“Light a way through this confusion.” With the effort of looking upward putting additional stress on his body, Ehomba lowered his head.
Hunkapa dropped a massive, shaggy arm over the side. “Look, look! More prettinesses!”
Simna squinted. Something was rising from the depths of the ocean. It was not large—no longer than one of the Grömsketter’s small boats—but it was lined with lights that flashed bright yellow and pale red. As it loomed nearer the surface he saw that it was a fish—but a fish unlike any finned denizen of the deep he had ever seen before, either in kitchen or in art.
Its body was more than nine feet long and silvery black, but it was no thicker around than a ribbon. A single long fin ran the length of the spine, and two tiny pectoral fins fluttered just beneath and back of glaring eyes the size of dinner plates. Above the head three long spines bobbed and weaved, and each was tipped with a bright yellow light. Prominent in the narrow, gaping mouth were fangs like shards of broken glass.
It was soon apparent that it was not alone.
Drawn by the light of the sword, all manner of wondrous deepwater creatures were rising to the surface. They swam and drifted and hovered about the cerulean halo of the sky-metal sword like moths romancing a candle on a summer’s eve. As the abyssal ascension gave rise to this luminescent benthic epiphany, more and more of the crew crowded to the port side to gape. Though somewhat muted by the persistent fog, their reactions were a mixture of awe, wonder, and sheer childlike delight in an exotic and beautiful phenomenon the likes of which none of them had ever encountered before.