by Mel Odom
She pulled back, breathing rapidly. The wind swept her tears away, sipping them in quick gusts.
"I do trust you, lady," Jherek said in a thick voice. He still held her hand, pulling it to him and placing it against his chest. The heat of her flesh almost seared him. "I swear to you, if it came to it, I would give my life to save yours, and you would never have to ask."
"I don't doubt you," she replied. She clenched her hand against his chest, knotting up his shirt and pulling him toward her with surprising strength. "You would give me your life, but can you give me your heart?"
VIII
10 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet
At Iakhovas's bidding, Laaqueel stepped through the wall of Tarjana and out into the ocean. She only felt a moment's sensation of passing through the wood. Though it was not uncomfortable, she noticed immediately that the water on the other side was cold. The depth also blocked the penetrating light from the sea, turning the craggy ledges and canyons of the ocean floor black. She floated easily, adjusting the pressure in her air bladder to make herself weightless.
"Where are we?" she asked Iakhovas.
Silently, Iakhovas replied, through the connection made between them by the quill near her heart. There are others here.
Picking up on the tension in Iakhovas's words, Laaqueel grasped her trident more tightly and peered into the shadows around them. Her lateral lines picked up the small movement of fish nearby, and the coil of an eel shifting in its hiding place.
Who are we meeting? she asked.
Allies, Iakhovas replied. That is all you need trouble yourself to know, little malenti.
Unease swept through Laaqueel. Over the last four days, she'd seen little of Iakhovas. He'd remained within Tarjana's belly and hadn't allowed her to visit with him much. He watched over the princes in Vahaxtyl, and even though the malenti priestess told him they should return to the sahuagin city and change the currents that were passing through the minds of the populace as the princes spoke out against him, Iakhovas resisted. Clearly, he followed his own agenda.
She felt new movement. Something was slithering in from the left. The sensation pulsing through her lateral lines made her skin tighten in primitive fear. She turned to face it, dropping the trident's tines in front of her.
"Welcome," Iakhovas boomed.
He moved his arms and floated twenty feet down through the water to the sea floor. Puffs of sand rose up around his boots, then quickly settled again.
Three figures glided across the ocean floor from beneath a coral-encrusted arch. Laaqueel's senses told her more of them remained in hiding, but she could not tell how many more. She studied the figures, opening her eyes to their widest to use what little light the depths held.
They looked like surface dwellers, dressed in clothing rather than going naked as most races in Seros did. There were three men, none of them possessing any remarkable features. They carried no apparent weapons, which surprised Laaqueel. The only surface dwellers the malenti priestess came in contact with who hadn't carried weapons were magic-users.
"Welcome," one of the men greeted. The word sounded foreign to his lips. "You have received word through Vurgrom of the Taker's Eye?"
"Yes," Iakhovas said. "I was told the eye resides in Myth Nantar."
"And so it does."
"I have brought gifts for the Grand Tor, a means of increasing his own armies," Iakhovas said.
He whirled the net above his head and it grew, increasing in size until it was as big as Iakhovas. He flung it away from him and still it grew. Something struggled within the strands.
When the net finished growing, it was huge. Tritons moved against each other inside it, striving desperately against the hemp strands.
The tritons were humanoid in appearance. They had the pointed ears and beautiful features of elves, long manes of dark blue and dark green hair. From the waist up, they could be easily mistaken for sea elves. From the waist down they were covered in deep blue scales. Their finned legs ended in broad, webbed flippers.
"How many?" one of the strangers asked.
Thirty-four," Iakhovas said. "Four above the agreed-upon price. A gesture of good will to Grand Tor Arcanaal."
"He will be most appreciative," one of the men said. He gestured and shadows swam from the darkness, moving through the water smoothly, their arms at their sides. Two men swam to the net and grabbed it, then towed it back toward the gloom.
The tritons cursed and called on their god Persana but it was to no avail. They were doomed to their fates at the hands of the men Iakhovas gave them to. In only minutes, they were gone from sight and no longer heard.
The man gestured again. Another man swam from the shadows bearing a gold chest inlaid with precious stones, marked with sigils of power. He handed it to Iakhovas. The man turned and swam away.
Come, Iakhovas commanded, gesturing at the water and opening the gate again. We have much to do.
Shaken and mystified by the encounter, Laaqueel propelled herself after Iakhovas.
Look back, priestess.
The serenity of the feminine voice was startling. Laaqueel glanced at Iakhovas as he summoned the gate.
He does not hear me, priestess, the serene voice went on. My words are meant for your thoughts alone.
Who are you? Laaqueel asked. The voice was the same one that she had heard in Coryselmal as she was turned back from death.
Patience. All will be explained. For now, turn back and see the lies that Iakhovas has woven for your eyes to see.
Almost unwillingly, Laaqueel finned around, sweeping a hand through the water with the webbing open. The men were still in sight, only they weren't men anymore.
The three figures had deep purple skin that darkened to inky-black. Iridescent tips and lines marked the dorsal fin on their heads and backs. The heads were not oval like a human's or an elf's, but rather elongated and stretched out like that of a locathah. Their jaws formed cruel beaks.
