by Mel Odom
Sealing the bladder, Laaqueel swirled the gel around, causing it to glow more brightly. It wasn't enough to hurt her sensitive eyes, but it would serve to illuminate the chambers below the ocean floor. She used a seaweed cord to tie the glow lamp to her trident.
"Here, favored one," Saanaa said, offering the fish pieces she'd saved.
"Meat is meat," Laaqueel acknowledged. She ate the repast quickly, then swam back to the rough-edged opening. She entered without pause, summoning her belief and her courage. There was nothing she wouldn't do to improve her standing among her people. Her findings, she felt certain, would empower the sahuagin race as it had never been before. The surface dwellers would live in fear even on land and never darken the sea with their ships again. That hope gave her more reason to go on than any.
The glow lamp illuminated the chamber, showing the rough, uneven walls created by the cooling lava. The interior looked like a patchwork of blacks and grays even with the light. A narrow fissure in the floor of the first chamber led down into the second. As Laaqueel surveyed it, pushing the glow lamp down inside with the trident, the glowing stones went into motion again. They whirled and clacked, and dropped through the fissure.
Seek Out One Who Swims With Sekolah
SEEK OUT ONE WHO SWIMS WITH SEKOLAH
SEEK OUT ONE WHO SWIMS WITH SEKOLAH
After only a brief hesitation, Laaqueel ventured through the fissure, a prayer on her lips. The light from the glow lamp reflected from the tiny bubbles streaming from her mouth as she prayed.
The next chamber was bigger, and the chant given off by the stones was echoed in basso booms. A tunnel that had been created by an explosion of trapped gases opened the wall to the malenti's right. She stayed alert for anything moving around her, but nothing lived in the chambers.
Eight more chambers came and went, each of varying size. Laaqueel was no longer sure of what direction she was headed in-save down, always down. The water warmed around her, conducting the heat from the trapped volcano around her.
She swam through the next chamber, arriving in an oblong cave that was larger than anything she'd been in so far. The illumination from the glow lamp wasn't strong enough to reach from side to side. She released air from her bladder, losing enough buoyancy to drop herself and the inflated glow lamp through the murk, straining her vision to spot the floor below.
Only a few feet up, she spotted the mosaic in the floor. Squares as long as her arm, reduced only to light and dark by the pale blue glow of the lamp, connected with each other. Even then, the squares were only a remnant of the floor as it had been.
Laaqueel held the glow lamp aloft and paced as she measured the section. Irregularly shaped, and twenty strokes by thirty, the floor section canted across the bottom of the volcanic chamber. Black charring scored the surface. Broken furnishings, furniture as well as crafted coral pieces, piled amid the broken clutter gathered at the lowest end of the floor section.
The malenti sorted through the debris, using the long knife from her shin sheath to shift the broken pieces in case anything dangerous lived in it. However, whatever enchantment kept living things from intruding above also kept them from below. She took four beautiful coral pieces that captured her eye, watching as Saanaa and Viiklee found treasures of their own.
"Beware," she told the other priestesses. "It may be that these are Sekolah's possessions and we'll have to give them back."
"Until then," Viiklee agreed covetously, 'Taut only until that time."
The debris left no doubt that it had come from a civilized place, but whether it was carried a long distance or still more of it lay under the rubble of the chambers, Laaqueel didn't know. She glanced upward, remembering the whirling stones. The constant chanted command had faded into the background of her hearing, but still throbbed inside her mind.
The stones circled above and to her right, waiting. "Come," she told the others, "we'll explore further later." She increased her buoyancy again and swam to the stones. She held the glow lamp before her, the trident still at the ready.
When she neared, the stones fluttered and took off again. They whirled through the water and through a long, narrow shaft. It lead to a small room still and cold as a tomb despite the heat coming from the volcano trapped below. Primitive fear of the unknown prickled the malenti's skin as she neared the mouth of the shaft.
In the light given off by the glow lamp, a shadowy figure took shape out of the darkness. Instead of being illuminated, it seemed to take the darkness into itself, turning darker even than black pearl.
