Long Live the Queen (Book 5 of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Two: The Lady of the Lake

Jack dropped the axe and reached back to try and free himself, but the thing got under his nails as he scrambled for a purchase. Horrible, grey, slimy, and organic. It wouldn't let go. It was too strong, and he was being borne away too fast.

He uncoiled and stretched out for the axe, but it had already drifted out of reach. Jack let out a stream of bubbles – half in terror, and half in frustration – before recollecting himself. This breath would have to last him now. It was all he had.

The thing – whatever it was – dragged him into a thicket of water weeds, and then through a kind of membrane. It was as if he was being pulled inside a large bubble – although, when he looked around, his oxygen-starved brain emended the word 'bubble' to 'bower', because it was leafy with dark red plants, and there was a pretty girl in it.

After that, there were too many things to come to terms with at once, and he didn't want to lose any breath by swearing – although, actually, one of the things that it seemed he had to come to terms with was the fact that there was air down here. He felt no more burning pressure in his lungs, no more ringing in his ears. Drops of lake-water cooled and prickled on his skin.

Or had he just blacked out from oxygen deprivation? Was this all some hysterical, airless dream? Were his lungs already beginning to fill with water? It was all very well telling himself to trust his senses, but his senses were also presenting him with an image of Lily Hamilton – at least, half Lily Hamilton and half sea monster – so they didn't seem like the most reliable guides.

He had seen a photograph of her in Manda's room once – one of those old-fashioned, hand-coloured tin-types, which meant she was black and white with a highly improbable blush. He remembered thinking she'd been quite pretty, in a thin, nervous sort of way. And she was pretty now, only... not quite human.

She was fair – very fair. As fair as those pale spiders and scorpions that spent all their time underground. Her hair drifted about in wet, white swathes. Her skin was opalescent. But her eyes were dark brown, and open wide – not in amazement, but in peace, confidence, otherworldliness. He couldn't imagine those eyes ever having to narrow, or that face ever having to flinch.

She was like the sea-witch in The Little Mermaid: a beautiful woman above the waist, but a mass of grey tentacles beneath it. And the tentacles writhed about as ceaselessly as her hair. For all the peace in her face, they were always restless.

She said, in a voice that was faint and muted by the water, "Traveller, what do you seek?"

Jack tried to give her a smile. "Hello, Lily. We've never met, but I know your-"

"Traveller," she repeated serenely, "what do you seek?"

"Oh-" Jack's smile flickered as he caught the flash of gold among her tentacles. "Nothing."

"Haven't you already found it?" She tilted her head, like Elsie when she was listening to the voices on the wind. "No, you haven't, have you? Because of this."

She lifted one of her tentacles – her arms seemed to be purely decorative – and Jack recognized his axe. She must have snatched it at the same time she'd snatched him. It wasn't alight anymore.

She passed the axe from tentacle to tentacle until it was before Jack's face. "I've seen weapons like this. Many sleeps ago, they came bearing these light sticks to try and kill me. Too many children went missing on my shores, too many tired old warriors walked into my waters at the end of a long campaign. So they sought to kill me – as if they hadn't fed me and bred me to do what I do. You've heard the echoes. It is not my thoughts which collect down here. I merely represent them. I'm a spokesman for your own insecurities and you seek to kill me for it."