Dark Tapestry

by Elaine Cunningham

  I swam back to the ship and peered into the wreckage. There was only one cabin below deck, and the sea chest in it had been chained to the floor. As I nosed at the chest, skeletal fingers rose from behind it and reached for my snout.

  Instinct—shark and half-elven both—had me darting out of the hold. But the bony arm floated free, devoid of purpose or intent. No undead guardian this, but a fragment of a drowned crewman whose resting place I'd disturbed.

  It seemed likely that the Reliquary, if it was still here, would be in that chest. In my shark form, I couldn't hope to retrieve it.

  I changed back to the form I was born with. Working quickly, I used a dagger to pry the chest's hinges free of the half-rotted wood and then pushed the lid aside. Inside the chest were the usual treasures of a scholar: books, scrolls, a few garments. Seawater had ruined all of it. The only object worth taking was a small, coffin-shaped box. I ran my fingers over the surface. It was alternately smooth and studded, suggesting an inlay of jewels. This had to be the Reliquary.

  I tugged open my bag. Before I could stow the Reliquary, the map floated out, slowly unfurling in the water. Faint, greenish light rose from it and spilled out into the dark.

  As I snatched the map, I noticed that glow came from the markings tattooed on the whaleskin parchment. This made good sense, ensuring that the map could be read in dark water. But what was written there made no sense whatsoever.

  The city map was gone. In its place was an eerie, angular sketch of a mermaid, her face twisted with malicious glee. The runes hinting of the legendary Xanchara had likewise changed into a script that looked vaguely elven.

  There was no time to explore this mystery. Even in my natural half-elf form I could dive deeper and stay underwater longer than most land-dwellers, but my time was growing short.

  I stuffed the map into my bag and pulled the ties shut. Up through the water I glided, blowing a slow, steady stream of bubbles as I went.

  Strong hands seized my ankles and jerked me back toward the sea floor.

  The sudden attack surprised me into releasing a burst of air. I quickly recovered and drew a dagger from my thigh sheath. Before I could twist myself down and around, a second attacker captured the wrist of my weapon hand in a crushing grip.

  The dagger fell from my benumbed hand, and for a moment I stared into the face of the strangest elf I had ever seen.

  Tattoos swirled across the angles of his stern face and down his torso. His hair was slightly curly, and cut as short as mine. The hand gripping my wrist was large and strong, and the fingers webbed. Gills scored the sides of his neck.

  I knew sea elves existed, but despite my half-elf heritage and my druidic affinity for water, I'd never expected to encounter one. I certainly never expected this overwhelming sense of... recognition? Kinship?

  A low, grinding creak sounded beneath me and suddenly, impossibly, we were sinking below the sea's floor.

  The light was better here, almost as bright as the near-surface. At a gesture from the elf who held my wrist, my other captor released my ankles and swam away.

  A nearby crash and clatter drew my eyes to a large cage, which was suspended from the underside of the "sea floor" with several familiar-looking, sea-fiber ropes. In the cage was a mermaid, darting from side to side and testing the bars with slams from her powerful tail.

  Some echo of the shark's brain stirred in the back of my mind, and I remembered the taste of blood in the water. The mermaid must have caught my scent as well, because her frenzy abruptly ceased. The creature's gaze slid off me and lingered on my elven captor. A wicked smile curved the mermaid's lips and exploded into silent, malicious laughter.

  I thought of the altered map, but only in passing. My chest was starting to burn, and the desire to gulp in water was growing too strong to ignore. Desperately I twisted in the sea elf's grip—

  The sight spread out below me stopped me cold. A new pain enveloped me, but I did not wish it away. Some sights are too beautiful, some longings too poignant, to be experienced with unmixed pleasure.

  There was a city beneath the Sandusky Shoal, but not the ruins of ancient Xanchara. This was a living, vibrant place. Curving towers appeared to have been grown, not built, and the gardens surrounding them made the courtyards of Osirian palaces look as pale and lifeless as desert sand. Distant, graceful forms moved among these wonders, and glowing sea creatures blinked like jungle fire-bugs, bathing the scene in ever-shifting light.

  I caught a glimpse, no more, before my vision began to turn narrow and gray.

  My captor, sensing that I was beaten, relaxed his grip. Lapis's scarf had come unbound during my struggles. Summoning the last of my strength, I grabbed the scarf and looped it around the sea elf's neck. A frantic tug pulled it tight, holding his gills shut.

  Now he needed air as badly as I did.

  I'm sure we struggled. All I remembered is rising together through that door, toward the air and light of the surface world. Whatever it is that makes me Channa Ti was fading away, but some distant corner of my mind remembered the crocodile whose form I sometimes borrowed. A crocodile, once it takes hold, is not easily shaken off.

  We broke the surface of the water together. I dragged in several long, ragged breaths before I realized I still had the sea elf in a stranglehold. Somehow I'd worked my way around so that I was pressed tightly against his back, the scarf knotted around his neck.

  "Things are not as they seem," I said, speaking in the elven tongue. "If I release you, will you hear me out?"

  For a moment I thought he did not understand. Then it occurred to me that the scarf was too tight to allow speech. I loosened my grip.

