Despite his aggressor's explicit warning, Desmond did the only thing that felt natural to him — he ran. The corridors of the ship were long and quite wide, which Desmond surmised was to accommodate the crew members, who, all being immensely large monsters, must need ample space to move freely. He edged quickly and quietly down the passages, stopping at every corner and peering into the corridor beyond to ensure that it was safe to cross. For about ten minutes he moved unencumbered throughout the ship, looking for anything that he could use to forge an escape — but the moment his mind strayed to things like lifeboats or miniature speed boats, he reminded himself irritably that everyone on board this ship was sufficiently endowed with the capability of making their way quickly and safely through the water unaided, and that such things were not a part of marine technological advancement anyway.

His only hope of escape was to simply dive off the ship and hope that he could swim to safety before they noticed he was gone. But that was as desperate and far-fetched a plan as there could be. Okay, think, he thought, stopping and leaning against the wall, which was engraved with a series of elaborate runic markings, and as black and warm as any other in the levels he had passed so far. What can you do? . . .

But his mind trailed into blankness. No miraculous brain-burst erupted in his mind, no logical plan that could steer him out of harm's way. The situation was entirely hopeless. The only thing he had going for him now was a vague idea that the monsters would not physically hurt him, given that they needed him alive and healthy. Or maybe just alive. . . .

A loud grunt suddenly sounded from around the other side of the corner; he started and glanced around. The crab-man was scuttling around the corner, edging sideways along the wall, muttering, "An' they call me an idiot . . . lettin' him get away. . . . When I find 'im. . . ." And, a dark smirk curling his mouth, he clicked his pincer menacingly, clearly relishing the idea of what he would do to Desmond should he be the one to discover his whereabouts.

Desmond turned and darted back down the path he had come. Okay, so maybe just alive, then. . . .

Down more corridors he went, until he found himself down a passage that ended in a pair of impressive obsidian doors. Hoping with all his heart that it was open, he pushed. To his relief, the doors swung open. He moved forward onto a vast balcony, overlooking around a dozen levels accessible through ladder-like metal bars that ran the length of the decks, ending in what looked like a swimming pool at the very bottom, except that instead of water, it was filled with a thick, bubbling, emerald fluid that looked horribly like acid. As he gazed down at it, mesmerized, a gigantic, serpentine head broke the surface, and the creature to whom it belonged gave a lazy, contented roar before slinking back beneath the surface.

Torn between revulsion and amusement, he made his way over to the ladder and began to climb down. He stopped at the third level, from which he could hear no sound issuing, and surged through the corridors, which were shorter and smaller than before, lit by emerald crystals hung from overhead.

The markings depicted on these walls were much more intricate than before, and all of them seemed to display varying portraits of the same snake-like monster, except it looked more dragonish than serpentine. Desmond had stopped, gazing at the most elaborate of the portraits, which had a crown of some sorts on its head and huge rubies for eyes. It seemed oddly familiar. . . .

"There he is!" a voice shouted suddenly. Desmond wheeled around and saw two new, identical crew members, around his height, green-skinned, with bulbous red eyes and large gills protruding from their necks, staring at him from the other end of the corridor. "Get him!"

Desmond hurtled down the other end as they came streaking towards him. He veered around another corner at speed, not daring to slow down, and hurried onwards. He could hear the loud, excited pattering of the pair behind him; thankfully the corridors were so long, or they would have caught up with him already. He pelted down the passage, but stopped dead a moment later, staring through the open door on his right. He had a brief glimpse of a high-ceilinged room lined with glass tanks, filled with all manner of slimy, scaly, tentacled creatures. Indeed, some of them looked less like animals and more like half-finished props out of a science fiction movie. The sight was horrible, yet it could not have been more welcome.

Taking care to bang against the door as hard as he could on the way, he hurried inside and started fiddling around, waiting for his pursuers to catch up. . . . Within seconds the excited, triumphant yelps of his assailants sounded outside the door and they appeared at the doorway, chuckling.

"So!" the one on the left said. "Thought you could run from us, did you?"

"Haven't you heard the saying, kid?" said his twin. "You can hide, but you can't run."

"That's . . . that's not how it goes at all," Desmond said, slightly wrong-footed.