"What is it, favored one?" Saanaa called from behind.
"A man," Laaqueel answered.
"Not a sahuagin?"
"No." The malenti let the disappointment sound in her voice. She knew she'd spoken the truth, yet that didn't explain the fear that cut through her.
"Maybe we should look for another chamber," Viiklee said. "There must be others."
Laaqueel stared at the stones hovering over the top of the still figure of the man.
Seek Out One Who Swims With Sekolah
SEEK OUT ONE WHO SWIMS WITH SEKOLAH
They came to an abrupt stop, and the silence struck as forcibly as a whale sounding.
"No," she replied. "This is where we were led."
She forced herself to go forward. Once inside the room, the chill grew stronger, became an arctic cold. She couldn't fathom how the water wasn't frozen solid by whatever glamour possessed the room. She had no doubt that the room was enchanted.
She lifted the glow lamp and played it over the figure. Resembling a surface dweller, he stood a full head taller than the malenti, and inches above the other priestesses. His hair was pulled back in a cluster of tangles secured by carved bones with intricate runes. Harshness tightened his face, narrowed his single eye and turned it down at the corners. The other eye was a hollow socket surrounded skin puckered by the scar of a long-healed burn. He wore a mustache that ran down to his chin, then flared back up his jawline to join his sideburns, leaving his dimpled chin clean-shaven. Hollow-cheeked, he looked wasted and emaciated, that fact showing even more starkly since he was totally naked, starved yet wiry. In the pale light of the glow lamp, his skin tone was as pale as a bled corpse. Dark tattoos scribed in broad strokes covered his body, creating a mosaic of color and sharp lines on every square inch of skin.
His solitary eye stared through her.
Fearful but needing to know, Laaqueel reached out and touched him with her knife point. The sharp edge grated on the man's petrified skin, not even leaving a mark in its passage.
"He's dead, favored one," Saanaa said. "He's not the one we came for."
"Let's leave this tomb," Viiklee pleaded.
Laaqueel stepped closer to the petrified man who looked so unlike anything she had expected. "No," she commanded, "this is the one we came for."
"This can't be One Who Swims With Sekolah," Viiklee argued. "He looks like a-a surface dweller. A human, not even an elf."
She glanced up at them as they hovered over the petrified man, then back at the statue's hard face." There in his cold grave'" Laaqueel quoted from the text she'd read, " 'barren of life and bereft of the powers he'd once commanded, lost to the luxuries he'd once had, lies One Who Swims With Sekolah. Dead-yet undead, too, turned as hard and as cold as his heart that left love forsaken.' " The common tongue she'd learned as part of her training was sometimes less precise than the sahuagin tongue, so there was a margin for error, but the stones didn't lie.
"What love?" Saanaa asked.
"I don't know," Laaqueel admitted.
"Humans only know to love another human," Viiklee stated. "Their understanding of that emotion is pathetic. Wisdom dictates loving your race, not an individual. The race is what will persevere."
That was the sahuagin view, Laaqueel knew, and one seldom shared by the humans or elves. Those races tended to think individuals first and race second.
"If this is One Who Swims With Sekolah, who did this to him?" Saan
aa asked.
"The book didn't say."
"What are we supposed to do with a dead human?" Viiklee demanded.
"He isn't dead," Laaqueel answered.
"The story said he lay in his tomb," Viiklee pointed out.
"It also said he was dead, yet undead. Maybe he can't be killed."
"He's dead," the younger priestess argued. "Even a hatchling would know that." Sahuagin knew about death; the weak died early, eaten by its fellow hatchlings.
"We'll see," Laaqueel said as she opened the whalebone container around her neck again and removed a ring. Cast in gold, the ring was a simple band studded with diamond chips that reflected the pale blue-green luminescence of the glow lamp.
"What's that?" Saanaa asked.
"A ring."
"I can see that, honored one."
