Under Fallen Stars

by Mel Odom

  Falkane smiled. “I could make you answer.”

  “You could die trying,” Laaqueel promised in a cold voice.

  “Ah, Laaqueel, that would be such a wondrous thing to see. My skills against your skills.” Moving slowly, Falkane touched her hair with his fingers, stroking it.

  Not knowing how she was supposed to handle this situation according to Iakhovas’s strictures, Laaqueel allowed his touch. Never in her life had a man, an elf, or a sahuagin touched her so.

  “Do not,” she warned, “think to overstep your bounds with me.”

  “Or what?”

  Laaqueel had no answer. Iakhovas had joined with the pirates of the Nelanther Isles without her knowledge, only revealing the fact to her shortly before he’d killed Huaanton and proclaimed himself king. She didn’t know what those alliances entailed, or how she was supposed to handle them. She stared hotly back at Falkane, hating the fact that she couldn’t speak on her own.

  “Do you know what generally happens to people who threaten me?” the pirate captain asked.

  Laaqueel didn’t reply. She’d heard a number of stories about Bloody Falkane, the Salt Wolf. His whole past was spun of violence and fear.

  He dropped his fingers from her hair, tracing her jawline.

  The malenti controlled herself, not flinching from his touch. He held no power over her. If anything, he might be considered her equal. So she didn’t drop her eyes and defer to him as was custom among the sahuagin so no insult might be implied. She returned his full gaze hotly. What surprised her most was how her body reacted to his touch. Warm vibrations thrilled through her, and a bitter ache dawned at the core of her. She didn’t know how his touch had incited such a reaction unless it could be blamed on her cursed heritage.

  He traced her jawline with his forefinger, then brought it back to rest at her chin just below her bottom lip. He was a few inches taller than she was and suddenly seemed to envelop her.

  “People who threaten me,” he said, still in that soft voice, “die—in the most horrible ways I can think of. I assure you, I’m quite practiced at it.”

  Laaqueel tried to keep her thoughts centered on Sekolah, remembering that the Great Shark wouldn’t put anything before her that she couldn’t handle. If she failed Sekolah’s tests, she would only prove her unworthiness. That was totally unacceptable. She only wished that Falkane’s touch didn’t have the affect on her that it did.

  She shifted her attention to the deck over his shoulder. His men moved through the halyards with grim efficiency, some of them sporting bandages from wounds they’d received in the attack. Still, it didn’t keep her mind from his touch.

  “I’ve watched you,” Falkane said, “these few times that we’ve shared company since first meeting in Skaug, and I’ve puzzled over your relationship with Black Alaric.”

  Black Alaric was the name Iakhovas had chosen to wear among the Nelanther Isles. The first pirate to wear the name of Black Alaric had appeared fourteen hundred years ago, then reappeared time and time again during periods of unrest.

  Since learning of Iakhovas’s chosen identity, the malenti priestess had researched the legend in her books of surface history. She’d first studied those to become adept as a spy among the sea elves and surface dwellers. The last Black Alaric had been active a hundred years ago. Iakhovas had claimed to take over the present identity five years ago, and had been plotting his strategies since that time.

  “There is nothing to puzzle over,” she told Falkane.

  The pirate looked at her and grinned. “Until that day I met you, I’d never seen you in Skaug before.”

  Until that time, Laaqueel had never been in the capital city of the pirates before.

  “I know I didn’t because I would have remembered you if I had,” Falkane said. “Someone so beautiful as you.”

  “You mock me.” Laaqueel let some of the anger she felt drip venom into her words before she could stop herself. It was bad enough she had to so resemble a surface dweller and the hated sea elves, but her disfigurement also included dealing with some of the emotions that plagued them.

  “No,” he assured her. “I don’t. I think you’re a most enchanting creature.” His eyes blazed as he deliberately looked at her from head to toe. “You’re a beautiful woman. Don’t you know that?”

  “No,” she replied. Even though she was fully clothed, she felt naked for the first time in her life. It was an unsettling experience.

