I knelt down closer to the floor of water, and put my hand on it, palm flat. The sensation was different from this side—there was no feeling of a rubber balloon. It had the firm feel of a wall, but felt very wet, just as it would if you touched normal water. I brought my hand away and it was indeed soaking wet. So were the bottoms of my shoes.

  Joseph's feet came through and almost knocked me on the head, and then his body followed. I couldn't help but wonder what the Shield would have done if he had hit me with his foot.

  “Wow,” Joseph said. “This is unbelievable. I just can't … this is amazing!”

  “Touch the water,” I said.

  Joseph knelt down and did so, then stood and looked at his wet hand.

  “This has got to be one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced, and don't forget, I've been through some crazy stuff in the Blackness.”

  We now had a perfect view of the Tower of Air's interior, and it was awesome. It now had much more of a feeling of being inside a building, a true tower. The repelled walls of water shot downward in four flat planes, going from a brilliant, sparkling blue at the top to a dark, lightless color toward the bottom.

  Looking down, it reminded me of a drawing I had done for my mom when I was in first or second grade. I had been sketching a tunnel, and I'd done it by connecting straight lines from each corner of the page to the corners of a small square in the middle of the page. That's what it looked like, peering over the edge of the stairs toward the bottom of the enormous tower.

  Joseph had his backpack, and I was glad we'd remembered to bring flashlights, because it looked like we would need them when we reached the bottom. It was going to be quite a trip by the looks of it.

  “Shall we?” asked Joseph.

  “Let's do it.”

  I turned and waved at Rayna.

  “Please be careful,” she said. “I will come after you if I don't see you soon.”

  Her words took me back, because for some reason I thought we wouldn't be able to talk through the walls of air. But there was no muffling or distortion of her words, and she had obviously heard our entire conversation so far.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I don't know why, really, but I thought I wouldn't be able to hear you.” I looked back and glanced over the edge toward the bottom of the tower again, then turned back to Rayna. “You better give us more than an hour, it looks like a long trip down.”

  “Two hours,” she said. “That is the most I will give you. And please, if anything goes wrong, please yell for me—maybe it will echo off the walls. Or, better yet, shoot a ball of Ice up here or something. I will be here, watching.”

  “Thanks, Rayna. We should be okay. Remember, our only problem at the Pointing Finger was Raspy tricking us.”

  “Ummm, did you forget the earthquake and eruption of the volcano?” she said.

  “Oh. Yeah. Okay, keep watch then.”

  I patted Joseph on the shoulder, and we began the long trip down the flight of steps—a staircase of salty water. I went first, with Joseph right behind me. After weeks and weeks of wearisome voyage at sea, we were finally in the Tower of Air. A thousand squishy steps below us, the Third Gift waited.

  We hoped.

  It took a while to get used to the jiggling nature of the water steps, and my stomach never quite agreed with the whole experience. But as we made our way down the tower, turning every thirty steps or so at the switchbacks, the indescribable awe of what we saw through the walls of air captured our every thought.

  The aquarium analogy had been far more apt than I'd first reckoned.

  We saw thousands of creatures in a full spectrum of colors. There were jellyfish, sharks, sea horses, eels, floating plant vegetation that I never knew existed—it was almost too good to be true. Marine life had always fascinated me, and there I was, witnessing it in a way that had never been done before.

  At one point, what looked like a submarine approached, and a quick shot of fear filled me, but it was soon replaced by sheer wonder. It was a whale. We had traveled pretty deep by then, but we still caught a quick flash of the massive sea mammal, and I would never forget it.

  But as awesome as it all was, it couldn't last forever. Soon, there was not enough light to see much at all, and we had to settle for dark blue walls of water that approached blackness. Joseph slid his backpack off his shoulder and grabbed the flashlights, handing one to me. We flipped them on.

  I tried shining it out into the water, but it didn't penetrate the murkiness very well. We continued our journey, step by step, mostly in silence.

  Neither of us bothered to count the steps or switchbacks, but it was a long and tiresome task. I was already dreading the trip back up, wondering if we would even have the legs for it. Once or twice I was tempted to just grab Joseph and jump over the edge, relying on the Shield to protect us when we hit bottom. But somehow, that just didn't seem right, so I ignored the thought and kept going, one wiggly step after another.

  Every now and then a spurt of water would shoot out of the wall beside us, like a sprung leak in a submarine. More often than not it would be below or above us, but one time it hit Joseph right in the head.

  “Yeoooow! That's cold!” he said.

  “Why is it doing that?” I asked.

  “I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem good. The Givers told me that the Tower was failing, but I didn't know what they meant.” He placed his hand in the spray of water still coming from the “leak” that had gotten him wet. “I hope it doesn't mean this whole thing is going to come collapsing down on top of us.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “How long have we been at it?” I asked.

  “About an hour, now.” He paused and looked up. “If Rayna meant what she said about two hours, she'll be coming after us far before we're through. But hopefully by then we'll at least be on our way back up there.”