"A very special ring." Laaqueel slid the ring onto the petrified man's forefinger. The magic in the ring caused it to adjust to the man's finger with an unsettling fluid grace. It slid into place, then began to glow. "This ring was mentioned in the book," she continued. "It took a year and a half to find. It's supposed to return One Who Swims With Sekolah to life."
"More magic," Viiklee spat in disgust. "Only the magic bestowed by Sekolah is trustworthy."
"I have prayed," Laaqueel said, "that these things be blessed in Sekolah's hungry gaze. We've been brought here without harm."
"Thuur died," Viiklee reminded.
"By choosing to thwart Sekolah's plan for us," the malenti reminded her companion. As Laaqueel watched, the petrified man took on a different pallor, adding color to the bone-hue he wore. She touched him, finding his skin slightly pliable now. "It's working."
"How long will it take, honored one?" Saanaa asked.
"However long it takes, we'll be here," Laaqueel said. "We're not leaving."
Sudden movement sensed through her lateral lines woke Laaqueel, letting her know something had moved in front of her. She blinked her eyes open and searched for the glow lamp. Hours after the discovery of the petrified man, she'd assigned shifts, taking the first one herself. Saanaa and Viiklee had protested, not wanting to stay in the cold tomb. Laaqueel had ignored them. The cold might be uncomfortable, but it wasn't harmful. Still, she'd surprised herself by being able to sleep.
"Saanaa," the malenti called out.
There was no answer, and she couldn't see either of the two priestesses in the illumination given off by the glow lamp.
Laaqueel pushed herself to her feet and leaned toward the glow lamp attached to her trident. Earlier, the luminescence had almost filled the room. Now it covered less than half of it. The gel hadn't lost its ability to illuminate so quickly.
The preternatural chill vibrated through Laaqueel again. Her lateral lines registered more movement, but it didn't feel like either of the two priestesses. She was attuned to their physical motions and would know them even in the dark.
This was different.
She pushed the glow lamp toward the area where the petrified man had been. He was gone, but the light played over the twisted corpses of the two junior priestesses. They lay in pieces across the cavern floor, shredded by a large predator.
Disbelief paralyzed Laaqueel. They'd been killed while she slept-without her waking. She had no clue why she'd been spared. Sensing the movement again, she turned quickly to face it, bringing her hands up to defend herself.
A hand, hard as stone and cold as ice, battered through her defenses and locked around her throat. Hooked fingers painfully invaded her gill slits to further choke her.
The man's face illuminated gradually at the other end of that impossibly thin arm, like he'd allowed the light to finally touch him. He smiled, and it was the cruelest expression Laaqueel had ever seen.
His words touched her mind without being spoken. They were cold and hard, singing like gong notes inside her head, but came across as a whisper. You thought to sneak quietly in here and steal from me, didn't you, little thief, he accused. His words were heavily accented, lilting and almost musical.
Overpowered by the invasion in her mind, Laaqueel couldn't answer.
You couldn't understand the sacrifices I have made in order to insure my continued survival in that ineffectual mind you possess, the man said. Even now, wasted as I am, I am the most powerful being you have ever been in the presence of. Now, by my grace, you will spend your life that I spare so generously that you may serve me, and then only as long as you serve me well, little thief. Long have I been gone from this world, for thousands of years, and I will have back that which was stolen from me. You will give me succor, or I will see you sacrificed toward that end anyway. His single eye bored into hers, mesmerizing and horribly vacant at the same time.
Struggling against the glamour the man projected, the malenti fought, trying to break free of his grip. Her fingers and talons only scraped across the hard flesh, unable to break the skin. Her toe claws raked his chest but skittered harmlessly across.
He plucked an eyelash from his single eye, then said words unlike any Laaqueel had ever heard. The tattoos covering his body glowed with a dim, unearthly light. When it stopped, he held a thin sliver of a black quill in his free hand instead of an eyelash. He let her see it for just a moment, then his hand darted forward and he buried the quill in the tender flesh below her left breast. Laaqueel felt the quill penetrate her flesh, hot and cold at the same time. All resistance faded from her as her body went lax. None of her limbs were her own anymore. The man took his hand back from her flesh and gestured at the sliver's entry point. The malenti felt it move again, sliding more deeply into her body, coiling and nestling next to her heart like a poisonous worm. She stared at the man holding her so effortlessly with one hand.
