Caspian Tideborne's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Caspian broke the surface with the trident in his fist. The salvage hunter waited on the rocks, gray beard wet with spray, brass compass swinging at his chest. He hunted wrecks for a living, and Caspian owed him first look at whatever the ship held. "It's open?" the man asked. Caspian shook his head. "It fell in. The deeper rooms are buried." The hunter's face went hard. "Then you owe me a wreck I can't reach. I don't wait long, boy." Caspian gripped the trident tighter. "I'll dig it out. Give me until dark." The man crossed his arms. "You've got that long. After that, I collect another way." His eyes moved to the gold cuff on Caspian's arm. Caspian dove before he could say more. The wreck lay folded on the trench floor. Sand had swallowed the caved hull. Caspian pushed at the beams and moved nothing. He needed a tool, and he needed help. He remembered a shape he had passed on the way down. Deeper in the trench, a giant octopus rested against a ledge. Its skin was the warm color of coral. Its wide eyes held a slow, patient weight, as if it had watched the sea for a hundred years. Half-buried in the sand beside it lay a pale shovel carved from whalebone, its blade broad and cracked at the edges. Caspian showed the creature his trident. He traced the carved waves on the handle, then the matching gold on his arm. He did not know if the octopus understood. But he pointed at the buried wreck and pressed his hands together, pleading. The octopus uncurled. It reached one long arm to the whalebone shovel and passed it to him. They worked together. Caspian drove the shovel under the fallen beams and pried. The octopus wrapped two arms around a sunken plank and pulled. Sand billowed up in clouds. A beam tore loose. Then another. The broad blade let Caspian clear the silt faster than his hands ever could. Slowly a gap opened in the collapsed hull. Caspian swam into the dark space. He felt along the shattered floor. His fingers closed on a small iron box wedged under a broken rib of the ship. He worked it free and pushed back out into open water. He surfaced at the rocks as the light went orange. He set the iron box on the stone. "First look," he said. "As we agreed." The hunter knelt and pried the lid. Coins spilled out, old and green with age. The man's shoulders eased. He ran the coins through his fingers and nodded. "That clears you." Caspian's debt was paid. But under the coins lay a folded strip of leather. The hunter lifted it and held it to the light. Marks were burned into it, the same shapes carved on the trident and the cuff. The man's eyes sharpened. "I've seen this mark before," he said. "On a living man."