Fathom by Cherie Priest Read Free Book Online Page B

have made it my goal to awaken him. But he will not rise easily, or quickly. He has gone so far and sunk so deep that it is no longer easy to touch him. But there are places where the skin of the earth grows thin. There are cracks through which he can almost be seen; he rises almost to the surface, and a very small portion of his bulk can be reached with diligence. These places are scattered throughout the globe, but they are difficult to navigate.
    “And that is why I took the Spaniard.
    “I took him for being wise, and merciless. I took him for being strong and quick. I embraced him because he was tough and driven, and he would not be stopped.
    “His errand was to reach the slumbering Leviathan. All I asked was that he touch the old god, and I believed it might be enough to rouse him.
Reaching
him would be the trouble. ‘Go to the trench off the Chinese seas,’ I told Gaspar. ‘The crew I’ve created will lead the way, down through the waters and into the gap—down between the waves and into the fissure. At the bottom of the earth you will find him, quiet and unmoving. You will glimpse only very small portions of him. His size is too immense to see more. Touch him, and do it kindly. There is no need to strike or scar him, for you cannot harm him. There is no need to shout or scream, because he cannot hear you. Rouse him, and the world will shatter and realign. Rouse him, and I’ll make you more than the myth you’ve asked.’
    “The Spaniard agreed to these terms and he set sail with thestrangest crew that ever did pilot a vessel. They led him into the Chinese seas and down to the trench itself. The vessel, which he called the
Arcángel
, closed in upon itself and dived down between the waves, into the sand, and down to the trench itself.
    “The crew braced itself against the terrible pressure, the awesome gravity of the earth’s center. They found it hard to breathe, even the creatures whom I fashioned from the ocean’s deepest living things. The crushing weight of the water squeezed them tight, and I realized that the ship was too small and the task was too large. I had set it adrift, and it was barely a seed, being crushed in the fist of a god. I clung to my hope that the Spaniard would see the mission through; and I waited for him at the trench’s edge, down at the bottom of the world.
    “I waited for him like a father awaiting the birth of a child.
    “I waited, and hours passed. Days followed. Weeks went by, and I feared that my Gaspar was lost, and the
Arcángel
with him. And finally, when I was prepared to abandon all hope, the
Arcángel
emerged from the trench—as if it had been expelled, as if it were coughed up out of the deep.
    “All aboard had perished, succumbed to the burden of the water’s impossible load; but my Spaniard remained. He alone had guided the vessel back to the portal, and he alone had forced the sails to press against the pressure. He alone returned with the
Arcángel
to the surface of the water, though he was weakened and exhausted by the trial.
    “I was pleased to see him, even
relieved
to see him, despite the fact that he failed me.”
     

     
    The woman in Arahab’s arms sighs, and the last small vapors from her lungs are expelled from her nose. There is nothing left inher of the air-breathing, two-footed girl who ran along the beach. There is nothing left of the human she was born as.
    Her transformation is ready to begin.
     

     
    “I carried him down with me again, so that he could recover and later, perhaps, try again. I would consider a new strategy; I would conceive a new plan.
    “But he had failed me, and there
was
a price to pay. As he was quick to note, I had promised him a legend if he would attempt the quest, and I had not rested my oath upon his success. And my word does not bend. So I granted him the gift.
    “His name has passed into legend, now. His name will go down farther into history and into myth, as I swore. But that myth was not written by his