by Mel Odom
Jherek’s stomach protested, wanting to purge its contents. Even though the wind raced over him to fill the sails, he felt like he’d come to dead calm inside, the last place a sailor wanted to find himself in an uncharted sea.
“Are you a wanted man, Jherek?”
“Aye.”
Sabyna didn’t bat an eye. She’d already been mostly certain of that, the young sailor knew.
“Is it for something you have done?”
“I’ve never done anything in my life to harm another soul out of greed or anger.”
“I believe you,” she said.
Relief flooded through Jherek.
“So your guilt, the price on your head, came from association with others?”
“Aye.”
“So how did you come to be with these people that earned you the price on your head?”
“Through no fault of my own, lady,” Jherek replied honestly. “It was ill luck.”
“When did you leave them?”
“I was twelve,” Jherek whispered.
“By the Lady’s mercy,” Sabyna said in a hushed voice, “you were only a boy.”
Jherek remained silent, hoping she had probed enough. Every question she asked—skirting so closely to the truth he felt he needed to keep hidden—felt like a healer lancing an infected wound. Only in this there was no release from pressure and misery, only the promise of even more, sharper pain to come.
“What did they do?” Sabyna asked.
“Lady, please, I can’t talk of it.”
“Why? Jherek, don’t you see that there doesn’t have to be anything unsaid between us?”
Her question caught him by surprise. He shook his head, unable to voice what she wanted to hear.
“Lady, I would never have anything unsaid between us.”
“But there is something?”
He couldn’t answer.
“I told you before, when we first met on Breezerunner, that I could be very forward,” Sabyna said. “Most men feel uncomfortable around a woman who knows her own mind. Sailors especially. They’re not used to it.”
“Aye, but that is not true of me. Sometimes,” Jherek said quietly to give his words weight, “no matter how hard you struggle for something, it’s not meant to be yours.”
“Is that a threat?” Sabyna’s voice hardened, but it was only a brittle shell over uncertainty.
The young sailor laughed when he wanted to cry. “No, lady. May Umberlee take me into her deep, dark embrace this very moment if ever there was a time I would intentionally hurt you.”
“Back in the diviner’s cave, she asked you what you believed in. You told her that you believed in love.” Sabyna gazed deep into his eyes. “Did you mean that?”
Jherek hesitated, but in the end he knew she would know if he lied. “Aye,” he said, “I believe in love. Perhaps, lady, it’s the last thing I do believe in.”
“So many things, evil as well as good, have been done in the name of love.”
“There is no evil when the love is true,” Jherek stated.
“How much do you believe that, Jherek?”
He shook his head. “Lady, with all that I am.”
“Then how can you be so far from me? Surely you must know how I feel.”
The question hammered Jherek like a fisherman’s billy.
Tears trickled down Sabyna’s face. “Never have I met a man,” she said hoarsely, “that I’ve wanted as much as I want you. From the moment I saw you hanging onto Breezerunner’s side scraping barnacles, to the time we sit here together. Yet you don’t acknowledge it.”
Helplessly, Jherek watched her cry, not knowing what to do or what to say except, “I didn’t know.”
Her eyes remained steady on him and dark sadness clouded them, took away the merriment he always saw there.
“I know,” she said finally, “and I think it’s that bit of naivete that endears you to me even more. I look at you, Jherek, and I see a kind of man I’ve never known before. The puzzle of it all is that I don’t know you.”
“You know what you need to know, lady,” Jherek told her.
“Do I?”
Jherek forced himself to speak, choosing his words carefully. “The other things you don’t know, they are of no consequence.”
“Then how is it we are apart? Unless I am wrong in your feelings about me.”
Jherek tried to speak but couldn’t. He dropped his gaze from hers, looking down into the deep waters below. How could his life be so twisted and so painful? What could he have ever done to deserve this?
“Tell me I’m wrong, Jherek,” Sabyna said in a voice ragged with emotion. “Tell me I’m a fool.”
“I would never call you a fool, lady,” he told her.
“Tell me again how you believe in love, Jherek. Gods above, when I heard that timbre in your voice in the diviner’s cave, I felt more confused than ever. The anger I’d been harboring toward you left me, and with it all of my defenses against these feelings. Tell me.”
He raised his eyes to meet hers, seated across from her in the rigging. “As you wish, lady.”
She gazed at him expectantly.
“I believe in love,” Jherek said, “but I don’t believe in myself. If I’ve learned anything at all in my life, it’s that a belief in himself is what makes a man. I haven’t yet become one.”
Sabyna shook her head. More tears cascaded down her face. “Mystra’s wisdom, I wish I knew some way to let you see yourself as I see you, and as others see you.”
“It wouldn’t matter, lady,” Jherek said gently. “It’s how I see myself.”
“Why?”
“Because I know the true me that no one sees,” Jherek stated. “Even now, you’re in danger here on these seas because of a mistake I made. That weakness of pride I felt in accepting Lathander’s disk at the Rose Portal has brought us all here.”
“And what if that was no mistake?” Sabyna asked. “What if that disk is truly supposed to be here?”
“It’s in evil’s hands, lady. There’s no way to make that right.”
“You are so stubborn, Jherek,” the ship’s mage said in a harsh voice. “I would change that if I could.”
“I know of no other way to be,” Jherek told her.
“I know, and changing you would be so dangerous. Everything in you builds on everything else. Were one small part removed, I think the whole would somehow be changed as well. You are one of the most complete men I have ever known.” Sadness carved deep lines into her face, draining her of the vitality he loved about her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed you like this, but I couldn’t go any further without letting you know how I felt. Forgive me.”
“Lady, there is nothing to forgive.”
“There is. I should have handled my own emotions better. I am a ship’s mage, trained to handle battle, dying men, and the ravages of an uncaring sea and a fickle wind. I am no young girl to have her head turned so prettily. I have a heart, though, Jherek, and I’ve learned to listen to it. Selûne forgive my weakness.”
Sabyna stood in the rigging and turned to go.
“Lady.” Jherek stood too, catching her hand in his. It felt so slim and warm, so right in his. “It is not you.”
Tears sparkled like diamonds on her wind-burned cheeks. “I know. I only wish I could be brave enough and strong enough for both of us. I wish I could help you trust me.”
Without warning she leaned in, too quickly for Jherek to move away. Her lips met his, and he felt the brand of her flesh, tasted the sweetness of her tears. His pulse roared, taking the strength from his knees. In all his life Jherek had never known such a feeling, so strong and so true. For the moment, all his fears and self doubts were nothing. He felt whole.
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 almos
t 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 Serôs 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 chieftain, 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 sacrifi
ce 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.”
