Arrluk had not managed to remove all the ink; great splatters of sticky blackness oozed over the walls, obscuring the foam-white and crystal-blue hues, marring the surface of the Prince's beautifully shaded room. The pale yellow sea sponge in his hands squirmed in mild discomfort from the vigorous scrubbing, but the walls did not give an inch.

Prince Arrluk sighed and retreated from the wall, surveying the room with exasperation. There was, of course, another way he could remove the stains, but given that it was magic itself that had caused this problem in the first place, he was rather reluctant to use it now to try to fix it.

There was another reason for Arrluk's reluctance as well. He, like every other youth in their homeland, was forbidden from using magic unless they were expressly authorized, or unless they were in class. "The force was too dangerous," as he had always been told, "too unpredictable." Their teachers had always warned that even the tiniest spells could backfire severely unless the caster had achieved a certain level of control over their abilities, which he clearly hadn't. Minutes before, he had attempted a simple Locomotion spell, spinning and twirling a few live octopi from the kitchens, which he had secretly requested one of the palace workers to bring to his room. It was going well at first, but he became too excited — he exerted too much pressure on the creatures and they exploded, spraying ink all over the lavish room.

The ornamental seashells and antique pieces adorning the walls were spattered here and there with dark, glittering drops, the rich seaweed floor-wrap now sported a huge black splotch, and a large section of the water in the room had been diffused with a black cloud; even the angler fish that swam in the large glass tank set atop the sumptuous coral table on the other side of the room, which provided illumination, had not been spared, and were now glaring menacingly at him through the murky haze hovering before their box.

He was just wondering how angry his father would be when he would, inevitably, have to face him, to confess what he had done and request magical aid to cleanse his room, when a sudden knock on the door burst in on his thoughts.

"I'm busy," he called, ignoring the urgency that had accompanied the rapping.

"Prince Arrluk, forgive me, but it is a matter of great importance!" a voice called back from the other side of the door.

Rolling his eyes, Arrluk dropped the sponge, which was now exuding small portions of the ink it had managed to rub away in an effort to cleanse itself, and glided over to the magnificent golden door framed in the right corner of the wall. He seized the handle, pulled, and found himself face-to-face with one of the castle guards: a towering figure of seven feet clad in a black-and-purple tunic over a muscular upper body, with tangles of wild green hair swirling in the water behind him, rich sapphire-coloured skin, pure-black eyes peering nervously down at him through the slits in his tin helmet, and a large, powerful-looking fish tail coated with emerald scales.

"What is it?"

"My Lord, your father, King Hatak, has requested you to join him at the Temple of the Oracles," the guard said. "It is urgent."

"The Temple of. . . ?" Arrluk's eyes widened. "For what?" he said, intrigued.

"He did not say, but he requests your presence at once."

Arrluk hesitated. Then, forgetting all about the ink that had settled over the priceless items reposing in his room, he nodded to the guard, said, "Lead the way," and swept off after him as the guard turned down the long corridor. His thoughts were swirling violently in his mind. His father at the Oracles' Temple, calling for him to meet him urgently? What could have prompted such a situation?

The Temple of the Oracles, Arrluk knew from his studies, was a vast, ancient tabernacle that rested quite a distance away from the palace, nestled among the mountain range that loomed just outside the kingdom. The Temple, according to the sacred texts, was home to an ancient, mystical guide that was said to hold secrets of the oceans that even kings of the realm, past and present, had never, and would never, know, including, sometimes, snippets of the future. Could that be what had happened? His father had visited the Temple and somehow been granted a vision of what would happen somewhere down the line of his regime?

They approached a large hole set into the thickly carpeted floor of the corridor and the guard dove into the crevice. Arrluk hesitated for a split second, then swooped in behind him.

There were quite a few holes like this made into the palace floors, to facilitate easier travel. As they glided downwards, Arrluk caught glimpses of other rooms throughout the building: guardrooms; pantries; lavatories; the vast, high-ceilinged kitchen; the tailor room, where half a dozen workers were hovering around an enormous air bubble floating in the center of the room, in which a gigantic cauldron was suspended above a brilliant blue flame-like substance; the portrait room, and many more. Further and further down they went, until at last the guard veered forward, and Arrluk followed.

They had emerged into the main hall, a massive room whose lofty ceiling was supported by numerous towering pillars, and they approached the castle doors. The guard pushed them open and they swept out into the courtyard. Beautiful, multicoloured plants lined the ground on either side of them, set in handsome turtle-shell pots, and a large, obsidian chariot was waiting for them just beyond the castle gates.

