Inside Hagarla’s cave, the smell of decaying flesh was overwhelming, and Neela thought she was going to be sick. She shook off her queasiness and kept swimming, trying to stay focused on her mission. Twenty yards into the cave, the passageway widened into a large, high-ceilinged cavern.
“Holy sea cow,” Neela said, stunned by what was in it—a staggering amount of treasure. Gold plates, silver chalices, coins, glassware, porcelain vases, suits of armor, jewels, goblets, pieces of mirror glass, brass figures, statues of marble and alabaster, chunks of obsidian, malachite, and lapis, several cars, a few bicycles, chrome coffeepots, cutlery, ropes of pearls, swords, scissors—anything with a sparkle or a gleam had been heaped into a small mountain.
“Naasir, grab some swag,” Basra ordered. “Everyone else start searching.”
Naasir took a mesh bag from his pocket and started to fill it. The others dug into the treasure pile.
Neela started flipping bits and pieces of treasure off the pile with her tail. “How am I ever going to find the moonstone in all this?” she said.
“Start with Hagarla’s chest. It’s by her nest. She keeps the best stuff there. Hurry. We don’t have much time,” Basra ordered.
Neela found the chest and eased its lid back. She pulled out necklaces, golden crowns, gemstones, ropes of pearls as long as her tail—one after another. A few minutes later, she was at the bottom of the chest without having found the moonstone.
“Go help the others search the pile,” Basra said. She herself was looking around the edges of Hagarla’s nest.
“Hey!” came a muffled voice. “I think I found it!”
“Ikraan?” Basra called. “Is that you? Where are you?”
“On the other side of treasure mountain.”
“What are you doing? Grab the moonstone!”
“Um, no can do, Chief,” Ikraan said.
Neela and the others dropped whatever they were holding and swam over the treasure pile. Ikraan was floating just above another nest—this one containing six tussling baby sea dragons, each as big as a great white.
One had a gold scepter in its long black claws. Another had a soda can. A spiny sea urchin. A snorkeler’s mask. A snorkeler’s head. And a moonstone.
Neela caught her breath when she saw it. It was Navi’s talisman; she was sure of it. It was the size of an albatross’s egg, nearly six inches long. Silver-blue in color, it glowed from within.
“Isn’t that cute?” Basra said acidly. “They’re sleeping with their cuddly toys.”
The babies heard them. They hissed. One tried to scrabble out of the nest.
“How are we ever going to get that moonstone away from them?” Naasir asked.
Neela had an idea. She started to sing, soft and low.
“What?” Basra said. “What’s that going to do? We’re going to have to take them out, one by one.”
“No, wait, Basra!” Naasir said. “Look!”
The babies were swaying back and forth. They’d stopped hissing. Their scaly eyelids drooped over their yellow eyes. Neela was singing them an old Matali lullaby—one her mother had sung to her. After a few minutes they were almost out, when one suddenly slugged another one for no good reason. They all started tussling and hissing again, but Neela kept singing, and a few minutes later they were finally asleep.
“Nice work!” Ikraan whispered.
No longer singing, Neela swam toward the nest. It was for her to get the moonstone, no one else. She halted when a baby stirred, then hovered above the one who was holding the moonstone, clutching it to his chest. Working slowly and carefully, Neela pried his claws from around the talisman and took it. Then she turned to the others and smiled.
Which was a big mistake.
A swipe of pain across her back, sudden and blinding, made her scream. She dropped the moonstone. The baby dragon whose toy she’d taken had clawed her. He hissed angrily, then yawped for the jewel. Blood rose from the jagged tears in Neela’s skin, curling through the water. Their sibling’s noise, and the smell of blood, woke the others. Their eyes opened rapidly, their tongues flicked through their lips, and they started to crawl out of the nest.
In agony, Neela swooped down and retrieved the moonstone. As soon as she had it, Ikraan and Basra grabbed her. Naasir and Jamal snatched pieces of treasure from Hagarla’s pile and threw them at the babies, driving the creatures back into their nest. Furious at being deprived of a nice bloody snack and pelted with hard objects, they all started yawping loudly.
“Come on, we’ve got to go. Now!” Basra ordered.
Neela and the Askari fled. They swam away from the nest, over the treasure pile, and down the passageway to the cave’s mouth.
“Thank gods they’re too young to come after us,” Ikraan said, looking behind herself. She still had Neela’s arm.
Basra, ahead of them all, stopped short. “But he’s not,” she said.
Ahead of them, standing in the cave’s mouth, was a male dragon. He was smaller than Hagarla, but not by much. He growled at the mermaids, flattening his ears.