Chapter 14
Whirlpool? The only thing Gregor could think of was that game. His cousins had an old, round, aboveground pool. All the kids would try to run around in a circle and make the water swirl around so there was a sort of funnel effect in the middle. He knew there were real whirlpools in the ocean, but he'd never even seen a picture of one.
Gregor jumped to his feet and tried to make sense of the situation. Everyone was up, but they were confused, too. The Underlanders usually faced an emergency with precision, as if they'd drilled for the crisis a million times. Gregor had a feeling that none of them had ever dealt with a whirlpool, either...and that they had no emergency response at the ready.
Photos Glow-Glow and Zap were burning at full brightness, but there still wasn't enough light to see far out into the water. Gregor pulled out the biggest flashlight he had, one with a wide sweeping beam, and clicked it on. What he saw took his breath away.
The boats were on the outer edge of a huge vortex. The whirlpool must have been at least a hundred yards wide. The water was rushing at a dizzying speed, grasping at anything in its reach, carrying it around and around until it was sucked down into a black gaping hole in the center.
Howard and Mareth were shouting at each other across the rope that tethered the two boats together.
"I am cutting loose!" Howard yelled as he began to hack away at the rope between them.
"No!" Mareth cried. "The fliers will carry us out!"
"They can only take one boat! Do it, Mareth! Pandora can come back for me!" Howard shouted, and the rope severed under his sword. It was just in the nick of time. The lead boat containing Howard, Pandora, Twitchtip, and Zap was snagged by the outer ring of the whirlpool and carried off into the maelstrom.
It was only a matter of seconds before the second boat would meet the same fate. Gregor lunged for the stern for Boots, who was half-asleep, so he could get her back in her life jacket. He'd taken it off so she could sleep comfortably. Obviously that had been a bad decision. He fumbled with the jacket's tangled straps.
The boat suddenly yanked to the side. "It's got us!" Gregor cried out. But then there was an upward jerk. Gregor sprawled forward, barely avoiding crushing Boots, and found they were rising out of the water. The bats! The bats were lifting them using the rope loops on the sides of the boats. Aurora and Andromeda were in the front, Ares and Pandora in the back.
"Go, Pandora. Ares can take it! Go!" Gregor heard Mareth order.
Ares spread his feet, holding his own loop in one claw and grasping Pandora's in his other. The boat dipped down a bit, but the big black bat soon had it under control. "Man, he's strong!" thought Gregor.
Pandora hovered for one moment, to make sure Ares had things covered, then dove. Gregor leaned over the side of the boat to see what was going on.
They were fifty feet above the water now, safe from the clutches of the raging whirlpool, but below them it was another matter. The lead boat, with Howard and Twitchtip clinging to the mast, was spinning helplessly around in the whirlpool, smashing into debris, buckling under the pressure of the current. Except for the light from Gregor's flashlight, the boat was in complete darkness.
"This is certainly an inconvenience," said a whiny voice by his ear. Gregor turned to see Zap sitting on a coil of rope. "It was my time to sleep, too. I hope Photos Glow-Glow does not think this means I will cover his next shift."
"Zap! What are you doing? Get down there so they can see!" said Gregor.
"Oh, no. We never agree to go into dangerous situations. We are not fed enough for that," said Photos Glow-Glow. And then he actually yawned.
Gregor spun back around to the whirlpool in time to see Howard launch himself out over the water, arms straight out to his sides. Pandora caught him by the arms and carried him straight up to safety. She set Howard in a soggy pile on the floor and took her rope handle back from Ares.
Down in the water, Twitchtip still clung desperately to the mast. The boat was quickly approaching the inner rings of the whirlpool and the black hole in the center.
"Wait a minute!" Gregor cried. "Aren't you going back in for Twitchtip?"
There was no answer. He looked to Mareth, to Luxa, to Howard dripping and panting on the floor. Something in their faces made a chill go through him. "She's going to drown, you know! We've got to get in there!"
"It is not possible, Overlander," said Mareth. "We cannot reach her by boat. A single flier could not get hold of her. It is not possible."
"Luxa?" said Gregor. She was a queen; she could probably make them if she wanted to.
"I think Mareth is right. We will risk more loss in the effort, and the likelihood of success is almost nonexistent," said Luxa.
"But we need her! We need her to navigate in the Labyrinth!" said Gregor. Why were they just standing there?
"The bats will be sufficient," said Mareth. "And they can be trusted."
So, that was it. Now he understood. "It's because she's a rat," he said. "You're just going to sit here and watch her drown because she's a rat, right? If it were Howard or Andromeda or even Temp, you'd be down there, all right, but not for a rat! You'd probably have killed her already if you could have!"
Below him, Twitchtip's boat snapped in two. She clung to the wreckage for a few seconds, and then it was swept out of her grasp. She clawed her way through the water, fighting to keep from going under, but she wouldn't last long.
The life jacket was on the floor next to Boots. He shoved his arms through the straps and buckled it with shaking hands. The small flashlight, the one Mrs. Cormaci had given him, was in his pocket. He flicked it on. Maybe he could hold it between his teeth.
Hands grabbed him as he climbed up the side of the boat. "Do not be a madman, Overlander," said Howard. "You cannot help her!"
"You make me the sickest of all!" said Gregor. "You were just down there a minute ago. You got rescued! And what about what you swore? About saving anyone in water trouble! In peril! What you said! What about that?"
Howard's face flushed. Gregor had touched a nerve.
"Gregor!" Luxa had his hand. "I forbid you to go, Gregor! You will not survive."
"Not with you guys as backup!" said Gregor. He was so furious, he could have thrown her over the side of the boat. See how she liked it down there. "Ripred brought her for me. He brought her to help me, so I could help you guys and your whole stupid kingdom!" he said. "That's why we're doing this, right?"
He stood on one of the seats and shone his light down in the water. Man! Was he really going to jump down into that? They were right, it was insane. Even if he'd been the best Olympic swimmer in the world, he'd never swim his way out of that, especially pulling some big old rat. But he knew something else, too. He knew that the Underlanders needed to keep him alive at all costs. If he went in, they'd come after him. And if he could get to Twitchtip, they'd have to save them both.