t he wait for us, Faro?”
Faro’s white teeth show in a teasing smile. “He’s shy of you, Sapphire.”
“He can’t be!”
“You’re human, don’t forget. Morlader’s not like me. He’s never spoken to a human, or even seen one up close. Most of the Mer are like that. You don’t realise how unusual I am,” he adds with self-satisfaction.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you different from the others?”
Faro frowns. “You wouldn’t understand, Sapphire. It’s a Mer thing.” Streams of bubbles play over his face, half-hiding it. He’s close, but he looks far away. A Mer thing. His words hurt, but the water of Ingo surges around me, and my own Mer blood tingles with excitement. How fast is this current taking us? How far? We must be miles and miles from land now. It’s like flying underwater. I’ve never travelled so fast in Ingo, but I’m not afraid. I’m elated. How can Faro think I won’t understand?
“I’m not all human, Faro,” I say. “You know that.”
Faro turns to me. His hair flows past his shoulders, plastered to his skin by the force of the current. His eyes scan my face, intent, anxious – and maybe even a little fearful. He isn’t hiding from me now. Suddenly I remember the first time we met.
“You weren’t ever shy of me, Faro.”
“No.”
“Why weren’t you? You’re Mer too.”
A strange expression crosses Faro’s face. “Yes,” he says, more hesitant than I’ve ever heard him, “yes, of course I’m Mer. But Sapphire, there’s something—Look out!”
He grabs my hand and hurls us sideways out of the grip of the current, just missing a jagged spear of rock. In the calm water, he lets go of me. There are white marks on my hand where his fingers dug into the flesh. I could never have got out of that current on my own. Faro’s strength is almost frightening sometimes – but he did it to save me.
Faro looks shocked. “It nearly got us. I must have been dreaming. I can’t believe I let that happen.”
“Scary,” I say weakly as I try to calm the pumping of my heart. Usually Faro is as quick as a fish. He senses danger at the first shadow of it. That rock would have killed us, and we only missed it by a few centimetres. If Faro hadn’t dragged me sideways, I’d be drifting down to the sea bed now, my body broken and bleeding. For the first time, I really understand that only a second separates life from death, and it’s very easy to die. My heart thuds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Faro rubs his hands over his face, as if he’s wiping away a nightmare. He takes hold of my hand, lifts it, and examines it. There are the marks of his nails, too, in my skin. My hand is bleeding.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, little sister,” he says.
“I’m all right. We could have died, couldn’t we? I think you saved my life.”
Faro glances around quickly as if someone might overhear him. “This place could eat us alive and still be hungry,” he whispers. “Its spirit is bad – drokobereth. We must hurry.”
I glance around fearfully. Now the rocks look as if they are clawing the water, reaching out for prey.
“Where’s Morlader gone?”
Faro points ahead where the rocks rise up sheer, towering into an under-sea mountain range. I thought that the Bawns near our cove were huge, but these are ten times higher. They are bleak and barren. They look as if they’ve crowded together deliberately, so there won’t be a way through them. They don’t want us here.
“Morlader has gone ahead of us, to the Assembly,” says Faro.
“Where’s that?”
“Farther on. It’s no use being afraid of the mountains, Sapphire. There’s no other way except through them.”
“I’m not afraid!”
“Of course you are,” says Faro. His face is very serious. “And so am I.”
“If it’s so dangerous, why do the Mer hold their Assemblies on these mountains?”
“Not on the mountains: in them. Our Assembly cave is deep in the heart of the mountains. Our ancestors chose it, because we could hide from our enemies there for a thousand years if need be. We could defend ourselves with only a handful of warriors.”
“What enemies?”
Faro glances round again, quickly, cautiously. “We can’t talk about it here. Come on, Sapphire. It’s not solid rock, there’s a way through. We’d be safer approaching from the south, but we haven’t got time to swim all the way round now.”
“Do you know the way?”
“Of course,” says Faro. I’m sure I can hear doubt in his voice, but there’s no choice. We’ve got to go on.
“Careful,” whispers Faro. “Even a scratch from these rocks can turn to poison.” We swim forward very slowly, gliding cautiously around the razor-sharp flanks of the rocks.
Before long the rocks have closed around us. Ahead, the rising mountain blocks our sight. There’s no clear water anywhere, only channels between dangers. I’ve never felt cold in Ingo before, but these rocks cast an icy shadow. There is no sign of life. No flickering fish, no glowing sea anemones, no graceful herds of sea horses. There isn’t even any seaweed clinging to the rocks. The valleys are empty and the peaks bare. Below us the sand is dark, ashy grey.
We swim on, barely disturbing the water. Now the rocks on either side of us look as if they’ve been split open by a giant hammer.
“The tides did this when they broke loose,” says Faro, steering me past a shattered fang of coral. We slow down even more, so that we can ease our bodies through the wreckage without getting trapped in it. Besides, I don’t want to disturb these waters, for fear of what might come out.
“Why can’t we swim higher up in clear water?” I whisper.
“We have to go this way,” says Faro. “Mind your hand, Sapphire! That’s where the eels have their holes.”
I snatch my hand back, shuddering. So there is something alive here. Roger told me once that divers have to watch out for conger eels. They live in crevices like these. If they get your arm in their jaws,
