The Shard-Feathered Goose

Silas Thorne’s hands, gnarled as mangrove roots, traced the faded charts. Salt spray had long since bled the color from the paper, but the deep trench marked ‘Hades’ remained a dark, unwavering scar across the blue. Years, decades really, he’d spent chasing whispers, half-baked legends of a city of crystal, sunk off the coast of whatever forgotten island. Every dime, every friend, every shred of his reputation had gone into this mad pursuit. His wife, bless her weary soul, finally just packed a bag one morning, leaving a note that read, 'Some things aren't meant to be found, Silas. You'll only lose yourself trying.' She was right, mostly. He’d lost a lot, but not himself. Not yet.

The old tub, ‘The Siren’s Call,’ groaned around him, a rusted coffin bobbing on the vast, indifferent expanse of the Pacific. His crew, two young mercs he’d paid with promises and the last of his pension, mostly just snored in their bunks or glared at him over lukewarm coffee. They didn’t believe. Not really. They just needed the cash. ‘Another wild goose chase, Silas?’ Jax, the younger one, had grumbled that morning, adjusting the pressure gauges. ‘Heard that one before.’ Silas just grunted, the taste of stale metal and deeper, older failures coating his tongue. ‘This goose,’ he’d muttered, ‘she’s got glass feathers.’

The descent was always the worst. The world above shrunk, then vanished. The sunlight, a memory. The ocean turned from blue to indigo, then to a crushing, absolute black. The submersible, a cramped tin can, creaked and popped under the immense pressure, every shudder a fresh prick of fear. Silas sat hunched, watching the depth meter tick down, his breath shallow in his chest. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against the silence. This was it. One last dive. He’d sold the last of his mother’s jewelry for this rig, for this final shot at proving he wasn’t just a broken old man chasing phantoms. Or, perhaps, to simply know, finally, that he was.

Hours passed, or maybe minutes. Time lost its meaning down here. He stared out the viewport, a tiny circle of reinforced glass, into the inky black. Nothing. Just the endless void, punctuated by the occasional bioluminescent flicker of some deep-sea creature. His hands, usually steady, trembled slightly on the controls. Doubt, a venomous snake, began to coil around his gut. He could feel it, the familiar chill of impending defeat. The Siren’s Call wasn’t going to sing this time. He was going to hit the bottom, empty handed, and then what? Go back to shore, sell the sub for scrap, and spend his last days in some dusty room, haunted by the ghost of a city that never was?

He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing his wife’s face, not as she left, but as she was when they first met, all laughter and impossible dreams. And his father, who had told him the first stories of Aethel, the shining city. A foolish man, his father, always looking to the horizon. Just like him. When he opened his eyes again, it was there. Not directly ahead, but off to the side, a faint, impossible shimmer in the absolute dark. A hallucination? His mind playing tricks from the oxygen deprivation? No. It held. A faint, almost imperceptible glow, like moonlight caught on frost.

He nudged the sub forward, slowly, carefully. The shimmer grew, coalescing, resolving into impossible lines, structures. Then, it hit him, a sudden, blinding flash as the sub’s powerful lights, still cutting through hundreds of feet of water, caught it full on. A spire. Then another. And another. Columns, arches, impossible geometries, all crafted from something that looked like glass, but held the strength of stone, reflecting the harsh beams back like a thousand shattered mirrors. The city. Aethel. It wasn't a myth. It was real. It was right there, spread out beneath him, cold and silent and impossibly beautiful, a frozen moment in time, glittering like a queen’s fallen jewels.

Tears, hot and sudden, streamed down his face inside his helmet. He didn't care. He pressed his face against the viewport, trying to take it all in, every impossible angle, every perfect, unblemished surface. It was more than he could have ever imagined. The weight of years, the ridicule, the losses, all of it lifted, evaporated in the face of this impossible sight. He had done it. He had found it. He, Silas Thorne, the madman, the failure. He reached out, his gnarled fingers pressing against the cold glass of the viewport, wanting to touch the city itself, to feel its ancient, silent truth. He was no longer just chasing a ghost. He was looking at a grave of kings, built of light and shadow.

He brought the sub down, gently, onto a smooth, obsidian-like plaza between two towering, crystalline buildings. The silence was absolute, save for the thrumming of the sub’s engines. He could spend days here, years. But the air was running low, the pressure mounting on the old rig. He knew he had to go back. But not empty handed. Not this time. With a shaky hand, he flicked a switch, deploying the sub’s manipulator arm. He guided the claw, slow and deliberate, towards a section of a fallen column, where a small shard, barely larger than his thumb, had broken free, catching the light like a star. The claw closed, a soft click resonating through the sub. He had his proof. He had his truth. He had something to hold onto.

The ascent was a blur. He didn’t notice the creaking or the pressure changes. He just held the small, heavy shard in the palm of his gloved hand, inside the sub, feeling its impossible cold, its ancient solidity. Back on the surface, the sun was a blinding, angry disk. Jax and the other merc squinted at him as he emerged, their faces a mixture of boredom and impatience. ‘Anything?’ Jax asked, not really expecting an answer. Silas just stood there for a moment, the sea wind whipping his thin hair, the glare of the sun in his eyes. He didn't say a word. He just opened his hand, letting the morning light catch the small, multifaceted piece of a forgotten city. It glittered, a rainbow of impossible light, in his calloused palm. ‘Yeah,’ he rasped, his voice rough with disuse and wonder. ‘Something.’