Instead of two arms, they had four, all of them with humanlike appendages instead of the pincers or tentacles Laaqueel knew were also possible on the creatures. Their lower bodies ended in six tentacles.
Iakhovas lies, the serene voice said. He's not as invincible as he would have you. believe. You must watch yourself. Then the voice was gone, a slight pop of pressure that faded from the inside of Laaqueel's skull.
"I am Myrym, chieftain of the Rolling Shell people, and I bid you welcome."
Pacys believed Myrym to be the oldest locathah he'd ever met. Cataracts clouded her eyes, but she gave no indication of missing anything around her.
The fin at the top of her head ran all the way down her back. Other fins underscored the forearms and the backs of her calves. The huge eyes were all black but were unable to both focus on the bard at the same time. The locathah turned her head from side to side. She wore a necklace made of threaded white and black pearls that would have been worth a fortune in the surface world, and a sash of netting that held a bag of different kinds of seaweed, coral, and shells. The old bard's own magical inclinations told him the net bag contained a number of items of power.
They sat at the bottom of the abyss in a grotto between a crevice of rock made easily defensible by stands of claw coral. Fist-sized chunks of glowcoral had been used to build cairns around them, punching holes in the darkness of the sea bottom. The tribe sat scattered about her, nearly three hundred strong, covering the ledges above them as well as smaller caves. The young in particular pooled together in schools, floating and watching with their big eyes.
Three days ago, the music had brought Pacys south and east of the sea elf city, drawing him toward Omalun and the Hmur Plateau at the base of Impiltur. The old bard couldn't lay name to what exactly pulled him, but he'd been insistent about going. Taranath Reefglamor had assigned guards to him and provisioned them well. The sea elf guard waited further up the Hmur Plateau with the seahorses they'd used as steeds.
Seated cross-legged only a few feet from the locathah chie
ftain, Pacys ran his hands over the saceddar, underscoring their conversation with a gentle melody that spoke of calm seas and the patience of her people, their willingness to sacrifice so they might live.
Khlinat sat only a little distance away, laughing at the antics of the foot-long locathah children as they swam close to him to investigate, then swam away with quick, darting movements.
"Thank you for your hospitality," Pacys said, listening to the music that crooned within him. "I didn't know what drew me out here, but I think I know now."
"We were drawn to each other," Myrym told him. "We've only been in this place two days. We have kept moving. The sahuagin have come into these waters, and the surface world has developed a strong distrust of anyone who calls the sea home. We have received word that our locathah brethren in the Shining Sea have allied with the Taker, an unfortunate choice that will affect us all."
"I know," Pacys replied.
Khlinat chuckled heartily as one of the small locathah children finally got the nerve up to touch his beard. The sudden explosive laughter sent the locathah child swimming for its life, threading under and between stands of rock thrusting up from the seabed.
"Oh, an' yer a quick lad, ain't ye?" the dwarf chuckled. "A-dartin' through them waters like that, it's a wonder ye didn't brain yerself."
The locathah child cowered behind the nearest adult, who laid a tender hand on the child's head. The other locathah laughed with the dwarf.
Even in that moment of levity, though, Pacys could sense the innate fear of the locathah tribe. They hadn't known peace and prosperity for generations, nor were there any reassurances now.
"What do you know of the Taker's beginnings?" Myrym asked.
"Nothing." Pacys paused his song. "All whom I have talked to have told me only that he was born long ago, when Toril was young. They didn't know if he was human or elf in the beginning, or what he would look like now."
Myrym nodded. "Someone once knew, but they have forgotten. However, that which others forget, the locathah hold close and treasure that it may someday benefit us. The other races have prophecies, parts they are to play in the coming battle."
Pacys changed tunes, finding one that played more slowly and conveyed menace. He recognized it as one of the Taker's alternate scores.
"Those thousands of years ago," Myrym said, "there existed a being unlike any that ever lived before. Some have said he was even the first man, the first to crawl from the sea and live upon the unforgiving dry. What made him crawl from the blessed sea, no one may know, but some say there was a longing within him to find another such as himself. The sea in those days was very green and had only recently given up space to the lands that rose from the fertile ocean bottom at the gods' behest."
Pacys listened intently, striking chords that would help his song paint the pictures of the tale.
"The Taker wandered the lands," Myrym said, "but of course, he found nothing there. The dry world was too new, and even the world of the sea was very young. While he was on the land, he talked with the gods. They were curious about him, you see, at this weak thing that dared talk to them and question the things that they did."
From the corner of his eye, Pacys saw that the locathah woman held the full attention of her tribe. The cadence of her voice pulled them in.
"With nothing to find on land, the Taker returned to the sea. It has been said that the Taker was there the day Sekolah set the first sahuagin free."
"Did he have a name?" Pacys asked.
"If he did, it has been forgotten," Myrym answered. "In those days, before people came to the sea, before some of them left the oceans and made their homes on dry land only later to return to the sea, names were not necessary. There was only one."
"Is he a man?" the old bard asked. "A wizard?"
"Not a true man, but again, not a creature of the sea either. He was himself, a thing unique."
