A World Without Heroes - Brandon Mull [48]
“Heads.” He looked back as she flipped the quarter and caught it.
“Tails,” she proclaimed, holding it up with a triumphant grin.
“I lose,” Jason said, turning away from her.
“No, wait!”
Swinging his arms forward, he sprang out into empty space, viscera rising within him as his body plummeted downward in a wild acceleration through chill, salty air. The wind of his fall swept over him as the greenish, foamy water came up fast. With his elbow tucked against his chest, he held his nose, straightened his body, and tore through the surface of the water between the two giant arrowheads, his feet barely touching the rocky bottom at the low point of his submergence.
The gentle sting of seawater bothered his vision. He was in a long, narrow pit in the coastal floor, well beneath the churning surface. A couple of nearby sea fans swayed with the current. Vivid anemones clung to the rocks. He swam up out of the trench, angling inward toward the base of the cliff. The closer he got to the surface, the more turbulent the currents became.
His head broke the surface, and he gasped for breath. A half-submerged cave yawned directly before him. A curling swell heaved him in that direction, scraping his shoulder against a rough wall of stone. He stroked madly, bumping a knee against an unyielding face of unseen rock.
The ocean drew him away from the mouth of the cave; then the frothy mass of a breaker heaved him forward out of control. He tucked his head, turning helpless somersaults inside the tumbling rush of water, grimly anticipating the moment his skull would burst against a jagged corner of stone.
When the wave was spent, Jason found himself at the mouth of the cave. He clutched a jutting knob of rock to resist being drawn away as the water withdrew. A fresh influx of roiling spume pushed him beyond the mouth into the cave itself. He could not touch bottom, so he swam fiercely, fading back almost to the mouth before a new breaker shoved him in even deeper.
The cave narrowed. The enclosed space magnified the sounds of the surging sea. He scrabbled for handholds to resist the tide and haul himself farther inward. After he traversed a section so narrow he could almost reach from wall to wall, the cave widened into a spacious grotto. Not much light filtered in from the entrance. In the dimness Jason perceived a still, wiry man seated upon a ledge against the far wall, a good ten feet above the water level.
Finding he could now stand, Jason waded over to the far wall, cautious not to slice his bare soles on the rocky ground. Waist-deep water became ankle-deep. Behind him the ocean roared.
Jason stepped out of the water, too close to the ledge to see the man on top. Regular handholds had been chiseled into the rock. “Hello,” Jason called.
No answer. Perhaps the man was asleep. Or dead.
Jason climbed the handholds leading up the sheer face below the ledge. Scents of seawater and stone mingled in his nostrils.
His head cleared the top. The ledge was fairly broad, spanning the entire rear wall of the grotto. The man sat nearby, back to the wall, legs crossed at the ankles, staring at Jason. Tangled gray hair covered his head and face, dangling to his narrow waist. He held a rubbery length of seaweed in his hands.
Jason boosted himself onto the ledge, returning the silent stare.
The man squeezed the seaweed, using both hands to twist it in opposite directions. The action triggered a bioluminescent reaction, bathing the ledge in pale green light.
“Nice cave,” Jason said.
The man grunted.
Jason decided to have a staring contest. His eyes began to burn. The man showed no sign of strain. Jason lost.
The man still did not blink. The grave gaze was disconcerting. “I need help finding a word,” Jason said.
The man nodded fractionally.
“My name is Jason.”
“I am Jugard.”
“So you can speak.”
The man grunted.
“I was sent by Galloran.”
Jugard’s bushy eyebrows twitched upward.
“He said you helped him long ago.”
A slight nod.
“Will you help me learn the Word to unmake Maldor?”
The man stared. Jason lost the contest a second time.