"Regardless!" he said, after a moment's hesitation. "You're done. Nahg'tar is waiting, and he hates waiting. Best come quietly."

"Yeah . . . I don't think so," Desmond said cheerfully.

The one on the left bared his teeth.

"Have it your way." He moved forward, and Desmond reacted at once. He lunged at the tank beside him and threw it, sending the inhabitant, a squid-like creature with teeth arranged in tight-set, circular rows like Charybdis's, flying through the water. It landed on target, sinking into the Thalassian's face with a horrible squelching noise and chomping down. He let out a terrible, high-pitched scream, clawing at his face, trying to pry the creature away, but it would not budge.

Transfixed with shock, his twin stared at him, which gave Desmond ample opportunity to pick up a second tank, this one containing a light blue, cube-shaped jellyfish, and overturn it at his feet. The box jellyfish whipped out its tentacles and seized the monster's legs, and he wailed as his brother had.

The room being so vast, Desmond was able to dart around the other side, giving the venomous box jellyfish and the writhing, howling twins a wide berth as he picked up a few items on the way out.

He pelted along the corridors outside, shouting instructions at the large, pink-and-white seashell in his hands, and finally, he came across a window. His heart leapt at the sight, but sank right back down. What good would it do now? The other monsters would simply come to meet him if he dived, and he would be unable to fend them off, having never managed to obtain his proper magical education from Arrluk, and lost his trident —

He blinked, staring into the water ahead. It had only happened for a second, but he had thought . . . he was sure, that he had seen the Trident floating outside. But that was impossible. It had been lost in the stream, probably residing somewhere in Charybdis's capacious belly —

A gasp escaped his lips. The image of the Trident had returned, was becoming clearer in the water beyond the window the more he thought of it, until at last it hovered, solid and glowing, lighting the water around it a brilliant blue, just outside the window. Hoping he would not damage the shell, he rapped it, hard, against the window. The material shattered in one blow and he thrust his other hand out, seized the Trident, and pulled it in. It looked and felt perfectly real. He had not been hallucinating. It was here. It had not been lost. . . . But how?

A distant scream brought him back to his senses. He could worry about the details later. What he really wanted to know, at that moment, was whether there was any chance that the Neptune's Treasure had found a way to escape the sea monster as well. . . . And as though it had been waiting for him to ask, a thin beam of light erupted from the Trident and pierced the water.

The rolling waves settled and the light spread out over them, forming a small, rectangular shaft of light, which shimmered and, a moment later, displayed the all-too familiar bow of the Neptune's Treasure, with every member of the ship present on deck, deep in discussion as the ship sailed through the water. It was as though a projector was shining against the water, but he could hear no sound, and they could not see him. This did not trouble him, though. On the contrary, he felt relief. They had escaped, they were alive. The hologram-like image faded, and Desmond looked down at the shell. He began to speak to it again, then looked down at it blankly.

"Okay . . . Um . . . I have no idea how this works. Hmm . . ." He could hear the sound of more people approaching. "Oh, just get to Arrluk, will you!" he said irritably, and he flung the shell through the remnants of the window pane and pointed the Trident at it: another jet of light flew from the tip and struck the shell, which revolved slowly through the water for a split-second, then shot off like a rocket into the gloom. "And you," he said, looking down at the Trident, "need to disappear too." He concentrated deeply on the shaft, and just as it had appeared, it vanished from his hands. A fraction of a second later Mrs. Hathaway rounded the corner, her long snake's tail whipping along behind her, Nahg'tar, the troll from earlier, and a Nogard along with her.

"You —!" she shrieked, her glowing eyes bulging with fury.

He turned casually towards her. "So, what's for dinner?" he said. "I'm starving."

She looked taken aback. "You're — dinner?" Keyira said incoherently.

Desmond looked back at her, feigning mild surprise. "Of course, dinner. I do still need to eat, you know."

"You attacked and nearly killed several of our crew members, and now you want dinner?!"

