by Mel Odom
"We've not seen the worst of this yet, have we?" she asked.
"No," Glawinn replied softly. "No, lady, I'm afraid we haven't."
Laaqueel stood on Tarjana's deck and stared at the Great Whale Bard. The creature floated in the currents before the broken section of the Sharksbane Wall, flanked by other whales. The great whale was over four hundred feet long from its blunt head to its tail flukes. Gray-blue skin stood out against the blue-green sea so it looked more like a shadow than a solid thing. The whale song continued to echo in shrill squeaks and moans around Hunter's Ridge
He knows you're coming, she told Iakhovas when he joined her.
Of course he does. Iakhovas looked at her and grinned. Can't you smell the fear on him, little malenti?
Laaqueel said nothing. She couldn't smell fear from the great whale, but she sensed the anticipation from the sahuagin who ringed the mountains around her. Not far away, Maartaaugh and Ruubuuiz stood together, out of safe crossbow shot from the few sea elves that still manned the makeshift garrison.
Iakhovas held a harpoon in one fist. The thick shaft bore runes etched in black. The metal blade gleamed as though a fresh edge had just been put on it.
Why didn't you challenge Maartaaugh and be done with it? Laaqueel asked. You could have beaten him easily.
Little malenti, Iakhovas said patiently, there is still much you have to learn when it comes to leading warriors. In Waterdeep, though our forces were turned away, we killed many of our enemies, destroyed their boats, and burned their buildings and homes. Though it was a loss in some respects, I taught We Who Eat of the Claarteeros Sea that, they could win. They knew before that they could fight the surface world, but never before had they known they could win.
The whale song continued unabated, throbbing through the water, racing with the currents. It was hard for Laaqueel to stand there and take the whale's abuse. A few of the sahuagin who came from Vahaxtyl to watch succumbed to the whale song's thrall and returned to their city.
Once I gave them that, Iakhovas continued, Baldur's Gate could not stand against them. The Great Whale Bard will be Seros' Waterdeep. It will teach these warriors here that anything is possible? and it will give notice to the sea elves and others that would stand in our way. He grinned, and his golden eye gleamed. What other creature can sing its death song the length and breadth of the Sea of Fallen Stars?
Iakhovas signaled to one of the sahuagin warriors in Tarjana's stern. The warrior started beating the drum brought up from belowdecks. The basso booms echoed through the water, partially masking the whale song.
The sahuagin warriors aboard the mudship picked up the rhythm, slapping their webbed feet against the deck, creating hollow detonations that amplified the frenetic beat. Within the space of a few heartbeats, the sahuagin warriors along Hunter's Ridge picked up the rhythm as well, slapping their hands and feet against the ocean floor or banging rocks together.
Wish me well, little malenti.
Iakhovas leaped off the mudship. His illusion as a sahuagin warrior for the moment was complete. Not even Laaqueel could tell he was anything else.
He swam strongly, straight for the waiting whales as if propelled by the savage beat of the sahuagin. The long harpoon stayed close at his side.
Just over the broken section of the Sharksbane Wall, unchallenged by the sea elves who knew they were not his targets, Iakhovas halted in the water. He was less than a hundred feet from the Great Whale Bard.
"I am Iakhovas!" he roared. "And I will be your death!"
He swam straight at the great whale like a crossbow bolt.
XVII
2 Eleasias, the Year of the Gauntlet
Confusion consumed Laaqueel's thoughts as she watched Iakhovas close on the Great Whale Bard. The confrontation with the priestesses of Vahaxtyl weighed heavily on her mind. The closest Sekolah came to involving himself in his children's worship of him was when he sent avatars to inspire their blood frenzy, and that almost never happened.
Though she believed Iakhovas when he said he played no part in the matter, she couldn't help questioning whether her defense had come from Sekolah. She couldn't answer why the Shark God would choose to defend a malenti priestess. Malenti birth was only a sign that the sahuagin lived too close to the sea elves, their sworn enemies. There was nothing positive about being a malenti, nothing in their scriptures to suggest that Sekolah would show any kind of special interest.