  “You have no man sequestered away somewhere?” he asked. “No lover?”

  “No.” In the sahuagin culture, possessions were to be admired and fought over, not mates. The reproductive cycle was a necessary thing. They didn’t even raise their own children, turning the eggs over to the crèches responsible for rearing them.

  “Where were you raised to be so uninformed about the power you have to turn a man’s head?” he asked.

  Laaqueel looked at him, thinking that she’d like to turn his head till it spun off his shoulders. She wished she knew where Iakhovas was. They’d taken passage on Falkane’s ship when they’d fled the sewers under Baldur’s Gate. Iakhovas had immediately demanded a cabin and went off to examine whatever treasure he’d captured from the lime pit.

  “I’ve heard that Black Alaric is a satyr in bed,” Falkane said. “I’ve paid women who’ve spied on him. They couldn’t tell me much more because he’s very secretive.”

  Laaqueel looked at the pirate captain in shock. Since she’d been with Iakhovas, she’d never seen that side of him. Among the sahuagin, he’d been uninvolved with the opposite sex, and among others he’d always been in control.

  “You didn’t know that?” Falkane taunted.

  “No. He has a habit of keeping his business as his own.”

  “And what are your feelings about him?”

  Laaqueel shook her head. “I have none. I follow him because I believe that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Don’t you ever think for yourself?”

  “Of course,” she snapped.

  Falkane tapped her chin with his forefinger, stroking her flesh. “Then what do you think about me?”

  “Nothing,” Laaqueel stated flatly, but she knew that was no longer true. His interest in her, even if it was for reasons of his own, could provide an advantage for her that she’d never had since entering Iakhovas’s thrall.

  “Then I’ll make that my mission,” he told her. “Starting at this very moment, I promise you that you’ll have cause to never forget me.”

  “You’d only be wasting your time. I’ll forget about you the second you walk away.”

  Before she could move, he slid his hand behind her neck with a quickness she hadn’t expected. He cupped the back of her head and pulled her to him, crushing his lips to hers in a deep kiss.

  IX

  5 Kythorn, the Year of the Gauntlet

  The streets of Baldur’s Gate remained busy as wagons went to and fro. Crews gathered the dead and piled them in community graves so sickness wouldn’t spread from the corpses. Other groups concentrated on clearing the debris. The forlorn cries of women and children, and even some men, filled the streets. Clerics walked at the head of the death wagons, speaking prayers and waving censers filled with strong-smelling herbs.

  Jherek couldn’t keep his thoughts from the carved pearl disk in his fist. Everything it represented hung in his mind. Madame Iitaar and Malorrie had both felt his future had lain in Baldur’s Gate, but he’d been offered no clue as to what it might be. He didn’t even know where to go from here.

  How was destiny found, or even pursued?

  He had no clue, but holding the disk made him feel like achieving that was possible. He passed a group of men standing around a rose-red torch at a corner where the street he followed wound back toward the Wide. They talked quickly among themselves, voices high with emotion.

  Earlier, he’d noticed the groups around the rose-red torches gathered for what seemed to be casual conversation. Cobble parties, Frauk had called th
em in a voice that gave no doubt how he felt about them. The caravan master wasn’t a man to waste time.

  The men had no light bantering of conversation between them now. Their voices reeked of angry frustration and pain. Jherek clung to the pearl disk a little more tightly, silently willing it to give up its secrets. Even though he knew he wasn’t the one it was intended for, and that impression was very strong in him, he wanted to experience part of what it must feel like to be given something so important.

  Instead, he remembered how Bunyip had looked out in the harbor. The lines remained as he’d remembered them, clean and tight except for the missing mast, and she’d looked defiant as ever.

  Jherek wondered if his father would even recognize him now without seeing the tattoo on the inside of his left bicep. He became angry and frustrated with himself for even considering such a thing. His father had never cared about him, only about his own dark desires.

