Chapter 134: The Ray Refused Their Bell

A violent lurch from the free carrier bell threw Jiang off the cradle.

He landed in the rising water and saw three blurred versions of Brinn reach for him. The real hand caught the loose hide at his breast. His bad foot struck the floor without bearing weight, and the backward claw bent until pain showed him which woman was real.

Something broad passed beneath the gallery arch.

Green lamps disappeared behind a moving back. A gold-ringed eye turned through the water, followed by the open breathing slit Jiang had freed.

Jiang knew that gold-ringed eye. The tide ray had returned.

Tir wiped water from his mouth. "It came for the carrier."

Brinn kept her hand on Jiang’s hide. "It came for a sound."

The ray circled the inverted bell. Old scars crossed its back in the same places the carrier ribs curved. Each approach ended when the iron bracket under the bell mouth entered its sight.

No line hung from the bracket. Its hook shape was enough.

Tir watched the animal recoil. He looked at his own bent fingers, then held his hand out to Brinn.

"Give me the knife."

She gave him the broad blade.

He climbed onto the floating cradle and hacked through the hardened leather behind the bracket. His first cut skidded. The second opened his knuckle. He put the useless fingers under his arm, gripped the knife with the rest, and sawed until the last hook dropped into black water.

Even without the bracket, the ray refused the bell.

It rolled beneath the open mouth and turned away before its scar touched bronze.

Tir stared after it. "I removed it."

Jiang understood the complaint. Humans loved doing the minimum decent thing and expecting the injured party to become convenient.

Brinn pointed toward the drowned wall. "Elen is knocking."

Across the shutter, the spare breath cup struck the far side of the carrier frame.

One blow came high. The next scraped down. A third landed low enough to shiver through the gallery floor.

Brinn copied the change on the free bell with her knife hilt.

Tir answered on the chain. His rhythm was rough because two fingers could not close, and Elen altered her next reply to match his uneven space.

At that reply, the tide ray slowed.

From the second wall, Gredudande’s bronze repeated Brinn’s earlier pattern without Tir’s mistake.

The ray turned toward the fixed answer. Its wounded side dipped. Jiang saw the scarred body tense before the fin struck.

Bronze boomed through the flooded hall.

An exact copy rang from the false wall.

On its next pass, the ray hit harder.

It was not carrying Tideglass’s bell. It was attacking the sound that had cut it.

That first blow pushed water through the sleeping gallery. Blankets tore free of their shelves. The bell cradle groaned against its chains, but trapped air kept the heavy mouth from sinking.

Brinn moved to the warm seam.

Six old plugs sealed the floor crack with waxed leather and hammered copper. She drove her knife under the first plug and leaned until it came loose.

Warm air hissed out. Black water entered beneath it.

Above the opened seam, a sleeping shelf flooded to its back wall. A carved fish lifted, spun past Jiang’s beak, and vanished under the carrier bell.

Tir caught Brinn’s wrist before she reached the next plug. "The east shelf is still dry."

"Elen is still underwater."

"There are people using those beds."

"Then they will hate me somewhere else."

Tir glanced at the narrow boots turning under the water. He released her wrist and took the knife.

He opened the next plug himself.

Jiang crawled along the cradle while they worked down the seam. His blurred sight made each chain split into several green lines. He tested every step with his beak before trusting the good foot and let water carry the other.

At the far end, the last plug sat beneath a shelf loaded with folded hides. Brinn tried to lift the stack clear. Water caught the bottom hide and pulled the rest apart.

One blanket wrapped around her forearm. The current dragged her toward the bell mouth.

Jiang lunged and pinned the cloth with his breast. His failed flipper gave no help. Tir seized the other end, and together they tore the blanket away from Brinn before the bell swallowed it.

Brinn came up coughing. She had kept hold of the last plug.

"Everyone dislikes that blanket," she said.

Brinn pulled with both hands.

Water rushed beneath every sleeping shelf.

Warmth trapped in the gallery entered the free carrier bell in one long breath. Its green ribs brightened as the air pocket deepened. The bell rose against the cradle chains and dragged its upper line tight through the drowned throat.

Beyond the shutter, the catch held.

Elen struck the spare cup from the far side. The next blow was weaker.

Tir seized the chain with both arms. Brinn braced behind him. Their feet slid across the drowned floor without moving the catch.

Jiang looked toward the ray.

Ordinary sight gave him only a broad darkness and one gold smear. Underice Sight remained locked behind the pain in his eyes. He had no call that could tell the animal what to do and no right to invent one.

He struck the carrier bell with his beak.

One broken contact note traveled through the bronze.

Elen answered with a changed knock.

Gredudande’s wall repeated Jiang’s first strike and missed her answer.

The tide ray left the bell mouth.

It rolled toward the false wall and drove its fin against the fixed bronze. Water slammed through the gallery. The free bell rose sideways, struck the tight chain, and tore the catch out of the buckled shutter.

The upper throat opened.

Elen’s arm appeared beneath the carrier frame.

Her coat had twisted into the fallen chain. The spare mask covered her face, but green glass had cracked along one edge. One hand held the mask. The other could not reach the cloth pinning her hip.

Brinn and Tir pulled at the shutter. The gap widened enough for Jiang’s breast and no more.

He entered without his new sight.

The carrier bell lifted above him, full of the room’s last dry air. Its lower rim scraped his back. Jiang tucked his failed flipper, used the good one to hold direction, and followed Elen’s moving hand through ordinary black water.

His beak found her coat.

The cloth was too thick to cut cleanly. He bit, twisted, and let the current put force behind his rigid body. His cracked beak opened farther. Blood warmed his tongue.

Elen pulled from the other side.

The coat tore under her arm.

Brinn caught Elen first. Tir caught Jiang under the breast after Brinn shouted at him once. They came through the shutter together as the carrier bell climbed into the upper throat.

Elen tore off the cracked mask and breathed against the gallery ceiling. Her dark hair had been cut close on one side and left long on the other, where broken tideglass had taken a crooked strip.

Tir put his forehead against hers.

She slapped the back of his head. "You cut your line."

"It was trying to strangle me."

"I was using it to find you."

Brinn wedged herself between them and held both above the water. "Save the family reunion until we have a floor."

There was no dry floor left.

The warm seam had gone dark beneath black water. Beds rolled against the ceiling. The little boots drifted apart and disappeared through the open stair.

Outside the gallery, the tide ray struck the fixed bronze one final time.

The wall split. Its stolen return knock died inside a burst of bubbles.

The ray turned through the lower arch and left without entering the carrier bell.

Above them, the freed bell continued up the drowned throat on air taken from Tideglass’s lost room.

Its crown struck Ninebell’s underside.

Brinn beat a changed rhythm against the rising chain.

An answering blow came through the stone above.