Desmond raised an eyebrow. "Were you not planning on feeding me before?" And, as she opened her mouth to respond, outraged, Desmond went on, "Look, you can stay here and argue, or you can go and treat your friends Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dung for Brains. Contrary to what you might think, Mrs. H, I do know some biology, like the fact that the box jellyfish is one of the most dangerous sea creatures you can find. Might wanna hurry and get them a cure for that venom. And you can whip me up something to eat while you're at it. I'm quite partial to pufferfish. I'll be back in that room above deck when you're ready."

And leaving them stunned and speechless in the middle of the corridor he rounded the corner and strode nonchalantly towards the room from which he had recently escaped.

"Gah!"

The second time was still highly unpleasant, but, perhaps because he was braced for it this time, and had been properly fed and watered for the first time in a day, it was less painful than before, and he recovered more quickly. Gasping and spluttering, Desmond sat up, clutching his heaving chest as Nahg'tar reeled in his tentacles.

"How many times are we going to have to do this before you give up?" Desmond wheezed, when breath had finally returned to him.

"There would be no need of this at all if you'd simply stop resisting!" Nahg'tar snarled. He seemed to have taken his failure to penetrate Desmond's mind to heart, which was not altogether surprising, given his earlier claim that his abilities had always worked on previous occasions.

"I'm not resisting anything!" Desmond said, just as fiercely, and he actually stood up, all trace of his earlier fear gone, glaring up at the towering jellyfish. "Maybe you're just not as good as you think you are!"

Gasps erupted from the other crew members who had gathered in the room to watch; the crab-man, however, was sniggering.

"How dare you?"

Nahg'tar was furious now, evident by his tone, amd by the fact that his ethereal blue form was slowly turning a bright, poisonous green.

"I am the most accomplished psychic in the past several hundred years of Dumalian history! I have bended and broken the wills of the strongest of men, shattered the minds of the fiercest of beasts, my very name drives fear into the hearts of —"

"Shut up!" Desmond said. He was glancing around, genuinely distracted.

"You dare —"

"I said, shut up!" Desmond repeated impatiently. "I . . . I just heard something. . . ."

Keyira snorted. "You've pulled this trick on us before, Desmond," she said witheringly, "it's not funny a second —"

But Desmond could no longer hear her. A faint drumming sound was dominating his hearing, growing steadily louder, drowning all other noise. He turned on the spot and gazed through the window above his severely uncomfortable blanket, into the water beyond. The sound was like a series of mumbles, of heavy-tongued, drowsy chanting. It was almost like the same ritualistic chanting that he had heard Jino, Arrluk, and Duat speak in whenever they would use magic, but this was quite different — another language, slower, harsher. As he stared out into the water, something strange began to happen: glowing strings of light of all kinds of colours beaded themselves in his vision. They were leading from the outside of their grotesque vessel, from deep out in the water, towards his window, hundreds of them, thousands, hundreds of thousands, all belonging, he was sure, though uncertain how, to an unseen sea creature.

"Can you see that?" he said, turning back to the others, who had fallen silent and were watching him intently, evidently convinced that he really had found something. "No, of course you can't see it, you don't have eyes, you're a jellyfish," he added spitefully, for even with his current preoccupation he felt a powerful and bizarre desire to annoy the one who had caused him so much pain in such a short time.

"Of course I can see, you —"

"Can you see it?" Desmond cut across him, speaking to Mrs. Hathaway.

"I see nothing out of the ordinary out there," she said, frowning at the window. "What can you see?"

"I —" He hesitated, both unsure how to describe what he had seen, and whether he should tell them. But he was distracted almost at once. The strings flickered feebly, then disappeared, leaving the water clear once more. "Nothing," he said, after a short silence. "It's nothing."

He was met with a few seconds' more silence. Then Nahg'tar said, with callous amusement, "Well, we shall soon see, won't we? We're almost at our destination."

At his words, Desmond suddenly realized that he had not thought to ask of where they were taking him. "Where are we headed?" he demanded.

Nahg'tar had no mouth, but Desmond could almost imagine a cruel smile unfolding across an unseen mouth as he spoke: "Lo bar yeh Mesa."

"The City of the Lost God," Desmond translated automatically. "Why? What's in that place?" he said, with a sudden flush of fear.

"In time. But, if all goes as planned, we'll be able to end our partnership quite soon — permanently."