The surface of the Deep Weave was a lie. Above, the waves were a shimmering, hypnotic turquoise, but as Kaelen tilted his head back and fell away from the Silver Fin, the world turned a bruising, predatory indigo.
Most divers relied on "Iron-Lungs"—bulky, clanking steam-suits that hissed and leaked. Kaelen had only his skin. As the pressure mounted, the Lumen-Gills behind his ears flared open, glowing with a soft, bioluminescent gold. He didn't just breathe the water; he tasted its history. The salt carried the tang of oxidized copper and the cold, mineral scent of ancient stone.
The Descent into the Cathedral
He kicked his fins, slicing through the thermoclines. At fifty fathoms, the light from the sun died. At a hundred, the "Deep-Light" took over—swarms of jellyfish pulsing like neon signs and coral that hummed with a low-frequency vibration.
Then, he saw it.
The Cathedral of St. Jude the Drowned loomed out of the silt like a skeletal titan. Its stained-glass windows were miraculously intact, though the figures depicted in the glass—saints with webbed fingers and eyes of pearl—seemed to watch his approach.
Kaelen swam through a jagged hole in the nave. Inside, the silence was absolute, a heavy weight that pressed against his eardrums. He navigated by the glow of his own gills, casting long, dancing shadows against the barnacle-encrusted pews.
The Drown-Wraith
As he approached the high altar, the water grew unnaturally cold. A shimmer appeared in the darkness—a Drown-Wraith. It wasn't a ghost, but a cluster of sentient, predatory eels that had woven themselves into the shape of a man, mimicking the silhouette of the diver it had killed decades ago.
The Wraith drifted toward him, its "eyes" two glowing, hungry angler-fish lures.
Kaelen didn't reach for a harpoon. He knew the Deep Weave reacted to emotion. He slowed his heart rate, forcing himself to feel a profound, hollow boredom. To the Wraith, he became a rock, a piece of driftwood, a thing not worth the energy to hunt. The eels broke formation, swirling around him in a cold current before vanishing into the rafters of the cathedral.
He reached the altar. There, nestled in a casket of silver filigree, sat the Mechanical Heart. It was a fist-sized engine of gold and gears, and to Kaelen's horror, it was beating. Thump-hiss. Thump-hiss.
He grabbed it, the metal warm against his cold palm, and began his frantic ascent.