The boys bent their necks over the side, following with a worried gaze the trail of bubbles left by Lila's sinking body. No doubt, she was now close to it. Ten seconds passed, then ten more. The girl didn't come back to the surface.
"Something's wrong," Kolin said, stating the obvious. "I'll dive after her. Assist me from here in case something bad happens." He was the slowest swimmer but could hold his breath underwater longer than Solis or Lila.
Right at that moment, a firm hand grabbed his shoulder from behind. The boy felt paralyzed. His body froze, his muscles seemed to turn into stone. He wanted to turn, but couldn't utter the slightest move. The hand didn’t belong to Solis. Someone else had just sneaked in, noiselessly like a water snake.
A deep voice expressing strength and confidence broke in:
"Perhaps you should let me do that?"
The moment the man spoke, the paralysis went away. Kolin turned around and found himself facing a tall, muscular fellow. The man, perhaps in his thirties, produced a friendly smile. His blonde hair was cut short, framing a handsome face. A pair of large blue eyes displayed the fierce look of a warrior.
As a confirmation of his status, a circular patch was visible on the left side of his shirt: the symbol of Two Waves, one of the deadliest martial arts on Atlantide. It wasn’t the usual mark of an advanced practitioner, but the symbol of a master. What was a master doing here, on the Iron Rock? No way! He couldn’t be interested in the thing underwater, could he? However, the more Kolin thought about it, the more he had to admit this was by far the most likely scenario.
The boys had just a few seconds to examine the master. With lightning speed, the man took off his shirt, his shoes, and his trousers, revealing a muscular body. Then, only in his underwear, he stepped to the edge of the platform and dived head-down into the sea, almost without making a splash. The teenagers bent down over the edge, trying to follow his motion several meters below the surface. The water was relatively clear, and the master should have been easily visible, except they couldn’t glimpse him at all. He had had simply vanished.
The seconds kept pouring with agonizing slowness. Perhaps twenty, perhaps more. Already a minute or so had passed since Lila’s disappearance. Then something briefly moved underwater farther away and more to the left. Soon after that, the master’s head broke the surface, breathing calmly. A moment later, Lila’s face also appeared, gasping for air and coughing. She looked scared but remained quiet, letting the stranger's strong arms maintain her afloat. The master came closer to the edge of the Iron Rock, keeping the girl’s head above the waves.
“We don’t have a rope to throw you there,” Solis said. “I’m afraid you might have to go around the rock and use the stone steps from the other side.”
It was low tide, and the platform’s edge loomed almost four meters above the sea.
“That’s all right,” the master replied. “I don’t need a rope. Can you catch the girl if I throw her to you?”
“What do you mea…” Kolin began, but the man had already disappeared underwater with the girl. One moment later, they broke the surface again, this time at high speed. The master pushed the girl upwards with a decided move, and she flew high in the air until the edge of the platform. Surprised, the boys managed to grab her arms and legs at the last moment and pulled her up.
With worried expressions, the youngsters set the girl carefully onto the platform’s edge. Lila looked pale, but she didn’t seem hurt. The boys turned their heads downwards to check on the master, just in time to see him fly out of the water and land gracefully on the tall platform, a couple of meters away from them.
“How did you do that?” Solis asked.
“You’re talking about the jump?” the man laughed. “It’s not that difficult. I’ve dived deeper and used the water to push me up in the same way dolphins do. If I had to jump this high on land, it would have been more difficult.”
It sounded simple, and, obviously, it was doable for someone who could move really fast in the water. Still, Kolin had never seen any human jump out of the sea like a dolphin. Not until now, anyway. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t have been that difficult for a master of Two Waves.
Lila was already feeling better. After a few more fits of coughing, she slowly stood up between the two boys and examined the master with an inquisitive glance. All three teenagers were staring at the tall man, with an unvoiced question on their lips.
As if reading their thoughts, he said:
“I suppose you're wondering why someone like me is here. Well, I have actually come to retrieve THAT,” and he pointed below the platform, precisely towards the spot marked by Solis a few days earlier.
(to be continued...)
Books by Marian C. Ghilea:
BUTTERFLY'S DREAM: https://bit.ly/2PM63uU
TIDES OF AMBER: https://bit.ly/2HfcHVB
Image source: Pixabay - https://pixabay.com/photos/swim-864383/
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