  Black depression settled over Jherek, robbing him of even the small comfort the pearl disk had lent him. How could he dare to think even for a moment that such a thing might be intended for him, knowing where he’d come from?

  No, what tonight had proven was that even the gods liked their cruel jokes. They’d placed the pearl disk before him, given him a hint of the legacy that lay ahead of someone more deserving, only to taunt him and make him recognize again the low station he’d been given in his life.

  Despite the priest’s words, the young sailor knew there was no escaping the past. His unmasking in Velen had proven that. He had been marked by fate as surely as Bloody Falkane had marked him with the sorcerous tattoo.

  Jherek had been so deep in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed when the slim-hipped figure had walked by him, but he was aware when the person turned around. Jherek took a step to the side and his hand drifted down to the sword hung in his sash. Cold air chilled him through his wet clothing. He waited.

  “Malorrie?” a feminine voice called out. Hands reached up and took away her cloak’s hood, revealing the short copper tresses and wide-set eyes that he recognized at once.

  In spite of the darkness that gripped him, Jherek’s spirits lifted. A smile filled his face. “Sabyna?”

  * * * * *

  For a moment, Laaqueel was paralyzed by Falkane’s sudden kiss. Nothing like that had ever happened to her. She felt the heat of him against her and her senses swirled, giving over to the otherness that had crept in with her deformity. Then she recovered, opening her mouth and intending to bite his lips, perhaps even chew them off before he could back away.

  She felt the whisper of cold steel at her throat and knew he’d drawn one of his throwing knives. “No,” he told her quietly. “Don’t even try it.”

  She froze, knowing he could take her life between heartbeats. She closed her mouth, horrified to find only now that some instinct had compelled her to return his kiss. She breathed out, locking eyes with him. “From this day forward, watch your back, Bloody Falkane.” Her voice sounded hoarse and uncertain.

  He kissed her again, allowing her to flinch away but giving her no chance to escape. “From this day forward, lady, you’ll think of me. I promise you that, and I keep my promises.” He called over his shoulder, “Targ.”

  “Sir.” Targ’s brutish features, gray-green skin tone, sour odor, and nearly eight feet in height marked him as a half-ogre. The malenti priestess had noticed him around Falkane earlier, always hovering like a bodyguard. He wore a chain mail shirt over a leather rough-out vest and leather pants tucked into fishskin boots. Shells hung knotted in his stringy black hair. The hafts of the crossed short swords he wore on his back rose over his shoulders.

  “Watch her,” Falkane ordered.

  “Aye sir.” Targ’s face split suddenly, revealing a mouth full of crooked yellow fangs. “Want her dead if she tries anything?” He raised a crossbow and aimed it at Laaqueel.

  “No, but pain is just fine. She can always get a godspeaker and get it fixed.” Falkane brought the tip of his knife to his forehead and saluted the malenti priestess. “Another time, beautiful.”

  Praying quickly, Laaqueel readied her power. When she loosed it, the air around Falkane would thicken and grow heavy, crushing him in seconds. She felt certain she could be over the railing before the half-ogre would know what was going on or could hit her with a quarrel.

  No.

  The quiet affirmation of power knifed through Laaqueel’s mind, breaking the concentration necessary to launch the attack. It was echoed by movement of the black quill lying so near her heart. She looked to the cargo hold and saw Iakhovas come up the stairs onto the deck. You—you saw what he did! She wanted to spit the taste of Falkane from her mouth but she knew the pirate captain would only laugh at her.

  Yes, but Falkane is necessary to me.

  I will not be handled so by such filth! she told him.

  My dear malenti, I know that part of you found that encounter quite stimulating. Iakhovas’s dry chuckle rattled in her mind. I find it quite fascinating, actually, because I’ve never thought of you that way myself. It opens up whole new concepts.

  Falkane walked by Iakhovas without even looking at the man, as if nothing had happened at all. The pirate captain moved confidently, as though he thought he was invulnerable. He called out orders to his crew in a loud, stern voice.

  Targ gave a snuffling and disdainful laugh, then lifted his crossbow from her, turned, and walked away.

