Through the water he heard churning and someone shouting and, from farther away now, the furious cries of the Skirrit.
He swam until his lungs burned and his muscles grew weak from lack of oxygen and his brain swirled. Then, when he had no other choice, he surfaced and sucked air like it was the last breath he would ever take.
Stefan’s strong hands grabbed his wet shirt and his belt and hauled him onto a dry surface. He coughed up river water, exhausted. But at least there were no Skirrit.
What there was, was a very odd boat.
Xiao was speaking respectfully to the “boat.” And of course the boat was answering her with equally grave politeness.
Mack hung his head down between his knees.
“Just like, five minutes of normal. Just five minutes. That would be great.”
Stefan laughed happily. “Dude, we have moved out of normal. We live in cuh-razeee now!”
Chapter Sixteen
The boat—the barge, as Huang Long had called it; the royal barge, in fact—was not quite what Mack had expected. For one thing, it was alive.
Above the water it looked kind of like a boat. It had sides that might be wood or woodlike. It had a deck that was hard and firm underfoot. It had a tall mast, and that’s where things began to look weird. The mast was very obviously not a tree trunk but a spur of white bone, slightly bowed and tapering.
Below the waterline Mack could glimpse the rest of the barge. It looked a bit like a whale, very large, tinged blue. Toward the stern was not one set of flukes but three vertical tails, like a shark’s tail. Times three.
And at the front was a long, sinewy neck ending in a head and face like a very large pug dog.
“We’ll need seats, Barge,” Xiao said to the pug face.
“Ah! Then we’ll be moving at speed?”
“Yes. Full speed.”
The pug face grinned. “Ah, yes!”
The deck, which had seemed almost like wood, was revealed as living flesh as it rippled and formed rudimentary benches.
“Sit. Hold on tight,” Xiao commanded.
Mack took the seat beside Xiao.
“Ready,” Xiao said, and before the last syllable had stopped reverberating through the air, the barge launched. Like a roller coaster out of a power chute.
A huge bow wave went up, forming walls of spray to their right and left. The sail filled with wind, despite the fact that there was no wind, and the barge swooshed away like a rocket.
Mack was slammed against his seat. Xiao grinned at him. “The barge never gets to go full speed. He lives for this.”
They rocketed down the tunnel, water drenching the rock sides and roof. After a while an area opened up on the right, a sort of diorama. It blew by in a flash, and they were back in the gloomy tunnel.
“What was that?”
Xiao shrugged. “Like a museum: great moments in history. Normally we’d be going slower and we could enjoy the displays. They keep the trip from getting too boring.”
“Where are we going?” Jarrah asked. She looked as happy as the pug head, whose tongue was hanging out about three feet, like a dog on a car ride.
“To the wall,” Xiao said. “There we can get a flight to our next stop.”
“What’s our next stop?” Jarrah asked.
Xiao looked puzzled. “Don’t you know?”