“Why are you working in the infirmary?” Ling asked. He was an archaeologist, not a medical doctor. He studied ancient mer civilizations.
“When the death riders took me, they went through my things. They saw my ID, with the title of doctor on it, and assumed I was a physician. That misunderstanding keeps me alive.” He cast a worried glance in the direction of the infirmary’s door. “Can you cope with dead bodies? Not contagious—victims of depth sickness. I’ve got at least ten to deal with. Probably more before the morning’s out. We can talk as we load.”
“I can manage,” Ling said, sounding braver than she felt. She’d never touched a corpse before.
“Are you sure?” her father asked, nodding at the cast on her wrist.
“The wrist’s pretty much healed,” Ling said. “But no one needs to know that.”
Shan smiled wanly. “Looks like we’ve both found a survival tactic,” he said. “At least for the time being.”
He motioned Ling over to a cot occupied by a young merman. His skin was gray. His eyes were open, but unseeing. Shan Lu Chi reached into the pocket of his own tunic and pulled out a smooth white pebble. He gently opened the dead merman’s mouth, placed the pebble on his tongue, and closed it again.
“I haven’t got any pearls. But if I see a nice pebble, I pick it up,” he explained. “I’m hoping Horok understands.”
Ling knew that a pearl, placed in the mouth of the dead, caught the mer’s soul and held it until Horok, the great coelacanth, took the pearl and carried the precious soul safely to the underworld.
“I’ll get the top half, you get the bottom,” Shan said.
Ling took hold of the merman’s tail, hooking her good arm underneath it, placing her bad one on top to steady the body. His flesh was cold to the touch and just beginning to stiffen. Ling thought she’d feel horror at the task, but all she felt was sorrow.
Together, she and her father carried the body out of the back of the infirmary, where the death cart was waiting. Its driver, an old merman who had a farm nearby, was nowhere to be seen. The two ancient hippokamps that pulled it were munching quietly, their noses in their feedbags.
“The guards never come back here. They hate the death cart,” Shan explained as they laid the body in the cart. “The driver’s probably in the sergeant’s office. It’s Moonday—the day he gets paid. This is our best chance to talk.”
He took Ling by the shoulders. “I still can’t believe it’s you. I longed to see you again someday, Ling. But not here.” His eyes filled with tears; his voice broke.
Ling curled a hand around her father’s wrist. “It’s okay, Dad.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not. Seeing your child in a place like this is definitely not okay. Your brothers…they’re well?”
“Yun and Ryu are good. At least, they were when I left.”
“And your mother?”
Ling’s gaze shifted to the ground. Thoughts of her silent, sad mother always hurt her.
“Ling? What’s wrong?”
“She hasn’t spoken since you disappeared, Dad. Not once,” Ling explained. “I’ve tried to get her to talk. So have my grandmothers, and all ten aunts. No one can get through to her. Most have given up. Aunt Xia keeps trying, but even she’s getting frustrated. Grandma Wen says everyone’s being too kind, and that all this babying is only encouraging weakness, that it’s time to get tough. It makes me sad, but I get angry, too. We fought before I left. At least, I fought. Mom didn’t say a word.”
“Why won’t she speak?”
“Because her heart is broken. She thinks you’re dead, Dad. We all do. Or did. How did you get here?” Ling asked.
“I went to explore the Abyss,” Shan began.
Ling nodded, remembering that day. It was the last time anyone had seen him. When evening came and he still hadn’t returned home, his three brothers went to search for him. All they found was the seaflax bag he used to hold his ancient treasures. Ling had known, from the expressions on their faces when they returned, that the worst had happened. The grief she’d felt was searing.
“I dove deep that day and while I was down I found the usual—bones and fossils,” Shan explained. “But then I came upon something really amazing: an ancient puzzle ball carved from white coral.”
Ling’s pulse quickened. Her father had discovered Sycorax’s talisman. “It’s the white ball the death riders are searching for.”
Shan nodded. “It was decorated with a phoenix and covered with writing,” he said. “The characters were from an ancient language that terragoggs from China spoke. I couldn’t translate much, but I did make out the word Atlantis.”
“Dad, where is it?” Ling asked. Please, she thought, please tell me it’s somewhere safe.