Fathom by Cherie Priest Read Free Book Online Page A

him.
    “Overpowered, outmanned, and outgunned, he found himself alone on the deck as his men died or surrendered around him. He was no fool. He knew that they would not let him leave or live. Even if he raised his hands and let them take him, he’d only faceexecution at a later date. He would not allow such a thing; he was not made for public humiliation such as that.
    “And down below I waited for him; I smiled and was pleased, for I had been waiting on him for years, and the moment was at hand.
    “He rushed to the bow and he seized the anchor’s chain. He slung it around his neck and wrapped it around his shoulders. He faced the New World ship and he saluted its commander. And he said to him, ‘Gaspar dies by his own hand, and by no enemy.’ He turned his back to the deck and he cast himself into the water.”
     

     
    “I caught him.” Arahab breathes cool bubbles into the woman’s ear. “I caught him, as I caught you.” She tightens her hold and smiles when the woman returns the embrace.
    It might be heartfelt, or it might be a reflex from a dying body too long left without air.
     

     
    “I swam beneath the ship, and let him fall into my arms. He struggled against the chains he chose, but he did not struggle against
me.
Even as the sky left his lungs, and even as his chest convulsed, and his eyes burned from the unfamiliar salt, he understood that I was there to take him, and he did not fight
me.
    “I brought him here, held him close, and told him great stories, as I now do for you. But you, I have more to tell—because to all the great histories of the earth, I add the story of how my son came to me, as well.
    “And he, my cherished son, was a bold and wonderful thing. I gave him tasks, and he performed them. But then I gave him a quest, and he hesitated.
    “He made me promise him a boon, for attempting the quest Iassigned. I admit and I grant, the quest was a tremendous one. So he asked of me, before he agreed, ‘I want to be a legend among men; I want you to make me a myth. Let them remember my name forever, and throw festivals in my honor. The very men who scorned me and refused me—the society that forbade me entrance, and deemed me unfit to join it—let them recall me as a hero.’
    “I gave my word, and my word does not bend. He set out to do my bidding.
    “I sent him to another ocean, in another vessel. I gave him a crew of creatures I’d claimed and altered to better move on board, eels and sturgeons, octopi and dolphins with intelligence and strength greater than anyone save their captain. Together they would go deeper and farther and faster than any man could dive or swim, or any whale could sink.
    “I sent him to a trench, to a great crack in the earth’s face, to a split that reaches past the water, past the lava, and down to the earth’s very bones.”
     

     
    The woman without air shifts, makes a softly questioning sound.
    Arahab understands the query, so she nods, and then she says, “I will tell you why. It is because of the thing that sleeps below. He sleeps much farther down than I hold you now. He sleeps at the center of the world, almost. He sleeps beyond the touch of men, or machines, or even me. Or so I’ve come to fear. This thing that sleeps, he coils himself tightly because he must—his size is so great, and his body so tremendous, that he scarcely fits within this world at all.
    “At least, that is how I remember him. It has been so long since last I gazed upon him, I almost could not say. There is a chance that my memory fails me. A few million years here and there can cloud the details.
    “But he is large, and he is sleeping, and by his very absence therest of us are pushed aside and forgotten. We are shunted to the fringes and overrun by lesser beings. Long have I stood aside and watched, insulted. Long have I waited and been disconnected, and disgraced, and disregarded.
    “While the Leviathan rests, the rest of us are wraiths—despondent and abashed. So I