Her line of thinking pointed her back to Iakhovas. Either he had engineered the priestesses' deaths and gotten away with lying to her, or he was as important to Sekolah's bloody designs as he said he was. Laaqueel's faith was torn in both directions. She was afraid to believe and fool herself, and afraid not to believe and take away the last vestiges of herself she had left, trapped by her own need for understanding.
She stood on Tarjana's deck amid the sahuagin warriors as they kept up the frantic rhythm and watched Iakhovas approach the Great Whale Bard.
The whale song boomed through the water, partially obscured by the throbbing sahuagin beat. The Great Whale Bard shifted only slightly to face his approaching foe.
Taker.
The whale's voice rolled like thunder through Laaqueel's mind. From the way the sahuagin stopped slapping their hands and feet and rocks, the malenti priestess knew they'd all heard it too.
"Death," Iakhovas snarled, not slowing his pace toward the giant creature. The great whale was nearly fifty times bigger than Iakhovas.
There is only belief. High Priestess Ghaataag had told Laaqueel that when the young malenti was first accepted into Sekolah's temple. Belief made a priestess strong, while knowledge took strength away. Never before had Laaqueel so fully understood that insight.
Two killer whales raced for Iakhovas. Their black and white bodies sped through the water, cutting across currents more swiftly even than sahuagin could swim. Iakhovas swam straight for them, never veering from the Great Whale Bard.
At the last moment, Iakhovas shifted, diving below the lead killer whale. He dragged his harpoon's edge along the killer whale's underside, splitting it open and gutting it in a bloody rush that fogged the water. Iakhovas disappeared, lost in the dark red haze.
When he burst through the bloody mist on the other side, the sahuagin warriors broke out in lusty cheers. They slapped the ocean floor with their feet and clapped their hands again, finding the savage rhythm of a raging heart.
Silently, Laaqueel prayed that Sekolah would take Iakhovas from them, prayed that the Shark God would allow the whales their victory, prayed that she would know now if Iakhovas was savior or slayer to her people.
The second killer whale finned around and streaked for Iakhovas again as sharks broke the tethers of their THE THREAT FROM THE SEA sahuagin masters and dived for the floating corpse of the first. Iakhovas turned once more, quickly overtaken by the killer whale. He dodged it, bumping his chest against his opponent's sleek underbelly. Iakhovas hooked the claws of his free hand into the exposed flesh, followed almost immediately by his foot claws.
Latched onto the killer whale like a barnacle, Iakhovas ripped through its flesh and pierced its heart. Convulsions wracked the killer whale as Iakhovas leaped from it toward the Great Whale Bard.
Other whales surged forward protectively.
Stay back, the Great Whale Bard ordered. This has already been writ. We have done what we could. Those of you who can escape alive must do so.
Reluctantly, the other whales ceased moving.
The Time of Tempering has come then, the massive voice proclaimed, but you will not have everything you seek, Taker.
"I will!" Iakhovas roared. "It will all be mine again!"
No. For all your plans and machinations, there is one you did not count on, one whom you could not know of.
Laaqueel felt the certainty of the Great Whale Bard's words in her mind.
"You lie!" Iakhovas screamed.
He reached the Great Whale Bard and slashed with his harpoon, driving it deep into the c
reature's blunt snout. The Great Whale Bard screamed in agony, disrupting the whale song. The other whales tried to continue, but without the Great Whale Bard to lead them and tie their voices together, the mystic enchantment lost most of its power. Laaqueel felt the change. The stomach-twisting nausea left her.
Still roaring in savage rage, Iakhovas dragged the harpoon free, tearing a large wound in the great whale's snout. The creature tried to move to avoid its attacker or to strike back, Laaqueel wasn't sure, but it moved far too slowly to escape Iakhovas's wrath. The harpoon buried into the great whale's flesh again and again, releasing clouds of blood into the water.
Even as she prayed, Laaqueel knew there could be no other end to the battle. With the blood in the water, not all the details of the fight were visible, but the malenti priestess watched as Iakhovas hooked his claws into the Great Whale Bard's side and clambered up to the top of its head.
