Simone was standing outside the entrance to the Grotto, still holding the struggling turtle. ‘I forgot you can’t travel. His panic is easing but he’s still fighting me.’
The Grotto entrance was a rock face on the hillside behind the Armoury, a plain grey wall of stone.
‘Have you tried talking to him?’ I said, putting my hand on the latch to make the wall disappear. The stone stairs down into the Grotto became visible as the rock faded.
‘Yes, he’s not replying. All that stuff with you and the Demon King and the demon essence must have really taken it out of him,’ she said.
We started carefully down the steep stairs into the darkness.
‘Where was he?’ I said.
‘Hanoi. There were reports of a giant tortoise that used to live in a lake there centuries ago — that it had returned. I had a free period so I wandered down there. God, it stinks — it’s so polluted — but there he was, large as life. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Can you do a light while you hold him?’ I said.
She struggled to hold the tortoise with one arm around its shell, then made a ball of chi energy that floated to light the tunnel around us. ‘Sorry, forgot you can’t see in the dark.’
She hefted the tortoise in both arms again and we continued down. As we headed deeper into the Grotto, the air became colder. Condensation ran down the walls, making the steps slippery.
After two hundred metres, our breath formed fog and the air was still and bitterly cold. I jumped down the steps, trying to move faster to warm myself up. The tunnel opened into the cavern of the Grotto, so huge its walls and ceiling were invisible in the distance. The water before us shimmered in Simone’s light. We stood on a ten-metre-wide ledge that jutted five metres into the underground lake. The lake itself was a kilometre long, two kilometres across and two kilometres deep, plunging into the core of the Mountain and making its centre water — fitting for the Xuan Wu.
The lake’s fish came to the ledge, curious. They were three metres long, with white bodies and pink, lilac and blue fins, glowing with bioluminescence. One of them stuck its head out of the water and made gasping movements with its mouth, then spoke telepathically to us.
It’s not feeding time, what’s going on?
‘This is Xuan Wu. I found him,’ Simone said.
More fish appeared around the ledge, sticking their eyes out of the water with curiosity.
Put him in here with us, we’ll look after him, the fish said. Do you think he’s hungry?
‘I’ll be right back with some cat food for him,’ Simone said. She lowered the tortoise carefully onto the wet black rock. ‘Don’t go anywhere, Daddy, this is your Mountain.’ She put her hand on the back of his shell. ‘Please stay here and come back to me.’
The tortoise walked clumsily to the edge of the water. He was sixty centimetres from nose to tail and, apart from his complete blackness and his feet instead of flippers, appeared to be an ordinary amphibious tortoise. He carefully slid into the water then poked his head out. The fish quickly moved back out of his reach. He ducked his head under the water and dived beneath the surface.
The fish that had spoken to us went under too, then came back up half a minute later. He appears to be heading right to the bottom. We can’t follow that deep.
Simone dived into the water. I’ll see what he does.
I sat cross-legged on the rock and waited.
Martin and Yue Gui, Simone’s older brother and sister, came down the stairs and I stood.
‘Yes, it’s him,’ Martin said. ‘Can we go down and see?’
‘Go right ahead,’ I said.
They changed to tortoises, walked to the edge and slid into the water.
‘Can you hear me?’ I asked the fish.
Yes, it replied. He’s sitting right on the bottom, and the Princess is sitting with him. The other two are heading down as well; goodness, but they move fast.
He’s just sitting here with his eyes closed, Simone said.
Nothing happened for a couple of minutes.
They’re coming back up, the fish said.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
No problem, ma’am.
‘Do I know you?’ I said. ‘You sound familiar.’
The fish’s voice sounded horrified. Can’t you tell who I am?
‘Sorry, no.’
I’ve been in your energy work classes since the school returned to the Mountain — that’s a good six months now. You should know my voice; I’ve even spoken telepathically to you before. Its voice filled with humour. I am mortally wounded.
‘If the wounds are mortal then please die quietly.’
The fish surged out of the water onto the rock and flopped around, splashing water everywhere. It opened and closed its mouth and its eyes rolled in agony.
‘I said quietly.’
The fish stopped flapping, lay still for a moment, then rolled back into the water. It resurfaced and floated belly up without moving.
Simone, Martin and Yue Gui rose out of the water so that their feet were clear of it. The water ran out of their clothes, and they floated towards me, drifting to lightly land on the stone.
Simone glanced back at the fish. ‘What happened? Is everything okay?’
The fish quickly flipped back upright and dived under the water.
‘Is John still down there?’ I said.
Simone nodded. ‘He seems to have gone to sleep.’
‘We can leave him there, bring him food; the fish will tell us if anything happens,’ Martin said.
‘Where did you find him?’ Yue Gui said.
‘There was this news report,’ Simone said, ‘about this lake in Hanoi that had a mystical giant tortoise living in it. The tortoise disappeared from the lake hundreds of years ago, but people claimed to have seen it in the last year — it seemed to have returned.’
‘Ooooh,’ Martin said, a drawn-out sound of understanding. ‘I remember! Father got in so much trouble with the Jade Emperor, he was nearly thrown from Heaven.’
‘What did he do?’ I said.
‘The Ming of China were planning to invade the Kingdom of the Viets — what is today Vietnam. Father didn’t agree with their plans, so he took the form of a giant tortoise, and when the King of Vietnam was rowing for pleasure on the lake, Father surfaced and gave the King an enchanted sword that helped him to defeat the invading force.’
‘Good Lord, he’s the Lady of the Lake,’ I said.
‘Straight up,’ Simone said.
‘Did the King throw the sword back into the lake when the battle was done?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Martin said. ‘It was Dark Heavens — of course Father wanted it back.’
‘The parallels are crazy,’ Simone said.
‘No wonder he did his PhD thesis on Arthurian legends compared to his own,’ I said. I shivered; the damp was seeping through my clothes and the long period of inactivity wasn’t helping. ‘Can we go back up? Do any of you want to stay here with him?’
‘We can leave him; if he wakes the fish will tell us,’ Yue Gui said. She