Under Fallen Stars

by Mel Odom

  “I believe he does,” Khorrch said. “When the Taker was banished all those thousands of years ago by Umberlee, stories and tales of him were passed among those who lived in the sea. No one race got everything, and each was given something to protect—something that would keep the Taker from regaining his full strength. Our legends of the Taker tell us the longmanes were given some of the secrets of the Taker’s missing Eye.”

  Flyys struggled against the ropes that held him but still didn’t find any slack. Though he was not a great believer in the menace that the Taker represented—primarily because the evil his people guarded against was even larger—he preferred death to talking.

  “ ‘Some of the secrets’?” Vurgrom repeated irritably. “I thought they knew what we needed to find out.”

  The morkoth drew itself up to its full height on its six tentacles, but it still didn’t stand as tall as the pirate captain. “They know where it is,” Khorrch declared. “Without it, all the things we’ve gathered here in the Sea of Fallen Stars will be useless.”

  Vurgrom switched his glare back to Flyys. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell us on your own, would you, boy?”

  Flyys wanted to answer but he didn’t trust his voice. He felt certain it would crack and shake.

  Vurgrom smiled, sunlight dancing from the gold hoops in his ears. “We could let you stay out here and dry out, boy.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I got lads here wouldn’t mind betting on how long it takes till your skin starts to peel off. Maybe we could even hang you out on the prow. The gulls, they get scent of you, they’d be down for a little snack.”

  Despite his best efforts not to, Flyys shivered at the prospect. He knew he wouldn’t be the first triton to be treated in that fashion. However, it was preferable to being ripped apart by the morkoth.

  “Time is of the essence,” Khorrch stated.

  Vurgrom crossed his huge arms over his barrel chest and said, “Aye, I know. Iakhovas is a harsh taskmaster.”

  “But his rewards are good,” Khorrch pointed out.

  Vurgrom smiled, a rictus of humor that belonged on a shark’s mouth. “Get it done, then.”

  Expecting the morkoth to use its hypnotic powers or perhaps magically command him to speak, Flyys closed his eyes and prayed to Persana to deliver him from his fate quickly. One way or the other.

  Khorrch spoke words of power that started small fires under Flyys’s skin. The young triton’s eyes snapped open, commanded by a force outside himself. He watched in swiftly growing horror as Khorrch took a small copper piece from the conch shell at his side.

  The morkoth laid the copper piece on one of his human palms and continued his spellcasting. His voice rose, and he curled his fingers over the copper piece, holding tight. In the next instant the copper piece vanished in a brief burst of flame. Khorrch opened his palm, revealing unblemished skin.

  Then Flyys felt as though someone had buried a spear in his head, bursting through bone and flesh. He screamed and shivered against the ropes.

  “Tell me of the Eye,” the morkoth ordered harshly. “Tell me of the Taker’s Eye. Tell me where I may find it.”

  Gasping, fighting against the pain that filled his mind, thinking his skull must surely be peeling back like an onion against the creature’s magical assault, Flyys tried to think of anything but the triton legends about the Taker’s Eye. It proved impossible.

  “The Taker’s … Eye,” Flyys heard his own voice saying, “is … kept … in Myth Nantar!” Once the words had been forced through his clenched teeth, the spell’s force left him. He sagged weakly against the mast, hung there by the ropes.

  “Myth Nantar,” Vurgrom said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “You shouldn’t have,” Khorrch said. “The city is magical, something that wasn’t for the eyes of the surface dwellers. If they had known, it would have been raided long ago.”

  “Aye, but who’s to say this place hasn’t been raided by another race?” Vurgrom demanded. “One that makes its home beneath these waters?”

  The morkoth shook its head in a very humanlike gesture. “No. That’s not possible.”

  “Why?” the pirate captain persisted.

  “Because,” Flyys croaked, feeling some of his confidence return, “Myth Nantar was lost to everyone thousands of years ago. It lies hidden and barred. No one may enter it. Now or ever.”

  “You’re wrong, longmane whelpling,” Khorrch snarled. “There is one who may enter.”