"How did he come to be?"
"No one knows for sure, Loremaster. There are those who say his birth was an accident, created by the forces that first made Toril. Others say the god Bane crafted him to torture others. All agree that the Taker searched for love, for acceptance, for an end to the loneliness that filled him at being the one."
"But we all crave those things," Pacys said, not understanding. "How could this monster look for that which we all seek? I've been told the Taker is evil incarnate."
"He is," Myrym replied. "Are the wants and needs of good and evil so very different?"
"No," Pacys said. "Our stories are filled with those who fell from grace. Heroes and villains, only the merest whisper sometimes separates them."
"The Taker simply was," Myrym said. "His loneliness persisted till he drew the eye of Umberlee. The Bitch Queen in those days was softer. The gods had not yet begun to war over territories and the supplication of the thinking races that spread throughout the lands and seas of Toril. They existed in peace, each learning about their own powers, learning to dream their own dreams. Umberlee found the Taker, and she grew fascinated by him."
"Why?" Pacys asked.
"Because she had never known anything like him. He hurt and bled easily compared to her, weak in so many ways. Still, he held forth a joy and a zest for life that she had never envisioned. She grew to love him."
"And he grew to love her." Pacys's fingers sketched out a brief, sprightly tune that echoed in the grotto.
"As much as he could," Myrym admitted. "The concept of love, though credited to the gods, was a virtue of the elves, who knew loyalty and honor first. It was made bittersweet by the humans, whose lives ran by at a rapid pace and who could not maintain the attention and focus of the elves. In the beginning, an elf could love others, but only if he loved himself first. Humans, though, could love past themselves, love others more than themselves. They could love ideas, could love even the sound of laughter, which many thought was foolishness. No one, it is said, can love as a human can whose heart is pure and true."
Jherek gazed down into Sabyna's eyes and felt shamed. That she should have to ask him was his own failing. He held his hand in hers, feeling her fingers knotted up in the material of his shirt.
Her eyes searched his. "Can you promise me your heart, Jherek?" she asked again.
"Lady-"
"The answer can be so simple," Sabyna said. "Despite everything else you have on your mind, despite the other troubles that have your attention, there can be only two answers. Anything else would be no answer at all, and that wouldn't be fair to me after all I've revealed to you."
In the end, he knew what his answer must be, and why. He was not the man he needed or wanted to be, and she deserved far more than he ever could be.
"No."
Her fingers unknotted from his shirt and she pulled her hand back. Jherek made himself let go her hand, thinking he would never again have the opportunity to touch her.
"You tell me no, yet you made the diviner a promise not knowing what she might ask."
"There was no choice in that, lady."
"There's always a choice, Jherek. That's what life is about."
"Lady, I've never had the choices of others."
"No," Sabyna said. "I think maybe you've never been one to fight time or tide, Jherek. You gave your promise to the diviner even though that promise might take your life."
"Lady, I swore my life to you."
"Your life isn't what I wanted," Sabyna said. "A chance at a life with you is all that I asked."
She turned to go, tripping over a line in the rigging even though she'd been so surefooted earlier.
"Lady-" Jherek took a step forward, meaning to catch her, meaning to tell her-something.
The bag of holding at her side suddenly erupted and the raggamoffyn exploded from it. The bits and pieces of cloth wove themselves into a serpentine shape that struck like a cobra. The blow hammered Jherek's chest hard enough to knock him off balance.
"Skeins!" Sabyna cried, grabbing the raggamoffyn as it prepared to strike again. "No!"
Steadying himself, Jherek stared at the pretty ship's mage. Before he could find anything to say, a voice bawled out a warning from below.
"Slavers! Slavers off the port bow!"
IX
10 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet
Jherek turned to face Black Champion's port side. Below, the pirates ran across the deck, following orders Azla barked out on the run. The pirate captain grabbed the railing of the prow castle steps and hauled herself up.
"Malorrie!" Azla yelled. "Do you see the damned ship?"
"Aye," Jherek replied in full voice. "She's off to port about a thousand yards."
"Her heading?"
"For us, Captain."
There was no doubt about her heading. White-capped breakers smashed against her prow as she cut across the green sea. Her lanyards bloomed with full canvas, harnessing the wind as she rose and fell on the great hills of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
"Is she riding high?" Azla demanded. "Or wallowing like some fat-arsed duck?"
"She's riding low, Captain," Jherek bellowed back between his cupped hands, "but she's coming hard."
He turned to glance at Sabyna but found the ship's mage was already climbing rapidly down the rigging. The young sailor's heart hurt as he watched her go.
He grabbed the book Glawinn had loaned him and quickly shoved it into the leather pouch where he stowed his gear. He left the pouch tied to the rigging, hoping it would be there when he got back. Out of habit he took the bow and quiver of arrows he'd brought up with him.
Glancing back at the approaching ship, the young sailor noted that it had gained considerably, pulling to within eight hundred yards and still closing. Black Champion held a south-southwesterly course, headed for the coast of Turmish. The slaver ship drew on due east, running straight ahead of the breeze as it swooped upon them.