Fathoms Deep

It was just after dawn, and all was calm beneath the sea where the crannog lay at rest, its barnacle-encrusted hull half-buried beneath the sand. Ribbons of turquoise light, cast by the morning sun, danced across the surface of the ruin, making it appear all the more beautiful and mysterious.

Oggy glided across the seabed, swift as a dolphin, in the direction of the crannog. He had snuck out of his family's grotto in the small hours of the morning to head straight for the monument in search of hidden treasures. Oggy was a boy of thirteen, thin as a rail, with the large green eyes and mottled grey skin indicative of a Trencher. He loved the ruin and would visit it as often as he could, for as far as he was concerned nearly everything exciting that had ever happened to him had happened right here.

The crannog was a circular structure, over two hundred feet across and made entirely of everlasting steel. It was built almost three thousand years before as a floating supply line, purifying the air from the surface and feeding it down to the city below. Oggy's gram had told him that it was built by a council of ancient wizards called: 'the Scientists.' It was these same wizards who had used their magic to give the people of the city their second lungs, allowing them to breathe water as well as air.

"Back then men grew seagrass on their heads to shield them from the scorching sun and lived in towers high as the moon! Back before the land was eaten by the sea!" his gram would say.

Oggy swam along the underside of the crannog, up to the main deck where the entrance lay: a yawning mouth, bearded in green algae.

The boy took the flint knife from his loincloth and clutched it tightly in his fist as he slipped inside. He had explored the depths of the crannog more times than he could count, but it was always better to come prepared in case some shark or giant eel had taken residence in the old ruin during his absence.

Oggy's glowing green eyes were made for seeing in the dark, and he passed easily from room to room, corridor to corridor, searching for something of value to give to Aura, his love.

They had agreed to meet by Siren's Pass at mid-day, and Oggy was determined to bring her a gift. It had been nearly a week since he had seen her last, and the ache of longing in his stomach had grown worse with each passing day.

Aura was a City-Dweller, the daughter of a highborn welder and far above the station of a Trencher like Oggy. If her father ever found out that they had been seeing one another, well, Oggy didn't like to think about that.

He swam down a long corridor, deep into the bowels of the crannog where all light ceased to enter, and the water grew still and cold as ice. After several minutes the corridor finally opened up into a large, cavernous space with a ceiling so high that even Oggy couldn't make it out.

His webbed hands ran along the seam of the room, where the wall met the floor, searching the muck for anything that felt even remotely precious.

After what seemed like hours of finding nothing but rocks and sea sponges, Oggy was feeling defeated. He was about to abandon his quest when he felt something stir in the water to his left. Oggy froze, a shiver running up his spine. He slowly raised his knife and put his back against the wall.

Suddenly, Oggy felt something swim by him, followed immediately by a stinging pain in his thigh. If there had been air in his lungs he would have screamed. Instead, he thrashed wildly, his legs kicking at their invisible attacker, the knife slipping from his grasp. A cloud of silt erupted up from the floor, filling the water like muddy smoke. The last thing he saw was the copper tail of the rockfish whose spine had brushed against his thigh, and then there was nothing but murk.

Oggy tried to calm himself, waiting for the silt to resettle. His hands moved around the floor, careful not to stir up any more of the muck as he searched for his knife.

It was not long before his fingers came across something hard and cold. Not the knife, something smaller, more metallic. Oggy scooped up the item in both hands, forgetting about his knife entirely. Could this be the gift he had been searching for?

When the silt had cleared just enough, Oggy made his escape, swimming quickly back out through the way he had entered and up to the mouth of the crannog, eager to his see his prize in the light of day.

As soon as he had made his way out of the ruin, Oggy stopped to examine the object. It was perfect, a locket of pure silver, heart-shaped and enameled in abalone. Aura would love it.

After departing the Crannog, Oggy hurried back home to his family's grotto in the trench, where he quickly wolfed down a bowl of seaweed soup before leaving again for Siren's Pass.