  “Not the Taker,” Flyys promised. “Our legends tell us the walls will hold against even his might.”

  “Not him,” the morkoth mage agreed, “but there will be another who will bring its walls down. One whose destiny lies with the Taker’s, their futures so intertwined that one may not live on without the other.”

  Flyys wanted to rail against the morkoth’s words, but he didn’t have the strength. He had lost his friends, betrayed some of the legacy that had been left to him. Only the dying remained. He was certain neither Vurgrom or Khorrch would suffer him to live.

  As if some of the mental bond that had existed between them still remained, Khorrch gazed into the young triton’s eyes and hissed, “Ah, longmane, there yet remains one service you may do for my people.”

  Flyys tried to summon up enough liquid to spit, but his throat was already too dry from exposure in the wind.

  The morkoth mage crossed to the ship’s railing where the net had brought them aboard. The creature gestured. A moment later the net was hoisted again, lifting yet another morkoth to the deck.

  “Stay back from her,” Khorcch warned the ship’s crew.

  Immediately the sailors stepped back from the new arrival, some of them making the signs of their gods and calling out their names.

  Flyys stared at the morkoth. It was noticeably smaller than the mage, and possessed only tentacles instead of hands. It swayed drunkenly across the deck as it approached the young triton.

  “No!” the young triton yelled. He wrenched against the ropes again, but it was in vain. Instead, he concentrated on Persana and prayed. He couldn’t close his eyes even though he knew what was going to happen.

  The female morkoth’s abdomen belled out, looking as though the creature had just eaten a big meal. Flyys knew that wasn’t true. It came closer, reaching out tentatively with all four tentacles. The rubbery flesh slid syrup-sticky across Flyys’s face and chest as it investigated him.

  The morkoth mage stood nearby, though obviously not in any proximity. It clutched a long-bladed knife defensively. “Don’t be fooled by his age,” Khorrch told the female. “He’s young, but the magic is strong in him.”

  The female morkoth seemed to nod in agreement. Its tentacles continued to rove over Flyys.

  The young triton had never seen what was about to happen, but there had been plenty of stories about it. The event was only one more reason to make war against the kraknyth.

  Slowly, the female morkoth’s abdomen flexed. Scaled flesh peeled back, opening like a mouth. A wicked appendage with a spike at the end slid free. It wavered for a moment out in the open as if uncertain. Female morkoth never had the opportunity to practice the maneuver. It was only done once, and it was guided by instinct.

  Flyys tried to move but couldn’t. In the next heartbeat, the appendage flared out and stabbed deeply into the young triton’s abdomen. He screamed at the pain and felt warm blood seep down his midsection and thighs. The appendage writhed within him, seeking out the various internal organs, not damaging any of them.

  The female morkoth held him as if in a lover’s embrace. The appendage pulsed as it began laying her eggs, scattering them among his internal organs. Flyys tried to fight against it in vain. He gazed into the female morkoth’s black eyes, almost hypnotized, and watched as they dimmed, watched as life left it.

  When all of the eggs were laid, the female morkoth fell backward, dead before she hit the deck. The appendage wrenched free of Flyys.

  Filled with horror, the
young triton gazed down at his wound. As he watched, it closed up and sealed, healing instantly as the final part of the cycle pumped into him. After all, it wouldn’t do to have a host body die or become infected before the eggs could hatch.

  “Get rid of it,” Vurgrom commanded.

  Reluctantly, his men came forward. They grabbed the dead female morkoth and heaved it over the railing. The splash barely carried above the ship’s creaks and the sails snapping overhead.

  Khorrch peered into Flyys’s eyes. “You’ve been given a great gift, longmane.”

  “You’ve killed me,” the young triton whispered hoarsely.

  “Mayhap,” the morkoth mage admitted. “Even should you live after the young hatch inside you and eat their way free, you would only be reimplanted with eggs or killed outright.”

  Flyys knew it was true. The morkoth young would feed on his flesh and tear their way out of his body. Even if he could get free of the morkoth, he knew of no spells or mendicants that would kill the morkoth young and let him live. Still, if he could get free, he might survive their birthing.