  I paused to take a look up to where we had come from. A small square of bright blue marked the top of the tower, and it surprised me how far we'd come. I could make out several streams of ocean water that were bursting through the walls of air, again reminding me of the submarine analogy. My stomach turned a bit, as a reverse fear of heights swamped my innards. I quickly looked back down and tried to will it away.

  “You know,” I said to Joseph, “I just thought about this, but do you think the walls of air keep going up forever after they break out of the water?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I just mean I wonder how tall the Tower of Air is—how far up it actually goes. Maybe it reaches all the way to the sky, and clouds part and go around it. Maybe planes feel a slight bump when they fly through it. I don't know, just a thought.”

  “Yeah,” was all Joseph could say, breathing quite heavily. He was even more exhausted than I was.

  We resumed our silence for another few minutes, and then almost stumbled when we suddenly ran out of steps and found ourselves on a bed of sand and rock.

  We were at the bottom.

  The water stairs ended in a corner of the square tower, so we had just been expecting another switchback. But it was a relief to have arrived somewhere, and know we didn't have to go any further. The bottom of the Tower of Air was indeed the bottom of the ocean itself, a soft floor of dry sand, littered with wet spots caused by falling spray from the leaks above. There was no vegetation of any kind, and no living things at all that we could tell. It was just a very large, square area of earth, with the towering walls of water looming above it like four ancient oracles.

  “This is it?” I asked to no one in particular.

  “What did you expect, a welcoming committee?” Joseph said. “The Givers would not have built such a thing for no reason, so let's not give up so easily. Come on, let's have a look-see.”

  We decided to walk along each wall and then cross the floor of the tower in crisscross patterns until we found something. Both of us had flashlights in hand, switched on. As we started down the first wall of water, I ran my free hand along the wet surface, feeling the cold water collect on my fingers and palm, like rubbing morning dew off of a car's hood. About halfway down the length of the wall, a thin line of spray shot out right in front of me—another leak. I walked around it and continued examining the wall of air for any sign of something different. The whole place was cold and creepy.

  We came to the next corner with no incident except for a couple of more leaks, which appeared to be occurring more often. A heavy weight of panic began to surge up, but I repressed it. If the whole thing came crashing down, I would have the Shield to protect me. Joseph might take an unwanted bath if he were very far from me, however, and would never survive without my Shield to protect him.

  The second wall showed nothing of interest, just wet darkness.

  We saw the hole in the third wall before we even started walking along it.

  It had been easy to miss in the darkness.

  It was a second tunnel of air, this time horizontal, entering the depths of the dark world of water.

  The entrance to the tunnel was perfectly round, like the doors in a village of Hobbits. I shone my flashlight down its length, and could see no end to it. The curved walls were exactly the same as the flat planes of the square Tower, repelled into its shape by the magic air. The tunnel was tall enough to walk through at full height.

  “You were right, Joseph, we found something.”

  “Good golly, I don't know if I can go in there,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, it's all fine and dandy in the Tower—at least I know there's a patch of the world up there somewhere. Once we go in there, I think I'm gonna go nuts with claustrophobia.”

  “Joseph, you were the one who insisted on coming down—Rayna would have loved to take your place.” I smacked him on the back. “Now get a hold of yourself, old boy. If a little squirt like me can do it, surely you can.”

  “Easy for you to say, Mister nothing-can-hurt-me-because-of-my-big-bad-Shield.”

  But we both knew he would go in with me. It was almost a relief to see him scared a bit; it made my uneasiness a little more bearable. This was not some dumb movie, after all, and we were not fearless superheros. We were just normal people thrown into something that would scare the pants off the bravest man.

  With our flashlights beaming like two swords of light, we entered the tunnel.

  There was no sound except for the occasional hiss of a sprung leak as we walked down the sandy path. The leaks were much harsher on our nerves while traveling the tunnel, knowing that trillions of gallons of water hung right above our heads. I could tell that Joseph was a mess, his bald head glistening with sweat.

  “Joseph,” I said, “you need a towel or something? You've got more water on your pasty head than I've got hair on mine.”

  “Jimmy, when did you turn into such a smart alec? Once this is all over, I'm gonna teach you a lesson or two.”

  “Probably has something to do with being around Tanaka all the time,” I said. “That guy is a hoot.”

  “Speaking of that strange bird, remember when he got all freaky that one night after mentioning those monkey things?”

  “Yeah, I hadn't thought about that in a while.” He really had been weird that night, and no one had said a word about it since. “I wonder if it has something to do with …”

  “What?” Joseph asked when I trailed off.

  “I'll tell you later. Look.”

  We had come to the end of the tunnel, and the air opened up into a huge cavern, probably fifty feet tall and a hundred feet in diameter, although it was impossible to tell because our flashlights were not quite strong enough to reach the opposite side. It reminded me of the cavern under the Pointing Finger, although its shape was the only similarity. There were no lava pools, and there was no stone. But there was something in the very middle of the watery cave.