  Laaqueel felt her gills flare in indignation.

  You, Iakhovas told her, will do exactly as I tell you to do. Would you deny the wishes of Sekolah as he seeks to lead his chosen children into greater power over the seas of Toril?

  Laaqueel had no answer. She had to believe that Iakhovas’s way lay with the Shark God. It had been through Sekolah’s direction after years of prayer that she’d been guided to the books that had given flesh to the legend of One Who Swims With Sekolah. If she stopped believing in Iakhovas, where would the disbelief end? What would be left?

  With great effort, she turned and faced back in the direction where Baldur’s Gate lay smoldering. Her belief was all she had. If that was lost, she was lost.

  Good, little malenti, Iakhovas told her. I need no further hindrances your lack of control might cause. I’ll have enough problems justifying the loss of men and ships to these pirates. The Flaming Fist mercenaries got organized and held much more quickly than I’d thought they could.

  Laaqueel remained silent in her shame. Her way had to be hard. She knew the Shark God would demand no less. Even now she’d risen much higher in her station than she’d ever believed possible, thanks to throwing in her lot with Iakhovas.

  She bent her head and prayed, knowing by her belief that the prayers she gave voice to fell ultimately on deaf ears. Sahuagin priestesses she’d known had consorted with other dark gods as well as Sekolah to get their powers, always holding the Shark God in a position of prominence. She had never done that, never entertained the possibility of worshiping another. Sekolah was the only god she’d ever followed. She’d been more true than anyone she’d known. Since her earliest days she’d been taught that only the inadequate failed.

  Don’t be so hard on yourself, little malenti, Iakhovas said. You found me when no one else could, and I had been there thousands of years. Look at all we have wrought. The sahuagin are more feared than they ever have been.

  More hated.

  Ah, little malenti, you forget that hate is merely an investment of power. Even the surface dwellers have to respect power. Measure their hate and you measure their respect—and in turn you measure our power. They wouldn’t fear the inadequate—only the successful.

  She lifted her head, knowing he was right. They had been successful. It remained to be seen how respected, and how feared, the sahuagin were going to be.

  * * * * *

  “Captain Tynnel only told me that you’d decided to stay in Athkatla,” Sabyna Truesail said.

  Jherek walked at her side, accompanying her down Dock St
reet to the harbor. He still couldn’t believe Breezerunner’s ship’s mage had ended up in the city at the same time he had. In a way, he supposed it was more a part of the cruel injustice the gods were determined to swing his way this night. There was no way Captain Tynnel would allow him back aboard the ship after the fight he’d had with some of the crewmen in Athkatla.

  Though he had expected Tynnel to carry through on his offer to tell the ship’s mage and let her see him briefly if she wished, a tightness centered in his chest when he thought he might never see her again after tonight.

  The night’s darkness wreathed the city and drew dense shadows through the street. She’d told him she’d been out searching for goods she needed to make repairs to Breezerunner. The cargo ship had been at anchor when the sahuagin and pirates had attacked. They hadn’t been able to get their sails up in time to do much because most of the crew had been ashore on leave. Luckily the damage the ship had suffered had been minimal.

  “I suppose it’s true that I decided to stay,” Jherek said cautiously. He found he couldn’t tell her that the fight in Athkatla had been over the coarse words Aysel had said about her. He would have been ashamed, and he’d given up much that she not ever hear about the incident or the caustic things Aysel had said. It would be self-defeating and braggartly to tell her now.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” The rapidity with which she changed tacks in a conversation confused him. Partly, though, he had to admit it was her beauty that he found so distracting. During every night the caravan had trekked for Baldur’s Gate, his thoughts had been drawn to her. It would have shamed him to admit that too, and probably shame her as well.

  Ship’s mage she might be, and self-admittedly no highborn lady, but she was far beyond the reach of a man who was no more than a pirate’s-get. Especially the son of Bloody Falkane, who’d killed her brother when Sabyna had been only a girl.