  “You may know where the Taker’s Eye is,” the young triton said, “but you’ll never get it.”

  “The Taker will.”

  “Your precious Taker,” Flyys said, the certainty of his own doom freeing him from the fear that had filled him, “will turn on you in the end. He is only after those things that matter to him. You and the other kraknyth are only a means to an end.”

  Murderous rage gleamed in the morkoth mage’s eyes. “You lie.”

  “You yourself said that no one undersea race knows all about the Taker’s past or his future,” Flyys went on, “but we know this. You will pay for your greed and for your mistakes. Myth Nantar shall never reopen.”

  “Enough prattle,” Vurgrom declared. “We’ve got leagues to go if we’re to get where we need to be.” He gestured at his men. “Take the triton belowdecks and stow him.”

  Flyys waited until they untied him, then tried to break free. He preferred death now to birthing the morkoth young, but everything he’d been through had left him drained. One of the pirates slammed the flat of his heavy cutlass against his head and consciousness abandoned the young triton.

  I

  Claarteeros Sea (Trackless Sea)

  17 Tarsakh, the Year of the Gauntlet

  “Meat is meat!”

  The roar of sahuagin thumps, ticks, pings and whistles that served as their communication filled the walls of the open amphitheater, almost deafening Laaqueel as she stood in the sahuagin king’s retinue. It was pure bloodlust, fired from their king’s promise of the coming deaths in the amphitheater.

  As a malenti, an accident of birth among the sahuagin caused from being born too close to a community of sea elves, she immediately stood out from the hulking sahuagin around her. Even though she was only a few inches under six feet in height, all of the sahuagin nearby were at least a foot or more taller.

  She looked supple and slender, and knew from past experience that she turned the male heads of surface dwellers as well as sea elves. It was cruel injustice that the form she wore was so hideous to her, yet so pleasing to the enemies of her people. She wore only the simple sahuagin harness, making even more evident the curvaceous form that set her apart from the other priestesses allowed at the king’s side.

  Her coal black hair lay in a long braid at her back, bound up by artificed fish bones and carved bits of coral. Instead of the usual blue or green skin coloring granted a malenti, her deformity had cursed her even further. She had the pale complexion of a hated surface dweller.

  Standing in front of her, King Huaanton towered almost nine feet and was built broad with muscles sculpted and hardened from hundreds of years spent living under the sea’s constant pressure. Sahuagin survived the harsh sea only by being the most feared predators there. Skin so green it was nearly black stretched across his back, showing a few scars from past battles. Rising to a kingship within the sahuagin culture was not without blood price. Keeping that office required even more blood be spilled into the salty ocean. The skin over his stomach was lighter green. The fins on his back, shoulders, arms, and legs were black, as was his tail.

  He wore a combat harness with the seal of Sekolah, the sahuagin Shark God, decorated with shark’s teeth and rare shells. His white gold crown flared up in four separate talons that cruelly hooked at the end. The crown rode low on his savage face, creating a half-mask that drew even more attention to the oily black eyes planted on both sides of his head. His mouth held razor-sharp fangs.

  “Meat is meat!” King Huaanton roared again, lifting high the bone and inlaid yellow gold trident that was his seal of office.

  “Meat is meat!” came the thunderous return cry from the hundreds of sahuagin seated out in the amphitheater. They shifted and waved their arms on the stone tiers that surrounded the center court of the structure.

  “I bring to you,” Huaanton went on when the response died down, “part of the spoils of our past victories against the surface world.” The war against the surface dwellers along the Sword Coast was only two tendays old, but there had been many strikes, many triumphs. Waterdeep still reeled from the raid that had been their first blow. Huaanton gestured toward the center court with his trident.