  "I will listen," the sea elf said.

  His voice was deep and pleasant, surprisingly musical considering his near-strangulation. I released him and back-paddled away. As he turned to face me, a net spun out over the water.

  There was no time to call a warning. The net dropped over the elf. I could hear Lapis direct the men to drag the merman aboard.

  Merman?

  With a resigned sigh, I began to swim after the struggling sea elf. I wasn't sure which would be harder to overcome: my apparent betrayal, or Lapis's insult.

  I caught the rope Lapis threw me and pulled myself over the rail. The three crewmen had dragged the sea elf aboard, still entangled in the net. They stood guard, whale harpoons in hand.

  "Cut him loose."

  Lapis whirled toward me. "Channa, have you lost your mind?"

  "I can still tell a sea elf from a mermaid, if that's what you're asking."

  To my surprise, the sea elf's lips twitched. Apparently he'd picked up a bit of Osiriani. That made things easier.

  I locked gazes with the elf. "A mermaid laid an ambush for me. This sea elf fought the creature. Such treatment is no way to repay him. I'll only say this one more time: cut him loose."

  Lapis seethed for a moment before conceding with a nod. One of the crewmembers cut the drawstring ropes and loosened the net. I motioned for the other two to put aside the harpoons. They ignored me. I gave up and took the map from my bag as the elf disentangled himself.

  As I expected, some of the ink was faded and running. The city map was still faintly visible in the bright daylight, but only as a ghostly image imposed over the leering, mocking face of the mermaid.

  "You were meant to kill me," I told the sea elf, speaking in the language of our common ancestors. "The mermaid wanted to watch you do it. And after you'd played her game, you were meant to find this."

  I handed him the map. His eyes widened. I watched as understanding came, as wrath kindled in his eyes and hardened into cold, bloody vengeance. I understood the feeling well.

  "So much for fabled Xanchara."

  Finally he glanced up. "You told the human I saved your life."

  "I implied it. There's a
difference."

  He conceded this with a quick flip of one hand. "Mistake me not—if my people are threatened, I will kill without hesitation."

  "I offer no threat to your people."

  "Then what of this map? What did you think to find?"

  "The people who killed my—" I broke off, trying to find a word in the elven tongue that would serve the concept of venture-captain. None came to mind, so I started again. "I'm seeking the people who killed my chieftain."

  His face darkened. "If you accuse the sea folk—"

  "No. Humans killed him to trick me into following that map. I would kill them for that alone. Like you, I don't take kindly to being used as a weapon."

  The sea elf glanced at the mocking face on the map and conceded my point with a nod. "And did you find what they wanted you to find?"

  He meant the city, of course. I reached into the bag and pulled out the Reliquary.

  It was a surprisingly pretty thing, fashioned from ebony and set with bright chips of lapis lazuli, emerald, and garnet. The elf took the box and lifted the lid. He tipped it so I could see the contents—a bit of carved bone—and raised one eyebrow in silent inquiry.

  "The men who killed my chieftain are priests. They consider this a holy relic, and they place great value on it—higher than the value they place on a good man's life."

  "Then I wish you good hunting and swift vengeance." As the sea elf handed me the box, he leaned in close and said in softer tones, "You did not tell the woman everything you saw."

  The image of the sea elf city flooded my mind, and for a moment I relived both the beauty and the longing. Something of this must have shown on my face, because the elf's stern expression eased.

  "Where humans are concerned," I said softly, "some things are better left unspoken."

  "Then we will not meet again." His gaze flicked over to Lapis and the crew, including them in the question.

  "No," I promised. "We will not."

  I stood at the rail long after the sea elf had disappeared beneath the waves, sorting through the day's events and trying to make sense of the task before me.

  No easy task, for a mind so clouded with anger as mine.

  Gham Banni had been a great scholar. Thanks to his lifelong study into the lore of lost Xanchara, he knew more of the secrets hidden by Golarion's seas than any land-dweller I'd ever met. If he was aware of the sea elf city hidden under the Sandusky Shoal, if he knew where the mermaid-crafted map led, then he had found not only the perfect hiding place for the Reliquary, but also the perfect unwitting guardians.

  In his own way, he was no better than the mermaids.

  And what of the sea elves? What if that accursed map had brought to this place a force greater than the sea elves could turn aside?

  For once, Lapis held her tongue and let me think in peace. But she could contain herself for only so long, and after a while she sidled up beside me and reached for the Reliquary. I slapped her hand away and picked up the bit of bone.

  "Look at this," I said, turning it this way and that to show her the details. The hollow within was stained with ink. An ebony cap closed one end, and the other had a narrow groove carved into the rim. And the carving was a tiny form of a familiar sigil—a version of the sigil Gham Banni wore on the ring his murderers had stolen.

  "A pen handle," I concluded, handing the bone to Lapis. "Somehow I would have thought Gham Banni would treat a relic of a dead god with a little more respect."

  She examined it and shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you."

  "Why did the Starseeker go down here?"

  If the quick shift in direction puzzled Lapis, she gave no sign. She gestured to a breaching whale. "As you pointed out, navigating among feeding whales is no easy thing."

