Page 117 of Tiger's Voyage

I kicked and followed Ren. The light was getting brighter. The murky water changed from midnight black to dark indigo and then, thankfully, to the clear turquoise blue of the open ocean. Finally, we turned a corner and I saw the cave opening ahead and the late afternoon sunlight slanting into the water.

Kishan passed me the regulator, and I took a breath. The air hissed and stopped flowing. His tank was empty too. He gave me a signal to wait and smiled in reassurance. He swam after Ren, who returned and pressed his regulator into my hands. I took a breath and handed it to Kishan.

The three of us moved slowly out of the cave toward the surface, sharing one tank of oxygen among us. The sea snakes, released from escort duty, darted quickly away for the open ocean. Many of them twined their bodies with Fanindra’s as they passed her. A moment later, they were gone.

Kishan took a small breath. Ren’s tank was almost empty. He signaled this, and we looked up. We’d have to make a break for it. Kishan handed me the regulator so I could take the last of the air. I shook my head, but he insisted, and I took a final breath and started swimming for the surface. I let my breath out slowly as the water became brighter and brighter. I needed air. I wasn’t going to make it.

Death by drowning was much less exotic than death by kraken. It was almost an embarrassing way to go, as if your death was somehow your own fault. I’d fully expect the other dead people to say, “Drowned? Well, what did you go and do a thing like that for? Couldn’t ya find the valve? It saysA-I-Ron the side. Did you forget that apparatus under your eyeballs? It’s called your nose. You breathe through it.” Oh sure, I’d try to explain what happened, but I’d go through eternity being the butt of dead people’s jokes. My mother would think it was hilarious.

Fanindra swam in front of me, leading the way, but it didn’t matter. I started to see black spots in my vision. The surface was close, maybe only twenty feet away. I kicked harder and tried to suck another breath from my own tank, but it was no good. My lungs felt like they were being branded by a hot iron. The burning was intense as my body screamed at me to take a breath.

I would have liked to have thought my brain was dominant, that I could face the inevitable drowning serenely, calmly. But when facing death, the body reigns. A raging, wild need to survive took over, and I started clawing at my mask and gear like a berserker. A hand grabbed mine. It was Kishan. He was kicking hard and tugged me along with him.

We broke to the surface, and he held me close as I choked and gasped. Air rushed into my burning lungs, and I became a being wholly focused on respiration. For the next few seconds, nothing existed except the hurried rhythm of inhale and exhale. Ren surfaced a few seconds later and panted.

The weight of the disk must have made it doubly hard for him to reach and stay at the surface. When his head ducked underwater, Kishan swam to help, and I whispered for the Divine Scarf to make a double strap so Kishan could take half the disk’s weight.

The ocean was covered with fog again. The cold water had numbed my throbbing leg, but I could tell the injury was bad. It pounded like the thrum of distant cannons, muffled but dangerous. Kishan and Ren swam next to me as I turned in a circle looking for theDeschen.

Ren said, “Stay close. We shouldn’t be too far from where we anchored. We’ll follow Fanindra. Will you be okay?”

I nodded. He blew the water out of his snorkel and led me to the ship.

Finally at the yacht, Kishan threw his fins into the wet garage and scrambled up the ladder. Ren handed him the sky disk and then threw his own fins over. My limbs were shaking. I couldn’t put any weight on my injured leg. I threw an arm around Ren’s shoulder and slowly hopped up the ladder into the safety of our boat.

Grabbing a net, Kishan scooped Fanindra out of the water. She wriggled and gyrated on the deck. Her wide mouth opened and closed several times as if gasping for air. I sympathized, watching her body expand and shake violently. The skin around her head rippled and tore, creating a hood. Her jeweled eyes grew bigger, and the shape of her face changed. Soon the erratic fish-out-of-water movements ceased, and she was a golden cobra once more.

Nilima wrapped a large towel around me. Carefully, I leaned my head back against the wall and groaned. Ren helped her take off my equipment and set it aside. I gasped in pain when she touched my leg.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Kraken bite,” Ren replied. “I’m not sure how bad it is. She’s had it well wrapped since it happened.”

Nurse Nilima sent Ren for a first aid kit and Kishan to bring me a change of clothes.

While they were gone, she helped me out of my wet suit and wrapped me in a robe. She carefully undid the bandages to check my wounds.

“Your leg is the worst one. You’ll need stitches. What happened here?” She indicated the band around my waist.

“The kraken grabbed me with its tentacle.”

“Hmm … your wet suit probably protected you here. It’s mostly bruised, but there are circular cuts too, fairly shallow.”

“Suction cups.”

She shuddered.

A glob of green goo dripped from my nose onto my arm where I’d been cut, and I screeched in pain. It stung. She washed it off quickly, and the burn lessened. The boys returned. A blob of green slime oozed slowly down Kishan’s arm and plopped onto the deck. It didn’t burn him like it did me, probably due to his super-speed tiger healing.

Nilima stared at it. She said, “Both of you go shower now. The green stuff seems toxic. Probably some kind of acid. Get it off as quickly as possible. I can’t have you near Kelsey or touching her with it. It may not affect you, but it hurts her.”

The boys hesitated.

“Don’t worry,” Nilima assured. “She’ll be fine. The bleeding is under control. She’s safe.”

Nilima picked up the showerhead and cleaned the slime off of me quickly and thoroughly. She gently cleaned my wounds. When I was sufficiently scrubbed, she put antibacterial ointment over the cuts circling my ribs, had the Scarf wrap me in fabric bandages, and then helped me dress.

Next, she turned her attention to my leg. The skin was puckered and swollen, irritated from the salt water. I bit off a cry of pain. My leg throbbed sickeningly. It started bleeding again after Nilima cleaned it. I swallowed thickly when I saw my gaping flesh.