It was another hour of swimming, this time through dense forest. Stalks of giant kelp, a hundred feet tall, rose high above the seabed where Oggy swam, their green blades swaying gently in the easy current. Swarms of jellyfish floated amongst the upper canopy of the forest, each a heart without a body, crimson and pulsating, with long tentacles streaming behind them like trails of blood in the water.

When at last the forest subsided, Oggy emerged onto a field of rippling sand. He could see the city from here. Its colossal glass domes and tall spires, emanating with golden light. A network of everlasting steel pipes ran from the peaks of buildings up to the surface, pumping purified air down to the city.

The builders had called it: Fathoms Deep, a joke some said, for a fathom was only six feet in depth and the city was one of the shallowest ever built at only two hundred meters beneath the surface. Oggy had often dreamed of exploring it, but his kind was not welcome within the boundaries of the city.

The highborn City-Dwellers allowed the Trenchers to live on their territory, inhabiting the caves and grottos of the trench in exchange for labor, but the courtesy ended there. They would not suffer the insult of having a Trencher walking amongst them, breathing their precious air.

When he arrived at Siren's Pass, Aura was already there, waiting for him patiently. She turned to look at him, the gown of pink sea-silk she was wearing swirling behind her. Her eyes were amethysts, and when they fell on him Oggy's heart melted in his chest. Aura smiled and swam to greet him. The two embraced and stayed with their arms wrapped around one another for a long time. Oggy would have been happy to stay in that moment for the rest of his life.

When the embrace eventually came to an end, Oggy signed to Aura to follow his lead. He took her webbed hand in his and gently guided her down into the shallow gorge of Siren's Pass.

He led her to a small rectangular entrance, carved amidst the rough stone near the bottom of the gorge, and together they passed through it, slipping out of sight.

The two emerged from the moon pool into a wide chamber full of warm, dank air. Lanterns and glass columns full of glowing algae stood by the walls, flooding the room with pale blue light.

"It's a hideout," Oggy said, grinning at the look of amazement on Aura's face. "I followed the Eastern Traders back here when they visited last summer, they must use it whenever they come, but the rest of the time it's empty."

The nomadic traders visited the city every year, riding on the backs of their spotted whale sharks, bearing exotic treasures from the East to sell in Fathoms Deep. Oggy had made it a yearly tradition to watch their approach from the top of the crannog. He had never followed them before -that is, until last year, when he had discovered where they stored their wares.

Aura's purple eyes returned to Oggy's, and the smile to her lips.

"It's incredible!" she said. The boy swelled with delight.

"We can meet here from now on. Nobody will ever find us!" Oggy proclaimed happily.

Aura's smile faded as quickly as it had appeared.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"It's just- I-" the girl bit her lip, fighting back the tears. "You know what will happen if they find out about us... what they'll do to you."

Oggy knew all too well. The floor of the trench was littered with the bones of lowborn men and women who had challenged the powers that be.

"That's not gonna happen to us," he said firmly, trying to convince himself as much as her. Aura said nothing, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Oggy decided to change the subject.

"I have something for you," he said, removing the locket from where he had tucked it into the waistband of his loincloth.

He draped the tiny chain around her neck, his fingers tracing along her skin, white and shimmering as pearl, so unlike his own.

"Do you like it?" he asked eagerly.

Aura admired the locket for a while, speechless, and then looked back up at Oggy.

"I love it," she replied.

She placed her hand against his cheek, her gaze falling to his lips, looking on them even more fondly than she had the locket. He was about to tell her the story of how he had come to find it when she silenced him with a kiss, gently caressing his lips with her own. Oggy closed his eyes, intoxicated with love, and for a time, the world outside the hideout ceased to exist.

That night, Oggy dreamed of swimming away with Aura to someplace kinder, where they could be together without fear. He dreamed of the Men of the East, dressed in their colorful silks, riding their enormous whale sharks. He dreamed of Selman's Deep -the city to the South- and of all the other deep cities whose names he did not know. But most of all, he dreamed of Aura. In the dream, he was looking out from the top of the crannog. Far off in the distance, he could see her bright purple eyes and the heart-shaped locket he had given her, glittering, beckoning to him, from across an endless sea.