  Immediately, gates at the left side of the amphitheater opened, releasing a half-dozen humans. Laaqueel watched them with interest, noting the way they swam so clumsily. These, then, were true surface dwellers that had rarely entered the oceans. The malenti priestess knew several of the sailors who regularly crossed the Claarteeros Sea didn’t know how to swim at all. These creatures possessed no grace and precious little skill at cleaving through the water. They fought the sea as if it were an opponent instead of taking grace and speed from the currents that constantly swept through it.

  The sahuagin in the amphitheater made their displeasure known by slapping their webbed feet against the stone and emitting more thunderous clicks and whistles. Even though the humans didn’t know the sahuagin tongue, Laaqueel knew the intent behind the cries couldn’t be misunderstood.

  The surface dwellers swam uncertainly, staying within a group near the coral-tiled floor. The builders had designed the floor meticulously, creating a swirl pattern of light and dark coral pieces. At something more than three hundred feet below the surface, little light penetrated the depths. None of it held the colors that were available in the dry world, but the light and dark pattern of the tiled floor showed clearly.

  A sahuagin guard glided effortlessly among the surface dwellers and passed out simple knives. Before they’d been released into the amphitheater, Laaqueel knew the humans had been exposed to an aboleth’s mucus cloud. After they’d captured the humans, Huaanton had demanded that an aboleth be captured as well, then ordered the creature’s mucus used to give the humans water-breathing ability that would last for at least an hour and maybe as long as three hours. Until then, the surface dwellers had been held captive in special dungeon cells that had air.

  Either way, Laaqueel knew, the humans wouldn’t live long enough for the temporary magical effects of the aboleth mucus to wear off. Normally, the sahuagin hated magic and anything resembling magic, but Huaanton had made concessions in that area to promote the torture he had in mind. After all, the aboleth mucus was found in nature, not forged from it by some arcane means.

  After the sahuagin passed out the next to last knife, the young human he’d given it to attacked the guard the moment his back was presented. The young surface dweller swam well enough and fast enough, but the sahuagin’s lateral line, the sensory organ that allowed him to detect vibration and movement in the water, warned him.

  Even before the young human could strike, the sahuagin flicked his tail and clawed the water with his free webbed hand and both webbed feet. The sahuagin rose steeply, ascending over his foe and drawing the trident in line. Wrapping both hands about the trident’s shaft, the sahuagin brought the tines down quickly, driving them through the human’s ba
ck and into his heart and lungs, splitting the flesh easily.

  Blood erupted from the wounds, spilling a dark cloud into the water. The human struggled, trying to get away from the barbed tines, but he was solidly hooked.

  The sahuagin spectators cheered lustily and slapped their huge webbed feet against the stone seating tiers in appreciation. Clicks and whistles rose in anticipation.

  Laaqueel watched closely, knowing she would have enjoyed the festivities more if she wasn’t facing fears of her own. But she knew her own fate might be as dismal as that of the surface dwellers—unless a miracle did happen here tonight. After all, Iakhovas had promised Huaanton a divine sign from Sekolah himself to prove that the raids the sahuagin staged against the surface world were what the Shark God wanted.

  The other humans stayed back instead of going to help their comrade. The sahuagin guard pulled the corpse along by the trident’s handle, streaming dark bloody strings after it that twisted in the currents. He flicked out his claws and carved great gobbets of flesh from the dead man, then hurled them into the crowd. “Meat is meat!” he cried.

  “Meat is meat!” the crowd cried in joyful acceptance of the offering.

  Small sahuagin darted forth to claim the unexpected treats. Some of them were fast enough to get the pieces they were after, but others ended up locked in mortal combat while the adults watched on in approval. The sahuagin life was supposed to be hard, and they learned to kill their enemies by first killing each other. That vicious cycle started in the domed nurseries with newborn hatchlings. Only the best and strongest survived to carry on their fierce race.

  After slashing the corpse to chunks, the guard saved the heart for himself, shoving it into his great fanged mouth as he floated above the amphitheater. Blood gushed from his mouth and nose as he choked down the impromptu meal.

  Her senses as acute as any sahuagin’s, Laaqueel smelled the blood in the water. The scent caused further excitement within her. Though her appearance masked her true nature, the malenti was sahuagin.