The frenetic beat of webbed feet against stone and mud continued throbbing through the waters surrounding Hunter's Ridge. None of the elves dared leave their garrisons, and less of them were visible now.
Still hooked into the whale's flesh, Iakhovas pulled himself to the top of the head. He located the great whale's blowhole and shoved himself down inside. The creature continued to swim, but its movements quickly grew weaker. Blood fountained from the blowhole in increasing volume, like smoke from a surface worlder's campfire. The Great Whale Bard screamed in denial and fear. The sound echoed through the sea, and Laaqueel knew that Iakhovas had been right: the Great Whale Bard's death would undoubtedly be heard throughout all of Seros.
The great whale's tail drooped, no longer moving. Only then did Laaqueel notice that the other whales were in full retreat. Their song had stopped.
The huge corpse turned slowly, like a ship combating an unfavorable wind. Incredibly, the small jaw hinged to the bottom of the huge blunt head opened. Blood spewed out in a violent rush, revealing the massive damage that had been dealt to the creature's insides.
When the currents washed the blood away, Iakhovas stood revealed, levering the jaw open by pushing against the whale's upper jaw. Still holding the Great Whale Bard's jaw open, he screamed defiantly, "I am Iakhovas! I am your king!"
The sahuagin warriors screamed with him, defiant and exhilarated.
"Meat is meat!" Iakhovas yelled. "Come eat of the feast I have laid before you!"
The sahuagin surged forward, filling the water as they streamed through the broken section of the Sharksbane Wall. They descended on the Great Whale Bard's corpse like carrion crabs.
Laaqueel stayed on Tarjana's deck. She knew her absence among their ranks wouldn't go unnoticed, but she had no heart to join them. All she felt inside was a curious emptiness.
"All hail King Iakhovas the Deliverer!" one of the sahuagin warriors shouted as the feeding frenzy filled the ocean with blood. The other warriors took up the shout, and the sound filled the currents. They slapped their hands and feet against the whale's corpse, finding the savage rhythm again.
Laaqueel wrapped her hand around the white shark symbol that lay between her breasts and prayed. She found no comfort in an act that used to come so naturally to her.
*****
"Aye, an' there's trouble afoot, friend Pacys."
Drawn from his work on the saceddar, the old bard glanced up at the dwarf. Khlinat's face was grim and hard. The last sweet notes from the saceddar died away.
"What is it?" the bard asked.
Khlinat pointed forward with his bearded chin and said, "It appears we've run afoul of a war party of mermen. They're refusing to let us pass through."
"Why?"
Pacys uncoiled from the flat rock on the sea bottom where he'd been working while the caravan took a brief respite. They'd crossed the outer edges of the Hmur Plateau a couple days back. At present, they were only a few miles east of the Pirate Isles.
"I'm figurin' the merfolk don't exactly take to what looks like a military group paradin' through their land. At least, that's the gist of what I heard afore I decided to come back for ye."
"What does Reefglamor say?" Pacys asked, securing the saceddar to his back.
"A whole lot," the dwarf replied, "but ain't none of it doing him any good. Him and that merman baron are both puffing up like toads. Me, I'm keeping a ready hand for me axe."
The old bard launched himself into the water, and Khlinat followed him. Pacys swam easily, making his way along the caravan line to the front. Undersea mountains around the Pirate Isles made their journey hard even for swimmers. Bands of raiding seawolves and scrags had attacked them during the nights, costing them nearly a dozen warriors before they were turned back. The mountains created too many potential ambush points, but the deeper water toward the center of the Hmur Plateau offered dangers as well. The depths also shortened even the sea elves' undersea vision to but a few feet.
The sea elf rangers among the caravan saw to the care of the narwhals and sea turtles that pulled the flat supply sleds. The warriors formed protective units around the steep hills, stationed in positions that allowed them to see in all directions.
Even with the bright sunlight streaming through the shallows, Pacys didn't see Reefglamor and the mermen until he was a hundred feet away. Twenty warriors floated behind the merman baron with their tridents in their fists.
Reefglamor stood on a small rise in front of the baron, "You must let us pass," he said.