I am Iakhovas, he told her in his deep, whispering voice. You will call me master.
I
The Sea of Swords 9 Mirtul, the Year of the Gauntlet (1369 DR)
"How much for a few hours of your time, boy?" Jherek stopped coiling the thin rope he was going to use to repair the ship's rigging and looked at the young Amnian woman who'd stopped in front of him. His heart seemed to hang in his throat. He'd watched her during the voyage, never dreaming such a wealthy and pretty woman would ever notice him, much less speak to him. Barely over nineteen, he stood nearly six feet tall and his lean frame was corded with muscle from the hard work he'd done since he'd been a boy. His light brown hair was threaded through with sun-bleached highlights from constant exposure to the salt and sun. He wore only an abbreviated leather ship's apron that hung to his mid-thighs and held numerous pockets for the tools he needed and a short-sleeved shirt. The sun had burned his skin a dark bronze and made the pale gray ice of his eyes stand out even more. He went shaven, not liking the facial hair worn by most of the other sailors. Gold hoop earrings hung from both ears.
"Lady," he said formally, after giving careful consideration to his words, "if there is anything you need, Captain Finaren and his first mate will see that you have it. You and your party have hired the best-"
"We've hired the best sea captain in all of the Duchy of Cape Velen. Yes, we've all been told that." The woman waved his words away, rolling her dark eyes skyward as if bored.
Jherek felt embarrassed and awkward, partly that she'd turned his words and made them sound small in that Amnian accent of hers, and because she was so incredibly beautiful.
He figured she wasn't much older than he was, surely no more than five years his senior. She wore a turban as was the custom of the Amnian wealthy, festooned with gold and silver coins and small jewels to further show her ranking even among the merchant class. Her hair was pulled up under the turban, leaving her delicate face uncovered. Her eyes were big dark moons of liquid fire and she had a nose that some might consider too short but that Jherek found attractive. Her red silk cape fluttered around her, caught by the soft southerly breeze coming across the Sea of Swords. Bracelets sewn into the cape kept it around her, but it didn't conceal her slender, womanly figure. Even that was bare
ly restrained in a beaded bodice and gauze pantaloons over a matching girdle. Delicate slippers encased her feet.
"If I'd thought your precious Captain Finaren could have given me what I needed," the Amnian woman said, "I'd have gone straight to him."
She took a step closer to him and traced a line with her forefinger down from his lower lip, across his chin, and down to his chest, toying briefly with the ceramic teardrop as big as her thumb that hung from a leather thong around his neck. Her hand continued dropping to the flat planes of his stomach.
Jherek stepped back before she could go any further. He was suddenly acutely aware of the other ship's mates halting their work to watch. Even the other Amnians aboard paused in their endless conversations of money and exchange rates to watch him.
"Instead," the Amnian woman said, "I came to you. You should be flattered."
"Lady," Jherek said helplessly. He felt certain that he was the brunt of some joke he didn't understand, but he had no idea what to do about it.
"I am called Yeill," she said. "I am the favorite daughter of Merchant Lelayn." She raised an arched eyebrow. "You are familiar with Merchant Lelayn, aren't you?"
"Aye," Jherek replied. "Of course." Merchant Lelayn had hired Finaren's Butterfly to take the Amnian party to Baldur's Gate for trading, then bring their cargo back home to Athkatla, also known as the City of Coin, in Amn. He wished he'd been quicker with the ropes and had gone back up into the rigging before the woman had caught him, but he had no one to blame but himself. Over the last few days of the trip she must have seen him gazing at her.
"Good," Yeill stated. "I thought there might be some brains inside that pretty head of yours, though they aren't all that necessary for what I have in mind." She placed a hand on his bicep, squeezing the muscles there. "You are in very good shape."