  It looked like a wooden door.

  It was a door, but its placement made no sense.

  The same size and shape as the other doors that had led to my first two Gifts, this one was standing upright in the middle of the sandy floor, but it had to be a trick of the eye. There was nothing supporting the door-no structure built around it, no beams holding it up, no wires attached. And it didn't appear to be buried in the ground either. The door just stood there, perfectly straight and upright, looking like it should fall down. There were iron handles on both sides.

  Joseph and I walked up to it. I touched its wooden surface, its handles, and it all felt very solid. I walked around it, looking at it from all directions. It was just a door, standing there, leading to nowhere. What was its purpose? What good would it do me to walk through it? I would only step through and be in the same place—it didn't make sense.

  I caught myself. Did a door in the middle of the woods make any sense, or one inside a volcano? When I received the Gift of Ice, Farmer had said something about how we weren't really in the volcano—that the door was some kind of a gateway to a magic place where I could meet him.

  So despite what my eyes were telling me, I probably just needed to walk through it and I would end up somewhere else.

  “What do you think?” I asked Joseph.

  “I … guess you should go through the door. What else is there to do? And I know that this is where my part ends, from what I've heard about your other experiences.” He smiled his normal Joseph grin. “Good luck, little buddy.”

  I shook his hand, for what reason I have no idea. Then I turned, put my hand on the iron handle, and took a deep breath. I was just about to pull it open when a strange voice echoed off the watery walls—a metallic, slithering sound.

  “I would not do that if I were you.”

  I pulled my hand off the handle and looked around for the source of the voice. At first I thought it might be Joseph, but the look on his face proved me wrong. He was as baffled as I was, searching the cavern for any sign of our mystery speaker. Plus, the voice would have been impossible for Joseph to imitate—it was just not … human. It was the way I would imagine a snake would sound if it could talk, put through some kind of electronic manipulation.

  It scared me to death.

  Joseph and I walked around the door and the cavern, searching every inch of the place, but we didn't see anyone. I was just about to explain it away as a trick recording or something left by the Givers when a swift wind began to blow, twisting particles of sand into a mini-tornado over by one of the walls of the cavern. The tornado moved closer to the wall, and then they touched. The spinning wind pulled water out of the ocean, through the wall of air and into the tornado, until a tall funnel of blue water formed, spiraling with increasing rapidity. It moved away from the wall once it was roughly the size of a man.

  Then, as we watched in astonishment, the twirling water ceased to spin, and became an elongated bubbly mass. Seconds later it took on definition, forming the image of a grown man, shimmering reflections traveling up and down its length. Before long, there was a person made completely of water standing in front of us, staring with translucent, wet eyes.

  “Thank you for heeding my advice,” it said with the voice of wet electricity. “Sorry I'm a bit late—I'd given in to the notion that no one would ever come to this place.”

  When it spoke, its lips moved like molten silver, its body glowing like liquid crystal. I was battling inside my head trying to convince myself that what stood before me was not some freak apparition of my imagination.

  “You're … late?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, obviously I am late. I am just appearing while you have been here long enough to do a fool thing like opening that door before I've spoken with you.”

  “Are you … real?” I asked.

  “Dear boy, have a gander, will you? Do I look real to you? For pity's sake, can you not see that I am made out of water? Of course I am not real!” The watery man shook his head, and threw up his arms in impatient disgust.

  “If you're not real,” Joseph said, “then how are you standing here, speaking to us?”

  “Do you not know the name of this place?” he asked.

  “Well … yeah. The Tower of Air.”

  “And do you think the Givers go around naming things for no particular reason than to sound nifty?”

  “Well—”

  “Air! That is what forms me, that is what creates my voice. It is a powerful thing, air. Very powerful indeed.”

  “What is your purpose here?” I asked. “Why did you stop me from going through the door—how do we even know you're really a messenger from the Givers?”

  “What, do I look like a Shadow Ka to you, boy? I may be a temporary configuration of water particles fashioned by anomalous wind inertia, but have some manners! I'm here to help you.”

  For some reason, his last statement relieved any lingering sense of fear, and I realized that I was beginning to like this guy.

  “Next thing you'll be saying is that I'm ‘all wet,’ a tiresome pun that I hope to never hear again. Now, come, we all know the Tower is failing, and that our time is short.” He walked over to us, his legs making gurgled sounds with each step. “I have been placed here, in this place, to give you one message. It is about this door.”

  He lifted his right arm, indicating the erect door in the middle of the cavern.

  “You don't need me to tell you that it is rather unusual for a door to be standing in this manner in the middle of a room, much less at the bottom of the ocean in a cavern of air. You can enter this door from either direction—from the north, over there,” he pointed, “or from the south, over there,” he pointed to the opposite side.

  “The direction you choose will determine the place to which you will go. One will kill you, the other will bring you to the Third Gift—which is quite fascinating if I may interject on that point.”