"No." The merman baron studied Pacys as the bard approached. His tone turned derisive. "You even brought humans with you."
"This is not an ordinary human," Reefglamor argued. "This is the Taleweaver. Your people have legends of the Taker…"
"Yes."
The baron didn't appear convinced. He was broad and muscled. His long brown hair floated over his shoulders, following the path of the currents that swept over the area. Tattoos covered his arms and chest, and a spiral representing Eadro decorated his right cheek.
"Then you've heard of the Taleweaver, Baron Tallos," Reefglamor persisted.
The baron narrowed his eyes. "Those tales have been twice-told hundreds of times over," he argued. "I choose not to believe in them as much as some of my people do."
"Then your arrogance lends itself to ignorance," Reef-glamor accused.
Tallos flicked his tail in irritation and shot a hand out to adjust his momentum. "Swim carefully in these waters, old fins," he warned.
The old sea elf drew himself up to his full height. "I am Taranath Reefglamor, Senior High Mage of Sylkiir."
"I was told who you are," the baron snapped. "Yet you still stand before me on two legs, sea elf, and I tell you that no one not blessed by Eadro with fins and a tail is a true creature of Seros. Your people migrated here out of their own fear and prejudice. We have always been here."
Rage darkened the High Mage's features. At his side, Pharom Ildacer moved forward. Even as the merman warriors reacted by dropping their tridents toward the sea elves, Reefglamor placed a hand on his friend's chest. Ildacer stopped reluctantly.
"We only want to travel to Myth Nantar," Reefglamor said. "We must see to it that the Taleweaver arrives there safely."
"Not across my lands." Tallos glared at the old bard. "I'll not have a sea elf army moving through my city, or anywhere near it."
"We travel for the good of Seros," Reefglamor protested. "If we don't stand against the Taker, all of our world may fall."
"The good of Seros," Tallos echoed. "As I recall, the Alu'Tel'Quessir have long held that as a reason for their attempts to take over all of Seros. How many have died as your people have tried to force their will on others? The Eleventh Seros War was fought over the same beliefs. Well, we don't hold forth those beliefs. We don't even presume to know what's best for Seros. We take care of our own, and life in these waters would be far better if others took care to do the same."
Reefglamor had no reply, visibly stung by the merman's hard tone and words.
"Myth Nantar was another vessel of sea elven cons
piracy," Tallos continued. "Better it should remain buried behind the mythal that binds it than to return to this world."
"Prophecy has declared that the City of Destinies is the place where the Taker might be destroyed," Reefglamor said.
"So say you, elf."
"Your people have those prophecies as well."
"Mayhap you'd be surprised how few of my people are willing to trust the Alu'Tel'Quessir these days."
Reefglamor shook his head. "Unrest and strife stir the waters and echo on the currents," he said. "The sahuagin are once more free to roam all of Seros. Surely you've noticed this."
"I've heard," Tallos answered coldly. "I've also heard that it was the sea elves themselves who shattered the Sharks-bane Wall."
"Why in all the seas would we have done that?"
"Because to get to you, the sahuagin must first run through the Hmur Plateau-where the mermen live," the merman accused.
"Your King Vhaemas can't believe that."
"The king," Tallos admitted, "is more reluctant than some, but all are aware that there is no love lost between the sea elves and the merfolk."
"This is bigger than the animosity that lies between our people," Reefglamor said.
"If it were," Tallos countered, "wouldn't Coronal Semphyr or Cormal Ytham have sent you with more troops? Or approached our king first to request passage through our lands?"
"They, too, are blind to the dangers we face."
Tallos regarded the old mage, then said, "If your own people don't believe in you and your journey, why should I?"
"Because it is the truth," Reefglamor said.
"Not my truth."
Without another word, Reefglamor turned and motioned his warriors and fellow mages back.
"What will we do?" Jhanra Merlistar asked.
"We have no choice," Reefglamor answered. "We'll have to go around the plateau, along the western edge."
"That's insane," Ildacer stated harshly. "Those waters are filled with koalinth tribes who would waste no time attacking us. Only fools would swim there."