  "I doubt whales had anything to do with it. If the Starseeker's crew learned they were following a mermaid-crafted map, they would have mutinied."

  Lapis's mouth formed a little O of surprise, and she seized the arm of a passing crewman. "Doram, is that true?"

  The man hesitated only a moment. "It is, Lady Banni. Had I known you carried such a map, nothing could have persuaded me to set sail."

  She absently waved him on his way. "Well, you might be right, Channa. The map belonged to Shaffir Banni, my grandfather's cousin. My grandfather told me that both he and his cousin survived the shipwreck, but Shaffir died before their lifeboat reached shore."

  "Usually any man carrying such a map would be killed. Instead, the crew set him adrift, and Gham with him. I think Gham Banni saw the ship go down. I think he knew full well no whale was responsible. And so," I added, "do you."

  Lapis threw up her hands. "Alright, yes, Gham saw the mermaid, and yes, he told me it brought the ship down. I knew there might still be a lair hereabouts. But I did warn you. I told you to look out for mermaids."

  "Yes. Thank you. That was very helpful."

  She made an angry, sputtering sound and flounced off. I turned back to the sea to hide my smile. By now I'd figured out that Lapis, though adept at side-stepping truth and setting up small, deliberate misunderstandings, would not tell an outright lie. She truly did not know that sea elves, not mermaids, had scuttled the Starseeker.

  I could let her live.

  Appendix: A Note On Merfolk

  A reclusive people, most merfolk communities avoid other races—particularly air-breathing ones—being well acquainted with the dangers posed by those not of their kind. Whether facing murder and slavery at the fins of fierce sahuagin raiders, kidnapping by curious sailors from the world above, or rampages by any number of monstrosities roused from their watery abysses, the merfolk have learned how to keep themselves hidden and, thus, safe from intruders. While this makes many prejudiced, even violent, against outsiders, some remain fascinated with other races. Such interests often prove difficult to maintain, though, as the underwater communities of merfolk tend to be so well guarded or hidden from outsiders that few encounters, either violent or friendly, ever occur. Noted here are three storied merfolk communities, told of in the tales of sailors and those few who have explored the depths of the sea.

  Chosovosei: Small by the standards of the world above, but a true merfolk city nonetheless, this trench community lies about 350 miles northwest of Hermea. While the merfolk maintain aloof but peaceful relations with the elves of the Mordant Spire, they live in fear of the krakens of the Endless Eye, to whom they pay outlandish seasonal offerings.

  Jehyseel of Fire Tide: The merfolk community of Jehyseel lies within a forest of stinging anemones deep within the Obari Ocean. The merfolk are quite adept at dealing with the anemones and can reliably treat their often deadly stings—through they rarely do for those not of their kind. The merfolk even possess a great shell trumpet, known as the Ohncov, that causes the plant-like hunters to retract their tendrils, revealing the town below should it be required.

  Stormshoal: A merfolk fortress perched at the edge of the Eye of Abendego, this citadel of coral and colorful stone drifts above the sea bottom, constantly lashed by the stormy waters yet moored in place by the grasping lengths of a field of massive seaweed fronds. The merfolk within live a nearly hermetic life, for the swift-moving and murky waters endlessly churned by the storm make it just as difficult to leave the fortress as it is to enter.

  Chapter Six: The Drowned God

  The city of Totras strolled past at a leisurely pace, framed by the silk-draped window of the litter I shared with Lapis. In my opinion, a gilded box carried on the shoulders of six tall, brawny men was a ridiculous way to travel. But according to Lapis, visitors to Vanir Shornish's mansion were expected to arrive in style. Anything less might attract notice.

  "We'd get there sooner if we got down and walked," I grumbled.

  The palace dancer propped her small, bare feet on the pillow beside me and smiled charmingly. "What sor
t of warrior keeps her weapons sheathed?"

  Lapis's foot-fighting skills were impressive, so I let her dubious logic pass unremarked. I glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of Totras's most famed landmark—an enormous red granite statue of some long-dead pharaoh, staring impassively over the harbor.

  "We'll be there soon. Some things must be said."

  Lapis's smile faltered. She gave a cautious nod.

  "Vanir Shornish is expecting me to bring him the Reliquary of the Drowned God." I passed a small, jeweled box from one hand to another, as if weighing it in some unseen scale. "This fits that description perfectly. It's shaped like a coffin, and it's certainly fine enough to hold a relic. There was even a piece of bone in it."

  "Yes? So?"

  "So it's a lie."

  She sat up straight, genuine affront on her pretty face. "I do not lie, and neither did my grandfather!"

  "Not directly, maybe, but dancing around the truth seems to be a family tradition. Take this box, for example."

  I flipped open the lid and showed her the round indentation carved into the thick wooden bottom. "This was designed to hold a sphere of some sort. There are a few body parts fitting that description, but none of them make long-lasting relics. One might therefore conclude that this box is not the Reliquary Vanir is seeking."

  Lapis folded her arms, tucked her feet under her skirts, and sulked for several moments.

  "That's true," she admitted at last. "But if we hope to find the people who my killed my grandfather, we needed to follow the mermaid-crafted map as they expected, and we needed to find something."