Two huge manta rays were hovering in front of the mount, tethered to it by thick ropes of seaweed. Tucking their glittering tails in the space below the seat, Arrluk and his companion assumed their places inside the chariot, the guard seizing the reins as he sat. The guard cracked the reins, and the manta rays burst into motion.

They soared upwards, leaving the castle behind them. Through the cool, brightly lit water they forged, the magnificent arches and caves of the city flying below them as they moved. . . . After a time, however, the opulent scenery of the city had vanished, and they were left flying over wild knots of seaweed and deep channels of mud, careening away from huge, glittering rocks that loomed in the distance.

How long they flew, Arrluk didn't know. He was not paying attention. His thoughts were focused entirely upon their destination, what would happen after their arrival. Again, he wondered, had his father seen something? The Temple was a holy place, after all. It was not too difficult to imagine that, overcome with the spiritual energy that supposedly poured through the Temple's halls, he had somehow tapped into a clairvoyant channel and been rewarded by the gods of the sea with scenes of what awaited him. But if that were the case, what could he have seen that would make him request his son to be with him, and so urgently. . . ?

At last, the Temple appeared in view. It was a towering block of deep blue stone, perched atop a flattish section of the mountain peak. The manta rays pulled them ever closer, and from this distance, Arrluk could make out a massive hole, much like the ones carved into the palace levels, waiting for them, permitting entry into the sanctuary. There were two other guards there, on either side of the entrance.

According to what he had read of the Temple, the entrance rarely opened, doing so only on special occasions when the Temple's sages welcomed outsiders to the chambers within, or when a stranger deemed worthy appeared at the doorway. Majority of the time it was blocked off by the magical plants that grew at the rim of the hole, which stretched taut over the gap to form a kind of impenetrable curtain. The guards at the entrance were muttering animatedly now, looking anxious and excited as their chariot drew nearer and nearer. When they had finally pulled it to a halt and Arrluk climbed out, the guards fell silent.

"Where is my father?" he asked.

"Inside, waiting for you, Prince Arrluk," one said.

Arrluk swam past them, heading through the opening and inside. As he moved, he felt a distinct change in the water around him. The temperature remained the same, but there was a strange texture to it that he did not much like, a sort of roughness to the fluid. He continued to swim, then entered an enormous chamber, empty except for two Tethyians standing towards the left side of the room, dressed in flowing robes over their silvery fish tails, who were obviously sages, and two others in the center of the room, speaking in hushed tones.

Both were garbed in vibrant colours, the deep blues and brilliant purples of royalty, that could only be achieved by boiling certain sea creatures, and extracting the miraculous dyes from the water when they had finished. The taller of the two, whose green hair was sleek, shiny, and bundled neatly beneath a crown embedded with a large, glittering shard of lapis lazuli with a tail of golden scales, was his father.

The other was shorter, slightly stooped, with a pinched, wrinkled face and the same immense, white-less eyes as the other guards. Arrluk recognized him: Unak, his father's chief advisor.

It was Unak who spotted him first, and while his father's back was turned, oblivious to the scene behind him, Unak shot him a malevolent look.

"Father," Arrluk said loudly, ignoring Unak.

The King turned to face his son. Hatak was of a build similar to the guard that had been sent to fetch Arrluk earlier, but slightly shorter. At the moment, his handsome, youthful face no longer showed the haughty regality that Arrluk was used to; his father looked as tense as any of the guards outside.

"My son," he said, swimming over towards him. "Finally."

"I came as quickly as I could. What's happening, Father? The guard said it was urgent."

"Er . . . yes, well . . ." King Hatak looked deeply uncomfortable. "Your presence has been requested . . . deeper inside the temple."

"What do you mean? I thought you summoned me."

"Unfortunately not. The Sages that keep the Temple reported to me shortly after dinner. Apparently the spirit that lives in the Temple, the Oracle . . . it wishes to see you."

"Me?" said Arrluk, taken aback. "But — why —?"

"We do not know," his father said. "It refuses to speak further to any but you."

King Hatak moved aside, gesturing towards the passage behind him.

"You . . . you must hurry, Arrluk," he said, in a rather shaky voice. "Follow the trail, it will lead you to him."

Arrluk's heart was pounding in his chest, but though his father's tone was nervous, he could still hear the familiar note of kingly imposition in his voice, and knew he had no choice but to obey. He swallowed, then slowly began to drift forward. As he passed, Arrluk glanced at the advisor. Unak's malicious expression had changed: now he looked scared.

