Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

them.”
    Fear stabbed him. “Not yet.”
    “Yes,” she insisted. “Now. I’m so happy. I want them to be excited, too.”
    “Maggie . . .”
    “Everything will be fine,” she told him. “Everything is wonderful. What could possibly go wrong?”

16
    THE TENSION IN THE CAVERNS WAS AS THICK AS the steam or the smell of sulfur. Blue mage light ran over the dank walls and rippled on the surface of the water.
    Conn had summoned the lights for Lucy’s sake, to keep her from stumbling in the dark. Her eyes were not attuned like selkie eyes to see below the surface.
    She did not belong here, whatever he had told her in the tower.
    Conn fought to keep his face carefully blank and his thoughts even more carefully focused. Lucy had earned the right to stand with his wardens. And the full and unfortunate truth was he might yet need her and her power.
    The children of the sea did not command this portal to Hell, formed and framed by rival elements, by earth and fire. Conn and his wardens could not close a gap between continental plates. But they could seal it, plugging the rift with their magic like crofters caulking mud between the stones of a house.
    If Conn could bind their strengths together. He glanced around the circle. The selkie were solitary by nature. They did not work easily or well together. Even here, even now, their energies pulled against his control, darting in every direction like fish caught in a net.
    Deliberately, Conn relaxed his clenched fists, letting his thoughts float below the cloudy surface of the pool, sending his spirit drifting down through the warm, bubbling currents, spiraling into the murky depths, dragging the wardens after him like an anchor chain in the dark.
    Sweat poured from his face. Rushing filled his ears, his head, as his spirit self sank down through the silken water, down through the mineral silt.
    His eyes stung. His lungs burned. His spirit continued its descent, his body anchored at the side of the pool. The wardens’ presence tugged behind him like so many buoys on a line. Lucy floated above him, sunlight on the water.
    He must go deeper still to seal the portal.
    Down through the scalding water where the blue-green algae bloomed. Down , until the heat killed all life and nothing grew, breathed, moved but rock and the water trickling through the rock.
    Conn’s temples throbbed. He had been too long in his tower, in the clear light, in the cold air. The pressure of the deeps crushed his chest. His doubts churned like sediment, clouding his mind.
    And still he pushed, filtering down, down through tiny passages in the stone, seeking the bright molten thread, the rent in the world, the balance between earth and fire.

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    He could not breathe.
    The roaring in his ears was not water, but fire. Smoke and darkness blinded him. Vibrations shook him, like the sound of an approaching army on the road or the shudder of a burning house before it collapsed in flames.
    He had been noticed.
    Someone was coming.
    Gau.
    Did he feel, just for a moment, Lucy tremble above him?
    “ My lord Conn. ” The voice was in Conn’s head, Gau’s voice, unformed by lips or tongue but still recognizable. Breathless, if words without air could be so described. The demon lord must have hurried to intercept him. “ This is a surprise. ”
    Conn’s anger flared, a gout of rage that ate the soft tissues of his mouth and scorched his throat. Not a surprise, you sodding son of a bitch. You violated Sanctuary.
    But rage was Gau’s weapon, Conn recognized. To distract him, to deflect him from his purpose.
    If Conn engaged the demon at this level, he could not win. He might not survive.
    He stopped his eyes and ears. He made himself like water, clear and calm, sinking down through layers of stone, disintegrating as he went.
    He felt Enya like a flash of quicksilver and Griff, steady and persistent as rain. Morgan cut his own path through the rock, a spear of ice. Lucy . . . Where was Lucy?
    Fear flickered, bright, consuming.
    Another trap, Conn realized, and focused his thoughts toward the portal.
    There. A red, seething gap in the wounded crust of earth, boiling with energy. The gateway to Hell.
    Gau was with him, in him, still. The demon’s words burned in his mind like holes through paper, scorching, empty.
    You cannot do this.
    Do not provoke our enmity.
    Do not . . . Do not . . .
    Your father knew better.
    Will you