A moment later Unak and his father were behind him, and he was gliding through the hole in the wall and along a long, dimly lit hallway. He turned a corner, following the vines that writhed along the walls, like many little fingers pointing him along the right path. The new tunnel was much darker than the previous one. For a terrifying moment he could see nothing, and he could not stop himself from worrying that at any moment some horrible creature would come darting out of the gloom, taking advantage of his limited eyesight, and attack. . . . But fortunately, nothing came.

He reached the end of the passage unhampered, emerging into a room with a ceiling rather lower than the ones before it. There were massive glowing crystals hung along the walls, flooding the room with a lambent blue light.

Arrluk looked up. There was another hole in the ceiling, but it was closed, sealed off by a curtain of weeds. For a moment, relief flared inside him — he could turn back right now, say that clearly some mistake had been made, that he had not been permitted forward. But then the weeds retracted into the rim of the gap, and despair stole over him.

He took another deep breath and surged upwards. He was being stupid, he chided himself. Surely, if the Sages stayed here all the time without being harmed, then he was in no danger. He would meet whoever was waiting for him with a straight back and a calm face, just as his father would. His tail beating the water beneath him, he rose into yet another deep passage. When he reached the other side, he found himself in a large stone room, empty and desolate. There was something strange about this room. Every other that he had passed, while they had given him the same feeling of unease, had been in perfect order, clean, well-kept. The room around him, however, was in shambles, with long, chipped columns shooting to the towering ceiling, and about a dozen holes made into the walls around him, with the exception of the front wall, which had a single enormous hole that spanned nearly the entire wall.

Each one was layered with a darkness so deep his eyes could not pierce them. The hatch below him suddenly closed over, and fear returned, positively crippling. His chest labouring, he looked around, waiting . . . waiting. . . .

And then, with a noise like an explosion, something stirred within the depths of the holes. Enormous, bright red tentacles zoomed out of each, wrapping around the banisters with such force that the pillars shook violently, twisting and overlapping so that they formed some kind of net — then from the frontmost wall erupted something that made Arrluk let out a long, shrill scream of horror: a great, bulbous head, topped with a huge, gleaming fin, with enormous milky white eyes embedded in pale red, wrinkled, leathery skin. It was a monstrous squid.

The head stopped right in front of him, gazing down at him through those pale eyes, and he suddenly stopped screaming. It seemed even his voice had fled in alarm, leaving him staring silently into the creature's milky orbs as a paroxysm of terror washed over him.

But the thing did not attack. It did not move at all; it simply regarded him, silent, still, and slowly, very slowly, Arrluk regained control himself.

"I . . . wha — who are you?" he said, his voice shaking.

"I am Gologas," said a voice inside his head, deep, ancient, and powerful, but benign. "Guardian of this Temple, known by many who live beyond its walls as 'The Oracle'.

"And . . ." Arrluk swallowed, still trying to remain calm. "And you summoned me?"

"Indeed."

"But — why?"

"Dark times are approaching, son of Hatak," Gologas said. "They draw ever closer, like waves inbound to crash against the shores."

"How am I supposed to help with that?" Arrluk said, with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

"You are the child of the King of this realm, next in line for the throne. It is your duty, as is your father's, and as was his father's before him, to protect the sea, and all that reside in it. Treacherous plots loom ahead, just out of your grasp. You must prove yourself worthy of your seat, defend your home."

"How?"

The tentacles on either side of him began to writhe again, pressing closer.

"Be still, my child, and look."

Two tentacles wrapped around his chest, with exceeding gentleness. A faint red aura appeared around his body, and he found that he could no longer move, but he was also completely calm now, gazing placidly at the Guardian, as though its touch had wiped away all sense of unease. And he felt himself rise a few feet in the water, closer towards those horrible eyes. Three more tentacles rose towards his forehead, positioning themselves an inch above his skin, but even with the distance he could feel a kind of pull, as though invisible strings had extended from the tentacles, piercing through his skull.

He gasped —

A sudden rush of visions flooded through his mind. They were flickering along in sequence, moving too fast for him to glean any details. Moments later, he felt the tentacles pull away, and he drifted through the water, his eyes closing, just as the final vision settled into his mind, like a lingering touch. A vision of a strange-looking youth, with a crown of black hair, skin the colour of almonds, and two legs: a human.